4
To Rev’s surprise, he never made it to Titan’s surface. He’d been met as he left the Nightingale Rexar at Titan Prime, the moon’s main port, by a fellow Union Marine staff sergeant, who escorted him to the USO for a quick lunch before catching a military shuttle to Enceladus.
“What’s it like?” he asked Staff Sergeant Liam Patrice as they settled in their seats for the ten-hour flight to the smaller moon.
“What? Enceladus?”
“No. I mean, yes, that, too. But the Home Guard.”
“It sucks.” He looked around to see if anyone overheard him, then in a quieter voice, said, “Not really. At least not all the time. I mean, the training is good, but dealing with the Mad D . . . I mean, dealing with all the others, who all do things differently, most who look down on you, well, that can get annoying.
“And the bureaucracy gets in the way of everything. Take you coming in. We’ve got our own stations around the E, but you had to get shipped into Titan Prime because that’s the way they do it. And I had to fly out there, wait on my ass for you to come in, then we take this tramp back to the base. To top it off, in a couple of hours, one of your New Hope lieutenants is coming in, so Captain Calmarche has to come out and escort him in, as if I can’t play tour guide to a staff sergeant and lieutenant at the same time.”
That was probably a valid beef. It seemed a little ridiculous to Rev, at least. But he’d been warned during his indoctrination that the massive creation that was the Council was mired in a bureaucratic morass. Byzantine, the deputy-director had called it. It was supposedly the only way to function with over three hundred nations, independents, and stations as members.
“What about the other . . . uh, what do we call everyone we serve with?”
“Troopers. We’ve got soldiers, Marines, militia, centurians, the Frisian color-masters, guardsmen, soldats, Legionnaires, guardians, vojniks . . . yeah, the fitafitas from Uafu—tough sons of bitches, you’ll see. Anyway, we’ve got a shitload of different types here, so the generic term is just troopers.
“They told you about the ranks, right?”
Rev nodded. “We’re all based on the old USA Army ranks from what I understood.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t affect us much. No more lance corporal and gunny. PFC is an E3 instead of a lance coolie, and private is E1 and E2—not that we’ve got any E1 privates here, and not many E2s, either. You and me, we’re still staff sergeants. Warrants and officers are all the same. You’ll still wear your rank insignia, but you’ll get a colored rank tab to put under it so everyone can see what you are in Home Guard ranks.”
“I guess the Fries like that,” Rev said.
“Hate it. The colors aren’t the same. So, for them, they’ve got to wear the official colors over their color-master whatever.”
A trundlebot came down the aisle with snacks. Rev had eaten three burgers and tots at the USO, so he just took a Coke.
“What sucks the most, though, is that when the home system got invaded, we sat back with our thumbs up our asses. The navies took it to the tin-asses while we hunkered down in the bunkers. Lost a lot of us, but we never fired a shot.”
“That would suck,” Rev said. “But with them pounding Titan, I’d think it would have to be a Navy battle.”
Patrice said, “We knew that. But when the bastards landed on the Mother, we were geared up and ready to go. No matter our differences sometimes, that had us all banded together. But what do they do? They send in Mad Dogs and Marine Raiders. I mean, what the fuck? We’re supposed to be the best, right? And we’re here already. So why bring in anyone else?”
Rev shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glad that the Marines didn’t have special patches or insignia for their direct combat specialties, like the Union SEALS or Frisian Army Commandos had.
“Not that there was much fighting with them coming to surrender. But it was a big dis to all of us.”
“Coming to surrender” was not how Rev would have described it. Maybe in a sense, but they’d come within losing two of their Threes to destroying Earth.
“How much longer do you have with the Home Guard?” Rev asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Me? Hell, you’re my relief. I’m gone in two weeks, and I can tell you, it couldn’t be too soon. No, no more of the Council bullshit. No more blue pauldrons to make us stand out like targets. I’m back to New Mars and the Fighting First. I saw a lot of action there before I came here. Holbert, you know. I was there. Deep in the shit, that one was. Not like what you provincials had to face. No insult intended,” he added as if he just remembered that Rev was a provincial.
Rev was vaguely aware of Holbert, and nothing he’d heard indicated that it had been a particularly bad fight. Not as bad as Preacher Rolls, certainly. But the other staff sergeant’s tone was such that he expected Rev to know all about the battle there. The more time Rev spent in the Corps, the more he wondered how closely aligned the planets in the Union really were. He knew that the regular Corps looked down upon the provincial Marines, but did they know what the New Hope Marines, for example, even did during the war?
Staff Sergeant Patrice and Rev were both Union Marines, and the other Marine was confiding in him now as an equal. But if they were back within Union space, would he be acting the same? Rev would bet against that.
Patrice leaned closer and, in a conspiratorial whisper, said, “Speaking of provincial units, and you being from New Hope and all, what’s the scoop about these IBHO Marines we keep hearing about. They said some came from your planet.”
“IBHU.”
“What?”
“IBHU Marines. Not IBHO. Integrated Bionic Hoplological Unit Marines.”
“OK, IBHU. What’s the deal with them? I heard some of them and some of the Mad Dog super-soldiers are coming to the Guard. Are they really that good?”
Rev didn’t know what to say. He looked at his left arm, all bright and shiny. It should be a dead giveaway. The presence of IBHU Marines was no longer a secret. Hell, Pierson and Tsao had been paraded around the Union to show off their Platinum Novas.
He took his right hand and pointedly tapped a forefinger against his social arm.
“What?” Patrice asked, not putting the dots together.
“I have a prosthesis.”
“Yeah. So?” Patrice asked. “Lots of folks have prostheses. Couldn’t regen until the war was over. Doesn’t mean you’re going to have a problem with that in the Home Guard.”
Rev sighed, ready to give up, but something about his fellow staff sergeant was rubbing him raw. He didn’t need to be making any enemies in the Guard, especially with his fellow Union Marines. But the “Not like what you provincials had to face,” still stung.
“An IBHU Marine is someone who lost an arm and has been fitted with the weapons system.”
“OK, so what does . . .”
Rev could see understanding come over his face.
“Yeah, I’m one of those IBHU Marines coming to the Guard. I’ve got seven tin-ass kills to my name, one before I lost my arm.”
The staff sergeant’s mouth dropped open, and he started to stammer out something, but Rev cut him off.
“And about the Mother? Yeah, I was there, too. You see, they wanted the best of the best to protect her, not some garrison Marines.”
That last dig was unfair. Patrice had faced combat, and he had to be good in order to be assigned to the Home Guard. It wasn’t his fault they were never ordered into battle. But Rev didn’t care. At least not at the moment.
He faced forward, leaned his seat back, and closed his eyes as if taking a nap.
It was a long, quiet, nine-and-a-half hours to Enceladus.
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