Starfist: Firestorm (29 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The grizzled old infantry colonel ran a gnarled hand through his closely cropped white hair. “Well, your story checks out, Sergeant. You check out; the fingerprints, retinal scans, all came back positive for Sergeant Charlette Odinloc, recently assigned to the Confederation Army’s 3rd Division’s G2 section. Welcome back to the fold, from wherever the hell you’ve been.” He extended his hand to Charlette Caloon, née Sergeant Odinloc. “Uh, and just where
have
you been, Sergeant?” he asked. “And who is this young man?” He gestured at Donnie Caloon.

Charlette stood at rigid attention, staring just over the top of the colonel’s head. She saw by the embroidery above his left battle dress pocket that his name was Maricle.

Donnie Caloon shifted his feet nervously by her side. “Well, sir, ya see, it’s kinda like this,” he glanced at Charlette and mumbled something.

“What was that? Speak up, young man, speak up!”

“You see, sir, uh, Colonel Maricle, Donnie and I, well, we’re married, sir,” Charlette answered, the side of her mouth twitching slightly, “and, er, um, I guess I’m pregnant.” Her face turned red. She licked her lips.

“Sweet Jesus on skates, Odinloc, we thought you were dead!” the colonel shouted, sounding like he was disappointed she wasn’t dead. “They are officially carrying you as missing in action, presumed dead! Now you’re back, rescued from a POW camp run by those MPs, married, pregnant, dropped on me by the Marines to decide what to do with you. Sweet Mary Eddy’s tits on a platter, don’t I have enough to do?” He cast an appealing glance at his sergeant major, George Ganzefleisch, who, regarding the pair through gimlet eyes, towered silently in one corner of the room.

“Well, sir,” Charlette began, “it’s like this.” Briefly, Charlette explained what had happened to her since the war started, including her and Donnie’s precipitous flight from Bibbsville with Lugs Flannagan’s hoods in pursuit, their precipitous enlistment in the Loudon Rifles, their capture by the 7th Independent Military Police Battalion along the coast, and their liberation by the Marines.

“Those bastards treated you pretty rough, didn’t they?” Sergeant Major Ganzefleisch asked. He meant the men of the 7th MPs, who had practiced their primitive interrogation skills on the pair. Donnie’s face still showed the effects of the burns inflicted on him during that ordeal.

“That they did, sir,” Charlette answered, her face turning red. “But I never told them squat and for the rest of my life I’ll cherish the expression on that bastard’s face when the Marines busted in and caught that sumbitchen lieutenant with his pants down. The Marines interrupted my interrogation at just the right moment, sir.” She gave a lopsided grin, “And that, sir, is about what happened.”

“Well, things are right as rain now,” Sergeant Major Ganzefleisch said, a wry expression on his face.
This girl’s got grit
, he said to himself, nodding.

“About?” The colonel shook his head. “Sweet Jesus on a rail, what haven’t you told me?” Immediately he shook his head, indicating he did not want to hear any more of the story. “And you said you
guess
you’re pregnant?” He squinted up at her.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Sergeant, no guessing about that.” The colonel sighed. “Your medical exam revealed the truth. You are two months into your pregnancy. I presume this chap here is the father?”

“Ah, shore am, Cunnel!” Donnie replied enthusiastically. “We ain’t exactly decided on a name fer it yet, though.” Donnie came to attention and saluted smartly.

The colonel stared in disbelief at the pair. “Sweet Mary on a toilet seat! Okay, let me get all this straight, Sergeant. You were sent into Ashburtonville as an agent handler, developed this young man as your source, got stuck in the city with him when the war started. I got that? All right. Then you fled the city, sailed fifteen thousand kilometers away with this young man here, got married, got mixed up with gangsters, had to join the militia to escape, your troop ship was sunk off the coast, you got yourselves captured and tortured, and then rescued by Marines, and now here you are, standing in my office. Oh, and somewhere during all these adventures you found time to get yourself pregnant. I’m amazed you found the time to do that, Sergeant. Did I miss anything?” The colonel reached into a pocket, pulled out a cigar stub and lighted it. Through the smoke he glared at the pair.

“No, sir,” Charlette said, nodding, “that’s it, just about entirely.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” The colonel sighed around his cigar. “I have not heard a story as fantastic as this since, since, hell since I don’t know, since Caesar was a road guard!” He drummed his fingers on his desk. “Dammit, Sergeant, stand at ease,” he muttered, waving his cigar at the pair. “You make me nervous, staring off into space like that. All right, I’ve got to figure out what to do with you two love birds. And I will. They don’t call me Miracle Maricle for nothing. Have a seat outside.” He gestured for them to leave. “Sergeant Major, you and me need to confer on this.”

Charlette and Donnie sat before Colonel Maricle’s desk, nursing hot cups of army coffee. The colonel puffed on a new cigar, a satisfied smile on his face. Sergeant Major Ganzefleisch stood off to one side regarding the pair a little more sympathetically.

“Higher headquarters advises me to go easy on you, Sergeant Odinloc, er, I guess Caloon now, huh? The way they see it, and I agree, you got caught in Ashburtonville through no fault of your own and you did what any enterprising NCO would have done—you took advantage of the situation.” He nodded at the sergeant major. “Isn’t that right, George?”

“Right as rain, sir,” the sergeant major barked.

“Now I’ve downloaded your service record, Sergeant. I see you’ve got 120 days of ordinary leave coming. That right?”

“Er, 120 days? I suppose so, sir. I’ve taken no leave since I was assigned to Ravenette. Yes, I guess that’d be about right.”

“This young man has family back in this Cuylerville place?” He glanced at Donnie, who nodded vigorously. “Well, they’re your family now too, Sergeant. Suborbital flights have been restored to that part of the planet. We’ve been in touch with the authorities in Bibbsville, the county seat, and they inform us that order has been restored in Loudon County, whatever that means. I guess it means that Flannagan character who gave you so much trouble has been dealt with.” He glanced over at Donnie. “I don’t know about your folks, son, that’s something you’ll just have to deal with, okay?” There was genuine sympathy in the colonel’s voice.

“So here’s what’s going to happen. I’ve assigned you to the town commandant’s office here in Phelps. He will carry you on his morning reports. I’m moving on to join the rest of the army and I don’t have any slots for overhead in any of my units. I’m also puttin’ you on 120 days of ordinary leave to be followed by maternity leave. I expect that now that General Cazombi’s chased the rebels into the hills, this war will be over by the time your leave expires—if it isn’t already. But there’ll be a garrison force left behind for some time to come, so when you’re ready to come back to duty, Sergeant, contact your unit. Uh, I see you have eighteen months until expiration of your term of service. You’ll probably still be here then, so you’ll have a decision to make, reenlist or get out. Sergeant Major?”

“Right as rain, sir,” the sergeant major answered. He was very pleased that the colonel had followed his advice in this matter.

“You have any questions?” He turned back to Charlette and Donnie. “No? All right, you are dismissed. Report to the Phelps town commandant, just across the street in that old school house, get your personnel records updated, your travel orders, and your back pay.”

Both gulped their coffee, came to attention, saluted, and about-faced.

“Oh, one more thing, you two!” Sergeant Major Ganzefleisch stepped forward and put his hand gently on their shoulders as he guided them to the door. “Welcome back. Things’ll be right as rain for you two from here on out.”

Phelps was too small to have a spaceport but it did have an aerial port that could accommodate suborbital flights. What the Caloons did not know when they arrived there, tickets in hand, was that there were only two flights a week between Phelps and Loudon County, and theirs, if it departed on schedule, wasn’t due for two more days.

They sat disconsolately in the run-down terminal building. “What next?” Donnie asked.

“Find a place to stay, I guess.” Charlette shrugged. “Keep checking back until our flight leaves.”

“Um.” Donnie nodded. He looked out over the tarmac. “Wisht we knew who was flyin’
that
thing.” He gestured with his chin at a gleaming Bomarc 36V Starship. “Them things kin travel suborbital or deep space. Maybe we could ask the pilot to give us a lift—
hey
!” He jumped to his feet. “Charlette, my eyes playin’ tricks on me?”

“What do you mean, Donnie?” She squinted in the direction he was pointing, then jumped to her feet. Emblazoned along the fuselage of the Bomarc were the words Caloon Enterprises, Ltd.

“I bin lookin’ all over for you kids,” someone said from behind them. They whirled at the sound of the voice. Eyes fairly bugging out of their heads, they beheld Timor Caloon, Donnie’s father, standing there, hands casually thrust into his pockets, a lopsided grin on his face. “The army tol’ me you two was up here an’ ready to come home, so I come to take you there.” He held out his arms and embraced the pair.

Later he told them that Colonel Maricle had made inquiries of the authorities in Bibbsville, in Loudon County, checking up on Charlette’s story, and through them he had discovered that his son and daughter-in-law were alive and well at Phelps. The Bomarc, he explained, had belonged to Lugs Flannagan. When asked what had happened to the Flannagan gang he only replied, “Well, them boys, they never could shoot straight when someone was shootin’ back on ’em. An’ once the smoke cleared, well, I took over the whole operation and made it legitimate. We’ve taken over his distribution system and we’re sharin’ the profits equally among all the folks back in Cuylerville,” he announced, proudly. “Ever’one is jist tickled pink.

“How’s about you, Charlette?” he asked.

Briefly, she explained her status.

“You gonna stay in yer army, once the baby’s come, or you gonna take that discharge? Before you answer, girl, you know you always got a home with us back in Cuylerville, an’ Mother Caloon’d be tickled pink to have you back in the family. But I gotta tell ya, Flannagan’s operation was big, Charlette, too big for an old hick like me to run by myself. I need good help. I need someone with brains and get-up-’n’-go to market our thule products, someone who knows what it’s like beyond this ol’ rock an’ kin travel an’ deal with folks. I kin use you an’ Donnie in the business. Think about it.”

Sergeant Charlette Caloon, née Odinloc, Confederation Armed Forces, didn’t need to think about the offer. She knew where her place was now. “Father,” she said, and the three embraced warmly as the tears ran down her cheeks.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Third platoon, form on me!” Ensign Charlie Bass called over third platoon’s all-hands circuit. He had his helmet and gloves off and did the sleeve thing. Third platoon was spread along a two-hundred-meter line, so it took a couple of minutes for everyone to reach the platoon commander and form up in front of him. Bass stood with his back to the west, the direction of the enemy. Four or five flights of Raptors from the airfield at Bataan zoomed overhead while Bass waited for his men to assemble.

“Show yourselves,” Bass said when his men were assembled. The thirty Marines of third platoon removed their helmets and gloves.

“It appears that we’ve got the Coalition on the run. Evidently, they’re running so fast that we can’t keep up with them on foot.” He paused while his Marines chuckled. “So Lieutenant General Cazombi—I believe you know that General Cazombi replaced General Billie as overall commander of this war—” He paused briefly again as the Marines reacted loudly and enthusiastically to the mention of Billie being replaced by a general whom they respected, even if that general
was
just a doggie. After a few seconds, he held up his hand again and the platoon fell quiet. “As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted”—which caused another, briefer outburst—“Lieutenant General Cazombi, in his wisdom, has decided that we Marines need to ride for a bit. He has deployed a convoy of army lorries to pick us up and convey us to where we can again come into contact with the rear of the Coalition army.”

Until now, Bass had been speaking drily. Now his voice went hard. “And when we catch up with them, we’re going to make them sorry they didn’t run faster. We’ll make them sorry they started this war in the first place!”

“Oooh-RAH!”
the Marines cheered.

More flights of Raptors passed overhead, some heading out to pound the fleeing enemy, others returning for fuel and munitions.

As hard as the Marines had been pressing, they weren’t able to keep up with the retreating Coalition army; General Lyons’s army had enough vehicles for all its personnel to ride, but the Marines didn’t have enough Dragons to carry more than half of them. General Koval’s 27th Division had enough to carry itself, but not enough to haul Marines. Hence the lorries being dispatched from Bataan. So the wait was welcome; the hard-pressing Marines were tiring out after so many hours of pursuing a mounted enemy on foot.

“Corporal Claypoole,” Lance Corporal Ymenez asked, “where do you think they’re going to? The enemy, I mean.”

Claypoole didn’t look at him. “Out there someplace,” he said with a vague wave of his hand.

Ymenez looked where Claypoole waved. He’d caught an occasional glimpse of mountains out there. The mountains looked high and barren. He shivered; he had no experience in montane warfare, and nearly no training in high mountains. “What’s it like?” he asked. “Fighting in the mountains, I mean.”

Claypoole shrugged. “Damned if I know. Never fought in mountains. Not real mountains like them, anyway.”

Schultz rumbled, “Same as on flats. Fight. Kill.” He paused long enough that the other two thought he wasn’t going to say more, then he added, “Win.”

Claypoole had nothing to say after that, and Ymenez decided to let the question drop. Moments later, they heard the approach of the lorries from Bataan. Soon after that, 34th FIST’s infantry battalion and the Dragon company were headed at speed after the fleeing Coalition army.

“Jim Ray, cain’t you drive this thang enny fastah?” Sergeant Helm Knickers of the Mylex Provisional Brigade shouted, pounding on the rooftop of the lorry he rode in. “Ya saw what happened ta Sergeant Brack’s truck back thar. Ya want thet ta happen ta us too?”

“Goan fas’ as ah kin, Sarge,” PFC Jim Ray Robbins said. “We ain’t on no paved highway, ya knows!” To demonstrate his point, Jim Ray increased power, and the jouncing of the lorry over the uneven ground knocked Knickers off his feet.

“Ya did thet on purpose, damn you, Jim Ray!” Knickers shouted when he’d managed to pull himself to a kneeling position behind the cab.

Jim Ray eased back on the power, and the jouncing smoothed to a lesser degree of violence.

“Hey, Sarge,” a voice called from the rear of the lorry’s bed, “Ah think we got more problems!”

“What kine problems?” Knickers yelled, looking to see who spoke up.

“Back thar.” Private Vilhelm Crustman pointed to a dust cloud barely visible through the trees to the rear.

“I’ll be buggered Brigham Young!” Knickers swore. He
knew
there were no Coalition vehicles to the rear, that the dust being kicked up
had
to be from pursuing Confederation vehicles. He turned back to the cab and pounded on its roof again. “Go faster, Jim Ray. Ah doan care
how
rough the ride gits. Confed’rations is ketchin’ up with us!” He held on firmly and didn’t lose his footing when the jouncing increased. He wasn’t sure his kidneys and spine would survive the ride, but that was a small price to pay to stay alive. The lorry gained on the vehicles racing ahead of it.

“Heads up, people,” Ensign Bass said into third platoon’s all-hands circuit. “We’re gaining on somebody, and you just know there’s no friendlies ahead of us.”

The suspension of the Confederation Army’s lorries was better than that of the Mylex Brigade’s vehicles, so they gave their passengers a smoother ride than Sergeant Knickers and his men suffered. Still, the lorry bed swayed side to side, sometimes jinked hard, bounced up and down, twisted in what felt like corkscrews. The Marines whose earlier wounds weren’t yet fully healed felt them again; in some cases Marines were surprised when they checked their wounds and found they hadn’t broken open once more. So, many of the Marines were relieved to hear they were gaining on somebody; pretty soon the lorries would stop and they’d dismount to fight. Fighting and risking fresh wounds had to be better than riding those vehicles. There was general grumbling about the damn army and how it gave its worst trucks to the Marines to ride in. Of course, the Marines had no way of knowing that the soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division, somewhere to the left of 34th FIST, were being jounced more violently because their lorries were in worse shape than the fresh lorries that had come from Bataan to pick up the Marines.

“Thrush Lead, I have a convoy on the ground.” The excited call came from Solitaire, the most junior pilot in Thrush Division.

“I have it too, Lead,” chimed in Wood, Lead’s wingman.

Hermit, Solitaire’s flight lead, kept his own counsel.

“I see it, Solitaire,” Thrush Lead answered drily. “So what?”

“So it’s a target of opportunity, Lead! We can get them all!” Solitaire’s voice had gone from merely excited to nearly orgasmic ecstasy.

Wood was just about as enthusiastic as Solitaire in declaiming the joys of hitting the speeding convoy below and getting closer. Hermit continued to keep his counsel to himself.

“Solitaire, Wood, take a look in the infra, about a klick behind the convoy. What do you see there?” Thrush Lead said.

There was a moment’s radio silence while the two junior Raptor pilots did as their lead bid.

“Ah, Marine vehicles?” Wood finally said.

“That’s right, children,” Thrush Lead said. “And they’re gaining on the convoy. Let’s leave the stragglers to our muddy-booted brethern, whilst we continue on to blast the blazes out of our assigned targets.”

“But…” Solitaire objected weakly.

“Lead, won’t the Marines on the ground want our help?” Wood asked.

Hermit finally spoke up: “Chillins, we’re at angels twenty-five, those mud Marines down there can’t even see us. They don’t know we’re here, they don’t expect our help.”

Neither Solitaire nor Wood had anything to say to that.

Thrush Division continued on its way to its assigned target, an artillery base in the making outside Austen.

“Hey, Sarge,” PFC Jim Ray Robbins called from inside the cab, easing back on the power and slowing the lorry, “ah jist got a call fum the Cap’n. He say we supposed ta stop an’ git out, fight them Confed’rations comin’ up, slow ’em down.”

“What?”
Sergeant Knickers squawked. “Us an’ what army? We stop an’ try an’ slow ’em down, we gits kilt! Keep goin’ an’ doan you dare slow down none.” He pounded on the roof of the cab for emphasis.

“You tell ’em, Sarge!” Private Vilhelm Crustman shouted. “Ain’t no call fer us ta commit no damn suicide.”

“Thas fer damn sure,” someone else muttered.

“But the cap’n—” Jim Ray started to protest.

“Bugger the buggerin’ cap’n,” Sergeant Knickers shouted. “He ain’t here,
his
precious ass ain’t on the line.
Mine
is, an’ so is
yourn
!
You
wants ta try an’ stop the Confed’rations, ya move your fat ass over so’s I kin crawl in thar an’ take over drivin’, then
you
jump out an’ try by your own sef.
Ah’m
gittin’ out’n hyar alive!”

“
Me
try an’ stop ’em?” Jim Ray squeaked. “Nossir, Sarge!” He hit the power harder, and the lorry surged forward. It would only be a few more minutes before he caught up with the lorry to his front and passed it by. Then let the Confed’rations catch up with somebody
else
! He reached over and turned off the radio so he wouldn’t have to listen to the captain’s harping voice, demanding that he stop his lorry and try to get Sergeant Knickers to dismount the troops to fight for a forlorn hope. Hell, as far as he could tell, all the other drivers were ignoring the captain’s orders as well. Jim Ray’s mama might have raised herself a soldier boy, but she didn’t raise no death-wish dummy.

Lance Corporal Hammer Schultz stood in the front of the lorry that had picked up half of third platoon. He stared ahead, looking at the dust cloud raised by the convoy they were chasing. At first they’d been gaining on the enemy vehicles, but for the past quarter hour the dust cloud seemed to be maintaining its interval, neither receding nor getting closer. Schultz was impatient for action; he was one of the Marines with incompletely healed wounds who wanted the lorry to stop so he could get off and fight. Of course, Schultz would have wanted that even if he
wasn’t
in pain. So he stood in the front of the lorry, up against the back of the cab. His right hand held his blaster across the top of the cab, aimed toward the distant lorry; the fingers of his left hand beat an impatient tattoo on the cab’s roof.

Corporal Claypoole stood on Schultz’s right. Not because he particularly wanted to be next to Schultz when the big man was impatiently waiting for the chance to shoot someone, but because Schultz was
his
man, and he believed a fire team should stick together in the field. Lance Corporal Ymenez was to Claypoole’s right. Again, it was the fire team sticking together. But Ymenez was glad that Claypoole was between him and Schultz; the big man made him nervous.

Ymenez wasn’t the only man Schultz was making nervous. Everybody else nearby was getting the jitters, waiting for something to trip inside him, and they were afraid of what he might do if he didn’t have a proper direction in which to vent his desire—need?—to fight and kill.

Ensign Charlie Bass was on that lorry. Normally, when a platoon was split between two lorries, the platoon commander would ride in the cab of the lorry that carried the first squad, and the platoon sergeant would do the same with second squad. But Bass chose the back of the lorry with second squad. The reason for that was Hammer Schultz. Bass knew Schultz would be anxious to get into action, to extract vengeance for the injuries inflicted by the Coalition army on third platoon. Not to mention for his own wounds. And Bass didn’t have any great expectations of such opportunity rising soon.

So after a time, when he saw Schultz getting more impatient and agitated, Bass rose from the left side of the lorry and gingerly made his way to the front, where he leaned against the back of the cab to Schultz’s left. He moved in close so he could talk privately.