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DS - 677 - 23A To: OFFICE OF NTA BEAUFORT AIR STATION S.C., U.S.A., EARTH COLONEL A.L. GRIFFEN |
55 - 08 - 10 From: MARINE DETACHMENT MCS phEY-QUAD ORBITER A22, DOCK G GY/SGT R.S. CHRISTOPHER |
UNABLE TO PREPARE FOR LAUNCH, BASE CLOSED OFF DUE TO SUDDEN ILLNESS OF BASE COMMANDER TYWELL. SUGGEST MORE OPEN POSITION, CURRENT SITUATION. LIEUTENANT KELLY AND RECRUIT LEWIS INJURED IN LADDER WELL ACCIDENT.
REQUEST:
PER KELLY, SERGEANTS FLETCHER OR TOZZI BE PERMANENTLY REASSIGNED TO PROJECT.
REQUEST:
PER MAYSFIELD, ENLISTMENT WAVER FOR SECURITY CHIEF KAZGA, ARMY, E8, WOULD BE WILLING TO STEP DOWN IN RANK TO E6.
SUGGEST COMPLAINT BE FILED WITH TYWELL SUPERIORS, RE: COMMANDEERING MARINE PERSONNEL, HARASSMENT OF FOREIGN CREWMAN, AND CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER IN THE UNITED STATES MILITARY, RE: LT. KELLY.
| GY/SGT R.S. CHRISTOPHER |
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Hey Boss!
You've got to get us out of here! The Army is crawling up our butts! They know something's going on, and they've locked the base down tighter than a fuel drum. Have already had several serious run-ins. Kelly and a recruit got jumped, or at least the recruit did, but drove off six attackers trying to beat info out of them. Maysfield and his new best ol' buddy Kazga the friendly security Top Sergeant are on that, even as I write.
Kelly kicked the shit out of Tywell in a very Marine fashion. He's a sore loser in a very Army fashion.
I agree with Maysfield, get this guy Kazga in. Look up his old enlistment info, RS San Diego 2039, and take the lateral transfer when his hitch is up in October. Solid man!
By the way, how the hell did I get to Gunny from Sergeant?
| Bob |
"OFFICER! OOOOOOOOONNNN DEK!"
The call of officer on deck had sounded so official even Maysfield snapped to. The sound of 120 and some odd recruits and instructors jumping off the mats and snapping to attention thundered through the bay. Coming through the entrance was Kelly, knee brace and all. What the fuck is goin' on now? Maysfield thought to himself. Obviously one of the recruits had made the call, which he supposed was all right, but the idea of snapping to every time Kelly walked in was going to be downright time consuming.
Kelly stepped to the head of the quasi-square they were formed in, and called, "At ease, gentlemen." And was astounded that instead of the usual scuffling about she had come to expect in these classes, only the instructors began to move about. The recruit formation held at the proper military position, legs apart and hands behind the back. Kelly lowered her head as if to catch her breath and then raised it to survey the troops.
"Gunny Christopher!" she called out, and the way she called snapped her two range instructors and Christopher's group back to attention.
"AYE, MA'AM!"
"I commend you on the discipline of your platoons."
"THANK YOU, MA'AM!"
"As you were, and on the deck! I WANT EARS!" The formation broke as they sat on the deck, all eyes riveted forward. "You'll forgive me," she began, "if I don't join in today. My surgeon tells me it'll be at least another three days before I can even start thinking about kicking. Before we get back to business, scuttlebutt has it, you have some concern over Recruit Lewis' state of being. He's been assigned light duty at the station. Corporal Henry will be looking after Recruit Lewis until his therapy is finished. With a little help from Top Sergeant Kazga of the Army base security force... they'll be repairing ladder wells for a while!" A roar of approval went up from the floor and shook the bay, not to mention the drill instructors, who had never seen an emotional outburst like this from the troops.
"I hear we have some pretty nasty ou-GHE players here. Let's see some hands." As the hands raised and Kelly questioned individuals about what they had done, Stone leaned over to Tozzi and whispered, "What the hell is ouchy?" Tozzi just shrugged.
"When you wrestle or box," Kelly continued, "I want to see that same drive, the same enthusiasm, that you put into ou-GHE put into self defense or offense. Everything you've got, without question. I expect to see it done with snap and Marine pride. That's spirit! As Marines, you'll be expected to have lots of spirit. You've talked about Espre De Corps with your instructors—well, here it is. No more polite bullshit! When it's time to hit somebody, polite gets either you or your buddy dead—and a dead Marine is a useless Marine! My job, your DIs jobs, are to see you don't get dead! Understood?"
From the floor came another explosion. "AYE, AYE MA'AM!"
"Good! That's what I want to hear! That's what I always expect to hear. For the remainder of your training certainly, then for the rest of your careers. It won't be easy for you. You will find putting that much energy into everything you do very difficult and you will want to give up! That's failure, and I will not accept that. I WILL NOT GIVE UP ON YOU, EVEN WHEN YOU GIVE UP ON YOURSELF! Understood!"
Again the room thundered.
"Now, let's get with the program. We finish hand-to-hand this morning. This afternoon you qualify. I want to see some serious hitting. Tomorrow, we start your training with Pugil bars. The only thing you have to know about Pugil bars is that they are EXACTLY like ou-GHE—except you use one stick, not two!"
* * *
"F'fuck you, Lewis! J'J'Jes' because you beat the livin' beJesus out of five or six of those two-legged bags of rat crap, don't be thinking' you're better than us!" Henry tossed another bottle of beer at the Malacan leaning on the edge of his desk. He caught the flying bottle as if in a clap and as his hands quickly flew back apart. Henry realized he had separated the cap from the bottle's lip. The move had been so quick; the Corporal hadn't even seen his wrists break. "Okay, asshole," he vocalized feigning an unimpressed indifference, "maybe a little better, but don't let it go to your head!"
In the three days since Lewis had been sprung from the hospital, he had joined forces with Henry and the two had revitalized the paper structure of the G Flight Line. In other words, they had thrown a third of it away, passed another third onto the Army, and rearranged the final third into something coherent that peculated with efficiency in a beer-drinking sort of way. Every once in a while, the three-quarter recruit would find his head spinning from the lumps he had acquired, but that was fading fast. Schaffer had watched the two of them working together, and the thought of asking Christopher to transfer Lewis into the air wing crossed his mind more than once. It was difficult to accept that their little visitor was not, as of yet, officially one of them.
Their shift had ended almost three hours ago, but they elected to keep working and bullshitting as long as the beer held out. It was about 1600 hours when Henry suddenly jumped to attention. Lewis, at the other side of the desk and just slightly into the gonzo zone from the drinking, started looking around the room with one hundred and eighty degree sweeps for the source of Henry's sudden desire to stand at attention.
A shadow moved behind him. Lewis spun around into the same uniform that had attacked him. He pushed off and sprang suddenly forward, and only Henry coming across the desk to grab him by the collar and jerking him backwards prevented an all out assault on the green shirt that had caught him by surprise. The uniform pulled back and raised his hands about wais- high with the palms raised and outward in a motion of submissiveness. It was only then that Lewis realized that, unlike the ones that had attacked him, this uniform had markings, the bars of a captain.
Standing next to the Captain was the giant Top Sergeant from the warehouse.
"I told you, captain, the little bastard's are nasty as hell. Ya gotta love 'em!" Lewis' eyes rose at the word bastard, but accepted it as a left-handed Army complement. The Captain realized the faux pax and lowered his hands.
"Mister Lewis. I came here to apologize to both you and the Marine Corps for your unfortunate experience. I also wanted to let you know we've apprehended all six of the perpetrators. I think it might be the first time in the history of human law enforcement that criminals were ever caught by identifying the victim's fingerprints. There were enough of them over the criminals' faces for a blind man to identify them. They'll be dealt within in the proper fashion, I can assure you. I also wanted you to know that none of the men arrested were Rangers."
Lewis turned his head to look at Henry, who shrugged as if to say 'who the hell knows?'
* * *
"GREAT GA'DAMM! WAIT'LL THE ARMY GETS A LOAD OF THIS!" Maysfield was waving a newspaper back and forth over the retrieval platform. He was spitting and sputtering and trying to issue an order but nothing coherent was coming out. Rojas, who had been the spotter, jumped from the monitor and ran towards Abner. Stone, still trapped in the confines of his zero G-suit and struggling under the weight of the last of three wizzers to be retrieved, lumbered in his direction.
By the time they reached Maysfield, he had dropped to his butt and was poking a finger at the newsprint, trying to get words out. Rojas grabbed him from behind and locked his shoulders, forcing him to sit still. As he peered over the Master Sergeant's shoulder, he saw the front page of the New York Times for Tuesday, August 10, 2055. While Abner was still twitching hard enough to make reading the story impossible, the full-banner headline and the clear, hard handwritten line of Colonel Griffen told the story. Stone pulled up to the rear of the pile and immediately realized the implications of the article.
"Rube, I can't get out of this suit, run down and get the Gunny! He's gotta see this, quick!"
"How long before the Army gets notice of this?" Maysfield asked. He had never quite understood how a wizzer could outrun a radio signal—and the folded space differential factor lost him entirely.
"Two, maybe three days!"
"I don't think they're goin' to like this very much!"
"So what!"
* * *
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
The four squares threw their weight forward. Since the attack on Lewis aboard the Orbiter, the Base Ex-O had backed off on his directive to search and seize, and canceled his maintenance program. Instead, he confined all members of phEY-QUAD's staff, military and non-military, to the ship. All four platoons were back to full strength and back to the original business. The motions of thrust and parry were emulated until it began to feel natural.
"Intense! Vicious! Violent! This is the place for it," Tozzi screamed as she walked through the platoons. "You'd better reach out and touch somebody! Extend the weapon, not the arm! An extended limb is a broken limb! When you hit, you should feel the impact only a little less than the guy you're hitting!"
For more than a century, the Pugil stick had been a mainstay of the ground fighter's education. Even with the dismissal of ground troops, the Corps had kept the training in the program. It was an individual test of confidence, and an overcoming of the fear of individual combat.
The Pugil stick itself is a padded bar about four feet long with rubber pads at either end. It is a simulation, in an abstract way, of the chosen field weapon of the Marine ground troop. Visually, it is a large Q-tip that when used against an unprotected opponent could easily knock him senseless in one or two blows. The combatants are generally equipped in flak vests with a neck collar and an old-fashioned football-styled helmet. It is an invitation for an all out attack on a very personal level.
As it had been done at the Island, two square pits about ten feet across were constructed by placing sand bags three or four feet high on the perimeter. The small fighting area forced the warriors-in-training to go in close. Two ramps at opposite ends fed the pits and allowed the contestants to enter and face each other, the DIs standing at their hindquarters shouting comments at them. In the center of the square is the referee monitoring the evenness of the match. On call, the contestants, holding the Pugils as if they were rifles, advance quickly and confronted each other physically. When properly pumped up, the matches are fast and furious. Sticks collide and snap together, and a failure to be aggressive can get you knocked on your butt very quickly.
The concepts involved were so basic, and the physical requirement of the field so simple, that a near-perfect replica of the home court was built. The only modification was in the stick itself. As none were available, several four-foot steel pry bars were obtained and foam rubber taped solidly to them. They were over-coated with a heavy latex outer dressing, and at each end a sand bag stuffed with a roll of hard rubber was solidly fixed into place. Unlike the real Pugil sticks, there were no hand collars to slip into, so the recruits were required to wear thick padded gloves. The weight was about three or four times as great as the real thing, but it was hoped that the additional tonnage would slow the motions of the top-heavy aliens down some, preventing injuries.
Platoon faced platoon, 30 and 32 showing unusual enthusiasm to beating each other up on a one-to-one basis. They stood in single lines as one by one they ran the ramp and charged into the pit. Christopher was observing the procedures when Kelly gave him an elbow, calling attention to the small personal feud going on in B pit.
"That's a throwback to the Phase One conclusion party that we had," was his response.
"Okay," Kelly responded. "Then what's that all about?" She pointed.
Christopher looked up and saw Maysfield bending to shout almost directly into the ear opening of Roach's helmet. Despite the fact that he was virtually at the end of the line, Maysfield had him fully suited for combat already. He would yell for several seconds, look up at 32's line, then pull Roach to another spot more forward in the line.
"Don't know!" Christopher said with some concern. "Roach is usually the first boot in because of his size. Why Maysfield dragged him to the rear is anybody's guess. I got NO idea why he's pushing him through the line! But I got a feeling, whatever is happening, it's gonna be interesting!"
* * *
"You spineless little bitch! That muscle-headed cretin is gonna do to you what he's done throughout this camp. He's gonna bend you over and whack you so hard, your whole family tree'll shake." Roach was becoming visibly tense and still Maysfield refused to back off. "You beetle-eyed little hand-humper, you ain't gonna make it. He's gonna knock you flat and I'm gonna stand there and laugh. When your head stops rollin' around on the deck, I'm gonna tie it back onto your shoulders backwards and blow you out of my beloved Corps! Adjusting gear!"
Maysfield reached under Roach's chin and grabbed him by the helmet strap, dragging him to another spot in the line, still shouting insults into the recruit's face. "What makes YOU think you got what it takes to be one of us! You short-legged, baggy-balled, limp-dicked garbage hauler!" There was a line of perspiration forming on the boot's forehead and droplets of moisture were starting to run down the sides of his face. When Christopher caught sight of that, he realized that something very wrong was going on and started moving quickly towards the boot.
But it was too late. Roach had been dragged to the head of the line. As the call came he charged violently forward. Across the pit stood Arnold, holding his Pugil bar like it was nothing more than a yardstick. Christopher saw an evil grin cross his face as he lumbered into the pit.
But Roach was not in a lumbering frame of mind. He charged forward to stand at the toe line, waiting on the start signal that was given the instant both opponents stood at it. Before the behemoth alien could raise his bar to attack, his smaller counterpart lunged forward with a violent upstroke and caught Arnold cleanly on the facemask. It ripped the chin guard free and drove the helmet backward. The follow through blow crushed heavily in Arnold's face and shot his head gear out of the pit, rocking him backwards. But it didn't stop him. Arnold rolled along the sand bags that formed the perimeter and climbed to his feet. Tozzi, who was refereeing began to call a halt, but Maysfield reached over the sand bags and hoisted her out of the ring.
"Little sister," he said, "this has been a long time coming. Let 'em get it out of their systems here!" Both contestants had backed up, but immediately realized they were being given the green light to resolve some old differences and charged forward. When the helmetless Arnold raised his head to reveal a face with no eyes, it became clear to everybody in the bay that there was something serious going down. Fleeting glimpses of Roach's face through the protecting bars of his own head protection revealed the same condition.
The two collided bar to bar, with the smaller fighter being driven backwards towards the edge of the pit. Only a sudden fist to the side of Arnold's head broke the hold. Roach spun off the bar and back into the center of the pit. It wasn't exactly a legal blow, but it worked. It was more than clear to Roach that if he tried to stand toe to toe, he'd get his brains beaten out—so he changed his technique.
He lifted his bar over his shoulder and gripped it as if it were a rope he was climbing across hand over hand, and began to crouch slightly. Before Arnold could completely turn, Roach began to jab upward rapidly, stabbing his hated foe repeatedly in the neck and head. As Arnold struggled to set his feet, Roach backed away and started to rotate behind. He grasped his weapon like a baseball bat and dealt a staggering blow at the base of the unprotected back of the larger warrior. If it had been anybody else but Arnold, the contest would have ended. But the blow merely rippled a few back muscles and left Roach out of position. Arnold swung his club with one hand behind him as if swatting a bothersome insect, and landed a shot to the side of Roach's helmet with enough force to cartwheel the smaller Boot. He flipped and hit the deck with a stunning force.
Arnold dove towards his victim—but was met mid-chest with the end of Roach's bar. He bounced backwards, dropping his weapon. Roach came off the deck as if he'd been fired from a cannon, wielding his bar like a sledge hammer, pounding blow after blow into Arnold's vested chest, causing him to stagger backwards until he was pinned waist-high against the sand bags. In a frighteningly swift change of attack, Roach swung his tool again like a baseball bat, stepping into the blow with his full body weight, and lifted his victim cleanly off the floor and over the wall. Arnold hit the deck, too groggy to continue. The entire fight hadn't taken twenty seconds.
Roach mounted the wall and would have finished the job but Maysfield, showing uncommon valor or unusual stupidity, stepped between the two pugilists. Sticking an index finger into Roach's chest, he called, "Enough!" It froze the eyeless attacker in place. Roach pounded the wall with churning legs and raised his stick over his head, screaming, "3030, 3030, 3030!" over and over until the chant was taken up by the entire platoon.
Maysfield figured the little bugger had the right to crow, so he turned to walk away. As he passed Arnold, he paused to lean over. To the others in the bay it appeared that he was making certain the loser was all right. What he actually did was whisper into Arnold's spinning head, "You didn't learn enough!"
* * *
The lack of formality between officer and enlisted in combat situations was another Marine tradition. The fact that Christopher and Kelly actually went back five years or better was purely coincidental. He was stretched out with his stocking feet up on his desk when she popped her head through the door to his cabin.
"Rojas said you wanted to see me?"
"Yeah, Marty, c'mon in." The usage of the gender-modified form of her name 'Martha' was a tip to Kelly to put on her best NCO attitude and come in. "I think you'd better take a look at what you've gotten tangled up in." He swung his feet off, reached down into a small box on the side of his desk, and a cold beer appeared in his hand. He held it out towards the WM, and from the top of his desk grabbed and held out a page from a newspaper. "This came in today with the latest situation reports. Uncle Griff has been a busy little beaver."
"Here. Let's see..." Kelly began to read aloud. "Marines reveal bi-planetary venture. Tuesday, August tenth, twenty fifty-five, Washington, D.C. The United States Marine Corps announced today that it has inducted nearly two hundred Malacan Chaki into its ranks. At the request of the Chaki government, this information has not been previously released to either the other branches of military or the Executive branch of the... federal government?" She looked up at Christopher. "Huh! There's a bit of information the boss seems to have forgotten to let me know about. Let's see... federal, yeah. Colonel Abraham L. Griffen, director of Non-Terrestrial Aid program and assistant Commandant of the training Battalion at the Marine Recruit Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, stated that in respect for the wishes of the Chaki government he had allowed the training to transpire in deep space. On an undisclosed Malacan vessel, a Marine staff under the guidance of Second Lieutenant Martha Kelly, thank you very much, and Gunnery Sergeant Robert S. Christopher and staff, the 185 alien recruits will under go the same strenuous training that the average Terran might expect under the more traditional Marine training system.
"Griffen, from his briefing room at the Marine Air Station at Beaufort, South Carolina, informed the press that the project is part of a joint experiment to explore the challenge of learning in deep space. The recruits, all volunteers—yeah, right!—uh, volunteers have maintained Marine protocols. It is believed that they have all applied for and been granted green cards to maintain the eligibility of becoming a Marine. Griffen also stated that a good number of recruits have already inquired about potential citizenship.
"The announcement brought to a grinding halt the debate presently on the floor of the Senate determining the future of the Marine Corps as an independent branch of the American military. Senator Karl Sydney Wanstadt, chair of the committee studying the issue of the Marine Corps' place in the military, called a postponement on the final vote on the proposal to place the Marine Corps under Army jurisdiction.
"'We're not quite certain,' the Senator commented, 'just exactly what this means to us in our present or future dealings with the Chaki government. We'll have to see what the ramifications are and act accordingly. I would not rule out the possibility of Marine administrators being admonished for their participation in what is seemingly a covert action affecting the national interests. But we'll have to wait and see'... etcetera, etcetera... the White House was unavailable for comment."
Kelly had positioned herself next to the pole lamp feeding illumination to the desk. She stared at the page for a moment, rereading sections, eyebrows rising high on her forehead as the ramifications began to occur to her.
"Griffen really threw a wrench into the workings of the federal government, didn't he?"
Christopher popped another top and took a swallow. "Well, I don't know about the government, but Senator Wanstadt and several high-ranking Army officials may never be the same again. I can't understand why the Department of the Navy hasn't had squat to say?"
* * *
The projection of 'two or three days' before the Army caught wind of what was in the air was optimistic at best. By the following day, the news was broken formally on the orbiter and a new can of worms was opened. Tywell was up and about again and back in full control of the Orbiter, issuing orders at a fantastic rate from his office outside the Officer's Lounge, which was now off limits for all transient Marine personnel. The word had come down from above—they're Marines, so act accordingly.
The hunt for the missing bus was proving as fruitless as identifying the individuals involved with taking it. What little evidence there was indicated clearly that the perpetrators were obviously several of the shaved Malacans from phEY-QUAD and, therefore, obviously Marines. As Tywell saw it, in light of certain other unhappy events also involving Marines, this was just another attempt on the part of the Corps to bust Army balls, in a manner of speaking. So be it. He'd bust them right back, and in a more furious and efficient fashion than those jarheaded assholes had ever seen before!
According to the terms of lease on the Orbiter, any branch of the American military that set foot on the Orbiter or the planet below it was under the jurisdiction of the Army and could be used in nearly any capacity they, or Tywell, saw fit. What he had in mind skirted piracy by split hairs. All personnel of foreign vessels were again invited to the facilities of Little Boston. G line was taken off the flight schedules and assigned sewer maintenance details. The pilots were assigned the totally lackluster job of shuttling personnel and frozen food stuffs back and forth between Little Boston and the planet. Tywell also assigned squads to guard all the exits and entrances to the Orbiter, and snatch anything that walked off the phEY-QUAD to "free all Army personages for more productive duties." At least, that was what the directives said, but the truth of the matter was that the nastiest, dirtiest, most degrading and dangerous job the Orbiter had to offer was going to become Marine domain. The directive was up and running before even Kazga could shake off a hangover and alert his new-found compatriot and potential master not to let his people leave the ship.
Little Boston itself was feeling the electricity in the air. People in every quarter were in bad moods. The fighting and damage produced thereof was escalating. There was a half-acre square in the north corner that security had begun to consider an outright battle zone. Needless to say, this was the area of most of the objectors that had caused the problems when the facilities were initially opened up, so neither the Army nor the parent company actually gave a damn about what was going on there.
It had long since been proven that the greatest causal effect on motion in the galaxy and the rules of destiny and physics were the Laws of Murphy. In military terms, the fourth law of Murphy, appendage for Military usage, was molecularly falling into place, having all the hot bodies it required to perpetrate such mayhem, as the universe and the creatures living therein needed to have a point made. It is a derivative of the initial Law upon which all physical law is derived—if it can go wrong, it will. The subdivision rule, which had set things in motion, states quite clearly: Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
It had taken Abner Willie nearly an hour to calm Roach down enough to drag him into the DI hut, slap him on the back, and stick the last of the eighteen-hour passes in his hand. Roach was taken somewhat aback, the entire proceeding not being quite what he had expected.
"Hell, son! You did that moron dirt! Laid 'im out, put 'im away. We kicked ass because YOU kicked ass. I want you, Budweiser, Headspace, and Geronimo, all my quick kill experts, to take these passes and take some time off. You were great today! I wanna see you in your camys, lookin' proud and walkin' tall. May as well start showin' these doggy-faced, sad-sacked pinheads what the Corps of tomorrow looks like, up close and personal! So, round up your posse, get out there, and look good!"
When he thought about it, it started to sound right! Why not go out there and look good! Hell, he'd been skunked on leaves three times already—there was absolutely nothing left to go wrong anyway! Besides, these damned uniforms were fitting better every day!
* * *
"Gunny, Master Sergeant, Gunny!" The two Senior NCOs were standing at the loading bay examining a broken lock on a crate of weapons when the panicked voice of Geronimo began low toning off the walls. He was running at them full tilt, waving his arms as if trying to warn a plane not to land because the landing strip was mined. "The Army's got 'em, Gunny! Got 'em!"
"Got who, Recruit? Calm down..."
"Can't, uh. Can't wait. Army grabbed 'em, said they were on shore patrol now! Handed 'em three of our loaded Johnsons and sent, uh, sent 'em into the battle zone!"
"Now we know what happened to the lock." As he spoke, Christopher looked away from the Boot and turned towards Maysfield. But Abner was already moving, and there was a panicked expression on his face. "Go get Kelly and her women!" he called over his shoulder as he galloped in the direction of the squad bays. "I'll get Stone and Rojas! We'd better find them before somebody gets killed!"
