Lieutenant Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  Lon lowered his head, looking at his plate, remembering Dean Ericks. “We know a little more about the Colonial Mining Cartel now,” Lon said, almost talking to himself. “I looked up everything I could find about them while I was on Earth. They’ve pretty well strip-mined everything in Earth’s Solar System that didn’t have people sitting right on top, and they’ve been working their way out through extrasolar colony systems as quickly as they could, local residents be damned.”

  “Earth’s that desperate for those things?” Jenny asked.

  “That desperate and more,” Lon said, looking at her. She was scarcely half Phip’s age, but that didn’t seem to detract from the quality of their relationship. “They have to bring in gold, platinum, and even more common metals like nickel and copper as fast as they can just to keep Earth functioning.”

  The evening had progressed to dessert and wine before the complink signaled an incoming message. Lon excused himself and went to the living room to answer the call there. When he pressed the accept key and the call was connected, Lon’s jaw dropped. He was looking at his mother.

  “I’ve been trying to call for six hours,” she said. “We couldn’t get an open channel until now. All tied up with official business, they told us. We’re going to arrive Monday afternoon, they tell us, about two o’clock your time. Your father and I.”

  5

  It was a hectic weekend for Lon and Sara. They had assumed that they would have at least another week to prepare for the arrival of Lon’s parents. The house had been bought, but it had no furniture—or anything. Saturday started with a frantic furniture shopping tour, and a certain amount of pleading to get the basic necessities delivered before noon Monday. Some things they took with them, to drop off at the house that day.

  On Sunday they hung curtains, bought towels and washcloths, sheets, silverware, and everything else they had been able to think of. By that evening, both were tired.

  “I wish I could take off tomorrow morning to help get the furniture set up,” Lon told his wife while they were getting ready for bed Sunday night—an hour earlier than normal. “But we’ve got the colonel’s weekly meeting at eight, and I can’t miss my first one as battalion commander.” The Monday conference was a tradition—the regimental commander and his staff heads met with the battalion commanders to rehash the previous week’s events and plan for the new week and beyond.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sara said. “I’ll be there, and the delivery men will put everything where I want it and carry off the containers. As long as they show up when Mr. Hastings said they would, everything will be set before your folks get on the shuttle to land.”

  “Still, I should be there.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  The commander’s conference Monday morning was uncomfortable for Lon. It wasn’t simply because he was distracted by the impending arrival of his parents or the work that Sara had to do without him to make sure the cottage was ready. The meeting started with Colonel Black formally introducing Lon to the other battalion commanders and his staff—although Lon had known all of them for years. Lon was younger than the other battalion commanders—in one case, half the age—and the others all had at least ten years more service than Lon. He felt embarrassed, as if the others were staring at him throughout the meeting.

  There was little substance in the conference—routine reports, measuring last week’s activities against the program set out at the previous meeting, establishing criteria for the current week, discussion about the current state of affairs for the Corps—specifically, how long it might be before contracts came up for 7th Regiment or its constituent units.

  The conference dragged on for two hours, and by the time Colonel Black finally dismissed the meeting, Lon was about ready to run for the door and keep going. He realized that it was irrational. He had attended a few of these meetings in the past, standing in for Matt Orlis or because he had something specific to contribute, but this was definite. Now, he was—in the jargon of the Corps—2nd Battalion, not a temporary substitute.

  “Lon, stick around for a minute, if you would,” Colonel Black said when the meeting was over.

  Lon sat back down and waited for the rest of the officers to file out of the conference room.

  “How are things going for you in 2nd?” Hiram Black asked when the two were alone. “You getting settled in right?”

  “No complaints,” Lon said. “Being away from the battalion for seven months complicates things a little, but I’ve got good people. They’re getting me up to speed in a hurry.”

  “Good, good. I know you’ll do your usual bang-up job. Ah, by the way, I had a call from the General this morning.”

  “About me?”

  “In part. The governor of Bancroft is arriving today, and the General suggested that you should be part of the official reception committee.” Lon started to interrupt, but Black waved him quiet. “I know. I told the General that your parents are arriving on the same ship, that you need to meet them and get them settled. The General agreed, rather reluctantly, but said that since you’ll be at the spaceport anyway, you ought to be able to take a few minutes to greet Governor Sosa.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course,” Lon said. “I’d have tried to do that even without the General’s…invitation.”

  Black smiled. “I was sure you would. I told the General you’d be eager to renew your acquaintance with the governor.”

  The way it worked out, Lon’s floater was nearly part of the official procession from the base to the spaceport. That was accidental. Sara was at the cottage they had purchased for Lon’s parents, and after picking her up, the driver had turned onto the boulevard a couple of cars behind the convoy that included the General and two regimental commanders as well as a number of other functionaries and aides. The band was already at the spaceport, warming up—or getting in a last rehearsal.

  There was a certain amount of confusion when the official welcoming party piled out of the staff cars and limousines. Lon’s driver managed to get into the reserved area where the other vehicles were parking, closer to the place where the shuttle would discharge its passengers than the public lot was.

  The General, Jorge Ruiz, spotted Lon and had one of his aides bring Lon and his wife over.

  “Good to see you again, Nolan,” Ruiz said. “I hate to impose on you when you’ve got family coming in, but Governor Sosa asked after you by name.”

  “I look forward to meeting him again, General,” Lon said.

  “A few words now, a promise you’ll be available to talk with him later on his visit, and we’ll let you get on with your reunion,” Ruiz said. “Seems the people of Bancroft are having the same sort of trouble you helped them with some years back.”

  “I guessed that, General, when I heard that the governor was aboard the incoming ship. Seems it might be worse this time if the governor himself came.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough. The thing is, they were impressed enough with the Corps to come to us again, perhaps with a larger contract in the offing. That says a lot for the job you and your lads did for them before.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you. How long will it be before the shuttle lands?”

  The General glanced at his watch before he answered. “Twelve minutes, if the information I was given is correct.”

  If it isn’t, somebody’s butt will be hot, Lon thought. You don’t give the General bad data.

  The General turned his attention to someone else, and Lon and Sara moved a few steps away. Unlike the official welcoming party—all decked out in full-dress uniforms—Lon was wearing off-dress blues, the standard uniform in the offices. He stuck out like a banana in a bowl of grapes.

  Off to the side, the band had gone quiet. They were done rehearsing, or warming up, and the director was dressing the lines, making certain the military formation was perfect.

  A red carpet was rolled out from the stand where the General and his entourage would wait. They were just starting to move up onto the platform.<
br />
  “You think the pilot will be able to stop with the door right over that rug?” Sara whispered to her husband.

  “Not one of our shuttle pilots, so who can tell?” he replied out of the side of his mouth. “Any of ours could, and would do it without being told. With an outsider…I wonder if the General’s staff has made bets on how far off it’ll be.”

  Sara giggled. Lon glanced at her and almost missed the gesture by the General’s aide, calling for Lon to join the rest on the platform. The aide had to make the gesture a second time before Lon saw it and nodded.

  “Come along, dear,” he said, taking Sara’s elbow. “Give you a chance to feel what it’s like.”

  “They don’t want me,” she protested.

  “Maybe not, but I do.”

  The shuttle arrived precisely on schedule, as Lon had assumed it would. Lon, along with most of the people who had come to greet the visiting dignitary, watched the shuttle come in from the west, gliding in for an easy landing—not at all like the combat landings a military shuttle practiced to get troops down and out of “the box” as quickly as possible when hostile forces might be in the area. A small dot in the sky, ten degrees above the horizon, was the first indication of the incoming craft. It “grew larger” and came gently lower.

  From where Lon stood, the landing appeared to be as near perfect as possible. A hundred yards from the welcoming stand, the shuttle lowered flaps and reversed thrust on its engines, braking noisily as it went on past the waiting officers. The delay was short, though. As soon as the shuttle came to a stop, the pilot got it turned around and taxied back to where it was supposed to land.

  Lon was almost disappointed that the passenger compartment’s hatch only missed aligning perfectly with the red carpet by inches. A ramp was rolled into place, and the door was opened. The question in Lon’s mind was whether Governor Sosa would come out before any other passengers or wait until the rest were off.

  He came off first, accompanied only by two aides. Lon thought that one of them looked familiar, but after nine years and a lot of intervening faces, he was far from certain.

  The band had started playing again while the shuttle taxied toward the stand, getting through one song and launching into the next as the door opened. The General and part of his entourage came down off of the platform to greet the governor at the bottom of the ramp. Lon was moved forward to accompany the General. He brought Sara with him, holding her arm so she couldn’t slip away.

  It was obvious the moment that Governor Sosa spotted Lon. The governor’s face broke into something approaching a smile. He lifted a hand and waved, and his pace picked up a little.

  “Welcome to Dirigent, Governor Sosa,” the General said as soon as the visitor stepped off the ramp. They shook hands, and the General started introducing the functionaries with him. Then, “You might remember Lieutenant Colonel Nolan, Excellency.”

  “Of course I do,” Sosa said, his tone not as completely diplomatic as it should have been.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” Sosa said, turning his attention completely to Lon. “Another promotion, I see.”

  “Just recently, Governor,” Lon said. “This is my wife, Sara. Sara, Governor Roger Sosa of Bancroft.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Sosa said, bowing to her before he spoke to Lon again. “I understand there are a couple of other people aboard the shuttle you’re waiting for, Colonel. I shared several delightful meals with your parents during the journey.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lon said. “I’m sure we’ll have other occasions to talk during your visit, but…with your permission?”

  “Of course, Colonel. I’m counting on having a long talk with you later.”

  Lon glanced at the General for permission to leave the group, and Ruiz nodded, just enough for Lon to be certain.

  Lon and Sara went on up the ramp into the shuttle.

  Maddie Nolan embraced her son as enthusiastically as she had on Earth after not seeing him for two decades. His father, Lawrence, hung back a step, giving his son a wan smile—as if to apologize for Maddie’s exuberance. Father and son shook hands, both looking almost embarrassed at that show of affection.

  Lon introduced Sara to his parents then, and his mother went through the same sort of emotional embrace. “The children are in school,” Lon said. “They should be home in an hour or so. I hear you’ve been hobnobbing with the big shots.”

  “Governor Sosa?” Lawrence said. “A remarkable man, I think. You worked for him?”

  Lon nodded. “A contract, nine years back. Bancroft had trouble with the Colonial Mining Cartel raiding for precious metals and rare minerals.”

  “Yes. The governor pumped me for anything I could tell him about CMC. I hope I wasn’t wrong—helping the little I could. He said they’re back, worse than before.”

  “You couldn’t be violating any security regulations, Dad,” Lon said. “And, well, I rather guessed they might be having the same trouble when I learned the governor was coming.”

  “The governor had a lot of nice things to say about you,” Maddie said. “Like you were the hero of some adventure vid.”

  They all laughed at that.

  One of the shuttle pilots came back from the cockpit. “Okay, folks, you can disembark now. The bigwigs are leaving. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we weren’t given much choice.”

  There wasn’t much baggage. Maddie and Lawrence had each left Earth with only two suitcases—clothes, data chips with family holographs and home videos, and a few small mementos. The cost of transporting more would have been prohibitive. Lon had his driver take them first to the house he had picked out for his parents. A quick tour, words of satisfaction from both parents, and a ritual handing over of the keycodes for the doors and communications system.

  “It’s a shame we can’t be closer to you all,” Maddie said, “but I understand that we can’t get a place on base. I’m certainly not about to let your father enlist in your Corps just for that.” It was good for a polite laugh. At eighty-five, Lawrence Nolan was fifty years past the maximum age for new recruits, even though he was in good physical condition.

  “You know, Dad,” Lon said as they headed toward base and his quarters, “the Corps does use civilian intelligence analysts. If you get bored with retirement or teaching part-time, you might think about it. With your background in education and the fact that you come from Earth, you’d be a cinch.”

  “I don’t bore easily,” Lawrence said with a chuckle, “but I’ll keep it in mind.” The question of whether he would continue to work or simply retire had been left unsettled when Lon left them on Earth.

  Junior and Angie had arrived home from school just minutes before their parents and grandparents got out of the staff car. Thanks primarily to Angie’s exuberance, the meeting quickly became chaotic.

  6

  The reunion continued well past midnight. Once Junior and Angie had been seen off to bed, Lon and Sara accompanied Lon’s parents back to their new home and spent time helping them settle in. The elder Nolans kept saying that they weren’t tired, that they hadn’t adjusted to the new time zone yet. By the time that Lon and Sara got home and into bed, it was nearly two o’clock.

  Lon got up at his usual time Tuesday morning, but chose to forego calisthenics with his troops. He did not get to his office until just before work formation at eight o’clock.

  “You’re wanted at Corps Headquarters at oh-eight-thirty,” Phip informed him. “Office of the General.”

  Lon blinked. “Must be to talk with Governor Sosa,” he said after drawing a blank for a couple of seconds.

  “Maybe they want you to negotiate the contract,” Phip suggested. “After all, you got Sosa to agree to a percentage when we were there.”

  “Probably just want to pick my brain. We’ve been there, know the terrain, and might know what the traffic can bear. I’d be surprised if they didn’t want my input. Contracts would want that on any repeat business. Besides, Sosa was clear about wanting to talk with me w
hen I saw him at the port yesterday.”

  “If they’d waited a few months, they could have had us again,” Phip said. “Now somebody else will have the pleasure of spanking their bandits.”

  “We’ve got our hands full here,” Lon said. “We need those months to make sure the battalion is up to snuff with all the changes—new command structure here and in Bravo and Delta Companies, two officer-cadets, one raw lieutenant who hasn’t seen combat since he earned his pips. We’ve got a lot of work.” That was something Lon had trouble putting out of mind for more than a few seconds at a time. Responsibility. It came with the job, and there were no good excuses for less than excellent results.

  “Yes, sir, and the work starts now. Time for morning formation,” Phip said, gesturing at the clock.

  Major Cavanaugh Zim was waiting for Lon on the broad stairs along the front of Corps headquarters—pacing.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t get the message in time,” Zim said as Lon got out of his car. “They’re waiting upstairs.”

  “What’s so urgent?” Lon asked. Zim was already guiding him up the steps.

  “The governor of Bancroft wants you to be part of the contract discussions from the outset,” Zim said. “Says you know what he’s up against, what he has to work with. I guess you really impressed him when you were there.”

  “I’m nine years out of date on Bancroft, Cav. I figured Contracts would want to pick my brain, but Sosa?”

  “I’m just the messenger, Lon. The General said to get you over on the double. This could be a big contract.”

  They took a lift tube to the third floor and a room known as the informal lounge—forty feet square. The General, Governor Sosa, and three other men were sitting around a low octagonal table near the French doors on the east side of the room. All of them stood when Lon and Zim entered. The other three men were all colonels, regimental commanders—Nicholas Demetrios of 4th, Hiram Black of 7th, and Johan Ellis of 12th.