School of Fire

by David Sherman

  "Pick your targets," Hyakowa murmured into his mike. He paused for a beat to give his men time to take aim, then said, "Fire!" just as the guerrilla looking toward Chan twisted around and shot at him while screaming out a surprisingly high-pitched warning.

  The peaceful stillness of the afternoon was shattered by the ozone cracks of the Marines' blasters and the screams of the injured and dying. The Marines were spread out more than the ambushers, and covered two-thirds of the length of the ambush. Not only were their targets more concentrated than the guerrillas', the guerrillas couldn't see who they were shooting at—or who was shooting at them. In five seconds more than half of the ambushers were out of action, dead or too severely wounded to fight. In the time it took the survivors of the first round of fire to realize they were doomed if they didn't run, nearly all of them in front of the line of Marines had holes blasted through their bodies by plasma bolts. The lucky ones had the bolts pass all the way through and keep going. Others were more severely mutilated when the bolts struck the ground after passing through and reflected back, to set their uniforms ablaze and superheat their bodies so they cooked in their own body fluids.

  Nearly twenty guerrillas tried to run, some carrying or dragging wounded comrades. Half a dozen of them were shot down before they got ten meters away.

  "Cease fire, cease fire!" Hyakowa shouted. "Fire team leaders report," he ordered as he rose to his feet. He raised his infras so he could watch the flight of the few survivors.

  The entire firefight, from the time he gave the order to open up to when he called cease fire, was barely ten seconds.

  "First team, all right," Leach replied a second or so later.

  "Second fire team, we're okay," Ratliff reported.

  "Third team, fine," Dornhofer said.

  Hyakowa ignored Schultz's outraged demands that they pursue the survivors, that they could easily wipe them all out, until after the fire team leaders finished their reports. Then he said over his comm unit so everybody could hear his response, "Yes, we could easily get all of them. But we'll let them go. Think of how it's going to affect the morale of the rest of the guerrillas when these few get back and tell how we surprised them, how we killed most of them so fast. They're going to think real hard about it before they go into an area Marines are in again."

  He looked around at the carnage in the abortive ambush site. "Let's police up those bodies and see if there's anyone alive who we can maybe keep that way."

  As hard as he looked, Chan couldn't find a female body among the dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  "Chief Long says before you start your duties in his intelligence unit he wants you to do some patrolling with the Stadtpolizei, get a feel for routine police work and how the Stadtpolizei function," Lieutenant Constantine told Dean and Claypoole one morning. "He wants you to ride all three shifts, and you'll start today with the evening, or Charlie, shift. Roll call is at 1400. You're each being assigned to different stations in the city for the next few days. Let's see. Claypoole, you're going to the Hidalgo Hills Station in District Four. Dean, you go to, um, Kwangtun Heights Station, in District Three. Use your own vehicle to get there. One of you'll have to pick the other up after you're finished. Report to the station commander when you arrive and he'll introduce you to the shift leader. Think you can handle it?"

  "Yessir!" they responded.

  "Oh, yeah, go light on the 'sir' business, okay? Call me LT or Pete. I blow things up, remember?"

  "What's the uniform, LT?" Claypoole asked.

  "Utilities. Carry shoulder and side arms. Charlie shift runs from 1500 to 0100. You'll eat somewhere in town. The cops all know the good places. The shift leader will assign you to an officer. Remember this: you have no police powers in this town. You are strictly observers. You'll do whatever the officers you ride with tell you to do. If they need your assistance, they'll ask for it. Otherwise, keep your eyes and ears open and ask questions. It'll make the time pass quicker."

  The roll call room at the Hidalgo Hills Station was a mess from the Middle Ages, chairs turned every which way and computer workstations covered with dust, graffiti, and coffee stains. Notices, including advertisements for apartments and houses for rent, were pasted and stuck haphazardly to the partitions. Claypoole was very much aware that he had entered a strange world. One garish, hand-lettered sign boldly announced an Adam shift party that weekend. A graffito Claypoole couldn't help noticing was a pencil drawing on a panel by a workstation of a woman with a huge, gap-toothed leer on her face and hugely exaggerated hips and breasts underneath which someone had scrawled "Shift Leader Gomez's wife" and a telephone number.

  Shift Leader Ernesto Lyies was doing his best to make the Marine feel at home. A big, broad-shouldered man with a prominent stomach and flaring mustaches, Lyies spoke with a wad of tobacco stuffed into one corner of his mouth. Occasionally he went spitooie, and a thin stream of tobacco juice flew with unerring accuracy into a tiny cup sitting on the floor to one side of his desk. The Marines were soon to discover that the men of the Brosigville Stadtpolizei were much addicted to tobacco products, which pleased Claypoole, an ardent cigar smoker.

  "We have fifty officers assigned to this station," Lyies was saying. "We run three shifts, Adam, Baker, and Charlie. You'll note that we use a phonetic alphabet somewhat different from the one standardized throughout the Confederation's military forces. Officers are assigned to their shifts on a permanent basis, so there is no rotation. There are twelve officers on each shift. The remaining fourteen officers are shift leaders, detectives, and the station commander and his lieutenant." Claypoole listened attentively. "There are six stations here in Brosigville, each one with a complement of fifty officers. With another fifty at headquarters, the Brosigville force consists of approximately four hundred sworn officers to serve a population of 100,000 citizens. That's about one patrol officer for each 250 people in the city, not a bad ratio. Our patrol area is approximately four hundred square kilometers, which includes the center city as well as the suburbs of Brosigville and the port area. The citizens of Brosigville are generally pretty well-behaved. Most of the crimes we investigate are against property, and the crimes against persons are usually assaults, and most of them are domestic in nature. We have few murders or rapes, compared to the"—spitooie—"figures I've seen on comparable cities on other worlds in the Confederation."

  "What about the other towns and cities in Arschland?"

  "Commissioner Landser is—was—also responsible for the Stadtpolizei operations elsewhere throughout the country, but he has a special staff of about a hundred here at headquarters through which he does that. He has subcommissioners in those other municipalities who report directly to him. Of course, we exchange information with those other forces and assist them whenever we can. And since we all train at the same academy and are commanded by the same individual, theoretically a police officer anywhere in Arschland could be transferred between jurisdictions. In practice, if you're assigned to Brosigville or some other town, that's where you stay for your whole career.

  "You know how the Feldpolizei is organized? We exchange information and cooperate with them, but their organization is totally separate from ours."

  "Do you ever operate at cross-purposes with them?"

  "Hah!" Lyies snorted. "Hah! Uniforms of orange and blue? Buzzard guts hanging over their shoulders? Marching around like windup toy soldiers? Lance Corporal Claypoole, the Feldpolizei takes good cops and turns 'em into idiots. Their whole organization is at 'cross-purposes' with ours." He shook his head. "You Marines have your work cut out for you with them."

  Lyies appeared to be in his early forties. He was dressed in the standard work uniform of the Brosigville Stadtpolizei, gray shirt with black trousers and a blue stripe along the outside seam. Since he was a supervisor, he was not wearing the standard police equipment belt, but carried a large side arm tucked above his right hip in a black leather holster. His badges of rank, three blue chevrons, open side up, were prominently
displayed on each neatly creased sleeve of his tunic. A sterling silver badge glittered above his left breast pocket. His hair was short, like a Marine's.

  "How are you armed?" Claypoole asked.

  "Ah, figured you'd get around to that." Lyies rubbed his hands together and began an animated and enthusiastic firearms lecture. "We have shoulder-fired projectile weapons in our armory, but they're issued only on an as-required basis, and since I've been on the force, more than ten years, we've never had occasion to issue them. The standard police side arm is a select-fire pistol that fires caseless ammunition. We issue Remchester 4.7mm, 52.5-grain frangible bullets to reduce overpenetration while producing maximum damage inside the target. Other ammunition is available, of course, but on routine patrol our patrolmen use only the frangible type. The issue pistol, the Sig-Smock M-229, is manufactured here on Wanderjahr under license from the parent company. The M-229 uses an 'iron' sight system, as you may be aware, and a thirty-round barrel mounted magazine. Each patrolman is issued three thirty-round magazines for his piece."

  "Never heard of 'iron sights,' Shift Leader," Claypoole said. In fact he didn't know much about caseless ammo and projectile weapons, since the Confederation military forces had abandoned that technology long before he had been bom.

  "Well," Lyies continued, warming to his subject, "those are just old-fashioned three-dot, low-light-illuminated sights. You line 'em up, and poof! the target goes down. These are fixed sights mounted on the weapon and they can't be jostled or knocked out of alignment, and unlike the laser range-finder devices, the target never knows it's being aimed at. The thing about caseless-ammo weapons is they provide a very stable shooting platform since there are few moving parts. A long time ago, when they used cartridge cases in projectile weapons, you had to eject the spent casings. Since the primer and powder for each round in a caseless gun are consumed in firing, the only ejection required is a small slot for rounds that malfunction. I might add that the propellant Remchester uses leaves hardly any residue.

  "I'd like to take my own weapon out and show you all these features, but only a fool diddles with firearms indoors. Anyway, the Remchester ammo has a muzzle velocity of about a kilometer a second. On full auto the Sig 229 can fire thirty-seven rounds per second, but to conserve ammo, each piece is fitted with a rate limiter that permits only three-round bursts. So your first three rounds are almost always guaranteed to be on target, if you know how to sight properly. I mean, these babies are so smooth there's virtually no felt recoil and barrel climb has been totally eliminated. Vehicles are equipped with ten extra thirty round magazines, but officers generally don't carry them on their persons unless they expect very serious trouble."

  Lyies stopped briefly to expectorate and wipe a droplet of tobacco juice from his mustache. "Are you familiar with the Brady .70 caliber automatic shot rifle?"

  "No, sir," Claypoole answered, trying to keep a tone of resignation out of his voice. He appreciated firearms, but this civilian stuff was just not very important to him. He believed that in a pinch he could outshoot the entire Stadtpolizei organization on Wanderjahr—and he was right—but common courtesy and duty forced him to remain alert and to pretend interest. Besides, he had to know this stuff if he was going to work with these people.

  "Each patrol vehicle is equipped with the Brady .70 caliber automatic shot rifle. It's potent," Lyies continued. As the shift leader droned on, Claypoole reflected that as a Marine with one combat deployment behind him, he'd seen more action and been shot at more times than probably anybody on the Brosigville police force. "It has five magazine tubes, each with six rounds," Lyies was saying. "Each round is composed of a casing and an explosive primer that when struck ignites the powder charge. Very old technology but very effective and reliable. We decided to use these weapons instead of rifles firing caseless ammo 'cause caseless ammo is seldom used here and the extra weight of the casing is not a problem, and besides, an officer can always defend himself with the Brady using it as a club. Each tube is loaded with a different kind of projectile, one for shot, one for smoke, another for explosive shells, and so on. The tubes rotate around the barrel. You have to be careful which tube the gun is set for. On the range and sometimes on the streets, rookies will select the wrong magazine tube and fire smoke when they want to fire shot. It's a complicated weapon, somewhat similar to the antique shotgun they used to have a long time ago, but it's the most versatile and powerful one available to patrol officers without special issues from our armory. Would you like to fire our weapons someday?"

  "You bet!" Claypoole answered. "Do you use body armor?"

  "Yes." Lyies tapped his own tunic, under which he wore a lightweight ballistic vest. "These are rated to stop even slugs from a Brady shot rifle. They're no protection from one of those," he indicated Claypoole's blaster, "but we don't encounter anybody armed with plasma weapons on the streets of Brosigville." Claypoole did not have to wonder what would happen if they ever did.

  "Do I get one of those vests tonight?"

  "You won't need it. Lance Corporal. See, you gotta understand this. We are not a military organization here. A policeman is trained in the use of restraint, not firepower. You military men encounter the enemy and you put fire on his ass until he goes away. A cop, on the other hand, is trained to reduce threats without the use of deadly force. When he draws his weapon, it's an act of last resort and only to protect his life or the life of someone else. That's why we don't use plasma weapons, although under Confederation law, as a legitimate police agency, we could probably get them. But firepower is not what we do best. Another thing, you're more experienced in how to survive a firefight than any of our officers. Hell, most of them have never even fired their weapons in anger; you've not only been shot at, you've killed men with your blaster. But on the other hand, every police officer is on constant patrol when he's on duty, walking point his entire shift, but he sometimes has to exercise unbelievable self-control when confronted with trouble. You can understand the stress this places on the average cop."

  Claypoole thought about that for a moment. He thought about "walking point" for ten hours a day, day after day. Yes, he could understand how that could stress a man out. "What kind of crime do you encounter in your district?"

  "All kinds," Lyies answered, "everything from murder to drunk in public. But most of the stuff we handle is misdemeanor stuff, where an offender might get up to a year in the city detention facility. There is organized crime in this city, but we have a unit at headquarters that handles that stuff. You'll no doubt get into some of that when you go back up there to help out with the intelligence work."

  "What about the guerrillas? You know, the bombs downtown and whoever it was who tried to pot my partner and me out by the port?"

  Lyies hesitated before he answered that question. "Chief Long is handling that investigation." He seemed reluctant to continue, so Claypoole did not press him. He made a mental note to discuss the investigation with Chief Long. All the rage he'd felt over Maggie's murder suddenly rushed back. He had not forgotten—would not forget—Chief Long's promise to let him be in on the capture of the shooter.

  "You okay?" Lyies asked, noticing the expression that had come over Claypoole.

  "Yes," he answered, getting control of himself with an effort.

  "Any other questions?"

  "No, sir, not right now."

  "You'll be riding with Officer Fernandez this evening, Lance Corporal Claypoole. He has patrol area 490C, which is also his call sign. Come over to the map." They walked over to a large wall map of Brosigville. It had been divided up into sectors with dark black lines, each representing a station district, six of them, in different colors. Hidalgo Hills was District Four, so all the patrol designators began with the number 4. The patrol areas within each station area were marked by green lines. The patrol area designations, 490, 520, 621, and so on, were labeled in bright blue. "When I say you're riding in patrol area 490C, that means you're with Charlie shift in this sector here." Lyies r
an his hand across a part of the map bordered on the west by the Teufelfluss River.

  "Is that a good area to patrol?"

  Lyies smiled. "It's one of our quieter areas. This is a weekday, early evening to around midnight, nothing much will be happening. If you stay with us long enough we'll get you into some of the rougher neighborhoods. Tonight you may go on some domestic complaints, maybe a traffic accident, possibly investigate some silent alarms."

  Lyies hesitated before continuing, thinking over what he was about to say. "Corporal Claypoole, I know something about your background. More important, I know what you've done since you've been on Wanderjahr. You're a brave man and you got the papers to prove it. I don't exaggerate when I say I'd like to have a man like you on my shift."

  Claypoole was flattered and just a bit ashamed that only minutes earlier he'd been making invidious comparisons between his experience and that of these cops.

  Soon the officers of Charlie shift began to drift into the roll call area from the locker rooms. They all carried heavy briefcases and laptop computers. They plopped into the chairs and commenced to banter among themselves: "Sanchez, you look like you just came out of a whorehouse!"

  "Hector," the policeman named Sanchez hollered back, "you smell like you live in one!"

  "Hell, Hector was born in one!" another officer said, laughing.

  They all spoke standard Confederation English very well, but with slight accents that sounded Hispanic to Claypoole. Physically, the officers were all shorter and much darker than he.

  "All right, quiet down, quiet down! This is a police department, not a comedy show."

  " 'Police department'? Is that what it's called?" one officer hollered.

  When the room had quieted down. Shift Leader Lyies introduced Claypoole.

  "The Marines have landed!" someone called out, and all the officers applauded. "Lance Corporal Claypoole," Lyies accentuated Corporal, "will ride with Patrolman Fernandez."