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.