Starfist FR - 03 - Recoil (3 page)

“I know, it was given to me that someone would join me on my mission.” He put his arm around her. “To that end I have purchased one-way tickets for two, but I did not know who that other disciple would be until now.” He smiled; Sally was a buxom woman. “We shall be a great comfort to each other in my work,” he continued. “We shall preach unto the multitudes, you and I, Sally, and we shall create great joy in the land, and we shall turn the hearts of the people away from Satan and unto God.”

And in time they did, and in time they became a great pain in the derriere of President Cynthia Suelee Chang-Sturdevant in the war against the Skinks.

TWO

Bill Clabber’s Bar, Flambeaux, Lannoy

“Ahhhhh, it sure is gonna get drunk out tonight!” Puella Queege shouted to the barflies. She grinned lopsidedly at herself in the huge mirror behind Bill Clabber’s bar. She thought she’d never looked better, although her dark hair, tied in a bun on her neck, military fashion, had started giving off loose strands. But her face was flushed with the glow imparted by a healthy dose of alcohol, and, just then, she perched on her stool, queen of all she surveyed. Before she had enlisted in Lannoy’s army, Puella had been a rather pretty young woman, if a bit on the heavy side. But for a long time she had striven to achieve a masculine look to blend in with the men of the battalion, had let herself go physically, and had hit the booze so hard it was starting to ruin her complexion. Still, when Puella was sober she possessed a very sharp intelligence, knew army regulations well, and was a master of the intricacies of orderly room procedures and functions. Without a doubt, she was the best company clerk in the battalion. When she was sober. The barflies, the usual crowd at Bill’s on payday night, were hanging on her every word, their sweaty mugs thirsting for the beer she had been treating them to since she’d staggered in around sunset. That was a bit of a disappointment, though, because she’d always imagined that, when she was the center of attraction in a bar, the barflies would be buying her beers, not

the other way around. But what the heck, she reflected, the attention she got was worth the price of treating the old codgers.

“Queege,” an old-timer sitting at a table up against the wall shouted, “tell us agin how yew done kilt them guys in the bank!” He knew the longer he kept Queege talking the more free beer he could count on.

“Naw, girl,” another regular hollered, “tell us how it was to be a prisoner o’ war at that Confederation camp. Did they, you know, make you do interestin’ things?” He cackled so hard he started choking on his own spit. His partner pounded him hard on the back, forcing up a huge yellow-green mass of phlegm into his clawlike hand, which he wiped on his trousers.

“Thass ol’ Queege, there, Hank,” another barfly admonished the choker. “Don’t nobody screw with our Queege! Ain’t that right, girl?”

“Yar, girl, tell us ’bout th’ bank agin,” the first barfly insisted.

“Well,” Queege said, and stretched and set her mug on the bar, shrugged her shoulders and shifted her weight on the stool, “it warn’t nuttin’ much. See, these guys, including the fuckin’

mayor”—at this point in the story, which they’d all heard dozens of times before, everyone nodded their heads and roared with laughter, which they did now, on cue—“was robbin’ the vaults. I come along ’n shot th’ shit outta ’em.” She tapped the ribbon representing the medal she’d been awarded for the act that now sat slightly askew above the left breast pocket of her tunic. Surreptitiously she adjusted the tiny piece of cloth, hoping the barflies wouldn’t notice its unmilitary positioning. Before the night was over it would, inevitably, fall off, and in the morning she’d go back to the post exchange and buy a replacement. But when Corporal Puella Queege, Seventh Independent Military Police Battalion, had shot it out with the three bank robbers at Phelps during the recently concluded war on Ravenette, she had performed a truly heroic deed, earned the Bronze Star Medal on her chest, and become the only soldier in the battalion to have such an award. Never mind that she’d been drunk at the time and was only on patrol in the streets of Phelps that morning because she’d lied about being a military policeman. But the medal was real and she had killed all three of the bank robbers despite the fact that they had shot back at her, at very close range.

“Ya see, I was on patrol that mornin’,” Puella continued—

“Corporal Queege!” a voice cut through the barroom like howitzer blast. All heads snapped toward the door. A huge figure stood there silhouetted against the dim light from the street outside. “Front and goddamned center, Corporal!” the figure shouted. The barflies cringed and stared into their mugs. They might have been useless drunks sponging off a deluded corporal’s generosity, but they knew the Voice of God when they heard it, and they realized with a sharp twinge in their guts that the free beer was about to dry up on them. Puella’s mouth dropped open. Then she straightened her tunic and slipped unsteadily to the floor, where fortunately she was able to steady herself against the bar before she fell flat on her face. Well, she’d had a lot of beer that evening . . .

“Y-Yes, First Sergeant,” she mumbled. That was the only way anyone addressed “Skinny” Skinnherd, first sergeant of the Fourth Company, Seventh Independent Military Police Battalion. And nobody ever called him “Skinny” to his face either, because he wasn’t. He loomed in the doorway, a massive mountain of a man, gesturing that Puella should follow him out into the street. “Jeez,” he wrinkled his nose at the smell of stale beer and vomit that always pervaded Billy’s place, “you keep hangin’ out with these pigs, Queege, and you’ll be needin’ a liver transplant as well as a friggin’ bath. Come on, we’re shippin’ out in the mornin’.” He turned and stepped outside. Fumbling to adjust her tunic, Puella staggered after her first sergeant. It was raining lightly outside and the cool air had a sobering effect on her—not that the sudden appearance of First Sergeant Skinnherd hadn’t already begun the job. All up and down the street first sergeants and company charge-ofquarters NCOs were rousting men who until then had been enjoying payday binges.

“Queege old Squeege,” a drunken sergeant from the Third Company shouted as he staggered by, “why don’tcha gimme some of yer—oooops.” He recognized First Sergeant Skinnherd and hurried on quickly. Everyone in the Seventh MPs believed Puella was putting out for her first sergeant, so, knowing Skinnherd, no one ever seriously tried to put the make on her. Not when he was sober, that is. But drunks can be very selfdestructive.

“Wh-Wha—?” Puella stuttered.

“We’re movin’ out in the mornin’,” Skinnherd said over his shoulder as he stomped down the street, staring bullets at the retreating back of the sergeant, whom he thought he knew.

“We got a change-of-station mornin’ report to do and we gotta close out the orderly room, and I need you, girl, drunk or sober.”

“Wh-Where, First Sergeant?” Puella rushed to catch up with Skinnherd’s long, determined strides.

“Asshole!” he shouted, not bothering to look back. Puella blinked. He’d never called her that before! “Who?

Me, First Sergeant? All I done was have a few beers with the guys ’n it’s payday night, ’n I worked hard this—”

“Not you!” Skinnherd barked. “How long you bin in the army, anyway, Queege? Arsenault, the Confederation training world . . .”

“Never bin there,” she muttered.

“. . . We’ve been ordered there to form up with some kinda task force.” He stopped and looked down at his company clerk. Then he smiled and put his arm around her shoulders. “You old beer barrel,” he said, laughing. “If you could ever sober up . . . Army HQ has mobilized us, Queege. We’re shipping out to Arsenault to be part of this task force that’s gonna take on the Whatchamacallits, the aliens the Old Girl tol’ us about. Now, come on,” he said and squeezed her shoulder gently, “we got work to do.”

Why us? she wondered. Office of the Chief, Armed Forces Headquarters, Lannoy

“Now why in the name of Beelzebub are they bothering us with this shit?” General Reggie Fitzhugh, chief of the Lannoy armed forces asked his army chief of staff, General Rick Moreville. “Gawdam, Ricky, we ain’t even reconstituted the units that come back from Ravenette, fer all anybody knows they’re still full of hothead secessionists, ’n now they want us to furnish this Task Force Aguinaldo with a whole freakin’ battalion of infantry? Do we even got one that’s ready to ship out?”

General Moreville ran a hand under his huge nose, wiping away the constant dribble, then rubbing his hand surreptitiously on his tunic sleeve. Throughout the army he was known as “Slick Sleeve Moreville” because of this habit. “Hell no, Reggie, ’n besides, what if them things make Lannoy their first stop? Who’s to protect us? That Marine and his ‘task force’ is light-years away; we’d all be baked potatoes by the time anybody got here. Naw, we gotta keep our forces intact. Screw this . . . this . . . gawdam order of his!” He snapped the flimsiplast sheet that read:

“IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE AUTHORITY INVESTED IN ME BY

THE PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATION OF HUMAN WORLDS, I

TASK FORCE ON PERMANENT REASSIGNMENT ORDERS THE FOLLOWING UNITS . . .” The list was very long but opposite Lannoy it read: “2ND BATTALION, 35TH INFANTRY REGIMENT . . . ADDRESSEES WILL ENSURE THAT DESIGNATED UNITS ARE UP TO FULL

TO&E STRENGTH WITH AUTHORIZED LEVELS OF PERSONNEL, WEAPONS, AND EQUIPMENT.”

“Sheesh, Reggie, the old boy did his homework. The 35th is the only combat-ready unit we got right now. They did good on Ravenette and this old boy”—he snapped the flimsiplast sheet again—“knows it.”

“Then we’ll send him someone else. You know the old army rule, when asked to furnish troops for any detached duty you send your ash and trash. Who we got we don’t need and don’t want around?”

“Seventh MP Battalion,” General Moreville answered immediately. “They’re the boys ol’ General Lyons put up on the coast on Ravenette ’cause they wasn’t good for nutthin’ else,

’n the Confederation Marines steamrollered ’em. So they was taken prisoner intact—personnel, equipment, everything—’n when the peace treaty was signed, the Confederation give ’em back to us, like yer bad penny.” He laughed.

“Yeah! We can beg off, saying we ain’t got no other combatready units. Hell, MPs can carry blasters as good as anybody. We can tell ’em we ain’t rooted out all the secessionists yet. That’ll frost their nuts.”

“This old Anders Aguinaldo is gonna be highly pissed, Reggie.” General Moreville grinned as he said it.

“Fuck him. What’s he going to do, send us to Ravenette?”

They both laughed. Neither had been in the war. Office of the Commanding General, Task Force Aguinaldo, Arsenault

“Don’t these people realize the threat we’re all up against?”

General Anders Aguinaldo shook his head. “I asked for infantry and these fools send me this military police battalion!”

“I’m sure they don’t, sir. But they know there’s a threat and it’s only natural nobody’ll send their first-line units to our task force. It’s the old army game, sir.”

Aguinaldo regarded his chief of staff, Major General Pradesh Cumberland. At least, Aguinaldo reflected, he’d been able to get the best people for his command staff, and Cumberland was one of those. His frustration was with the member worlds who, in response to President Chang-Sturdevant’s urgent directive requesting they furnish his task force with good troops, had been reneging, finding dozens of excuses not to send the troops or, like Lannoy, sending fifth-rate units. How could he possibly take on the Skinks with troops like the Seventh Independent Military Police Battalion?

“Well, Pradesh,” he sighed, “we can probably use a good group of MPs when we deploy. We’ll need them to attend to such things as population control in urban areas and so on. If the Skinks attack at more than one location, we can break the battalion into companies and send them with the combat forces. But I don’t think we’ll have much of a POW mission for them; even during the campaign on Kingdom, we never captured one of the Skinks. As usual, goddammit, the Marines will have to lead the way. How’re the training teams progressing?”

“Just fine, sir. They’ve spread out to the selected member worlds and are doing an excellent job apprising their governments of the nature of the Skink threat. That may be one reason some of these people are less than enthusiastic about parting with their best troops. That might have been a mistake, sir.”

“We had to do it. But dammit, we’ve only asked for selected units, and sparing them wouldn’t have diminished anyone’s combat power, and it’d have added to ours so when the time comes we can respond with a powerful, highly motivated, welltrained force.” He was silent for a moment. “Well, we still can and we will. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Once the units arrive we’ll do a top-to-bottom inspection—arms, equipment, personnel, training, combat experience, everything. I’ve drawn up a list of very capable officers to conduct those inspections and, if necessary, take command of the units. I’ve put out a call for those personnel and they’re on the way here right now. For those units that measure up on their own, we’ll put them into training immediately. For those that don’t, we’ll reorganize them, give them new commanders if that’s necessary, or break them up and farm them out to capable units if it isn’t. And if all else fails, send them home. Meanwhile, I’ll keep the president informed and maybe she can put pressure on the politicos.”

“Sir, what it’s going to take will probably be a full-scale Skink invasion somewhere. That should get everyone’s attention mighty fast.”

Aguinaldo scratched his chin. “You’re probably right, Pradesh, let’s just hope their first port of call isn’t Earth.”

“Well, sir, wherever they hit us, let’s hope that when they do, we’re ready for them.”

THREE

The House of Pain, Undisclosed Location He screamed and screamed, “Mumeeeee! Mumeeeeeee!” but the pain and terror only intensified. The Brattle Home, New Salem, Kingdom