Tour of Duty: Stories and Provocation (10 page)

And that was that. After the earlier excitement, the ending was somewhat anticlimactic.

Lowther shook hands, swung back out, clipped and unclipped lines and monkey-crawled around his charges, letting them see that he was outside with them. He would ride that way until another craft matched course to take them off.

“We’re clear. We’ll mount. Transponders on, awaiting pickup sometime in the next four divs.” He felt an odd mix of elated, satisfied, nervous, frightened and lethargic. They’d done it.

“Understood, and your sled transponders are still live. Tracking already.”

“Thanks, Rescue.” It would be divs before they were recovered, days before they filtered from ship to ship and back to their own craft, and then probably down for debriefing. One thing about real world missions; they beat the hell out of exercises for both value and intensity.

He’d say he never wanted to do it again, but he felt more alive than he ever had. Some people never knew if they mattered. Blazers didn’t have that problem.

He checked his harness and prepared to line aft, leaving
Mammy Blue
cold and dead in space.

Stadter’s guts flipped at the current exchange, but he had to do it.

“Rescue to Sergeant Diaken.”

Her voice was raspy and ill-sounding. “Go ahead, Rescue.”

“One-eight-six recovered. Four-three after you cut feeds.”

“Glad to hear it. Thanks for all your efforts. Diaken out.” The transmission ended in an odd fade.

“Rescue out,” he said, needlessly. There was no way she’d live to reach the station after that dose, much less anywhere that could hope to do anything. It wasn’t even safe to recover her body. That hiss had been her helmet unsealing to vacuum. There were no good ways to die, but that seemed so cold.

He turned his attention back to Bowden.

“Bowden, this is Rescue. I have an interim AAR if I can relay the good and bad.”

“Rescue, go ahead. I can take it.”

“Bowden, one eight six of two one seven recovered and expected to live. Those extra two you caught had to be towed outside and transferred to another ship. They’re pretty shaken. I think most of the survivors are well-tranked.”

He paused and continued, “One lost on recovery, we’ll need to check your cameras to determine who. Bundle of five tumbled, one separated and caught in engine wash. I’m sorry.”

There was momentary silence, then Bowden said, “Continue.”

“Regret to relay that Special Projects Sergeant Diaken absorbed lethal dose, by choice, to effect shutdown on the feeds. She bought you the additional time.”

“Then she saved at least forty lives. She was a good woman.” The man sounded steely, but Stadter figured he’d be torn up as soon as his mic was closed.

“That’s it for your watch. Other casualties due to lifeboat failing and no crew aboard to assist with backup O2. The bottle worked, they just couldn’t figure it out in time. Some of the crew died aboard, and twelve passengers.”

“On the whole, then, I guess we all did an amazing job. Thank you, Lieutenant, and your staff, for coordination.”

“And you, Bowden. Stadter out, listening.” He figured to leave the man to deal with his troops and his frustration, for the next half day.

Bowden would be the last man out of a powerless derelict, in free flight in space, awaiting pickup in the darkness. That took insane amounts of courage.

They spent a full day passing the passengers in the balls outside to other ships, swapping fuel and oxy, coordinating others. They breathed canned air, ate plastic-wrapped food bars and were grateful for both. The rescued passengers were stuffed into the two cabins of the small craft, making any movement a pain. Luckily, the pregnant woman wasn’t close to labor. They all stank of fear, the filters couldn’t keep up, and even the latrine was overloaded, despite venting to space twice. Garwell had to pretty well sit on top of them. Two were billeted under his couch and controls.

Eventually, they maneuvered into their cradle and docked. Stadter hit the switches to cut power, dumped a reload request for supplies expended, and crawled out the hatch into the station. The alternate crew had lined up to cheer them, in both tribute and jealousy. A mission like this happened once in a career, though, he reflected, once was enough.

He shook hands with his opposite, Captain Brown, and said, “I need to debrief and rest. Thank you,” he turned to the rest, “and thank you all. We’ll catch up later.”

He near staggered on his way to Station Control.

Captain Vincent looked worn, satisfied and angry. It was an odd combination of expressions.

“Lieutenant Stadter. You’re just in time.”

“Yes, sir?” He didn’t think there was a problem at his end, and Vincent wasn’t one to string things out.

“Things are very good. I want to make sure you know that. Exceptional work all around. Among your crew, Warrant Vela is to be commended for outstanding traffic control.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Just thought you’d like to know I have the ship’s owner on another screen.”

“That’s interesting,” Stadter said. He didn’t want to make any assumptions about that. He was too edgy and likely to snap.

Vincent turned, lit the screen and looked into it.

“Mister Etzl, Lieutenant Stadter was in charge of the rescue effort.”

Etzl didn’t look like a cheap bastard, nor was he oily. However, he didn’t waste any time.

“I’d like to thank you for recovering my passengers, sir.”

“You’re welcome. We all did the best we could. I directed a lot of professionals and dedicated volunteers.”

“I’d like to discuss recovering my ship, and compensation.”

Adminwork, the bane of existence, he thought. Though to a man like this, reports were everything. He saw figures. Statder saw people.

“If you are asking for a report for your insurance, it will come to you in time, after it works through our system.”

Etzl shook his head. “I’m not worried about that. But there’s cargo and gear and supplies aboard. I understand it’s in free flight. This wouldn’t count as rescue, but recovery, and of course you’re entitled to a share as salvage. But will you be able to get back out on that shortly? The sunk costs increase the further out it gets.” He seemed agitated.

Stadter was too numb from the mission to get angry. It was just too surreal. Etzl needed to worry more about what would happen when charges started piling on him, and challenges to duel. If he was lucky, he’d only be indentured for life.

On the one hand, it would be nice if the passengers recovered any items of personal value. There was even a chance the cargo contained things that couldn’t be replaced by money alone. At the same time, they’d already lost too many people, injured several, and one had volunteered to die to help save others and reduce the burden this scumbag faced. He really should be enraged. He should challenge the man himself, Bahá’i rules on dueling be damned.

He was just too wired, tired and overloaded to deal with it right now. He was giddy with fatigue, disoriented, and this didn’t feel real. There was a policy that applied here, though. He went with that.

“Sir, you may contract whoever you wish for salvage. Neither I nor my crew are available. Your ship represents a hazard to traffic as is, so I recommend you move quickly on any recovery. I will officially recommend that the military use it for target practice if it’s not dealt with in a week. This matter is closed. Good day to you.”

He nodded to Vincent, who nodded back with a faint smirk. Then he turned and headed for his cabin. He could pick up the anger later, if there weren’t better things to do.

AFTERWORD

I read a lot.

This house has several thousand books, mostly nonfiction, on a plethora of subjects. Somewhere in the section on ships is a story about a ferry in New York Harbor sometime in the 1890s, I recall. There are three events online that might be the specific one I found in the book, but they’re all of a similar vein.

This small vessel, in winter, was full of people traveling from island to island or mainland. Most of them were immigrant laborers.

This boat did have a boiler explode, rupturing one side, causing it to founder and sink. There were lifeboats, bought cast-off from some better vessel, not seaworthy. There were kapok life jackets, but the rubber had dry-rotted, the kapok mildewed, and they weren’t in usable condition even if the water wasn’t barely warmer than the freezing air.

Every craft in the harbor did respond, in a frenzy not seen again until Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River more than a century later. I can’t recall how many survived, but most did. The owner was held in very poor regard, and if I recall correctly, sued into poverty, as he should be.

From there, I wondered how such a story would work in the Freehold universe, which, despite some parties alleging it to be a “utopia,” bears several significant resemblances to the era of robber barons and exploitative management. There are many things done better by the free market. However, some things actually do require government infrastructure to effect properly. Whether or not quality standards for spaceship inspections are among the latter probably depends in part on who’s arguing the point, and if they intend to be aboard. Even if one can settle up economically afterward, duel or seek vengeance, it’s probably better to have the intact ship in the first place.

Of course, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill incident in the Gulf of Mexico took place despite government inspections and approval, so it may not matter either way.

The Price

This was a bad story in 2000. In its original version, it rightfully got rejected because it was long, turgid and tried to be far too complex. I’m still learning how to write shorts. This was an attempt to cram a novel into 12,000 words.

When John Ringo told me he expected a story from me for the
Citizens
anthology—a collection in which all the authors are veterans, though the stories aren’t necessarily military—I wondered if this one would work. He agreed to my query, so I dusted it off. I pretty much gutted and rewrote it thirty-five percent shorter, cut scenes, tightened some stuff up, and made it work. The concept was sound. The execution had been awful.

Both he and Baen editor Jim Minz were complimentary over it, and I got good feedback from quite a few veterans. I’ll just keep working on the concept of short fiction until I get better.

Four Jemma
Two Three, Freehold of Grainne Military Forces, (J Frame Craft, Reconnaissance, Stealth), was a tired boat with a tired crew.

After two local years—three Earth years—of war with the United Nations of Earth and Space, that was no small accomplishment. Most of her sister vessels had been destroyed. That
4J23
was intact, functional, and only slightly ragged with a few “character traits” spoke well of her remarkable crew.

“I have a message, and I can’t decode it with my comm,” Warrant Leader Derek Costlow announced. The crew turned to him. This could be a welcome break from the monotony of maintenance. Jan Marsich and his sister Meka, both from Special Warfare and passengers stuck aboard since the war started, paid particular attention. Any chance of finding a real mission or transport back to Grainne proper was of interest to them.

“Want me to have a whack at it, Warrant?” asked Sergeant Melanie Sarendy, head of the intelligence mission crew.

“If you would, Mel,” he nodded. “I’ll forward the data to your system.”

Sarendy dropped her game control, which was hardwired and shielded rather than wireless. Intel boats radiated almost no signature. The handheld floated where it was until disturbed by the eddies of her passage.

Jan asked, “Why do we have a message when we’re tethered to the Rock? From who?”

Meka wrinkled her brow.

“That’s an interesting series of questions,” she commented.

“The Rock” was a field-expedient facility with no official name other than a catalog number of use only for communication logs. The engineers who carved and blasted it from a planetoid, the boat crews who used it, the worn and chronically short-handed maintenance personnel aboard had had little time to waste on trivialities such as names. There were other such facilities throughout the system, but few of the surviving vessels strayed far enough from their own bases to consort with other stations. “The Rock” sufficed.

They were both attentive again as Sarendy returned. She looked around at the eyes on her, and said, “Sorry. Whatever it is, I don’t have a key for it.”

Meka quivered alert. “Mind if I try?” she asked.

“Sure,” Costlow replied.

She grabbed her comm and plugged it into a port as everyone waited silently. She identified herself through several layers of security and the machine conceded that perhaps it might have heard of that code. A few more jumped hoops and it flashed a translation on her screen.

The silence grew even more palpable when she looked up, her eyes blurred with tears. “Warrant,” she said, voice cracking, and locked eyes with him.

Costlow glanced around the cabin, and in seconds everyone departed for their duty stations or favorite hideyholes, leaving the two of them and Jan in relative privacy. Jan was family, and Costlow let him stay. In response to the worried looks from the two of them, Meka turned her screen to face them.

The message was brief and said simply, “YOU ARE ORDERED TO DESTROY AS MANY OF THE FOLLOWING PRIORITIZED TARGETS AS POSSIBLE. ANY AND ALL ASSETS AND RESOURCES ARE TO BE UTILIZED TO ACCOMPLISH THIS MISSION. SIGNED, NAUMANN, COLONEL COMMANDING, PROVISIONAL FREEHOLD MILITARY FORCES. VERIFICATION X247.” Attached was a list of targets and a timeframe. All the targets were in a radius around Jump Point Three, within about a day of their current location.

“I don’t understand,” Jan said. “Intel boats don’t carry heavy weapons. How do they expect us to do this?”

“It was addressed to me, not the boat,” Meka replied. “He wants me to take out these targets, using any means necessary.”

That didn’t need translating. There was a silence, broken by Costlow asking, “Are you sure that’s a legit order? It looks pointless. Why would they have you attack stuff way out here in the Halo?”

Meka replied, “We know what the enemy has insystem. We know where most of their infrastructure is. If Naumann wants it taken out, it means he’s preparing an offensive.”

“But this is insane!” Jan protested. “The Aardvarks will have any target replaced in days!”

“No,” Meka replied, shaking her head. “It’s a legit order. All those targets are intel or command and control.”

Costlow said, “So he wants the command infrastructure taken out to prevent them from responding quickly. Then he hits them with physical force.”

“Okay, but why not just bomb them or use rocks in fast trajectories?” Jan asked.

Costlow said, “It would take too long to set that many rocks in orbit. Nor could we get them moving fast enough. Maneuvering thrusters and standard meteor watch would take care of them. As to bombing them, they all have defensive grids, and we’re a recon boat.”

Jan paused and nodded. “Yeah, I know. And there aren’t many real gunboats left. I’d just like a safer method.” He asked Meka, “So how could you get in?”

“UN stations have sensor holes to ignore vacsuits and toolkits. Ships can’t get in, but a single person can.”

Costlow looked confused. “Why’d they leave a hole like that?” he asked.

“Partly to prevent accidents with EVA and rescue, partly laziness. They lost a couple of people, and that’s just not socially acceptable on Earth,” she said. “It’s the Blazer’s greatest asset to penetrating security. Systems only work if they are used. Backdoors and human stupidity are some of our best tools.”

“Didn’t they think anyone would do what you’re discussing?” Jan asked. That was dangerous. It would push EVA gear to the edge.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “They would never give such an order. The political bureaucracy of the UNPF requires all missions be planned with no loss of life. Not minimal, but zero. Yes, it’s ridiculous, but that’s how they do things.”

Jan asked, “So you EVA in, and then back out?”

“How would I find a stealthed boat from a suit? How would you find me? It’s not as if there’s enough power to just loiter, and doing so would show on any scan.” Her expression was flushed, nauseous and half grinning. It was creepy.

“ . . . But even if you get through, they can still get new forces here in short order,” Jan said. He didn’t want his sister to die, because that’s what this was; a literal suicide mission. His own guts churned.

“No,” Meka replied. “Or, not fast enough to matter, I should say.” She tapped tactical calculus algorithms into her comm while mumbling, “Minimum twenty hours to get a message relayed to Sol . . . flight time through Jump Point Two . . . ”

Jan had forgotten that. Jump Point One came straight from Sol, but it no longer existed. Professor Meacham and his wife had taken their hyperdrive research ship into it, then activated phase drive. The result of two intersecting stardrive fields was hard to describe mathematically, but the practical, strategic result was that the point collapsed. No jump drive vessel could transit directly from Sol to Grainne anymore, and the UN didn’t yet have any phase drive vessels that they knew of.

Meka finished mumbling, looked up, and said, “Median estimate of forty-three days to get sufficient force here. They could have command and control back theoretically in forty hours, median two eighty-six, but that doesn’t help them if they are overrun. It’s risky, but we don’t have any other option.”

Costlow said, “That may be true, but they
can
send more force. It’s a short term tactical gain, but not a strategic win.”

“I know Naumann,” Meka replied firmly. “He has something planned.”

“Unless it’s desperation,” Costlow said.

Shaking her head, her body unconsciously twisting to compensate, she said, “No. He never throws his people away, and he has very low casualty counts. If he wants me to do this, then he has a valid plan.”

“Trusting him with your life is dangerous, especially since you don’t even know that’s him,” Jan said. They’d almost died three times now. She’d almost died a couple more. This one was for real.

“We’re trusting him with more than that,” she said. “And that’s definitely him. Security protocols aside, no one else would have the balls to give an order like that and just assume it would be followed. Besides, it authenticates.”

“Okay,” Costlow reluctantly agreed. “Which target are you taking?”

She pointed as she spoke, “Well, the command ship
London
is the first choice, but I don’t think I can get near a ship. This crewed platform is second, but I’d have to blast or fight my way in. If I fail, I still die, and accomplish nothing. I suppose I have to chicken out and take the automatic commo station.”

“Odd way to chicken out,” Jan commented in a murmur.

“Are you sure of these priorities?” Costlow asked. His teeth were grinding and he looked very bothered.

“Yes,” she replied. “If I had more resources, I’d take
London
, too. We don’t have any offensive missiles, though.”

“We have one,” the older man softly replied. They looked at him silently. “If you’re sure that’s a good order,” he said. His face turned from tan to ashen as he spoke.

“I am,” she said.

“Then I’ll drop you on the way. Just think of this as an intelligent stealth missile,” he said, and tried to smile. It looked like a rictus.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“No,” he admitted. “But if it’s what we have to do to win . . . ”

There was silence for a few moments. Hating himself for not speaking already, hating the others even though it wasn’t their fault, Jan said, “I’ll take the automatic station.” Saying it was more concrete than thinking it. His guts began twisting and roiling, and cold sweat burst from his body. He felt shock and adrenaline course through him. “That takes it out of the equation, and you can fight your way into the crewed one.”

Costlow said, “It’s appreciated, Jan, but you’re tech branch. I think you’d be of more help here.”

It was a perfect escape, and Meka’s expression said she wasn’t going to tell his secret if he wanted to stop there. He was a Special Projects technician, who built custom gear for others, usually in close support, but too valuable to be directly combatant save in emergencies. The act of volunteering was more than enough for most people, and he could gracefully bow out. He felt himself talking, brain whirling as he did. “I do EVA as a hobby. I’m not as good as Meka, but I can manage, given the gear.” There.
Now
he was committed.

“You don’t have to, Jan,” Meka said. “There are other Blazers. We’ll get enough targets.”

“Meka, I’m not doing this out of inadequacy or false bravery.” Actually, he was. There was another factor, too. When she looked at him, he continued, “I
can’t
face Mom and Dad and tell them you did this. No way. I’m doing this so I don’t have to face them. And because I guess it has to be done.”

After a long wait, staring at each other, conversation resumed. The three made a basic schedule, hid all data and undogged the cabin. They each sought their own private spaces to think and come to grips, and the rest of the crew were left to speculate. The normal schedule resumed, and would remain in force until the planned zero time, five days away.

The three were reserved in manner during the PT sparring match that evening. The crew each picked a corner or a hatch to watch from in the day cabin, a five-meter cylinder ten meters long, and cheered and critiqued as they took turns tying each other in knots. Sarendy was small but vicious, her lithe and slender limbs striking like those of a praying mantis. Jan and Meka were tall and rangy. Costlow was older and stubborn. Each one had his or her own method of fighting. They were all about as effective.