In Every Clime and Place (8 page)

ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7

I looked up from Jensen’s reader. Now I knew what the corporation was after, but not why.

“What did they want that outpost cleared out for?” I asked. “It’s not like a Spaghetti Western and the railroad was coming through.”

“Certain organizations wanted a place where they could do their dirty work out of sight. The same way ‘civilized’ nations used to hand their high profile prisoners to a less scrupulous ally for interrogation. Back at the beginning of the century, a lot of that got out into the public. It was too hard to contain internet leaks. Ever since the big fire storms caused by Manning and Snowden and Assange, governments have longed for a nice secluded place to train operatives, debrief prisoners, that kind of thing.”

“You mean they wanted a nice deep hole to put people in.”

Jensen smiled. “The oubliette of the twenty-first century. It’s not like a hundred years ago when you could just train rebels in Mexico and stage them in Guatemala for the invasion of Cuba.”

“It must be heartbreaking for the CIA that they can’t recapture the rousing success of the Bay of Pigs.”

“We all miss the good old days sometimes,” he said. “But they thought they’d found the perfect solution out in space.”

SNN News File 4, courtesy Brian Jensen

16 Nov 2075

Unconventional Forces Training Station, Ganymede

Milos Radicz grunted in disgust as he watched his men repairing the artificial atmosphere controller. Typical of everything on this squalid base, it was malfunctioning. Again. The technicians swore and sweated as they struggled with the machine.

Radicz shook his head and regretted for the hundredth time the place his career had brought him. He had been a colonel in the Serbian Special Forces at one time. Had worn a uniform with pride, and held his head high as he served a country he loved. Now he was a mercenary, a hired gun in the pay of the American CIA. It bothered him to work for the Americans. It was their meddling that brought down the government he once served. He reminded himself that he didn’t have much of an option. As an officer in his position, it would have been jail or the noose of some Muslim vigilante mob had the American intelligence agency not offered him a job.

He now commanded eight hundred men. Nearly the number in his old regiment.

Eight hundred hired thugs
, he thought. Failed rebels, outcast terrorists, and modern day pirates. Men without a nation to call their own.
Men like me,
he admitted. Their causes back on Earth may have failed, but they were hardened warriors. The intelligence community had uses for such men. The pay was good, in money at least, but he missed the surge of pride when he stood before his troops and saluted his flag.

A tone rang in his earpiece, jolting him back to the present.

“Commander?”

“Come in.”

“Shuttle approaching. Mr O’Hooley is paying a visit.”

Radicz swore silently. “Very good, Slawco. I shall meet him in the conference room.”

In the conference room, the Serb sat down at the large table and began sipping at his thick, black coffee. He did not rise as the CIA man entered, but waved the steward towards his visitor.

“Thanks, Colonel,” O’Hooley said, accepting a mug. Special Agent David O’Hooley meant the title as an honor to his host, but Radicz winced. The early Americans had named a native chieftain King Phillip, but used him badly, stole his land and killed him just the same. He felt that the agent was merely humoring the savage.

“The base is shaping up,” the CIA man continued.

“It’s a shambles,” grumbled the Serb. “My people live like dogs. Dogs I have to separate to prevent religious warfare.”

“Takes all kinds, Colonel.”

“It doesn’t
take
all kinds, Mr O’Hooley. I just
have
all kinds.” The more he dealt with his contact at the agency, the more he despised the man. The American was tall, athletic and handsome. He was also a cheap whore for power who knew no loyalty except to himself. Radicz had studied the man. He had allegedly been denied service with the military because of color blindness, and so joined the agency to serve his country another way. The Serb was convinced the only color blindness in O’Hooley was his inability to tell red, white and blue from green. Every move he had made seemed calculated to boost his own wealth and prestige. Kissing the ass above while kicking the head below. It hurt to work for such a man.

“Well, I got some good news for you.” The agent grinned, revealing a set of perfect teeth. “First, I brought along some booze and hookers to brighten your boys’ outlooks.”

Radicz groaned inwardly. The man was throwing a bone to his loyal dogs.

“And, I got us a plan to move this whole operation to some improved digs.”

This sparked Radicz’s interest. Despite himself, he leaned forward. “Go on, my friend.”

“Alls we gotta do is convince some people that space is no place for decent people. How’s a little piracy grab you?”

USS
TRIPOLI

I made my way back to sickbay before turning in. O’Rourke was awake and aware, if a little groggy from the medication.

“Hi buddy. How ya feeling?”

“Fine and fuckin’ dandy,” he muttered with a sleepy grin. “Everybody else get out OK?”

I nodded. “Thanks for pushing me out of the way, brother.”

“That what you thought? I was trying to use you as a shield.”

“I should have known. Sabatini said you just wanted a Purple Heart to go where everybody else’s Good Conduct Medal goes.”

“Her Highness doesn’t think I could win a Good Conduct Medal?”

“Terry, your mom doesn’t believe you could win a Good Conduct Medal.”

He shrugged. “Point taken.”

“What the hell is your problem with Sabatini?” I asked. “You still pissed that we all stopped looking at your ass when she joined the platoon?”

“Rodriguez still looks at my ass.”

“Yeah, and he knows all the words to
West Side Story
. Do the math.”

“OK, second point taken. It’s just not the same with a woman in the squad, Mick.”

“How you figure? She doesn’t get all bitchy when we use foul language or talk about sex, she drinks almost as well as we do, swears like a Teamsters’ Union shop steward and is almost as much a guy as the rest of us. She could probably enter a pissing-for-distance competition.”

He looked unconvinced. “It don’t matter how she acts. Everybody knows she’s a woman. You guys act different around her whether she demands it or not. Nobody can forget she’s not a guy.”

“What the hell do you want? Shit, look at her. If you haven’t noticed she’s a woman, maybe you should start hanging with Rodriguez.”

“Fuck you, Mick,” he replied casually. “Let’s drop it. She’s not a bad Marine. I’ll adjust.”

“Good. ‘Cause you just made Lance Corporal.”

He blinked twice. “How?”

I shrugged. “Heroism. Duty. The usual song and dance. Oh, I had to lie my ass off to Sarge and the Old Man and tell ’em you were an asset to the Corps, but what are friends for?”

“Thanks, Mick.”

“Besides, it was getting embarrassing to see a fossil like you the same rank as a kid like Johnson.”

“Just pour on the flattery.”

“Hey, nothing’s too good for you, pal. How long the docs say you’d be here?”

“Day or two. After that I’ll probably get some light duty.”

“I’ll try to struggle on without you.”

“Thanks for stopping in.”

“Least I could do.” I patted his good arm. “Heal up and get your ass back to my team. You read me, Marine?”

“Aye aye, Your Fucking Majesty!” he replied with a twisted grin.

****

The party the next night was a brilliant success. CPO Kelly donated two bottles of champagne he had liberated from the embassy (I’m sure he held back some more for personal consumption) and some of his own homebrew beer. I was happy about that. The Powers That Be only authorized one liter of beer per Marine. That was hardly enough to get a buzz on. Besides, Kelly’s brew was real beer, not the watery swill the military buys. I would be able to trade my ration of pisswater to young Marines who didn’t know better for their share of the quartermaster’s amber elixir. And good old Terry was in sickbay, so both the beer and his promotion were safe. Just about a perfect setup.

The chow hall was cleaned up and the tables pushed to one side to leave most of the deck clear for dancing. A collection of music was scrounged from among the platoon and played over the intercom. It was the usual horrible military mix: half country and western and half modern dance music. If you were a white Yankee city kid like me, you just suffered. The latest incarnation of the immortal American art form known as rock and roll didn’t lend itself to dancing.

I spent the first half of the evening sampling Kelly’s finest and shooting the shit with Sabatini, Pilsudski and Cpl Chan. Chan, being of Chinese ancestry, was whiter than the rest of us white guys as far as dancing was concerned.

Chan and Pilsudski spent about an hour discussing hand-to-hand combat, while Sabatini and I spent the hour mocking them. Cpl Chan was a black belt in some martial art or other, and Pilsudski was a fencer, so they both considered practice for murder a hobby.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not squeamish. It’s just that, to me, killing people is work. If I’m not on duty, I’d just as soon drink and flirt, thank you very much.

“Ya know,” Sabatini said, “why the hell don’t you guys just learn to shoot? It’s a lot more efficient.”

Chan looked offended. Pilsudski smirked and replied, “The art of the sabre has been passed down for generations in my family.”

“Which is why Poland had an empire spanning the greater part of the known world?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, no. Wait. I’m sorry. That was everybody else.”

Sabatini laughed. Ski just glared at her. He could hardly take issue with her ancestors; they ran the Roman empire. He turned on me, instead.

“I suppose you think the Irish have a great military tradition?”

“We do. It just so happens that all our victories were against other Irishmen.”

Pilsudski shook his head and returned to discussing the finer points of disemboweling or whatever the hell it was. I turned my chair around and looked out at the dance floor.

“Will you look at Johnson?” I asked Sabatini.

She laughed. The young Marine was struggling to impress the female social workers with the intensity possible only in a nineteen-year-old old male who hasn’t seen an available woman in six months. He was doing everything but snorting and pawing the ground.

“Why are you so calm?” she asked. “You’re a guy. Why aren’t you acting like a stallion in rut?”

“I’m old and jaded. Also, I dance like an Irish American.”

“How’s that?” she asked with a smile.

“It’s a rare phenomenon, usually only seen at weddings. We drink too much and then stagger rhythmically in time to the music.”

“And how does somebody get to see this phenomenon?”

“We usually get caught crossing the dance floor on the way to the head. Then you’re stuck out there until the song ends.”

She laughed. “Seriously, you’re funny as hell. Women like that. You could get lucky.”

“Thanks for the thought. Why the concern about my sex life?”

“I just worry. I haven’t seen you with anybody since I got transferred here. I can’t see why. Unless, maybe, you and Terry...”

“I told you, I can’t dance. Nor can I stand show tunes or coordinate my wardrobe. I joined the Corps so I wouldn’t have to decide what to wear.”

“Are you gonna spill the beans or not, Paddy?” She leaned closer, giving me the cold smile that meant she had a straight flush or an enemy in the crosshairs. “We’re supposed to trust one another. You trust me to guard your back, talk to me.”

“OK.” I sank the rest of my beer and got a fresh one. “I don’t deal well with casual relationships. I fooled around with a petty officer in the Navy medical corps once. We had a good time, got along, so we hit the rack. I thought we were an item.” I took another pull at my beer and smirked at my past foolishness. “On leave in Nairobi, I walked into one of our regular slop chutes, sat at the bar, and saw her with her tongue down some Navy dickhead’s throat.”

“What did you do?”

“Beat the shit out of him, trashed the bar, spent a night in the brig and lost two stripes. Terry was my partner in crime, so he lost his rank, too. I decided I was better off steering clear of casual flings.”

“Wow,” she responded. “I’m impressed.”

“At what aspect of my glorious failure?”

“That O’Rourke had rank to lose, and that you two would trash a bar.”

She broke me up. I laughed uncontrollably. Everybody at the table turned to watch me shudder helpless in the grip of mirth. I couldn’t stop until I was out of breath and tears were running down my cheeks.

“Oh. Oh, shit,” I gasped, “That’s funny. Come to think of it, those are the most unbelievable parts of the story.”

When I recovered and our neighbors returned to their symposium on slaughter, I turned the tables. “Alright, fair’s fair. What’s a fabulous babe like you doing in a dump like this?”

She thought for a minute, swirling her beer in the glass, as though seeking the answer in the depths. “When I first joined the Corps, I got off on being one of the only women around so many men. I had my pick.” She shrugged. “I was young and stupid. I wound up with a lousy reputation and lots of complications. Now, I make it a point to be real careful.”

I nodded in understanding. I raised my glass. “To knowing when to be careful.”

She grinned and touched her glass to mine. “I’ll drink to that.”

We emptied our glasses in one long swig. I beat her by about a second.

“Well,” she said, “I better turn in. I’ve had as much beer as I can hold.”

“Take care, Marine.”

She leaned over my shoulder. “Good night, Mick. Don’t drink so much you can’t find your way to the squadbay.” She turned away and walked out of the chow hall. Watching her leave, I wished for one lustful second that she wasn’t in my fire team. Probably for the best, though. She was too good a Marine and too good a friend. I was better off not screwing that up by nailing her.

That’s me, hopeless romantic.

It turned out Sabatini was right. I wound up impressing one of the young ladies greatly with my wit and knowledge. We talked, drank, and nature took its inevitable course. I was drunk enough to go to bed with her, but sober enough to be discreet, which is just about the right amount of drunk, if you ask me.