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CHAPTER 5

THE NEWS WE RECEIVED AT REVEILLE FORMATION Monday morning came as a bombshell. Immediately after breakfast, we would be packing field gear to shuttle to central Africa for a major exercise that would last the entire week. Our role would be as the aggressor force attempting to “liberate” the exercise area from the “enemy”—in this case, 3rd Combined Regiment, which was training for its first combat campaign. Our detailed briefing would take place during the shuttle trip.

“What in the hell does the general think he’s doing?” I asked Tonio as we walked toward the mess hall. Besides the general dissatisfaction I felt with the way things had been going, I had a bit of a hangover after spending most of the weekend trying to forget how miserable I felt. “And how’d he manage to keep it secret until the last minute?”

“I don’t know,” Tonio said through clenched teeth. “I heard about it the same time you did.” He sounded more than a little miffed at that, as if no one was permitted to keep secrets from him. Well, I imagine he had a hangover as well. We had done a lot of our drinking together, trying to make up for the weeks when we hadn’t had time for serious drinking.

“He’s just asking for trouble, dropping something like this on us without warning,” I said. “The way the men are now, they need to be prepared for an exercise.”

* * *

THERE WERE MORE THAN THE USUAL NUMBER OF snafus getting the regiment loaded, even though we were taking only the essentials—and leaving Heavy Weapons Battalion and its self-propelled guns and rocket launchers behind. We weren’t going by ship; the shuttles would take us to the exercise area. It should have taken ninety minutes to get the entire regiment off the ground. It took twice that. The first shuttles to take off spent so much time circling overhead waiting for the rest that they had to land and refuel, which started the problems cascading.

The shuttle crews weren’t the problem. They weren’t part of the regiment, so they hadn’t been under the regimen of training and discipline we had. They did their job. The problems were all with the men on the ground, and the mistakes ran at least to battalion level. I guess officers get worn-out and worn down the same as those of us on the bottom of the heap.

But for all the problems we had getting started, that phase of the operation was the high point of the exercise. Once we hit the ground in Africa, it all hit the fan. The only good thing anyone could say about that exercise was that nobody got killed.

Our zone of operations was in a heavily forested, mountainous region—one of the few relatively uninhabited areas of interior Africa left. Our landing zones were spread out along a forty-mile arc. Not one unit in the regiment got from its LZ to its initial objective in anything near the time that the schedule allotted. In company after company, men either failed to go as fast as they were supposed to—and the schedule was tighter than it should have been, considering the terrain and the work the regiment had put in over the past month—or they managed to get themselves “lost” if their officers didn’t keep a constant check on their heading. Apparently, there were more than a few officers who didn’t bother to keep a close eye.

I don’t believe that it was—in any way—an organized … “work action,” I think they call it in civilian labordisputes. If anyone had tried to organize soldiers to do something like that, they would have been guilty of inciting to mutiny. In wartime that’s a hanging offense, even in Earth’s armies. The porracci army wouldn’t have let anyone guilty of that off so easily. They have no compunctions against “cruel and unusual” punishments.

The work slowdown, or however you characterize it, wasn’t all that happened. One line company simply surrendered to the first unit of 3rd Combined Regiment they encountered. On smaller levels a number of platoons and squads did the same thing, as did a dozen or more individuals, making no pretense of simulating the fight we had been ferried halfway around the world for.

We landed just before sunset. By midnight, it was clear that the exercise was a total shambles. An hour later, we received orders from regimental headquarters to stand down, to make camp where we were. The exercise was over.

WHERE FIRST PLATOON, B COMPANY, RANGER Battalion was at when the order came was on a thirty-degree slope halfway up a hill that rose a thousand feet over the valley below. There wasn’t anything vaguely resembling level ground within a quarter mile.

“We bed down here,” I told my men. “Try to find positions where you won’t roll to the bottom of the hill in your sleep.” We were beyond jokes or gripes—and that showed just how bad morale was. No one asked questions or grumbled about the difficulties of sleeping on the slope. Robbie was the first to demonstrate how it could be done, lying uphill of a tree, feet against the trunk. He staked his pack down with his bayonet on one side and dug the blade of his entrenching tool into the ground on the other.

Once my people were situated, and I had spotted a position for me, I looked around, hoping to spot Tonio, but he had been called off to a meeting. That wasn’t unexpected. Hell get the word and come back to pass it on to the squadleaders, I thought. Then we’ll know just what the hell is going on.

I sat down, uphill of a good tree, and started to arrange my gear so that neither it nor I would roll down the hill. I took several minutes to get everything just so, wasting time while I looked toward the company command post. I could see the group clustered around Captain Fusik, so I would know when the meeting broke up. Finally, I lay on my side, but kept my eyes open. That meeting lasted more than twenty minutes. As soon as I saw Tonio heading back toward the platoon area, I got up before he radioed for the squad leaders and walked to meet him.

“We head back to the LZs at first light, then return to Kentucky as soon as the shuttles come in,” was how Tonio started the conference once the squad leaders had gathered. Even though we were face-to-face, he used the radio, speaking over a circuit that was limited to him and the four squad leaders. “The regiment is in hot water over its head.” I knew Tonio. I could tell from his tone that he was deadly serious.

“We’ve got three hours until dawn,” he continued. “I want one squad leader awake, and alert, until then. Forty-five minutes apiece, right down the line, starting with you, Dragon.” I nodded. “Platoon sergeants are running the same rotation. So are the officers. Keep an eye on your men. We don’t want any problems. Let’s keep the rest of the night quiet and peaceful.”

No one asked questions. We were to watch our own men. That gave us plenty of hint as to what might have gone wrong on the exercise, but I was still surprised as I learned the whole story—or as much of it as got out—over the next few days.

I had the first watch. I went back to my squad and sat with my back against the tree trunk below my gear, my rifle across my lap. Since this was only an exercise, we hadn’t been issued ammunition, just laser simulators, but a rifle makes a dandy club, and if worse came to worst, I did have my bayonet—and my pistol, which I did have ammunition for. Not that I dreamed for a second that I might need a weapon—not in my squad, my platoon, my company. But the word mutiny kept tickling the edges of my mind.

After forty-five minutes I turned the watch over to Sergeant Chouvana, the porracci leader of second squad, and lay down. Although I was exhausted, I did not sleep, and I’m not certain that I ever closed my eyes—longer than the occasional blink. Not knowing exactly what had happened or what might happen before we got home had me fearing the worst, and it made me too nervous to sleep. Nothing like this had ever happened in my more than ten years in uniform. By the time dawn came and we were “wakened,” the only thing I was certain of was that all hell was going to break loose once we got back to Kentucky.

THERE WERE NO EXPLANATIONS IN THE MORNING. Captain Fusik said almost nothing to us, and the lieutenants were even quieter. We got up, ate a battle ration, formed up, then marched back to the landing zone where we had come in. The shuttles started landing a few minutes later. There was no waiting around for an aerial formation. As soon as a shuttle was loaded, it took off. When we landed at Fort Campbell, before dawn because of the time difference, we marched to the company area, handed in our weapons to the company armorer, and were dismissed.

Not one word was said about the early end of the exercise or what was going to happen as a result. The platoon went to the mess hall together for a proper breakfast, then returned to the barracks. No formation, no orders for the day. “Let the men get what rest they can until we hear different,” Tonio said, instructions that must have come from Captain Fusik, if not from higher up the chain of command.

After a quick shower, I went into my private room and lay down. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. The suspense was all but enough to have me pacing the ceiling like a fly. Fora time, I stared at the ceiling, listening, wondering if the men were saying anything in the squad bay—anything they might not want me to hear. Eventually, I shut my eyes and did breathing exercises to relax. I was tired, in need of sleep. An hour later I was still awake, so I got up and paced for ten minutes.

I considered putting a sleep patch on to force rest but didn’t. There was no way to know how long this “free” time would last. Once the brass got back we might get called out at any second, and patch-induced sleep might leave me too groggy to respond quickly. Besides, there was that other possibility—the one I was almost convinced couldn’t possibly happen, certainly not in 1st Combined Regiment—that there might actually be mutiny in the air.

If the history books are right, there hasn’t been a mutiny in Earth’s army in more than two hundred years, or in the armies of any of the human colony worlds in the Alliance of Light. I had no idea how long it might have been in the armies of the other species. Maybe mutiny isn’t so rare among porracci. Their system of fighting for promotion against the guy whose job you want strikes me as close to mutiny.

I DID DOZE, FITFULLY. WE WERE ALL SO FAR BEhind on sleep that my body finally got past the way my mind was worrying. But I didn’t get any deep sleep, and I guess I woke up half a dozen times. You don’t get much rest that way. It can almost be worse than no sleep at all.

It was past noon when the last units of the regiment got back. We were in the mess hall when someone came in and said that he had heard that the final shuttles had touched down.

“We can expect the axes to start dropping anytime now,” I said. My squad was sitting together at one table, a practice Colonel Hansen had insisted on months before—to get the integration of species within Ranger Battalion past thelast real roadblock, our tendency to gather by species off duty.

Only a few of my men bothered to look my way. The rest were more concerned with staring at the trays in front of them.

“Look, I don’t know what happened on this exercise,” I said, tapping my fork on my tray. That drew more eyes. “I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve gone through a lot of crap the last month and more. But we’ve gone through it together.”

“Have you heard anything at all?” Toniyi asked. Divotect always seem to have a hangdog expression, but that has nothing to do with mood. It’s just the way they’re built. Toniyi was perhaps the most taciturn of the men in the squad normally. I was surprised that he was the one who spoke.

“Nothing at all,” I said. “I don’t think even Captain Fusik knows much. But we’ll find out before long. If the general is back, we’re sure to hear something.” I was also certain it wouldn’t be anything we wanted to hear. Montgomery Jones had come in thinking we were trash, and we hadn’t been given much of a chance to show him differently. “Just remember, we’re in this together. We’ve shown what we can do when we’re given the chance, no matter what anyone says.”

THE MESSAGE THAT FINALLY CAME DOWN FROM regimental headquarters late that afternoon was not what I expected. There was no diatribe about the exercise. There were no threats of punishment, no increase in the already too-heavy training schedule. Quite the contrary, the word that came out of the general’s office was that—except for morning calesthenics—there would be no training or work details for the rest of the week. There would be no passes or leaves, and we would still stand the two normal morning formations, but after that we were basically on our own until Reveille the next morning.

“I don’t get it,” I told Tonio, when he gave me the orders. “Instead of jumping on us with both boots, they’re giving us the rest of the week off? What the hell is going on?”

Tonio gave me an expressive shrug of the shoulders. “It’s no crazier than the general trying to work us to death for a month,” he said. “Maybe the exercise was enough to show Jones the error of his ways.” I wasn’t certain if Tonio was being serious or sarcastic. Maybe he wasn’t sure himself. “I’m going to poke around, see if I can find anything out.”

“THEY’RE GIVING US ALL WEEK OFF?” NEVILLE ST. John said, when I gave the news to the squad. Slowly, the other members of the squad got to their feet, moving closer to me. It was the most alive they had acted in weeks.

“Except for Reveille and the morning work formation,” I said. “Don’t bother asking why ‘cause I don’t have any idea. My reaction was the same as yours. Don’t question it. We’re overdue for a break. Let’s make the best of it.”

“You mean before somebody sobers up and cancels it,” Robbie said.

“More or less,” I agreed. “Tell you what. Let’s all go to the EM club and I’ll buy the first round.” A couple of them almost smiled at that.

I ENDED UP BUYING THE FIRST TWO ROUNDS, BUT I didn’t have a second myself. I left the men looking halfway animated for a change and headed back to the barracks. Curiosity was racing through my mind so hard that I couldn’t enjoy the beer. Tonio wasn’t around, but a couple of the other platoon sergeants were, and I started asking questions. A few rumors were beginning to circulate—passed from sergeant to sergeant—a little of what happened in Africa, and a lot of speculation as to what might happen next. The news was fairly reliable. By thetime a man gets to be a sergeant he has generally learned to discriminate between idle rumors and those that have a likelihood of being accurate, and a sergeant often has fairly reliable sources of information, an informal network with other noncoms.

The rumor that piqued my interest most had nothing to do with the various shortcomings and misdeeds of our troops during the exercise. It was the flat statement that General Jones had not returned to Fort Campbell. His command shuttle had gone elsewhere, but no one seemed to know where. The order releasing us from training and work details for the rest of the week had come from Colonel Chop, the regiment’s ghuroh executive officer.

No one in the regiment saw General Jones the rest of the week. By Friday afternoon, we had heard most of the stories about what had happened during the aborted African exercise, the slowdowns, foul-ups, and so forth. There was an unconfirmed rumor that General Jones had been summoned to Lima, Peru, where the Combined General Staff had its headquarters on Earth.

Also on Friday afternoon, we were told that there would be no formations Saturday morning, and that everyone would be permitted passes from 1600 hours Friday until 0600 hours Monday. That came from regimental headquarters in a written order signed by Colonel Chop.

“Let’s not spoil this,” I told my squad before anyone could start changing into dress uniform or civilian clothes. “For whatever reason, we’ve caught a break. Don’t give the brass an excuse to lock us on base again.” I hoped the advice would take, but the men had a lot of steam that needed to be released.

I HAD A FAIRLY QUIET WEEKEND IN NASHVILLE. I got a hotel room, met the same lady who had given me a good time the last time I was there, and paid an outrageous sum to have her hang with me until noon Sunday. I got my money’s worth. I never got drunk that weekend, but I wasnever completely sober, either. By the time I got on the bus to head back to Fort Campbell, I was feeling more human than I had in quite a while. Mellow.

Most of the squad was back in the barracks before I got there late Sunday afternoon. Only Robbie and Neville were later getting in. Well, they were the only others in the squad who came from Earth. The rest weren’t human, let alone Terran. Neville let on that he had gone to Chicago for his weekend. He had a serious girlfriend there—something I hadn’t known before—and they were talking about marriage. Robbie had gone no farther than Gavin City, the built-up area across the road from base, but he had stayed until the last of his money was gone.

I can’t say that everyone acted the way they had before General Jones came to 1st Combined Regiment, but we were getting close. We were talking among ourselves again. It was a step in the right direction.

WE FELL OUT FOR REVEILLE MONDAY AND WENT through our normal morning exercises and a one-mile run before breakfast. Nothing was said about any change in plans, whether we were going to continue sloughing off or go back onto a training schedule. At 0800 hours, morning work formation was a full regimental job, instead of something done by company or battalion, with Colonel Chop standing on the reviewing stand in front of regimental headquarters. We went through the daily routine of submitting manning reports: “All present or accounted for, sir.” Then Colonel Chop gave us the “parade rest” command.

The colonel held a sheet of paper and read. “From: Chief of Staff, Combined General Staff, Grand Alliance. Effective immediately, Colonel Chop”—well, actually, he read his true name in the ghuroh language that tied the tongues of every other species in knots—”is promoted to the rank of brigadier general and will assume command of 1st Combined Regiment.”

Soldiers don’t applaud or cheer while they’re standing in formation, but I’m sure I wsn’t the only one who had to stop himself. To my left, I heard Robbie’s voice whisper, “I’ll be damned. The old bastard’s been canned.” I glanced along the row but didn’t tell him that he wasn’t supposed to talk in ranks. An officer who gets himself relieved of command that way has a black mark on his record that will follow him through the rest of his career—and shorten that career considerably.

General Chop handed the paper to an aide—giving us a full minute to absorb the news and turn our attention back to him. I looked around, more than I should have, trying to gauge reaction. I could see men moving a bit, not standing as stiffly as “parade rest” calls for, but I didn’t hear any sergeant or officer reprimanding anyone. The officers I could see close by—lieutenants and Captain Fusik—were doing more than a little rubbernecking of their own.

“We return to a normal training schedule this morning,” General Chop said. “Let me repeat, a normal training schedule, not the … accelerated schedule of the recent past. The new schedule has been distributed to each battalion and company. During this first week, there will be no night exercises. We will concentrate on the basics, at a normal pace.” I noted that he had used the word normal three times in five sentences. He spent a few seconds looking around, then braced to attention, gave us that order, and said, “Dismissed.”

AFTER TWO WEEKS, I WAS READY TO CONCEDE that it was for real. We were being treated like soldiers again, and the men responded. It took us most of those two weeks to get our timing back, but we were working like a team and not making so many mistakes. Disciplinary problems dropped back to pre-Jones levels. No information had filtered down yet about just what had happened to General Jones—why he had been relieved or where he had gone. After a month, General Chop used a regimental formation to tell us that he was pleased with our progress and that he was certain that within another few weeks we would be at the top of our form, better than the best we had shown in our first two combat assignments, “When you showed the worlds just how well we can work together,” was how he phrased it.

If was four days after that when the orders came in. The regiment was being sent offworld again. It looked as if it was time for us to get back into the war.


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