"Abner, ya got a shootin' gallery on a ceiling, a warehouse full of food stuff—somewhere—and a bunch of half-shaved aliens. You're doin' somethin'... weird." The Top was rummaging around through the sea of empty bottles on the table, looking for a live one. The bartender Lanif had long since given up on trying to keep up with the two seniors. He had unlocked the Officer's beer locker and created an immediate open door policy. Seeing as to how the Colonel had invited Marines from the Malacan vessel without specification of rank into the lounge as his guest, he figured he was covered for payment. He was actually quite pleased. This was the first riot in the history of the orbiter that the Army had taken the brunt of the damage. The lady Marine had devastated the Colonel's office, not to mention the Colonel.
"What... could we possibly be doing that was weird? Top! You crack me up!"
"Don't bullshit me, Abner, I been doin' this forever. I'll tell ya somethin'. I don't know what'cher doin', don't care what'cher doin'. Jes... don't get caught. You guys are okay."
"Ya'all right too, Top. I'll be honest with ya, I'm surprised you ain't a Marine?"
"I wanted to enlist. Recruiter said I was too old!"
"Imagine that!"
* * *
"Hell, Henry! We really pissed them off big time. Christ, will you look at them all!" The Corporal looked up from the Maintenance Action Form at the latest bird to set down. He twisted around to peer out the window behind Schaffer's desk. It looked as if there was a team of Army MPs for every Marine on the line.
"F'Fuck 'em, Gunny!" he said. "This is the closest I've come to seein' those boys work since the day I g'got here. It'll do 'em good, and we can use the down time! I've got eight guys inventorying all active crafts. W'when was the last time we had the l'luxury of that much free space? They can waste all the time they want on us. We'll still come out on top."
Schaffer leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. The Ex-O, in the Colonel's absence, had shut down base operation and orbiter traffic. Henry was doing what he did best, make the most of nothing. Schaffer had already had his share of problems with the Army today. They were waiting for him when he got to work this morning. Henry had almost passed an entire cup of coffee through his nose when the chief security officer had boldly walked up to his desk demanding to know where Captain Henry was quartered. One by one, all operations went down as ships and crews were searched for contraband. No incoming flights, no outgoing flights, no moving of craft on or off the flight line. Schaffer shut down the shop, got on the radio, and sent up a flare. He didn't really care if anyone sent help, he just wanted the powers that be to know any canceled mission was the Army's doing. The CYA factor was at 10, and Schaffer was going to see to it that every Marine Ass on the base was as covered as it could get.
All things considered, it was still a strange sensation seeing all that yellow gear motionless. Other than what the Army had told them, they had heard no news from the ship. One thing was very certain. Kelly had damaged the Colonel pretty good. A couple of cracked ribs, numerous contusions and abrasions, and one very shattered ego.
"I wonder what's happening on the phEY-QUAD, Henry."
"Whatever's happening, Gunny, it ain't g'good for the Army!"
* * *
"That's the way it is, Gunny. Comes right from the Ex-O."
Christopher looked at Maysfield. If Abner did know a way around the directive, the hangover he was nursing prevented him from recalling it. He just looked at Christopher and shrugged.
"I'll send four volunteers until—"
"Gunny, my orders are to take three teams of four of the shaved aliens. You wanna take it up with the Executive Officer, go for it."
Personally. Christopher couldn't see the point. "Done. Tell your boss I'll have them out in the halls within the hour."
It looked like an invasion. There was security from one end of phEY-QUAD to the other, combing and re-combing every square inch of the vessel for contraband. Rojas had speculated that the search was a secondary function to finding out what was going on, and Christopher had agreed. Now the Army had commandeered Malacans to supply maintenance for the orbiter. The suspicion was that a closer look at the crew was underway, so they were taking random samples. So before each shift left, orders were issued to stay clear of trouble. No arguments, no wandering away, and no fighting. Especially no fighting! A fight meant a trip to the brig, which was well beyond their sphere of influence.
Things were getting sticky. The Executive Officer had shut down the Orbiter for all incoming and outgoing traffic under a security ruling. Until such time as he or a superior designated the base and the orbiter as secured, there was no leaving. They were liable to be searched at any given time, and their work hands questioned without prior request of the officer or non-com in charge. No doubt, there would be some serious questions asked of Kelly and her staff.
There was a motion at the weekly poker game, which had increased by two pairs of non-com hands, that operations be temporarily suspended. Riding heard on all the loose aliens running around seemed to be a safer and sounder idea. But the motion failed to carry as Maysfield, with a dramatic speech on Duty, Corps, and Country (not to mention kings over aces), reminded those at the table just why they had take the Drill Instructors' oath.
The most surprising turn of events was the extreme tight-lipped attitude of the Boots. There were no rumors or scuttlebutt about just what had happened. Not even the guides were willing to spill the beans. Roach and Lewis had resumed garbage detail despite the overall laxness of authority that the situation had incurred. Classes in close combat training had begun again with a line of look-outs posted all the way to the entrance ramps to warn the troops in case of the enemy overrunning the perimeter.
Close quarter combat training was becoming a soul-searching experience for the instructors. So much of organized warfare is calculated on doing damage to known points of stress, be it to an entrenched battalion or in a one-on-one confrontation. Fletcher found out the hard way that all the years she had put into the study of jujitsu was almost useless on the somewhat off-centered Boots. Because of the concentrated body mass of her new students, there was no way to throw them. She caught, of all people, Arnold by the right arm and flexed suddenly forward to capitalize on his momentum. She found herself suddenly bent back the other way as a strong left hand reached around and grabbed her by the throat. It took several sharp raps to the side of Arnold's head to get him to release his grip. Only with unusual quickness was she able to drive him backwards and trip him to the mat. It was obvious that rethinking the program was in order.
Kelly was returning to normal and, despite the high degree of verbal abuse she was suffering at the hands of her fellow Marines, she was taking it fairly loosely. Having seen her in action, they knew to keep it within the bounds of mere harassment. Despite the bars, she still had enough non-com inside to take things in stride.
It was only after several hours of reviewing recruit physiology, kinesiology, and psychological profiles that Kelly devised a system that worked for these particular recruits. Written right off were any sudden motions—they could be fast moving, but they were not designed to be quick in close. A form of Greco-Roman wrestling aimed at snapping an opponent's neck or back was probably their best offensive chance. Their upper body strength made the subduing of an Earth opponent fairly simple. If a wrist or arm could be grabbed, they could simply lift their opponent off the floor and shake them vigorously until signs of violence disappeared. But for combat in close, life or death, the best chance was to get in close and wrestle the enemy to death.
Boxing was the second choice to gain superiority of a foe that couldn't be grabbed. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. They were obviously unafraid of wading in on an enemy and fighting with a strange looking Marquess of Queensbury stance that offered an enemy plenty of chances to land the initial blows. But they threw blockbuster punches with wrists that could snap clockwise or counterclockwise on impact, causing great damage when contact was made. They would stand, fists upright and waving back and forth, looking, waiting for the chance to unload two punches in sequence. If both made contact, a third would not usually be necessary.
But Kelly found herself against the same wall Christopher had on the bayonet course. The Malacans were just too damned polite to be truly aggressive. A charged-up enemy would rip their ears off and piss through the holes before they had it in gear.
The fact that Kelly had gotten herself into hot water on the orbiter didn't help the program. She was certain of that. She liked these strange folk that had bailed her out. She wasn't sure if was her rank, her sex, or just the general tight-mouthed nature of these trainees that kept her from finding out exactly who her rescuers had been. It was clear by the amount of time that Fletcher and Tozzi had taken to resume their normal working attitudes towards her that she must have been a real dick while under the influence. Kelly couldn't figure out why three Boots that she had not even met would risk so much to help her out. As she saw it, she owed somebody something!
After reviewing the course and its progress, she decided that the care and handling of the four Tall Ones would be her responsibility.
* * *
"I fuckin' love it!" Roach looked over at Lewis, who was emptying ashtrays into a bin under the maintenance cart. "That asshole Arnold is sittin' in a bar getting blasted to the Pegasus quadrant, and I'm here with you three... cleaning out shitters for the Army." He stopped cleaning the hand sink, reached into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a pack of smokes he had swindled out of one of the old C-rats. Much to the horror of those in the detail, he lit it up and stood there looking into the mirror over the sink, sucking away on the butt. He could see their terrified expressions in the glass. He glared angrily into the reflective surface right back at them. "What the fuck can they do to me? Take me off shitters and put me in Kitchen Patrol? Or garbage detail? You guys are pussies!" That was pretty strong language coming from Roach (especially since he didn't exactly know what a pussy was). But having heard Maysfield use the term in derogatory context on more than one occasion, he knew it was something pretty nasty! Not one of these asses could cut it in 3030, he thought. Maysfield would have 'em for breakfast.
It wasn't what Roach had said, it was the way the little prick had said it that got Lewis' goat. That was the same 3030 arrogance that got Lewis's butt kicked once already. He slammed the lid of the bin shut. It echoed through the tiled stalls. He put his hands on his hips as he stood straight up, but his eyes never left the floor.
"I really don't give a fuck what they can do to you next! You were given direct orders from Rojas! Don't cause problems. Don't break the rules, don't piss off the Army, don't fall off on the duty, AND DON'T GET INTO A FIGHT!" The sudden elevation of volume in his voice had snapped Roach right around. "Now take this cart, get your asses in the hallway, and swab the deck right up to the officer's lounge. I'm goin' back to the maintenance hut for another mop and I expect things to be movin' pretty damned well by the time I get back. UNDERSTOOD?" He was looking right at Roach.
"Aye, fuckin' aye, skipper," the diminutive warrior snapped back.
Lewis looked angrily at Roach. He knew that if either of them spoke one more word, there'd be fists flying in both directions. He turned and stormed out of the can.
He may have been too preoccupied to notice if they had picked him up right from the toilet, but by the time he was moving down the darker corridors of the Orbiter, Lewis became aware that he had grown a shadow. In fact, it looked like he had grown six of them. They were dressed in the green field khaki of the Army's Ranger group from the planet below, but there were no markings on the uniforms. Lewis didn't think too much of it at first. He had heard from other Boots on the duty about how they had been followed around, even photographed, by the Army. But as he neared the darkened corridor of the maintenance room, his shadows decreased the distance between themselves and the alien. Something was not right here.
As he approached the maintenance door, two sets of hands grabbed him by the heavy denim collar of his work shirt and slammed him face-first into the broom closet door. He bounced backwards as the door flew open from the force of the impact, showering him with mops and brooms and he landed flat on his back. He could feel blood trickling down from his nose and mouth. Lewis looked up into two angry human faces, and realized he had become the center of attention for an unofficial fact finding group.
* * *
It had been so obvious it was almost invisible. Fletch had noticed it first. All Marines ate together, wore the same clothes, pulled the same duty, worked the same quarterdeck—no wonder the four Tall Ones couldn't tell the difference between WMs and the rest of the Corps. It took a little doing, but Kelly talked Christopher into creating what was effectively a fifth platoon. Inside of six hours, she had a small barrack erected and separate accommodations up and running. There was just one other touch that was required to complete the mission, and that involved a tape measure and a few quick phone calls to the planet below.
Under normal circumstances, service uniforms weren't issued until almost the very end of training. In this particular instance, though, there'd be nobody to do the issuing or properly explain the usage of insignias and such. As Kelly saw it, there was no time like the present to rectify that problem. Unlike their male counterparts, the female Malacans build was much more similar to the human form—perhaps a little less in the chest or a little more in the hips, but close enough to make contributions of clothing from the WMs stationed on the planet feasible. Neither Kelly nor Christopher realized it at the time, but it was the first announcement of the Corps that Uncle Sam had officially adopted an alien strain of Misguided Children.
When confirmation got out to the jarheads at the station below the docked vessel that the scuttlebutt going around was actually true, stockpiles of whatever was expendable began to grow in every empty corner of every barracks. Field covers of the modern era, belts, shiny metal for collars… whatever could be spared was boxed to be shipped aboard as a going away gift. The women Marines, particularly when they learned that they were outfitting the Corps' first WM .50 caliber machine gun squads, went way out of their way to find was needed. The WM NCOIC, one Master Sergeant Joyce Rodriquez, organized tailoring details to find the best garment cutters on the Orbiter, and saw to it that every square inch of cloth was cut to perfect specification and fit.
Foot wear was a problem, but with the help of an out-of-work machine shop and the contribution of a dozen pairs of regulation shoes and boots, the first pairs of 'flat blacks' rolled off the assembly line in shoe and boot form. With every pair of combat boots sent off the line, a complementary set of brass knuckles was placed in the right unit. Kelly supplied operating instructions to the Tall Ones on a one-to-one basis, with the NCOIC's complements.
That far out into the void, this event counted as big doin's. It seemed like everybody was trying to get into it. Everybody… except the Army. They still hadn't caught wind of anything unusual, so the station, the Orbiter, and the phEY-QUAD were all shut down. There was no way of sending the boxes of goods, through—they'd be searched, counted as contraband headed towards the black market, and confiscated. There was some talk of trying, but it was scrubbed when even Corporal Henry admitted he'd have a tough time bullshitting the Army as to what this stuff was. The only items that could be passed through without too much questioning were the women's uniforms. A ground crew would approach the Orbiter's professional cleaners and drop off the the uniforms to be dry laundered, and then either Tozzi, Fletcher, or Kelly would simply walk in, claim them, and walk them back to the women's barrack. To most alien life, Terrans all looked alike—or, as they had put it in the past, if you've seen one human, you've seen them all.
Kelly was more than a little pleased. This was leadership. She'd created a movement, a silent uprising. Now if she could only get someone to salute her every once in a while, and somebody else to pick up the latest shipment of laundry, her place in life would be secure. But fate has a way of tying even the simplest threads of life into knots. Both Fletcher and Tozzi managed to take a powder at the first hint of retrieving laundry out of turn, and not one hand raised in salute as she departed the ship to gather up her latest triumph.
She didn't care much for the walk halfway through the Orbiter, even with the earpieces. The return of rationality was causing some very uncomfortable internal feelings. Since the incident in front of the officer's lounge, she'd had a strange sense of violation, or perhaps vulnerability, that she was not used to. She no longer felt at ease when not in her own element, surrounded by people and things she knew. Years later, she would reflect on these unescorted trips to the dry cleaners as therapy applied by her two subordinates. Still, rather than walk through the concourses, she kept as much to the sub-passages and service ways as the journey allowed. It took her more than twenty minutes to complete an otherwise five-minute trip. She chalked it up to thinking time.
She was about two-thirds of the way into her journey when she began hearing an unrecognizable but familiar sound. A constant but random thudding echoed down the hallway from the direction she was heading. As she approached a little closer, she could hear what sounded like a muffled grunt after every thud. That was when she realized what the sound was—and froze in place, pressed as tightly against the wall as she could. It was as if she had been glued in place. She had positioned her body to turn and run, but her head still faced the sound. After one particularly nasty thud, for reasons she would never fully understand, her body turned in the direction of her head and she began moving in towards the sound. The closer she got, the faster her pace grew, until she was running. Her momentum around the last corner between her and the sound was taken so quickly she actually slammed into a wall, but managed to push off and keep moving.
Straight ahead was a Malacan recruit being physically questioned by what appeared to be Army personnel. It seemed to be trying to push its attackers away, but they were landing blows left and right. Its face was badly bruised, and it seemed as if one eye was swollen shut. It kept flailing away with a mop, but seemed as if it was almost afraid to land a blow of its own. "Shit!" Kelly thought, "all those damn lessons, and it still doesn't know how to throw a punch!"
She dove straight into the pile and caught two of the attackers by surprise, knocking several of their teeth out. But a third turned and clipped the side of her head with a solid punch that dropped her like a stone. She went down hard on her knees, floundered for a second, then grabbed the nearest leg and climbed back into the fight. There was no longer any organization to the attackers. It was becoming a street brawl.
"GA'DAMMIT, MARINE!" Kelly screamed at the alien, "FIND A FACE AND SMACK IT!"
"I CAN'T MA'AM!" The struggling alien was gasping for breath and staggering as it tried to push the Earthmen away. "SERGEANT, UH, UH, GAVE ME ORDERS NOT TO FIGHT!"
"YOU LITTLE ASSHOLE! I'M A LIEUTENANT AND I'M GIVIN' YOU AN ORDER! TAKE A FRIGGIN' LIFE! HIT 'EM! DEFEND YOURSELF!"
It seemed as if the floor was giving way. The mass of flesh that constituted the battle was suddenly moving backwards at high speed on the outer edge of a mop. A Terran or two squirted out the ends of the mop as the pile hit the wall, but the majority were trapped against it. The alien released the strain it had exerted against the mop, and the mob fell to the deck. Kelly felt a strange hand reach in, grab her collar, and pull straight up. It whipped her clear of the squirming mass, and she slid on her butt into a far corner like a bowling ball tossed down an alley.
The alien had danced awkwardly backwards. Its enemy was now contained between itself and two walls. It grasped the mop at opposite ends and hoisted it over its head. The mop handle began to bend in the middle. Kelly looked into the strange alien face. The pupil in the one eye that was open began to decrease in size until all that filled the socket was a chalky white front that seemed to melt away like frost on windshield glass until she thought she could see straight back into the creature's brain. A crushing snap called her attention back to the problem at hand.
The alien had broken the mop in half and was moving in on the enemy. With the mop head it seemed to push charging attackers away as if fencing, but the stick in its other hand hammered down crushing strikes relentlessly in all directions. A solid connection was made to the mouth of one assailant and removed cleanly whatever teeth Kelly had left from her initial contact. The Malacan was causing havoc and rapidly overpowering its tormenters. Two were already floundering around on a polished deck made more slippery from the blood pouring out of their faces from the mop handle's slashing in-moves. When the last nose had been broken, the alien backed off. In limping groups of twos, the former assailants snaked past the Malacan as the mop handle cracked down onto their backs. When the last ones had gotten by, the alien turned to pursue—but only managed a few steps before tumbling to the floor. It lay there motionless.
Kelly tried to rise, but a shooting pain in her knee stopped her. She pulled herself hand over hand towards the alien's head, and paused as the pupil in its open eye began to reemerge from some hidden recess in its skull. It looked over at her and smiled through two jaggedly broken lips.
"You okay, Recruit?" she asked.
The alien slowly pushed itself up into a sitting position, nodding affirmatively.
Kelly nodded back. "I haven't seen that many noses broken since... hell, Recruit. That may be the single player record!"
The Recruit lifted the mop handle and flicked it back and forth several times. "They make great targets, Ma'am!"
Kelly nodded knowingly. The nose was one of her favorite places to strike first, too. "Where the hell did you ever learn to..." She imitated the alien's motions with the two pieces of mop handle.
"It's a kid's game, like your baseball. Only you don't use a ball, and if you run more than three feet, you lose!"
Kelly looked off in the direction of their fleeing enemy. "No shit!" she said curtly.
* * *
A definite friendship had been struck between Maysfield and the old Top Sergeant. They were sitting in the Officer's Lounge (which had been made public to the Marine NCOs, as the Colonel had never rescinded the order inviting them in the first place) when the cleaning crew outside the Colonel's office suddenly sent the maintenance cart flying and bolted down the corridor. It was immediately obvious to the two upper sergeants that something was terribly wrong, and they moved with equitable speeds. As they stepped out of the lounge, they saw the problem coming straight at them.
It was difficult to tell just who was holding up who. Kelly was dragging her right foot behind her. Holding her up—at least when he wasn't blacking out—Lewis dragged her behind him. Every few steps, he'd begin to loose consciousness and Kelly would start screaming in his ear. Lewis would blink a few times, take a deep breath, and drag the both of them forward.
The longer, quicker strides of the Terrans carried them past the three Malacans. They grabbed the two walking wounded under the arms, and sent one of the crew for medics. As they lowered them into a sitting position, Kelly let out a yelp as her leg was untwisted.
"That's bad, Lieutenant," the Top proclaimed as he examined her knee. "I'd say you got a dislocated kneecap. It's movin' around in there like a marble in a coffee can. Must hurt like a bitch!"
"No shit, Top!" the dark haired woman grunted back at him.
Maysfield was only half-listening. He didn't know all that much about Malacan physiology, but could still tell that Lewis was badly hurt. He kept blinking, and his speech was getting more and more slurred. After a moment, he stopped talking in English—and a moment after that, he stopped talking. It wasn't until he saw Roach running towards them with a medical team and stretchers that Maysfield's attentions finally turned to Kelly.
"What the hell happened, Lieutenant? And don't bullshit me, I been doin' this too long not to know a beating when I see one!" The Top grunted an agreement.
"We fell down a ladder well."
"Horseshit!" the Top grunted. "The nearest stairwell is..." Maysfield jabbed him in the ribs. The Top looked over angrily at the Master Sergeant, then his face relaxed. "Oh! Fell down a flight a stairs. Well I'll tell you what! Give me two hours, and I'll see to it nobody ever falls down those stairs again!" The Top stood up, turned and double-quicked it down the hall.
