"That was well done," Grade said.
"Told you he was good," Leff said.
"How are we going to have a ceremony on the plain of Pajmhi?" Lopez said. "I thought those Nidu planet crackers wiped it off the face of the planet."
"Yes and no," Leff said, and leaned back to let the waiter deliver his salad. "The plain is still there. The only difference is now it's under about one hundred meters of freshly laid rock. That's from the lava flow after the bomb went off. Our ceremony is going to take place in one of the cooler parts of the rock flow."
"You mean there are still warm parts?" Crower said.
"Oh, yes," Leff said. "There's a volcano built up now where the south part of the plain used to be. It's still spewing lava. We're going to be on the north side of the plain."
"Goddamn Nidu," Grade said, and jabbed at his salad.
"Chuck," Evelyn warned.
"Sony, sweetie," Gracie said, then looked ground the table. "But you all know what I'm talking about."
Robin held up her hand. "Hi," she said. "Actually, I don't. What do the Nidu have to do with this battle?"
Gracie looked at Robin, chewed thoughtfully on his salad, and then looked over to Creek. "You didn't tell her anything about it?"
"The relationship is still pretty new," Creek said.
"We're still picking up the parcels," Robin said.
Gracie looked around. "Anyone mind if I give a brief review?" When no one complained, he continued. "The short story is that the planet Chagfun is a Nidu colony, and about twenty years ago, the Chagfun natives started getting uppity. For about six, seven of those years, it was small-scale terrorist stuff—homemade bombs, exploding markets, assassination attempts. Nothing the Nidu can't handle on their own. But then something happened that made the Nidu sit up: The local Nidu military commanders took the side of the Chagfun natives and took their weapons with them. Which is something that's absolutely not supposed to happen."
"Why not?" Robin said.
"It's because of the Nidu hierarchy," Leff said, cutting in. "The Nidu are a caste-bound culture, grouped in clans that are incredibly suspicious of each other. The current ruling clan keeps control of everything—and I do mean everything—through a computer network. Every single piece of military and government equipment is tied into the network, right down the rifles the Nidu issue to their infantry. The power structure is top down, so commanding officers have control over every decision that gets made. It goes right up to the top. If the leader of the Nidu wanted, he could make a specific rifle on a battlefield stop working, just by ordering it."
"What happens if the soldier gets cut off from the network?" Robin asked.
"His rifle stops working," Leff said. "Or his transport, or his ship, whatever. It's the way the Nidu hierarchy keeps control."
"Except that in this case," Grade said, stealing back the conversational ball, "somehow the local commanders appeared to disengage themselves from the Nidu network and keep their rifles working. And their ships. So they take them offline and Chagfun declares itself independent. Nidu declares war—"
"—and because Earth signed a mutual defense treaty, we get dragged into it," Lopez said. "And we end up fighting Nidu's civil war for them."
"Not that our Defense Department was complaining," Crower said.
"No, not at all," Gracie said. "Defense was looking to show off Earth military readiness. So we do a joint military operation with the Nidu, and because it's Nidu's party, they're in charge of the show. There's just one problem."
Robin waited for a minute for Grade to continue, but he was clearly enjoying his dramatic pause. Finally, Robin said, "Yes? And the problem was what?"
Gracie opened his mouth to speak but Leff got there first. "The problem was that the Chagfun rebels weren't actually disconnected from the Nidu network. They'd stopped the Nidu leadership from commanding their equipment, but they could still eavesdrop on the network."
"So they knew every move the Nidu were going to have us make," Gracie said. He stuffed more salad into his mouth.
"That's bad," Robin said.
"It was very bad," Lopez said. "We landed 100,000 troops on the plain of Pajmhi because Nidu intelligence told us it was an ideal staging area. It was supposed to be away from the main concentrations of rebel troops, with sympathetic civilians in the local towns who wouldn't cause us any trouble. But the rebels knew we were coming and were ready for us. They hit us while we were still getting organized. There was no way we could mount an effective defense."
"It was a real clusterfuck," Gracie said.
"Chuck," Evelyn Gracie said.
"Your husband's right, Mrs. Gracie," Lopez said. "There were 23,000 killed and about that number wounded. When half of your troops are casualties, clusterfuck is the right term for it."
"Thank you, Lopez," Gracie said, and pointed to one of the ribbon bars on his uniform with his salad fork. "I got shot at Pajmhi; took a slug in the leg. Damn near tore the leg clean off. I figure I can use the term clusterfuck if I want,"
"So what happened?" Robin said.
"Well, after a couple of Chagfun days, which are, what? Thirty hours long?" Gracie looked over to Leff.
"Thirty-one hours, seven minutes," Leff said.
"That long," Gracie said, pointing to Leff. "We managed to get our troops out of there, and told the Nidu to take care of their own damn messes. And they did."
"They dropped the bomb on Pajmhi," Crower said. "One of their planet crackers. It's a bomb that blasts down into the skin of a planet. Weakens the crust and lets the molten rock come through."
"It's like making a goddamn volcanic explosion, is what it is," Gracie said. "The Nidu dropped the bomb smack down into the plain of Pajmhi. Wiped out every living thing for a couple hundred kilometers around, including all those towns and villages."
"That was before the eruptions blew enough dust into the air to cool down the planet," Leff said. "Chagfun had its own mini-ice age that winter. Colonists froze and starved. The Nidu had a blockade of the planet. No one would run it."
"Why didn't the CC do anything about it?" Robin asked.
"Internal matter," Lopez said. "The CC only gets involved if one of its nations attacks another. It stays out of civil wars."
"So the CC let all those people die," Robin said.
"Basically," Lopez said. She forked the last of her salad.
"But it worked," Gracie said, bringing the conversation around to him again. "The Chagfun rebels surrendered to keep their families from starving and dying anymore. The Nidu swept in and took control and as far as I can recall executed every single rebel fighter. So through incompetence and ruthlessness, the Nidu ended up killing tens of thousands of humans, executing tens of thousands of surrendered combatants, and starving and freezing hundreds of thousands of their own people. And now you know why I say, 'Goddamn Nidu.'" This time Evelyn Gracie said nothing to her husband. The waiters came to take away the salad bowls.
"But enough of this depressing subject," Gracie said. He reached into his uniform and pulled out a small camera. "I have a favor to ask. As the duly appointed representative of my regiment on this trip, it has fallen to me to be annoying and take pictures of every little thing to send back for the regiment newsletter. So I hope you won't mind all crowding together for a quick photo. Evelyn, sweetie, if you wouldn't mind." He handed the camera to his wife, who got up from the table to frame the photo. The others at the table crowded around Grade; Creek and Robin edged themselves away from the group, not at all interested in having themselves photographed.
"Hiroki, Debbie," Gracie said. "Squeeze in."
"I don't have a uniform," Creek said.
"Hell, man, I was just ribbing you about the uniform," Gracie said.