John Ringo - Cally's War

“But not aware enough. Had you been, your people would have understood that loyalty down the chain from the organization to the individual is not some eccentric detail of etiquette, but is vital to dealing with humans in an organization. Petane’s status would have been reviewed. I take some of the blame that it was not. I shouldn’t have assumed more understanding on both sides than there was. I should have explicitly informed you of the organizational hazards of not periodically reevaluating the Petane decision to see if it was still justified to let the man live. That part, that I didn’t make sure you understood that necessity, or that our base commander here didn’t understand that he had to bring it up. That’s my fault.” The psychiatrist tapped his chest with a hand.

“And you would then say that not understanding you was our fault?” Aelool’s grip on his glass tightened.

“Not at all. I’d say we learned to understand each other better. How we found out wasn’t exactly pleasant.” He grimaced. “Not to sound too much like a shrink, but I think both sides need to think a bit about how this knowledge affects our policies.”

“Or the arrangement itself,” the alien sighed.

“We understand that. At the same time, it is possible that we could use this understanding to revise our policies to pursue our mutual goals without having this kind of thing happen again,” the priest interjected.

“Yes, that is possible. I would like the doctor’s assistance in exploring the ramifications and details and looking for anything related we may have missed. Meanwhile, I think I can make the case, given how critical the need for this particular mission is, and how good a body type match Miss O’Neal is for Miss Makepeace, for continuing with this mission. After that…” he trailed off.

“I agree. We can discuss the other issues after we get Team Isaac in the field,” O’Reilly nodded.

“I think we must all hope that that mission goes well,” the alien’s expression was the Indowy equivalent of a deep and troubled frown.

When the knock at the door came for breakfast, she looked over at the alarm clock. Seven-thirty? Ugh. She pulled on her bathrobe and trudged to the door, rubbing her eyes. I suppose sleeping in was a vain hope. They want to emphasize I’m in the doghouse. I don’t care. The bastard needed to be dead — even if he was a pathetic schmuck.

She opened the door and stepped back, blinking, as her grandfather walked in with the tray. It was set for two, with pancakes, eggs over easy, sausage links, orange juice, and coffee. It smelled like heaven, especially after a dinner of low-salt pinto beans in corn tortillas.

“Okay, thank you. But… why? Yesterday you seemed royally pissed,” she said.

“I am. I am royally pissed that you are letting this job eat you. The guy you killed was a worthless asshole. Probably doesn’t matter one way or the other that he died. Yeah, he’d earned it, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt anything to let him live.” He patted his pocket reaching for his tobacco pouch, looked at the tray and poured syrup on his pancakes, instead.

“I can’t believe you just said that. Team Conyers saved your butt, too, when the Posleen came up the gap. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” God, I sound shrill. I’m never shrill.

“Sure. It means I think it’s a crappy raw deal that they died so young—”

“Were killed!” she interrupted.

“Yeah, that tends to happen in this business, sooner or later. And I can tell you right now that if some bastard or crop of bastards gets me, that I do not want you to kill anyone you are not ordered to kill just because you think you owe me something. You’re more than welcome to make the case that someone who was involved needs to be dead and take the mission if it’s ordered, but I don’t want you to do this again. I don’t think Team Conyers would have wanted it either,” he said.

“That’s what you want. We’ll never know what they want, because they’re dead, because of a fucking traitor, who is now dead, himself.” It still made her mad as hell.

“You have to let there be someone higher than you as the judge of who needs to be dead, or the job eats you alive. You have to have a life, or the job eats you alive. You don’t have a life outside of the job, Cally, and that more than concerns me. It grieves me. I have been a professional a long time, I have seen other professionals, I’ve seen this job chew people up and spit them out and unless you get yourself some sort of meaningful life outside of work, and soon, you’re setting that up to be you.” He rubbed his head as if it was starting to ache.

“Look, can we just eat before the coffee gets too cold?” She tasted it and made a face, stirring corn syrup and cream into it.

“Sure. Look, I didn’t come here solely to badger you. The mission is on, which means we need our mission brief tomorrow. Now, you can either brief me in now and I’ll do the team brief, or you can get to work on it. You’re no longer confined to quarters, or restricted in your computer usage, obviously,” he said.

“What, just like that?” She looked at him incredulously.

“Oh, there will still be some kind of reckoning or resolution or whatever when we get back, but for right now they’ve decided that this mission is too critical to abort and that it’s too late to assign it to someone else.” He took a bite of his sausage.

“Okay,” she nodded.

“Okay? Were you trying to get benched, was that what this was about?” He looked mad.

“You know what it was about, dammit! Don’t psychobabble me, Granpa.” She took a swig of her coffee. Her lip curled slightly, but it was drinkable.

“I’m not talking about killing Petane. I’m talking about the way you did it — without going up the chain and asking for his situation to be reviewed. Did you want to get benched?” he asked again.

“Oh, of course not!” She ran her fingers through the brown curls and made a face at them. “Look, the last mission was pretty stressful, and maybe you have a point about the life thing. I’ll think about it, okay? And after we get back, if the bosses don’t shoot me or anything, I’ll take a nice vacation. A real one, where I don’t kill anybody, okay?”

“And look for a man to date somewhere other than a bar,” he said.

“Hey, I promised to take a vacation, not settle down with the love of my life and pop out six kids, all right?” She looked at the corn syrup bottle again and shook her head, taking a bite of the bare pancake. Their idea of maple flavoring tended to suck out loud.

Vitapetroni took his lunch tray into the small side room and shut the door. Framed prewar travel prints of famous cities adorned the walls. He sat down with his back to Paris and let his eyes slide across Venice before settling on the young old man on the other side of the table.

“Lisel, sweep for bugs, please.”

“My pleasure.” The husky voice emanating from the doctor’s PDA was not exactly what one would expect from a stodgy, respectable medical professional.

“The only bugs here are me and Mr. O’Neal’s AID, and I’m sure Susan wouldn’t eavesdrop on us,” it said.

“Susan, don’t listen until I call your name again,” Papa O’Neal ordered.

“Sure, Mike. What’s say you and I run off to the Bahamas and you make an honest woman of me? Signing off.” Then it was silent.

“Lisel, shut down, please.” Vitapetroni sat down.

“Certainly doctor,” she purred. “Goodbye.”

“You’ve got a Lisel loaded on top of your buckley? Doesn’t that crash a lot?” he asked.