Starfist - 14 - Double Jeopardy

by Dan Cragg

  “Let me see.” Fassbender held out his hand for Crabler’s comp and sat behind his desk to read the orders. He gave the two a sharp look when he finished, then read the orders again and grimaced.

  “This is wrong,” he said. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.” He shoved the comp to the front end of his desk for Crabler to retrieve, and toggled his intercom. “Get Cukayla for me.” A moment later, his clerk signaled and he picked up his satcomm.

  “Hi, Johnny,” he said. “This is Sep Fassbender at twenty-six. I need to speak to Louis.… What do you mean, he can’t talk to me? Where is he? … Busy? So big fucking deal, we’re all busy. I need to talk to him.… Oh, all right. I’ll talk to you now, and him later. Listen, two MicMacs just landed here with”—he looked at Crabler and gestured for a number—“sixty-five reinforcements. Why the hell do I need sixty-five additional men, and why wasn’t I told they were coming?”

  He listened for a few moments while Johnny Paska explained about the reinforcements. His expression grew grimmer as the explanation went on.

  “What! This is kwangduk shit, Johnny, and you know it,” he said when Paska was through, then listened to what Paska had to say next. “The Fuzzies have been taking what? Why wasn’t I told about this before? … What do you mean, we’ve got troops fighting Confederation Marines? Has Louis lost his ever-loving mind? Why isn’t he standing everybody down? I didn’t sign up to fight a war, and I sure as Hades didn’t sign up to fight Confederation Marines! I’ve got two MicMacs here. I’m putting these ‘reinforcements’ back on them, and me and my troops, too, and we’re getting out of here. Mining Camp No. 26 is hereby shut down! …” He started to put the satcomm down, but Paska said something that made him squawk, “What do you mean, it’s too late?”

  At the sound of aircraft engines starting up, he jumped from his desk and ran to the window. One of the C46s was already speeding down the runway to lift off, and the other was turning onto the runway. He poked his head into the outer office and shouted at his chief clerk: “Contact those aircraft and order them to turn around. They aren’t leaving here yet!”

  The chief clerk got on the radio to contact the two C46s. Neither responded to his calls. Fassbender watched them disappear into the distance.

  His shoulders slumped. “That fucker, that absolute fucker,” he whispered. His shoulders straightened and steel glinted in his eyes.

  “Contact the mine,” he ordered the chief clerk. “Lock down. Put the Fuzzies back in their cages. Then I want everyone in formation in front of the admin building. On the double! Make sure all your bubble storage is up-to-date and destroy your hard copies.” He strode back into his office and began going through his desk and files, updating his electronic storage and stacking his hard copies for the clerks to destroy.

  “We’re getting out of here,” he told Crabler and Zamenik. “There’s no way I’m sitting here, waiting to be attacked by Fuzzies armed with flechette rifles. Ah, you didn’t know that, did you? Well, that’s the latest word. They’ve been taking all the weapons from the mining camps they’ve overrun.” He shuddered. “And now some fool decided to fight Confederation Marines. No way in hell am I fighting Marines!”

  “But, sir, that’s why we’re here,” Zamenik said. “To strengthen the garrison so we can properly defend the mine.”

  Fassbender looked at them. “You’re new on Ishtar, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. We came in on the Dayzee Mae.”

  “Well, now, ‘Came in on the Dayzee Mae,’ there’s only a hundred and thirty-five of us, including you and your reinforcements. Just how much combat experience do your troops have?” He paused to give them a chance to answer. When all they did was look at each other uncertainly, he said, “That’s what I suspected. How well do you think we’ll do if five hundred Fuzzies armed with flechette rifles attack us?” He glared at the two lieutenants. “Or worse, just how do you think green troops will do if a platoon of Confederation Marines shows up and starts blasting away? Have you ever seen the Marines in action? Well, I have. I was with the Tenth Light Infantry Division on the Diamunde campaign. Ever hear of it? The Marines, infantrymen with their own air support and damn little artillery, went up against the first armored army anybody had fielded in centuries. And those infantrymen beat whole divisions of tanks. No way I’m going up against them. Nossir!”

  “What do you plan to do, sir, if I may ask?” Crabler asked.

  “I’m no fool. I’m taking my men to the Marine base and surrendering.”

  Crabler shook his head. “Well, sir,” he said hesitantly, “we’ve got our orders.” He took a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to say could be considered insubordination. “I guess if you want to desert, we can’t stop you. But we’ve got two platoons, we’ll run the camp ourselves, with any of your troops who want to stay and do their duty.”

  Fassbender paused in his sorting. “Oh really? Do you know how to run a mine? Do you know how to handle Fuzzies? You might think you do, but I guarantee you don’t. If you stay here, not knowing what you’re doing, the Fuzzies will turn on you before you can learn how to deal with them. And then you’ll all be dead. Unless the Marines show up and kill you first.” He returned to his preparations for leaving.

  Crabler and Zamenik put their heads together and talked quietly while Fassbender continued what he was doing.

  Finally, just as Fassbender finished, Crabler said, “Sir, we’ll go with you. I’m not sure we’ll surrender to the Marines, but we’ll go with you as far as their base.”

  “Fine. Get your troops in formation with mine.” He headed outside. On his way he checked with the chief clerk to see if the C46s had taken the week’s gem supply. They hadn’t.

  It only took a few minutes for everybody, the existing garrison and the reinforcements alike, to line up in formation in front of the administration building.

  “Listen up,” Fassbender said from the veranda. “As you know, the Fuzzies are in full rebellion throughout the entire mining fields. That’s why all the mining camps were reinforced in recent weeks, and why we”—he glanced at the two new lieutenants standing nearby—“just got some more reinforcements. What you don’t know, and I just found out, is the Fuzzies have been taking all the weapons from the mining camps they’ve overrun.” His face twisted in a sour expression. “It seems that has been going on for some time now, but nobody saw fit to tell Mining Camp Number Twenty-six. They’ve overrun maybe a dozen mine garrisons, including some that were tripled in strength by reinforcements, and killed all the Sharp Edge personnel. And that ain’t all. Some damn fool killed a Confederation Marine lieutenant, so the Marines are attacking mine installations as well. Sharp Edge wants us to stay here and fight to the death whenever the Fuzzies or the Marines attack. But I’m not going to die for Sharp Edge, and I’m not going to sacrifice your lives, either. Sharp Edge won’t provide us with transportation out of here, so we’re going to walk to the Marine base and surrender. If any of you are fool enough to stay, well, that’s on you. As for the rest, all of you who are part of Mining Camp Number Twenty-six’s garrison get a full share of the gems we have on hand. The men who arrived today each get a quarter share. No difference in size of share for different ranks—the lowest private who’s been here for more than a day gets the same share I do. The lowest private among the reinforcements gets the same share the reinforcement lieutenants do.” He paused and looked over the formation. “Only the men who leave get a share. Anybody who wants to stay and die, can collect whatever they want from the mine.

  “Now pack up whatever you’re going to take and let’s get ready to move out. Just remember, we’ve got a long way to go, and food and water—particularly water—will be a problem and we’ll have to carry as much as we can, so leave everything you don’t absolutely need behind. Sergeant Vodnik, see to the division of the gems.

  “Dismissed!”

  The next morning, scouts from the Brilliant Coalition, reconnoitering the camp in preparation for an attack, watched the Naked One
s march out in a long line. When the Naked Ones were out of sight, they went into the camp and freed the captured people of the Rock Flower Clan from the cages in which they’d been abandoned, and led them to safety.

  Three days after leaving Mining Camp No. 26, by pushing hard the garrison and reinforcements had gone nearly a hundred kilometers, their route marked by discarded personal belongings that men burdened with food and water had dropped along the way. They were tired and hungry and thirsty—mostly thirsty. Their morale was low, and discipline was deteriorating. The column was in a narrow but shallow valley leading out of the foothills. A small rivulet that ran down the middle of the valley allowed them to refill most of their canteens and other water containers, but the rivulet was thin enough that they couldn’t fill them all, and nobody was able to drink his fill.

  Having been together longer, the garrison’s two platoons were somewhat better disciplined, and their single file was relatively tight. The reinforcements had lower morale and trailed several hundred meters behind; their file was far more strung out. A small squad acted as flankers on the reverse slopes of the valley sides; the right flank was covered by men from the garrison, the left by men from the reinforcement unit.

  The left flankers kept radioing in that the valley they were in looked like it had more water in its bottom, and the column should move into it. Captain Fassbender refused and ordered those flankers to stay out of the bottom of that valley, that they’d be too far away for the main body to come to their assistance if they ran into trouble.

  Fassbender had once again ordered the flankers to stay on the slope of the valley side when shouting and the sound of gunfire came over the radio, followed quickly by the distinctive CRACK-sizzle of blaster fire.

  “What’s happening over there?” Fassbender demanded.

  “We’ve got wild Fuzzies up ahead, and they’re with Confederation Marines!”

  He heard the distant whine of a hopper.

  Henny was the leader of the scouts Mercury sent to investigate the base camp of the new Naked Ones. He had Crooked Tail and Big Nose with him just as before. Red Butt was still a hostage at the burrow of the Sunburst Clan, the Sunburst’s Father still being in negotiations with the Clan Mothers and Clan Fathers of the Brilliant Coalition. For this patrol, Henny also had Lester and Spot. For reasons known only to him, Mercury thought a larger patrol was in order. And a more strongly armed patrol. While three of the patrol members carried only knives and throwing stones as was usual, Mercury had given Henny and Big Nose each one of the Naked Ones’ weapons, the rifles that fired needles instead of bullets, and didn’t have to be reloaded after every shot. Henny liked being entrusted with a Naked Ones rifle but wasn’t happy about his scouting patrol carrying two rifles instead of the customary one. That made it more likely, he thought, that they would be tempted to take offensive action instead of evading detection, and escaping in the event that they were detected.

  Two days’ walk out from Mercury’s command center, the scouts came upon something unexpected: a small camp of the new Naked Ones. There were few more than three tens of Naked Ones in the camp. Henny remembered one of the standing instructions for the patrols: “If it is possible to do so without alerting the Naked Ones, capture one of them and bring him back.” Henny thought it would be easier to capture a Naked One from this small camp than from the large camp he was supposed to scout. And it would be far faster to bring a Naked One back from here than from the large camp, which was still several days’ march away.

  Henny withdrew his patrol into a nearby valley, where he and his team could keep an eye on the Naked Ones’ camp without being seen from it. He discussed the situation with his fighters. While he listened to everything they had to say, the final decision was his. What he decided was to send Lester back to Mercury’s command post with word of this unexpected small camp and to tell Mercury that they were going to attempt to capture and bring back one of the new Naked Ones.

  Lester hadn’t been gone very long when Henny saw three Naked Ones enter the valley from the camp. They were on the opposite side of the valley, too far away to make out details that would allow him to tell one from the other—not that he could tell them apart anyway, but he could see that the cloths the Naked Ones wrapped themselves in and the weapons they carried were different from the wrappings and weapons of the Naked Ones who had enslaved the People. These were new Naked Ones, and it seemed likely that they were walking up the valley for the same reason he and his team had come down it—they were scouts. But were they going someplace, or were they merely patrolling the area?

  Henny’s eyes enlarged and his heart raced. If they were a security patrol, he and his fighters had an excellent chance of capturing one of them. Maybe even all three! All they had to do was wait until the Naked Ones came back—surely if they went out on one side of the valley they would come back on the other side, that’s what he would do in their place—and jump on them when they were close enough. Henny knew from the freeing of the mining camp where he’d been enslaved that even though the Naked Ones were bigger than the People, one-on-one his fighters were stronger than the Naked Ones. His four against their three should make for an easy fight. Even if his fighters had to use their knives and the thrusting spear that Spot carried to kill two of the Naked Ones, they would still have one captive to take back to Mercury.

  Henny watched as the Naked Ones slowly angled up the far side of the valley until they disappeared into a small wood. He kept watching but didn’t see them reappear on the far side. At first he thought it was because they were taking a rest in the shade of the trees. But when they didn’t reemerge after a more than reasonable time, he wondered if they were lazy patrollers, the kind who would go out until they were beyond the sight of their camp and then hole up until it was time to return, instead of following their entire patrol route. He blew air through his lips, sounding a disgusted buzz. Yes, it would be easy to capture one or even all three of these Naked Ones; they wouldn’t be very alert on their return.

  Knowing that they might be there for a while, Henny set a watch rotation. One of them would watch the wood for the Naked Ones to emerge, one would watch the camp for other Naked Ones to come out, and the other two would rest. They’d eaten when they withdrew into this hiding place, so it would be some time before they needed to dig in the ground for tubers or crawlers to eat.

  Henny settled in for a long wait. He was dozing when he heard a panicky shout and a CR-CRACK-sizz-zzle.

  First squad’s third fire team had gone less than fifty meters when Lance Corporal Ymenez suddenly froze.

  “What in all the hells is that?” he whispered, slowly shifting his blaster’s muzzle to point at a large clump of bushes.

  Corporal Dean looked where Ymenez’s blaster pointed and let out an almost inaudible whistle. Behind him he heard PFC McGinty whisper an awed “Sweet Mother of God.”

  A snakelike creature was under the bushes, slowly drawing itself into tight S coils—its massive body was as big around as a big man’s thigh. The way it was coiled, he couldn’t tell how long it was, but surely it was more than ten meters from head to tail. And what a head! The head, as wide as the body and nearly a meter long, was pointed straight at Ymenez.

  “Start moving back. Easy. One short step at a time,” Dean told Ymenez. He pointed his blaster at the thing and took a backward step himself. Behind him, he heard McGinty also backstepping.

  The thing raised its head and its huge mouth sagged open; venom dripped from the fangs that popped into view.

  “Run!” Dean screamed. He fired a bolt into the beast. He felt the heat of the bolt McGinty fired as it sizzled past him.

  The two plasma bolts struck the snake-thing and it buckled in its strike, not quite reaching Ymenez, who staggered backward and fell, then scrabbled backward, trying to get away from the thing, which seemed to shake off the effects of two hits and slithered toward him. Its jaws unhinged, opening its mouth wider than its body, and then it coiled to lunge forward. Dean fired
a bolt into the gaping maw, and McGinty fired more plasma into the head above the opening mouth. The two new hits threw the creature’s head and upper body flopping back. Dean dashed to Ymenez and reached down to grab his arm. He yanked him to his feet and backpedaled as fast as he could, dragging the other man with him. McGinty continued firing into the snake-beast as it writhed, thrashing its heavy body about.

  “Are you all right?” Dean asked Ymenez.

  “I-I—Yeah, I’m okay.” Ymenez patted himself, then looked down. “Where’s my blaster?”

  “Oh shit,” Dean swore.

  “There it is,” McGinty said. He sped toward the dying creature and grabbed hold of Ymenez’s blaster where it stuck out from under a coil of the beast. He yanked it out and turned to run with Dean and Ymenez but only got a few paces before he let out a scream and tumbled to the ground.

  “Triple John, what’s wrong?” Dean shouted, running back to pick him up. Ymenez went with him.

  McGinty could only whimper. His left glove, where he’d grabbed Ymenez’s blaster, was eaten away. The hand visible through it was an angry red and purple and was beginning to swell. Something glistened on his palm and fingers.

  Dean glanced at the blaster lying where McGinty had tossed it when his hand began to burn. It was wet with something, obviously whatever it was that had burned through McGinty’s glove.

  “Destroy that,” he ordered Ymenez.

  Ymenez picked up McGinty’s blaster and put a bolt into the trigger and receiver section of his own blaster. While he was doing that, Dean tore off McGinty’s left glove, careful not to touch any wet portion of it. He scooped up some loose dirt and poured it onto McGinty’s hand, hoping it would absorb some of the toxin. While he was doing that, he called for a medevac; he was afraid that McGinty would die before he and Ymenez could carry the Marine back.