A World of Hurt

by David Sherman

  "Thank you, sir. I'll do my best to live up to your expectations."

  "Just remember, Captain, you'll be an acting lieutenant commander. Act like one."

  "Yessir. Aye aye, sir."

  "You're dismissed. I'll have someone show you to your duty stations."

  "Thank you, sir," Arden said. She about-faced and marched out of Boreland's office. Gullkarl followed close behind.

  Rooster tails flew up behind the twenty-four Dragons of 34th FIST's transportation company, each bearing a full complement of Marines, as they roared in line onto Boynton Field at Camp Ellis. When it reached the loading chief's stand the lead Dragon--the company commander's--pulled out of its position and turned to face the remaining air-cushioned, armored, amphibious assault vehicles as they passed by. They in turn followed the markers they were directed to by the landing chief. Three by three, the Dragons headed for the eight Essays; three by three, they faced about and backed into the Essays. When the last of his vehicles passed, the company commander ordered his driver to follow the loading chief's directions; his was the last Dragon to board the last Essay.

  Ground crews oversaw the raising and securing of the Essays' ramps. On board, the coxswains checked their systems to assure the ramps were raised and secured and their craft were sound and ready for launch. The loading chief waited for his subordinates to report that each Essay's ramp was up and secure, then ordered them to assemble on him. When his people were all present and accounted for, he turned control of the Essays over to the control tower.

  The tower communicated with each Essay--voice between human controllers and coxswains, digital between the control comp and the Essays' comps. When coxswains, human controllers, and comps were all satisfied with communications, the controllers cleared the first Essay for launch. It fired its engines and sped along the airstrip a short distance before shooting sharply upward at a high speed. Fifteen seconds after it began its movement, the second Essay followed. The others trailed at fifteen second intervals.

  The first Essay leveled off at three thousand meters and swung into a wide orbit. Less than two minutes later all eight Essays were circling high above Boynton Field. The tower called for a final system check. When all eight Essays were orbiting and the coxswains and their comps were satisfied with their systems and with vehicle performance, the control tower cleared them to head for orbit. The chief coxswain gave the final order, and one by one the Essays rolled out of the orbit and shot upward at increasing speed until they reached escape velocity.

  The Grandar Bay's coxswains gave the Marines an even rougher ride on their Essays than had the Essay coxswains on the trip to Nidhogge. As far as the Grandar Bay's crew was concerned, it was the fault of the Marines that they were stuck on their starship "for the duration," reported as lost in Beamspace.

  Not that the Marines were happy to be back aboard the Grandar Bay; most of them had unhappy memories of all the time and energy they'd expended doing "squid work"--cleaning the starship--when they rode her back to Thorsfinni's World from Kingdom. This time the Marines wouldn't have to do any squid work; they were on a mission of unknown severity and had to prepare for it.

  Ten minutes after breaking orbit, the formation leveled off again, in sight of the looming bulk of the Grandar Bay. They maneuvered in closer, heading for the gaping maw of the open welldeck. Under it, the comps fired forward vernier jets to bring their velocity down to that of the ship, then fired gentle puffs from ventral jets to lift themselves into position for the clamps and grapples to grab and hold them in place. The welldeck hatch ponderously closed snug against the bottoms of the Essays, which lowered their hatches. Atmosphere flooded the welldeck, and crewmen in spacesuits with open faceplates, tugging guidelines, scrambled aboard the Essays, and the Dragons in turn lowered their ramps. Weightless in the null-g of a starship in boarding operations, the sailors attached the Marines in the Dragons to guidelines and escorted them from the welldeck.

  In moments the two companies of Marines who'd risen to orbit in the placental Dragons borne within the Essay-wombs were out of the welldeck, being led to the compartments they would call home during their cruise to Maugham's Station.

  Then the welldeck was sucked dry of atmosphere and reopened to space, and the Essays were launched for the return trip to Boynton Field. Another flight of eight Essays was already waiting a couple of kilometers away to enter the welldeck. A third flight of eight Essays launched from Boynton Field at that same moment.

  Four hours after the first Essay fired its engines to begin its launch, 34th FIST was fully embarked. Sixteen Essays, each with three Dragons, were snugged in their places in the Grandar Bay's welldeck, readying to launch an assault force of Marines and their killing power on whatever target they were aimed at. The starship commenced final preparations to leave orbit for transit to its first jump point, some three days out from Thorsfinni's World and perpendicular to the plane of the elliptic.

  The Marines studied up on Maugham's Station--not that there was much to study. They could have stopped with what they learned in the briefings given by Captain Conorado and First Sergeant Myer, who simply regurgitated what they'd learned at Brigadier Sturgeon's Commanders' Call the day before they launched, because there wasn't all that much to know about a colony world such as Maugham's Station. But there were things about Maugham's Station that bothered the more experienced Marines, which made them want to know more--and that bother conveyed itself to the less experienced, so they also wanted to know more.

  Most of them spent the best part of their days--at least those hours when they weren't engaged in physical exercise, fire team, and squad drills in the virtual reality chambers, or maintaining their weapons and other gear--with their readers plugged in, ransacking the ship's library to glean every scrap of information it held regarding their destination. Those who didn't spend the best part of their free time at it spent all of their free hours during the day and many of their night hours ransacking the library.

  What mainly bothered the more experienced Marines was that Maugham's Station was largely unexplored and had neither a globe-encircling satellite system nor much of a sensor array that could be deployed outside the limited populated area. Which effectively made Maugham's Station a virgin planet. Most of them had recent experience on a virgin planet, when they pursued the fleeing Skinks from Kingdom to the abandoned exploratory world called Quagmire. Quagmire had presented them with things they'd never encountered, or even heard of, much less trained for. They could have made serious mistakes and suffered unnecessary casualties because of their ignorance. Who knew what they were going to encounter on Maugham's Station? Skinks, probably. Maybe. Nobody knew for sure, though it looked like it. If they did, the enemy had been there for a while, long enough to gain some degree of familiarity with what Maugham's Station had to offer. Certainly they'd know more about it than the Marines knew. And long enough to prepare booby traps, ambush sites, defensive positions, and other nasty surprises.

  The Marines didn't like that one little bit.

  They were so engrossed in their study and other preparations that few of them noticed how much better the food was in the starship's messes than it had been the last time they'd sailed on the Grandar Bay.

  By the time the Grandar Bay made her second jump the Marines had absorbed every scrap of information on Maugham's Station the library held. Some of them were even able to understand the more esoteric reports filed by BEHIND, the Bureau of Human Habitability Exploration and Investigation, during its brief exploration and investigation of the world, and to translate it into standard English for the benefit of those who had less extensive scientific educations. Even that didn't tell them anywhere near as much as they wanted to know.

  Not even First Sergeant Myer managed to cast much light on the situation during the unofficial briefing he delivered the day after the last jump.

  "A-ten-SHUN!" Top Myer barked, and the Marines of Company L jumped to their feet and stood at attention while Captain Conorado stepped aw
ay from the lectern at which he'd delivered his final briefing. All he'd had to tell them was that communications had been established with Maugham's Station, where another death had been reported, which was similar to two incidents that triggered 34th FIST's deployment. Brigadier Sturgeon and a few members of the FIST staff, along with the battalion and squadron commanders and a couple of their top people, would make preliminary planetfall to meet with Maugham's Station's leadership before making final plans. Conorado left the compartment via the hatch nearest the small stage, followed by the company's other officers.

  Top Myer remained on the stage, watching as they left. When the hatch closed and he was certain they wouldn't return, he nodded. Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher dogged one hatch, Staff Sergeant Hyakowa the other. Now they wouldn't be interrupted by anybody simply walking in unannounced. Myer had another reason for waiting before he began his unofficial briefing: the officers didn't know he knew that when they left the official briefing, they would assemble in their wardroom to listen to his briefing on a circuit they believed he didn't know about.

  Hmmpf! As if anything that went on in his company was unknown to any first sergeant worth his salt. He wanted them to listen in; they might learn something that would help them save the lives of some of their Marines.

  But what could he say today that could save Marine lives? They were blind! He didn't even know if they really were up against Skinks; the limited transmissions they'd had from the planet since yesterday's jump had been singularly unilluminating on the subject. If Skinks were there, most of these Marines who stood looking so expectantly at him knew more in detail about fighting them than he did.

  Well, he was a Marine. When in doubt, act decisively.

  "Siddown," he growled. He glowered at the 121 Marines plus navy corpsmen who resumed their seats, then clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing the width of the small stage.

  "I imagine you know I don't have squat to tell you about this place," he finally said. "You've had full access to the same BEHIND reports I have, you've seen the same transcripts of the Unexplained Expiration reports I have, your briefings have covered the same ground in the same detail mine have. I've never been to Maugham's Station and I don't know anybody who has."

  He stopped pacing and faced front, arms akimbo, fists jammed into his hips.

  "What this means, people, is the only thing we can expect when we make planetfall is the unexpected. Are Skinks waiting for us, like they were on our last deployment? Are any Skinks even there?" He gestured vaguely. "I don't know, and neither does anybody else.

  "Are the Unexplained Expiration reports accurate? Hell, all I know is they're incomplete." He shook his head. "In my experience, most colony worlds, no matter what they say about needing and wanting Confederation support, don't want anybody to know too much about what they're doing, what kinds of problems they're having, and they either deliberately leave out essential information or are simply careless in their reporting. And this Ammon country didn't even ask the Confederation to send Marines; they have no idea how much trouble they might be in for.

  "The way this has shaped up so far, we could be walking into the middle of a personal vendetta, a family feud, a civil war, a Skink trap, or--nothing. And we aren't going to know which until we're in the middle of it. The one thing I do know is, the unexpected can kill you.

  "Most of you remember in our last operation, Mike Company didn't expect the Skinks to wait in ambush underwater and rise up to hit them from the rear. That cost Mike Company almost an entire platoon.

  "In the late twentieth century, Marines on a peacekeeping mission in a Middle Eastern country called Lebanon didn't expect suicide bombers. That lack of expectation killed 241 Marines, soldiers, and sailors.

  "When I was a PFC, I was a member of a ceremonial detail representing the Confederation at the coronation of the Raja of Kotte on Burgher. We knew the new raja's outcast brother was organizing an insurrection, but we didn't expect the insurrection to begin with the assassination of the raja and massacre of the guests at the coronation." His eyes suddenly went out of focus and his voice dropped so low only the Marines closest to the stage heard what he said next. "Half the Marines in the detail were killed before we were able to load our weapons and begin to fight back." He stood silent for a moment, looking into a place only he could see, then shook himself and refocused on the Marines. When he resumed speaking, his voice was once again strong.

  "So you see, what you don't expect can rear up and bite your ass right off. When we go planetside, be alert and be ready for anything. Be especially alert for the unexpected."

  With that, he turned and marched off the small stage to the hatch through which the company's officers had exited. He had to fumble with the dog before he could open it and leave.

  The compartment was silent for long seconds after the first sergeant left. Finally someone in the back shouted out, "What did he say after 'massacre of the guests'?"

  Commodore Boreland, with Brigadier Sturgeon concurring, decided not to radio a notification of the Grandar Bay's arrival to Maugham's Station until the starship was in position to land the landing party. They didn't know what kind of security the Skinks--or whoever might be causing the deaths on the colony world--might have. The closer the Grandar Bay could get without being detected, the better, and a radio broadcast from several days' out would certainly be picked up by the foe.

  The welldeck was ready to receive the Marines before the communications officer made his first contact.

  "Maugham's Station Central, this is the Confederation Navy Starship Grandar Bay," Captain Wilma Arden said into her transmitter. "Do you hear me? Over." She waited a moment, then called again. "Maugham's Station Central, this is the CNSS Grandar Bay. Is anybody monitoring your communications? Over." The voice that replied sounded distinctly surprised.

  "CNSS Grandar Bay, this is Maugham's Station Central. We are monitoring. Where are you?" He was so surprised to be talking to someone he didn't know was in orbit he forgot radio procedure.

  Arden smiled wryly. "If your geosync is functioning, you should be able to see us. Over."

  "You're in orbit?" the monitor at Central squawked.

  "That's affirmative, Central. In orbit and about to launch a Marine landing party. Over."

  "Now?" The monitor's voice cracked.

  "Within moments. The first wave of Marine Dragons will cross the beach in less than an hour. We would appreciate it if you notified your president that visitors are about to drop in. Over."

  "Notify the Pres...I'll do it right away, CNSS...What ship did you say you are?"

  "The Grandar Bay, a Mandalay-class Amphibious Landing Ship, Force. Over."

  "A Mandalay-class...Is that good? Uh, over?"

  "The Mandalay-class Amphibious Landing Ship, Force, is one of the most powerful warships in the Confederation Navy. So, yes, that's good. Over."

  "I'll notify President Menno immediately, Grandar Bay. Maugham's Station Central, over and out."

  Arden shook her head. The communications tech at Central forgot all about communications procedure until almost the very end, then garbled it. "Over and out" literally meant, "It's your turn to talk, but I'm breaking the connection and won't listen."

  The Marines filed into the welldeck of the Grandar Bay and onto the Dragons that waited, already in the Essays that would ferry them planetside. They strapped themselves into their webbing stations; the webbing swung into launch position, lifting their passengers into horizontal positions, tested their mass, and adjusted their tension to keep them from slamming against the deck, overhead, or sides of the Dragon during maneuvers and acceleration. Fire team leaders checked their men's strapping, and squad leaders checked the fire team leaders. Each Dragon crew chief came through and made his own inspection--no crew chief wanted a Marine injured on his vehicle. As each Dragon filled, its ramp rose and sealed. Each Essay's ramp did likewise as its three Dragons battened down. The Essays' computers reported when they were ready, the coxswains do
uble-checked the computers and verified. At last they were ready to go.

  The Grandar Bay turned off her gravity field, and everything and everybody not secured began drifting in free fall. The air was sucked from the welldeck, and the hatch that moments before had been its deck ponderously rolled out of the way. Most of the Marines didn't listen to the carefully modulated, computer-generated female voice that warned of the loss of gravity, the evacuation of the welldeck's atmosphere, the opening of the welldeck's hatch. Nor did they pay attention to the countdown to launch; the experienced Marines wanted to be relaxed at launch, not tense. They knew they could get injured if they were rigid when the Essays were plunged out of the welldeck and then fired their engines to maneuver away from the starship before the precipitous dive planetside.

  Then came the "fast ride on a rough road" that was the straight-down descent through the gradually thickening atmosphere of Maugham's Station to splash-down in the ocean a hundred kilometers beyond the horizon of Ammon's coast.

  As soon as the last Essay launched, the Grandar Bay made one orbit of Maugham's Station, laying her string-of-pearls ring of observation and communications satellites in low orbit. Then she climbed to a geosync orbit, above the longitude of Ammon's capital city of Olympia.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first wave of eight Essays ferried Brigadier Sturgeon and his initial contact party to the surface. The Dragons on one of the Essays carried the FIST commander and his party, consisting of Commander Daana and Captain West, respectively the FIST intelligence and logistics officers; Commander van Winkle, the infantry battalion commander; Commander Wolfe, the composite squadron commander; an aide or assistant for each of them; and the FIST headquarters' security platoon. The FIST's recon and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle squads were aboard another Essay. Company L came along to provide ground security beyond the immediate environs of the brigadier's contact party. Two Raptors and four hoppers, one a gunship, also came down in the first wave.