Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero (7 page)

Bill thought that maybe a little of the success was owed to all that practice he'd put in on the way here, but this news conference was a one-way broadcast.

Another reporter had been given a question to ask. “Were any of our brave warriors injured in the great battle?”

Bill was particularly interested in this one, since he had himself incurred a small blister on his trigger finger, and hoped for a Purple Kidney (the traditional medal for blisters, scratches, bruises, and paper cuts received in combat, and usually reserved for officers).

“I'm glad you asked me that,” General Weissearse began. "As you know, there are millions of troopers involved in this great venture, and in any exercise of this magnitude a certain number of losses is inevitable. Every injured trooper is a tragedy, of course, and my personal staff will be sending my personal computerized form letter to the personal families of every trooper with a Class C-7 injury (Yucky Flesh Wound) or higher.

“Fortunately, it looks like we won't be writing any of those letters tonight.”

Bill breathed a big sigh of relief. From what he'd seen, there was a strong possibility that some troopers might have been injured as high as Class A-2 (Completely Dead, No Parts Reusable; the only higher class, A-1, Complete Vaporization, was considered the same as Absent Without Leave, and was a court-martial offense). When a ship blew up in the atmosphere, as a bunch of them had, people were likely to be seriously injured after falling five or ten miles to the ground. Bill wasn't sure how this hadn't happened, but he was glad no one had been hurt badly.

The trooper with the microphone handed over another sheet of paper.

“What sort of punishment has been meted out to the disloyal and godless enemy?”

“Much less than they deserve,” the General said. "Of course, we can have no detailed figures on enemy casualties, but we have utterly destroyed the Eyerackian Triple-A and have wiped out the ASS. Our intelligence reports tell me that there is so far only one confirmed Eyerackian fatality. This was an old man who was visiting his son's missile base as the attack began. The surprise and fury of our attack were too much for the old man, and his heart stopped. Even though we were not directly responsible for his death, I have sent a message of apology to his family.

“Now that the Eyerackian defenses have been obliterated, in the coming days we will concentrate our attacks on the factories where these vile people have been producing weapons of mass destruction such as we, ourselves, would never use. We will also be targeting the military facilities that support those factories, supplying them with raw materials, parts, electricity, food, and sewage treatment. And we will do this without inconveniencing the civilian population in any way.”

Bill was amazed for a moment at the precision of his own video-controlled weapons systems, and even so he had a little trouble with the idea of bombing sewage plants and blowing up only the sewage from arms factories. But the subsonics and the hypno-coil kicked in, and the moment of doubt quickly passed.

The computer finally finished computing Bill's scores. They were pretty good, if you included the bonuses for not getting killed, but not enough to get into the top ten. They certainly weren't high enough to get that twelve-hour pass. Bill might have minded that more if there'd been somewhere to go on a pass, but on this ship there were no women, and the only places to go were the enlisted men's lounge and the mess hall. Since no one in either place would talk to him or give him a drink, he wasn't missing very much.

This was in any case much more interesting than the General's press conference. Bill was busily figuring out how many more points he could get if he didn't have anyone shooting at him when the General stuck his head into the turret.

Bill saluted with both hands and tried to get to his feet. He'd been sitting in that chair for a couple of weeks, though, and couldn't quite manage it. He fell back into his accustomed position, with the video screen before him. General Weissearse was taking another question from a reporter.

Bill looked back toward the door. General Weissearse was standing there, looking impatient and vaguely concerned. Bill looked back at the screen. The same General was there, explaining how the eleven seconds of videotape from a nose camera that they were about to see was absolutely typical of the millions of missiles fired.

“It's a miracle!” Bill screamed, and tried to fall to his knees.

Once the general had loosened Bill's seat belt and slapped his face a few times to get his breathing started again, he explained.

“Only the Lord can perform a true miracle, son. That's just videotape. I recorded it this morning, before the attack.”

Bill tried again to prostrate himself, and got caught again by the seat belt. This time he pulled himself up. “Ahura-Mazda must have imbued you with his spirit, to give you information about the future like that! It's a miracle!”

General Weissearse looked impatiently down at Bill and considered explaining, then sighed. It didn't look as though it would do much good, not to this moron, so he let it be. "Okay, son, it's a miracle, isn't the time to talk theology.

“I just wanted to make sure you're all right, and get you ready for tomorrow's battle. We're in for a tough one, and I'm counting on you.”

Bill looked up at his video screen once more, and back at the general. “But — but —” he butted. He shook his head to clear it. “You just said that we destroyed all the enemy defenses.”

On the screen the general was explaining again how much he and the emperor regretted this entire unpleasantness, and how they both hoped that no one else would have to die because of it.

Here in the turret he said something else. “You did a great job today, Bill. I bet you didn't even use up all the quarters I gave you, did you?”

Bill pointed with pride at the two coins on his shelf.

“Good. You'll have a chance to use them soon. Now you'd better get a good night's sleep. We're going in again in the morning, and you're going to be busy. There are going to be a lot of people shooting at this ship, and it's up to you to protect me. Remember the great honor I've given you, and keep my interest in mind, and you'll be all right.”

General Weissearse walked to the door. “Oh, yes. And you got a medal. Get it from the machine.”

The little one-line electronic display on the change machine was now blinking between GET CHANGE HERE and CREDIT: 1 MEDAL. Bill pressed the credit button, and the line switched to DEPOSIT ONE QUARTER OR TOKEN. This would leave him with only one for tomorrow's battle, unless he wanted to shell out some of his own hard-earned credits. Although he had nothing else to spend them on, and if he died tomorrow they wouldn't do him any good anyway, he did kind of resent having to pay the Emperor. He wasn't surprised any more, but he did resent it, just as a matter of routine.

Bill already had a medal or two stashed somewhere in his gear, and was entitled to wear the treasured Purple Dart with Coalsack Nebula (although he'd lost the actual medal long ago); but he finally decided that an extra decoration on his uniform could only make him more attractive to the Trooper groupies he kept reading about but never seemed to meet. If he ever did meet one, the extra quarter-credit investment would be well worthwhile. So he put half his stash back into the machine.

A terrible grinding noise came from the machine's innards. It moaned and cried and creaked and squealed, giving Bill a nostalgic thrill. It reminded him of his time as a drill instructor. A low rumble began deep inside the change machine, and moved slowly toward the dispenser. With a bounce and a clink, something fell into the little bin.

Bill fished it out. On one side of the oval, metal object was a portrait of the Emperor. It looked a lot like the portrait on all the coins, except it had been stretched diagonally. Around the rim ran the Imperial motto, IN HOC SEOR WENCES, also looking as though it had been stretched at an odd angle — the same odd angle, in fact. On the other side Bill could dimly make out what had once been an elegant sculpted bas-relief of the imperial log cabin where, by tradition, all emperors were born. That image, so familiar from all those quarters, had been mostly flattened out, though, and the words “Operation Friendly Persuasion Combat Medal” stamped in. A small hole had been punched in one end.

It wasn't the fanciest piece of jewelry Bill had ever seen. In fact, it reminded him very much of a souvenir he had once made out of a capper centicredit coin at a carnival. He wondered if he still had that souvenir; if he did, he could hang the penny and the quarter together, and they would make a much more impressive display. The chances of anyone looking closely enough to read the inscription on the penny — “I survived the Phigerinadon IV Fertilizer Fair” — were pretty slim.

Of course, the chances of Bill's recovering any of his treasured possessions, including his foot locker, were just as slim. Only victory would allow Bill to return to the relative safety of Camp Buboe, and there might very well be a court-martial waiting for him there. Failure to die on a suicide mission might get you a commendation, but it was also a violation of a direct order. Sad to say, Bill's safest refuge for the time being seemed to be right here in the rear turret of the Heavenly Peace.

It would be stretching the truth to say that Bill awoke refreshed. He did awaken, though, and that was enough of a triumph for the moment. He'd been sitting in that turret for weeks, on a liquid diet, hooked up to a catheter, mastering the intricacies of the Nintari TAIL GUNNER! system and being utterly ignored by the rest of the crew, so his legs were getting just a little stiff. But waking up after a battle was still better than the alternative.

He didn't awaken gently, either. The klaxon rang right in his ear, and a voice screamed, “Dive! Dive! DIVE!”

Bill jerked spasmodically. His whole body twisted around, except the part that was attached to the catheter. That stayed behind. It hurt enough to bring him to full consciousness.

The video screen was flashing in all the colors available to neon. DEPOSIT COIN OR TOKEN NOW! DEPOSIT COIN OR TOKEN NOW! I REALLY MEAN IT! YOU BETTER GET THAT COIN IN RIGHT NOW! NO KIDDING! DEPOSIT COIN OR TOKEN NOW, OR GET READY TO DIE!

Bill grabbed his last quarter and slammed it into the slot. He ran through the menus into combat mode as fast as he could, and started looking for targets.

All he could see was sky and spaceships, none of them highlighted in red. Then the view swung around as the Heavenly Peace came out of her dive and went on the attack.

The ground lit up in the bright orange of rocket exhausts, and a moment later it was a patchwork of red, if the enemy triple-A had been wiped out, they must have rebuilt pretty fast. In the background, Bill heard a clatter of quarters as the change machine anticipated his needs. He wasn't going to have much time to ask for coins today.

The Eyerackian defenses started out behind the first wave again, as they had the day before. Bill got busy picking off missiles that were aimed at some of the ships trailing the spider-shaped scout. But the defenders got organized faster today, and concentrated more of their effort on the leader.

A group of Eyerackian fighter planes drove up just behind the Heavenly Peace, not attacking her directly but trying to cut the general off from the rest of the wave. With help from the gunners on the other ships, Bill sliced them to ribbons with his lasers.

A big target flashed on his screen: AMMUNITION DEPOT, the screen said, 1000 POINTS. Bill needed to rack up points today if he wanted to get that 12-hour pass. The smart missile was launched even before his lips worked their way through the message.

Eyerackian lasers stabbed out at the missile, trying to keep it from its goal. Which would keep Bill on this ship longer than necessary. He started to take this war personally. He made the missile swoop and dive, turn and twist, weaving it through the web of defenses toward the little bull's-eye that the computer painted on the entry door. Compared to gunning down the counterattack, this was almost fun.

Bill corkscrewed the missile in around a laser beam. He looped it around an anti-missile missile. He ducked it under some exploding flak, and bobbed it over a line of bullets. He swung it around an oncoming fighter and swerved past an office building. He jumped it over a hedge and threaded it through a copse of trees. And then there was nothing but a straight run for the door.

There was a sign on the door, and he focused on that as the missile rode in to the ammo dump. There were no pictures, so it was hard to read, but he worked his way through all the text just an instant before the bomb hit it dead center.

AIR-RAID SHELTER — MAXIMUM CAPACITY 600 CIVILIANS was what it said.

Something seemed wrong to Bill.

Hadn't General Weissearse said something about not killing any civilians? It stuck with him because it had seemed a little odd at the time; normally the idea was to kill as many civilians as possible, and it wasn't the military way to make a change of this sort, or to give up the chance to kill people who wouldn't be fighting back.

It didn't seem like a bad idea, not killing civilians, just an unusual one. Bill could even vaguely remember being a civilian, and at the time he had thought not being killed was a really good idea. And now it looked very much like he had just killed up to 600 civilians.

But the video screen had clearly labeled the building an ammo dump.

Moral dilemmas were not within Bill's limited expertise. He wasn't at all prepared to deal with this one. He bucked it upstairs.

The general responded to Bill's call by appearing in the same small box on the screen where the press conference had been. He was watching another video screen and cheering the bombs as they dropped.

“What can I do for you, Bill?”

“General, Sir, I think I just blew up a civilian air-raid shelter!”

“So?”

“Well, aren't we supposed to be avoiding that?”

“Sure we are, Bill, but don't worry about it.” General Weissearse waved the issue away. “It must be a mistake of some sort.”