The Weapon

  A Freehold military vessel would leave on schedule, and anyone who had not cleared ahead with the chain of command would simply be left behind. When he did eventually catch up through civilian ships at personal expense, he would be dragged up for AWOL charges, too. It almost never happens.

  We had time to examine our bunkroom while we waited. We lucked out, and there would only be the three of us in the six person bay. That was a rare occurrence, and we made the most of it. We could take turns with some small privacy (a luxury in the confines of a ship), and run through some training sims. It kept us busy, but as a plus, we wouldn't have to deal with snoopy questions.

  It's probably a good thing we could keep to ourselves. That evening, we went down to the centrifuged deck that serves various functions including exercise, certain labs and dining, and joined the line for chow. I was early in line for food, as always.

  A soft, ugly spacer ahead of me turned and asked, "You're the Colonial troops we picked up, right?"

  It was an obvious rhetorical question. Who else would we be in these uniforms? We weren't "colonials" either, but it was a friendly enough inquiry, despite the ignorance. There was no need to make an issue over it.

  "Freehold Blazers, yes," I agreed.

  "Marines, basically then," he nodded.

  Frank wasn't thrilled by that comparison. "We aren't Marines," he said. "Mobile Assault troops pull that duty, among others. They don't fall under a space force authority, because we have a unified military structure."

  "So what are you, then?" he asked. He seemed to be prodding a bit from his tone, despite the innocuousness of the question.

  Tyler answered, "We're like your Special Units. Only we're better." The expression on her face was not a smile.

  He snorted. "Got a bit of an ego there?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said. "Because we're that good." I will always back my people up, even when they go overboard. Especially then. But dammit, they understood diplomacy. They simply were choosing not to exercise it. I sighed.

  He carefully ignored us through the rest of the line. I knew we'd hear about this later, though.

  The next words I spoke were to the server, who was a civilian contractor. Yes, on a warship. I found that to be bizarre. "What's good?" I asked him.

  "It's all good!" he said, smiling.

  "What do you recommend?" I asked, correcting my question.

  "The Thai chicken with green sauce is very good," he said with a smirk. He obviously thought to play a trick on us. I knew exactly what trick, and went along with it.

  "I'll take it," I said. Frank and Tyler did, too.

  We sat down with steaming trays and got settled. It actually looked to be adequately prepared, and it was still steaming. While the crew awaited our surprise over the "hot" food, we grabbed our utensils and dug in. We could hear the conversation volume drop in anticipation as we outsystem hicks each took huge mouthfuls.

  Actually, I'd give it a 7 of 10. It wasn't bad. The next thing Frank did, however, was to produce a bottle of Crowley Osbourne's Satan Pepper Sauce and pass it around so we could dose it to a higher plane. The bay was silent at that. I really don't care for Satan Peppers. They're too bitter for my taste. But I can eat them, and a point had to be made.

  A nearby diner gestured at the bottle, and Frank nodded. Mister Curious took a whiff of the fumes and handed it back fast. His reaction made it seem he'd sniffed a plasma torch. We'd won this round.

  Of course, it got better from there.

  Three days later, I was working out in the gym. Frank was running on the centrifuge track, outpacing those few UN troops who bothered to exercise. That gave Tyler two "hours" to listen to music, or talk to herself, or masturbate, or whatever she chose to do with her precious privacy.

  We were at 1 standard G in the centrifuged gym. It's lower than Grainne's gravity, and I had the mass boosted to compensate. While I pumped, some tendonhead from the ship's Marine force came by to razz me. "I hear you said you're better than us?" he started without preamble.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't say that."

  "One of you did," he pushed.

  "Nope." I wasn't going to let this start, and I wasn't going to be misquoted, either. "Different, yes. We aren't Marines."

  So then he took the machine next to me and tried to push more mass than I. He was obviously from a high-G homeworld too, although I couldn't place the accent at that point in my training. I did the best thing I could think of; I ignored his challenge of constantly rising mass, and asked him about home. He was from Thorkel, I found out, and gave me a brief rundown on it. By the time I was done, he was quite happy to drop the testosterone challenge. It seemed like a good start to me. Real warriors (which I am and he was at least trying to be) always like to team up against spacer pukes. We agreed to meet up again and spot for each other.

  We were five days out when we hit Jump Point One and flipped through to Earth, from where we'd jump in another fifteen days to Alsace, and from there to Chersonesos. That's when the encounter I expected to happen actually happened.

  I left the gym, having said goodbye to Fremont ("call me Monty"), the Thorkel-based Marine, and took the companionway aft toward the bunks. I slipped through a side passage that would take me further out the radius, and there they were.

  "Hello, friend," one of them said.

  "Hello," I replied, looking at the group. There were eight of them. I counted six men and two women and they were the burliest, ugliest-looking pack of goons I'd seen so far. One of them was the troll from the chow line that first day. I felt flattered. "Companionway party? Where's the beer?" I asked, hoping.

  "It's a party alright," the leader said. "A jump party."

  "Am I invited, then?" I asked. I could see exactly where this was going. Okay, I cheated: I'd read about it beforehand. Tactical knowledge of the enemy and all that. But I waited patiently for him to proceed. I also checked out the environment, which I should have done earlier. It was a late-night low-use passage with a few stanchions for gripping in an emergency, and precious little else. That had the disadvantage of little for me to use, but the advantage of little for the higher-numbered enemy to use. And yes, I'd already pegged them as enemies before the alpha weasel spoke again.

  "The way it works," he said, "is that slimy little spaceworms, which is you, go through the Spacer's Ordeal, and become real spacers. It happens to everyone on their first hyperjump. You come with us to the Court of the Space Queen and make nice to him, er, her, rub up, drink some Space Goat Juice, and we get a few photos." Such rituals were officially banned. Good commanders let them happen anyway. Bad commanders were clueless. The rituals persisted.

  "I've jumped before," I told him. I wasn't interested in playing games. I'd been through far worse than he could imagine, but it was my stubborn streak. I had no need to play, no desire to play and wasn't going to play. And no one took photos of Operatives, even if it meant destroyed equipment.

  "Not on a UN ship you haven't," he said, grinning. He probably thought his size would intimidate me into his silly hazing ritual. "You do it, or you go through us to get out."

  Well, he hadn't mentioned that option before. That seemed fair.

  My kick caught him toe-first in the balls, knocking them up into his abdomen. He whuffed, curled up as I expected and gave me a handhold in the emgee. I used my left hand for leverage, with his head as the fulcrum. It incidentally bounced off the bulkhead, which was fine with me.

  That swung me toward one of his buddies, and the edge of my right hand caught him across the bridge of the nose. He grunted as it cracked. As I recoiled the other way, I caught the third one with the same hand, jabbing hard under her ribs, then grabbing a tit and crushing it as I bounced. I pulled my foot free of the first thug with another kick, twisted around her right tit as she screamed, and planted my feet on the overhead to soak up momentum. I straightened, pushing her toward the walkway and blocking another geek with her body. She gave me a good base from which to punch one in the sid
e of the head. He spun into the inboard corridor side as a few drops of blood drifted past, alerting me that number two was trying something else.

  I jackknifed and pushed off, then yawed right, getting my feet onto the outward corridor side. I brought my left foot up behind his head, hooking him with it and driving my right boot heel into his ear. Then I scissored it back and caught another woman dead center in her crotch with the instep of my foot. You may think that without testicles that doesn't hurt, but the reactions I've seen tell me it does, and she howled in appreciation of my form.

  I jabbed fingers into a convenient throat, pivoted around an arm as I used my feet to push the attached torso the other way, thus dislocating it with a satisfying rubbery feel, and bashed my head back into the face of the person trying to get a stranglehold on me. That made me a bit dizzy, but I wasn't about to show it. With feet against the walkway, I grabbed the nearest body and dove straight "up."

  Remember that I can leg press 500 kilos in 1.18 gees? There was a satisfying thud as we hit, and my brains shook in my head. My victim probably didn't feel a thing, but would upon waking. Someone interrupted my satisfaction by grabbing me, so I slammed a foot into his head, then drove my other heel back into his face. I stopped my forward momentum by kicking the first woman in her left breast to give her a matched set, and gracefully hiked my toe under her chin, clacking her teeth closed on her tongue. She gurgled a scream as I twisted and threw a stiff-fingered hook into an exposed solar plexus, male type.

  There was a lot of blood drifting through the air now, clogging the vents and splattering the deck and sides. It was good blood, i.e., not mine. I swam through the moaning, grunting and retching bodies, turned and said, "I trust that this satisfies the ritual requirement?"

  I took a slight wiggle of a head as "yes" and went to find food. Exercise makes me hungry.

  This incident had two additional payoffs. The next "morning" by ship's clock, Frank, Tyler and I came to breakfast. We entered the centrifuge (which was spun to create G when not under pseudothrust. As we were currently under thrust, it was stationary, but still in use), grabbed our trays, and I led the way to a table. I didn't see any obvious spaces where the three of us might sit, but as we—I—approached the nearest, a space five seats wide cleared out, the spacers grabbing trays and falling over themselves to make room. Apparently, word of our escapades had gotten out. Tyler, I found out, had also been hazed and had gone for joints—three spacers had broken elbows or wrists. I told you she was a bloodthirsty bitch. Frank had been asleep in his bunk and was unmolested. This says something about the value of plenty of rest, but I'm not sure what. The crew were unfailingly polite to us from then on, and the Marine NCO in charge of training officially and obsequiously asked if we might share some of our knowledge with his people. He'd "heard somewhere" that we had "better than average" unarmed combat training. He said it with a straight face, too. We showed them a few tricks as a professional courtesy, and the Marines were solidly on our side from then on.

  We jumped through to Earth, stopped not at all, but went right across the system to Earth Jump Point Five to Alsace. Fifteen days transit, then pop across another 36 lightyears.

  The UN Star Nation of Alsace is the 11 Leo Minoris system. It's interesting. The primary is a G8, slightly larger but cooler than Sol, gradually coming off the main sequence into subgianthood, to be followed by a stint as a red giant. We can probably only inhabit the planet for another ten thousand years or so. And there's this tiny red dwarf companion orbiting at 800 million kilometers that is fun to watch. You'd think that not being able to stay for long (in an astronomical sense) would make the system less than desirable, but no one worries about the impending deadline. Well, they have time to do something about it.

  We were there two days and managed some ground time, as the ship had a call in orbit anyway. One of our encounters was quite amusing. The three of us "Blazers" left the usual mobile assault/marine/specialist/seconded army haunts, along with Monty and two of his buddies, and traveled a slight distance. There was no way we were going to swill with vacuum sucking spacer pukes, so we found what we thought was a quiet bar to sample the local beer and wine, which was in order good and so-so. The Alsatians should probably not be allowed to run distilleries, though.

  We thought it was a quiet bar. For some reason, Alsatians have an obsession with sexual orientation. They don't discriminate and will gladly insult anyone's preference. I knew mine, wasn't bothered by it and cared less what people said about me. Deni thought I was a charming rogue, one or two other women I'd had torrid flings with claimed I was a male dynamo (exercise increases endurance . . . what can I say?) and I didn't worry about the opinions of people I wasn't trying to meet horizontally.

  As with most Freeholders, Tyler had made excursions to explore her sexuality. Despite everything else about her, she was timid in her personal encounters and had blushed and stammered while the three of us were discussing our experiences one bored night aboard ship. She definitely preferred men. Her only encounter with a woman up until then had been with a UNPF Space Force tech aboard ship. We ribbed her about getting more pussy than we had and she'd flushed red as she smiled. She was a late bloomer, and that was as fair game for jokes as anything else. That was among friends, though, not strangers.

  One of the Alsatian Army troops, not realizing our language skills, made a comment behind her back, involving mention of her haircut, the typical body-hairlessness of Freeholders, her height and his greater height. There were howls of laughter and Tyler glowed infrared. I was about to put a restraining arm on her, when she turned and went to town.

  Alsace is .82 gees. Grainne is 1.18. She was in peak condition. The joker came over her head and into the bartop through two of his buddies. The fight started. Being good soldiers, we backed her up. Being Operatives, we did so with great skill. Being slightly drunk, we did so with an excess of enthusiasm. Being wiser than most, we made no effort to resist when the Gendarmerie arrived. Monty's friends acquitted themselves quite well, too, right up to the point where he slugged a cop.

  Less than a div later, we were dragged out of the local hoosegow (where a couple of local bullyboys had received a lesson in manners, also) and delivered to the landing field. The UN Landing Officer and the local top cop and the army's honchos gathered around to roundly roast us. "Where are the rest of these hoodlums?" the soldier asked.

  When the LO patiently explained that only three FMF Blazers were aboard and that we were they, he looked confused. When the local arresting officer confirmed that he'd dragged in the three of us, the three Marines and twenty-two local soldiers, the colonel there for her men and women looked as if she'd melt from shame. Tyler was tiny, and Frank and I are not on the particularly large size. Even with the Marines along, the mass ratio was impressive.

  At this point, the arresting officer mentioned our passivity to his apprehension and our manners then suggested that perhaps the soldiers had had a brawl and we'd merely been caught up in the festivities. To avoid paperwork and international inquiries, all parties agreed. I suppose it didn't hurt that we had called the officier "M'sieur Constable" in our best accents throughout the incident, answered all questions truthfully and even addressed the receptionist as "Ma'meselle." I'd even managed to make them believe that Monty's swing had been an enthusiastic accident.

  There was a brief dressing down for us and the Marines who'd been carousing at another bar, then we boarded the shuttle. The LO was a Marine lieutenant, and he punched my arm and winked as we filed by. I grinned and winked back, promising with that gesture that he'd pay for the bruise he gave me. It had been no love-tap, as he was using it as an excuse to make a point.

  The only thing that bothered me about the whole incident was that we didn't get to see much of the town. I still haven't.

  * * *

  Chersonesus was settled by Greeks from Earth. It has Member status in the Colonial Alliance. It orbits a star that has no name, only catalog numbers, because it's barely visibl
e from Earth. It was chosen for settlement because its distance and less than prime (though still adequate) characteristics meant that the major commercial and governmental powers didn't want it, as opposed to my home of Grainne which was settled due to distance and lots of resources to exploit by a rich national conglomerate. Chersonesus is 37 light years to Galactic North of Sol, slightly inward toward the hub and less than 6 lightyears from Arcturus, which is a brilliant amber jewel in its night sky. Its only jump point links through Alsace. The primary is a K2 spectroscopic binary, and both stars orbit a common center of gravity in a tight, fast orbit. My brief didn't tell me whether or not they were close enough to swap stellar material and gas, so I was eager to see it for myself. The light appears to human eye to be as bright as "normal" Sunlight (most do—the eye can't handle the output of a star at any reasonable distance, so uses only what it needs), with a yellow-orange tinge to things. UV is quite a bit lower and the Earth plants are engineered to handle that. The people are paler than one would expect from a predominantly Mediterranean stock, of course. Heavy element wise, the system is lower than Earth normal, but high enough to make it easy to exploit with modern equipment. Chersonesus orbits its "Suns" at .69 AU, so it's just slightly cool. The tropics get about as warm as is typical, they're just a little smaller, and the polar caps a little larger. It's approximately Earth/Grainne sized but has a surface gravity of only .78. Even that is high, considering the elemental makeup of the system. But it would make us high G types inhumanly strong.

  We orbited, took a plain but adequate commercial shuttle down and were waved right through customs. I tried to use my broken Greek (they have an odd accent after nearly 200 years of semi-isolation from Earth), but the customs officer was so helpfully polite. "Gohead, gohead," he said, waving us through and turning to the travelers behind us.

  So we trotted outside, hoping to find some clues there. In moments, a drab but modern tan eight-seater pulled up and a Chersonesi soldier with two stripes said, "Fweeheld?"