by Jean Johnson
To her relief, Ferrar reversed course as the Peacekeepers arrived. He waved her onward, letting her know in a brief flick of hand signs that he’d arrange it so she got medical aid first before being interrogated over her part in this mess.
“Is your life always like this?” the suited man pacing at her side asked her. “Getting into knife fights with random strangers? Acting tougher than tough? Or was this just something you staged for my benefit?”
“It’s not acting, and it’s not staged. I will do whatever it takes to protect innocent lives. Even if my methods aren’t . . . orthodox.” Mindful of the stares she was garnering from the other personnel, military and civilian, they were passing on their way out of the public sectors, she lowered her voice. “As for any attempt at renegotiation . . . I advise you to think carefully, and choose wisely. This is not the worst thing I will backhand you with, if you betray me . . . and I will know in advance and be ready for it. You have my prophetic stamp on that.
“You will do as I say, when I say, how I say . . . or I will expose everything you do, and destroy you. I have enough evidence on you, they won’t sentence you to a pea-patch.”
“I have more than enough evidence to implicate you as well, meioa,” the disguised Drek the Merciless growled back, though he kept a pleasant-seeming smile on his face. “How would your precious military react if I told them what you have been up to?”
“I have two words for you, meioa, that give me all the legal freedom I need to do what I need to do. The first one is ‘Vladistad.’ I’ll let you have two guesses as to what the second word is. I’m feeling generous, tonight.” She slanted a look at the supposed businessman at her side, and smiled. “Think carefully, meioa. Everything you do at my command gives you that legal freedom, too. Even more freedom, since you just have to point at me, and let me bear the brunt of explaining it all. Unless you’re an idiot, and throw it all away. In which case, I’d have to backhand you with a laser cannon in hand.”
The rapid thud of footsteps approaching them from behind warned her someone from the tavern was catching up to them. “Oy, Ia! Y’ need an escort?” Spyder trotted up beside her, then twisted and walked sideways a few steps, eyeing the floor. “. . . Or p’raps a mop?”
“I’ll be fine. It hurts, but it’s not bleeding too much. Ah . . . Spyder, this is Darroll Rekk-Noth, a businessman. Darroll, this is Corporal Spyder. We went through Basic together, and now serve in the same Company.” She lifted her chin in lieu of gesturing with a hand, and lengthened her strides. “If you’re going to come along, do try to keep up, gentlemen. I’d really rather be safely in the Platform’s hospital before I pass out from pain or blood loss.”
“Wot, from that little scratch?” Spyder teased her. He grinned when she gave him a dirty look, and matched her stride for stride. He also craned his neck, giving Drek a curious look. “So, why’re you walkin’ along wi’ us?”
“I want to make sure the lovely lady, here, will be all right. And to see if I can do anything to distract her from her pain, once she is patched up.” He eyed Ia, his smile never once slipping. “At least, I hope we will be able to see more of each other. She is . . . extraordinary. Don’t you think?”
“That’s our Bloody Mary, arright,” Spyder agreed. “Literally bloody, at times.”
The man on her other side gave her a wry smile. “So I’ve noticed.”
Ia kept her mouth shut. Grateful the timestreams had settled firmly in her favor, she concentrated on carrying her hand without jostling it. Drek had seen and heard enough to change back his attempted change-of-mind. He was too important to her plans to let slip out of her grasp. Even if he was a murderous, thieving pirate and would-be crimelord, she needed him.
OCTOBER 25, 2491 T.S.
SUBSURFACE EMERGENCY TUNNELS
OBERON’S ROCK
Ia paused just long enough to swipe her forehead over her red-clad bicep. It smeared the dirt around, but did reduce the amount of sweat beating on her face, threatening to drip into her eyes. Not that the tunnel was warm, but her exertions were taking its toll.
Face more or less dry, she went back to heaving rocks, working steadily despite the dust and the darkness hampering their efforts. Beside her, eight of the twelve trapped in the emergency tunnel with her grunted over the effort to move the larger stones, and hauled away the smaller ones. Behind them rested their three wounded.
Hunters and Mitchell, both of them from the 3rd Platoon, had broken bones. Their limbs had been crudely straightened by hand and left to lie on the floor for lack of any splints. Hmongwa, from the 2nd Platoon like Ia, had a badly sprained ankle and a concussion; he couldn’t see out of one eye and couldn’t really focus with the other, so he was resting with the other two. The remaining men and women were from the 1st Platoon; they were battered and bruised, but they were alive and mobile.
Their supplies were limited; the emergency sirens had sounded the alarm pattern for an imminent dome breach, and everyone had scrambled to get underground. Like Ia, the mobile ones were digging without pause in the hopes of unburying themselves. They had no food but for a couple napkins filled with hors d’ouvres, no water but a couple of plexi cups that used to hold beer, and no equipment beyond the small spotlights built into their wrist units. Unfortunately, the metallic content of the local rock was playing havoc with their attempts to call for a rescue.
So all they could do was dig. They almost hadn’t had Ia to help them. She had a bruised head and several scrapes down her arms and back from having raced through the falling debris even as the first of the bombs had struck, but she was here.
No one but Ia had known the attack, or rather, counterattack was coming. The Liu Ji had arrived in time to thwart another attempted invasion. The colonists, grateful for yet another rescue, had organized a party for everyone. It had just about ended when the raiders came back from wherever they had fled to just eight or so hours before. This time, their intent was to strafe and shatter the research domes. Mass murder, venting the air inside to outer space, would allow them to pick through the debris at their leisure.
She knew, though no one else did, that the Lyebariko had planned for this in case their latest attempt was thwarted yet again. With the Liu Ji orbiting in a loop that had taken them to the far side of the planetoid’s surface, they no doubt thought the Terrans had moved on to their next patrol spot. They hadn’t. Not because Ia had warned Captain Ferrar, but because Oberon’s governor insisted on throwing a party for the meioas who kept coming back and saving their hides.
The only thing she had done about this potential disaster was electrokinetically trigger the dome sirens about eight minutes early, saving thousands of lives. Everyone was safely tucked underground when the first enemy missile struck. Well, safely, except for this lot.
“Keep digging,” Ia urged them. She kept her tone matter-of-fact, aware just how close most of them were to despair. The noise of the bombardment had stopped hours ago. She knew it was because the Liu Ji had been joined by another warship, driving away the Lyebariko’s smaller, less heavily armed fleet. The others didn’t.
Private Gunga stumbled on a patch of grit and dropped the rock he was carrying. He cursed and hopped, then sagged to the ground. “Gods . . . I’m so tired . . .”
“We just need to dig far enough to get to the next air pocket,” Ia urged them. She knew exactly where it was, and that it wasn’t far away, now. She also knew it connected to a functioning lifesupport bay, which would supply them with just enough air to stay alive until the others could find and dig them free. “They have oxygenators all over the place in these tunnels.”
“Just not in the patch we picked,” Hunters grunted, briefly lifting his head. He gasped and panted, holding himself still. “Goddamn collarbone . . . goddamn arm . . .”
“Think of something else,” Ia urged.
“Like what?” Lok’tor asked. The corporal was from the 1st Platoon, and sweating even more than Ia. “Like the fact I’m gonna have to piss in one of th
ose cups in a few more minutes, just so I don’t bust my bladder? And then, what, drink it?”
Gunga chuckled, gathering himself to get up again. “Won’t taste any worse than that piss they called beer.” He regained his feet with a grunt, only to stagger and drop. “Ugh . . . I don’t feel so good . . .”
“Hold it together, Gunga,” Ia told him. “This is no worse than Hell Week, and you know it.”
“Hell, this shova’s easier than Hell Week,” Mitchell muttered from her position on the floor next to Hunters. Her legs were broken and swollen, though at least neither of them had compound fractures.
“Yeah, you just get to . . . uhn! Lie on your back, while we do all the work,” Lok’tor grunted. She staggered as well, stumbling back against the wall. “. . . Oh, that’s not good. The . . . air is getting thick in here.”
“Keep working, Corporal,” Ia ordered, forced to pick her way up and down the rock pile now that two of them were taking a break. “We only had three strikes that sounded like they hit close overhead. The damage to these tunnels can’t be that bad.”
“Says you,” Gunga grunted. He tried to push up again, only sag back down. “Permission to . . . to pass out, Sergeant?”
Ia didn’t stop working. She could feel the air growing stale, too, but knew they needed to keep shifting the rubble between them and the oxygen they needed. “Permission denied, soldier.”
“. . . Shakk you.”
She didn’t take offense. She slid a large rock halfway down the slope, ignoring the thumps and bruises of several smaller rocks rattling down around her ankles. Like the others, she was clad in civilian clothes for the party, though she at least had been forewarned enough to wear pants and calf-length boots. Heaving the stone up, she carried it to the far end of their patch of tunnel and let it drop with a cracking crunch on several of the others.
Turning back, Ia played her wrist unit light over the faces of her fellow soldiers as she strode past. The beam wasn’t very strong, but it was enough to make them flinch. “Marines do not give up. Marines do not leave anyone behind. Marines do not lie down and die. And so long as I am your ranking officer, I will do everything in my power to make sure you survive.
“We just need to dig far enough to reach the next pocket of air.”
“Hey! I think I found . . . something . . . Oh . . . oh, God.” Davisson, Gunga’s teammate, scrabbled at the debris shoved aside by Ia’s falling rock. Gunga shoved off the floor and Lok’tor off the wall, joining them in digging out the dusty shoe he had found . . . and the foot it was attached to. And the leg. “Oh . . . God.”
Ia joined them. In grim silence, they unburied the crushed corpse of Private First Class Paul McDaniels, 1st Platoon C Squad Beta. Once he was free from the debris, the others slumped to their knees, heads bowed. Ia bowed her head for a moment as well, then stooped and picked him up.
“Marines don’t leave anyone behind, if we can help it,” she murmured. “We’ll bring him out with us, and anyone else we find.”
“Gods damn you to the foulest depths of Gehenna!” Gunga half shouted, half panted. “We are not getting out! We are going to die down here!”
“Is that what you believe?” Ia asked calmly. The smell of dirt and blood and worse made the air thicker than she wanted to breathe. Turning away, she carried McDaniel’s body to the far end of the pocket that had saved most of them, and knelt to lay him in state.
“What kind of fairy tale do you live in, Sergeant?” That came from Lok’tor. “We’re trapped down here. We can’t get a signal through, we’re running out of air . . . nobody knows we’re down here!”
“I don’t live in a fairy tale. I just refuse to give up.” She laid the battered hands at their owner’s sides and murmured a benediction. “May whatever god you prayed to have compassion for your soul, Paul . . . and give strength to your fellow Marines to carry on.”
“Carry on where?” Mitchell asked. She coughed and panted, watching Ia rise and turn toward her and the others. “The air’s . . . so thick . . .”
“That’s because you’re lying down where the carbon dioxide is piling up. Tang, Davisson, shift those rocks and make a platform. We’ll move Hunters and Mitchell up above the worst of it. And then we will keep digging,” Ia told them.
Nobody moved. She tipped her head slightly, studying them, until her gaze fell on Lok’tor.
“You may all want to lie down and die . . . but if we die, then I will be found still trying to dig us out. Still doing my duty.” She slapped her left palm on her breastbone and left it there, illuminating her face in the dim glow of its miniature spotlight. “I will be found still trying to save your lives.
“Now. Get up, piss in a cup, and get back to moving those rocks, Dinea,” she ordered Lok’tor softly. Implacably. “You still have lives to save, too.”
Lok’tor stared back.
Hmongwa, blinking and not quite focusing on anything, shifted on his hip. He scooted closer to the end of the tunnel they had been trying to uncover, scraping grit with each hitch. “I can’t stand . . . and can’t exactly focus . . . but I’m not worn out. I can’t carry anything anywhere, but you prop me up there, Ia, and I’ll pass you the rocks. The others can rest for a while.”
Lok’tor shifted her gaze to him. Watched him shuff closer to her end of the tunnel. Slowly, she moved. Pushed from her knees to her feet, and turned back to the remainder of the pile they had shifted, rock by rock, from the far left to the far right for far too long. Davisson met Ia’s gaze only briefly in the dim, patchy light before he, too, turned back to work on the rubble. Tang followed him, murmuring suggestions as the pair shifted of the large pieces into a base for a makeshift ledge.
Stepping up to Hunters, Ia crouched and met both his and Mitchell’s worried looks. “This is going to hurt like hell when we move you, but it’ll give all of us a little more time.”
Mitchell, both of her legs broken, nodded in understanding. “I’m not ready to die.”
“Shakk! Watch it, meioa!” Davisson swore, dodging down and back as Lok’tor’s actions shifted the rock pile.
Lok’tor started to slide down with the rocks she had dislodged, then jerked and scrambled upward. That sent more debris scattering down, but the sound of her dragging in a deep, ragged lungful of fresh air made the dangers of her precarious perch not matter. She did it again, silencing everyone.
“Oh, God—air! I can’t see anything, but . . .” Another lungful and she slithered back down. “I’m smelling fresh air!”
The other mobile members surged forward, abandoning building the platform in favor of forming another rock-toting chain. Lowering her arm, hiding her face in the darkness, Ia smiled. She’d known how close they were, more or less.
“Work carefully,” she cautioned the others. “Now is not the time to break something from carelessness. A Marine never gives up, and a Marine never makes a mistake if it can be helped.”
Gunga grunted and swiped the sweat from his own brow. “Ugh . . . the air’s not clearing fast enough. I still feel like I’m going to pass out, here.”
“Permission still denied, Private,” Ia quipped, moving forward to join them in widening the gap. “Besides, Marines don’t faint. We engage the floor in mortal combat.”
The others laughed. They coughed and strained to move large chunks of broken bedrock, but as the gap and its trickle of fresher air widened with each effort, they laughed.
CHAPTER 18
Was there any resentment in the troops when I was jumped up from squad sergeant to company sergeant after Sergeant Pleistoch was reassigned? Not in Ferrar’s Fighters. And not from anyone else who knew me on the Hum-Vee/ Johannes circuit. I had earned their trust, and their faith in my abilities. I stayed with the Captain as one year became two, testing psychologically sound and thus fit for continued combat duty. Not everyone can, but in my case, I could, and the military wisely wasn’t going to waste my abilities at a desk job.
Once they moved Battle Platform Johannes into the sa
me system as Oberon’s Rock—I’ll admit, at my suggestion and Captain Ferrar’s formally worded request—it silenced the tech piracy attacks. Of course, that ended up causing other problems down the road in turn. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I did have the faith of the men and women both in Captain Ferrar’s Company, and on board the Liu Ji. With their faith, we were able to accomplish great things.
~Ia
MARCH 29, 2492 T.S.
OBSERVATION STATION IVEZIC
ZELJKO 17 BINARY SYSTEM
The setup was perfect.
With Battle Platform Johannes relocated by a couple days of travel, their patrol route had been altered to include Ivezic Station, located more toward the nadir of the galactic plane. It was more of a combination of refueling depot, mineral refinery, and astronomical research facility than a bustling port of call, but they were pleased to get the contract to service and support the Terran Space Force. And they were pleased to show that, backwater-ish though they were, they were still quite cultured.
Particularly when one of the companies sponsoring the stellar research also sponsored a touring musical production, nudging it into swinging by Ivezic for a series of live performances. They also gave the entire crew of the Liu Ji and its Marine Company free tickets. Not that the entire crew and company could fit into the station’s modest combination of auditorium and performance theater at one time, but—as Ia knew they would—Captain Sudramara and Captain Ferrar decided the Marines would attend one show and the Navy the other.
