Papa Don't 'Low
Christopher Stasheff
THE DREADNOUGHT was big, but it was still outgunned by the six Hothri cruisers, especially since they were coming at it from all sides—and above and below, too.
“Out!” the lieutenant bawled. “Those ants need something else to think about!”
But he was talking to their backsides; Papa had kicked his platoon into motion before the lieutenant finished his exclamation point.
They shot into the scout, catching grab-handles and swinging down into their chairs, stretching their shock webbing over themselves, then sitting, hunched over and tense, eyes glittering, watching Papa.
“Any second,” Papa growled, still upright, hanging onto a grab in the ceiling. “They’ll shove off any . . .”
Then a huge boot kicked them all in the seats of their pants and, for a moment, they had weight again—too much weight, as the little vessel shot out of its berth in the dreadnought, spearing straight toward a Hothri cruiser.
“Okay, web off,” Papa said. “We’ll be boarding in a minute.” He didn’t bother with the “if”—if the Hothri didn’t shoot them down before they grappled; if they were still alive when they hit the bigger ship. They all knew that, or thought they did.
But Papa knew it for real. He’d been in a landing ship that got blown. He was the only one who’d had the presence of mind to crack his emergency oxygen, the only one who’d lived—and would keep living, because Papa was a survivor.
Master Sergeant Pepe Stuart, alias Papa, had been a marine for ten years, and had climbed the ladder of noncom rank by the simple process of staying alive when all the other Aristan marines were dying. Of course, he was good, too—a good fighter and a good boss. More importantly, though, he had an instinct for staying alive, and he took his platoon along with him. He knew when to hide and when to hit . . . and where, and how hard. He fought and bled, but he came away—and went back to fight again.
Their ship slammed into the cruiser with a jolt likely to jar his implants loose. Papa turned to yank the hatch open—then stepped back out of the way, because Mulcahy was kneeling right behind him with the cutting torch. He triggered it as Papa stepped clear, and the beam sprang to life, connecting his hands with the side of the Hothri ship. The coherent light heated the armor plate cherry-red, nothing more-but the liquid explosive that sprayed on just behind it began to roar with its continual, directional detonation, blasting the armor plate ahead but nothing behind. Then Mulcahy closed the circle, and the torch winked out. He tossed it aside, leaping to his feet and leveling his rifle—just as the explosion stopped, and the circle of armor fell out with a clang they could feel in their feet, though they couldn’t hear it through their helmets, or the vacuum around them.
But they could hear Papa bellow “In!” through their earphones.
In he went, jumping through the glowing circle with balletic grace, incongruous on a body hurtling like a bullet, which was why the Hothri’s first shot went over his head and his shoulder slammed into the giant cricket’s midriff. It was a big target, a little taller than himself but half again as long, its abdomen sticking out four feet in back, its thorax leaning forward with a grin beneath its black-plate eyes and long arms reaching for him with three-fingered hands—armored hands, natural bug-case armor with razor-sharp serrated fringes along their backs. Its roar echoed around him in the pea soup that the aliens called atmosphere, the murky red they used for light—but the monsters were snapping their helmets closed now as their fog drained into Papa’s ship.
That delay was just what the platoon needed. They were through the hole and all around now, the air staccato with bursts of fire, ripping through Hothri suits and Hothri flesh. Then the monsters rallied with whistling screeches that must have meant fury, and tore into the men. Papa saw a sword-tipped barrel slashing toward his eyes, and he rolled aside, leveling his own rifle and pulling the trigger. The Hothri’s head vanished in a splatter that Papa didn’t stay to see—he had rolled to the side and ducked, just in time, as another Hothri blasted at him with a scatter gun. There was a sharp sting in his shoulder, a reek of methane in his nose, and Papa knew his helmet had been holed. He knew their smog had enough oxygen to keep him going for a little while, though—certainly long enough. He knocked the Hothri’s shotgun up with his rifle barrel, slammed the butt into the cricket’s helmet, then reversed the weapon and pulled the trigger.
Then, the white-hot fury seared through his back, and everything went black.
He woke up seeing white. For a moment, he panicked, thinking he was blind, and swung his head to yell for help. But he saw a door, and a pale-yellow wall. That steadied him; wherever he was, it wasn’t a ship and it wasn’t Hothri. After all, he was breathing sweet air with no methane or chlorine, though he didn’t have a helmet.
Who did?
Who had taken his suit off him?
Or had they? He looked down and saw a sheet, a blanket—and something in him relaxed. He was in a hospital; he was safe. More importantly, there were the right number of lumps under the blanket—he had both legs. He held up his hands, relieved to see they were both there, then ran them over the rest of his body. Everything was there, everything seemed to be in good order. His back was a long, flaming ache, which must have been why they had him propped on his side, but all his pieces seemed to be right.
The door opened, and a nurse came in. Not worth fighting for, but still awfully good to see. Anyway, she smiled when she saw his eyes open. “Just a second, Sergeant. I’ll get the doctor.” The door closed.
And Papa was tense. If she’d gone for the doctor, there was something she wasn’t supposed to tell him. But what? He was all here!
The door opened again, and the man of medicine came in, wearing long, white coveralls and a nice set of exhaustion lines. Nonetheless, he managed a smile. “Good morning, Sergeant.”
“Good morning, Doc,” Papa answered. “’Which one?”
That brought the doctor up short. “Which what?”
“Which morning?”
“Oh.” The doctor sat down in the bedside chair. “Wednesday, Sergeant.”
Papa stared. “Two whole days? Was I out that long?”
The doctor nodded. “It took us a little while to rebuild your back, Sergeant. New tissue takes time to grow, even when it’s forced.”
“I knew there was something wrong back there. What’d the crickets do to me, Doc?”
“Basically burned your whole upper back. We thought there might have been some damage to your hindbrain, but all your reflexes checked out. How do you feel?”
Papa frowned. “Logy, slow in the head.”
“That’s the hangover from the sedatives. If you find anything unusual in the way you think, any strange surges of emotion, let us know—but we think you’re okay.”
“Think?” All Papa’s defenses went up. “That means you’re not sure.”
“Not yet—but we have every reason to think you’ll recover completely.”
“When?”
The doctor blinked. “Excuse me?”
“How long before you send me back to combat?”
“Oh.” The doctor relaxed. “Can’t say, really. Could be a month, could be six. But figure you’ve got at least thirty days R & R, Sergeant. You’ve earned it.”
“But now, wait a minute, no!” Then, for a second, Papa forgot what he’d wanted to say. But only for a second; he knew that what the doctor had said was wrong somehow, that it wasn’t what Papa should do. “No, now . . . you see . . .” His brain seemed to be working in low gear, as though he were pushing his thoughts through molasses. “See, it’s . . . it’s . . .”