Claire Takes On The Galaxy

Claire - Chapter Twenty

Devil’s Pit had more surprises in store for Claire, although these were far less lethal than the ones she had survived to date. When she sobered up Claire found out that the Mercs had also sneak attacked the adjacent colony of Diamond’s Peak, but there a Merc sabotage plot seemed to have worked. Members of the two marine companies on the colony not killed by a missile assault on the base had surrendered after a brief fight. But that disaster meant that the SMC command was anxious to play up the successful fight at Devil’s Pit. Captain Chan and his two companies may have had a lot of unlooked for help from the Shades, but they had still slugged it out at two-to one (Merc companies were bigger than those of the Marines) after two senior officers had been killed and had won. Decorations and promotions were handed out.

For their services in the battle, mainly in the tunnel, both Claire and Lou received the combat decoration, the Platinum Star – nicknamed the Pulsar by the marines. The announcement of the award on the morning news feed made Mrs Williams drop her spoon into her breakfast cereal. All her friends called her. She kept repeating that she was “just glad that Claire was unhurt”. For both members of Clou the award came with an automatic boost to senior private, an honorary rank as they were not expected to give orders, which included a handy increase in pay. Adria also got the same award and promotion for dragging wounded out of transporters while under fire.

“I was stuck in the same bunker as useless Graham for two days,” was Maddie’s comment after congratulating Claire. “I deserve a medal too.” Claire agreed that putting up with Graham was hard, but it didn’t count as combat.

Lou’s shrapnel wound earned her a wound stripe to wear on her uniform and a few days off with Brew. Claire’s antics on the ride home earned her a cautionary letter, the least serious form of disciplinary action, placed in her file.

“Okay,” said Addington, in a private interview with Claire when she handed over the letter. “You unknowingly got wasted on two cans of high-proof hooch after a stressful battle and banged your boyfriend while he was piloting us home.”

“Ma’am?” Claire had been told to admit nothing.

“May gave me the whole story. I’m glad that James kept us in the air. Was it good s*x?”

“I think it was ma’am, but I don’t remember much about it – just the headache afterwards.”

Addington laughed. “After two cans of that stuff, I’m surprised you weren’t taken straight to sick bay. We’re dealing with the marines who brewed it, and handed it to unsuspecting marines, but we have to take some account of those who behaved like lunatics while under the influence.”

“Ma’am,” said Claire ruefully, reading the letter. It referred to “inappropriate behaviour” on a transporter “while under the influence of intoxicating liquor”.

“The letter’s certainly not going to damage your career, not when you and Private Crean are top of the sniper table.”

“Top of what, ma’am?”

Addington picked up a printed sheet on her desk. “Clou team thirteen confirmed live kills” (that meant people) “and twelve equipment kills; Bronc team eleven live, although that includes three snipers to your one, and ten equipment. That puts you on top of the league for active sniper teams, even though you were in those tunnels for part of the battle and Shades don’t count. Clou and Bronc teams alone accounted for a good slice of the other side’s casualties, then there were the other sniper teams who all scored kills, and dominated the Merc snipers. That and winning the battle means it’s pats on the back all round.”

So it proved. Claire and Lou got congratulatory notes from sniper school commandant Colonel Jefferies and his deputy Major Black. Chan was promoted to Major and made garrison commander, while Addington was boosted to Captain and made deputy commander of The Two-One. Captain Wells, who had performed well in the battle, was switched over from the One-Five to replace Chan. The Two-One acting commander, Lieutenant Masters, had been badly wounded in the fight with the last-stand platoon and would have to be shipped home for treatment. He would also be promoted when he recovered.

“I got some combat in, which counts a lot,” said Addington when Claire congratulated her. “Mainly fighting Shades but I did get to shoot a Merc, even if it was just poor Mason.” The Merc was now recovering from his wound and would be shipped back to Earth in due course. “But all this also means that I’ll be here for longer while my daughter is of an age to get bothered by boys.”

“Longer ma’am?” said Claire.

“Of course, haven’t you heard private? You’re now in the middle of a shooting war. The Two-One will stay three months longer than the year in its present form, and then only those with families are likely to be sent back. It’s two years off-world minimum, remember, with bonuses if a third is required, and there’s nothing to say the service can’t be in the same place. This is now going to be the Two-One’s home base, like it or lump it - they’re even going to encourage marine families to come out, when it’s safe to, of course.”

Claire thought about how this affected her and James. She had already decided that it would be hard for her to leave Devil’s Pit. She liked the place better now that she had fought for it, and liked James a lot better for being there for her when she had been in a tight spot. There was also the little matter that he, May and Brew had saved the entire garrison. In any case, Claire was not going to move away and leave an opening for the likes of Cora, or Abigail or anyone else.

“Remote place for families to come ma’am,” was all she said.

“True, but not so uninteresting and remote now because of the Shades. A whole group of scientists are definitely going to come out with their families to study the creatures and those tunnels, and be damned to the war as far as I understand. Your James has been told to build housing units for them.”

“Do these families include children of Maddie’s age, ma’am?”

“Now that’s a point – I hadn’t thought of Maddie. There were a few children in the lists. These scientists, incidentally, will want to be shown the tunnels.”

“Oh oh,” said Claire. “I don’t suppose I can be on sick parade that day, ma’am.”

Addington laughed again. “The others on the Merc body detail in the tunnel say you showed them a room with alien writing, and Cora says she saw Shades.”

“Lou and I can hide from Shades, ma’am, but I’d prefer not to have to hide. I thought if I left them alone, they would leave me alone.”

“You’re not expected to fight them, private, just avoid them, but that tunnel, those rooms and the Shades are now the subject of considerable interest, and you and Senior Private Crean are the go-to experts for going in there. You can train others to avoid Shades and then take a back seat.”

“Training others to be scared of Shades sounds good, ma’am. Did we ever find out how the Mercs knew more than we did about the tunnels but not much about the Shades?”

“Prisoners haven’t told us a lot and the Merc government isn’t in a sharing mood at the moment. We’ll look for where they got into the tunnels when we’ve cleaned up some more. I think the other sniper teams can help out. I’ll recommend it to Major Chan.”

“Yes ma’am.”

There was one more, bigger surprise.

Claire and Lou were on sweeps at the far end of the valley trying to work out where the Mercs had gotten into the tombs, as everyone now called them. As the Shades where synths perhaps they were tomb guards? Then Clou team was abruptly summoned back to base and a transporter sent to fetch them. They rode in that craft wondering what they could be in trouble over. They were told to report to the conference room where a serious-looking sergeant instructed them to pile their gear, and to wait. A few moments later the sergeant announced, “Senior Private Claire Williams, please attend the inquiry”.

Claire and Lou exchanged alarmed glances. Inquiry into what, and why were they required? She was ushered into the conference room to sit opposite Captain Addington, Captain Culp and female platoon commander Lieutenant Ashington.

“Have I done anything, ma’am?” asked Claire of Addington.

“It’s not about you,” said Addington. “This inquiry is interested to hear what light you can shed on the relationship between Senior Private Adrianna Warner and Major Andrew Chan.”

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

“You heard us, Senior Private Williams. What can you tell us about the connection between the two?”

“I don’t know of any connection, ma’am. Is there a connection?”

“Senior Private Warner and Major Chan have announced that they are engaged to be married.”

Claire thought she had never been so astonished in all her life, but then she thought of Adria texting and of disappearing on walks. So that was it.

“I am as surprised as everyone else will be, ma’am,” was all she said.

“The SMC takes relationships between members of the same company very seriously, as you know,” said Addington. “It’s a court martial offence not to declare such a relationship the moment it starts, so that steps can be taken to remove any conflict of interest.”

“This inquiry is to establish when the relationship started,” said Captain Culp. “Both members of this relationship claim that it started when they announced their engagement yesterday. This inquiry panel has a lot of trouble buying that – so we want to establish whether the couple were seeing one another before this.”

“I see, sir,” said Claire. Now that she understood what was going on, she had to supress an urge to giggle. After all, they weren’t going to court martial her and, as James was a civilian, the marine rules on relationships were not her problem.

“Did you ever see either of those two together?” asked Culp.

“No sir.”

“They never spoke?”

“Not that I ever saw, sir.”

“Did Senior Private Warner ever mention Major Chan?” asked Addington.

“Not when I was around, ma’am.”

“We will speak to Senior Private Crean,” said Captain Culp. “Will she confirm what you just told us?”

“Senior Private Crean and I have never once mentioned the possibility of Senior Private Warner and Captain, I mean Major Chan being involved, sir.” This had the advantage of being true.

“There was some friction between yourself and Senior Private Warner before the battle,” said Lieutenant Ashington. “You were concerned over her behaviour?”

“Texting people, ma’am, and we didn’t know who she was texting. She went on long walks and we didn’t see her walking.”

“Did you ask her about this?” said Ashington.

“Yes, ma’am. She just said she was texting people on Earth, and was just walking around.”

“Did you make any deductions of draw any conclusions about her behaviour?” asked Addington.

“Our only thought was that Lou, I mean Senior Private Crean, suggested she might be a Merc spy, Ma’am.”

The panel collectively had to supress chuckles.

“We looked at the phones of both parties,” said Culp, “and there are texts on them but don’t seem to amount to a lot. James Truslove controls the phone network, has he mentioned anything about having dealings with the phones of either party.”

“No sir. James has never told me anything about the phone network here.”

(James later apologised for not saying anything but said it was better that she not know, and this time Claire heartily agreed. “I just swapped the chips, gave them the same number as the old and then wiped the record of the changes. Short of importing a forensic software guy from earth they’ll never work it out.”)

Claire was asked a few more questions before being excused and went out as the sergeant called for Senior Private Louise Crean. She smiled at her friend, who look anxious, checked in her gear and went back to the barracks. Lou eventually came in, open mouthed.

“Can you beat that,” she said. “I’ve never known those two to so much as look at one another.”

“Got flanked on that one,” said Claire, “but it makes sense of a lot of things. Those walks were all about going to see him. We both saw Chan going to the Doll House but it was just a cover to see her. He would have walked right through and seen her somewhere else.”

“Why not just declare it and have her swap with someone in The One-Five?”

“I think she was chasing him,” said Claire. “You remember that first day when we were walking around the valley, the look of pure horror on the Captain’s – I mean the Major’s - face. We thought he was reacting to us in marine fatigues. But it was because he saw Adria. She was there as well.”

“She followed him to Devil’s Pit? Now that’s true love.”

“It sure is,” said Adria, who appeared at the door way.

“You going to draw two years hard for banging the base commander?” said Claire. “I got a cautionary letter for doing James on the way home and he’s not a marine more than two ranks above me, so two years sounds fair to me.”

“Yeah,” said Lou, “and add another year for not telling your friends this stuff.”

“Excuse me,” said Adria, “the same friends who thought that I was a Merc spy.”

“That was sort-of handy when I got called into the inquiry,” said Claire. “When I said that was what we suspected they almost laughed.”

“Ha!” said Adria and smiled.

“What was the deal?” asked Claire. “How come all of this? Why not swap with a medic in The One Five as Lou said?”

“I met Andrew at a reception and chased him. He said he was going off world for some time and I was sure to be married by the time he got back. I said I’d wait, he said that was ridiculous and I’d fall for some rich guy. I said I’d follow him, and he said civilians just didn’t come to the places he was going. My family didn’t help at all in any of this. They even tried warning Andrew off.”

“But he’s a marine officer,” said Claire. “That isn’t bad. How come your family can turn their noses up at him.”

“They have lots of money, old-money. I joined the marines under my mother’s maiden name. My father’s name is Tuross.”

“As in space haul lines and mining companies?” asked Claire.

“The same. Andrew’s family is dirt poor. When I got here Andrew still tried to discourage me. It was a while before we were together and by then we were used to sneaking around.”

“Wait,” said Lou, “you’re a mega-wealthy chick who joined the marines to chase the man of your dreams, against the wishes of your family, and went through a couple of postings to get here.”

“That’s about it.”

“Taylor would have loved that story.”

“She knew. She was the only one of the marines who knew apart from Andrew and she never said anything. I shall miss her greatly. We had to declare because we got sprung by one of the officers cuddling.”

“Ooops,” said Lou.

“We talked to Dog who already knew about the marine relationship rules and told us what to do. He got us to give our phones, the big link between us, to James for doctoring.”

“How soon are you getting married?” asked Claire.

“Next couple of weeks.”

“What?” said Claire and Lou together.

“Andrew says if we’re going to do it, we’d better do it real soon. The marines will be much less troubled over their relationship rules if we’re married. I can then stay in The Two- One until I muster out.”

“You mean like those costume dramas where you have to get married to avoid scandal?” said Lou.

“Something like that, I guess. Now I’m going to be married by someone called Dog and without a dress. There’s no wedding dress in all of Devil’s Pit and no way one can be shipped in, in time. James said he may be able to manage green cloth – that’s about it.”

They kicked this around for a moment, something tugging at the back of Claire’s mind. She fell silent, trying to pin down the elusive point that was bothering her – a fact about wedding dresses.

“Wait on,” said Claire, “maybe there is a wedding dress in Devil’s Pit.”

“There is?” said Adria.

“Mine. You remember your mustering-in clothes follow you around in a box with everything else you had when you take the oath. I took the oath in my wedding dress.”

“You did too,” said Lou. “I remember thinking there must be quite a back story.”

“And it’ll be here?” asked Adria.

“Maybe. I was told the mustering in box has to follow you around – some regulation or other - but we can check right away. We’re close enough in size. It might work.”

Captain Addington, who was in still in charge of many of the administration functions until a replacement was sent from earth, confirmed that the mustering-in clothes had been brought from earth and cheerfully bent a couple of regulations to let Claire access her container, on condition she be allowed to see the dress hung up. The ladies at the recruiting office had thought to allow the costume to dry first, then got the recruiting sergeant to pay for dry cleaning before packing it, so the dress had survived a year in storage with relatively little damage. Adria carefully inspected it.

“This is expensive,” she said. “Not top line maybe, but not cheap.”

“My mother also had big ideas about who I should marry.”

“It’s fine but there’s way too much tulle. Can I make changes?”

“It’s yours. A wedding present from me and Lou.”

“You’re officially forgiven for thinking that I’m a spy. As it’s your dress then you can be my bridesmaid if you want, and James can find you something green.”

“Be delighted.”

“I would’ve asked poor Taylor, if she had survived.”

“How much is this going to cost me?” asked Lou later.

“Dunno. I’ll have to message mother about what she wants to do.”

As it happened, due to war-time communication restrictions pictures of the society wedding with both bride, bridesmaid and groom marine heroes, flashed around the world before Claire’s note reached her mother. The picture of her Claire as a bridesmaid with a bride in a dress that looked familiar to her, both wearing small black bands in remembrance of the fallen Taylor, made Mrs Williams drop her spoon into her breakfast cereal yet again.

Claire showed her cautionary letter to James who smiled and said, “I know exactly what to do with that”. Claire thought that meant he would destroy it in some inventive way. Instead he framed it and put it alongside his letter about gold missing from the reserve bank. “Quite a collection, don’t you think?” he said.

“I don’t have a letter there,” said Maddie ruefully.

“You can if you want,” said James. “You have that one from the prosecutors accusing you of murdering your foster parents.”

“I do,” said Maddie happily. That letter was duly framed and put alongside the other two.

“Visitors will know not to mess with this household,” said James.

“I’m sorry about my foster parents,” Maddie told Claire, “but that letter is the best of all.”

“All this reminds me,” said Claire. “You!”

“Me?” said Maddie.

“I’m staying her a while longer than I expected so I will take over the raising of James.”

“Oh, okay.”

“There is to be no more scheming but there is to be a lot more school attendance. I’ve got James to route messages about school absences to me.”

“Oh, oh.”

“Yes, oh, oh young lady.” In the back of her mind, Claire thought that, when she said “young lady”, she sounded like her mother. “If I get messages about you not being at a school then I, Senior Private Claire Williams, will be down on your sorry arse.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Maddie. She was standing with her hands clasped behind her in a way that resembled the marine parade ground at ease stance.

“I’ve spoken with the parents at that school and we’ve asked for the system to be reset, so that events like absences or taking phone calls during class time are not forgotten so quickly.”

Maddie gulped.

“Then there is the question of taking tests.”

“Tests?” yelped Maddie. She said the word as if tests were a repugnant social custom practiced by remote tribes on earth.

“Yes, tests, young lady. I looked at your school results and found that they weren’t there.”

“They always seem to schedule tests at bad times for me,” said Maddie.

“From now on, there are no bad times for tests. The children coming here will have academic parents, and they won’t want to be friends with kids who don’t do well on tests.”

“Is that what happens back on earth?”

“If I say it does, then it does. After the school work is done then James has agreed to lift the ban on grown-up material, and we can watch Jane Austen films.”

“Yes ma’am,” said Maddie and smiled.

Afterwards it occurred to Claire that if three companies of Mercs and a host of Shades was the galaxy, and it certainly felt like it, then she had taken on the galaxy just as the recruiting poster had said. Along the way she might have found home. That had not been in the brochure, but she wasn’t complaining. As a reward for his services, James’ exile had been given a specific end of seven years from the date of the framed letter. The letter was three and a half years old. Claire would be hanging round another eighteen months at least, and probably longer. She did not know what would happen after that and thought that she would just see what developed. For now, considering what happened the last time she tried to go down the aisle as a bride, she was in no hurry to try again. In any case she was a soldier at the sharp end and there was a war on. Mars would be called forth again.

Later Uncle Frank sent Claire a news feed item with a picture of a man and a woman on the steps of a court house. The man, she recognised with a shock, as Brad looking very down in the mouth. The woman, who simply looked grim, she had not seen before. The headline underneath was ‘Indicted for fraud’. She showed the picture to Lou.

“Girl, it must’ve hurt at the time, but you had a real lucky escape,” said Lou.

Claire agreed. She now also found that she could cheerfully tell the story of her wedding day from hell, which topped any story at girl’s nights, almost as if it had happened to another person. In a sense it had.

There were other incidents but in later years whenever the marines held a reunion, the one story that had to be told was that of Claire banging James while he was trying to pilot a transporter. Lou would always tell the story, and about how, when Addington asked why the plane was shaking so much, she had replied “turbulence ma’am”, and they would all roar with laughter.

Claire would roar along with them, but whenever asked about it by female marines she would respond, “if you get crazy drunk on two cans of over proof hooch and feel that way about the pilot of a C19/8J Atlas mining transporter, don’t try to have s*x with him while he is piloting. It is both a civil and military offence, not to mention unsafe. Wait until you land, then get a room.”

Postscript

Later they built a monument to Taylor. This was a seat of valley floor stone that lovers might use, close to the information board by the Alph and looking out over the valley floor. The plaque read:

To the memory of Private Taylor Jessica Mahony of the Two-One company, Stellar Marine Corps, killed on the first day of the battle of Iron Hill.

One word relieves us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love. – Sophocles

When it was explained to Lou that the quote was from one of the Oedipus plays, she said she did not think Taylor would have approved.

“She liked her romance straight – no weird stuff,” she said.

Claire thought that it was a nice sentiment anyway and, when she sat on the seat looking out over the plain of Devil’s Pit towards the brown line on the horizon that were the northern cliffs, thought that Taylor would have liked her monument.