12
Daryll was waiting for Rev when he finally dragged in. He brought over the hoist and detached Pashu.
“Any issues?” the tech asked.
“If you don’t mean someone getting killed and another crushed, then no, no issues.”
“Yeah. That’s some serious shit there. Word is that the lieutenant’s gonna get relieved. Sent back to wherever he’s from.”
“Angkor.”
“What?”
“Not Angkor Wat. Just Angkor. That’s where he’s from.”
“OK. Angkor. He’s AIW, then. Anyway, word I’m hearing is that he’s gonna get shipped back.”
“It wasn’t really his fault. Those idiots were screwing up. Showing off how good they were in Null G ops, and it came around to bite them in the butt.”
“He’s the commander,” Daryll said.
“Like I said, it wasn’t . . .” Rev started before trailing off. Yes, it was their own fault. They were showing off, just like Rev had said. But Daryll just stated it in a nutshell. Lieutenant Veang was the commander, and he was responsible for everything that happened in the platoon.
And the discipline shouldn’t have been that slack so that those four thought it would be OK to screw around like that.
Rev was a little embarrassed to have to be reminded by a civilian about how the military worked.
“It was just a bad situation,” he said.
“Word is that you saved one of their lives, too.”
Daryll waited with a pregnant pause, and Rev knew he had to respond. “No, I didn’t save her life. They told me at the hospital that I might have saved her time in regen, though.”
He didn’t bother to say that he could have kept her from having to be zombied and brought back. He’d leave it at that.
“Well, whatever you did, you made the Union proud. Good on you. Now, let’s get you out of that Oscar.”
“I can sure go along with that. These are more comfortable than our EVA suits, but still, I can’t wait to shower.”
Daryll helped him get out of the suit. He mimed taking a sniff, then recoiling in horror. “Yepper. A shower is a good bet.”
Rev slipped out of his longjohns, the sensor-ladened skin-tight suit he wore under the Oscar. It was almost a shame putting on his working overalls before cleaning up, but it still felt good. He pulled his quantphone out of the overalls—there were fifteen messages. The highest priority was for one from the first sergeant telling Rev to report to him as soon as he stowed his IBHU.
Rev sighed. A shower and some chow were going to have to wait.
Daryll assured him that he’d take care of Pashu and the Oscar, so Rev left and made his way to the company office. It was late, well past normal working hours, but the office was open. Lights shone out from under the commander’s and first sergeant’s doors. Corporal White was on duty, and as soon as he saw Rev, he buzzed the first sergeant. A moment later, the door flung open, and the first sergeant poked her head out. She spotted him, then, with a crooked forefinger, motioned him to come in.
“Good job, Staff Sergeant,” Corporal White quietly said as Rev walked past him.
“Sit,” the first sergeant said as Rev entered.
Rev took a seat beside Top Barber and Top Fitzwater from Second Platoon.
“Why didn’t you contact us, Pelletier,” Top Barber opened up with. “You were there for eight hours before you bothered?”
The first sergeant held up her hand before Rev could respond. “Staff Sergeant, I want a full statement from you now before things have a chance of fading. We’ll worry about why you were gone so long later.”
Rev’s platoon sergeant frowned, but she wasn’t going to naysay the first sergeant.
“From where?” Rev asked.
“From the moment you left the Good Guy until you reached the hospital and Nkomo.”
Rev took a deep breath, then started to tell them everything he remembered. The first sergeant interrupted a few times, but only for clarification. He went beyond just arriving at the hospital and told them what the master sergeant there had told him about the two troopers. It took about thirty minutes, and Rev’s throat was dry by the time he was done.
Top Fitzwater looked at the first sergeant after Rev finished. “That pretty much aligns with the video and what everyone else said.”
“Fucking Mentor. She’s the one that instigated the whole thing,” Top Barber added.
Rev didn’t know who Mentor was, and he wasn’t sure how what he’d said impacted on the other trooper. He didn’t know whose idea it had been to do the somersault.
“And the rest? They’re going to be led around by the nose by a corporal?” the first sergeant asked with a scoff. “Mentor isn’t the only one here at fault.”
She turned to Rev and said, “Thank you, Staff Sergeant Pelletier. You go get cleaned up and hit the rack. You’ve had a long day.”
Rev hesitated a moment, then asked, “Is the lieutenant getting sent back to Angkor?”
He immediately regretted asking. That wasn’t his concern. But once asked, he wasn’t going to back down and stared into the first sergeant’s eyes.
“Who told you that?” she asked him.
“I just heard it. A rumor.”
Rev could see his platoon sergeant tense up slightly, as if waiting for the first sergeant’s response. In a moment of clarity, he realized that Top Barber was worried about her own position as platoon sergeant. If the lieutenant was going to get canned, then was she next?
There was a long wait before the first sergeant spoke. “How officers deal with situations is none of our concern.” Rev thought she was going to weasel out of the question with that answer, but she continued. “I will say this, though. It is awfully difficult to relieve someone of duty in the Guard. It has to be approved by CoH J3, and politics rears its ugly head when that happens. No nation or planet wants one of theirs to be kicked out, you know.
“I think you’d have to kick the Counsellor Prime in the nuts, grab his wife’s ass, then stomp on his dog for good measure to get kicked out.”
Top Barber almost imperceptibly relaxed just the tiniest bit.
Top Fitzwater was not so relieved. “Sorry state of affairs when a trooper’s life ain’t worth the same as the CPs dog.”
“Titan bullshit,” the first sergeant said.
She turned to Rev. “You have anything for me?”
“No, First Sergeant.”
“OK, then. You go on and get out of here. I don’t have to tell you, though, that if anyone comes nosing around, asking questions, you say nothing and refer them to the Brigade Public Affairs Office.”
Rev got up, avoiding his platoon sergeant’s eyes. He felt her burning a hole in his back as he left, and he didn’t relax until he was out of the office and heading to berthing.
The first sergeant never did let Top Barber ask again why he hadn’t called back to the company area from the hospital.
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