Steel Walls and Dirt Drops (28 page)

Chapter
Forty-One

Race Jackson cursed under his breath. He had hoped for more time. He thought four spacers would have at least slowed McPherson down.

"What do we do now, Race?" Sigget
Donnellson asked.

Race shrugged, "What can we do? We have to take care of her ourselves. We have two whole squads here. She is tough, but she can't take out
even a quarter of us."

Second Rice
Bilideau said, "Right, Race. But, you heard her. She has all four of those needlers she took from those dipwad vacuum suckers. We aren't armed with squat."

Race snarled, "Shut up, Beans. I don't care if she is carrying
a particle beam cannon. McPherson has sided with that coward of a boyfriend of hers. She forfeited the right to even be in the APES. As far as I am concerned that puts Second Moraft in command. We have both your Dawg Squad and my Foxtrot. Do you really think that twenty-two APES can't bust the head of a lone coward? Besides, Theda said to capture McPherson alive and that is what we’re going to do. Got me?"

"Easy, Deuce. I
’m on your side," Bilideau replied.

"It ain't my side or her side. We
’re APES and we came out here to fight weed-eaters. And no one, got me, no one is going to stop us. Not some cowardly vacuum breather or his girlfriend. I don't care whether she is APES, Marshal, or the gods on high."

Rice nodded, "Hey, I agree. I haven't ever run from a fight and I
’m not going to start now. My question is: how do we capture her without getting shot full of needler ammo?"

Jackson said, "She will be here any second. We ambush. Dawg
Squad goes into Able's squad bay. Singletary won't mind. Hell, we don't even know where he went off to. Foxtrot will split into two. We put half of us in Bravo's bay and half in Charlie’s. Nobody moves until she is in the hatch to Able. Then we pounce. She won't expect us and we should get her before she gets a shot off."

While he was speaking, Jackson dispers
ed his squad. He was pleased the rookies were moving quickly. He hoped they had sense enough to stay out of the way once the action started. He needed his veterans. Besides, he wanted to get in a few licks of his own. He felt betrayed. She fooled him into giving her his loyalty, despite what others had been saying about her. He even defended her. But, she was running from those weed-eater bastards. She was running from a fight, taking sides with that ass hole Britaine. He didn't know what disgusted him more: her betrayal of his loyalty or her cowardice.

He crouched in the hatch to
Bravo bay. He couldn't watch the corridor for McPherson. If she saw him, it might set off the ambush prematurely. He gestured for everyone to be silent as he watched her progress on a motion sensor. He smiled smugly as he thought how convenient it was of the bitch to turn on her tracking device.

APES
country was not really a series of rooms and corridors. The design of the ship was for a large open space on one deck. The rooms were all the various combat components used by the Allied Protective Expeditionary Services. The mobility rooms lined up, steel wall to steel wall, with the hatches facing each other to form corridors or hallways.

Each component
had a combat skid plate built into it. When deployed on a ship, they deactivated the skid plates and locked them onto the deck by tensor fields. When the APES dirt dropped, they took their squad bays, armories, kitchens, storage lockers and weapons bays with them. The skid plates would be activated and spacecraft would open up, blow free the tensor fields and disgorge the APES unit, dumping troopers and equipment in a mad rush. The squad bays, armories, kitchens, storage lockers and weapons bays would drop to the planet surface guided by automated systems. Once on dirt they would become bunkers, pillboxes, tanks, command center, and even mobile surgical hospitals. The armored troopers manually operated their individual skid plates for a controlled descent.

The standard configuration on board
spacecraft was for the commander's day office to be the first room inside the hatchway of APES country. Next, the squad bays sat in alternating order forming a corridor. Able’s bay was usually set directly across from the day office. Bravo bay was next to the day office and Charlie's squad bay across the hall from them.

However, Third Cans hadn't cared about the standard configuration. The day office was first inside the
hatch. Able's bay was next to it instead of across the corridor. Charlie was directly across from the day office and Bravo was next to Charlie, across from Able.

Jackson silently thanked Third Cans for his
don’t-give-a-shit attitude. It made this ambush much easier. It might confuse things a bit during a drop, but not seriously. Normally, McPherson would have stepped through the main hatch, making a quick right turn into Able’s bay. As it was, she would have to pass by Bravo's hatch and step through the second hatch on the left. This would put half of Foxtrot Squad behind her in Bravo and half of Foxtrot Squad at her back in Charlie’s bay. She would face all of Dawg Squad as she stepped through the hatch.

Just as her signal blended on the tracking device with the hatch frame of the
Able’s bay, Jackson shouted, "Now!"

He barreled out of
Charlie's bay, flying across the corridor. McPherson's back was to him as she faced all of Dawg Squad. She started to turn and retreat from Bilideau's squad. Someone crumpled at her feet, slamming into her ankles. Jackson left his feet and drove his shoulder into the small of her back. He felt more than saw Donnellson hit her high in the shoulders. Their combined weight buckled her knees and drove her to the deck.

He could hear McPherson shouting, but he couldn't make out the words in the tumult as two full squads tried
to work out their frustration against the back-stabbing coward. Someone shoved a bungee cord into his hands. He braced against another body and wrapped the cord around McPherson's wrist, shouting for someone to hold her other arm down. Who did or how they did it, he didn't care, but a thick wrist came into view. He wrapped the cord around it stretching the bungee cord to its fullest extension. After he tied it off, he let go. It snapped tight.

Jackson pushed and pulled at bodies, shouting for people to clear away. Soon he
could roll off McPherson and get to his feet. He found himself almost nauseous from having had to touch her. He felt contaminated. He looked at her lying at his feet. Someone had bound her legs tightly, from her knees to her ankles. He looked at the knots. They would hold. She lay glaring at him, unable to speak through a gag in her mouth.

Bilideau said, "What do you think of the muzzle, Race? I didn't think of it before, but the bitch tried to bite me.
Plus, we have the added benefit of not having to listen to her whine."

Jackson nodded. "Good move. Now what
do we do, Beans?"

Bilideau shrugged. "Damfino. I'll call Theda and see what she says."

"Where the hell did she go anyway? Shouldn't she have been here for this?" Jackson asked.

"Don't ask me. I ain't the guy with the answers. I'm just a
lowly second. Somebody else does the thinking. She said she had somewhere more important to be."

"
What is more important than being here to relieve her boss for cowardice?" Jackson asked.

"What are you asking me for, Race? I just work here. You ask Second Moraft."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just talking. Go call Theda and see what she says to do with this bitch. I’m going to dump her in her office with the other goof we snagged," Jackson said.

He turned to his squad. He could see a few were going to be nursing bruises.
He wondered how many of the punches were by friendlies. McPherson hadn't been unfettered long enough to do that much damage.

"Okay
, Foxtrot will pick her up and get her next door."

Donnellson
stepped forward and rammed his boot into McPherson's unprotected ribs. "That one is for good measure and to make sure you behave," he chuckled.

Jackson grabbed
Donnellson by the back of his collar and slammed him face first against the bulkhead. He spun him around and stepped in nose to nose.

"Sigget, no wonder you never made
second. McPherson may be a coward, but she is now an APES prisoner. Listen all of you; we do not mistreat our prisoners."

"But Race, she was deserting during a time of war
," Donnellson whined.

"I don't care. She
’ll get what she deserves from a court-martial. We hold her, nothing more. Personally, I would just as soon kick her lying teeth out and shove her through an airlock, but that’ll have to wait. Nobody touches her until they get the word to do so. Bilideau, that goes for you and all of Dawg Squad as well, got me?"

Bilideau looked up from his comm unit and nodded.
"S'right by me. I don't want to get my knuckles anymore slimy than they already are."

Jackson pointed to Dashell,
Foxtrot's medic. "You take two other guys and haul her next door. Check her over to make sure she isn't hurt. I want her healthy for her execution."

Chapter
Forty-Two

Misha thought about struggling as the three men half carried, half dragged her to the day office. She decided it wouldn't do much good to struggle since she was still bound hand and foot. They unceremoniously dumped her in the middle of the deck.

Dashell leaned down and spoke into her
ear; his breath was hot and stale. "I don't care if you do have injuries, Bitch. I hope you're bleeding internally and just die. Save the APES the money for your trial and punishment. Sleep tight." He patted her head. When the men left they shut and cycled the hatch.

Misha rolled and tried to s
it up. She was surprised to see Forrester sitting quietly in a corner. He appeared to be unharmed, but was bound as she was, minus the gag.

Forrester smiled at her, "Well, well, well, what do we have here? Good to see you, Misha. No, no, don't get up on my account."

Misha succeeded in getting her back to the cold steel wall and inched her way up into a sitting position. She looked around and saw there were no sharp corners, edges or hooks she might use to pry loose her bonds. She knew there wouldn't be. Sharp corners would have been a safety violation on any spacecraft. But, something in her made her look anyway. She continued inching upward. She braced with her feet on the deck and her back to the steel wall. The difficulty was that her legs were tied together. This meant she had to drive upward with both legs, the easy part. Then she had to hop backwards and upwards with both legs at the same time, the hard part. By pushing and sliding she finally got herself into a standing position.

Forrester said, "Bravo. But, now what?"

Misha bunched her shoulder muscles and started to pull against the cords.

"No
," Forrester stopped her. “Those cords will stretch." He continued through her glare, "I know you know that. But, they shrink back up when you release the stress. They will tighten. You may find yourself bound more securely than when you started. I know you are strong, but even your heavy-worlder muscles can't snap one of those bungee cords. Hop over here and let's see if I can work your gag loose."

The room was small enough it only took two small jumps before she was standing over Forrester. She looked down at him. She wanted to ask, "Now what, Mister Know-It-All?" But what came out around the gag was "
Ow a, ir owia?"

"
Humm?" Forrester said. "Definitely we have to work on the gag. I am unable to work myself into a standing position like you. Sorry, but you are going to have to come down to me." He turned to show her his wiggling fingers. "I have about this much mobility."

Misha put her back to the
steel wall and slid with a thump to the deck. Getting the gag down to his hands was a simple matter of falling over sideways. She inched toward his back until she felt his fingers on her face. She hoped he could get a grip on the gag without digging too deeply into her skin.

"I think I got a hold of the gag just behind your ear. No, don't pull yet
," Forrester said. "This is tight. I’m sorry, Misha but it feels like you might lose a layer of skin off your ears unless we go real slow, or I may be able to work it down around your neck."

Misha hunched her back and thigh muscles and hurled herself away from Forrester. It caught him by surprise and
yanked him over, but he held onto the gag. She felt the gag slip around her ears. One side was loose enough it was partially blocking an eye. She thrashed her head and shook like a dog trying to work itself out of a collar. Finally, the gag slid off the top of her head. She breathed in sharply and let the breath out in a slow sigh. She rolled into a sitting position and hunched her way to lean her back against the desk.

Forrester lay on his side with his back to her. He rolled over to the
steel wall and worked his way into a sitting position. They looked at each other.

Forrester said, "That was neither slow, nor did we work the gag down."

Misha smiled, "It got the gag off. That was the objective."

"Yes, but like I told said, you might lose some skin. You're bleeding down the left side of your face. It doesn't look deep,
but you did scrape off a sizable patch of your hide."

Misha chuckled
grimly. "It’s just skin. I have plenty to spare. Thanks for the use of your fingers. Do you think you have enough range of motion to work on the knots on these other cords?"

Forrester shook his head. "No. I have the motion, but I don
’t have the leverage I would need to pull at a bungee cord. They have too much stretch to them. What about you?"

She twisted sideways so he could get a look at her hands. They
were tied back to back. She had less range of motion than he did.

Forrester nodded. "Okay. We need to think of another way to get out of here."

"Let's see, we are locked in a room with steel walls and double thick hatches designed to withstand, not only the vacuum of space, but enemy artillery and weapons fire. We are surrounded by at least two dozen men and women trained to kill with their bare hands, and we are bound hand and foot. You must be some kind of special thinker if you can see a way out of this," she said sarcastically.

"I didn't say I had a plan. I just said we should think about it
," he replied with a smile.

"While we think, mind telling me what you are doing trussed up down here?" Misha asked.

"Good question. I’m not sure. I strapped in for the jump," Forrester gestured with his head toward the private bedroom. "We didn’t get the all clear signal, although we did have more time than normal.  Then suddenly we jumped again. When I finally got enough of my feet under me to stagger to the hatch, your troops grabbed me, wrapped me up, and dumped me back in here. Do you know what’s going on?"

"A bit more than you, but I am sorry to say not the whole story
." Misha wondered where to begin. It seemed like such a long day. Much of what had happened started with classified information from both Guinjundst and from the Binder IFF. How much should she reveal to a Marshal Service sergeant? It would be an easy choice if it was a piece of information that might mean life or death. She looked at Forrester and wondered how much he really knew. She was sure he wasn't on the Kiirkegaard hitching a ride to an exotic vacation. He knew too much for that.

Forrester returned her stare. "Well?"
he asked.

"
I have way too much to tell and I don't know where to begin." She gave him a brief synopsis of the events of the day, starting with her discovery of the Binder IFF signal and ending with her being dumped into her office bound and gagged. She didn't omit any part, even those parts about human spacecraft shooting at AMSF craft.

Forrester whistled
tunelessly. "Deep doggie doo doo."

Misha nodded. "That
’s the truth. We run or we support mutiny. Hell of a choice."

"I am baffled. Please don't misinterpret, but you aren
’t the type to run. I also know that you have no reason to like Britaine. Why are you backing his side?"

Misha shook her head. “That
’s something that I would’ve thought every APE, except the newest rookie, would have understood. I don’t have a choice in this matter. I think Britaine is wrong. If Britaine has reasons for running, he hasn’t explained them to me. However, he doesn’t have to explain it to me. I think we should stay and fight, but my contract says I must, and I emphasize, must support the lawful commander of any spacecraft where I am deployed, in all such matters. To my sure knowledge, no competent authority has relieved Britaine. Only General Gurand as the wing commander can relieve him for cowardice or incompetence and only the head of the medical staff can relieve him for insanity. I’ve been with Britaine today, and only an idiot would declare him insane. Yes, he is an incompetent coward, but crazy? No.” She looked at Forrester and asked, "Why are you here?"

Forrester snorted, "I just told you everything I know. Your guys grabbed me
-"

Misha interrupted. "Knock it off, Sergeant Forrester. You know that is not what I meant. If you
’re just a bureaucratic data pusher, then I am a DropSix warthog shepherd. Who are you and why are you here? Come on, Gan. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine."

"Okay, okay, I really am Sergeant Gan Forrester of the
Marshal Service."

Misha smiled, "So far so good. Now tell me something that I don't know."

Forrester said, "You have to keep this between us. I really am going to Gagarin and I really did just catch a ride on the Kiirkegaard. However, I am a field agent and the service chose this spacecraft specifically because of you...and one other."

"Me?" Misha looked startled.

"Don't look so surprised. You’re big news. Plus, you have some very special secrets locked away in your head. I was asked to find out from you what I could about the events on Guinjundst."

"Whoops
," Misha said with a big grin. "That one remains secret for now. Not for much longer, I suspect. I still can't talk about it."

"Well, it
’s not much of a secret the Binders used biological and chemical weapons against our ground troops for the first time, right?"

"Well, I thought that was still a secret
," she said with a smile.

"That was something the
Marshal Service suspected before I was sent here. It was pretty well confirmed by the simulations you’re using in the tri-wave. But, there’s something else, isn't there?" he asked.

Misha just looked at him with a blank face.

He shrugged and continued. "I thought it was something to do with the Orion Confederacy joining the Binders."

Misha snorted.

Forrester nodded. "I know. They aren’t much in the way of joiners. However, I know they still harbor an ill will against the Allied Systems for the beating we gave them over the incident at James Three. All of our indicators show they’re not ready to begin taking us on yet."

"I
’m surprised the Marshal Service is so well informed about what’s going on outside Allied space. It was my understanding your charter is domestic criminal service only."

"Let's just say we find internal protection sometimes demands an understanding of external pressures."

Misha nodded. "But, I didn't even think the Orion Confederacy was considered enough of a threat to investigate."

"
It is too late to investigate if we wait until someone becomes a threat. I like to call it preventative analysis."

"So, why did you think Guinjundst had something to do with the
Orions?" she asked.

Forrester replied, “
Because of the scenarios you were running in the tri-wave sims. Second Takki-Homi explained that for training purposes you had to pit yourselves against someone. The Binders do not present much of a challenge in training, or didn’t before Guinjundst.”

Misha smiled.
"That’s all too true. There isn't usually a lot of training necessary to take on a Binder attack. That used to be a stand off and shoot action."

"
Used to be?" Forrester asked, quoting her own words back to her.

Misha shrugged. "Things change. So who is the one other?"

Forrester looked surprised. "One other what?"

"If I may quote
, 'the service chose this spacecraft, specifically because of you and one other.' That is what you said, isn't it?"

"Oh, that one
," Forrester smiled. "All I can say at this point is that the Marshal Service has an undercover operative on board the Kiirkegaard. No don't worry; it’s not in the APES. I don't think Marshal Service command thought we needed informants or undercover operatives in the APES. Until now, that is. No disrespect intended, but it was thought the information gathered would be of low value."

"It
’s what you don't know that can kill you," Misha muttered.

"What? Yes, that should be the
Marshal Service motto. Is that an APES saying?"

"No
," Misha said. "That was what my daddy crammed into our heads from the first time we walked out the front door. DropSix is not like Heaven Three. Much of it is unexplored even after eleven generations on the planet. Strange things can still come out of the dark if you’re not careful."

"I
’ve heard the lower altitudes can be somewhat dangerous even for a heavy gravity world," Forrester said.

"True enough. You can only reach sea level by using high pressure equipment anyway. Standard atmosphere is only found in the high mountain regions. We've only sent a few drones into the oceans to see what or if any life exists in that chemical soup.
But, there are still vast uncharted areas."

"Doesn't sound like a nice tourist spot
," Forrester smiled.

"No
it isn’t. So, who is he?" Misha asked.

"
Who is who?" Forrester looked puzzled.

"You know who I mean, Gan. You
’re good at changing the subject, but you mentioned an undercover operative."