Starfist - 14 - Double Jeopardy

by Dan Cragg

Corporal Pasquin sat straddling his chair, his arms folded across the top of its back, looking from Lance Corporal Quick to Lance Corporal Longfellow and back. He didn’t take enough time to let them get too uncomfortable under his penetrating look before saying, “Now you know why they call it the Crotch. They’ve got Mohammet’s pointy teeth clamped on our nuts and there’s not a damn thing you, you, me, or anyone else can do about it.”

  Quick and Longfellow looked at each other, saw no help there, and turned back to Pasquin.

  “So what are we going to do?” Quick asked. Longfellow just nodded.

  Pasquin sat erect, filled his chest with air, blew it out in a huff. “What we’re going to do is train. Train like we’ve never trained before. You just know that the first wave to make planetfall on the Skink home world is going to catch the worst of the shit. The best chance we have of coming through it is to be prepared for whatever the Skinks have waiting for us. So we’re going to train like the Virgin’s short and curlies are waiting to give us a reward if we train hard enough.”

  Pasquin gripped the top of his chair back, leaned against his desk, and closed his eyes. He didn’t say anything about how much tougher the fighting had gotten for the U.S. Marines during the biggest war of the twentieth century as their campaigns got closer to the Japanese mainland. But he thought about it.

  Corporal Claypoole wanted to say some things. He’d never intended to make a career of the Marines, but here he was, well into what would have been his second eight-year enlistment—if he’d been given the choice—and it was looking more and more like the only way he’d get out was in a flag-draped box. He could have imagined himself old, bent, and doddering, still on active duty, except that he couldn’t imagine having enough luck to live that long. Not with all the deployments Thirty-fourth FIST had. Not with Thirty-fourth FIST being the designated first wave for an invasion of the Skink home world. Claypoole had thought his morale was low when Brigadier Sturgeon announced the extensions for the duration, and the no-transfer policy. But this … Designated first wave? He didn’t think he could sink any further.

  Hey! He could marry Jente! Then when the Marines found out he was married even though he was only a corporal, he’d get court-martialed, thrown in the brig for the duration, and not be in that first wave!

  Nah. The way things were going, the Marines wouldn’t care that he got married before he reached staff sergeant—which he probably wouldn’t, unless Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, all three squad leaders, and a bunch of other corporals were killed in that invasion.

  Lance Corporal MacIlargie sat at his tiny desk, facing the wall, with his library open in front of him. He wasn’t reading anything or looking anything up. He was just staring at the screen, trying not to think about what had just happened. He knew that if he did, he’d explode, and if he did, Hammer Schultz would be all over him like slop on a hog. Then it would be Claypoole’s turn, and anybody could see he wanted someone to take his anger out on. Then Sergeant Kerr. Then Staff Sergeant Hyakowa. Then Lieutenant Bass. Hell, he’d probably get his ass hauled up in front of the Skipper. If there was enough left of his ass to haul after Top Myer got through with him.

  He folded his arms on his desk and dropped his head onto them, trying not to cry.

  For his part, Lance Corporal Schultz was content. He was a member of the FIST that got deployed into harm’s way more often than any other unit in the Confederation military, which meant he had more opportunity to fight than he would in any other posting. And, once the Skink home world was found, he would be in the first wave to make planetfall. Now that would be a challenge for a fighting man.

  He opened his library and started studying the twentieth-century campaigns of the U.S. Marines and the Royal Marines, the direct ancestors of the Confederation Marine Corps. He was sure he’d find something in those histories that would help in the invasion of the Skink home world.

  In his office, Captain Conorado looked at the busywork training schedule he’d had drawn up to counter plummeting morale. What they’d done so far had staved off the worst, but today’s announcement of Thirty-fourth FIST being the spear point—well, he knew morale would be dropping again, and more rapidly. It would be a couple of days yet before they headed to the field to begin training for the invasion so he had to put his Marines through more busywork.

  “Gunny!”

  “Yes, sir.” Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher appeared in the doorway of Conorado’s office.

  “Assemble the company. We’re going to have an hour of PT, then a fifteen-K run.” He paused to consider, then added, “Sweats, not full gear.”

  “Aye aye, sir. How soon do you want to start?”

  “Fifteen minutes.” That would give him plenty of time to change into his own sweats. He needed busywork as much as his Marines did.

  Two and a half hours later, the company ran back into the company area behind the barracks.

  Breathing heavily, Conorado surveyed his company for a moment. Everybody was there except Corporal Palmer, who had stayed behind to answer the comm. As bad as their morale had to be, his Marines had held formation through the entire run; nobody had fallen out. They were looking a bit ragged, and some were bent over, hands on knees, lungs heaving, but they had come through fine. Maybe the exertion had raised their morale a bit. He knew he was feeling better than he had before the PT had begun. Now it was time for a break. It was only 15 hours, an hour shy of the normal time for the start of liberty, but he wanted to give something to his Marines.

  “Listen up!” Conorado called out. “When I dismiss you, hit the showers. Every platoon commander is authorized to sound liberty call for his platoon as soon as everybody in his platoon is showered and in civvies.”

  He paused to look over the company again, then loudly and clearly called out, “Company L, dismissed!”

  The Marines broke ranks and sprinted for the barracks. Yes, an early liberty call was exactly the right thing to do. Now to shower and change himself, so he could get home to Marta.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Liberty call, liberty call, liberty call!” Staff Sergeant Hyakowa’s voice rang out through third platoons squadbay. Echoes rang from the squadbays of Company L’s other platoons as their platoon sergeants announced liberty call.

  Liberty call: free time. The chance to go to the base theater, or one of the on-base eateries instead of the mess hall. Opportunity to partake in any of the recreational facilities offered on Camp Major Pete Ellis. Or time to pull on civvies and head for the pleasures of Bronnoysund—or anyplace else on Thorsfinni’s World that one could get to and then back from by the next morning formation.

  Some of the Marines were on their way out of the barracks before the last “Liberty call!” sounded. But not all of them.

  Corporal Joe Dean, in his fire team’s room, had started stripping out of his olive drab garrison utilities as soon as the first “Liberty call!” sounded, but only got as far as shucking off his shirt and loosening his trousers before collapsing back onto his rack, with one foot on the floor and the other hanging over the side of his mattress. He reached to pull his pillow under his head, then folded his arms over his chest and lay staring at the ceiling.

  PFC John Three McGinty didn’t notice immediately; he was too busy changing into his civvies. When Thirty-fourth FIST returned from fighting the Skinks on Haulover, pretty Stulka, one of the serving girls at Big Barb’s, had attached herself to him, and he was anxious to see if she still wanted to dally.

  Lance Corporal Francisco Ymenez, on the other hand, still not quite certain about his acceptance in the platoon and without a girl to call his own, was slow enough about deciding whether to head for Bronnys or do something on base that he noticed his fire team leader’s odd behavior. Normally, Dean started liberty by hustling Corporals Claypoole and Chan to the liberty bus for the short ride into town.

  “Ah, what’s the matter, honcho?” Ymenez hesitantly asked. “Corporal Dean?” he asked when he didn’t get a response.

  “Hm? W
hat? No, nothing’s the matter,” Dean said in a flat voice. “Everything’s five-by. You head for town and enjoy yourself.” He didn’t look away from the ceiling.

  By this time, McGinty had noticed Dean lying half dressed on his rack. “You sure, honcho?” He was already halfway into the corridor that ran the length of the squadbay.

  Dean sighed. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He didn’t look at either of his men.

  “You don’t look like nothing’s the matter.”

  “I’m fine!” Dean snapped. “Now go away and leave me alone. Both of you.”

  Ymenez and McGinty looked at each other, and Ymenez quickly began changing into his civvies. Before he was finished, there was a quiet shuffling of moving bodies at the door. Ymenez grabbed a shirt and his shoes and almost ran to join McGinty in the corridor. He caromed off a large body on his way. The large body didn’t seem to notice. It rumbled into third fire team’s room and stopped less than a meter from Dean’s rack.

  “Up!” The one word cracked like the first boulder that sets off a monumental avalanche.

  “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” Dean mumbled. He lifted one arm from his chest and draped it across his eyes.

  The large body reached for Dean’s leg, stopped when a hand clamped on its arm, looked at the hand, looked into the face of Corporal Claypoole.

  Who looked up into those deadly eyes, swallowed, let go, and took a quick step back. After all, that was Hammer Schultz whose arm he’d just grabbed. “Don’t hurt him,” Claypoole said, taking another step back. “He’s a corporal. You’ll get in trouble for assaulting an NCO.”

  Schultz shook his head. Claypoole hoped the negative meant “I won’t hurt him” and not “I don’t care if I get in trouble.”

  “Come on, Hammer. Dean-o’s still recovering from his wounds.”

  “He’s okay,” Schultz rumbled, staring down at Dean, who showed no indication that he was concerned about the threatening figure looming above him.

  In the corridor, Ymenez, McGinty, and Lance Corporal MacIlargie cautiously peered around the door frame into the room. Another figure suddenly loomed behind them.

  “What’s going on here?” Sergeant Lupo Ratliff demanded.

  Schultz turned half toward the door and hooked a thumb at Dean. “Crybaby.”

  Ratliff looked at Schultz, at Dean, back at Schultz. “You three,” he said to the trio in the corridor, all in civvies though Ymenez’s shirt was fastened awry. “Get your asses to the liberty bus. Claypoole, see to it. Keep them in town for a few hours. Hammer, go with them. Keep them out of trouble.”

  Schultz cocked an eyebrow and hooked a thumb at Dean again, a question this time.

  “I’ll deal with him.” Ratliff stepped aside so Claypoole and Schultz could get by then entered the room and pulled a chair close to Dean’s rack. He sat down and looked at him for a long moment, thinking about what to say; he was pretty sure he knew what the problem was. “So talk to me,” he finally said.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Forget it, Rock. I’m not going to leave you alone. I know what’s going on here, and I know you have to deal with it. So talk to me.”

  “You don’t know shit about what’s going on.”

  Ratliff blew out a breath. “I don’t know shit about what’s going on. Let’s see. You lost a man on Haulover and got wounded yourself. I lost a man on Haulover and had another man get wounded badly enough that he was stuck in a stasis bag and left there until we returned to Camp Ellis and he could be hospitalized. A few months before that, on Ravenette, I had four men get wounded, and two old friends got killed. What part of that is it that don’t I know shit about?”

  Dean suddenly sat up, swung his legs over the side of his rack, and gripped its side. “You weren’t almost killed when the Skinks killed Izzy. You didn’t spend all that time in a stasis bag. You act like it doesn’t mean anything to you when someone gets killed or wounded.”

  Ratliff flinched at the accusation but remained calm. “You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t almost get killed by the Skinks, I didn’t spend a lot of time in a stasis bag, and I act like it means anything to me when Marines get killed or wounded. But that act”—he shoved his face close to Dean’s and snarled—“is just that, an act!

  “It tears me up inside when one of my men, one of my friends, gets wounded or killed. But I’m a Marine! Marines get wounded, Marines get killed. And Marines learn to live with it.” He lowered his voice. “Because if you don’t learn to live with it, you’re liable to get yourself killed. And you’re a fire team leader; you can get your men killed if you can’t live with it. What do you think would happen to this squad if I showed how I felt when my Marines got wounded, got killed? If I showed how torn up I was when an old friend got killed? Huh?

  “I’ll tell you what would happen. You and everybody else in the squad would start thinking I wasn’t able to do my job. You’d think I was in a state that would put your life in jeopardy, that you could get killed because I was upset. And then Marines under me would get killed. Because nobody would trust me to be right when I gave them orders. That’s what would happen if I didn’t act like casualties don’t bother me.”

  He pulled back and gave Dean a chance to say something. When Dean didn’t, he said, “But that’s not what’s bothering you. You’ve been wounded before. You’ve lost men before, you’ve lost friends. So talk to me—and don’t give me any of that ‘you don’t know shit’ shit!”

  Dean’s face slowly changed until he looked haunted. “We’re going to die, Rabbit. All of us. Every time the Skinks show up someplace, they’re going to send us to fight them. And get killed!” He looked into Ratliff’s eyes. “And we don’t get time off for good behavior. It doesn’t matter how well we do against the Skinks, they’ll keep sending us after them. Again, and again, and again, until we’re all dead!”

  Ratliff slowly shook his head. “Listen to me, Rock. We’re Marines, we go in harm’s way. Always have, always will. It doesn’t matter if it’s local warlords, pirates, rebellious worlds, Skinks, other aliens, or anyone else. You know that, because you’ve gone against all those things. When we go in harm’s way, there’s always a risk of Marines getting wounded or even killed. There’s a risk of me getting killed, there’s a risk of you getting killed.

  “But, and take this in and tattoo it on your heart and brain, the more we know about the enemy, and the smarter we fight, the fewer of us who become casualties.

  “Third platoon has fought the Skinks three times now. They caught us by surprise the first two times. The second time, nearly half the Marines in the platoon were wounded, and some were killed. Hell”—he shook his head at the memory—“we even thought Lieutenant Bass got killed.”

  “Right, half the platoon was casualties on Kingdom. That proves my point!”

  “Bullshit it does! They surprised us on Kingdom because we thought we were going up against some religious fanatics. Then the Skinks surprised us with rail guns and light armor.

  “And we cleaned their clocks! We killed almost all of them, and chased the survivors out of Human Space! On Haulover, we knew who we were going up against. This time they surprised us with aircraft. The platoon only had three casualties and we wiped them out completely! We fought smarter and better, and we came out in better shape than the last time we’d fought them.

  “One of the ways we fight smart is this: Our leaders, from the highest general all the way down to fire team leaders, don’t show how torn up they are at losing men. And the result is, we lose fewer Marines.

  “Get that through your mind, Corporal Dean. And get a grip. Your men rely on you; their lives depend on them believing in you. If you show how upset you are, they can’t believe in you, and that will get them killed.”

  He sat back and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for Dean’s reaction. After a long moment, Dean shook himself and sat up straight.

  “Since you put it that way, yeah, that makes sense.” He shuddered. “But the Skinks s
till scare the shit out of me.”

  Ratliff laughed. “Dean, when third platoon ran up against them on Waygone, we killed every last Skink on that planet. We killed most of them on Kingdom, and the survivors were lucky to get away. We killed all of them, hundreds of thousands of them, on Haulover. How do you think they feel about going up against us?”

  Dean let out a strained laugh. “You’ve got a point there.”

  Ratliff clapped him on the shoulder and stood up. “Good. Change into your civvies. We’re going into town and you’re going to get drunk and get laid.”

  “Will that cure what ails me?” Dean asked wryly.

  “Nope. But it’ll take your mind off what’s bothering you until you sober up and don’t have a woman in your arms. Now get a move on.” He checked the time. “We’ve got ten minutes to make the next liberty bus.”

  They made it with seconds to spare.

  When Sergeant Ratliff opened the door to Big Barb’s, the volume of sound hit him in the face and the gut at the same time. He leaned forward and muscled his way through the noise. Corporal Dean followed close behind, drafting in his wake. Unerringly, guided by voices he barely picked out from the general din, Ratliff made his way to three large tables around which most of third platoon was gathered.

  Sergeant Kerr was there, with blond Frida snuggled up against one side and dark-haired Gotta on the other, one feeding him and the other giving him drink. PFC John Three McGinty looked almost giddy with pretty Stulka on his lap. Corporal Chan managed to simultaneously look embarrassed and proud, being held on the lap of statuesque Sigfreid. The other Marines were all paired off with their regular ladies. Even Lance Corporal Ymenez, hitherto with no one to call his own, was closely attended by a redhead Ratliff didn’t recognize.

  “Where’s Claypoole?” Ratliff shouted into Kerr’s ear when he’d taken stock.

  “With his farm girl, I imagine,” Kerr shouted back.

  “The one from Brystholde?”

  “Is there another one?” Kerr asked with a laugh.