“I wish you people would relax for a while and just trust the ship’s computer. The Tauran vessel at any rate will not be within strike range for another two weeks. Mandella!”
He was always very careful to call me “Sergeant” Mandella in front of the company. But everybody at this particular briefing was either a sergeant or a corporal: squad leaders. “Yes, sit”
“You’re responsible for the psychological as well as the physical well-being of the men and women in your squad. Assuming that you are aware that there is a morale problem aboard this vessel, what have you done about it?”
“As far as my squad is concerned, sir?”
“Of course.”
“We talk it out, sir.”
“And have you arrived at any cogent conclusion?”
“Meaning no disrespect, sir, I think the major problem is obvious. My people have been cooped up in this ship for fourteen-”
“Ridiculous! Every one of us has been adequately conditioned against the pressures of living in close quarters and the enlisted people have the privilege of confraternity.” That was a delicate way of putting it. “Officers must remain celibate, and yet we have no morale problem.”
If he thought his officers were celibate, he should sit down and have a long talk with Lieutenant Harmony. Maybe he just meant line officers, though. That would be just him and Cortez. Probably 50 percent right. Cortez was awfully friendly with Corporal Kamehameha.
“Sir, perhaps it was the detoxification back at Stargate; maybe-”
“No. The therapists only worked to erase the hate conditioning-everybody knows how I feel about that-and they may be misguided but they are skilled.
“Corporal Potter.” He always called her by her rank to remind her why she hadn’t been promoted as high as the rest of us. Too soft. “Have you ‘talked it out’ with your people, too?”
“We’ve discussed it, sir.”
The sub-major could “glare mildly” at people. He glared mildly at Marygay until she elaborated.
“I don’t believe it’s the fault of the conditioning. My people are impatient, just tired of doing the same thing day after day.”
“They’re anxious for combat, then?” No sarcasm in his voice.
“They want to get off the ship, sir.”
“They will get off the ship,” he said, allowing himself a microscopic smile. “And then they’ll probably be just as impatient to get back on.”
It went back and forth like that for a long while. Nobody wanted to come right out and say that their squad was scared: scared of the Tauran cruiser closing on us, scared of the landing on the portal planet. Sub-major Stott had a bad record of dealing with people who admitted fear.
I fingered the fresh T/O they had given us. It looked like tills:
I knew most of the people from the raid on Aleph, the first face-to-face contact between humans and Taurans. The only new people in my platoon were Luthuli and Heyrovsky. In the company as a whole (excuse me, the “strike force”), we had twenty replacements for the nineteen people we lost from the Aleph raid: one amputation, four deaders, fourteen psychotics.
I couldn’t get over the “20 Mar 2007” at the bottom of the 1/0. I’d been in the army ten years, though it felt like less than two. Time dilation, of course; even with the collapsar jumps, traveling from star to star eats up the calendar.
After this raid, I would probably be eligible for retirement, with full pay. If I lived through the raid, and if they didn’t change the rules on us. Me a twenty-year man, and only twenty-five years old.
Stott was summing up when there was a knock on the door, a single loud rap. “Enter,” he said.
An ensign I knew vaguely walked in casually and handed Stott a slip of paper, without saying a word. He stood there while Stott read it, slumping with just the right degree of insolence. Technically, Stott was out of his chain of command; everybody in the navy disliked him anyhow.
Stott handed the paper back to the ensign and looked through him.
“You will alert your squads that preliminary evasive maneuvers will commence at 2010, fifty-eight minutes from now.” He hadn’t looked at his watch. “All personnel will be in acceleration shells by 2000. Tench . . . hut!”