“He’s not an el-tee any more, Frenchie,” Learoyd said, laying his bead along the seam as evenly as the fully-mechanized factory operation which put Fencing Master together to begin with. “He’s a captain now.”
Huber looked over his shoulder in the direction of Frenchie’s gaze. He wasn’t sure how Daphne Priamedes would take to being called a “black-haired piece,” but it was accurate given Deseau’s frame of reference. The other part, though . . .
Huber got up from the empty ten-liter coolant drum he was using as a seat while he worked at the Command and Control box. He wiped his hands on his utility blouse—newly-issued three days before and still clean enough—and said quietly, “I met her in Benjamin, Frenchie, back when I was in Operations.”
“Captain Huber?” Daphne called from the ground. “I hope you don’t mind my coming to offer you lunch. The orderly said that you have an office but that you usually worked in your combat car.”
Huber shut down the display. “Glad to see you, Daphne,” he said as he swung himself, left leg first, over the side of the fighting compartment. “I could use a break, but I don’t know about lunch. Maybe . . .”
He paused as he slid to the ground, careful to take the shock on his right boot. He’d been going to say, ” . . . the canteen,” but the facilities here at Base Beta consisted of a plastic prefab with extruded furniture and dispensers for a basic range of products. Bezant was only twelve klicks away, so there was no need for the Regiment itself to provide off-duty troops with anything impressive.
Daphne flashed a smile of cool triumph. “I thought you might say that,” she said, “so I’ve brought a cooler in the car. I thought we’d fly to a grove where we could find some quiet.”
Huber looked down at his uniform. He hadn’t been doing much manual labor—well, much—but he’d have wanted to change before an interview with Hammer; or with Joachim Steuben, now that he thought about it.
Daphne repeated the cool smile. “Come along, Arne,” she said. “The trees won’t care any more than I do. I left my aircar by the TOC.”
She crooked her elbow for him to take and started off. Base Beta was an expansion of Firebase One, no prettier than it’d been before Engineer Section trebled its area to hold all three squadrons. As he passed Fancy Pants, Huber saw Tranter looking out of an access port and said, “Hold the fort for an hour, Sarge. If anybody really needs me, I’ve got my commo helmet.”
“Roger that, sir,” Tranter said cheerfully. He was holding a multi-tool and a pair of pliers, doing technician’s work and pleased at the chance.
“Hey El-Tee?” Deseau shouted from Fencing Master, loudly enough that half the camp could hear him. “If there’s any left that you don’t need, remember me’n Learoyd.”
Daphne appeared not to notice the comment, unless the faint smile was her response.
Huber cleared his throat, taking stock of the situation. Daphne was wearing a pants suit, simply cut and of sturdy—but probably expensive—material. It would’ve been proper garb if Huber’d decided to put on his dress uniform and take her to one of the top restaurants in Bezant, but it wasn’t out of place in a firebase either.
Well, he’d never doubted that she was smart.
A starship lifted, its corona shiveringly bright even in broad daylight. The rumble of shoving such a mass skyward trembled through Huber’s bootsoles, though the airborne sound was distance-muted and slow to arrive.
Huber nodded toward the rising vessel and said, “This time they’re repatriating the other mercenary units before they terminate our contract. It’ll probably take a while to find so much shipping.”
“Yes, but the amount of trade Port Plattner carried before the war is simplifying the problem,” Daphne said. They’d reached her car, parked on the concertina-wired pad under the guns of an A Company combat car. The Colonel and the staff he’d brought with him on the run north were sharing space in the trailers with the squadron commanders. That must’ve been tight, though Huber had his own problems. Tents beside the buried trailers provided overflow for activities that nobody would care about if the shooting started again.