Casserine (4 page)

She kissed him in answer, as crewmembers smilingly went aroundthem.

“Come in,” Risling’s gruff voice said.

Jake and Adrian walked in and saluted formally. Risling returned their salutes, and walked around to shake each of their hands warmly. “I am so glad to see you two. No troubles to report, I hope.”

“We do have a slight problem, Colonel,” Jake informed him.

“Well, what can I do?”

“Marry us, Sir. The Lieutenant has consented to be my wife.”

Risling smiled, looking at both of them a little more closely. “Yes, I believe I see what you mean. I would be honored to do it, Captain.”

Jake and Adrian both had soup, and some tea put on their trays before finding a table to sit at. They walked and moved together like a pair of sleek panthers. Their appearance in the Officers’ mess attracted considerable curiosity. They sat together, without speaking, glancing at each other in open affection. They finished quickly and left the mess hall. Five men were waiting for them outside the Officers’ mess, with Major Peters in front of them.

“I told you this wasn’t over, Jarhead,” Peters hissed angrily. Jake smiled at him, and looked over at Adrian.

“I know what you’re thinking, Adrian. Don’t do it. Come on.” Jake took her hand.

Adrian laughed, and nodded her assent. She stayed close to Jake as he tried to move around Peters. Peters reached up to place a hand on Jake’s chest to stop him, as his friends closed in. In the next instant, Peters found himself slammed against the bulkhead, held by the throat, with only his toes touching the floor. He tried, with both hands, to remove the slender hand holding him as he gasped for breath, against the wall. Byers smiled up into Peters’ stunned face.

Jake, with one arm, swept the other four men against the other wall. He backed away, gesturing for them to stay put, as he moved next to Adrian. The other Officers stayed where they were. “Adrian, Honey, you will snap his neck if you are not careful, dear.”

“They need us, Jake. They can fill his slot,” She replied calmly.

“Colonel Risling would be very disappointed in us.”

Adrian frowned, and looked sideways at Jake, who continued to watch the men across from him. “You would bring him up.”

She released Peters, and he fell to his knees with both hands at his throat, gulping for air. Jake knelt down next to him, never letting his eyes leave the four other men. “Major, listen closely. I saved your life right now. Let this go. Adrian and I will be armed from now until we leave for Casserine. I will kill you on sight, if I so much as lay eyes on you. Do you understand Sir? Nod, if you do.”

Peters nodded fearfully.

“Good.” Jake grabbed his uniform front, and lifted him to his feet as if there were no gravity at all in the passageway. “Take your little buddies and go into the mess until we are out of sight.”

Peters stumbled forward towards the mess hall, gesturing for the rest to follow him. They did not need any more encouragement. They saw death in the Marine’s eyes. When the group was inside, out of sight, Jake turned to Adrian.

“I can’t take you anywhere.”

She pulled his head down, and kissed him tenderly. She then pulled away and buried her head under his chin, hugging him tightly. “We can be back on Casserine before sunset if you’ll stop fooling around with the crew,” she whispered.

“I sort of figured on fooling around with one other crewmember before we headed back.”

The sunset on Casserine again met all expectations.

Chapter 4 

Fuel Pirates

“I…I’m hit Jake.” Adrian called out in pain.

Jake fired the MAG50 launcher he carried. Frost fire shot out the back of the launcher in the heavy Casserine air. The armored air ship disappeared in a firestorm of red-orange fury, coupled with a thunderclap of sound. Jake ducked behind the rocky outcropping, as a wave of superheated debris shot past his meager hideout. He gave a silent prayer of thanks, blessing the ordinance guy on the Tennyson, Nick Richardson, who had issued him a MAG50 instead of the much less potent RP30. The concussion from the blast dropped him the rest of the way to the ground, leaving him face down, gasping in pain, the force of his fall multiplied by the stronger Casserine gravity. He rolled slightly to the side, pitching the launcher away from him as he grabbed for the particle beam rifle near him.

He crawled with it across the clearing towards where he saw Adrian go down. After twenty feet, the sparkling powdery debris from the explosion began to settle. Jake could see Adrian lying on her side, facing away from him, another forty feet away. He saw her move weakly, as if trying to turn her body closer to the rock wall in front of her. Jake glanced back towards the storage areas. He smiled grimly, thinking about how surprised these pirates would be when they lacked a ship to escape with their plunder.

It took him another five minutes to reach Adrian. Jake knew the consequences of trying to hurry in Casserine’s gravity. He would be of no use to Adrian if he could not move when he reached her. Jake cursed her under his breath all the remaining way, remembering how she had smiled as he ordered her to take their field communication unit, and head towards the hollowed out cave they had readied for just this kind of emergency.

Jake put a hand on her unmoving shoulder. Adrian tensed at his touch. She let him ease her body over facing him as she lay on her back. Her hands were clenched over her left side, Where Jake could see two of the blind shots from the pirate ship had burned a furrow under her rib cage, and an equally nasty looking one across her right calf. Adrian smiled up crookedly at him.

“Hummmm…me sorry Ke-mo sah-be,” she said weakly, imitating the disc recording of the old radio tapes Jake had ordered in. Adrian tried to lower her voice to match the Lone Ranger’s Indian sidekick, Tonto.

“If you weren’t already wounded, Tonto, I’d shoot you myself. What part of ‘get the field communicator to the cave refuge’ didn’t you understand? Has English all of a sudden become your second language? Remember our job descriptions? You know, the ones which state I handle military operations and you communicate with base.”

“Make Ke-mo sah-be feel better…if.Tonto bleed to death…on cold…ground?”

Jake sighed. “Tonto not bleed to death, because luckily, bad shots cauterized the wounds as they burned pieces out of Tonto’s disobeying hide.”

Jake put his rifle down and braced himself against the rock wall. He reached down with his right arm. “Come on Tonto, you will have to ride Trigger to safety, where the Ranger can patch up his un-trusty sidekick’s wounds.”

“Trigger. was. Roy Rodger’s horse,” Adrian corrected haltingly as she pulled herself up.

“Whatever, I knew I should never have let you listen to those tapes.” Jake helped her up onto his back. He leaned carefully against the rock wall again, and picked up his particle beam rifle, slinging it around his neck. Straightening slowly, he eased himself away from the rocks. “We’re going. to have. to cut back on Tonto’s eating habits. if Tonto makes a habit out of disobeying .the Lone Ranger’ s orders. It feels…like the…Lone Ranger has Trigger…on his back instead of Tonto.”

Adrian giggled in spite of her wounds, as Jake trudged slowly in the direction of the cave, staying close to the steep side of the mountainous terrain, where they had built their refuge. Jake almost lost his footing. He stopped immediately, waiting to regain his equilibrium.

“You did at least…get the…communicator into the cave, didn’t you, Tonto?” Jake asked, as he steadied himself with his right hand against the rock wall.

“Yes.white man, Tonto.not fail. Tonto thought…to help ungrateful Ranger after completing…task.”

“Lone Ranger not impressed,” Jake grunted as he pushed off again towards the cave.

With only twenty-five yards left to cover, Jake slipped and went to one knee, as his right leg slid slowly out from under him. He leaned away from the sliding leg, grabbing hold of a jagged mound jutting out of the surface. His leg stopped sliding, as Jake stayed still. Working it back up into a position he could push off with, he regained his feet. Each of the jarring steps over the uneven ground had evoked a muffled groan from Adrian.

“Are we there yet?” Adrian whined comically. “Can’t…you…go any faster?”

Jake chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t push your luck, Tonto.”

Jake cleared the entrance to their refuge. Adrian had left one of their portable illuminators inside, so he did not have to stumble around in the darkness. He turned when he reached one of their chairs, and eased Adrian into it. She cried out involuntarily as her wounded ankle grazed the chair base. Jake went over and turned on the portable heater. Although he dripped sweat from every pore, and had soaked through his inner clothing, he knew what would happen in the near freezing temperatures. He helped Adrian out of her clothing and used the pre-coated field dressings out of their first aid kit to bandage her wounds. Along with the healing mix, the dressing contained a pain analgesic. The pain, etched in her face, eased as the bandages did their work.

Jake helped her get dressed again, and then peeled out of his sweat soaked clothes. While they dried by the heater, Jake heated some of his special tea elixir on their makeshift stove. It had already been made up and sealed in a container to be easily dispensed. Jake wiped himself down quickly with a towel and some of the water they had stored. He brought another towel with some water on it and wiped Adrian’s face and neck off. Her eyes looked clearer and almost pain free. She reached up and cupped his face with her hands.

“How long before they start hunting us down?”

Jake knelt down in front of her and put his hands over hers. He took the right one away from his face and kissed her left palm. He gently squeezed her hands and stood up to get them some tea. He returned shortly and handed Adrian her cup. She leaned back and sipped it gratefully. Jake sat down next to her.

“How long ago did you send out the message? A Force Cruiser should be here before they can even get enough energy to cry over their downed ship. You remember your first day on Casserine. How do you think them boys are handling our little gravity setup here after preparing to steal a warehouse full of solid fuel for the last few hours. You can bet seeing their ship blown out of the sky didn’t help their moral.”

“Jake, I know you had everything planned down to the.”

“Last detail,” Jake finished for her. “Yea, I did, until someone decided a change in my plan would be appropriate in the middle of a battle. Now, when did you send the message?”

“I sent it as soon as you called in from the tracking station. I have some bad news Ke-mo sah-be, they can’t get a cruiser to us right now. An ion storm hit the base, and they have no idea when it will let up. They said we were on our own until it ended.”

“Uh oh.”

“I thought maybe if I got the information to you in time, you would not have shot down their ship. They could have taken the fuel cells and been on their way. It’s possible they knew about the ion storm and decided to take advantage of it.”

“I believe you have deduced correctly about them knowing when the storm would hit,” Jake agreed. “Tour reasoning in wishing to warn me, so I could just wave at them while they flew off with the stores I guard, tells me you do not think much of the Lone Ranger’s mission here on Casserine.”

“Okay, I admit it. I thought your plan to pretend like we headed for the hills, while in point of fact you lay in wait for them to bring the mother ship down to be obliterated, did strike me as a suicide mission.”

“Why didn’t you say anything when we were building the refuge here?” Jake asked, exasperation plain in his voice. “You knew we built it so I could carry out my plan, while you kept the base informed from in here.”

“I just played along. I never thought we would actually have to do this.” Adrian conceded.

“Look, we get to stay here, Tonto, because the solid fuel stores we guard are the most valuable commodity in the quadrant. We only met on the base because I ended up in the sickbay for a wound fighting off these fuel pirates. I planned it close; because I knew when their cruiser came down to load the solid fuel, they would be scanning for heat signatures. They aimed at the moving heat signature first, babe. If not for the rock wall, you would have been afterburner dust.”

Adrian stuck her lower lip out and lowered her head while still looking over at him.

“Don’t pout, I hate it when you pout. I vow to never send for another old radio show or movie ever. They’ve been nothing but a bad influence on you.”

“I was just trying to help,” Adrian whined comically.

“Not funny, Adrian,” Jake said, fending off her attempts to grab his free hand. “You have gone too far this time, little missy. You almost got yourself blasted out of my life forever.”

Adrian folded her arms in front of her and looked off across the room haughtily. She glanced back to see him watching her. “Oh, you just think you are so smart. Mr. Big Bad Marine takes on the space pirates with his ‘blow up their ship and catch them in the act plan’.”

Jake shook his head in exasperation as the line between what he knew to be real started to shimmer in the haze of her movie mimic act. “Okay, I give up, Admiral Byers. Explain to me again what our real mission here on Casserine entails.”

Adrian could not hold on to her pose. She started laughing uproariously, until the pain from her rib injury lanced into her consciousness. Dropping her empty teacup, she gripped her side over the bandage, and the color drained out of her face. Jake put down his cup and knelt again in front of her. He waited until the pain subsided before he spoke again.

“Adrian, look at me, you little twit.”

Adrian, her laughter silenced, looked straight into Jake’s eyes andnodded.

“Those guys will take a few hours to swear and figure out what happened to them. The ship probably radioed the heat signatures to them before opening fire, so they know it did not dematerialize in a cloud of smoke by coincidence. We were damn lucky they didn’t figure I’d have a MAG50. If they have any strength, they’ll try and take what little revenge they can before the Force Cruiser gets here and smokes them. They have no options. We can hope for them to be so demoralized they come out with their hands up, but if that happens, I will send my trusty sidekick Tonto out to accept their surrender.”

“What will keep them from just blowing up the storage area if they’re mad?”

“The fact they could not get clear, and the blast would wipe out the living quarters. They would not last half a day outside.”

“How many of them were still in the storage area?”

“I counted fifteen.”

“You told me you thought maybe four at most,” Adrian gasped and pointed her finger at Jake accusingly.

Jake shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry my little sidekick.”

“Even considering their disadvantage with gravity, they will have blasters out here.”

“It will be a bit more difficult to take them if they resist,” admitted a now smiling Jake.

“You egocentric worm. You self-absorbed cretin. You…you.”

“Jarhead?”

“Don’t you dare put words in my mouth, you Jarhead,” Adrian ranted, waving one hand in Jake’s face, while the other kept her side from moving.

“I think you have some color back in your cheeks now,” Jake pointed out. “I see we have managed to turn this entire thing full circle, back to where the real responsibility lies: me. Somehow I found out about the ion storm, tipped off the pirates, planned the attack on Casserine, sent you to the refuge, secretly knowing you would not go, carried your wounded butt back here after exiling fifteen pirates by blowing up their only way out of here, all for the purpose of having them hunt us down.”

“Exactly,” Adrian nodded.

“Flawless logic, my dear, flawless,” Jake replied, getting back in his chair, and reclining tiredly. He shut his eyes for a moment. Jake felt a cool hand on his arm, and squinted over at Adrian’s smiling face.

“You took a nap. I let you sleep for about twenty minutes.”

“Good, I have to go out and retrieve my launcher.”

“Will you get me some more tea before you go?”

“Sure Tonto, how do you feel?”

“Sore.”

“We have something for that if you want,” Jake replied while getting their tea. He stopped long enough to get dressed, and then sat back down next to Adrian, handing her the warmed tea.

“When should we risk another call out?” Adrian asked.

“Not until I go out, get the launcher, and check on the whereabouts of our guests. If they can pinpoint us when we call out, they might come hunting. We will give them a little surprise when they get here.”

“Oh thank you, Jake,” Adrian said laughing a little, as she scrunched her face up and lowered her voice. “What you mean we, white man?”