Starfist: FlashFire (7 page)

picked it up and listened intently. His face betrayed no emotion but he bit the inside of his mouth so hard it drew blood. He hung up without saying a word. “Good news, I hope?”

“Good news for someone,” Lyons replied. “Driver, back to the convention hall.” Lyons caught Summers just as he was leaving the hall. “Preston, does that offer of command still stand?” he demanded.

Summers paused and regarded Lyons speculatively. “Yeah. Why this sudden change of heart, Gen’rel?”

Lyons thrust his face into Summers’s. “You want Ragnarok? Then I’ll lead you there.” “Wall, I always liked trips with dramatic endings, Gen’rel,” Summers answered coolly. “Is that the only reason?” Summers couldn’t help noticing a small drop of blood staining one corner of General Lyons’s lip. His eyes were drawn to it for some reason.

“My son is dead,” Lyons answered.

CHAPTER SIX

“IG?” Lance Corporal Izzy Godenov shouted. “Why do we have to stand an Inspector General’s inspection? Don’t we have to be ready to go out at a moment’s notice to fight the Skinks? How can we do that if we’re wasting time on an IG?”

Sergeant Lupo “Rabbit” Ratliff, first squad leader, appeared in the doorway of his third fire team’s room. “I heard that, Lance Corporal,” he snarled. It was the end of Fifth Day’s pre-IG preparations and the Marines were anxiously waiting for liberty call, when they’d be free until eight hours on First Day. “Look at this room,” he said; the room was a mess with essential personal items spread about. “Just how long do you think it would take you to put all your shit in order, stow your personal belongings in the company supply room, and get whatever you’re taking on a deployment ready to hump?” He stepped into the room and loomed over the seated Godenov. “It’d take so long you’d miss the goddamn Essay to orbit, that’s how long!”

“I-I’d be ready in t-time,” Godenov stammered.

Ratliff ignored Godenov’s protest. “When you stand the IG, your personal shit will already be stowed away and the rest of your gear will be in such condition that you can have it all packed and on your back in less than ten minutes. That’s not a waste of time!” He suddenly bent over and pulled Godenov’s cargo belt out of his open locker box.

“What’s this?” the squad leader asked, closely inspecting the belt. “It’s frayed. Lance Corporal, do you intend to deploy with your gear on a cargo belt so frayed it will break and you lose something important that might save your life and the lives of other Marines? Well?”

“Ah, Sergeant, ah . . .”

“You won’t have a frayed cargo belt when the IG comes through, Godenov. You
will
go to the supply room and have Sergeant Souavi replace this defective belt. Now.”

“LIBERTY CALL, LIBERTY CALL, LIBERTY CALL!” Staff Sergeant Hyakowa bellowed in the squadbay corridor. “Base liberty only!” The squadbay reverberated with the raucous cries and clatter of Marines anxious to get out of the barracks, even if they couldn’t leave base.

With Ratliff no longer looming over him, Godenov jumped to his feet and made final adjustments to his liberty clothes before joining everybody else.

“Not so fast, Izzy,” Ratliff barked. He slammed the cargo belt into Godenov’s chest. “You don’t leave on liberty until you see Sergeant Souavi and replace this belt.”

“But, Sergeant Ratliff, liberty call’s been sounded, he’s probably already gone.”

“Maybe not; you had best get down there and find out if you want to go on liberty this weekend. And clean up this shithole when you get back!”

“Aye aye, Sergeant!” Clutching the cargo belt, Godenov twisted past Ratliff and bolted through the door.

“And you make sure he’s got that cargo belt replaced and this room is shipshape before he goes on liberty,” Ratliff added to Corporal Dean. He turned and stalked out of the room. His footsteps thudded loudly in the corridor as he headed for the squad leaders’ quarters.

There was a moment’s silence in the room before PFC Quick softly asked, “You think he’s pissed off about having to stand an IG?”

“I think he’s pissed off about having to stand an IG,” Dean said, then added, “And I believe you better get out of here before he comes back with a reason to keep
you
from getting out of the barracks.”

Godenov and Dean weren’t the only members of first squad Sergeant Ratliff found cause to keep in the barracks. Nor was he the only squad leader who took out his displeasure about the pending Inspector General inspection on his men. Fully a third of the platoon was effectively confined to the barracks— everybody who wasn’t fast enough to get out of the barracks in the first couple of minutes after Staff Sergeant Hyakowa sounded liberty call was stuck. The three squad leaders also stayed in, taking the rare opportunity to prepare their own gear for the IG.

At 17 hours, Sergeant Kelly stepped into the quiet corridor and called out, “Third herd, fall in outside the barracks. NOW!” He stalked to the stairway and out back of the barracks. In a minute or so, a dozen members of the platoon were lined up in front of him.

“Chow call,” Kelly snarled. “Form in two ranks. Right FACE! Fo-art HARCH!” He marched them to the chow hall, and marched them back when they finished eating.

On their return, the squad leaders saw to it that their Marines were working for the coming First Day’s round in the pre-IG inspection cycle. Over the course of the weekend, most of the other Marines of third platoon filtered back in and were also put to work getting ready for the inspection.

“We aced it!” Lance Corporal “Wolfman” MacIlargie crowed. He collapsed back onto his rack, arms flung out to the sides, his face wreathed in a happy, self-satisfied grin.

Corporal Rachman Claypoole, MacIlargie’s fire team leader, straightened up from stowing the contents of his shaving kit back into their normal place in his locker and turned an annoyed look on MacIlargie.

“We didn’t ‘ace’ nothing,” Claypoole snarled. “That was just the platoon commander’s inspection.” One long stride brought him into MacIlargie’s part of the three-man room where the two of them lived with “Hammer” Schultz, the most experienced man in the fire team. He jerked a half-open drawer in MacIlargie’s chest and poked a finger at it. His voice rose. “Didn’t you hear the boss? Your skivvies are ten millimeters out of alignment! Tomorrow, the skipper will point out the same infraction in his inspection. Then there’s the battalion inspection. Then the brigadier’s inspection. If your skivvies aren’t straightened out by the time the IG gets here, you’ll flunk the inspection so bad you’ll get busted back down to private!”

Claypoole reached full roar. “And I’m your fire team leader, so it’ll be my responsibility.” He jammed his fists into his hips and leaned over MacIlargie. “I’ll be lucky if I only get busted to Lance Corporal!”

MacIlargie’s grin vanished at Claypoole’s first snarl. His posture wilted as his fire team leader’s voice rose. By the time Claypoole reached full roar MacIlargie was drawing his limbs in and beginning to curl into a protective ball. He cast an anguished, silent appeal for help toward Schultz.

Schultz, who
had
aced the inspection, finished restowing his gear and sat at his miniscule desk, where he turned on his reader and opened it to the page he’d left off in Phonton’s
Confederation Marines in the Second Silvasian War
. Without lifting his eyes from the screen, he growled, “You flunked, Wolfman.”

MacIlargie slid onto his side and pulled his arms and legs in. “But . . .” he said weakly.

“No buts!” Claypoole snapped. “You’ll get your shit together before the Skipper’s inspection tomorrow and ace that inspection, or I’m going to know the reason why.”

Before MacIlargie could say anything else, Staff Sergeant Hyakowa’s voice boomed out in the squadbay corridor, “Base-liberty call for everyone who passed inspection. And the gods help any swinging dick in this platoon who doesn’t pass tomorrow.”

MacIlargie bolted to his feet and began stripping off his garrison utilities, to change into his liberty clothes.

“Not so fast, Wolfman,” Claypoole shouted. “You flunked, you don’t get liberty.”

“What?” MacIlargie squawked. “But . . .”

“I said, ‘no buts’!” Claypoole roared, jamming his face close to MacIlargie’s. “You’ve got to get ready for tomorrow!”

“But . . .”

Claypoole cut him off with a raised hand and turned to Schultz. “Hammer, you pulling liberty tonight?”

Schultz didn’t look away from his reading, his head shake was so slight it was almost imperceptible.

“I’m taking base liberty; get some chow, take in a flik,” Claypoole said. “Do me a favor? Keep an eye on the problem child for me while I’m gone.”

Schultz slowly turned his head to look blandly at MacIlargie for a moment before his voice rumbled from somewhere deep in his chest, “I hate babysitting.” He turned back to his reader.

MacIlargie’s eyes and mouth formed a triangle of “O”s as he stared at Schultz. “No-o-o,” he mewed, then jerked toward Claypoole. “You can’t do that to me!” he pleaded. “Don’t leave me here with Schultz. Not with the Hammer in charge.”

Claypoole smiled at him sweetly. “Hammer’s not in charge,” he said in a jaunty tone. “He’s a professional lance corporal, he’s never in command of anyone.”

Schultz grunted, Claypoole decided to accept the noise as agreement with his statement—he was probably right.

“You can leave this room only to go to the head, or to go to chow,” Claypoole told MacIlargie as he began to change into his liberty uniform. “You better pass tomorrow.”

Corporal Joe Dean poked his head into the room just then. “Rock, I’m taking base liberty tonight. Want to grab some chow? Hammer, Wolfman,” he added, politely acknowledging the two junior men.

“I’ll be with you as soon as I finish changing.”

“Right. I’ll see who wants to join us,” Dean said. He barely glanced at Schultz, but paused to give MacIlargie a speculative once-over before leaving.

Claypoole followed a minute later with, “See you before taps,” to Schultz and MacIlargie.

Schultz merely grunted. MacIlargie looked pained.

An hour later, Schultz abruptly stood and stretched. “Chow,” he announced, and crooked a finger at MacIlargie.

MacIlargie stood shakily and followed the big Marine to the mess hall.

Corporals Claypoole, Dean, Kerr, Pasquin, and Chan, along with HM3 Hough, one of the navy medical corpsmen assigned to Company L, sat at a round table in the main dining room of the 45 Club, the on-base club for junior noncommissioned officers. A huge serving bowl that had contained reindeer stew still sat in the middle of the table, surrounded by the pushed-aside serving bowls at each Marine’s place and crumbs of the loaves of pumpernickel and rye bread with which they’d sopped up the stew. Kerr, Pasquin, and Hough were nursing steins of Reindeer Ale, the others sipped from steaming mugs of kafe —real coffee was generally beyond the budgets of mere corporals.

Pasquin leaned back, rubbed his belly, and belched loudly. “You know,” he said ponderously, “a body could get tired of reindeer after a while. Reindeer steaks in Big Barb’s, reindeer stew here in the 45 Club. All that reindeer shit the new cook at Big Barb’s fed us that first time.” He hoisted his stein. “Reindeer Ale,” and took a quaff.

Kerr snorted. “Raoul, the way you slurped down that stew, I think it’ll be a long, long time before
you
get tired of reindeer.”

Chan chuckled. “Kerr’s right. You inhaled three bowls, the rest of us only had two apiece.”

“Four,” Pasquin said. He saw the others looking at him. “I had
four
bowls of stew. Hey, I never said
I
was getting tired of reindeer. ’Sides, I’m a growing boy, I need to stoke the furnace.”

“Growing sideways,” Dean snorted.

“Hey!” Pasquin objected heatedly.

Hough decided to defuse any potential fight by changing the subject. “I see the way you’re looking at the beer, Rock,” he said to Claypoole. “Like it’s your girlfriend holding hands with someone else. Go ahead, have a few. I can give you a hangover pill, you’ll be fine for the Skipper’s inspection in the morning.

Claypoole shook his head. “Thanks, Doc. I would, but I’ve got more work to do tonight.” He looked at his timepiece.

“Wolfman?” Dean asked. “He didn’t look real happy when liberty call sounded.”

Claypoole nodded. “Ensign Bass noticed that his skivvies were ten millimeters out of alignment on the rack display. I made him stay in the barracks to prepare for the Skipper’s inspection.”

Kerr, who’d been with the platoon the longest, even though he’d been away for almost two years after being nearly killed on an operation, chuckled. “I still have trouble thinking of Charlie Bass as ‘Ensign Bass.’ ”

“You and me both,” Hough said. He’d been with Company L almost as long as Kerr.

Dean returned to his earlier comment. “Missing a night’s base liberty doesn’t seem like enough to get Wolfman as upset as he looked.” “Well, it is.” Claypoole grinned wickedly. “That and the fact that I left Hammer in charge.” “You what!” “You left
Schultz
in charge?” “No way you left Schultz in charge! He wouldn’t stand for it.” “Were you holding your blaster on him when you told him he was in charge?” “Well, I didn’t exactly tell him he was in
charge.
I just asked him to keep an eye on the problem child

for me.” Kerr hooted. He leaned forward and stretched out an arm to clap Claypoole on the shoulder. “Corporal

Claypoole, you just earned your stripes. You figured out how to make the most intransigent lance corporal in the Marine Corps do something he flat refuses to do.” “Schultz really didn’t put up a fight when you put him in charge of MacIlargie?” Chan asked. Claypoole blew on his fingernails and buffed them against his shirt front. They could almost see the

canary feather sticking out of his grin when he nodded and said, “I surely did. And, no.”

“I do believe MacIlargie’s skivvies will be in perfect alignment tomorrow,” Dean said, giving Claypoole’s back a slap that almost shoved his face into his stew bowl. Mustering what dignity he could after the near miss with the remains of his dinner, Claypoole asked the

table at large, “How did your people do?” “Just the usual minor gigs,” Chan replied. “Nothing more serious than skivvies out of alignment.” “When I was in recon, I never understood how come we had to stand Mickey Mouse inspections,”

Pasquin said. “We weren’t show Marines and junk-on-the-bunk inspections didn’t have a damn thing to do with what we did. And now . . . We’re on constant standby for Skinks. An IG doesn’t make sense.” The others ignored him, there was a lot the Marine Corps made them do that didn’t make sense to them.

“How come you didn’t let Wolfman take base liberty if all he had wrong was a minor misalignment of his skivvies?” Dean asked.

“Because he thought we aced the inspection. I wanted to impress on him how tough an IG can be.” Kerr leaned forward. “You did the right thing. The rest of you should have done the same with any of your people who weren’t perfect. I’ve stood an IG before, they’re tougher than any of you realize. Matter of fact,” he looked at each of the other fire team leaders, “if any of your people weren’t outstanding you should have stayed in yourselves and worked with them.” He leaned back and took another swig of his ale.

“Your people aced?” Hough asked. Kerr nodded. “You know it.” “Bullshit!” Claypoole snorted. “You’ve got Doyle. No way Doyle aced the inspection.”