In Every Clime and Place

by Patrick LeClerc

  “Jesus, I haven’t thought about Roberts in ages,” I said. “Remember him with the women? If we could bottle what he had, we’d be rich. Women loved Roberts. It was amazing, no matter where we were, even if he didn’t speak the damn language, he would have two or three girlfriends within a month.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Khan.

  “Roberts bought it in Srebrenica. He got hit in the belly outside the perimeter leading a counter attack on a machine gun. We dragged him back into the position and got him to a corpsman. He lasted through the night, but we couldn’t get a medevac. The enemy fire was too heavy. He finally bled out. We got the gun, though.”

  “That’s...I’m sorry, Corp...I...” Khan began.

  “Don’t be,” I repeated. “Shit happens. It’s part of the job. You can’t be a Marine for twelve years and not lose a few brothers. If you can’t face that, I’d advise you to get out as soon as you can.”

  This cruise had already taken Chan. Sgt McCray was out of action and maybe disabled. Williams was wounded and would stay on Mars for rehab. I looked at the squad and wondered how many of these Marines would make it home.

  I wondered how much longer I could face that.

  “Attention on deck!”

  We leapt to our feet at Khan’s shout. Lt Evers strode into the passageway. We all shouted, “Good afternoon, sir!” Terry imitated a rifle salute with his scuz brush.

  “As you were,” he replied. I noticed he looked a little preoccupied. Probably a good thing since we did have O’Rourke with us.

  As he passed, I remembered a fact I’d meant to tell him. Something I’d learned from the Rescue crew before I’d become tangled in a web of sex, alcohol and larceny.

  These things happen, and my memory isn’t what it was.

  “Hold the fort,” I told the squad after he passed. “Sabatini, you’re in charge. I have to talk to the boss.”

  “You slack-off bastard!” O’Rourke sneered. “Funny how you remember something you have to tell him just in time to get out of scrubbing the deck.”

  “Rank hath its privileges, you insubordinate old lance corporal. If you ever get more than one stripe, you can go discuss important squad business with the brass.”

  “I’ve earned more stripes than this whole fire team. I just don’t wear more than one at a time.”

  I didn’t dignify that with a response. I made my way to Lt Evers’ office and banged on the hatch. He gave me permission to enter.

  “Sir, Cpl Collins requesting permission to speak to the Lieutenant, sir?” I asked, the very model of military propriety.

  “What’s on your mind, Corporal?”

  “Sir, while we were on the beach, we heard some Rescue Service crew talking about the Sunflower One mission.”

  “And?” His eyes were suddenly cold.

  “And they said some Navy Lt Commander tried to order them off from sealing the breach.”

  “Really?” His eyes widened a bit at that news.

  “Yes, sir. I thought that was a bit strange. Along with a lot of things about this cruise. Figured you’d want to hear it direct. I don’t know that it ties in with anything else, but it seemed unusual.”

  “You talk to anybody else about this?”

  “No sir. Corporal Sabatini was present, but neither of us has mentioned it to the rest of the platoon.”

  “Good, good,” he said somewhat absently. Scratching at his chin. It seems I had given him something to think about. “Anything else, Corporal?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Let me know if anything comes up.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” I turned to go.

  “Collins,” he called after me.

  “Sir?”

  “You wouldn’t want to transfer to Intel after this cruise?”

  “No, thank you sir,” I smiled. “I’m happy to be a grunt.”

  “I understand,” he said, switching on his computer. “So was I.”

  Chapter 28

  8 JUN 2078

  ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7

  “Lt Evers managed to pass info up the food chain without anybody noticing?” I asked.

  Jensen smiled. “Sometimes, it’s all about who you know.”

  SNN News File 9, courtesy Brian Jensen

  24 Dec 2075

  Office of the Commandant of the Marine Corps

  General Lopez swore quietly as he finished reading the secure message on his computer. He shouted for his aide.

  “You bellowed, sir?” Colonel Bryant asked, stepping briskly into the office and closing the door.

  “That how they taught you to report to your superior?” General Lopez asked, a smile undercutting the rebuke.

  “Sorry, boss. Comes from slumming with Senators. What’s up?”

  “I just got an email from my daughter. She’s in Intel on the Halsey. Tell me what you think.” He swiveled the monitor toward the colonel.

  Colonel Bryant read in silence for a moment. His expression grew serious. “If this is all true, I can see why we didn’t get any of this through Naval Intelligence. How reliable is her friend?”

  “They went to MI school at Huachuca together. He’s a mustang. Went through Infantry and Recon as an enlisted man before he got his commission. Excellent record, good proficiency and conduct scores, no negative remarks in his jacket. He’s only a lieutenant in a grunt platoon, but he’s sharp.”

  “This is going to trash a lot of careers if it’s all true.”

  “Screw ’em. They made this mess.”

  “I agree. How do you want to follow up on this?”

  The general sighed. “I want to storm over to Congress, the CIA, and the Secretary of the Navy and demand a list of scalps, but we know that ain’t gonna happen. Since my usual ‘overrun and secure’ tactics aren’t appropriate, I was hoping you could think of a way to confirm some of these facts.”

  The colonel thought for a long moment. “Maybe. We can check the personnel files, look for connections to this Lt Commander Burton, see if he’s got ties to any of the other players. Then we can inspect the transport logs heading out to space. I know some people who work at FN in Belgium. I did some work with them when I was a liaison at NATO central command. I can get production numbers for these small arms, check that against deliveries and find out what may have been redirected to this pirate outfit. And not too many places build spaceworthy ships. I can dig around and figure how many may have wound up in the wrong hands. Hell, maybe some were even paid for by UBM or the CIA. Probably not, but we can always hope.”

  General Lopez smiled. “I knew I could count on you, Bill.”

  “Don’t forget your daughter and her lieutenant friend. How’s she doing now? Captain, right?”

  “That’s affirmative. She’s a captain, on the selection list for major. Somebody’s got to carry the torch for the family since my oldest went into engineering.”

  “Good for her. Give her my congratulations.” Colonel Bryant turned for the door. “I’ll report back when I can. Lots of rocks to look under.”

  “Thanks, Bill.”

  The general sat back down at his computer when the colonel closed the door. He began to compose a reply to his daughter.

  Chapter 29

  24 DEC 2075

  USS TRIPOLI

  We secured the deck-swabbing detail and were headed for chow, when I heard the intercom calling myself and Sabatini to the officer’s day room. We exchanged guilty looks. I wondered if somebody had caught wind of our torrid little affair.

  I was mentally running down the list of suspects when we arrived before the hatch. Being senior, I dutifully knocked and announced our arrival.

  “Come,” barked Lt Mitchell.

  We entered, stopping before the desk and snapping to attention.

  “Afternoon, sir. Corporals Collins and Sabatini reporting as ordered, sir.”

  “Afternoon, Marines,” the Old Man replied. “I want to introduce Captain Lopez from Battalion Intelligence.”

&nb
sp; Captain Lopez was probably in her early thirties, short, dark and formidable. She looked like she had been nursed on Jack Daniels and read the Guidebook for Marines as a bedtime story. Her utilities were pressed, not uncommon among rear echelon troops like Intel, but she had steel in her eyes and visible muscles on her arms below the exact regulation cuff on her rolled-up sleeves.

  I normally reserve an Infantryman’s contempt for all non-combat troops. As my dear old dad taught us, “Rear Echelon Motherfuckers include every son of a bitch whose position is behind mine.” Captain Lopez seemed to warrant more respect than that, even if she wasn’t a grunt.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” I said.

  “Afternoon, Marines.” She walked toward us, looked us up and down, then asked, “You two were the first to notice the FN serial numbers on the pirates’ weapons?”

  “Actually, ma’am, Cpl Sabatini noticed it first. She was in my fire team at the time and brought it to my attention.”

  “And you went straight to Lt Evers?”

  “It seemed to fall under Intel, ma’am.”

  “Good call. You didn’t talk about it to the rest of the platoon?”

  “No, ma’am. Lt Evers had already asked me to watch the scuttlebutt when I brought him some earlier information.”

  She turned to the lieutenant and raised an eyebrow slightly.

  “Cpl Collins dug up those speeches I forwarded,” he said.

  She seemed to make a mental note before proceeding. “What did you hear from the Rescue crew?”

  “We were on shore leave at Mars Station when we heard some Rescue Service guys talking about the Sunflower One operation. We wondered if they were the ones who sealed the breach, and they were. So we bought them a beer.”

  “You discussed a military operation with civilians?” she demanded.

  I was stunned. It wasn’t classified, and we hadn’t really given out any information. I struggled for words to answer this charge but Angelina beat me to it.

  “They saved our asses. They risked their careers and maybe their lives to bail us out so we did the decent thing and bought them a round,” she answered, her irritation at this desk jockey’s question clear despite the polite tone she chose. “Ma’am,” she added, after a calculated pause.

  I waited for the explosion, but it never came.

  “I see,” said the captain. “What did you hear about the Navy that you found so disturbing?”

  “The Rescue guys said a Navy Lieutenant Commander tried to warn them off. It sounded screwed up to us, ma’am.”

  “How so?”

  “I didn’t think the Navy would hang us out to dry. They haven’t done that since Wake Island, but that was a hundred something years ago. I figured it was fishy, so I told the lieutenant.”

  Cpt Lopez cracked a thin smile. “You know your history. My father would like you, Corporal.”

  “Your father’s a Marine, ma’am?” I asked.

  “General Rafael Lopez,” she answered, her smile still in place. “You’ve probably heard of him.”

  Shit. I thought for a minute how stupid I was not to have made that connection, but how many Latino Marines are named Lopez? Nearly as many as thickheaded Irish ones named Collins, probably.

  “I need to question the prisoners you took on the ship you boarded. I’ll be here for a few hours. If either of you think of anything else, let me know. I will trust in your continued discretion. Dismissed.”

  We deployed hastily to the rear. When we were back in the comparative safety of the passageway, we released the breaths we had both been holding.

  “Jaysus,” I muttered. “I was worried about getting a slap for Fraternization in Defiance of Regulations.”

  “Well, that’ll teach you to mix with Intel types,” Angelina answered.

  “Hey, I didn’t backtalk the Commandant’s daughter.”

  The pretty shade of pale she turned made the whole episode worthwhile.

  Chapter 30

  8 JUN 2078

  ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7

  “Captain Lopez was the contact Lt Evers used to get his info through?” I smiled. “I guess you can’t ask for a more direct route than the Commandant’s daughter.”

  SNN News File 10, courtesy Brian Jensen

  26 Dec 2075

  Office of the Commandant of the Marine Corps

  General Lopez and Colonel Bryant sat at either side of a large conference table strewn with maps, reports and printouts of email. It was all hard copy because any files sent through the Pentagon’s intranet would be reviewed, and the Commandant wasn’t in a trusting mood these days.

  Colonel Bryant rubbed his bloodshot eyes and summarized the piles of paper. “Based on traffic reports, shipbuilding manifests, weapons purchases, and the interrogations from your lovely daughter, we have the location, and approximate TO&E [Table of Organization and Equipment] of the pirates.”

  “Outstanding, Bill.” The general glowed. “Now we have to figure how to smash ’em.”

  “That’s not going to be easy if you want to maintain this level of secrecy. We can’t move many ships without bringing the top Navy brass on board. The Corvettes are ours, but any support vessels are Navy.”

  “I want to keep this a Marine show. That much we can control. We know of one leak in the fleet, let’s assume there are more.”

  “Do you want to have this Burton investigated?”

  “Yes, but not now. If we go after him, his bosses will know we’re up to something. You don’t shoot the point man until the whole enemy patrol is in the kill zone. We’ll get this bastard, but if we spook the big guys, they’ll just change their plans, move the base and we’ll never find ’em.

  “What can we deploy without talking to anybody but Marine Infantry officers, and make it look routine to the rest of the fleet?”

  The colonel winced and pulled a sheet from his pocket. “I had a feeling you’d want it that way. This is the most we can use.”

  The general took the folded sheet.

  “You aren’t going to like it,” warned the colonel.

  Chapter 31

  10 JAN 2076

  USS TRIPOLI

  After our departure from Mars Station, the training tempo increased dramatically. We had close combat, squad-level tactics, even played around on lanyards outside the ship in full vacuum gear, which sounds cool and is interesting for about three seconds and then sucks. We did a lot of training to maneuver in variable gravity, as they’d change the ship’s rotation to change the artificial G.

  I wasn’t sure if the training was because we had such green replacements or because the Powers That Be expected something big, but it did give me a good picture of the new composition of the platoon.

  LeBlanc was new to the job of sergeant, but he’d led a team as a corporal for years. Sabatini was a good corporal, and gained the respect of her team. Even Bauer jumped when she said to. My team was solid. O’Rourke was still gold when it was all on the line, like a firefight or a “procurement” mission, and a tragic liability everywhere else, but Johnson managed to learn only the best from him.

  Johnson was a damn good Marine. He could manage his TAR like an artist. He had all the instincts for putting down covering fire so the team could advance, suppressing fire so the enemy couldn’t advance, and delivering short, accurate bursts to knock out targets. He never used more ammo than he had to, which is the toughest thing about running an automatic weapon. The more rounds you send downrange, the more you have to hump on the mission, and the more often you burn out barrels. If anything sucks more than changing a barrel under fire, I don’t know what it is.

  The new guys were shaping OK. Khan was a natural. He moved with the grace and agility of a cat, even in full combat gear. He had already mastered the crouching run where you keep your rifle steady in your shoulder. He could hit shots on the fly. He’d be a good Marine once he had a fight under his belt.

  Kovanian was my cross to bear. I guess he was doing alright. He tried hard,
he just didn’t think on his feet, and his reflexes were a beat behind. I decided that after this cruise, I’d try to get him reassigned to Weapons Platoon. He was strong as an ox, which is terrific for humping extra mortar ammo through the boondocks, and a mortar man who takes an extra second to make sure is safer than a rifleman who hesitates in a close-quarters firefight. He didn’t have the instincts of a rifleman.

  I was reasonably happy with the squad. The rest of the platoon was pretty much the same as before. Williams was back to duty, and Ski had Wagner as a new replacement in his squad, but she was agile, capable and deceptively strong. Much like Khan, all she needed was a little seasoning to be a good Marine.

  To my amusement, the frustration of most of my brother Marines at her sexual orientation eventually simmered down to wistful grumbling. By some evil cosmic Karma, she had to deal with her own frustration. Soon after arriving, she singled out Angelina for a quiet talk and came away intensely disappointed at my darling’s heterosexuality.

  I have to say this was the least boring cruise I was ever on.

  Chapter 32

  8 JUN 2078

  ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7

  “So that’s why we went in so light,” I said. “I wondered. But not a lot filters down to grunts like us, so we just assumed it was a screw-up at the top.”

  “The General would have liked to use more troops, but they didn’t want to tip their hand moving large units,” said Jensen. “It did manage to fly under the radar of the CIA.”

  SNN News File 11, courtesy Brian Jensen

  5 Jan 2076

  Unconventional Forces Training Center, Ganymede

  “So what can I do for you, Colonel?” Special Agent O’Hooley asked.

  Milos Radicz scowled across his desk at the tall, handsome CIA man. This fellow has no idea of the demands of running a military organization, he thought. No man should be allowed to serve as military intelligence until he has at least made sergeant in an infantry platoon and understands what the job means.

  “You can find out what happened to my missing crew,” growled the Colonel. “That is the job of intelligence, is it not?”