The Unincorporated War (36 page)

Trang wasn’t really sure who said it first; in the end they all insisted it was someone else sitting in that briefing room. But it was something they all heard and was soon to be a name that would forever be a part of the lexicon of the war. “Sam’s Screw ups.”

Their new commodore saw the effect the suggested name was having. They all, to a person, got wonderfully evil grins on their faces. Samuel Trang knew that grin. It was one he saw in the mirror from time to time. They could win with a grin like that.

Eros

Malcolm Strummer, duly appointed head of the Erosian defense force, was not expecting to be woken up. One of the advantages of being in command of a post where nothing ever happened was uninterrupted sleep. There were of course the occasional interruptions of a non-military nature. He was, after all, on Eros, an asteroid whose unofficial motto was “where Mardi Gras never ends.”

Prior to Malcolm, the first Alliance officer of Erosian defenses had been a skilled merc officer who ran his group like an attack was imminent. He drove his own command and Eros crazy with his drills and insistence on maintaining strict discipline and protocol. When it became apparent that Eros was not going to be attacked anytime soon the Erosian delegation to the Congress in Ceres made some not so subtle complaints and the officer was transferred to a combat ship—much to the relief of all involved. Malcolm Strummer was chosen because he’d been a part of the assault marines who’d done well at the Battle of the Cerian Rocks. It also helped that he’d had a background in law enforcement. Malcolm understood the give-and-take involved in protecting a major civilian center. He didn’t skimp on the outer defenses, making sure that the minefield was active around the suburbs and the few orbital batteries he did have were placed in the shipping lanes. He’d made sure that anything approaching Eros approached it under his guns. He also knew that if anything serious was to happen the Alliance would send someone else to take over.

So when Captain Strummer was woken up he’d assumed that some of his
assault miners had gotten into enough trouble to have gotten it bounced up to him. But it was not the local police ruining his sleep; it was the duty officer in the defense bunker.

“Captain,” he said, nervously twitching his cheeks back and forth, “we have a problem.”

“On my way,” answered Strummer, putting on a robe. He stepped out of his room, went five steps down the hall past the open doorway and into the command bunker.

“What is it, Sal?” he asked his second in command.

“Looks like a random asteroid stream heading our way.” An asteroid stream, Malcolm knew, could be quite deadly. It was usually caused by a collision—with either another asteroid or a man-made object. The belt was thoroughly mapped for just such an event; human activity was always creating new collisions, explosions, insertions, and diversions that would cause data on the belt to need constant updating.

“What makes this one so strange, sir, is that it’s coming straight down the slot.”

The slot was the opening in the minefield covered by the few orbital batteries that Eros had operating.

“That’s too easy,” thought Malcolm out loud. “Alert the crews, get the miners in combat gear, and bring the orbital guns online. How long till the stream gets here?” Malcolm asked a young ensign operating a large scanner.

“At current speeds it will smash into Eros in twenty-two minutes. If we didn’t have the rail guns they’d cause considerable damage. They might even have destroyed Eros. Look at the data, sir. This is no accident!”

Malcolm stared into the dark screen and grimaced.

“Those corporate bastards launched them on purpose,” continued the ensign. “Just check out that angle of the approach. The suburbs,” he said, referring to the smaller rocks orbiting their larger cousin, “don’t rotate out of the way of our orbats until ten minutes before impact. We’ll have no clear line of fire until that stream is practically down our throats!”

The ensign was interrupted in his rant by Malcolm’s number two. “Sir, a large ice field is being reported. It’s approaching the suburbs at normal capture speed and has just entered the cleared zone.”

Every major settlement of more than ten thousand usually had a zone purposely kept clear of all debris. The larger the settlement, the larger the clearance needed for traffic. At the far edge of Eros’s clearance zone was a thicket of hundreds of asteroid remnants acting as the outlying barrier; at the other end of the clearance and closer to home was the minefield, behind which were the suburbs and, behind them, Eros itself. The ice had entered the clearing from the other
side of the thicket and was now slowly working its way across the cleared zone toward the minefield.

“I don’t think it’s a problem, Sal. Where’s it headed?”

“The O’Brian Waterworks, sir.”

“That’s the large water-processing plant on the edge of the suburbs, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are they scheduled for a shipment?”

Sal checked his data display. “No, sir, they are not, but it could be the O’Brian’s attempting to screw with the water market again.” It was an old tactic. Buy up water futures in a settlement, drive up the price, sell the futures just before a large water shipment comes in. Buy the same water you just sold at a much lower price. It was done with all commodities in the belt and only suckers fell for it, but it had not been government policy, either Alliance or UHF, to protect people from their own stupidity. These scams were becoming more prevalent due to the war, but it was still a “buyer beware” system.

“The timing is off,” said Malcolm. “This is too much like the first battle at the Martian Gates.”

“You think they’re trying to pull the same stunt on us?” asked the ensign at the scanning station.

“Only one way to find out, Ensign. Do your magic.”

The ensign dived into the holodisplay, quickly sussed out the situation, and then looked up excitedly.

“Captain,” he said, “you were right. The ice is covering denser materials beneath.”

“Sound the general alarm,” Malcolm said calmly, “and tell the Erosian civic council that the UHF is attacking the settlement. I want everyone in their quarters or at battle stations in ten minutes.”

“This is going to bust up alot of parties, Captain.”

“Do it.”

Sal pressed a button and immediately an alarm started to sound throughout every square mile of the rock.

“They can continue screwing in the security of a structurally safe area,” snapped Malcolm. “After the ice hits the minefield, how much longer till we have a clear shot on the asteroid stream?”

“Two minutes, Captain.”

Malcolm paced nervously in his bathrobe. “Damned clever. They waltz through the minefield while we’re busy trying to knock their threat out of the sky. Activate the field, Ensign, and reposition as many mines in the surrounding area as you can to increase the field density.”

“Yes, sir.”

Malcolm’s DijAssist suddenly began clamoring for his attention. As he answered it, he looked down and noticed his bare feet. He’d left his room in such a rush he’d forgotten to put a pair of slippers on. Though his feet were getting cold, he stood in place spending the next few minutes informing the head of the civic council what exactly the problem was, assuring him that it was under control, and practically ordering him not to come down to the command center. Malcolm then patiently informed the council leader that he needed to get his police and emergency ser vices coordinated. By the time Malcolm had finished telling the man how to do his job and then politely but firmly signed off, the mines were almost ready to blow.

“Captain,” reported his number two, “all four orbats are ready to go the second the stream clears the last obstructing suburb. With all four batteries firing there should be no damage to Eros.”

All watched in abject silence as the drama unfolded. A large part of the area in front of the Erosian suburbs simply exploded as the ice ships made contact. By the time the scanners were able to start inputting data after the blast, all four main rail guns on the orbital batteries were shooting magnetically impelled matter at incredible speeds, destroying with blinding efficiency the oncoming asteroid stream. It was without question the biggest fireworks the Erosians had ever seen, and it was minutes away from all being over. Malcolm breathed a momentary sigh of relief and started to think about how good it would feel to get his icy cold feet back into his warm fleece slippers. The feeling didn’t last very long.

“Captain,” yelled an ensign, “atomic explosions at edge of the suburbs!”

Malcolm whipped around to see what the ensign was talking about, but the holo-tank showed the captain all he really needed to see. And what he saw was that he’d just been had. He’d blown up his minefield on a bunch of ice, leaving a great gaping hole in his defenses. The entire UHF fleet had used atomics in the rear of their ships to turbo-boost themselves out of the asteroid thicket where they’d been hiding. They flew across the clear space, through the recently blown gap, and were now speeding through the suburbs. If Malcolm turned his orbital batteries away from the asteroid stream he’d only get a couple of shots before the enemy fleet was in range of Eros, which would then be destroyed by the incoming asteroids. It was, rued Malcolm, a brilliant plan.

But Malcolm Strummer was not done yet. The enemy commander might get his marines and ships intact to Eros, but even if whoever was commanding those ships had them filled to the bulkheads with marines, Eros had well over twenty million people who did not want to be a part of the UHF, and he had an assault miner contingent of two thousand. It would be bloody, but this was the sort of fight the Alliance was best at. He ordered his units made ready and had his battle armor and weapons brought to him.

Bridge of the UHFS Strident

Trang’s ship was in the lead. She was the least armed, but she was the fastest and speed, he knew, would win this battle. The last thing he wanted to do was land on Eros. Even with control of the immediate space around the station, he didn’t have one-tenth the manpower needed to physically occupy the rock. But he wouldn’t need to.

He’d visited each and every ship before the battle and given the same speech with slight variation. The effect was always the same. The name they were all calling themselves had already spread through the fleet. They were Sam’s Screwups, and Trang knew he had them for now, but if he could give them this victory he’d have them forever.

At the last possible moment the
Strident
shifted course and began breaking. Instead of heading for the docking area of Eros, the best place to launch an invasion, his cruiser, along with two of the fastest ships in his fleet, headed for the farthest orbital battery. Ships of correspondingly slower speeds were suddenly breaking and heading to the other three batteries, the result being that all the batteries were going to be boarded at the same time, just as the asteroid stream Trang had launched was in the final stages of being destroyed.

As soon as it was possible Trang left the bridge and donned his assault armor to lead his marines. This didn’t make his command staff happy, but when he saw the grins on the faces of his soldiers he knew he’d done the right thing.

“Remember, you bastards,” he growled, “I need this battery intact. If we take it, Eros surrenders. Think about what that means, especially for you more lecherous scumbags.” That brought laughter from all the marines. Trang noted the women laughed the loudest. He then tried to take the position that would let him jump into the battle first but was blocked by two grunts who shoved their way in front. He was about to order them to move aside but sensed the mood of the assault bay. He suddenly remembered the quote of a great general: “Never give an order you know will be disobeyed.” Trang, bowing to the inevitable, shut his mouth, stepped aside, and stood proudly in third position.

Eros, docking bay

Captain Malcolm Strummer had just arrived in the docking bay to plan the defense when he was told that the enemy ships had shifted course. By the time he got back to the command bunker he saw the last of the orbital batteries taken. Within the hour he saw the first of the orbats turn toward Eros. When all four of
them had turned toward the heavily populated and now-defenseless asteroid he got the message he knew was coming.

Captain Trang arrived in a shuttle piloted by one spacer. Trang got out of the dock to find himself surrounded by two hundred assault miners. He didn’t blink or show the slightest concern. Once he spotted the table with the commander of the Erosian defenses he headed straight for him. They both saluted formally.

Trang spoke first. “Captain Malcolm Strummer, you are the duly authorized commander of all Alliance forces in and around Eros.”

Strummer spoke as if his lungs were filled with ashes: “I am.”

“I have here the articles of your unconditional surrender. Do you accept these articles?”

Malcolm reluctantly took the DijAssist from Trang’s outstretched arm and sighed. “To continue to fight would result in unacceptable civilian casualties,” he said. “I accept the articles of surrender.” Malcolm put his thumb to the pad and then signed his name across it. As he did, he seemed to deflate.

Satisfied, Trang then turned his attention toward the men surrounding him. “What happens next is going to be hard for all of you. You have to surrender arms and report for suspension.” He waited for the growl of barely controlled rage to ripple through. “It’s hard because you didn’t lose this fight, nor did your captain. But you’ll pay the price for being put into a situation you couldn’t win. But remember this….” Now Trang grinned. “You kicked our asses at the battles of the Cerian Rocks and the Martian Gates.” That brought a different sort of laughter. “Because of that, many UHF spacers and marines are suspended in Alliance space even as we speak. Many of them are my friends and, to be perfectly honest, some I could do without.” This brought ironic laughter to the assault miners surrounding their conqueror. “The UHF wants them back and the Alliance wants you back. You will not be in suspension long.” Trang paused long enough so that they would unconsciously pay more attention to his next words. “The next time we meet in battle,
and we will meet again,
remember that even though this war makes us enemies, this war will end. We may have to kill each other, but as soldiers we have more in common with one another than we have with anyone else. Where and when it’s possible, let us treat each other with the respect and dignity we’ve earned and paid such a high price for. Captain,” Trang said, looking over to Malcolm Strummer, “please see to your men.”