“I’m done shooting at civilians,” she says quietly. “If we get deployed, and they order us to open fire on those barely armed cops, I’ll order my troops to stand down, and fuck orders. I doubt the brig here on base is big enough to hold a company’s worth of troops. Assuming we’d go quietly,” she adds.
She looks at me expectantly, as if she wants me to argue the point with her. I don’t have to think about it very long.
“Shit,” I say. “Remember Detroit? If I have nightmares these days, they’re not about the Sino-Russians or the fucking Lankies. They’re about that clusterfuck.”
I ponder the swirl pattern of the creamer in my coffee.
“I was done shooting at civvies the moment they medevaced me out of that shithole. I’m not too keen on starting again.”
Sergeant Fallon nods with satisfaction and looks out onto the landscape of our temporary homeworld again.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m done shoveling shit for these people. If the Lankies show up, I’ll gladly shoot every round in our supply chain at them. But if that idiot general tells me to point my rifle at civilians without danger, I’ll turn in my rank sleeves and tell them to stick my retirement money up their asses. Along with that Medal of goddamn Honor.”
CHAPTER 17
We spend the next few days squaring away our new quarters, unloading cargo from the orbital shuttles, and eating way too many meals in the fancy chow hall. After a week has passed since our ill-advised sojourn into town, I allow myself some hope that the task force commander isn’t completely off his rocker.
On day eight of our stay, that little kernel of hope is squashed, not exactly to my surprise.
Whoever is in charge of the whole thing has either a flair for drama or a sadistic streak. We’re all barely out of our bunks when the combat-stations alarm in our building starts blaring. I’m brushing my teeth in the head when the lights switch to the ominous red-tinted combat illumination. All around me, the noncoms of the HD staff platoon drop their morning kit and rush out of the room.
“That better be a Lanky invasion,” Sergeant Fallon says from behind one of the stall doors near me.
“Well, whoever it is, you better cut things short in there,” I reply.
“Grayson, if this is a bullshit alert, there’s no reason for me to rush. And if it’s the end of this place, it won’t make a difference whether I finish taking a dump, will it?”
“See you at weapons issue,” I say, and leave the room with a grin.
The HD grunts are every bit as squared away as the Spaceborne Infantry. Every single member of the platoon is in full battle rattle and standard combat loadout less than five minutes after the first sound of the combat-stations alarm. We don’t have designated posts, so we fall out in front of the building and trot over to the ops center, heavy with weapons and ammunition.
“HD platoon, briefing room Charlie,” one of the senior SI sergeants greets us at the main entrance. He’s in his battle dress fatigues, not in armor, so I deduce that we don’t, in fact, have a Lanky seed ship or Russian invasion fleet headed for Camp Frostbite at the moment. We file into the building and sit down in briefing room Charlie as directed. The SI troopers on duty in the ops center move around without great urgency.
“That’s just fucking mean-spirited,” one of the HD sergeants mutters as we claim our seats, cramming our armor-clad bodies into chairs too small by half for troopers in battle gear. “Coulda waited until after breakfast with this shit.”
Nobody disagrees. There’s an unwritten protocol to the alert system, and it’s considered harsh to summon a whole platoon or company with a combat-stations alert without emergency while the unit is in the middle of personal maintenance or chow.
“Ten-hut!”
The HD platoon’s lieutenant jumps to his feet when the SI major and his company sergeant enter the room. We all follow suit.
“As you were,” the major says.
Forty grunts in armor lower themselves into their too-small chairs again.
“Apologies for the alert before morning chow,” the major continues. “The old man upstairs called that one. I’m guessing he’s not keeping track of the local time.”
“That’s not the only thing he isn’t keeping track of,” someone behind me murmurs.
“I realize this is going to go down without rehearsal,” the major says. He steps up to the briefing lectern at the front of the room and picks up the remote for the holographic screen on the wall behind him. “The word just came down an hour ago. This one’s called Operation Winter Stash.”
He turns on the holoscreen, which instantly shows a 3-D image of New Longyearbyen. Several spots on the map are marked with drop-zone icons.
“This should be a quick thing, since we’re only facing mostly unarmed civilians. We’re going to seize control of the civilian storage facilities under emergency regulations.”
The drop-zone markers on the map flash in turn as the major points at them.