I shut down the data link to my portable tactical unit in mid-update reluctantly, and gather my kit.
Constable Guest and his ATV are gone when I get downstairs, so I walk back the way we came. When I’m about a quarter mile from the admin center, the mule comes rolling around a corner in front of me, much more quickly than safety regs proscribe for driving through a civvie town. I jog toward them, and the mule stops in front of me, suspension snorting air.
“Hop in,” the company sergeant says through the open hatch.
“Something wrong?” I ask as I climb into the mule and reclaim my seat.
“Just a bunch of civvies throwing a tantrum,” the major answers for him. “We’re used to it. Hard batch of people down here.”
We drive back to the base, but instead of going back the way we came, our driver goes straight to the outskirts of town and then drives around the settlement across rough terrain. We have to buckle in as the mule heaves and bounces on the rocky, uneven ground like a ship in stormy seas. Finally, he picks up the hardpack road well outside of town, and the ride becomes smooth once more.
I know better than to prod the brass for more information. Instead, I give Sergeant Fallon a questioning look. She smiles a brief and clandestine smile, and very briefly forms a letter T with her hands, the signal for “time.”
“It was a dipshit idea to go down there in an armored vehicle, anyway,” Lieutenant Colonel Kemp says. He’s the CO of Sergeant Fallon’s HD battalion, and right now his mood seems to be somewhere between amusement and exasperation.
“Not my orders,” Major Vandenberg says. “You may take that one up with your task force CO upstairs. I could have told him that the civvies around here don’t take kindly to the military putting their hands on civilian assets on the best of days. Rolling in with a tank and wearing body armor, well…”
We’re back in the ops center on the base. I still don’t know exactly what transpired at the meeting with the civilian administrator, but from the comments between the brass, I have a pretty good idea.
“Well,” Lieutenant Colonel Kemp says. “I’m not going to make that call, that’s for sure. Let me get on the comms with the old man, and see what kind of flag-officer wisdom he can dispense.” He sneaks just the slightest amount of sarcasm into his inflections. I decide that the mood among all the ranks—enlisted, NCOs, and officers alike—is unusually weird. Under normal circumstances, a staff officer rank openly criticizing the flag officer in charge would be tantamount to insubordination, especially in front of junior personnel.
Sergeant Fallon, who has been leaning against the wall near the window, shoots me a glance and nods toward the door. I return a nod of confirmation and walk over to the hatch, to leave the officers and senior NCOs to have their little command powwow among themselves.
I leave the room and head down the corridor toward the chow hall. A few moments later Sergeant Fallon hails me from behind.
“Wait up, Andrew,” she says. I stop to let her catch up.
“Let’s find a quiet corner somewhere, shall we?” Sergeant Fallon suggests.
We grab some coffee at the chow counter and sit down at a table by the windows. The local chow hall is much nicer than anything in the fleet, a compensation for being stationed on a frigid wasteland where you can’t even step outside without heated armor half the planetary year.
“Here’s the deal,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Fleet said we are to take charge of all the civvie resources on this rock. Food storage, water reserves, everything.”
“Looks like our general doesn’t want to go beg the civvies for food and water once we run out of what we brought.”
“Well, their head guy told our brass to go piss up a rope. His exact words, too. He also invited them to convey that message to the general. Said he’d post his cops by all the storage facilities, and that he’d have anyone arrested who sets foot on them without permission.”
“With civilian cops? He’s nuts. No way his guys can keep us out. They have freakin’ pistols. Might as well throw rocks at someone in battle rattle, for all the damage you’ll do.”
“That’s not the point, Andrew. You think we can just walk in and start popping civvie police? The locals outnumber us twenty to one. We piss ’em off enough, we’re in deep shit. I doubt that one-star reservist who thinks he’s running the show from up there has the stomach to tell us to start shooting civvies.”
“And what if he does?” I ask.
Sergeant Fallon takes a sip of her coffee and looks out of the window, where the planetary sunset paints the snowy mountain chain on the horizon in muted shades of ochre and purple.