Steel Gauntlet (12 page)

The three watched them walk away. Gunner Moeller said, “I don’t think anybody will need any more instruction on keeping themselves out of the backblast of the launchers.” The day before mount out, Brigadier Sturgeon held a final briefing for his staff and subordinate commanders.

“Gentlemen, the first thing for us to remember is that all of our information on the Diamundean situation is at least six months out of date.”

The only way anything, including information, could travel between planets at a speed faster than light was by starship. Radio and laser wouldn’t do the job of interstellar communications because it would take more than four centuries for a broadcast from the farthest reaches of Human Space to reach Earth.

Even the shortest interstellar transmissions would take ten years. Starships, on the other hand, traveled at a speed of slightly more than six and a quarter light-years per day. Information from the most remote part of Human Space could travel the distance in little more than two months on a starship. Diamunde was situated about seventy-five light-years from Earth. A fast courier could deliver news from one to the other in less than two weeks. On Earth, the politicians and other policy makers would badger the intelligence people to rush through their analysis of the information and make projections and predictions in less time than a conscientious person would want to spend on it. Then the politicians and bureaucrats would chew on it for a while, massage it awhile longer, spin it around to see how it looked from different angles.

Finally, they’d take what they considered the relevant parts of the information, package them with their decisions and directives, and ship them off to the people who needed to take action.

The wonder of it all was that 34th FIST on Thorsfinni’s World was able to get any military intelligence about the situation on Diamunde in as little time as just over six months. But the situation on Diamunde was a major economic issue for the Confederation of Human Worlds, and huge fortunes and a great deal of power were at stake—not to mention the lives and livelihoods of billions—so decisions were made and directives issued at, for politicians, breakneck speed.

In a swift and bloody coup, Marston St. Cyr had conducted a hostile takeover of Tubalcain Enterprises. In days he had consolidated his power in New Kimberly, the capital city. In less than one week he had wrested control of the rest of the planet’s industrial and mining companies—hence, its wealth. He then demanded that the Confederation of Human Worlds formally recognize him as head-of-state. Further, as CEO and major shareholder of all of Diamunde’s mining concessions, he required that all commercial dealings with Diamunde be conducted with his office.

To back him up, St. Cyr had the largest armored land army mankind had seen in centuries. Agents on the ground had positively identified two different kinds of tanks in his army, and had physically counted five thousand of them. There were probably more, a good deal more.

St. Cyr also had a spacegoing navy, but it consisted of little more than several dozen armed freighters incapable of travel beyond Drummond’s system, and wasn’t thought to be much of a danger. The Confederation Navy expected to make short work of it.

The Confederation government “refuses to deal with someone with so much blood on his hands and violence in his heart,” the communiqué said. “The people and proper government of Diamunde must be restored. To that end, the Confederation Marines will assemble a six-FIST force to make a landing and secure a planethead for follow-on forces of the Confederation Army to land and restore order.”

“And that’s what we are going to do,” Sturgeon concluded. “Does anybody have any questions about that? Are there any other issues we should deal with before we mount out? Then get your people saddled up. Dismissed.”

The officers and sergeants major stood and began filing out. Sturgeon watched them for a few seconds, then headed for his office. Commander Van Winkle and Sergeant Major Parant of the infantry battalion intercepted him.

“Sir,” Van Winkle said, “I have—” He felt Parant’s elbow nudge him. “We have one other issue, sir, but it’s not something I felt appropriate to bring up at the meeting. Especially not when everybody has so much to do.”

Sturgeon lifted an eyebrow at him, then dipped his head toward his office. “Come on in and tell me about it.”

After closing the door, Sturgeon invited the other two Marines to sit, which they did, gingerly. He didn’t offer them anything to drink.

“Commander,” the brigadier said when he took his own seat and leaned forward to cross his arms on his desk. Van Winkle looked uncomfortable, Parant seemed stern.

“Sir,” Van Winkle said, “it’s about Charlie Bass.”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me he’s gotten himself in trouble again.”

“Nossir! Absolutely not, sir.”

Sturgeon sighed with relief. “Then what about Charlie Bass?”

“We’re going on a very tough assignment. We’re liable to lose a lot of Marines in this war. Charlie Bass has tempted the gods of war too many times for me to feel absolutely confident he’ll survive. Sir, I don’t want to risk having Charlie Bass die as a staff sergeant. I—” He glanced at Parant. “We want to promote him back to gunnery sergeant. But I don’t have an empty gunnery sergeant billet to put him into—and I don’t want to give him up to some other command either.” Sturgeon leaned back and gave the two infantrymen a speculative look. “You want to promote him to a company level rank and leave him as a platoon sergeant, is that what I hear you saying?”

“Yessir.”

Sergeant Major Parant nodded vigorously.

Sturgeon rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as if thinking, though his mind was already made up. He abruptly leaned forward. “It’ll take us a couple days to settle in on the ship. Then we’ll have the best ship-board promotion ceremony we can.”

“Thank you, sir!”

Parant stood and stepped to Sturgeon’s desk. He reached a hand across it. “Thank you, sir.

Outstanding. This will do no end of good for the enlisted men’s morale.” Startled, Sturgeon reached out and shook Parant’s hand. He remained on his feet as the two left his office. Alone, he shook his head. The Confederation Marine Corps had revived an ancient tradition that had been discontinued sometime in the mid-twentieth century, the “graveyard promotion.” Certain senior men were promoted on retirement, and their retirement ranks were then higher than any rank they had actually served at. This could turn into a literal “graveyard” promotion for Charlie Bass. How could that possibly be good for the men’s morale?

On the appointed date and time, 34th FIST assembled with all its men and equipment at the appointed place. The Confederation Navy had Essays, surface-to-orbit shuttles, waiting for them. The twenty-four Dragons of the FIST, already loaded with the Marines of the three infantry companies, immediately drove into the eight Essays navy personnel directed them to. The ground crews secured the Essays for launch, then retired to their bunkers. The Essays launched at ten-second intervals, the roars of their rocket-assist engines sweeping over the navy spaceport. As soon as the rockets had the vehicles clear of the ground, they cut off and the Essays’ main engines took over and they flew upward in relative silence.

At fifteen thousand meters they circled until cleared to climb to orbit altitude, then shot upward in formation, heading toward the parking orbit of the
CNSS Tripoli
. The
Tripoli
’s position in its orbit required the Essays to approach it from below to catch up with it. When they were near, jets would propel them into matching altitude a kilometer to the starship’s rear, then pulses from their rear jets would accelerate them to close the distance; pulses from their top jets would keep them from climbing to a higher orbit. The
Tripoli
, a Crowe-class amphibious assault battle cruiser, opened the hatches of one of its four docking bays to admit the eight Essays.

All the Marines had been through at least several launches. Even MacIlargie and Godenov, the newest men in third platoon, had been through five launches since enlisting in the Marines. The first was the civilian shuttle that ferried them to the troop transport that shipped them to Boot Camp on the Confederation military training world, Arsenault. During Boot Camp they’d gone through the complete launch-and-landing cycle during the phase of training that took place on Arsenault’s moon. The third time was when they lifted off Arsenault for transshipment to Thorsfinni’s World and their first duty assignment with the 34th FIST; then again at the beginning of the FIST’s deployment to Wanderjahr, and finally the return only a couple of months ago. Older, saltier Marines, such as Claypoole and Dean, who had been with the 34th six months longer, had seven launch-and-land cycles as Marines—the extras having occurred during the deployment to and return from Elneal. Soon-to-be Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass had been through so many launch-landing cycles that he had lost count.

After the first few crushing seconds of blast from the rocket engines that lifted the Essays off the surface, the trip to orbit was a picnic. They all relaxed. They could afford to—everyone knew the landing would be an entirely different matter, and not only because of resistance they might meet on the surface.

The Essays’ only view ports were in the coxswain’s compartment. That didn’t matter to the Marines, who were in Dragons that only had vision slits, up front, for the crew. The Dragon commanders had no reason to open their command hatches inside the Essays. Even if there had been anything to see, there wasn’t enough headroom to raise the hatches.

In sum, none of the Marines could see anywhere anyhow. All they could do was go along for the ride.

The passage of time and the Essays’ subtle shifts in attitude and changes in the direction and force of what they experienced as gravity were all the indications the Marines had as to where they were on their journey to the starship. When they began floating against the webbing that held them into their seats, they knew they were in orbit and chasing the
Tripoli
. They felt the thrusts of the control jets as they matched altitude and velocity with the starship more as resistance from the webbing than as weight. The pinging and clanking of the magnetic clamps that secured the Essays to their berths in the docking bay were all they needed to tell them they were aboard the starship. They waited a few more minutes while spacesuited sailors snaked flexible tunnels to the exit hatches of the Essays and secured airtight locks.

Only then did sailors undog the hatches of the Essays. Three pairs of sailors, a petty officer and a rating in each pair, pulled their way into each shuttle. The ratings carried spools of cable.

“You know the routine, Marines,” the petty officer in each pair said. He began unreeling the cable as the Marines unhooked themselves from their webbing. The petty officer handed a clamp that was on the lead end of the cable to the Marine on the port side of the Dragon’s hatch. The Marine hooked the clamp onto his belt. The petty officer reeled out more of the cable, exposing more clamps at two meter intervals. Each Marine in turn took a clamp and attached himself to the cable. When all the Marines and the Dragon crew were attached, the petty officer led them out of the Dragon and the cables from the three Dragons in the Essay were linked together. Then he led the linked Marines out of the Essay into the bay and through a hatch into the interior of the starship. The ship was in null-g, and would remain so until it left orbit.

Eight strings of Marines followed sailors up, down, and sideways along tunnels, some of which would be passageways, others ladderways once the ship was underway.

On the surface, the rest of the Marines of 34th FIST were boarding other Dragons. Some of the Dragons belonged to the port, but most of them were ship’s complement off the
Tripoli
. As soon as the Marines were aboard the Dragons, they drove onto more Essays—half of which were from the
Tripoli
.

The second flight launched a half hour after the first. This flight would have to gain a higher altitude than the starship’s and wait for it to gain on them before they could maneuver to its docking holds.

A third flight of ten Essays from the
Tripoli
landed at the air station of Camp Major Pete Ellis. The FIST’s ten Raptor assault aircraft and ten hopper troop-carrier aircraft boarded them, two per Essay, and launched for orbit.

Two hours after the first flight of Essays launched, the entire FIST was aboard the
CNSS Tripoli
.

CHAPTER 9

The
CNSS Tripoli
was a Crowe-class amphibious assault battlecruiser. It was designed to carry two full combat-armed FISTs. The 13th FIST, which was always glad to leave its home base on New Serengeti, where the Marines never felt welcome, was already on board when the Crowe swung into orbit around Thorsfinni’s World.

The
Tripoli
’s troop accommodations were luxurious compared to most other navy vessels the Marines had mounted out on. Each major troop hold was designed for one company and was subdivided into squad-size compartments. In each squad compartment the racks were stacked only three high, which gave the men room to roll over without bumping the man sleeping above. Each squad compartment had its own head. The company commander and executive officer shared what amounted to a small stateroom; the company’s four other officers shared an only slightly larger stateroom. The six senior noncommissioned officers—the first sergeant, gunnery sergeant, and four platoon sergeants—had an even larger stateroom. The squad leaders had it the best—the ten from each company shared two compartments the size of squad compartments.

The “keel up” design of the “amphibious assault” part of the Crowe class allowed for sufficient VR

chambers for Marines headed to an operation to maintain or increase their proficiency in weapons and tactics—including squad-level movements. Included in the design were sufficient gymnasiums for all the Marines of both FISTs, should the starship be loaded to capacity, to keep in top physical trim. The gyms and some of the VR chambers could also be used as briefing rooms or classrooms.