Everybody laughed, including me. I didn’t think he was funny, but more than a month had passed. In military terms, my grieving period was over.
“Lee and the others are shipping out tomorrow,” I said.
“Congratulations.” The sailors looked delighted. One of them reached over and shook Lee’s hand. “I’d better do this now,” he joked. “Next time I may have to salute you pricks.”
“When are you leaving, Harris?” another sailor asked.
“Not for a couple of days,” I said.
“I can’t believe they’re shipping all of you out,” the sailor responded.
“What did you expect to happen to them?” another sailor asked. “Olivera needs to make room, doesn’t he?”
“Make room for what?” I asked.
“SEALs,” the sailor said, then he took a long pull of his brew. “Squads of them…hundreds of them.”
Lee and I looked at each other. That was the first we had heard about SEALs. Until we received our transfers, we’d both expected to remain on the Kamehameha to train new Marines.
“That’s the scuttlebutt,” another sailor said. “I’m surprised you never heard it.”
“Did you know that Harris is going to Washington?” Lee asked.
“We heard all about the medal,” a sailor said. “Everybody knows it. You’re the pride of the ship.”
“A medal?” I asked.
“You know more about it than we do,” Lee said.
“Harris,” the man said, putting down his drink and staring me right in the eye, “why else would you appear before Congress?”
***
Lee’s shuttle left at 0900 the next morning. I went down to the hangar and saw him and the other survivors off. On my way back to the barracks, I paused beside the storage closet that had once served as an office for Captain Gaylan McKay. Moving on, I passed the mess hall, which sat dark and empty. Not much farther along, I saw the sea-soldier bar. As I neared the barracks, I heard people talking up ahead.
“They mostly use light arms,” one of the men said, “automatic rifles, grenades, explosives. That’s about it. We can probably reduce the floor space in the shooting range.”
“They’re not going to blow shit up on board ship, are they?”
“I don’t know. They have to practice somewhere.”
Four engineers stood in the open door of the training ground. They paused to look at me as I turned the corner. I had seen one of them in the crewmen’s bar on several occasions. He smiled. “Sergeant Harris, I thought you were flying to Washington, DC.”
“I leave in two days,” I said. “You’re reconfiguring the training area?”
“Getting it ready for the SEALs. Huang ordered the entire deck redesigned. It will take months to finish everything.” The engineer I knew stepped away from the others and lowered his tone before speaking again. “I’ve never seen SEALs before, but I hear they’re practically midgets. That’s the rumor.”
As a guest of the House of Representatives, I expected to travel in style. When I reached the hangar, I found the standard-issue military transport—huge, noisy, and built to carry sixty highly uncomfortable passengers. The Kamehameha was still orbiting Little Man; we were nine miserable days from the nearest broadcast discs.
Feeling dejected, I trudged up the ramp to the transport. I remembered that Admiral Klyber had modified the cabin of one of the ships to look like a living room with couches and a bar. All I found on my flight were sixty high-backed chairs. After stowing my bags in a locker, I settled into the seat that would be my home for the next nine days. As I waited for takeoff, someone slid into the seat next to mine.
“Sergeant Harris, I presume,” a man with a high and officious voice said.
“I am,” I said, without turning to look. I knew that a voice like that could only belong to a bureaucrat, the kind of person who would turn the coming trip from misery to torture.
“I am Nester Smart, Sergeant,” the man said in his high-pitched snappy voice. “I have been assigned to accompany you to Washington.”
“All the way to Washington?” I asked.
“They’re not going to jettison me in space, Harris,” he said.
Nester Smart? Nester Smart? I had heard that name before. I turned and recognized the face. “Aren’t you the governor of Ezer Kri?”
“I was the interim governor,” he said. “A new governor has been elected. I was just there as a troubleshooter.”
“I see,” I said, thinking to myself that I knew a little something about shooting trouble.
“We have ten days, Sergeant,” Smart said. “It isn’t nearly enough time, but we will have to make do. You’ve got a lot to learn before we can present you to the House.”
Hearing Smart, I felt exhaustion sweep across my brain. He planned to snipe and lecture me the entire trip, spitting information at me as if giving orders.
The shuttle lifted off the launchpad. Watching the Kamehameha shrink into space, I knew Smart was right. I was an enlisted Marine. What did I know about politics? I took a long look at the various ships flying between the Kamehameha and Little Man, then sat back and turned to Smart. Now that I had become resigned to him, I took a real look at the man and realized that he was several inches taller than I. An athletic-looking man with squared shoulders and a rugged jaw, he looked more like a soldier than a pencil pusher.
“Now that I have your attention, perhaps we can discuss your visit to the capital,” he said, a smirk on his lips. “You may not be aware of it, but several congressmen protested our actions on Little Man. There’s been a lot of infighting between the House and the Senate lately.”
“Do you mean things like Congress passing a bill to cut military spending?”
“You’ve heard about that?”
“And the Senate calling for more orphanages?”
“Bravo,” Smart said, clapping his hands in nearly silent applause. “A soldier who reads the news. What will they come up with next?”
“I’m a Marine,” I said.
“Yes, I know that,” said Smart.
“I’m not a soldier. Do you call Navy personnel soldiers?”
“They’re sailors,” said Smart.
“And I am a Marine.”
Smart smiled, but his eyes narrowed, and he looked me over carefully. “A Marine who follows the news,” he said, the muscles in his jaw visibly clenched.
“Yes, well, unfortunately, we Marines can’t spend our entire lives shooting people and breaking things.” I looked back out the window and saw nothing but stars.
“You’ll find that I do not have much of a sense of humor, Sergeant. I don’t make jokes during the best of times, and this is not my idea of the best of times. To be honest with you, I don’t approve of Marines speaking on Capitol Hill.”
“Whose idea was it?” I asked.
“You’re considered a hero, Sergeant Harris. Everybody loves a hero, especially in politics, but not everybody loves you. There are congressmen who will try to twist your testimony to further their own political agendas.”
“The congressman from Ezer Kri?” I asked.
“James Smith? He’s the least of your worries. The last representative from Ezer Kri disappeared with Yamashiro. Smith is an appointee,” Smart said. “If you run into trouble, it’s going to come from somebody like Gordon Hughes.”
“From Olympus Kri?” I asked.
“Very good,” Smart said. “The representative from Olympus Kri. He will not take you head-on. You’re one of the Little Man 7. Picking a fight with you would not be politic. He might try to make the invasion look like the first hostile action in an undeclared war. The question is how he can make Little Man look illegal without openly attacking you.”
So I’m still a pawn? I said to myself. A hero who would shortly be among the first clones ever made an officer, and I was still a pawn…story of my life. I felt trapped. “Will you be there when I go before the House?”