* * *
Huber waited for Sangrela and Myers to clear the doorway, then started out. Offering politely to let Mitzi precede him would’ve at best been a joke—at worst she’d have kicked him in the balls—and he didn’t feel much like joking.
“Lieutenant Huber?” Pritchard called. He turned his head. “Walk with me for a moment, will you?”
“Sir,” Huber said in muted agreement. He stepped down the ramp and put his clamshell on as he waited for the major to follow Mitzi out of the command car. For a moment his eyes started to adapt to darkness; then the first of several banks of lights lit the Night Defensive Position. The scarred iridium hulls reflected ghostly shadows in all directions.
Huber didn’t know why the S-3 wanted to talk to him out of Captain Orichos’ hearing; the thought made him uncomfortable. Things a soldier doesn’t know are very likely to kill him.
Pritchard gestured them into the passage between his command car and Mitzi’s tank, Dinkybob. He didn’t speak till they were past the bows of the outward-facing blowers. A crew was already at work on Fencing Master; across the laager, a recovery vehicle had winched Foghorn’s bow up at a thirty-degree angle so that a squad of mechanics could start switching out the several damaged nacelles for new ones. Power wrenches and occasionally a diamond saw tore the night like sonic lightning.
“Two things, Lieutenant,” Pritchard said when they were beyond the bright pool from the floodlights. He faced the night, his back to the NDP. “First, I was surprised to see you were back with F-3. I had the impression that you’d applied for a transfer?”
Ah. “No sir,” Huber said, looking toward the horizon instead of turning toward the major. “Major Steuben offered me a position in A Company. I considered it, but I decided to turn him down.”
“I see,” said Pritchard. “May I ask why? Because I’ll tell you frankly, I don’t know of a single case in which Joachim offered an officer’s slot to someone who didn’t prove capable of doing the job.”
“I’m not surprised, sir,” Huber said, smiling faintly. “It was because I was pretty sure I could handle the work that I passed. I decided that I didn’t want to live with the person I’d be then.”
Pritchard laughed. “I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that, Huber,” he said. “What are your ambitions then? Because I’ve looked at your record—”
He faced Huber, drawing the younger man’s eyes toward him. They couldn’t see one another’s expressions in the darkness, but the gesture was significant.
“—and I don’t believe you’re not ambitious.”
“Sir . . .” Huber said. He was willing to tell the truth, but right in this moment he wasn’t sure what the truth was. “Sir, I figure to stay with F-3 and do a good job until a captaincy opens up in one of the line companies. Or I buy the farm, of course. And after that, we’ll see.”
Pritchard laughed again. Huber thought there was wistfulness in the sound along with the humor, but he didn’t know the S-3 well enough to judge his moods. “Let’s go back to your car and get you settled in,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Huber said, turning obediently. “But you said there were two things, sir?”
“Hey, there you are, El-Tee!” Sergeant Deseau bellowed as he saw Huber reentering the haze of light. “Come look what the cat dragged in! It’s Tranter, and he says he’s back with us for the operation!”
“I saw from the after-action review that you were going to need a replacement driver,” Pritchard said in a low voice. “You’ve worked with Sergeant Tranter before and I believe you found him a satisfactory driver—”
“Frenchie says he’s the best driver he ever served with,” Huber said. “I say that too, but Frenchie’s got a hell of a lot more experience than I do.”
“—so I had him transferred from Logistics Section to F-3.”
Huber strode forward to greet the red-haired sergeant he knew from his brief stint in Log Section. Suddenly remembering where he was—and who he’d just turned his back on—he stopped and faced the major again.