Weapons of choice aot-1

by John Birmingham

  Slim Jim's normal approach to a job like this would have been to affect an impression of grim industry while goofing off at every turn. But now he hurried to fill his burlap bag with its obscene cargo and the occasional item of plunder, trying to look like the world's busiest little beaver. Moose Molloy, who was working beside him, droned on without letup, his tiny pea brain grappling with the night's events. Slim Jim upheld his side of the conversation only when necessary. His mind worked furiously behind a mask of barely contained disgust.

  Oxy cutters blazed around them, burning narrow passageways through the tangled mass of iron. The air stunk of ozone and corruption. Slim Jim's back hurt from the deadweight collected in his sack. His throat was parched dry, his tongue furry, and he was covered in cuts and bruises from banging against twisted metal in the dark. It was, he thought, worse than that fucking road gang. At least they'd had fresh air. But he stuck at the joyless task long after he'd normally have found an excuse to escape.

  "I can't wait to see the mess on this ship," grunted Moose as he pulled at something wedged between two imperfectly fused bulkheads. "They got so many mess men on this ship they must have a mess as big as the Enterprise. You remember when we snuck on board for their Christmas party that time, Slim Jim? How big that mess was, with all of them niggers? I never seen so many of them before."

  "They're not mess men," Davidson answered as he pocketed what looked like an electric fountain pen. "Look at their uniforms, you lunkhead. They're officers, some of them. The dames, too. And the captain's a broad and a Negro."

  "Oh, a Neeegro, excuse me, Professor. Anyhow, I know that," Moose protested. "I was there, remember?"

  "Goddamn! This thing weighs a ton," cursed Davidson as he hauled the bag through another tight crawl space. The effort left him breathless and shaking. He leaned against a bulkhead by Molloy to rest.

  "Hey, Moose," he said quietly when he'd caught his breath. "Listen. I wouldn't go calling 'em niggers to their face if I was you. Or nips or broads or nothing."

  "But that's what they are!" Molloy protested.

  "Maybe," Davidson conceded, "but they're officers, too, a lot of them. And officers stick together. I been around. I seen a few things. Just 'cause the black man's been set lower than us doesn't mean he likes it. These guys coming here? It's trouble for everyone. For the Japs if they get a taste of those guns and rockets like we did. But for us, too, I reckon. And when trouble blows in, a smart guy keeps his head down, waits for it to pass. When it's gone you can see how things lie."

  Around them the noise of rescue and salvage created a din that covered their conversation. Davidson didn't exactly think of Moose as a friend. He didn't exactly have any friends. But Moose stood six-four in his bare feet and could probably kill an ox with his right hook. He made a good ally for someone like Slim Jim, who'd always relied on ratbastard cunning to make up for his less-than-intimidating physique. If he was going to work an angle on this, he didn't need to have the big ape messing things up for him by mouthing off to the new guys.

  "You think about it, Moose," he said in a conspiratorial tone. "You ever meet an officer didn't think the sun shone out of his ass? It's because in their world, it does. And there's nothing you or I can do about it. I don't know how that bitch got to be captain of a ship like this, but you can bet she thinks she deserves it."

  "But that just can't be," Moose argued plaintively.

  "It doesn't matter!" Davidson said, cutting him off sharply. "What should be and what is almost never turn out the same. I should be lying back in a big feather bed at the Waldorf getting my dick sucked by Rita Hayworth. But I'm stuck here covered in blood and shit wondering what the hell happened to the laws of fucking nature this morning. You take my advice, Moose, one of these bastards says boo to you, you just tell 'em yes sir no sir three bags full sir. Even if it's some broad looks like she should be cleaning the toilets in a fucking speakeasy."

  Moose was silenced by the vehemence of his best friend's delivery. And everything Slim Jim Davidson had just said ran 100 percent contrary to what his daddy, Moose Sr., had raised him to believe. But of course, Moose Sr. wasn't here, up to his ass in dead meat and craziness. And Slim Jim had looked after him ever since they'd fetched up in the same quarters. He reluctantly agreed to heed the advice.

  "That's all right then." Davidson nodded. "Now I gotta take this shit topside and get rid of it. I'll see you soon."

  And with that he hauled the big, oozing bag away, all the time thinking of where he might stash the treasure he had hidden within it.

  Captain Anderson ran her fingers along the join between the two ships. The nanotube sheath armor of the Leyte Gulf met the rivets and iron plating of the Astoria perfectly. She supposed they had bonded at the molecular level.

  "How long, Chief?" she asked.

  "They've got the pumps running full bore in the Astoria, Captain. We've sent over what help we can, but unless we get her to a dry dock in the next eight to twelve hours, we're both going down."

  "There's not a dry dock in the world could fit them in," Anderson pointed out.

  "That's true," conceded Chief Conroy.

  "And we'd tear both ships apart making any kind of speed to get there."

  "Reckon so."

  They had gathered in a small group on C deck of the Leyte Gulf, where the portside corridor was entirely blocked by a section of the Astoria. The deck tilted forward perceptibly beneath their feet, as the stealth cruiser's bow was dragged down by the growing weight of the other ship. The structural integrity of the Astoria was failing. A large fissure had opened up just aft of the nexus with Anderson's ship and the sea was flooding in, gradually overwhelming the pumps and the efforts of a three-hundred-man bucket brigade.

  There were other problems.

  "The children aren't playing well together," said Conroy.

  "I've got Mohr and my other chiefs working on it," Evans said, "but…"

  He trailed off.

  Anderson gathered that Evans was an educated, well-traveled man, but even he was obviously having trouble coming to terms with Anderson's ship and crew. The Leyte Gulf's captain stood with her arms folded in the flickering, failing light of the corridor.

  "Commander, I'm aware that we've all had a lot of trauma to deal with this afternoon, or morning, or whatever. You can't throw people from different worlds together under such extreme pressure and expect them to work smoothly. Not when they've just been trying to kill each other. But we're going to have to work together, because our fates are fused."

  She punched the armor plating of the Astoria for emphasis.

  "I can't have Eddie Mohr running around, punching every guy who looks sideways at one of your ladies," said Evans. Frustration was beginning to get the better of him.

  "Commander, they're not ladies," Conroy said, before Anderson could reply. "They're officers and sailors of the U.S. Navy. They can take almost anything you'll throw at them. But they don't have to take sexual harassment."

  "But nobody's been having sex with them!" protested Evans, who couldn't believe they were even discussing the matter.

  "Jesus, you really don't get it, do you?"

  "No, apparently I don't…"

  "Look, this isn't the time or place," Anderson said. "Either we save these ships together, or they go down together. Chief, get hold of Borghino and Reilly…"

  "I'm sorry, he's dead, ma'am."

  Anderson had known that, but the memory had slipped away in the turmoil. She cursed herself for the slip.

  "Damn, sorry. Right, get Hillary Beaton instead. Get around to the crew and chill them out. I need engineering to give me an answer. Are we going to save the ships or not? I suspect not, so we need to work up a plan to evacuate the crews and salvage everything we can. If it turns out we're stuck here, even the smallest things could make a difference. We need to strip this ship down to bare bones, take off every piece of technology we possibly can. We'll need to coordinate that with Kolhammer.

  "Commander Evans
, no offense, but I suggest that there's nothing worth saving on your ship. Nothing that can't be replaced, at least. You should have all your men either pumping out the flooded decks or throwing as much weight as possible overboard to lighten the load. If you have any spare bodies, we can use them over here for our salvage work."

  Evans had deep, gray bruises under his bloodshot eyes. Every line in his face looked like it had been gouged there. Anderson saw she'd offended him when those lines stretched and his eyes flared with anger. She instantly regretted her blunt Sagittarian ways. Evans was only just holding it together, and she needed him to stay the course.

  Evans listened to the Negro woman's speech with mounting distress. He couldn't believe she was just writing off the Astoria like that. After all, there were some decent holes punched in her own ship, courtesy of the old girl's eight-inch batteries. He could feel his anger building, but it never came to a head. He suspected the drugs they'd given him for his injuries might have been damping down his temper, as well. He had a strange feeling, like a fine head of fury was trying to build somewhere inside him, but every time it threatened to break, the anger slipped away.

  He rubbed at his eyes with his good hand. They felt gritty and hot. The bruises on his face ached painfully, despite the drugs.

  "I'll have to confer with Admiral Spruance," he said flatly. "He's already lost a few cruisers tonight. He won't be happy about scratching another one."

  Anderson opened her mouth, ready to argue, but she held her peace.

  "I'm sorry, Commander. Please excuse my poor manners. I don't mean to make it sound as if your ship or her crew are unimportant. I'm just playing the numbers. The equipment on the Leyte Gulf will be of tremendous value to your war effort. I don't want to give up on her, either. She's my baby. But she's been run through the heart. We can't make any headway without tearing each other apart, and we're already sinking. I'll have to confer with Admiral Kolhammer and the engineers, but I think they'll agree. The Leyte Gulf is finished, and so is the Astoria."

  Chief Mohr had been suspicious when Davidson put himself forward for the cleanup crew in the confused snarl at the intersection of the two ships. Davidson was one of the laziest, shiftiest sons-of-bitches you'd never hope to meet. Mohr knew he'd only joined the navy to avoid a prison term for passing bad checks in Baltimore. The judge had given him the option of military service or the big house and Davidson, true to form, had joined the navy because he heard it had the best chow and the least exercise. He was also scared of flying.

  It was almost reassuring, in a way, when Mohr crawled back into the Astoria to discover that Slim Jim was inexplicably absent. Moose Molloy had done his best to cover for the lazy bum, but that didn't necessarily work in Davidson's favor. Mohr waved away Molloy's excuses and determined to deal with the slacker later.

  For now he had other problems. He'd just bruised his knuckles on the thick skull of some moron who'd grabbed a piece of ass over on the other ship. Personally, the chief couldn't see the problem. If you put a bunch of broads on a ship, they're gonna get their fucking asses grabbed. That was only natural.

  But that Captain Anderson, who didn't look like anyone had grabbed her ass in a long while, had gone bitching to Commander Evans, who was over on the Leyte Gulf having his injuries tended to by their supermedics. Evans had gone to Mohr, and Mohr had gone to the source of the trouble, some dumbass gunner by the name of Finch.

  "You grab her ass, Finch?" he demanded to know.

  Finch had sort of smirked and shrugged, so Mohr had hauled off and slugged him one, right between the eyes. At that point, Captain Anderson had gasped. But what the hell had she expected him to do? A guy grabs some ass ain't his to grab, you put Chief Eddie Mohr on the job, the guy gets knuckled good and proper. Case closed. You woulda thought from her reaction that the knuckling was nearly as bad as the original ass grabbing.

  "The fucking saints preserve me," Mohr grumbled as he hauled himself back into clear space aboard the Astoria. He was gonna get himself a corned beef sandwich and a coffee, and then he was gonna find that lazy fucking Slim Jim asshole and maybe he was gonna knuckle him some, too.

  Lieutenant Commander Helen Wassman taped off the IV line and stood up to stretch her back. She'd been crouched over for nearly four hours, attending casualties from both ships. Her back ached and the muscles in her legs burned with fatigue. It had been nearly thirty hours since she'd rolled out of her bunk, and she wondered whether the time might be coming when she'd have to dial up a little stim flush from her implants.

  "Doctor! Doctor, over here!"

  The Leyte Gulf's medical officer had trouble focusing on the direction of the voice. The mess hall was full of wounded men and women. The worst cases had first call on the Gulf's relatively small hospital, where they were stabilized before being choppered across to the Clinton or the Kandahar-a process that had been complicated by the destruction of the helicopter bays. The patients had to be carried up onto the deck through the bridge structure, a long and winding route.

  "Doctor! Please!"

  Wassman urgently cast around for the source of the cries. There had to be sixty people laid up in the mess. Most of them were in pretty bad shape. The walking wounded were all helping with salvage operations. The room presented a tableau from one of Goya's nightmares, bloodied bandages, burned limbs, chaos, and horror. She'd treated deep tissue lacerations, compound fractures, crushed vertebrae, shrapnel and bullet wounds, and, of course, some terrible injuries caused by ceramic flechette rounds.

  "Doctor!"

  Wassman sourced the cries to a reedy-looking officer, off the Astoria, judging by his uniform. He didn't look too badly hurt. He had a good long scrape on his forearm and a bruise on his forehead. But that was it.

  This better be good, she thought.

  The lieutenant fidgeted impatiently as she approached him. As she did so, his eyes roamed up and down. She was running into that a lot, and she was struggling not to react badly to it.

  "Yes… Lieutenant?" she said, drawing up in front of him. "Is one of your men in need of treatment?"

  "No, Commander… uhm, Wassman. But I've been waiting here for a blood tranfusion for nearly an hour."

  Wassman was genuinely confused. Her eyes flicked from the small bandage on his forehead to the one around his arm.

  "I'm sorry, a tranfusion?"

  "I've lost some blood," he explained. "I may need a transfusion, but nobody has spoken to me about the type of blood I would need."

  She shook her head, wrestling with her irritation. Then she leaned over and somewhat peremptorily plucked his dog tags out to examine them.

  "O positive," she read out. "There you go, Lieutenant… Charles, is it? Done deal."

  A strange look flickered across the lieutenant's face. Levering himself up, delicately, he motioned for her to follow him a few feet away, into the corridor. Wassman was disinclined to follow at first, but was forced to comply when Charles carried on regardless, stepping over a black woman who was leaned up against a bulkhead, nursing a hand with some nasty-looking burns.

  "Lieutenant!" barked Wassman. "I really don't have time for this."

  Charles stopped, sighed heavily, and rolled his eyes before turning to face her.

  "What is your problem?" Wassman demanded.

  People were beginning to stare. Most of the men and women in the room were too lost in their private struggles to notice the scene by the door, but those who were nearby, such as the woman with the burned hand, were turning to watch.

  Lieutenant Charles sighed with exasperation. He tried to lean in as if to talk discreetly. "You misunderstand me, Doctor. I didn't mean blood type. I meant type of blood."

  Wassman scrunched her eyes shut, then blinked twice, rapidly.

  "You're right. I'm sorry, I don't understand. Type of blood?" She gestured with her hands-which were sticky with gore-to emphasize her lack of comprehension.

  He grimaced with distaste and rolled his eyes toward the black woman on the floor.<
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  "Type of blood," he murmured. "Don't you see?"

  What little concern she had felt for the man abruptly disappeared, and she just gave him a cold stare. Before he could say anything else, she turned away.

  Charles reached out to grab her elbow and was stunned when she spun around and slapped him across the face. It was a hard, stinging blow. He gasped and, without thinking, slapped her back. His blow wasn't particularly firm, but the slap galvanized everyone who saw it.

  Someone grabbed a handful of his shirt. It was a Chinese American sailor.

  "Get your hands off me, you damn coolie," Charles shouted. He made a fist and drove a fierce uppercut into the man's chin, angling the blow to drive the jaw sideways.

  Before the man had even hit the deck, though, another of Wassman's shipmates came at him. A white man this time, with a padded sleeve covering one arm. His other arm was fine, though. Wassman watched as it drew back and the hand formed a fist. Charles flinched as the blow came in.

  The office housed the ship's Training Department. It was packed with VR gear, computers, screens, and office equipment. They had to break it down and get it all off the ship in less than forty minutes.

  Seaman Davidson wasn't really helping with his endless stream of questions.

  What's that?

  What does it do?

  How's it work?

  But the ensign from the Leyte Gulf, who was supervising the salvage detail in this part of the ship, tried to answer as many as he could because Davidson was one of the few men off the Astoria who'd shown any inclination to be friendly. And his buddy, Molloy, he could carry a goddamn Xerox all on his own. Ensign Carver was glad to have them. They'd been no trouble at all, really, and had mixed in well with the rest of the work detail. He'd just made a mental note to talk to their Chief Mohr, and tell him what a good job they'd done, when shouting and the sound of something like a brawl reached them.

  "What the hell is that?" said Carver.

  "Sounds like a brawl," said Davidson.