“I can’t remember the last time I saw an officer in our weapons area,” one of the men responded. “The last year has been a paid vacation as far as those bastards are concerned.”
I almost laughed when I heard this; there was something ironic about a synth-bred clone calling natural-borns “bastards.”
“I don’t suppose Admiral Thorne has informed you about your new field ranks,” I said.
“Field ranks, sir?” Warshaw asked.
I held up the orders and repeated the lecture I’d given Thomer and Herrington a few minutes earlier. Field promotions had been written up for every man in the room.
“May I have a look at that roster?” Warshaw asked. As he studied the new command structure, a change came over him. He had begun the meeting all handshakes and smiles; but as he read the changes, his jaw tightened and his eyes turned to flint. He read the orders a second time, then a third, all the while silently mouthing the words to himself. Finally, he looked up, an angry stitch showing across his forehead. “It says you’re taking command of the fleet. There must be some kind of speck-up, how can they leave a Marine clone in charge?” He did not sound confused or curious, more than anything he sounded insulted.
Warshaw’s behavior violated his neural programming. He should not have been able to call me a clone or question orders. Under other circumstances, I would have knocked his teeth in, then busted him for insubordination; but I needed him on my side.
A smoldering silence filled the staff room. Thomer, sounding more like an angry Marine than a Fallzoud jockey waking from a haze, asked, “What did you just say? What the speck did you just say?”
“Do you have a hearing problem, asshole?” Warshaw snapped. “I said that I cannot believe they are leaving a fleet in the hands of a Marine.” Despite the bravado, Warshaw had just blinked in this game of chicken by not repeating the term, “clone.”
“You’re not the one handing out the orders, Master Chief,” I said.
He glared at me, his face so red he might have been choking, but he did not speak a word.
I got the feeling that whether or not I won this battle, I might well have lost the war. Warshaw had come with twenty other sailors, all men who had served with him for years. They did not care who the Office of the Navy named top dog, their loyalty would remain with him.
If there was any way to win Warshaw over as a friend, I needed to find it. Trying to defuse the situation, I said, “You’ll be the one running the fleet; I’m more of a figurehead. As I understand it, they’ve put me in as a regional administrator.”
Warshaw grunted but showed no satisfaction.
I knew right then and there that the man was going to be a problem for me; the question was, how big a problem.
“Does that mean you will remain on Terraneau?” Fahey asked.
“No,” I said, “I’ll remain on the Kamehameha.”
“But I will have command of the fleet?” Warshaw asked.
“That’s what he said,” growled Thomer. “Do you have a hearing problem?”
“That will be enough, Sergeant,” I said. Then I turned to Warshaw, and said, “Our field ranks don’t come into play until Thorne and the other natural-borns are gone.”
“What’s your point?” asked Warshaw.
“It could take months before the transfer is complete, that should give us plenty of time to work out any kinks in the command structure.”
Warshaw did not say anything, but he nodded.
I could read the man easily enough. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer in the Scutum-Crux Fleet, he had expected to take over. Frankly, he had two thousand years of naval tradition supporting his position. The swabbies steered the ships, and the leathernecks ran the invasions. It had always been that way. The natural animosity between Marines and sailors only made things worse.
For a moment, I thought Warshaw or one of the other officers would threaten to go over my head about the promotion. Then we really would have had a problem. In the Marines, we did not tolerate the kind of politicking and political maneuvering that took place as a matter of course among ships’ captains.
Warshaw fixed his glare on me, and his mouth worked into a nasty grin that reflected the hate in his eyes. I could just about hear his thoughts, they were somewhere between insubordination and mutiny. But Warshaw was a clone just like everyone else in the room. Angry or not, he had neural programming that in theory prevented him from disobeying orders, no matter how he felt about having a Marine in the chain of command.
I wondered what steps Warshaw would willingly take to correct the chain of command. I had heard stories about Navy officers wrangling for positions and honors in ways that a simple Marine could never comprehend.
Warshaw started to say something, and I put up my hand to stop him. “Our first order of business is to retake Terraneau, Master Chief. I think everybody here can agree that capturing the planet is very much a Marine operation.”
There were nods of agreement around the table.
“Who says we’ll let you back on our boats once you’re through?” asked Fahey. That sent me over the edge. I had a combat reflex. Anger and peace merged together in my brain. Thomer started to say something, but I spoke over him. “Let’s see …Senior Chief Petty Officer Perry Fahey?” I asked, making a show of looking down at the roster. “It says here that you’re on the Washington. That’s a Perseus-class fighter carrier.”
Fahey, his made-up eyes now fluttering, said, “That’s correct.”
“That means there are ten thousand armed Marines on your ship, Senior Chief. Would you like to try and explain why you are scuttling the local commandant of the Marines on an alien-held planet to ten thousand combat Marines?”
Fahey was not stupid. He had to know that my Marines would seize control of his ship.
“No one is leaving anyone behind,” Warshaw said. “My men obey orders, Captain Harris, even when they come from a Marine.”
That ended the meeting. I dismissed the sailors, and they returned to their ships.
“That was specked,” Thomer said after the last sailor left. “Warshaw’s an ass.”
“Do you blame him?” I asked. “He thought he was going to command the fleet.”
“He has a point, too,” Herrington said.
“No he doesn’t,” said Thomer.
“Yes he does,” said Herrington. “Would you want a sailor calling the shots when we take Terraneau?”
“Okay, he’s got a point,” Thomer conceded.
“But what was that stuff on Fahey’s eyes?” I asked. “It looked like eye makeup …like the stuff women use.”
“It is,” Herrington said.
“He’s wearing makeup?” I asked.
“He’s a bitch,” Herrington said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Harris, none of these boys have had R & R for four years now.”
“And?” I knew where this was going, but I wanted to see how Herrington would handle it.
“And the makeup identifies Fahey as a pleasure vehicle.”
“God, I’m glad he’s not a Marine,” I said.
“You haven’t toured the compound yet, have you?” Herrington asked.
I shook my head.
Thomer and Herrington exchanged a glance, then laughed.
“Where the speck are they getting makeup?” I asked. I knew what Herrington wanted to say next. He wanted to ask something along the lines of whether or not I needed it for myself.
I gave Herrington an order to search the Marine compound for any cosmetics. When he found them, he had orders to “confiscate without repercussions.”
At the end of the day, when I went back to my billet, I had lipstick, eye shadow, rouge, and a pair of man-sized silk stockings. I came into the room and placed the cache on the bed, then called for Ava—she was hiding in the bathroom.
She stood at the edge of the bed, staring down at the various tubes and bottles as if they were antiques from a foreign land.