Strong Arm Tactics (8 page)

“I hope they’re behaving themselves,” he murmured to himself. Borden cocked her head. She’d caught the comment.

“Depends on your definition of behaving themselves, sir.”

O O O

“Those are fragile, damn you!” the flight deck supervisor howled, as Ambering knocked the side of the shuttle door with her frontloader. The chief, a stocky, swarthy-skinned human male with thick curly hair peeking out of the neck of his dark green coveralls, rolled up to her on legs as round as barrels and banged on the first crate with his fist. “Can’t you read it? That’s power capacitors! You want to set off a major explosion? Watch it!”

The heavyset woman gave him a glare from underneath her eyebrows. “Aye, chief,” she muttered. Lin, watching the rest of the troopers stacking boxes, pursed her lips and gave her a warning look.

“I can’t heee-aaar yeeew!” the chief barked. Ambering wiped the resentful expression off her face.

“Aye, chief!” she shouted.

“That’s better! When I talk to you, I want you to reply like you mean it! All of you scum get that?”

“Aye, chief!” the Cockroaches bellowed in unison. Lin nodded. No sense in starting trouble right away. It was inevitable that there would be trouble, of course. No one could exist around these constipated fancy-suited power-trippers without being tempted to burst the balloon of their self-importance, and the Cockroaches were experts at spotting a balloon that was overdue for bursting. She marked the flight deck supervisor on her mental list as someone she wanted to take down a notch or two over the course of the next thirty-five days. She outranked him, which was an advantage, and she bet he didn’t know very much about theology. You could never start too early on a preemptive strike. She signaled to the others to hurry up and finish so they could get up and explore the rest of the ship. They winked or nodded back, sharing the same thought. Ewanowski, the semicat, bared his teeth eagerly. He and Boland eased the captain’s new vehicle out of the hold and locked it into a climate-controlled compartment along with a few other smaller containers.

“First blood, first blood!” Jones crowed, emerging from the hold of the shuttle alongside the roboloader.

“No!” Meyers scoffed. “You couldn’t have come up with one that quickly.”

“I certainly did,” Jones stated, polishing his fingernails on his coverall. “Ready?”

“No. You had to have thought it up in advance.”

“I certainly did not! I swear by my honor.…”

“What honor?” Ewanowski growled, playfully, as he shouldered by. Jones punched him in the arm.

“Chief!” Meyers protested.

Lin interceded. “You know the rules. The first Roach to come up with a limerick on site gets extra points, more if it’s good. We’ll be able to tell if it’s appropriate, or if he’s recycling something from another mission.”

“I’ve got one, too,” Mose grinned, lifting his eyes from the inventory screen.

“Me, too,” Okumede called from across the hold.

“Jones called it first,” Lin decided. “Come on, out with it.”

“Get on with the job!” the deck chief shouted. “You’re wasting our time!”

“Wait a moment, wait a moment,” Jones said, gesturing at him to be patient. “Five lines start to finish. ‘A grumpy ship captain named Harawe / Said to Wolfe, as we stowed his new carawe, “You may come on my ship / But you give me the pip / And I wish you and your troop were all farawe!’” Jones hooked his hands in his belt and turned with pride to the deck master chief. “So, what do you think of that, eh?”

O O O

It took Daivid only a few moments to get his gear stowed. Every compartment opened silently to a finger’s touch. The sound insulation shut out the sound of footsteps from the corridor beyond. For the duration of the mission, no geese waking him up at daybreak. Maybe he’d get to sleep until 0500. Luxury.

Once again he took inventory of the chamber that was to be his new home for the next thirty-five days. It was all so splendidly ordinary: five hangers, water glass, chair, desk, bed, bedclothes. Yet the difference between this setting and X-Ray Company’s barracks was extreme. He felt as though he might be home again in his father’s mansion. Genuine wooden moldings framed the door. Polished brass knobs indicated the location of controls and communication outlets. Just out of curiosity he poked his head into the small lavatory he shared with the junior officers’ quarters next door. Sonic shower.
Too bad
, he thought, thinking of the delicious deluge he had enjoyed that morning. Even the captain of a star destroyer didn’t have it as good as they did dirtside when it came to hygiene. So there were advantages to living in the back end of nowhere after all. And, yet … was that a personal surround entertainment hookup over desk above the docking station for his infopad? Yes! He flicked it on. Wow—all the newest threedeeos, including the pictures that were still in full crystal amphitheater release.

He jumped guiltily at the sound of his door signal. “Enter,” he called. The door slid open to reveal Coffey, back stiff.

She shot him a very formal salute. “You are summoned to the captain’s day room, sir.”

“What’s going on, Ensign?” he asked, smiling at her. “A briefing, already?”

No friendly banter or even a return smile. Coffey’s small face twisted into a mask of disapproval.

“No, sir. Would you follow me, please?”

O O O

“What do you mean, they’re already guilty of dereliction of duty?” Wolfe asked, hopelessly. He stood alone on one side of the captain’s enormous white marble-topped desk. On the other side the captain sat glowering. At his left elbow, in front of a wall filled with screens and readouts, hovered a clutch of lieutenants and ensigns. A tall itterim in the rear clicked his mandibles at Wolfe, the bug equivalent of sticking out his tongue. At its elbow, a hardfaced woman with short, wavy black hair and commander’s flashings on her collar stood with her arms folded. At Harawe’s right elbow stood Commander Cleitis, the narrow-faced XO, and a burly man with a chief’s insignia on his coverall sleeves. His square face looked as though someone had tried to pound the corners off of it. Dark red bruises decorated the left temple and jaw, the lower orbit of the right eye and the bridge of his nose. He glared at Wolfe.

“And brawling,” interjected the XO, unnecessarily.

“And scurrilous verse, too, derogatory to the captain,” the flight deck chief said, moving his jaw very gingerly.

Wolfe groaned. “A limerick?”

“What do you know about it?” Harawe growled.

“It’s a unit tradition, sir.”

The green eyes pinned him in place. “Have you been a party to this?”

“Not yet, sir—I mean, no.” He shook his head. “I’m not much of a poet.…”

“Neither is your crewman, by the sound of it,” Harawe said. He waved a hand over a sensor on his desk. A miniature threedeeo image appeared on the white desk, showing one side of the shuttle, half a dozen of troopers, and as many coverall-clad members of the Eastwood’s crew. Jones’s fruity voice rose out of a concealed speaker. Daivid listened, wishing he could drop straight down through the deck.

“… what do you think of that, eh?” the little round figure said, planting its hands on its hips.

What the listener thought of it was more or less confirmed by the brawl that followed. To Wolfe’s dismay, Jones had indeed thrown the first punch, though not until after a conversation of steadily rising acrimony between him and the chief had occurred.

“Naturally, everything in the secured areas is recorded,” the XO put in.

“Naturally,” Daivid said faintly.

“Of course the rest of the file will have to be freeze-framed and expanded to see who was responsible for each of the infractions that followed.”

“Of course, sir.”

“This does not give me a great deal of confidence in your ability to lead these hyenas,” Harawe said. “You do realize that you’ve joined this ship’s complement to undertake a mission of great importance?”

“I do, sir, though we have not yet been briefed on just what that mission is,” Daivid pointed out.

That seemed to excite one of the female lieutenants present enough to raise a faint twitch in her stiff face. “Commander, in light of the present proceedings, I must ask again if this is indeed the unit to undertake such a vital task. It is, as you know, a sensitive matter …”

Cleitis waved a hand. “That is the entire point of their assignment, Varos.”

“Sir,” Daivid began, “what
is
our as—?”

The captain interrupted him. “I know you are new to the unit. So I will allow you a trifle of leniency, but that is all. I cannot allow your company to damage the workings of my ship. The man who threw the first punch is confined to quarters during off-hours, with no entertainment systems permitted except for the Space Service’s book of rules and regulations. I will review his case in ten days.”

“Yes, sir,” Daivid sighed. Jones wouldn’t consider either part of the penalty punishment. If the confinement lasted long enough he would probably set the entire book to verse, maybe even to music.

“All of the crew who were involved in the altercation will be assigned to Chief Winston down in Sanitation,” Executive Officer Cleitis intoned. “Further infractions will be accorded corporal punishment. You keep them out of trouble at all other times. You will report to Commander Iry.” The hardfaced woman nodded. “She’ll expect to see you daily, and at any time she wants your sorry ass in her office. Is that clear?”

“Very clear, sir,” Daivid said. The hardfaced woman gave him one sharp nod. The XO echoed it.

“Good. Dismiss.”

O O O

“I was declaiming, sir,” Jones argued, sitting on his lower bunk in the cramped six-bed quarters. “He could have waited a moment. It was the last load.”

“But you ignored his orders,” Daivid explained painstakingly for the eighth time, then decided Jones was just keeping the discussion going to see how long he could string the new commander. “Enough is enough. He had instructions for you.”

The burly man settled back against the wall with his hands behind his head. “Ah, well, he threw them around a bit too readily.”

“That’s his job,” Daivid said, with finality, punching the door control. “I’ll check on you later.”

The other Cockroaches were waiting in Gehenna, the day room assigned to them. The
Eastwood
was carrying a full complement of space service troopers and special forces personnel, but somehow X-Ray Company had managed to get one small room to itself. Maybe, Daivid thought, it had something to do with its upcoming mission. He intended to ask about a briefing at the XO’s earliest convenience.

The room, like all other enlisted messes, was meant to act as a chilling-out area for up to three companies. It was called a ‘day room’ because of the lighting, the harsh, brilliant glare that was the equivalent of sunlight under atmosphere. Science now millennia old had proved that human beings had to be exposed to a minimum of six hours a day, or they would begin to suffer depression and some deficiencies associated with lack of sunlight. In certain cases they could even be ordered to spend time in this or any other chamber fitted with the correct lamps.

The company would eat at regular times in the commissary, but food synthesizers and a couple of big storage units had been installed in each of the day rooms for their use in between meals. They also did their laundry here, in the big cleaning trunks and presser boxes against one wall, plus a real wash tub for personal, non-issue items. If troopers wished to socialize with others outside their command, a Hero-class destroyer like this one had bars and common rooms, the sports areas and multi-use cultural venues as points of interaction. Traditionally, and this habit Daivid knew went back thousands of years, units assigned to messes were allowed to furnish and/or decorate their messes as they saw fit. Seeing the way they kept their barracks back on Treadmill, he guessed that the room would very quickly turn into a mess in truth. The Cockroach banner had already been mounted on the wall, and the battered memorial was propped up in one corner. Debris, in the form of personal readers, discarded clothing and food containers, lay in clusters on countertops and the row of seats that lined three of the walls.

Equally traditional was an officer having to ask permission to enter. The Service, like all military operations from the beginning of time, was a top-down organization, but to give the noncoms a territory they could control themselves went a long way towards keeping morale steady on long missions. If Daivid had had orders to convey, they were transmitted to the receiver in the chamber, or to the communication units of individual troopers involved. (In the case of an emergency or immediate call to duty, the custom naturally was suspended.) Though the ten-centimeter-thick door stood ajar Daivid did not enter. He leaned on the door signal and waited. Twelve of the Cockroaches were clustered around the central pedestal table, cards in hand. The rest of X-Ray Company sprawled, sat, or lay on the floor or the built-in seats, drinking bug juice, eating hand-snacks and sucking on pows. Meyers glanced up from her cards at the chime, then hastily looked away, not making eye contact with him. Mose shifted a nicotine pow from one side of his mouth to the other, grinning broadly.

“Call,” he said.

Groans rose from the others. “I’m out,” said Boland.

“Me, too,” added Streb.

“I’ll see you,” Lin said, leaning forward, her eyes slitted dangerously.

“Me, too,” added Ewanowski.

“I’m out,” Thielind announced, tossing his cards on the table. He tossed a wave at the lieutenant, and held up a finger. Wait. Daivid fumed. They were playing him. He put a bland expression on his face, and watched the game with polite interest.

“All right, all right,” said Aaooorru, fanning his antennae. He spread out his hand. A mischievous light was in his bulging eyes. “Full house. Emperors over nines.”

“Poop,” Boland exploded. “You had a pair of nines last hand, too. You must have palmed them.”

The shrimp-spider held out his multiple pairs of arms. His gray-pink ridged body was covered with nothing but a diaper-like garment over his excretory and generative organs and the water-collar over his gills. “And I hid them where?”