School of Fire

by David Sherman

  "But, sir—"

  "Godfuckingdamnit, Commander!" Brigadier Sturgeon shouted. "Get your asses into that car and get the fuck out of here and do it right the fuck now!" Shocked by his commander's language, but energized by it. Commander Peters scooped up Lorelei Keutgens and the remaining children and without another word ushered them into the house.

  "FIST Six Actual," the bridge watch officer drawled, "do you need fire support? Over."

  "No, goddamnit. Bridge! Shut up until I ask you!" Those goddamned space squids are enjoying the hell out of all this, I bet. Sturgeon thought. He laughed abruptly and ran to the hedges, where he crouched and drew his side arm.

  In the light of the forest fire behind him, Dean recognized Hway and Claypoole coming up the trail. "Rachman!" he shouted, his joy evident. He grabbed Hway and kissed her full on the mouth before he realized what he was doing. She did not protest.

  "My, you work fast." Claypoole grinned.

  "Joe!" Hway whispered. "Brigadier Sturgeon is waiting for us back at the house. Hurry! We don't have any time to waste!"

  Dean looked at Claypoole, who grinned and patted his blaster. "How come you get all the fun, boot?" he asked. The forest fire was growing behind them now as flames leaped from tree to tree and shrubs ignited from the heat. The wind had picked up too and was fanning the flames straight toward them.

  "They'll have to get around that," Dean said, meaning the fire, "and right now we're in more danger from the fire than from those men. I got one of 'em, though."

  They ran down the trail as the fire roared and howled behind them. The flames had now turned the darkness into the light of day, and they could feel the heat on their backs as they ran. Hway tripped and fell and Dean swooped her up with one hand and propelled her onward before him.

  Brigadier Sturgeon saw the trio outlined against the flames as they ran through the gardens. "Come on, come on!" he shouted as they jumped the hedge. They ran through the house and out into the driveway. Sturgeon took the driver's seat in a landcar parked there. A civilian vehicle, it didn't need a code to be started. "Claypoole," the brigadier shouted, "ride shotgun! Dean, cover us through the back window!" Then he turned to Dean and said: "Marine, you do good work." He put the vehicle into forward, and they roared off down the road to Schmahldorf, headlights cutting through the blackness.

  Smoke from the forest fire rolled overhead, obscuring them from the sensors on board the Denver.

  "Stop!" Hway shouted before they'd gone more than three kilometers. Sturgeon mashed the braking lever and the car slewed to a halt. "My grandmother's car! Back there, off the road!"

  Sturgeon shifted into reverse and backed slowly down the road.

  "There it is!" Claypoole shouted, coughing from the smoke.

  Several dark objects lay beside the road. Sturgeon's heart skipped a beat. "Cover me," he told Claypoole, and grabbing a glowball from a cargo pocket, he approached the car. It was empty. Four bodies lay crumpled on the shoulder. Three of them were burned beyond recognition. The fourth belonged to Commander Peters. Sturgeon kneeled beside his intelligence officer. The commander's right arm and leg were missing. "Ralph," he whispered, reaching for the commander's throat to feel for a pulse.

  "I fucked up," Commander Peters whispered. "They got the woman and the kids." He spoke with difficulty. "I tried to... to..." His voice trailed off.

  "Ralph, did you see which way they went? Ralph?" Sturgeon felt for the commander's pulse again. It was there, throbbing weakly, but he'd passed out.

  Dean and Claypoole crouched on opposite sides of the road, weapons facing outward, searching the darkness for movement. The brigadier motioned them to him. "Search along the sides of the road. They've got Mrs. Keutgens and the children. We'll have to go after them."

  "What about Commander Peters?" Dean asked.

  The brigadier motioned toward the body behind him. "He got three of them. He's hurt bad, but there's nothing we can do about that now. Our first priority is Mrs. Keutgens and the children."

  Hway came up. "Do they have my grandmother and my brothers and sister too?" she asked.

  "We're going after them," Brigadier Sturgeon said. "Bridge," he spoke into his communicator.

  "Bridge aye, FIST Six Actual."

  "Take out the villa. Alert the landing party. Tell them to get up here quick once the fireworks are over. I have a badly wounded officer who needs immediate medical attention."

  "Roger that, FIST Six Actual." Dean and Claypoole threw themselves flat and Sturgeon pulled Hway down into the roadbed and covered her body with his own.

  A brilliant, incandescent swath of light arced down from the heavens as everything behind them disintegrated in a flash—Dean counted "one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three"—and a roar. The ground shook so violently the four were bounced into the air. An extremely hot shock wave howled over them and then it was dark again, except for the fires that burned at intervals throughout the rubble of what had once been Lorelei Keutgens's estate. Even the raging forest fire had been consumed in the blast.

  "FIST Six Actual, this is Bridge. Ready for next fire mission."

  "Stand by," Brigadier Sturgeon said. Hway got shakily to her feet.

  "Our home..." She gasped as she saw what had happened. "Everything... gone!" She looked up at Brigadier Sturgeon with tearstained eyes.

  "I'm sorry, Hway. I had to even the odds," the brigadier said.

  "But my grandmother...?"

  "I had to take a chance, Hway. I'm betting the kidnappers didn't have time to get them back to the house. I'm pretty sure that's where they were going to meet up with the main body."

  "Brigadier!" Claypoole shouted. "Sir, a trail. Bush all trampled down. It heads back toward the villa."

  "Dean, stay with the girl. Give what aid you can to Commander Peters. Don't get shot by the landing party."

  "I know what to do, sir."

  Five bodies lay sprawled grotesquely in the bushes about half a kilometer off the road. Lying nearby, trussed and gagged, were Lori Keutgens and her grandchildren.

  "Thank God!" Lori choked when Brigadier Sturgeon had cut her bonds and pulled the gag out of her mouth.

  "What happened here?" he asked, but he already knew. He also knew he'd taken an awful gamble and won.

  "I couldn't see what happened, but when that great light flashed, they dropped us. Then this roar and a terrible heat wave, like an oven, passed over us and the men just fell down dead. There was this awful smell afterward." Lori spoke between coughs, wiping tears out of her eyes.

  Brigadier Sturgeon smiled, confident she couldn't see it in the dark. "You were close enough to the ground that it missed you and fried their brains. That smell is burnt human flesh and hair."

  "Wh-What was that explosion, Ted?" Lori asked.

  "I had to prevent those ambushers from joining the main body, Lori. I called in a laser strike on your villa."

  Lori gasped.

  "I had to, Lori," Sturgeon said quietly. Gently, he laid a hand on her shoulder. When she began to cry, he held her close to his chest. Claypoole diplomatically gathered up the children and led them back toward the road, where the landing party had already arrived. What the brigadier did not mention was that he had taken a big gamble that the ambushers who captured the Keutgenses had not already joined the main body when the plasma strike came down. Otherwise, Lorelei Keutgens and her grandchildren would now be drifting in the wind along with the molecules of the attackers.

  "Oh, liebchen... I-I mean Ted," Lori sobbed. "That was our home... everything..." She shrugged helplessly, "gone..." She was crying so hard he could hardly understand her. "All my family's history since it came here was in that house! Goddamn those men. Goddamn them. Goddamn them!" She pounded her fists against the brigadier's chest. Then an expression of intense hatred contorted her face. "Goddamn him, I'll fry his..." Just as suddenly, she laid her head against the brigadier's chest.

  "Lori, my men, the Denver, did what they had to do. Don't blame them for
this. Blame me, if you must." Lori clenched her fists and bit her tongue. It wasn't the Marines she meant. "Lori, you can rebuild, but most important, you and your grandchildren are safe."

  "Goddamned right we are!" She stiffened in his arms. "And we're going to stay that way!" She relaxed against the brigadier's chest. "Yes, we can rebuild." She sighed. "I guess this changes the rules of war here on Wanderjahr, doesn't it, Ted?"

  "It sure does," Sturgeon responded, "now they've pissed me off!"

  Brigadier Sturgeon summoned Dean to where he'd set up a temporary command post beside one of the landing party's Dragons. "Son, what you did out there was really stupid, do you know what I mean?" he said without preamble. Dean stood dumbfounded.

  "Sir, I-I—"

  "You should have kept the ambushers under surveillance and withdrawn to the house, where we could've organized a defensive position or an ambush of our own and maybe held them off until reinforcements arrived."

  A long silence ensued. "Yessir," Dean answered after he'd had a chance to think the brigadier's words over. "But, sir, I just did what first came into my head. I was there and they were coming on. And I did delay them, sir."

  The brigadier smiled. "You sure did. Marine. What you did required a lot of guts, I give you that. You deserve a medal, but I can't submit a citation to Fleet based on what was really an incredibly brave but very dumb act, can I?" He pretended to think for a moment. "Go get Claypoole."

  When the pair returned, he said, "PFC Claypoole, since when do you give orders to a brigadier of Marines?"

  "Sir, I-I—"

  "And since when does a Marine who has a perfectly good head on his shoulders throw it all away to compound a stupid mistake made by one of his buddies? I mean talking me into letting you go charging off after Dean here."

  "But sir, I-I—"

  Brigadier Sturgeon waved Claypoole into silence. "Very well. I can't decorate you two, because it'd make me look stupid. So I'm promoting both of you to lance corporal." The two gaped at the brigadier in astonishment. "I know, you're both thinking, 'How can he promote two stupid Marines like us?' How indeed." The brigadier feigned a sigh of exasperation. "I have faith in you. I think you both have potential. You may even make good corporals someday. Now go and clean yourselves up."

  The next two days were a flurry of activity as Brigadier Sturgeon, Chief Long, Lorelei Keutgens, and Chairman Arschmann conferred by video hookup about strengthening security. Within minutes of the landing party's arrival at the ambush scene. Brigadier Sturgeon had the Bridge patch him through to his executive officer in Brosigville, to whom he fired off a string of orders to be passed on to every Feldpolizei training team. He asked for and immediately received permission from the Denver's captain to keep the landing party, about a hundred sailors and Marines, indefinitely. They would beef up physical security at key installations where his force would be too busy training the Feldpolizei to worry about it.

  The attack had outraged everyone. Since none of the perpetrators had survived, it was generally assumed the bandits were responsible. The citizens of Morgenluft loudly demanded retribution. Chairman Arschmann was calling for Brigadier Sturgeon to organize a flying column to attack immediately.

  The morning after the attack. Brigadier Sturgeon sat in a suite in one of Schmahldorf's best hotels with Ambassador Spears and Chief Long, discussing the options.

  "Hold off," the ambassador urged. "This is too pat. We don't know it was the guerrillas. Arschmann protests too much, I think."

  "He's right, Ted," the big policeman said.

  "I never intended to do anything else," Sturgeon said. "My orders are to train the Feldpolizei, and that's what I'm going to do. We'll deal with the guerrillas when the time comes, but through the Feldpolizei, not on our own.

  "Another topic: Hugh, I don't have an intelligence officer anymore. Peters was a fine officer, but he's out of the picture for the duration of this operation, and I won't get a replacement for him from HQMC until probably long after this mission is over. Will you handle that for me from now on? I'll give you his files, his office, and his two helpers."

  "Dean and Claypoole? Sure, I'll take them." Chief Long laughed, a big rumbling noise deep within his chest. "I'll make detectives out of those lads yet!"

  "Joe?" Hway sat opposite Dean at a table in a modest restaurant in downtown Schmahldorf. Dean was leaving in the morning and he was depressed because it seemed he wouldn't see Hway again for quite a while, if ever. For the first time in his life the thought of military duty annoyed him.

  A very solicitous maitre d' hovered over their table, anxious to please. Everyone in Schmahldorf had been trying to make the Keutgens family feel at ease among them. But the maitre d's attentions were beginning to annoy the young couple. Hway waved him away, and reluctantly he retreated to his kiosk.

  "Joe," she began again, leaning across the table and whispering loudly, "I'm going with you to Brosigville tomorrow."

  Dean shot straight up in his chair.

  "Yes!" Hway laughed, seeing how the news had so quickly brought Dean out of his funk. "My grandmother is sending me to live with my granduncle there. He operates a huge truck farm just outside the city, very near the port... uh, very near where your headquarters is located, I think."

  Dean grinned foolishly, entirely consumed by this delightful news. "What's a truck farm?" he asked, because he didn't know what else to say.

  "Vegetables," Hway answered impatiently.

  Dean's grin increased. "Wonderful," he almost shouted. "What kind of vegetables?"

  "Tomatoes and things! Joe! Don't you realize what this means?"

  "Yeah," Dean said, and reached for Hway's hand across the table. "What are tomatoes?"

  Lieutenant Constantine sat next to Commander Peters's bed in the Denver's sick bay.

  "I'd shake hands with you. Lieutenant, except I am—was right-handed," Commander Peters joked.

  "I know the feeling. Chief Long asked me to pay you this visit. Commander. Dean and Claypoole say hello."

  "I think I know why," Peters said. "You're gonna tell me to hang in there and one day I'll be as 'good as new.' "

  "Yep. Well, since you know what I was going to tell you, might as well leave." They both laughed.

  Then Peters became serious. "What's it going to be like, Pete?"

  The anguish on Peters's face brought back painful memories to the policeman. "The worst part is the psychological readjustment. The medics'll give you wonderful biotech prostheses to replace your lost limbs, but it's going to take some effort on your part to accept them because they won't be you. But believe me. Commander, you can be restored to full duty, if that's what you want."

  "Who's taking over my duties as F-2?" Peters asked abruptly.

  "Chief Long, with Dean and Claypoole to help him. And me."

  "Good. Lieutenant? You tell those two grunts if they fuck up, when I get back I'll kick their asses good!" Commander Peters pretended to think about that for a moment and then added, "Belay that. Lieutenant. I guess I wouldn't have a leg to stand on after all." They laughed.

  Constantine knew that Peters would be just fine.

  Chapter Nine

  Acting Shift Sergeant Schultz felt naked. He wasn't naked, of course, not festooned the way he was with extra battery packs for the blaster hanging on his pack straps. The pack itself was filled with two days' rations and a change of socks, along with odds and ends of equipment, official and unofficial. A bayonet and a knife—and another hidden inside a boot—an emergency medical kit and two quarts of potable water were suspended from his belt. A hundred feet of tightly coiled rope hung off one shoulder, and a map kit filled with a GPS locator, an old-fashioned lensatic compass, a civilian-manufacture sat-comm radio—not to mention actual maps—were clamped under the opposite arm. His accoutrements were topped off with a squad leader's helmet that contained not only the infrared, magnifying, and light-collecting face shields and squad-level communications that he was used to, but also company-level communicat
ions and heads-up displays that allowed platoon and company command elements to transmit situation visuals to him.

  No, he wasn't naked. Schultz just felt that way because he was going into the hills after guerrillas wearing his dull-green garrison utilities instead of the field chameleons that would have made him effectively invisible.

  The Marines of first squad were on the military crest of a hill, the highest place they could stand without being silhouetted against the sky, half a kilometer southeast of the 257th Feldpolizei's base. They were gathered around Sergeant Hyakowa for their final briefing before taking Company A of the 257th Feldpolizei on a two-day training and combat patrol. None of the Marines was looking at Hyakowa; they were all looking at the FPs, who waited uncomfortably at the foot of the hill.

  "They're looking better than they did a week ago," Acting Company Captain Hyakowa said of the green-clad FPs. He swallowed nervously; he wasn't as confident as he sounded.

  "Anything would be an improvement over how they were a week ago," Acting First Platoon Leader Leach said.

  "They still can't shoot," Schultz grumbled, and spat off to the side.

  "Let's hope they've learned something more than just how to wear new uniforms," Acting Second Platoon Leader Ratliff said.

  "They have," Acting Third Platoon Leader Dornhofer said.

  Corporal Doyle, who found himself in the very odd and even more uncomfortable position of acting shift sergeant, declined to say anything.

  "They'll know a lot more at the end of these two days," Chan said.

  "If any of them live through it," Schultz grumbled.

  MacIlargie was quiet—at least he didn't say anything. But his eyes glowed, the tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, and he jittered in anticipation of the patrol.

  Godenov shivered. He was going to be leading fifteen men in a potential combat situation and didn't look forward to it. Damn, even if they weren't very good at it, every one of these troopers had seen more action than he had—which wasn't hard, because he'd never been in a real firefight.