Orphan's Triumph

SEVEN

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Howard, Ord, and I had changed into Eternad armor, and we exited a tube down-weight, at level six, the small-unit maneuver range. The range had a seventy-five-foot-high ceiling and a twenty-acre floor set with obstacles and targets that the range umpires could move to simulate varied tactical situations.

Holo training has its place, and Ready Brigade spent hours each week in the simulators. But there’s no substitute for sweat, noise, chaos, and physical exhaustion.

As we arrived, platoons from Ready Brigade Mousetrap maneuvered, squads in full tactical Eternad armor advancing at a crouching run while others covered them, then leapfrogged past their buddies. Detonation simulators shook the floor; hot smoke confused visible and infrared images. Squad leaders suddenly found their radios cut off by the umpire, forcing them to pop their visors and shout commands over the chatter of blanks and the screams of “wounded.”

The brigadier general who commanded Ready Brigade stood fifty yards from us. When he spotted us, he popped his helmet visor open, waved, then jogged toward us.

Howard said to me, “Jason, it would take us weeks to send objections back to Earth and get a response.”

Ord, his own visor open, leaned toward me. “In the meantime, sir-”

I sighed. “An order is an order.” From the first day I wised off as a trainee, I’ve bent plenty of rules. But even if I was now prepared to disobey a lawful order, my superiors would just relieve me, and my replacement would have to execute the order, but at the disadvantage of being new to the job. Which could get more GIs killed and increase the chance of failure. There would be time later to vent. For now, my job was to do the job I was sworn to do.

Ready Brigade’s commander arrived, in Eternad armor, helmet tucked under one arm, sweating. He saluted. I returned it and smiled. “Keeping them busy, Rusty?”

He grinned back. “Keeping myself busy, too, sir. One thing about Mousetrap, there’s not a lot else to do.”

I motioned him to follow the three of us into a vacant umpire’s blind, where the four of us leaned against the dark consoles. I was about to cure Ready Brigade’s boredom, and the cure would be painful. I said to Rusty, “You’ve heard about the Weichsel incursion?”

He glanced at Howard, then said, “Unofficially, sir. Did Space Force grease the maggots yet?”

I glanced at Howard, myself, then said, “Not exactly.”