Starfist: FlashFire (13 page)

“Well, Donnie, that might not work so well. We’ll be on that ship a while and you know what we’ll be

doing, things a guy doesn’t usually do with his sister?” “Oh, sheeyit, you’re right!” Donnie slapped his forehead and laughed. “Well, we’re engaged, then. You used to work for my company. I’ll tell you all about it before we leave. Think that’d work?”

“Might just do, Donnie, might just. Ah, one more thing? Before we leave?”

“Why sure, good-looking lady with the big jugs!” Donnie laughed, tossing the roll of bills on the table and jumping into the bed. “I think you ought to know I missed my period.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the weeks since the survivors of the Fort Seymour garrison had been surrounded on the Pohick Bay Peninsula, General Cazombi’s engineers had deepened and strengthened the fortifications and his command post had been moved even deeper inside the complex. Not that Cazombi ever stayed there very long. He spent most of his waking hours out touring the fighting positions, encouraging his troops, making eye contact with them.

Now the same enemy colonel who’d brought Lyons’s first surrender terms was back again with another offer. For this meeting Cazombi had ordered the emissary brought to the CP to give him some idea of how well dug in his force was and to show him that morale was high without revealing anything about the complex defenses.

“You’re looking fit, General,” the colonel said, blinking his eyes as the blindfold was taken off. The command post was a hub of activity and to the enemy officer the soldiers there actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were; General Cazombi had ordered sandwiches for everyone to give the impression they were feeding well.

“We meet again, Colonel,” Cazombi held out his hand. From inside a tunic pocket the colonel produced a crystal and handed it to him. “So you’ve agreed to surrender, have you?” Cazombi permitted himself a slight twitch along the right side of his face, which for him passed as a grin.

“Not quite, sir,” the colonel smiled grimly.

“So General Davis has now stepped into the twenty-fifth century,” Cazombi remarked. He hefted the tiny crystal speculatively. “Writing on paper has its advantages. Wait here, Colonel, until I find a scanner and we’ll talk some more.”

In an isolated cubicle Cazombi, his chief of staff, and several other officers read the contents of the crystal. “We can never agree to something like this!” The others, reading over the general’s shoulder nodded their concurrence. “Anybody know where Sorca is right now?” Since Cazombi had pulled rank on the brigadier and taken charge of the survivors, Sorca had been making himself scarce in the command post. “Go find him,” he told his operations officer. “I want him and his officers to see this. I don’t think Lyons himself wrote this—this—garbage, but note one thing? They’ve called for a cease-fire while we consider these demands. That’s time, gentlemen, and time is what we need.”

“A big Wanderjahr Canfil tomato is what I need right now,” Cazombi’s operations officer laughed.

“I think that’s what the guy who wrote these terms needs,” Cazombi replied, referring to the wellknown laxative effect the Canfil tomato had on people not used to it. He didn’t need reminding either that the first signs of dysentery had already made their appearance among the defenders. “No talk about food, Colonel. Go find Sorca, that’ll take your mind off eating.”

When Brigadier General Sorca finally arrived in the command post he looked sleek, well-groomed, and rested. Obviously, Cazombi noted, he was not suffering the same degree of deprivation as his men. He was accompanied by two of his officers, his operations officer and his supply officer. The latter appeared extremely well fed.

“I don’t consider these terms that unfavorable, General,” Sorca said after he’d read them. “We’ll be well treated,” he added, meaning the officers.

“They want to separate us into three camps, general, officers, NCOs, and enlisted ranks and on three separate worlds within their Coalition.”

“Well, it’s accepted doctrine on the handling of prisoners of war, General, to separate the leaders, to keep order in the camps.”

“Yes, I know that, General Sorca and I also know it’s against every convention of warfare to demand that POWs sign oaths not to take up arms against their captors if they’re released. I know we have to go into three separate camps but I will not accept any arrangement where I can’t personally visit and inspect the conditions in the camps maintained for my NCOs and enlisted people. I’ve led them here and I’m going to lead them in captivity as well, if it comes to that. Not negotiable.”

“I think you should reconsider, sir.”

“Not negotiable, General. And surrender is not an option either. We’re too close to being relieved.”

“We do not know that, sir,” Sorca’s face colored. “And we both know that when relief forces do arrive, if they do, they’ll most likely be fed in piecemeal and all that’ll mean is more prisoners for the Coalition to boast about.”

“Gentlemen,” Cazombi addressed all the officers standing around him, “we know this place is going to be the set-piece battle of this war. It’ll be decided here, among the fleets in orbit and here on the ground. We must keep this foothold open! General Sorca’s probably right, the Confederation will only be able at first—at first—to feed in reinforcements piecemeal. But if we hold out long enough, the preponderance of force will swing in our favor. I intend to accept the cease-fire offered, to gain every minute of time we can until decisive reinforcements can be landed, and then we shall break out of this hole and engage the enemy and defeat him. I charge all of you now with the responsibility of ensuring that our forces do not adopt a defensive mentality. I’ve been to every fighting position and, despite everything, morale is high. You all know the age-old prescription for battlefield victory: Morale is to firepower as three is to one, and we have that advantage! We must not lose it. So we cannot accept these terms.”

“If that’s the case, General, then why did you bother to call us here to ‘discuss’ these terms in the first place?” Sorca asked.

Cazombi did not let his face show what he really thought of the natty, white-haired brigadier general standing before him, his chest thrust out and one hand on his hip. “I wanted you to know what the terms were, General and I wanted you above all to know what my orders are. Now, gentlemen, to your posts.”

“General?” Cazombi’s operations officer took him aside for a moment. “What are our chances, really, sir? You’ve always leveled with me and you know I don’t shoot my mouth off.”

“Hank, they’re grim, very grim. But if we can hold this place, that’ll give the Confederation a foot in the door and I think the war will be decided here. What we have to pray for is front-line combat soldiers—Marines, Hank! That’s who we need here and soon!”

Brigadier Balca Sorca took his operations officer aside. “I don’t want our G4 in on this, the man’s a blubbering idiot, a box kicker. You I can trust. That Cazombi, the man’s a glory hound!” he whispered. “Any reasonable officer would have accepted the original surrender terms!”

“Don’t you think the Coalition’d reneged on them by now, sir?”

“Sure. But once we’re out of this hole we could maneuver, position ourselves to advantage, Colonel. As it is, Cazombi is going to get us all killed.”

“What can we do about it, sir? Every man jack in what’s left of our division is ready to fight, despite the reduced rations and the living conditions.”

“There’s always something that can be done, Colonel.” Sorca smiled and patted the colonel on his shoulder. “You just stick with me.”

Two huge explosions shook the bunker. “There goes Nine O’Clock Nina again,” Corporal Barry (“The Liver”) Livny muttered. Barry was famous in the company for his drinking ability, when drink was available, which it had not been since they’d left home months ago. “Hard to tell what time it is outside unless she drops in on us.” He grinned and rubbed the nonregulation beard stubble on his chin. He wasn’t old enough to grow a regular beard but the fuzz had lengthened noticeably over the past weeks. He tolerated very well the snide comments from his buddies, “Hey, Liver, you didn’t shave this morning, did you?” because shaving was a luxury: The water ration had been cut again. There were only two electric razors in the whole company and Corporal Livny maintained he would not take sloppy seconds on a shave. As a Guardsman he could get away with it; a regular would’ve long ago taken a bayonet to his whiskers.

“This crap is bad enough to puke a dog off a gut wagon,” PFC Harry (“Whimper”) Quimper complained, spooning the viscous mass that was his breakfast out of his mess kit. He ran a filthy forefinger around the inside of the tin and stuck it into his mouth, sucking up the last bit of juice.

“You’d bitch if they hung you with a new rope, Whimper. That is real fancy ‘kwe-zeen,’ as the French say,” Private Ennis (“Shovel”) Shovell muttered. “I believe you are actually gaining weight on these rations,” he added, finishing his ersatz coffee. Ennis was forty and married and no one in his platoon could figure out why he’d ever volunteered for the infantry. Whenever the subject came up, which it did frequently, all he’d say was, “Well, take my wife. Please.” In civilian life, he’d been an accountant with an insurance firm, earning more money than either of his bunker mates had ever imagined having in their own pockets. Why he hadn’t joined the finance corps was also a mystery to them and when frequently asked about his choice of arms inevitably he’d say, “I’m Jewish. I refuse to be cast as a stereotype.” Shovell stood over two meters and was well built for a man who’d led a sedentary life. He never complained when it was his turn to use a shovel on the frequent repair details or to clean out their bunker.

“Nah, I lost three kilos this past month,” Quimper said. “What’re we getting, fifteen hundred calories a day now? Man, how I long for the old days, when we got twenty-five hundred a day.” The “old days” for these men of the New Geneseean National Guard had been when they were first inserted on Ravenette. They’d brought their own rations with them. General Cazombi’s troops were already by that time reduced to living on a thousand calories a day. Nobody could now agree on what they needed more, food or reinforcements.

“Isn’t it pronounced ‘koo-zine,’ Ennis?” Livny asked.

“Nah, ‘kwe-zeen’, I studied French once. Before you children were born. I love dead languages, you see?” “Then why study them, if they’re dead?” Quimper asked. He looked genuinely puzzled. “Wimpy,” Ennis replied patiently, as if talking to a child, “I may need to know it when I die, which if

our rations don’t improve and their aim does, might be fairly soon.” “I been thinking, maybe we could eat them ratlike things, those ‘slimies’?” Quimper suggested. “I’m

hungry enough for some fresh meat, but ugh, a guy’d have to really be starvin’ to chow down on one o’ them things!” “There ain’t that many of ’em, Wimpy, hardly worth the effort to catch one.” “Oh, you’ll see more of them, if we stay in here long enough,” Shovell said. “They’re scavengers and

the longer we’re here the more of them’ll be attracted by the waste and—and—you know, the bodies.”

He shuddered. Almost on cue, several heavy explosions shook the bunker. The men scrambled to their positions but nothing moved in the no-man’s-land between them and the rubble that had once been Fort Seymour.

“I wish they’d come,” Quimper sighed, “get me some action.” Since these men had been on Ravenette, the Coalition forces had not mounted a single ground attack against them, just this intermittent pounding with artillery, missiles, and bombs. Their landing had been tough and their division, composed of regiments hastily gathered from several different worlds, had taken very heavy casualties.

“Be careful what you wish for, Wimpy,” Ennis advised. “I wish I was with Napoleon at Thermopylae, Shovel, at least I’d have a chance to actually fight

someone,” Wimpy retorted. Wimpy fancied himself a military historian but he could never understand why the Greeks at Thermopylae didn’t use their cannon to better advantage. “You are at Thermopylae, my child,” Ennis replied. “Do I need to remind you how that one ended?” Quimper’s stomach growled audibly. “Man, I used to eat some good shit at home, you know?” “You get hungry enough you can eat anything,” Shovell replied, dryly. “Bacon, eggs, sherobies for breakfast every goddamned day! Hey, Shovel, we go into a POW camp

like some of the guys are saying, will they feed us better? Man,” he sighed, changing the subject

abruptly, “what I wouldn’t give to exchange one of you guys for a woman right now.” “Wimpy, sometimes you really don’t make much sense,” Shovell replied. “A real man would exchange us for two women.”

“Nah, Shovel, I’d only exchange you, so Liver could have somethin’ to watch,” Quimper laughed. Quimper’s laugh was very disturbing to most people, a high-pitched braying sound, but his bunker mates had gotten used to it.

“I was up to the battalion S3 a couple of days ago,” Livny offered, “and the word is out that more reinforcements are on the way. Marines. They’re sending the goddamned hard-assed jarheads here!”

“And then what? Well, then, all our problems will be over,” Shovell snorted. “Hey!” Quimper shouted, sitting up straight, “maybe the Marines will bring some good-looking wimmen with ’em!”

“Women, my ass,” Livny snorted, “I hope they bring some extra field rations.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Mr. President! Mr. President! Would the honorable gentleman from Bulon kindly yield the floor? His time is up! Mr. President!” The representative from Novo Kongor, Ubsa Nor, was shouting. He had been trying for several minutes now to get the long-winded Haggl Kutmoi to yield so he could speak.

“Mr. Kutmoi, please yield to the honorable gentleman from, er,” the President of the Confederation Congress had to consult his roster to remember the Novo Kongor representative’s name and where he came from, “the Honorable Ubsa Nor from Novo Kongor?”

Kutmoi glared at Nor, who was striding purposefully toward the rostrum. Squat, dark, powerful, Ubsa Nor had spent his youth in the mines on his home world and was not a man to be trifled with. “I yield to the honorable gentleman from Novo Kongor, Mr. President, but I will continue my remarks at a later time!” Kutmoi deliberately jostled Nor as they passed but the man from Novo Kongor merely whispered, “There’s no glory in tangling with a little shrimp like you,” and mounted the platform. He adjusted his reading glasses. “Mr. President, honorable members,” he began in a powerful voice that almost needed no amplification, “we of Novo Kongor stand in complete opposition to the headlong rush to war that Madam Chang-Sturdevant, the honorable member from Bulon, and their supporters are urging upon this august body.”

“You ought to join the rebels then!” a female voice shouted.

“Order!” the president intoned.

Ubsa Nor paused, glaring at the representative who’d interrupted him. “The idea that we Kongoreans would break with this Confederation and go to war against it is unfair and also personally disgusting. But that’s not all that’s disgusting. The way this government has treated the people of the secessionist worlds is disgusting and I remind all the honorable members of this Congress that it was our troops who slaughtered the citizens of Ravenette, not the other way around, so it was us and not them who committed the first act of war.” A tumult arose, and delegates shouted for Nor to be seated, accusing him of disloyalty and cowardice. But a few voices expressed support for what he had said.

The president called for order.

“I know how those people out there feel,” Nor continued when the delegates had finally quieted. “Many of you here consider us Kongoreans no better than hairy animals who burrow in the earth and live among the ice and cold because we don’t know any better and because nobody else would have us. You make fun of the way we talk when we’re among you and I’ve heard all the jokes you love to tell about us, ‘How does a boy from Novo Kongor know when his hut is on a level? When his dog drools out both sides of his mouth at the same time,’ and on and on and on.” No one laughed at that joke but it was an oft-repeated slur against the people of Novo Kongor that many people found amusing. The delegates were shamed by it into a temporary silence.

“You need the ores we mine from the unforgiving crust of our world.” Nor went on, his voice rising. “Ores that my people risk their lives and health to extract in an environment so harsh none of you here,
none
of you, can even imagine from the comfort and luxury of your homes, but when we ask for a fair price from your refineries you accuse us of gouging and you pass laws to protect your own industries because you say we undercut them. Do you think we’re so stupid we can’t see the inconsistency there?” His voice rose a full octave on the last word. “No, no, no,” he waved a forefinger at the assembled delegates, “the people of those worlds in rebellion have legitimate grievances and since this government does not wish to settle them through negotiation, we of Novo Kongor say, ‘Let them go their own way!’ We reject Madam Chang-Sturdevant’s call for troops and shall remain neutral in this war.” He paused, removed his spectacles, bowed slightly saying, “Thank you, Mr. President, honorable members,” and left the podium.