Роберт Бюттнер - Orphan's Destiny

“Grown-ups deal with that.”

“Yes, sir. But the emotion’s still there. The general needs to be aware of it. There’s also a fundamental personality difference between successful infantry officers and technical-branch officers.”

“You’re telling me infantry doesn’t have assholes?”

“Sir, there are many effective leadership styles. I’m saying you and the admiral have styles compatible with your missions and environment, but incompatible with each other.”

I unsnapped my breastplate and let it slide to the deck, then shrugged out of my scuffed arm tubes and stretched.

Ord nodded at them. “Infantry functions in a less structured environment.”

“Mud and chaos?”

Ord nodded. “Flexibility regarding uniform requirements and the like may strengthen an infantry commander’s performance. But naval and flight officers benefit from more rigid attitudes.”

“They sleep under sheets. But if they miss a checklist item, a nuke goes off. They follow the book.”

Ord cocked his head and shrugged.

I pointed at his spotless armor. “You didn’t teach us to be slobs in Basic.”

“I’m not referring to baseline habits, sir. Their maintenance forms the backbone of military discipline. I’m talking about adaptability when they can’t be maintained.”

I nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Sergeant Major. Not just for the advice. For the baseline that got me back here.”

Ord stood and slid his empty plasti into the disptube. “Sir, it’s me, it’s all of us, that should do the thanking. To you and the rest of GEF. You did good, sir.” He saluted and I returned it as he faced about. Which was just as well. It wouldn’t have done for him to see a general cry.

I showered, as much as you can in point-six Gee, until my skin pruned, then lay down on my bunk and felt warm sheets against my skin for the first time in memory, closed my eyes, and let Excalibur’s engine vibration massage me to sleep.

I had earned a sweet, boring six-hundred-day cruise home.

I didn’t get it.

SIX

A MONTH AFTER EXCALIBUR BOOSTED OUT of Jupiter’s orbit, Jude Metzger learned to roll over in point-six Gee. I cornered Ord again and learned things, too.

Artificial dawn dimmed empty training-deck corridors and my ankle-weights’ slaps echoed as I jogged laps in point-six Gee. As awkward as those weights were, after months toting the burden of Eternad-armor battle-rattle, I felt as free as a falcon on an updraft. The red “Caution Firing” light alongside the Live-Fire Pistol Range glowed and I stopped, panting, hands on hips. It was Sunday, limited duty. Who would be firing pistols at oh-five-hundred, or even awake, except watch and crew?

The Caution light flicked black, so I pulled up my T-shirt hem, toweled off forehead sweat, and twisted through the hatch.

The range’s sole occupant stood at one firing line booth, his back to me, silhouetted in gunsmoke fog painted red by range lighting. Ord’s ear protectors were in place not, I supposed, because mere pistol fire could make him flinch but because protectors were regulation. Ord would sooner break his arm than regs.

I touched his starched utility sleeve and he turned his head, his pistol, empty with the slide locked back, still pointed downrange.

“Up early for Sunday, Sergeant Major.”

He nodded at my sweaty shirt as he peeled off his ear protectors. “As is the general.”

I looked at the pistol and cocked my head.

“Project of mine, sir.”

It was an ancient, blocky automatic, a.45-caliber M-1903. Blue steel, with walnut custom grips.

“Been a while since that’s been regulation.” Not 150 years, though. A Service.45 was hell to aim, kicked like a mule, but it hit hard, so some specialized units had used it well into this century.

Ord passed his hand over the booth remote and his target groups popped onscreen three feet in front of us. The center of each Slug silhouette was completely shot away, but ragged pinpricks also ringed the hit zone.

Ord popped a round from the fresh magazine clipped to his shoulder holster and plopped it in my palm. Instead of the blunt, coppery bullet I expected, the cartridge’s business end was a lengthwise-striated cylinder, like a brass wheat shock. I raised my eyebrows.

“Flechette round, sir.” Ord pointed at the round’s tip. “Ninety-five brass needles in a heat-intolerant matrix. The matrix vaporizes as the round travels down the barrel. At ten yards”—he traced the target’s vanished center with his index finger—“the pattern spreads to eight inches wide. Effective at close quarters against massed Pseudocephalopods.”

I shrugged. “Or it would have been.” I fingered the pinprick sprinkle that surrounded the grouping. “Good thing it’s for shooting Slugs. One of these needles wouldn’t stop a man.”

“Exactly, sir. In close-quarters battle, GIs in Eternad armor wouldn’t need to worry much about hitting one another, but Slug armor’s glorified cardboard. Besides, sir, the kinetic energy in one of those needles at a.45’s muzzle velocity is considerable. Small object, but high speed.”

I trampolined the round in my palm. “Did we ever get flechette for the M-20?”

Ord nodded, then flicked the slide lever and broke the.45 into cleanable pieces. “The round wasn’t ready when Hope embarked, but our division rifleman’s basic load is flechette every fourth magazine. Once the chemists perfected the matrix, even a cook like me could hand-load rounds for other weapons like this.”

I sighed. Professional soldiers like Ord actually liked guns. I had the same off-duty interest in designer bullets as I had in needlepoint. How could Judge March and Ord and General Cobb think I was born to be a soldier? “Sergeant Major, what do we do now?”

Ord stroked his baby with a bore brush. “I plan a bit more PT, a leisurely breakfast. An excellent holo remastery of Sergeant York begins at oh-nine-hundred on the recreation deck. And of course there’s duty paperwork—”

I tossed my head at the ship all around us. “I mean all of us. Now that the war’s over.”

He cradled his.45 into its Neoplast travel box. “What soldiers always do, sir. Whatever our country needs.”

“That’s my point. There’s no war. Who needs us? My troops feel it, too. Half of ’em have gained fifteen pounds, no matter how much PT we schedule. The other half have lost fifteen pounds.”

Ord nodded. “The gainers are rewarding themselves for surviving. The losers are depressed, guilty that they survived when their buddies died. Some of the depressed ones will suffer long-term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” He eyed my T-shirt and arched an eyebrow. “The general has a foot in both camps.”

I tugged my shirt hem down over my navel. “I’ve put on five.” I also lay awake for hours wondering why I had survived, and self-flagellated with extra PT to punish myself for it, which was probably why I had only gained five pounds. But as a commander I hadn’t discussed my angst with anyone. I frowned. Ord read minds. “So, what do I do with the guilty ones?”

“Keep them busy. This long crossing is a blessing. Most of them will get over their disorientation before they butt up against reality.”

“And those who don’t?”

Ord blinked. Then he stared at my blooming love handles. “If the general cares for company, we can double-time to the gym together.”

Perhaps because he read trainees’ minds, Ord always gave me credit for reading his. This time, as usual, it took me too long to catch his drift.

SEVEN

ONE TROOP I DIDN’T HAVE TO KEEP busy was Howard Hibble’s. Not when his Spooks had more dead, frozen Slugs to poke and slice than Texas had chili.

We were ten months out from Jupiter. Jude Metzger had learned to stand, if he had something to lean on.