First to Fight (37 page)

And the Siad did sing songs to honor the deeds of the Confederation Marine they called Siraj Bhats, and his bold men.

EPILOGUE

About midnight Dean stepped outside Big Barb’s for air. He carried his beer and a lighted cigar with him. The cigar end glowed brightly in the darkness as he sucked the acrid tobacco smoke deep into his lungs. He held it there for a long time before exhaling. He sighed with pleasure. Since Elneal, small things, like a good smoke, had become very important to him.

The first night of liberty once the 34th FIST was back in garrison on Thorsfinni’s World was anticlimactic. The men of the Bass patrol—including Corporal Doyle, whom they now accepted as one of their own—were still too close to the events on Elneal to relax, but once granted liberty, they headed for Bronny anyway, trying very hard to convince themselves they were going to have a monumentally good time that night. But their minds were still in the desert on that tragic world. They drank a lot of beer, sang the same old songs, joked with the waitresses, but nobody felt like going upstairs, and to the civilian patrons at Big Barb’s that night, as they huddled together in a far comer of the hall, they seemed to be trying too hard to convince themselves they were having a good time.

Dean drew on the cigar again. The door opened, splashing Dean in light, noise from inside washing over him. Claypoole joined him and stood silently at his side for a while.

“Cold,” Claypoole remarked at last.

“Yep.” Dean nodded.

“I love the cold,” Claypoole continued. “I never want to be hot again.” He laughed nervously.

Dean smiled in the darkness. They were both silent for a time, looking up at the brilliant stars in the heavens.

Dean was thinking of Fred McNeal. The loss of his friend had subsided to a dull ache inside his chest that would always be there. He thought of his mother, who had died while he was trekking across the desert on Elneal. Someday he would go home and visit her grave. But when Captain Conorado had first broken the news to him on the way back from Elneal, he had displayed no emotion at all. At that time, the thought of leaving the company for the long voyage back to Earth never occurred to him. Dean sensed, and Captain Conorado knew from experience, that recovery from the ordeal on Elneal could only come among the comrades who had shared it. Besides, his mother would have been dead three months before he could ever have reached home.

The door opened behind them to let out a couple of Marines who were on their way elsewhere, and briefly the pair was illuminated in the light and engulfed in the boisterous clamor from inside. Staff Sergeant Bass’s voice was clearly distinguishable in the hubbub, raised loudly in song, The door closed abruptly, plunging them once more into darkness and a silence that descended again as soon as the departing Marines were gone. Dean smiled. The platoon sergeant had told them earlier that evening, “I’ve lost a lot of friends since I’ve been in the Corps. You just never get used to that. But remember this: The ones who die are always with you,” he tapped his chest, “and the ones who survive,” he took in the entire table with outspread arms, “become closer to you than family.”

A shooting star streaked silently across the sky. Dean finished his beer in one long gulp and belched loudly. He regarded the star-studded heavens. Way out there, beyond the unimaginable gulf of space, was Earth—home. No, Dean thought, not anymore. The 34th FIST was his home now.

PFC Joseph Finucane Dean took another deep drag on his cigar. “Fuck Earth,” he said.

“Roger that,” Claypoole said.

David Sherman
is a former United States Marine and the author of eight previously published novels about Marines in Vietnam, where he served as an infantryman and as a member of a Combined Action Platoon. He is an alumnus of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and worked as a sculptor for many years before turning to writing. Along the way he has held a variety of jobs, mostly supervisory and managerial. Today he is a full-time writer. He lives in Philadelphia.

Dan Cragg
enlisted in the United States Army in 1958 and retired with the rank of sergeant major twenty-two years later. During his army service, Mr. Cragg served more than eleven years in overseas stations, five and a half of them in Vietnam. He is the author of
Inside the VC and the NVA
(with Michael Lee Lanning),
Top Sergeant
(with William G. Bainbridge), and a Vietnam War novel,
The Soldier's Prize
. In real life, Mr. Cragg is an analyst for the Defense Department. He and his wife, Sunny, live in Virginia, where honest citizens are allowed to pack heat. Visitors after dark are strongly urged to call ahead.

Books by David Sherman and Dan Cragg

Starfist

FIRST TO FIGHT

SCHOOL OF FIRE

STEEL GAUNTLET

BLOOD CONTACT

TECHNOKILL

HANGFIRE

By David Sherman

The Night Fighters

KNIVES IN THE NIGHT

MAIN FORCE ASSAULT

OUT OF THE FIRE

A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

A NGHU NIGHT FALLS

CHARLIE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

THERE I WAS: THE WAR OF CORPORAL HENRY J. MORRIS USMC

THE SQUAD

By Dan Cragg

Fiction

THE SOLDIER'S PRIZE

Nonfiction

A DICTIONARY OF SOLDIER TALK

GENERALS IN MUDDY BOOTS

INSIDE THE VC AND THE NVA (with Michael Lee Lanning)

TOP SERGEANT (with William G. Bainbridge)

To learn more about other great ebook titles from Ballantine, please visit
http://www.randomhouse.com/BB/ebooks.html
.

To enjoy other great science fiction and fantasy titles visit
www.delreydigital.com
.

A Del Rey
^®
Book
Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright © 1997 by David Sherman and Dan Cragg

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.randomhouse.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-91713

p. cm

ISBN-13: 9-780-34543-6-542
ISBN-10: 0-345-43654-7
v1.0