Jim Baen’s Universe

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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 66

by Edited by Eric Flint


  “Fiona.” He pus­hed the but­ton, fin­gers cros­sed. “What do I do for a li­ving?”

  “You are now the He­ad of Pub­lic Re­la­ti­ons, De­ni­al of Ma­gic Di­vi­si­on.” Her vo­ice had ac­qu­ired a fri­endly purr.

  O’Malley tos­sed his tie and co­at. He sat back, put his fe­et on the desk, and grab­bed a new stack of co­mics. “Fi­ona, I lo­ve you.”

  ****

  Local Boy Makes Good

  Ray Tabler

  Somthin’ smells,” one of the tho­usand or so shock tro­opers mil­ling abo­ut in the sta­ging area sa­id, sta­ring stra­ight at me. That was un­fa­ir. I’d just had a sho­wer. Most ever­y­body did sho­wer right be­fo­re an as­sa­ult, no tel­ling when you’d get the next chan­ce to cle­an up. Days, we­eks la­ter? You ne­ver co­uld tell.

  “Just ig­no­re him, Danny,” Jen­ny mut­te­red. She shot him a black lo­ok. “Stu­pid bas­tard.”

  Jenny didn’t ne­ed to worry. This wasn’t my first as­sa­ult. I ad­mit I was wo­und up pretty tight. Ever­y­body was. Ne­eded to be, to get thro­ugh the cha­os we we­re abo­ut to wa­de in­to. But, I wasn’t set on a ha­ir trig­ger the way I was the first two or three ti­mes.

  Either this lit­tle guy was too stu­pid to fi­gu­re out that star­ting a brawl in the sta­ging area wo­uld get us all thrown in the brig, or he was smart eno­ugh to fi­gu­re out that star­ting a brawl in the sta­ging area wo­uld get us all thrown in the brig. He might get inj­ured in the con­fu­si­on, but he wo­uldn’t be drop­ping in­to a fi­re-la­ced hell with the rest of the di­vi­si­on. I lo­oked down at the guy with the sen­si­ti­ve no­se, flas­hed him a very to­othy smi­le and mar­c­hed on with the rest of the te­am. The so­ur ex­p­res­si­on on his ugly fa­ce was a tasty tre­at I sa­vo­red all the way ac­ross the han­ger deck to our as­sig­ned drop car­ri­er.

  “Damn!” Pe­te com­p­la­ined when Sar­ge led us up to a scorch mar­ked and rust sta­ined old tub with the un­li­kely nic­k­na­me Yo­lan­da Sue sten­ci­led on her grubby si­de, just for­ward of the of­fi­ci­al al­p­ha­nu­me­ric ves­sel de­sig­na­ti­on. Not­hing smal­ler than a fri­ga­te is sup­po­sed to ha­ve an ac­tu­al na­me. It was one of tho­se ru­les that ge­ne­ral­ly got ig­no­red af­ter a co­up­le of ye­ars in­to the war. Yo­lan­da must ha­ve be­en so­me de­ad he­ro. You’d see that a lot. The­re we­re plenty to cho­ose from.

  “What’s yo­ur prob­lem, Ke­zelsky?” Sar­ge bel­lo­wed.

  “Another sar­di­ne can, Sar­ge. Can’t the navy spa­re a de­cent tran­s­port for us?”

  Sarge re­war­ded Pe­te with a wit­he­ring gla­re. “I’ll be su­re to pass that qu­es­ti­on along the next ti­me I ha­ve lunch with the fle­et ad­mi­ral. Un­til then, get yo­ur smelly go­on as­ses on that drop­per! This is the one we’re sup­po­sed to be in. It’s al­most show ti­me and all of the­se tubs are go­in’ to the sa­me pla­ce! Mo­ve!”

  We mo­ved. Sar­ge is pretty to­ugh for a lit­tle guy. I think I co­uld pro­bably ta­ke him in a one on one fight, but I’d end up with im­por­tant pi­eces mis­sing.

  Pete wasn’t the only one di­sap­po­in­ted with the drop car­ri­er. It was qu­ite a squ­e­eze get­ting all twen­ty-fi­ve of us in­to the car­go bay of the Yo­lan­da Sue, DC24569 Navy de­sig­na­ti­on. Sar­ge or­de­red us all to ex­ha­le and then slam­med the ramp clo­sed be­fo­re an­y­body tho­ught to bre­at­he aga­in. Sar­ge had a bit of free spa­ce aro­und him at the for­ward end of the bay, next to the lad­der up to the con­t­rol deck. Ever­yo­ne el­se, go­ons and lit­tle guys we­re jam­med in so tight it re­min­ded me of a cru­de joke I’d he­ard back in high scho­ol.

  “What’s so funny, Danny?” Jen­ny as­ked. Be­ing a lit­tle guy, she co­uld sit on one of the ben­c­hes.

  “Nothing,” I sho­ok my he­ad. That was abo­ut all I co­uld mo­ve wit­ho­ut po­king a te­am­ma­te. I was sit­ting on the deck with my kne­es tuc­ked un­der my chin, back up aga­inst the port-si­de bul­k­he­ad and my arm brus­hing the now ver­ti­cal sur­fa­ce of the ramp/hatch. That me­ant I’d be first out on­ce the Yo­lan­da Sue skid­ded in, as­su­ming she got that far. I wasn’t overly con­cer­ned. It wasn’t the first ti­me.

  “Danny’s al­ways smi­ling. Ha­ven’t you no­ti­ced?” Pe­te te­ased from the sa­me po­si­ti­on aga­inst the star­bo­ard bul­k­he­ad. Our com­bat kits we­re bet­we­en us; lumpy with all of the toys we’d so­on be pla­ying with.

  “I ha­ve, ac­tu­al­ly,” Jen­ny con­fi­ded to Pe­te in a lo­ud whis­per. “I don’t think it’s nor­mal, if you know what I me­an.”

  I wag­ged my he­ad back and forth with a fo­olish grin. “Ah, Duh, Doyh, Doyh!”

  “Can that chat­ter, back aft the­re!” Sar­ge was on the horn, pro­bably let­ting the li­e­ute­nant know we we­re go­od to go. He hung up af­ter a mi­nu­te and yel­led up the lad­der. “Yo. Up top­si­de, we’re all se­cu­re down he­re.”

  A swab­bie stuck his he­ad thro­ugh the for­ward hatch to ma­ke su­re we’d shut the ramp. Then he got a lo­ok at us and went for­ward. We co­uld all he­ar him tal­king to the bo­sun’s ma­te in char­ge of the drop­per. The word “go­ons” was cle­ar eno­ugh. Shortly, the ma­te ap­pe­ared in the hat­c­h­way. She to­ok a go­od long lo­ok at us.

  The ma­te lo­oked li­ke a fe­ma­le ver­si­on of Sar­ge, if you can pic­tu­re that. To her cre­dit, she may not ha­ve be­en pis­sed abo­ut be­ing tas­ked with drop­ping a go­on unit simply be­ca­use we we­re go­ons. The prob­lem was that we go­ons don’t drop an­y­w­he­re but the hot­test LZs, and that co­uld se­ri­o­usly shor­ten her li­fe ex­pec­tancy.

  The ma­te and Sar­ge glo­we­red at each ot­her for a few se­conds, and then she hus­t­led back up to the con­t­rol deck and clan­ged the hatch shut be­hind her. Sar­ge wat­c­hed her go and shrug­ged. Or­ders we­re or­ders and grunts we­re grunts, go­ons or lit­tle guys.

  A co­up­le of mi­nu­tes la­ter we co­uld he­ar the drop­per’s en­gi­nes po­we­ring up. A few bumps as the tub skid­ded along the deck, and then we we­re out­si­de the ship.

  The bo­sun’s ma­te ca­me over the lo­ud­s­pe­aker, “ETA, thir­ty-se­ven mi­nu­tes.”

  Pete mut­te­red anot­her cur­se abo­ut the sar­di­ne can as he tri­ed to get a bit mo­re com­for­tab­le. The fol­ded-up bench se­at must ha­ve be­en dig­ging in­to his back. Its port-si­de equ­iva­lent was dig­ging in­to mi­ne.

  Pete had a right to be pis­sed. The navy did ha­ve a fa­ir num­ber of drop car­ri­ers de­sig­ned spe­ci­fi­cal­ly for us go­ons. They’re ni­ce, big, ro­omy tubs with se­ats that I co­uld ac­tu­al­ly sit on. They usu­al­ly ha­ve fri­en­d­li­er flight crews as well. Tro­ub­le is the enemy is smart eno­ugh to tell the dif­fe­ren­ce. The Ri­ge­li­ans tar­get the big­ger tubs pre­fe­ren­ti­al­ly to mi­ni­mi­ze the num­ber of go­ons we can get on the gro­und; so much for er­go­no­mic de­sign.

  I le­aned my he­ad back aga­inst the cold me­tal of the por­t­si­de bul­k­he­ad and clo­sed my eyes.

  “How can you do that, just fall as­le­ep an­y­w­he­re, an­y­ti­me?” Jen­ny as­ked sha­king her he­ad.

  “It’s a go­on thing,” I te­ased.

  “No, it’s not,” Pe­te com­men­ted so­urly. As usu­al, Pe­te hadn’t slept a wink the last two nights be­fo­re the as­sa­ult.

  The Yo­lan­da Sue pit­c­hed sud­denly, en­gi­nes vib­ra­ting une­venly. Shrap­nel pat­te­red the hull ar­mor li­ke ha­il. One of the ot­her drop­pers must ha­ve be­en hit.

  “Lucky shot for as far up as we must be yet,” I sa­id.

  “The li­e­ute­nant sa­id this one’s well de­fen­ded. The Ri­gi­es want to hold on to it,” Jen­ny spe­cu­la­ted. “They must be pit­c­hing a lot of plas­ma in­to or­bit.”

  The li­e­ute­nant sa­id a lot of t
hings. You le­ar­ned to fil­ter out the parts that didn’t ha­ve to do with the job at hand, li­ke the na­me of the mud­ball the Yo­lan­da Sue was hur­t­ling to­wards. No­body but a Ri­gie co­uld pro­no­un­ce it an­y­way. Be­si­des, what dif­fe­ren­ce do­es a na­me ma­ke?

  Well, it can ma­ke a lot of dif­fe­ren­ce. The swab­bi­es top­si­de su­re se­emed to fe­el a lot bet­ter abo­ut ri­ding Yo­lan­da Sue down in­to hell than DC24569. The Hu­man Worlds Al­li­an­ce calls us an En­han­ced Ca­pa­bi­li­ti­es Tac­ti­cal Unit. That’s what you see in the news and he­ar on the 3D. In prac­ti­ce, pe­op­le call us go­ons. We call our­sel­ves go­ons. We call ever­y­body el­se lit­tle guys. As long as we call each ot­her by the­se con­ve­ni­ent la­bels, we can all pre­tend that we’re all hu­mans, which, by strict de­fi­ni­ti­on, we go­ons aren’t. So, now you see the prob­lem.

  We all think of our­sel­ves as hu­mans, and may­be that’s all that co­unts. It’s wor­ked so far, and will pro­bably hold up for the du­ra­ti­on. Af­ter the war’s over, we’ll just ha­ve to see.

  The tub pit­c­hed and dod­ged mo­re and mo­re as we got lo­wer. So­me guys bit­c­hed abo­ut not be­ing is­su­ed pres­su­re su­its in ca­se the tub got ho­led. The truth is a su­it won’t do you any go­od. I’ve se­en a co­up­le of drop­pers that to­ok plas­ma hits. The­re wasn’t eno­ugh left of the who­le dam­ned tub to fill a pres­su­re su­it. And tho­se clumsy su­its just get in yo­ur way on­ce the ramp drops.

  “There’s the light,” Sar­ge war­ned. The am­ber bar abo­ve the ramp flas­hed slowly. It was hard to he­ar him. The at­mos­p­he­re was get­ting thick, wa­iling li­ke an angry ghost on the hull. The am­ber light flas­hed on and off fas­ter and Yo­lan­da Sue’s ma­in gun be­gan to spe­ak. It ma­de the hull ring li­ke a bell.

  “ETA, sixty se­conds.” The bo­sun’s calm vo­ice over the spe­aker so­un­ded li­ke she was pi­lo­ting a com­mu­ter shut­tle from Chi­ca­go to St. Lo­u­is. The flas­hing am­ber light tur­ned in­to a flas­hing gre­en light.

  “When the ramp drops, ha­ul ass! Spre­ad out, stay low and ma­in­ta­in yo­ur in­ter­vals!” Sar­ge had to yell over the rac­ket. We’d he­ard it I don’t know how many ti­mes be­fo­re, and he’d sa­id it many mo­re than that. Didn’t mat­ter. He had to say it, and we felt bet­ter for he­aring it.

  Pete mut­te­red a pra­yer, kis­sed his St. Sta­nis­la­us me­dal and tuc­ked it in­si­de his shirt. Jen­ny ca­ught my eye and win­ked. I ga­ve her a thum­bs-up and got a go­od grip on my com­bat kit bag.

  “Brace for lan­ding,” the bo­sun an­no­un­ced.

  The ghost’s wa­il chan­ged to a de­afe­ning rum­b­le pun­c­tu­ated with bo­ne-jar­ring thumps.

  “Think we’re co­ming in a lit­tle hot?” I scre­amed in­to Jen­ny’s ear.

  “Naaah! This is the way the swab­bi­es al­ways land the­se tubs,” Jen­ny mi­med ste­ering.

  We we­re co­ming in hot. Tubs that didn’t we­re just or­de­ring a plas­ma bre­ak­fast. Then, with a fi­nal ske­wing to port, Yo­lan­da Sue shud­de­red to a stop. The ramp flew open.

  “Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!” Sar­ge thun­de­red in the sud­den si­len­ce.

  I rol­led out, li­te­ral­ly. I co­uldn’t stand up in the drop­per, and stan­ding up isn’t so­met­hing you want to do co­ming out the re­ar of an as­sa­ult craft. I craw­led at le­ast thirty me­ters on my hands and kne­es as fast as I pos­sibly co­uld, which is pretty dam­ned fast. On­ce the drop­per is down and the pay­lo­ad is out it’s no lon­ger a wor­t­h­w­hi­le tar­get. It’s do­ne its job and the dep­lo­yed as­sa­ult te­am is the gre­ater dan­ger. But, psycho­lo­gi­cal­ly, it’ll draw a lar­ge per­cen­ta­ge of the enemy’s fi­re. It’s a he­althy thing to get far away from it fast.

  We we­re in a muddy fi­eld; a muddy fi­eld plan­ted in a crop that lo­oked a lot li­ke pur­p­lish oran­ge soy­be­ans. I’d mar­c­hed past eno­ugh soy­be­an fi­elds at the tra­ining ba­se west of Sa­gi­naw to know what they lo­oked li­ke, and I wo­uld ha­ve pre­fer­red so­met­hing tal­ler li­ke corn or even whe­at. But ali­en soy­be­ans we­re all we had. Yo­lan­da Sue had plo­wed an ugly fur­row ac­ross the land; a long, ear­t­hen ar­row po­in­ted stra­ight at our obj­ec­ti­ve.

  The com­po­und was abo­ut one hun­d­red me­ters away. The drop­per had bro­ught us al­most to the ed­ge of the be­an fi­eld, whe­re the de­ad gro­und stret­c­hed to the high, ra­zor-wi­re fen­ce. Gu­ard to­wers sto­od at each of the fi­ve cor­ners of the la­yo­ut. Ri­ge­li­ans are big on pen­ta­gons. Yep, this was the pla­ce.

  The drop­per’s ma­in gun fi­red aga­in, ma­king the air bet­we­en it and the com­po­und shim­mer with the pas­sa­ge of the plas­ma bolt. The ro­of of the ne­arest gu­ard to­wer se­emed to blow away in a high wind. I co­uld see ot­her tubs skid­ded, or skid­ding, at ot­her po­ints aro­und the obj­ec­ti­ve. They we­re fi­ring too. The Ri­ge­li­ans we­re re­tur­ning fi­re.

  “Advance by squ­ads! Se­cond squ­ad, go!” Sar­ge’s vo­ice cut thro­ugh the no­ise li­ke a me­at cle­aver. It was ti­me to earn my pay.

  Along with the rest of se­cond squ­ad, I ro­se and das­hed for­ward in a cro­uc­hing run, fi­ring as­sa­ult rif­les as we went. I wasn’t trying to hit an­y­t­hing, just ke­ep the Ri­gi­es minds off of the­ir aim. When I fi­gu­red I’d go­ne far eno­ugh, I fo­und so­me co­ver and do­ve for it. I might be ten fe­et tall, but I’m not bul­let­p­ro­of.

  That co­ver tur­ned out to be an ag­ri­cul­tu­ral ro­bot which had the gre­at mis­for­tu­ne to be ten­ding pur­p­lish oran­ge soy­be­ans that par­ti­cu­lar mor­ning. It was a big, slab-si­ded, gray ovo­id that nor­mal­ly mo­ved abo­ut on se­ve­ral do­zen short, sto­ut legs so it co­uld gin­gerly step bet­we­en the plants. The ro­bot’s AI must ha­ve drop­ped in­to self-pre­ser­va­ti­on mo­de and di­rec­ted it to­wards the sup­po­sed sa­fety of the com­po­und. A stray plas­ma bolt had va­po­ri­zed its con­t­rol mo­du­le, in­s­tantly con­ver­ting the ro­bot to fi­ve or six tons of scrap me­tal and car­bon fi­ber com­po­si­te.

  A se­cond or two af­ter I set my back aga­inst the lee of the ro­bot, Pe­te drop­ped down next to me, bre­at­hing hard and cur­sing li­ke he’d slam­med his thumb in a do­or. Then Jen­ny jum­ped in bet­we­en us. Damn, but she co­uld run fast for a lit­tle guy.

  “Nice pla­ce you boys ha­ve got he­re. How’s the rent?”

  Three bolts from a he­avy plas­ma gun slam­med in­to the ot­her si­de of the ro­bot in qu­ick suc­ces­si­on.

  “Stiff!” I rep­li­ed.

  “Location. Lo­ca­ti­on. Lo­ca­ti­on,” Pe­te com­men­ted. Gre­asy, black smo­ke star­ted po­uring from vents on the top of our ro­bot.

  “Jenny, you’re hit,” I po­in­ted at drippy li­ne of red on her up­per arm.

  She lo­oked at it and gig­gled. “I go­uged my arm on the fi­re ex­tin­gu­is­her on the way out of the tub.”

  Pete and I star­ted la­ug­hing, too. Who knows how much le­ad and plas­ma zip­ping abo­ut, and Jen­ny had inj­ured her­self on a pi­ece of our own sa­fety equ­ip­ment.

  “Second squ­ad, co­ver fi­re.” Sar­ge so­un­ded tinny and dis­tant in my ear­p­ho­ne. “First squ­ad, ad­van­ce!”

  Jenny, Pe­te and I le­aned aro­und or over the de­ad ro­bot and ho­sed le­ad at the com­po­und. Yo­lan­da Sue’s gun was fi­ring mo­re fre­qu­ently now that her thrus­ters we­re po­we­red down and the en­ti­re out­put of her en­gi­ne was de­di­ca­ted to ge­ne­ra­ting bal­lis­tic plas­ma. First squ­ad swept by us at a des­pe­ra­te sprint and flop­ped down to fi­re pro­ne al­most at the fen­ce li­ne.

  “Here it co­mes,” Pe­te la­men­ted.

  “Second squ­ad, bre­ach the wi­re!” Sar­ge or­de­red in­to our ear pi­eces.

  Training is that
thing that de­lays the per­fectly na­tu­ral re­sis­tan­ce to le­aving co­ver in a fi­re­fight un­til you’re three steps out, scre­aming li­ke a mad­man. Then it’s too la­te to turn back. Mo­men­tum suf­fi­ces whe­re co­ura­ge fa­ils.

  Pete and I got to the fen­ce, and I knew wit­ho­ut as­king that he wan­ted to cut. You’re mo­re ex­po­sed that way, stan­ding the­re se­ve­ring one strand of ra­zor wi­re af­ter the ot­her, but that’s the way he is. Pe­te wo­uld rat­her be do­ing so­met­hing, even a dan­ge­ro­us so­met­hing, than wa­iting aro­und for so­met­hing to hap­pen to him. I drop­ped to one knee and plin­ked away at va­ri­o­us li­kely tar­gets whi­le Pe­te wor­ked his cut­ter. Jen­ny ran up, fis­hed a gre­na­de la­un­c­her out of my kit bag and ma­de her­self use­ful by ke­eping he­ads down in the ne­arest gu­ard to­wer.

  The last wi­re went ping and we all rus­hed in­to the com­po­und. It’s not li­ke we we­re be­ing he­ro­ic, das­hing in­to the thick of the enemy. It just was pretty un­he­althy out by the wi­re, with both si­des fi­ring thro­ugh it.

  Rigelians tend to bu­ild things with fi­ve si­des, and clus­ter the­ir struc­tu­res in thre­es. No­body’s fi­gu­red out exactly why yet, but then we ha­ven’t had much of a chan­ce for cul­tu­ral ex­c­han­ge sin­ce first con­tact. And that’s anot­her thing; most pe­op­le don’t even re­ali­ze they’re not from Ri­gel. Ri­gel hap­pe­ned to be whe­re hu­mans first en­co­un­te­red them. I don’t ha­ve to re­mind you how that went. The war was well un­der­way by the ti­me we fo­und out dif­fe­rent. Fa­ced with the cho­ice of cal­ling them what they call them­sel­ves, which no­body can pro­no­un­ce, or so­me form of the stel­lar ca­ta­log num­ber of the star the­ir ho­me pla­net ac­tu­al­ly or­bits, we stuck with Ri­ge­li­ans. Why not? Rod­ri­gu­ez, in first squ­ad, calls me a grin­go, which I’m pretty su­re I’m not.

  If this had be­en a nor­mal as­sa­ult, one of us wo­uld ha­ve blas­ted a small ho­le in the wall of the ne­arest bu­il­ding and anot­her wo­uld ha­ve tos­sed a gre­na­de in, to in­su­re a fri­endly re­cep­ti­on as the old sa­ying go­es. This ti­me was dif­fe­rent. Any one of the­se bu­il­dings mig­ht’ve held what we’d co­me to find. So, we had to do it the hard way.

 

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