2953-05-28 – Tales from the Service: Bloodshed in Mourning
There are risks to being in the service beyond those of enemy fire and operational accidents, though we do not think of them most of the time. So many millions of our men and women in the combat area are leaving behind loved ones and missing moments with them, and there may never be a time to make up for what was lost.
Sergeant Cole Morita scowled at the medtech working on his arm, in hopes of spurring the mousy little man into finishing faster. As a twelve-year veteran of the Confederated Marines, he was no stranger to the inside of a medbay, of course, but the longer he was stuck sitting on the slab having his arm sewed up, the longer justice was delayed.
“Is this going to take much longer?” Cole growled, after an interminable period where the medtech didn’t seem to be doing anything. He was under local anaesthetic, of course, so he couldn’t feel exactly what was being done, nor could he quite see the spot where he’d been cut.
“Almost done, Sergeant.” The tech’s high-pitched, wheedling voice matched his appearance all too well. “Hold still.”
Cole grunted. In the line of duty, he’d been blown up twice, badly burnt once, shot four times with projectiles and once with a laser, and broken five bones, but this was the first of his many scars that he could not accept with the usual magnanimity of a Marine losing a few pints of blood in the line of duty. This time, he’d been cut up by one of his own, with the Marines’ own signature weapon of last resort.
Knife-fighting was a specialty of his service since before the days of powered armor, back when the Colonial Marines were as much enforcers of the Terran Sphere’s dominion over the outlying colonies as they were protectors of those colonies from marauders and alien threats. A Marine learned to fight with the titanium combat knife known as the Nine before he learned anything about suits or guns, and each of them well understood that a knife fight was a desperate struggle to the death where a simple brawl was not.
This meant that in the Marines, to even brandish a knife at a comrade was understood as intent to kill. Not even guns, which could be rendered safe for simulated firefights, were treated quite the same way. The only safety on a Marine’s Nine was the Marine himself.
The Marine who’d taken his Nine to Cole was the eternal troublemaker Ambrose Olivers, which would come as a surprise to almost any sergeant in the Corps. The unit troublemaker or joker issued to every company by ancient tradition was constantly getting disciplinary duty for some idiotic prank or other, but violence against a superior was nothing to joke about, and even a prankster knew not to cross the line between disciplinary and seditious.
At last, the med-tech set down his gadgets and cleared his throat. “All right, Sergeant. You’re free to go, but you’re off the duty roster. Try not to put weight on this arm for about two days while the nanites stitch up your muscle.”
Cole grunted. The medtech’s warning, as usual, was filed with other suggestions made by support personnel in his mental trash receptacle. He had business with Olivers that might require the use of the injured arm, and if that landed him back in the medbay, so be it.
As soon as he was off the slab and heading out the door, Cole pulled up the company roster on his wristcuff and checked for Olivers’s location. He expected to find the murderous Marine in the brig on deck four, but the ship’s computer reported that he was with the rest of the company in their barracks suite on deck six. The altercation had happened just outside the mess hall, also on deck six, and several of their comrades had dragged them apart and hustled Olivers out of Cole’s sight while others delivered their sergeant to the medbay. Why had the other Marines not delivered Olivers into custody?
The short lift ride down to deck six provided enough time for Cole’s rage to extend to every Marine who had seen the attack. Every one of them was complicit if they were protecting Olivers. Every one would be busted back down to base rank and would be scrubbing deck plating until Judgement Day if he had anything to say in the matter, which of course he did.
Two Marines were standing in front of the barracks when Cole arrived. Both of them should have stood aside when they saw the dark look in his face, but they squared their shoulders and barred his way.
“Let me past.” Cole leveled his gaze on Corporal Allscher, the more senior of the pair. “That is an order, Marine.”
“Once you know the score, Sarge.” Allscher met Cole’s eyes, though he flinched in evident discomfort. “We want you to go easy on Olivers, sir.”
“The man pulled a knife on his sergeant.” Cole took another step forward, until he was almost chest to chest with the other man. “That’s the only score that matters, Corporal.”
It was the other man, Stepanov, who answered. “He just got a message from home, sir. His wife and son died in an aircar accident last week. When you busted his behind at chow, we all knew he was going to lose it.”
