“Have you made the same offer to Sergeant Fallon yet?” I ask, and Lazarus smiles.
“I have,” he says simply, and from the look he gives me, it’s clear that’s all he’s going to say about that particular negotiation.
Lazarus and the two guards with him take us down to the basement level, and then out into the fresh air of a residential PRC plaza. It’s not the same we defended last night—the barrier dam is intact, and there’s no seedpod hull wedged into the corner of one of the towers here. They all look identical from the air, and without my suit’s navigation gear, I couldn’t even begin to guess which of Detroit’s many PRCs we are in.
Lazarus leads us to the admin center in the middle of the plaza. The admin centers usually hold public-safety personnel and food-distribution stations. We see ration booths open, but no public-housing cops. Instead, we see olive-clad brigade troopers milling about among the civilians, and nobody’s shying away from them or cursing them from a distance.
The chow hall is moderately busy. There are a few dozen brigade troopers sitting at tables and eating breakfast. General Lazarus deposits us at a table in the corner of the room, where two familiar faces are talking over barley porridge and coffee.
“The lovebirds slept in this morning, I see.” Sergeant Fallon takes a sip of her coffee and nods at the bench across the table from her. Halley and I sit down with our own meal trays.
“You met the general,” Jackson states matter-of-factly.
“We did,” I say. “And we just had the strangest conversation I’ve had since I left the PRC and put on a uniform.”
“I’ve had stranger,” Sergeant Fallon says.
“Did we win?” Halley asks. “I mean, I know we kicked the shit out of our Lankies down here last night, but there were a bunch more pods coming down.”
“Can’t tell from the PRCs without a brigade unit in them,” Jackson says. “But the ones we control, they won theirs. Took some fierce fighting, though.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I say. “How many did we lose last night?”
“Three,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Sanborn, Cameron, Bardo. Eight more wounded.”
“Hell of a bill,” I say. “But they did all right. Considering they had shit for training against Lankies.”
“Ah, hell. It’s all infantry combat. Shoot the bad guys until they drop. It’s just bigger bad guys, that’s all. Even the local guys and girls did okay, for a bunch of barely trained civvies and a handful of out-of-shape vets. Imagine what they could do with some training and better weapons than those antiques they have to use. They sure as hell aren’t short on motivation here on their home turf.”
I look at her, and she returns my gaze passively and with a little bit of amusement in her eyes. Something about Sergeant Fallon’s demeanor tells me precisely which decision she made when the general presented her with the same offer he made us.
“You’re staying,” I say. “You are staying with the brigade. You’re not going back to Homeworld Defense.”
“Ah, hell,” she says. “Homeworld Defense practically kicked me out even before they dumped us on that ice moon.” She takes another sip of her coffee and puts the plastic mug down again gently. “Besides, I think I have some shit to atone for anyway. Might as well do it here, where I know my way around.”
“So what rank are you going to hold in the brigades?” I ask. “You have got to be their first Medal of Honor winner. I figure Lazarus offered you at least colonel’s eagles.”
“Fuck, no,” she says. “Do I look like a goddamn officer to you? I’m staying master sergeant.”
“Good.” I grin. “Because I really can’t picture you as anything else in my head.”
“What about you two? I thought for sure you’d be on a boat back up to the carrier already. Especially you, Lieutenant,” she says to Halley. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Halley says neutrally.
“We haven’t decided yet,” I say. “No real rush. If the world ends tomorrow, it won’t matter. And if it doesn’t end tomorrow, it won’t matter, either.”
“Then stop the chatter and eat your porridge,” Corporal-now-Major Jackson says. “Shit tastes awful when it’s cold.”
She winks at Halley and me and gets up from the table.
“Don’t be late for your first day of orientation, Master Sergeant,” she says to Sergeant Fallon. Then she walks off, crossing the dining facility with that peculiar bouncy little swagger she’s always had.
“Outranked by one of my former squad nuggets,” Sergeant Fallon grumbles around her coffee mug, but there’s the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Well, Major Unwerth always warned me that would happen to my insubordinate ass one of these days.”
The air up here is fresh and clean, or as fresh and clean as it ever gets in a PRC. The drop-ship landing pad on the rooftop of the residence tower looks like it hasn’t seen any landings in years. We sit on the edge of the pad and look east across the river. The sun is climbing up into a gray sky, the ever-present pollution denying us the blue skies we should be seeing with the sparse cloud cover overhead. But the city has a rough and brutal sort of beauty to it—rows and rows of fifth-gen residence blocks, hundreds of towers lining both sides of the river and dozens of square miles beyond. It may be a rough patch of earth on the ground between all those blocks, but up here, it’s almost serene. There’s a vitality to all these warrens of streets and alleys, teeming with people every hour of every day.
“I think it’s nuts,” Halley says. “But so are all the other picks on the table. You said it—the fleet tucked tail and ran. We’re on our own now. What’s one drop ship going to do up there?”
“I can’t believe you’re even considering staying with the brigade,” I say. “You of all people.”
“I don’t hate the idea altogether.” Halley shrugs. “It would be interesting to get a pilot school off the ground in this place. Can’t say I wouldn’t like the challenge. What about you? What are you going to do if we go back up there to rejoin what’s left of the fleet?”
“Report to Regulus or Midway.” I shrug. “Put on another bug suit. Do combat drops. Probably die horribly and senselessly on some unimportant rock out there.”
“You make it sound so appealing,” she says with a laugh.