Third Under Colonel Grenadier, the department chief over logistics, inspected the next set of shipments due to go down to the planet. The number of ferry shuttles returning to space diminished as ground operations increased. The supplies to be taken planetside stacked up in consequence.
Shipping containers towered over him.
As he walked between the containers, he saw the Lord Admiral and his Adjutant up in the tiny command center that overlooked the launching bay. What were they doing here?
He didn’t acknowledge his superior officer. The man hadn’t been looking down when Third Under Colonel looked up, so Third Under Colonel could simply pretend he hadn’t seen him. He had a lot of work to do anyway, determining the priority of shipments based on planetside requirements and figuring out how to get everything to the right place at the right time. He didn’t have the smartest officers in his command and he often found himself needing to jump in and do their work.
He turned a corner and went up another aisle, his back now to the command center window and to the superior officer inside he didn’t like.
Third Under Colonel had been studying local military history when he could. He didn’t think the people here were as warlike as the Lord Admiral suggested, but they had fought many wars. One briefing from a victorious general impressed him, especially when the man said, “Armchair generals think about strategy. Real generals think about logistics.”
Third Under Colonel thought the Lord Admiral spent too much time thinking about strategy.
As he rounded the next corner and moved up an aisle, facing the command center now but not looking toward it, he discovered something wrong.
He stopped and checked the shipping container in front of him. Its contents differed from the ones he’d been inspecting. It contained parts for heavy antiaircraft weapons, not the chemicals needed for the seed clouding mission, the one that would neutralize the large radioactive cloud that drifted over the planet.
He double-checked his tablet. This row was supposed to contain more of the chemicals. What had happened? Who had done this?
He scanned up several containers. They all held the heavy parts. The entire row in front of him, twenty containers wide, fifteen containers high, all held the same heavy parts. What was going on?
His fingers moved over his tablet, trying to determine who had changed the order of the containers in the shipment. No one had. They were simply the wrong containers. Given how few shuttles were available, it could delay the cloud seeding mission several days.
Idiots. He’d get to the bottom of this.
He looked up at the command center and the Lord Admiral stared straight at him. He’d have to explain the error in his next report and apologize to the man. The insufferable man smiled at him as if he already knew of the problem. Third Under Colonel couldn’t pretend now he hadn’t seen him, and he nodded a salute. The Lord Admiral, the grin still on his face, nodded in reply.
Then the ship lurched.
It happened occasionally. The ship had to avoid floating debris, of which there seemed to be a lot in orbit around this planet, and the sudden acceleration provided a brief moment of gravity. Third Under Colonel felt glued to the floor for a couple of seconds. When the gravity ended, he looked up to see three hundred containers of heavy weapons parts moving toward him.
Magnetic tie downs had not been properly emplaced and the load shifted during the ship’s maneuver. Third Under Colonel had no time to think or calculate. Getting out down the length of the aisle seemed impossible, yet escaping over the top seemed too far away also. Having to decide, he went with the simplest, strongest approach. He jumped up, driving his legs as hard as he could, making it as high as the eighth tier before the heavy laden containers crushed him against the securely tied down ones behind him.
In his last thought, he saw the Lord Admiral staring straight at him. The man still grinned.
The Lord Admiral met with the two responsible corporals in his tiny cabin instead of a command center where there would be many witnesses. Their sheepish Captain stood behind them.
His men knew they faced the death penalty for their negligence.
Nevertheless, he asked them if they understood the gravity of the charges against them. They nodded. They had been responsible for the magnetic tie downs. After their questioning, where they assured their Captain they had secured and double-checked them, they had not begged for their lives. They accepted their fate. They had been responsible for the Third Under Colonel’s death and they would accept the consequences.
These were men, the Lord Admiral thought.
He looked down thoughtfully at his tablet, playing with the corner of it, doing his best to pretend he struggled with a tough decision. He set the tablet down as if he had made that decision. The men in front of him didn’t flinch, but they had to believe he was simply deciding the best way to execute them.
In a voice weighted with the gravity of the situation, the Lord Admiral said, “If I request reinforcements from home, it will take five years for those reinforcements to arrive. Do you understand?”
The men nodded, but the Lord Admiral knew they didn’t understand. The Captain behind them didn’t either. He looked confused. The Lord Admiral enjoyed this.
“If I execute you both, which I am required to do under military law, it will be at least five years before you can be replaced.”
The men stared at him with confusion but also a glimmer of hope.
“I am instead demoting you both to Private and reassigning you to an Assault unit planetside.”
The men’s eyes filled with real hope now. The Captain’s confusion turned to irritation. The Lord Admiral would deal with him later.
“All evidence of this incident must be expunged in order to allow me this mercy to you. Do you understand? You must never speak of it again, not even when drunk in a bar. If you do, any military officer will be obligated to turn you in and you would be executed, even in time of peace. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We can keep our mouths shut, sir.”
“Your Captain was the only one who you reported to?”
Two agreements.
“All evidence, video, or otherwise, concerning this accident will be erased. No one will ever know of your part in it. If you never reveal it, you will be able to continue in service and your families will suffer no humiliation.”
The men visibly relaxed.
He stood and put an arm on each of their shoulders.
“It was a terrible accident. I forgive your negligence. I know nothing like this will ever happen again.”
“No, sir.”
One of the men couldn’t even reply. His eyes welled up in tears of gratitude.
“Remember, say a word to no one. You’ll be reassigned and on the next shuttle planetside without delay.”
He dismissed them.
The Captain waited.
“You may speak openly,” the Lord Admiral finally told him.
“I don’t understand, sir. What they did. Such gross negligence must be punished.”
“They’ve been demoted and reassigned. I deem that sufficient punishment.”
“It is more mercy than I ever would have expected, sir.”
“We need every soldier we have. The situation planetside is most dire. The men were simply tired and overworked and made a mistake. A terrible mistake. But now that they have been forgiven, they will never do such a thing again. They will be Hrwang’s best soldiers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know this is delicate, and I appreciate your handling of the situation. Once everything is erased to protect the men, you will also report to your next assignment, Fifth Major Second Assault.”
“Yes, sir,” the former Captain replied enthusiastically.
The Lord Admiral grinned back at the man. Internally, he hat
ed buying the man’s cooperation with a promotion, but it seemed the simplest way.
He put his arm around his new Major.
“Remember, take care of your men,” he said.
“Yes, sir!”
“Who are you going to put over logistics?” the Lord Admiral’s Adjutant asked him later in the evening.
“Who cares? Whoever’s next in line.”
The Adjutant contemplated the next thing he said for a moment before saying it.
“Good strategy, using mercy to erase all the evidence.”
The Lord Admiral nodded in reply.
“None of it would have led back. But it never hurts to be thorough,” the Adjutant said.
“Some day, over a drink, you’ll have to tell me how you pulled it off,” the Lord Admiral said.
“Getting the ship to think it needed to dodge some debris was the toughest part,” the Adjutant replied. “There’s a programmer you should probably promote and reassign to an assault team planetside, also.”
“Done.”
“When do you head back down?” the Adjutant asked, his voice easy and relaxed.
“As soon as my Ambassador is ready to travel,” the Lord Admiral answered.
“I hear you have a new girlfriend.”
“That’s impossible. How could you have heard that already?”
“Pilots talk.”
The Lord Admiral grew angry.
“Don’t go reassigning your pilot. Please?” the Adjutant asked. “He’s a good drinking friend.”
“And source of information about me?”
The Adjutant shrugged.
“He’s a good man, sir.”
“I don’t like people who talk too much.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
The Lord Admiral relented.
“She’s a beautiful woman. Athletic. Physical. And she’s blonde,” he said.
The Adjutant smirked.
“Where did you come across her?”
“She’s a runner. She encountered some guards outside the palace and later I was shown the surveillance footage. I arranged to meet her running one morning.”
“You’re not suspicious?”
“Everyone thinks she’s a spy.” The Lord Admiral shook his head. “My Lieutenant Grenadier has orders to kill her instantly if she is. But she isn’t. You’d have to meet her to understand. She’s an innocent but lovely girl.”
“Enjoying the spoils of victory?”
“Victory hasn’t been achieved yet,” the Lord Admiral replied quickly. But then he grinned to his friend. “Yes. I am.”
50
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