“Seems like a waste of space to me,” Glade said. “Now if you want to see something really impressive, you should see what the Army has done with the capitol building. They have turned that place into a world-class command center. That’s where all the real work gets done.
“This here is my office,” he added as he opened the wood-paneled door. “I spent six years assigned to the Pentagon before the Civil War broke out. I visited the offices of each of the Joint Chiefs; none of them had an office like this.”
Glade’s office was thirty feet long and thirty feet wide. He had a glass-and-pewter desk, glass shelves with recessed lighting, a white marble crown below the ceiling, and hand-annotated battle maps taped to the wood- paneled walls. Rows of leather-bound books stood in the bookshelves, and a line of fancy liqueurs rested on the ledge over the wet bar. The rug was burgundy red and more than an inch thick; the soles of my shoes sank into its cut-pile depths.
“Do you know where they got the name ‘Valhalla’?” Glade asked.
“That was Viking heaven,” Moffat said. “That was the home of the Norse gods.” He had a smirk on his face that said, “You don’t get an education like that in clone orphanages.”
“Good, Moffat. Did you take humanities in the academy?” Glade asked.
“Yes, sir,” Moffat said.
I, too, had read a little Norse mythology. Unlike the gods of the Greek and Roman eras, the Norse gods could die. They expected to ultimately lose the battle of good and evil. I did not volunteer that information.
I did not know what to say, so I remained silent.
“Do you have any questions, Lieutenant?” Glade asked.
“No, sir,” I said.
“As I understand it, Admiral Brocius briefed you about our situation, is that right?”
I looked over at Moffat. He tried to give me a threatening glare, but it looked more imploring than menacing. “I understand a friend of mine has been sent here as a civilian advisor.”
“You mean Freeman,” Glade said. “Admiral Brocius tells me that you’ve worked with him before.”
“He’s a friend of yours?” Moffat said. “Interesting piece of work …I thought his kind was extinct.”
Glade glared at Moffat. “What do you mean, Lieutenant?”
“Have you seen him? He’s a black man. An African. There aren’t supposed to be races anymore, but Freeman, his skin is black as tar.”
The room went silent for several seconds before Glade spoke up. “Is there a point you wish to make, Lieutenant Moffat?”
“No, sir,” Moffat said. Thickheaded as he was, he was bright enough to know that he had just stepped on a land mine.
“Ever heard of Shin Nippon?” Glade asked. Everybody knew about Shin Nippon, the all-Japanese colony. After the role Shin Nippon played in ending the Civil War, the U.A. Senate allowed the racially pure people of Shin Nippon to form a nation within a nation and settle the Japanese islands on Earth. “Welcome to the twenty-sixth century, Marine. Races still exist, and will exist as long as there are humans to preserve them.”
“Yes, sir,” Moffat said. “I don’t trust Freeman.”
Not trusting Ray Freeman was another story. He and I had been partners for two years, and he still made me nervous. He was smart, dangerous, and silent, a man who radiated intensity and seldom spoke. I had seen him kill enemies for money and revenge …and maybe for the fun of it. I once saw him glue a live grenade to a man’s hand and pull the pin. When I first met Freeman, I thought he had no allegiance to anyone but himself; but I was wrong. He never fought against the Unified Authority.
“What do you think of Freeman?” Glade asked me. He cleared his throat again.
“I’d trust him with my life,” I said.
“Just you keep that bastard out of my line of sight,” Lieutenant Moffat warned.
“You know, Moffat, I’ve been trying to play nice with you,” Glade said. “I came out and caught you browbeating your XO for no apparent reason, and I tried to warn you that Lieutenant Harris is not an officer to be pushed around—but here you are, doing it again.
“I tried to be diplomatic with you, but now I think I’ll just be frank. I would put you on permanent KP duty till this war is over, but I don’t want to risk you poisoning my men. That leaves me very few other options.
“Against my better judgment, I am going to trust you to conduct yourself in a manner befitting an officer in the Marines. If you do not live up to my expectations, I will be forced to either bust you down to private, put you in the brig, or have you shot. Any one of those options would be fine by me.” He cleared his throat again; this time I was almost sure it was for emphasis. “Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant Moffat?”
“Yes, sir,” Moffat said.
“Harris, Brocius says to let you and your platoon prosecute this war any way you see fit. You want tanks or air support, I’m supposed to provide it, no questions asked. I can’t make many promises, but I do promise to protect you from hotheaded officers; and I will give you whatever support that I can.
“Don’t expect me to dig you out if you speck up. You do what you think is best, but if you get yourself captured, don’t expect me to risk men pulling your ass out of the fire.”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Last I heard, the boys in Intelligence think we still have a few hours before this shooting match begins. Do you have any plans?” Glade asked.
“I want to run some recon, sir,” I said.
Glade nodded. “Recon? We have every inch of this planet mapped, scaled, and under electronic surveillance. We have this planet so wired that the rabbits in the woods can’t so much as fart without us listening in. What can you possibly hope to accomplish?”
“Sir, if I can locate the enemy’s launch point, I may be able to determine numbers, logistical clusters, maybe vulnerabilities …” I said. “I want to see if I can come in behind the enemy.”
“I believe the general just warned you not to get caught,” Moffat scowled, a grin on his lips.
“Excuse me, sir, but I believe he said he would not pull my ass out of the fire if I did get caught. I don’t intend to get caught.”
“No one intends to get caught,” said Moffat.
“We could get some good intel if this works. And if I do get caught, at least we’ll know we’re dealing with an alert and dangerous enemy,” I said.
“Not bad, Harris. Not bad,” Moffat said with transparent respect.
“Tell you what, Harris. The Navy set up a full-scale Science Lab just a few miles from here at the University of Valhalla. You go out there and do what you need to do, and you bring in one of those bastards. You bring one in alive.” Glade cleared his throat. “You bring us a live one, so the boys in the lab have something to play with.
“You do that, Harris, and I’ll put every man in your platoon down for a chestful of medals when this is over. I’ll tell you what, you bring me one of those bastards, and my wife and I will have your whole platoon out to the house for a barbecue.” Glade sounded excited. I got the feeling that he liked the idea of the Marine Corps bringing in the first prisoner.
“Your house? Are you from Valhalla originally?” I asked. With few exceptions, officers—the black-sheep children of politicians and bureaucrats who either could not cut it in school or in the political arena—came from Earth families.
“They set up housing for officers’ families. They’re calling it the ‘Hen House.’ ” Glade sounded somber. “Moffat, you’re a married man.”
“Yes, sir,” Moffat said.
“You brought your wife?”
“Yes, sir,” Moffat said.
I saw a chilling implication. Why shouldn’t the officers bring their families? If we lost here, their families would be as good as dead on Earth.
Glade cleared his throat once more, softly this time, the sound mostly muffled. “I guess that’s all I have to
