Starfist: Blood Contact (29 page)

"Okay, ladies," Bass said to the four pirate women after the Essay landed in the morning, "let's go. Get on board the Essay and you're out of here." Three of the women did not have to be told twice and bolted for the boarding ramp without so much as a backward glance at their men. They were criminals too, and they'd made very bad choices in the men they'd picked as companions, but they weren't stupid. But the woman called Minerva hesitated.

"Sergeant, I want to stay with Georgie. I already said so." She glanced at Baccacio as she spoke.

"Minnie, go with the others," Baccacio said quietly.

" ‘Georgie’ is not his name," Bass said.

"I don't care if his name is Joe Shit, Sergeant," Minerva snapped, "I stay with him." She grabbed Baccacio's sleeve.

Bass considered. Two things Charlie Bass admired were loyalty to friends and guts. The woman had both in Marine-like quantity, even if the quality was weak since the man she admired so much was Baccacio, of all people. Ah, yes, Baccacio. There was something different about him. Bass gave a mental shrug. The woman might be a good influence on the former ensign, and it might turn out that Baccacio could be of some real help to them. "What did you say your name was?" he asked her.

"Minerva, but Georgie calls me Minnie. You can call me Minnie, Sergeant."

"Okay, Minnie, you can stay."

"You're fucking nuts!" Rhys Apbac hollered. "Dumb bitch! Get on the ship," he added.

"That's no way to talk to a woman, you dukshit," Bass said mildly.

Lieutenant Snodgrass, who had recovered somewhat from the long trek through the swamp, felt compelled to reassert himself "Gunny, I think you should send the females back to the
Fairfax
. It is not proper to expose them to danger."

Bass raised an eyebrow. "Lieutenant, why don't we discuss this in private." He walked a few paces away from the others and put his arm around Snodgrass's shoulder. The lieutenant winced at the familiarity but was too tired to protest.

Speaking in a low voice so he would not be overheard, Bass said, "Lieutenant, you are positively the sorriest example of an officer I've ever seen, bar none." Snodgrass stiffened and sucked in his breath preparatory to an outburst, but Bass silenced him by continuing, "You have done nothing but screw things up since you joined this operation. Great Buddha's balls, man, did you really think that big pirate was Dr.

Morgan? Do you know how silly you looked? You've become a laughingstock, Lieutenant." Bass couldn't help but laugh at the memory of Snodgrass with his hand stretched toward Rhys. " ‘Dr. Morgan, I presume?’ " Bass said, recalling the lieutenant's words. He shook his head but couldn't keep himself from laughing.

Snodgrass, astonished and taken aback, could only work his mouth silently.

Bass stopped laughing. "I'm sending the women back, all but Minerva, and she wants to stay. Now, Lieutenant, you've been flaunting your status as a line officer ever since we started on this mission, but as of right now you can take that Academy commission of yours and stick it straight up your ass. You are a mere communicator, and from what I've seen so far, not a very good one. You swung a spot on this operation for your own selfish reasons, Lieutenant. I know that and so does everyone else."

Snodgrass was shaking now, he was so angry, but Bass would not let him speak.

"Now, we might need a communicator, so that's why I'm keeping you here, despite the fact that you are a worthless little twit. But Lieutenant, if you mess up anymore, I'm not sending you back to the
Fairfax
. Oh, no! I'm going to take you behind that fern tree over there and beat the living shit out of you." He took his arm off Snodgrass's shoulders and walked back to the command group without another word, leaving the lieutenant fixed to the spot, gaping stupidly at Bass's rapidly retreating back.

"You and Snotty had a little kissy-kissy session?" Hyakowa asked.

"Yeah, we're good buddies now, Wang," Bass replied brightly. "Now let's get everybody out of the way so the Essay can take off."

While Bass conferred with his command group, the remaining pirates sat in the shade of a large fern tree, a disconsolate group of frightened and hostile men. Baccacio and Minnie sat by themselves while the rest whispered in their own little group. Baccacio noted that Lowboy cast several suspicious glances his way. Labaya stared sullenly at the ground, as if he did not like what Lowboy was saying. It was evident to Baccacio that Labaya felt dejected because Maya had deserted him, and he'd never been that fond of Lowboy or Rhys.

"That lieutenant, whatsisname?" Lowboy whispered to the others.

"Shotglass, Snotgrass, something like that," Rhys whispered back.

"Yeah, Snodgrass. Keep your eye on him, boys. He's our ticket out of here."

"Look at the lovebirds." Rhys nodded at Baccacio and Minerva.

"Ex-Marine." Lowboy spit the words out. "Keep both eyes on him."

Baccacio decided to ignore the other men. "Honey, thanks for sticking by me, but you should have gone with the other women."

"I know, Georgie, but to hell with it. I want to stay with you."

Good old Minnie, straight to the point, Baccacio thought. "There'll be another opportunity, probably very soon," he said. "I want you to go when it comes up."

"No."

He decided to change the subject. "Minnie, you know, I've got to stay with the Marines. There's something I got to do."

"What did you do to piss them off at you?" Minerva asked Baccacio told her briefly about his cowardice on Elneal, how he'd lost his nerve and, worse, left men behind in enemy territory when he ordered his platoon to run away. He told her how Hyakowa had reacted then. "He was right, Minnie. And now I'm at the end of my rope. I've got nowhere to go but up."

Minerva shook her head. "Whatever you did back then, love, it doesn't make any difference to me. I seen what you're made of and I'm sticking with you." Those words were the finest compliment the onetime Marine ensign had ever received. He leaned over and kissed Minnie full on the lips. Rhys blew a long raspberry but the two ignored him.

"I thought about this, Minnie, even when I was doing my worst to forget. See, that's why I joined the Red 35 Crew. I figured if I couldn't be a brave man, I'd be a bad one. I figured it was the Confederation that screwed me up, not me. I wanted to get back at them all." He grimaced. "Guess I found out that I could be a pretty good bad man, huh, Minnie?"

She responded by punching him lightly on the shoulder.

"Well," he continued, "sooner or later these Marines are going to run up against those things, and when they do, they'll need every hand they can get. Besides, we owe those bastard things a killing, a lot of killing." He paused and took a breath. "I'm not going to let these men down a second time, Minnie." He shook his head vigorously. "No. I just regret you might be there with me. I don't think Charlie Bass really understands what he's up against this time."

Bass called Staff Sergeant Hyakowa and Dr. Bynum to where he had established a temporary command post in the shade of a Dragon. "Wang, I want you to send a reinforced fire team east and another one west. Have them go two kilometers. Schultz is antsy and Owen's been wearing his alarm colors and quivering all over the place."

"Owen's like the canaries miners used to take underground in the old days," Dr. Bynum said. "When they stopped singing, the miners knew they were in the presence of dangerous gases."

"Yeah," Hyakowa added, "and that meant the canaries were already dead."

Bass snorted. A dead Owen did not appeal to him. "Do either of you have any idea what we might be up against?"

Dr. Bynum shrugged. "Whatever they are, they're deadly. I talked to the pirates extensively about those things while I was examining them. Nobody could agree on precisely what they looked like or how they killed their victims. Hell, the pirates were scared to death. You saw how panicked they became when we mentioned the things, and it's been a year since their only encounter with them." She wanted to add what they'd done to the security team at Aquarius, but she'd known Chief Hayes and most of the other sailors who died there. She knew they were good men, brave men, and even thinking about their being killed by those things was too painful.

"Yeah," Hyakowa added, "they all say the things shout something when they attack but nobody can agree on whether it's words or animal noises. But one detail's consistent. The things killed with weapons or organs that spray a deadly acid. And how do you explain the missing electronic equipment?"

"Gunny, we might be up against a very intelligent alien life-form here, something more than felinoids with an overwhelming desire for a good grooming," Dr. Bynum said.

"Or a warm meal," Bass added. He had already concluded that. "I wonder how all those scientists could live here for so long, exploring and testing everything like they did, without running into those things.

Are they native here or—"

Hyakowa shuffled his feet. "Intelligent aliens? If they aren't from here, then...?" The three of them silently contemplated the implications.

"Well, we'll find out," Bass said. "Now, Wang, get your patrols moving. Have them both turn around an hour and a half after starting out even if they haven't made a klick and a half. Tomorrow we'll call for a hopper from the
Fairfax
and do a full-scale reconnaissance."

Hyakowa nodded and left to organize the recons.

"Doctor, I'm real glad you volunteered to stay behind with us, but please, for tonight anyway, I want you and your medical team to fort up in one of the Dragons."

Dr. Bynum's mouth twitched up in a tiny smile, a grimace to anyone who didn't know her. "Sure, Gunny."

"Can you use that blaster?" Bass nodded at the handblaster Bynum had procured from somewhere and was now wearing slung from her equipment belt.

"Yes, and I will use it if I have to." She was smiling broadly.

"Well, Doc, good to have you along," Bass said, standing up. He needed to talk to Sergeant Kelly about the platoon's night dispositions. Actually, he would have enjoyed just conversing with Dr. Bynum for a while. Her ebullient personality and sound common sense appealed to him. He also knew she was steady under fire, and he respected that in anyone, man or woman.

"Take two aspirins and call me in the morning," Dr. Bynum replied.

After Bass departed, Bynum sat in the shade for a while, sipping coffee one of the corpsmen had prepared. She liked Bass for the same reasons he respected her. I'll bet that bastard is good in bed, she thought, and her smile widened.

"May I talk to you for a moment, Doctor?" Lieutenant Snodgrass asked. Bynum started. He'd come upon her unnoticed, and she was not in a mood to deal with him just then. But her professional ethic overrode her instinct.

"Sure."

Snodgrass squatted down and drew circles in the sand between his feet before saying anything more.

"Doctor, I can't help noticing you get along well with Sergeant Bass," he began. He said it in a way that implied there might be something more than professional interest between them. Hot anger flashed through her, but she said nothing. "Well," Snodgrass continued, "I just don't understand him. I'm going to prefer charges against him once we're back at base."

"For what, Lieutenant?" Bynum was frankly astonished.

"Disrespect. Insubordination," Snodgrass said, waving a hand casually. "Whatever."

"Lieutenant Snodgrass, you're lucky he doesn't have you up on charges."

"Me? Don't be ridiculous! He threatened me!"

"Well, I'm a doctor, not a lawyer, Lieutenant, but the only threat I ever heard Charlie Bass make to you was to send you back to the
Fairfax
, and he had good reason to do that. And if you press charges against him, I'll be only too happy to testify to that effect. So consider carefully."

Snodgrass shook his head and smiled deprecatingly, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. He said,

"I should've guessed. Yeah. It's ‘Charlie’ Bass to you, ‘Sergeant’ or ‘Gunny’ to the rest of us. I should've guessed."

Dr. Bynum got to her feet. Hesitantly, Snodgrass also stood. He was much taller than the doctor, but she seemed to loom over him. "Lieutenant, kindly explain what you meant by that remark," she said, her voice carefully under control.

"You heard what I said, I said what I meant," Snodgrass answered, somewhat defensively.

"If you ever question my professional competence again, my competence as a medical officer or as a navy officer, it's I who will have your miserable ass up on charges, Lieutenant. And if you have anything further to say about Gunnery Sergeant Bass, keep it to yourself. He knows what he's doing, he's in charge down here, and our lives depend on him."

The two stood glaring at one another, Bynum regretting she'd lost control, Snodgrass trying to think of a comeback.

"She's right, you know." Both were startled to see Baccacio standing nearby. Neither had seen him approach. He'd come over to ask the doctor for a cup of coffee for Minnie and had overheard part of the conversation.

"You! You? You're a goddamned criminal!" Snodgrass blurted. "You're also a coward!" he shouted.

"You're a—a—an unfrocked Marine!"

"Yes, I am. All of the above," Baccacio answered mildly. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa had just come down the ramp from the Dragon and now he stood silently to one side, listening. "I was once as fouled up as you are now, Lieutenant, except I had even less justification because I was an enlisted man before I was commissioned. You, with your Academy background, have only an imperfect military education. So you'd better listen to the doctor, because when the shooting starts, Charlie Bass is the man you want on your side, if you want to live through it."

Snodgrass snorted, whirled about and stomped away.

"Could I bum a cup of coffee from you, Doctor?" Baccacio asked. Bynum smiled and poured him one.

As Baccacio walked away from the Dragon he looked up and only then realized Hyakowa had been listening. Their eyes met briefly. Baccacio looked away quickly, but not before he saw Hyakowa give him an almost friendly nod.