"Well, you came a long way today, Raoul," Dean said. Pasquin smiled. "Well, maybe. We sure kicked some ass, didn't we, Joe?"
"We sure did." Dean smiled now. "But one thing, Corporal? You have to apologize to Owen too."
Pasquin started and then laughed. "Hell, apologize? Sure I'll apologize! I'll even kiss the little shit!" He put his arm around Dean's shoulder and together they walked back to where the rest of the squad was having coffee.
The remnants of the Red 35 Crew hunkered in the shade of a fern tree, talking quietly.
"Jesus's double-headed dick!" Lowboy crowed. "It worked, it fuckin' worked!" He slapped Rhys on the shoulder and punched Labaya lightly in the chest. "I got that stupid sailor to get the sergeant to let us go back to the Fairfax with the wounded! And best of all, that navy jerk agreed to let us keep our weapons!" Lowboy doubled over with laughter.
"That's good," Rhys said, "even if we go to jail. Anything's better than this stinking place with those goddamn things crawling all over."
"Great Buddha's balls, you idiot!" Lowboy snarled. "What the hell we been talking about all day? You dumb shit! We ain't going to jail." Sometimes Lowboy didn't know if Rhys was as stupid as he let on or if looking stupid was just his way of making a joke. He hoped it was the latter. "Now listen. Labaya, think you can fly one of them Essays?"
Labaya, an ex-navy bosun, nodded. "Yeah, why?"
"Because," Lowboy said, speaking slowly and distinctly, "once we lift off, we overpower the crew and use the Essay to get us back to the Anacreon. Then we're out of here free!"
"You sure this can work, Lowboy?" asked a burly pirate whose name was Dufus.
"Christ's bleeding hemorrhoids, no wonder they call you Dufus," Lowboy said. "Sure it'll work. Callendar?" He turned to a small black man with prominent cheekbones. Callendar seldom spoke, but he liked killing.
"I'm with you, Lowboy. I don't want to go back to jail, and I sure don't want to stay here on this planet."
"How do we find the Anacreon?" Rhys asked. "And once we do, how do we get her out of here?"
"That's where Snotglass comes in. He's got training as a starship navigator and an engineer. See, Rhys? Education does count for something." Lowboy laughed raucously.
"Lowboy, how do we even know the Anacreon is still out there?" Sharpedge asked.
Lowboy thought for a moment. "We don't, but we do know who Scanlon left in charge of her, don't we?" He looked at each of the other pirates and nodded.
"Killer Kalb," Rhys whispered in sudden understanding.
"Right," Lowboy said, "and he would never have left Scanlon down here." He snickered. "If the bastard had been a woman, they'd have had a dozen kids by now."
"Then why didn't he come for us before this?" Labaya asked. He seemed to be the only one among the surviving pirates who realized what an insane idea Lowboy's getaway was, but he was not about to go against Lowboy.
Lowboy shrugged. "I think they're all dead up there's what I think. I think the Anacreon is just orbiting around up there, a dead ship."
"What killed them?" Callendar asked.
"How far can one of those Essays go on its own?" Lowboy asked Labaya, ignoring Callendar.
"I don't know. Once it reaches orbital altitude it doesn't take much fuel to change altitude and speed. If it's in a stable orbit, it can keep going after the crew dies because the air ran out."
Lowboy laughed. "That's enough to find the Anacreon. Can the Fairfax spot us?"
"You know it can, Lowboy. And they'll take us out, once they find out what we done."
"No, they won't. We'll have hostages, remember?"
"But we're going to kill the Essay's crew, aren't we?" Rhys asked.
Lowboy struck the big man lightly on the side of his head. "God's dripping dick, you big genius, they won't know that on the Fairfax. And we ain't killing their lieutenant. He'll do the talking for us, if it comes to negotiating. And once we're back on the Anacreon, we'll have him put her into Beamspace and we're out of here. Nobody'll ever come after us. We make one short jump, then change directions. Nobody'll have any idea where to look." Lowboy laughed and the others joined in. All except Labaya.
Lieutenant Snodgrass watched the Marines disappear into the swamp. He stood for a long time in the clearing, ankle deep in mud and dead vegetation, and listened as the sounds of the advancing Marines slowly diminished. In time it grew very quiet. Dimly, he could hear the Dragon commander talking to Bass on the command net. The pirates, crouching in the shade of a fern tree, laughed among themselves. One of the corpsmen walked out onto the Dragon's ramp and urinated into the mud. Plash, plash, plash, went the golden stream. Snodgrass could hear it clearly from where he was standing.
Lieutenant Snodgrass looked at the dense foliage that grew all about the clearing. He shuddered. No, he told himself, no problem. The Marines had chased off all the skinks.
The Dragon commander called Snodgrass on his helmet unit. "Lieutenant," he said, "the Essay is twenty minutes out. Better get your, er, troops into the bay and strapped down."
"Roger that," Snodgrass answered. He turned and swaggered back toward the pirates, scratching his behind with one hand. "Not yet, Uncle Bob," he whispered, "not yet."
Ten meters behind the lieutenant's back a sharply convex face projected slowly out from behind some fernlike growth, its eyes nictitating as it watched the foolish young man walk away.
Chapter 25
It was the mid-watch, and Commander Hank Tuit sat on the bridge of the Fairfax County, sipping from a mug of galley coffee and smoking a Clinton. The bass duet, "The Lord Is a Man of War," from Handel's Israel in Egypt, played on his private sound system. Of all Handel's oratorios, he liked that one best. The vigor and masculinity of the music and the unequivocal righteousness of its hero, the biblical Moses, appealed to him. Just then he figured they needed someone like Moses, to pull off a miracle.
Commander Tuit frequently came to the bridge on the midwatch. That was always a quiet time for a vessel in space, and he would take his chair then, to sit and work out problems. But often he would just sit and relax. The watch officers knew not to bother him when he was on the bridge during those hours, and he did not bother them. He found the underway bridge of a naval vessel an enormously comforting place. It was restful up there, listening to the muted sounds of the duty watch monitoring the ship's systems, the officers and ratings talking in muted voices throughout the quiet night.
After the last report from Bass down on Society 437, Tuit had left word with the watch to contact him if there were any further developments. Back in his cabin, he worked on the dispatch he would soon send to Fleet in a drone. But something was bothering him about the situation on Society 437 and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. So he grabbed a Clinton and made his way back to the bridge. He knew that until the mission was over he'd be living out of his captain's chair anyway, and that night Commander Hank Tuit, captain of the CNSS Fairfax County, had some real problems to resolve.
Things on Society 437 couldn't have been worse. First, during the last few days the Marines had found everyone there dead, apparently deliberately and horribly murdered. It was a civil and scientific disaster of totally unprecedented proportions. Dr. Nikholas Morgan was known and respected throughout the Confederation, and his death would come as a terrible shock to billions of people.
And Hank Tuit was going to be the bearer of those tidings. He had come to rescue those people, not cart their desiccated remains home in body boxes.
But worse, far, far worse than the deaths of all those scientists, was that Dr. Morgan's expedition had been ruthlessly wiped out by aliens. Sentient and evidently malevolent starfaring aliens. That was what Gunnery Sergeant Bass and Dr. Bynum were coming to believe, and that caused a terrible sinking sensation in his gut because he trusted their judgment. Humanity had spread out over a volume of thousands of cubic light-years during the last three centuries of interstellar travel, and, with the exception of the felinoids, nothing even approaching int
elligent alien life-forms had ever been encountered. Well, the woos on Diamunde also seemed to have a degree of intelligence, if the Marines were to be believed. The woos, at least, were friendly.
Sitting on what could be the most momentous discovery in human history, Commander Hank Tuit knew very well that he might go down in the books not as the first man to make contact with an intelligent alien species, but as the first man to be wiped out by them. Tuit realized he was no Horatio Nelson, and he could accept that; so long as he commanded the bridge of a naval vessel, any vessel, he would be happy. Yes, he was a superannuated navy officer in command of a fourth-rate vessel on a routine rescue mission. That was just fine with him. But fate or blind chance or plain bad luck had set him right smack dab on the razor blade of history, and he would just have to slide down it. No matter how things turned out on Society 437, nothing would be the same for him after the mission was over.
The latest report from the string-of-pearls had the aliens retreating from Bass's position, so apparently they'd had enough of Marine firepower. That was very good. It was even better if the skinks were indigenous to Society 437. But were they? That was the big question. If not, that was bad, very bad, because they would have had some way of getting there, and if they had starships, where were they? More to the point, how many skinks were there, and could they call in reinforcements? Bass had inflicted heavy casualties on them during the attacks his men had repelled, and it appeared that Chief Hayes and his men had killed a lot of skinks before being overrun. Had they just been probing, to determine the Marines' strength and weapons? Or had they been all-out attacks that depleted the skinks' strength? If they had a fleet lurking somewhere beyond the Fairfax's sensors, his little scow wouldn't stand a chance.
Well, Captain Tuit reflected grimly, the only responsibility I have right now is to this ship and my crew, and if saving them means fighting whomever or whatever, no matter the odds, then fight it will be. His second responsibility was to warn the Fleet and request reinforcements.
Should he recall the Marines and get the hell out of there? No. He would not run. Turning away from danger was not in Captain Tuit's nature. Besides, he was duty bound to find out what was going on down there. And Bass was confident he could hold his own. That would have to do.
The thought of running reminded him of Lieutenant Snodgrass. As if he didn't have enough problems to deal with, Snodgrass had initiated what amounted to a goddamned mutiny planetside. Well, he would deal with Snodgrass in good time. The kid was bright, graduated in the top five percent of his class at the academy or something like that. And he had connections. But his judgment was zero. Tuit had seen young officers like him before. Either they learned their business and went on to become admirals, or they wound up like that ex-ensign, Baccacio.
Baccacio. Tuit shook his head. He felt the pirates' presence on Society 437 was just an example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He would turn them over to the first Confederation magistrate after the mission was over. They were not his worry. In fact Bass had kept the men down on Waygone because he thought they might be of some help. It seemed now, however, with the possible exception of that ex-ensign of Marines, maybe that had been a mistake. But Snodgrass was the one who had screwed that up. Snodgrass. Well, if he survived and Bass was able to pull things together despite the lieutenant's stupidity, there were ways of handling the young officer without the trouble of a court-martial. A goddamned court-martial was the one thing Tuit didn't need on top of everything else he had to deal with. Tearing a wide strip of hide off that young man's ass would be more effective and Captain Hank Tuit was an expert at that.
"Victoria," he said to his computer console.
"Yes, Captain Tuit?" a pleasant female voice answered.
"Victoria, let's see my report to Fleet."
"Aye aye, Captain." The report flashed on his screen immediately. "Captain, I took the liberty of correcting an egregious grammatical error," Victoria said, just the right note of humble apology in her voice. Several paragraphs into the report a line flashed yellow as the computer zoomed in on it. "You needed the subjunctive mood there, Captain. It should read ‘If it weren't...’ instead of ‘If it wasn't.’ As you may recall, the subjunctive mood is required when writing of an event or an act not as fact but as contingent or possibly viewed emotionally, as with doubt or desire. I hope you don't mind, sir."
Jesus H. Christ! Captain Tuit thought. Well, I should've used the dictating mode instead of trying to write the goddamn thing myself. First chance, he told himself, he would change the computer's name from Victoria to something else. "Thank you very much, Victoria."
"You are entirely welcome, Captain. I might add, sir, there were no spelling errors," Victoria added, almost as if the computer were apologizing for its automatically correcting the captain's grammar. "How may I assist you?"
"I want to dictate the rest of the report, Victoria. Are you ready?"
"Indeed, Captain, I am." Stupid question; Victoria was always ready, but Victoria had been programmed always to be friendly toward her users. And Captain Tuit knew that very well.
Briefly, Captain Tuit expressed his misgivings about the aliens and warned of the possibility of a hostile fleet lurking somewhere in the quadrant. He deliberately omitted any reference to the pirates. Wary of bureaucrats, military or otherwise, he felt it would be better to leave out mention of them. For now. Some second-guesser back at Fleet might jump to the conclusion that somehow the pirates were behind the slaughter, and the "aliens" were some sort of diversion. That would definitely lower the priority of Fleet's response. And when the reinforcements arrived, if the Fairfax was no longer there, headquarters had to know what they might be up against.
Finished dictating, he said, "Victoria, knock all that into shape for me."
"It's done, sir."
"Good. Get me the comm shack." The image of Chief of Communications Kranston flashed onto his screen.
"Chief, Victoria has a dispatch for Fleet. I want it sent pronto. Use more than one drone. Send at least six," he added, "and program them to make the jump as soon after release as possible." If more than one of the drones made it, there'd be no doubt back at Fleet HQ that the Fairfax was in big trouble.
"Aye aye, Skipper." Captain Tuit's screen reverted to his report. Within thirty seconds the drones would be on their way. That made him feel a little better. Tuit took a long drag on his Clinton. He drew the smoke down deep into his lungs and expelled it slowly through his nose and mouth, savoring the rich flavor of the tobacco. He sucked his teeth reflectively. "Lieutenant..." He turned his chair about to face the watch officer.
"Sir?" Lieutenant Tom Light responded at once.
"Sound General Quarters."
"Sir?"
"No drill, Lieutenant, sound GQ." From now on the crew of the Fairfax would be on full combat alert. Captain Tuit refocused his attention on the Handel, which had now reached the tenor aria, "The Enemy said." He listened carefully. "I shall pursue, I shall overcome, I shall destroy them." He loved the unbridled ferocity of that aria, even if it belonged to the bad guy. Well, he thought, old Moses really screwed up his day. Nope, he thought, we don't have a Moses, but we've got the next best goddamn thing—Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass and a platoon of Marines. He headed for the comm shack.
"Third Class Hummfree, I have a job for you, if you think you can do it," Commander Tuit said. He'd caught everyone by surprise when he walked into the surveillance department without warning, and everybody not glued to instruments stood gaping at him.
None gaped more than SRA3 Hummfree, who never expected to be addressed by the ship's captain without the Skipper first speaking to the watch commander, or at least the chief. "Y-Yes sir," Hummfree stammered.
"Don't be so fast to agree," Tuit said. His lips quirked in a half smile. "Or are you asking what the job is?" He shook his head and held up a hand to stop Hummfree from trying to answer. "This is a job that maybe even you can't do. If you can't, no one will think any the le
ss of you. It might be impossible. Understand?"
Hummfree didn't trust his voice, so he nodded.
"Those things the Marines are fighting down there, do you think you can track them?"
Abruptly, Hummfree's nervousness went away. "I believe so, sir," he said confidently, his eyes glowing above a wide grin.
Tuit cocked an eyebrow and Hummfree's grin wavered.
"Well, I can try, sir."
"All right, here's what we know about where they went. See if you can find them."
Tuit spent two minutes telling Hummfree and Kranston everything Bass had relayed to him about the skinks' movement. Before the captain was through talking, Hummfree was bent over his controls, diddling dials and tickling toggles. The ship's captain and the chief nodded at each other; if anyone could track the skinks, it was Hummfree. Tuit motioned the chief to accompany him out of the compartment into the passageway.
"That boy bothers me, Chief," Tuit said in a voice pitched low enough it couldn't be heard in the compartment. "I've never seen a third class so deserving of promotion to second class, even if he doesn't study for the test. But he's so good at what he does, I really won't want to put him in a supervisory position and lose him for what he does so well."
"I know what you mean, sir. Been thinking exactly the same myself."
"Maybe between us we can figure out how to promote him and keep him in the same job."
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