Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter Seven

“This is an impressive display,” the President said, as we watched the newly-minted soldiers lining up in front of their trainers. For once, the drill sergeants weren’t shouting or hazing the recruits, but being as pleased with them as they ever were — acting as if they might just barely survive their first years as soldiers. “What’s the point of the ceremony?”

I shrugged. “To remind them that they all sweated blood and struggled to get as far as they have and to convince them that it was all worthwhile,” I said. “To show them the comradeship of their fellow soldiers and how they’re all part of the same system, even though they’re going to be going to different units. To reward them for their suffering and promise them further suffering in the future, even though they’ve made it through the hardest part of the training. To…

“Pick one or all of them, Mr President,” I added. “With such baubles armies are led.”

“I see,” the President said. I would have been surprised if he had understood, at least completely. Civilians rarely understood the need for such ceremonies, either Graduation Day or the more-feared Last Night, where the recruits would be hazed one final time by the graduated soldiers before welcoming them into the ranks. The training never really stopped, of course; they’d be spending the next few months exercising as soldiers. “And you got them decent uniforms.”

“Yep,” I said, pleased with myself. Muna had rounded up a few hundred local seamstresses and hired them to sew the uniforms themselves. I had considered using the UN uniforms that had been abandoned at the spaceport, but it would probably have been impolitic. As it was, the simple green uniform was impressive enough for the local civilians; the soldiers who had gone on leave after graduating had been boasting about their conquests. On Svergie, all the nice girls seemed to love a soldier. It was a shame that that wasn’t true of Earth. “They’ll get urban or rural battledress for actual service, of course, but they deserve at least one nice uniform.”

We watched as the Drill Sergeants pinned on rank insignia and a handful of training medals. Some of the recruits from each class had already been marked out for advancement, but they’d all get at least six months experience in the ranks before they were promoted, unless they had to be promoted into a dead man’s shoes. It was something we’d borrowed from Heinlein, where every senior officer needed to have experience as a common soldier, not the UN. The UN had had a habit of promoting the wrong people.

“And finally, the oath,” I said. “At this point, Mr President, your young men become soldiers.”

He watched, a faint tear in his eye, as the soldiers swore loyalty to the planet’s constitution. I’d expected more political faction fights over what oath they’d be taking, but surprisingly enough a compromise had been reached fairly quickly. They wouldn’t be swearing loyalty to any one person, or political party, or even the government, but to the constitution that governed the planet. Svergie’s constitution had its flaws — it had been designed for the planet before the UN got involved — but it was surprisingly simple. I’d seen worlds where the constitution occupied several massive volumes and no one believed in it.

“And there they go,” I concluded, as the soldiers headed for the gates. It wasn’t a very orderly procession, but the Drill Sergeants tolerated it on Graduation Day. “They’ll be out at one of the bases after a week’s leave and they’ll be formed into units. If all goes according to plan, we should even be able to hold a major exercise within the year.”

“If everything remains peaceful,” the President said. He looked over at Suki, who was watching the display as well. She wore a simple unmarked uniform herself; she’d wanted to keep wearing her normal outfit, but I’d forbidden her from wearing it on a military base. It would have been bad for discipline, even if she did look stunning. Besides, she also looked good in a uniform. “Is there a place we can talk alone?”

I nodded and led him away from the parade ground, back towards my office. Ed and Russell would take care of any last-minute problems, unless civil war broke out almost at once. I’d quietly kept the defence of the spaceport in the hands of A Company, while B and C Company mentored the new Svergie units, just in case. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the new units we’d raised and trained, but I did want to keep them away from temptation. Some of them were almost certainly picked men — by one or more of the parties.

My office hadn’t improved much since I’d occupied it, although I had hung up a large map of the planet and some organisation charts, mainly to distract visitors. Most of what I needed to know was locked away in my head or in the secure computers — at least, we hoped they were the secure computers. The planet’s computer industry might have been trapped in the dark ages — they could barely produce something holding a terabyte of data — but we knew that they had purchased some items from off-planet. If we’d been able to identify what, and who, I would have been a lot happier.

“I’m sorry it isn’t more comfortable,” I said, sincerely. A military office has no business being comfortable — the UN, naturally, treated its senior officers like kings — but the President really needed a comfortable chair. He looked older than the last time I’d seen him, as if the stresses of the job were wearing him down, bit by bit. I wanted to advise bed rest, or even a long holiday, but that simply wasn’t an option.

“It’s fine as it is,” the President assured me, but I knew he was lying. “It’s just been a long day and I’m tired.”

“But not of the day,” I said, pouring him a mug of strong coffee. It wasn’t what I would have normally fed to a President, but UN-issue coffee is good at keeping people awake. It was probably the one thing the UN got right. “Are you worried about the election?”

The President nodded. “The Council is fairly evenly balanced right now,” he said, sipping his coffee and grimacing at the taste. I half-expected him to refuse to drink more than a few sips, but he carried on gamely. It was something of an acquired taste, after all. “After the election, it won’t be balanced at all. Something is going to break.”

I nodded, without speaking. I’d studied the Svergie Constitution carefully after TechnoMage had called it to my attention and he was right. The President — popularly elected by the people — had considerable power, but an absolute majority in the Council could overrule him. His personal powers were limited; he might control the army — such as it was — but not the police or the courts. The whole system seemed to have been created for a far smaller population, perhaps even a single city, rather than an entire planet. I suspected that that was the work of the UN.

“And when it does, our order is going to fall apart,” he continued. “What will happen then?”

“Civil war,” I said, sipping my own coffee. It was hard to pretend to be unconcerned and I suspect he saw though the deception. “The rural areas try to declare independence and the cities try to suppress them. It won’t be pleasant.”

“It was so much easier when we were fighting the UN,” the President said, rubbing his eyes. “Everyone was united then.”

“And now the factions are breaking apart,” I said. “You had unity as long as you had a powerful enemy to revolt against. Now you have to deal with the fruits of victory.”

The President looked up at me. “Rotten fruits, rather like the ones the UN tried to get the farmers to sell,” he said. He saw my blank look and explained. “Every single fruit had to go through a long supply chain, so by the time they reached the customer they were already going bad. I think it was meant for health and safety reason.”

I snorted. “Never mind,” he added. “Why did you leave the UN anyway?”

“Long story,” I said, willing him to drop it. I hadn’t left the UN; the UN had left me. “There are more important things to…”

“Why did you leave the UN?” He repeated. “I read your record, but as far as I can tell, it’s one of a honourable soldier. Or am I missing something?”

I felt a bittersweet pang at his words. “As I said, it’s a long story,” I said. “I joined to escape the hellhole Earth had become. The UNPF seemed the only way out. They don’t conscript soldiers, Mr President; they don’t have to conscript soldiers. The living conditions do that for them. They have more volunteers than they have spaces for them, even when they had millions of men in uniform and hundreds of planets to occupy. I went through their kind and sensitive training program and learned more about feeding the needy than I did about fighting. I think I fired about ten rounds in basic training and…

“They sent us into a hellhole called El Puta Dorada, or something like that,” I continued, feeling the bitterness welling up into my voice. “It should have been easy, or so they told us. Instead, they dumped ten thousand men right into a swarming horde of the enemy and trapped us under their fire. Thousands died, yet somehow we survived and escaped — somehow. When we reached UN lines, I found that the man who’d come up with the scheme had been promoted for innovative thinking, so I killed him. No one ever worked out that it was me.”

I don’t know why I told him that. I’d never told anyone else that. “His replacement was looking for heroes and decided I needed promoting, so I got promoted,” I said. “I don’t know if he knew all along and it was a reward for his promotion, but they gave me a platoon and told me to do things for them. I got half my platoon killed on my first mission, but they saw it as a success. I found myself trying to learn how to lead and maintain an infantry unit in the midst of a war. By the time that particular campaign ended, I was a Captain and had a whole Company under me

“And I was keen to show what I could do and correct… errors in our training, so we ran through endless drills and burned up more ammunition than all of the other units in the area combined, just drilling. The paperwork… well, I kept losing the paperwork, so the bureaucrats kept being unhappy with me, but I didn’t care. Eventually, I found someone to handle it for me while I focused on training and ended up with the best Company in the Infantry.

“And they hated that, so they sent us in on what should have been a suicidal mission,” I concluded. “We won, somehow, and embarrassed hundreds of Generals who’d declared that the mission was impossible. They sent us to Heinlein where we held an entire sector against the most bloody-minded group of insurgents in the Human Sphere, which made us even more of an embarrassment. And then…”

I broke off. I couldn’t discuss that in front of anyone, even John. “They decided we needed punishment and dispatched us to Botany,” I concluded. Hopefully, he wouldn’t see the hole in the story. “When the UN collapsed, we ended up homeless exiles, so we became a mercenary unit and picked up others in the same boat. A while later, your messengers found and hired us, saving us from financial catastrophe and disaster. You know the rest.”

“Thank you,” the President said. I wondered if he’d believed everything I’d said, or if he harboured doubts. “Do you regret the UN’s fall?”

I hesitated. “I used to think that I was part of something greater than myself,” I said, finally. “Now… I realised fairly early on that all we were was a tool of oppression and most of us just fought for pay anyway. There were no grand causes, nothing to fire the blood, just money. It wasn’t that hard to make the switch to doing it openly and accepting your money. Other planets have loyalty and causes worth fighting for, but the UN never had. It’s hard to believe in a greater cause when you’re wading through the blood of slaughtered children.”

“I understand,” the President said. He looked weaker by the second. “I had to order strikes that took out — killed — innocents in the crossfire. I used to hate myself for it, but I kept telling myself that the ends justified the means and everything we did served a useful and necessary purpose. And, in the UN, someone hundreds of light years away ended the war without any help from us. They call me the saviour of the planet and they have great difficulty finding anyone to stand against me for President, but what happens when I die?”

“Good question,” I mused. The President could, in theory, stand for re-election until he died, but I doubted he would stand for another term if he could avoid it. The elections might confirm him as President for another five years, but judging from his appearance, he probably wouldn’t live through them all. If the Progressives gained a decisive advantage in the Council, they might even try to weaken the President’s position still further, or worse, impeach him. The Communists already hated the President. They wouldn’t oppose him. “They might find someone else.”

“I used to tell myself that I could let go and nothing bad would happen,” the President continued. “Now, I feel as if I don’t dare let go, or the whole planet will come apart.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. I could be open with him, slightly. “My people believe that you’re looking at a major collapse within the next few years.”

“I know,” the President said. “Did they propose any solutions?”

I smiled. “You’ll have to send the unemployed out to the farms for training under supervision,” I said. “You’ll need a program of public works to improve the living conditions and the planet’s infrastructure. You’ll even need to expand the planet’s industry and energy sectors, which is something you desperately need. Your power shortage keeps you from developing into a properly developed planet.

“It might even get the Conservative and Progressive voting bases to get a good look at each other,” I added. “They might learn that the other side isn’t composed of monsters, or work-shy layabouts. It might help head off the coming disaster at the pass.”

“They’d never stand for it,” the President said. “There’s enough doubts about the army, let alone anything else. The Progressives would oppose sending people to the fields because it violates their rights; the Conservatives would oppose it because they’d see it as a dreadful mistake. They might even be right. The last bunch of people we sent out to the farms… well, only three of them ended up as proper farmers.”

“And you need to do something about the street toughs,” I added. “At the moment, they’re nothing, but a drain on your resources and a headache for the ordinary citizens. You should have them all rounded up and dumped in a work camp.”

“The trouble has been down since they started running into your soldiers,” the President said, wryly. “Of course, the Progressives are protesting that as well. The common people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands.”

“And so on, and so on,” I agreed. It seemed to be the only deterrent that had halted the street gangs in their tracks. The police weren’t allowed to do more than move them on and they often returned when the police left, intimidating the entire neighbourhood. My soldiers… well, they found the gangs, kicked the shit out of the ones stupid enough to stand and fight, and put the others to flight. Personally, I’d have rounded them all up and conscripted them, but the old arguments against conscription continued to apply. “They do need to be taught a lesson.”

“Yes,” the President said. He changed the subject abruptly, reaching into his briefcase. “I have something for you.”

He pulled out a small velvet box. I opened it and saw a pair of golden wings. “Mr President?”

“That’s the rank badge for a General,” the President said. “At the moment, according to the Rules of Engagement, you’re not actually a military officer on this world. You don’t have any legal authority to command our soldiers.” He nodded towards the box in my hand. “You do now.”

He held up a hand before I could speak. “You’re not from here and you understand our problems better than most of the people here,” he admitted. “Lennart is going to be retiring in the next few weeks — he doesn’t want to serve under a Progressive Government — and I decided to use my authority to promote you into his place. You may find it useful.”

I stared down at the badge. “Fleet…”

“Fleet will accept it if we commission you under specific conditions,” the President said. I suspected — hoped — that he’d consulted with Fleet before giving me the badge. “We have a month before the election, when everything changes. By then, I want you to be ready.”

“Mr President?” I asked. “What should we be ready for?”

“Anything,” he said. “Whatever happens… we have to be ready.”