A few days later I found out he wasn't the only one leaving. I was in my office working on supply manifests for the battalion when I realized I hadn't eaten all day. I was just about to get up and run down to the officer's club for dinner when my buzzer sounded, and in walked General Holm. I jumped to my feet and saluted, but he waved for me to sit down as he dropped hard into the other chair.
"General, I'm glad to see you." And surprised. Usually when a general wanted to see a major, the major went to the general, not the other way around.
"Erik, I have some news for you. First, you're being decorated again."
"General," - interrupting a general is stupid, by the way - "that is not necessary. I just did my job."
"It is very necessary. In fact, there is no way around it. Johnson's battalion got their asses handed to them on Eridu even after they had preliminary intel from you. And Tyler Johnson is a good officer. Yet your people won their fight with no backup. Then you took the wreck of Johnson's group and made them a part of your battalion and had them in the field three weeks later."
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I didn't have the easiest time accepting praise. It made me uncomfortable. Finally I just said, "Thank you, sir."
He looked at me with a strange look on his face. "Let's see how much you want to thank me when you hear the rest of it. Erik, you are the youngest major in corps history. You are the most decorated officer at your rank. You are a hero of this war." He paused, as if he didn't want to continue. "You're going back to Earth, and you will receive your medal from the president of the Western Alliance. Then you will go on a tour of major cities, meeting with local dignitaries, attending events, and that sort of thing. You'll be on Earth for four months before reporting back for combat duty."
I shifted in my seat, suddenly very uncomfortable. "Sir, I'd really rather stay with my battalion. They had a hard campaign, and I think it would be harmful for them to lose their commander right now."
The general's expression was a combination of sympathy and amusement. "Erik, there's no squirming out of this one. This comes from way above me. The Earthside politicians want some war heroes to show off at parties and receptions. There's no way to turn down a decoration from the president. You'll be part of a whole delegation. I'm sure it will be first class all the way."
He paused again, though just for a moment. "Trust me, I'm as upset about this as you. I'm going out against the outer rim, and I don't like losing my best battalion commander and one of my most trusted officers. And a friend too. I'm going to miss having you around, Erik."
He got up to leave, but first walked over and extended his hand. "You are leaving the day after tomorrow on the Pershing."
I took his hand and we shook, then he turned and left. I stood for a minute or two, then slumped back into my chair.
I wasn't hungry anymore.
Chapter Eleven
Earth. It looked unreal, a blue orb slowly getting bigger on the viewscreen as we made our final approach. It was beautiful from space, but of course there are many kinds of beauty, and appearances are often deceiving.
Earth. My home. Or at least my birthplace. I hadn't been there for nine years, and I hadn't left with any great affection for the place. But still, this was where I was from; this was where all those colonists I'd fought to defend came from, or at least where their parents or grandparents did.
I was really dreading this. First, I was missing the Outer Rim campaign, which was General Holm's operation to take out the Caliphate colonies between Gliese 250 and the unexplored frontier. My battalion was going - actually it was already gone - on the way to 23 Librae, the first objective of the campaign. Thinking about my troops out there without me made me sick to my stomach. The fact that they were fighting without me so I could appease the vanity of a bunch of politicians made me quiver with rage.
Beyond that, I didn't particularly care for being heaped with praise, and unless it came from one of the few people I respected, I assumed it was insincere, self-serving bullshit anyway. I hated the thought of being the politicians' propaganda tool, but I wasn't given any choice, so I tried to gracefully accept the assignment. Being wined and dined by a bunch of government types while our troops were out fighting and dying was as close to my own version of hell as I could imagine. And I'd seen some very convincing incarnations of hell.
There was one bright spot, and I was sure I owed that one to General Holm. I was part of a whole delegation, and somehow he'd gotten Captain-Doctor Sarah Linden appointed. Officially she was there to speak about the medical care our troops were receiving, but I couldn't believe it was a coincidence. I have no idea how he even knew about the two of us, but I was grateful.
She was coming from Armstrong on another ship, and the best idea I could figure from the schedules I could access was that she should have arrived a couple days before mine. I was excited to see her, but also nervous. We'd corresponded as frequently as interstellar communications in wartime allowed, but I hadn't seen her since right after graduation. The little bit of time we'd spent together was amazing, but I didn't know what to expect now.
I was treated like a guest of honor on the destroyer Wasp, and Captain Grinsky gave me the run of the ship, the command bridge included. Once we entered the solar system I started spending a lot of time up there, checking out the changing view of the familiar layout of planets.
Our course took us past Saturn, and the close in view of that magnificent planet and its rings was amazing. As we approached close to Titan we got an incredible view of that massive orange moon. Titan was a Martian Confederation possession, and we were shadowed by a Confed patrol vessel until we'd passed out of weapons range.
The treaties that had maintained peace on Earth for a century also regulated the use of the solar system. Sol had five warp gates, and the warp nexus in the Centauri system had another eight, and both systems were neutral space where combat was forbidden by treaty. The powers could establish space stations and outposts for refueling and similar purposes, but arming them in any way was forbidden.
Most of the colonized areas of the solar system itself were part of the Martian Confederation, though the Alliance controlled Mercury and shared Europa with the Confeds. All of the Earth powers had bases on the moon, which was divided into eight sectors.
We'd come in from the Ross 128 warp gate, which was the furthest one out from Earth's orbit and currently on the opposite side of Sol, so our inbound voyage took seventeen days. When we passed the moon's orbit, the captain commed me and asked if I wanted to come up to the bridge and watch the final approach and docking.
We were scheduled to dock with Alliance Station One, the first of the Alliance's three large transfer stations in Earth orbit. The Caliphate also had three stations, but most of the other powers only had two. The South American Empire was down to one, having lost the other in a reactor accident about fifteen years before. The station was enormous, bigger even than the one at Gliese 250. There were umbilicals for at least a hundred ships of various sizes, including several large enough to dock battleships.
The wasp's primary screen projected the view ahead, and the secondary screens displayed shots transmitted from the station, showing our approach. I was impressed with how well the crew functioned, handing the multitude of operations required to dock the ship with practiced ease.