Rich Man's War (10 page)

“Why’s that?” Kelly asked. “You afraid I’ll reprimand you for agreeing with me?”

“Ma’am, Lt. Stevens—that whole crew—they left behind eight widows, a fiancée and eleven kids. Almost all of them had parents and other family and friends. I’m the guy who’s left alive. I’m the face of all that. I’m old news now, but the moment there’s something embarrassing or salacious to report, it’ll be headline stuff all over again. Only this time it’ll open up new wounds for people who don’t deserve the ones they’ve already got.”

“That what the public affairs people told you?” Kelly prodded gently.

“No. I learned a few things about media and politics from all the attention I got after
St. Jude
, and then from being on the honor guard. Learned a lot, really. No one ever told me explicitly what to say or not to say, but you hang around someone like the president’s press secretary long enough and talk about her job, you start to pick up on things. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, but…I’m the only voice. They can’t defend themselves anymore.”

“That’s understandable. Commendable, even.” Kelly glanced around the bridge compartment. “Still, I don’t see any of the recorders active. I promise I wo
n’t tell. Scout’s honor.”

“Do you have these sorts of talks with all of your crew, ma’am?”

“When I think they could use it. When I think it’d be good for them and for the ship. I’ll let the department heads or the XO handle it if I think that’ll do the job, but when it comes down to it? Sure. I’ll always listen. I’ve only got fifteen people under my command, Tanner—sixteen with you on board. That’s not too many people to get to know personally.

“And you
are
Tanner Malone,” she added, looking him in the eye. “Some of my people have had it pretty rough, but I don’t think anyone’s got fresh scars like yours.”

Tanner glanced at the control panel. Nothing new seemed to be happening. No signs of an emergency in sight or anything else to interrupt this.

“He was an asshole, ma’am. Not just ‘kind of.’ Stevens was a monumental asshole, and so was just about everyone else on that ship. It was miserable. I think I can count on one hand the number of times Stevens spoke to me, and here I am now talking to you, and…” Tanner wasn’t sure how much to say. “All I’ve wanted was to serve my time and get out. I felt like I had a brick sitting in my stomach when I got orders to come on board this ship. I figured this would be more of the same.
St. Jude
was bad.”

“How bad?”

Cry-yourself-to-sleep bad
, Tanner thought. “Well, like I told the XO, it took forever to qualify for helmsman on
St. Jude
. I’d never done a damage control or battle stations drill until the last month or so on that ship. I mostly avoided casual conversations because I couldn’t handle all the venom. Whenever we were underway, I spent as much time as I could in my rack, which I’m told is a sign of depression. Didn’t know it then, but it fits.

“The thing I don’t tell anyone is that I finally snapped about a minute before we lost the ship. The BM2 and I were about to go at it. One of us was gonna wind up with a broken neck. Then I saw the laser flash and there’s the BM2 floating out into space right in front of me and everyone else
was just gone. That doesn’t come up in the interviews.”

Kelly slowly nodded. “
Sounds pretty bad.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stevens really fucked up.”

“It wasn’t just Stevens, ma’am,” said Tanner quietly. “It was all of us.
Myself included.”

“Shit rolls downhill, Tanner,” Kelly replied, shaking her head. “Like I said, these corvettes have only so many people on board. If Stevens was that out of touch, it’s no wonder things went bad
ly. Every other problem got that much worse because the captain didn’t do his job. Why do you blame yourself?”

“I should’ve thought of some way to address it,” Tanner shrugged. “I’m not gonna shift all the blame onto other people. I still don’t know what I could’ve done, but throwing up my hands and saying it wasn’t me isn’t good enough, either.”

“Maybe punching out the BM2 would’ve been a start. We could talk about what you might have done, but I can’t say if it would’ve done any good. There’s not a doubt in my mind that the problems came from well above your level. Not from what you’re describing. And after a ship like that, I don’t blame you if you weren’t excited about coming on board this one.”

“
I wasn’t, but this ship isn’t the same at all, ma’am. This is like night and day from what I’m used to.”

“Oh?
Enough to give the service a second chance?”

“Not a chance in hell, ma’am,” he said with a weary smile. “I am very grateful that there are so many people who are willing to deal with all this, but it’s not for me. I don’t want this to be my life. When my time’s up, I’m gone.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, actually,” laughed Kelly. “But that’s not for a few more years. In the meantime, there’s a lot of good a body can do in the military…for yourself, and for other people. And I know you care about that at least, right? You’re here for the duration, so you might as well get what you can out of it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tanner sighed. “I’ve had a couple conversation
s about picking a rating, but I’m not sure any of my options come close to what I want to do with my life.”

“
This doesn’t have to be your life. You said before you want to do planetary surveys, right? You have to go to college to do that anyway. If I was in your shoes, I’d want to learn things they don’t teach you at a university.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Tanner admitted.

“It’s half the reason I signed up,” said the captain. “How much longer have you got? Three and a half years? Hell of a waste to spend it running out the clock.”

He chewed on that thought. Eventually, he found himself looking at the captain once more. “Ma’am… your first name doesn’t begin with an ‘A,’ does it?”

* * *

Final adjustments to the plans continued even now, less than an hour before
showtime. While primary overall plans were cemented weeks earlier, before the freighter landed on Scheherazade, the nature of a beast like this included constant tweaking and accounting for targets of opportunity. The world outside the freighter was busy and vibrant, with a large population. People came and went. Local forces moved around according to their training schedules. Nothing remained static for long.

Harris strode through the freighter’s massive, crowded cargo bay toward the line of tanks parked on one end. Green paint, scarves and other bits of randomizing did much to make Harris’s top-of-the-line NorthStar defensive gear indistinguishable from the not-quite-uniform fatigues of the Hashemites around him. His natural complexion was a bit paler than theirs, and the thick stubble of his scalp used to be blond rather than black. An experienced eye would see much more significant differences between Harris, his comrades, and their Hashemite hosts. Harris and his men had considerably more training and medical conditioning, not to mention greater experience.

He saw squad leaders and officers—some of whom, at least, deserved such titles—readying their men for combat. Directions changed. Time for preparations evaporated, heightening stress and anxiety. A handful of the Hashemite troops looked nervous or grim. Harris had no problem with them.

The guys who looked overly eager, though, concerned him greatly. He found far too many of them for comfort. If they’d been rookies, he would have blown off their eagerness as nervous bravado, but many of these guys had seen combat
…or, at least, they’d seen violence. Much like the sketchy worth of the ranks and titles claimed by the leadership around here, Harris wasn’t sure he’d call their prior experience “combat.” He wouldn’t call this a unit, either. Some were soldiers. The rest amounted to a mob of thugs in military gear.

At first, Harris had been impressed that so much in the way of men and materiel could be smuggled onto
Scheherazade. This freighter and other ships in the advance landing force received covert assistance from the local boarding teams and inspection crews, meaning people with expert inside knowledge had done a lot of good planning and bribing. Such logistical feats were encouraging, but as zero-hour approached he decided not to equate strong logistics with solid troop discipline.

Harris found his quarry standing
beside one of the looming tanks. Holo screens spread out around Major Basara and a couple of his subordinates. The major wasn’t difficult to find—not with the gaudy epaulets on his combat jacket and the scimitar on his belt. Beside them stood Mr. Abnett, another NorthStar employee like Harris himself—only rather than a member of the corporation’s uniformed security services, Abnett came from Risk Management. He wore the same slightly-disguised gear as Harris and the other NorthStar Rangers, and he knew his way around a gun, but Abnett’s real work wouldn’t come until the shooting stopped. In the meantime, Abnett represented another minor wrinkle in the chain of command, which was something Harris never liked.

“We have eyes on the objective now,” said Basara, pointing to one of the maps. A large, square building in the middle of a cityscape stood out thanks to computerized highlighting.
“They could send us live video, but the consulate may well have good monitoring gear. No sense giving them something to pick up until it is time to jam their communications.”

“Excellent,” nodded Abnett.

“What sort of eyes?” asked Harris, looking over Abnett’s shoulder.

“Snipers, Mr. Harris,” Basara assured him. “Experienced
men loyal to Prince Murtada. They will provide assistance for our assault.”

“By ‘snipers,’ do you mean two-man teams or lone wolf jack-offs?”

Abnett’s eyes went wide as he turned to face Harris. “What?” Harris asked. “It’s an honest question.”

“Mr. Harris,” fumed Basara,
“these are all brave men who have seen combat. They brought order to Qal’at Khalil after the pirates left.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, Major, ops like this depend on the right people
not
gettin’ killed. You sure that went all the way down the chain to the grunts and the privates?”

“You have reason to believe it hasn’t?” Basara folded his arms across his chest.

“Your men are talkin’ about cutting people up and looting,” explained Harris. “Some of these guys carry trophies, the kind that grew on another human being. They need to throw that shit away. It brings a whole lot more trouble than it’s worth.”

Basara’s eyes flared. “I shall make these decisions, not you, Mr. Harris. These are fighting men. I am surprised that someone of your experience cannot recognize this. Do you come to lecture me on how to lead men? Do you think I do not understand why we undertake this errand instead of pursuing more vital strategic objectives? If you are not pleased with the forces at hand, I will gladly cancel this mission and fold these forces back into Prince Murtada’s army of liberation
while you and your ‘advisors’ sit here in—”

“Major, if you’ll allow me,” Abnett broke in, gesturing for Harris to follow him away. He didn’t know whether Harris would actually take the hint, but felt a bit of a relief as the old soldier turned from Basara and started walking with him. “You think now’s the time for this?” hissed Abnett.

“No, the time for it was when we first got here and found out who we’d be workin’ with,” grunted Harris, “and the guy for the job is
you
. But I didn’t see you takin’ it up with anybody, so I figured I’d better give it a shot.”

Hashemite fighters moved all around them as they walked, carrying weapons and ammo. Everyone slowly picked up their pace as a voice over the public address system began to relay announcements in Arabic.

“Harris, I don’t get this,” said Abnett, shaking his head. “You know what we’re about to do. Hell, you came up with half the planning. But you’re lodging moral objections on the conduct of our host forces? Now? This isn’t a peacekeeping mission, Harris, it’s the exact opposite.”

“Behavior like this is a
bad sign, Abnett. You let soldiers run around picking up random loot and trophies, they start worrying more about their collections than they do about securing a perimeter or watchin’ out for their buddies. The major back there has the same problem. It’s 2276 and he’s carrying around a
sword
, for fuck’s sake. My problem isn’t about morality, it’s about professionalism.

“And another thing: conduct like this doesn’t make it any easier to work with the locals. You can scare a civilian out of your way, but it’s a long way from there to getting any active support. This ain’t a peacekeeping op yet, but it’s gonna be. We’re gonna have to come in here with a real army and clean up the mess this jackass prince and his cousin the major make on their way to the top.”

“All above our pay grade, Harris,” said Abnett. His voice dropped and he leaned in as he jerked his thumb back toward Basara’s tank. “Besides, the fact that these guys are a bunch of savages just makes our cover story more plausible. We’re not gonna change anything now. Let’s just do our job and get out.”

Harris headed back to the NorthStar team along with Abnett, falling a step behind. “We’re gonna be back here in six months fighting an insurgency,” he grumbled.
“Not that you’ll be on board for it.”