First Casualty (13 page)

The door opened; a gray-haired man with a silver oak leaf on one side of his collar and a medical insignia on the other came in. His nose wrinkled, but in a second it was replaced by a smile. “Morning, Lieutenant. How you feeling?”

“Hanging in. Commander, I'd like you to meet Sergeant Mary Rodrigo, the fightingest marine in the corps and the reason you aren't in a colonial POW camp.” Mary turned red, wondered if she should have saluted this doctor-officer. She was starting to when he held out his hand. She shook it.

“Glad to meet you, Sarge. You need anything, it's yours.”

“We're fine, sir,” she stuttered.

“I disagree with the sergeant,” the lieutenant said and quickly filled the doctor in on what he'd extracted from Mary.

The doctor's smile quickly turned into a glower. He shook his head as the LT finished. “I've spent forty years attached to the corps, patching up you boys and girls that refuse to grow up. This is about the most childish stunt I've heard of. You put her in for a commission, you say?”

“Yes, sir. The originals are on the hospital computer in my personal files, along with a recommendation for the Silver Star.”

“Mind giving me a hard copy? I'm playing poker tonight. Commander Umboto usually shows up to lose a few bucks. Tomorrow night I'm sharing supper and Shakespeare with Captain Anderson. I think both of them would enjoy hearing about this.”

Mary was on the verge of panic. “Sir, I don't want... I don't mean ... The boss man'll...”

The doctor didn't seem to understand a word she was saying. The lieutenant waved a hand. “Mary and a lot of her crew had twenty years mining asteroids before they joined the corps.”

The doctor nodded. Then the crinkles around his mouth and eyes turned into a smile, warm as the sun and understanding as a proud mother. “I imagine you heard in boot camp that there's the right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way.”

“Often, sir.”

“Well, you are about to see that applied in spades. Don't worry, Sergeant. I've worn this uniform for forty years and never lost a patient to bureaucratic ineptness.”

“Yes, sir.” Mary didn't know the Navy or Marine way all that well. She did know basic physics. Shit rolls downhill.

She doubted even a doctor who was a commander could change that.

“I really have to get back.” Mary needed away from these people. Nice was something she could only take in small doses, especially from strangers like the doctor ... and the LT.

As she edged toward the, door, the doctor's hand closed on her elbow like a vise. “Even with your suit's biocleaners, if you haven't had a bath in a month, you're a first-rate candidate for skin disease. While you're soaking, we'll get your suit cleaned and liner recharged. It's the least we can do for the people who keep us in business.”

Six

“Captain, live message from the flag,” comm said.

“Put it on screen,” Mattim ordered.

“Squadron Fifty-three, the marines are in trouble,” the man wasn't smiling. “We are going to their aid. Together, we'll show those colonial amateurs how a real Navy fights. Squadron will stay in formation behind me, use only passive sensors. Good luck, men.”

The screen went dead.

“Not even a thank-you for us,” Sandy pouted.

“Suddenly he's spoiling for a fight,” Mattim mused.

Guns shook his head. “His stateroom's full of history books, real ones. Maybe too full.”

“General quarters,” Mattim ordered. “Today, we find out.”

Settled into his captain's chair, Mattim allowed himself a moment's reflection. Guns and Ding were visibly excited, ready to put years of training to the test. Ivan and Sandy hated the war, but they'd followed him
. Followed me where we could all get killed. Am I leading them right?

His five years skippering the
Maggie
had seen the red Unity flag with its lightning bolt shoot through the sparsely populated colonial worlds. One by one, his ports got new harbormasters; his contacts changed from working folks to Unity henchmen who bought for monopolies and held their paws out for “donations” and “special considerations.” Mattim missed the traders and factory managers who took him home to meet the family. The Unity bullies' idea of a fun evening usually involved someone weak getting hurt.

Mattim suspected that boatload of Economic Reformers they blasted was crewed by Unity punks eager to cut out the middle man. At thirteen, Mattim had shipped out with his dad. This wasn't the same universe.

So now I'm heading into a battle to help people I've never met. Mattim, are you getting a late-blooming case of chivalry or whatever it is that causes a guy to get himself killed at midlife? Getting killed was low on his list of things to do today. Yet he wanted to charge through that jump, guns blazing, and save the poor doggies. This was crazy. I think they call it war.

On the flag's orders, the squadron passed through the jump at a few thousand meters per second. It should have been an easy jump, but the ships came out scattered. Despite the flag orders for tight communications, the admiral was quite liberal with irate orders to re-form. Sandy just shook her head. “This jump point is all kinds of flaky.”

Mattim had other worries; where were the colonials? Passive sensors drew a blank. “Must be under EMCon,” Ding concluded. “Don't use search radars and lasers, and no one can follow your signals back to you.”

“Sandy, do a visual search on every inch of space between Alpha jump and the marines. Somewhere are glowing engines.”

“They're decelerating engines away from us,” Sandy said.

“So maybe it'll reflect off the next ship in line. This armor reflects lasers. Maybe it reflects other things.”

“Optimist. Me, I bet they're in echelon toward us, reflecting away from us,” Sandy chided him, but went to work.

An hour later, Mattim got his first hint of what lay ahead. “Captain, comm here. We've picked up a message tight-beamed from the Ninety-seventh to the flag. It's probably in response to something from the flag, but we didn't get that.”

“I'll take what I can.”

His station quickly displayed the answer to the admiral's unknown question, ENEMY FORCE IS ESTIMATED AT 5 DDS AND 6 CCS, GUNS VARY FROM 6” TO 9.2”. ETA HERE IS 22 HRS 18 MNTS. THANKS FOR COMING.

“Let me guess, DDs are destroyers, CCs are any kind of cruiser. Right?” Mattim asked Ding.

“Yes, sir.”

“So how do they know? Ninety-seventh isn't emitting anything.”

“Ship makes a gravitational pulse as it exits a jump. The bigger the ship, the bigger the pulse. In their first action, the Ninety-seventh spotted five DDs, nine CCs and transports. No transports today. They're just here to pound the poor joes.”

“Sandy, you got anything?”

“Nothing. They're dark as space.”

“Sandy, we know where they came from and where they're going. Find them.”

Four hours later, she did. “Matt, I got 'em. Guns and I got those puppies. It's beautiful.” Ding was at Mattim's elbow a second later as they hovered over Sandy 's shoulder.

“Visuals was a waste. They heard us come in. They knew how to hide. So I gave up on eyeballs,” Sandy ran on. “Ships are big, but with that big gasbag's gravity well, I couldn't get shit out of the gravity anomaly detector. So I tried electromagnetic. There the gasbag helped. It's emitting across the spectrum like the biggest radar ever turned on.”

“Yes,” Ding cut in, “but they'll be operating in stealth mode. You won't get any radar bounces off them to pick up.”

“Right.” Guns grinned. “That's what Sandy went looking for. Those turkeys are a hole in the radar return.”

“Look there.” Sandy pointed. “Five holes, then six bigger ones. Five destroyers, six cruisers. You can hide, but you can't hide the hole you're hiding in.”

“God damn,” Ding breathed slowly. “She's got them.”

“Wait 'til the admiral hears this,” Sandy crowed.

“We're under radio silence,” Ding said.

“They heard us come in,” Mattim snarled. “What you want to bet they've been following us visually? Once we flip, we'll be brighter than a star. If the admiral has a battle to plan, he'll want to know this. Comm, get me a tight beam to the flag.”

“You got it, Captain.”

“Sheffield to Reply .”

“
Sheffield
, you are under EMCon One. Use of tight beams toward the enemy is not permitted. Cease your transmissions at once.”

Mattim went doggedly on. “This is Captain Abeeb.”

Again he got the same lecture, only louder; Mattim gritted his teeth. “We have located the enemy electromagnetically.”

“You couldn't have” was followed by the same lecture, now at the top of someone's lungs.

Mattim cut his comm. “Guns, I need advice on how this Navy way works. So, what is this shit from flag?” Mattim regretted his loss of control. Still, it felt good at the moment.

“I didn't recognize the voice, but you can assume the admiral approved cutting you off. I expect sensors on the flag is desperately trying to duplicate Sandy 's achievement and assuring the admiral since he can't do it, no accountant can.”

“No use trying again?” Ding concluded.

“No, ma'am. Late in my Navy career I concluded you can't teach pigs to sing, at least not those sporting more gold braid than you. Do merchant sailors learn a similar lesson?”

Mattim chuckled. “Last few years, it was becoming apparent I should. So far I avoided it.”

“Congratulations, sir. You will have to decide for yourself whether to follow my experience or your own lead.”

“Tight beam coming in, Captain, from the
Aurora
.”

“That's Buzz's ship. Let me see it.”

“Congratulations, Matt. No surprise Sandy did it. I've got a Navy type on my sensors. She swears it can't be done. I told her if Sandy did it, she can. I owe you all a round. When the boss lets us communicate, tight-beam me the full story. Burka out.”

“Captain, we got message traffic from all the reserve cruisers. Do you want to see it?”

“How many of them offer to buy the first round?” Mattim grinned at Sandy . She preened.

“Uh, all of them, I think.”

“Boy, Saturday night's gonna be fun,” Sandy crowed.

“Enough, Commander O'Mally. Guns, could having the enemy track help the others develop a firing solution?”

“No, Captain, we're hours away from a shoot.”

“Then no more communications until it's authorized. Guns, does this tell you anything about what the enemy's up to?”

“Yes, sir. We're in no danger, for the moment.”

“And how long will that good fortune follow us?” Mattim got ready for another educational experience.

Guns fingered the display. “They came out of the jump headed for a fast pass on die marines. About the time we jumped in, they sheered away. They're headed around ELM0129-4 and will meet us head-on over the marines. We'll have shoots twice an orbit until one of us breaks for a jump. They've rigged it so they can bug out without us observing them.”

Mattim chewed on his lower lip. “They're playing it safe.”

“For them, sir. They've got DD's. If they put two in polar orbits, they'll know if we cut. We won't know the same for them.”

“That assumes,” Ding cut in, “they've got someone as tactical-trained and professional as one of our war college grads. They are colonials.”

Guns said nothing; Mattim took a deep breath. “XO, they've been fighting among themselves for fifty years. Just because newscasts call it 'childish squabbling' doesn't mean smart folks haven't been learning. I'd expect some pretty canny behavior.”

“Yes, sir” came from both the XO and Guns.

* * * *

There was little behavior of any kind from the flag. Over the next eight hours Mattim rotated his crew to chow and a free hour. The hostiles were just disappearing behind the gasbag when the admiral finally ordered a full sensor sweep.

Mattim ignored the huffy communications between the flag and the 97th. The admiral demanded to know where the “so-called” enemy fleet was. The ground-pounders sarcastically voiced their joy that the admiral could see his way to visit. Mattim passed Sandy 's search methods to the other ships. Two had duplicated her find. The others were grateful as well as impressed.

Mattim listened in on the gunnery net as Commander Howard sketched the enemy's probable past and future movements to the other gunnery chiefs, including the
Reply’s
and the
Significant's
. “We should encounter hostiles in sixty-seven minutes, just as we pull away from the marines. However, note that if the skunks make a fast, fuel scoop orbit, they will arrive over the moon just as we do, in fifty-two minutes. I'm betting on a scoop and shoot.” Guns found no takers. And Mattim began to suspect his gunnery officer was more of a jewel than he could have hoped for.

* * * *

The admiral did nothing that Mattim had hoped for, neither revising his simple orders of “Follow me” nor informing his captains how he proposed to fight the coming battle. It was as if he still didn't believe his enemy was in-system. Or maybe out of sight, out of mind.

Or maybe just out of his mind.

“Ships coming out from behind the gasbag,” Sandy reported in a low, controlled voice. “They are low and fast. Guns, I think you won your bet.”

“Yes,” he said, “skunks are climbing out, using lots of delta V. I suspect they did a fuel scoop. I have three cans and six cruisers, including two
Revenge-class
super heavies.”

Guns whistled. “I thought the grunts were just seeing willies under their beds. Other four look like six-inch conversions.”

“Thank God for minor favors,” Ding breathed.

“Cans look to be falling off to their unengaged side.” Guns frowned. “I'll concentrate on the skunks we've got. Sandy , if it wouldn't be inconvenient, could you look around for those other two DDs? They aren't much, but a chance appearance at an inopportune time could be most unpleasant.”

“Got you, Guns. I'll keep up the search.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

“We ready for this?” Mattim asked Ding, hunting for what he'd forgotten ... what could cost him his ship.

“As ready as we'll ever be, sir.” The young woman grinned like some carnivore stalking prey. She was actually excited by the prospects before them.
Well, maybe if I'd spent the last ten years of my life training for this moment, I'd be excited too.

He hadn't. He wasn't.

“Guns, XO, when do we put spin on the ship?”

Ding deferred to Guns, who pulled a handheld calculator out of his pocket. The Navy seemed to go in for obsolete technology. “We're closing at six-hundred-twenty-thousand klicks an hour. Those nine-point-two-inch monsters could hit you at forty thousand klicks, but I doubt it. I'd start spinning at forty-five thousand, sir.”

“Thanks, Guns. Sandy , range to ... what do they call them ... skunks?”

“Yes, sir,” Ding assured him.

“Just passing fifty thousand, Skipper.”

“Bos'n, inform the crew we're putting spin on the ship in five seconds and give them a countdown.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mattim leaned back in his chair and got ready for the ride of his life. His
Maggie
had been built the way you expected a ship to be built. The screens that showed you what was out there faced out. In a Navy ship, the damn screen was on the inside. You went around all day with your back to space. As the ship began to spin, the ship's 2-gee acceleration pulled him “down”; the spin firmly put his back in his chair, cuddled up like a kid in his dad's lap watching a vid. Of course, this vid was about killing people—and it was interactive.

“Crew,” the XO reminded the bridge party, “do not lean forward if you can avoid it. You've got a big supply of burp bags. If you have to lose it* don't be bashful. You'll probably see me or the captain use the bags. It's all just part of a battle in space. You'll get used to it.”