Pennyroyal brought the remaining hundred out of her purse. “I’ve still got this,” she said. “And a pocket full of chips that probably aren’t worth anything. I don’t guess the Café Claudel will reopen any time soon.”
“Keep it,” said Daniel. “Or better, the four of us can tie one on properly on the Strip before our liberty’s over!”
Hogg, from the other side of the van, must have been listening. “Bloody good idea!” he said.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Pennyroyal said. She stretched, feeling relaxed for the first time since the evening had begun.
The Lost Fleet is a military science fiction/space opera series written by John G. Hemry under his Jack Campbell pen name. It is set one-hundred-plus years into an interstellar war between two different human cultures: the Alliance and the Syndics. The key protagonist is a hero and legend to the Alliance named John Geary. Multiple books have led to multiple spin-off series, Beyond The Frontier and The Lost Stars. However, our present story is a brand-new Lost Fleet story which Campbell describes as “the earliest story in the Lost Fleet, taking place about twelve years before the Syndicate Worlds attack on Grendel that began the war with the Alliance and created the legend of John ‘Black Jack’ Geary. The origin of his nickname has been shrouded in mystery. Until now.”
SHORE PATROL
JACK CAMPBELL
Captain Anne Spruance commanded the Alliance heavy cruiser Redoubt, currently in orbit about a planet in Augeas Star System. Ensign John Geary, in charge of the hell-lance weapons division onboard the Redoubt, was currently standing at attention in Captain Spruance’s stateroom.
If there was one thing Geary had learned during his so far brief career in the Alliance fleet, it was the importance of keeping the captain of whatever ship he was on happy. Unhappy captains had ways of expressing their unhappiness which made for very unhappy junior officers.
At the moment, Captain Spruance did not look happy or sound happy. “Ensign Geary, last night you were in command of the shore patrol detachment sent down to the planet. Last night you also ended up in the local jail, along with about forty members of the crew, including all four members of the shore patrol.”
“Yes, Captain,” Geary said.
Standing up from the seat at her desk, the captain leaned her face close to Geary’s. “Just what was it you thought your job was as commander of the shore patrol?”
“To preserve order among members of the crew and other Alliance military personnel who are on leave or liberty status,” Geary recited from fleet regulations.
“Really?” Captain Spruance turned back to her desk and tapped a virtual window. “Let’s see what the local law enforcement authorities think you were doing last night. Riot. Assault. Battery. Resisting arrest. Refusal to comply with orders of local police Disrespect for local government. Improper public behavior. What the hell happened, Ensign Geary? I can’t wait to hear your explanation.”
* * *
Sixteen hours earlier.
“Geary! Get out here!”
Twisting to get through the access shaft to the power supply for the number two hell lance battery, John Geary worked his way out and into the passageway where Lieutenant Sam “Suck Up” Booth waited impatiently. “What’s the problem?”
“You’ve got shore patrol duty tonight,” Booth said. “The shuttle leaves in half an hour.”
“Shore patrol? Setlie’s supposed to be doing that.”
“Setlie can’t. You’re doing it. Get going.” Booth shoved into Geary’s hands an armband with “Shore Patrol” embossed on it in big letters before turning away and walking off of at a leisurely pace.
Geary stood and counted to five inside before turning to call into the access shaft. “Chief, I’ve been tapped for shore patrol.”
“Good luck, sir,” the reply came back in tones that suggested luck would be badly needed.
Getting back to the cramped stateroom he shared with three other junior officers and changing into his dress uniform took nearly fifteen minutes.
“Shore patrol members muster in dress uniform on the quarterdeck.”
Geary breathed a sigh of relief as the announcement was made, realizing that he had forgotten to take care of that. Dashing out into the passageway again, he found Ensign Daria Rosen waiting.
“I heard you got stuck, so I had the watch pass the word for the shore patrol to muster,” she told him. “That okay?”
“You’re a life-saver,” Geary replied. “What happened to Setlie?”
“He’s skating again. Complained to Suck Up Sam that he had too much work to do, so to oblige his little protégé Sam shoved the work onto someone else.”
“Figures. Thanks, Dar.” Geary waved a farewell and raced to the quarterdeck where the four members of his shore patrol waited.
He braked abruptly as he saw the four sailors waiting in dress uniforms. The heavy cruiser Redoubt only had about three hundred crew members, so Geary knew them all at least in passing. He recognized Petty Officer Third Class Demore, who until a few weeks ago had been Petty Officer Second Class Demore before being busted down in rate on various charges, as well as Seaman Alvarez, who was three years into a four-year enlistment and seemed determined to prove that for some people the simplest tasks were too difficult. The other two sailors were Chadra and Riley, both of whom had apparently decided within hours of enlisting that they had made a mistake. Every supervisor either one had worked for had quickly decided they were right about that, but the two continued to use up oxygen, food, water, and space that would have been put to better use by just about any other living object.
Geary turned about, walking just outside the quarterdeck as he tapped his comm pad. “Lieutenant Booth,” he said, trying to speak diplomatically and respectfully, “are you aware of the individuals assigned to shore patrol?”
Booth sounded annoyed at the question. “Don’t you think I can do my job, Ensign?”
“Those four sailors are not good choices,” Geary said.
“You’ll have to talk to the executive officer about that. It’s his idea. If the worst performers are on shore patrol, they’ll have to do a decent job, and they won’t be able to get into trouble. I’m not going to argue with the XO. Are you?”
“Yes,” Geary said, aware that he was unlikely to get any positive result from the argument but not willing to give in without trying.
“Unfortunately for you, the XO is off the ship, and I’m not going to bother him about your problems. So get the job done!”
Mumbling curses aimed at the ancestors of Lieutenant Booth, Geary went back onto the quarterdeck, where the sympathetic chief petty officer on watch called him aside. “Sir, they haven’t been issued shockers yet.”
“Of course not,” Geary said, wondering what else could go wrong. “How long until the last shuttle drops?”
“Ten minutes. If you’re not back I’ll hold it, but the pilot won’t like it.”
“Thanks, Chief. Have the duty gunner meet me at the armory.”
The four members of the shore patrol stiffened to various interpretations of attention as Geary addressed them. “We’re going to the armory to get shockers. I don’t want any nonsense tonight. No screw ups. Come on.”
At the reinforced hatch to the armory where individual weapons were stored, the duty gunner frowned at the issue order in Redoubt’s data base. “Sir? This calls for shockers with no charges.”
“What?” Geary read through the brief order, then hit his comm pad again. “Lieutenant, the issue order for my shore patrol specifies shockers without charges.”
“That’s right,” Booth replied, sounding even more peeved. “The XO doesn’t trust that bunch with loaded shockers. You’ll be fine. Nobody with a shocker pointed at them is going to want to find out if it’s charged.”
“How am I supposed to impose discipline without any means to impose discipline?” Geary demanded.
“Use your command presence! Do I have to tell you everything?”
&nb
sp; Mentally vowing to “accidentally” shoot Lieutenant Booth if he ever got his hands on a charged shocker, Geary made it back to the quarterdeck with one minute to spare. He led the way onto the crowded shuttle after making sure every sailor in his group had their Shore Patrol armbands on. They had barely strapped in to their seats when the shuttle dropped away from the Redoubt and headed down from orbit for the city officially named Barcara but known to sailors throughout space as Barcrawl.
Virtual screens inside the shuttle lit up with the port briefing, alternating views of the natural wonders of the planet below with stern warnings. “Barcara is the second largest city on the primary world of the Augeas Star System. Augeas is part of the Callas Republic, not the Alliance. As representatives of the Alliance and the fleet, you will be expected to maintain the highest standards of personal behavior. While many of the citizens you encounter in Barcara will be extremely friendly, do not forget that even if the services they offer are legal in Barcara you can still be prosecuted within the Alliance for any actions which are illegal under Alliance law…”
Geary noticed none of the sailors were paying attention to the port briefing. All of the ones he could hear were discussing the sort of “natural wonders” that would be hanging out in the bars of Barcara.
As the shuttle dropped down through atmosphere to the landing field, Geary hauled out his comm pad and quickly reviewed the captain’s standing orders for the shore patrol. Maintain good order and discipline. Refrain from use of force unless absolutely necessary. Identify the bar where most of the sailors of Redoubt are on liberty and station half the shore patrol there while patrolling with the other half…
There went his plan to keep all four sailors with him at all times so he could keep his eye on the shore patrol that were supposed to be keeping their eyes on everyone else.
After landing, Geary let the other passengers on the shuttle leave the field while he held back with his shore patrol. “Demore, I hear you’ve been to Barcara a lot.”
“Yes, sir!” Demore agreed, grinning. “Four times! Barcrawl is a great liberty port. You see that exit over there? Once you go through, all you have to do is turn right and in no time you’ll be in among the bars and the rave huts and the girls and the boys and whatever else you want!”
“Where do you end up if you go left at the dock exit?” Geary asked.
Demore’s grin faded into puzzlement. “I dunno, sir. I’ve always turned right.”
“Listen up,” Geary told his four patrollers. “There are two rules for tonight. One, do what I tell you to do. Two, don’t do anything I didn’t tell you to do. Any questions?”
“What’s our job?” Alvarez asked.
“To keep fights from breaking out, to make sure no one does anything stupid, and to make sure no local laws are broken.”
“Oh. Sir, I don’t think four of us are going to be able to handle that.”
“There’s five of us,” Demore pointed out.
“Oh, yeah. Okay.”
“Follow me,” Geary ordered, leading his patrol toward the exit. At least they all looked like shore patrol with their dress uniforms, arm bands, and holstered shockers.
Just outside the exit, he found four local police officers waiting, one of them a woman with a chief’s star on each collar, and whose no-nonsense look promised trouble for anyone making trouble. “Shore patrol,” she said. “Where are the rest?”
“This is it,” Geary said.
“What about the Marines?”
“Marines? What Marines?”
The chief eyed Geary as if suspicious that he was a troublemaker. “A unit of Alliance Marines has been working with Callas Republic ships. They’re on liberty in Barcara tonight.”
“Marines?” Geary repeated. “On liberty? Here?”
“That’s right. In the same place as your sailors. I don’t want any trouble!”
“Neither do I.”
“And I don’t want any trouble with the sailors from the two Callas Republic warships who are also on liberty here tonight! Keep your Marines and your sailors quiet!”
Geary rubbed his forehead, trying to imagine how this could get any worse. The chief’s next words answered that unspoken question.
“And there’s a squadron of aerospace pilots having some sort of celebration downtown. I want them kept under control, too. No street strafing!”
“Street strafing?”
“No street strafing! Give me your contact info!”
Geary heard Petty Officer Demore chuckle as they left the local police, turning right and walking toward the lights and raucous sounds coming from the Entertainment District. “Contact info. Like that’ll do any good in there.”
“Why wouldn’t comms work in there?” Geary asked.
“Bar owners are always dropping off disposable jammers on the streets so anyone wanting to use comms has to go into one of the bars,” Demore explained. “They also jam calls between bars, so anyone wanting to talk to anyone else has to go to the bar someone else is in to do it.”
Geary checked his comm pad, seeing it already reporting degraded conditions. “We’ll have to pass information face to face? Why do the authorities in Barcara allow that?”
“The way it was told me, sir, was that the more money the bar owners make because of doing stuff like that, the more money they have to pay off the authorities and the police. So it’s sorta a win-win.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Geary grumbled. As his shore patrol walked past the border of Barcara’s proper-sounding Entertainment District, Geary watched the last bar on his comm pad disappear to be replaced by an out-of-contact notice. “Where are our people going to be hanging out? Any ideas?”
“I heard meet up at the Brooklyn Bar,” Chadra offered.
“There’s a Brooklyn Bar here, too?” Riley asked in amazement.
“Every port’s got a Brooklyn Bar,” Demore said with the authority of years of service. “It’s like the Forbidden Palace bar, and the Bolivar Bar, and the Jungle Bar. There’s one in every port.”
“The same people don’t own them everywhere, do they?” Riley asked.
“Nah. I don’t think so.”
“You ever been to Brooklyn, Ensign Geary?”
Don’t get too familiar with the enlisted. That was the advice officers like Lieutenant Booth gave. But at the moment Geary wasn’t too impressed by the advice of Lieutenant Booth. And it wasn’t like he was sharing private information. “My family left Old Earth a long time ago. I don’t know the last time anyone I’m related to went back there, if anyone ever has.”
“We could be the ship sent for the celebration, right?” Alvarez said. “That’s only a few years away, isn’t it?”
“Every ten years,” Geary said. “So the next trip back to Old Earth will be two years from now. It’s a long haul, but Redoubt won’t be the ship chosen. It’s always a battleship or a battle cruiser. If you want a chance at going, you’ll have to transfer to one of them. And you have to do it before the ship is chosen, taking your chances that the one you go to will be the one that goes, because my mother said when she was in the fleet as soon as the ship got selected everybody wanted to transfer to it.”
“How could I make that happen, sir?” Chadra asked, surprising Geary with the question. As far as he knew, it was the first time Chadra had expressed interest in anything related to his work. Then again, Seaman Chadra was in Ensign “Skater” Setlie’s division, so maybe his lack of motivation wasn’t entirely Chadra’s fault.
“You have to do a good job,” Geary said. “Our captain has to recommend you for the transfer.”
“And then maybe I could get to Old Earth?” Chadra grinned. “I’m gonna try that.”
“Yeah, sure,” Seaman Riley scoffed, rolling her eyes.
“Don’t start,” Geary warned them both. He’d noticed that Chadra and Riley were staying as far away from each other as they could while still staying close to him. But as long as they didn’t let personal dislik
e get in the way of their work, he wouldn’t make a big deal of it.
Barcara’s main drag was even more garish than he had expected, virtual neon signs and images filling the street above head level, the sidewalks next to the bars and rave huts filled with a wide variety of local men and women dressed in clothing that varied from suggestive to borderline obscene. “Hey, sailor!” one called as she caught Geary’s eye. “Special deal tonight! Just for you!”
“No, thanks,” Geary called back, trying to spot the sign for the Brooklyn Bar amid the other bright advertisements floating overhead.
“There it is!” Demore called out, pointing to a sign featuring a smiling sailor waving in welcome against a backdrop of archaic skyscrapers.
Inside, the Brooklyn Bar was crowded, chairs filled around closely packed tables and the bar elbow-to-elbow. Aside from a couple of big virtual pictures cycling through scenes that might or might not show the actual Brooklyn, the decoration was made up of bottles behind the bar and a scattering of plaques from various ships on one wall. “Real wait-staff?” Geary asked, startled to see the men and women weaving among the tables to deliver drinks.
“Yes, sir,” Demore said, grinning as he looked around. “Real wait-staff can, uh, interact with the customers, you know?”
“Oh.” He was supposed to post half his shore patrol here. Geary looked them over, trying to decide. Demore was not only the most senior among them, but also likely the most reliable, which was a pretty sad commentary on the other three. Alvarez was at least trying to look professional, and she was a fairly experienced sailor. “I need to post two of you in this bar to keep an eye on our sailors. That’ll be you, Demore, and Alvarez. You’ll be here on your own while I patrol with Chadra and Riley. Can I count on you?”
Demore smiled and nodded so quickly that Geary immediately distrusted him, but that still left him no other options. Alvarez brightened, though, as if being pleasantly startled by being given the responsibility.
“Stay here,” Geary said, pointing to the end of the bar nearest the door and speaking loudly enough to be heard over the noise filling the place. “Keep an eye on everything. If you see trouble developing, try to call me. If you can’t, send Alvarez to find me.”
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