Starfist: A World of Hurt (13 page)

Porter raised a hand to shake off the offer, then realized what Aguinaldo was offering.

"White label?" he asked.

Aguinaldo nodded. "One of my people recently returned from a visit to the ancestral manse on Highlands. She brought back a case and was gracious enough to gift me with a bottle."

"I hope you've promoted her," Porter said. "That is certainly above and beyond the call."

"I'm giving that all due consideration in her next fitness report."

Porter chuckled, and eagerly watched as Aguinaldo broke the seal on the bottle and poured two fingers into each of two glasses.

The commandant sat across from the CNO and they toasted each other's health and happily sipped the scotch. Finally Aguinaldo returned to business. "What brings you to see me today, Ken?" He knew it wasn't a social call; he and Porter had never been close.

Porter turned serious. "I don't imagine you've heard anything about this." He handed over a few sheets of flimsy.

Aguinaldo skimmed the first Unexplained Expiration report; Porter knew where he was when his eyes stopped moving. Then the commandant quickly flipped to the second report.

He looked up.

"So soon," he said softly. More than a year and a half had passed between the first contact with Skinks on Society 437 and their appearance on Kingdom. But just months had passed since 34th and 26th FISTs had driven them from Kingdom.

"Thirty-fourth FIST is closer to Maugham's Station than 26th FIST. Can you deploy them without raising undue notice?" Porter asked.

"Where is the
Grandar Bay?
"

"I can have her on station off Thorsfinni's World in about three weeks."

Aguinaldo sighed. "The timing is impeccable," he said. "I'm about to leave on a tour of hardship bases, to show the Marines their commandant knows and cares about them.

Thirty-fourth FIST is my first scheduled stop." He smiled tightly. "I'll be there in three weeks. I can deploy them without anybody outside Thorsfinni's World knowing about it." He gave Porter a hard look. "We have to tell the Combined Chiefs and President Chang-Sturdevant."

"Do you want to tell them before you depart, or would you rather I took care of it after you're safely in Beamspace?"

Aguinaldo barely had to consider his reply. "The military answers to civilian authorities,"

he said. "I have to get the President's approval before I deploy Marines on this mission."

"I thought you'd say that. I made an appointment for us for tomorrow morning. The Combined Chiefs can wait."

Aguinaldo nodded.

Commander Moon Happiness was very happy, in a confused sort of way. He was still captain of the
Goin'on
despite Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange's evident unhappiness with him. And Admiral Orange had personally chosen him to captain the starship on its next cruise, even though the admiral had also chosen to personally command the fleet he'd ordered assembled around it and again chosen to use the
Goin'on
as his flagship. Of course, Admiral Orange continued to express his opinion that Commander Happiness was somewhat less competent than one might desire.

The fleet the
Goin'on
led was a fleet only insofar as it was the largest assembly of navy starships ever put to space by We're Here!'s navy. In addition to the flagship, it consisted of three Mallory-class destroyers, long obsolete by Confederation Navy standards, one supply tanker, and a tug. Because the astrogation equipment on all but the
Goin'on
and one of the destroyers was aged and not in good repair, the fleet had to be more cautious than normal in approaching the Rock--there was no telling just where they'd come out of Beamspace, so they had to reenter Space-3 not only at a safe distance from gravity wells, but from each other as well. A greater margin of safety was also required because of the gas giants with far-reaching electromagnetic fields that lived in orbit around the Rock's star.

The fleet jumped back into Space-3 in tighter formation than anybody had a right to expect; none of the starships was more than ten light-minutes from the
Goin'on,
and all seemed to have avoided the Rock's surveillance.

Once roused from his sedated slumber, Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange checked the disposition of his forces relative to the recorded path of the
Broken Missouri
on her departures from the Rock and once again gave his ships their picket orders--assigning the positions from which they would follow the freighter when she made her next departure. The picket positions had been assigned before the fleet left We're Here! and needed to be changed only in the event a starship returned to Space-3 too far from its assigned position to be able to reach it without risking detection from the distant planet.

While the admiral was issuing his redundant orders, Commander Happiness directed his crew to surveil the Rock for signs of the presence of the
Broken Missouri.
She wasn't there then, but did show up two days later, farther out from the Rock than when she'd been spotted the last time.

"That's better," Admiral Orange grumbled when apprised of the sighting. "More ships, more eyes in the sky to find her."

But it wasn't any of the additional "eyes in the sky" that found the
Broken Missouri,
it was the
Goin'on,
the only starship in the fleet with equipment sophisticated enough to detect her through her cloaking. Of course, this time the cruiser was closer to the
Broken Missouri's
reentry point into Space-3.

In due time the
Broken Missouri
departed the unmarked orbital station and headed out-system. One by one the starships in We're Here!'s fleet followed her into Beamspace.

Four point one lights was farther than the fleet's final jump into the Rock's system, and the starships were accordingly more widely spread when they returned to Space-3, up to twenty light-minutes from the
Goin'on.
That made no practical difference by then; each starship had her orders: wait for a signal from the
Goin'on,
then jump a predetermined distance along the vector assigned in that signal.

The
Goin'on
quickly determined that they were again at the
Broken Missouri's
jump point, and she'd changed vector the same as last time. Admiral Orange gave the order, and signals were sent to the other starships, all of which made independent jumps to their predetermined points.

Each starship made the most detailed investigation it could of the area of space into which it jumped, then jumped again to a predetermined rendezvous point, where all reported the same results: no one detected any sign of a starship making a jump anywhere within five light-hours of where they reentered Space-3. Which didn't really mean anything, since the
Goin'on
was the only starship in the fleet with equipment sufficiently up-to-date to detect the passage of any starship at that distance, much less a cloaked starship.

Reluctantly, Admiral Orange sent the fleet home--but had the
Goin'on
make a side trip back to the Rock to deposit an intel drone to detect and record the next visit of the
Broken
Missouri.

Hansik Vaelta was angry. Ever since that botanist had gone off alone and died from an accident in a hidden valley in the Haltia region, the government had been bombarding everybody with tales of how dangerous it was to leave the borders of Ammon. Vaelta, like all the other Firstborn--well, like
many
of the Firstborn--knew Maugham's Station beyond the borders was just as safe as most of the unpopulated areas within the borders. If those stodgy old Frères Jacques had a hint of how many Firstborn routinely went exploring, they'd probably all suffer massive coronaries.

The Frères Jacques could preach all they wanted; Vaelta easily blocked them out, as most of his generation did. What had made him angry this time was the fact that they'd stepped up border surveillance, planting an almost solid ring of cams with overlapping fields of view around the colony, so it was almost impossible to go into the beyond without being spotted and stopped. He himself had been turned back three times by the police before he'd gotten ten kilometers.

It wasn't right that he be turned back when all he wanted to do was go out and enjoy the beautiful sights of his world, hike its prairies, and climb its mountains. He wasn't hurting anybody. He wasn't even putting himself in any danger! Before going out, he always went into the library archives to search for information on where he was going. Sure, neither the emergency way station nor the BEHIND survey had done exhaustive work, but he never went anyplace where there wasn't enough information to give him a solid idea of the conditions he'd encounter and what he'd need to survive. The maps and survey data he found were always accurate enough so he'd never run into trouble. And he always left a detailed journey plan with trusted Firstborn friends. The lack of communications satellites didn't bother him; his HF transceiver bounced signals off the ionosphere, and he would use it to call for help if he ran into trouble.

So why were the Frères Jacques so determined to stop him and everybody else?

But they couldn't stop him every time. He'd made more thorough preparations this time, and found a gap in the cam-ring on the southwest border of Ammon, through the coastal mountains. There were no roads through those mountains, of course, but that didn't bother him; his scoot was ruggedized and easily able to handle terrain that would cripple the standard street model.

Two weeks standard after he left, after he'd missed two consecutive twice-daily radio reports, Hansik Vaelta's friends went searching for him. They had his detailed route plan and copies of his maps and other data, so they knew how to mount their expedition. All six of them were experienced in the wild. They didn't pause to explore or enjoy along the way; they were on a rescue mission. It only took them two days to travel the distance Vaelta had required ten to cover. There, they found his camp and his scoot at the foot of an ancient volcano in the middle of a plain.

Vaelta's journey log lay on the bedroll in his tent. Its last entry said he was leaving to climb the mountain.

His trail was well marked and easy to follow, all the way up to the saddle and halfway up the ridge to the saddle's left, where it disappeared entirely. Not only were there no more markers, there weren't any marks left by a climber. They checked carefully for signs that he might have tumbled over the side of the ridge, even though the ridge top was too broad for an experienced climber to lose his balance and fall.

One of Vaelta's friends, looking over the far side to see if he had fallen that way, was struck by the beauty of the valley hidden there. As his eyes swept back and forth, he spotted a splash of orange at the edge of the forest far behind them.

"I see something," he said. The others looked where he pointed.

"He must have backtracked from here," one of them said.

They backtracked to the saddle and clambered down into the valley. The splash of orange they'd seen from the ridge was Vaelta's jacket. Up close, they were surprised they'd managed to see it from such a distance--it was overgrown with vines and covered with leaves. At first they thought it was just his jacket, since it looked empty at a quick glance, as did the brown trousers that stuck out from the waist of the jacket. But his body was in the clothes, or what was left of it. They had to hack the vines away from the corpse in order to free it. They worked quickly because, so close to the forest, and as beautiful as the valley had looked from above, it felt eerie now, somehow hostile.

Maybe it was just finding their friend's half-dissolved corpse.

As they were hurrying away with the body, anxious to get out and on their way home, one of them screamed and fell, clutching at her calf. She screamed again as her fingers came into contact with the greenish fluid that was eating a hole in her leg.

"Run!" someone shouted.

They dropped Hansik Vaelta's corpse and ran, two of them dragging the injured woman between them.

Back where they'd left their scoots, they paused to treat their casualty. Nothing in their first aid kit worked. Fortunately, one of them thought to use a knife to scrape away the acid that still bubbled in her flesh. They bandaged the injuries and gave her a sedative, then headed back to Ammon as fast as their scoots would take them.

Several days later a police team from Olympia uneventfully retrieved Vaelta's remains.

More of the flesh was gone by then, and they had to cut the remains free of vines.

An Unexplained Expiration report was duly filed.

CHAPTER NINE

Thirty-fourth FIST did it again; another formal formation followed by a pass in review. But the FIST was followed by the companies of the base battalion, which in turn was trailed by the officers and sailors of the Confederation Naval Supply Depot on Thorsfinni's World. All military personnel at Camp Major Pete Ellis were on the parade ground except for those few who were required to maintain essential systems for the length of time the parade took. As were all the navy personnel save those needed to run essential systems at the facility.

Civilian employees of both bases packed the stands. The parade ground, normally spacious for the FIST, was barely adequate to hold the Marines and sailors and allow them the room they needed for the maneuvers of a pass in review. It was a most unusual parade, but it was a most unusual occasion: the first time a Commandant of the Marine Corps had ever visited Thorsfinni's World. But the crew of the CNSS
Northumberland,
the cruiser that brought the commandant on his visit, wasn't there--the men had been given shore liberty in New Oslo.

Commandant Anders Aguinaldo hadn't come empty-handed, he'd brought with him the medals earned on Kingdom that he was authorized to award, as well as the Kingdom Campaign Medal--struck for the peasant revolt that never happened. He presented each medal and shook the hand of each Marine who'd participated in the bloody operation. Then he presented 34th FIST with the Marine Unit Citation, the second highest of the Confederation's unit awards.