Her only success was in eradicating the sickly sweet smell of blood and singed flesh. Perhaps, she thought grimly, there was simply no way to eradicate the rank odor of fear on a troop vessel. And why now? The Khalian War was over. They'd all be heading back to the Alliance ports and demob. Surely the fear contaminant should be fading.
The fighting men and women of the 202nd Regiment, the Montana Irregulars, on board the Mandalay had survived nineteen major engagements. The MI's were crack troops, a great point of pride to the naval crew that transported them to the various battle theaters. With the war over, why were these veterans still churning out the sour pheromones of fear? She could understand it if they were moving on to yet another battle area. But they weren't. They were in a holding orbit, and as soon as essential repairs were finished, the entire squadron would very shortly be leaving it on a course for an Alliance world.
She fastened the closings of her clean shipsuit, and grabbed up her clipboard of printouts on the air system. Complaints about the air, while justified right now, were analogous to complaints about weather on primitive planets. It was at least an impersonal, unemotive issue to bitch about. But she couldn't help feeling guilty when someone did. Clean air was her responsibility.
Maybe the captain had got the orders that would release them from orbit. Maybe that would reduce the stink. They'd been hanging about for a long time now, going nowhere in never-decreasing circles. Hope of that reprieve made her hurry down the narrow companionway to the G grav well.
Once the troops knew they were going home, the air would clear up from the barracks decks, where it hung, an almost visible miasma of accumulated fear, stress, and pain. And when the old Mandy was back in a decent human port, she would scour the air system of this old bucket with good clean civilized air on a properly photosynthesizing planet.
Everything will improve, she assured herself, when we're on the way home. She scrambled off the null-grav lift onto the wardroom level. Her palms were sweating again. They always did when she anticipated criticism.
Her keen nostrils caught a new odor, a pleasant one, refreshing. She sniffed about her and realized that the smell was seeping from the wardroom. She identified the aroma with some astonishment. Lavender? In the wardroom? They were desperate.
She rapped the panel courteously and then entered, closing the door quickly behind her because she didn't want the outside air to dilute the fragrance inside. The odor came from a lighted candle on the wardroom table, around which ranged both naval and marine officers. She slipped into the only remaining seat, between the marine colonel, Jay Gruen, and Major Damia Pharr, head of the medical team. They gave her a nod, but something about their tenseness communicated itself to her. The clipboard slipped out of her sweaty hands and clattered to the tabletop.
She muttered apologies, which no one noticed. Then she, too, found herself trying not to stare at Captain August. His face was so expressionless that the flimsy that drooped from his fingers must contain bad news. The lavender was to soothe them all?
A sudden premonition shook Amalfi. They were not going home. She clutched the edge of the clipboard now as if she were squeezing the breath out of whoever issued such orders. Where in the Nine Pits of Hell could they be sent now? Not another pocket of Khalian resistance? Was that why there was such a stench of fear? Only how could the soldiers know the content of a message the captain could only have received within the past half hour? Scuttlebutt was quick but not that quick, and any important stuff came in code, which took longer to seep into general knowledge.
Captain August stood. He had been a lean man when she first joined the Mandalay seven long years ago. He was gaunt now, the flesh stretched across the bone of his skull, the skin under his eyes dark with sleeplessness and stress. He'd been in command of the Mandalay since the outbreak of hostilities with the Khalians. He spread the flimsy, its message bleeding black ink tracks across the dirty cream of the recycled paper.
"In code, we have been given orders to proceed to a rendezvous in two weeks, GGMT, with the supply ship Grampian, which will have replacement personnel for you, Colonel Gruen, to bring the regiment up to full strength."
"Replacement personnel?" Gruen demanded, his light, oddly flecked eyes bulging slightly as he challenged the captain. "Full strength?"
"Yes, Colonel," August said. He scowled as he glanced around the table, at the stunned expressions that ranged from horror through disbelief to despair. "We are to reprovision to battle-readiness."
"Battle-ready?" The words exploded from Hamish Argyll, the gunnery officer.
On both sides of Amalfi came the mutter of mutinous curses.
"But, Captain, who's left to battle with?" No sooner were the words out of young Ensign Badeley's mouth than he tried to melt under the table from embarrassment.
"That information is omitted from this communique!" Captain August let the flimsy fall from his fingers. He scrubbed his fingertips on his thumb as if he'd touched something unclean. The sheet drifted slowly to the tabletop, all eyes following it.
"Then the scuttlebutt is true?" Colonel Gruen asked in a hoarse voice.
Captain August turned his head slowly toward him. "And you believe the scuttlebutt you hear. Colonel?"
"When it's affecting the morale of my soldiers, you bet your last tank of oxy I do." Waggling a finger at the captain, Gruen went on. "I got to tell you. Captain, the morale of my troops is so low, I shall withhold this information from them as long as it is humanly possible."
"How can you keep it from 'em. Jay?" Major Pete Loftus, the adjutant, demanded, raising his hands in resignation. "They know most things before I do. The air's full of fear stench." He darted a quick glance at Amalfi, who tried to scrunch even smaller between the two larger bodies.
"How could they possibly know orders which were only issued thirty-five minutes ago?"
"They don't," the colonel replied bluntly. "They won't. They're sunk so low in battle fatigue right now, such orders would result in a rash of suicide attempts, brawls, and possibly even a mutiny attempt…"
"Not on my ship…" August began.
"You're exaggerating…" Brace, the naval science officer, protested.
"We can't cope with that," added Major Pharr.
Colonel Gruen eyed everyone dispassionately. "I've been the regimental commander now since we were mobilized to fight the Khalians and there's no fight left in my soldiers. I'll tell you this, I stay awake nights trying - " His fist came down on the table. " - trying to figure out some way to revive their morale. Right now, I doubt they'd even suit up. There've been wars before where there weren't no soldiers to fight."
"How can you have a war if there're no fighters?" Ensign Badeley piped up.
"You have been apprised of my orders." Captain August rose to his feet. "We break orbit at twelve hundred hours tomorrow. If it's any consolation, the entire squadron is headed in the same direction, not just the Mandalay"
"It is no end of consolation, Captain," Gruen replied with bitter sarcasm, "to know that High Command isn't picking on us alone. I'd like permission to make a private call on the secure band, sir."
Captain August gave a curt nod and strode quickly out of the wardroom.
"Wait here for me," Gruen said, pointing a commanding finger at the others as he rose to follow.
"You bet!" Loftus replied, glancing about the table to see if anyone would be fool enough to leave.
Gruen's wife served on the flagship, and had often been able to discreetly reassure those aboard the Mandalay to their advantage.
"There is no way that I, as chief medic," Damia Pharr began in her gravelly voice, "would certify these troops as battle-ready. They can dress 'em up and kit 'em out and load 'em up but they won't fight!"