First to Fight (36 page)

Shabeli hesitated to give the command to open fire. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Staff Sergeant Charles H.Bass, Confederation Marine Corps, and I have come here to cut your stinking balls off, you gut-eating, puking, dogfather. You feed off the refuse other men eject through their assholes. I will cut out your tongue and send you back to your women, so they can teach you how to cook and real men will turn you over and use you like a whore!” Bass shook the knife and roared. His shouting was so powerful the men back at the basin could make out his words.

The other Siad, although they could not follow Bass, knew he was hurling insults at their leader. Shabeli’s eyes widened. It was clear this defiant man expected him to come down there and fight. More to the point, his warriors were catching on that the Marine was offering a challenge for personal combat, something no Siad warrior could reject with honor.

Shabeli smiled to himself. It had come to this? An expert in hand-to-hand combat, he knew he could take the man easily. It would be best just to have him incinerated and get on with his plans, but— Bass interrupted Shabeli’s thoughts and made his mind up for him.

“Shabeli!” Bass shouted in the language of the Siad. “Shabeli the Inconsequential! You! You fuck your mother up the ass!” Bass hurled the insult old Mas Fardeed had taught him to pronounce with perfect inflection. All the Siad heard the insult and each man leaped to his feet with a roar of outrage.

In one swift motion Shabeli stripped off his robe, unbuckled his side arms, and drew his own knife. It could have been the twin of the blade Bass brandished on the slope below. Shabeli strode down the ridge and came to a stop a few feet in front of Bass. All the Siad rushed to the top of the rise and stood there, outlined against the horizon, the remaining Marines crouched below completely forgotten.

But the Marines below hadn’t forgotten the Siad; they were watching with rapt attention.

“What’s going on up there?” Dean gasped.

“He’s challenging the big boss to a man-to-man fight,” Dornhofer answered.

“Why?” Claypoole asked.

Schultz stood watching the tableau, smiling softly to himself. “He’s showing us how to do it,” he said quietly.

“How to do what?’ Doyle asked.

“How to die.”

Shabeli and Bass squared off. Shabeli stood a head taller than Bass and, while he lacked the compact musculature of the Marine, he had the sinewy agility and strength of the practiced swordsman. Shabeli lashed his foot out with blinding speed at shoulder level. Bass took most of the force of the blow with his shoulder, but Shabeli’s boot glanced painfully off the top of his head. Still perfectly balanced, Shabeli whirled around and slammed his body full into the Marine, who staggered backward with the force of the contact, raising his knife arm just in time to counter a thrust. The weapons clashed with a loud metallic ring, and as Shabeli withdrew into a defensive stance, his blade left a long gash down Bass’s left arm, which instantly flowed with blood. The Siad on the ridge above let out a victorious roar.

Breathing heavily, unmindful of the painful wound Shabeli had just given him, Bass crouched, prepared for the next attack. Shabeli remained just out of range, carefully circling the Marine, looking for an opening. Bass tossed the knife into his left hand to distract his opponent and lunged. Watching the knife, Shabeli was caught momentarily off guard and Bass rammed his head into the bridge of Shabeli’s nose, which cracked audibly. Blood flowed from the Siad leader’s nostrils.

Stunned, Shabeli fell to one elbow, but rolled away as Bass leaped at him. Striking awkwardly across his body with his knife arm, Shabeli buried his blade into Bass’s left buttock. Bass grunted and the Siad roared again. Bass jumped to his feet just as Shabeli slammed into him. Holding his knife in his left hand, now slick with his own flowing blood, the impact of Shabeli’s full weight caused him to lose his grip and the knife fell between his feet. Shabeli kicked it away with one foot. Bass managed to grab Shabeli’s knife arm with his right hand, deflecting it away from his carotid artery, but still the blade sliced a long furrow down the side of his face and glanced agonizingly off his right collarbone before he stopped it. The two struggled silently for a few moments. Both men were breathing heavily now, bloody perspiration dripping off their contorted faces. Shabeli took the lobe of Bass’s right ear between his teeth and bit it off, at the same time twisting his body powerfully. Bass lost his balance and they fell heavily to the ground, Shabeli on top. The Siad on the ridge roared victoriously.

“Now you die!” Shabeli rasped through clenched teeth. He bore his full weight down upon Bass’s upraised arms. A horseman from infancy, like every Siad warrior, Shabeli’s legs were strong and they held Bass’s own hips and legs in a viselike grip, allowing Shabeli to bring the full power of his upper-body strength to bear as he drove the knife homeward inch by inch.

Abruptly, Bass wrenched his head sideways and let go of Shabeli’s arms. The plunging blade buried itself into the ground beside Bass’s left ear. His right hand free now, Bass snatched the K-Bar from his thigh and thrust the point up into Shabeli’s belly. The blade glanced off Shabeli’s pelvis just above his genitals and slid into his bladder. Shabeli screamed in agony and his legs spasmed violently, releasing Bass from their hold. Bass flipped Shabeli onto his back and, gripping the handle of the K-Bar with both hands, sliced him open all the way to the sternum. The ancient blade snapped cleanly at the hilt just as its point sliced Shabeli’s throbbing heart into two equal halves.

Shabeli the Magnificent uttered one long, high-pitched scream that echoed in the clear morning air and then lay still, his innards spilling in bloody, steaming coils upon the sand. Slowly, Bass rose to his feet. The hundreds of Siad standing along the ridge above him were completely silent. He stooped and retrieved his knife from the sand. In his right hand he still held the handle of the now-forever-useless K-Bar. The blade had broken and the USMC logo was buried in Shabeli’s lifeless heart.

Bass, standing erect so as to not show how near he was to exhaustion, raised his good knife to the sun shouted up at the dark figures clustered along the ridge,

“Who’s next?”

The Siad did not move. They remained completely silent, with their eyes fixed on Shabeli’s gutted carcass even as Bass turned and, shoulders squared, marched back to his waiting Marines.

Bleeding, bruised, exhausted, Bass managed to stay erect and not stumble until he stepped over the body barricade and back out of sight of the surrounding Siad. Still the Siad stood quietly on the ridge behind him.

“What now?” Dean asked as he and several others eased Bass down onto his back. Claypoole broke out an aid kit and began attending to his platoon sergeant’s wounds.

“Now?” Bass asked. He let out a long sigh. “Now we go home.”

The Siad watched, still enveloped in silence as the Marines gathered up their weapons and equipment and resumed their walk toward New Obbia. They walked erect with heads held high, almost marching, as though daring the Siad to attack again. Slung between Dean and Claypoole was the battered corpse of PFC Frederick Douglass McNeal. When they were finally out of sight behind a low ridge of hills, Wad Mohammad detached himself from the mass of warriors and walked to where Shabeli the Magnificent’s ruined corpse lay. He stood regarding his leader’s remains for a long moment and then kicked them—hard. He kicked the corpse again, and then again and again. Other Siad descended from the ridge and joined in. On the long ride back to their mountain fastness, the warriors carried Shabeli the Magnificent’s head, genitals, and other body parts suspended on bayonets. Wad Mohammad was their leader now, and under him things would be different on Elneal.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

They didn’t stop walking until shortly before nightfall. Bass wanted to put as much distance as possible between his men and the Siad. But something perhaps worse than running into more Siad happened. Two days later they ran out of water.

“Don’t throw that away, Dean,” Bass croaked when he saw Dean about to discard a water container he’d just drained during a break. He worked his jaw to force some saliva, then said to everybody, “Keep two water containers each, When you have to piss, don’t water the rocks, they won’t appreciate it properly. Use one of your empties. We’ll stop soon and I’ll teach you how to distill water from urine.”

Clarke looked ill at the thought of drinking Urine. Then he looked scared as he realized he had already dropped all of his water containers. Neru nudged him and handed him one of the three he was still carrying.

Dean grunted. “I don’t think I want to drink out of a bottle Claypoole pissed into.” He was surprised that he was able even to make a joke under these circumstances.

“That’s all right,” Bass responded seriously. “If the water Claypoole makes is all that’ll keep him alive, I don’t think he’d want you drinking it anyway.”

Dean chewed on a strip of dried skin where his lip was splitting. “We’re in deep trouble, aren’t we?”

Bass nodded. “But we’re not dead yet, Dean. Hey!” Bass raised his voice. “Any of you guys crap out on me now and I’ll drag your body back to New Obbia and give it a court-martial. Now, on your feet! Only forty kilometers straight that way and we’re out of here. Another day, day and a half, and I’m going to buy you all a cold beer.”

“Look!” Doyle croaked. “Scavengers! Look!” They looked where he pointed. Sure enough, it was one of the scavenger fliers, drifting lazily on a thermal high above them. “It’s coming for us. It’s coming for McNeal,” Doyle shouted.

“Aw, belay that crap,” Claypoole muttered. “McNeal’s hermetically sealed, and besides, we aren’t—” Doyle charged his weapon and fired a bolt into the sky.

“Jesus Muhammad,” Bass sighed as he watched the scavenger disintegrate in a bright flash, “that was probably your last bolt, Doyle. Secure that weapon and get on your feet; we’ve got to keep moving.” That Bass had not jumped Doyle more severely for his rashness was an indicator of how exhausted even the inexhaustible Charlie Bass had become.

Wearily, the men got to their feet and staggered on.

Wad Mohammad knocked gently at Moira’s door. She had fled to her chambers shortly after the war party returned, with what was left of her master and lover. Wad Mohammad knocked again. “Please open the door, my lady. I only wish to speak to you.” He stood patiently in the hallway and knocked a third time.

Eventually the door was opened by one of Moira’s serving girls. Wad Mohammad gently nudged the girl aside and entered the room. Moira lay on a couch, one arm flung across her face. “You bastard!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You damned bastard!”

“My lady.” Wad Mohammad bowed respectfully.

She sat up and faced him, her eyes red and cheeks wet. Even in her present condition, it was plain to see why Shabeli had honored the woman. In a culture where the women were short and dark, Moira’s tall fairness was extremely exotic to the men of the Siad. “I am without protection, but I swear, Wad Mohammad, you touch me . . .” Suddenly her hand filled with the bulk of an ancient pistol, one of those chambered for center-fire metal cartridges loaded into a cylinder. Carefully, she cocked its hammer, readying the pistol for firing and leveling its huge bore straight at Wad Mohammad. He eyed the pistol with interest. It was an ancient and beautiful instrument, this pistol, and he vowed that one day he would own it.

Wad Mohammad held his palms out toward her. “You have nothing to fear from me, my lady. I have come here to pay you my compliments and to ask for your help.” He gestured toward a chair, and she nodded. Wad Mohammad seated himself with a sigh and stretched his legs out before him.

‘’I am now the chieftain of all the Siad,” he announced matter-of-factly. “Shabeli received the punishment he deserved.” Wad Mohammad held up his hand to silence the protest she was about to voice. “He got many of our best men killed, my lady. His plot to defy the Confederation was insanely irresponsible from the beginning. Oh, yes, old Wad Ramadan was right all along. These Marines, these devils, are not to be defeated by us. They are extremely brave and better armed than we are, even with the weapons Shabeli stockpiled. You know these people better than we. If Wad Ramadan, his own uncle and father’s closest confidant, couldn’t influence Shabeli, you were in no position to do so either. Besides, who would dare defy Shabeli the Magnificent?” Wad Mohammad grinned and spread out his hands.

“Well, one man did, my lady,” he continued. “One of those Confederation Marines. He killed your man. Oh, you should have seen that fight! Already our poets are composing songs about it. Those off-worlders have some fine men. It is no disgrace to be defeated by such as he, my lady. We know that one’s name, and generations of Siad yet unborn will thrill to the songs of how he and Shabeli the Magnificent fought to the death.

“But that is over now. We must look to the future, make peace with the Confederation, and preserve what we can of our old ways.”

She observed Wad Mohammad closely as he spoke. How much he reminded her of Shabeli the Magnificent. And yet there was something to Wad Mohammad that Shabeli never had—sincerity. He really meant what he was saying; he didn’t radiate the impression he was planning things for his own glorification. Carefully, she lowered the revolver’s hammer and placed the weapon in her lap. Wad Mohammad smiled. “What is it you wish of me, my lord?” she asked.

Wad Mohammad’s smile widened, then disappeared, and he leaned forward briskly, all business now. He would get to know this magnificent woman better later. “Everything has changed on our world and we will have to change too. I want a video hookup to the Confederation officials at New Obbia, and I want you to translate a message for me. I have a present for the Marine commander, the lives of some very brave men.”

Corporal MacLeash suddenly stiffened at his instrument console. Just before the screen went blank, the drone’s opticals had focused on a small group of men far below. He hadn’t been able to make out any of their faces in the brief look he had—a playback later could focus on them and come up with the ID—but in that instant the corporal clearly saw there were eight Marines staring up at the UAV. “Skipper!” he called to Captain Conorado. “It’s just like that bastard told us. We found ’em!”

“Charlie, you old
kwangduk
, it’s good to see you again!” Captain Conorado sat beside Staff Sergeant Bass as the battalion surgeon and his assistants tended to his wounds.

“I lost my K-Bar, Skipper,” Bass groaned sorrowfully,

“I know, I know,” Conorado soothed, and then he realized Bass was putting him on. “Charlie,” the captain shook his head, “will you never cease to amaze me?’ Both men laughed. Bass started to cough.

“Hey, Marine, easy there!” the surgeon said. “I know you’re a tough one, Staff Sergeant, but how about lying still for a while, make our work easier for us, huh?”

Bass nodded and smiled. Then his smile vanished and he said to Conorado, “Baccacio—”

“Ensign Baccacio,” Conorado interrupted, pronouncing “Ensign” sarcastically, “ran off and left some of his men behind. He’s responsible for what happened to that fine young Marine, McNeal, Charlie, and had it been in my power to do so, I’d have shot Baccacio in front of the entire FIST.” Conorado’s voice grated and the blood rushed to his face as he spoke. Then, calmer, he went on, “But instead I just relieved him of command and sent his worthless ass back to Admiral Willis’s flagship. If he doesn’t resign, he’ll be court-martialed for cowardice and dereliction of duty and a dozen other things I can think of, besides being a first-class ass. I think the young ensign will resign and save us a lot of work. By the way, that Sergeant Hyakowa, he’s definite officer material.” Conorado nodded. “Keep your eye on him, Charlie.”

Conorado was silent for a moment. “Charlie, you and your men showed ’em, didn’t you? We thought you were dead, but goddamn . . .” He paused. “I couldn’t command this company without you . . .” He paused again, to get control of himself. “It was you, that nasty old K-Bar of yours,” he went on, “and seven scraggly-assed Marines, who changed everything for the better on this miserable chunk of rock. You are a piece of work, Staff Sergeant Charles H. Bass,” he concluded lamely.

“Skipper,” Bass replied, “I think the Corps owes me one this time.”

“It sure does, Charlie! I’ve already started writing up the citation for—”

Bass held up his hand. “No, sir, no medals, please. Not for me. I’ve got enough of those. Give them to my men. Every one of them rates at least a Bronze Star with comet. Neru should get a Silver Nebula. You should have seen him when he took on that first assault.”

Conorado stared speculatively at Bass for a moment. Finally he said, “You’ll disappoint your men if you don’t accept a decoration. They all think that fight you had with Shabeli certainly rates one.”

Bass shook his head. “Maybe some of them think so, but not all of them. Don’t try to put me on.”

“Everyone,” Conorado repeated, “even Schultz.”

“Schultz?” Bass said sharply. “The Hammer believes anything that doesn’t kill you doesn’t rate a medal. He says anytime you can walk away from an action, all you did was your job.”

Conorado nodded. “That’s right, that’s the Schultz who thinks you rate a Silver Nebula. Probably means you deserve at least a Marine Heroism Medal.”

Bass shook his head. He couldn’t believe that Hammer Schultz thought he deserved a medal for bringing the patrol across the Martac Waste.

“If you want medals for your men, go ahead and write them up. I’ll pass them on with my endorsement. I’m sure Admiral Willis will see to it that they get whatever you recommend them for.”

“All right, I’ll write them up. But none for me. I really don’t need any more.”

Now Conorado grinned. “You’ll have to take that up with Admiral Willis. When your men told him what you did, he told me he expects a citation written and on his desk by tomorrow morning. I may be a bad-ass Marine company commander, but Charlie, damned if I’m tough enough to deny a full Fleet Admiral when he tells me he wants something.”

Bass looked levelly at Conorado for a long moment, then sagged and swore under his breath. He straightened. “The citation you put on the Admiral’s desk for me is going to be underneath the citations I write for my men. Understand?”

Conorado nodded. “Fine by me. Just have them in my hands before I leave for the flagship.” He stood to leave.

“Not yet, Skipper,” Bass said, stopping him. “There’s still the matter of the thing I
do
want.”

“What’s that, Charlie?”

Bass motioned for the captain to sit down and lean close.

“He wants what?” the Brigadier exclaimed. “And he wants it how?” The Brigadier thought for a moment, then said, “Well, since it’s for Staff Sergeant Bass, I’ll give it a try.”

“He wants what?” Admiral Willis asked his chief of staff. “And he wants it how?” The Admiral leaned back in his chair. “Well, get it for him and let’s not keep the man waiting.” Then he added, “Have you finished processing those citations yet? I want the awards made before this operation is finished so I can pin the medals on them myself.”

Admiral Willis assigned a commander to escort the six large metal containers to the FIST’s infirmary where Bass was recovering. A sailor broke the seal on one and left them alone with Bass and Captain Conorado. The captain reached inside and lifted out an ice-cold, one-liter bottle of Reindeer Ale, which he handed to Bass. Bass motioned for the Skipper to take one for himself. Each container held twenty-four bottles of beer.

Bass snapped the top and drank. “Ahh!” he sighed. “There really is a God and He really does love us, Skipper.”

“There’s a hell of a lot of beer here, Charlie,” Conorado said.

“Yessir. One more request. Would you get the men who were with me in the desert, and ask them to come in here for a while? Even Corporal Doyle—he turned out to be a better Marine than any of us expected. I promised them all a beer when we got out. Give us thirty minutes alone and then send in the rest of the platoon.”

The party that night was one that lived on in platoon legend for decades.

The spirit of the Bos Kashi was broken in the battle of New Obbia. After some jockeying for position by rivals, Wad Mohammad became undisputed leader of the Siad and brought an end to Shabeli’s disastrous raids on the farmers who fed the world. Moira, the off-world journalist, was first his translator, then his ambassador to the Elneal government in New Obbia. The Gaels and the Sons of Freedom decided that following the lead of men who wore dresses wasn’t such a good idea and went back to raiding each other. The Muong Song, in their ocean fastness, nodded sagely about the foolishness of the low-land round-eyes and continued searching for lucrative ways to transport their drugs off-planet. The Euskadi, happy about being left alone, ignored the remainder of the planet.

The situation on Elneal returned to normal. After three months overseeing distribution of food and medicines, and with a new crop of grain and vegetables sowed and growing, the Marines left.