Temporary Duty

by Ric Locke

  “Peters, haul out your gadget,” Tollison directed. “How much is three zul back home? I’ve lost track.”

  “It ain’t quite eight months,” Peters reported after a little manipulation. “Funny, it don’t seem that long.”

  “Time flies, and all that,” Todd suggested.

  Peters spotted a familiar face. “Hello, Dee,” he said as she passed. “I haven’t seen you in a little while.”

  “What!? Oh. Hello, Peters,” she said. “I had forgotten that you spoke so well. I was afraid one of my superiors had caught up with me.”

  “Join us, if you will,” Peters offered with a gesture. “Hey, guys, scrunch up a little and let the lady join us.”

  Dee stood by, smiling a little weakly, while Peters snagged a chair from an adjacent table and the other three sailors moved aside to leave a space. Peters handed her into the chair, and Tollison looked up from under lowered eyebrows. “Introduce us to your friend,” he suggested. “Looks to me like somebody worth knowing.”

  Dee giggled. “This here’s Dee,” Peters explained. “She’s the second, no, that’s wrong, she’s the third Grallt me’n Todd ever met, and she speaks English real good. She’s the one taught us how to get around the ship and how to order dinner, didn’t you, Dee? Which reminds me.” He unsealed a pocket, brought out Dee’s watch, and handed it to her. “Thanks,” he said. “‘Fraid I kept it a little long.”

  “That’s all right,” she said in English. “I haven’t needed it, but I’m glad to have it back.” She looked around. “I remember Todd, of course, but I don’t know your other friends.”

  “We should repair that lack as quickly as possible,” said Mannix before Peters could respond. “If I am not badly mistaken, the lady was one of the guides who graciously directed us to the palatial quarters we now inhabit, on the occasion of our first arrival aboard this magnificent vessel.”

  Dee smiled. It was hard not to do that when Mannix got rolling. “Yes, I was one of the guides when you first came aboard. I don’t remember if you were in my group or not.”

  “I regretfully admit that at the time my taste was not fully formed, and I was not able to fully appreciate the vision of loveliness I now see before me,” Mannix intoned solemnly. “I answer to the name of ‘Gerald Mannix’, among other things, and the hulking lout in the chair next to you is called Greg Tollison.” He rose part way from his chair and addressed an abbreviated bow to Dee, right hand over his heart. “I, for one, am very happy to make your acquaintance. I won’t speak for Tollison. He can speak for himself, if he cares to do so and can muster the brain power, which is by no means a foregone conclusion.”

  Tollison simply smiled and nodded. “Pleased to meet you,” he said in his bass rumble.

  “And I you,” Dee smiled back.

  “Dee’s a translator,” Peters explained. “She’s one of the ones keepin’ the officers happy—”

  “Not any more,” she interrupted with some force, then dropped her eyes.

  “What happened?” Todd asked.

  “I quit,” she told him. “I walked out about half an hour ago, and I’m not going back. That’s why Peters startled me so. I thought he was one of my superiors, wanting to curse me out for leaving my job without authorization.” She looked around. “It doesn’t matter. I’m quitting, and that’s that. No. I have quit. English language, past perfect tense. ‘Perfect’ as in ‘perfected’, finished, over, done with.”

  “You likely to get in trouble over quitting?” Peters asked.

  “Ask me if I give a shit.” She stopped herself, colored, and looked down at the table. “Listen to me. I never used to talk like that even in my own language. Especially in my own language. Now here I am…” She paused with an indecisive little wave, searching for the mot juste.

  “Cussin’ like a sailor,” Peters supplied.

  “You got it.” She shook her head. “But that isn’t the worst of it. You may have noticed I’m wearing this thing.” She made a little gesture, a flap of the fingers down her front, and Peters realized that she had on a kathir suit, the first time he’d seen her in one. “I hate it,” Dee went on. “It shows me off too much—”

  “I hope you realize nobody here objects to that,” Todd interrupted.

  “Don’t you start!” She shook her head. “As I was saying, I hate it, but it does have the virtue that nobody can reach inside it. Or pinch through it… full-handed grabs remain possible, as proven beyond any doubt a little while ago.”

  That generated raised eyebrows. “That’s a pretty severe violation of our rules,” Tollison observed. “If you want to, you can get the man in bad trouble.”

  “Oh, the men aren’t that much of a problem.”

  “How’s Dreelig doin’?” Peters asked into the short digestive pause.

  “Dreelig.” The name didn’t easily turn into a hiss; Dee managed it. “I never cared much for the asshole, but at least I could work with him. Now—” She waved disgustedly “—he’s decided he’s the Grand Exalted Panjandrum. The bit about him being an officer, you remember—”

  “Yeah. Got us out of a tight spot.”

  “He took it and ran with it.” She looked around, mouth twisting in ironic disgust. “I shouldn’t be associating with you enlisted plebians. I’m a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, according to Commander Dreelig.”

  “‘Commander Dreelig’?” Todd asked. “Last I heard he was only claiming Lieutenant Commander.”

  Dee snorted. “Shit. He’d claim Captain if he thought he could get away with it.”

  “Dreelig isn’t an officer?” Mannix put in with interest. “I thought he was an ambassador. That ranks pretty high.”

  “Bullshit,” she contradicted. “He’s just one of the sales staff, and not the highest-ranked one, either.” She looked around. Peters and Todd were smiling thinly, a little apprehensive about exposing what had been a secret, and the other two had raised eyebrows. “I’ll admit he has a talent for languages, but he couldn’t sell spacesuits if the air was half gone, and he couldn’t write a tight contract to save himself. The only reason he got the assignment to work with you was because nobody else wanted it.”

  “I think I should infer from that,” Mannix said into the breathing pause, “that when the opportunity to deal with the U.S. Navy was offered there was no mad rush of volunteers.”

  Dee nodded. “Nobody thought the idea had a snowball’s chance in Hell. That includes me, by the way, but I’m too junior to have any input.” She smiled thinly. “The thinking may have changed.”

  “You mean the repairs and cleanup?” Todd asked.

  “Oh, that’s the least of it. Remember that the original reason for this was to show off the pilots and machines, and they’re impressive as all Hell in action. When they beat the enkheil Combat Dancers two out of two, clear result and no question, Dreelig grinned for days.”

  “What about the last two?” Todd asked. “The, ah, nassith and the wolly-something.” Neither one had impressed the sailors much.

  “They were throwaways, more or less. The n’saith and the wollinid don’t have much technology of their own, but we needed to stop both places for trade anyway.” Dee shook her head. “No, the enkheil and the bür are the important ones. Even Dreelig thought the enkheil would put up a good contest.”

  “Beer? This is the name of people?” Tollison asked.

  Dee smiled. “The vowel needs a ‘u’ sound in it, but yes, the bür are of the kree. They are extremely warlike. Many years ago they attempted conquest. It was very difficult to get them to desist.”

  “I take it we can assume they are very good,” Mannix ventured.

  “Oh, yes, very good indeed.” Her smile became wry. “I think the Navy pilots are better. It’ll be a lot closer than what they’ve gotten used to, though.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear they’re at least good at doin’ their jobs,” Peters observed.

  “Oh, they’re great in action. It’s just that when they’re not in action they’re impossi
ble to live with.”

  Peters chuckled wryly. “We-el, I hope it don’t bust no bubble or nothin’, but you ain’t the first person to make that observation about Navy aviators.”

  “Possibly not the first of the second ten million,” Mannix added.

  Dee snorted. “Hmph. I think the biggest problem is that they don’t have anything to do when they’re not in action.”

  “Why don’t they get out and about a bit?” Mannix asked. “We don’t find ourselves overly stressed, by any means, but we’ve been able to occupy our time without overmuch difficulty.”

  “Dreelig again,” Dee explained. “He drew up the contract.” She leaned back in her chair. “To be fair about it, at the time none of us knew anything about you people except that you fought a lot and had busted up a goodish chunk of your planet doing it.” The sailors all nodded—this wasn’t a new concept—and Dee went on, “He included a provision that the officers weren’t to have anything at all to do with the operation of the ship…”

  “I think I see where that’s going,” Tollison put in. “Mix in a little paranoia…”

  “You got it. The brass—” Dee made a disgusted face and shook her head “—the First Trader and his staff have interpreted that clause to mean the human officers have to stick close to their quarters. It took two llor of argument to get permission for them to do their exercises in the ops bay.”

  “And they’re all going a little stir-crazy,” Todd suggested.

  “Stir—oh, yes, I remember that idiom. Yes, that’s it exactly. They can’t fly the planes while we’re in high phase, they’re bored with the simulators, they don’t have any other duties, and they can’t get ‘out and about’ as you called it. So they spend their time playing grabass, and I got sick and tired of having my ass grabbed. I’m outa there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Boom!

  It was unquestionably an impact of some kind. The structure of the ship rang like a bell, and the mess room went instantly still. “What the Hell was that?” Todd asked into a hubbub of the same question repeated, with variations, by a hundred tongues in two languages.

  “Damn if I know,” Peters said, “but whatever the Hell it was, I reckon we oughta be gettin’ back amongst our own. Racket like that’s likely God sayin’ you oughta be lookin’ for a safe place.”

  “Yeah.”

  Boom!

  Their exit from the mess room was impeded by a crowd of mixed Grallt and humans, all with the same idea, and they didn’t even try the elevator, just headed for the stairway down.

  Boom! Crash!

  They hit the ops deck as the third impact shook something loose, and rounded the corner into the bay to meet a group of sailors coming the other way. “We’re under attack,” Kellman stopped to tell them. “Todd, get your ass over to your bird and get prep started. Deutsch oughta already be there, send him back for deck gear, his and yours both. Peters, I don’t know where you oughta be…”

  Boom!

  “My battle station’d be the retarder consoles,” Peters told him. “They ain’t launched yet. You need some grunt labor?”

  “You know how to tweak a HEL pod?”

  Headshake. “‘Fraid not.”

  “Then don’t get in the way.” That was just business.

  Peters didn’t take it wrong. “Gotcha. Go get ‘em.”

  Boom!

  Boom!

  Llapaaloapalla had come down from high phase to approach the next planet, which they were told was called P’Vip. The apostrophe was a little catch in the throat, and Peters, like most of the humans, could pronounce it better than the Grallt could. Which had exactly nothing to do with anything… both sets of bay doors were open, and the ship was doing random rotary maneuvers, stars streaming in fits and starts across the opening. Brighter stars were moving crosswise to the streaks, and as Peters watched one of them emitted a streak of light.

  Boom! Well, that answered one question.

  Deutsch went past at a dead run, and Peters sprinted after. He got to his quarters to find the Third Class rummaging through the wrong locker. “Over here,” he said, and ripped Todd’s cabinet open, tossing the flak jacket on the bunk and wrapping boondockers and helmet in it.

  “Thanks,” Deutsch gasped, and took off at another dead run.

  Boom! Boom!

  Either Llapaaloapalla was tougher than it looked or the bad guys were using something that made a lot of noise without doing much damage. That didn’t make sense either. Peters skinned into his gear with all deliberate haste and headed for his console.

  Boom!

  Planes were rolling out of the hangar accesses under their own power. Officers were hustling out of their quarters by ones and twos, some of them trying to get helmets on as they ran, not a practical procedure. A little knot of red-helmeted ordnancemen converged on each plane as it emerged, popping catches on the laser pods and reaching inside, no doubt to turn the knob to the right as far as it would go…

  Boom! Crash!

  A pair of Hornets were the first to get ready, simpler systems and only one driver beating extra crew for the Tomcats. Warnocki was in place, and had the plane directors holding up crossed wands until more could queue up.

  Boom! The bay was lit from aft by God’s own flashgun.

  “Those bastards are using nukes!” Jacks shrieked. If the vid special effects people had been getting it right, the glowing, expanding cloud couldn’t be anything else. The ship didn’t seem to be maneuvering any more, but some of the stars were still moving. One of them, visible out the bow door, was noticeably larger and slower than the others.

  Boom! No bright lights this time.

  Warnocki had four ready and two moving into place; he let the first pair go, and they accelerated side by side down the bay, just short of taking out wingtips on the doorframe. A slow count of ten and the second set followed, Tomcats, and another brace of Hornets pulled up, with a mismatched pair coming up behind.

  Carlyle’s 105 was last out. Eighteen planes in a little over a minute and a half, and Peters estimated that from the first Boom! to a clear deck was ten minutes or less. Not too shabby for no notice.

  Boom!

  That was the last bang for a while. The retarder crews headed for the aft bay door for a better view. Howell should have chewed them out for it, but he was among the first to leave his console.

  From what they could see—mostly just bright sparks moving against the stars—the bad guys had gotten a surprise. A spark expanded briefly, puffing up to a visible disk before shrinking back to a point, and its pursuer vanished over the top of the ship. Both were too far away to make out shapes, and the sailors shared looks. “Hope that wasn’t one of our guys,” somebody prayed.

  The action moved away from aft, leaving the retarder crews and the others who’d chosen that door without anything to see, but Llapaaloapalla executed a swift rotation, ending with the big spark centered in the aft door, surrounded by fast movers. First one, then another of the sparks expanded briefly and ceased to maneuver, but the whole pattern was shrinking. The Grallt were running away, which was not only cowardly, it was stupid. As Peters understood it, the ship couldn’t shift to high phase within a certain distance from the star. They’d come down four, nearly five ande ago, and by the time they got back to where they could shift up the battle would be over, win or lose.

  A couple of sparks intersected expanding flowers of flame. Howell had managed to remember the binoculars hanging around his neck and was using them, bent forward slightly like he was hanging over a rail. He waved an impatient hand up and down. “It’s OK, both birds came out of it and turned. The ones that puff up don’t turn afterwards… there’s another one!”

  Some of the sparks bunched up, which at least told them who was who; American military thinkers had been teaching dispersal in combat for a century or better. The bunch seemed to head for the larger spark, but the others kept diving in by turns, and more and more of them went puff and stopped maneuvering. Another, sm
aller, spark separated from the big one, traveled a little way, and blossomed.

  Six or seven sparks merged with the big one and disappeared, with the rest of the maneuvering sparks swarming around it. Another missile went out, but that one puffed up like the little ships had, and another did the same. Then the big one seemed to vary in brightness and started moving faster, up and to the right from their point of view, and the smaller ones quit trying to follow it. Cunningham was the first to collect his wits. “Man the consoles, dammit. They’ll be on their way back in, and we need to get the rug out.”

  “Yeah,” was the consensus of a dozen murmurs, and the retarder crews headed back for their stations. The small sparks remaining were gathering, with a pair of suspicious outriders well toward the fleeing larger ship. Peters got his console in order, passing a suggestion up the line that they should expect a little more speed than usual.

  “Right,” Howell agreed. “And look alive, we’ll have to spot which type they are and get set. We don’t know what the schedule is.”

  “We don’t know if they have a schedule,” Kraewitz drawled.

  “Right enough. Hell with that,” Howell said impatiently, head down to his own console. “Just do it, people.”

  The pattern of sparks was obviously following the ship, but it didn’t seem to get any bigger. “Shit,” somebody mentioned. “The bastards are still running, and our guys can’t catch up.”

  They all looked at one another. Ships were slower than planes, weren’t they? Perhaps not here.

  “What’s happening, Peters?” Todd came up from behind and slung his helmet over his shoulder by the strap.

  “Hnph. Looks like our guys came out on top, but they might not get back. Th’ Grallt are runnin’ like deer from a dog pack.” He spared a look aft. “I’m gonna be needed here when they do catch up. Get up to the bridge and tell ‘em to stop.”

  “Me? You’re the one who’s buddies with the Exective Officer,” Todd pointed out.

  Peters grunted again. “Hanh. If you can’t convince ‘em I’ll put an oar in, but I’d rather you did it this time. Get your ass in gear.”