The ensign saluted him snappily. Wolfe looked at him with resignation. The dark-skinned man’s uniform pants were creased like knife blades down his long, skinny legs to spit-polished boots without a scuff or a scratch anywhere. Above the perfect trousers he had on a sleeveless knitted vest of brilliant pink. His insignia was clipped to one shoulder strap.
“Ensign Thielind, sir. This is Lieutenant Borden. Ready for inspection, sir!”
“Carry on,” Wolfe said, returning the salute.
“Yes, sir! Sound off!” Thielind barked.
The company reeled off its names. Wolfe listened to the rapid-fire roster, glad that all that data was in the chipboard that the adjutant carried and would be transferred to him at the end of roll call. Aaooorru, Adri’Leta, Ambering, Boland, Borden, Ewanowski, Gire, Injaru, Jones, Lin, Meyers, Nuu Myi, Okumede, Software, Somulska, Theilind, D-R-45, Vacarole. Three nonhumans: an itterim in cutoff shorts and suspenders, a shrimplike corlist one meter high with ten jointed limbs wearing a toilet plunger on its stalk-eyed head, and a semicat, one of the race of tall, muscular inhabitants of a cluster of star systems that had been enveloped by the human-dominated empire five or six hundred years ago, in coveralls with a drop-seat to allow free movement of its long tail. Twenty-two in all. With him, twenty-three. Even for a platoon it was a small group: two squads of eleven, plus a communications officer who stayed aboard their transport vessel while the company was on a mission, or three platoons of six or seven spacers each. Barely large enough to function.
One very large man in the second row, a chief petty officer by the half of his insignia that still clung to his cap, was wearing the tunic of the elite fighter pilot company that flew the single-man warp fighters. The guy didn’t look like a star ace. His thick, short fingers and heavy arms suggested he fought in deployed troops on shipboard or planetary surface. Curiosity got the better of Wolfe.
“Chief…?” The big man straightened up.
“Boland,” the aide at his elbow advised.
“Where’d you get that uniform?”
“Traded for it, sir,” Boland said. Instead of eyes-front, he turned to grin at Wolfe. His eyes were a startling shade of green, with stubby, pale lashes sticking out from thick, creased lids. The executive officer at Wolfe’s elbow gave a deep-throated hem! of disapproval. Boland snapped back to eyes-front.
“What’d you trade?” Wolfe asked, even though he suspected he’d regret the answer.
“Admiral’s runabout, sir,” Boland said.
Wolfe almost asked ‘surplus,’ and realized that it could never be true, and the question would brand him as a hopeless neophyte. Better to assume the worst and let him plead innocent.
“You stole a flitter and traded it for a tunic?”
Boland looked at him, eyes wide with wounded pride. “Oh, no, sir, I got lots of other stuff! My mama didn’t raise any fools.”
“Uh-huh,” Wolfe said, helplessly, knowing that some kind of response was called for. He raised his voice. “Well, there will be no more stealing,” he said, and instantly felt as though his words fell down the endless well of ignored orders that had come before. He continued on doggedly. “That book you threw away, find your copy, because we’re going to be running by it from now on. No more disobeying rules. No more appearing on parade out of uniform. If you don’t have one now, trade for it or put in for a replacement. I want to see you smartly turned out for the next inspection? Do I make myself clear?”
It didn’t matter if he had, because they’d already tuned him out. He was too young, untried, possessed of no authority, and they knew it. He was off to a bad start trying to make a good impression on them. He glanced around, trying to find something that would reconnect him with them. He glanced over at the flagpoles. The first was the Galactic Union flag. The second was the army. The third was the brigade. The fourth was a gold field displaying a black, ovoid blob with legs. “And what the hell is that?”
“That’s our company banner, sir,” said the adjutant.
“What is it?” Wolfe demanded. “It looks like a cockroach.”
“Got it in one guess,” said Boland, grimly pleased. “That’s what they call us. X-Ray Platoon. Brand X. Penalty Box. Screwup Company. The Cockroaches. Welcome to hell. Sir.”
O O O
“Your luggage is in your quarters,” the ensign said, interrupting. “Shall I arrange to have the cases unpacked, sir?”
“No, thanks,” Wolfe said, grateful for the interruption. “I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t want any hand-holding, and any babying he allowed himself to accept put him that many paces away from the spacers in his company. He needed to relate to them, not too closely, because he still had to be responsible for sending them into battle, and, when necessary, maybe to their deaths, but they were being thrown together under the worst possible circumstances. Their lives depended on one another. He needed to form a bond. Besides, he had a lot of questions about X-Ray Company. He had a better chance of getting an honest response out of them than he was from the brass above him.
“Company quarters ready for inspection, sir,” the adjutant said.
“Thank you, Ensign …”
“Thielind, sir!”
“Good. Let’s see them.”
Thielind threw himself into one of his skull-shattering salutes. “Sir! Company, about face! March!”
Shrugging, X-Ray more or less lined up and marched together toward the end of the parade ground where the barracks buildings stood. Wolfe trailed along behind them, his assistants on either side. The group veered away from the pristine buildings, heading instead toward a transportal.
“Uh, where are we going?” he asked the female lieutenant, as his soldiers popped open the last car on the three-pod train inside the transparent tube and found seats.
“Our quarters, sir,” she replied crisply. “We’re station-keeping on the launch facility. It’s about half an hour from here. We commute in for occasions like this, and to visit the canteen and PX.”
“Must suck,” Wolfe observed, frankly.
“With considerable force, sir,” she replied. The first hint of any kind of empathy appeared in her eyes for a second, but only a second. She climbed on board the transport and waited until he took his place on the blue-gray upholstered seat before she sat down herself.
He had wondered why the mapmakers had called this planet Treadmill. Once he got a look at the terrain, it wasn’t much of a stretch to guess. Barren yellow and brown hills stretched out on either side of him, punctuated by the occasional green thornbush. It looked like a low-resolution animated treadmill workout with troughs and highs, seldom settling into flat plains. He’d gotten a look at the topography from above, eager to see the site of his first posting as a first lieutenant. Treadmill had looked kind of pretty from space, like a piece of ornate parquet-work in golds, greens, and browns. Now that he could see all of it up close, the lines in between fields and hills and sorry excuses for forests were jagged fault zones. A hiker trying to make his way in the dark was in danger of falling through the crust of the planet. Treadmill, according to his friendly source, had fairly active tectonics, making it unsuitable for heavy industry or company farms or ranches, but it had a T-class atmosphere and gravity, and it was well placed to send troops out to the rest of the Confederation when needed. The base and launch station were separated because not enough flat land existed in either place to accommodate the entire facility.
In fact, it took them forty minutes to ride down the high-speed tube to the end of the line. If Wolfe needed any further reminders that his company was the brigade pariah, the fact that the supports and substations along the way got more and more seedy was one more checkmark off the list. Transport tubes were supposed to run smoothly. He noticed about three-fourths of the way through the ride that his troops gripped the armrests and lifted their butts subtly off the shock-padded seats. When the train hit the first bump it felt like a shockwave striking his spine. Wolfe grabbed for a support, just in time to sav
e himself from getting thrown out of his seat. Small wonder the officers had chosen to take a hopper from the spaceport directly to the base! No one would do this ride if s/he didn’t have to. Every time he tried to sit down the train bucked and juddered some more. He did the rest of the trip standing. Grins passed among the members of his company. He kept his face straight. They must do this to all the greenhorns, officers included. Well, he wasn’t going to hand them an easy victory.
“Been on this station long?” he asked Borden. His voice wobbled with every fresh bounce.
The officer never changed expression. “Three years, sir.” The train swung wide to avoid a jagged fissure. Wolfe seesawed on one foot, swinging around helplessly. He grabbed for another ceiling loop with his free hand. The others bobbed gently on their seats like dressage riders. Daivid vowed to learn the topography of the route the very next time he rode this runaway whipsaw.
“When was X-Ray’s last mission?” he asked, bending his knees to keep his equilibrium as the train rode over hills he saw approaching. The lieutenant wasn’t impressed.
“It’s all in the briefing summary in your quarters, sir.”
Wolfe suppressed a sigh and concentrated on not getting flung out the curved window.
O O O
In spite of the bright sunshine X-Ray’s compound was dreary. Daivid hadn’t been in a camp that grim since he’d visited his great-uncle Robbile’s fishing hideaway in the wilds of the northern continent on Tokumine IV, but Robbile Wolfe liked his haven bleak, so as to put off casual tourists if any had ever dropped by. The Cockroaches were stuck with their décor. Military beige, military gray and, for a final insult, military pink.
Beyond a compound fence from the top of which energy crackled, sentries in bubble flitters roved around and around the spaceport in which he had just arrived. The shuttle that had brought him down from the dreadnought still stood on the landing pad, its silver body sharply backlit by brilliant blue worklights as coverall-clad engineers swarmed over it, performing maintenance and making sure the fuel rods were intact. Hangars as large as small moons lined the field, also under the watchful eye of human MPs, high-response alarm systems, and guardbots.
Security measures around a spaceport were cursory in comparison with the watch kept on the surrounding spaceways: serious attacks upon a military base would almost certainly come from orbit, not ground level. Anyone who was already on planet could either fly the craft in the spaceport and were authorized to do so, or wouldn’t know what to do to launch one if s/he managed to get into the cockpit in the first place. The most the ground-level military police usually did was prevent anyone from hurting him- or herself or damaging valuable systems. As a military base, Treadmill’s administration had the authority to oust any civilian who caused trouble, no matter how much investment that civilian had put into profit-making infrastructure. Just that knowledge kept down the active protests. Grubstakes on T-class planets were hard to come by.
“This way, sir,” said the eager ensign in the knitted vest. Daivid followed him to a small building to the left of the barracks hall.
O O O
No trace remained of Daivid’s predecessor’s belongings in the officer’s personal quarters. Wolfe looked around the drab beige chamber trying to get a sense of the man or woman who had occupied it before he had. He couldn’t find a clue. The rooms, a bedroom, a bath, a walk-in closet and a small office, had all been cleaned—hosed out, he guessed by the streaks on the blue-gray floor. Well, he couldn’t smell anything unsavory. Chances were the former CO hadn’t died there.
Wolfe unpacked his regulation trunk into the chest of drawers and closet provided. As usual, the closet contained five hangers, as per standard supply orders, sufficient for all his uniforms. Officers were expected to provide their own hangers for any civilian clothing they retained. Water glass, soap, towels, shaver, and hair dryer in the lavatory, water saver-purifier, small storage cabinet behind the sink mirror. Impersonal. That was one of the things he liked about the military. He didn’t have to make choices about what he wore or what his quarters looked like. It didn’t offend anyone when he chose one kind of suit, or put a company out of business when he stopped buying their shoes. Those selections were made for him.
The briefing clipboard lay on the desk in the small office. He scrolled up the company rolls and had the information sent as an oral reading to his personal communications unit. The receiver screen every trooper in the TWC forces wore rode the back of the left sleeve ten centimeters above the wrist. When a company suited up in battle armor the unit was inserted into a purpose-built protective slot to activate communications between troopers and command. They were all voice-activated, and had to be personally tuned so they couldn’t be captured and used by the enemy to listen in on transmissions. For privacy, one could wear an ear-bud, though some officers had their audio receivers implanted in the mastoid bone behind the ear or in a piercing in the upper pinna. Daivid had decided to have a mastoid receiver. It didn’t bang against the side of his head the way ear-implants did, he’d still be in touch with his command even if his ear got shot off, and the sound quality he got when he was listening to music through the unit was awesome.
“Aaooorru, Dompeter,” the flat voice intoned directly into his aural nerves. “Corlist. Born Mishagui, Vom, Beta Antares system …”
He took off the uniform he had traveled in and put it in the cleaning trunk. Working just fine, he observed, listening to the hum that started up as soon as the lid dropped. His dress whites would come out spotless with perfect seams, perfect creases. Efficient. He brought out fatigues and laid them on the bed. Impersonal. Regulation. No hurt feelings involved. He wrapped himself in his white, service-issued bathrobe and turned on the shower. No sonic cleanser here, he was pleased to see. He hated having the outer layer of dead cells shivered off him by vibrations they told him he couldn’t hear. They were wrong: he could hear the high-pitched whine just fine, and he hated it. Sonic cleansers were standard on all interplanetary transports except luxury liners. Space service personnel didn’t travel on those.
He almost missed the sonic cleanser when he observed the thin stream of water dribbling out of the showerhead, like the output of an incontinent dog. He felt the water; at least it wasn’t cold. The heating elements still functioned correctly. He’d have to see about getting a plumber out here to check the pipes and the pressure feed. He stepped into the stall and pulled the curtain closed.
The only non-regulation thing he had in his possession was a card the size of a credit chit attached with a glue-square to the skin over his sternum. Before he turned into the weak spray of water, he examined the card. It was the only thing he owned that he didn’t dare let out of his possession at any time.
O O O
Wolfe dried himself off and shouldered into the singlet that went under his uniform, making sure the card was still firmly attached to his skin. He started when the adjutant came into the room behind him and cleared his throat. Wolfe hastily lowered his undershirt and shrugged into his blue-gray fatigue jacket.
“They’re ready for inspection, sir,” the adjutant said, saluting smartly, and swung around again, heading out the door.
Wolfe brushed imaginary dust off his insignia. Just before he stepped outside he felt the middle of his chest to make sure the card was secure.
***
Chapter 2
Raucous conversation dropped into silence as soon as they opened the door. X-Ray Company leaped off unmade bunks, aged chairs and battered star chests to attention as Wolfe came in behind the Thielind.
He did the inspection walk again. This time it felt more real than it had on the parade ground. It was just dawning on him: he had a command—all right, the crappiest one in the space service, but it was all his. He had to swallow the grin he felt pinning back the corners of his mouth. Here was the beginning of his rise to the top. He’d show those doubters that he was more than just his father’s son. Here was the beginning of the change for good that h
e could make in the universe. With a proprietary swagger he sauntered down the center of the long room.
Like his quarters, the barracks was bog-standard. The biggest difference between this place and the barracks he’d last occupied, as a second lieutenant, had to be the wear and tear. Everything here must be hand-me-downs dating back decades, maybe even centuries. The lavatory facilities he could see through the open door bore the patina of ages, the porcelain riddled with small cracks and the chrome worn off the metal spigots. Hovel, Sweet Hovel, he thought, but it’s mine, all mine.
At least no one felt crowded. With a unit this small there was no need for tiered bunks. Everyone had a single bed, spaced from the ones on either side by upright lockers that also gave the sleeper a measure of privacy.
And now, to get to know the spacers who inhabited this dormitory. It wasn’t going to be easy. The faces sized Wolfe up as he walked up and down the center aisle. Their expressions said they weren’t impressed by what they saw.
Strong Arm Tactics Page 2
