Chapter Seventeen

Getting bounced from the Legion? They don’t bounce people from Hell.

—attributed to an unknown legionnaire of the French Foreign Legion

The nomad scout was better after more regen therapy, and DuValier found him sitting up and looking alert, even restless. Aside from the steridressings on his chest and side, Oomour looked almost fully recovered.

“You I thank for bringing me back?” the scout asked DuValier as the lieutenant entered the ward.

He nodded, then remembered that among the natives it was a side-to-side movement that indicated assent. “I found you,” he told Oomour. “It was luck, mostly.”

“Then to you my life I owe,” the nomad said. “To you a debt I would repay.”

DuValier shrugged. “We don’t abandon our own,” he told the wog, wondering if the native would understand.

“Yes … yes, your Clan is mine now.” Oomour seemed more grateful at being accepted as part of the Legion than at having his life saved.

“Well, your Clan is going to need you, Oomour,” DuValier said. “When Dr. Ramirez discharges you tomorrow, see me. I want you to help me with a little project I have in mind.”

“Project?”

He smiled. “Yeah. I’m going to make a Voice for the Legion Clan that’ll give Choor!’s bastards a headache.”

A footfall behind him made DuValier turn. Edward Barnett was standing just inside the door. “Lieutenant, I need to see you,” the civilian said. He shot a look of distaste at Oomour. “When you’re done here.”

DuValier finished with the native quickly and joined Barnett. The civilian wouldn’t speak until they were out of the medical center and out in the open. When he finally did talk, it was in hushed, conspiratorial tones.

“Lieutenant, you’ve struck me as the only voice of reason in this entire unit,” Barnett began. “Between that incompetent Hawley and your boss Fraser, they’ve flouted everything Seafarms has tried to do on this planet, damn it, and neither of them seems to realize the damage they’ve done.”

DuValier studied the civilian with distaste. He knew how Barnett felt about the Legion. He wouldn’t be here, talking to a Legion officer, without some ulterior motive. “It isn’t for me to criticize my superiors,” he said guardedly. Not to the likes of you, he added to himself.

“You heard about the nomad peace offer yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. A sham.”

“So your Captain Fraser claims. But what if it isn’t? The nomads may be giving us a way out. With negotiation, Seafarms might even find a way to deal with this warlord, Choor! or whatever his name is. But Fraser won’t even think of exploring a peaceful settlement, and of course Hawley backs him up.”

“The nomads, by themselves, could be offering terms, Citizen. But whoever’s backing them, human or ale, knows enough about the Commonwealth to know Terra won’t back down that easily. I can’t see them letting the wogs arrange a peace that’s liable to break down in a few months anyway. They’ll want a solid victory, something to prove this place is too expensive to try and civilize.”

“You seem to forget, Lieutenant, that Seafarms is the government here. As things are going now we’ll probably drop the Cyclops Project and cut our losses. We can give these people exactly what they want, if that’s what it takes, without any more loss of life. We can get out of this without any more battles, man. But Fraser seems determined to sit tight and take the whole planet on if he has to. And all that’s going to do is get a lot of good people killed. Like he did on Fenris. You know about that, don’t you?”

DuValier nodded tightly. “I … know.” He thought about what Barnett had said. It seemed reasonable enough. What did they have to lose by negotiations?

Nothing but pride. Rumor had it that Fraser was likely to be investigated by the Warwick Commission, and giving in to the locals would be damning enough to get him into hot water even Warwick’s well-connected enemies couldn’t rescue the captain from. He might just take the whole unit down, if the alternative was watching his career be ruined. Like Hawley’s.

“I can encourage them to take another look at negotiations, Citizen,” he said carefully. “But beyond that …”

“Beyond that, there’s something else to be concerned about,” Barnett broke in. “Fraser and his girlfriend have cooked up some scheme to mount magrep generators on the walls. To pull it off, he wants to rip them out of Seafarms vehicles!”

“Planning a trip, Citizen?”

Barnett snorted. “Look, quite aside from the fact that these are company assets that I don’t want to see destroyed, we don’t know that we won’t be needing those vehicles again. What if we do strike a deal with Choor!? Hell, what if the natives pound us so bad here that we have to run for it? We could be needing those vehicles, damn it, but Fraser plans on stripping all of them down.”

DuValier studied him again. It was clear that Barnett had his own reasons for preserving those vehicles intact. Was it worth it to help him?

They didn’t really need the generators. As soon as he finished his work with Oomour they’d have a weapon that would be just as effective, maybe more so. And if Barnett was right about negotiating their way out.…

A friend at Seafarms was a friend inside Reynier Industries, and that wasn’t a bad thing for a legionnaire to have. If getting Fraser to back down on the magrep generator idea would cement an alliance with Barnett, it might be worth his while to get involved.

“Just what do you want me to do?” he asked slowly.

“Why, I thought that was obvious,” Barnett said. “Relieve Hawley and Fraser of their commands, and take charge of the garrison yourself.”

O O O

“Tide’ll be coming in soon,” Fraser said, glancing at the display of his wristpiece computer to confirm the tide table data. “Is that going to interfere with your work?”

Beside him Kelly was crouched by the parapet, checking a power lead. “Not unless the nomads attack again when the water’s high,” she said. “I’m more concerned about getting the magrep generators out of Seafarms.”

“Trouble?”

“They said they’d take care of it, but I think Barnett told them to pull a go-slow. MacAllister said that their people were evasive this morning when he asked them when they’d have some generators for us.”

“I’m getting damn tired of hearing about trouble with Seafarms,” Fraser said. “If I get any more of this nonsense I’ll throw Barnett into cells. And any of his little helpers who want to back him up.”

“Careful, Col,” she said quietly, hooking her circuit-tester to another lead. “Every time you back that bastard into a corner you run the risk of having him bring you up on charges. You know Warwick’s just waiting for an excuse like that.”

“Yeah. But if it’s a choice between my career and our chances of getting out of here alive …”

“Let’s try to pull off both,” Kelly said with a grin. “Come on, Col. If you get kicked out of the Legion now, where will that leave me? I didn’t sign on for the glamour, you know.”

He wondered if she was serious. Sometimes she seemed to want nothing more than friendship, but there were other times.…

Fraser wasn’t about to complicate either of their lives further by pursuing that line of thought. Instead he tried to match her light tone. “Don’t worry. No one’s figured out a way to drop someone from the Legion yet. There’s nothing lower on the social scale to drop to. And I could always sign on as an enlisted man if they don’t want me as an officer.”

She laughed. “I’d love to see Sergeant Trent cuffing you on the ear and calling you ‘nube.’”

“So would he.” Fraser paused. “Seriously, though, I’d better go see what Seafarms is doing. If we can get those generators in place, I think we’ll even be able to hold a major assault. And with Cyclops due back here in another couple of days, that’ll finally put time on our side.”

Seafarms had taken over a disused part of the base. With more than eight hundred civilians from Ourgh now installed inside the Sandcastle, living quarters were cramped and the workshops and offices were necessarily squeezed for space, but that hadn’t stopped Barnett from insisting on maintaining services that duplicated some of what the Legion was responsible for, like the motor pool.

If only Sigrid Jens had lived.…

He cut across the center of the Sandcastle on his way to the Seafarms motor pool. A block of legionnaires from Alpha Company was drilling on open ground below the Ops center, supervised by Gunny Valko and Subaltern Narmonov. Some Bravos from Bartlow’s platoon were working with Kelly’s sappers, using the makeshift magrep barge to haul the first of the generators cannibalized from Legion vehicles toward the wall near the gatehouse. There was also a gang of Seafarms people, some armed, but most of them not, checking over the struts of the cradle that would support Seafarms Cyclops when Watanabe brought her in. Corporal Bashar was piloting a veeter and operating a winch to lift the heavy generators into place on the wall. The corporal gave Fraser something between a wave and a salute as he hovered over the barge.

He was glad to see the work going on. It was a big improvement over the way things had been before the crisis, when cafarde had been threatening to ruin them all. But it was a damned high price to pay to relieve a little boredom.

Fraser stopped as he saw Barnett crossing the compound from the direction of the Seafarms section. Several armed civilians were with him, almost a bodyguard. Lieutenant DuValier and some legionnaires from Wijngaarde’s platoon were with them.

“Is there some kind of trouble here, Lieutenant?” he asked as the party approached. Had Barnett caused some kind of trouble?

Something wasn’t right.…

“Captain Fraser,” DuValier said formally. “I regret to inform you that I am relieving you of your command of Bravo Company under Article Two-oh-seven of Colonial Army Regulations. I hope it will not be necessary to place you under arrest.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Lieutenant?” Fraser asked, stunned by the flat, emotionless statement. DuValier didn’t sound triumphant, or defiant, or even concerned. Just cold and aloof, as always. “Two-oh-seven is relief by reason of incapacity.…”

“And in my judgment, sir, your recent decisions have been proof of mental incapacity,” DuValier shot back. “Perhaps the strain of having to assume so many of Captain Hawley’s duties in addition to your own …”

“It’ll never stick, man!” Fraser insisted. “A junior officer can’t relieve a superior when someone senior to both is available. You have to go through channels.…”

“Face it, Fraser,” Barnett said harshly. “Hawley is even more obviously incompetent than you are. As a matter of fact, it’s your coddling of the old fool that’s going to be the basis of Mr. DuValier’s case when it comes up.”

Fraser looked from one to the other, incredulous. Behind them, their men were a study in contrasts, the civilians grinning, the legionnaires more subdued. But they seemed ready to obey DuValier. The Legion expected obedience to authority, and in a case like this they’d obey DuValier as long as he kept quoting regulations.

If any of them had been Hanuman vets … But they were all from First Platoon, Wijngaarde’s. They were almost all new men, legionnaires he didn’t know very well. DuValier was right in one respect. He’d been so busy trying to help Hawley do his job that he’d neglected Bravo Company. He didn’t even know these men by name.

“This is a mutiny, Mr. DuValier,” he said, trying to buy time. What could he do? “You won’t succeed.”

“That’s enough,” Barnett said. He gestured to one of his Seafarms bodyguards. “Disarm him. We’ll take care of Hawley next.”

He thought of fighting, but rejected it. All he’d do by fighting was give DuValier and Barnett an excuse to kill him. They would be happiest if he did … Fraser, alive, was dangerous to their cause, at least until they were in full control. But they’d have to obey the legalities if they wanted to keep the support of the legionnaires.

He raised his hands slowly and allowed the civilian to unbuckle his gun belt. For now, he’d have to play along. There were people in the Sandcastle who knew him, from Hawley and Kelly and Sergeant Trent down to soldiers like Bashar or Garcia. Barnett and DuValier would find it hard to win over or arrest all of them.…

O O O

Bashar cut back on the power and held the veeter in place as the work party below wrestled with the harness on the fourth of the magrep generators. It was one of the units out of the Angel II, and the thought made him wince. He hoped they’d be able to put the old girl back together again after the siege was over.

He glanced around the compound to take his mind off the Angel. Captain Fraser was talking to a cluster of civilians and legionnaires. He thought the captain had come a long way since Hanuman. From first to last he’d taken charge here at the Sandcastle, and so far they’d stopped the wogs cold.

Fraser raised his hands, and a civilian was advancing to take his gun. What…?

“Allah!” he said aloud. “MacAllister, look over there. Four o’clock.”

Legionnaire MacAllister from the sapper platoon was riding in the veeter’s front seat today, helping him with the placement of the generators. The old veteran’s head swiveled, and Bashar heard a string of low-voiced oaths in his headphones. “What the hell are those de’ils doing?”

“I don’t know,” Bashar said. “But I don’t like it.”

He tapped his radio mike thoughtfully. This looked like a mutiny. Who could he call? Who could he trust?

Karatsolis was back at the motor pool. Like all Transport specialists the Greek was cross-trained as a general mechanic, and he’d been drafted into the party that was dismounting generators from the other vehicles. He felt the same way about Captain Fraser as Bashar did.

Bashar changed radio channels. “Repbay, repbay, this is Veeter One.”

“Repbay,” the bored voice of Sergeant Franz replied. “What’s the problem, Bashar? The little bitch acting up on you?”

“Naw …” He paused, thinking fast. “Look, Sarge, can you put Spear on for me? I forgot my strakking wristpiece, and I can’t remember what I did with it. Spear’ll know where I had it last.”

“And you can’t wait until you’re off-duty?” Franz complained.

“Ah, hell, Sarge, give me some boost here. My dad gave me that ’piece.” That was a lie, but Franz didn’t know it. “And you know those thieving civilians’d just love to rip one of us off.”

There was a long pause. Then Karatsolis came on the line. “What’ve you got, Bashar?” he asked. His voice was flat, brooding.

“I’ve got a Veitch problem up here,” he said, using the personal code that went back to their days in training on Devereaux. Veitch had been the worst of the NCOs in their recruit unit, a sadist and a bully who liked to uncover secrets his men wanted left hidden. Ever since those days, the name had been their way of hinting that private information was coming.

There was another pause before Karatsolis answered. “I’m on headphones. What’s going on?”

Bashar explained the situation. “It looks like Lieutenant DuValier and that strakk Barnett,” he finished up. “We’ve got to do something, Spear.”

“I’ll get Gunny,” Karatsolis replied, considerably more animated than before. “He’ll know what to do.”

MacAllister was listening to the exchange. “Pass the word to Warrant Kelly, too,” he suggested. “I dinna think she will stand for this.”

Bashar grinned. “You’re right about that. I’ll keep an eye on them, Spear. Let me know what’s going down.”

Karatsolis didn’t even bother to sign off.

O O O

The civilian guards closed in around Fraser at Barnett’s command, and the little procession headed for the Ops center. As they passed the ship cradle the Seafarms executive rounded up the workers there and added them to his force. Fraser estimated forty of them, perhaps three-quarters with outdated FEKs—the Mark-24 model that lacked the grenade launcher and had been obsolete when Hunter led his men into battle on Devereaux—plus ten legionnaires and DuValier. Substantial odds … especially as long as the Legion loyalists they met weren’t prepared for an encounter.

Perhaps he should have put up a fight after all. At least it might have attracted some attention, given Hawley a chance to muster a defense.

As if reading his thoughts, the nearest guard dug his FEK/24 into Fraser’s back. “Don’t give us any trouble,” he hissed. “I don’t want to have to kill you, Captain, but I’ve got my orders.”

Fraser nodded, his fists clenching in frustration. He darted glances left and right, trying to size up the situation. There had to be something he could turn to his own advantage in all this.

Narmonov’s men were still drilling, apparently oblivious to the mutineers. Or were they in it? No … neither Narmonov nor Gunny Valko was likely to be involved, and if the mutiny was that well organized the subaltern and the NCO would have been neutralized by now.

He noticed that Bashar’s veeter wasn’t hovering anymore, and it looked like the generator work party had thinned out. Unless they were just out of sight, blocked from Fraser’s angle by the ship cradle and the barge. Wishful thinking …

“Halt!” The voice that boomed out of the portable amplifier was Trent’s. Like the men around him Fraser searched desperately to spot the sergeant, then saw him on the balcony overlooking the compound. Garcia was beside him, along with a pair of soldiers in full armor carrying onagers. Behind them Fraser thought he could see Hawley giving orders to his own C3 tech. “You people are covered,” Trent continued. “Halt, or be fired on!”

There was a moment’s hesitation among the mutineers before DuValier pushed his way forward. “Sergeant Trent! I order you to stand down at once!”

Trent drew a pistol. “Release Captain Fraser and disperse,” he said, ignoring DuValier.

“Come on, Sergeant,” Barnett sneered. He gestured to his men, who had spread out into a loose semicircle. “One volley and you people are dead.”

The sergeant shook his head. “Not all of us, Citizen,” he corrected.

Loud in the tense silence, dozens of snick-snicks were clearly audible. Fraser turned his head. Legionnaires, some of them sappers, were leveling FEKs from behind the shelter of the cradle. And from the other side Narmonov’s platoon was moving toward the mutineers with weapons held at the ready.

A third group was trotting from the direction of the motor pool, the big figure of Spiro Karatsolis out in front of them.

“Give it up, Barnett,” Trent continued, still ignoring DuValier entirely. “I’d rather save our ammo for the wogs, but if you force us to we’ll wipe your little revolution out. I mean it.”

“Damn it, Sergeant,” the lieutenant said, sounding desperate. “Seafarms can negotiate with the wogs! Fraser and Hawley just want a heroic stand. They don’t care what happens to us!”

Fraser shoved past two of the civilian guards into the open. He didn’t have an amplifier, but he raised his voice enough so that everyone would hear him.

“Listen to me! It’s true the wogs are making an offer to let us surrender, but we rejected it because we know they will not honor any agreement that leaves us alive! You’ve seen how they fight, how they think. They don’t let threats to their tribes survive. If these nomads can’t absorb an enemy, they crush him. There aren’t any other alternatives!”

He paused. “Maybe you don’t believe that. It’s true enough, but that doesn’t mean you’ll buy it. Well, buy this.” Fraser’s gesture encompassed the mutineers. “These men think they’ll get off this planet safely if they put Captain Hawley and myself out of the way and negotiate. Maybe they will, too. But anyone who supports this mutiny had better be ready to spend the rest of his life a long way outside the Commonwealth. The Colonial Army doesn’t like mutineers, you know.”

There were a few laughs among the loyalists. A stir went through the civilians.

“Think about what mutiny means,” Fraser went on. He had every man’s attention now. “After the garrison on Talbot’s Rock mutinied, the Commonwealth went on tracking them down for ten years. Now normally you could hide out by joining the Foreign Legion. We take care of our own.… But of course since the mutiny was in the Legion, I guess that would be hard to manage, wouldn’t it?”

More laughs. Barnett raised his voice, trying to break the spell. “Nonsense! This isn’t a mutiny. You’re all working for Seafarms! If there’s a mutiny here, it started when my orders were ignored. No one will be prosecuted for helping Lieutenant DuValier’s legal relief of two incompetent officers.”

“Does anyone want to take that risk?” Fraser asked loudly. “Any legionnaire who mutinies has bought a hot shot for sure. And you civilians are looking at treason charges. All it would take is one man going to HQ and claiming this was an armed uprising.”

Kelly appeared on the balcony beside Trent and took the amplifier. “How many of you are going to feel safe after all this?” she chimed in. “Look at the guy beside you. Can you trust him not to turn you in? Can you trust him not to slip a knife between your ribs to keep you from turning him in? That’s the kind of life you can expect if there’s a mutiny here!”

“Lay down your weapons now,” Fraser ordered. “For God’s sake, this thing is almost over! We can hold off those wogs, just as long as we’re all fighting on the same side. Every man has a part to play in this, and I need every one of you to make it work. That’s how we can beat them, by standing together. By each of us doing what he knows how to do. But if you don’t believe what I’m telling you …” He paused. “Then fire the first shot now and get it over with. Or else get back to work and save the shooting for the wogs!”

There was silence. Then, slowly, the ten legionnaires put down their FEKs. The civilians were a little slower, but, ringed in by armed soldiers, they had no other option.

Fraser let out a sigh. “Karatsolis! Mr. DuValier is relieved of duty immediately. Escort him and Citizen Barnett to cells. The rest of these … protesters … may go back to their normal duties.”

He turned away, unwilling to let them see his face.

O O O

And Edward Barnett slipped one hand into the secret pocket in his left sleeve, drawing out the tiny rocket pistol he’d used to kill Sigrid Jens. At least he’d have Fraser.…