“And I pass the grade so far, right?”
Merritt smiled.
“Svetlana’s told me a lot about you already. You’re all right in my book,” and he made a display of shaking Jason’s hand so that everyone on the flight deck would see it.
Jason realized he had been manipulated in a little morale-boosting game, but he couldn’t help but like the blunt forthrightness of this squat plug of a man who didn’t just cut his hair short but rather shaved it bald—an affectation that many of his troops followed. Jason was glad that at least Svetlana hadn’t picked that marine habit up. Merritt broke into a grin that showed several chipped teeth and Jason found that the smile was simply far too winning, like an ugly dog that suddenly had broken into a fit of tail wagging.
“I’ll take that drink with you later, sir,” Jason said, playing the game as well so that his own people would hear him.
“By the way,” Merritt asked, lowering his voice to a near whisper, “I heard that your captain used to run a transport.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Then why the hell wasn’t he down here to supervise this loading? He’s got the experience; he could have figured this problem out in a second.”
“He’s most likely busy right now,” Jason said, keeping his voice even, not willing to admit that the captain had stayed locked in his cabin since returning from the briefing.
“Well, my reading is he’s so damned scared it’ll be a week before he can unplug.”
“I can’t comment on that, sir,” Jason replied.
“See you for that drink later, Commander,” and with a heavy pat on the shoulder Merritt stalked off, pausing for a moment to cut loose with an excellently chosen string of expletives aimed at a group of commandos sleeping under the wing of a Sabre.
Jason looked around the flight deck and couldn’t decide whether he should stick around or simply just give it over to the deck officer. He decided for the latter and walked off, checking out the marines as he passed. He knew they were putting on a show for the “blue suits,” as they called fleet personnel and they were certainly going all out. Most had their personal and combat gear stacked up around them, and were lounging on their equipment, sharpening knives and cleaning weapons. Few of them carried the standard issue M-47 semiauto laser gun. A couple had neutron mini guns, which pumped out a thousand bursts a minute, with shoulder slings to help carry the thirty kilos of weight. Others were armed with mass driver scatter guns, which fired five hundred naillike flechettes in a single burst. Others carried a bizarre assortment of non-military sporting equipment including a couple of sniper scoped Stenson Drakon rifles, capable of dropping a twenty ton Vegan saber tooth from a mile away, and near all of them had at least one or two Kilrathi items, especially the famed claw knives which could disembowel an opponent with the mere flick of a wrist. Those not working on their weapons had pried open the lids of self-cooking meals and the deck was filled with the scent of standard ration packs.
“Care for a souvenir, sir?”
Jason looked over at four marines who were sitting in a small circle playing cards. They were all wearing the standard adjustable camo which, chameleonlike, would sense its surroundings and then shift the color of the uniform to match, so that all of them, for the moment at least, looked as if they were dressed in deck plate steel gray.
“Not really,” Jason said politely and started to move on.
“Just a moment, sir,” and a marine reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a small gem-encrusted gold statue. Jason looked at it. It was a beautiful work of art, with a free flowing style representing a Kilrathi female, but it was done in an abstract so it was hard to tell for sure. It conveyed a sense of felinelike grace and beauty that he found appealing. It was a side of the Kilrathi he tried never to think about, the fact that beyond the war, they also had private lives, had their own literature, music, and art traditions that were even older than that of humans. He had once heard a cycle of Kilrathi poetry, about the loss of a lover, being read by Hobbes, and found it strangely moving.
He looked at the statue and could not help but admire it. Though he wanted it, he also felt that its presence in his room would be disturbing. In his war, the killing of Kilrathi was impersonal, except for an occasional taunt on the comm link. There were no bodies, no wounded, only the quick and the living, and those who were dead. The statue threatened to somehow put a face and feelings on the enemy, something he could never afford to let happen.
“Got it out of that furball palace. A real nice bargain for three hundred.”
He was tempted anyhow but shook his head.
“I’ll pass.”
“Well maybe this will interest you,” a female marine said, grinning sardonically, and her friends started to chuckle as she reached into her duffel.
She pulled out a small loop of braided rope, half a dozen dark leathery circles hanging from the coil.
He knew better than to ask but had to find out.
“What is it?”
“Cat ears,” the marine said, “cut ’em off myself. Now one set still smells a bit, got it on Vukar, but the other two sets are nice and cured, fifty for the lot. It’s a great gift to send home.”
He wanted to explode but knew he was being set up.
“I’ll skip it, Marine,” and he kept on going, ignoring their low burst of laughter.
Damn. It made him sick. What was this war doing to us, are we becoming like them?
He left the deck area and headed for the ready room. Doomsday was sitting in the room alone, nursing his usual cup of overbrewed coffee.
“How you doing?”
Doomsday looked up.
“One of the problems with being a manic-depressive is that you know that someday you’ll be right and the crap really will hit the fan.”
“Oh, that’s great to hear,” Jason replied, pouring a cup of coffee for himself and settling in beside his friend.
“We’ve got a coward for a captain for starters.”
Jason nodded. He seemed to have real luck that way. He’d already been in one mutiny against a total jerk, now he was stuck again, but this time in the hands of a coward rather than a ruthless tyrant.
“And we’re on a one-way trip.”
“You can say that around me buddy, but not around our pups.”
Doomsday nodded glumly.
“They already got it figured out in spite of the security lid. Oh, they’ll do the old stiff upper lip routine around you, try and look like a bunch of John Waynes.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Didn’t they teach you any history in school?”
Jason shook his head.
“From the rather self-contradictory film records it’s believed he was a great war hero. But anyhow, it’s almost reassuring to have some depressed people around me for a change; it could actually cheer me up.”
“Just great,” Jason replied.
He suddenly didn’t feel like hanging around. Doomsday was one of his closest friends and also had that rare ability to accept a friend, especially one far younger, in a command role. It’s just that he wasn’t the most cheerful of company at times and Jason felt as if he needed a real cheering up.
“After the next jump there’s nearly a twenty-hour transit time to the following point. Things should be squared away on the flight deck by then and I want our people out and practicing convoy defense and strike runs against capital ships. You and the other Sabres will be the aggressors; Janice and I will run the defense, so come up with a good simulation of a Kilrathi attack pattern.”
“I’ve seen enough; it’ll be old hat stuff.”