Mike Shepherd: Welcome Home / Go Away

“Where are you?” came an unidentified, demanding, and not at all respectful voice.

“Who wants to know?” Trouble shot right back in just as demanding a voice.

“King Raymond wants to see you right now.”

“Okay. I’m walking home from an interview.”

“We know about that interview. We’ve got a car waiting for you right outside the media headquarters.”

“It wasn’t there when I came out,” Trouble snapped. He was developing a definite distaste for this person on the line.

“Well, activate your beeper, and the car will come to you.”

“Computer, give them a homing beacon.”

“Activated, sir.”

“They’ve got it. Stay right there.”

“Who is this? Because if you don’t have four stars on your shoulder, this four-star general is going to eat your ass for lunch.”

Trouble found himself talking to a dead circuit.

“Kids these days. They ought to have to storm a Black Mountain or two. They’d learn some respect. If they lived through it.”

A car pulled up. The Secret Service man riding shotgun quickly dismounted and trotted toward Trouble.

“Are you General Tordon?”

“You see anyone else with a ramrod backbone around here?”

“No sir, I do not. May I ask you to please join us in the car?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” the general said.

As he settled into the backseat, the car was already moving. In the front he heard a whispered, “We have the problem child, and boy is he pissed.”

Well, at least someone is getting the word.

There was a major waiting for Trouble in the basement of the Grand Hotel. He grabbed the general by the elbow and rushed him into a waiting elevator. Trouble had to elbow the guy in the ribs to get him to let go of his arm.

The corporal holding the elevator developed a lovely case of dimples as she took in the scene, but she didn’t turn around enough for the major to notice.

Trouble gave her a smile, and the dimples became even more delightful.

The elevator went straight to the thirty-second floor and disgorged them into the waiting arms of a bird colonel.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” the colonel demanded.

“Mister,” Trouble snapped. “Either you sprout a whole lot more stars on your collar than you got now, or you pass me along to someone who does, because, son, I was ripping colonels’ new assholes before you were even in diapers.”

The colonel looked about to explode, but the cute corporal was back, no dimples in evidence.

“Sir, Field Marshal McMorrison would like to see the general now, Colonel.”

Trouble left the colonel sputtering to himself and followed the corporal to Mac’s office.

“Thank you,” he said, and was rewarded for his gallantry with another attack of dimples as she opened the door for him.

“General Trouble is here for you, sir,” she said.

“And you’re a whole lot of trouble, today, aren’t you, Jarhead.”

Trouble took the offered hand. “While I will dispute that I’ve caused anyone any unnecessary trouble, no doubt, I am in trouble.”

“No doubt,” the newly minted field marshal said, pointing Trouble toward a comfortable chair and taking another one himself, thereby managing to sit with his back to a desk piled high with the jetsam and flotsam of the problems of combining 120 or more planets into a single fighting force.

“Can I placate you with a cup of coffee or tea?”

“Coffee. Black,” Trouble said.

“Corporal Jin, two black coffees.” The dimpled soldier nodded and closed the door as she left.

“You keeping the prettiest for yourself, old man?” Trouble asked.

“I got to put up with a gang of ugly ones.”

“Like that colonel I damn near slugged out there?”

“Colonel Denton is a very good public-relations expert, or so I am assured.”

“I didn’t notice any combat ribbons on his chest.”

“Trouble, there aren’t a lot of folks with combat ribbons to show for their twenty or thirty years. It’s been kind of peaceful for a spell.”

“That may be changing,” Trouble said.

Dimples returned with two coffees that were actually coffee, not froth, and tasted quite good. Trouble told her.

“The field marshal got the office a real coffeepot last Christmas. So long as I clean it every morning, it makes good coffee. Since I also get to drink it, it’s a joy to clean.”

“Practical soldier,” Trouble said, a grin coming out to play. “Now, if you can find a dirty, oily old pot boiler, why don’t you draw a cup for my friend the colonel back there?”

“Sorry, General,” the corporal said, dimples on full parade. “Prune face only drinks the fancy stuff. All froth and foam and sugar.”

“Now, Jin,” the field marshal said.

“Yes, sir, Field Marshal, sir, I’ll clean up my act immediately, but the general met the colonel, and the general doesn’t look like the type to call a fucking spade a shovel, sir.”

And with that, she conducted a very orderly withdrawal. Certainly, not a retreat.

“That young woman,” the field marshal said, shaking his head.

“Well, if you have no use for her, I’m sure my Kris could put her to good use in a fight. It seems to me that a woman like her is wasted on a bunch of toy soldiers like you got here.”

“No doubt, but her dad and mom served under me years ago, and they personally asked me to sit on her request to transfer to Kris’s Marine detachment. I sat on the request just long enough to see the rear jets of the fleet headed out.”

“Mac, the day may be coming that we need to let gals like her get their war paint on.”

The field marshal’s eyes took on a faraway look. Then he shook himself. “You may be right.”

“You heard anything?”

“Nothing more than when you left last night. We’re all just guessing.”

“Us. The media. All looking for a good crystal ball, and none to be had,” Trouble said, and allowed himself a worried sigh as he enjoyed another sip.

The field marshal eyed Trouble. “So you just had to go out there and give them a few more crumbs.”

Trouble scowled. “Guilty as charged. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“I’ve heard that a time or ninety from your great-granddaughter.”

“You’ve heard it a couple thousand times from me and Ray,” Trouble shot back. “They were getting their panties all in a twist about some war with Greenfeld. I could see nothing served by them blabbing on about that, so I gave them the crumb that Vicky Peterwald was back. That should take a load off her dad.”

“Yeah, but what will it do for her stepmother?”

“Ouch. I forgot there was supposed to be bad blood between them.”

“I had my computer do a search of the classified files after I escaped from Crossie last night. There were four reported bombings, including one on the Wasp, that likely were aimed at Vicky.”

“And I thought Kris was the only one who had to dodge assassins.”

“It may be that Vicky’s dad has given up on Kris, seeing how she saved his life and added a planet to his train wreck, but Vicky’s stepmom is another kettle of rotten fish.”

Mac paused for a moment, “And you’ve now told stepmommy where her beloved kid and target is.”

“Damn. You think that’s a problem?”

“It’s not likely to stay our problem for long. There are a dozen Imperial battlecruisers wandering around from star system to star system, showing the flag, and getting in position to make a pickup of any Greenfeld survivors that make it back to human space.”

“I hadn’t heard about them.”

“We kept it out of the normal intel feed. A pair of battlecruisers isn’t likely to be a problem. Not with the mess they’ve got back home. Still, I checked. A battlecruiser division was visiting New Bern last week. Five will get you ten they’re on their way to Chance as we speak.”