Steel Gauntlet

by David Sherman

  “You are saying that about ‘Your Huggable Military Force,’ Excellency?” Wellington-Humphreys laughed.

  Beerdmens laughed too. “Your Huggable Military Force,” YHMF, for short, was one of his favorite expressions, used to show his disdain for the choice of military force over that of diplomatic persuasion.

  “What will my Letter of Instructions say about a military escort?” she asked. Every diplomatic mission was authorized a military escort. The size of the escort depended on the mission and the desires of the chief diplomat.

  “You must have one, Madame.”

  “I don’t need one, Excellency,” Wellington-Humphreys replied, a sharp edge to her voice. “They are only an encumbrance. I have never needed one up to now. You know how I feel about Marines.” Diplomatic escorts were always Marines. Wellington-Humphreys harbored a special dislike for military men, one shared by most of the Confederation Diplomatic Corps. In her opinion, Marines were only good for breaking things.

  “Well, you will have one, Madame, that is final. But just beware of this St. Cyr, Madame. That is all I am saying.”

  “I can handle him,” Wellington-Humphreys replied, taking another deep drag of thule.

  Outside Beerdmens’s office Wellington-Humphreys paused by Grace’s workstation and leaned over to whisper in the older woman’s ear, “Grace, the old bastard let out one of the most horrible farts on record!”

  Through the closed door Beerdmens heard the women’s laughter and wondered what could be so funny.

  Julie Wellington-Humphreys had been a child of privilege destined never to suffer the pain of work or worry. So when at the age of twenty she announced imperiously that she intended to enter the Diplomatic Corps, her parents had been both pleased and horrified. Pleased, because diplomacy and government had been the avocation of Wellington-Humphreyses for generations; horrified, because to them it was no place for their daughter. But Julie was not to be dissuaded. Like all Wellington-Humphreyses before her, she was intelligent, boldly self-confident, determined, and used to getting her way.

  A raven-haired beauty in her youth and tall for her sex, age had only improved Julie Wellington-Humphreys’s looks. By the time she turned forty, a streak of gray had formed in her hair that swept back from the center of her forehead. As she aged the gray turned to white but the rest of her hair remained as black as in her youth. She cultivated an aloof expression, looking down her patrician nose at people when she spoke to them in the slow drawl affected by members of the Diplomatic Corps. But she spoke a dozen languages fluently and understood dozens more dialects, was a shrewd observer, and an excellent judge of character, priceless assets for any diplomat.

  Upon the occasion of her first ambassadorial appointment, Julie Wellington-Humphreys had changed her name to “J. Wellington-Humphreys.” She had never married and had no lovers. She had no time for marriage or dalliance. Besides, she had never met a man, or woman, up to her standards. But she had never met Marston St. Cyr. More to the point, she had never met the men of third platoon, Lima Company, 34th FIST.

  Chapter 28

  Brigadier Sturgeon’s landcar glided smoothly along the rain swept streets of New Kimberly, en route to Ambassador J. Wellington-Humphreys’s reception at the newly refurbished Confederation embassy.

  The brigadier had been surprised when Fleet Admiral Wimbush requested his presence the day before for a personal interview onboard the Ogie.

  “Ambassador Wellington-Humphreys arrived yesterday to begin negotiations with St. Cyr the day after tomorrow,” the admiral said. “She’s already been in touch with the bastard, and there’s going to be a huge reception at the site of our old embassy tomorrow evening. This reception is an ice-breaker, get the parties together, press some flesh and mellow everyone out over food and wine so they can get down to work the next morning. Since you Marines provide the security for our embassies, I asked General Aguinaldo to designate one of his commanders to do the same for the Ambassador. He picked the 34th.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me, Brigadier, thank the general,” Wimbush replied. He had regained much of his old confidence now that it seemed the initial debacle over the landing had resolved itself. If the negotiations proceeded well, he might still find himself a seat on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. “The reason I wanted to talk to you about this assignment, Brigadier, is because I want to impress on you that nothing, and I mean nothing, can be allowed to go wrong. Nobody trusts St. Cyr, Brigadier. I want you to pick your best men for this job and have them stick to Ambasador Wellington-Humphreys like—like—”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Here is the communiqué from the Confederation Council that lays out our relationship to this diplomatic mission,” Wimbush said as he handed it to the brigadier.

  “Whew,” Sturgeon exclaimed as he read. “She’s ‘Ambassador Plenipotentiary.’ That means—”

  “That means, Brigadier, that she outranks all of us.”

  “Sir, I promise you I’ll detail my best men to this assignment. My very best men.”

  The car continued through the darkened streets, rain pelting off its screens. Inside, the vehicle’s instrument panel lights glowed green on Brigadier Sturgeon’s face as he spoke. “Since the men of Ensign Vanden Hoyt’s platoon will accompany Ambassador Wellington-Humphreys during these negotiations, they’ll be closer to her than white on rice, so I want them and you there with me at this reception tonight to meet her,” Brigadier Sturgeon told Captain Conorado as he handed him the heavily gilded formal invitation.

  It read, “Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon, Commander, 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team and party.” It was the “and party” that got Conorado’s attention.

  “We don’t even get a mention?” he asked the brigadier, handing the invitation back to him.

  The brigadier waved it off. “This is an official Diplomatic Corps reception. To those people I’m on a social scale just a cut above the caterers, so you know where that puts the rest of you. The reception’s at nineteen hours. I’ll pick you up at 1830. Uniform is full dress with medals. Make sure Charlie Bass is sober.” He smiled. “Your battalion commander didn’t tell me why you recommended these men, Captain. I know why you picked Bass, anybody’d guess that, but why the others for the escort?”

  “Vanden Hoyt because he’s clean-cut, reliable, has good judgment, can act decisively in a crisis, and he’s an old-fashioned gentleman. That boy’s headed for flag command someday, sir, the hard way—he’s going to earn it. Dean, you know, sir. He’s quick-wilted and will follow orders. MacIlargie, well, he’s got potential as a troublemaker, sir, but he has a very good nose for trouble. And he personally flamed three enemy tanks in the Oppalia planethead, so he’s got guts. With this goddamned St. Cyr involved, the Ambassador’ll need a gutsy watchdog by her side.”

  The brigadier nodded. “I’m so damned glad this thing is about over, Captain.” He sighed. “These last weeks have been the worst fighting I’ve seen in years. Our casualties—” He decided not to discuss casualties with an officer whose company had suffered so severely. “Well, this is the best chance we’ve got to end this damned farce. Let’s get on with it, then.”

  “Sir, just what are ‘flaky croissants’?” Ensign Vanden Hoyt asked from the rear of the brigadier’s landcar. He was reading the menu from the by then well-thumbed copy of the invitation Brigadier Sturgeon had given to Captain Conorado earlier in the day.

  Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass leaned over the ensign’s shoulder and said, “Yessir, that ‘creamy Bernaise sauce’ on the ‘tenderloin tidbits’ sounds pretty suspicious to me.”

  Captain Conorado laughed. “Stand easy, Charlie, or I’ll have you on field rations the rest of this mission.”

  Dean and MacIlargie, sitting behind Bass and the officers, smiled broadly but kept quiet.

  “Hell, sir, at least I know what’s in ‘em. Look at this.” He pointed to “Creme Brulee with Crusty Brown Sugar Topping.”

  Ensig
n Vanden Hoyt smacked his lips. “Sounds good to me, Charlie.” He poked Bass in the ribs.

  Bass snorted and folded his arms over his chest. “Ensign,” he said, with the superior air of an experienced noncommissioned officer, “when you’re as salty as I am, you’ll appreciate the culinary delights of a cold beer, a greasy reindeer sausage, and a fine cigar, instead of this—this milk and cookies slop these goddamn dilettantes live off of.”

  “Gentlemen,” the brigadier said, “that menu is being catered by Ridgewell’s. Do any of you know who they are?” When there was no response he continued, nodding his head. “Ridgewell’s is a four-hundred-year-old catering firm that has subsidiaries on every world worth mentioning in Human Space. They are the most exclusive and expensive caterers in the Confederation.

  “Once, oh, fifteen years ago or so now, when I was commanding the legation guard on Carhart’s World—you remember Carhart’s World, Charlie—some billionaire offworlder who was on a hunting expedition there hired Ridgewell’s to cater a supper for his party. The nearest subsidiary was seventy-five light-years away. They put the goddamn meal in a hyperspace drone and shipped it all the way to Carhart’s World! The damned stuff was still hot when it got there. That cost him more than all of us will earn if we spend the rest of our lives in the Corps.”

  “Which we will,” Bass added firmly, indicating he didn’t care a damn for billionaires, catered meals, or Ambassador J. Wellington-Humphreys.

  “Sir,” Captain Conorado said, “what kind of person is this Ambassador J. Wellington-Humphreys?”

  Brigadier Sturgeon turned in his seat so he could speak directly to the men behind him. “Old family, old money, educated at the best schools, long history of outstanding service in the Diplomatic Corps. Arrogant, though. Thinks she can bring this mission off on the force of her own considerable personality, without any help from us.”

  “Damned stuck-up farts,” Bass muttered, meaning the entire Diplomatic Corps. The brigadier exchanged a quick glance with Captain Conorado. This was not the Charlie Bass they had known before Diamunde. The strain of the past few weeks was showing. Bass’s platoon had been in the heaviest fighting during the Oppalia breakout operation. But they were all tired.

  “Well, there are exceptions,” the brigadier said. “Remember old Jay Benjamin Spears, back on Wanderjahr?”

  “Yessir,” Captain Conorado answered. “He was with you when you pulled off the raid on whatsisname’s hideout.”

  “Turbat Nguyen-Multan,” the brigadier answered. “Yep, they threw away the mold when they made old J.B. He stood tall when we raided that old bastard. By the way, he received the Legion of Honor that I recommended him for on that occasion.” The Legion of Honor was the highest military decoration a civilian could be awarded for heroism. “But I agree with you, Charlie, most of the diplomats I’ve met wouldn’t have made a—” He gestured helplessly with one hand, searching for the appropriate phrase.

  “A pimple on a kwangduk’s ass,” Charlie Bass said.

  “Uh, right, Charlie,” the brigadier answered. He turned to address Vanden Hoyt, MacIlargie, and Dean directly: “After tonight you men will be Ambassador Wellington-Humphreys’s personal security escort for however long it takes her to conclude negotiations with St. Cyr and end this war, is that understood? You men will stick to her like another skin. You will be her shadow.”

  The three Marines replied in one voice, “Yessir.”

  Brigadier Sturgeon and his party moved slowly through the reception line. Ambassador J. Wellington-Humphreys stood next to C. Bowles Cabot, the newly appointed Confederation Ambassador to Diamunde, who stood next to Degs Momyer, who would be Minister of Finance in the new government the Confederation was assembling to replace the directorial boards of the conglomerates. Momyer’s secretary stood just behind him and whispered the names and titles of the visitors into his ear so he could whisper into C. Bowles Cabot’s ear. C. Bowles Cabot in turn whispered into J. Wellington-Humphreys’s ear, “The Honorable Clancy Drummon, President of Drummon Associates, and Lady Maybelle Drummon,” and so on. The arriving guests briefly shook hands with the dignitaries, murmured a few words, and passed on into the reception hall for refreshments.

  “Brigadier General Theodosius Sturgeon, commanding the 34th FIST, Confederation Marine Corps, and party,” the secretary whispered to Momyer, who whispered the information to Cabot, who whispered to the Ambassador, just loud enough for Brigadier Sturgeon to hear him. He winced. He was not a “brigadier general.” That was an army rank. Anyone could see he was a brigadier of Marines by the silver novas glittering brightly on the gold-fringed epaulets fixed to each shoulder of his stock collar tunic. He shook hands with the minister, then Ambassador Cabot, then paused for a moment before taking Ambassador J. Wellington-Humphreys’s extended hand in his own.

  “Madam Ambassador.” He bowed and gracefully brushed his lips over the back of her hand.

  “Brigadier,” she drawled, dragging the title out into three long syllables, looking down her nose at the Marine. “It seems,” she drew the word out into two syllables, “I shall be spending some time in the com-pah-nee of your Marines.” Her lips curled in a brief smile. Popinjay; size thirty-two waist, size five hat, she thought, and then: Still, he really looks splendid in that uniform. He did, bloodred tunic over gold trousers, his decorations splashed over his left chest; on each side of his tunic stock collar shone the bright rampant-eagle emblem of the Confederation Marine Corps. The brigadier introduced the other Marines. When he came to Bass, and he stepped forward to take J. Wellington-Humphreys’s proffered hand, she wrinkled her nose as an expression of annoyance came over her face. Bass had smoked a cigar just before leaving that evening, and the fabric of his uniform was still redolent with—to him, anyway—its fragrance.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Bass said, his voice just a little too loud.

  “You are the one,” she whispered involuntarily.

  “Ma’am?” Bass asked.

  The Ambassador shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, catching herself.

  When she arrived on Diamunde she had reviewed the files of the men picked to accompany her. She’d glanced, half amused, at the files for Vanden Hoyt, Dean, and MacIlargie; earnest, sincere-looking young men, inexperienced in everything important, good only for military or police details. But she lingered over Bass’s file. She hardly noticed the citations for bravery, which were mostly meaningless to her. But what stuck with her was the fact that when on a peacekeeping mission on a place called Elneal, he had killed a formidable warrior chieftain in a knife fight. “Nobody fights with a knife anymore!” she had exclaimed aloud. That fact both excited and repelled her. And now that knife-fighting throwback was standing there, eagerly expecting her to give him her hand.

  She glanced at the resplendent uniform tunic covering the expanse of his chest. Under that tunic was a man of considerable physical power, a man like her, used to getting, within certain limits of course, his way every time.

  Bass took the Ambassador’s hand awkwardly and self-consciously gave it a brief shake before letting go. His hand was warm, she noted, but callused. So this is the hand that drove the knife home, she thought as Bass passed on through the reception line.

  Her greeting of the other Marines in her escort was perfunctory, and they continued on through the line feeling very much that they had been summarily dismissed from the royal woman’s august presence.

  The Marines passed into the huge reception room where drinks and hors d’oeuvres were being served. Waiters flitted everywhere, hoisting silver platters heaped with tidbits or stacked with drinks. Bass snatched a long-stemmed glass of some effervescent wine and gulped it down.

  “Charlie, you’re supposed to sip that stuff, not chug it down,” Captain Conorado cautioned the platoon sergeant.

  “Aw, I’m dry as the Martac Waste, Skipper,” Bass explained, grabbing at another glass.

  “Well, that’s Katzenwasser ’thirty-six, Charlie,” the cap
tain said, slowly savoring his wine, “a vintage imported champagne.”

  “Imported from where?” Bass asked, making a face as he sipped it.

  “Wanderjahr, Charlie.”

  “Jesu!” Bass exclaimed loudly, and several heads turned in his direction. “I should’ve known it. No wonder they’re so fucked up back there. This stuff tastes like a liquid fart!”

  Again Conorado and the brigadier exchanged nervous glances. Then the brigadier laughed. You tell ‘em, Charlie! he thought. If he’d had his way, this war would be over now, St. Cyr dead or in prison, his forces smashed, no need for all the diplomatic playacting, all this bowing and scraping and “madam-may-I-introduce” crap. But the Confederation had ordered a negotiated settlement. Anger welled up again in the brigadier’s breast. Half the Confederation Council was in St. Cyr’s pocket; no wonder they voted to spare the bastard. All those good men dead, and for what? Worst of all, every man in the 34th FIST knew what was going on. Gunny Bass was only saying what he himself was thinking.

  Dinner, served after Charlie Bass had consumed eight more glasses of Wanderjahr Katzenwasser ’36 than were good for him, started as a minor disaster and went downhill quickly thereafter. The Marines were seated opposite and a few places down the table from Ambassador J. Wellington-Humphreys. Sitting directly opposite Bass was none other than Professor Jere Benjamin, whom Bass had seen around headquarters and knew by reputation. In a too-loud voice he began a conversation with the academic about the operation of the Straight Arrow antitank rocket.

  When the sautéed tenderloin tidbits in creamy Bernaise sauce were served, Bass looked down at his plate in alarm and said, in a voice loud enough that J. Wellington-Humphreys heard him clearly, “Jesus Muhammad, Skipper, looks like some bastard blew his nose on this shit!”