by Mike Moscoe
The captain returned it. Beside Mary, Cassie breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good. Then the woman commander looked Mary over, frowned, and turned away.
“You’ve done it now. Pissed off Commander Umboto,” the company commander whispered out of the side of his mouth.
What have we done? Mary wanted to ask, but knew better. The Man made the rules and The Man applied them. She’d find out sooner or later.
“Second Lieutenant David S. Donovan front and center,” the brigade commander ordered. This time the chief wheeled the lieutenant up to the Navy officer. Umboto read a commendation that started with him taking charge of raw recruits…that must be Mary and company…training them and instilling in them the finest traditions of the corps, and ended with him defending their pass against overwhelming odds.
Mary breathed a slow sigh. That was the way it always was, You did the work and The Man patted himself on the back and took the bonus. Did she really expect this bunch to be different?
They finished up by promoting him, taking the gold bars off his collar and replacing them with silver ones. Mary shook her head. She knew these people put silver ahead of gold, but after twenty years of mining, Mary would never understand why. They were crazy.
As the chief wheeled the LT back, she was glad they’d let them come see him get his medal. From the look on his face, there was no question it meant a lot to him. He might be part of a crazy system, but there was no reason to hold that against him.
“Staff Sergeant Mary Rodrigo front and center.”
Mary glanced around for this other Mary Rodrigo. She knew she was supposed to be at attention, but she couldn’t help it.
Cassie nudged her. “They mean you, hon.”
“Move,” the company commander growled under his breath, “and act like a marine for a change.” That last slap made Mary mad.
She could dance their little dance with the best of them. Cutting every corner, she marched to the Navy captain. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” she snapped.
“Very good,” the old captain whispered through a smile.
“In the finest tradition of the corps,” the commander began, then cut to the battle. “At great personal risk, Staff Sergeant Rodrigo did establish herself in an exposed observation post…” Mary had a hard time believing what Commander Umboto was saying. She’d just done what she had to do to save her friends’ lives. She’d do it again if she had to; it was nothing.
Umboto finished; the chief opened a blue box. The captain withdrew a beribboned medal. And smiled. There was no way he could pin it to battle armor. Beside him, Umboto cleared her throat, reached in her pocket, and pulled out a roll of tape, “When I saw we had some real marines with us today, I thought you might want to improvise, captain.” She grinned.
So they taped the medal, a gleaming Silver Star, on the chest of Mary’s armor. While they improvised, Mary struggled with herself. Her eyes had gone moist, and she was blinking a lot. Her medal wasn’t as fancy as the lieutenant’s, but the brigade CO was handing it out, and Commander Umboto thought enough to hunt up tape so the moment wouldn’t be spoiled. She wanted to spin around and give the company commander the finger, but that didn’t seem quite right at the moment.
They finished; the medal was at a crazy angle. Mary was at a loss as to what to do next. She glanced at the chief for help, but he was handing the brigade CO a new set of papers. The captain cleared his throat. “Staff Sergeant Rodrigo, I am authorized to offer you a Second Lieutenant’s commission in the Society of Humanity’s Marine Corps. Do you accept?”
“Ye…yes,” she stammered, all the time wondering how she could say no.
“Raise your right hand, and repeat after me. I, Mary Rodrigo…” So Mary found herself swearing to bear true faith and allegiance to a constitution she’d never read, and to defend it against all foes, both foreign and domestic—and wondering just how much freedom she had to distinguish friend from foe.
Nobody tried pinning the gold bars on her suit, but Umboto had a single length of black electric tape to add to the one black line on the back of Mary’s helmet. “Now everyone behind you will know you’re leading. Makes you a better target.” She grinned.
Now the chief’s eyes led Mary through a salute and a march back to place. Cassie and Dumont were next. Bronze Stars for each of them for “courage in combat above and beyond.” Lek was last. A Navy Commendation Medal, which had to be the first time a claim jumper got a commendation. Done, the chief brought them to attention and dismissed them, which wasn’t really a dismissal at all. Nobody went anywhere. Mary and the corporals hugged each other, and tried to keep the happy squeals down to a decorous level. Umboto joined them and did some squealing of her own…and hang the level.
They swamped the lieutenant as soon as the senior marine officers moved off. Between Mary, Cassie, and Dumont they lifted him out of the chair for a solid round of hugs and back-pounding. “Damn, I don’t get my legs until next week,” he grumbled.
Umboto tapped Mary’s back and pointed. The Navy captain was talking to the battalion CO, company CO at his elbow. “I imagine this solves the hole in your officers’ slots, Garry,” Captain Anderson said.
“Yes, sir, it does,” the major answered.
“If I were in your boots, I’d be passing these folks around to the other companies. They came up with some pretty unique approaches to preparing a position.”
“Already intended to,” the major agreed. “Don’t imagine the captain will mind loaning his command car to the new LT and her team for a week so they can cover the other passes. Do you, Ted?”
“Nosir,” the company CO answered without a pause.
“Good.” Captain Anderson nodded. “Keep me informed how it goes. We haven’t seen any colonial ground-pounders for a while. Don’t expect that will last forever.”
“Never does,” the major and captain answered in unison.
Umboto turned back to the celebration around the lieutenant. “That ought to take a bit of the pressure off you for a while.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You folks owe me a bigger thanks than that. You remember those rockets that took out the transports?”
“Yes,” five marines answered.
“They were mine. Let me tell you what the rest of us were doing while you were having all the fun.” One story led to another. Then there was lunch. Umboto knew where a chief in supply kept a still, and that led to a private celebration. They were late getting to the truck for the ride back. Sprawled out on the truck bed, Mary didn’t even try to sleep.
Dumont spoke first. “I’m glad for the medal, but I didn’t do nothing special. They were going to kill me if I didn’t kill them. I did what I had to do to stay alive.”
“Yeah,” Cassie mumbled. “I wanted to hide in my hole. Joyce and me, we were just going to stick our heads up long enough to fire a clip. When I started to duck, Joyce was dead.” Cassie was crying. “Where’s the medal for Joyce?”
“This ain’t no different from the mines,” Lek drawled slowly. “Sometimes you hit it big. Other times you don’t. You never know why. It just happens.”
“It just happens.” Mary repeated the words. Let them roll off her tongue slowly. She’d said that a lot in her life. It just happens. She was getting awful tired of just hanging around to see what happens next. She doubted Umboto did. That was one woman who knew how to kick butt and take names until she got what she wanted. I’m an officer now. Do I get to be like Umboto?
It was a pleasant thought to fall asleep on.
• • •
The engagement of Rita Nuu to Major Raymond Longknife was a most indecorous week long, though her mother seemed no less enthusiastic for the date. The honeymoon was a very short week. Then Senior Pilot/bride Rita Longknife reported to her ship for a lift the admiral assured everyone would end resistance on ELM-0129-4A.
A week later they informed Ray he was a widower.
NINE
LIEUTENANT MARY RODRIGO tried to ke
ep an open mind about her new job. She was getting away from the captain. Of course, she’d be meeting two more. Still, it was a kick taking off with the captain’s command car; Dumont said it was better than stealing wheels. The drive over was like old times after a shift. No beer, but it felt like the freedom you got after long hours in the hole. Maybe they treated her a bit different, but not that much.
At B company, there was a difference. The others headed off to spend time with the sergeants. A runner, stiff as a board, led Mary to the company HQ. She hoped this new captain wouldn’t be as big an ass as hers. She passed through the airlock, prepared to report like she’d learned in boot camp. What she saw stopped her dead in her tracks. Not one captain but two were waiting for her. Both sat, feet up on the desk, unlit cigars in their mouths. When she started to salute, the one that seemed to be most behind the desk waved her off. “Damn fine bit of fighting, Lieutenant. Damn fine.”
“And even more impressive field preparations,” a third man said, standing to shake her hand. “Lieutenant Hampton. They call me Hambone. I’m in charge of the engineering platoon. How the hell did you do all that in the time you had?”
“With the mining gear we…uh…”
“Stole,” the other captain put in. “Call me Hassle. That’s the best most folks can do with my name. I’ve got C company, but I figured I might as well trudge over here so you can brief us together. Our passes are only two hundred klicks apart, so we’re right neighborly. Right, Trouble?”
“Tordon, Company B.” He reached across the desk to shake Mary’s hand. “Tordon to my friends, Trouble to anyone else.” Then he shrugged into a sly grin. “Okay, Trouble to everyone.”
Hambone got her a chair. She was later to discover, not from him, that he was a first lieutenant, and therefore outranked her. What she did discover was a man very intent on learning everything he could about battlefield preparation. For the next two hours, they listened while she described the deployment and battle. When Mary finished, the engineering lieutenant walked around the desk, examining the map Mary had called up. “Outstanding killing field.”
“And holding those SS-12’s to the last minute,” Trouble said slowly, “Brilliant timing by your lieutenant. And your targeting was just as smart.”
“The way you played the laser designators.” Hassle looked up from the board and fixed her with a hard eye. “Yours were programmable. I could use a few like that.”
Trouble leaned back in his chair. “We got a lot of retraining to do. And a lot of work. We better get cracking.”
“I figured on a day to fix you up like us.” Mary immediately felt dumb as all three officers shook their heads.
“They’ve tried straight on with you,” Trouble said.
“They’ll be indirect on us,” Hassle concluded.
“We’ve got to prepare a lot of rim,” the engineer muttered.
Mary kept her mouth shut as they worked their way around a map of their own positions. They didn’t expect anyone would be dumb enough to land in the crater. What they did expect was small teams of spotters working their way over the rim and around their positions. “We got to spread out, Mary,” Hassle told her. “Your diggers and sensors can cover a lot of territory. With rockets and gunners to back them up, we should be able to cover a big chunk of the eight hundred klicks of rim we got. How long will it take to bust your gear loose from Ted?”
“There’s a truck parked next to our rig. It’s got everything you’ll need.” Mary grinned. These guys were nice to be around.
“Woman,” Trouble said, “if you could cook, I’d marry you. On second thought, I’ve eaten so much marine chow my taste’ll never recover.” He dropped to a knee. “Will you marry me?”
“Better decide quick,” Hassle cut in. “He’s got a lousy memory, but I must say, his tastes are improving.”
“Well…” Mary hesitated as if in the throes of indecision. “It is the best offer I’ve had this week.”
Trouble was off his knee, reaching for a helmet behind his desk. “Let’s go see what Santa brought us good little girls and boys in her truck.”
“Too late, Mary, you’ve lost him,” Hassle sighed.
• • •
The Sheffield’s tanks were topped off. What battle damage they could fix was repaired. They floated a hundred klicks from the unruly jump point. Mattim took his chair and punched his mike. “All hands, this is the captain. We’ve got the ship in as good a shape as we’re going to, short of a yard period. We’ve got a good handle on this system. Let’s see how these jump points work.”
Sandy had done her best with what they knew of this point’s wanderings. This system might account for as much as ten percent of the travel, or as little as two percent—depending on how you factored in the inverse square effect. In other words, they were guessing.
“As you’ve probably already figured out, all we can do is try a few jumps and see what happens. Since we’re almost dead in space, we should be able to do them fairly quickly. Strap yourselves in tight. Here goes the first test.”
He killed the mike. “Sandy, take us through.”
“Thor, activate course Sandy One. Let’s see what a spin with a bit of lateral movement gets us. Keep her under one klick per second.” Mattim forced himself to breathe normally for the minute and a half it took to reach the jump. When had ninety seconds been so long? Right, in battle.
He waited.
The Maggie entered the jump without a shudder. One moment the stars were there, twinkling in the unique way the gravity fluctuation in the point made them. Then they were different. Mattim waited for the specialists to tell him how different.
“It’s not Pitt’s Hope,” Thor quickly reported.
Sandy and the three middies around her said nothing.
“Scan the system,” Mattim ordered.
“Doing it, sir,” Thor answered. “Got a single yellow sun down there. My middies will need a while to check for planets.”
“Thanks.” Mattim let out a long sigh. He’d have to do better at waiting. He didn’t like waiting. He’d better learn.
“I’ll need a couple more minutes to refine this,” Sandy said a short time later, “but it looks like we’re about fifty light-years from our last system.”
“Closer or farther from human space?” Mattim asked.
“Neither. We lateraled.”
“Sandy, how much of a workup do you want on this system?”
“A pretty full one, Matt, if you don’t mind.”
“Thor.”
“Give us a few hours. My team’s pretty excited. That sun’s got about the same heat and light as old Sol. If we find a rock in the right place, we might go into the real estate business when we get back.”
Or know where to go when we give up, Mattim added to himself. “Guns, any ideas from your team?”
“One of them may have something. We aren’t sure. Could we make the return trip at just a few meters per second?”
“Sandy?”
“It’s worth a try.”
• • •
Time was a blur for Mary. Both companies had half a platoon of miners. Once Mary gave them a chance to shine, they were quick to open their own private stashes. The captains were honest enough to admit they’d goofed, hearing about what Mary’d done and not looking in their own ranks for the same skills. They quickly corrected that, establishing an interim two squads of engineers in each company. Battlefield prep went quickly.
B and C companies spread out until they touched in the middle, then they stretched the other way as far as they could. B company should have touched A company, but Captain Teddy refused any assistance from Mary and her team. Digging in the other two companies turned into an endless task. First they did it as far as they could, as quickly as they could. Then they did it again, better. Finally, they did it a third time, looking for what they’d missed, improving what they had. They were only half done with the third iteration when all hell broke loose.
• • •
“What was that?” Sandy asked even as she started her search to pinpoint their location; four suns were not waiting for them.
“Felt just like when we hit a waterlogged log in the boat back home on the lake,” Zappa mused without looking up from her work. “Did we hit something?”
“Damage control,” Mattim snapped.
“No alarms, sir. No reports. No visible damage to the hull.”
“Guns, did that happen in the jump or around it? Were you expecting something like that?”
“I don’t know, and no. We’re stumped down here, too, sir.”
Mattim put the thump aside for the moment. “Thor, am I right, a new system?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sandy?”
She rubbed her jaw like she’d been hit. “Speed was the only variable. But it’s not supposed to have any effect!”
“It looks like it did this time. Flip this ship while we’ve still got the same motion on it, and put us back through the jump at the same slow speed. Now.” Mattim couldn’t wait for this new disaster to shoot through the ship. The middies might be having a ball studying new worlds, but the rest of the crew, not to mention the captain, wanted to find their way home.
Thor did the flip. He headed them back at the same terribly slow pace. This time, Mattim still felt dizzy, but there was no thump. And the stars changed back to the last system they’d been in. “We can repeat a trip,” Mattim breathed in relief.
“But velocity shouldn’t have any effect,” Sandy mumbled.
“It does now,” Mattim concluded. “It does now.”
“No bump the second jump,” Zappa noted. “Wonder what it was?” Mattim had other questions. That one he’d leave to the kids.