Hangfire Page 5

  "Very strange," Sturgeon mused He looked sharply at his second in command "We get replacements for every combat loss. G-1 at HQMC hasn't misplaced us. They are deliberately avoiding transfers. Why?"

  Ramadan knew the question was rhetorical and kept quiet.

  "Colonel, 34th FIST and Thorsfinni's World are officially classed as hardship duty. Thirty-fourth FIST has more deployments than perhaps any other unit in the Confederation Marine Corps. And Thorsfinni's World..." He shook his head. "Have you ever made the 'Grand Tour'?"

  Ramadan chuckled. "Indeed, I have, sir." Niflheim, where Camp Major Pete Ellis, the home base of 34th FIST, was located, was a large island about the size of the Scandinavian peninsula on Earth, and closer to Thorsfinni's World's north pole than to its equator. The island was craggy, rocky, windswept, and harbored little vegetation higher than mid-thigh on the average man. Niflheim nestled in a gray, crashing ocean, reminiscent of Earth's North Atlantic. The only city of noticeable size on the entire planet, the capital city of New Oslo, was located near the southern end of Niflheim. On the "Grand Tour," Colonel Ramadan had visited many other islands—Thorsfinni's World had no continental landmasses—from pole to pole and around the planet's equatorial belt. "The whole damn place looks like this." He gestured at the landscape visible through the window. "Temperatures change, but the islands all look alike."

  "Right. All the Marines stationed here have for off-base recreation is Bronnoysund," the liberty town just outside the main gate of Camp Ellis, "and an occasional leave to New Oslo." He shook his head. He'd been to New Oslo. On almost any other civilized planet in the Confederation of Human Worlds, New Oslo wouldn't rank better than a third-rate provincial town.

  "That and neo-Viking steddings." Ramadan nodded.

  "Frequent deployments and lack of decent amenities. That's why this is a hardship post. Nobody's supposed to be stationed here for more than two and a half years. Most Marines are transferred out after two years. I've got people who have been here nearly three and a half years. Someone's messing with my people. I'm going to find out who and why and put an end to it," Sturgeon said. "I don't care who has what reasons for this, there isn't a man in this FIST who deserves that kind of punishment." He stood abruptly. Ramadan also stood. "I haven't taken leave in five years. I'm taking leave—to Earth. Colonel, you're going to be in command here for a few months."

  Ramadan started. He'd had no idea what Sturgeon would do about the data he'd brought to his attention, but taking leave, even to Earth, hadn't even made his list of possibilities.

  "Sir?"

  "I'm going to find out what's going on, and nobody had best get in my way."

  "But—"

  "Don't you think you're competent to command a FIST?"

  "Yessir, but—"

  "Then command, Colonel. I'm going to Earth."

  It wasn't that easy, of course. Nothing is ever that easy on a remote outpost. Most member planets of the Confederation of Human Worlds have a busy star port with several starships arriving and departing daily, one heading for Earth every day or two. The station crews of most worlds' starports lived in orbit, at the starport. Life for the crew of Thorsfinni Interstellar was much more languid—most of them lived planetside and only went up to orbit when there was work to do. For the "control tower," that could be as infrequent as twice a week, even with the Confederation Navy using the civilian starport instead of going to the expense of building one of its own. Brigadier Sturgeon had to wait eight days to catch passage on a freighter to New Serengeti, where he expected to quickly find a starship headed for Earth. Because of his abrupt decision and the difficulty of interstellar communications, he had no chance to book passage from New Serengeti before he reached it.

  A week into the first leg of his month-and-a-half journey, Sturgeon started wishing medical science had perfected cold storage for passengers on interstellar flights. He'd never been bored during the many-weeks-long passages on deployments, had always been busy drawing up plans and seeing to the training and preparation of his Marines. But this time he was traveling alone, with nothing to do but plan his actions once he reached Earth, and to use the freighter's limited recreation and entertainment facilities. He didn't even have the workings of the ship as a distraction. The captain, a life-long merchant mariner, had no use for the military and told Sturgeon on the second day of the voyage that he'd be pleased if the Marine stayed out of the way. Well, he thought, it'd be just another week and a half to New Serengeti, where he should have no trouble booking passage to Earth on a better equipped ship. At least, he hoped it would be better equipped.

  The fast frigate CNSS Admiral Stoloff was better equipped. A McKnight class fast frigate, it was one of the most modern starships in the Confederation Navy, and its captain was delighted to let a Marine brigadier hitch a ride to Earth.

  "I've got a cousin and a nephew who betrayed family tradition and joined the Marines," Commander Ishmala Yazid said jovially. "The Yazids have been navy since sailors first sailed wooden dhows on water seas, and they had no use for land-lubbers until my generation, when Roger Yazid joined the Marines." He gestured expansively. "And then so did his son Anhel. So that makes you brother to my cousin Roger and my nephew Anhel, which makes you family to me. Family is always welcome on board my ship."

  Considering it had been more years than Sturgeon wanted to contemplate since he'd last been at Earth's navy starport, he was surprised at how little it had changed. He watched the approach on a viewscreen in his cabin. The navy starport first appeared as a sprinkling of lights above the dawn terminator that blinked out as the spaceport moved around Earth's edge and into full sunlight. The lights, by then much larger and seemingly more numerous, reappeared nearly an hour later as the spaceport reappeared on the other side of Earth. Slowly, as the Admiral Stoloff continued braking to orbital speed, the lights enlarged and resolved into the familiar oblates, spheres, and polyhedra of Confederation Navy Base Gagarin, moving slowly in their ponderous, stately waltz.

  Soon, the viewscreen allowed Sturgeon to distinguish ships resting within repair and maintenance bays or nestled alongside loading docks. Here and there, tugs pushed and prodded starships away from bays and pierage and far enough out from the structures that they could safely turn on their engines.

  Other ships stood apart from the starport structures, waiting their turns in the bays or at the docks. As spaces opened, tugs pushed and prodded them into place. A first glance might show the aimless, almost manic movement of ships guided by tugs, but more careful study showed the movement to be carefully choreographed as the moving starships danced a more spritely minuet through the structures of Gagarin Navy Starport.

  At length the Admiral Stoloff matched speed with the starport. Tugs nudged it into position in the queue awaiting docking space. Sturgeon could make out the tiny dots of space-suited sailors as they flitted around the ships, inspecting, making repairs, repainting, and doing the myriad other things sailors did to ships in port. On mysterious missions, shuttles drifted hither and yon among the structures. Every five or ten minutes a shuttle arrived from planetside or dropped for Earth's surface; most of them were navy Essays, though some looked to be commercial craft.

  The shuttles making the Earth-orbit transit all took the long way planetside, three degenerating loops to the surface. Obviously, none of them carried Marines; shuttles bearing Marines always took the express route, nearly straight down. Sturgeon idly wondered if he'd find a platoon of Marines waiting their turn to head planetside when the Admiral Stoloff docked, and whether he'd go with them at "high speed on a rocky road," or if there were only sailors and civilians awaiting transit planetside.

  Despite the apparent crowding, the starport was very efficiently run. The Admiral Stoloff waited little more than an hour before it turned the gravity off to let tugs push and prod it into the minuet and snuggle it against a dock. The starship filled with whistles, bells, and intercom commands as its crew bustled about doing the necessary work.

  In
his thirty-five years as a Marine, Sturgeon had cumulatively spent more than four years on board navy vessels, yet he understood almost nothing more of the running of a starship than he did the first time he rode one on his way to Boot Camp on Arsenault. That was all right; he doubted there was a sailor alive, officer or enlisted, capable of commanding a Marine blaster platoon. With the very notable exception of the medical corpsmen attached to FISTs, almost any sailor would be a liability with a ground combat unit. It wasn't a question of superiority or intelligence; the navy and the Marines had different functions, their training different.

  Sturgeon waited patiently in his cabin, out of the way of the crew. His packing hadn't taken long, he was ready to leave the ship when permission was given. The whistles, bells, and piped commands gradually diminished in frequency. A knock sounded on his cabin hatch.

  "Come."

  The hatch opened to reveal a bosun's mate first class.

  "Sir," the bosun's mate said crisply, "with the captain's compliments. He would welcome the Brigadier on the bridge."

  "My thanks to the captain, bosun," Sturgeon said, rising. "If you will be so good as to lead the way?"

  "Aye aye, sir. Follow me." The bosun's mate turned and began following a towline toward the bridge.

  Sturgeon didn't need the guide. He knew the way from his cabin to the important places on the ship; the officers' wardroom, the library, the gym, and the bridge. Observing naval courtesy, however, he followed on the bosun's mate's heels. The passageways were beginning to fill with sailors in liberty uniforms.

  "Sir!" Commander Yazid said when Sturgeon propelled himself onto the bridge. "It has been a pleasure to have a brother of my cousin Roger and my nephew Anhel as a passenger on my ship."

  All the stations on the bridge were occupied, as they had been every time Sturgeon had been on it. But the usual air of alertness was absent. Many of the bridge personnel seemed to be shutting down systems or running maintenance checks. Most of the others were relaxed, their final duties on arriving at port finished.

  Yazid extended a hand and Sturgeon gripped it. "Captain, the pleasure has been mine. Let me assure you, this has been the most pleasant voyage I have ever undertaken on a navy vessel."

  Yazid beamed. It was wonderful to have a flag officer on board who wasn't looking over his shoulder and second guessing his every move. "Sir, with your permission? We have reached port. My crew is anxious to begin their long-awaited liberty call. Flag officers must debark before the enlisted men can make their break for revelry."

  "By all means, Captain, let us not keep your crew waiting. My bags are ready. I can debark at your pleasure."

  "Sir, I will have someone take your bags pierside." Commander Yazid signed to a bosun to see to it. "If you wish, I can have someone escort you to the transient terminal. I'd do it myself," his face fell, "but my flotilla commander demands my presence in his office at the earliest."

  "I understand fully, Captain. You have already over-extended yourself in hospitality. And it won't be necessary to supply a guide; I've been at Gagarin before, and it doesn't look like it's changed much."

  "Yes, while very much is new, at the same time very little has changed."

  The dock wasn't in null-g, but its "gravity" was slight enough that no one would plummet to the deck on leaving the starship. Sturgeon slipped his feet into a comfortable pair of shufflers to avoid a too-vigorous step which would send him into uncontrolled flight, then took his two bags from the bosun's mate, who stood over them. The sailor saluted.

  "Thank you, bosun," Sturgeon, unable to return the salute with a bag in each hand, said with a nod. He looked around to get his bearings and headed, in the proper short-step shuffle that kept the shoelets attached to the deck, toward a sign that read TRANSIENT TERMINAL SHUTTLE. He stepped out of the shufflers before boarding the local shuttle. The transient terminal was maintained at 0.5-g, so he wouldn't need magnetic assistance to stay on the deck there.

  Several Marines were waiting for transportation planetside, mostly couriers, junior officers, and mid-level noncommissioned officers. Sturgeon exchanged proper greetings with them. He was on leave, so he had to buy a ticket on a United Atmosphere shuttle. He and the couriers ignored each other, though the juniors were all acutely aware of the brigadier and behaved themselves better than they would have had a flag officer not been present. The army and navy personnel—an army major the highest rank among them—did their best to ignore the presence of a Marine brigadier.

  The wait for the shuttle wasn't long. A steward, following proper military protocol, held Brigadier Sturgeon aside until everyone else boarded, then sat him closest to the exit so he, as the highest ranking person on board, could be the first off when the shuttle landed at Lynn J. Frazier International Airport outside Fargo, home of the Confederation Council—in effect, the capital city of the Confederation of Human Worlds.

  Sturgeon might be on leave, but he wasn't going to waste any time being a tourist. He would go directly to the heart of the Confederation military establishment—both the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Headquarters Marine Corps were in Fargo. His first order of business would be to find a place to stay.

  Chapter Five

  Housing was provided for military personnel assigned to duty at the Combined Chiefs or the headquarters, but visitors were on their own. Brigadier Sturgeon managed to find a room in a modest bed-and-breakfast a short tube ride from the Hexagon. It was a somewhat longer tube ride to HQMC, on the top of what passed for a hill in southeastern North Dakota—the Marines had always liked to keep themselves separate from mere soldiers and sailors.

  Brigadier Sturgeon didn't bother to completely unpack before he put on his dress reds and his overcoat. It was May, mid-spring, but the temperature hovered not far above freezing. Properly dressed, he headed for the Hexagon to pay a visit to the C-1, the Combined Chiefs personnel department. Regardless of what he'd said to Colonel Ramadan, he suspected the foul-up lay with the Combined Chiefs rather than HQMC.

  Brigadier General (Select) Wolford M'Bwabor-Onorosovic, IV, Second Deputy Director, Assignments Division, Confederation Armed Forces C-1, welcomed Brigadier Sturgeon into his office most fulsomely.

  "Brigadier! Welcome to the Hexagon!" M'Bwabor-Onorosovic grasped Sturgeon's hand in both of his and pulled him to a visitor's chair. "It's quite rare that we receive a current commander of any combat arms unit, much less the commander of one of those Marine FISTs." He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as though seeking guidance. "As a matter of fact, I believe you are the first FIST commander, current or former, I've ever had the pleasure of meeting." He gave an impression of skipping as he walked to the far side of his desk and sat in his commanding chair. His chair was on a low platform, not visible from the desk front, so that he sat higher than his visitors and they had to look up at him. Seated, he clasped his hands and leaned over his forearms, which lay on the desktop. His smile was broad, intended to be infectious. Sturgeon didn't return it.

  "How do you like Fargo so far? Is this your first visit?"

  "Haven't seen anything but a couple of tubes and a B-and-B so far, but I've been here before, so I know what I'm not missing."

  M'Bwabor-Onorosovic laughed loudly, but short of a guffaw. "I know what you mean, Brigadier, I do indeed." His head shake failed to budge his grin. "I cannot for the life of me comprehend why anybody would put a city, much less a capital city, in such a barren location. I grew up on Argent, you know. Have you ever been? The most beautiful planet in all of Human Space. Marvelous, towering forests, waterfalls to dwarf Angel Falls, seas so clear you can still see everything around you at a depth of a hundred feet, fruits and flowers that could have served as the model for the Garden of Eden myth." He chuckled, then started and looked pop-eyed at Sturgeon. "No offense intended; I mean if you are Judeo-Christian. I don't intend to slight anybody's religious beliefs."

  "None taken, General," Sturgeon said with a patience he didn't feel. He wanted to conduct his business, but he had to humor t
he man, who seemed to him more and more a buffoon. "I'm a Marine. We swear by the most shocking things."

  "Yes, well." Right. The general realized that the man before him was not an administrator or bureaucrat. He quickly eyed the panoply of ribbons on Sturgeon's scarlet tunic. Some of them he recognized, such as the Gold Nova—the military's second highest decoration for heroism—and the Bronze Star with gold starburst, another decoration for heroism in action against an enemy. Most of the others he didn't recognize, though he suspected they were campaign medals. One made him blink: the Marine Enlisted Good Conduct Medal. Then he remembered that all Marine officers are commissioned from the ranks. He shuddered internally. Sturgeon was a real combat Marine, almost the only one he had ever faced, definitely the only one he'd ever been alone with. The broad smile disappeared while he cleared his throat, then slapped itself back into place.

  "Well, Brigadier, you didn't make the trip all the way from Thorsfinni's World"—Where in Human Space is that?—"to hear me prate about my home world." He changed his voice from jolly to sincere and lowered the beam of his smile. "What can my office help you with?"

  "General, as you know, I command a FIST. Thorsfinni's World, as you may know, is classed as a hardship post. The normal tour of duty is two years, two and a half at the outside. Some of my people have been there three and a half years. No one has been transferred out in... well, when I left there hadn't been any changes of duty station in four months. If there weren't any transfers while I was in transit, it's now nearly six months. I fear the Assignments Division has somehow—inadvertently, I'm sure—misplaced 34th FIST."

  The sincere smile stayed on the Second Deputy Director's mouth, but his eyes went blank. Misplaced a FIST? "That's impossible, Brigadier. The Assignments Division doesn't make the change-of-duty-station transfers. That is done by the chiefs of the services. We receive the change-of-duty-station requests, verify them, and issue transfer orders under the titles of the services. We are a conduit, not an originator."