“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, turning to walk away.
“Shit,” Herzer muttered. “Amosis, give me your notebook.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, handing it over with a quizzical expression.
“You can’t get out without authorization,” Herzer explained, writing a short note and handing it to her. “Lieutenant… Commer, what’s the name of the Blood Lord commander?”
“Captain Van Buskirk, sir,” the lieutenant replied.
“Bus?” Herzer said. “I didn’t even know he’d made lieutenant much less captain. Okay, Megan, could you please get with Courtney and Shanea and discuss specific housekeeping arrangements. There may be more kids that have to be looked after; we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I need to go see the detachment commander. And maybe arrange dinner.”
“Yes, sir!” Megan snapped.
“In a moment,” Herzer said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her down the corridor. “Okay, what?” he asked when they were in her room.
Megan started to reply, then bit her tongue. He waited through a jaw flex and an inhalation, expecting at any moment to have his head ripped off.
“I’d gotten used to giving orders,” Megan said, finally. “And I’ve got a question; who’s in charge here?”
“Oh,” Herzer said, blowing out a breath. “In all honesty, I suppose you are. You’re the Key-holder.”
“True,” Megan replied, shaking her head. “But I’m not the right person to be in charge. I wouldn’t have known to contact… Colonel Torill and I wouldn’t have known to ask for… that officer you asked for. So what are we doing?”
Herzer thought about it for a moment, scratching his chin with his prosthetic and then nodded, sharply.
“Council members, with a few exceptions, are responsible for strategic decisions, not operational or tactical, agreed? And, with the exception of Duke Edmund, they are defined as civilians, not military.”
“Agreed,” Megan said. “So you’re saying I get strategic calls and you get operational and tactical? I get civilian, you get military?”
“When we’re prepping the mission and when we’re on the mission, I’m in charge,” Herzer said bluntly. “Up and until we come to a strategic decision. Then you make the call and I carry it out. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Megan said.
“Now,” Herzer said, delicately. “What the hell was that with Mike?”
Megan’s face worked again and Herzer just waited.
“He has a tendency to piss me off,” Megan admitted. “And the whole ‘me man, me work, you woman, take care of babies and cook’ really—”
“Triggered something?” Herzer asked.
“You could say that,” Megan admitted with a breathless chuckle. “Very… strong stab of anger.”
“ ‘Irrational’ stab of anger?” Herzer asked.
“Oh, I dunno,” Megan said, smiling unhappily. “I think it was pretty rational, don’t you?”
“The degree?” Herzer asked.
“No.”
“You know what was happening there?” Herzer asked carefully.
“I’d analyzed it myself the moment you brought it up,” Megan said bitterly. “Thank you.”
“There is going to be a lot of stress on this mission,” Herzer pointed out. “A lot of tension. Probably a fair degree of shouting. Certainly orders that are going to have to be acted on, sometimes without thinking about it. There is not room for someone who is not in control of their emotions.”
“I’m in perfect control,” Megan said, coldly.
“No, you’re not,” Herzer replied gently. “Not if Mike can get you that angry by just being… Mike. Stress is not cumulative, it’s multiplicative. There’s small background stress, then you add another stress on and another and finally there’s that one that sends you right up to the brink of loss of control, or over. And life-threatening stress is worse than what we’ve been dealing with. If you panic, up there…” His jaw worked and Megan reached up to stroke it.
“You’ll lose me,” she whispered. “Are you trying to find a reason for me not to go on this mission?”
“I’m not willing to lose you,” Herzer replied, tightly. “I don’t, frankly, give a damn about the Key. I’m not willing to lose you, Megan Travante. I’m not. Hell, for that reason if no other, one or the other of us shouldn’t be on this mission. And, of the two, I think you’re the one to worry about.”
“Herzer,” Megan said, “I’m strong, okay? And we’re both coming back from this mission. Get that through your head.”
“You’re strong,” he admitted. “But you’ve got weird stress points. And you get stubborn. I won’t have time to let you work things out for yourself up there,” he added, pointing upward.
“What about when I tell you to do something or not to do something?” Megan asked. “When it’s a strategic decision.”
“You tell me to jump off the damned ship, and I will,” Herzer said, definitely. “But you’d better have a damned good reason.”
“I won’t ever ask you to do that,” Megan said, chuckling.
“Ten’hut!” someone bellowed as Herzer walked into the orderly room of the Blood Lord headquarters.
“At ease,” he bellowed. “Where’s the captain?”
“In there, sir,” one of the sergeants in the room said, gesturing at the rear door.
Herzer knocked on the door and entered at a bellowed “Come.”
“Hey, Bus,” he said as the captain started to get to his feet. “Chill. When’d you pin on your third pip?”
“Last month,” the captain said. “Congratulations on your promotion, sir.”
Captain Van Buskirk was nearly as large and broad as Herzer but where Herzer was dark, “Bus” Van Buskirk was light: blond hair, skin so white that his vascular system stood out like a model, sunburned nose and cheekbones. Herzer remembered that he had a tendency to burn if the sun was below the horizon. They weren’t friends exactly, but the Blood Lord group was so small that he tended to know most of the officers and a good many of the NCOs.
“Can the ‘sir,’ Bus,” Herzer said, sighing and settling in the room’s only other chair. “This is a classic FUBAR, you know that?”
“I’m just starting to get an inkling of what’s going on in this camp,” the captain replied. “But I’ll agree that all signs point to FUBAR.”
“Fisked up beyond all recognition,” Herzer admitted, his eyes narrowing. “But part of that fisk up I’m going to stop now. We’re going to have to discuss distribution on things, but bringing you in on what you’re guarding is just going to be part of the change…”
“Do you have authority?” Van Buskirk asked.
“I do indeed,” Herzer replied. “And if I don’t, fisk it. What we’re supposed to be doing here is planning to retake the fuel tanker that’s headed in.”
“Thought so,” the captain said, grimacing. “That’s the thing with the lake, right?”
“I have no idea,” Herzer admitted. “Why?”
“Zero g, training,” the captain said. “It’s the really old way to train for zero g.”
“You’ve been in space?” Herzer asked.
“A couple of times,” Van Buskirk said. “I used to play… well… you did ER, right?”
Herzer had, indeed, spent much of his time prior to the Fall in Enhanced Reality, the computer generated world of holograms and nano-forms where a good many people gamed.
“Yeah,” the commander said. “But I was always in a medieval fantasy environment. You?”
“You were lucky,” the captain said with a laugh. “I was playing shooter games. Some of the best were on simulated spaceships. A couple of times I went up for live group tourneys, just to see if there was a difference. There wasn’t enough to matter.”