Jack felt a moment of unexpected regret, then realized that he had been secretly hoping Breeze would think he was a strike fighter pilot.
“No, I’m just visiting from Kristiansand,” he said. “I fly a Hawk.”
“Oh, so you’re doing the medical supply run.” She seemed to take this information with interest. “Nice.”
“How did you know that?”
She smiled playfully. “Intelligence.”
They strolled down one of the many broad, reinforced passageways that tunneled through Normandy’s bulk. The decks were bustling with activity as the afternoon watchmen came off shift. Jack still hadn’t learned all the rank insignia, but he knew that if the coveralls had markings on their sleeves, it was an enlisted rank, and bars on the epaulettes meant officer. In the pilot world ranks didn’t mean much—everybody just did their job.
“So, have you been in the Fleet long?” he asked.
“Five years—I joined a little late. I did my subbie tour here in Cerberus as an analyst, and then did a couple of years in the diplomatic corps as a flag lieutenant.”
“Wow, that must have been cool.”
“Oh, yeah. The cocktail parties sometimes went to four in the morning.”
Jack glanced at her, and saw a sparkle in her eyes. “And now you’re fast-attack. I thought that was only for the intense. The Fleet guys who wished they were Corps.”
“Mostly,” she agreed. “But it’s also for the Fleet guys who don’t want to waste their lives as anonymous staff officers scrambling to try and outdo each other with pettiness. I’ve seen what old Fleet guys become—bitter, bored, and fat—and I don’t want to be that way. Fast-attack is a ticket on the express train.”
She fell silent for a moment, her last statement hanging in the air. Jack could hear an edge in her voice which was at odds with her casual demeanor.
They reached officer country. Breeze stopped at a particular door and tapped in her entry code. The door slid open.
“Home sweet home,” she said with a smile.
He glanced through the opening, and saw a typical single cabin—oversized, fold-down bunk, comfy chair and bulkhead-mounted entertainment unit, desk with foldout chair and a door that presumably led to the ensuite.
“I think the best thing about getting promoted one day,” he said, “will be getting my own cabin.”
She entered and tossed her bag on the comfy chair.
“I never would have gone fast-attack if they hadn’t provided us proper quarters on the invasion ship. You think your cabin is small? You should see the shoe box I squeeze into on Rapier.”
“Basically a shelf to sleep in?”
Breeze glanced over her shoulder. “A shelf for two of us to sleep in.”
The lift of her eyebrow got his attention. “Another charming intelligence officer?”
She laughed. “A butchy Corps officer, actually. We get separate bunks, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind a little snuggle.”
“Nice.”
Breeze sat down on her bunk and pulled off her boots. “Oh, that feels good.”
She slipped off her socks and stood, wriggling her toes on the rug. With her boots off she was short enough to have to look up at Jack, and she did so now with playful eyes.
“Honey, I gotta have a shower. These lieutenant cabins may be big, but they’re not that big. And we’ve just met. How ’bout you head on down to the star lounge and get a drink? I’ll be there in about twenty.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
He stepped back out into the passageway and heard the door shut behind him. Movement drew his attention to the right.
Turning, he saw a compact woman striding down the passageway, a green bag over her shoulder. She had very short, blonde hair and pale skin that made her big, dark brown eyes even more prominent. Her gaze bore through him, her expression not welcoming.
But Jack was riding a wave of confidence, and his smile burst forth unassisted. The bag over her shoulder gave him a cue.
“Hi there,” he said. “You from the fast-attack craft?”
She slowed, and looked surprised by his greeting. “I’m Lieutenant Emmes, Rapier’s strike officer. Can I help you?”
He thrust out his hand. “I’m Jack Mallory. Can you tell me where the star lounge is?”
She nodded down the passageway. “Two frames up, one deck down.”
“Thanks. Hey, I just met your shipmate, Breeze. We were going to rendezvous at the star lounge in about twenty minutes—you want to join us?”
If the woman’s expression changed at all, it became even harder. “No thanks.”
The glint of gold off her left chest caught his eye. It was the strike officer qualification badge. “You’re Astral Corps. That’s interesting. Maybe I could ask you a few questions about what you do?”
“Is this how you introduce yourself to everyone?” she asked.
“No, not everyone.” He laughed. “At least I didn’t tell you I was a pilot right away.”
She dropped her gaze with a scornful sniff. “Oh, well, now I’m impressed.”
She walked off without further comment.
Jack found himself standing alone in the passageway again, a frown on his face. After a moment he started off for the lounge.
11
As soon as the door shut behind her, Katja threw her bag down on the chair as hard as she could. The burst of rage felt good, and some of the tension eased from her stiff body.
Strikes and boardings she could handle. Days fighting space sickness in zero-g she could handle. Even sharing a cabin with Charity Brisebois she could handle. But being chatted up by one of Breeze’s little boy toys—
That was too much.
She stood in the middle of her cabin for a long moment, relishing the quiet and the gravity. A few long, slow breaths, and the last of her anger subsided. Kicking off her boots and activating some Mozart, she reached over her desk and accessed the queue of incoming mail flashing on the screen. Mostly routine administration messages from the regiment—she skimmed the subject lines and deleted as appropriate.
There was a personal message from her sister-in-law, and another from her mother, both reminding her that it was her niece’s birthday in a couple of days. She made a note to write some suitably auntie-like greeting tomorrow.
The last message in the queue was from an official Corps address, but she smiled at the subject line: Levantine Jihad.
It was a colorful note from Lieutenant Scott Lahko, her oldest friend in the regiment. He dispensed the usual hacks about her spending too much time with the Fleet, then invited her to the monthly trooper social gathering, known affectionately as the Jihad. She glanced at her watch and saw that it had already started.
The fatigue that had weighed her down upon leaving Rapier suddenly lifted. Having a few drinks with people she understood might be just the thing to relax.
A hot shower helped work out the knots of tension in her shoulders. She lingered a few moments in the steamy water and let the music caress her ears. Every basic space course taught the importance of conserving air and water—and a career in the Corps had drilled the same principles into her—but it didn’t take anyone long to figure out that a ship the size of Normandy didn’t operate under the same rules.
Every ship recycled about ninety-nine percent of its air and water, but that one percent lost was critical when the nearest resupply was several billion kilometers away. In an invasion ship, however, the sheer volume of water and air it carried meant that nearly half could be lost before rationing took effect.
Katja had long since outgrown any sort of heroic notion that military service should always be hard. Like soldiers since the time of Troy, she’d learned very young to grab ahold of good times when they came, because there was no guarantee they’d come again.
Fresh clothes felt soft on her skin, and the green Corps jumpsuit was a welcome change from Fleet blue. When she emerged from her cabin she felt a new skip in her stride, and smiled easily at
the people she passed on the way to the star lounge.
She heard the low murmur as soon as she descended the steep staircase the Fleet called a “ladder.” Ahead, the wide opening to her destination beckoned.
The star lounge was the largest communal space where officers could socialize. Taking its name from the broad, deck-high windows that offered a magnificent view of the cosmos, it offered a full bar and café at the forward end, an area of comfortable chairs and couches at the other, and an open central area that was used for events as diverse as dances, military parades, and fancy-dress mini-golf tournaments. The lights were dimmed in the bar and café area, but even as her eyes adjusted Katja could easily make out the group she sought.
The Levantine Regiment was Normandy’s reason for existence—at least for this deployment, as the regiment rarely used the same invasion ship twice—and had been Katja’s professional home since graduating from the Astral College. It boasted six infantry troops, including Katja’s own Saracens, as well as a pair of armored troops and another pair of engineers. Like all regiments it had a strong tradition and identity, and it was the fundamental unit to which all troopers felt their allegiance.
Katja was proud to call herself a Saracen, but if ever she saw trouble approaching a Crusader, an Ottoman, a Spartan, or a man from any of the other troops, she would quickly make that trouble her own. Back on Earth the troops were scattered by distance and different routines, but on deployments they always drew together.
Her eyes passed right over the various couples and groups seated at the café tables, and focused immediately on the sprawling collection of men and women wearing green coveralls. She was immediately struck by how fit they all looked—not a flabby belly or large butt among them. Lean faces and tight haircuts abounded, with laughter as the order of the day.
It didn’t take long to spot Scott Lahko. Tall, thick, and brutish, he was a butt-ugly ape with a loud voice and even louder laugh. If his olive skin and black hair were any guide, he traced his heritage from the Levant, making him the ideal choice for the occasional public relations maneuver—as long as he wore his helmet with the visor down.
He spotted Katja as soon as she approached, breaking off his conversation to greet her.
“Big K! Back from the wars.” He reached out and punched at her shoulder, but she swatted his hand away.
“Keeping you safe, Scotty.” Her eyes were barely level with his chest, but she stared up at him fearlessly. She took in the small group of officers around her, all men and all at least a head taller than her. “How you doing, boys?”
None of them were Saracens, but they greeted her amiably. Scott picked up the thread of his story again. It was an old tale from the Dog Watch, and Katja had heard it many times before, so she slipped into the context without much effort, adding her own comments when Scott got just a little too far from the truth. The story concluded with a roar of laughter.
“Lieutenant Emmes,” came a female voice from behind, “you look thirsty.”
Katja turned and saw her troop leader, Commander Cassandra Vici, holding a mug of beer in each hand. Vici was tall and lean, with a thin, angular face that had hints of white, faded scarring, and black hair that hung straight to her shoulders. She wasn’t smiling, but Katja had learned to recognize the intensity in her dark eyes as good humor.
She took the proffered beer.
“Thanks, skipper.” She peered around the room. “Looks like a good crowd tonight.”
“The past few days have been busy with section training, so it’s time to blow off some steam.”
“I bet the troopers are partying hard down below.”
“How was your mission?”
One thing was always certain about Commander Vici—she wasted little time on small talk. Katja knew the question wasn’t just a polite inquiry, either. Vici wanted an informal report.
She quickly summarized the mission. Facts only—no interpretation. She knew well that her own opinion would hardly make the mission look like a success.
Vici nodded, then grabbed Scott’s elbow. “Lahko, since Emmes is here I want to speak to all the Saracens. Find the others and meet me by the windows in ten.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The troop commander moved away through the crowd with a determined stride.
Scott looked down at Katja. “Hey, I read up a bit on your FAC. You never said you worked with Thomas Kane.”
Katja shrugged. “You never asked. It didn’t seem important, but I just found out a few days ago that he did a stint in the Corps.”
“No shit. Who do you think recommended this little trooper for his commission?”
She was surprised. “You know Kane?”
Scott laughed. “That story I was just telling about the Dog Watch? Who do you think the lieutenant was who busted us?”
“I had no idea.” She felt a smile growing on her lips. “I can see him busting you, too. But I also understand why you were never charged.”
“He was no-nonsense in the field, but, man, did he have a good sense of humor in barracks. Hey! You should invite him here this evening. He wasn’t Levantine, but once a trooper, always a trooper.”
A flurry of emotions swarmed through Katja’s chest. “Oh, no, I’m sure—”
“Yeah! Give him a call,” Scott persisted. “Just see if he wants to come down for a drink. It’ll be good to see him.”
“Scott, I’m sure he’s still busy writing his mission report—”
“All the more reason to get him out for a friendly drink.”
“He’s your friend—you call him.”
Scott grabbed her shoulders and gently but firmly turned her and pushed her away from the bar. “You call him, and tell him to be here in twenty minutes. I have to go round up the other Saracens. I’ll see you at the windows.”
Propelled clear of the crowd, Katja stopped for a moment, feeling exposed and stupid. Professionally, there was nothing wrong with inviting her CO out for a drink, especially since he was a former trooper. But something was making her feel guilty, and she was embarrassed at her own guilt.
She forced herself to take a step forward, then another.
There was a bank of comms stations near the entrance, and Katja sidled into one of the half-booths. She searched out the cabin number for “Kane, Thomas, Lt(C).” When the five-digit number appeared before her, she felt a knot in her stomach. Procrastinating for a moment, she took a pull of her beer and gazed around the room. Maybe he was already there…
Frowning, she put down her glass and tapped in the number before she had a chance to think.
The sound of ringing warbled in the headset. Once. Twice.
Maybe he wasn’t home—
“Lieutenant Commander Kane.”
“Uhh, hi, sir. It’s Lieutenant Emmes.”
“Hi, Ops. What can I do for you?” His tone suggested mild surprise.
“I’m not disturbing you, am I, sir?”
“Not really. I was just thinking about getting something to eat before I finish off the mission report.”
“Oh. Well, umm, there’s a Levantine Jihad going on down in the star lounge, and, since you used to be a trooper yourself, I was—that is, we were wondering… hey, do you know Scott Lahko?”
There was a pause, and Katja felt her stomach contracting to one tenth its normal size. Could she sound more like an idiot?
“Scott Lahko…” Thomas mused. “Oh, yeah, one of my troopers. Good kid.”
“Well, he’s here, and when he heard that you were the CO, he said you should come down and have a drink with us.”
“That’s nice he remembers me.”
“And not just him, sir. I mean, it’d be nice—for me—to spend, to have a drink with you.” Katja closed her eyes and rested her head against the bulkhead. Her cheeks were burning.
“I’ll come on one condition, Katja.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“That you stop calling me sir. At least for an evening.”
&nb
sp; She laughed nervously. “I’ll try my best, sir. Ah! Shit. Okay, now I’ll try my best.” His warm laughter eased the knot in her stomach. A bit. “We’re just having a snakepit with our troop commander. We should be done in about twenty minutes.”
“Great. Have you eaten?”
“Me? Uhh, no. Just beer so far.”
“Do you and Lahko want to eat with me at the star lounge? I’m starving.”
“I’ll ask him. If not, I’m sure he’d be happy to just drink at the table.”
More laughter. “Then he hasn’t changed much.”
“See you soon, sir.”
“Katja…”
Her cheeks flushed anew.
“Thomas.”
“See you.”
She heard the line click off, but she stood with the headset to her ear for a long moment, forehead against the bulkhead.
12
On the far side of the lounge, the officers of Saracen Troop were gathering around their commander. Katja moved quickly through the tables and up to join them. Besides Vici and Lahko, she recognized Sublieutenant Wei Hu, Lieutenants Serge Wicki and Sven Pletsers, and First Lieutenant Gopal Sung.
Wei had taken over Katja’s old platoon when she was transferred to Rapier, but she barely knew him. His lack of experience and smooth, youthful features made him seem even greener than he was. Wicki and Pletsers were both tall North Europeans, and Gopal was a short, wiry Himalayan. The first lieutenant was a platoon leader like other junior officers, but had the additional responsibility of being the troop’s second-in-command.
Katja had worked with these men for years before going on her fast-attack course, and she slipped into the group effortlessly. Feeling immediately at home, she very much appreciated Vici’s gesture to include her, even though she no longer had an official role in the regiment.
“Troops, it’s been a good couple of days,” the commander began. “I’m pleased with the maneuvers, especially because we beat the Spartans at their own game.” This comment drew chuckles, but Katja could only guess at the meaning. “Gopal, you did well as commander when they took me out.”
Virtues of War Page 8