Two or three hundred meters beyond where the patrol had gone, a small river crossed the Skinks’ trail. The trail didn’t resume on the other side of the river.
“We have to check it out,” Bass said. “First squad, go upstream, second squad go downstream. If you don’t see sign of them coming out in two klicks, cross over and come back checking the other side.” Through his infra he watched the two squads leave. He didn’t feel comfortable about splitting the platoon, but it was the fastest way to check out where the Skinks might have left the river.
“What are you thinking?” Hyakowa asked.
“I’m thinking they’re trying to screw with our minds.”
“I imagine you’re right.”
“They’re messing with us,” Schultz rumbled when second squad was halfway back to its starting point.
“What do you mean?” Kerr asked.
“They stayed in the river.”
“How do you know?”
“Mind fuck.”
“How can you be sure?”
Schultz grunted. It was obvious to him that the Skinks were playing games with the Marines, working on their psyches.
“You think they just kept going?”
Schultz grunted.
“They’re trying to put us on edge and keep us there?” It wasn’t really a question; Kerr was extrapolating from what Schultz said. It fit with what Gunny Bass had said, that the Skinks might be smarter than they guessed. It didn’t take much thought for him to realize that if he were the commander of an outmatched unit in enemy territory, he’d want to do things to keep his opponent unsettled. After a big fight, let them think they’d won, then hit again while they were withdrawing. The withdrawing force would think it was over. Their morale might go down if they suddenly had to go back and fight again—especially if they’d suffered significant casualties in gaining what they thought was victory, which 34th FIST had. But why not hit the withdrawing forces, injure them while they were less alert and able to fight back?
That was one more question to add to who they were, where they came from, and why they always attacked without attempting to communicate.
Bass already knew the squads had found nothing before they returned. He radioed his report to Lieutenant Humphrey.
“What do you think is the most likely direction they went?” Humphrey asked.
“Downstream. According to this map, the river gets pretty narrow upstream and the land gets rocky.”
“I agree. Follow downstream about ten klicks. Stay in close touch.”
“Aye aye.”
As soon as the platoon was reassembled, Bass called, “Squad leaders up.”
In a moment the three squad leaders joined him and Hyakowa. They all slid their shields up so they could see each other’s faces. Dupont kept watching the display on the UPUD, Mark III. Bass did his best to ignore the damn thing.
“It’s more likely they went downstream than up,” he told the squad leaders. They nodded agreement. “So we’re going downstream too. About ten klicks. We’ll get picked up there. If that damn thing,” he jerked a thumb at the UPUD, “gives us anything near an accurate position. First squad, right bank. Second squad, left. One gun with each squad. Questions?” There weren’t any. “Let’s do it.”
They didn’t find where the Skinks left the river, all they found was that the forest continued and the river got bigger. Then the platoon was dispatched to the site of another Skink raid.
The Great Master chuckled as he listened to the reports, his breath rasping. Operation Blossoming Blood was proceeding precisely as planned. The Earthman Marines were scattered in increasingly small segments throughout the populated areas of this world they called “Kingdom,” always racing to places his forces had already raided and departed. Any time he chose, he could have his forces lie in ambush and destroy the Marines piecemeal. But he did not choose to destroy them—yet.
“Continue Blossoming Blood,” he ordered, and his breath rasped through his gill slits as he chuckled again.
The doorway through which the monk ushered them was wide enough for Brigadier Sturgeon and Ambassador Spears to walk side by side. It was Sturgeon’s first time inside Temple Mount. Previously, his only contacts with the leading council had been through either Ambassador Spears or Archbishop General Lambsblood. The two Confederation representatives joined Lambsblood, who stood in front of the massive conference table facing the five spiritual leaders, who sat like a panel of judges. They bowed, Sturgeon’s bow shallower and brisker than Spears’s. The five seated leaders each had a cup near his hand. No one came forward to offer refreshment to the standing men.
Ayatollah Jebel Shammar, seated in the middle of the quintet, glowered at them from under bushy eyebrows and drummed his fingers impatiently on the tabletop. Swami Nirmal Bastar sat sternly to the right of Shammar. The Venerable Muong Bo, on his left, looked somehow disapproving in his inscrutability. Cardinal Leemus O’Lanners, resplendent in his scarlet robes, looked like he should be in the middle instead of the plainly dressed Ayatollah. Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent sat at the opposite end of the row. Unlike the others, Ralphy Bruce directed his disapproval at Shammar’s drumming fingers. A secretary sat ready with stylus and paper behind each principal.
Ayatollah Shammar ceased his finger-drumming long enough to intone, “The demons increase their depredations. You have done naught to deliver us from them.”
Sturgeon ignored the obvious accusation in Shammar’s tone. “Revered One, the raiders strike in widely scattered locations. By the time we learn about their raids and reach the sites, they’re already gone.”
“You spy on us from the sky, yet you never see them in time!”
“We don’t spy on you, Revered One,” Spears said. “The Confederation’s string-of-pearls is looking for the raiders, but there aren’t enough analysts on the ship to spot all movement. They cannot be expected to spot every raid in time. Eventually they will spot raiders before they launch one of their attacks.” He was well aware that were there enough analysts to examine all the data; the accusation of spying could well be accurate.
Shammar slammed the palms of both hands onto the tabletop. “Eventually is not soon enough!” he thundered. “The demons murder the Faithful and mutilate their bodies. They destroy our crops and kine. They must be stopped!”
“Revered One,” Spears said in his most diplomatic voice, “Brigadier Sturgeon assures me his Marines can be more effective than they are, but you must allow them to move out of their Interstellar City camp.”
“I do allow them to leave!” Shammar thundered. “Every time the demons raid they have leave to pursue them!”
Spears shook his head. “Revered One, it’s too late then.”
“Sir,” Sturgeon broke in, “none of the raids are in the vicinity of Haven. By the time my Marines can reach them, the raiders are long gone. We need your—”
“You have suborbitals,” Swami Bastar interrupted. “They can move your soldiers anywhere on Kingdom within an hour and a half. Your encampment is close enough.” The blaze in his eyes made Sturgeon think of Siva, the ancient Hindu god of destruction.
“Sir, that hour and a half is more than the raiders need to do their killing and make good their escape. Especially when my Marines aren’t informed of the raid until several hours afterward.” He used the subtlety of emphasis to indicate that there was a difference between soldiers and Marines.
“Would you then be getting to the site those several hours earlier if your soldiers were stationed closer?” Cardinal O’Lanners asked blandly, returning the emphasis. He drank from his cup and signaled for an attendant to refill it.
“No, Eminence, it wouldn’t get my Marines there those many hours earlier. But it could put us in a better position to learn about the raids early enough to intercept the raiders.”
Shammar held up a hand to stop anyone from speaking further. He rolled his eyes up in momentary thought, then flicked his fingers and said, “Leave us.”
Sp
ears bowed, Sturgeon nodded. Lambsblood bowed lowest and left the room with them.
“We wait here,” Lambsblood murmured when the door of the council chamber closed behind them.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Sturgeon asked.
“I think they know they have to do something they do not want to do,” the Kingdomite commander replied.
A few moments later the door opened again and a scribe beckoned them to reenter.
Ayatollah Shammar peered at them for a long moment over steepled fingers. The expressions of the others were unreadable.
“Your point is well taken,” he finally said. “But we cannot let infidels loose amongst our Faithful to spread their heinous apostasy. We have garrisons a hundred men strong throughout our lands. You may station up to ten of your soldiers with each garrison. When the garrison commander hears of a raid, he will lead your soldiers to it for immediate action.”
Spears cocked an eye at Sturgeon. He knew the Marine wouldn’t like the implications of that.
Sturgeon restrained a smile; he’d been hoping for something like this. “Revered One, I thank you. My Marines have considerable experience commanding indigenous troops.”
Shammar’s eyes looked like they should have been firing lightning, and Swami Bastar’s visage, even more than before, invoked the image of Siva. Even Venerable Moung Bo’s inscrutability seemed threatening.
“What?” Bishop Ralphy Bruce squawked. “You can’t—can’t—” He stopped to gather himself, but Cardinal O’Lanners cut him off.
“Sure and you wouldn’t be thinking your heathens can be allowed to command our Soldiers of the Lord, now would you?”
“Your Eminence, when Confederation Marines operate with local forces, the Marines always have military command. Let me say that again,” he hurried on, “military command. We will do nothing whatsoever to impede or intefere with whatever reasonable measure you take to protect your soldiers from any supposed ‘apostasy.’ ”
Spears read the laughter under Sturgeon’s final statement. Experienced diplomat that he was, he kept his own expression neutral.
Shammar’s steepled fingers went white from the sudden pressure he exerted on them.
Sturgeon turned to Lambsblood. “With all due respect, sir, Confederation Marines have vastly more experience and combat skills than any planetary military. And the Confederation Marines are both well-schooled and experienced in working with planetary forces. We always leave a local military more capable than it was when we arrived.”
“I am aware of the value of the training, Brigadier. The last time Confederation Marines were deployed to Kingdom, the Army of the Lord received invaluable training. But command—”
“Yessir, command,” Sturgeon said. “Even if I were willing to entrust the lives of my Marines to local command, I am forbidden to do so by Confederation Marine Corps standard operational proceedure. I’m simply not allowed to. Archbishop General,” he said in a placating tone, “Marines have been training and leading local forces since before humanity went to the stars. We know what we’re doing.”
Lambsblood said nothing, but his expression as he turned his face from Sturgeon to his own leaders made it plain that he was unwilling to hand over command of even one Soldier of the Lord to the off-world Marines.
“Command is out of the question,” Ayatollah Shammar said. He again flicked his fingers at them, and they left the chamber. The audience was over.
Over the next four days seven more settlements and two additional army outposts were lost to Skink raids. In each instance, the Marines didn’t find out until too long afterward to catch the raiders.
“Archbishop General Lambsblood,” Ayatollah Shammar intoned when the Kingdomite commander and the two Confederation representatives were again summoned, “the Army of the Lord shall closely oversee the dispersal of the off-world Marines and their assumption of military command. The Army of the Lord will treble the number of chaplains assigned to each unit so involved. Leave us.”
Lambsblood’s face went pale, but he bowed his head and said, “Thy will be done.”
Outside the conference room, Lambsblood said to Spears, “Your military headquarters will be contacted by my operations staff to make the necessary arrangements.” He didn’t look at the Marine.
CHAPTER
* * *
TWENTY-SIX
Lance Corporal Schultz glowered. This was the kind of assignment he most detested. “I’m a lance corporal,” he growled, “not an NCO. I follow. I fight. No leader. That’s the deal.”
“I know that, Hammer,” Charlie Bass said patiently. “And I’m not asking you to be a leader. If I wanted you to be a leader, I’d give you Marines to lead. I need you to help Corporal Kerr and Corporal Doyle teach these amateurs,” he indicated the nearby platoon of Soldiers of the Lord, “how to patrol and fight.” The Kingdomite soldiers were doing their best to not look at the two heads that hovered in midair a few meters from the formation.
Schultz glanced at the sword-shaped pin in Bass’s exposed hand. “That’s their sergeant’s collar insignia. You want me to wear it.”
Bass shook his head. “It’s a ‘sword’s’ rank insignia,” he said. “A ‘sword’ is not the same as a Marine sergeant. Do you think I’d give a Kingdomite sword command of a Marine squad?”
“You did this before,” Schultz rumbled. On Wanderjahr the Marines had been integrated into the feldpolizei as commissioned and noncommissioned officers. Schultz, a career lance corporal, had been made an acting section leader in the feldpolizei—the equivalent of a squad leader. He’d hated that assignment.
“And you did a very good job training the feldpolizei. I expect you to do the same kind of job training the Kingdomites.” Bass groped for the invisible collar of Schultz’s chameleon shirt and pinned the sword emblem on it.
A Soldier of the Lord fainted at the sight of disembodied hands pinning the emblem in midair below a hovering head.
Schultz looked like he wanted to kill somebody. Preferably starting with the Kingdomite platoon.
Corporal Doyle broke off from admiring his own newly pinned-on Kingdomite rank insignia to cast a concerned glance at Schultz. He hadn’t been with third platoon on the Wanderjahr deployment and knew only vaguely how Schultz had reacted to the assignment.
Corporal Kerr ignored the byplay between Bass and Schultz. He was more concerned with the three ministers the Army of the Lord had posted with the platoon. He was concerned that before the mission was over those three men might pose problems even more serious for the Marines than the Skinks presented.
First Acolyte Fakir sat most uncomfortably in a very unaccustomed place—the wrong side of his own field desk. The one-armed man who sat opposite, in Fakir’s own chair, wore the doubled cross of a lesser imam on one collar point of his drab green shirt. Lesser imam was the proper rank of a company commander in the Army of the Lord. Should the Army of the Lord assign a lesser imam to take command of the 157th Defense Garrison, the command position Fakir had been filling for several months now, he could fully understand and accept it. And then beg forgiveness from God for the jealousy and rage he would feel at not himself being granted promotion to lesser imam. But the one-armed man who sat in his chair, on his side of his desk, who had just assumed command of his company, also wore, on the collar point that did not have the doubled cross of a lesser imam, the three chevrons and crossed blasters of a Confederation Marine Corps sergeant, a rank equivalent to sword, a squad leader. This First Acolyte Fakir did not fully understand, nor could he fully accept it. How had he offended God that he and his company should be placed under the command of a mere enlisted man—and a one-armed enlisted man at that? Outside the office, other Marines, men with ranks equal to subsword and ordinary soldiers, had assumed all of the command and leadership positions in the company.
“Acolyte, I can understand if you’re unhappy about our situation here. I’m not happy about being returned to duty before my arm’s been regenerated either.�
�� Sergeant Bladon lifted the stump of his missing arm. “If it’s too long before the regeneration process starts, the arm that grows here won’t be as good as the arm that I lost. You lose some pride for a short period of time.” He looked at the stump. “I stand to lose something more.” He ignored the monk who sat to Fakir’s right and slightly behind him.
“Lesser Imam,” Fakir said, “I didn’t realize I said anything to indicate any unhappiness with a brave soldier such as yourself being in command.”
Bladon stared at him with a coldness that made the acolyte shiver. “We’re starting off wrong,” he said in a voice as cold as his gaze. “My men and I are not ‘soldiers,’ we are Marines, and you will address us as such. There is a very significant difference between soldiers and Marines. This is something you will learn very well in the coming days.”
Fakir wanted to clear his throat and run a finger around his suddenly too tight collar, to wipe the beads of persperation from his brow, but he didn’t dare. This acting lesser imam might in fact have only the equivalent rank of a sword, but in manner he might have been a colonel deacon, a personage to be obeyed instantly.
“As for the rest of what you said,” Bladon continued more conversationally, “you don’t have to say anything for me to know you’re unhappy. You’re an officer in a class-bound army, in a strongly hierarchical society—your unhappiness shows in your face.” Bladon made to fold his arms on the desk and lean forward on them, flinched when he put weight on the stump, sat straighter. “But you have to understand something. I and all of my men have training in leadership for the units we will be commanding. Even more important than that, most of my Marines and I have experience in training and leading planetary forces. We know what we’re doing. Also, all of us have faced the Skinks.” He lifted his stump to drive the point home. He paused for a moment, then decided it was pointless to keep secret the fact that this wasn’t the first appearance of the Skinks. “Most of us have faced them elsewhere—and defeated them. We are the best people in all of Human Space to train your people in how to fight them, and the best qualified to lead you against the Skinks.”
Starfist: Kingdom's Swords Page 28
