First to Fight (21 page)

Ensign Baccacio sat stunned, staring at the space Bass had sat in. Instead of taking full command of the platoon as he’d planned, he had just been read the riot act by an NCO he’d been determined to put in his place.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

“Fast frigate” is a class of warship. From its designation, one might reasonably expect a fast frigate to be fast, probably faster than any other starships. And it is—but only in Space-3, normal three-dimensional space. In hyperspace all ships are locked into the exact same amount of travel-time for a given distance; the same 6.273804 ad infinitum irregular number of light-years-per-day speed, known as the Beam Constant, allowed by the Beam Drive, applies equally to a fast frigate and a slow-boat-to-China, assuming that such a scow would be space worthy at all. So even though travel by fast frigate rather than by troop transport can cut transit time between planetary systems by several days, the HM3
Gordon
spent the same twelve days in hyperspace as did whatever transport ship the rest of 34th FIST followed on.

A vagary of interstellar travel that most people aren’t aware of is the effect of the irregularity of the light-year-per-day distance on navigation. When a navigator plots his course, he doesn’t know with any real precision where his ship will pop back into Space-3. For that matter, two starships jumping in tandem from the exact same spot and using the exact same destination coordinates, won’t come out of hyperspace in the same place, This phenomenon has caused some people to say that the Beam Constant is a variable as well as an irregular number. Astrophysicists say that’s not so, that the uncertainty is caused by the interstellar dance of the spheres, and by the resulting shift in the normal curvature of space-time.

Whatever, interstellar navigators have to plan a margin of error when they plot their courses. The plotted arrival point is always at greater distance from the outbound jump points than the radius of the sphere of error, as it’s called. It really wouldn’t do to have an inbound ship suddenly return to Space-3 in the same spot from which an outbound ship is attempting to make a jump. When two or more ships are traveling together, they also have to consider each other’s plotted arrival points to avoid coming out in each other’s spheres of error. Just in case. Since the margin of error increases with distance traveled, ships in convoy go in short jumps and reassemble in formation each time they return to Space-3. Otherwise, on a long trip, they would be scattered over a horrendously large sphere on arrival at their destination. Which won’t do at all for warships going into a hostile situation.

The CNSS FF HM3
Gordon
was traveling alone, so it was able to go from Thorsfinni’s World to Elneal in one jump. But at slightly more than seventy-five light-years’ distance, it was going to take the ship longer to reach orbit once it returned to Space-3 than the three hours it took from orbit to jump point at Thorsfinni’s World. And if it had the misfortune of coming out near the far rim of its sphere of error, even at a fast frigate’s high rate of three-dimensional speed the trip from there to orbit would take the best part of a standard day.

Captain Conorado broke the seal on a packet of orders he was given moments before he left the barracks back at Camp Ellis. The staff major who handed him the packet gave him very specific orders: “Do not open this packet until you are planetside wherever you are going, or on approach if the ship comes out of hyperspace with at least a twelve-hour flight time to orbit.”

They certainly had more than twelve hours’ flight time, so he opened the packet. A smile slowly spread across his face as he shuffled through the pages. Finally. He wondered why Commander Van Winkle, the battalion commander, wanted him to wait with these orders. They were dated the first of the month, and it was already mid-month.

“Lieutenant Humphrey,” he said to his executive officer. “Get the Top. I want all officers and platoon sergeants assembled in the ward room in ten minutes. Include transportation in that.” Orders in hand, he headed for the bridge to get permission from Commander Kahunii to use the crew’s mess for an unscheduled, all-hands assembly.

The Marine officers and senior NCOs were in the ward room waiting for him when Captain Conorado arrived with Commander Kahunii’s permission to use the crew’s mess for the next hour. Without a word, he handed out pages of orders to each of his platoon commanders and the senior officer from the transportation detachment. He noted, but didn’t comment on, the way Ensign Baccacio grabbed for the orders he handed him, quickly scanned them, and shoved them toward Staff Sergeant Bass, the only NCO in the room who didn’t look over an officer’s shoulder to see what the orders were.

“All hands in the crew’s mess in ten minutes,” he said when everyone had seen the orders and was passing them back. “Top, do you have, or can you get, what we need?”

“Anything I don’t have, I can get,” First Sergeant Myer replied, grinning broadly.

In ten minutes all 173 Marines were crammed into the crew’s mess.

“Marines, I’m sorry we can’t do this under more ceremonial conditions,” Conorado said once everyone was settled. “But I’m sure you’ll forgive me for that oversight.” He looked at the jammed room and at the tiny open space in front of him and shook his head. “We’re about to have a demonstration that Marines really can do anything, anyplace, at any time. As I call out your name, front and center.”

He called out six names from first platoon. The first couple of men looked surprised, then everybody caught on to what was happening and they all became excited, especially the men whose names were being called. Five men were called from second platoon. Then it was third platoon’s turn.

“Sergeant Eagle’s Cry, Sergeant Kelly, Corporal Ratliff, Corporal Saleski,” four more names, and the last was “Lance Corporal Chan,” followed by three names from the assault platoon and five from the transportation detachment.

The twenty men whose names were called scrambled, crawled, and climbed from wherever they were to stand at attention in a tight formation in front of the captain. Other Marines howled at them and took good-natured swings as they bumped into and stepped on people in their rush to get to the front of the room. In hardly more time than it took Conorado to call out the names, they were at attention in front of him.

Captain Conorado held up the sheaf of orders and began reading from the top page. “ ‘Know ye all men, that placing special trust and confidence . . .’ ” He read from the Marine promotion warrant, a text that hadn’t changed its wording in centuries. All twenty men standing in front of him had been holding positions higher than their ranks. Each one was being promoted to the rank the table of organization specified for his position.

Conorado turned his head to the commander of the transportation detachment. “Lieutenant Drabek, do your honors, sir.”

“Aye aye. With pleasure, sir.” The transportation commander accepted the promotion warrants for his men from Conorado, and he and his top NCO, the company’s gunnery sergeant, handed each of their five newly promoted men his promotion warrant and pinned the new rank insignia on his collar.

When they finished, Conorado said, “First Sergeant Myer.” “Aye aye, sir.” Myer and the captain stepped to the first man in line.

“Sergeant Eagle’s Cry, congratulations,” Conorado said, shaking his hand and giving him the warrant.

“Thank you, sir,” Eagle’s Cry said, barely containing his grin.

Myer pulled a pair of sergeant’s chevrons out of a pocket and handed one to Conorado. Together, they removed the corporal’s stripes from Eagle’s Cry’s collars and pinned on the new insignia.

When Conorado stepped on to Kelly, who was the next man in line, Myer leaned close to whisper to Eagle’s Cry, “I’ll see you later, when there aren’t any officers around.”

Eagle’s Cry grimaced and said, “Not if I see you first, Top.”

Myer chuckled and moved to Kelly.

When a Marine was promoted, for a day or two every Marine of equal or greater rank got to hit him on the shoulder, once for each stripe of his new rank. So, every newly promoted enlisted Marine had sore arms for a while. No one was allowed to hit hard enough to cause injury. But if that should happen, the Marines had another custom that dealt with anyone who hit too hard.

Once the newly promoted Marines had been congratulated by their commanders, received their warrants, and were wearing their new stripes, Captain Conorado had one more piece of business for everybody before planetfall.

“I’m sure First Sergeant Myer told you the rumor that at least some of the warring factions on Elneal have energy weapons. I want to emphasize the fact that it is only a rumor, there is no verification. All the fighting, to our knowledge, has been done with projectile weapons and chemical reaction explosives. Our shields give us significant protection from blasters and other energy weapons, but as far as a flying piece of metal is concerned, a shield is just another piece of air. A shield does absolutely nothing to stop, deflect, or slow down a bullet or chunk of shrapnel. So we’ll be wearing body armor in the event that someone down there hasn’t gotten the word and wants to tangle with us. Unfortunately, our orders came so suddenly and we had so little time to prepare before embarking that battalion was only able to pack enough body armor in our landing load for a reinforced platoon.

“Th—make that
first
platoon, and a section from the assault platoon, will be issued the armor and go planetside on the first wave.” He’d wanted to send third platoon, but with something wrong between Bass and Baccacio, he decided not to send them into a touchy situation until the problem was cleared up. “Top Myer and I will be with the first wave. Lieutenant Humphrey and Gunny Thatcher will bring down the rest of the company once we’ve secured the landing zone. I’m sorry there isn’t enough armor for anyone in transportation to have any but, at least at first, you’ll be inside your vehicles most of the time and that’ll give you some protection from any projectiles that might come our way.

“In case anybody’s wondering, the Top and I don’t get armor either. Ensign Kracar, Staff Sergeant DaCosta, you will issue the armor to your platoon and the assault section in reverse order of rank. If there’s not enough to go around, and I’m not sure there is, you go as bare as I do

“Are there any questions?”

“Sir, when do the rest of the men get armor?” Gunny Thatcher asked. He knew the answer, but he knew the men didn’t and were probably wondering.

“Good question, Gunny. Sorry, I should have said this without prompting. The rest of our load, including enough body armor for everybody, will arrive with the advance command unit, which should be in about three days, depending on where they come out of hyperspace.”

He looked around the room. “Anything else?” There were no other questions. “All right then, when you’re dismissed, squad leaders, see to it that your men are ready for planetfall. Officers and staff NCOs to the ward room.” He gave the Marines of his reinforced company a last look, then turned and left through the galley.

“Com-PANY!” Myer shouted, then bit his tongue. No matter how much he wanted to call the company to attention, there wasn’t enough room in the crew’s mess.

After what felt like an interminable wait, a voice boomed over the ship’s intercom system, “Commander, Landing Force, prepare the landing force for landing.”

Everyone, even those slated to land later, checked their gear to make sure everything was ready. The platoon sergeant of first platoon and the section chief of the assault section joining first platoon in the first wave issued their squad leaders the batteries for their squads’ weapons. Out of deference to Commander Kahunii’s concerns, the squad leaders wouldn’t issue the batteries to their men until they were aboard the Dragons, where the men would load their weapons before launch—the ride to planetside would be too rough for them to be able to load before the Dragons stopped in New Obbia. The men of the first wave lined up and, on order, made their way quickly to the cargo hold the Essays were attached to.

Moments later a whoosh was heard throughout the ship as the Essays were launched. An hour later a ship’s mate led the rest of the company to the hold, where they boarded the Dragons already aboard the Essays, which had returned for the second wave. Twenty minutes later second and third platoons surged out of the Dragons into the main square of New Obbia, the capital city of Elneal, and fell into the parade-ground formation their NCOs called for.

New Obbia wasn’t much as cities went. It was even less as a planetary capital. The great majority of its million inhabitants were about equally divided between broken-spirited refugees from the wilderness and similarly dispirited immigrants who wished nothing more for themselves than passage off that forsaken world. The city reflected its inhabitants. Few buildings rose more than two stones, and nearly all looked in need of repair—certainly in need of painting and cleaning. The rubble that littered the streets wasn’t the leavings of people who had so much they could afford to waste it; it was the detritus of a decaying infrastructure. There was little in the way of goods in the windows of the shops, the clothing of most of the people in evidence was the gray of too many washings, and the people wearing those garments seemed just as gray.

Only the managers of Consolidated Enterprises and the higher reaches of government bureaucrats looked less worn than their city. But they never walked its streets; they sped past in limousines with darkened windows on their way from well-appointed modem office buildings to luxurious living quarters. When visiting the mines, they flew; when they relaxed, they flew to one of the well-guarded resort spas established for their exclusive use in the uninhabited regions of the planet.