Cronje squawked with outrage, wobbling slightly as he got to his feet. He cast a pleading glance at Freddy, who was standing off to the side, staring between the two captains.
“Freddy!” he said. “You saw what happened! You’ll testify that she assaulted me, won’t you?”
I searched Freddy’s face and saw anger and disgust, though I wasn’t sure just yet who it was aimed at. Freddy Kodjoe’s lip curled in a scowl.
“I,” he declared, “didn’t see a Goddamned thing.” He turned to go back to his platoon, but paused next to me, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry, Cam. He wasn’t worth it.”
I wasn’t surprised to be called into the Brigade Commander’s office the next morning. If anything, I was surprised it took that long.
McCauley’s office was the exception to the rules the rest of us were under because he was a general and they make their own rules. We were in tabernacles, the Hebrews wandering through the desert for forty years, while McCauley had one of the few surviving administration buildings at the spaceport, the doors repaired from where Force Recon troops had breached them, air conditioning already installed along with a collection of folding, plastic desks and wheeled office chairs, and a very expensive overhead holographic projector.
“Lt. Alvarez here for the general,” I told the clerk in the front room of the office, walled off from the general’s private offices with a curtain because the Tahni didn’t have the same ideas about privacy that we did, apparently.
The clerk was a First Lieutenant, and I tried to imagine how I would feel going through the Academy, serving my time as a platoon leader…and then winding up filing reports and filtering appointments for a general. So, when the clerk scowled at me, I didn’t take it personally.
“Let me check and see if he’s available.”
I stood at parade rest in front of the man’s chest-high desk, savoring the smell of his hot coffee and wishing I’d had time to grab a cup to go before I’d been called here from the chow hall. I wasn’t a huge fan of coffee before the Marines, but at this point, I would have taken an IV drip of the stuff. He murmured something into his ‘link, then listened for a moment.
“Yes, sir,” he said, then his eyes flickered upward to mine, meeting them as briefly as possible, as if he was disappointed at the answer he’d been given. “You can go in.”
The divider was hard plastic, unfolding from one wall to another like an accordion, and the door was a part of it, just to give the office something more permanent than some flimsy curtain to push aside. I knocked, knowing it would be expected.
“Come.”
I sucked in a breath, steeling myself for what was to come, and pushed the door open.
“Close it behind you,” McCauley said, motioning to the door.
I shut it, then came to attention and saluted as sharply as I recalled how. It had been a while.
“Sir, Lt. Alvarez reports.”
He returned the salute quickly, which was better than I’d hoped for. When senior officers were upset, sometimes they’d make a junior officer or enlisted man hold the salute for a long time while they decided whether or not to release them.
“At ease, Alvarez,” he told me. “Have a seat.”
I sat upright, not quite at attention but not relaxed even one little bit. I was sure the next thing out of his mouth would be an order to tell him what I’d seen at the memorial, and when it wasn’t, I almost stumbled over my words, since everything I’d prepared was how to color the story to keep Top out of the brig.
“Alvarez,” he said, fingers intertwined on the desk in front of him, expression unusually pensive, “you’re getting bumped up to First Lieutenant. It’s a little early, but not that early. You’re going to be the permanent replacement for Phil Covington as Delta Company commander.”
Oh, okay. That’s what this is about.
I shifted mental gears and tried to think of something intelligent to say. “Thank you” didn’t seem right because I was absolutely certain I didn’t want the job.
“Yes, sir,” I said, instead. “If I may, sir, how are we handling my company XO and my replacement as platoon leader?”
He regarded me evenly, a hint of approval in his eyes as if I’d asked the question he’d expected.
“You have the choice of Lieutenants Cano or Kovacs for your XO. There are a few platoons out there who lost enough people that we’re folding them into other units and we’re going to draw platoon leaders off that pool. You’ll get two, one to replace you, one for your XO. I know you’re entirely missing Second Platoon, I read the reports, but that will have to wait for the replacements to arrive from Inferno. You’ll get a complete unit with a PL already in place before we ship out of here.”
I nodded, trying to figure out why I was here. Captain Geiger could have told me all this herself, and I was sure he had to have gone over it with her. Brigade commanders didn’t call lieutenants into their office just to discuss company business.
“Captain Geiger, by the way,” he went on, “is now Major Geiger, and she is the permanent replacement for Colonel Voss.” He waved a hand in a rolling motion. “And she’ll be picking her XO from among her senior company commanders, and getting replacements for them, etc.…”
He leaned back in his chair, regarding me with hooded eyes.
“I’m telling you this rather than her,” he finally clarified, “because I wanted to let you know that Major Geiger, now that she is your battalion commander, is putting you in for
