by Chris Bunch
"Wasn't—" Garvin started.
"Silence!" Caud Williams snapped.
"Go ahead," Haemer said.
"It wasn't us, sir," Jaansma said.
"Then who?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Certainly no one in the team I dispatched to pick up your lifecraft would've leaked to the holos without permission," Haemer said. "That is an absolute fact."
Garvin finally had sense enough to clamp his lips together.
"Your hasty story . . . I won't call it a lie, for I assume you three believe this nonsense . . . might well have sparked problems with Larix and Kura, and especially with their protector, Alena Redruth," Haemer said.
"It's lucky I was able to release a clarification immediately."
"There's no particular reason I should clarify matters for anyone in your position, but I shall, for I believe all my personnel should be of a common mind."
"We are on the uttermost fringes of the Confederation. Our link to the Confederation lies through Larix and is not far distant from the Kura system, for your information."
"The goodwill of its people, and their protector, is very important to the stability of Cumbre. Your wicked tale might destabilize what is an extraordinarily close relationship."
"I realize you can't know it, but Protector Redruth himself was gracious enough to visit Cumbre a short time ago. Isn't that about right, Caud Williams?"
"Yes, sir. Actually twenty-three E-months ago," Williams said.
"It was quite a satisfactory tour," Haemer continued. "He visited our mines, our cities, even took time to inspect your Strike Force, correct?"
"Yes, sir," Williams said.
"And now our friendship, a friendship of three great systems of Man, here on the frontiers, is threatened by three fast-mouths," Haemer said.
"This situation shall not be permitted to worsen," he went on. "Let me tell you what actually happened. Some renegades seized two of the Protector's ships. Possibly these criminals were even deserters from his own forces and wore the Protector's uniforms as a cover for their vile crime, which is why you became confused."
"There was an error made, but I have corrected it. You three have already released corrective statements to the holos after I personally allowed you access to our intelligence files, and wish to apologize. You wish to say something, young man?"
Yoshitaro's eyes were wide. "Nossir," he said. "Nothing, sir."
"I didn't think so."
"Caud Williams," Haemer went on, "I do not know what to do with these three. If we were anywhere close to civilization, I'd order you to discharge them from the service at once. But I doubt if any of them have employable talents on D-Cumbre, and we hardly want them to become a drain on the civilian economy."
"However, I want them to be fully aware of my displeasure, and while they will be permitted to serve out their term of enlistment, I do not wish to hear of them or see their faces again. Needless to say, this means I do not wish them to be promoted or achieve any recognition until I decide otherwise. Is that clear?"
"Sir, I cannot permit—"
"Caud, that is an order!"
"Yes, sir."
———«»———«»———«»———
Njangu and Garvin followed Petr quite numbly, about two meters behind the caud as he strode down the marble steps of the governor general's headquarters. Williams' Cooke—an open gravsled used for everything from ambulances to Command & Control—had its drive compartment open, and the pilot was muttering in a low tone and pawing in his tool kit.
"What's the problem this time, Running Bear?"
"Just won't start, sir. But I think I can get it going."
"Very well," the caud said. "You three, across the street and into that park."
The recruits obeyed.
"On line, and at attention," he ordered. "You heard what the governor general would like to do to you. That won't happen . . . unless you happen to get in his line of fire before he forgets your name."
"As far as being on any blacklist of mine . . . no. I'll never discipline a soldier for making an honest mistake. Nor are you disqualified for future promotion or awards, if you deserve them. You reported what you saw or thought you saw, and refused to back off."
"I admire soldiers with sticktoitiveness. But don't take things too far. Learn to think about what you thought you saw, and maybe reevaluate it."
"Remember one thing. Strike Force Swift Lance is, as the governor general said, far from the heart of the Confederation. We desperately needed the equipment and men on that ship, because it's been far too long since we've been resupplied, and the unit is badly understrength."
"Some people we must respect might have overreacted to the bad news about the hijacking."
"Is what I'm saying making sense?"
"Yessir," Petr growled, and the other two bobbed their heads.
"Very well," Williams said. "We'll forget about the whole incident. Welcome to Strike Force Swift Lance. You two new recruits'll begin your basic instruction immediately, which unfortunately won't be as formal as it should've been."
"We'll have to put you, Jaansma, directly into a unit to be trained on the job. As for you, Yoshitaro, you'll do the same with whatever unit personnel assigns you to. You, Kipchak, you've already been requested by Senior Tweg Reb Gonzales of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Company. He says he knows you from another post."
"Yessir. Tweg Gonzales and I were on Deneb-Nekkar together. A good man, sir."
"You'll report to him when we return to post. That's all, gentlemen, except let me reiterate my advice—keep a very low profile and don't make anyone, not your noncoms, not your officers, and certainly not me, have to consider your sins for a very long time."
"Finf Running Bear seems to have gotten the Cooke started, so let's load up and get back to camp."
He marched away, toward the gravsled.
Garvin and Njangu looked at each other.
"He seems decent," Jaansma said in a low voice.
"Yeah? He doesn't believe us any more than that other asshole did," Yoshitaro said. "He's just more polite about it."
Kipchak nodded. "You're learning, boy. But give him . . . maybe both of them . . . some grace. How'd you confront the small problem that there seems to be a shark between you and the surface and cruising around your lifeline?"
"Strong point," Garvin said. "You can never convince a mark the wheel's rigged even after you show him the weights."
———«»———«»———«»———
The Cooke slid quickly away from the PlanGov fortress, down a sweeping avenue through the city of Leggett toward the gulf Dharma Island curled around. In the middle of the huge bay, twenty kilometers distant and barely visible through the heat haze, was Chance Island, Strike Force Swift Lance's base.
Running Bear accelerated, lifting the Cooke to a thousand meters.
Williams turned in his seat and raised his voice above the wind rush, trying to make conversation.
"Did all three of you take your oathing on Centrum?"
The recruits exchanged glances.
"Nossir," Kipchak said. "I've never been sworn in this time. Guess they never got around to it."
Njangu and Garvin also shook their heads.
Williams reacted in horror. "You mean . . . you've served for how long . . ."
"Two and a half E-months for me," Petr said. "Six months for Yoshitaro and Jaansma, since they had to transit from their homeworlds to Centrum."
"Six months, and you're not even . . . great gods, what's passing through the minds of men these days? Oathing . . . that's the most important part of . . . I cannot believe no one, absolutely no one . . ." Williams sputtered.
His lips firmed into thin lines. "My apologies to you gentlemen, in the name of the Confederation. This is intolerable. Utterly intolerable!"
"Uh-oh," Njangu muttered.
———«»———«»———«»———
"Never seen so many goddamned sold
iers in my whole friggin' life," Yoshitaro muttered. "Wonder what they're all here for?"
"Zip the lip," Petr said. "This is a solemn occasion."
The three wore dress uniform—dark, almost midnight-blue trousers, waist-length belted tunic, service cap with yellow piping on the trouser legs, cap, and epaulettes. The trousers were bloused into black mid-thigh boots. Petr had three rows of decorations above his left breast, and two winged emblems on his right; the other two nothing. All wore wide black leather belts, with an empty knife sheath on it.
They were in the center of Camp Mahan's enormous drill field, almost three kilometers to a side. The field was packed with soldiers in dress uniform—almost eight thousand men and women of Strike Force Swift Lance.
From the far side of the field marched Caud Williams. Behind him was a color guard—three flag-bearers with the banners of the Confederation, Cumbre, and the Force; then Williams' command staff and the Force band at the rear, blasting for all its might. Williams' boot heels smashed to a halt about fifteen meters distant. The band played for another four measures, then silence swept the square.
Garvin smelled the flower-scented air in the soft wind from the sea, the newness of his uniform, and his own sweat.
"Men of Swift Lance," Williams' voice boomed from his throat and eight thousand belt speakers. "We have come to honor three who've chosen to join us."
"Garvin Jaansma, Petr Kipchak, Njangu Yoshitaro, five paces forward! Colors!"
Two flag-bearers marched out, one with the Confederation's flag, the second with the Force's. Without a command, the Force guidon-carrier lowered his banner until it was level with the ground.
"You men, put your hands on the flag!"
They obeyed.
"Repeat after me. I, Caud Jochim Williams, do swear by all that I hold sacred, whether God or gods or my own honor, I will obey the lawful commands given me by my superiors and swear to defend the Confederation, its life-forms and its way until death, or until I am released from this vow."
As they finished the oath, the band crashed into the Confederation's "Galactic Anthem."
"I wonder if there's any pickpockets working the crowd and if we can get a cut on the action?" Njangu whispered.
"Shut up," Garvin whispered fiercely. Yoshitaro glanced sideways and noted his friend's Adam's apple working convulsively and what he thought to be a tear running down one cheek.
Garvin noted Yoshitaro's surprise. "It reminds me of the circus, and he's a great ringmaster," he managed, sheepishly.
"Quiet!" Petr snarled.
The band finished, and minor cheers rolled across the parade ground.
"Flags . . . return!" someone shouted, and the two bearers about-faced and returned to the guard.
"Mil Rao!" Williams shouted. "Arm these soldiers!"
Prakash Rao, the Force executive officer, came out of formation carrying three leather cases. He gave one case to each man, returned to his position.
"Be worthy of this honor," Williams said. "Train hard, serve well, be a credit to the Force." He stepped back, saluted. The recruits returned the salute.
"Unit commanders . . . take charge of your men and dismiss the Force!"
Yoshitaro opened his case. There was a cap emblem and two collar insignia, each a lance with a shock wave spraying from the tip, and a knife. Surprisingly, instead of being a stylized parade-ground device, it was a lethal fighting blade about 18cm long, single edged with its curving top edge sharpened about 7cm back from the point. The handle was leather, and the butt cap and hilts were silver. It fit his empty belt sheath perfectly.
"Strange," he said.
"What?" Petr asked, an edge in his voice.
"I'm not slanging anybody," Yoshitaro said hastily. "But we get these emblems, which are all flash and filigree, and then this knife, which is damned practical."
"So?"
"Which is the real Force?"
Kipchak looked uncomprehending.
"Never mind," Njangu said. "Let's go learn how to sojer."
Chapter 7
C-Cumbre
Jord'n Brooks let the drill yammer against the rock, blinking sweat back from his eyes. Grit swirled in the dusty air, caked on his face, dusted his hair gray. The stope he lay in was barely a meter high, half that wide, room enough for himself, the endless-belt carrier for the ore, and his drill. The rock under him, wet, hot, shuddered as someone in another drift set off a charge.
Brooks was very much at home in the mine, had been for twenty years.
He pawed rock back onto the belt, pulled back he sleeve of his insul suit, checked the time. He shut off and slung his drill, wriggled back from the slope until the tunnel widened enough for him to get to his feet, his back just brushing the rock above him.
He went down the rise to the substation, the overhead taller and reinforced with steel beams. The air was a little fresher there, a conditioner chugging away beside the bank of controls.
His shift boss stood beside the vertical shaft, and a lift was waiting.
"You're covered," she said, and Brooks took off his breather, set the airpak and drill down, got in the lift, and it shot upward. The shaft ended half a mile above, and he went through an airlock and transferred to a slidecar that took him to the mine's main shaft. He crowded into a cargo lift with twenty other men and women, boisterous and dirty, coming off shift, and it took him to the surface.
Harsh floodlights made him blink as he came out of the top airlock.
Somehow Brooks always expected day when he came out of the mine, in spite of what the clocks might say. He inhaled air that was only dusty, dry, and cold instead of hard, oily, compressed, shivered a little until the insul suit adjusted.
The other miners started for the gate and security. Brooks ducked around an ore car and slipped through shadows past the half dome of the mine's entrance, then high piles of spoil. He used an automated ore train for a ride once, then continued walking. Twice he stopped, waited until the predicted security patrols passed, then went on. The night was lit with flaring burnoffs from other shafts not many kilometers away.
Beyond a second mine entrance he followed lift rails past more spoil until he came to a half-underground semicircular concrete bunker. Signs were posted:
EXTREME DANGER! EXPLOSIVES!
DO NOT APPROACH WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORIZATION
FROM MELLUSIN MINING!
NO INCENDIARY APPARATUS PERMITTED!
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL WILL HAVE THEIR CONTRACT TERMINATED AND WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW!
Brooks went to one of the bunker's entrances. He took a strangely shaped key with four differently shaped and fingered arms from a hidden pocket in the leg of his insul suit, fit it carefully into a slot in the door.
He didn't notice a small crescent mounted above the door, just in line with the lock, didn't hear it click.
Brooks turned the lock once right, halfback to the left, then to the right once more. The door clicked open.
Brooks heard the whine of a lifter, slid into darkness, watched the unlit vehicle ground five meters away. Two figures got out, came toward him. Both had guns ready.
"The Task," a woman's voice came.
"The Duty," Brooks answered.
The woman put her pistol away, came closer. She was Jo Poynton, and had once been part of his Fold, the 'Raum congregation. She was slender, medium height, in her mid-twenties, small-breasted, with surprisingly full lips that looked like they wanted to smile if their owner would ever let them.
"Were there any problems getting onworld?"
"None," Poynton said. "How long before you're missed?"
"I'm covered through the end of the shift," Brooks said.
"We aren't that clean," the other man said. "The security tech we bought can only keep his radar down for another hour."
Brooks recognized him by the livid scar down his cheek as Comstock Brien, who'd left the 'Raum almost five years ago, one of the first of The Movement to go into the hills, now reg
arded as its most dynamic war leader. He was not tall, above average for a 'Raum, once stocky, heavy bodied, but the time in the jungle, the time running, had worn him down to gauntness.
"Is it open?"
Brooks slid the door open. Brien took a lantern from his belt, turned it on, and they entered.
"A candy store," Poynton said.
Brooks made a noise like laughter.
"Telex there, Blok over there, and the primary igniters are in this room here."
"Get the detonators first," Brien said. "With those we can make anything go up."
Brooks and the woman carefully took padded boxes of various detonators, carried them to the gravlighter, came back for another load.
Poynton had just stepped out of the bunker when a light blazed, and a voice said: "Move and die."
Both stopped.
"Mellusin Security," the voice said. "Put the boxes down. Slow. There's two guns on you."
They obeyed.
"Five steps forward," the security woman said. "Prone on the ground, arms and legs extended."
Brooks knelt, went on his face. A second light beam came on, pinned the two against the muddy ground.
"You," the woman said. "You in the bunker. Come out. Slow. Guess you three didn't think we've got our own snitches out listening for when somebody asks about explosives. Or that we'd set some extra alarms on the demo supplies just to make sure."
Brien came out, hands half-raised.
"All the way up."
His hands moved . . . and he dived forward in a shoulder roll. The guard's blaster went off and the bolt crashed above Brien's head into the bunker. Flame flashed, and smoke boiled as an alarm seared the night.
The guard spun, aiming again at Brien as he came to his feet, and Brooks was on his hands and knees, bear-walking forward into the woman's legs, sending her sprawling. The other guard's light flickered toward Brooks, just as Poynton got her pistol out and shot him.
The woman was rolling onto her back, both hands on her blaster, trying to aim, but Brooks was on her, hands clawing at her face. The gun spun out of her hands, and he had her throat and squeezed, squeezed, and felt bone crack, her heels drum against the ground, and smelled shit as she died.
