Authors: Bernard Lee DeLeo
Casserine
Casserine
A true story of a dancer from the movie Porky’s.
By
Bernard Lee DeLeo
This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
© 2003 by Bernard Lee DeLeo. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
ISBN: 1-4107-6131-2 (e-book)
ISBN: 1-4107-6130-4 (Paperback)
ISBN: 1-4107-6129-0 (Dust Jacket)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003093960
Bloomington, IN
1stBooks-rev. 06/18/03
Contents
Jake and Adrian
Starbursts of kaleidoscope colors heralded the throbbing pain of consciousness as the man came to. He tried to move his arms, but became aware his arms and legs were strapped to the padded gurney he lay on. Just the movement of straining his arms against the straps caused lancing pains shooting through his chest. His eyes oscillated from side to side wildly, as he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. He felt like his head was twice its normal size, noting it had been wrapped tightly, and strapped down to the top of the gurney. Tendons and muscles snaked under his skin powerfully at every movement. A tube connected to his arm, he could see, dripped some translucent fluid into his body. He could feel his ankles, thighs, and waist, had also been strapped down tightly.
Looking around the white room, only the monitors, with sensor tips taped to him in different spots on his chest, arm, and head provided any color at all from where he could see. The door opened and a woman, wearing white from head to toe, walked into the room, shutting the door again behind her. She walked over, smiling at him. She checked the monitors, and repositioned a sensor on his chest.
“Your signs look strong,” she said, glancing back down at him. “Do you remember anything?”
As he tried to respond, all he could manage rasped out of him dryly, and too quiet for the woman to hear. She walked out of his range, and came back with a glass filled with water. A long curved straw, extending from the glass, allowed her to let him quench his thirst. “There, that any better?”
“Un…tie…me,” he said haltingly.
“I can’t do that just yet. Let me…” She heard a snap as the strap around his right arm popped. Before she could back away, he clutched her upper arm. She screamed in pain as his hand tightened quickly. His pressure brought her down across his chest.
“Un-strap me,” he repeated. “I…I will ease up…on your arm slightly. Take your free hand and un-strap my other arm.
Her right arm moved up as the pain lessened in her other arm. As she brought it up over his side, she suddenly dug her hand into his groin area. She heard a growl start from his throat, and then blinding pain as the bones in her upper arm began to crack. She screamed again, releasing him. She heard him grunt in pain at the effort, and then the other arm strap broke. He reached up, undoing his head strap, before fumbling with his chest restraint. Using her as a prop, he pulled himself up to a sitting position. He finished releasing the rest of the retaining straps, all the while holding the woman immobile next to the gurney they had him strapped to. She cried out again as he bent and undid the leg straps. Swinging his legs slowly over the side of the gurney, he paused to get control of the now pulsating pain in his head.
Getting a new grip with his other hand on her arm, he disconnected the tube and sensors from his body. A small droplet of blood welled up where he had removed the tube. After a few moments more, he slid onto his feet, still holding the woman, who had begun to cry softly. His knees buckled as the pain in his head doubled when his body transferred weight to his feet. After regaining control of his legs, he turned and lifted the woman up on the gurney as if she were a small child. The bedding had fallen away as he had stood up. He leaned in close to her terrified face, while still gripping both of her arms.
“Who are you, and where in hell am I?”
“Please let go of my arms,” the woman pleaded. “You were strapped down to keep you from injuring yourself, not to imprison you. That head wound should have killed you. You have been unconscious since you were picked up. Do you remember how you were wounded?”
“Someone attacked that God forsaken supply depot I guard.”
“That’s right,” the woman confirmed. “You sent an emergency message out. They found you in the solid fuel cell warehouse with eight dead bodies. They must have left in a hurry, because they didn’t even bother incinerating you and the others. Now please, can you let me go?”
He released her arms. She immediately began rubbing them. He staggered back away from her, trying to regain his equilibrium. “I retreated to solid fuels, because I knew they couldn’t fire at me in there. They wanted the fuel too badly to blow up the whole station just for one grunt.”
“They said you killed the eight others with some kind of blade. They found blood everywhere.”
“I kept them busy to give Genoa Control enough time to come and get them. I guess I didn’t quite make it. How much did they get?”
“Not much, because you did hold them up long enough for a Force Cruiser to scare them off. They must have picked up the ship on scanners, and then fled. How could you kill eight men with a blade? That was barbaric.”
“Meaning I should have just let them kill me? Look,” he said holding his head with both hands, and leaning back against the gurney, “can I have something for my head?”
“Sure,” she agreed, and walked over to a place at the far wall. She took a hypo-gun out of a hidden cabinet. She walked over to him, cringing as she lifted it up to the side of his neck.
He backed away from her a step. “I am sorry about grabbing you like that, but you aren’t knocking me out again, are you?”
“It only contains some neural blockers for your pain. My arm is killing me. I will need my own shot, thanks to you.” She put it up to his neck and injected him. He responded immediately. His eyes, cleared of the pain, were cobalt blue, which were disconcertingly intense in their stare.
“I am Gunnery Sergeant Jake Matthews, Ma’am, and I am sorry for hurting your arm. Can I clean up, and get a uniform?”
“I think I can find you something, but you really don’t look very well. Can I get you some food?”
“I am starving, now that my head has stopped throbbing,” he admitted. “Did any of my head survive?”
“They cracked your skull, and you lost a furrow of scalp. We healed the crack, but you will need time to mend cosmetically. If you would like, we can begin some cosmetic work on your scalp today.”
Matthews shook his head slightly in the negative. “No need to bother. Just let it heal. I will be back on the Rock shortly, and I get very few visitors there.”
‘Why do they put one man there, instead of a squad?”
“The base at Genoa can have help on site within two hours. They figure they can either stop thieves on the spot, or scare them off, and hunt them down later. Anyway, I volunteered for the duty. No one forced me to go. You were saying something about food.”
“But why would you volunteer for duty like that? The place outside must be like a wasteland. I know you have a heavier than normal gravitational pull, because of the core, so it must be sheer torture to even move down there.”
Jake smiled. “You get used to it, and you should see how it affects the ones who don’t belong there. They looked like they were in slow motion to me. Besides, it has an atmosphere, some plant life, water pools if you know where to look, and a few weird animals brought in from when they used it for a launch base.”
“But.”
“Food, Ma’am,” Jake reminded her gently, “you were going to get me something to eat.”
“Sorry, I am Lieutenant J.G. Adrian Byers. Wait here.” She left the room momentarily, and came back with a black jumpsuit, tan boxers, socks, and Matthews’ own boots.
“Get these on, and I will take you to get something to eat.”
She watched him dress, while he carefully avoided sharp movements. He looked to her like something poured out of a forge. Matthews stood a good foot taller than Byers, making him by her calculation, about six feet five inches tall. Although he did not look muscle-bound, he felt like something made of a titanium alloy. She glanced down at her arms, which were bare in her short-sleeved uniform. The bruising colors ringed both upper arms, and the one Matthews had gripped the longest, had swollen up slightly already.
“How did you get picked for duty on Casserine, your size?”
“No ma’am,” Matthews said, as he fastened the clasps on his boots. “Out of the dozen or so volunteers, I had the highest tolerance for pain.”
“You snapped those straps like they were made of string. No man can do that.”
“Well, I am a man, and I am not enhanced. Coping with the gravity on Casserine can build you up pretty well. I told you the Rock takes some getting used to. I started out almost from a crawl. I will have to get back soon or I’ll have to start all over.”
“Come on then, and I’ll get you fed,” Byers said.
Byers led the way out of the room, and through corridors and elevators connecting the huge base. Matthews received curious stares from the men and women they passed. Casserine limited his contact with other people. He filled fuel cell orders by loading the shipments aboard colony transports alone. Because of Casserine’s unique gravitational pull, Matthews would place a fuel cell shipment inside a hatch, and the ship’s crew would transfer it after the hatch was closed and gravity normalized. Personal contact did not occupy a large part of his operational description. Jake saw more people on the way to get something to eat than he had in over four years of deployment.
Byers led Jake into an eating area, where she showed him how to get the food he wanted from the auto-service. On his first trip through the base on the way to Casserine, he had not even exited the ship. Unfamiliar as he proved to be with the base, Casserine, the Rock as he called it, did have some of the same amenities. Matthews could not grow food there, so his life depended on the supplies he received when a ship came in for loading. Byers also ordered a light lunch. She picked out a table away from the largest congregation of ship’s crew, who were making a lot of noise. Jake noticed she had taken a longer route back to the area they were in, avoiding the tables in the center with the raucous crewmembers. The crewmembers noticed them as they walked by anyway. This time the stares they received had a hint of open hostility, and the voices turned to hushed whispering.
“Did I hurt someone here by mistake, Ma’am. These people stare at me like I have the plague. They also appear to be officers. This must be the officers’ mess, and you could get into trouble for bringing me here, couldn’t you.”
“You were promoted for your action at Casserine, and you received the Federation Alliance Cross of Valor. I didn’t think you needed to know until we sat down and had a chance to talk.”
“I guess my sister and her family will like the pay hike. I put some away, but mostly I send the credits to her. She lives on Arcadia, in the Tellus sector. Am I really a lieutenant?”
“No, they promoted you to Captain of Marines. The four years you spent on Casserine without help, and this latest incident you handled, made them feel you deserved the jump in grade.” Byers rubbed her arms again. “I thought you deserved it too, until you tried to squeeze my arms off.” She smiled to take the bite out of her words.
“Sorry Lieutenant, you should have sent in a couple of other grunts to un-strap me, before you talked with me.” Jake smiled back. He liked the looks of this woman. Her blonde hair was tied up neatly on top of her head, but he could tell it was long. Although slender, he could see she was well proportioned, and her face had a sensual quality about it he liked. The kindness in overlooking his outburst, coupled with the open way she handled him, made Jake like her from the very first. ‘You didn’t tell me why those people seem bent out of shape by my being here. I can’t be the only stranger around here.”
Byers blushed. She glanced back at the crew table momentarily, and then down at her food. Jake watched her as he ate his food slowly. She finally looked back up at him, and smiled again crookedly, as she shrugged her shoulders. “They were looking at me, Captain. I reported the man in the center of their table, sitting with the group closest to the front of the room.”
“The one with the black mustache, who keeps talking with his friends, as he tries to burn a hole in the back of your head with his eyes?”
Byers giggled, and wiped her mouth to cover it up. She nodded. “His name’s Jason Peters. He flies transports between here and Kason. I cost him his promotion to colonel.”
‘What did he do, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“He raped and assaulted me.”
Matthews dropped the fork he had in his hand. “I guess I could qualify as having assaulted you too, Lieutenant, but on Arcadia they take you up and vacuum you into space for rape.”
“They need pilots desperately here. Not many want out this far. He has connections, and even with them, it cost him his promotion. He’s well liked here, and no one could believe it, except for the fact I had physical proof. He claimed I led him on, and then cried rape; but at the court martial, his lawyer could not break me. They had to take some action, so they dropped him back to major, and fined him.”
“I know what you mean about need. Sometimes if the colony needs you, you can get away with a lot. With all the holographic stuff, and the bars with pleasure crews, why in the world would the guy do something like that?” Jake asked, watching the man. “I guess you have a way of attracting unwanted harm. Now, I’m even more sorry I practically tore your arms off.”
“You didn’t rape me. Besides, I can take some physical stuff, and it’s not like he was the first man to ever make a pass at me. He just became angrier and angrier when I tried to push him away. Anyhow, I don’t want to talk a.”
A hand had materialized on her shoulder. Jake had only taken his eyes off of the man for a moment. The rest of the crew at the table watched them closely, as if sensing excitement. The blood had drained out of Byers’ face. She whipped around, and the Major backed away quickly, laughing.