YUKIKAZE (20 page)

Last year one of the members of his unit had frozen to death trying to haul a broken-down plow off of the runway during a violent blizzard. The brass kept harping on the dead man’s case, saying that it should serve as a warning to the rest and that it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been drinking. Well, of course he was drinking; it was the only means they had to warm themselves up a little and make it easier to move.
They tell us to quit drinking,
Amata thought bitterly,
but they never fix stuff like that bent door or the de-icer on this thing.
It was probably cheaper to work a man harder than to fix a machine. If they just used the waste heat from the underground base, they could keep even this huge runway snow-free. But it would cost too much, so they used manual labor instead. Which they could always get more of from Earth.

Lieutenant Amata lowered the gear again. It still stuck up a little. He beat at it with the shovel, then climbed on top of it and jumped up and down to force it closed with his body weight. That got it.

Snow snuck in through the storm seals of his pants, melted, and mixed with his own sweat. He shivered at the clammy, unpleasant feeling, tramped back to the grader, threw the shovel into the cabin, then climbed in and shut the door. Cold wind was still blowing in through the gap, but it was better than being out there. His parka was now a frozen, crunchy mass. He flipped back the hood, spilling snow over the driver’s seat, and held his frozen hands over the defroster until some of their strength returned. He gripped the large steering wheel and threw the truck into gear.

After finishing his work, Lieutenant Amata drove back to the ground vehicle hangar on the side of the runway. The electric shutter door closed automatically behind him, cutting off the howling of the storm. Once he’d killed the grader’s engine, it was quiet except for the sound of the snow blowing against the shutter. He climbed down from the cab, his breath coming out in clouds of white steam that looked like cigarette smoke. The moisture in his now-thawed parka began to refreeze. He thoroughly beat off the snow and ice clinging to him. If it was still on him when he went into the warm locker room, he’d be soaked.

He stripped out of his cold weather gear in the locker room. It stank of sweat. He was chilled to the bone, yet steam still rose from his body when he took off his sweater. The locker room was warmer than the garage, but only by about ten degrees. He wondered if it was the first ten degrees above freezing but had no way to check. The air grew warmer as he made his way to the station. From the outside, to the garage, to the locker room, to the corridor, to the station: warmer and warmer as he went. He’d been told that sudden changes in temperature were physically harmful, but he still wished they would keep the locker room warmer. He walked into the showers, stripped off his soaked undergarments, and threw them down the laundry chute.

After the shower he finally started to feel better. He grabbed a towel and underwear from the supply box, dried off, and got into his fatigues. He went down the corridor to the unit’s command office, dropped off his grader’s key with his superior officer, and then gave a simple report that his work had been completed. Just as he was about to walk out with one of the other men in his unit, the officer called for them to wait.

“Sure, whatever,” Lieutenant Amata mumbled.

He probably wanted them to stay on standby there in the station; the weather geeks in the Operations Corps had forecast a big storm. He felt like this was somehow, obscurely, their fault. Sometimes he even wondered if they got such heavy snow only because those fuckers made such awful forecasts.

The officer didn’t put them on standby, though. In fact, he only wanted Lieutenant Amata and told the other man that he was free to go. The other guy whispered “Brass must be pissed at you” into Amata’s ear as he passed, gave him a sympathetic look, patted him on the shoulder, and left the office.

“Now then,” began his superior, Captain Gondou. “I have some surprising news for you. Would you like to sit down, Lieutenant Amata?”

“No thanks,” he replied. He refused both the chair and the cigarette he was offered and remained standing at attention.

Captain Gondou put the cigarette in his own mouth, lit it, and sat down again behind his desk. He regarded Amata for a while, then blew out a large cloud of smoke and said, “A commendation’s been awarded.”

“I see,” answered Amata. Someone in his division was getting a commendation, so they probably wanted him to set up a party to celebrate. That was the only thing he could think of. “Understood. Where’s the assembly? And when?” He figured he could bully some of his good-for-nothing, lazy-ass coworkers into helping out.

The captain was looking at him oddly. “What’s your problem, Amata? You don’t seem very excited about this.” He held his gaze for a second longer, then shrugged. “It’ll be held tomorrow at Auditorium 1 in Faery Base, as part of the FAF founding memorial ceremony.”

Captain Gondou put his cigarette down on the ashtray, stood up, straightened his uniform, and saluted. “Congratulations, Lieutenant Amata.”

Amata reflexively returned the salute. Then it suddenly dawned on him what the captain had meant. “Wait, what? Hold on here. Um…
I’m
getting the commendation?”

“What did you think I meant?”

Gondou sat down and picked up the cigarette butt from the ashtray. The five or six other personnel in the office stared at Lieutenant Amata. An intercom chimed on somebody’s desk somewhere, and the tense atmosphere returned to normal.

“What’s the deal, Captain? This must be some sort of mistake.”

“That’s what I thought,” Gondou replied bluntly. “At first I couldn’t believe it either.”

Amata took no particular offense at the captain’s attitude. Looking back over his service record, he didn’t think there was anything in it that was particularly outstanding compared to those of his coworkers. He nervously fingered the whiskey flask in his pocket. He wasn’t any different from the rest of his drunken colleagues. Just a standard-issue…snowplow driver. Just one more guy the others despised as garbage.
So why me?
he wondered suspiciously. Was this some kind of a joke? Did he mishear the captain? Was he hallucinating it? No, he hadn’t drunk nearly enough for that.
Fine,
he thought.
If they’re giving it to me, I’ll take it.
At least he’d get a little award from the division in return for all his work.

“The Distinguished Service Award, right?”

It was the most commonly awarded decoration. Service members who died in the line of duty got it. Lots of living ones did too, but he’d never heard of the really low-level grunts like him getting one without dying.

Captain Gondou shook his head. “No. Not that piece of shit. The Order of Mars. A medal of valor. The highest one. I’ve never touched or even seen one of them. Even the senior officers with fruit salad on their chests rarely have them.”

Amata unconsciously scratched his hands. They itched from frostbite. He thought about how many men in his unit had lost toes to frostbite.

“How about some coffee?” Captain Gondou asked. He picked up the coffee pot on his desk and filled a paper cup without waiting for Lieutenant Amata’s answer. “It’ll warm you up. Must have been nasty out there. It got a lot worse after you guys went out.”

“You wouldn’t believe how cold it gets out there, Captain.”

Amata sat down in the chair waiting for him. He picked up the coffee and took a sip. Now he
really
wanted whiskey, not coffee. He knew what sort of individual was awarded the Order of Mars, and it definitely wasn’t scum like him. That medal was for heroes, for guys who performed outstanding deeds that would be recounted within the FAF for as long as it existed. For guys who practically became legends, gods of war.

Why me?
he wondered again, with growing unease. The dull ache in his right side worsened.
Why would a loser like me be getting a medal like that?
He would have been satisfied with the Distinguished Service Award. That, he could maybe understand, a reward for performing the job they’d given him. But there was no way that anyone could ever regard plowing snow as a feat of valor. The more he strained to think of even a remote reason for being chosen to receive the medal, the more nervous he became.

He shivered with a chill that the hot coffee couldn’t assuage. He wasn’t moved: he was scared. How could something this nuts be happening to him? If this wasn’t a mistake, then it was a plot. Had to be. He must have been caught up in some sort of vast conspiracy beyond his knowledge, to be used in some way and then thrown aside like trash… Well, he was sick and tired of being used. He just wanted to get drunk and fade away quietly, to choose a mode of death on his own terms.

“I refuse to accept the medal,” Lieutenant Amata said, a faint tremor in his voice.

Captain Gondou nodded calmly, but the words that came out of his mouth belied his attitude. “I figured you’d say that. However, the division—no, not just the division. The Maintenance Corps sees this as a chance to show the entire Faery Air Force how important our work is. Corps HQ won’t allow you to refuse. It’s an order. An order, Lieutenant Amata.”

“Then the Corps is behind this plot,” Amata spat out under his breath. “What did I do? Was it some sort of misconduct?”

“No, Lieutenant. This has nothing to do with the Corps, at least as far as awarding the medal goes. The Order of Mars is presented by the Corps, but the Corps doesn’t decide who gets it. The decorations are decided on by a committee made up of officers at the very highest levels of the FAF. Do you see? As far as the Corps is concerned, this is a bolt from the blue. We were all as shocked as you are, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We made an inquiry as to whether a mistake had been made, but apparently it’s legit.”

“But, who… Why would they have chosen me?”

“Who knows? Guys like us on the bottom don’t know what the guys at the top are up to. But it’s been decided and nothing can change it. You’d better not try to refuse. If you resist, they may charge you with mutiny. Even if they don’t, you’ll still be left in a bad position, maybe blacklisted. They’re giving you the medal, so you take it. It’ll be useful when you go back to Earth. It’ll probably get you a good job.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Come on, you should be celebrating. Still, I understand how you feel. I don’t know if it’ll console you or not, but you’re getting a week’s leave and clearance to return to Earth too.”

“I don’t want it,” Amata said, his voice hoarse.

“Right. It’s a busy time of year for us. I appreciate your consideration. But you’re excused from work tomorrow. That’s the day you’ll be decorated.”

“So I have no choice in this?”

“It’s an order.” Captain Gondou looked away from Lieutenant Amata. “Accept the medal. That’s an order.”

The captain looked down at his clasped hands on the desktop, then up at the smoke curling from the cigarette butt smoldering in the ashtray.

“Dismissed,” he said. “Go to the station and tell the other guys. They’ll probably be happy for you.”

Amata left the command office without a word. He didn’t think his coworkers would be happy for him. If anything, they’d be shocked. Maybe they’d congratulate him, but even if he got the medal it wouldn’t improve the way they were treated. Even the way he himself was treated wouldn’t change. There was nothing to be happy about. There probably wasn’t a single one of his coworkers who would take pride in his getting it or even look at him with envy. There just wasn’t any profit in it. Amata grew depressed. Although the other men wouldn’t be jealous, they’d definitely treat him differently from now on, like he wasn’t quite one of them anymore.

As he entered the station, the familiar cigarette smoke-filled warmth enveloped his body. Usually, the atmosphere would relax him, but right now the mood was a little strange. The guys playing cards at the table, the ones lying down on the cots, the ones reading, the others sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall as they drank… They all looked at him as though a stranger had just come into the room.

Word had already spread.

One of the guys at the table threw down his cards, stood up, and yelled, “Hooray for Lieutenant Amata!”

“Hooray for what?” Amata asked, playing dumb. He sat down on an empty cot and took out his flask.

“Give that cheap shit to the snow to drink,” said one of the guys leaning against the wall as he lifted his glass. He tilted his head in the direction of a bottle of scotch laid off to the side. “Compliments of Lieutenant Colonel Hazer. He said that you’re the pride of the Corps. A hero shouldn’t drink cheap booze, Lieutenant.”

Why couldn’t Colonel Hazer mind his own damn business? Amata shook his head, then swung both feet up onto the cot and began drinking his own cheap whiskey. The cheerful Colonel Hazer’s responsibilities included being their supervisor, and now and then he’d show up and maybe join them for a card game or two. Still, no matter how friendly he was, he wasn’t one of them. Because he never had to endure the snowstorms. On the surface, they all smiled at him, drank with him, smoked with him, and let him win some money at cards, but the truth was that they couldn’t stand him. Hazer himself seemed satisfied with the arrangement.

As he began to sink into despair, Amata could imagine what it had been like when Colonel Hazer had come to give them the news. He probably said something like, “Gentlemen, congratulations! One of your own has been awarded the Order of Mars! A true hero has appeared from within your ranks. You should be proud!” And then the guys would be wearing big grins on their faces, while inside they wouldn’t give a crap. That idiot. If it wasn’t for Hazer, he might have been able to keep the news of the award from the others. The Corps was trampling on the little bit of peace he had. He should have expected it.

Returning to their card game, the players began talking in exaggeratedly loud voices.

“So what’s an Order of Mars, anyways?”

“Dunno. I think it’s a medal of valor.”

“Then why’d Amata get one?”