Well, Leocadio Medrano thought dryly, I guess we'll just have to see about that, won't be?
Chapter Three
"So what do you make of our new larva?" Lieutenant Kuramochi Chiyeko asked. The slightly built, dark skinned lieutenant was tilted comfortably back in her chair, nursing a cup of coffee. Gunnery Sergeant Michael Wheaton, her platoon's senior noncom, sat across the paperwork-littered desk from her, sipping from his own battered, much-used coffee mug.
"Um." Wheaton lowered his mug and grimaced. "Gotta admit, Skipper, I wasn't very pleased to see her." He shook his head. "I'm a little happier now Abe's had a chance to look her over, but still-! Things are getting hot, and they're sending us one warm body at a time? And a larva straight out of Mackenzie, at that?"
"Take what we can get," Kuramochi said philosophically, but Wheaton's eyes sharpened.
"I know that tone, Skipper," he said, just a trifle suspiciously.
"And what tone would that be, Gunny Wheaton?" Kuramochi's expression was innocence itself.
"That 'I know something you don't know,' tone."
"I don't have the least idea what you're talking about," she asserted.
"Skipper, it's my job to make sure all our round little pegs are neatly fitted into round little holes. If there's something about DeVries I should know, this would be a pretty good time to tell me."
Wheaton's tone was completely reasonable, but he gave his lieutenant a moderately severe look to go with it. Kuramochi Chiyeko had the makings of a superior officer, or she would never have been given a Recon platoon. And she and Wheaton had established a tight, well-oiled working relationship. But she was still only a lieutenant, and one of a gunny's most important jobs was to occasionally, with infinite respect, whack his lieutenant up aside the head with a clue stick.
"You mean aside from whose granddaughter she is?" Kuramochi asked.
"I know all about her grandfather, Skipper. And I know she graduated second over all from Mackenzie. And I know she's got a five-year college degree under her belt when she should still be home shooting marbles, that she's smart as a whip, and that Abe Metternich is impressed with her. None of which changes the fact that she's still a newbie less than eighteen standard years old in a slot she shouldn't have qualified for for at least another standard year. But you already knew I know all of that, so what is that I don't know?"
"Well, I don't actually know anything," Kuramochi said. "But take a look at what we've got. As you just pointed out, she's got a five-year degree-from ENC, no less. Plus where she graduated from Mackenzie. My record was nowhere near that good, but the Corps was already recruiting me as an officer before I was completely through Basic. And I've looked at her jacket's available profiles, Mike. She's better qualified for a commission, in terms of basic ability, than I am. In fact, she's probably better qualified than at least two-thirds of the Battalion's officers. And, like you say, Recon isn't a slot they normally offer a newbie, no matter how good her Mackenzie performance might have been. And although I've never met Sar'Major O'Shaughnessy, I've heard enough about him to seriously doubt that he pulled any strings to get her what she wanted. So, why did they give her to us, and why haven't they started gently suggesting to her that OCS lies in her future?"
"I don't know," Wheaton replied, but he was frowning as he spoke. Then his eyebrows rose. "No way, Skipper!"
"Why not? You know they like to use Recon as the final filter for the selection process."
"Of a Mackenzie larva?" Wheaton shook his head. "I dunno, Skip. I've never heard of their even looking at someone who didn't have at least one complete tour under his belt!"
"Maybe not, but I've been trying hard to figure out any other explanation for why we've got her. And like you say, Abe is impressed with her, and he's seen a lot of larvae over the years." Kuramochi shrugged. "Nobody's told me anything officially, of course. They wouldn't. And I don't have access to her complete profile, even if I knew exactly what the selection criteria are. But it's pretty obvious she's a special case-both in terms of native ability and where they sent her for her very first active-duty tour."
"Wonderful," Wheaton said sourly. "You know, Skip, sometimes I get so tired of those overly clever … professional colleagues of ours. Let them do their own damned recruiting and testing! And leave us-especially Recon-the hell alone. I hate the way they keep skimming off our best people even after they've served their time, but if they're planning on poaching someone this early in her career, it really frosts my chops. If you're right, they're gonna give us just long enough to get her trained up right, bring her along nicely, and then they're gonna steal her from us. You wait and see."
"My, my." Kuramochi grinned. "Such heat, Gunny Wheaton!"
"Yeah, right," Wheaton grumbled. "Tell me you won't be just as pissed off as I am if it turns out there's anything to this."
"Of course I won't," Kuramochi said virtuously. "The very idea is ridiculous."
Wheaton snorted, and she chuckled. But then her expression sobered.
"Like I say, Mike, no one's told me anything, and it's entirely possible I'm completely wrong. But I think we-specifically, you and I-need to bear the possibility that I'm not wrong in mind. No corner-cutting, no special treatment-God knows, nothing to suggest to her that we think she's anything more than just one more, possibly above average, larva. But anything we can throw at her to give her that little extra edge of experience would be a good idea, I think."
"Understood." Wheaton drank some more coffee, then shrugged. "I may not like the idea of playing schoolmarm for someone besides the Corps, Skipper, but if you're right, then I have to agree. Want me to talk to Abe about it, too?"
"I don't think so." Kuramochi rubbed one eyebrow thoughtfully. "Not yet, anyway. He's going to be too close to her, and we've all got a lot on our minds right now with the local situation. We both know how good he is at bringing newbies along, anyway, so let's not jog his elbow. Let's get her settled in before we suggest to Abe that we may want to keep a special eye on this one."
"Something new from Gyangtse, Boss."
Sir Enobakhare Kereku, Governor of the Martinsen Sector in the name of His Imperial Majesty Seamus II, looked up as Patricia Obermeyer, his chief of staff, walked into his office.
"Why," Kereku inquired after a moment, "does that prefatory remark fill my heart with dread?"
"Because you know what an idiot Aubert is?" Obermeyer suggested.
"Maybe. But while you, as a lowly member of the hired help, are casting aspersions upon the capabilities of my less-than-esteemed junior executive colleague, let us not forget the incomparable talent his chief of staff has for making things still worse."
"Point taken," Obermeyer said, after a moment, and grimaced. "To be honest, I think Salgado may be even more of a klutz than Aubert. Not that achieving such monumental levels of incompetency is easy, you understand."
"And now that we've both vented, suppose you tell me exactly what new bad news we've got from Gyangtse?"
"It's not actually from Gyangtse itself." Obermeyer crossed the large, luxurious office to lay a chip folio on the corner of Kereku's desk. "Brigadier Erickson's intelligence people handed it to us, as a matter of fact. According to their reports from Major Palacios-which Colonel Ustanov strongly endorses-the situation in Gyangtse is headed straight for the crapper."
"I've always known Wasps were bluntly spoken," Kereku observed with a crooked smile. " 'Straight for the crapper' in official correspondence is a bit blunt even for one of them, though, don't you think?"