Starfist - 13- Wings of Hell

by Dan Cragg

  Ratliff gave her an exaggerated stern look. “I ain’t no squid, lady. You take that back, and yes, I’d love to buy you a drink.”

  She reached out a hand and caressed his cheek. “I’d love to have a drink with you, Marine.”

  “Vat’s goink on here!” All eyes turned to the booming voice. It was Big Barb Banak herself, the owner of Big Barb’s, plowing her way through the crowded common room like an icebreaker through pack ice, heading unerringly toward the men of third platoon.

  “Timmy,” she roared when she reached the table, “you still beink greedy, you godda hab two girls?”

  Before Kerr could answer, Gotta stuck her tongue out at Big Barb, and Frida shouted, “You gave him to us, and we are keeping him. So there!”

  Big Barb snorted. Then she saw the sergeant’s stripes on Kerr’s shirt collars. “Who got kilt?” she gasped, searching the faces of the Marines of third platoon, looking for who wasn’t there. “Vhere’s Rat?”

  Kerr shook his head. “Sergeant Linsman was killed.”

  “Ant you vas bromoted to tage his blace?”

  Kerr nodded.

  Big Barb continued searching the faces. “Vot aboud Billy?”

  Corporal Orest Kindrachuck thumbed the chevrons on his collars. “I was promoted to replace him,” he said in a thick voice.

  “Glaypoole, Volfman, Longfeller, dey det too?”

  Ratliff, as senior man present, answered her. “Claypoole’s fine, he went off on his own. MacIlargie and Longfellow are in the hospital, but they’ll be back with us soon.” He paused, then continued, “They were too new. I don’t think you had a chance to get to know them. PFC Smedley and PFC Delagarza were also killed.”

  “Ach min Gud,” Big Barb muttered. She vaguely remembered Smedley, but the name Delagarza meant nothing to her. “Too many, too many det young men. Alla time, too many.” She shook herself—and when Big Barb shook her hundreds of kilos it was something to see—and stood erect. “Vell, you’re back. Enchoy yourselfs.” She gave the Marines another look, and blinked. “Vat you doink here?” she squawked at a pretty young girl called Stulka, who was sitting on the lap of PFC John Three McGinty.

  Stulka jumped, and whipped her arms from around McGinty’s neck to her lap. “I’m, I’m just, I’m helping the other girls.” Stulka was the youngest of Big Barb’s girls, and mostly waited tables and helped out in the kitchen.

  “You don’ godda do dat, you know.”

  “But the other girls are always saying how much fun they have with third platoon. I just want to have fun.”

  Big Barb gave Stulka a penetrating look. “Hokay,” she finally agreed. Vhy nod, she thought as she waddled away. Da girl mags more money for me dat vay.

  Einna Orafem spun about to snap at her staff when the normal clatter of the kitchen at Big Barb’s suddenly went silent. But whatever she’d been about to say was forgotten the instant she saw the reason her staff had abruptly gone still and quiet; she stood gaping open-mouthed at Lance Corporal Dave “Hammer” Schultz, who stood just inside the kitchen doors, looking at her. To everyone in the kitchen except her, Schultz’s expression was a glower that promised sudden, violent death. To Einna Orafem, Schultz’s look was one of tender passion and love.

  She slowly closed her mouth, and her lips moved in the shape of his name, though she didn’t have the breath to speak it.

  The big Marine lifted a hand and pointed a crooked finger at her. That broke her paralysis, and she screamed and ran to him, flinging herself into his arms and throwing her legs around his waist with enough force to stagger even the big man.

  The Big Barb’s kitchen staff ogled their tyrannical boss and exchanged disbelieving glances at the way she rained wet kisses all over Schultz’s face, emitting squeaks and squeals as she did. Schultz did the manly thing, stoically accepting the kisses and clasping his hands under her buttocks to hold her up. There was no way of telling how long Einna Orafem would have continued blubbering over Schultz if she hadn’t been interrupted when Big Barb herself burst through the door.

  “Vat’s goink on in here?” Big Barb bellowed in a voice that could stampede a herd of kwangduks, and did rattle crockery. “Dis is a vork-blace! I don’ hear no sounts of vork! You!”—she smacked Schultz on the seat of his pants with a crack that echoed off the kitchen walls—“Unhant dat voman! She’s my cook, she’s got vork to do!”

  Einna Orafem wrapped her arms tightly around Schultz’s neck and pressed her cheek into his, glaring at her employer. She snarled at Big Barb in the same tone she’d been about to use on her staff before she lost her voice, “My Hammer’s back from war. I’m off duty!”

  “Sez who?” Big Barb demanded, stepping close to shove her face at her chief cook. “You tink you can get anodder chob easy?”

  “Go ahead, fire me! I’ll get a job cooking in the mess hall at Camp Ellis. Then see what happens to your business when the Marines decide to eat there instead of here!”

  The two women glared at each other for a long moment before Big Barb reared back and roared out a laugh that would have stampeded a distant herd of kwangduks, and did knock a few pots off stoves.

  She beamed at Einna Orafem and patted her on the cheek. “You got spirit, girl. I like dat in a voman.” She stepped around to face Schultz and wagged a sausagelike finger in his face. “Don’ you hurd her. An I vant her back in time for domorrow’s dinner. You unnerstan?”

  Schultz rumbled something that Big Barb took to mean, “I promise not to hurt her, and I’ll have her back in time for tomorrow’s dinner.”

  “Gut. Now da two a’ you gid outta here, you distracting da res’ a’ da peoples.” She spun about, glaring at the kitchen staff. “Who tol’ you ta stop vorkink? You god meals ta cook, hungry peoples ta feed. Gid back to vork!”

  Later, after they’d sated themselves and given each other as much pleasure as they could, while Schultz slept, Einna Orafem cried over the fresh scars on his back, scars from the wound he’d suffered on Ravenette.

  Corporal Rachman Claypoole looked around nervously. Near the southern horizon, he could just about make out the village of Brystholde. To the west, beyond cultivated fields, was forest. Snow dusted the fields to the north. Where they gave way to scrubland, reindeer grazed. Low mountains rose beyond the fields to the east; farm buildings were visible in the distance. Claypoole saw no people in the fields, only the various farm machines going about their business. Claypoole was a city boy born and bred; he had no idea what the huge machines were doing in the fields, only that whatever it was, they did it without close human supervision. Sheep and hogs, descended from animals long ago imported from Earth, occupied pens just far enough away that their strong scent wasn’t a stench.

  He started at a feminine giggle.

  “What’s the matter, is my big, strong Marine afraid to take a bath?”

  Claypoole looked to where Jente Konegard stood a few meters away, next to a huge washtub. She’d already removed her blouse, pants, and boots, and stood, cock-hipped, in very utilitarian underwear. He blushed.

  “N-no,” he stammered.

  “Then why don’t you get undressed and join me?” She shucked off her undergarments and stepped into the tub. Submerged almost to her shoulders, she tipped her head. “Or don’t you like girls anymore?”

  “Oh, I do, I do!” Claypoole gave one last, searching look around, then stripped and darted to join Jente, facing her, in the tub. It may have been winter, but the tub and its immediate surroundings sat in a pool of warm air. They’d have to run to get from the tub to the house, though, because the generated warmth didn’t extend very far.

  Jente sat with her legs crossed and her arms folded across her breasts. She stretched forward and lightly kissed Claypoole’s forehead, then leaned back against the end of the tub and unfolded her arms to lay them along the tub’s rim. “Don’t you feel better now that you’re in the water? With me?”

  Claypoole scooted forward, sending waves sloshing up her chest and splashing against the tub�
��s sides. “Much better,” he croaked, and reached for her.

  She fended him off with a laugh. “Not until you’re clean, mister!”

  “I’m clean!” he protested. “I showered this morning.”

  “Uh-huh. And just where did you shower?”

  “On the Lance Corporal Keith Lopez, just an hour or—”

  “Uh-huh, that’s what I thought,” she cut him off. “On board ship, washing in recycled bath and toilet water.” She leaned forward and made a face at him, shaking her head. “You aren’t touching me until you’ve been bathed in water I know is fit for human use.”

  “B-but navy ships do a good job of recycling—”

  “That might be good enough for you, but it’s not good enough for me. Now turn around.”

  Reluctantly, looking as pained as he felt, Claypoole shuffled himself around to show Jente his back. She bathed his back, shoulders, and arms and felt all around them with her bare hands. “Turn around,” she ordered. When he was facing her again she bathed his face, neck, chest, and belly—again carefully feeling where she washed. “Turn around and kneel,” she commanded when she was through. He did, and she bathed his hips, front, sides, and back, and his legs to his knees. Then, “Stand up,” and she washed his lower legs and feet. Finally she finished and took a deep breath.

  “You didn’t get wounded,” she whispered, and hugged him.

  “I told you I didn’t get hurt,” he said. He turned in response to the pressure of her hands on his hips. And had the expected physiological reaction.

  “Down,” she said softly.

  “I can’t help—”

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant sit down.”

  “Sit. Right.” He bent over to kiss the top of her head and saw the water she sat in was as clear and clean as when he first got in the tub. “The water’s still clean,” he said as he sat.

  She cocked her head. “What, do you think that just because I live on a farm I don’t have any of the modern conveniences?”

  “Well—ah, no, I—”

  “But of course, I have a self-cleaning tub. I wouldn’t take a bath with you if it meant I had to sit in water that was used to clean the recycled bath and toilet water off of my big, strong Marine.” She grasped his hands where they were at his ankles and leaned close to kiss him on the lips.

  “Does this mean I’m clean enough to touch you now?”

  She lifted his hands to her breasts.

  CHAPTER TWO

  No combat arms officer worth his pay wants a desk job, not even in peacetime. But competition for combat commands is always fierce, even though an officer’s career can be ruined if he gets a troop command but makes mistakes, even unavoidable ones. Many an up-and-coming young officer with stars or novas written clearly in his future has retired at a much lower grade because Lady Luck did not smile on him—or because at a critical moment he screwed up.

  Nobody understood that better than General Alistair Cazombi, Chairman of the Combined Chiefs. He made every effort he could to give Task Force Aguinaldo the very best commanders available, even if that meant going to the President and requesting authority to recall retired officers. General officers are never retired, they are subject to recall for whatever purpose—to return to active duty, to head up a special commission, to fill a cabinet post, etc.—until they are beyond this life, and even then their names are often invoked to inspire other soldiers to emulate their deeds. With the assistance of his service chiefs, Cazombi very carefully went down the retired and active lists, selecting commanders for the units assigned to Task Force Aguinaldo. Some units were already commanded by fine officers and they stayed; those who were found lacking in any respect were replaced. General Aguinaldo had final say, of course, but the two thought so much alike that there was little disagreement between them. When they were finished, the army’s XVIII Corps had a new commander, Lieutenant General Patrice Carano, called back from retirement.

  “This may result in a small shit storm,” Cazombi remarked to the Army Chief of Staff, “but Pat’s the best man for this job.” The “storm” he was referring to would be those three-star generals yearning for a corps command and those two-stars who’d kill for a third star and a corps command. “So, ‘Under the authority invested in me by the President and the Minister of War’ and all that crap, issue the orders. Pat can handle any fallout.”

  Lieutenant General Patrice Carano was short and stocky. His friends called him “Fireball” because wherever he went, whatever group he was with, he virtually sizzled with energy and determination. As a cadet at the Confederation Military Academy, he naturally attracted the unwanted attention of many upperclassmen. This was due in part to the fact that he stood out in ranks next to the taller cadets, and from his first day there he was dubbed “Short Round.” Henceforth “Mr. Short Round” was the unfortunate subject of marathon harassment sessions at the hands of his upperclassmen, not because he was deficient in any of the areas of military knowledge and deportment, but because he stubbornly bore up under their hazing without complaint. Their treatment was clearly against academy regulations and Carano would have been well within his rights to complain about it. But he never did. They were infuriated that he bore up under torture so well. Eventually, most of them gave up on Carano and focused their attention elsewhere.

  But one in particular, whom we shall call Cadet Z, developed a personal dislike for Cadet Carano, on whom he lavished the most fiendish punishments, the least of which consisted of making Carano clean latrine floors with his own toothbrush. At a morning inspection after Carano had been up much of the night cleaning latrines, this particular cadet officer examined Carano’s toothbrush. “Mr. Carano,” he hissed, thrusting the brush under Carano’s nose, “is this hideous instrument your toothbrush?”

  “Yes, sir!” Carano, standing at rigid attention, shoulders braced, shouted.

  “You must not be using it, Mr. Carano,” Cadet Z smiled deceptively, “not judging by the smell of your foul breath. Don’t you know proper dental hygiene is essential to being a good officer?”

  “Yes, sir! The cadet knows that, sir!”

  “Then why don’t you use this to brush your teeth?” Cadet Z screamed, his face turning red, the veins in his face standing out like sewer pipes.

  Carano replied in a deep baritone:

  “Last time I went to the toilet

  Shit all over the flooooooor

  Cleaned it up with my toothbrush

  Don’t brush my teeth much anymooooooore.”

  Everyone in the room burst out laughing. But not Cadet Z. Cadet Carano subsequently stood six all-night guard tours outside the post chapel, that in addition, of course, to a heavy class schedule. But the subject of the toothbrush never came up again. And for the rest of the time he was at the academy, Cadet Z left him alone. Carano graduated second in his class of 243 cadet officers

  Years later, Brigadier General Carano commanded an infantry brigade when former Cadet Z was assigned to his staff as a major in charge of logistics. Neither officer ever mentioned their time together at the academy and Major Z proved to be a conscientious and efficient logistics officer. General Carano gave him outstanding officer efficiency reports and eventually his former nemesis earned his own star.

  And that was the hallmark of General Patrice Carano’s career: He never allowed personal feelings to get in the way of his mission.

  Anders Aguinaldo and Patrice Carano hit it off at their very first meeting. There is something about a soldier, something in the way he carries himself, the way he talks, the way he shakes hands, the way he smiles, the way his eyes light up when talking shop, that tells other soldiers far more about him than even how he wears his uniform or the medals on his chest. Professionals develop a sixth sense for the nuances. No one was more adept at reading men than Anders Aguinaldo and what he “read” about Pat Carano was all good.

  When the two sat down together to review the organization of the force being formed to go to Haulover, Carano smiled brie
fly when the name of a division commander came up. Aguinaldo caught this slight indication of recognition. “You know this guy, Pat?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Carano answered, “we were at the academy together and he served under me as my brigade S4, many years ago. He’s an efficient officer.”

  “That’s good, Pat.” Aguinaldo nodded and passed on down the list. In Aguinaldo’s opinion, commanders who knew one another cooperated smoothly when the shooting started.

  But that was not true of everyone in the XVIII Corps.

  The predeployment briefing had just been completed. Generals Aguinaldo and Carano had both presided. The force being sent to Haulover was impressive: The army’s Fifteenth Armored Division, Twenty-fourth Infantry Division, Twenty-seventh Medium Infantry Division, and the Eighty-seventh Heavy Infantry Division (Reinforced), together with the Marine Corps’s Twenty-sixth and Thirty-fourth FISTs. The Navy’s Vice Admiral Geoffrey Chandler would command the fleet, thirty-five amphibious landing ships with armed escort, including an aircraft carrier with the Eighth and Fourteenth Air Wings, each comprising ninety-six Raptors.

  Major General Donnie (“Doc”) McKillan, XVIII Corps Chief of Staff, blew on his coffee carefully before raising it to his lips. Major General Reginald (“Rocky”) Kocks, commanding the Eighty-seventh Heavy Infantry Division (Reinforced), rolled an Avo Uvezian thoughtfully in his fingers before putting it into his mouth and lighting it. “How do you get along with old Carano?” Kocks asked.

  McKillan leaned forward and put his coffee cup on the edge of his desk. He took a cigar out of the humidor, clipped it carefully, ran his tongue over the leaf, and lit it. “Almost a Davidoff,” he sighed, expelling a blue-white cloud of tobacco smoke. He fished a tiny piece of tobacco off his lip. “Best officer I ever served under, Rocky,” he said.

  Kocks said nothing, just bit his lip.