The Fleet05 Total War

by David Drake (ed)

  When it reached the general area, the Colin Powell began scanning the local system for signs of the pirate’s safe port. Life existed on three of the ten planets and two of the many moons circling them, revolving around the yellow star, according to long-range telemetry. It would take time to pick out the best prospect. The troops within had nothing to do but hone their skills and wait, and try to reason with their new allies, a squad of Khalian warriors.

  “Look, Blitvan, it’s bad enough we have to work with you musty-smelling, rat-faced furballs,” “Tarzan” Shillitoe complained, “but you’re making the exercises unnecessarily difficult by arguing every order with me.” The Nedge translator chirped out the sergeant’s words in Khalian, and the warriors scowled. The big sergeant was beginning to regret issuing laser rifles to the Weasels for weapons exercise. He figured they’d try mutiny or something equally stupid sooner or later. It had only been a matter of time after the deck officer taught the Weasels to use the power lifts, giving them access to every part of the ship except Engineering, Arsenal, and the bridge, to keep them from feeling trapped on the cabin level. They learned quickly, and now here they were, making a break for it. The shrinks were likely right when they said the Khalia were scared shitless, and too proud to show it. The Alliance ships were out of their control, and they were surrounded by large enemies with unlimited firepower. Even a Khalian warrior had to sleep sometime. These lads were beginning to show the symptoms of fatigue.

  Blitvan snarled out a few syllables, and the Nedge hastily repeated his words in clipped Standard. “Flattery will not serve here,” was the chieftain’s reply. “It is our honor to dispose of the dishonorable thieves of our race, and we do not wish to share it with you.”

  “Your supreme chief ordered you to serve me,” Shillitoe spoke slowly and clearly. He pushed up to Blitvan and glared down into the Khalian leader’s eyes, which were glowing with fury. Blitvan wasn’t very big for a Khalian, but he was feisty. “I am in charge of this mission, and you will be deployed as I see fit. Otherwise, you’re not getting to the shuttle bay or on that landing craft, and I won’t give you any oxygen equipment if you do manage to get aboard.” The Nedge hesitated, ducking its beak protectively toward its breast feathers. “Translate, dammit!” Tarzan roared. His voice echoed in the metal-domed chamber.

  “He understands you,” the unit’s medical officer, Dr. Mack Dalle, interposed quickly, watching the Khalian’s face. “So do a few of the others. They must speak some Standard.”

  “Then why do we need him?” Tarzan pointed at the quivering Nedge.

  “Point of honor,” Blitvan said suddenly in Standard. “I am deprived of the rest of my entourage, but I demand at leasht a few of my perquithites. I will communicate with you in your language since my chief demandsh it. But I object to the indignity of the thituation.”

  Tarzan controlled his face with difficulty. Blitvan had a ridiculous lisp to go with his oversize front teeth. Some of the other Apes were grinning openly.

  When the general order had come down that the Khalia had surrendered and were now part of the Alliance, there was disbelief and fury among the Fleet personnel. How could the Khalia, who had been the Alliance’s fiercest enemy, suddenly change sides? It wasn’t believable. Medical Service’s headshrinkers were kept busy analyzing the nightmares of combat veterans who couldn’t take the change in status. Protesters filled the x-waves communicating their displeasure with their representatives in the Alliance Council.

  But orders were orders. Fleet personnel were expected to welcome their new brothers-in-arms with, if not friendship, at least well-veiled hostility. In the Apes’ quarters, the disposer was kept busy, disintegrating kilos worth of war trophies: Khalian-tail coats, skin rugs and chair covers, and other, more unusual constructions. Jordan was persuaded with difficulty to conceal his ear collection, since he couldn’t be bullied into burning it.

  The Apes had a slightly easier time adjusting to Weasels as allies than did most of their fellow Marines. After their experiences on Target, and what followed after, it was a reasonable progression, if not a simple one. The shrinks listened to them one at a time for a few days, and pronounced them ready for joint missions as soon as Command required. His fellow sergeants harassed Shillitoe about being a Weasel-lover, and predicted that the faithless Khalia would probably let him down when he needed them most. Tarzan ignored them and tried to go on with business as if it was usual. Privately, he was proud of his men for handling the situation better than the other units.

  Specialist Pirelli and Medical Officer Mack Daile spent hours in the rec chamber instructing the others in a few phrases of Khalian, mostly military orders and queries about health. Pirelli was a Khalian convert, after Weasel volunteers had risked their lives to help him when he had been wounded on Target. Some of the Apes were more responsive than others to the lessons. Sokada had more or less adopted the Khalian cub he’d orphaned during their mission.

  “What about insults?” Dockerty had asked, shouting above the voices of the others, who were repeating aloud the squeals and hisses for “set lasers to pinpoint” and “can you move your forelimb?” “We want to know when they’re calling us names. You’ve met Blitvan.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Pirelli had said. “ ‘Why are you called Apes?’ he wanted to know. ‘Are you humans not all Apes?’ Miserable Weasel. I wonder why we don’t mind calling ourselves names, but we don’t like to hear it from other types.”

  Dockerty pressed Daile. “You know it won’t be all nice-nice. I want to be able to respond appropriately. Come on. It could help dispel the tension.”

  The two instructors looked at each other. It was a reasonable request. The Khalia certainly weren’t all taking the change from enemy to ally that well, either. Mack shrugged his narrow shoulders and, with Shillitoe’s permission, turned to the translation program in the comp system for Khalian equivalents to “your mother wears army boots.”

  As a result of the instruction, the Marines could understand some of the muttering going on in the ranks of Khalian warriors. It increased in volume and ferocity when Blitvan accepted grudgingly Sergeant Shillitoe’s orders and commanded them to back away from the lift car.

  “But I will not acthept the rank of common soldier,” Blitvan sneered, as the Apes made way for them.

  “Dockerty is my second in command,” Shillitoe stated. “You will be equal with him, with insignia to match.” Keeping his expression bland, Dockerty made a half salute to the glaring Weasel. “All right? No more backchat. I’m going back to the rec room now. You can join me there if you want. Or go take a nap. At ease. Dismissed!”

  * * *

  Within a few hours, telemetry announced that there was a likely prospect in the star system dead ahead of the Colin Powell. The fourth planet had a nitrox atmosphere, and .90 g gravity. It was inhabited; sensors picked up a hundred-odd life readings.

  “Some of them are human,” Daile announced, reading off the data as it scrolled up the screen embedded in the recreation-room table.

  “We already knew there were humans helping them,” Shillitoe replied, his feet crossed on the table next to a half-finished beer. “Take that ugly spud helping them, the rat-face, what was his name? There must be others. How many Khalians? Command figured there couldn’t be too many, not more than a hundred or two. Still, that’s too many for our unit to take, even combined with the Khalians. I registered a protest with Captain Slyne, but he’s still got the idea that it’s smart to land the units thirty minutes apart. So he won’t lose any more than he has to, he says. They must give them stupid pills in Officers’ Training. An interval like that could kill us.”

  “I can’t make sense of the other readings.” Mack continued to study the screen. “The blood pressure and body temperature are right for Khalia, but the body-mass indicator is all wrong. Too high.”

  “Probably a screwup in the program,” Shillitoe said, peering over the s
creen. “Missing a decimal point or something. Ask for a clarification. I bet you it says the humans weigh five hundred kilos each.”

  As Mack reached for the keypad, the screen cleared, and a red-bordered graphic appeared in its place. “Attention. Attention, please,” came the pleasant voice of the communications officer. “We are approaching orbit. Landing parties to the shuttle bay.”

  Tarzan tossed back the last ounces of beer and rose to his feet. “Okay, boys and ferrets,” he roared, his booming voice carrying to the rear of the recreation chamber over the clamor of voices and the clatter of game pieces and crockery. “Just like in the drill. Move it!”

  * * *

  The mission was slated for three units, under the command of Captain Slyne. The Apes were A Unit, put down ahead of two other units completely comprised of human Fleet Marines. Their job was to secure the command post and destroy communications gear as quickly as possible, holding off the other unfriendlies until the second and third units arrived. With the help of the Khalians, Shillitoe was to identify and capture leaders.

  Within the landing capsule, the Khalians watched suspiciously as the Apes locked down their suit helmets, activating instrument lights and comlinks. There were two Apes for every Khalian, a force of numbers that made them very uneasy. Blitvan had flatly refused retooled armor for his party, insisting that they would interfere with his warriors’ mobility. Instead, they were issued medical wristlets and back-mounted oxypacks, and fitted with communication earplugs, an obsoleted version of the helmet comlink. Furry ears twitched around the capsule as the connection tone sounded, hooking them into the Command frequency.

  “How do they know where we are going?” asked Thalet, Blitvan’s lieutenant, in Khalian. “Their priests use no incantations that I recognize.”

  “Silent prayer,” Blitvan hissed swiftly. “Keep your eyes and ears open, as a brave warrior must, and we may yet return to our home world.”

  The audio pickups carried every word to Shillitoe and his corporals, who exchanged wary glances.

  * * *

  The capsule thudded down and burned along the ground through deciduous undergrowth, burying itself partly into the soft soil of the fourth planet from the yellow star. The air beyond the hatch was warm and fragrant, peppered by the sharp taste of industrial pollution somewhere in the distance.

  “These pirates must have repair or manufacturing facilities out there,” Shillitoe growled. “We’d better find out what it is they’re making. I don’t want to destroy unnecessarily. By the numbers, now. Move out! One! Two! Three!”

  Following the sergeant’s barked orders, Marines and Khalians sprang out of the hatch, weapons at the ready.

  “Douse that fire before the pirates see our smoke!” Tarzan shouted, pointing at the undergrowth that had burst into flame from the capsule’s frictive landing. Two of the Apes ran to obey, carrying handheld extinguisher units from the capsule’s storage.

  They had landed at the concealed top of a ridge with the sun behind them, to make it difficult for anyone in the forested valley below to see them. It was late afternoon, local time. Lights were beginning to come on in the habitations in the valley.

  “The locals can’t be expecting us,” Ellis said, peering through the brush with infrared binoptics. “They must not have much in the way of advance tracking systems.”

  “Traitors do not deserve to have the highest grade of equipment,” Blitvan observed.

  “Methinks the Weas—Khalian doth protest too much,” grumbled Viedre.

  The soil underfoot was soft and lightly packed. Each footfall kicked up little clouds of dust. The G force was noticeably lighter here than was standard on Fleet vessels. Effortlessly, Jordan threw his heavy plasma cannon up in the air and caught it, smiling at the reduction in its weight. Marks hoisted another cannon onto his back and paced beside Jordan into the valley. Dockerty beckoned to his sharpshooters, fanning them out through the undergrowth. Shillitoe nodded approval. “If we have to go hand-to-hand, activate grav boots. I don’t want something tossing you around because you mass less down here.”

  Unbuckling the holster guard of his laser pistol, Mack Daile sniffed the air and looked around. The Fleet doctor wasn’t much of a soldier, the sergeant thought, but he was resilient and observant. Shillitoe relied almost as heavily on him as he did on his Apes.

  The Khalians hunched in a knot behind the stern of the capsule, peering over the valley below and growling to one another, paying no heed to the sergeant’s order to form up.

  ”What’s the matter with you?” asked Shillitoe, stalking up to Blitvan. The Nedge translator stepped forward. “I don’t want to hear it from you,” the sergeant forestalled him, waving a finger at the chieftain. “I want to hear it from him.”

  “This does not smell Khalian,” Blitvan said in a suspicious tone. “There is something else here.”

  “Tell me. Keep your voice down; the audio pickup will transmit everything you say.”

  “The lights are too high, and there are too many of them for this much starlight.”

  “Perhaps the pirates took over a human colony,” Ellis offered.

  “Negative,” Shillitoe said. “There are no Alliance colonies in this system.” He worried again that the captain had weakened them unnecessarily by dividing the forces too far. Investigating an unknown situation, the units should have come down boom, boom, boom. He strode to the head of the file next to Utun, who was point officer. Training the telemetry units forward, she stepped out.

  Silently, the unit moved down the slopes of the hill under the shadow cast by the ridge. A tiny thread of warm cooking smells passed by on the wind, and the distant lowing of herd animals mixed with the susurrus of swaying grasses.

  “Nice place,” said Daile suddenly, from the back of the line.

  “But not Khalian,” Blitvan insisted, the lisp crackling on open audio frequency. “See.”

  As they broke out of the woods a third of the way from the bottom of the valley, they came upon corrals of farm animals and huge, hangarlike structures inside which the Marines could just make out the shapes of steel-based machinery and square bales of dried grasses.

  “Too high for Khalia to use,” Shillitoe agreed. “So this is a human complex. But whose? A renegade human colony on the edge of Khalian space?” He changed frequency on his commset and listened. “B Unit? C Unit?” He clicked back. “Neither of the others have made the drop yet. No one’s in our range. Dammit, this is an anomaly!”

  * * *

  Within a few hundred yards, they reached a cluster of low wooden houses in a clearing. Along one side of the close-set buildings lay a communal vegetable garden, in which wooden poles lashed together in pairs and festooned with leafy vines stood among lower plants hung with ripening cucurbits and capsicums. Rising up from the center of the small community was a tall, white building constructed of the local stone. It had no windows below the second story, and an array of spiral antennas above a barred window at the top of the square central tower.

  “Krims, if that doesn’t say ‘Look in here,’ nothing does,” Viedre stated. “We’ll find our pirate leaders in there, if anywhere.”

  Softly, they made their way along a muddy path through the garden and into the midst of the village. The pathways among the houses were well worn. Sodden patches had been filled in here and there with gravel. The wooden walls of the houses showed signs of age. Water rot had swollen patches and caused corners of boards to flake and crumble into shards. The doors of the houses all faced inward, toward the white building.

  “Bad planning. There’s only one exit from that structure.”

  “This has been here a long time,” Mack said. “Did the pirates take refuge with humans? Or has this rebellion been building longer than we ever guessed?”

  “Why would we, or you, need these big doors?” Blitvan hissed, annoyed at having to respond to yet another of
Shillitoe’s subordinates. “See, they are double, swinging out in two vertical sections.”

  From the wide gate of the stone structure, the Marines heard the sounds of marching feet on stones.

  “The night watch. Conceal yourselves.”

  * * *

  The Marines were just barely hidden within the shadows when six guards emerged from the gate and passed under the lantern at the corner of the barbican. Shillitoe studied them, and let out his breath.

  “Humans, all right,” he said into his comlink. “How many are there?”

  “Don’t know,” Utun complained, holding out her unidirectional scan. “Could be one, could be dozens behind those. Something in this white stone screws up transmission.”

  “Syndicate!” Ellis added excitedly on the private channel to Shillitoe, studying the approaching men. “I remember those uniforms from briefings. But whose are those badges? Red rectangle with blue ‘X’ corner to corner. I don’t remember that family.”

  “Sarge, they’re coming right at us. They must know we’re here,” Utun announced urgently.

  “So much for a concealed approach. Utun, are they carrying any instrumentation?”

  “No, Sarge.”

  “Then they’re relying on eyeball contact. Prepare to withdraw. We’ve got to learn what this place is before we go diving in. Blitvan, keep your men, er . . . well, men behind us.”

  “I hear,” muttered the Khalian into his pickup. “What is before us?”

  “Humans.”

  Blitvan crept up behind Shillitoe, followed by his entire force of ten Weasels. He watched the guards come within feet of them, and then turn away, following the path to the left. “But those are Syndicate humans.” His small eyes shone with a red light. He turned to his warriors and let out a warbling cry. The warriors answered, and they rushed forward into the midst of the approaching humans, the Nedge following, flapping its feathered upper limbs and shrieking.