Chapter 21 - Butterflies are Free

The Marines on Thule were racing to get ready to meet the latest Swarm incursion – the 121^st Brigade's Third Training Platoon was off to the range to qualify on the RLA-1, marching smartly through the snowdrifts in their matte white battle suits, laser rifles at the shoulder.

Behind them, similarly attired, strode two purposeful forms. These forms were trying to stay away from the Marines, hoping to mask their diminutiveness through the powers of perspective. Their path led off from the Third Platoon at an angle of about 30 degrees, pointing toward an LSC-101 Corgi, a light scout car built like the US Army's Chenowth dune buggy. This particular vehicle was currently assigned to Lieutenant Carruthers' unit to assist in exterior maintenance activities.

The two young gentlemen within those battlesuits were looking for a little adventure to alleviate their boredom. That they even had battlesuits was a fallout from the Children's Crusade, when it was realized that anyone old enough to wear a snowsuit on Earth should have a battlesuit on Thule in case the domes ever had to be evacuated. At seven, both were too young for the Thule Corps of Cadets, and being dependants of the last batch of Marines to arrive, were likewise too innocent to know how closely the AI monitored their activities.

Young Mr. Brad Wellesley and equally young Mr. Stan Burlington were about to find out just exactly how close that monitoring was.

In the Officers' Mess at Camp Shackleton, Samantha had been having a mid-morning coffee break with a collection of other officers from all three branches when the AI notified her that she had a pair of errant kiddies in a restricted zone. Before anyone could be spared to redirect the two, they'd donned their child-sized battlesuits and followed their parents' platoon out to Thule's frigid wastes. She, and every other denizen of Thuleat, was currently enjoying the pictures of a pair of midget Marines awkwardly trying to march through the snowdrifts toward a dune buggy.

In an effort to encourage the illusion that they were just really short Marines, or Navy, or maybe even Fleet Auxiliary, Stan was towing behind him a quarter-scale model of the Modular Equipment Transporter that Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell had hauled around the Moon. Located on board was a short, cheap reflective telescope brought with him from Earth.

A voice whispered in Stan's ear piece. “So tell me again, what are we doing with this?”

“I want to put this on a nice high hill, so I can snap some pictures of space. Besides, weren't you the one who said you were getting bored stuck in the dome all the time?”

“Think we can get the Corgi to work?” the voice quizzed.

“Sure,” Stan replied breezily, with the confidence of youth. “How hard can it be? It's not like they use keys on these things. You just get in and drive. Didn't you take the sleep training on this thing?”

“Yes, but what if something goes wrong?” persisted the voice.

“Look, Brad,” Stan replied through gritted teeth, “if you're that scared you can go back.”

“What makes you think I'm Brad?” the voice cooed.

Stan immediately halted and shot a look at the battlesuited form beside him. “Brad?”

“Hmm?” Brad replied.

“Wasn't that you talking to me just now?”

“Huh? No. You're watchacallit - hearing things.” Brad stared at his friend nervously.

“No, he wasn't,” corrected the mysterious voice.

Stan's eyes darted around. “Did you hear it this time?”

“Y-yeah. Who is that?”

“Mickey Redburn. I'm Decurion Redburn's dependant.”

“W-where are you?” Stan demanded.

“The Beauty Saloon,” she reassured him.

“Uh-oh,” Brad worried.

“Yeah, you two are so busted,” Mickey advised the pair, amusement rich in her voice.

“Stan,” came a deeper voice. A far more adult voice. A familiar voice. A masculine voice.

“Hi, Dad,” Stan muttered.

“Turn around.”

They did so. The three men they faced had their reflective visors closed, so that neither lad could see the smirking grins on their faces. The adults' battlesuits bore the initials “SP” on the sleeves, right below the rank chevrons indicating the presence of a gunnery sergeant and two corporals on Shore Patrol duty.

“Go with these three. I'll see you when we're done for the day.”

“What gave us away?” asked Brad.

The Shore Patrol sergeant leaned over the seven-year-old. “First, you're a bit short for a Marine. Second, there's this.” He pointed to the fluorescent orange letter 'D' on the sleeves where an NCO's rank chevrons would have been. “Third, only dependants and concubines have a fluorescent orange stripe on their helmets. And fourth, the AI has been tracking you ever since you first set foot on Thule, so we had an excellent idea as to who and where you were.”

“Ah.” Brad paused, trying desperately to keep from voiding his bladder in terror. “Are we in shit?”

“Only enough to fill a kilopod,” the Sergeant reassured the dismayed youngster.

Decurion Samantha Redburn sat in the General's board room, at the head of the table. Behind her, the frosted glass wall separating this room from the General's office was closed. Her grey kepi sat on the table before her and slightly to the right. Her data pad sat flat on the table before her.

Opposite her sat two privates in Marine fatigue uniforms, green kepis lying on the table before them. Between these privates, their two seven-year-old sons squirmed nervously in their seats.

“Now, why again were you out there?” Samantha pressed.

The two boys looked at each other. “We...” began Stan.

“Yes?”

“We were bored,” Stan confessed. “I wanted to set up my telescope.”

The pad in front of Samantha was showing some interesting scores – not complete CAP scores, for the children were too young for that, but the intelligence components. Stan was brighter than average for his age, and Brad wasn't far behind. It didn't take much imagination to see either one having a plus-6.5 CAP score when he turned 14, if his education was properly directed.

“And you were going to use this?” she asked. A hologram appeared over the table, showing a rotating device about the size of a cigarette package. “A home-made charge-couple device?”

A CCD was a special electronic camera used to take pictures in very dim light through a telescope. This one was a home-made, hand-made device built by Stan and his father some six months' before extraction.

“Sir,” ventured Private Burlington, “what's their punishment?”

“Oh, something quite practical. Now, boys, you realize you're immediately identified any time you try to enter into any area labelled out-of-bounds, even if it's just your fathers who have declared it a no-go zone?”

They nodded, miserable.

“Good. Now, your punishment.” She paused and thought. “Central Command's Sciences branch has been bugging us for a while now to set up an astronomy project. We just haven't had the resources to handle it. Private Burlington, I need to borrow the services of your straw boss. This man's mother, I believe?” She pointed at Stan.

Private Burlington nodded.

“Thanks. Both of you two boys, and Stan's mother, will report to Lieutenant Carruthers tomorrow morning at oh-nine-hundred at Camp Shackleton's Headquarters building. One of his staff is building a Webb-type space telescope, and you two boys will work on it, under your mother's supervision. You'll set up a program of star field photography, as recommended by Central Command's Sciences Division, and under the supervision of your mom. You'll send reports to me to forward to Earth. Any questions?”

Both boys were looking far more hopeful at that. “Yeah!” Stan responded enthusiastically.

Samantha stood and escorted both parents and children from the board room. As the door to the hallway closed behind the two privates and their errant offspring, the bulkhead separating the board room from the General's office slowly opened, to reveal General Michael Deschenes standing in the At Ease position. As the wall cleared his vision, he strode into the room.

“That clears that up,” he pronounced. “Although I must say, those two little papillons' punishment is more of a reward.”

Samantha recognized the name Papillon, French for 'Butterfly', from the eponymous novel - part of her advanced literature class. She was, after all, still taking courses herself, although thanks to sleep-training they were closer to university-level. “Yes, they provided such entertainment to the entire colony that I didn't dare punish them harder. Besides, they'll learn so much more, feel more important, and who knows? They might discover something.”

“They might at that. But you said earlier that this wouldn't be the last?” Michael cocked his head at his colony's only Civil Service officer.

“We need to get something to break the boredom of the kids,” Samantha responded. “Their sponsor parents are too distracted from their compressed training schedule to do much more than breed their concubines. We need something for the dependants to do, besides go to school.”

“And your advice is hockey?”

“Well, we DID get a large number of youth teams dumped on us with the last manpower draft. We can't use the fourteen-year-olds any more, as most of them are now two-metre-tall stronger-than-usual adults, but we can let the levels from Minor Tyke to Minor Bantam play.” Minor Bantam consisted of twelve and thirteen-year-olds, Minor Tyke were five and six-year-olds.

Which was how the next few days saw a line of Minor Tykes, Tykes, Minor Novice, Novice, Minor Atom, Atom, Minor Peewee, Peewee and Minor Bantam teams practising on the ice of the eight arenas in Thule - four ice pads at the Marines' Camp Shackleton and four more, all brand new, at the Navy's Base Scott.

It had been difficult drafting enough coaches, trainers and team managers for the sheer number of kids interested in hockey. Most of the best qualified were sponsors, and every sponsor was busy preparing the fleet and the division for possible deployment to Hesperus.

Which was part of the reason why Samantha herself, despite her pregnancy, found herself on the bench as Team Manager for the McGee Moody Blue Minor Tykes. She wasn't allowed to be on the ice for anything other than a leisure skate at this stage, but she was allowed to open a gate during a game.

That Saturday after the two boys tried to recreate Alan Shepard's moonwalk, the contest began for the honour of the First Annual Thule Colony-Wide Invitational Hockey Tournament.

The Minor Tykes Moody Blues' coach was currently on Hesperus, as were both assistant coaches. The trainer was, fittingly enough, a Confederacy Navy corpsman, Samantha's friend Corporal Sheena James. At the start of their first game, against the Olympia (Washington) Otters, a team whose parents had been picked up in Operation Bawdy Check less than a month prior, the straw bosses of the coach and assistant coaches stood in for their absent sponsors.

“I have to advise you,” a nervous Maria, the coach's straw boss, had advised when notified that she'd been drafted to take his place, “my knowledge of hockey consists of the four words, 'he shoots, he scores'.”

“Don't worry, Foster Hewett,” Samantha comforted her, “I know more.” Not that her experience might necessarily convert easily from player to coach, she conceded - but it should be enough to lead a team of five-year-olds.

Now, five of those blue-clad five-year-olds were racing up and down the ice, battling with their white-clad counterparts for control of a little disk of black rubber. They weren't as fast as adults, but both sides were playing with a certain level of skill. Clearly, both sides had grown up with skates on their feet.

The other factor both sides shared: good defence. Nobody had scored yet.

As the second period was drawing to a close, Samantha could see her concubine Melodie, leaning over the railing behind the Moody Blues' bench. Through the crowd's noise, she caught one word: “Butterfly!” Melodie was gesturing at the Otters' goalie.

She stared at the diminutive form trying to fill the space between the pipes at the Otters' end. Just at that moment, the third Blue shift got control of the puck and rushed toward the Otters' net.

Down the Otters goalie dropped to his knees, his pads splayed along the ice to block any shot. This was the classic “butterfly” manoeuvre, preventing low-flying shots from entering the net. It worked again this time - five-year-olds have a bit of difficulty getting any altitude on a puck.

Again, Samantha's eyes followed the action up to her end, and back down. Instinctively, the kid in the bulky padding dropped to his knees. Butterfly.

Again, up and back. Again, butterfly. The kid didn't even wait for the puck to get anywhere close to him before his knees hit the ice, lower legs splayed into a very shallow 'V'.

A third time, up and back. A third time, butterfly.

“My, my, my. We've got ourselves a butterfly goalie.” Samantha's face broke into a crooked grin as she felt a strategy coming up. She wouldn't have much time - the third line was getting tired and needed relief, and very soon at that.

“First line, first line, on me!” The concubines didn't ask stupid questions - Samantha, aside from knowing far more about hockey than they did, outranked them by an unimaginable amount. The two first-line defencemen made their awkward way down the bench. You don't walk too well on skates.

“OK, who's our best sniper?” she quizzed the youthful faces. Four kids pointed toward Hugh Keeler, the son of the archaeologist at Hesperus, as the player best able to shoot the puck at even the tiniest of targets.

“But he's better at faceoffs,” Hugh modestly pointed to another child.

“And he'll keep taking faceoffs,” Samantha informed them. “Here's what we're going to do. Their goalie drops to the ice the minute the puck gets anywhere near him. Hugh, you think you can lob the puck over his head?”

Hugh could see what Samantha was driving at immediately. He nodded enthusiastically.

“Great, when you guys get into their end, Hugh will plonk his butt in front of their net, and everyone will try to get the puck to him. Good luck. Here comes the third line - go!”

And five kids scrambled for the ice as the third line practically crawled off the ice. Intermission couldn't come soon enough.

Hugh had the puck, pumping his little skates for all he was worth. He managed to deke around the Otters' right defence and started arrowing toward the goal. The defenceman, caught flat-footed, had to whirl around and get up to speed to chase the fleet winger. The Otters' goalie dropped into the butterfly, a manoeuvre that had served him well all game long.

Not this time, however. In the same moment that the kid's pads hit the ice, Hugh fired the puck and managed to get some air on it. To the Otters goalie's astonishment, the puck soared over his head and bounced off the netting behind him. His goalie stick and grabber glove were still on the ice, where the puck ought to be.

Score, one-nothing.

The crowd erupted, and the Moody Blues' bench went nuts. Samantha and her bench staff hugged each other happily as the second line left to try to replicate the results of the first. At the Moody Blues' end of the ice, Allison Redburn waved her goalie stick in the air as she joined in the celebration.

As the referee dropped the puck at centre ice, the horn blew. The second period was over.

The kids were excited at the end of the game. The final score was four-nothing. Hugh had scored once more in the third period, and both of the other lines had managed to get one apiece. Samantha briefly reflected that the poor Otters goalie's self-confidence must have been absolutely shot. They'd worked out the weakness of his favourite technique, and used it against him.

Allison and Hugh were standing under the showers, naked and innocently dancing to a club tune that Shinji was pumping into the dressing rooms from his postage-stamp-sized DJ booth at the Beauty Saloon.

“Hurry up, kids, we've got a party to go to!” Samantha cried out.

Another roar of approval rose from the youthful throats of the McGee Moody Blue Tykes.

Outside the dressing rooms, parents and siblings of the players waited for their charges to finish getting dressed. They all felt a sense of satisfaction, having seen their little ones work together and win.

Samantha found two of her concubines hugging each other. Naturally Vickie was excited at her niece's shut-out, but so with justification was Allison's goalie coach, Melodie. Samantha gave them both a hug.

“Melanie, thanks. I honestly hadn't noticed that the Otters had a butterfly goalie on their hands. If you hadn't pointed that out....”

A large paw landed on her shoulder. She whirled around to find a man with a Marine-standard-package enhancement and an Otters coat with “Coach” on the right breast. He must have had it custom-replicated after he was extracted from Earth - certainly nobody when they left looked like Confederacy Marines.

The man gently shook her hand, congratulating her on her team's victory. She responded with a modest, “You guys gave us quite a workout, though. Looking forward to the next match-up!”

And as she chivvied her team to the Beauty Saloon for their victory party, her subvocal implants were feeding her the latest updates on the Second Battle of Hesperusat.