“Okay,” he said with a nod, scratching the back of his head with a pen. “I don’t think you’re going to have a problem with that. Now for the really bad news. We’ve already completed our FSTEP, and maxed it, so I’m understandably proud of our junior leadership and don’t really want to mess with it.
“The only squad that does not have an E-6 squad leader is headed up by an E-5 who is so outstanding I’m considering offing you to keep him in charge.” Pappas smiled to show he was joking. “Unfortunately, he is also so incredibly junior — he’s practically straight out of boot camp — that you virtually have to take the squad.”
“Well, Top,” said Duncan, furrowing his brow, “you know that thing about a lazy man? If I can let my Alpha team leader run my whole damn squad…” He held up his hands as if taking them off.
“Sure, sure, I believe that. Anyway, I think you can handle Stewart. You’ll find this out soon enough, but I came here from the Fleet Basic course at McCall with the skeleton of the company, and Stewart came with me. Nonetheless, he really is extraordinary. Wait’ll you deal with him. Last but not least, I think you should know that I doubt I will be able to do anything about it even if you do have problems with Stewart. Or Bogdanovich, for that matter. Or even me.”
“Why?” asked Duncan, sensing a trap.
“You know how I said I’d seen that pin…”
“Sergeant Bogdanovich,” said the first sergeant as he walked into the Swamp, “meet your new second squad leader, Staff Sergeant Duncan. He was in the Old Man’s platoon on Diess.”
Natalie Bogdanovich hesitated fractionally as she extended her hand, then took Duncan’s in a strong grip. “Welcome to O’Neal’s Traveling Circus.”
Duncan sized up his new platoon sergeant and was immediately impressed. Bogdanovich was a short, heavily muscled blonde with engaging blue eyes and her hair pulled back in a bun. Her fresh good looks were barely undone by a nose that was slightly crooked from being broken some time in the past. But the energy and enthusiasm she exuded quickly drew the attention away from that tiny defect. Duncan could feel a restrained power behind her grip that reminded him of Lieutenant O’Neal.
“I didn’t even know he made captain, although I’m not surprised.”
“Given the size of Fleet Strike,” pointed out Gunny Pappas, “we were bound to get someone who knew him on Diess. There’s not that many units.”
“Well,” Duncan noted with a grim shake of the head, “there were only twelve of us left and three are on permanent disability.”
“How do you get permanently disabled?” asked the first sergeant. “Galactic Medical can fix anything that doesn’t kill you outright.”
“Psychiatric,” Duncan and Bogdanovich said together, then looked at each other quizzically.
“Boggle did a tour on Barwhon, first,” said Pappas.
Bogdanovich nodded, somberly. “It seems there’s still some things they can’t cure.”
“Yeah,” Duncan agreed quietly. “Although I think in the case of Private Buckley, they let him off ’cause they didn’t want to put up with the stories.” Duncan gave a grim chuckle.
“Private Who?” queried the first sergeant.
“What, Mighty Mite never told that one?” said Duncan with a smile. Two combat vets and Mighty Mite as a commander. It looked like this might be a good place to call home for a while.
CHAPTER 16
Ft. Myer, VA, United States of America, Sol III
1825 EDT September 13th, 2004 ad
“All work and no play makes Mike a dull boy,” said General Horner, leaning casually in the doorway of Mike’s tiny office; his junior aide, Captain Jackson, hovered at his side.
“Well, sir, the nightlife in Georgetown ain’t what it used to be.”
Since being given the almost overwhelming task of writing employment guidelines for the Armored Combat Suit units in the upcoming defense, Mike had been working sixteen to twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Work was actually a relief compared to contemplating the current situation. As the world hurtled to its inevitable rendezvous with the Posleen, society had begun a slow process of meltdown.
Once the full import of the upcoming invasion became apparent, a radical shift in economic and population emphasis occurred. Seventy percent of the world’s population and eighty percent of its wealth was concentrated in coastal plain zones or plains contiguous with coastal plains. While these areas had many noteworthy features, defensibility against the Posleen was not one of them.
The developing “Sub-Urbs,” underground cities for the refugees from the plains, had been designed with locations for businesses, factories and all the other necessary organs of society. However, like many things Galactic related, they were not being completed as fast as originally anticipated. The waiting list for businesses and manufacturing locations was even longer than the one for residences.
Businessmen, insurance adjusters and the common man could often do enough math to make their own decisions. Areas that had become moribund due to the previous decades’ shift away from montane zones suddenly began to experience a rebirth.
The faded industries of Bavaria and the American Rust Belt, especially the cities of Detroit and Pittsburgh, saw a massive influx of new plants, as GalTech and more mundane terrestrial industries relocated their fixed facilities to locations that could be defended.
With this movement of industry and services came a matching movement of labor. The workers, managers and executives of the moving firms followed the jobs, but others could put two and two together and a massive movement of people without any fixed employment flooded the Ohio Valley and the Midwest in the United States, and Switzerland, Austria and the Balkans in Europe. In Asia, more limited infrastructures and disputed borders did not permit mass migrations such as occurred in the United States and Europe, but there was significant movement towards and into the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Caucasus.
In Japan, meanwhile, all the industry remained on the plains, but massive civilian shelters were being dug and populated throughout the country’s many mountain ranges. The Japanese experiences in World War II and their extensive civil engineering infrastructure continued to serve them well.
This mass migration and the flickering disruptions it caused in supply and demand of goods, services and labor were causing every kind of shortage in one area and oversupply in another.
Many individuals were getting rich on these supply problems, most of them ethically. Shortages had always been the creators of fortune. These individuals and anyone else with an income were then faced with the problem of where to put their money.
In most cases this was still the currency of whatever country the transaction occurred in, rather than Federation Credits. However, there was no convincing evidence that banks or even countries would survive the invasion. Thus, the cautious investor would prefer placement in a Galactic bank or a Terrestrial bank in a very secure location. Although most funds were merely electrons, a brick and mortar location remained a necessity. There was more to store than money. People had valuable artworks, personal treasures, precious gems and other items of “real” value. Terrestrial banks had, early on, joined in partnership with Galactic banks and, using this conduit, funds and goods began to flow outward from Earth.
However, the inevitable law of supply and demand again reared its ugly head, and as the flow continued from Terrestrial currencies to FedCreds, the exchange rate went up and up. Now, along with a famine of hope, was the specter of inflation. There were two exceptions to this.
Switzerland, already a renowned financial center, had been given the highest possible Galactic bond rating. Not only was it a major financial center already. Not only was it seventy percent mountains. But the Swiss militia had gone through several tests against notional attacks and every single assault had been beaten off with ease. However, another player had entered the banking market.