Starfist: Lazarus Rising (45 page)

BOOK: Starfist: Lazarus Rising

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Finally things calmed down enough for Bass to tell them, "I made planetfall less than twenty minutes ago. I don't know if someone else is in my quarters in the barracks, so I couldn't go there. It's late enough that the mess hall is closed. I'm hungry and thirsty. What do you have to eat and drink?"

Parant used his arm to sweep a clear space at the table while Myer ordered his food servo to cook up a reindeer steak with all the trimmings. It was ready before Bass half finished the bottle of ale Horner pressed into his hand.

Myer resumed his place and asked, "How the hell did you survive? That site was spattered with gore. Other than your helmet and ID bracelet, all we found of you was a few strands of DNA. We figured their rail gun zeroed in and vaporized you."

The mention of the rail gun caused a digression while Shiro explained how the navy engineers figured out what the Skinks' new weapon systems were.

Bass whistled when Shiro finished. "Damn," he said around a mouthful of steak and trimmings, "I'm just glad they haven't figured out how to turn that into personal weapons."

"Shut your mouth, Charlie," Thatcher snapped, and knuckled him in the short ribs.

"We don't want to give those things new ideas. And what were they doing capturing you? Everyone was convinced they never took prisoners."

"I don't know." Bass shook his head and took another bite. He didn't answer until he swallowed his food. "They used drugs to mess with our memories. Mine is still mostly blank on what happened when I was a POW."

"So you just woke up one day and everybody was gone?"

Bass nodded, using a piece of bread to push the last crumbs of his meal onto his fork. "That's about right. Except there were four of us."

That set off so many questions he had to let out a parade ground roar to get them to shut up.

"How about if you just let me tell you what happened and hold your questions until I'm finished?"

They grumbled, but agreed. They grumbled even more when they noticed how the cards and money had been messed up.

"I'll put the pot aside, we'll use it to enrich the next hand," Myer said. That was greeted with more complaints, but nobody said not to.

Bass told his story, and his audience listened enrapt for half an hour.

"I always thought those theocrats should be overthrown," Myer mused at the end,

"but not that way."

Horner nodded. "Got rid of one bad government for another just as bad."

"All it took was one good Marine with a wild hair up his ass to fix matters,"

Hyakowa said.

Everybody laughed. Not too loudly, though. In their self-image, it was well within the capabilities of "one good Marine" to overthrow a planetary government. And it wasn't as though Charlie Bass had done it single-handed. He'd merely led one small faction and coordinated its final activities with a larger faction. Besides, he hadn't even had a direct hand in the demise of Dominic de Tomas or his chief henchman.

"So what happened on the campaign after I was captured?" Bass asked when the polite laughter ebbed. Everybody began talking at once, and he popped another brew while he patiently waited for them to sort themselves out to tell the story.

At the end of the telling, he breathed a sigh of relief. "No more dead in third platoon, that's good. The only new names I'll have to learn are the replacements for the men who died before I was captured."

Silence thudded over the group.

Bass looked warily around the table. "What haven't you told me?"

"Ah, Charlie," Myer said, "some of the replacements that we got are officers. An ensign got assigned to Company L. He's getting third platoon."

Bass fell back in his chair, stunned by the news. He was losing his platoon!

"Damn! What's going to happen next, do I get assigned to issuing sports equipment for the FIST?"

"There is one out, Charlie," Shiro said.

Bass looked at him like the "out" might be worse than losing command of third platoon. "Tell me."

"I can get the brigadier to offer you a commission tomorrow. If you accept it, he can find another position for that ensign and let you keep your platoon."

"Damn," Hyakowa muttered. "Isn't it bad enough I have to take orders from him, you mean I'll have to salute and call him ‘sir’ too?"

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