Free Last Orders: The War That Came Early by Harry Turtledove Page A

for the little separate tent compound not far from the desalinization plant. Captain Ikejiri’s bacteriological-warfare unit kept tight security, even on an island like Midway, from which no rumor could easily escape.
    No bombs seemed to have hit it. He let out a silent sigh of relief. If the infected animals got loose, or if the bombs splashed germs all over the island, that wouldn’t be so good. Yes, the garrison here had been immunized against everything this side of housemaid’s knee. It wouldn’t be good even so. Chances were people would come down sick anyway—not even Japanese science knew how to immunize against everything.
    And the island would become uninhabitable to anybody who hadn’t been immunized like that. Anthrax spores could sit in the soil—well, in the sand here—for years, maybe for centuries, till a suitable host came along. Then they would stop being spores and start being germs again. If you weren’t immunized, they would kill you in short order.
    “At least they don’t seem to have wrecked any of the supply depots,” Yanai said. Those weren’t far from the desalinization plant, either. Yanai must have thought Fujita was looking at them. He knew in a general way which unit Fujita was attached to. Even in a place like this, where everyone was in everyone else’s pockets, he didn’t know any details. Yes, the bacteriological-warfare people knew how to keep their lips buttoned.
    “Wouldn’t be so good if they broke our rice bowls, would it?” Fujita said. Some of his training involved ways to make sure outsidersdidn’t learn anything they shouldn’t know. In a garrison on the Empire’s fringes, food was always a good way to change the subject.
    Sure enough, Yanai shuddered and said, “I don’t want to go hungry!”
    “Who does?” Fujita agreed. Inside himself, he smiled. Damned if the training didn’t work.
    As a veteran U.S. Marine, Sergeant Pete McGill had done almost everything a fighting man could do by land or sea. He hadn’t done much in the air, though. At any rate, he hadn’t till now.
    The C-47 droned along over central Oahu. He’d already fitted the long strap that connected his parachute to the static line that ran along the starboard side of the transport’s fuselage. They didn’t trust you to pull your own rip cord. This did the job for you, and made sure you wouldn’t end up as a big splatter on the ground several too many thousand feet below.
    A gunnery sergeant with a drill instructor’s lemon-squeezer hat firmly strapped to his head stood by the portside door. “In about a minute, the light’ll start going green,” the gunny yelled over the noise of engines and wind. All the twenty-odd paratroopers were supposed to know that, but he was a good instructor, and took nothing for granted. “Every time it flashes, one of youse goes out. One! Youse guys got that?” He thrust out his chin and looked very fierce.
    “Yes, Sergeant!” the men chorused. Pete hid a grin as he shouted out his answer. He said
youse
and
youse guys
, too—he came from the Bronx. The gunny’s accent wasn’t the same as his—he would have guessed Philly—but there was another big-city man among the hicks and Rebs who filled out the Corps.
    “Okay,” the instructor went on. “Slide forward one place every time a guy goes out of the plane. You get to the door, hang on to the sides, one with each hand. Put your left foot on the sill. Swing your right foot forward and step out. Don’t jump. That’ll take you too goddamn close to the tailplane, which you don’t want. Just step. You’ll fall. Oh, yeah. Bet your ass you will.” He looked at the guy closest to the door and barked, “Take your place!”
    The leatherneck obeyed. Everybody else slid down one. Pete moved from sixth to fifth. The jump light went green. The first Marine half stepped, half jumped from the C-47. No matter what the gunny said, the urge to leap if you were going to go at all was strong.
    “Number two,