The Marines stationed at Turaxis-Prime Base and the fleet personnel from Alpha Squadron stared each other down for a few seconds. Then a third-class petty officer leading the fleet contingent waved his hand and led his men to some empty seats.
Before they could sit down, one of the fleet personnel suddenly stumbled on his way to the seat he'd picked out. There hadn't been a Marine anywhere near him—in fact, everyone within three yards had been on his side—but that was all it took to set things off.
"The Marines tripped me!" another fleet soldier shouted, standing perfectly steady.
"Beat the bastards!" the Marines cheered. A technical sergeant led the charge.
The two groups suddenly erupted into a brawl. Around sixty Marines in maroon and brown uniforms and fleet personnel dressed in black grappled with one another, sending food, drinks, and everything on the tables crashing to the floor.
The owner keeping watch behind the bar looked on calmly. Clearly, this sort of thing happened here all the time. The wood-grain-painted tables and chairs were actually made of cast alloy, bolted firmly to rebar set into the floor. Even a herd of bulls charging one another over a mate couldn't budge them.
"Gentlemen! Officers! Please, break it up!" the owner called as he polished a crystal glass. His deathly pale face twitched from an overdose of chemical hallucinogens. "The military police are on their way!"
But no one listened. The brawl only grew more intense. The fighters spread through the not-so-spacious bar like ink dropped into a petri dish, like a line of dominoes toppling—an inferno racing out of control.
Even people who wanted no part of it got dragged in. The soldiers locked together in the melee overturned table after table of food. Once beer bottles hurled at random struck the heads of innocent bystanders and their own comrades, things spiraled completely out of control.
Everything on the tables went flying. Shards of vases and glasses glittered beneath the dazzling lights, and women began to scream and sob.
It seemed to happen in an instant. By the time Augustus and the others came to their senses, they'd been swept into the fray.
Raynor's childhood friend from back home, Tom Omo, was the first to get caught up in it. A fleet soldier, eyes bloodshot, dumped a plate of leftover fried chicken over his face. Before Omo could react, the man knocked him to the floor with a heavy punch and climbed on top of him, pummeling him.
The man who'd taken Omo down was a fleet veteran. Fresh out of boot camp, Omo was no match for him.
"Somebody help me!"
Arland Londerstein, Lee Pachinyang, and Ilya Kurovsky, who were beside Omo, rushed in at once. Ilya kicked the fleet soldier in the shoulder, and then the four of them, Omo included, began giving him a righteous beating.
"This doesn't look good." Raynor scanned the room, looking for another exit. But they were already surrounded by brawling soldiers, with no way out. They had to dodge the flying bottles and all sorts of other debris, too.
By then, staying out of it was no longer an option. In the blink of an eye, soldiers were grappling in every direction. Even in an age when interstellar migration had become commonplace and humanity's homeworlds had grown ever more numerous, tensions between the armed services remained irreconcilable.
"They don't even have as many people as we do." Augustus stood up and said to Raynor, "I counted roughly. There are at least two hundred Marines, several times as many as the fleet personnel."
"Come on. We'll break through the front."
Before Raynor could answer, Augustus had already climbed onto his chair and stood on the table. His voice briefly drowned out the soldiers' curses and cries of pain. "Marines! Follow me!"
Everyone in the bar looked up at him, but most were at a loss. They didn't know Augustus.
After Augustus jumped down from the table, Harnack grabbed a beer bottle and charged out first, with Raynor right behind him. The rest of Company D's Second Platoon, First Squad, closed in around Augustus, and a few Marines nearby joined them.
Harnack's first opponent was a fleet corporal over seven feet tall. In the bar, he towered over everyone, a full head taller than the rest.
The corporal charged Harnack like a raging brown bear. Harnack neatly ducked the attack, then drove a fist into the man's soft belly.
Clearly, his opponent was all show. After taking only a few punches, he dropped to his knees and vomited. Harnack, on the other hand, had been the biggest brawler in his hometown.
Harnack took down two more fleet soldiers the same way, while Raynor and the others knocked out several more.
The bar was now in total chaos. Every soldier was fighting on his own, with no coordination. The dozen or so Marines who'd banded together had immediately become a force to reckon with.
Augustus led his group in hauling fleet soldiers out of the crowd and beating them until they could no longer stand, then tossing them aside. The harder they fought back, the harder they got hit.
The fleet contingent had fewer soldiers to begin with, and each time Augustus and his companions took one of them out, more Marines joined their ranks.
No one could stop Augustus as he made his way toward the hotel's main entrance. By the time he reached the door, some thirty or forty people had gathered around him. A heap of Marines and fleet soldiers lay on the floor.
It was the first day after the new recruits graduated. The fleet contingent had only recently arrived on Turaxis, and when they picked a fight, they hadn't noticed that there were far more Marines in the bar than usual. Nor had they expected the Marines to be so united. Whatever the reason, the fleet had been thoroughly beaten in the day's clash.
A fight broke out in this bar roughly once a week, and the place had to be renovated every two weeks. But no one had ever organized or led the brawls. The fighters came from different battalions, companies, and departments, with no sense of unity. When the fighting ended, everyone went their separate ways.
In the past, the fighting would rage on until the military police arrived, before anyone could claim victory. This time, the fleet had taken a serious beating.
Augustus stood in the doorway of the Bloody Mary and looked back inside. The Marines who'd followed him had gathered around him, some deliberately and some without even realizing it.
For a moment, the only sound in the bar was the music. Everyone stared into Augustus's cold gray eyes. If he'd given an order then, like a commander, many of them would have carried it out without hesitation.
The calm didn't last long. Soon, Augustus heard the military police's shrill whistles.
"What are you waiting for? Run!" The moment Augustus spoke, the sound of dozens of boots pounding the stone pavement echoed through the street. He could even hear the engines of military scout cars.
A mass brawl wasn't considered a serious offense in the Marines. At most, they'd be locked up for a day or two. But no one wanted to surrender without a fight. In an instant, the Marines and fleet personnel in the bar bolted. As for those who couldn't even crawl, or who'd passed out cold, they'd just have to consider themselves unlucky.
"Nice work, Augustus!" Raynor called as they ran.
"Fleet bastards! I've always hated those guys!"
"Way to go!"
Cheers kept coming. Augustus, who was running at the front, looked back and was astonished to see a sea of people behind him. Fleet personnel from Alpha Squadron were among them. At least half the bar was following him!
"Don't all follow me! Scatter!"
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