School of Fire

by David Sherman

  The regularly scheduled supply hopper brought something more than the requested food, replacement blaster batteries, and mail. Two Marines in clean garrison utilities got off the hopper, slung blasters over their shoulders, and looked around. An FP pointed out the administration building when they asked directions, and they headed toward it. They were halfway across the parade ground when Staff Sergeant Charlie Bass came out of the administration building. Bass spotted them almost immediately and headed in to intercept the two. He broke out his communicator and spoke into it briefly as he walked.

  Lance Corporal Claypoole began with a grin. "Hi, Staff Sergeant Bass."

  Lance Corporal Dean was also grinning, but Bass spoke before he could say anything, and the grin fell off his face and his jaw dropped.

  "Claypoole, I always knew you were a troublemaker," Bass snarled. "But what's your excuse, Dean? Are you spending too much time in the rear with the beer, you think you're too good?"

  "What?" Dean squawked. "I didn't, I'm not, I—"

  "What'd I do?" Claypoole demanded.

  Bass folded his arms across his chest and glared at them. "First you leave the platoon shorthanded by running off to FIST P-2—"

  Dean and Claypoole gaped at each other. They had been ordered to join the intelligence section over their protests.

  "—and then you have to go and screw up the entire platoon table of organization by playing hero so you could get yourselves promoted. How am I supposed to reorganize the platoon when you screw up and get sent back? I've got enough lance corporals to go around. You just made me short two PFCs. Do you think I can stick lance corporals in PFC billets?" In fact Bass knew very well he could do exactly that, it was common for meritoriously promoted men to serve in positions below their rank until a position opened to promote them into.

  "What?" Claypoole couldn't say anything more; he was too shocked by Bass's reaction. Bass hadn't said anything like that the day before at FIST headquarters. Dean couldn't say anything at all.

  Bass let the stunned moment stretch as six other Marines converged double-time on the three. Then he dropped his stern posture and a grin split his face. He grabbed first Claypoole's hand and then Dean's. "Congratulations again, Marines. Everybody's heard all about what you did on Morgenluft and Porcina. Outstanding. Everyone in the platoon's proud of you."

  "Nobody more than me," Sergeant Hyakowa said behind them, panting from his run.

  "I'm prouder," Eagle's Cry said as he brushed past Hyakowa to face Claypoole. He wrapped an arm around Claypoole's shoulders and squeezed, then extended his free hand to Dean to shake.

  Corporals Leach and Keto, their fire team leaders, were the next to arrive and add their congratulations.

  Lance Corporal Linsman, the other man in Claypoole's fire team, said threateningly, "Just don't think you're going to replace me, or move above me. I knew you when you were New Guy." Claypoole grimaced, then grinned anew when Linsman pumped his hand.

  Schultz was the last to join the group. He hadn't had the farthest to go, he simply ran slower than the others. Schultz knew what the call from Bass was about, and he wanted to have the last word. He planted himself squarely in front of Dean and said slowly, "It's nice to see you've been paying attention to me. Keep it up. Maybe one of these days you'll turn into a Marine." He'd said enough, and he made it clear he was talking to both by turning his head to look at Claypoole as he finished speaking. Then, without warning, his right fist flashed out twice and hit each of them on the shoulder.

  "Ow!" Dean yelped. He jumped back, rubbing his suddenly sore shoulder. Claypoole yelped and jumped back as well, but he'd seen the blow coming and didn't get hit as hard.

  Leach's eyes glowed. "Pin on the stripes!" he shouted, and pulled his fist back to hit Dean's shoulder.

  Bass stepped between them and held up his hands. "Belay that," he ordered. "They got promoted too long ago. It's too late now."

  Nobody knew for certain how long after a promotion "pinning on the stripes" with a punch to the shoulder was allowed, but normally the window was the day of the promotion and the day after; rarely did it extend beyond that. The ritual allowed every enlisted man of equal or greater rank to hit a man on the shoulder once for each stripe of his new insignia to "pin them on." Bass and Shiro had been out of line the day before when they "pinned them on."

  Schultz knew he was out of line hitting the two so long after the promotion, but he wasn't about to let them get away without someone from the platoon observing the ancient ritual.

  "So, what brings you two out here?" Hyakowa asked before anything else could happen.

  "We got tired of being with headquarters types all the time," Dean said.

  "We needed to spend some time with real Marines again," Claypoole added.

  "Well, what are we doing standing around here for?" Eagle's Cry said. His arm still around Claypoole's shoulders, he started walking toward the area where second squad was conducting the training of its company. "You gotta see what we're doing. Hey, did you hear about the way we ambushed a company-size ambush?"

  Hyakowa took his leave of Bass and herded Dean toward first squad. "Did you hear what Godenov did the other day?" he asked. "Maybe he's good enough after all."

  * * *

  The two visitors from Stadtpolizei weren't as impressed by how well the FPs were responding to their training as the other members of the platoon thought they should be, but then, Claypoole and Dean hadn't seen them before third platoon began the training.

  "The way this battalion had been trained and ran its operations," Hyakowa told them in an attempt to make them understand, "any one of these shifts today could have taken on the whole battalion and beaten it."

  "They used to stand in straight lines, in their dress uniforms, and make targets of themselves," Eagle's Cry added.

  Dean looked wide-eyed at the squad leaders, gnawed on his lip, and did his best not to let his disbelief show.

  Claypoole was less diplomatic. He didn't say anything—that would be calling the squad leaders liars, and no lance corporal in his right mind would call a Marine sergeant a liar to his face. But his expression and posture said it for him.

  Their reactions were understandable. The experience they'd had with the Stadtpolizei had taught them how professional the city police were in their patrol duties. They didn't see how it was possible that the Feldpolizei could be so opposite, no matter what the policemen they worked with in the city said about the field police.

  "There's this police investigator from offworld, Chief Long," Dean said after evening chow, when the other men of the platoon were pumping the two of them for details about easy headquarters duty in the big city. "Chief Long was put in charge of all the city police in Arschland Staat."

  Claypoole barked out a laugh. "You should have seen Commissioner Landser. He was the police commissioner until Long showed up. Man, he was pissed about an offworlder being put over him. It was like a slap in the face to him."

  "But they're working real good together now," Dean concluded.

  "And with Marines too," Claypoole said.

  "Have they caught the guerrillas who set off those bombs the day we landed yet?" Hyakowa asked. That would be the acid test of how good the city police really were. Dean and Claypoole looked at each other gleefully.

  "No. But there's been a lot of other things going on," Dean said.

  "Like the guerrilla raid on Morgenluft that almost killed Commander Peters," Claypoole said.

  "Only it wasn't the guerrillas who did it."

  "And you'll never guess who we busted for that."

  Claypoole and Dean were trying to tell the story of the raid on Multan's Eagle's Nest simultaneously, and the telling was getting garbled.

  "How about one at a time!" Eagle's Cry said, breaking in.

  Embarrassed, Dean and Claypoole looked at each other, and tried to determine without speaking which of them would go first. They nodded as though they'd come to agreement, and both began talking at the same time again
.

  "As you were!" Schultz barked. He stood directly in front of the two and glared at them until they looked like they wanted to get down on all fours and slink away. "You!" Schultz pointed a finger at Dean. "Talk."

  Dean looked at Schultz and swallowed. No matter how experienced he was becoming, the older man always made him feel uncertain. Then he began to tell of the raid on Eagle's Nest. After a moment, Claypoole couldn't restrain himself anymore and began interrupting. He kept interrupting until a growl from Schultz shut him up.

  "So maybe it wasn't the guerrillas who bombed out headquarters that first day?" Bass asked when the telling was told.

  Dean shrugged. "There's a lot of things the brass think the guerrillas might not have done. That's one thing they think maybe they did do."

  "And they think it's possible the guerrillas didn't do it," Claypoole amended as soon as he was sure Dean was finished.

  Bass leaned back, lost in thought. The other members of the platoon looked at each other, considering the implications of one oligarch committing terrorist acts in such a way that the guerrillas were blamed for them. The next day, Claypoole and Dean caught the supply hopper back to Brosigville.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Over several weeks, Surface Radar Analyst Third Class Hummfree had taken a lot of ribbing from the other junior petty officers in the CNS Denver's Surface Intelligence Analysis section for working on his free time instead of playing computer games or studying for the second class test, the way they were. SRA 3d Hummfree ignored them; as far as he was concerned, what he was doing on his own time at his analysis console was a more demanding and exciting game than the ones they were playing on their personal consoles—and was far better study for promotion than just cracking the books.

  Now, after three and a half weeks of puzzling over the surface-movement traces picked up by the Denver's string-of-pearls, and trying to make good intelligence sense of them, he leaned back in his chair and studied the screen he'd just brought up. After a few seconds, he gave a low whistle and leaned forward to tap another series of commands into the computer. His hands hovered over the command nodules while he waited for the computer to bring up his request. He didn't take as much time studying the second screen as he had the first, and he didn't whistle. Instead he immediately tapped in another series of commands. When the third screen appeared, he nodded to himself and hit save-to-transportable, then popped the crystal for his three most recent screens. He could have saved the data to the ship's computer, but it wasn't official work and he would have had to go through the rigmarole of getting authorization from the duty officer. Saving to the crystal was faster.

  Hummfree got up from his console and went looking for Chief Petty Officer Peeair, his section chief. As his section was off duty, that meant he had to brave the unknown hazards of chief petty officers' country, a daunting prospect for a third class even when official duty required it—and this didn't come under the heading of official duty. During his nearly four years as a member of the Denver's crew, Hummfree had never been in CPO country. He swallowed, steeled himself, and took the pastel passageway into the unknown. The data was too important to wait for his shift to start.

  "What do you want, sonny?" a voice boomed as Hummfree stepped through the hatch into CPO country. "You lost or somethin'?"

  Hummfree's head jerked toward the voice. A huge man, someone he didn't recognize, was glowering at him around the stub of a cigar. Water dripped off the end of the cigar and dribbled down his torso to soak into the towel wrapped around his middle. Water dribbling down his legs puddled on the deck around his feet. Wet footprints led behind him to the shower. The many-starred anchor of a master chief petty officer was tattooed on the big man's left deltoid.

  Hummfree snapped to attention; master chief petty officers scared him. They scared everyone; a double ration of bile seemed to come with the rate. "Nossir, Master Chief," he managed to say without stammering. "I'm looking for Chief Peeair."

  "Well, I happen to know Chief Peeair's off duty. What say you wait until he goes back on duty?" The master chief jutted his jaw aggressively.

  "I have some important data the chief needs to see immediately, Master Chief, sir."

  "Yer never gonna make second class bothering chiefs when they're off duty, boy. I suggest you get back to your own area and wait until Chief Peeair's on duty." His "suggestion" sounded like an order, but Hummfree stood fast, albeit trembling, instead of scampering away. He cocked his head. "Unless you're carrying orders. You got some orders for Chief Peeair, boy? I'll give them to him." He held out a hand to take the orders if there were any.

  "No—Nossir, I don't have orders," Hummfree croaked. "I'm in Chief Peeair's section, and I just finished analyzing some data that he's gonna want to see. It's important, sir."

  The master chief shook his head slowly. "He's off duty, that means yer off duty. What do you mean you just finished analyzing it?"

  "Sir, this is something I've been working on on my own time. The chief knows about it, sir. He said if I came up with something, he wanted to see it immediately. I came up with something, sir."

  The master chief stared at Hummfree hard and rolled the cigar stub to the Other side of his mouth. Abruptly he barked, "A-ten-HUT!"

  Hummfree, already at attention, stood even more rigid.

  "A-bout-FACE!"

  Hummfree spun about, facing the entry hatch to CPO country.

  "Now stand there," the master chief growled, "just like that until either me or Chief Peeair says you can move." Hummfree heard the squelching of the master chief's feet beginning to walk off. "And don't look around!"

  Hummfree stood sweating, hoping some other chief petty officer wouldn't come along and give him an order that contravened the master chief's.

  It felt like hours, but probably wasn't more than fifteen minutes, before a gruff voice behind him said, "At ease, Hummfree. What's so important you've got to bother me off duty?"

  Hummfree released his tension with a whoosh and turned around. "Chief, you know that project I've been working on on my time?" he said eagerly. "Well, I think I got something."

  Chief Peeair, his face otherwise neutral, cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? What do you think you have?"

  Hummfree pulled the data crystal out of his pocket. "You gotta see this. Chief." .

  The chief took the chip and bounced it in his hand. "That good, huh?"

  "Better than that, Chief. This might be the piece of the puzzle they need to wrap things up planetside."

  Peeair lofted both eyebrows. "Let's take a look." He turned to head back into the depths of CPO country. After three steps he called back, "You gonna come and tell me what I'm looking at, or am I supposed to figure it all out by myself?"

  "I'm coming. Chief," Hummfree said, and scampered to catch up.

  "Well, gentlemen," Brigadier Sturgeon said to his staff and the commanders of his operational units, who were sitting around a conference table in the briefing room in the Marine headquarters at the spaceport, "it looks like the navy came through for a change." He held up a data chip for everyone to see. "One of their analysts, a petty officer third, came up with this. On his own initiative and time, no less. If it's right, maybe the Corps should hire him away from the navy; he's too good for them." Sturgeon popped the crystal into the console on the lectern while the other officers chuckled at his joke. He glanced at them. "I'm serious."

  A map display lit up on the wall behind Sturgeon. "Lieutenant Constantine," he said to Chief Long's assistant, "if you will explain the meaning of this, please." The FIST commander sat down as Constantine limped to the lectern to take over the briefing.

  Constantine cleared his throat, then used a laser pointer to indicate the map. "This is a map of the area of the 483rd Feldpolizei GSB. These black lines," he pointed out several curved and jagged lines that seemed to begin and end in random spots and didn't have any immediately apparent meaning, "are movement traces of small groups of people. The Denver picked them up on its fourth day in orbi
t. Some of them have been positively identified. These, for example," he touched a key on the lectern, "are work parties from the farms." Several lines changed from black to yellow. "This one is a group of people heading back to their village after attending church." Another line turned blue. "These are combined Marine-Feldpolizei patrols." Three lines turned green. "These," the remaining lines, about a third of the total, turned red, "have not been positively identified." He looked from the map to the assembled officers. "We suspect some of them are guerrilla bands. This one we know was." Lightning bolts flashed around one of the red lines. "That was an ambush that killed three Feldpolizei.

  "Unfortunately, most of the population of Wanderjahr is rural. Small groups of people are wandering all over the surface of the planet. What makes figuring out who they are even more difficult is the guerrillas also move in small groups and don't assemble until they are ready to act. That makes accurate tracking almost impossible. Especially since the string-of-pearls isn't able to cover the entire planetary surface constantly. And if it did, the volume of data would make it almost impossible to digest and analyze in anything approaching a timely manner.

  "There's another problem the Denver ran into." Constantine glanced at Sturgeon to make sure it was all right for him to continue with background. The brigadier nodded. "It's doing all its tracking by GSB—rural police precinct," he added for the benefit of anyone who might have forgotten what the initials stood for. "What that means in practice is, once a tracked group of people moves from one GSB to another, it's lost unless the string-of-pearls also happens to have the adjacent GSB under observation.

  Commander Van Winkle raised a hand.

  "Yes, sir?" he said.

  "It's not necessarily germane to this briefing," Van Winkle said, "but why is the Denver observing by GSB?"

  "I asked them exactly that, sir. It appears that when the GSBs were established, they were overlaid on existing geopolitical divisions. The Ruling Council insisted that people seldom move beyond the bounds of the kreiss, or counties, they live and work in. Those counties correspond to the Grafshaftsbezirk boundaries." He shrugged. "Actual observation tells us the Ruling Council was wrong."