5
Lon Nolan was no longer a rookie. The shuttle trip up to the battalion’s transport, Long Snake, was just another ride, no more interesting than the bus from base to the spaceport on the other side of Dirigent City. Besides, Lon had responsibilities now, two platoons of soldiers. For seventeen of those, mostly in fourth platoon, Calypso would be their first time in combat; New Bali did not count—not as combat—though it had given Lon a chance to observe the new men in something more than a training exercise. Even this early in the mission, Lon had to reassure a few of them, and he had questions to answer.
Moving the entire regiment up to the ships took time. Buses and trucks had to make several round trips between base and spaceport. The port could only handle so many shuttles at once. And flight control preferred not to get the route between Dirigent City and the parking orbits of the fleet too crowded. There had been a lot of hurry up and wait. The waiting did not end once the shuttle docked with Long Snake and the men were marched to their quarters. The fleet would leave Dirigent together, in loose formation, and the last men would not board their vessels until two hours after Lon and his men arrived.
Long Snake carried the entire 2nd Battalion of 7th Regiment, along with supplies, baggage, and enough assault and transport shuttles to get them all to the ground at once—and its own crew and everything they needed. The ship was four miles long, but even so the troop compartments were cramped. A platoon was crowded into one bay, except for its platoon sergeant. Two sergeants shared a cabin, and each officer had his own stateroom. Lon’s was eight feet by five. It contained a berth, a fold-down desk with built-in complink, and two storage drawers under the bunk. The bathroom that went with it was scarcely large enough for a person to turn around in it.
Lon’s duffel bag had already been delivered to his cabin when he arrived. It was lying on the bunk. Before he could sleep, he would have to stow his things in the drawers. Later, he decided. After I eat. Supper would be served in just a few minutes. One company would fit into the mess hall at a time. Alpha was first on the schedule for this meal. Tomorrow it would be last. The companies rotated in strict order.
“The contract is basically open-ended,” Lon told third platoon the next morning. “The initial term is for six months, but with provisions to extend it as needed. Calypso apparently has plenty of money in its coffers. They’ve found so much gold and platinum that they make New Bali look poor.” Those precious metals were always in demand, and only minimally for jewelry. With perhaps half a trillion humans on several hundred worlds, electronics alone required huge quantities of gold and platinum. Spaceships were also major users. A single Nilssen generator—the device that allowed a ship to jump through Q-space and provided the artificial gravity that made transportation comfortable—required eighty ounces of gold and seventeen of platinum. And a ship like Long Snake had three Nilssens, and more electronics that also required the metals.
“They also have a growing tourist business,” Lon said, pausing then for comment.
“Tourists?” Phip asked. “Tourists from other worlds’? Who’s got that kind of money?”
“Enough people that Calypso gets between six and eight thousand of them a year, for stays that average six weeks.”
“As long as there’s a few lovely young heiresses,” Phip said, earning his round of laughter from the platoon.
“Don’t get too hopeful,” Lon said. “The female population of the world is only forty-seven percent of the total.” He paused before adding, “Calypso would like to increase its tourist business. To do that, they need some certainty of peace. Another reason for our little junket. To get back to what I was saying before, the contract is open-ended, but if it goes longer than six months, we’re to be relieved by another regiment. Give someone else a turn at contract pay and bonus money.” He looked at Janno Belzer. The news that his absence from Dirigent would be no more than seven months—six months on Calypso and a month for travel time—did not seem to cheer him up.
“Any chance it’ll be less than six months, Lieutenant?” Dean Ericks asked after also glancing at Janno.
“Always a chance,” Lon said. “If peace breaks out and Calypso no longer feels threatened, there is provision for early termination of the contract. However, since this is scheduled to be a long contract, provision will be made for you to send message chips to family and friends on Dirigent. They’ll go with the regular MRs that the colonel sends with his progress reports. And you’ll receive mail from Dirigent the same way, with the routine official stuff they send us.”
“How often will there be MRs going?” Corporal Heyes Wurd of first squad asked.
Lon shrugged. “I doubt that the routine stuff will be more often than fortnightly,” he said, “and it may only be once a month. MRs are a trifle more expensive than kites. Okay, I know. It’s not much. But it is something.”
There was no plan of attack to brief the men on. If fighting had not started on Calypso when the Dirigenters arrived, the regiment would land at the capital’s spaceport, or at other locations. They would have time to move into defensive positions and make preparations to meet a Belletiener attack. If enemy troops were already on the ground on Calypso, then plans would have to be made once the fleet emerged from its third and final Q-space transit of the voyage within the star system that contained the two worlds.
Lon spent an hour with third platoon, giving them the information he had on Calypso and answering questions. Then he repeated the process with fourth platoon. The men would all have a lot of time on their hands through the fifteen days of the trip. Apart from the need to keep their areas tidy, the only duty for the men was an hour of physical training each day. The rest of the time was their own. Eating and sleeping could not use up all the hours.
Lieutenant Colonel Flowers had entered the DMC on his eighteenth birthday, almost thirty years ago. The colonel had not bothered to prevent or correct the graying of his red hair, which he wore short. He was six and a half feet tall and weighed 220 pounds—solid and muscular. There was nothing soft about his appearance except for his green eyes.
“To success, gentlemen,” Flowers said, standing at the head table in the officers’ mess. He raised his glass of wine, then waited for the rest of the battalion’s officers to stand and raise their glasses for the ceremonial toast.
“To success,” came the chorus of echoes. Everyone drank deeply. Long Snake and the rest of the armada were four days out from Dirigent. In another eighteen hours the ships would be making their first Q-space transit of the voyage. The toast was ritual, in 7th Regiment, during the last supper before the first jump on the way out to a combat contract.
Colonel Flowers sat, followed by the rest of the officers. The meal was over, but—this time—no one would leave before the colonel. He leaned back and pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket. Despite the almost universal use of molecular health implants that prevented illness, physical debilitation, or addiction, smokers were a small minority in the DMC.
“Indulge yourselves, gentlemen, if you care to,” Flowers said, gesturing vaguely. There were several boxes of cigars open in the room, on various tables. Flowers peeled the wrapper from his cigar and used his steak knife to nip the end from it.
Lon looked around, more than a little nervous, concerned whether he should take one of the cigars. Captain Orlis did. So did Carl Hoper and maybe a third of the others.
“Never smoked, Nolan?” Matt Orlis asked softly.
Lon shook his head minimally. “They grow tobacco back where I was raised,” he said. “Not much, of course, but there’s apparently still a market for what they call the ‘real stuff’ instead of what’s produced by a machine. I’ve seen it growing in the fields, seen people who smoke, and even chew the stuff, but I don’t think I was ever really tempted to try it myself, even when some of the kids I hung around with did.”
“I don’t myself, as a rule,” Orlis said. “Once in a great while, like now. It won’t kill you.”
“Though you might think differently when you get your first lungful of smoke,” Carl Hoper said with a short laugh.
Lon shifted his glance from the nearby box of cigars to the others around him. Then he shrugged and took one for himself. He watched Carl prepare and light his, then copied him.
Lon coughed, and felt his face getting red. Orlis and Hoper both laughed, but not loudly. “I warned you,” Carl said. “It takes getting used to.”
“Why?” Lon asked when he felt he could dare to speak without going into more coughing.
“Beats me,” Matt Orlis said. “People who do it regularly seem to get some sort of pleasure from it.”
“All the rage in some circles,” Carl said. “Why, I know some people who’d rather have a good smoke than a good beer.”
Lon took a second, far more cautious, draw on his cigar, holding the smoke in his mouth rather than allowing it to travel any deeper. This time he noticed the taste, the mild tang and almost a sweetness, before he expelled the smoke.
“I feel a little dizzy,” he said.
“Just because you’re not used to it,” Carl said.
“You do this often?” Lon asked.
Hoper shrugged. “I go through phases.”
“Gentlemen!”
Colonel Flowers rapped on the side of his glass with a fork and spoke loudly enough to make certain that he got everyone’s attention. The private conversations in the room ceased.
“There’s no way to know what we’ll face on Calypso,” Flowers said, waving smoke away from in front of him, then leaning forward. “We may have to fight our way in, or we might land and spend six months waiting for something to happen. If you’ve spent any time at all looking through the database we have on Calypso, you will have noted that it offers a lot of … temptations. We’re going to have to be careful about discipline, if we do have time on our hands and find ourselves stationed in or very close to one of the major population centers.” He paused long enough to drag on his cigar.
“I know that the Corps rarely has problems with discipline. A large part of that is the spirit that we instill in all of our men, the knowledge of what the Corps stands for, and the certainty that breaches are treated most severely. But the rest of that success comes from having officers and noncoms who will do whatever is necessary and possible to prevent having anything happen that would require disciplinary action.” He cleared his throat and scanned the room. “Something to think about,” he said. When the colonel leaned back and turned toward Major Black, his executive officer, the other conversations resumed.
“More routine?” Lon asked.
Captain Orlis shrugged. “Not especially. But he’s right. If the men have time on their hands and temptation wiggling in front of their eyes, there could be trouble.”
“Just let your sergeants know that the colonel is concerned about discipline,” Carl suggested in a whisper. “They’ll know if there’s any cause for alarm before you will anyway.”
Lon nodded. Sometimes I wonder why they need us at all. He stared at his cigar and wondering about that as well. Dendrow’s been in the Corps since I was eight years old, and Jorgen has been in even longer. I need them a lot more than they need me. Lieutenants are like these cigars, a questionable habit.
Lon found himself thinking about home that evening—his real home, Earth, not Dirigent. His parents were still there, and most of his childhood friends—those who had survived to adulthood. It had been several months, before the New Bali contract, since he had last received a message chip from his parents, with news of home and friends and relatives. Sending message chips by interstellar transport was expensive. Each one had to be used entirely, which meant several months worth of occasional notes sent together. Lon had known when he left Earth that there was little chance he would ever return. But there had been an element of desperation to the decision. His choices were to leave and take a chance of getting the military career he wanted on Dirigent, or staying home to be drafted into the federal police force of the North American Union when his class at the military academy graduated.
The only thing Lon had ever wanted to be was a soldier.
It was unusual for Lon to have trouble getting to sleep, except during a contract when sleep might allow danger to overtake him, but this night, he did. He lay awake for more than an hour, restless, unable to shut out memories of home. When he closed his eyes he could almost see his mother, hear her talking to him—way back when he was seven or eight years old—and almost smell a special Sunday dinner cooking. On Sundays, they had always splurged and had natural food, meat and vegetables from nature instead of from the food replicator. On Dirigent, natural food was commonplace, as common as the more modern substitute. But Lon had never escaped his earlier … respect for grown food. His mouth started watering. There was a hunger that no available meal could possibly satisfy. When he finally did fall asleep, he dreamed of pot roast with potatoes and carrots, brown gravy, coleslaw….
He was never aware of the few tears that wet his pillow in the night. They had dried before he woke the next morning.