Opening his eyes, Jeffries stared at the light overhead. This was not his bunk. His arm wouldn’t move. Nor his head. Panic began surging through him.
An alarm sounded.
He recognized that sound and relaxed; it was a hospital monitor. He closed his eyes.
**
The bed, the smells, and the sounds, told the still half-asleep Jeffries that this was his room. No thirst, no exhaustion. A lot of time had passed.
Opening his eyes, he found the light already on and sat up.
“I have just placed your breakfast order,” said his AI assistant on noting his movement. “It will be here by the time you have finished your shower. My ordering breakfast alerted Colonel Lipton’s AI. His AI told me Colonel Lipton expects you to report as soon as you have eaten and dressed.”
More and more, he hated being on the Armstrong Space Station. Unlike his legion barracks, every man had a separate room and AI. AIs, not people, made decisions and announcements. It was destroying their sense of brotherhood and relying on each other.
The shower stall extended from the wall the moment he stood. That shower was the only redeeming factor of this room. Getting a good shower was far more complicated when you live with your men in a barracks. But he didn’t need some AI deciding he had to shower now.
**
Breakfast’s heavenly smell greeted him on opening the shower door. His stomach growled, a reminder that he hadn’t eaten since the gate opened, glancing at his clock, four days ago. Lifting the lid, he found banana pancakes in a thick, heavy Guack Myre syrup and fresh blackberry. Though heavenly, and they needed all those calories with the training he had been putting them through, these meals were spoiling his men. These were the types of breakfasts that the professors had requested, and the station was providing them to all the gate personnel.
But he wasn’t about to waste such a good meal, but decided to dress first.
Opening the locker door, to his surprise, his dress uniforms were missing. Hanging in their place was someone’s scarlet on purple, the uniform of The First, a captain by the bars on the shoulders. What in the hell was the Earth based legion doing here, and why had they put some captain’s uniform in his locker?
“Computer, where is my uniform and why are the scarlet and purple of the First Legion in here?”
“Approximately nine hours ago, one half of the Armstrong Seventeenth Legion was transferred to the First Legion of Earth, including yourself. At that same time, you were promoted to captain.”
Jeffries stared at the computer screen. That made no sense at all. It had to be a mistake. He didn’t qualify for a promotion for at least another ten years. Being promoted to the First was a big honor, but he had little liking for the idea of living on earth.
Pulling out his uniform, he sighed and said, “When are we scheduled to go to Earth?”
“No transfer to Earth is scheduled. This operation is now assigned to the First, and units have begun arriving from earth, and are currently having their teeth pulled. Colonel Lipton has notified your platoon commanders as well as Major Wilson and his platoon commanders. They are on their way to his office.”
His stomach fell. This was utterly insane. The First, the premiere Legion, only moved as a unit, not piecemeal. Fifty thousand men through the gate wasn’t an exploration force, it was an invasion. He smashed the breakfast across the small room and Guack Myre syrup and blackberry pancakes splattered across everything on that side. He began dressing.
**
For the first time since becoming an officer, Jeffries ignored protocol and stormed into Lipton’s office. “I must protest. There are many things we can try, including diplomacy, to get our people back. Bringing in the First is uncalled for.”
Jeffries noticed everyone in the office now had on the Scarlet and Purple.
Lipton gave him a cold eye. “I agree and said as much to them. I’ll give you the same response they gave me, Captain. Resign or shut up and carry out your orders.”
“That is another thing. I only have half the experience needed for a promotion. I’m a damn good lieutenant, but a captain I am not.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. You are not ready for this promotion. Nowhere near it. But General Hillock and Colonel Dawson have both decided you needed to be promoted to do the job they have for you, and to make their point. People are still calling for your head and if you go to Armstrong, Heinlein, Gagarin or Bova among others, you will be arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. Those two officers and the others at HQ agreed that you made the right tactical decision in ordering any prisoner that could not make it be killed. To make that point, they promoted you. Then Dawson said he needed officers tough enough to make that decision if they were going to have a prayer at training up his division to the level needed to operate here in any reasonable timeframe. You, aside from being a captain and battalion commander in the First Division of the First Legion, are also head training officer for the entire division.”
Jeffries looked at Major Wilson. “How does that set with you, me training your men?”
“And me,” Wilson said in his usual calm voice. “I need to learn not only how to handle primitive weapons but how to plan things without the tools I have trained on, for both planet falls and war-games. Colonel Dawson was correct in that. You need to be the training officer for the entire division. In training, I can, and will, follow your orders.”
“That may or may not work. Training for this, if I am to do it right, is going to be a forty-eight hour a day task. From the things I know now of how I trained my men right, and what I did wrong, to put the polish on their training, and any more effective training, will entail all of us living on the other side full time, and every bit of living there is training in one form or another.”
“Then that is what it takes,” Wilson said, then locked eyes with him. “The biggest question I have is, can you effectively order other officers? Know when to listen and know when to tell them to shut up? You haven’t shown me anything that indicates you are ready for commanding at the level needed. I don’t have the right skills or mindset to train my men so they don’t die, so I am willing to give you the chance, for now.”
Jeffries turned back to Lipton, who turned his shoulder to expose that, unlike every other officer in the room, he didn’t have a one for a division number, but a zero. “I am headquarters’ liaison and logistic officer to everyone on the other side. Colonel Dawson thought along similar lines and said if you asked for it you can have Provisional command of all troops on the other side, provided Magor Wilson offered no objections.”
Wilson gave Jefferies another measured look. “I am not going to object. If he is going to do this, he needs that much authority. But don’t get my men killed.”
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His stomach fell, and dread filled him. He wasn’t qualified, but no one else he knew of was either. They just did not understand how to function without technology. “If that is the case, we need to adjourn here and meet on the other side of the gate. Being under those conditions as we work out how to proceed it part of our training for doing it later, on a battlefield.”
Lipton stood. “Very well, gentlemen. I’ll pass on a recording of this meeting to Colonel Dawson. Dismissed.”
Don checked the darkness before his eyes focused on his companion, DC, whom the cops knew as Douglas Carter. He watched DC slide his pry-bar into the old padlock holding the warehouse side door shut.
