Heaven's Devils

CHAPTER EIGHT

ABOARD THE TROOPSHIP HYDRUS, EN ROUTE TO TURAXIS II

The Hydrus was more than fifty years old, but she was big, in keeping with her original purpose, which was to transport settlers to colony worlds like the one Raynor had been born on. But those days were over, and the ship had long since been purchased into military service, and was currently being used to support the Confederacy’s war effort. Which was why Raynor and more than two thousand other “boots” were camped out in the vessel’s cavernous hold.

And “camped out” was the operative term, since there weren’t cabins for anyone other than the crew and the two hundred or so uniformed personnel traveling to Turaxis II for a variety of reasons. So, with the exception of a section of deck that the noncoms in charge referred to as the “parade ground,” Hold Two was a noman’s-land of individual encampments, each of which served as home for up to fifteen recruits.

The arrangement led to occasional turf wars, which the noncoms sought to squelch. But in spite of their beady-eyed vigilance, and the stunner-armed patrols tasked with keeping things under control, the “zoo,” as many of the inhabitants referred to it, was a dangerous place to live.

All of which had come as a surprise to Jim Raynor, who, based on everything he’d seen and heard on the news, believed that the military was highly organized, perfectly integrated, and fully supplied. And that was why taxes were so high, or so everyone had been told, to make sure the military had everything it needed. Except that they didn’t have everything they needed. Including adequate transportation.

That became even more apparent as Raynor drew his daily rations, and was carrying them toward his squat, when a Klaxon began to beep. An official announcement followed: “This is Lieutenant Freeson. Due to a security breach, unauthorized personnel have gained access to Hold Two. Military police are en route. Those individuals assigned to Hold Two are to avoid contact with the intruders, take up positions with their backs to the port and starboard bulkheads, and await further instructions. I repeat, this is Lieutenant Freeson …”

Raynor might have listened to the message all over again, but he was distracted as a mob of people rushed his way. One of them bumped Raynor’s arm and sent the boxes of rations spinning away. Raynor was clambering to retrieve them—it was either that or go hungry—when a scuffle broke out nearby. “That’s right, freak,” he heard a familiar voice bark, “it’s time to go back into your cage.”

Raynor straightened, peering through the crowd to get a glimpse of the melee. His suspicion was confirmed. The voice belonged to Hank Harnack. Most of Raynor’s injuries had healed since the beating he received in the lavatory, but the skin around his eyes was still purple, and hurt whenever he touched it.

Corporal Timson had followed up on the incident, of course, but having heard Harnack refuse to rat him out, Raynor had been careful to do likewise. Something the noncom clearly approved of. Timson had been careful to keep the two combatants away from each other after that, and once the original draft was combined with others from different parts of the planet, the recruits had been separated. Up until now, that is.

After breaking out of the forward hold, several hundred violent criminals were on the loose—the hold had been abuzz with a rumor that the Hydrus was carrying prisoners on their way to some sort of military work camp or reformatory. Now, most of the captives were trying to lose themselves in the larger crowd, or steal personal items from the squats, but half a dozen of them were circling Harnack like a pack of wild dogs.

Tom Omer materialized at Raynor’s side. “Uh-oh,” he said ominously. “It looks like Harnack is about to get his. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

Raynor couldn’t help but smile, his gaze fixed on Harnack, who was now offering the thugs a supercilious smirk while kissing each bicep and striking a weight lifter’s pose. “Yeah, he’s a sweetheart all right.”

Omer snorted as the constantly shuffling circle tightened around Harnack. “Wonder what he did to crack them off,” he mused aloud. “It could have been anything. These guys are animals.”

That wasn’t far from the truth. The prisoners were allegedly offered the chance to join the Marine Corps after a brief stint at the reformatory, as an alternative to doing hard time in prison. But old ways die hard, and with nothing else to do, the criminals had broken out of the area assigned to them. He pitied any poor social workers or counselors who would be assigned to help these guys become upstanding citizens—they sure had their work cut out for them.

Now, like it or not, Raynor was faced with a choice. It would be incredibly satisfying to see Harnack receive some of his own medicine. But he knew exactly what his father would say if he were there: “Remember, Son … the true measure of a man is whether other people can count on him when it makes a difference.”

“Here,” Raynor said, as he handed his rations off to Omer. “Take care of those, will you? I’d appreciate it.”

“Don’t do it,” Omer advised ominously. “You’ll be sorry.”

Distant shouts were heard, followed by three shrill blasts from a whistle and the thunder of feet on steel.

“Yeah,” Raynor agreed, as he removed his jacket and placed it on top of the rations. “I probably will.”

Some of the recruits had placed their backs against the bulkheads by then, but others were caught up in the moment and eager for entertainment. They began to chant, “Blood! Blood! Blood!” as Raynor navigated his way between a scattering of encampments and into the open area beyond. The circle was tighter by then, so much so that Harnack was starting to fend off blows, as more whistles blew in the distance.

One of the onlookers had a sprained ankle, and was leaning on a crutch, which Raynor jerked out from under her as he strode past. The girl swore as she went down, made a grab for the recruit on her right, and both of them fell in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Shit. Sorry, miss,” Raynor uttered hastily as he continued on.

A pang of fear dropped into Raynor’s gut as he entered the fray with the improvised weapon. By now a con had wrangled Harnack into a headlock. The crutch made a whirring sound as it slashed through the air, caught the con behind the knees, and brought him down.

Having been freed from one attacker, Harnack launched a spin kick at another. As he completed the move and sent the con reeling backward, he looked at Raynor and grinned. “Okay … You aren’t a sissy. But you’re stupid as hell!”

There was no time for a response, as Raynor took a glancing blow to the side of the head, and brought the crutch around by way of a response. It struck one of attackers in the mouth, broke some of his teeth, and put him on his ass.

The whistles were louder by then, as a phalanx of noncoms began to work their way across the deck, stunning anyone who failed to obey orders. But it was slow going because they had to pause frequently in order to take escaped cons into custody.

So as Raynor rammed the crutch into a con’s gut, he knew it would be at least three or four minutes before help arrived. And a lot of things could happen in that time.

Raynor swore as somebody took hold of the crutch and jerked it away from him. Then a fist hit him in the right kidney. The pain was intense, and he was starting to fall, when a badly bloodied Harnack grabbed him by the belt. “Stay on your feet!” he shouted. “They’ll stomp you if you don’t.”

Having been stomped by Harnack’s friends in the lavatory, Raynor understood the wisdom of the other youth’s advice. So he battled to stay vertical, as the two of them fought back-to-back, and bets were placed all around. Then, as Raynor landed a roundhouse punch on a hate-filled face, the noncoms arrived.

The uniformed marines were swinging their stunners at anything that moved by that time, which was why Harnack pulled Raynor down. “Go limp!” he commanded. “They’re gonna stun you!”

Raynor obeyed, but some of the cons fought back, which earned them a high-voltage clubbing and a presumption of guilt. Once the criminals had been cuffed and led away, Harnack scrambled to his feet. “You’re one crazy sonofabitch,” he said admiringly, as he reached down to give Raynor a hand.

“Thanks,” Raynor replied. “I think.”

That was when Omer arrived with a leather bag full of coins. There was a jingling sound as he shook it. “Look at all the money I won betting on you guys! We’ll split it three ways.”

When Harnack grinned, a bloody film covered his teeth. “Great… . It was worth it then.”

Raynor put a hand on his kidney. It hurt like hell. “I’m not so sure about that… . What triggered the fight anyway?”

“It was their fault,” Harnack said defensively. “I called one of them a freak and he threw a punch. That’s when I decked his ass.”

Raynor sighed and rolled his eyes. “I should have known.”

Omer chuckled.

“I’m hungry,” Harnack announced suddenly, as he snatched the bag of coins from Omer. “I hear somebody smuggled some real food on board and they’ve got a brew-up goin’ back in the corner. Come on … lunch is on me.”

Omer made a grab for the bag, but Harnack had already spun around and started to leave. A few seconds later, he stopped abruptly and looked back. “You losers comin’?”

“This should be good,” Raynor mumbled cynically, as he threw an arm across Omer’s shoulders. “Assuming we survive the trip to boot camp, we should be able to survive anything the KMs throw at us.”

Four intervals and several warp jumps later, the Hydrus entered orbit some three planetary diameters off of Turaxis II. Under normal conditions the ship would have cut it closer, say one diameter out, but with Kel-Morian raiders on the prowl it was necessary for the old transport and ships like her to form a convoy before entering orbit.

Though originally built for peaceful purposes, the enemy ships had been armed and armored using materials and skills furnished by the Morian Mining Guild. The KMs didn’t have a fleet as such, so members of the Kelanis Shipping Guild were filling that role, and had proven themselves to be quite formidable despite a lack of military training.

The KMs were unpredictable for one thing, which made it that much more difficult to defend against their constant attacks, as the admiral in charge of organizing the Confederate ships sought to order, cajole, and sometimes shame the merchant captains into placing their vessels where they were supposed to.

Meanwhile down in the Hydrus’s hold, there was very little for the recruits to do except worry, because the ship was secured for battle, and in the absence of acceleration couches they had to lie under drift nets for hours at a time.

Raynor, who was flat on his back next to Harnack, understood the need. Because, should the vessel come under attack and the argrav generators fail, everything, including unsecured recruits, would suddenly become weightless and drift all about. So to protect them, as well as the ship herself, it was necessary to immobilize the boots.

Each of them handled the situation differently. Omer was frightened, his body tense and perfectly still, and his face drained of color. Raynor was concerned, knowing that the Hydrus would have to depend on other ships for her defense, but figured the swabbies knew what they were doing. There was no way to know how Harnack felt, because he was asleep, and snoring loudly.

“Will you shake him or something?” Omer asked.

“Be careful what you ask for,” Raynor responded. “He’s so peaceful at the moment.”

“It sounds like his nostrils are too small for that melon head of his.”

“Or maybe he’s been punched in the face one too many times. That’s my guess.”

“Why are we hanging out with him again?” Omer asked.

“I don’t know. Entertainment? Pity?”

“I can hear you …” Harnack mumbled, smacked his lips, and launched directly back into his snoring. Raynor and Omer cracked up.

“I guess we should try to sleep, too,” Raynor said. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and wondered what his parents were up to.

So as the hours passed, Raynor took catnaps and tried to read, without much success. Alarms sounded at one point, followed by an announcement that the convoy was under attack, but the captain gave the all-clear ten minutes later. Then a thin, watery likeness of his face appeared on every functioning monitor. The hair he still had was wrapped around the sides of his head. He had bushy brows, serious eyes, and a softly rounded jaw. The uniform he wore looked as though it had been slept in.

“We lost the Cyrus,” he said soberly, “but the attacking ship was destroyed by our escorts within a matter of minutes. We expect to enter orbit approximately one hour from now. Confederate forces control all of the best slots at the moment. But since the strategic situation remains fluid, and the Kel-Morians own roughly half of the planet’s surface, the disembarkation process will take place on the double.

“For that reason recruits will be asked to form up into groups of fifteen, and when it’s your turn to board a dropship, you will proceed with the utmost dispatch. Any recruit who fails to comply with orders, or otherwise impedes progress, will be stunned.

“Two squadrons of Avengers will be waiting to escort our dropships to the surface,” the captain continued, “but it’s likely that the enemy will respond with fighters of their own. So you may have a front row seat in a real dogfight.

“Once on the ground you will be ordered to deass the dropships on the double so that they can clear the area and make another trip. I’m told it’s nighttime where you’re headed, about fifty-five degrees, and raining. Good luck, and don’t forget to shoot at least one of the bastards for me.”

A click was heard as the captain disappeared and was immediately replaced by one of the standard images that the recruits had seen at least a hundred times before on their journey. It showed a clearly dispirited young man slouched on a set of stairs that led up to a tenement. The caption read: “The Marine Corps … you owe it to yourself.”

Harnack pushed the net up away from his face and yawned. “What the hell was that all about? Doesn’t the old geezer realize that some of us are trying to sleep?”

“We’re about an hour out,” Raynor replied. “The dancing girls have been notified of your arrival, free beer is available in the mess hall, and you were promoted to general.”

“Sounds good,” Harnack replied agreeably, as he began to extricate himself from the net. “Save my place. The general needs to pee.”