“The Old Man wants to see you at eighteen hundred.”
“Oh, shit. Am I in trouble?”
“I don’t think he’s too pissed. Everything worked out. You did jump the gun giving orders to the whole platoon, though. He’ll probably just chew your ass a little and tell you to watch the rest of it.”
I grimaced. I was expecting this, but not looking forward to it.
“Anything else?”
“No. Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Tell your Marines they did good. I’ll go see the whole squad soon. I got all these fuckin’ reports to fill out first. Now get your ass out of here.”
“Aye aye, Sergeant!” I clicked my heels, did an about-face and marched out.
****
I had about an hour before I had to see Lt Mitchell. I decided to hit the news nets and do some digging about these riots. I honestly hadn’t thought about the rebellion until Miss Sterndale brought it up at the game. Even so, I was probably the only Marine, apart from Lt Evers, the intelligence officer, who gave a rat’s ass.
I sat at the computer terminal and logged on to the net. I skimmed the basic news, looking for anything relating to the belt settlements. There was almost nothing. That, in and of itself, was interesting. It wouldn’t have occurred to me unless I had been looking for it.
Finally, buried in the political reports, I found some speeches. They were by our old isolationist pals. They were discussing the unfair tax burden of supporting and protecting trade. Blah, blah, blah, taxes, blah, blah working-class families, blah, blah...I was familiar with the spiel.
Apparently, the cost of maintaining and protecting the bases wasn’t being covered by the mineral wealth they provided. Senator James, that gutless prick, wanted to scrap the whole spacegoing Navy. Just see what happens to the economy when you disband the fleet and you’ve got all those unemployed sailors, Marines and asteroid miners back home. And we all can vote, you bastards.
“Thought I’d find you here.” Sabatini spoke from behind my chair. “Got a sec, chief?”
“Always.” I left a reminder for myself in my file. The next time I logged on, this data would come up immediately. “What’s on your mind?”
“Thought you might like to know,” she began, with a mischievous glint in her dark eyes. “The ambassador talked to the ship’s captain and our lieutenant. They’re throwing us a party.”
“Great,” I responded. “We could all use the recreation.”
“There’s more. The social workers have invited themselves.”
I blinked. “They do realize they’re all gonna get laid?” I asked.
“I think they know. I don’t know that the ambassador has it figured out.”
“The Navy is gonna shit when this gets out,” I chuckled. The story would definitely make the rounds. My rotten, cynical side hoped that the ambassador’s daughter wound up carrying some jarhead’s child. A black Marine’s would be even better. I snickered at the thought.
“So, don’t you have to run off and make nine appointments with the barber, and check your dress blues still fit and all that?” Sabatini asked.
“Hm, what?” I asked in surprise. “Me?”
“All the other guys are getting all dolled up. You don’t want to give them the advantage, do you?”
“Oh, right. Like these girls are gonna be interested in some thirty-year-old, short, cynical grunt like me. There’s enough young, tall, athletic studs like Johnson in this platoon. I’ll just soak up their share of the free booze.”
“Give women a little credit, boss.”
“What? You gonna try to tell me that women are any less lecherous than men?”
“Hell, no. We’re just smarter. We aren’t hung up on that physical, youth thing like you guys. We know that a more experienced partner is probably better in the rack. You got a sense of humor, you know all that political and sociology shit. You can fake the college talk, and you still got that whole dangerous ‘I kill people for a living’ thing going on. And you carried that little girl out. Chicks dig that. You’d probably have ’em lining up. Our poker partner was all mushy about you carrying that refugee kid, ya know. That kind of image is gold.”
I laughed. “Thanks for the pep talk, but you don’t have to get your fearless leader laid. Nice though the thought is.”
“Just trying to help.”
“I got a few minutes before I have to see the Old Man.” I turned off the terminal. “Let’s grab a cup of joe and you can convince me how desirable I am.”
“Fine, but if I gotta do all the convincing, then you better put me in for a medal.”
“Like you need reassurance you’re a babe. Didn’t you ever wonder why the rest of the team only takes cold showers?”
She laughed, leading the way to the chow hall with an exaggerated sultry walk.
****
At the appointed hour, I presented myself before Lt Mitchell. The lieutenant considered me in silence for a few moments after returning my greeting. True to my role as a humble enlisted man, I patiently waited for my superior to open the discussion.
“Sergeant McCray tells me you recommended PFC O’Rourke for promotion.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The sergeant has some concerns about O’Rourke’s lack of discipline.”
“Yes, sir. He does.” I didn’t know where this was going, so I wasn’t going to give anything away. He would get a straight answer when he asked me a straight question.
“You think those concerns are unjustified?”
“To a point, yes, sir.”
“Explain.”
“I wouldn’t recommend O’Rourke for embassy duty, or Corporal of the Guard at the Washington Barracks. He’s not a spit and polish Marine, but he’s a damn good man in combat. He saved my life on that rock. He was the first to spot the ambush. I think PFC is an insult to a Marine of his experience,” I explained. “Sir,” I added.
“Considering his conduct marks,” Lt Mitchell indicated O’Rourke’s file, “do you think he should be given added responsibility?”
I was always amazed at the thickness of that file, regardless of how many times I saw it. It was a masterwork on insubordination. Probably the definitive treatise on the subject. “With respect, sir, none of the offenses relates in any way to PFC O’Rourke’s combat readiness, ability or courage. He has a short temper, a liberal view of the chain of command, and a fondness for strong drink when not on duty. These in no way affect his usefulness in combat. And as far as responsibility, to be brutally honest, sir, lance corporal is a pay raise as much as a promotion.”
“And if you get killed, do you trust him to lead the team?”
“Absolutely, sir. He thinks well under pressure, knows weapons and tactics and doesn’t freeze up under fire. I trust him as much as any fire team leader in this platoon, sir.”
“You want to rethink that, Corporal?”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.”
“I’m sure as hell glad I had O’Rourke near me and not the spit-and-polish sergeant in charge of the embassy detail, sir.”
Lt Mitchell glared at me for a moment, then nodded. He could not defend the embassy Marines’ poor state of readiness which clearly came from following the letter of the regulations to the detriment of their spirit. That was one of his personal beliefs: obey the spirit of the order, even if the wording needs to be bent a little. He had done just that when he issued us the nonlethal rounds.
“Alright, Collins, you convinced me. Sergeant McCray said he’d support you if you could make me see your side. You can tell O’Rourke he’s a lance corporal effective the first of the month. But do the Corps a favor and try to convince him to act the part.”
“Aye aye, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Now.” He looked at me from beneath lowered brows. “What the hell am I supposed to do about you?”
“Sir?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Corporal!” he barked. “Now do I rip off a s
tripe for you having the arrogance to give orders to my Marines, or do I give you another one for having the balls to give the right order without wasting time?”
“Sir, I stand by my actions at the airlock. I fully understand and accept any disciplinary action you wish to take. And I sincerely thank you for the reassurance that it was the right order, sir.”
“Oh, Christ, Collins.” He put his head in his hands. “How the hell am I supposed to chew your ass now?” He thought for a moment. “OK. In the future, you tell me when you think we should do something, don’t just give orders to the whole fucking platoon. As for punishment, I’ve decided to link your fate to O’Rourke’s. If he screws up and gets busted, you go down with him. Any discipline for showing up at formation without his pants, or pissing in the general’s rosebushes, you take the hit with him. You read me, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir!” I snapped.
“Good. Now, I just want you to know, you and your Marines did a good job back there. I’m proud to have you in my platoon.” To my surprise, he rose from his chair and extended a hand across the desk.
I took it. “It’s an honor to serve with you, sir.”
I was dismissed, and hastily deployed to the rear. We don’t say “retreat” in the Corps.
That pretty much summed up Lt Mitchell. He would back his Marines to the hilt if he thought we were right, but he wanted to put the fear of God in me so I’d remember who was in charge. He also knew that his success depended on his Marines, which is why he let me know he appreciated me and my team. That was one reason we’d gladly assault the gates of hell if he gave the order.
I was reminded of a quote from the old Corps. I read it in the memoirs of a Marine from the 1920s, when we were fighting in Nicaragua. A veteran enlisted man said of his lieutenant: “He may only be an officer, but he’s still a damn good Marine.”
Chapter 11
8 JUN 2078
ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7
I looked up from Jensen’s reader. Now I knew what the corporation was after, but not why.
“What did they want that outpost cleared out for?” I asked. “It’s not like a Spaghetti Western and the railroad was coming through.”
“Certain organizations wanted a place where they could do their dirty work out of sight. The same way ‘civilized’ nations used to hand their high profile prisoners to a less scrupulous ally for interrogation. Back at the beginning of the century, a lot of that got out into the public. It was too hard to contain internet leaks. Ever since the big fire storms caused by Manning and Snowden and Assange, governments have longed for a nice secluded place to train operatives, debrief prisoners, that kind of thing.”
“You mean they wanted a nice deep hole to put people in.”
Jensen smiled. “The oubliette of the twenty-first century. It’s not like a hundred years ago when you could just train rebels in Mexico and stage them in Guatemala for the invasion of Cuba.”
“It must be heartbreaking for the CIA that they can’t recapture the rousing success of the Bay of Pigs.”
“We all miss the good old days sometimes,” he said. “But they thought they’d found the perfect solution out in space.”
SNN News File 4, courtesy Brian Jensen
16 Nov 2075
Unconventional Forces Training Station, Ganymede
Milos Radicz grunted in disgust as he watched his men repairing the artificial atmosphere controller. Typical of everything on this squalid base, it was malfunctioning. Again. The technicians swore and sweated as they struggled with the machine.
Radicz shook his head and regretted for the hundredth time the place his career had brought him. He had been a colonel in the Serbian Special Forces at one time. Had worn a uniform with pride, and held his head high as he served a country he loved. Now he was a mercenary, a hired gun in the pay of the American CIA. It bothered him to work for the Americans. It was their meddling that brought down the government he once served. He reminded himself that he didn’t have much of an option. As an officer in his position, it would have been jail or the noose of some Muslim vigilante mob had the American intelligence agency not offered him a job.
He now commanded eight hundred men. Nearly the number in his old regiment.
Eight hundred hired thugs, he thought. Failed rebels, outcast terrorists, and modern day pirates. Men without a nation to call their own. Men like me, he admitted. Their causes back on Earth may have failed, but they were hardened warriors. The intelligence community had uses for such men. The pay was good, in money at least, but he missed the surge of pride when he stood before his troops and saluted his flag.
A tone rang in his earpiece, jolting him back to the present.
“Commander?”
“Come in.”
“Shuttle approaching. Mr O’Hooley is paying a visit.”
Radicz swore silently. “Very good, Slawco. I shall meet him in the conference room.”
In the conference room, the Serb sat down at the large table and began sipping at his thick, black coffee. He did not rise as the CIA man entered, but waved the steward towards his visitor.
“Thanks, Colonel,” O’Hooley said, accepting a mug. Special Agent David O’Hooley meant the title as an honor to his host, but Radicz winced. The early Americans had named a native chieftain King Phillip, but used him badly, stole his land and killed him just the same. He felt that the agent was merely humoring the savage.
“The base is shaping up,” the CIA man continued.
“It’s a shambles,” grumbled the Serb. “My people live like dogs. Dogs I have to separate to prevent religious warfare.”
“Takes all kinds, Colonel.”
“It doesn’t take all kinds, Mr O’Hooley. I just have all kinds.” The more he dealt with his contact at the agency, the more he despised the man. The American was tall, athletic and handsome. He was also a cheap whore for power who knew no loyalty except to himself. Radicz had studied the man. He had allegedly been denied service with the military because of color blindness, and so joined the agency to serve his country another way. The Serb was convinced the only color blindness in O’Hooley was his inability to tell red, white and blue from green. Every move he had made seemed calculated to boost his own wealth and prestige. Kissing the ass above while kicking the head below. It hurt to work for such a man.
“Well, I got some good news for you.” The agent grinned, revealing a set of perfect teeth. “First, I brought along some booze and hookers to brighten your boys’ outlooks.”
Radicz groaned inwardly. The man was throwing a bone to his loyal dogs.
“And, I got us a plan to move this whole operation to some improved digs.”
This sparked Radicz’s interest. Despite himself, he leaned forward. “Go on, my friend.”
“Alls we gotta do is convince some people that space is no place for decent people. How’s a little piracy grab you?”
Chapter 12
16 NOV 2075
USS TRIPOLI
I made my way back to sickbay before turning in. O’Rourke was awake and aware, if a little groggy from the medication.
“Hi buddy. How ya feeling?”
“Fine and fuckin’ dandy,” he muttered with a sleepy grin. “Everybody else get out OK?”
I nodded. “Thanks for pushing me out of the way, brother.”
“That what you thought? I was trying to use you as a shield.”
“I should have known. Sabatini said you just wanted a Purple Heart to go where everybody else’s Good Conduct Medal goes.”
“Her Highness doesn’t think I could win a Good Conduct Medal?”
“Terry, your mom doesn’t believe you could win a Good Conduct Medal.”
He shrugged. “Point taken.”
“What the hell is your problem with Sabatini?” I asked. “You still pissed that we all stopped looking at your ass when she joined the platoon?”
“Rodriguez still looks at my ass.”
“Yeah, and he knows all the words t
o West Side Story. Do the math.”
“OK, second point taken. It’s just not the same with a woman in the squad, Mick.”
“How you figure? She doesn’t get all bitchy when we use foul language or talk about sex, she drinks almost as well as we do, swears like a Teamsters’ Union shop steward and is almost as much a guy as the rest of us. She could probably enter a pissing-for-distance competition.”
He looked unconvinced. “It don’t matter how she acts. Everybody knows she’s a woman. You guys act different around her whether she demands it or not. Nobody can forget she’s not a guy.”
“What the hell do you want? Shit, look at her. If you haven’t noticed she’s a woman, maybe you should start hanging with Rodriguez.”
“Fuck you, Mick,” he replied casually. “Let’s drop it. She’s not a bad Marine. I’ll adjust.”
“Good. ‘Cause you just made Lance Corporal.”
He blinked twice. “How?”
I shrugged. “Heroism. Duty. The usual song and dance. Oh, I had to lie my ass off to Sarge and the Old Man and tell ’em you were an asset to the Corps, but what are friends for?”
“Thanks, Mick.”
“Besides, it was getting embarrassing to see a fossil like you the same rank as a kid like Johnson.”
“Just pour on the flattery.”
“Hey, nothing’s too good for you, pal. How long the docs say you’d be here?”
“Day or two. After that I’ll probably get some light duty.”
“I’ll try to struggle on without you.”
“Thanks for stopping in.”
“Least I could do.” I patted his good arm. “Heal up and get your ass back to my team. You read me, Marine?”
“Aye aye, Your Fucking Majesty!” he replied with a twisted grin.
****
The party the next night was a brilliant success. CPO Kelly donated two bottles of champagne he had liberated from the embassy (I’m sure he held back some more for personal consumption) and some of his own homebrew beer. I was happy about that. The Powers That Be only authorized one liter of beer per Marine. That was hardly enough to get a buzz on. Besides, Kelly’s brew was real beer, not the watery swill the military buys. I would be able to trade my ration of pisswater to young Marines who didn’t know better for their share of the quartermaster’s amber elixir. And good old Terry was in sickbay, so both the beer and his promotion were safe. Just about a perfect setup.
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