The Guns of Two-Space (15 page)

"My Lost Youth"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Captain, they cry, the fight is done,
"They bid you send your sword."
And he answered, "Grapple her stern and bow,
"They have asked for steel they shall have it now;
"Out cutlasses and board!"
They cleared the cruiser end to end
From conning-tower to hold.
They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet;
They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,
As it was in the days of old.
...On a cruiser won from an ancient foe,
As it was in the days of long ago,
And as it still shall be!

"Ballad of the Clampherdown"
Rudyard Kipling.

The
Fang
s all waited, each in his own way, for the two Ships to close.

The upper and lower bow guns mercilessly battered the enemy with huge shotgun blasts of grapeshot. In the upper bow Melville crouched with his boarding party. On the upper quarterdeck Lt. Fielder had the conn. In the lower bow, Broadax waited with her marines, twirling her ax and puffing her cigar contentedly. They tried not to think about the horrors that awaited them, but everyone who could do so had changed into clean clothing to help prevent infecting wounds.

Trailing behind the
Fang
, staying where the enemy couldn't see them, the two cutters from the lower deck followed closely. Their uppersides were packed to the gunwales with handpicked sailors, each one armed to the teeth. One of the Ships' two jollyboats also rode beside them.

These two miniature, one-masted, two-space Ships were named
White-socks
and
Fatty Lumpkin
. Along with
Sharp-ears
and
Wise-nose
, the two cutters stored on the upperside, the cutters were a remnant of their dear, beloved
Kestrel
, the mortally wounded Ship who had died to help them capture the
Fang
.

Once the cutters were separated from the
Fang
they took on an intelligence of their own, and the two young commanders could feel the child-like eagerness radiating from their boats. Lt. Archer was in the upper bow of
White-socks
and his friend, Lt. Crater, in
Fatty Lumpkin
. The two young lieutenants looked across at each other and grinned. The lowerside jollyboat, which had come with the
Fang
and had been named
Rip
, carried old Hans and Ulrich in it, along with a small, crack crew of sailors.

"I wanted to be a marine but I couldn't pass the physical. I couldn't get my head in the jar," said Lt. Fielder to Asquith.

The little earthling was still crouched in malodorous misery and fear on the upper quarterdeck. A sporadic spray of Guldur small-arms fire was keeping his head down. Fielder stood beside him at the rail, keeping a watchful eye on the tactical situation and maintaining a generally one-sided conversation with Asquith. In the midst of his own fear and anxiety, Fielder continued to draw comfort from the earthworm's abject terror.

Their conversation had turned to the subject of marines, and Fielder was waxing eloquent upon one of his favorite topics. "You have to think of marines as big, dumb dogs. You even have to talk to them like dogs. 'Hey, boy! How ya doing! You wanta play? Huh? Huh? Fetch, boy, fetch! Go get the Ship! Get the Ship! Come on, boy! You can do it!'"

"Except'n fer Dwakins," added the quartermaster at the wheel, happily contributing his two bits to a popular subject. "I do believe 'e's too dumb ta git the ideer."

"I do believe you're right," said Fielder with a nod. "In Dwakins' case you just have to level with him. I can hear Broadax right about now. I've heard it a hundred times: 'Dwakins, yer too dumb to live!'" he said, in a fair imitation of Lt. Broadax's gravelly voice, causing the quarterdeck crew to break into laughter. "'Jist try ta keep up with the other doggies, an' do what they do. If ye die first, we're splitting up yer gear!'"

The baffled earthling shook his head in confusion, disgust and dismay. These people truly were insane. Of that there could be no doubt. But then a line occurred to him, and he found it comforting to say, "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground."

"Ha!" said Fielder in surprise. "Behold the earthling. Wonder of the ages. Prick him and he bleeds Shakespeare. That's
The Tempest
, I believe?"

"Yes," replied Asquith, finding that he relished the intellectual distraction. "There's been nothing else to do here except read. It's been kind of lonely, so, 'My Library, was dukedom enough.'"

"Well then," said Fielder, gesturing expansively at the Ship, "what do you think of our little universe? The Bard says, 'Here is everything advantageous to life.'"

"'True; save means to live,'" replied Asquith on cue.

"'Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,'" replied Fielder with a sincere grin and a shake of his head. "As for me...

"My only books
Were woman's looks—
And folly's all they've taught me."
 

Then, tentatively, Asquith reached up his hand to Fielder. "Here's my hand." His gesture of friendship was under the cover of the quoting game they were playing, but it was nonetheless heartfelt, as he opened himself up to be snubbed by the sardonic first officer.

But Fielder replied in kind, and on cue, with apparent sincerity and kindness, as he reached down his hand, "'And mine, with my heart in 't.'"

Fielder and Asquith remained in companionable silence as the battle raged about them, the first officer gripping the railing and standing ramrod straight in spite of his fears, the earthling still nestled in his corner. Then the enemy added injury to all the insult that had been heaped on poor Asquith's plate. The Guldur Ship managed to put their upperside bow gun back into battery and sent one double-shotted cannon blast into the
Fang
's quarterdeck before they were hammered by counterfire from the
Fang
. One of the Guldur cannonballs hit the mizzenmast and sent a shower of wood splinters amongst the quarterdeck crew.

"Damn," said Fielder sadly, looking down at the wounded and unconscious earthling. "This has been a real 'bad hair day' for you my friend. Now sleep, for,

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

* * *
 

"Dwakins, ye doorknob, yer too damned dumb ta live!" roared Broadax. "Jist shoot when I tell ye to, an' stab the first Guldur ye see. Then try ta keep up with the udders, and do wat they do. If ye die first, we're splitting up yer gear."

"Uh, okay, sir. Er, mah-yam," Dwakins replied. "Ah guess Ah won't be needin' it then." His baby monkey cringed and managed to mirror Dwakins confused helplessness.

Dwakins did have a very thick crust on his pudding. Life had been so much simpler when he was an apprentice mole-catcher back on his home world, Fforde, but his boss had told him he should "go join da damned marines an' see da galaxy."

So he
was
thick, but he was also new and he had to learn everything the hard way in the midst of a veteran crew. In this case his sin was a continued failure to keep his loaded musket and its razor-sharp bayonet pointed away from his comrades. With an "Eek!" of outrage, Lance Corporal Jarvis' monkey had barely managed to deflect Dwakins' bayonet as it was about to slice open the back of Jarvis's head.

There was just too much going on, and Dwakins kept getting distracted. In exasperation Broadax had put the young private in the very front of the formation, where he was less likely to shoot or stab one of his comrades in the back. However, he was also in the most perilous position, with the least combat experience and survival skills, so he was very likely to die. Bringing a certain sad truth to Broadax's claim that he was too dumb to live.

The job of the combat rifleman truly was one of the most mentally challenging tasks anyone could ever face. The fluid, ever-changing realm of combat, the variety of weapons and circumstances, and the unforgiving nature of the environment, all meant that putting stupid men in the infantry was tantamount to murder.

In the twentieth century one U.S. Secretary of Defense had ordered that 100,000 low-IQ individuals be drafted into the U.S. Army. These were popularly known as "MacNamara's 100,000," named after the politician and military dilettante who had made that decision.

These draftees—also known as "MacNamara's Morons"—would probably have been rejected even at the height of World War II due to their scores on military entrance tests. The politician who made this decision declared that the reason these men had performed so poorly on their entrance exams was because they had been socially deprived, and the military was going to be used as an instrument of social mobility for all these poor, misunderstood individuals.

Instead, the military became the death of many of them, because at that time the U.S. was participating in a nasty little war in Southeast Asia. In combat these "socially deprived" draftees died at a rate four times greater than soldiers in the top two intelligence brackets. And you have to ask yourself, how many of their comrades did they manage to kill or get killed along the way?

Combat is a nasty, brutish, unforgiving realm that has no mercy for the physically or mentally inferior. It is the ultimate Darwinian sieve: it filters out all but the deadly, intelligent, and lucky. And Lt. Broadax knew that as she put poor Dwakins in the front line.
But, what the hell,
thought Broadax.
He knew the job wus dangerous when 'e took it. Besides, maybe the poor dumb son-of-a-bitch'll be lucky enough to live long enough to git deadly!
 

Broadax positioned Lance Corporal Jarvis to Dwakins' left. Then with a disgusted shake of her head she looked at the broad-shouldered veteran of past battles and said, "Do yer best ta keep this poor bastard alive, Jarvis."

Jarvis looked like he was already overwhelmed with his own concerns, thankyewverymuch, but he said, "Yes, ma'am," and looked across the bows with a nod and a gulp.

"So, Dwakins," Jarvis said, patting the private on the shoulder reassuringly. "Are you ready?"

"Um, yah, Corp'ral," replied the terrified private in a confused attempt at bravado. "We's gonna wreckdum, right?"

"You know," Jarvis muttered to his monkey, "I think I'm actually dumber than Dwakins. He doesn't know any better, but I
reenlisted
for this! When I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is beat up my high school guidance counselor."

"Eep!" replied his monkey.

As the two Ships approached, Fielder expertly reduced sail so that they came quickly into contact, the
Fang
's redside bow up against the enemy's redside bow, as gentle as a kiss.
 

At that moment, as the two sentient Ships gently scraped together, there was an exchange of Moss. Along with the Moss came a transfer, almost an invasion of ideas, concepts, and history surging from
Fang
into the enemy Ship.
 

Fang
had made similar contact with the venerable old Westerness Ship
Kestrel
during the boarding operation that led to the
Fang
's capture and
Kestrel's
death. During that contact
Fang
had learned of an ancient Ship that loved its crew with a deep and abiding affection, built over centuries of contact and exploration. During that battle
Kestrel
willingly gave her life for her crew, taking most of the Guldur boarding party down with her, and in doing so she taught the young
Fang
about love, affection, sacrifice, partnership, and trust.
 

A sliver of the
Kestrel's
shattered Keel had been lovingly wedged in beside the
Fang
's Keel. The exchange of information and cells between these two alien life-forms was a complex concept that could only be partly understood. It would be truthful to say that
Kestrel
lived on in
Fang
. It would also be correct to say that
Kestrel
had invaded, conquered, and even replaced the young, unformed personality of
Fang
. Or you could say that the two Ships now lived in symbiosis, two souls melding into one.
 

Whatever it was that had happened to
Fang
was now happening to the enemy Ship.
Fang
told of a new race that did not abuse or torture its own. A new relationship based on trust and love, not fear and hate.
 

Fang
told of these things, via a communication system that could not lie, to an entity that could not doubt.
Fang
spoke of these things and the enemy Ship listened, with awe and wonder.
 

Melville and Boye crouched with the boarding party in the upperside bow as the Ships began to touch. Once again he felt a moment of great visual clarity. It was as if he were an observer in an art gallery looking at a classic masterpiece full of stunning, detailed color and breathtaking beauty. He held his sword out in front of him and watched the brilliant stars run along the blade like molten gemstones.

It was a brief instant of stillness and quiet, a moment of bated breath. Melville's knack for poetry brought a verse to mind.

There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath
For a time.
 

If the contact between the Ships was gentle, the surge of troops who flooded over the railing was not. As they closed to within a few feet Melville gave the command for his boarding party to, "Fire!" just as the bow gun gave one last, 24-pound shotgun blast of grapeshot at point-blank range. <>
"Cha-DOOM!!"
<> and the deck planks bucked beneath their feet, as if to launch them into battle.

Melville was sickened as he briefly glimpsed Guldur defenders fall screaming into the inexorably closing gap between the two hulls, to be ground into a tormented mass of offal, fur, and broken weapons.