Lieutenant Colonel Read online

  “You don’t have to do everything the first twenty-four hours,” Sara said. “You’ll have months to get it all to your satisfaction. I know how far down on the rotas you are.”

  “New CO, new exec, new lead sergeant—Weil is retiring Friday, and I’m bringing Phip over to take the job. Bravo has a new company commander. Several new platoon sergeants and a new company lead sergeant. Two officer-cadets in the battalion. This and that. We’ve got to get in a lot of training before we’re back at the level where we need to be.”

  There was plenty of work that needed doing, but after Lon closed the link to Sara, he just sat and stared at the blank complink monitor, not even blinking for more than a minute. In that time, Lon’s mind was nearly as empty as the screen. Finally he shook his head, as if that might help clear away the sudden cobwebs. The day was far from over, and there had already been so much in it.

  Everything at once, he thought. All of the day’s events were fighting for his attention again. There was the agony he had seen in Matt Orlis, but that touched a raw nerve; Lon fought against thinking about that. Lieutenant colonel. Lon shook his head again. I thought it would be years before I made it.

  That put him back in command of troops, not merely a staff officer. Puts the load back on my shoulders, he thought, for a lot more men than ever before. Being second-in-command behind Matt Orlis had been soft duty most of the time. Now the decisions would be Lon’s, as well as the responsibility. More than eight hundred men. If I screw up on a contract, a lot of good people could pay the price. There was always that burden.

  “At least I’ve got the best batch of officers and sergeants anyone could hope for,” he said softly. He got up and walked over to the window. He opened the blinds and looked out. Barracks and sky. “And I had a good teacher.”

  That brought his thoughts back to Matt Orlis, but not the years that Lon had served under him as both climbed the ladder in the Corps. All he could see was the anguish on Matt’s face, thinking about the death of his son.

  That could be me someday, he thought, and he felt suddenly cold all over. Would I react any differently if Junior were killed on contract? It was a question he couldn’t—didn’t want to—answer.

  A change-of-command ceremony, in garrison, was a spectacle—with the scale increasing almost exponentially the higher the level of the change. The annual ceremony during which the newly elected General replaced his predecessor was as elaborate and ornate as any coronation of a hereditary monarch had ever been on Earth.

  The uniform of the day for the ceremony transferring command of 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment was full-dress. Since it was autumn, that meant iridescent blue-green tunics over dark green trousers with ceremonial swords for the officers, solid dark green tunics and trousers for enlisted men.

  Colonel Hiram Black, commanding officer of 7th Regiment, was present to formally hand 2nd Battalion over to the Corps’ newest lieutenant colonel, Lon Nolan. The DMC band was present, brilliant in scarlet and black uniforms, to play properly martial music for the ceremony. The men of 2nd Battalion stood at attention, ordered by platoons and companies, in ranks and files so straight they could have been used to lay out the foundation of a building. Families of married officers and sergeants had seats in temporary bleachers set up for the occasion. The families of the few married privates, lance corporals, and corporals had folding chairs, just a little farther than the other families from the platform where the handover would take place.

  To the strains of a stirring march, an honor guard arrived carrying the flags of Dirigent, the Corps, 7th Regiment, and that regiment’s 2nd Battalion. The flags were placed in stands at the rear of the platform. The officers of the honor guard—from other battalions in 7th Regiment—took up places at either side of the platform. The regimental chaplain offered an opening prayer, then introduced Colonel Black.

  Colonel Black spent ten minutes extolling the martial virtues of the retiring battalion commander, noting Matt Orlis’s length of service and the most notable of the combat contracts he had been part of. He mentioned the death of Matt’s son, the “great personal sacrifice” that all members of the Corps had to be prepared for. Then Colonel Black spent an equal time touting the new battalion commander, mentioning—almost with his first words—that Lon had come from Earth to join the Corps, going on to talk about his achievements, rapid promotion, and so forth, right to veiled comments about his most recent mission, though Earth was never actually mentioned.

  Next, Colonel Black read the text of the general order transferring command of 2nd Battalion from Orlis to Nolan. The captain who had carried the battalion’s flag reclaimed it from its stand as the band went into another snappy tune, and marched crisply up to Matt Orlis, who touched the standard briefly with both hands. The captain then carried the flag three steps, to Lon Nolan, who touched the standard the same way. Then the flag was returned to its place at the rear of the platform.

  Both lieutenant colonels saluted the colonel, who returned the salutes. The band segued into a different march while the three men exchanged handshakes and private words. The honor guard picked up the flags and started carrying them away, off to the left, to turn a corner—out of sight of the men of the battalion and their families—before dispersing.

  Lieutenant Colonel Lon Nolan was now commander of the battalion he had served in since joining the Dirigent Mercenary Corps—responsible for the lives, well-being, and performance of more than eight hundred men.

  4

  By Friday afternoon, three days after he had taken command of 2nd Battalion, Lon was telling himself that it had been the most difficult week of his life—worse than recruit training on Dirigent or Hell Week at The Springs on Earth. From six every morning until as late as eight or nine in the evening, it seemed to be hurry, hurry, hurry, one thing right after the other, never enough time, always a half dozen more items on the schedule.

  On Tuesday afternoon he had held an officers’ call for all of the officers under his command. There had been several meetings with staff officers and company commanders, meetings with the officers and noncoms of each company. He attended briefings at regiment. He read incoming reports, read and signed outgoing reports, dealt with planning the battalion’s training schedule for the next three months…and on and on.

  Each morning he had taken calisthenics with the battalion, including the two-mile run that always concluded the exercise session. When he could, he squeezed in an hour’s workout in the regimental gymnasium late in the afternoon. An officer in the Corps, no matter how high his rank, had to meet the same physical conditioning standards that a private—perhaps twenty years younger—had to. Lon worried that he had let himself get too far out of shape in the months he had been gone. On the ships he had traveled aboard and on Earth it had rarely been possible to get as extensive a workout as he would have liked. Now that he was back, he was anxious to correct the situation as quickly as possible. He had started his program the morning after returning, and kept it up even during the two and a half days in Bascombe East. Back on duty, he increased his demands on himself.

  As if he didn’t already have more than enough to do, twice during the week he took time away from base to look at cottages his parents might be interested in, properties Sara had already inspected and decided were good enough for him to consider.

  “I’m going to take off a couple of hours early today, Vel,” Lon told his executive officer shortly after lunch Friday. “We’re closing the deal on a place for my parents.”

  “Why not take off now?” Osterman suggested. They were sitting in Lon’s office, drinking coffee. “No use burning yourself out at the start. You’ve been driving hard all week. I can handle things until quitting time.” The major was three years older than Lon and had been in the Corps since the week of his eighteenth birthday. He had made captain shortly after Lon was commissioned as a lieutenant, and had only one promotion since, against the three Lon had won. Osterman’s progress in the Corps was far more nearly typical.

/>   Lon glanced at the timeline on his complink screen. “I told Sara I’d meet her at the realtor’s office at three. It’s not one-thirty yet.”

  “So stop at the officers’ club for a kiss-the-week-good-bye drink first,” Vel suggested. “Get out of here, away from the office. I’m serious. It’ll do you a world of good.”

  “We’re having company for dinner this evening, so I can’t start drinking now,” Lon said with a smile. He stretched, then stood. “But I guess I can get in fifty minutes at the gym.”

  • • •

  Lon did not try to deceive himself. Although he was still in excellent physical condition, he was not the athlete he had been as a teenager. No matter how conscientious he was about his training, every year saw an erosion in his numbers—as much as a half second off his best times for the mile, for example. It had been three years since he had broken the four-minute mile. At The Springs, when he was nineteen, he had come within three-tenths of a second of the world record for the distance. He had accepted that all he could hope to do was minimize the inescapable erosion that age brought to performance.

  He pushed himself hard for forty-five minutes, using several exercise machines, then running laps, attempting to match his last time for the mile. While he walked a final lap of the indoor track, cooling down, he thought about that. I’m not trying to beat my best, just trying to meet what I’ve done lately. He shook his head. Age. It catches up with all of us.

  “Comes a time to face it and move on,” he muttered. The average life span on Dirigent—ignoring the downward bias caused by military casualties—was 115 years, near life expectancy on most developed colony worlds. Most people remained healthy, active, even vigorous until very nearly the end. There simply came a time when nanomedical implants could not repair and regenerate tissue and organs as fast as they wore out, and the nanosystems started generating their own errors.

  Exercise, a shower, and vigorous toweling always served to help Lon relax and put aside his current worries. Even his preoccupation with the effects of aging on his physical capabilities did not survive the routine. By the time he was dressed, ready to leave, he had almost fully put aside his workday thoughts and was looking forward to meeting Sara and concluding the deal for a home for his parents.

  One of the perks of being battalion commander was that Lon was authorized a staff car and driver from the regimental motor pool. Both were waiting when he emerged from the gymnasium attached to regimental headquarters. Lon relaxed in the backseat. The driver knew where to take him. The realtor’s office was in the city, along Freedom Boulevard—the route mercenary units took to the spaceport when they were going out on contract.

  Sara was just getting out of a taxi when Lon’s driver pulled up to the curb behind it. “Good timing, Corporal,” Lon said before his driver got out to open the rear door.

  “Yes, sir,” the corporal said as he held open Lon’s door. “Just takes the right knack and a lot of luck.”

  “We shouldn’t be too long. This is all supposed to be ready for signatures.”

  “I’ve got nowhere else to go, Colonel,” the driver said.

  When Lon got home shortly after four o’clock, he changed into civilian clothes—loose shirt and trousers, and soft moccasins he had purchased on Earth. The tag had said “genuine Cherokee handcrafted,” but Lon was not convinced of the truth of that claim. It didn’t matter. They were comfortable, and as far from boots or dress shoes as he could get without going barefoot.

  Sara went into her busy mode, making final preparations for the evening’s dinner, drafting both Junior and Angie to help. That the guests would not arrive for two hours didn’t slow Sara at all, though there was little enough she needed to do. Lon made a perfunctory offer of help, which, predictably, was refused.

  Lon allowed himself a single mixed drink and nursed it while he watched the news feed on the entertainment console in the living room. After his long absence, he still needed to click over to background material to make sense of some of the ongoing stories. Almost a third of the DMC was off-world fulfilling contracts, most of which were training missions. Only one contract was for a full regiment, the 8th. They were en route to a world Lon had never heard of before…not an unusual occurrence.

  There was a paucity of other off-world news, and much of that was labeled as unconfirmed rumor. News traveled slowly through interstellar space, leaping from world to world with whatever ships happened to be leaving port, each transit aging the story by two weeks. One report that did have official confirmation, three months old, said that a son had been born to the Windsor king of the Second Commonwealth and his wife, on Buckingham. That carried the usual links to the history of the Second Commonwealth and the royal genealogy.

  “I’m going to get changed,” Sara announced a half hour before their guests were supposed to arrive. “Is that what you’re going to wear?”

  Lon glanced down at his clothing. “I planned to,” he said. “What’s wrong with it?”

  Sara hesitated before she said, “Oh, I guess it’ll do. It’s just not very appropriate for a battalion commander.”

  The laugh jumped out before Lon could stop it. “We’re not hosting the spring ball, dear,” he said. “Just an informal evening with friends.”

  Sara opened her mouth, then closed it—trying not to smile. She shook her head, then left.

  “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” Lon asked softly, with no one to answer.

  Twenty minutes later, Sara was back, looking as fresh as if she had spent the entire day primping for the evening. She was not wearing anything fancy, but still managed to look elegant—more so by comparison with the way Lon was dressed.

  “That’s why you thought I should be more formal,” Lon said as she pirouetted to give him the full effect.

  “You’ve got time to change, if you hurry.”

  “I don’t think so. My neck still chafes from wearing that high-necked dress uniform the other day. Look at it like this: The seedier I look, the better you look by comparison.”

  When the entertainment console beeped to signal someone at the door, Lon went to answer. Phip and his wife, Jenny, were there with their year-old daughter and Jenny’s brother, Kalko Green.

  “You’d better water Phip’s drinks tonight,” Jenny said as soon as the greetings were out of the way. “He’s already had to stick on one killjoy patch to sober up after the retirement party for Weil Jorgen.”

  “That’s sacrilege, love,” Phip said. “We never water our liquor. Goes against everything the Corps stands for. Besides, you’ve probably got enough killjoy patches in your purse to sober up the entire battalion.”

  They moved into the living room. Junior took the sleeping baby from Jenny Steesen and set her in the crib Sara had borrowed from a neighbor for the evening. Junior and Angie had volunteered—after only minimal coaxing—to tend little Mary Steesen while the adults had dinner; they had eaten earlier.

  Sara came out of the kitchen, and the greetings started over. Phip had known Lon years longer than he had known Sara, but Sara claimed credit for introducing Phip to his wife.

  It all went back to the court-martial. Nine years before, Kalko Green, then a private in the DMC, had been convicted of manslaughter for killing a sergeant who had been abusing him and threatening his young sister, Jenny. Lon had been one of the members of the court-martial. Afterward, Kalko had become something of a cause célèbre because of the court-martial testimony of his sister. Many people saw Kalko as more of a victim than the dead man—as a hero, even. Sara and a number of other officers’ wives (calling themselves the Committee for True Justice) had petitioned the General for clemency for Kalko, taking the case public and enlisting growing support—including four of the five members of the court-martial. It had taken nearly three years, but the case finally found a sympathetic ear, and the current General had commuted Kalko’s fourteen-year sentence to time served. The committee was still working, attempting to obtain a full pardon for Kalko, to restore
the civil rights his conviction had cost him. He could not vote or hold any government position. It was during that continuing effort that Sara had introduced Phip and Jenny. Two years later, they had married.

  Kalko was now a factory shift supervisor. The title sounded more impressive than it was. Each shift consisted of six workers to tend the machinery and the computers that ran them.

  “I heard a rumor this afternoon you might be interested in, Lon,” Phip said near the end of dinner. “At the party for Weil I got to talking with the lead sergeant from Contracts at Corps HQ. There’s a ship inbound, just came out of Q-space this afternoon. One of the passengers is the governor of Bancroft.”

  “Bancroft?” Lon’s eyebrows raised. Phip nodded and repeated the name of the world.

  “Something special about that place?” Kalko asked.

  “We were there some years back,” Lon said.

  “Nine years,” Sara said. “Right after the court-martial.”

  “A good friend died there,” Lon said very softly. The memory of Dean’s death brought a quick pang. Lon shook his head and looked toward Phip again. “Was there anything more to the rumor you heard?”

  “Just the name. Sosa is still running Bancroft. The ship won’t reach parking orbit until Monday. They must be looking for help again, and it must be really serious if the governor came himself.”

  “Somebody trying to raid them for their mineral wealth again, no doubt,” Lon said. “Probably the same cartel as before. Oh, well, Bancroft will be somebody else’s problem this time. We’re too far down the rota unless they ask for a couple of full regiments.”

  “Not likely,” Phip said. “They pinched pennies to hire one company to train their militia last time.” He turned toward Jenny and Kalko. “Lon’s the guy who actually talked them into offering a piece of the action when we amended the contract to go out and actually have a shot at the bad guys, a percentage of the gold, and other stuff we recovered.”