The First Casualty

by Mike Moscoe

  Four hours later, as she strapped herself into a troop module hooked to a tug, Mary was glad she hadn’t had to do more. The air smelled of antiseptic; the tug had snuck in to take out casualties. Now it was taking her to a whole new kind of war.

  As they sealed the hatches, Mary glanced at the troops of Company A, first platoon. Most of the old vets were already asleep. Even the replacements were headed in that direction. With a shrug for tomorrow, Mary leaned back and joined them.

  • • •

  “Damn, where did they get that bunch, off a chain gang?” Thor had put on the main screen and feed from the camera on the quarterdeck. The bridge watched as the marines came aboard.

  “More like these are the rocks the chain gang couldn’t crack,” Sandy chuckled.

  Mattim had to agree, they looked like pretty hard cases. The armor was well worn and the personal weapons handled with casual, deadly familiarity. The exec had stopped her constant roving from station to station to watch the show from behind the captain’s chair. “Interesting,” she muttered.

  “Yes?” Mattim asked.

  “Not one marine rendered proper honors on boarding, saluting the flag painted on the aft bulkhead and the JOOD.”

  “They seemed kind of busy.” Mattim smiled sourly.

  “Yes sir, marines usually are, but the line beasts play a game with us. Just how sloppy a salute can they get away with? At least, the old hands do. I’d bet money not a single one of them is more than six months out of boot camp. Even the sergeants.”

  Before Mattim could add that to the muddle of his thoughts about a new admiral, a mission to nowhere, and the damn contents of his weapons magazine, the door to the admiral’s quarters opened. “Captain,” the chief of staff said with a grin, “the admiral would like to talk to you, your exec, and your jump navigator.”

  “Now we find out,” Mattim muttered.

  The admiral stood beside the work table in his quarters, its display zoomed to just the two suns. No sooner had they reached him than the admiral began. “Today we win the war.”

  Mattim had heard that enthusiasm before. “Today we make a mint” was usually followed by going bust. He didn’t mind management losing money. He would mind very much this management hotshot losing lives. Especially those in his crew.

  The admiral seemed disappointed that the three of them took the news with blank faces. “I can now tell you that I have uncovered the reason why the colonials have fought so hard for this worthless system.” The slight tilt of the chief of staff’s head suggested who had really made the discovery. The admiral didn’t notice. Indeed, he no longer seemed to notice anything. Mattim knew this kind of “briefing.” It wasn’t to tell you anything; it was to let the speaker glory in the noise of his own voice. Today Mattim could not allow himself the luxury of zoning out; this man controlled a loaded and cocked battle squadron.

  “Between these two suns is a jump point, trapped when the native caught the wanderer. That jump point will take us straight to Wardhaven, the most industrialized planet the rebels hold. In the next week, we will cut the heart out of colonial power. They will have to surrender unconditionally.”

  The admiral wasn’t finished, but Sandy’s eyes were locked on the table, studying the two suns, balancing their gravity, trying to figure out where they held their hostage jump point. She shook her head slowly. Mattim could hear her saying to herself, “It’s gonna be a bitch.”

  Now Mattim knew why the Maggie was the flagship. There was no better jump navigator in explored space than Sandy. And the bombs in his magazines were for show only. He knew the rules the colonials fought by; he’d had to wait often enough while a planet negotiated its surrender with the fleet in orbit. To the colonials, checkmate was enough.

  This admiral wasn’t so dumb after all.

  The admiral’s speech was slowing down. Even he could see that his announcement had gotten their full attention. “So, Captain Abeeb, you will take the Sheffield through the jump point with the battle squadron right behind you. We’ll have the colonials by the balls.”

  Mattim turned the order into a question and handed it to Sandy. “Can you find that jump point?”

  She eyed the plot. “It’s gonna be a bitch. We’ll have to take it slow.”

  “We’ll go as slow as you want,” the admiral cut in before Mattim could answer. Well, rank has its privileges, and new rank usually takes a little extra. Mattim was in a very good mood. With luck, he’d be back to the Red Flag Line before New Year’s. Trailed by more encouraging babble from the admiral, Mattim led his people back to the bridge. There was a general cheer when he passed the mission outline to the crew.

  At Sandy’s request the squadron spread out in echelon as it began the dive toward the suns. Still, they were less than fifty million kilometers out before Sandy got the faintest hint of a gravity distortion near the center of gravity between the two suns. The fleet decelerated for another day. Most ships closed in on the flag, but Sandy asked and got the Sendai and Jeanne d’arc to hold station as the long arm of her gravity-anomaly detector. At ten million klicks, she shook her head. “Matt, I’ve got a good fix—rather, good fixes. That beggar jumps around like the proverbial Mexican jumping bean. It’s the bitch of all bitches.”

  The door to the admiral’s quarters snapped open. “You will lead the squadron through, Commander,” the admiral demanded.

  “We will make it.” Mattim was out of his chair and moving to put himself between the admiral and his Jump Master.

  “I hold you personally accountable for this, Captain.”

  “We’ll get you where you can win the damn war,” Sandy snapped. “I want out of this damn Navy.” She really was having a bad day.

  “The Sheffield hasn’t met a jump point it couldn’t handle,” Mattim assured the admiral. Without another word, Whitebred turned on his heel and returned to his quarters.

  Mattim turned back to Sandy. “Want to reactivate some of the science teams? Would it help to have a few of the middies?” That drew a glance between Sandy and the exec that said something to them, but nothing to Mattim.

  “No,” Sandy assured him. “I can handle this. You know me, I’m always looking on the downside of things.”

  Mattim gave her an encouraging smile and returned to his chair. There was something about this incident that didn’t feel right. Slowly he replayed it. Nothing. Again he went through it. How did the admiral know Sandy was having problems with the jump? He glanced around the bridge. Like the quarterdeck, it had cameras. Just as they had watched the marines come aboard, the admiral apparently had been watching the bridge. He must not be very busy if he had time to watch over people’s shoulders. Then again, a very paranoid person might feel that need.

  Once again, Mattim ran through the situation he was charging into. There were too damn many unknowns or ambiguous values in this setup. And he wasn’t likely to clear anything up today. This was no way to run a bargaining session. Not if you wanted to turn a profit.

  Hours later, they crept toward the anomaly in space that could be the door to ending the war. “Two minutes,” Sandy announced on a squadronwide hookup. “Keep your ships steady.”

  Mattim reminded himself to breathe.

  “Damn,” Sandy said a moment later. “It moved. Adjust course fifteen degrees to starboard, five degrees up azimuth.” The fleet was in line astern of the Sheffield, intervals down to fifty klicks. Any closer and they’d boil the armor off the ship behind. Only the Sendai and Jeanne d’arc were out of line, two hundred klicks abreast to give Sandy a broad baseline. If worse came to worst, they’d break wide and come through later.

  Over the next five minutes, Sandy made fine adjustments to her course, adjustments measured in nanodegrees. The other eighteen ships slaved their helms to her. The jump loomed ahead. Even the human eye could see the distortion it lent to light trying to pass through. Looking down an atmospheric tornado might be like this. Mattim squirmed in his seat, most uncaptainlike. He forced himself still, then f
orced himself to breathe.

  “Ten seconds to jump,” Sandy announced, but the mike caught her muttering. “Stay where you are just a little longer, sister, just a wee bit longer.”

  “Comm to captain.” The call broke Mattim’s concentration.

  “Comm, we’re busy up here at the moment. Wait one.”

  “Sorry, Captain, I can’t. I’ve got the commander of the Ninety-seventh on live. He wants to talk to the admiral.”

  “Well, put him through,” Mattim snapped.

  “Admiral won’t take it.”

  “Won’t take it?” Mattim glanced around. The door to the admiral’s quarters was shut.

  “The captain wants to talk to you, sir.”

  “Put him on,” Mattim snarled. At her station, Sandy gently played with the fine controls, edging the Sheffield toward the jump.

  “Captain Mattim.” Captain Anderson appeared in a window in the main screen. “I have a priority message from Beta Station.”

  “Got it,” Sandy shouted.

  The window went blank. The rest of the screen changed. The stars before Mattim were no longer the stars that had been. “Thor, where are we?”

  “That’s Ward Star out there. We’re trailing Wardhaven by about a quarter of an orbit. Only seventeen ships got through.”

  “Damn jump jumped,” Sandy growled.

  It didn’t stop Mattim from grinning. “Sandy, give me a full passive sweep. What’s in this system? Thor, set a temporary course for Wardhaven, two gees. We’ll wait for the admiral’s orders to be more specific.”

  The door to the admiral’s quarters opened. Chief of Staff Stuart joined them on the bridge. “Tell Skobachev to take the squadron to Wardhaven at three gees. The admiral would appreciate your presence and all your department heads as soon as possible in his day cabin.”

  Mattim nodded. He didn’t know what the hell was going on here, but orders given were to be obeyed. “Quartermaster, order a department head meeting in the admiral’s day cabin. Comm, advise Skobachev to lead the squadron to Wardhaven at three gees. Anything else?” he asked Stuart.

  “Nothing for the moment.”

  The hatch to the bridge opened. Mattim turned, surprised that any of his department heads had made it so fast. Eight grim-faced marines marched in. The two officers wore sidearms, as did a pair of sergeants. All the enlisted personnel, sergeants included, carried assault rifles.

  The officer leading the marines stopped, saluted in a direction that managed to include both Mattim and Stuart, and announced, “I have orders to report to the admiral’s day cabin as soon as we completed our jump.”

  Stuart stepped aside. “The admiral’s right this way.” He waved his left hand and the marine captain led her troops across the bridge and through the door. Was there a hint of a smile on the chief of staff’s lips as he followed them?

  One thing was sure. The marine officer was Mary the miner.

  • • •

  Twelve days out from Wardhaven, Oasis docked at High Rostock, the station in orbit above the capital. Her captain came to assist the transfer to a shuttle for the trip down. Ray was just at the lock when a young junior officer rushed up.

  “There’s a major battle fleet in orbit over Wardhaven!” he shouted.

  “Where’s our fleet?” Ray shot back.

  “What’s left is in the yards,” the captain snarled.

  “Well, the yards are gone, and the ships in them,” the messenger added.

  “My father’s people,” Rita gasped.

  “Terribly sorry, ma’am,” the captain responded, but Ray didn’t see much thought behind it. Both he and the ship’s skipper were intent on one question. Were the Earthies going to follow the rules? The colonial worlds had been fighting among themselves for fifty years. The wars were wild affairs with each side doing whatever it took to beat the other into taking over their debt to Earth. One rule had never been violated. Once you lost control of the space above your planet, you surrendered.

  Of course, under that rule, you did not destroy orbiting factories either. The Earthies had broken part of the rule. What did that mean for the rest?

  • • •

  It took Mattim five minutes to muster his department heads; the doc was last. He led them in single file. Armed marines lined the bulkhead across from his officers. He stepped forward, placing himself alone in front of the admiral, his body between his crew and the marines. Without orders, maybe following some ancient drill that had been skipped in his ninety-day intro to the Navy, the exec, and Guns followed him, taking station a step behind him and to either side. They felt good there.

  Mattim hadn’t the foggiest notion what the drill was, but he doubted this admiral did either. Saluting, he reported, “All department heads present. We await your orders.”

  Admiral Whitebred beamed at the military honors, but the twist to his smile was pure evil. “In the next three days, I will win this war,” he informed the officers. “While the rest of the squadron silences resistance around the planet, we will accelerate and, at the proper time, release relativity bombs. They will shatter all resistance on the planet, and the shock waves from them will travel the length and breadth of colonial space. All resistance will crumble, and this war will end.”

  “Good God” escaped lips. Mattim bit his tongue to keep silent. Now it all fell into place. The relativity bombs were never meant to intimidate; the stupid bastard meant to use them. Shock and numbness swept Mattim as he tumbled into the deepest pit of hell, a hell as real as the two-and-a-half-ton blocks of steel and stone his crew had so carefully stowed in the Sheffield’s magazine.

  The admiral babbled on while Mattim struggled with his own demon. As if from a distance, Mattim heard gibberish about the need for the hard reality of war and death to be carried home. “Only when every man knows there is no place to hide will the killing stop.” Mattim stifled a snort; Wardhaven held a billion people. Their raging ghosts would call up bloody war forever. Mattim started to say so, but found he couldn’t. For twenty years he’d sat in business meetings, listened to stupidity and folly…and kept his mouth shut. For a second, practice held him quiet.

  And that second gave him a moment to look around. One marine nodded. He fondled his gun, familiar with it and the death it dealt. Mattim eyed Mary, remembering their hours together. She focused on the admiral, but the heat of his stare drew her glance. But only a glance before she dismissed him and returned to the back of the admiral’s head.

  They knew! The marines had been briefed while he was collecting his officers. What was in their briefing?

  “Excuse me, Admiral,” Guns’ soft rumble interrupted, “but no. I didn’t joint the Navy forty years ago to commit genocide. And no man under my command will be a party to it either.”

  The admiral actually smiled at that interruption, that same blend of smug, confident evil. “I was afraid an old-school type like you might not see the need to reinvent war,” the admiral said softly. He waved a hand, “Sergeant, I believe we have someone in need of counseling.”

  “Yessir,” shouted a young sergeant. In five swift steps he was beside Guns, pistol pointed up under Guns’ jaw.

  “Commander,” the admiral went on, “I suggest you reconsider your position. It has no future.”

  “I’ve studied war since before you were born, kid.” Mattim cringed. Even with a gun in his face, Guns would not be tactful, much less retreat. “This idea stinks—morally and tactically. You’ll get no quick peace. More likely a long war with no holds barred. You are wrong, and I will not besmirch the uniform I wear with the blood of a billion innocent people.”

  “Then we’ll limit it to your own,” the admiral quipped. “Sergeant, this man is guilty of disobeying an order and cowardism in the face of the enemy. We being at war, both crimes are capital. Execute him.”

  “That’s not a legal order.” Mattim didn’t get the words out of his mouth before the gun exploded. Deafened, still Mattim could hear the roar of rage from behind him. The mari
nes’ assault rifles were coming off their shoulders even as he wheeled to find half his officers lunging forward, following the XO. His fist went out, slugging her in the gut.

  “Back!” he ordered as Ding folded beside him and safeties clicked off behind him. One burst from those marines, and his ship would have no chain of command. “Back in place. Now.”

  They hovered for a split second, torn between obeying him and avenging Guns. The second passed, and they fell back.

  “Very good, Captain,” the admiral cooed. He had been very quick to get out of the line of fire. He stayed off to one side, a pistol in hand. “You’ll go far.”

  “I won’t have my officers massacred,” Mattim answered through gritted teeth.

  “No need for anyone else to get hurt,” the admiral assured him, “except some colonials, and we’re at war with them. Right, Captain Rodrigo?”

  The marine Mattim knew as Mary took a deep breath. “Yessir,” she whispered.

  “Captain Abeeb. You have your orders.”

  “Yes,” Mattim hissed and turned on his heels, no salute this time. And almost stumbled over Guns’ body. “Doctor, please remove Commander Howard to the ship’s mortuary.”

  “Immediately, sir.”

  Normally, the officers would have waited on Mattim. With a quick jerk of his head, he sent them out ahead of him. They left, but didn’t go far, He found them milling about on the bridge. As he took his chair, Mattim’s mind raced. Somehow he had to stop genocide and keep his crew from being shot by marines. For that, he had to get control of his people and his own rage. Ding limped to her chair, rubbing her stomach where he’d slugged her. The other officers gravitated silently toward the bridge hatch; what message would they take to the crew? Two marines came out of the admiral’s cabin to take station on either side of the door. One of them was Guns’ executioner—no, murderer. The safeties on both assault rifles were off.

  “The briefing will not be discussed,” Mattim told his officers, then glanced at the bridge cameras. “Carry on.”

  The officers filed out.

  Mattim turned to Ding. “I need you, Commander,” he whispered. “I’ve already got one dead officer. We’ll mourn him later. Right now, I and this ship need an exec.”