Retief and the Rascals (29 page)

            "Do hurry along and attend to that,
Jim," Magnan encouraged. He offered Pokey a frail smile.
"So
high-spirited,
he murmured indulgently.

            "Refurbishing
Ruppy's
hull will cost
the corps a couple million guck, minimum!" Pokey barked. "There goes
the fun-pit I'd slipped into my '89 Public Works Program! You should have read
my Justification, Ben," Pokey enthused. "It was a masterpiece of
subtle misdirection. Those silly chaps on the MCP review board were probably
weeping by the time they finished reading it. Only half a million guck, too.
But that's out of the question now. I must struggle along with the paltry
quarter-million-guck facility already in place. Outrageous!" Pokey used a
VIP-sized hanky to dab at his eyes. "Now back to business!

            "Are you still here?" he demanded of
Retief. "I thought I told you—"

            "He was just going, P—sir," Magnan
stammered. "Weren't you, Jim?"

            "First," Retief stated firmly. "I
need a document giving me full powers aboard this vessel."

            "Preposterous!" Pokey yelled.
"Why, that would mean, in effect, turning over command to you—right over
Captain Muldoon's head too! It won't do! Magnan!" The irate inspector
turned on the shocked FSO-2. "See to this! Give him some sort of paper,
short of resigning my commission! And keep Typhoon happy! Hurry up! The
bombardment is growing more intense!"

            " 'Full powers'," Retief repeated.
"Otherwise I couldn't order a mess-boy to empty an ashtray."

        "Why in the world
would you want to bother with ashtrays at a time like this?" Pokey
thundered. He ripped open a drawer, pulled out a stack of elaborately embossed
forms, entered
Retief
and
Full Powers
in the appropriate spaces
on one, embossed a seal and handed it over.

            "Jim," Magnan quavered. "You
will
be prompt, I hope, and careful?"

            "My idea exactly," Retief returned
cheerfully. He left the cabin, passed through empty passages, rode the lift
down to Power Deck, and collared a burly rating who was buckling on a sidearm.

            "You won't need that, Chief," Retief
told him, tossing the weapon into the recycler. "All in fun, you know. Our
job is to show a little muscle and convince them it's time to pack up their
toys and go home."

            "I seen Buck Promo's outlaw outfit in
there," the noncom replied. "Neat, huh? '
Out
law
out
fit.'
But he ain't the boy to take no orders from a CPO."

            "I'll take care of that part," Retief
said easily.
"Just
get your PE up to a quarter-gen and I'll take it
from
there."

           
"A quarter-gen!" the space'n
repeated. "Jeez! That's what the Manual calls for 'Stand By for Class Four
Action'! Cap Muldoon—"

        "The captain is
indisposed," Retief mentioned.

            "Yeah, I heard him," Muldoon's voice
barked from the squawk-box. "Now hear this! This here's the captain, you
deck-apes! I got a idea we're in a ambush, you can bet your left hind gaboochie
on it!"

            "Keep alert," Retief reminded the
chief, and went on to Secondary Control.

            The
duty
NCOIC was sitting at a desk,
sneaking a lavender Groaci dope-stick and gazing mournfully at his desk
console. He looked up as Retief entered, dispensed with the butt and got to his
feet. His name-plate read S
. BLATSKI
—a
relative, apparently, of the sloppy space'n on the utility deck.

        "Don't allow no
civilians on Secondary," he grated.

            "Right!" Retief agreed. "Glad to
see you're doing a job, Blatski. I'm just checking to make sure everything's in
order here."

            "Sure is, sir!" Blatski gobbled.
"All loads homed and locked and all circuits deader'n a Floorian mud-eater
in air! I been with
Ruppy
since she was launched. Was in the scrap off
Coldcock where we done the rebels brown; and I taken part in that there
invasion of Goblinrock, too. She never lost a rumble, and now some civilian—no
offense—gives orders for her to go into action with her board dead! It ain't
right! I gotta good mind—there! Another hit astern! Good thing them Groaci
don't know how to handle hard stuff or she'd be holed by now. All they'd have
to do is pour concentrated Class-two fire into the weak spot aft of the fore
lazaret."

            "Easy, Blatski," Retief urged.
"It's not just the Groaci; in fact Admiral Foof is only doing a job of
ceremonial escorting.
All
these fellows are lobbing shots at this
tub."

            "What for?" Blatski demanded.
"We're—well, we're on this here peacekeeping mission and all. Ain't hardly
fired a shot in anger at nobody! Can't. She's decommissioned! Looky here."
The aggrieved Blatski led the way to a massive yellow-painted panel secured by
a loop of wire with a deeply embossed plaster seal. "Closed off
tight," he carped. "If I could get at them stern battery controls,
I'd show them hillbillies it ain't a good idea to fire on
Ruppy,
even in
fun!"

       "What do you mean
'closed up right'?" Retief asked.

            "Lookit this here," Blatski grumbled,
fingering the garish orange-colored seal. "Says, 'Use of this installation
interdicted by order of the Council. Paragraph 12-2 applies.' Jeez! That's
where it says anybody messes with it gets a DH and two hunrit years on Judson's
Hell. Meaning you get buried there." Blatski, impressed, stepped well back
from the forbidden panel.

            "Funny fellows, those paper-pushers back at
Sector," Retief remarked. "They think a piece of paper and a blob of
plastic are as effective as a fleet of heavy battle-wagons."

            "Take that to put
Ruppy
out o'
action," Blatski agreed. "But—" He uttered a strangled cry as
Retief's hand went to the seal and ripped it away. An adjacent red glare-strip
lit up, blinking
emergency.

           
"Chief,"
Retief addressed the astounded gunner. "Lay a trajectory through that
madhouse out there that will give all of 'em a good look at a Terry dreadnought
with her battle-board lit up."

            "Sure would love to," Blatski replied
doubtfully. "But Cap Muldoon—"

            "The captain is having French fits at the
moment," Retief told firm. "I'm handling the con right now."

            He showed the document signed by Snail to the
non-com, who at once snapped-to. "Permission to man the fire control box,
sir," he said eagerly.

        Retief said, "Do
it."

            Magnan came rushing in at that moment.
"There you are!" he cried. "Jim! See here—I've been looking all
over for you, but... things are chaotic aboard this vessel!" he declared.
"It's disgraceful. And that Captain Muldoon! I do declare he's been
drinking! Oh, as you were, Space'n!" he addressed Blatski, having just
noticed the big fellow busy at the forbidden panel. A low-pitched rumble caused
the deck plates to vibrate.

            "Jim!" he yelped. "If it weren't
so ridiculous, I'd think that was the coil start-up! You know how the
accelerator rumbles as it bleeds off torque!" He grabbed for support as
the deck tilted underfoot. Help! Jim! That drunken captain is lifting off with
me—us, that is—still aboard! And there's a battle raging—"

            "Gorm Festival, you mean," Retief
commented. "Let's strap in." He led the way to the shock-mounted
bench provided for redundant personnel during maneuvers.

            S. Blatski joined them. "Old Chief Hoon in
Power is right on the ball, I gotta give him that," he grunted. "Had
the pre-coil hot and ready to go. Seems like the paper that desk-johnny stuck
in it back at Depot musta fell off someways. I got a good course punched in,
Mr. Retief. Oh, hi, sir," he said to Magnan, and offered a callused hand.
"I'm Gunner Stan Blatski. Glad you boys changed yer minds."

            "To be sure," Magnan murmured.
"So glad to be here, Mr. Blatski. But just what's happening? I understood
..."

            "Well, I gotta get set to show them locals
boys where the power's at," the gunner replied. "We're just taking up
a position where I can command all the excape trajecks, and then I guess Mister
Retief here has got a few words to say to them rebels, or dacoits, or
guerrillas, or whatever you wanta call 'em. Buck Promo, too. He messed up bad;
he's busted all the regs they got, and picked the wrong side, too. Par' me, I
gotta have a word with Hoon. He's only a Hoogan, got to give him his orders
kind of in detail, if you know what I mean." He released his shock frame,
rose hurriedly and went to the action board and began poking keys and yelling,
"Breaker for Hoon!"

            "Jim," Magnan addressed his colleague
in a confidential tone. "I fear the chief may interpret your remarks as
authorizing him to take offensive action directed against the revelers!"

            "Don't start believing your own alibis,
sir," Retief suggested. "It's only a matter of time before one of
those boys realizes he only has to concentrate fire on the fore ballast bay,
where the hull armor's broached for the cable conduit. They'll crack her wide
open. We have to
do
something, fast!"

            "Well, if you really think ..." Magnan
offered, edging away as if to disassociate himself from such unruliness in the
eye of an omniscient observer.

            Retief went to the locator panel and studied the
disposition of the swarming vessels through which
Corruptible
was now
moving ponderously. All units had prudently drawn back, with the exception of
Promo's little detachment of Navy sideboats and tenders.

            "Better shave about an inch off the prow of
that tanker," Retief told Blatski. "Just a graze, now. Can you do
it?"

            "Me? Gunner Blatski?" the super
exclaimed as if amazed at the query. "Look, pal, I don't know nothing
about the calculus, not even why they say 'the', instead of just
'calculus'," he declared, "but when it comes to laying down the fire,
boss, I does
that
thing!" He went to work, deftly spinning dials
with his left hand, reading LEDs, correcting, reading again, while his right
hand played the keys of the fire control board like a Sunday School organist
trying out with a Rocky Mountain combo.

            Retief stood aside and watched the DV panel.
Magnan fluttered like an anxious mother bird whose nest is being disturbed. At
last, Blatski turned to Retief and said, "Fire in the tube, sir!"

            Retief responded by playing a tune of his own on
the keyboard. Blatski uttered a grunt. "Geeze, I didn't know you was a
gunnery officer, sir," he blurted. "Academy, too, I guess: You fined
that down to a RCH. Closer'n I woulda done. Let's just hope—!" He darted
to the target observation screen to watch as a burst of false-color flared at
the prow of the zillion-tonner Retief had designated.

            Retief, meanwhile, had activated the needle-beam
talker and focused it amidships on the tanker. "Heave to. The officer in
command will report to me at once, via fat beam."

            "Uh," came the hesitant reply. There
was a penetrating
zing!
ing in the background. "I can't hear good,
the voice went on. "That damn graze got my whole command ringing like a
cracked bell! Wait a minute, I got to—"

            "Pull that bladder out of formation, and
fall it in on my starboard bow," Retief ordered. "The next one will
be a little closer." Blatski started to protest, but thought better of it
and hastened to issue the appropriate order.

            "Hey!" Powerful Pete's voice cut
through the clutter. "That's you, ain't it, Retief, conning old
Ruppy?
What's
up? My boys are getting spooked: looks like yer taking up the Hot Spot, got
everybody under yer guns and vice versa!"

            "You got that right, Pete," Retief
confirmed. "I have to make it clear to all hands that I'm not making
suggestions when I tell them to fall back and revert to Status White."

            " 'White'?" Pete echoed in a horrified
tone. "That means go to standby power, close down the battle circuitry, open
all screens and stand by!"

            "Right again, Pete. I'm counting on you and
your command to set a good example. Now!"

            "I ain't got what you'd call a command,
except for old
Cockroach III
here, o' course," Pete protested.
"The Cluster Defense Force is a voluntary association of independent
ship-owners! I can't
order
these boys!"

        "Try it,"
Retief suggested.

            "Well ..." Pete's voice hesitated.
"Dirty Bimbo," he resumed, "you can pull back ten miles and go
dead in space."

            At once, a shabby, partly black-painted garbage
scow still baring the faintly visible legend
"New York Sanitation
Dept."
fell out of formation and streaked for deep space.

            "Worked pretty good," Pete commented.
"Now, Nasty Jack! You do like old Bimbo, and do it snappy!" Pete
proceeded to contact Yang, Ma Cutthroat, Princess Sally, Boss Nandy,
Tinkerbell, and a few other of his most trusted captains, then declaimed a
general order to the rest of the CDF, which responded promptly.