The series of sonic booms came as no surprise. Lieutenant Arlan Taiters scarcely blinked. Mentally, he counted the snap-roar reports of attack shuttles coming in hot. Six: Three companies were coming in at once. One lander had come in earlier, more sedately, with the dead and wounded—too many of each. It was always too many, but it could have been worse. The Belatrong contract had been short, if bloodier than anticipated. At least that was the early scuttlebutt on base. The rumors had started floating through the regiments as soon as the first messages had arrived from the returning ship when it broke out of Q-space entering the Dirigent system three days earlier.
Arlan stared out the lone window of his tiny office. He stood so close to the window that his shadow made the office seem dark. Through unconscious habit, he stood at a rigid parade rest—legs slightly spread, hands clasped behind his back. He found that as comfortable a stance as any. Only his green eyes moved. He had glanced upward briefly during the thunder of returning attack landers, even though he had known that he would not be able to see them, then returned to his casual survey of the regimental area. The shadows outside were starting to creep onto the parade ground.
The shadows inside the office—Taiters rarely turned on an inside light during daylight hours—made the room look even starker than it was. Nothing suggested that Taiters had occupied the office for three years, since he had won his commission. There was little to suggest that anyone ever used the room. The small desk and straight chair had become antiques through the simple expedient of surviving in place. They had been inexpensive but functional to start with and had gained no value by virtue of age. They remained serviceable decades after purchase. The complink was nearly as old. The room held no other furnishings or decorations. Arlan did not use the office much. It simply gave him a place to work on the reports that he had to complete each week, a place to talk to his men privately. And it provided a modest extension to his living quarters—an adjoining room that was scarcely larger than the office.
When the knock came at the hall door, Arlan pivoted toward it and said, “Enter.”
The soldier came in, shut the door behind him, and snapped to attention. He saluted and said, “Cadet Lon Nolan reporting as ordered, sir.”
Arlan straightened up to attention and returned the salute. Although Taiters had spent most of the day training with his two platoons, his camouflage battledress appeared fresh. “At ease, Cadet,” he said. Both men relaxed—slightly.
“We don’t have nearly as much time for this as I would have liked,” Taiters said. “Regimental Honors Parade will be called in ten minutes or less.” He stared at the new apprentice officer, evaluating. Lon Nolan was two inches taller than the lieutenant but weighed about the same. Nolan looked considerably younger than the twenty-two years his dossier showed. He looked as if he had not yet completely matured physically. An illusion, Taiters reminded himself. They always look too damn young.
“For now, I just want to make absolutely certain that you know your place in the organization, Cadet. You are not in line of command. You do not outrank anyone. Bottom of the heap. No man commands other men in the Corps until he has been in combat himself. It doesn’t matter how many fancy military academies he has almost graduated from, or how long he has worn the uniform of the Dirigent Mercenary Corps.” The lieutenant held a small metal device up in front of Lon, a lieutenant’s dress uniform insignia—diamond-shaped, of gold, with a red enamel diamond in the center. “These have to be earned. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Lon replied crisply. His eyes did not waver. The same message had been drilled into him over and over since his arrival on Dirigent. He thought that it was a good policy—though it would never have been practical back on Earth.
“Any questions, Cadet?”
“Just one, sir.” For now, Lon thought. “How soon can I expect combat?”
Arlan allowed himself a slow blink. The question was the … anticipated one. “I’m not on the Council of Regiments, Cadet. I doubt that it will be very long, though. We’ve been on the ground quite a while without a paying contract.” He did not elaborate beyond that, about the expectations of the Corps, that the ideal the Council of Regiments strove for was to have eight of the fourteen regiments occupied on paying contracts at any one time while three recuperated and trained and three handled Dirigent’s planetary defense. The ideal was rarely realized. At present not quite half of the Corps’ men were on contract.
“Thank you, sir,” Lon said.
“Administratively, you are assigned to the second squad of third platoon,” Taiters said. He did not bother to add the rest: A Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Regiment, or—in the more common military shorthand—A-2-7. “That is Corporal Girana’s squad. You’d better haul your duffel up to the barracks, find Girana, and get yourself squared away in a hurry, Cadet. You may have less than five minutes before parade.”
“Yes, sir.” Lon stiffened to attention again, saluted, and left as soon as the lieutenant returned the salute.
“Too damned young,” Arlan muttered after he heard Lon Nolan’s boots hurrying along the corridor toward the stairs that led upstairs to third platoon’s squad bays. He returned to the window and stared outside again. Too young, and too eager. Taiters was a decade older than the cadet. He had been in the Seventh Regiment of the Dirigent Mercenary Corps—DMC—for all of that decade and more. He was a native Dirigenter. His father and both grandfathers—and most of the men in his family for the past five generations—had been in the Corps, most of them in the Seventh Regiment. There had never been any doubt that Arlan would enlist as soon as he turned eighteen. It was in his blood, and in his upbringing. The commission had been something of a surprise when it was offered.
The two-toned parade call sounded over speakers that ringed the drill field. “Stand to for Regimental Honors Parade,” came next. Arlan took a deep breath and turned away from the window. He did not run for the hall door. Instead, he walked, almost casually, to his room next door for a quick drink of water. Then he got his fatigue cap and adjusted it carefully as he checked his appearance in the mirror. By the time he got outside, most of the men of his two platoons were already in place—or hurrying to get there—ready for the command to “Fall in.”
It was an ancient ritual, centuries if not millennia old, differing only in details from one army to the next, or from generation to generation. The enlisted men hurried to their positions in ranks. The corporals and sergeants made sure that their men were present and that the formation was acceptable. By that time the platoon leaders and company commanders would be stepping into position in front of their units, ready to receive the manning reports of their subordinates, and then to do about-faces to report to their superiors. Arlan could rarely escape recalling an observation that his father had made many years before. “It’s the military ballet, boy.” Arlan had never seen ballet (nor had his father—entertainments on Dirigent were rarely so lofty). But the phrase had left an impression.
Taiters moved to his accustomed spot in front of the third and fourth platoons of A-2-7. Sergeant Ivar Dendrow did an about-face, saluted, and reported, “Third platoon all present, sir.” Arlan returned the salute. Sergeant Weil Jorgen snapped to and reported, “Fourth platoon all present or accounted for, sir.” Fourth had one man in hospital. Again, Arlan returned the salute and did his own about-face. To his left, Lieutenant Carl Hoper was reporting on the first and second platoons. As soon as Hoper had finished, Taiters saluted and called out his own report: “Third and fourth platoons all present or accounted for, sir.” Captain Matt Orlis returned Arlan’s salute and turned to report to the battalion commander, who reported to the regimental commander, who reported to the General—the head of the Council of Regiments. Around the vast parade field, similar formations were being held by each of the regiments that had men on base.
The Corps was put at parade rest. The troops had a ten-minute wait before the buses carrying the returning soldiers came into view. The Corps was called to attention again. While the buses drove across the center of the field, between the ranks of the waiting regiments, the colors of each regiment were dipped in salute, in turn. The officers held hand salutes. The men in ranks stood at rigid attention.
The buses moved in their own formation. The lead vehicle was well ahead of the others, strictly alone, traveling at seven miles per hour. Regimental colors flew from either fender. Crossed white and black pennants were attached to either side of the vehicle. Every man watching—save for those few who were too new to the Corps to know what it signified—stared, sharing the same thought. This is how I’ll come home for the last time if I’m killed in battle. The dead of the DMC always came home first—if it was possible to bring them home at all.
Once the lead bus cleared the field, it sped away. The rest increased their pace as they passed in review. After the last was gone, the regiments were dismissed. The returning warriors had been properly honored for a victory—a fulfilled contract.