Orphan's Alliance (Jason Wander) (6 page)

Howard shook his head. “Before we know it, we’ll be trying to make sense of this to the Washington people.”

I stared at the flatscreen on the bulkhead forward of us, which showed the cockpit view over Mimi’s shoulder, as her fingers flew over changing touchscreen panels.

Hydraulics whined behind us, as the transport levered onto its tail. I closed my eyes against the cabin lights and belched up the taste of stale wine. “All of whom know so little about what we do out here that they think the Easter Bunny brings Cavorite. Why do you think I got drunk?”

“PULL OFF HERE.”I pointed as the Staff Pool four-door sped toward the Potomac Tunnel, three feet behind the sedan in the Guidelane in front of us. The car said, “Last exit before Virginia. Manual Guidance required one half mile after exit.”

The private on my left cocked his head, and pointed down the Guideway as it descended beneath the river. “But sir, the Pentagon’s straight—”

“I need to make a stop.”

“Yes, sir.” He punched us off, then held his hands above the wheel while the Happi slid itself across three lanes of buzzing traffic and into the off-ramp.

The kid had been puzzled enough at a two-star who was young enough to be his brother, didn’t ride in the back, and didn’t make him hold the door open. He was more puzzled when we pulled up in front of a cluster of wooden buildings, which had been “temporary” since World War II. I hopped out before he could dash around to open my door, then turned back to him. “I’ll be an hour. Grab a coffee or a nap.”

He smiled. “Yes, sir.”

I didn’t need a nap. I had spent my first night back on Earth sleeping off five jumps in as many weeks, and I had two hours before I reported to my boss at the Pentagon, just across the Potomac from this place, which was the Army Officers Personnel Directorate.

AOPD didn’t take walk-ins, to discourage officers from dropping in to wheedle and lobby for better assignments. But stopping by to greet an old friend was just GI courtesy. Nd l

I hadn’t seen Lieutenant Colonel Druwan Parker since he and I bunked together in Basic, during the Blitz. He set a half-eaten doughnut back on a paper plate, then lifted a cane from the chair alongside his desk. He motioned me to sit in the chair, while he laid the cane, which had forced him behind desks throughout his career, alongside it. Tall metal drawered boxes, the kind that held paper files, lined the walls. The place even smelled of real paper.

I pointed at his leg. “They can fix that now.”

“Soldiers with low IQs and two good legs get dangerous jobs. Look at you.” He grinned, teeth white against his skin.

I leaned forward. “That’s what I dropped by here to talk about.”

“What a surprise. Most officers just drop by here for the doughnuts.” He punched up my file on a manual keyboard that looked as old as the building, and stared into the pages as the images flickered in the air between us. “You’re up for rotation next month.”

I nodded. “I was thinking, you know, something close to home.”

Parker wrinkled his nose. “The Pentagon? You hate paper pushing.”

“Not a staff job.”

He punched through pages. “Your Officer Efficiency Reports say you’re suited for unconventional ops. Why do you want to stay home all of a sudden?”

“Family matters.”

“You’re an unmarried orphan.”

“The Army’s my family. Can you get me a division?”

Parker snorted. “Dream on. Every two-star in the Army wants his own division.”

“Every two-star in the Army didn’t bunk with you, Druwan.”

Parker sighed, leaned back in his chair, then swiveled it and squinted into his back screen. “Jason, if you wanted your own division, you should’ve got your ticket punched right. You’ve ridden dinosaurs. But you’ve never overseen a staff preparing for an annual three six-three dash five.”

“What’s a three six-three dash five?”

“I rest my case. Compare that to Stump Peavey. He angled for the right jobs. He got commanders to write him fat OERs, for ten years. All so he could get the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, when that slot opens up next month. Last posting before he retires down there, close to home.”

“Stump’s earned it. He’s a good officer.”

“Was. He had a mild stroke two days ago. This morning he elected early retirement. Nobody knows it yet, but Third I.D.’s unexpectedly looking for a two-star to command it.”

I rocked back and frowned. Stump, like every other general in my class at the War College, was old enough to be my uncle. His wife sent me cookies every Christmas, like a favorite aunt, and I sent them a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. “I didn’t know. How is he?”

“Hund Ssiz Jared percent recovery projected. But somebody’s gonna have to fill that slot right away.”

I stared into my hands. Waiting wouldn’t help Stump. “So I’m first on the list to request it.”

“You know it isn’t that simple.”

“Do what you can.”

Parker nodded, then screwed up his face as he punched in data. “Family matters, huh?”

“It does.”

Fifty minutes later, I sat down across a Pentagon desk from my boss. Behind him on standards hung the streamered colors of the units he had commanded, and the place smelled of coffee and old leather. Lieutenant General Nathan M. Cobb had been my boss off and on since I was a Specialist Fourth Class and he commanded the Ganymede Expeditionary Force.

He said, “You look good, Jason.” He always told visitors they looked good, to put them at ease. Even the ones like me who already knew he could see better with Virtulenses than naturally sighted people with glasses. Then he adjusted the humming Virtulenses on his spare cheekbones. He waved at his desk reader. “Got your report this morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me more about this General Planck.”

“His troops love him. Tactically and strategically brilliant. Even the Iridians respect him.”

Nat Cobb nodded, waved his hand. “You’ll get to elaborate later.”

“Sir? I can go into detail now if—”

“Jason, why do you want to command the Third Infantry Division?”

I rocked back in my chair. “Sir? How did you—”

He waved a hand as thin as a rooster claw. “A blind man survives in Washington by seeing more than other people. Well?”

“I dunno.” That didn’t sound like the response of a leader who deserved to command ten thousand soldiers and a military reservation as big as Liechtenstein. “My career portfolio has to be broadened to maximize my value to the Army. And—”

General Cobb covered his ears with his palms. “Save the moose shit. Jason, commanding a Division in garrison is mostly lunch speeches to the local Lions Club. And persuading troops that a five-percent increase in mechanized equipment upchecks is important.”

“Those things
are
important!”

“Knowing things are important doesn’t make an officer good at doing them. Commanders like Stump Peavey actually find assignments like that fun. Tell me you do and you’re a liar.”

I stared down at the floor. “If I wanted fun, I wouldn’t have stayed in the infantry. I commanded a half million troops and saved a planet. But I can’t handle the Lions Club?”

“Jason, when things go wrong, there’s no soldier I’ve ever commanded Svert="that I trust more than you to make them right. But if you don’t like the window you’re looking into, your eyes wander.”

General Cobb slapped his palms on his knees and sighed. “Alright. Assuming, which you shouldn’t for one minute, that I might let you break your pick attempting a job that fits you like garters fit a goat, tell me why you want to try.”

I squirmed in my chair. “You know Sharia Munshara Metzger and I served together.”

He turned his face to the ceiling. “The Munchkin. Shorter than her machine gun, but that gal could shoot the ass off a flea at six hundred yards.”

I smiled. Nat Cobb was a GI’s general, who remembered every soldier he ever commanded, or so the story went. Of course, it was easier for a general to remember a soldier who now held a seat on the House Armed Services Committee.

“Munchkin’s son is my godson. His father was my best friend.”

Nat Cobb nodded. “Jude’s had his problems. Most ex-POWs do.”

“I’m getting too old to call the Army my only family. I’ve spent most of my career overseas or Extra-T. I’d like to spend some time around my godson.”

“Separation from family comes with this job, Jason.” He walked around his desk, then rested a hand on my shoulder. He stood still for ten heartbeats, then nodded. “But maybe we can squash two toads with the same rock. When we get to the Tank this afternoon—”

“The Tank?” Hair stood on my neck. The Tank was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Conference Room. In two prior Pentagon tours, I’d spent nine whole minutes in the Tank.

“You think I’m the only person in Washington who read your report? Anyway, after you finish your presentation, just behave out of character for once.” He wagged his finger in my direction. “Meaning you shut your pie hole, except to follow my lead.”

Nat Cobb fumbled behind himself until he found the edge of his desk, then leaned back against it. I sighed. I was back in Washington. Where there was nothing odd about following the lead of a blind man.

PEOPLE EXPECT THETank to be some subterranean Batcave, with 360-degree flatscreen animated wall maps, and battalions of field-grade officers pointing at holos of every trouble spot on Earth, and, lately, off it.

Actually, the Tank in 2061 was what it had been, on and off, for a century: a large, soundproofed conference room on the first floor of the Pentagon, just inside the Potomac River entrance. In the Tank’s center stood a mahogany conference table that dated back one hundred years, now with a holo gen carpentered into its center. Military-subject oil paintings, which got changed out to suit the taste of the current chairman, hung on the walls. By tradition, one, a rendering of Eisenhower being knighted at Westminster Abbey, never changed.

Batcave or not, with all the brass in the room, the armpits of my uniform shirt were damp by the time the chairman finished introducing the other Vh as whose elbows touched the mahogany. On my prior visit to the Tank, I had occupied a horse holder’s chair along the wall.

Much in the room would have surprised Eisenhower. The holo gen, of course. And the addition to the Joint Chiefs of the Admiral commanding the United Nations Space Force, which was for practical purposes a branch-level U.S. outfit eye-to-eye with the Air Force and Navy. But Ike, who coined the phrase “military-industrial complex,” would have understood the makeup of the table’s placeholders for this meeting. The chief of each service branch got a seat, and the chairman, of course.

A Defense undersecretary, who had been a lobbyist for Lockheed, the Kodiaks’ manufacturer, filled one seat.

In another seat sat an undersecretary from the State Department, who had dreamed up the Kodiaks-for-Peace scheme in the first place. State had then negotiated with the United Nations to borrow the U.N. name for the mission. In return for which the U.S. would quietly bear the entire cost, and would take all the blame if things went wrong, for the “multinational effort.” But the U.N. would reap all praise and honors if the mission succeeded. If I can ever sell a used car to a State Department negotiator, I’ll be able to retire on the overpayment.

In the three remaining chairs at the table sat the Headline Act: Howard Hibble, General Cobb, and me. When I finished my brief, the undersecretary of Defense asked me, “This operation has proved that Outworlders can be trained to operate modern weapons systems?”

I cocked my head. “Depends on the Outworlders and the weapons systems. The Tressens are familiar with motor vehicles. A tank’s a tank, especially when it does the thinking, and we do the maintenance for them. But, say, aircraft, remotely piloted or manned? Too radical. Tressens haven’t even seen birds.”

“But the advanced Outworlds can handle advanced weapons?” the undersecretary pressed. He had a law degree, and he was leading his witness. But witnesses can’t object.

“The advanced Outworlds, yes.” The sad truth about the grandiose-sounding Human Union was that most of the Outworlds’ orphan humans, as my first grade teacher told my mother when they considered flunking me, needed “the gift of time to mature.” Lots of time.

For example, Weichsel was a planet that the Slugs had abandoned millennia ago, leaving behind human strays. We stumbled across Weichsel three jumps out. Weichsel resembled Earth about 10,000 BC, complete with ice and mastodons, and its humans hadn’t progressed much beyond fire. The humans didn’t have a name for their place. They barely had names for fire and mastodons, so we called their planet after the Weichselan glaciation in Scandinavia. The Weichselans didn’t actually sign the Human Union Charter. The State Department sort of assumed they wanted to join the Union because nobody threw sticks at the survey ship.

I said, “Tressens, and to a lesser extent, the Bren, are teachable, and some contemporary machines don’t spook them. But they don’t have the infrastructure or technology to maintain, much less copy, hovertanks. Much less hurt one another with discarded ones.”

The undersecretary nodded.

eigight="0%" width="4%">I said, “If you don’t mind my opinion, after the Armistice, we should have left the Kodiaks on Tressel to rust in the rain. They’re expensive hardware. Shipping them to Tressel was even more expensive. But instead of re-orbiting two hundred thousand tons of vehicles, support equipment, and fuel, we would have saved the taxpayers a fortune if we had destroyed the equipment in place. And now the taxpayers are footing the additional bill to ship them the rest of the way home.”

Somebody asked, “Who said anything about shipping them back here?”

Before I had time to decipher that question, the commandant of the Marine Corps asked, “What kind of Officer Efficiency Report would you write for Planck, if you had to?”

“Promote ahead of contemporaries. Tops. He grasped the Kodiaks’ potential to reshape the battlefield faster and better than the Tressen General Staff.”

I stopped short of saying, “You know how General Staffs are.” But a few of the brass still scowled.