First Casualty (28 page)

She studied him; his eyes were what drew her. They held the distant echoes of terror and triumph! No weenie could fake that. “Really!” she gasped. Her fists were hands again.

“Yeah. We saw some pretty spectacular places. None as lovely as this collection of junk when we found our way back.”

“How?” she found herself whispering.

“We've been using one jump point to go one place. If you know how, you can go dozens, maybe hundreds of places.”

Mary had a hard time breathing. Planets, asteroids, millions of them. Good places for people like her. “Shiiiit, the mine we could set up. Not some crappy passed-over claim, but a real goer.” The joy took her; she twirled, arms high, dress spinning out. Again she faced the spacer. Without thinking, she found her arms around him, her lips on his. For a moment, he held back. She hadn't frightened him off with her fists. Just her luck; now he was afraid of her lips. Then he kissed back.

* * * *

Oh, but this woman was wild. One second cold, then hot. One minute ready to take his head off, the next squeezing him in a bear hug just as life threatening, even if her intent was quite the opposite. For a moment, Mattim held himself on tight reins as a captain had to. Then he tossed himself to the wind. The woman wasn't asking for a twenty-year contract with right to offspring. He'd probably never see her again. And few women in the last twenty years had tugged at his heart like this Mary had.

When they came up for air, she danced around him. “You've changed the whole bloody galaxy! You've opened doors no one can close. You'll be up there with Neil Columbus, Chris Armstrong and Jon-Luc Jones of the
Challenger
.

You made it happen. The rest of us can hope again.” Her eyes gleamed; her lips split in a grin, not the cynical one that had watched the other drinkers, but the wondrous smile of a child with her first butterfly.

Too worried about getting back, and too busy afterwards, Mattim had never permitted himself to feel what they'd done. Now he did, and he was lost in the joy and admiration of this woman's eyes.

It hit him.
He had!
His people and his
Maggie
had damn well opened a door, a door any ship could cruise through. It took six or eight jumps to reach some pretty inhospitable places. With just four jumps he had found a paradise planet. Four jumps ... one paradise. Not a bad set of odds.

Now he did swing Mary off her feet—and kiss her.

“I got a room,” she mumbled against his shoulder when they broke the next time.

“And a bed with clean sheets.”

“Very clean.” She chortled.

“The woman I met a few hours ago seemed pretty happy to have those clean sheets to herself.”

“But the woman you're with now is too full of herself to fit in that bed alone.” Arm in arm, and ignoring the rest of the universe, they made their way to Naomi's Place.

* * * *

Next morning, Mattim came awake of 0515. Mary was still sleeping. He pulled on his clothes quietly and put his shoes on in the hall. Tonight, he'd be at the Dog Palace. If Mary was there and willing, so was he. Otherwise, he had one fine night.

* * * *

Mary awoke to a soft knock at the door and an empty bed. She suspected it was late enough that a sailor not on leave had better be on the job—whatever that job was. The knock repeated itself. Mary wrapped the sheet around her nakedness and opened the door a crack. Naomi was in the hall, the credit machine held out to Mary. “Battalion called. Colonials are in-system. All leaves are canceled. They want you back.”

Mary glanced at the machine; it charged her for one massage, and gave her back two nights lodging and two baths. “No time for even a bath.” Mary heard her voice take on a whining twist.

“We civilians have one hour to report to the deep shelters.” Naomi shrugged.

“Sounds a hell of a lot more sensible than reporting to the line,” Mary snorted as she took the machine and signed.

“Here's your suit-liner.”

Mary dropped her sheet and pulled it on. She still smelled of flowers and man.
Wonder how long that will last?
She double-timed to battalion. The armory had at least refreshed her suit. There was a truck headed for A company with supplies and six replacements. The kids looked terrified; she gathered the nuggets around her. “First, forget everything they told you at boot camp.” Eyes grew wide behind helmets. Good.

“Second, do what your corporals and sergeants tell you. They want you alive as much as you want to stay alive. Third, you're going to be scared shitless. Well, let your suit take care of that. You got fifty rounds in your rifle. Once you've emptied that first magazine, you'll be over the hump. Now enough, crew. Rule four is sleep whenever you can. The colonials are headed our way, and you don't sleep when there's Collies around. Flake out and get some sleep.”

They obeyed, as she would have expected of green kids. At least they stretched their bodies across the crates. Mary doubted many would sleep. She made herself comfortable. Her mind was a jumble, part going down the company's deployment, who would get this fresh meat. That was the lieutenant's job.

But the miner in her yelped with glee.
Wait until Cassie and Lek hear!
Maybe an entire solar system to themselves! All they had to do was stay alive.

Mary awoke to a start at Cassie's voice. “Mary, you made it back. Thank God. The colonials are rounding Elmo. We got thirty minutes before company arrives.”

Mary sighed. She wasn't home, but she was back.

Trevor H. Crossinshield approached his patron. The man was feeding ducks! Trevor glanced around. In the trees ringing the pond, people moved, in pairs and singles.
How many are security guards?
Certainly a man of his patron's wealth did not risk himself in the open. Wasn't the virtual world enough for him?

“How goes my war, Mr. Crossinshield?” “Very well, sir. The damage to New Canton is greatly exaggerated in both colonial bragging and Earth propaganda.” With a flick of his wrist, the patron dismissed the rape, pillage, and killing of fifty thousand—or five million, depending on which report you accepted. Even Trevor's sources varied from one hundred to five hundred thousand. “Not my investment. Now, my President Urm, is he well protected?”

“The best security guards and equipment money can buy, sir.”

“And among them?” His patron smiled. “A squad of people also in our pay who can turn him off like a light when you wish.”

“Very good. It may be necessary to turn this war off rather suddenly. Six, maybe nine months more. I'll tell you when.” “Yes, sir.”

“Is there anything else, Mr. Crossinshield?” The proper answer to that was “No, sir.” Today, Trevor paused before risking, “There is one other matter, sir.” Did an eyebrow twitch? “Yes.”

“A cruiser, the
Sheffield
, has made a rather interesting voyage of accidental discovery.” Quickly, Trevor filled in the essentials for his master. “It might be possible to visit every star in the galaxy with no more effort than it takes to go from Earth to LornaDo,” he finished.

“Fascinating, but a tad too much change for my tastes. Hardly manageable. Who knows of this?”

“One of our men has it. It has yet to enter the normal Navy info stream. It appears that one outpost and a colonial planet have also accessed the information.”

“Such insignificant places should not be hard to make disappear,” his patron murmured. “Yes, Mr. Crossinshield, pay our man well and have him keep this away from Navy eyes. See what he can do to plug the leak, make them disappear.”

Trevor nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Twelve

A week later. Mr. Nuu asked Ray and Rita to accompany him to work. In the basement of an unused building, the spy master waited, identical briefcases in either hand. “I have been over both of these personally. Which one would you like to test?”

Ray pointed at the one in his left hand. There was an abandoned vault behind the spy. He entered it, exited a minute later, and secured the door. Ernest started walking for the other end of the basement. Rita, Ray, and the fat man followed.

“You have no detonator,” Ray observed.

“I doubt any signal could penetrate the safe. It is on a timer.” The spy glanced at his watch. “About now.”

Thunder and sharp pings came from the safe. The spy headed back for the vault. Ray put out an arm to stop his bride from following. “If it worked, a few moments' delay means nothing. Until he says so, I do not intend to approach his explosives.”

Ray, Rita, and her father waited.

Edging the safe's door open, the man peered in, then pushed it open wide. “Come see what this was meant to do.”

What greeted Ray was promising. Driven into the steel of the door and vault were thin metal and plastic darts. The spacing was relatively even. Ray tried to pry a dart loose— and sliced his finger. The spy master offered a pair of pliers. On his fourth try, Ray levered one loose. A centimeter long, maybe two millimeters square, it was ugly and effective.

The spy opened the last briefcase. “The shell is a sandwich of metal and plastic. Both fragment into deadly flechettes. Between is an extremely powerful explosive coated to almost totally eliminate any outgassing. Sniffer dogs will find nothing. The most powerful sensors probably would also draw a blank. In your case, they will be overpowered by your meds.”

“Very good.” Ray nodded.

“And who, among your so secure staff—Rita smiled through gritted teeth—”arranged for one to go off with only a pop?”

The spy master at least had the honesty to look uncomfortable. “A total surprise, but it is taken care of.”

Rita took a breath, but before she could get a word out, Ray preempted her. “Not acceptable. If you trust us to send your fondest regards to the President, you trust us to know what we are up against. If you must keep me in the dark, I go nowhere.”

That took Rita by surprise; Ray turned to her. “Being willing to do the job, love, does not mean I am willing to fail.” He turned back to the spy master. “Someone knows these briefcases exist. That someone knows three are gone. That same someone I would not count among my friends. Who is he, and what have you done to eliminate or contain him?”

“Her,” the spy corrected him. He rubbed his chin. “We have identified everyone connected with Unity and other governments. This woman is drawing her second paycheck through a very complex arrangement with Earth, but with no government involved.” He glanced up. “I do hate contractors. They complicate personnel situations terribly. One does know who is working for whom.”

“You've taken care of her?” Rita demanded.

* * * *

“Young woman, her family is far too well connected for us to use a drastic approach. No, there are three briefcases where three should be. We will be careful what we let her know in the future, and of you, Major, she knows nothing.”

“Thank you for that small favor,” Ray drawled. “For the moment, we will assume surprise is on our side. I will need to maintain some flexibility. A man of my rank and condition should have an aide to carry my briefcase. Captain Santiago would be the logical choice. I understand he might be available.”

The spy master nodded. “The new general of the Second Guards is not impressing him.”

“So our task force is complete,” Ray concluded.

“You forgot me,” Rita said firmly. “I won't jiggle your elbow, but the daughter of a social climbing, early party member would surely go along to accompany you to the ball. There will be a ball, to celebrate the President and his hero,” she said.

“Yes.” The spy nodded. “But you need not be there.”

“What conspirator would bring along his bride?”

The spy master rolled his eyes. “I can make reservations for two or three.”

“Make them for three,” Ray ordered. “You can always cancel one if I succeed in talking sense into this wonderful fool.”

“Try,” she challenged him.

He would, but he had no optimism he would succeed.

* * * *

“So, Matt, did spending a day stuck to the bull's-eye help you think?” The admiral's brown eyes sparkled. The eighteen ship's captains in the room laughed.

“It did tend to concentrate my thinking. Up 'til then we didn't have much of an idea. I personally would like to thank the colonials for providing their demonstration.” At that, even the admiral laughed. Actually, the chance to watch a battle from a single point had helped. At Miller's behest, he spent it at her sensor console. Now, she had passive sensors in high polar orbit above the gas giant. Even when the skunks were on the other side of the monster, she knew where they were. That started him thinking. Support didn't have to be all-inclusive. At the right second, an extra thumb on the scale could be all they needed. He outlined that help to the admiral.

As she listened, her head slowly began to nod. When he finished, she shook her head. “I'd hoped for something more, but I can't fault what you've done. Nobody on my staff has come up with anything better. We'll do it your way.” She then summarized a set of drills and maneuvers she intended for the next two days. Several captains groaned behind their hands. Apparently, she had worked her squadron hard while he was gone.

It showed; the sortie went smartly. Ships backed out in an established order and were in battle line from the get-go. This admiral had no emotional attachment to the head of the line. Drills saw the ships forming multiple columns and cones with the flag in the best position to command, wherever that might be.

Mattim and Ding found themselves working hard in the new dance of warship with warship. While individual ships jinked around in their own space to avoid the laser bolts that were not here at the moment, coordinated maneuvers had to be perfect. This admiral knew how she wanted to use her ships, and her captains knew their parts well. Wise woman. Mattim found himself looking forward to the next encounter with the colonials, even if he was, once more, tag in charlie.

His wait was much briefer than expected.

They'd just pulled a pass by the gas giant near Beta Station, using its mass to slingshot the entire formation into higher acceleration, when comm called the bridge.

“Colonials are one jump out from ELM-0129. Task force will lay a course for Gamma jump and maintain two-gee acceleration. We go through the jump fast, but steady as a rock. This time we surprise the colonials. Admiral sends.”

Mattim glanced around. He'd hoped for another week of practice drills. Sandy shook her head. “Should never have let that woman in on our secret.” Then she laughed. “But if I got to go, I'd rather follow a gutsy gal like her into a fight.”

* * * *

Captain Horatio Whitebred studied the message he'd just decoded.
So, my employer is happy with my find
. He checked again the number of zeros behind the “1” that his employer was adding to his private and very secret account on Helvetica, adding very nicely to the tidy sum the Sommersby sisters had paid him for helping them run their ship of booze and broads into the 97th. He'd even known who in supply would make sure they got a welcome and not the boot.
Yes, this war was very profitable!

With the fleet out, Horatio had time to remove references to the
Sheffield’s
message from the official logs. Navy computers were so old, it hardly took more than a tap with the tools he'd brought. Military secrets were a lot easier to crack than commercial ones. Then again, the Navy hadn't had a war in fifty years. Corporations were at war every minute. The Navy was smart to bring in professionals like himself when they got into a real war. Not smart enough to pay him what he was worth, but that just made it easier for him to do what he was doing now.

Quickly he released his search programs into the comm system. In five minutes, they had corrupted every message on the net about the jump point, and left a resident behind. Any restore from backups would find a garbled file when they opened it.
Sorry, all backups are corrupted, too.
He'd repeat this when the flag came back on net. If it came back.

Flagships had such a delightful tendency not to return. Horatio, of course, never spent any more time aboard the flag than he had to
. People got killed on those damn things.
There was no problem finding people on his staff only too eager to brief the admiral. Well, at least the first three admirals. The one out today was no volunteer; he'd made the mistake of beating Horatio at poker. Badly. If he returned, Horatio now had the money to pay up. If he didn't return ... Well, he'd never spoil the boss's Friday night poker game again, now would he?

Life was arranging itself very satisfactorily. No slow climb up the corporate ladder for him like the one that had worn down his dad. No. Grab it quick. Grab it all. Then sit back and watch the others drop like rats. He put his feet up on the desk. Nice.

There was a knock at his door. Sitting up and dimming the obsolete screen that Naval Intelligence insisted its people use, Horatio said, “Enter.” His number two-man did. Commander Stuart might be regular Navy, but he had the mind of a first-rate corporate weasel. Horatio had told him so, and made vague promises about postwar opportunities. This one wasn't dense like so many of the blue-suiters who missed his meaning. If he interrupted, he had good cause. “What you got, Stu?”

“What we've been looking for.” The man grinned.

“We've been looking for a lot,” Horatio reminded him.

“After the
Sheffield
thing I did a search on jump points. I thought you might like to know who was talking about them, both message traffic and real time.” He held up a disk.

Damn! If this guy had a search log, it was already obsolete. And the backup he was waving was the only evidence Horatio had committed treason. Visions of splitting his fee with this enterprising fellow did not go down easy.
Maybe I've found my next briefing officer.

“Most of the messages you'd expect,” the commander went on, unaware of the problem he'd just become, “but there were verbals that intrigued me. A couple of tug skippers get together every night to bitch about the war and how it's costing them business. They checked out harmless, so we ignored them. Then I ran the jump search. They talked about jumps a lot.”

“Is there an end to this story, Commander?”

“Elmo has a third jump point.”

“Impossible. That system's been checked out thoroughly.”

“Jump's not where you'd expect it. Deep in the gravity well, between the two stars.”

“Can't be.” Horatio didn't know much about jump points, but he knew they had to be well away from large gravitational bodies.

“I know. But this one is. Must have been trapped by the rogue when it entered the system. We hauled in one of them. Interrogated him. It's there, and it's a one-jump trip to Wardhaven, the colonials' biggest industrial powerhouse.”

Also the only world the
Sheffield’s
information had leaked to. Horatio needed time to think. “Thank you, Commander. Get me a full report on the tug pilot's interrogation. I want to study this carefully. Used properly, this could significantly shorten the war. We don't want to throw this away, now, do we?”

“No, sir,” the commander said, tossed him the floppy and a sloppy salute, and left immediately.

Horatio studied his fingers. He had ignored the paragraph of his message suggesting it would be appreciated if he could disappear the outpost and planet that knew of the new jump data. Until a moment ago, that option did not seem possible.

Now, if he commanded the squadron, who knows what might happen? Of course, a reserve captain being fleeted up to admiral was rare. Then, his employer had showed admirable initiative. There was the minor problem of the present admiral. But they had proven to be so temporary, hadn't they?

* * * *

Two days later, Mattim threw himself in his bed, exhausted. It should have been a piece of cake. What went wrong?

They'd barreled into the system a good ten minutes ahead of the colonials. The skunks, all twelve of them, came through their jump point at even intervals, but slower.

“Destroyers on a resupply mission,” Ding announced.

Shuttling between Thor and Sandy, Mattim quickly formed a picture of the coming battle. Their task force would get to the gas giant first and catch the tin cans as they did their swing around. Good. For once, the Navy could keep the grunts out of a pounding. The admiral kept them deployed in loose echelon. Any reflection on a ship from the drive ahead was on the side away from the enemy. The colonials were in for a surprise. A tight laser beam from the 97th corrected that assumption. They were jamming every radio wavelength, but the colonials had gotten off a similar tight laser communication warning the skunks. Still, nobody had lit off a radar. Blindman's buff again.