Huber’s eyes opened. He saw three faces, anxious despite their hard features. Then the pain hit him and he blacked out.
He regained consciousness. The world was white, pulsing, and oven-hot—but he was alert, waiting for his vision to steady. He knew from experience that he hadn’t been out long this time, but how long he’d been here, in the main infirmary at Base Alpha …He must’ve been hurt bad.
“How’s Jellicoe?” he said. Huber’d heard rusty hinges with better tone than he had now, but he got the words out. “How’s my platoon sergeant?”
The technician adjusted his controls, his attention on the display of his medical computer. He nodded in self-satisfaction. Huber felt a quivering numbness in all his nerve endings.
The other men in the room were Major Danny Pritchard and— Blood and Martyrs—Colonel Hammer himself.
“She didn’t make it,” Hammer said flatly. “If you hadn’t had her over your back, you wouldn’t have made it either. The shot that hit Three-three’s bow slope splashed upward. The good part of it is that the impact pretty well threw you aboard your own car. Your people were able to bug out after the rest of the platoon with no further casualties.”
“It was quick for her,” said Major Pritchard. He smiled wryly. “This time that’s the truth.”
You always told civilian dependents that their trooper’s death had been quick, even if you knew she’d been screaming in agony, unable to open a jammed hatch as her vehicle burned. You didn’t lie to other troopers, though, because it was a waste of breath.
Huber nodded. Pain washed over him; he closed his eyes. The technician muttered and made adjustments. Huber felt the pain vanish as though a series of switches were being tripped in sequence.
The Slammers used pain drugs only as first aid. Once a trooper was removed to a central facility, direct neural stimulation provided analgesis without the negative side effects of chemicals. The Medicomp had kept Huber unconscious while he healed, exercising his muscles group by group to prevent atrophy and bed sores. He’d been awakened only when he should be able to walk on his own. The technician was smoothing out the vestiges of pain while Huber lay in a cocoon of induced inputs.
Huber opened his eyes. His brain was still collecting itself; direct neural stimulation tended to separate memory into discrete facets which reintegrated jarringly as consciousness returned. Part of Arne Huber understood it was remarkable that the Regiment’s commander and deputy commander stood beside his pallet, but everything was new and remarkable to him now.
“How long’s it been?” he said aloud, marvelling at the sound of his voice. “How long’ve I been out?”
“Four days,” Danny Pritchard said. “Going on five if you count the time before we got you back to Base Alpha by aircar.”
“Right,” said Huber. “Well, I’m ready to go back to my platoon now. Are we still in the field?”
As he spoke, he braced his hands on the edges of the pallet and with careful determination began to lever his torso up from the mattress. A spasm knotted his muscles; his vision went briefly monochrome. The technician clicked his tongue.
“F-3 ought to be out of the line,” Hammer said in a gravelly voice, “but we can’t afford that luxury just now. We’ve assigned a car from Central Repair and personnel from the depot to bring them up to strength. I’ve put in a lieutenant named Algren as CO. He’s green as grass, but he was top of his class at the Academy.”
“I’m the fucking CO of F-3!” Huber said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I can—”
He lurched to his feet. His knees buckled. Hammer caught him expertly and lifted him onto the pallet. Huber gasped, hoping he wouldn’t vomit. There was nothing in his stomach, but acid boiled against the back of his throat while the technician’s fingers danced on his keypad.
“No, you can’t,” Major Pritchard said. “We need the troopers we’ve got too badly to let you get a bunch of them killed to prove you’re superman, which you’re not. Besides, I want you in Operations.”
“Right,” said Hammer. “Bad as things are in the field, just now I need experienced officers on my staff worse than I do line commanders. I might transfer you to Operations even if you were fit to go back to F-3.”
Huber glared at the Colonel, then let himself relax on the pallet. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I’m not fit, you’ve got that right. But …”
“But when you are,” Hammer said, “then I guess you’ve earned your choice of assignments. You did a good job getting your people out of that ratfuck. I won’t bother saying I’m sorry for the way you got left hanging, but sure—I owe you one.”
“For now you can do the most good to F-3 and the whole Regiment just by helping ride herd on what passes for the military forces of the United Cities,” Pritchard said. “If we don’t get them working together, it’s going to be …”
His voice trailed off. He shook his head, suddenly looking drawn and gray with despair.
“The first thing you can help with,” said Hammer, “is coming up with a platoon sergeant. I don’t want to bring in somebody new, not with a newbie CO. I offered the job to your blower captain, Sergeant Deseau, and he turned it down; the others aren’t seasoned enough on paper, and I don’t know any of them personally.”
“Frenchie’d hate the job …” Huber said, his mind settling into professional mode instead of focusing on his body and its weakness. “He could do it, but …”
“I can put the arm on him,” the Colonel said. “Tell him it’s take the job or out—and I wouldn’t be bluffing.”
“No,” said Huber. “There’s a sergeant in Log Section now, Jack Tranter. He’s worked with us before. He isn’t a line trooper, but he’s seen the elephant. He’s got the rank and organizational skills, and he’s got the judgment to balance some young fire-eater straight out of the Academy.”
“I remember him,” said Pritchard with a frown. “He’s a good man, but he’s missing his right leg.”
“The way things are right at the moment, Danny,” said the Colonel with a piercing look at his subordinate, “he could be stone blind and I’d give him a trial if Huber here vouched for him. We don’t have a lot of margin, you know.”
Pritchard nodded with a grim smile. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s that.”
Hammer turned to Huber again. The movement was very slight, but his gaze had unexpected weight. Huber felt the sort of shock he would if he’d been playing soccer and caught a medicine ball instead.
“So, Lieutenant?” he said. “Are you going to do what I tell you, or are you going to keep telling me what you’ll do?”
“Sir!” said Huber, sitting up. He didn’t feel the waves of nausea and weakness that’d crumpled him moments before, but neither did he push his luck by swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “You’re the Colonel. I’ll do the best job I can wherever you put me.”
Hammer nodded, a lift of his chin as tiny as the smile that touched his thin lips. Huber wondered vaguely what would’ve happened if he’d been too bullheaded to face reality. Hard to tell, but the chances were he’d be looking for a civilian job when he got out of the infirmary instead of arguing about where he belonged in the Regimental Table of Organization.
Danny Pritchard looked at the technician and said, “When’ll he be able to move? Sit in front of a console in the Operations shop I mean, not humping through the boonies.”
The technician shrugged. “I can have him over there by jeep in maybe three hours. It’s not how brave you are or how many pushups you can do, it’s just the neural pathways reconnecting. D’ye want me to requisition a uniform or did his own gear come in with him?”
All three men looked reflexively at Huber. Huber gulped out a laugh and felt better by an order of magnitude to have broken his own tension that way.