"Because he can't forget he's a goddamned Marine!" Pahner barked. "I was a Marine before his mother was born, but when I came to the Regiment the first time, do you know what they told me?"
"No. But, Captain—"
"They told me to forget about being a Marine. Because Marines have all sorts of great traditions. Marines always bring back their dead. Marines never disobey an order. Marines always recover the flag. But in The Empress' Own, there's only one tradition. And do you know what the tradition of your regiment is, Colonel?"
"No, I guess not, but, Captain—"
"The tradition is that there is only one task. Only one mission. And we've never failed at it. Do you know what it is?"
"To protect the Imperial Family," Roger said, trying to get a word in edgewise. "But, Captain—"
"Do you think I liked leaving Gelert behind?!" the captain shouted.
"No, but—"
"Or Bilali, or Hooker, or, for God's sake, Dobrescu? Do you think I liked leaving our only medic behind?"
"No, Captain," Roger said, no longer even trying to rebut.
"Do you know why I was willing to lose those valuable people, troopers I've trained with my own hands, some of them for years? People I love? People that until recently you didn't even realize existed?"
"No," Roger said, finally really listening. "Why?"
"Because we have only one job: get you back to Imperial City alive. Until Crown Prince John's kids reach their legal majority and Parliament confirms their place in the succession, you—God help us all—are third in line for the Throne of Man! And whether you believe it or not, your family is the only damned glue holding the entire Empire of Man together, which is why it's our job—the Regiment's job—to protect that glue at any cost. Anything that stands in the way of that has to be ignored. Anything!" the captain snarled. "That's our mission. That's our only mission. I thought about it, and determined that I couldn't persuade them to retreat and abandon Gelert. But the company probably would have been lost if we'd settled into a meeting engagement on that ground. So I ran," he said softly.
"I abandoned them to certain death, cut my losses, and beat feet. For one reason only. And do you know what that was?"
"To keep me alive," Roger said quietly.
"So how do you think I felt when I turned around and you weren't there? After sacrificing all those people? And finding out it was for nothing?"
"I'm sorry, Sir," Roger said. "I didn't think."
"No," Pahner snapped. "You didn't. That's just fine, even expected, in a brand new, wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant. The ones who survive by luck and the skin of their teeth learn to think, eventually. But I can't take the chance on your not making it. Is that clear?"
"Yes," Roger replied, looking at the ground.
"If we lose you, we might as well all cut our throats. You realize that?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Roger, you'd better learn to think," the Marine said in a softer tone. "You'd better learn to think very quickly. I nearly took the entire company back out to get you. And we would all have died on that slope, because we couldn't have extracted you and then withdrawn successfully. We would have died right here. All of us. Bilali and Hooker and Despreaux and Eleanora and Kostas and all the rest of us. You understand?"
"Yes." Roger's voice was almost inaudible and he was looking at the ground again.
"And whose fault would that have been? Yours, or Bilali's?"
"Mine." Roger sighed, and Pahner looked at him unblinkingly for several moments, then nodded.
"Okay. As long as we have that straight," he said, and waited again until Roger nodded back.
"Colonel," he went on then, without a smile, "I think it's time we gave you another 'hat.' " He reached out again and tapped the prince on the forehead once more, more gently this time. "I think you need to take over as Third Platoon leader, Colonel. I know it will be a step down in rank, but I really need a platoon leader over there. Are you up for it, Colonel?"
Roger took his gaze off the ground at last, looked up at him, and nodded with slightly misty eyes.
"I'll try."
"Very well, Lieutenant MacClintock. Your platoon sergeant is Gunnery Sergeant Jin. He's an experienced NCO, and I think you could learn a lot from listening to his advice. I remind you that platoon leader is one of the most dangerous jobs in the Corps. Keep your head down and your powder dry."
"Yes, Sir," Roger said, and produced another salute.
"You'd better get up there, Lieutenant," the captain said soberly. "Your platoon is hard at work digging in. I think you should familiarize yourself with the situation as soon as possible."
"Yes, Sir!" Roger saluted yet again.
"Dismissed," Pahner said, and shook his head as the prince trotted up the ruined road towards the citadel. At least he finally had Roger unambiguously slotted into the chain of command, although he hated to think how the Regiment's CO was going to feel about the expedient to which he'd been driven. Now if he could only keep the young idiot alive! Platoon leader really was the most dangerous post in the Corps; which didn't mean that it wasn't less dangerous than watching Prince Roger ricochet around like an unaimed rifle bead on his own.
He watched the prince for a few more moments, then decided that he should hurry himself. He couldn't wait to see Jin's face.
"Gunnery Sergeant Jin?"
"Yes, Your Highness?" The gunnery sergeant turned from specifying positions and fields of fire with Corporal Casset and glanced at the prince. "Can I help you?"
The city of Voitan had been vast, but the citadel was the simplest of constructions. It was built into the slope of the mountain, backed up to a cliff which had been quarried sheer, undoubtedly for building material for the rest of the city. A seven-meter curtain wall ran in a more or less semicircle from cliff to cliff and surrounded a three-story inner keep. The curtain wall was thick, three meters across at the top and tapered outward as it descended, with a heavy bastion built right into the cliff face at either end. The only entrances to the bastions were through small doors on the inner side at the level of the top of the wall. The original doors were long since gone, but temporary doors were already being constructed. The upper stories of the bastions had been of wood and had burned down long ago, as had the upper story of the keep, but the lower stories were built into the wall, and the interior partitions were stone. These had withstood not only the Kranolta assault but also the ravages of time and even the unceasing onslaught of the Mardukan jungle.
Slits for javelins and spears were arrayed on the "wall-level," pointing outward. No inner first-story slits faced the top of the wall, but upper-level slits did just that, designed so that if the top of the wall were taken, fire could be poured into the attackers. There were also slits at the level of the bailey, so that if the attackers made it over the wall they could be attacked as they assaulted the keep.
The keep itself was a large, burned-out, vine-covered shell. The upper story, like those of the bastions, had been constructed of wood and was now charcoal. The rear of the keep, however, was dug deeply into the hillside, its roof supported by cleverly constructed stone buttresses, which provided a large, cavelike area that could be used to shield the pack beasts, wounded, and noncombatants. The flar-ta, kept from stampeding by chains stapled into the naked rock, were on the ground level, while the wounded and noncombatants waited on a raised shelf on the north side, along with Julian and the other power-armored Marines.