The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“Yes, of course. Anyone else like that? Anyway, send Fuller to my office, and then ask McClaren to pick three men and come see me about equipment.”

“McClaren? Colonel, you’re not going in there—” Ian Frazer was shocked.

“I think I will,” Falkenberg said.

“But Colonel—”

Falkenberg’s smile was cold. “Your concern is noted, Captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Prince, I’d be pleased if you would accompany me as my aide. And your korpsbruder, of course.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Right. Amos, I’ll be in my office in five minutes. Carry on.” Falkenberg strode to the door.

“Christ, that’s torn it,” Ian Frazer muttered. He lifted his personal communicator card. “Centurion Yaguchi. Get my orderly. We’ll be going into the field tonight.”

“I doubt that, Ian,” Major Savage said.

“Sir?”

“He isn’t going to let you go out there.”

“Damn it, Jeremy— Look, you talked me out of it before, but this time I’m going to do it, I swear, next Regimental Council I’m going to—”

“No you won’t,” Savage said. “You’d lose, and the colonel wouldn’t accept that kind of restriction if you won the vote. Be logical, Ian. Everything’s cut and dried now. We’re needed here to handle the details. The key command decisions will be made out there.” Major Savage shrugged. “If the colonel weren’t going, I would be. Rather nice of him to spare me that.”

“Yeah. Look, you don’t mind if I worry about him?”

“We can all do that. If you think you’re upset, imagine what Sergeant Major is going to say. I doubt John Christian will be taking him, either.” Savage nodded to Lysander. “Sorry you had to hear all this—”

“Glad I did, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some arrangements I’d best see to.”

“Carry on, Mr. Prince.”

XX

The Officers’ Open Mess was a blur of activity. There weren’t any customers, but the staff had folded up most of the tables and chairs, and stacked the rest of the chairs on the tables. Two privates were enthusiastically mopping the floor. Another was behind the bar packing the bottles into boxes.

“Chance of dinner?” Lysander asked the mess steward.

“Yes, sir, but there’s not much choice. Catfish and sweet potatoes—”

“Hum.” Ursula smiled thinly. “Tanith standard fare—”

Sergeant Albright looked pained. “Yes, Ma’am, not up to the standards of the Mess, but we’ve got an alert on, you see.”

“It’s also all we’ll get,” Lysander said. “Please, Sergeant, I’d love some catfish and sweet potatoes. With beer, please.”

“Yes, sir. Alieri, set up a table for Mr. Prince. Excuse me, sir, I’m needed in the kitchen.”

“We don’t have to eat,” Ursula said. “I’d rather—”

“Of course we have to eat,” Lysander said. “Certainly I do.” He worked to keep his voice calm, and hoped he’d succeeded. Conflicting emotions boiled within him. He was eager to get away from Ursula, to get on with the mission and show Falkenberg what he could do. Odd, he thought; he liked being with Ursula. He even wondered if he might be in love with her, and what kinds of problems that would make for him. Certainly he felt guilty for being ready to leave her to go with Falkenberg. Mostly, though, he was more afraid that he wouldn’t meet Falkenberg’s expectations than anything else. He wanted to please Falkenberg more than he’d ever wanted to please his own father, and he didn’t really understand that. Deep under all his emotions was the elemental fear of death, or worse, dismemberment.

Meanwhile, Ursula was being very understanding about his volunteering to go with Falkenberg, and while Lysander appreciated that, it was getting a bit hard to take.

They sat and waited for drinks. “I’ve made some arrangements,” he said. “If I don’t come back. The Regiment will take care of you—”

“If they’ll give me my contract, I can take care of myself,” Ursula said. “You won’t be back, will you?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m the colonel’s aide. I’ll have the best bodyguards in the galaxy. And besides all that, there’s Harv.”

“Sure. When are you leaving Tanith?”

“I’m not sure.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Then she smiled and said, “It’s all right. I’ll miss you.”

I’ll miss you, he thought. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. The silence stretched on.

He was relieved when Sergeant Albright came over to their table. “Excuse me, sir, we’re short handed, and the tables are packed. Would you mind if Captain Svoboda and Mrs. Fuller joined you? Thank you, sir.” Albright left without waiting for an answer. A moment later a lanky officer limped up to the table.

“I’m Anton Svoboda. Headquarters Commandant. Your Highness, we’ve been told you’ve no objection to our joining you—”

“No, of course not, sir.” Lysander stood. “I expect things will go better if you call me Lysander.” He touched the cornet’s insignia on his collar. “They told me the rule was first names in the mess. And this is Ursula Gordon.”

“Pleased to meet you. Ursula. Lysander. Right.” Svoboda said. “Juanita Fuller, Prince Lysander Collins of Sparta, at present a volunteer cornet of the regiment. Which means that your husband is no longer the junior comet. And Miss Ursula Gordon.”

Captain Svoboda held out his arm to help Juanita sit, then sat down carefully. His left leg was encased in what looked like a large pillow. “Couple of crocks,” he said. “Actually, they just let us both out of hospital this afternoon. Juanita’s husband is in conference—”

“Ah,” Lysander said. “Cornet Mark Fuller? I met him this afternoon in the Colonel’s office. Apparently he’s the colonel’s pilot tonight.”

“I hope they get done with him pretty soon,” Juanita said.

“Yes, that can’t be much fun, first day out of hospital and no one to welcome you home,” Ursula said.

Juanita shook her head. “We don’t have a home—”

“I’ll take care of that,” Svoboda said. “We’ll find something. Although I’m not sure what I can do for right now.” Svoboda shook his head. “Maybe you ought to stay in the hospital tonight.”

“I’d sure rather not,” Juanita said.

“What’s the problem?” Lysander asked.

“Well, Cornet Fuller just joined the regiment,” Svoboda said. “Hasn’t been assigned quarters. He’s been staying in the BOQ. Juanita was hit in the rescue operation, so she was sent directly to hospital when she got here, and no one thought to assign them married quarters. Usually it would be my job to take care of that sort of thing, but—” He pointed to his leg. “I haven’t been at my desk since we rescued Mrs. Fuller.” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be a problem if they hadn’t let us out in the middle of a general alert. Which reminds me.” Svoboda raised his voice slightly. “Albright.”

“Sir!” The mess steward came over to the table.

“Sergeant, it looks like you’re packing up to pull out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I see your orders?”

“They’re in the kitchen, sir.”

“Please bring them. Along with a bottle of wine. Anything that’s open.”

“Yes, sir.”

They waited until Albright returned carrying a large jug of red wine. “Not officer quality, sir,” Albright said apologetically.

“It will do,” Svoboda said absently. “Pour me a glass, please.” He took the message flimsy Albright handed him and read for a moment. “Bloody hell.”

“Problem, sir?” Lysander asked.

“You could say that. Sergeant, you’ve been given the wrong orders. The regiment itself isn’t moving out, just most of the battalions. Regimental headquarters will stay right here. You shouldn’t be packing up.”

“Cap’n, the orders say right there—”

“I see they do,” Svoboda said. “But someone has punched in the wrong codes on the computer. I’ll straighten it out, but meanwhile, you can stand down. You’re not going anywhere.” Svoboda looked down at his leg. “Neither one of us is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So. I’ll take care of this nonsense. You go find us something decent to drink. And see what you can scare up to make the catfish a bit more palatable.”

Albright grinned. “Yes, sir. I think I can unpack something.”

Svoboda reached beneath the table and lifted a portable computer console onto the place in front of him. “If you’ll excuse me for just a moment,” he said.

“Certainly,” Lysander said. “But I confess some confusion—”

“Well,” Svoboda said, “we have a data base of detailed order sets for nearly anything the Regiment might want to do. The colonel has ordered a general alert, and is shipping quite a lot of the regiment’s strength out to—well, to various places. It sounds simple, but actually it’s pretty complicated to move a battalion and all its gear and all the supplies it will need. There are thousands of items to worry about, stuff from battalion headquarters, stuff that has to be drawn from central supply—now suppose a battalion is to be reinforced with units that don’t belong to it. More orders. Believe me, it can get sticky.”

“Oh,” Ursula said. “Yes, of course—”

“Computers handle most of it,” Svoboda said. “We keep canned order sets for nearly every contingency. All it takes is calling out the proper ones. Only in this case, someone punched in the wrong code, so Sergeant Albright got the wrong orders.” Svoboda bent over the bright blue screen, then typed quickly. “Hah. And here they were. Hmmm.”