Michael Williamson - When Diplomacy Fails…

It was clear the troop was young enough to have been impressed by his instructors, and to not pick up on social cues from anyone outside his narrow peer group.

“And I’m the guy fighting this war so you have the right to say stupid things like that, civilian.”

It took a moment for Jason to process that. It was ridiculous in so many levels.

His brain decided to ignore the comment, to defuse things. His sense of the bizarre responded faster, and he laughed hysterically.

“Thanks,” he said, and turned back to the conversation. “So,” he said to Aramis, “when you get a chance, you really need to try the new mods on the autocannon.”

Then the kid clamped a hand down on his shoulder.

There were still ways to defuse this, but Jason was getting pissed. He glanced sideways, saw the kid opening his yap to talk, and went for the object lesson.

He reached over with his right hand, gripped the kid’s wrist and twisted, followed it with an elbow bar, and pushed him grunting down to the ground. He placed one foot casually on the kid’s shoulder blade, leaned into the wrist, and bent the elbow back against his left knee.

The kid’s voice was muffled with his mouth against the ground and pink fabric against his chin.

“Let me go, cocksucker.”

“Not until you learn some manners around your betters, son,” he replied, while putting just a little pressure on the wrist, until the troop squirmed and grunted.

However, he was not at all fazed. Through the carpet, the kid said, “I’ll fucking pound your ass when I get up.”

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t let you up then, if I know that’s your strategy. Aramis, will you please find someone to take charge of this?” He pointed down. The only direct pressure he had on the kid at this point was two fingers. The rest was all leverage.

Aramis was still smirking, and said, “Sure, just a moment. Would you like a soda while I’m up?”

“That would be great. Ginger ale with vanilla, please.” A beer would be nice, but while the ban was annoying, it wasn’t nearly as troublesome as some other issues.

The kid seemed to finally deduce he was outclassed, and lay still. Jason wasn’t injuring him, they were at least semi-public, and while a crowd wasn’t forming, several snickering gawkers gathered across the lounge. They didn’t act offended.

A familiar voice spoke a little too loudly.

“What the hell are you doing to my troop?”

“Well, Lieutenant, let’s say I don’t like having a hand on my shoulder unless it’s a proctologist or a close friend. Then he threatened violence. Now, I’m sure there’s a record on one of our monitors.” He tapped his glasses meaningfully, though they weren’t set to record right then. “However, I really don’t have time to argue the point, and would simply like to add some separation. Can we do that?”

The lieutenant looked very irritated, though whether at Jason or his recruit who had instigated the incident was hard to say.

“We can. Come with me, soldier.”

Jason relaxed his grip and pulled his foot free. The kid scrambled up and tried to put on a show.

“That’s once. I give anyone once. Next time, you and me-”

“Private!” the lieutenant snapped, and the kid jerked. He’d probably just realized that regardless of who the officer blamed, he’d be the one downhill from the shit.

Very quickly, the team had the alcove to themselves. He sighed. Sure, that was good tactically, but long term, it sure would be nice to get along with allied forces.

Elke said, “Let’s not do this again.”

Aramis said, “We’re just not the diplomatic type.”

Alex woke, wondering if there’d be any complaints about an almost fight in an almost bar. It seemed the lieutenant was wise enough to realize he didn’t want the attention. There would be propagating rumors, though, some positive, some negative. There was nothing to be done about that. Some personalities just clashed. Ripple Creek had press visibility and a certain amount of notoriety. That led to fallout.

He and Jason had an appointment with Captain Das, then Highland had another promotional run later.

The whole point of zones on base was to hinder infiltrations and threats. They signed out of State, who were finally taking such things seriously under Cady’s management, but the military side waved them in. It seemed to vary on which troops had the detail. Aerospace Force was by the book. Marines were firm but polite. Army varied by nationality. The more troubled nations took it seriously. America, China and Europe, less so. At least there weren’t any locals this far in. MilBu was resistant to suggestions from BuCulture.

Not being stopped and cleared made things faster, but he’d rather be delayed and secure. The drive was short, but his brain ran through a lot of comments in that time.

At the Operations Building, they were expected, and a sergeant led them straight into Das’s office.

“Gentlemen, good morning,” he said.

“Hello. Thanks for seeing us.”

Das didn’t mention the rec center, and he would have, so it was a nonissue officially. Good.

“You’re welcome. I’m hoping you can offer some input.”

Jason said, “What do you have?”

Das said, “Here’s the weapon. It contains four unfired cartridges. They’re old style, with metal cases.”

Jason took it and Alex let him. He was the expert. He opened the breech as a precaution, then started examining it.

“It’s a shame I can never keep these things for my collection,” Jason said as he turned the weapon in his hands, rubbing, manipulating. “They’re always so interesting. This is a century old, give or take, a Bridemore Pocket Lion, and someone has stippled the grip by hand, filled it and grooved it. Then it’s worn mostly smooth. The barrel’s been replaced, and it was an aftermarket job. Someone milled the outside themselves, and the rifling looks electrochemically etched after a pantographic stencil laid it out. Cheap, but not very durable compared to forge-rifling or beam cutting.” He seemed to finally notice Das’s grin, and finished with, “Sorry. You were saying?”

Das said, “That’s farther than we’d got, and I’ll add that information in, with thanks. We also found the empty cartridges. The interesting thing is there is no residue in the barrel to indicate bullets.”

Jason nodded slowly.

“They’d definitely leave debris in this material. So it was fired with blanks?”

“It was fired with sintered polymer alloy of some kind I don’t remember.” He flipped up his desk screen. “Here, ‘Duralon particle-cast densiform.’ It’s about half the mass of lead, which is more than enough to cycle the weapon, but it would fragment to dust within a meter from twist rate.”

Alex said, “So someone was instigating a riot for the purpose of getting police brutality involved.”

“Have you seen the alleged wounds? Quite a few are self-inflicted. The cops were not gentle, but they didn’t do some of the stuff we’ve seen. There are razor slashes, bruises, chemical burns and the latter two had to be done ahead of time. So some group of masochists showed up with the intent of getting roughed up.”

Alex said, “We have the twofold problem of protecting Ms. Highland and not reacting in a fashion that can cause bad publicity when any attack might be real. That could easily have been real bullets. The odds of a hit are remote like that, but obviously the threat of worse exists.”

Das said, “She refuses to allow us to scan the crowds. Cultural sensitivity issues to their religious beliefs.”

She also may be hiding further instigations for PR, but this probably wasn’t one, because it backfired if so, he thought. “It’s also not practical to search that many people when she wants a large crowd, and it would work against her stated policies, and the diplomatic issues. Of course, ideally she’d do everything only inside this compound surrounded by us. In the real world, however, she has to meet people.”