Starfist - 14 - Double Jeopardy

by Dan Cragg

  Raidly patiently schooled his new source in the tradecraft, including how to spot surveillance, vehicular and foot, how to elicit information without actually appearing to be asking questions, how to execute a car pickup, follow a communications plan, and so on. “This is very important, Humbert. Never, but never ask direct questions of a source, you know, like How many men have you got on so-and-so?’ That’s a dead giveaway that you’re probing. It’ll get you in trouble if counterintelligence gets on you.”

  * * *

  “… Strangest-looking damn little guys you ever seen. They got some kinda weapon that burns you like hell.” The speaker had a burr haircut, was wearing a sleeveless tank top cut to show off lots of hairless chest, de rigueur for mercenaries in Worthington that season. His neck, shoulders, chest, and arms bulged with the kind of muscles that only grow after hundreds of hours in a Mus-L-Max or similar bodybuilding apparatus—and possibly from ample doses of illegal substances. Parsells knew the type well. He was a couple of decades too young to be retired military. Parsells had immediately pegged him as someone who had spent an enlistment or two in a planetary army somewhere, got into special ops, then got out and went freelance because the merc companies paid better and the discipline wasn’t as Mickey Mouse. And he’d have more opportunity to work out in a Mus-L-Max or indulge in illegal substances.

  The guy also liked to talk.

  “Weird little guys,” Mr. Muscles was saying. “They don’t wear no clothes and they live in tunnels. Hummer.” He turned to Parsells, known to the steady customers as “Hummer,” and said, “Gimme and my mates here ’nother round.” The two bookending the talkative one looked to be the same type but had spent fewer hours on the Mus-L-Max. Parsells refilled their steins.

  “You keep sayin’ ‘little guys.’ What was they, midgets or sumptin?” Parsells asked. Parsells leered at the two companions, who laughed. “‘No clothes,’ eh,” he leered. “Whyn’t you bring one of ’em wid you, we cud gang-fuck th’ little bastard right here, on th’ bar. Great laughs for the guys.”

  Mr. Muscles winced. “Not unless midgets where you comes from have tails. They ain’t no damn midgets,” he replied.

  “Tails?” the other bookend exclaimed, in a drunken state of awe.

  “Tails and fur, too.”

  “You sayin’ they’s aliens?” The first bookend sounded dubious.

  “Am I mumbling? What’d I say?”

  “Sounds to me like you saying they’re aliens.” The second book-end now also sounded dubious.

  Mr. Muscles audibly took a big swig from his stein before continuing. “Anyways, we had ’em mining gemstones on this gawdawful hot world they lived on, Ass-tar, or somesuch place. Kind of a twin to another world with actual civilization on it. No people live on Ass-tar, just them weird little guys. Too damn hot. Gotta wear climate-control uniforms alla time, and have some powerful climate control in the mess and quarters, or you’ll roast like a side a beef, ’cause it’s a desert, like, not a jungle with lots of humidity. Don’t know how them little buggers stood it. But they did.

  “I don’t know how long the op was going on before I got there, but everything was all fine, excepting the only womens was the office workers, and only the bosses got to pork them, which made for a bunch of horny fighting men, lemme tell you! Anyhow, one night some of ’em got some rifles from someplace and killed all the guards at their camp and all the workers run off into that desert.

  “Weren’t long before there was fighting at more mining camps.” He paused, possibly reflecting on the fighting. “Anyways, we beat their asses something fierce in most of the fights, and kept the mines working. Hell, their rifles were mostly single shot, and their mortars didn’t have a lot of range, weren’t like our flechette rifles and artillery. But the worst thing they had was this gas, or liquid, or something. They’d booby-trap trenches or the tunnels. Sometimes even the in-sides of the buildings. And that shit’d spew out and burn the hell out’n anybody close to it. Killed some good men.”

  At that moment the door burst open and four more muscle-bound men marched in, greeted the three at the bar, and, amid much roaring and backslapping, the seven mercenaries left the bar for one of the private rooms. Parsells smiled to himself. This stuff was worth a bonus! Quietly he cleaned glasses. Wait’ll Raidly gets an earload of this! he told himself. He glanced at his chronometer. It was nearly midnight. No sense missing a night’s sleep, but this information was hot so he had to set up a meeting with Raidly right now. Making sure no one was watching him, he punched the emergency contact number into his comm.

  Someone answered immediately. “Is Peter there? Please tell him his laundry will be ready at nine hours this morning.”

  “I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number.” The person on the other end hung up.

  This meant that Parsells would meet Raidly at a prearranged site at noon that day, three hours after the announced pickup time.

  At precisely 12:45 P.M. that day, Warrant Officer Morgan Raidly burst into Captain Solden’s office exclaiming, “Sweet baby Jesus!”

  “He shit in His manger again?” Captain Solden grinned.

  Raidly paused to catch his breath, and then said, “Captain, I think we’ve got another Skink contact!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  If there is anything sacred to military people it’s the chain of command. To jump the chain is worse to a soldier than farting in church. And jumping channels, as it’s called, can ruin an officer’s career. So Warrant Officer Raidly’s report, as hot as it was, went up the 417th Military Intelligence Detachment’s chain of command. It didn’t take long for Army Intelligence on Carhart’s World to identify “Ass-Tar” and its civilized twin planet as Ishtar and Opal. That and everything else CWO Raidly had overheard was put together in an intelligence report and sent on to the Heptagon on Earth, where it eventually reached the desk of Major Franklin Brown in the office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Army Chief of Staff’s Office.

  There was an addendum to the report, further intelligence that Chief Warrant Officer Raidly and other undercover intelligence operatives on Carhart’s World had gathered during the week between his initial report and the time the finished report was forwarded to Earth: A security consultancy firm called Sharp Edge, LLC, was heavily recruiting for a mission on Ishtar.

  Major Brown read the report, saw small, naked, tunnel-living aliens fighting humans, put two and two together, and came up with Skinks. He made a wry face. Skinks with fur? Hardly. He shook his head. This information had been gathered in a bar, so one had to expect flights of imagination. He dismissed tails and fur as drunken embellishments and assumed that the burning gas or liquid was a misinterpretation of acid. But the bit about Sharp Edge, now that was military intelligence! After noodling the report and adding his analysis, he passed it up to his commander, Colonel Archie Jones.

  Colonel Jones read the report and Major Brown’s analysis, noodled them, added his analysis, and passed them further up the army chain of command. He also passed the material over to navy Captain Hyram Walks, his counterpart in C2, the Combined Chiefs of Staff’s intelligence division. Captain Walks read the report, the attached analysis, noodled the report, added his own analysis, and passed them up, where in stages the report was further noodled and more analyses were appended.

  By the time the report and its numerous analyses reached the office of General Alistair Cazombi, Chairman of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the accumulated noodling had managed to lose all mention of tails and fur, and the “unidentified gas or liquid” had been changed to “acid.”

  And the addendum, while retaining the fact that a privately owned, interstellar corporation, possibly mercenary, was involved on Ishtar, Sharp Edge’s name and its continued heavy recruiting for ongoing operations on Ishtar had been dropped.

  Cazombi saw that the Opal-Ishtar system was independent of the Confederation of Human Worlds when he checked the location of Ishtar relative to the bases of human forces that had prior
contact with the Skinks. He swore when he saw that there was only one such unit anywhere near close to the Opal-Ishtar system. He summoned his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Rebbi Piroska.

  “Alert General Aguinaldo to prepare for a possible deployment,” Cazombi said, handing the report to Piroska.

  Piroska skimmed the report. “A desert world, sir? That doesn’t really sound like Skinks.”

  “I know. That’s why I only want the Anti-Skink Task Force alerted to a possible deployment, not to mount up.” Before his aide could further comment, Cazombi said, “And inform the Commandant of the Marine Corps that I would like to conference with him at his earliest convenience.” As Piroska left Cazombi’s office, the chairman added, “Oh, and get me two more copies of that report and all of its addenda. Send one to the Commandant instantly, so he can review it before we talk.”

  I wonder if there’s any significance to Skinks being on a non-Confederation world? Cazombi thought as he returned to the other work at hand, but was interrupted in two minutes by a chime. He rose from his desk and walked the few meters to the casual conference area of his office, where he settled into a comfortable chair. He pressed a button on the side of the chair and in a moment a hologram came to life on the other side of the low table that sat before him. It showed Commandant Rolf Saoli seated in furniture similar to Cazombi’s. Unlike the army’s Chief of Staff, who was headquartered in the Heptagon, the Marine Commandant was located at Headquarters, Marine Corps, which was on the high ground some kilometers from the Heptagon.

  “Good afternoon, Rolf.” Cazombi greeted his virtual visitor.

  “Good afternoon to you as well, Alistair,” Saoli replied. “I’ve had time to scan this.” He lifted a sheaf of flimsiplast from the table in front of him. “It’s interesting—and unexpected on more than one level.”

  Cazombi nodded. It was surprising that humanity would encounter the Skinks again so soon after Haulover, that they were now on a desert planet, and that they didn’t start off with an offensive but appeared to have been captured by mercenaries right away—mercenaries who seemed to believe that the Skinks were indigenous to Ishtar. Not to mention the apparent lack of technological development that would allow for the aggressive, space-faring military that was one of the hallmarks of Skink operations.

  “Do you want Force Recon to check it out?” Saoli asked.

  “No, I want to be able to deal with a small infestation, if that’s what it is—more muscle than Force Recon can apply. I hate to do it to them so soon after Haulover, but I want to deploy Thirty-fourth FIST.”

  Saoli let out a deep breath. “Thirty-fourth FIST does deserve a lengthy rest,” he said. “But they’re also our most experienced Skink fighters. And”—he glanced at the thin stack of flimsiplast—“they’re by far the closest to Ishtar.”

  “Another consideration,” Cazombi said, “is that if these aliens aren’t Skinks, Thirty-fourth FIST has the most experience in dealing with other alien sentiences.”

  Saoli smiled wryly. “It sounds like you’re trying to talk me into giving you permission to deploy one of my FISTs.”

  A corner of Cazombi’s mouth twitched slightly, his version of a wry smile. “Rolf, you know as well as I do that the Chairman of the Combined Chiefs doesn’t need the permission of a service chief to deploy units. But I won’t send any of your Marines without your concurrence.”

  “I don’t imagine Thirty-fourth FIST will like being deployed again so soon. Would you like for me to soften the blow?”

  “Thank you, Rolf. Send your orders by me for my endorsement.”

  “You’ll have them within the hour.”

  “I’ll notify the Minister of War.”

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Alistair,” Minister of War Marcus Berentus said as he ushered the Chairman of the Combined Chiefs to a comfortable seating area in a corner of his office. A silver coffee service was already on a small table.

  “Kevorian,” Berentus said as he poured the coffee. He knew Cazombi well enough that he didn’t offer to add cream and sugar. Cazombi smiled as he accepted the silver cup.

  After brief pleasantries, Berentus said, “As much as I like seeing you, Alistair, I also know that when you request an immediate meeting, you’re bringing a problem to my attention. So what do you have that’s going to cost my pate some more hairs?”

  Cazombi snorted a brief laugh. “You can save your hair, Marcus. Take a look at this and I’ll tell you what I’m doing about it.” He drew flimsiplast sheets from his pocket, unfolded them, and handed them over.

  Berentus read the Ishtar report and said, “I’m not supposed to lose any hair over another appearance of the Skinks?”

  “I don’t think it’s necessarily Skinks.”

  Berentus listened attentively while Cazombi explained, and nodded reflectively when he was finished.

  “You said what you are doing about it. Am I to understand that you are here to ask forgiveness for overstepping your authority, rather than asking permission to take an action?”

  “You could put it that way, sir, yes.”

  “So what have you done for which you need forgiveness?”

  “With the concurrence of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, I am deploying Thirty-fourth FIST to Ishtar to investigate and deal with the situation.”

  “Didn’t Thirty-fourth FIST just return from fighting the Skinks?”

  “Yes, sir, they did. And they do deserve a rest. But they’re by far the closest Confederation military unit with alien experience. Time could be important here.”

  Berentus was thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Draw up orders for my signature and you’re forgiven.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Cazombi drew another small sheaf of flimsiplast from a pocket and handed it over.

  “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “The Chairman always has to appear to be sure of himself. Otherwise people might doubt him.”

  Berentus laughed as he signed the orders authorizing the deployment of Thirty-fourth FIST to Ishtar.

  Commandant Saoli was right when he suggested that the Marines of Thirty-fourth FIST would be unhappy about another anti-Skink deployment so soon after the war on Haulover.

  Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon read the orders, then sat back, took in a deep breath, and let it out as a sigh.

  “‘Once more, into the breach,’” he quoted. He fixed Colonel Israel Ramadan, sitting across his desk from him, with a hard look.

  Ramadan slowly shook his head. “Will they be ready?”

  “Oh, they’ll be ready, all right,” Sturgeon said, sitting up and leaning his forearms on his desk. “The question is, how hard will we be able to push them once the fighting starts?” The way he shook his head, it seemed too heavy for his neck. He pushed himself erect. “Call in the staff and component commanders so we can begin preparations to mount out. And ask Lieutenant Quaticatl to contact the Grandar Bay. I need to talk to Commodore Borland.”

  Commodore Roger Borland, commander of the Mandalay Class Amphibious Landing Ship, Force CNSS Grandar Bay, and any starships that might be attached to it, was planetside. As it turned out, he was en route from where he’d been taking his ease in New Oslo to Camp Ellis when the message that Brigadier Sturgeon wanted to meet caught up with him; he’d received orders from the Chief of Naval Operations to prepare to board Thirty-fourth FIST and transport the Marines to Ishtar at almost the same moment Sturgeon had gotten his orders from Commandant Saoli.

  Sturgeon met Borland at the entrance to Thirty-fourth FIST’s headquarters building and gave him a hearty handshake. “Thanks for getting here so quickly, Roger.”

  “I headed here as soon as I got my orders. How soon will you be ready to embark?” Borland asked as the two headed for Sturgeon’s office.

  “The entire FIST can be ready in three days. How’s your ship?”

  “Shipshape. I had her refueled and reprovisioned as soon as we reached orbit and the liberty rotation was announced. I need to check with
Zsuz to see what progress has been made during my absence, but I’m pretty sure all necessary maintenance is done. It might take two days to round up all of the liberty shift.”

  “How are your sailors going to take it?”

  “They’ll be disappointed. Most of them had been looking forward to a lengthy period of shore leave. How are your Marines?”

  They entered Sturgeon’s outer office; the Brigadier guided the Commodore into his office and closed the door behind them.

  “You know about the no-transfer, no-release orders for the FIST,” he said as he waved Borland to a seat in his small sitting area. “Coffee? I’ve got some real Earth-grown coffee.”

  Borland grinned broadly. “I’d love some. The best I could find in New Oslo was some Dominion-grown. Good, but not as good as the original. Not Blue Mountain, by any chance?”

  Sturgeon gave a brief chuckle. “A Marine brigadier doesn’t have as good a supply line as a navy commodore.” He touched a spot on his desk. “Have somebody bring in some coffee, please.” Then he joined Borland in the sitting area.

  In a moment there was a rap on the door.

  “Come!” Sturgeon said in a firm voice.

  The door opened and Lieutenant Quaticatl, Sturgeon’s aide, entered with a tray that held a stainless-steel coffee set and two sturdy ceramic mugs. “When I heard the Commodore was arriving, I ordered coffee readied, sir,” Quaticatl said when he saw Sturgeon’s raised eyebrow. He placed the coffee set on the table and the mugs in front of the two flag officers. Sturgeon’s mug bore the Marine Corps Eagle, Globe, and Starstream emblem. The one for Borland had the navy’s Crossed Anchors and Eagle.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. That is all,” Sturgeon said. Then to Borland: “Not quite the Blue Mountain in silver that you serve, but Marines aren’t accustomed to the niceties the navy offers.”