Free Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet by Mackey Chandler

different in another way. There were apartments, large residential buildings in the main city and one smaller facility of apartment buildings in the second largest city and in the island city. In the smaller city of the three it was almost all small residences and one palace, though many homes were of a size and sprawled construction that suggested extended, multigenerational family groups.
    The fleet had a small group of trained ground troops aboard the Murphy's Law although they all held other daily duty posts. The troops could be quickly assembled and deployed as a group if they were needed. Their direct commander was a Fargoer Marine, Canny McDonald, and he was in the command circuit examining the incoming surveillance data.
    "Barracks," he informed them in conference, after barely glancing at the photo.
    "Why so sure, so quickly?" Gordon wondered.
    "Because you have a unique structure here that tells me who occupies those apartments," he said, tapping the offending structure a kilometer away from the big buildings with his finger. There was a road directly from one to the other. "That's a shooting range and that small mound here is an ammo dump. What I'm missing is they don't seem to have any kind of air defense sites around what is a sort of military base. Although it lacks a well defined perimeter too. Which is odd."
    "They have no opposing  governments to attack them," Lee concluded. "I'd say they have been in power so long they are comfortable keeping a minimal force to guard against rebellion. Any trouble they expect would be small and local and not well equipped."
    "You may be right," McDonald said very tentatively. "Would you do a computer search and see how many structures similar to the barracks and firing range you find on the settled parts of the planet?" The computer scanned their entire mapped area and came up with three. One by each big city and on the island.
    "This tells me a great deal about them too," McDonald said after some thought. "They have a line of target pits at about fifty and hundred meters. There is a small group here, four pits, at two hundred meters. They either have crappy equipment, or can't shoot for shit. My boys start training at two hundred meters and the snipers are expected to qualify at a kilometer. The good ones, the artists, can shoot up or down hill, in a cross breeze and rain or shine, snow or heat at half again that distance. I'm really looking forward to seeing how these guys are kitted out."
    He stopped and thought a bit. He seemed to be slow to throw out his first thoughts without reviewing them. "I don't want to give you the wrong impression. That doesn't mean we are invincible. We can put a squad of about twenty expert marksmen on the ground, maybe another thirty who know how to shoot competently, but not experts. Surround them with ten thousand guys with bows and arrows, slings and spears and they'd still overrun our asses and kill us all if we have no line of retreat. Keep that in mind. We can't fight a whole world for you. Not at the ground level you need to take it and hold it. Our very few heavier weapons wouldn't matter. We just don't have enough of them. Of course you can drop three nukes and this world is conquered," he admitted. "But do that and I can assure you one of your own will stick a pistol in your ear and change the line of command. None of us would sanction genocide. Destroy that grain distribution system in the cities and I'd guarantee much of the countryside would starve the in next year too," he said cheerfully.
    * * *
    Gordon, consulting with his officers, decided to make a minimal video as soon as their survey was done and the warships could assume a higher orbit. It would have as little attempted speech as possible. There weren't many words they were confident they understood. There , because of three instances it was used with pointing. A word that meant a group of some sort, but with no certainty it applied to any set number or gender or class.