Starfist: Hangfire Read Online Free Page B

even forgets to issue us gear that works right." Schultz, Claypoole, and Dean smiled; they knew that drill by heart. "But one thing Mother Corps is real good about remembering is rotating people off hardship posts."
    "Mother Corps thinks everybody deserves to get the shit duty." Corporal Goudanis chuckled without mirth.
    Claypoole, Dean, and Chan looked at each other. They'd arrived on Thorsfinni's World together. The other six had been with 34th FIST longer than they had. Even though they were past due for rotation, they didn't quite feel they had the right to complain in such company.
    "We aren't the only ones, you know," Lance Corporal Watson commented.
    Corporal Linsman nodded. "Gunny Bass, Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, Corporal Kerr—"
    "Kerr doesn't count, he was away for almost two years," Van Impe said.
    "Recuperating from wounds suffered on a deployment with us," Dornhofer reminded him. "That counts."
    "—Lance Corporal Dupont," Linsman continued, ignoring the interjection, "all three squad leaders, half the gun squad."
    "Captain Conorado, Top Myer, Gunny Thatcher," Dornhofer said, picking up the roll call. "Hell, everybody in the company headquarters unit."
    "And that doesn't count the men from the other platoons," Goudanis added.
    "Anybody know about the rest of the battalion?" Dornhofer asked.
    Nobody had enough friends in the other blaster companies—or any of the FIST's other units—to have any idea whether it was just Lima Company that wasn't getting transfers or if the stagnation had spread further.
    "We've got a lot of new men in the platoon," Goudanis said. "But every one of them was a replacement for a Marine who was killed or injured too badly to return to duty." He shook his head. "I don't remember the last time we got a new man as a replacement for someone who rotated out. Except Corporal Doyle."
    "Special situation," Linsman said.
    "Doyle's a pogue," Van Impe said. "Pogues don't count."
    "That's a good point," Dornhofer said to Goudanis, ignoring the remarks about Corporal Doyle. "And it really bothers me. A few FISTs, most particularly the 34th, have an unusually high number of deployments. That means we suffer a high number of casualties. Normal procedure is to transfer a Marine out of one of these high-deployment FISTs into a unit that doesn't deploy so he gets a break from being the tip of the pointy end." He glanced around the table. "I think every one of us has a wound stripe.
    Several of us have more than one. The longer a Marine is in a high-deployment FIST, the worse the odds against him surviving."
    He looked at Schultz. "What do you think, Hammer?"
    Schultz grunted. "Mother Corps sends, I go." It really didn't matter to Schultz where he was stationed or for how long. All he asked was to remain a lance corporal until he retired after forty years' service and to be in a unit that had a lot of combat deployments. Thirty-fourth FIST was the best assignment he'd had so far—perhaps no other unit in the Confederation Marine Corps had as many deployments as it did. If he spent the rest of his career with 34th FIST, that was fine with him.
    They were silent for a long moment, each man thinking his private thoughts, then Dornhofer leaned his elbows on the table and said, "Something's going on. I've been thinking about requesting mast to find out what it is."
    "Request mast?" Chan asked. "You don't have to be so formal about it, the Skipper will see any man in the company who knocks on his door."
    Dornhofer shook his head. "I don't mean Captain Conorado. I mean Brigadier Sturgeon."
    Every Marine had the right to "request mast," to go to the commander at the appropriate level to get a problem resolved. He didn't have to explain the problem to anyone under that commander—no one could shunt the problem aside or bury it. Request mast was a very serious matter, and never undertaken lightly or for frivolous reasons.
    "Brigadier Sturgeon!" several of them exclaimed.
    "You don't fool around," Linsman