Starfist - 12 - Firestorm

by Dan Cragg

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Marcus Aurelius Berentus had been a soldier all his life, with the possible exception of the recent past during which time he had served in the cabinet of Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant as her Minister of War. Perhaps, then, it would be better to say he had devoted his life to public service, because the warrior in a democracy such as the Confederation of Human Worlds serves as the bulwark ensuring the freedoms of its citizens.

  Chang-Sturdevant had selected him to be a member of her cabinet early in her administration. She had tapped him for the position based on the recommendation of her massage therapist, Karla Grabbentao, whose husband, Barton, had served in Berentus’s squadron during one of the Silvansian wars and virtually worshipped his old commander. Desperate to find someone who actually knew something about war and the military service, someone more qualified than the political hacks appointed to the office by her predecessors, she had called Berentus out of retirement for a chat. She liked his easy, relaxed manner and his honesty. So, despite some misgivings on the part of her staff and other cabinet members, she put his name before the Confederation Senate to be her next Minister of War.

  The senators had debated endlessly. All, even those of her own party, had been dismayed at her choice, but none could find any dirt on Berentus that would disqualify him from such a high office. Instead, they debated his qualifications. “Doesn’t know his way around Fargo!” “No experience in government!” “No political affiliation!” “Not even married!” But in the end they had confirmed him.

  For once the politicians had made the right decision, because no better man could have been made for the job.

  Marcus Berentus sat alone in his office awaiting the imminent arrival of General Anders Aguinaldo. He had asked the Marine to stop by on his way to his personal interview with the president, just to chat. He liked Aguinaldo and, of course, the president had selected him to head up the Skink task force partly on his recommendation—and her own instinct.

  His favorite music played quietly in the background, some tunes made popular by an ancient string band of the early twentieth century. His secretary announced that the general had arrived. “Don’t keep him waiting, Connie,” he responded. He stood, came around his desk, and met Aguinaldo in the middle of his spartan office. “General.” He extended his hand and they shook warmly.

  “Excellency, thank you for inviting me.”

  “Call me Marcus, General. Confucius’s calluses, General, if they hadn’t made me Minister of War, you’d outrank me all to hell!”

  Aguinaldo laughed softly. “Call me Andy, sir.” Berentus nodded and indicated a comfortable settee on one side of a coffee table. The table itself was a beautifully carved piece of slate depicting in three dimensions several types of fighter aircraft. Aguinaldo ran a hand over the carvings. “You fly any of these, sir?” He knew that in his younger days Berentus had been a hotshot fighter pilot, in fact an ace in both deep-space and aerial combat.

  “Yup, made as many landings as takeoffs.”

  Aguinaldo cocked his ear to the music. “That’s a catchy tune, sir—I mean Marcus.”

  “Yes. I’m a fan of that old-fashioned stuff, being a dinosaur myself. The tune they’re playing now is ‘Pass Around the Bottle and We’ll All Take a Drink,’ to the tune of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ You listen carefully enough and you can actually understand the words.” He laughed. “Speaking of which…?” He nodded at a cabinet against one wall.

  “A battle hymn or whiskey? I’ve had more than my share of both. Oh, no, sir.” Aguinaldo laughed. “I can’t go in to see the president with booze on my breath!”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Berentus said, getting up and opening the cabinet. “You’ll probably leave with booze on your breath; the Old Lady’s liable to offer you a libation herself.” He began mixing two drinks. “I refuse to own or use, if I can do it myself, one of those goddamned robo-servers.” He chuckled. “Two things no real man leaves to a machine: his sex partner and mixing his drink. How do you like your Scotch, Andy?”

  “Oh, maybe one finger, couple of rocks?”

  “Man after me own heart!” Berentus poured two drinks and returned to the table. He raised his glass to Aguinaldo. “General, you are about to depart on a mission of the greatest importance to all of us, possibly the greatest task ever assigned anybody. Your Marines proved on Kingdom they could handle these bastards and the president and I both know you’ll clean their clocks for good.” They sipped their drinks in silence.

  “This is damned good Scotch!” Aguinaldo said at last.

  “It ought to be. Sue, er, the president herself recommended it to me.” Berentus’s face turned slightly red and he looked away sharply to cover the near slip. Aguinaldo caught it, however, and suppressed a slight smile. The Minister of War was as embarrassed as a schoolboy stealing his first kiss. Aguinaldo liked that kind of irrepressible honesty in a man, since so few people these days could be embarrassed by the plain truth about themselves. Everyone knew that Marcus and the president were very “close,” if that is the proper word to describe their private relationship. “Well,” Berentus continued, “I just wanted to ask you over here before you saw the Old Lady. You’ll never meet anyone as straightforward and accessible as the president, Andy. If she’d chosen the military service as her career, she’d be wearing four stars now. As it is, she outranks us all anyway. Andy, we—you and I and any soldier worth his pay—are damned fortunate to have her as our Commander in Chief.”

  “I’ll drink to that, sir!” They toasted the president.

  “Andy, you need anybody to fly one of those newfangled A8E VSTOLs, you give me a call. Why, couple of months retraining, maybe a few new organs, and I’ll be ready to wax some of those Skinks for you.”

  Sensing that the interview was over now, Aguinaldo finished his Scotch and stood up. “You bet!” he replied. “We can always use a bold pilot.”

  “Let me tell you something, Andy. There are old pilots and bold pilots but there ain’t no old bold pilots!” Berentus laughed. “Good luck, Andy.” They shook again.

  “Uh, sir?” Aguinaldo nodded at the music. “Just who are those guys?” he nodded at the music which was still playing in the background.

  “Oh, that’s Gid Plunkett and His Sand Sifters, an old Georgia string band.” Berentus laughed.

  “Well, what in the hell are they singing about?”

  “They’re singing an old novelty tune about a boardinghouse somewhere. The idiom is very old American English but if you listen carefully you can make out most of the words. Here, I’ll translate.

  “Oh, the pork chops, they was rare,

  The potatoes had red hair

  Fido had all his feet down in the soup.

  Oh, the eggs they would not match,

  If you cracked one it would hatch

  In that awful hungry hash house where I dwell!

  “They ought to make up a song about me, Andy. I told you, I’m a dinosaur, a connoisseur of the ancient and improbable. Just the man to be Minister of War in a time of universal crisis.”

  “Marcus, you and Porter with his hot dogs, macaroni, and Jell-O would hit it off just fine.”

  Berentus laughed. “I’ve heard about those luncheons of his. Fortunately, I’ve always had business to keep me away.” He paused and looked steadily at Aguinaldo for a moment, then said, “Andy, we’re counting on you and we know you’ll pull this operation off successfully, but just in case you need a little extra assistance, God bless you and your troops.”

  “General, I won’t wish you luck, but success.”

  “Ma’am, thank you, but if it weren’t for luck, well”—he smiled—“I’d probably still be an ensign.”

  They were sitting in Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant’s private office sipping Lagavulin. She smiled. She liked General Anders Aguinaldo’s self-deprecating sense of humor. It only confirmed to her that appointing him to head the Joint Task Force was a wise decision coming even as late as this.
“When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow. My staff is already on Arsenault, assembling some of the specialized units I’ll need as the cadre for the force.”

  “General, sometimes I think that anything I don’t screw up I shit on. I should have appointed you to head this task force long ago instead of appointing you commandant, as much as you and the Marine Corps deserved it. I could’ve given you your fourth star right then as task force commander and—”

  “Ma’am, if I may? You had a lot on your plate at the time. Besides, once we chased the Skinks off Kingdom, we thought we’d cleaned their clock permanently. There was no urgency then to implement the task force.”

  “Thank you, General!” Chang-Sturdevant laughed. “Well, to the matter at hand. Your orders give you the powers of a plenipotentiary. Use them. I have instructed every ministry in my government to assist you to the fullest extent possible. Tolerate no bureaucratic bullshit, General. I’m retiring Admiral Porter and appointing General Cazombi to his post. You’ve met Cazombi?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He is the perfect choice. But let me add, please, that old Admiral Porter, well, he’s not a bad sort. But he belongs in retirement. This situation calls for a man like Cazombi.”

  “Porter will be retired with full honors, General. One more thing. I may not be in office much longer.”

  “What?”

  “I’m addressing a joint session of the Confederation Congress tomorrow. I’m telling them everything.” She shook her head. “I think the reports we’ve had that the Skinks are back are accurate. I’m releasing to the media the vids and all reports generated after the encounter on Kingdom. We cannot keep this under wraps a day longer, General. We have got to mobilize and you will be at the sharp end of the stick. But the politicians may not be happy I’ve waited this long to tell them about the Skink threat. I could be impeached over this.”

  “I hope the hell not!”

  “Whatever happens to me is of little importance. Time is of the essence, General. Get out there, put your forces together, and deal with these bastards. You do that and my conscience will be a lot lighter.”

  Aguinaldo finished his drink. “Damned good Scotch! Well, Madam President, it’ll be a big day for all of us tomorrow. I’d better be off. Do you have anything else for me tonight?”

  Chang-Sturdevant rose and held out her hand. When Aguinaldo took it she kissed him lightly on the cheek and whispered, “We’re all depending on you. God bless you and your troops.”

  President Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant was perspiring. “Marcus,” she said, “this is going to be an ordeal, a debacle, if I don’t handle it just right.” She was referring to the joint session of the Confederation Congress that she would address in only a few minutes. “The whole shebang will be out in the open, Marcus. Back where I come from we have an old saying, Marcus. Today the cucumber is in your hand; tomorrow it may be up your ass. In a few minutes I’ll know where it’s going.” She took a deep breath. “I’m as nervous as a bride on her wedding night.” She grinned.

  “Well, you shine today like a young girl walking down the aisle, Suelee,” Marcus remarked. She did, she looked positively radiant—to Marcus. She was wearing a military-style tunic that buttoned closely around her throat and on her left breast shimmered the Order of Military Merit she’d earned as a Reserve Second Lieutenant in the Second Silvansian War. It was not her only decoration, but it was the only one she ever wore. “Shall I change into my old uniform and be your ‘husband’ and accompany you?” Marcus asked.

  “Are you proposing?” she responded, archly. “Not now, Marcus, but thanks just the same.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “We can talk about the husband part later.”

  Berentus’s face had turned red with embarrassment. Now might not have been the best time for such a proposal, but Chang-Sturdevant knew how he felt about her and he figured since the target was in his sights he should fire away. “Well, okay then, Madam President, will you marry me?” he blurted out. “I’d have asked a long time ago,” he hurried on, “but you’ve been keeping me so damned busy lately!”

  Chang-Sturdevant laughed. “Okay, Mr. Minister, let’s do it! Damn, you beat me to it! But Marcus, isn’t a proposal supposed to be more romantic? Nice of you to pop the question just before I go down the shitter. Give me something to be happy about as I slide down the razor blade of political disaster.”

  “We’ll hold hands and go down together. Ah, well.” Berentus chuckled. “We’ve known each other too long for any romantic stuff. But going back to the crisis of the moment, Suelee, sure you don’t want one friendly face out there to back you up?”

  “No, I got us into this and I’m going to have to get us out or take the well-deserved consequences.” She smiled briefly. “I can always count on you, can’t I?” she added. Her expression had become serious. What she was about to do would be the turning point in her career. She’d had so many turning points recently she was getting dizzy.

  “You bet.”

  “Well, when they throw me out will you still love me, Marcus?”

  “You bet, Suelee! Hell, you goddamned better count on it, Madam President,” he replied with feeling and kissed her back. “I wish we would get tossed out, then I’d have you all to myself. Damn, Suelee, Mary Baker Eddy’s toenails, we sure gummed things up this time, didn’t we?”

  “What’s this ‘we,’ Marcus? You got a kwangduk in your pocket?” She laughed.

  Berentus grinned. She was beginning to talk like a warrior now. He knew nobody in that Congress could handle this president. “Little girl, want me to walk you to the hall, carry your books, buy you an ice cream?”

  “Nope. Just give me a hug.” He did, and a long one too. “See you later?” She smiled and hummed the words from an old, old song they both knew so well:

  Will you come and plant some flowers

  Round my cold eternal grave?

  Will you come and sit beside me

  Where the lilies nod and wave?

  Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant waved nonchalantly and walked out into the Great Hall of the Confederation Congress.

  When the sergeant at arms announced President Chang-Sturdevant’s entry into the Great Hall, half of the members did not even bother to get out of their seats; the other half were already up, shouting and arguing with one another. After a long call to order, a restive silence finally engulfed the assembled legislators. In fact, most of the members of both houses of the Confederation Congress were present since it had been announced earlier that President Chang-Sturdevant would deliver an important address that day. The media were there also, covering the entire session, happily recording the antics of their elected representatives.

  “Madam Chang-Sturdevant, President of the Confederation of Human Worlds, will now address this Congress,” the old sergeant at arms announced in a stentorian voice. Bowing to the dais, he took his own seat beside the President of the Senate.

  Chang-Sturdevant had never looked better. Her blazing white tunic perfectly offset her black hair with its single strand of white and the Order of Military Merit glittered brilliantly in the lights. She was very proud of her Merit award and, besides, it intimidated other politicians, most of whom had never worn a uniform in peace or war.

  “Madam President! Madam President!” It was Haggle Kutmoi, the Senator from Bulon, an early and vigorous supporter of the war against the Coalition. “Madam President!” His voice thundered without amplification. Chang-Sturdevant wondered how such a little man could have such a powerful voice.

  “Be seated, Senator! The president is about to address this Congress!” the sergeant at arms thundered, half rising out of his seat.

  Kutmoi ignored him, a dangerous thing to do, and kept on anyway. He advanced toward the podium, one hand held high. “Madam President, I do not need to tell you and the august members of this legislative body that the hearings I am presently conducting into the scandalous, nay, mutinous events on Ravenette in which you, Madam President, are complicit, are now a matter
of public knowledge and comment. They will reveal how you have let the Ravenette traitors off the hook! When all the facts are in I shall demand, demand legislation limiting your War Powers authority as well as commence impeachment proceedings against you and Minister of War Marcus Berentus!”

  “Senator,” Chang-Sturdevant replied calmly, “I have nothing further to say about Ravenette. That matter is closed so far as I am concerned. Let your hearings proceed as they may, Senator, but you can expect no cooperation from anyone in my government. As to your committee’s recommendations, whatever they shall be, well, Senator, you can take them and shove them straight up your—” What she said was drowned out in the cheers, howls, and laughter that engulfed the Great Hall.

  The settlers in the far-flung reaches of Human Space did not receive vids of Chang-Sturdevant’s momentous speech for many days after it was delivered and what she said to Senator Haggle Kutmoi, although old news by then, still made them laugh and cheer and pound one another’s backs, and swear they’d vote for this woman in the next election; they’d already seen vids of both Billie’s and Cazombi’s testimony before Kutmoi’s panel and opinion was running high on the side of the plainspoken Cazombi.

  Chang-Sturdevant did not need a high-priced lawyer to tell her about the advantages of being honest with the voters, of admitting mistakes openly. That is what she was about to do, and after she was done, Haggle Kutmoi’s hearings would collapse like a pricked balloon. But what she told them made their blood run cold.

  Chang-Sturdevant told them about the Skinks.

  Several days later, sitting disconsolately in his hotel room, Jason Fosdick Billie put the muzzle of his antique pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.