Rich Man's War (39 page)

“Aye, aye,” Tanner nodded again, but he heard Baldwin simply say, “See you later.” He wondered if he didn’t need formal responses like that aside from talking to the officers. With that, Tanner went into the evidence locker, pulled out one of the many small metal baskets for collecting personal items, and then headed back out to the front desk to take over for Baldwin.

“Nothing to pass on,” she said, collecting her helmet from the desk as she headed out. “You know how to find the arrest reports and stuff?”

“Yeah,” he said, and paused. “How long was it before you made your first arrest?”

Baldwin rolled her eyes. “I’ve been here seven months and my first arrest was the other night. Only time I’ve been hit, too, but it was an accident. Guess I’m just more likable than you.”

“
Can’t argue that.” Tanner took his seat while she walked out. The brig’s front desk was a semicircular affair, with hardened screens and embedded, physical controls like one would find on the bridge and other vital compartments. The suite offered holo screens as well, but the brig was one of several areas where designers opted for clunky but reliable technology over delicate modernity.

That left Tanner alone in the front office with the marine corporal, who waited until Tanner looked up toward him to speak. “You okay?” the marine asked. He looked perhaps a little older than Tanner
and had a friendly face. At his rank, Tanner guessed his age was natural rather than affected by longevity treatments. He seemed a bit taller than Tanner, and his red hair buzzed down to a fine stubble on his scalp.

Tanner let out a heavy breath. “Yes. I’m fine. It was one punch. And, y’know, my skull against the bulkhead, but I’m fine.”

“DeLeon hits pretty hard. I’ve done some sparring with him.” He paused. “I’m his squad leader. He normally isn’t the type to get into problems like this. I came down as soon as I heard, obviously. I’d like to apologize on behalf of him and the squad. The platoon, too, though I probably shouldn’t speak for the lieutenant… but he’ll be down here shortly. Stuck in a meeting.”

Though he nearly repeated that he was fine, Tanner bit back his irritation. The guy felt bad. He stood from the desk again and held out his hand, noting the marin
e’s nametag. “I’m Tanner Malone. You’re… Corporal Collins?”

“Yeah.
” The marine stepped forward to shake hands over the desk. “I know who you are. Everyone knows.”

At that, Tanner sighed. “Guess I should be used to that. Hey, you’re in Third Platoon… you wouldn’t be Brent, would you?”
He saw Collins nod and added, “Alicia’s boyfriend?”

“That, too.”

“She told me a lot about you,” Tanner said. “Until I came on board, anyway. Hasn’t responded to anything since. Is she pissed off at me?”

“Yeah, she is,” Collins
confirmed with a casual, matter-of-fact shrug. “I wouldn’t sweat it. She’ll let you know why when she figures it out for herself. Anyway, believe it or not, this is my first, um… squad fuck-up,” he went on, gesturing back toward the cells. “What happens now?”

“Well, we give
DeLeon a little time to sit there and wind down. Then one of the senior MAs talks to him and we figure out whether this is a captain’s mast or a court martial. There were a dozen witnesses and all, so if he’s smart he basically pleads guilty and we have the captain’s mast. Most of the punishments for that are things like extra duty and loss of privileges and maybe some pay, but it doesn’t lead to prison or a discharge. If he wants to fight it, though, someone gets to be his lawyer and we go to court martial. When he inevitably gets found guilty, they’ll throw the book at him.” Tanner frowned. “I think they get grouchy for having to set up a court martial in the first place.”

Collins shook his head. “
DeLeon is usually a stand-up guy. I can’t imagine he’ll want to fight this. It isn’t like he can say it was someone else. You, uh… you guys might want to talk to him sooner rather than later, though. Sitting in that cell wondering what’s gonna happen will probably spin him up, not wind him down. He’s had too much time to think as it is.”

“Gotcha. I’ll let the bosses know. Sounds like he’s been boiling for a while, then? I didn’t think the food in the galley was what had him so angry.”

“Nah, he…” Collins paused, clearly debating with himself how much he should say. “His wife is gonna have a baby in a few weeks.”

“Oh,” Tanner winced. “He had his leave canceled?”

“Yeah, and that was bad enough, but he’s also one of the guys who enlisted in the first place because he wound up in major debt from school and he needed the payoff benefits. Then the President comes out last week and says ‘no more educational debt,’ so DeLeon is… kinda pissed.”

Tanner swallowed hard. “You don’t say.”

“Kinda like everyone else, right?”

“Kind of.”

“Well, like I said, he doesn’t have any excuses, but that’s where his head is at.”

The suggestion seemed reasonable. Unless
DeLeon had some history of screwing up that Collins didn’t know about, his rank implied that he was still very new in the service. Tanner wondered about his age. The thought of trying to have a family while still in the lowest ranks of the service seemed crazy to him, but he didn’t consider the military his career, nor did he have any thoughts of children in the first place. Some communities within Archangel encouraged starting families at a young age.

“Thanks for the advice,” Tanner said. “Anyway, I don’t want to give you the brush-off, but he’s here and he isn’t giving us any more trouble. I have to write this report and log in his personal belongings. He doesn’t talk to his chain of command until he talks to a senior MA, and they
figure out whether to release him back to your unit and under what conditions.”

“Gotcha. And thank you. Again, on behalf of the platoon—“

“Really, don’t worry about it,” Tanner said, trying to wave it off.

The hatch opened once again
. A marine sergeant entered the compartment. “I’m told one of my people is in here? Who’d DeLeon hit and is he okay?”

“Private
DeLeon is fine, Sergeant,” Tanner began.

“I’m sure
DeLeon is fine. I want to make sure he didn’t break some poor navy kid in half!”

Tanner took a deep breath.
Marines
, he thought.

Half an hour later, with Collins, the platoon sergeant, the platoon leader and Bravo Company’s first sergeant all personally assured that DeLeon had not, in fact, punched anyone’s head clean off his shoulders, Tanner had the prisoner’s personal gear catalogued and his helmet returned to him in case of emergency. He sat back down at the front desk, calling up the forms for arrest and incident reports.

The hatch opened once again. Tanner glanced up to see Baldwin return, and then did a double-take as she placed the galley tray on the edge of the desk. He saw several large cookies, a couple of brownies and three small bowls of soft-serve ice cream, all standard desserts still available despite the current strain on
galley services.

“Second squad, Third Platoon of Bravo Company wants you to know that they’re extra super sorry their
squadmate picked on you,” Baldwin sighed, “and they will make sure the big, bad marine never hurts you again.”

Tanner stared at the tray. “They gave me their desserts?”

“In their defense, I don’t think they’re sucking up to you because you’re famous. I’m pretty sure they didn’t realize who you were.”

He didn’t know what to say. “Is this a joke?” he wondered.

Baldwin scowled at him. “I’m taking your ice cream,” she declared as she claimed one dish from the tray and took up the other seat behind the desk. “Have you not started writing your report yet? It’s not that hard. Do you want help?”

Personnel Concerns

“I know someone out there will jump on me for raising old stereotypes, but let’s think critically here. The Catholic Church
only shaped up on issues like gay marriage and its institutionalized child abuse because it had to in order to survive in the 21
st
Century. And beyond that, the Church talked and talked about charity and generosity and lambasted greed, but when privatized space exploration became a thing, who was it that had the money to fund a colony tucked away underneath the Vatican? All I’m saying is we shouldn’t look at Archangel as if they’re Christ turning over the moneylenders’ tables.”

--Mars Governor Reverend Harry Tidewater, November 2276

Life on
Los Angeles
quickly became an exercise in mass stress management.

Like most other third and second class ratings, Tanner found himself hot-racking with not one, but two other men, each of whom got to use Tanner’s assigned rack for exactly eight hours. Given that most such individuals, including Tanner, had to set their wake-up calls to slightly before the eight hour mark and that hardly anyone ever actually made it to bed on time, that naturally ensured that no one ever
got even seven hours. Nor did this leave the bunk in a very good state. Tanner found himself devoting fifteen to twenty minutes sorting and replacing linens every night rather than try to sleep in the mess left behind by the two “guests” he never met. Nor did he complain, knowing that the non-rate berths were probably more cramped and uncomfortable than his.

Though variety in the galley improved, the lines did not. Frustrations mounted as people spent most of their chow breaks standing in line. Workspaces were often cramped as well, with more than a few departments expected to host “refresher classes” and “job shadows” for the sake of cross-training, along with the mandatory calisthenics work-outs imposed on virtually everyone. Between that and the drills, Tanner and several of the other MAs suspected that all the activity was
meant to keep everyone busy. Overcrowding was bad, but overcrowding with excessive idle time would create serious problems even among well-disciplined professionals.

A
fter a few days, once people figured out their schedules and started to connect with their social networks among the crew and the guests, one bright spot emerged. Ejected from his rack with seven hours to go before his shift on watch in the brig, Tanner learned of the impromptu reunion of Oscar Company in a rec room on Deck Ten.

“
Naw, that boat was terrible, guys,” said Sinclair, once Tanner’s squad leader and now a Signalman Third Class. “I don’t know where to start. We worked for this BM2 who said, ‘When we’re in port, you non-rates have two days on the duty rotation: yours and mine! I don’t care if the whole boat is on liberty. If I’m working, you’re working.’” For all Sinclair’s legitimate complaints, Tanner noted that his old squad leader was at least still smiling. Reminiscing turned to grousing, but it stayed good-natured.

“Wow, are you serious?” blinked Corpsman Third Class Matuskey. He’d snagged one of the last few chairs in the rec room.
Most people either sat on the pool tables or just stood. “Didn’t anyone say anything to
his
supervisor?”

“What would we say?” asked Baljashanpreet, another Oscar recruit who now bore the hard-won rating patch of a
Survivalman. “He told us that right in front of his department head! That was our first day on the ship, straight out of basic. He worked us like dogs.”

“Ramos actually did say something once,” added Sinclair. “Tried talking to the First Lieutenant about the whole thing, and the Lieutenant believed him and talked to the BM2, but it didn’t fix anything. And you don’t see Ramos here, do you? That’s because his promotion to Crewman got delayed and he’s only now going through his rating school.” Sinclair shook his head. “Fuck
Belfast
. Leaving for my rating school was probably the happiest day of my life.”

“Yeah. Fuck
Belfast
,” agreed Baljashanpreet. “Seriously, I thought I was gonna go nuts on that boat.”

“What,” said Huang, “you thought you were gonna pull a Gomez?”

A good portion of the young men and women crowded into the rec room shared a groan and a laugh that Tanner didn’t understand. “Wait, what about Gomez?” he asked, and naturally looked—like everyone did back in basic—to Other Gomez, a habit that neither young man did anything to invite.

“Oh, God, don’t ask me,” groaned Other Gomez.

“No, you gotta tell it now,” laughed Alicia. She stood among several other Oscar grads. Tanner couldn’t help but notice that his best friend from those days seemed inclined to keep her distance from him.

“I wasn’t there!” Other Gomez protested.

“Doesn’t matter, you’ve gotta tell the story. He’s your brother.”

“We’re not related at all! His family came over from Argentina! Mine’s from Texas!”

The ship's bell rang twice over the PA system. "Now,
St. Francis
arriving," announced a voice from somewhere on the bridge.

“Wow,” said Other Gomez, “is
everyone
coming on board today?”

Tanner wondered the same. Ever since the first arrival, he kept one ear toward the announcements. One particular ship’s captain was worth listening for. Everyone else in the rec room, however, seemed to know Other Gomez just wanted to change the subject.

“Seriously, though, what happened?” asked Tanner. “He always said he only ever wanted to be a Science Tech. That rating’s impacted, so I figured he’d still be here as a Crewman, right?”

Other Gomez shook his head. “Look, it’s not like he and I talked a ton, but I knew he wasn’t happy to find out he’d have to wait another whole year before he could go to his rating school
. And, yeah, the guys in charge of our section of the deck department could be dicks, too, but nothing like you’re talking about,” he said, nodding to Sinclair and Baljashanpreet. “Mostly I think it was the workload for the ship in general and Gomez knowing that it wasn’t gonna lighten up anytime soon.

“Anyway, one night he’s on watch on the bridge while we’re heading into port at Bethlehem Station, orbiting Michael, right? Commander Manyara’s the OOD. It’s the middle of the night, and Manyara says to one of the other officers, ‘You know, I’ll bet the ship isn’t ready for an unplanned drill right now. They probably all think the work day is over since we’ve got a port call right around the corner.’ It’s almost time for Gomez’s watch to be up, and Gomez says, ‘
You want to run a man overboard drill, sir?’ And Manyara laughs and says, ‘Oh, sure,’ but he’s
clearly
joking, right? Everyone knows he’s joking.

“Only Gomez, he gets up from his station with his helmet, like he’s about to visit the head or something, and then he walks past the command chair and goes straight off the bridge without any sort of permission or the
usual formalities. But by the time Manyara asks, ‘Hey, what the hell?’ that fucker walked right into an escape pod and launched himself off the ship.”

“
What?
” Tanner blurted, along with several friends who hadn’t heard the story yet. Others laughed.

The ship’s bell rang once more. “Now,
St. Catherine
arriving.”

“Like I said. One of the smaller ones, not the lifeboats. He didn’t put in any directional commands or try to land on Michael. He just jettisoned the pod and floated there. Then we had to turn the ship around and run ‘man overboard’ for real.”

Tanner didn’t laugh. “What happened to him? Did anyone give him a psych eval or counseling? He must’ve been desperate to do something like that.”

“Oh, he was desperate,” chuckled Fuller, another Oscar grad who’d come to
Los Angeles
as a non-rate. She’d been put into engineering, and made good on her experience by moving on to become a Damage Controlman. “I talked to him before he got thrown off the ship. He was super unhappy and he really didn’t like Manyara. He decided he wanted out, right then and there. Literally. He wasn’t crazy, he just didn’t want to do any of this anymore.

“I’m still in t
ouch with him a little,” she continued. “They discharged him, but he knew he could get a job with his family’s business. It’s not a lot of money and he’s in debt like most people, but at least the discharge didn’t leave him unemployed.”

“Yeah, but to come all the way through basic with us and then do something like that,” Sinclair
shook his head. “I feel kinda bad for the guy.”

“He’s fine,” waved Fuller. “Leave it alone. Besides, he got the last laugh on Manyara. Does that guy even get a turn in the OOD rotation anymore? I mean, obviously everyone knows it wasn’t his fault, but it still made him look bad just because it happened on his watch.”

Once more came the ship’s bells. “Now,
Joan of Arc
arriving.”

Tanner’s head fairly snapped up
at the announcement. “Hey, I’ll be back,” he said, slipping out of the crowd.

“Where are you going?” asked Sinclair.

“I’ve got another reunion to catch!” Tanner called back from the exit to the rec room. As soon as he broke free from the crowd and into the passageway—which was never exactly empty anymore—Tanner took off running.

The moment tested Tanner’s familiarity with the ship. He hustled through passageways and all but vaulted up a couple of ladders—he hardly ever called them stairs anymore—and hauled ass for the wardroom. All that he knew from the ship’s Plan of the Day
was that a meeting of other vessel captains would be held there. Even the MA’s security-privileged version of the Plan didn’t specify which ships, or a timeline.

Tanner made it to the wardroom quickly, but didn’t find familiar faces outside the door. His search didn’t end before he’d checked all the approaching passageways. Plenty of people moved about
, but not the ones he was looking for. He no longer paid attention to the ship’s bell. Other ships and captains meant little to him.

Coming back for another sweep starting out from the wardroom door, he spotted a man and a woman in grey navy vac suits. The woman wore her deep red hair boyishly short, walked with a confident gait and bore a lieutenant’s pips on her shoulder. Both she and her companion had bloodstripes down the outer seams of their pants.

“Captain Kelly!” he called out, walking quickly to catch up.

The pair paused and turned. He saw quizzical looks brighten up as they recognized him. “Oh, hey, Tanner,” smiled Chief Romita. “You stationed here now?”

“Sure am,” Tanner nodded, accepting the offered handshake as he joined them. “Got here a little over a week ago. I hear things are good with all of you?”

“
Yeah,” Kelly nodded. “Sanjay mentioned that you called while you were on Raphael. How’s it going here?”

Tanner held his arms out to gesture around them. “Busy, ma’am. Obviously.”

“
Joan
is linked up over at Airlock Four if you want to go say hi to everyone else,” Kelly offered.

“I might. They didn’t tell us how long you’d be on, though
. I wanted to catch you before you got tied up.”

They heard the bell once more. “Now,
St. Sebastian
arriving.”

The captain’s smile tightened. “People still coming on board. We’ve got a few minutes, I’d imagine.”

“Oh, good,” Tanner said, and hesitated. He realized then that he didn’t actually know what to say. Not given her rank and the distance mandated by regulations and custom. And even without all that…
I’d have to stand on a chair to reach that high
.

“Chief,” Kelly said after a pause, “would you mind heading in and saving us a couple of seats?”

“Not at all.” Romita slapped Tanner on the shoulder before leaving. “Good to see you.”

“You, too, Chief.”

Kelly waited for a beat or two before turning back to Tanner. “Are you on duty?”

“On duty, but not anyplace specific. All the overcrowding means if I’m not in my rack, I’m on duty
, if only to be a visible presence.”

“Did you run from somewhere to meet us?” she asked.

“Maybe a little,” Tanner admitted. “Wouldn’t run for just anyone.”

The amused captain couldn’t help but mirror his smile. “Then I’m flattered. On
behalf of the ship, of course.”

“Of course. She’s a good ship.”

“How’s this one?”

“Not the same. It’s a good ship, too, but not the same.”

“Hm. ‘It.’ Not exactly the parlance the Navy expects.”

“To be fair, I’ve been here less than two weeks
, but… not the same.” He paused. “I wasn’t exaggerating. I’ve missed you. And
Joan
and everyone.”

“It’s mutual. For all of us,” she added with a knowing emphasis. “I saw your dating stunt the other night. Sanjay saw it happen live and sent out a call for the rest of us. That was pretty creative. To be honest, I forgot all about it after the President turned the whole economy upside down, but you had us all in stitches for a little while there.”