The Officers’ Club had been a storage building for construction equipment, so it had plenty of room, though it was short on furniture. Some bright engineering crew had made a bar from a row of Tahni cargo containers covered by plastic doors salvaged from the wreckage. Barstools were actual Tahni chairs, and I guess there were advantages to going to war with another bipedal humanoid. The liquor was synthahol made in a food processing unit, the lowest common denominator of anything drinkable, but no one was complaining.
Vicky was waiting for me when I arrived, sitting at the bar, nursing a plastic cup with some sort of mixed drink and a forlorn expression.
“Hey,” I said, leaning over to kiss her, not bothering to check who was watching. They could put the Article-15 right next to my silver star. One of my silver stars. I frowned at her expression. “Everything okay?”
“I love you, Cam,” she told me, “but if you think I’m remotely okay, you’re worse at understanding women now than you were when I first met you.”
I shaped a silent whistle and sat down beside her, waving at the corporal tending bar.
“Whatever you have that’s closest to tequila,” I told him before I turned back to Vicky. “So, spill. What is it? You lose somebody on your last patrol?” I hadn’t heard about any casualties in the Drop-Troopers the last few days, but sometimes the brass didn’t want that kind of thing spread around.
“I haven’t been on any patrols,” she ground out, downing half of her drink in one gulp to punctuate the sentence.
“What?” My face screwed up in confusion. “But I saw the patrol roster. I know Alpha went out twice already.”
“And Lt. Webster conveniently found administrative work that had to be done back here at the FOB both times, and assigned me to complete it.” The bartender brought my drink and I paid for it with my ‘link. “Another sonic screwdriver,” Vicky told him, motioning with her empty cup.
“Webster is Alpha’s XO?” I asked.
“Was,” she corrected me. “Since Cronje blew his brains out, Webster is acting company commander.” She shrugged. “He makes all the right noises about how Captain Cronje was troubled and made mistakes, but he still holds his suicide against you and, by extension, against me. He doesn’t trust me and he’s doing everything he can to undercut me.”
“Shit,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, Vicky. Maybe I could talk to Geiger. She was no fan of Cronje’s. She could light a fire under Webster’s ass.”
She laughed softly, the sound touched with bitterness.
“And tell her what? That your girlfriend is whining about not being sent out on patrol? Even if she did say something to him, it would probably just make things worse. I have to just ride this out.” She shrugged. “It probably won’t last long after we pull out of here, whenever that is. When we’re dropping on Tahni-Skyyiah, it’s going to be all hands on deck. And if we survive that….” She knocked on the plastic of the bar top, pretending it was wood. “…then this will all be over.” A faint smile tugged the edges of her frown up and she put her hand on top of mine, interlacing our fingers. “We can find that little, quiet colony world and figure out how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives.”
I nodded, then grabbed my cup and downed the tequila in a single gulp, which is mostly what tequila is good for. The drink helped to hide the gulp. This wasn’t, I decided, a good time to tell Vicky about my conversation with General McCauley.
“Until then,” she went on, “I’ll just keep my head down and do my job.” She laughed. “Maybe I should ask for a transfer to your company.”
“Oh, God,” I moaned, setting the cup down, wishing it was glass so I could slam it with some authority. “Vicky, I was just starting to figure out how to be a damned platoon leader. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t know why they put me in charge.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” she accused, punching me in the chest. And it hurt. That woman knew how to punch. “You started out in our platoon as a damned private and every single time you’ve been promoted and given any responsibility, I always hear that same song and dance, that you don’t know what you’re doing.” She snorted. “Yeah, right, you’re so damned incompetent that you have a Bronze Star and a Silver Star….”
“Two Silver Stars,” I corrected her, shrugging. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about that, either. “Geiger put me in for one for the spaceport, and General McCauley told me he’s going to approve it.”
“Jesus, give me strength,” she pleaded, rolling her eyes. “Two Silver Stars, and you came up with the plan for probably the only covert op the brass ever let Drop-Troopers run in the whole war when you were a squad leader. So, Cameron Alvarez, I don’t want to hear you tell me again how you don’t know what you’re doing, or how you won’t be able to handle this. Bullshit. When they finally throw something at you that you can’t handle, I want to be there to see it, because it hasn’t happened yet.”
“The Skipper was a legend, Vicky,” I protested. “How the hell do you replace a legend?”
“Just look out for your people. Whether it’s a fire team or a company or the whole damned brigade, look out for your people and accomplish the mission without wasting them. That’s what the Skipper always did.” She checked the time on her ‘link and sighed. “Shit. I have to be up in
