First to Fight (9 page)

Graduation Day was hot and clear. The sunlight beat down steadily on the men in their ranks; the rainy season was over. The men of A Company stood rigidly at attention in their new scarlet and blue dress uniforms. Not a man in the company had ever felt prouder of himself than he did that morning, Dean more than most, because the single golden chevron of a PFC was emblazoned on his sleeves. He was one of five men in the platoon to win meritorious promotion for conduct and achievement during the training cycle.

Presentation of the marksmanship badges was another high point in Joseph Dean’s military life. He’d qualified as one of the best shots in the company, scoring High Expert. “Not one recruit in fifty has shot as high a score as you since I’ve been in command here,” the Brigadier said as he pinned the golden cross onto Dean’s blouse. “Congratulations, Marine.” Dean’s chest almost burst right through his tunic. He wished his parents could see him. After the Brigadier passed down the rank, Dean permitted himself a huge grin. Captain Tomasio, glancing back from where he stood next to the Brigadier, scowled ominously and then winked. With great difficulty, PFC Dean wiped the smile off his face.

“Here you go, Marines,” Staff Sergeant Neeley announced, but then had to pause while the new Marines of second platoon cheer—edit was the first time one of their drill instructors had called them Marines, a title they’d just spent six months striving to earn.

“Okay, okay,” he continued when the shouting had died down. “Here are your assignments for specialty training: oh-one, infantry, the king of battle: oh-two, artillery, can’t fight a war without ’em; oh-three, air assault, you ground fighters’ll love them the first time they show up when you need air support; oh-four, combat engineer, we rely on the navy and army for noncombat-condition engineering; oh-five, armor and combat transport, you remember the Dragons; oh-six, armorer, you break your weapon, they fix it; oh-seven, aircraft maintenance, the flyboys can’t without maintenance; oh-eight, logistics, that’s rations and power packs; oh-nine, administration, it’s a dirty, unappreciated job, but somebody’s got to do it. There are others, but don’t worry about them now, because nobody gets ’em right out of Boot Camp.

“Infantry, you’ll leave for the Fleet tomorrow morning. The rest of you will go to your specialty schools—right here on Arsenault.” This was met by a chorus of outraged screams. “At ease, at ease,” Neeley calmed them down. “Actually, outside Boot Camp, duty on Arsenault is pretty good.” Several men loudly expressed disbelief. “Pretty good,” Neeley continued. “You can even have cold beer in the evenings.”

“Aaaah!” McNeal yelled. “I’d reenlist for a cold beer!”

“As you were,” Neeley said shortly. “Here are your assignments: Anderhalt, Shaqlim X, oh-two, artillery; Clancy, Mordecai, oh-one, you leave tomorrow . . .” and on through the alphabet. Dean did not hear his name called. “McNeal, Frederick D, oh-one,” Neeley announced. Neeley droned on, and each successive announcement was greeted by shouts of joy or groans of despair as the newly minted Marines contemplated their fates for the next seven and a half years. Those going to the same schools broke up into little groups and began speculating loudly about what to expect. At last Neeley was finished.

“Miss anyone?” he asked. Dean raised his hand, bewildered. “Dean, huh? I called your name, Dean, were you asleep or something? Oh-one. PFC, you leave for the Fleet in the morning.”

CHAPTER

SEVEN

Everybody has traditions—planetary, national, city, family, individual, group—in all times, in all places. Traditions are important, always have been, always will be—even when they don’t make sense to outsiders. They help people build and maintain a sense of identity and continuity.

On Saint Brendan’s, where they don’t have snakes and never did, they drink green beer every March 17. The Saint Brendan’s calendar doesn’t have a March 17, either—with an orbital period of 379 days, they can’t use the same calendar as their cousins on Old Earth. But the original colonists were from Ireland and insisted on continuing to celebrate the patron saint of their Earthly nativity. So they arbitrarily designated every 365th day as March 17, or Saint Patrick’s Day. Complete with quadrennial allowance for leap year. The second wave of immigration to Saint Brendan’s consisted of Americans of Irish ancestry. They were the ones who brought in the green beer. The green beer caught on, so once every 365 days everyone on Saint Brendan’s guzzles down a pint or two of green beer—it’s traditional.

Saint Brendan’s has been on the metric system from the beginning. Green beer on Saint Patrick’s Day is the only time they use the archaic measure of the pint. That’s a tradition too.

Everybody faces east to kneel and pray on Alhambra. Alhambra was originally settled by Moslems from North Africa. Like all good Muslims on Old Earth, they face Mecca when they kneel five times a day to pray. In North Africa, Mecca is to the east, so Alhambrans face east to pray. If they really wanted to face Mecca, though, they’d face in a more-or-less northerly direction, because that’s where old Earth is relative to Alhambra. But it’s traditional to face east, so five times a day all Alhambrans face the direction of the planetary rotation to kneel and pray.

On the dozens of worlds where their brotherhood spread, Masons still say arcane things to each other about squares, levels, and planes. It doesn’t matter that few of them have ever seen any of those ancient tools, or that fewer of them are stoneworkers or carpenters. It’s traditional that Masons speak in arcane terms about objects they’re unfamiliar with. Don’t mock them for their obscure, often unintelligible vocabulary, though. No Mason who can so identify himself is ever lost and alone on a world where he can find a brother Mason. That’s another of their traditions.

Le Loi’s victory over the Chinese in Old Earth year 1427 is annually celebrated on Chochet Viet, which was first colonized by a Vietnam-based mining consortium. None of the succeeding waves of immigrants were Vietnamese, and, due to intermarriage, none of the population today is of pure Vietnamese stock. Not only is there relatively little Vietnamese in their blood, the largest portion of later immigrants was Chinese, and the planetary language is mainly a derivative of Cantonese. Still, Chochet Viet maintains the tradition of celebrating Le Loi’s victory over the Chinese.

Of all the worlds and all the organizations of Human Space, none are more tradition-bound than the Confederation Marine Corps.

One of their traditions has to do with making planetfall. It doesn’t matter why they’re making planetfall: an assault against a hostile defense to kick open a door for the regular army to invade through; making a liberty port of call; a ceremonial landing in escort of a new ambassador; or for any other reason. Marines always make planetfall the traditional way—over the beach.

Klaxons rang and blared throughout the Confederation Navy SAT—Starship Assault Troop—
Lance Corporal Keith Lopez
. A voice intoned over the ship’s speakers, “Commander, Landing Force, prepare the landing force for landing.”

The navy has its traditions too. Klaxons are one of them.

On the ship’s bridge the captain and the dozen officers and men of the bridge watch went through the ages-old routine of preparing to disembark the landing force.

Another navy tradition is the layout of a ship’s bridge. The bridge on the
Lopez
would have looked familiar to Chester Nimitz. At first glance, that is.

“Is the string-of-pearls deployed?” Captain Bhofi asked, not that the ship was going to deploy the geosynchronous satellites around a Confederation member planet that already wore its necklace. He sat in a high chair bolted to the deck in the middle of the five-by-eight-meter room. He faced a wall of what looked like a row of one-by-two-meter windows that lined what was otherwise a featureless, battleship-gray wall. The windows gave the impression that the bridge was located above the top surface of the spaceship. It wasn’t, though. Close examination of the windows would reveal that they were actually viewscreens—at the moment, the viewscreens showed exactly what was in front of the ship, but they could show whatever was in range of the ship’s sensors, regardless of direction. A corner of Thorsfinni’s World hung bloated in the lower quadrant of the rightmost screen. A maneuverable orbit-to-planetside shuttle was in the second-to-the-right screen and growing as it approached.

“Is the string-of-pearls deployed?’ the deck officer asked, repeating the question. He stood at a deck-mounted console a few feet from the captain’s chair.

That was another navy tradition: the repeating of orders.

The bridge communications petty officer pressed a button on his console and said loud and clear, “Is the stringof-pearls deployed?’ into his voicelink with the communications shack. He sat at a cramped desk behind the deck officer.

“The string-of-pearls is deployed, aye, and communications established,” answered the petty officer second class in the comm shack who was responsible for the commlink with the belt of geosynchronous satellites already in orbit around the globe below the
Lopez.
It wasn’t necessary for it to be there, but the comm shack was located in a position remote from the bridge.

“The string-of-pearls is deployed, aye, and communications established.” The reply was repeated until the captain acknowledged it.

“Establish communications with the harbormaster,” Captain Bhofi ordered.

Yet another tradition, calling the spaceport boss a “harbormaster.”

“Establish communications with the harbormaster,” the deck officer repeated.

The communications petty officer repeated the command into his voicelink.

“Communications with the harbormaster established, aye,” said the petty officer second class in the comm shack.

The answer came back and Captain Bhofi ordered, “Patch the harbormaster through.”

“Patch the harbormaster through,” the deck officer repeated.

The bridge communications petty officer tapped a short series of buttons on his console, echoed the command into his voicelink, listened to his headphone, then said, “Harbormaster patched through, aye.”

Captain Bhofi picked up his voicelink and said into it, “Confederation Navy SAT
Lance Corporal Keith Lopez
requests permission for orbital docking.”

“Permission granted, esteemed visitor Confederation Navy SAT
Lance Corporal Keith Lopez
,” the harbormaster replied. “Stand by to receive pilot.”

The communications petty officer punched a different button on his console and said the same thing into his voicelink. Then, softly, he added, “Let’s let the local mugwug come aboard and act more important than he is.”

“Helm, one point to port,” the captain said. One more tradition; a compass “point” is far too crude a measure to maneuver for orbital docking.

“One point to port, aye,” said the helmsman, and turned the ship’s wheel to the left. A steering wheel in a starship? Maybe the navy’s even more tradition-bound than the Marines.

Preparations to receive the pilot and to commence docking complete, Captain Bhofi turned his attention to the one man on the bridge who wasn’t one of his officers or men, the only Marine officer aboard. “Commander, Landing Force, is the landing force prepared to land?” he asked in the voice that had caused several navy officers over the years to request a transfer from his command, and driven many a chief petty officer into early retirement.

Confederation Marine Major Longaway stood calmly with his back to the bulkhead, near the port-side hatch of the bridge, out of everybody’s way. When the captain spoke, he slid easily to attention and said quite calmly, “Yessir, the landing force is prepared to land.”

Captain Bhofi’s glare asked how Major Longaway could know his Marines were ready to land when he hadn’t left the bridge since the command to ready the landing force was given.

“Corporal Doyle saw to it, sir.”

“Corporal Doyle,” Captain Bhofi repeated, as though continuing to pass orders and responses. Stone-faced, he turned his attention back to his bridge duties.

The ship’s first officer looked at Longaway and wondered how he could have replied so calmly.

Longaway winked at the first officer, then calmly turned and left the bridge.

The voice that followed the klaxons was a carefully modulated female voice, but the effect it had in the ship’s only occupied troop hold was the same as that of a grizzled old chief bos’n snarling out orders.

Twenty-odd Marines, the only occupants of a troop hold designed to house the 113 junior NCOs and enlisted men of an infantry company, stopped doing whatever they had been doing and checked their gear, made sure their lockers were empty, the deck around their racks was clear, and their weapons, packs, and seabags ready to be picked up and carried to the landing craft waiting in the well deck.

The troop hold was right out of navy tradition. Cots were stacked four high, with two feet of head space between the top of one mattress and the springs of the next one up. A stack of battleship-gray lockers separated the head of one stack of racks from the foot of the next. The rows of rack-and-locker stacks were separated by meter-and-a-half-wide aisles. Even though space wasn’t as scarce in built-in-orbit starships as it had been in seagoing ships, the third-to-last thing any sailor on an assault troopship wanted to do was make the Marines it was transporting too comfortable. If they were too comfortable, the Marines might want to stay aboard instead of making their assigned planetfall. If they stayed aboard, they’d probably want to take over, and the second-to-last thing any self-respecting sailor wanted was to have Marines in charge.

The last thing any sailor on an assault troop transport wanted to do was make planetfall with the Marines—if the Marines are going in, planetside is probably too dangerous.

None of the Marines galvanized into action by the voice ordering them to prepare for landing were more animated than a stocky, diminutive corporal who bounded from his rack in the NCO comer of the troop hold and barked out:

“You heard the word, people! Make sure your gear is stowed and your seabags secured.” He marched through the nearly empty hold, doing his best to give everything a gimlet-eyed once-over.

“We’re about to hit the beach. Anything you don’t have with you when we go over the side, you’ll never see again. Look sharp now.”

“Who died and left him God?” someone stage-whispered.

“I heard that, Chan,” Corporal Doyle snapped. In three strides he stood nose-to-chest with a PFC who was as much bigger than any of the other Marines in the hold as Doyle was smaller. “Nobody had to die to make me God. I’ve got more of these than anybody else here does.” He tapped a thumb against the two bronze chevrons and nova device pinned to his utility shirt collar. “That makes me God. Step aside for inspection.”

Chan almost managed to suppress a sigh as he took a step to the side and pivoted to face parallel to his rack. He casually came to attention.

Using a series of quick, sharp movements, Doyle made sure Chan’s pack and seabag were securely closed. He opened the small locker at the rack’s head to satisfy himself it was empty, then flipped the rack’s thin mattress to check for anything stowed under it. Disgruntled that Chan’s gear was impeccably packed and ready for disembarkment, Doyle snatched Chan’s blaster from its belay at the head of his rack. Using parade-ground motions, he inspected the weapon. The battery wasn’t in it—it was unloaded and clear. His close scrutiny found no corrosion, dust, or oil buildup. Disappointed at not finding anything wrong with the weapon, he thrust it at Chan so fast the big man almost didn’t get his hands up in time to stop the blaster from slamming into his body.

“Square away that mattress, Chan,” Doyle snarled. “I don’t want any sailor-boys complaining we didn’t leave this hold shipshape.”

“Aye aye, Corporal,” Chan said in a long-suffering voice. He was glad the trip was over and he might never again see the runt who had ridden him for the whole voyage.

“Everybody, open your lockers and stand your mattresses up,” Doyle ordered. “Gear and weapons inspection.” He briskly went through the small portion of the troop hold occupied by the few Marines being transferred to 34th FIST on Thorsfinni’s World. Everyone was fully packed, not a strap was out of place, every weapon was immaculate.

“All right, people,” Doyle said after looking them over one last time, “stand by for further orders.” He spun and returned to the NCO comer, of which he was the sole occupant.

“Are all corporals in the fleet as full of crap as that?” PFC Joe Dean asked Chan, who stood next to him.

Chan shook his head. “Negative on that. Doyle’s a pogue and wants everyone to think he’s as tough as a real Marine.”

“Pogue.” That’s another Confederation Marine tradition. They preserve ancient language. “Pogue” was the word twentieth-century U.S. Marines used to describe noncombat Marines—clerks and cooks and bakers and other nonfighters. A “real Marine” was in the fighting arms; an infantryman, artilleryman, tanker, recon, air crew—anyone who pulled a trigger, cocked a cannon, snooped and pooped, or dropped bombs.