Infinite Stars

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  “What if a fight breaks out?” Alvarez asked.

  “Find me.” Geary led Chadra and Riley outside again, dodging come-ons for a variety of entertainments. Spotting a pair of local cops strolling by as if oblivious to the raucous offers, he hailed them. “Excuse me. Have you seen which bar the Marines are in?”

  “Jungle Bar,” one replied, looking Geary over. “Shore patrol? Don’t go in there.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” Chadra and Riley followed as Geary walked down the street, studying signs while weaving between packs of sailors who had obviously already consumed copious amounts of alcohol and other recreational substances. Finally spotting a bright display which showed lions, tigers, and elephants hoisting drinks under palm trees, he went to the door of the Jungle Bar. Looking inside, he could see the place was packed with Marines. “You two stay right with me,” he told the sailors.

  Eyes and heads swung to watch as Geary entered the bar, Chadra and Riley nervously staying so close that they kept treading on the backs of his feet. “Good evening,” Geary said to the nearest Marines as he fought off the uncomfortable sensation of being a target on a firing range. “How are you Marines doing?”

  Wary looks changed to smiles when it became obvious that Geary didn’t intend trying to throw his weight around. “Just fine, sir. What can we do for you?”

  “Where are your senior people in here?”

  “Right this way, sir!” one Marine announced. Geary followed until they reached a small table with only two occupants, seated facing each other. One, a master sergeant, turned his stern visage toward Geary, while the other, a gunnery sergeant, watched with a polite but unyielding look on her face.

  “Yes… sir?” the master sergeant asked.

  “I’m in charge of the shore patrol for the Redoubt,” Geary said.

  “I guessed that, sir.”

  “I just wanted to make sure there weren’t any problems tonight between my sailors and your Marines. I’d appreciate your advice on how to keep our people out of trouble.”

  “If we keep them away from each other there shouldn’t be no trouble at all, sir,” the master sergeant assured him, mollified by Geary’s request for advice. A waitress brought by two full shot glasses, setting one down before the master sergeant and the other before the gunnery sergeant. “If you will excuse me a moment, sir.” The two sergeants toasted each other before downing their shots. “Where are your people at, sir?”

  “Most of them are in the Brooklyn Bar,” Geary said.

  “Hey!” the master sergeant yelled, producing instant silence in the crowded Jungle Bar. “Stay out of the Brooklyn Bar, you apes! And nobody go looking for space squids to fight! You all got that?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!” Marine voices chorused, followed by a babble as individual conversations resumed.

  “I can’t ask for better than that,” Geary told the master sergeant.

  “You could,” the gunnery sergeant said, grinning. “You being an officer and all.”

  “Yeah, I may be an ensign, but I’m not that dumb. I appreciate your help. Let me know in the unlikely event that you need my assistance with anything.”

  “We’ll do that, sir,” the master sergeant said as two more full shots arrived at the table. “Thank you for the offer. If I might offer you some more advice?”

  “Please do.”

  “There’s a bunch of pilots at the Lux. I might’ve heard something about street strafing.”

  Street strafing. Unwilling to admit his ignorance, Geary nodded. “Where’s that at?”

  “Down the street that way. You’ll probably hear them before you see them.” The master sergeant spotted Seaman Chadra watching him, and sized up Chadra with a single look. “Straighten up, you boot! You’re on duty!”

  “Yes, sir!” Chadra replied, coming to such a rigid form of attention that he seemed in danger of falling over.

  “Don’t call me sir! I work for a living!” The master sergeant paused, turning his attention back to Geary. “No offense meant, sir.”

  “None taken,” Geary said. He wondered how long enlisted had been making that joke about officers. Probably for as long as there had been enlisted and officers. “Thank you, Master Sergeant, Gunny.” He nodded farewell to the two Marines before leading Chadra and Riley back out of the bar.

  Once on the street, Chadra exhaled so loudly that Geary gave him a worried look. “Are you okay?”

  “That sergeant!” Chadra said. “I was afraid to breathe!”

  “Mr. Geary wasn’t scared of him,” Riley said, smiling proudly.

  “You just have to treat people with the respect they deserve,” Geary explained.

  “What’s that mean, sir?”

  “It means… don’t be a jerk. Even if you think you could get away with it. Let’s find the Lux.”

  As the master sergeant had predicted, the whoops and shouts carrying into the street advertised the location of the Lux before they reached it. Somebody was having a really good time.

  They passed a group of Callas Republic sailors huddled together. “Shore patrol!” one of them shouted, and the entire group took off down the street.

  “What do you suppose they were doing?” Riley wondered.

  “Not our problem,” Geary said. “They’re not doing it any more.”

  Reaching the door to the Lux, where several citizens of Barcara were lounging as if awaiting any calls for their particular trades, Geary found his passage blocked by a local police officer. “No enlisted sailors in there,” the cop said. “Officers only.”

  “They’re on shore patrol,” Geary said, trying to sound assertive but knowing he had no authority over local police.

  The cop plainly also knew that Geary had no authority over her. “Officers only.”

  Geary looked at Chadra and Riley. “Can you two just stand there and do nothing until I get back?”

  Riley nodded. “We’re good at doing nothing.”

  “Right. I have to go inside. I’ll be right back out. Don’t. Do. Anything.”

  The police officer let Geary pass. Once inside, he found a large room with all the furniture pushed up against the walls. More than a dozen pilots were leaping from one piece of furniture to the next while several others cheered them on.

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant,” Geary asked the nearest one. “What’s going on?”

  “Touch and goes,” the lieutenant replied, taking a drink from the bottle in his hand. “They drink a round, then they go around the edge of the room without touching the floor, then they remove some of the furniture and do it again. Repeat until a winner is declared or any survivors are incapable of continuing. Who are you? Shore patrol? Really?”

  “Yes, sir,” Geary said.

  “You going to bust us, Ensign? Hey, the Shore Patrol’s here!”

  Another lieutenant came up, eyeing Geary as she grabbed the bottle from the male lieutenant and took a drink. “Where are you from?”

  “The Redoubt,” Geary said.

  “Whoa! Deep spacer! You’re not jump happy, are you?”

  “No, I’m just trying to make sure things don’t get out of hand tonight.” On the heels of his words a crash announced the failure of one of the pilots to negotiate a safe landing on a piece of furniture.

  “Have no fear,” the male lieutenant assured Geary. “As you can see, we are professionals.”

  “Are you wearing an eject assist harness?” Geary asked, pointing to the device strapped to the pilot.

  “He knows what an eject assist harness is!” the woman lieutenant commented. “You ever done any street strafing, ensign?”

  “No. I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Say someone wanted to try flying down a street at low altitude with an eject assist harness. That would be called street strafing.”

  “You guys do that?” Geary asked. “I thought those belts had limited maneuvering capability.”

  “That makes it a challenge,” the male lieutenant advised cheerfully. “Or
so I’ve heard. Never done it.”

  “Me, neither,” the female lieutenant said. “I don’t know anybody who has.”

  “Why do you have a phrase like street strafing for something no one ever does?” Geary asked.

  “That is a very good question! Want a drink?”

  “I’m on duty. Could you guys please not make things any worse out there? I’ve got three ships worth of sailors and a bunch of Marines all drinking heavily.”

  “Seriously? Why don’t you give up now?”

  “I’m stubborn,” Geary said.

  The lieutenants grinned at him. “We will take your request under advisement,” the man said. “Good luck, Ensign!”

  Outside again, Geary broke through a ring of locals offering “services” to Chadra and Riley, who were back to back and looking around in confusion. “Follow me,” Geary said, worried about what Demore and Alvarez might be up to back at Brooklyn Bar.

  Their path was blocked by a group of Callas sailors moving like a herd across the street. Once past that obstacle, Geary stopped again as Riley called out. “Sir? Is that Petty Officer Frink?”

  Looking that way, Geary saw Frink weaving alone down the sidewalk. Ambling along behind him were several citizens of Barcara, reminding Geary of predators waiting for a wounded prey to collapse. As eager as he was to rush back to check on Demore and Alvarez, Geary couldn’t let this situation pass. “Hey, Petty Officer Frink, why don’t you come along with us?”

  Frink glowered at Geary. “I don’t haveta. On liberty.”

  “Actually, yeah, you do have to,” Geary said. “We’re heading back to the Brooklyn Bar.”

  “Come on, man,” Chadra urged.

  With Chadra on one side and Riley on the other, they got Frink back inside the Brooklyn Bar. “Park him with some friends who’ll look after him,” Geary ordered his two sailors. “Make sure they know I’ll be expecting them to get Frink back to ship in one piece. They shouldn’t have let him wander off on his own in his condition.”

  He went to the bar, looking for Demore and Alvarez.

  Neither was in sight.

  But another sailor was standing at the near end of the bar, wearing the shore patrol armband, the shocker belt and holster at her waist. “Yerevan? What are you doing? You’re not on shore patrol duty.”

  Petty Officer Yerevan squinted at Geary, then opened her eyes wider as if trying to identify him. Grinning, she saluted. “Oh, hi, Ensign Geary!”

  It didn’t take the smell of alcohol on her breath to let Geary know this sailor was loaded. “Where are Demore and Alvarez?” he repeated.

  “Demore? Uh, I got no idea. Alvarez. That I know. She had to go to the bathroom really bad, so she asked me to take over for a few, because she said Ensign Geary told her someone had to be here,” Yerevan explained. “She was being real responsible!”

  “You can’t—”

  “Don’t you worry, sir! I am fully funckal—functional!” Yerevan’s eyes went past Geary, gazing down the bar, and lit with sudden fury. Before he realized what was happening, she had pulled out the shocker and was leveling it. “Get away from my glass, you beer-stealing bitch!”

  “No!” Geary grabbed the sailor’s gun hand, wrestling it down. “Alvarez!”

  Alvarez came running up, hastily sealing her uniform. “Everything okay, sir?”

  “No. Everything is not okay. Put back on the shore patrol armband, take back the shocker, and then stay here until I say otherwise!”

  “You gonna report me, sir?” Alvarez asked, looking downcast.

  “I don’t see what purpose that would serve,” Geary said, surprised to realize that Alvarez had been trying and simply hadn’t done a very good job of it. Besides, if he reported Alvarez he’d also have to report Yerevan, who when not drunk was a decent sailor. “Just do your best from here on.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Where’s Petty Officer Demore?”

  “He’s at the other end of the bar. So’s we can see everything that’s going on,” Alvarez said with a proud smile. “That was his idea.”

  “I bet it was.” Geary headed along the crowded bar, finally spotting Demore at the far end.

  Apparently tipped off that Geary was approaching, the petty officer spun about to face away from the bar. Demore stood at attention and saluted, a performance spoiled only by the bleariness in his eyes. “All is under control, sir!”

  “Have you been drinking, Demore?”

  The petty officer gaped at Geary with a wounded expression. “Drinking? Sir, drinking on duty would be a violation of fleet regulations.” He looked around as if gravely concerned. “Sir, I have been observing the activity in this bar, and I have to tell you that many of the personnel from the Redoubt are drinking to excess.”

  “You’ve noticed that, huh?”

  “Yes, sir. And so are some of the sailors from those Callas ships. I think we should keep a close eye on that.”

  “You do? Demore—” Geary broke off as a sudden burst of noise drew his attention. He saw sailors leaping to their feet and racing out the door of the bar. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I do not know, sir,” Demore said, pronouncing each word with exaggerated care. “I will investigate and—”

  “No. You will stay here. Get back down to the other end of the bar with Alvarez so you can keep an eye on each other! And if I catch you with a drink in your hand you’ll be busted back to seaman!”

  Joining the tail end of the rush out of the bar, Geary found Chadra and Riley standing to one side, watching the stream of passing sailors as if vaguely aware that they probably ought to do something but unable to figure out just what that was. “Come on!”

  They caught up with the rest of the sailors from the Redoubt at an open area intended for large gatherings. At the moment, the center of it was filled with Alliance sailors grappling with sailors in the uniforms of the Callas Republic. Geary heard yells and shouts that sounded oddly happy given the battle apparently under way. As he ran toward the central mass of struggling sailors, he encountered two sailors limping toward him as they supported each other. “Stop!” he yelled, then halted, staring. One of the sailors was Alliance, the other Callas, and they were grinning. “What’s going on?”

  The sailor from the Redoubt, Petty Officer Yamada, saluted with his free hand. “My left leg ain’t working so well, sir, and his right leg is kinda messed up, so we figured together we had two good legs.”

  “Brilliant thinking,” the Callas sailor agreed, also saluting Geary.

  “What is this fight about?”

  “Fight?” The sailors exchanged baffled looks. “There ain’t no fight, sir,” Yamada assured Geary. “These ex-cell-ent sailors are teaching us one of their tra-di-tion-al games.”

  “Rugby!” the Callas sailor added. “Nothing like it on any world under any star!”

  “That is a game?” Geary demanded, pointing at the clawing mass of humanity.

  “I know it don’t look like much,” the sailor from Callas apologized, “because we’re all sort of tired, but sometimes it gets really wild, you know? Arms and legs and noses and heads getting broken right and left and all about! Great fun!”

  Geary heard a sound like a stick snapping followed by a whoop of pain. “Somebody just broke an arm or leg.”

  “It’s getting good, then! Let’s get back in!” The two sailors began turning about while still supporting each other.

  “No! Everyone—!”

  “Hey, shore patrol!”

  Geary turned at the hail, seeing several local police officers approaching.

  The officers paused by Geary to eye the mass of sailors. “Riot or rugby?” one asked the others.

  “Kinda hard to tell,” another replied. “I think it’s rugby this time, though.”

  The first officer turned to Geary. “Do you want to handle this?”

  Geary looked at his available personnel, Chadra and Riley staring back at him with very worried expressions, remembered that their sh
ockers had no charges, and shook his head as he watched another sailor being carried off the field. “Be my guest.”

  The officers pulled fist-sized spheres from their belts, tapped some settings, then tossed them into the mass of sailors. Geary caught the edges of the subsonics being put off by the spheres, vibrations that were unpleasant at this range and unbearable closer in. The swarm of sailors scattered into individuals and small groups racing past Geary and the police. From what he could hear of their conversations, most of them were headed back to the bar.

  About a dozen bodies were left behind. “Any of them hurt bad?” a cop called as two others strolled among the fallen, protected from the vibrations by their vests.

  “Nah. Looks like they’re all just too drunk to stand on their own. Except for this one. Broken leg.”

  “Only one broken bone? They must have just started. We’re going to take these guys in,” the cop told Geary, making it clear that the statement was not negotiable.

  “Fine,” he said, looking around, “Chadra, Riley—” Geary looked around some more, but neither were anywhere in sight. They must have joined the stream of sailors back to the bar, thinking that Geary would also do so.

  “Lose something?” the cop asked.

  “Someone. Excuse me.” Geary checked his comm pad in the vain hope that the locater function would be working, seeing that it was jammed, too. He ran back toward the bars, seeing that most of the sailors had already rushed inside the Brooklyn Bar as quickly as they had recently dashed out. “Where are Chadra and Riley?” he called to Demore and Alvarez.

  “We have not seen them, sir!” Demore called back.

  He’d lost half his shore patrol. Geary ran back out to the street just in time to duck as someone shot past just over his head, trailed by the rumble of an eject assist harness and excited whoops.

  More pilots followed the first, caroming off the upper stories of the buildings as they tried to control their flight and racing unscathed through the virtual signs and advertisements filling the air above the street. Sailors boiled out of the bars to cheer the pilots on.