by P. A. Piatt
He took a deep breath to calm himself as he rose to his feet and planted his cover squarely on his head. The sentry stepped aside to allow Fortis to pass, then stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“Lieutenant, no matter what happens, know that you did the right thing.” The stone-faced gunny offered his hand, and a tiny smile wrinkled his eyes. “Frank Hawkins was a good Marine, one of the best. We were privates together.” Fortis was speechless as they shook hands. The gunny’s stoic expression returned, and he stood aside to allow Fortis to pass.
As Fortis walked down the passageway, it felt as though he were wading through waist-deep mud. His entire body was numb. He couldn’t even feel his injured ankle as he slogged toward the courtroom. The gunny stepped past him and opened the door. The two men exchanged a momentary look as Fortis floated through. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he had the fleeting image of his head pulsating in time to his heart.
Don’t laugh. Don’t fucking laugh!
Major Grant gave Fortis a weak smile as he passed the defense table, but Fortis concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. At the main table at the front of the courtroom an antique officer’s sword lay with the point aimed where Fortis would stand.
What the hell does that mean?
Fortis approached the main table, snapped to attention, and executed his best salute.
“Second Lieutenant Abner Fortis, reporting as ordered, sir.”
The senior court member, a dour Fleet captain, returned his salute. “Stand at ease, Lieutenant.”
Fortis assumed the proper position and fixed his eyes on a spot on the bulkhead above and behind the captain.
“Lieutenant Abner Fortis, you were brought before this court martial and charged with a number of serious crimes. After a thorough investigation and a fair trial with a vigorous defense, the conclusion of these proceedings draws near. At this point, it is customary for the court to allow the accused to change any or all pleas. Do you wish to change any of your pleas?”
Fortis’ ears burned, and the urge to turn around and look at Grant nearly overwhelmed him.
“No, sir. I do not wish to change my plea.”
“In that case, I will read the findings of the court martial. Lieutenant Fortis, stand at attention.
“As to the charge of Loss and Destruction of International Space Marine Corps Property, the court finds you not guilty.
“To the charge of Destruction of Private Property, the court finds you not guilty. To the charge of Assault, the court finds you not guilty.
“To the charge of Conduct Unbecoming of an International Space Marine Corps Officer—” he paused, and Fortis’ heart skipped a beat, “—the court finds you not guilty.
“As to the final charge, Failure to Obey an Order, the court finds you guilty as charged.”
Fortis let out the deep breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and he felt wobbly.
“Your sentence for Failure to Obey an Order is as follows: You are hereby fined one-half of your monthly pay for three months. Further, your seniority will be reduced, and you will be placed at the bottom of the seniority list. The court strongly cautions you that in the future, you should pay close attention to the orders of the officers appointed over you.” The captain banged a gavel. “These proceedings are concluded. Carry on.”
Fortis stood rooted in place until a pair of hands grabbed him from behind.
“We did it!” exclaimed Grant. “I never would have believed it, but we did it!”
The two men embraced and shook hands, and Grant turned to lead Fortis out of the courtroom.
“Lieutenant Fortis, a moment if you please.”
Fortis turned and realized for the first time that the division commander, Major General Rajpit Gupta, had been seated in the gallery.
Grant gave him a small push. “Don’t keep the general waiting,” he mumbled.
Fortis approached the general on wooden legs, and he stiffened up and threw up his best salute.
“Lieutenant Fortis, reporting—”
“Yes, yes. Sit down, Fortis.” General Gupta looked around the courtroom. “Gentlemen, please. I want to speak with Fortis in private.”
After the last person had left the courtroom, General Gupta studied Fortis closely.
“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Fortis.”
Fortis didn’t know how to respond, so he sat silently.
“GRC is a five hundred trillion credit conglomerate. Five hundred trillion.”
“Wow.” The word escaped before Fortis could stop it.
“Yeah, wow. Big fucking wow.” Gupta lowered his head and rubbed his hands together, then looked up and fixed Fortis with a piercing stare. “When the news of your little adventure on Pada-Pada hit Terra Earth, GRC’s stock lost eight percent of its value in three days. Forty trillion credits simply vanished.” Gupta gave an exaggerated shrug. “It was there, and then it was gone.”
Fortis struggled for an answer. “Sir, I’m not really up on the markets. I didn’t study finance.”
Gupta laughed. “It’s probably better that you didn’t. You might have done some real damage then.” He pursed his lips and continued. “In addition to all their commercial ventures, GRC is in competition with a group of other corporations for the Precision Crafted Soldier contract. You know what that is, Fortis?”
“Test tubes?”
“That’s one name for them. Yes, test tubes. Perfect soldiers. They obey orders, they accept any mission no matter how dangerous, and, best of all, there’s no family at home demanding an explanation when one of them is killed. GRC claims they were on the cusp of delivering the first working prototypes until you arrived on Pada-Pada and wiped them out.”
“General, that’s bullshit. Those test tubes were barely functional. If it weren’t for the mercenaries leading them, they would have been completely combat ineffective.”
“That’s not what Mr. Beck and GRC claim. At this point, it doesn’t matter. They’ve shut down their lab and their production facility, and they’ve filed a seventy billion credit lawsuit against the ISMC to make up for their losses at the hands of a half-strength company of fuck-ups who couldn’t follow simple order to stay out of the jungle.”
Fortis’ face flushed as his blood rose, and he struggled to control his retort. “General… sir, that’s an unfair characterization of the Space Marines who deployed to Pada-Pada. Yes, we were a half-strength company, but that half-strength company decisively defeated an enemy at over ten to one and repelled numerous massive bug swarms. Maybe I made mistakes, but the Marines under my command fought with great skill and valor.” Fortis stopped, afraid he had pushed too hard.
“It’s funny how everyone who can substantiate your claims is dead. The deserter, Lily, who claimed the GRC massacred Bravo Company. Hawkins, who witnessed the GRC abusing the colonists. Warrant Pell, who may or may not have attempted to assassinate Beck. All dead. It’s awfully convenient.”
Fortis didn’t trust himself not to lose what little self-control he still had, so he sat quietly.
The general changed directions. “You made a lot of enemies when the GRC stock tanked, Fortis. A number of stockholders in and out of government lost a lot of money. I’m told there were even some in the ISMC.” He locked eyes with Fortis. “You understand what I mean, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, I—well, like I said, I don’t know anything about the stock market. The actions I took were in reaction to provocations by the GRC. If that caused them to lose money, it’s on them. If you were personally affected, I am sorry.”
General Gupta ignored the apology and shook his head. “The worst damned thing about this situation is that I have to give you a medal.” He pulled a slim blue box out of his uniform pocket and slid it across to Fortis. “Open it.”
Fortis opened the box and saw a bright red, white, and blue ribbon with a silver medallion at the end. Inscribed on the medal was a phrase Fortis recognized as French.
L’ordre de la Galanterie
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“The President of the United Nations of Terra, who happens to be French, ordered me to award you the Order of Gallantry. That’s it.”
“What’s it for, sir?”
“Your gallant actions on Pada-Pada, of course.” Gupta scoffed. “Not to mention, the President’s husband has a large stake in one of GRC’s main competitors for the Precision Crafted Soldier contract.”
“Sir, I can’t accept that. That’s…that’s…wrong.” Fortis stood up. “Give it to one of the men. Gunny Hawkins did a hell of a lot more than I did. Award it to him, posthumously.”
“Lieutenant Fortis, we’re either going out into the hangar bay where the entire division will watch me pin this on your chest, or I’m going to reconvene the court martial and charge you and every one of your Space Marines with whatever my lawyers can dream up.” He pointed a meaty finger in Fortis’ face. “And they’re a hell of a lot more imaginative than the JAG you just faced.” He smiled, and Fortis recognized the smile of a predator. “I have my orders, Lieutenant, same as you.”
“DINLI, sir.”
“DINLI, indeed.”
# # # # #
The One-Legged Lady of Pada-Pada
The bugs are bad on Pada-Pada.
Kilfoy showed them who was boss.
They took her leg,
But it don’t matter.
The One-Legged Lady of Pada-Pada
Splash a taste and toast.
DINLI! DINLI!
Drink to Kilfoy’s ghost.
Space Marines do it, not like it, aye!
Rough and tumble, hey ho.
Kilfoy did it,
It cost her a leg.
The One-Legged Lady of Pada-Pada
Splash a taste and toast.
DINLI! DINLI!
Drink to Kilfoy’s ghost.
About P.A. Piatt
P.A. Piatt was born and raised in western Pennsylvania. After his first attempt at college, he joined the Navy to see the world. He started writing as a hobby when he retired in 2005 and published his first novel in 2018.
His published works include the Abner Fortis, International Space Marine Corps mil-sf series, the Walter Bailey Misadventures urban fantasy trilogy, and other full-length novels in both science fiction and horror.
All of his novels and various published short stories can be found on Amazon. Visit his website at www.papiattauthor.com.
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The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of the Lunar Free State:
The Moon and Beyond
___________________
John E. Siers
Available now from Theogony Books
eBook and Paperback
Excerpt from “The Moon and Beyond:”
“So, what have we got?” The chief had no patience for inter-agency squabbles.
The FBI man turned to him with a scowl. “We’ve got some abandoned buildings, a lot of abandoned stuff—none of which has anything to do with spaceships—and about a hundred and sixty scientists, maintenance people, and dependents left behind, all of whom claim they knew nothing at all about what was really going on until today. Oh, yeah, and we have some stripped computer hardware with all memory and processor sections removed. I mean physically taken out, not a chip left, nothing for the techies to work with. And not a scrap of paper around that will give us any more information…at least, not that we’ve found so far. My people are still looking.”
“What about that underground complex on the other side of the hill?”
“That place is wiped out. It looks like somebody set off a nuke in there. The concrete walls are partly fused! The floor is still too hot to walk on. Our people say they aren’t sure how you could even do something like that. They’re working on it, but I doubt they’re going to find anything.”
“What about our man inside, the guy who set up the computer tap?”
“Not a trace, chief,” one of the NSA men said. “Either he managed to keep his cover and stayed with them, or they’re holding him prisoner, or else…” The agent shrugged.
“You think they terminated him?” The chief lifted an eyebrow. “A bunch of rocket scientists?”
“Wouldn’t put it past them. Look at what Homeland Security ran into. Those motion-sensing chain guns are nasty, and the area between the inner and outer perimeter fence is mined! Of course, they posted warning signs, even marked the fire zones for the guns. Nobody would have gotten hurt if the troops had taken the signs seriously.”
The Homeland Security colonel favored the NSA man with an icy look. “That’s bullshit. How did we know they weren’t bluffing? You’d feel pretty stupid if we’d played it safe and then found out there were no defenses, just a bunch of signs!”
“Forget it!” snarled the chief. “Their whole purpose was to delay us, and it worked. What about the Air Force?”
“It might as well have been a UFO sighting as far as they’re concerned. Two of their F-25s went after that spaceship, or whatever it was we saw leaving. The damned thing went straight up, over eighty thousand meters per minute, they say. That’s nearly Mach Two, in a vertical climb. No aircraft in anybody’s arsenal can sustain a climb like that. Thirty seconds after they picked it up, it was well above their service ceiling and still accelerating. Ordinary ground radar couldn’t find it, but NORAD thinks they might have caught a short glimpse with one of their satellite-watch systems, a hundred miles up and still going.”
“So where did they go?”
“Well, chief, if we believe what those leftover scientists are telling us, I guess they went to the Moon.”
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The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of the Chimera Company:
The Fall of Rho-Torkis
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Tim C. Taylor
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Excerpt from “The Fall of Rho-Torkis:”
“Relax, Sybutu.”
Osu didn’t fall for the man steepling his fingers behind his desk. When a lieutenant colonel told you to relax, you knew your life had just taken a seriously wrong turn.
“So what if we’re ruffling a few feathers?” said Malix. “We have a job to do, and you’re going to make it happen. You will take five men with you and travel unobserved to a location in the capital where you will deliver a coded phrase to this contact.”
He pushed across a photograph showing a human male dressed in smuggler chic. Even from the static image, the man oozed charm, but he revealed something else too: purple eyes. The man was a mutant.
“His name is Captain Tavistock Fitzwilliam, and he’s a free trader of flexible legitimacy. Let’s call him a smuggler for simplicity’s sake. You deliver the message and then return here without incident, after which no one will speak of this again.”
Osu kept his demeanor blank, but the questions were raging inside him. His officers in the 27th gave the appearance of having waved through the colonel’s bizarre orders, but the squadron sergeant major would not let this drop easily. He’d be lodged in an ambush point close to the colonel’s office where he’d be waiting to pounce on Osu and interrogate him. Vyborg would suspect him of conspiracy in this affront to proper conduct. His sappers as undercover spies? Osu would rather face a crusading army of newts than the sergeant major on the warpath.
“Make sure one of the men you pick is Hines Zy Pel.”
“Is Zy Pel a Special Missions operative, sir?” There. He’d said it.
“You’ll have to ask Colonel Lantosh. Even after they bumped up my rank, I still don’t have clearance to see Zy Pel’s full personnel record. Make of that what you will.”
“But you must have put feelers out…”
Malix gave him a cold stare.
You’re trying to decide whether to hang me from a whipping post or answer my question. Well, it was your decision to have me lead an undercover team, Colonel. Let’s see whether you trust your own judgement.
The colonel seemed to decide on the latter option and softened half a degree. “There was a Hines Zy Pel who died in the Defense of Station 11. Or so the official records tell us. I have reason to think that our Hines Zy Pel is the same man.”
“But…Station 11 was twelve years ago. According to the personnel record I’ve seen, my Zy Pel is in his mid-20s.”
Malix put his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know. The other Hines Zy Pel was 42 when he was KIA.”
“He’s 54? Can’t be the same man. Impossible.”
“For you and I, Sybutu, that is true. But away from the core worlds, I’ve encountered mysteries that defy explanation. Don’t discount the possibility. Keep an eye on him. For the moment, he is a vital asset, especially given the nature of what I have tasked you with. However, if you ever suspect him of an agenda that undermines his duty to the Legion, then I am ordering you to kill him before he realizes you suspect him.”