by John Ringo
“I didn’t think I was going to have to use it,” Thermal said. “But, yeah. And it’s right.”
“Better be,” Barnett said. “There will be a preinspection at eighteen hundred. Final inspection at eighteen thirty. Both to be conducted for the male members by Thermal and Mutant. Final, really final inspection at eighteen fifty by me. You junior guys ever worn your dress uniforms?”
“Only once,” Benito said. “Other than having it fitted. But we are familiar with dressing appropriately, Chief.”
“You’re way out on front on this one at least, Beni,” Dana said, grinning.
“If you need any help ... Quipu, I will be happy to oblige,” Benito said.
“You wouldn’t know proper dress if a Parisian courtier fitted you,” Palencia said.
“As you were,” Dana said.
“As the EM said,” Barnett said. “And in case this isn’t clear, none of you had better be sporting shiners at the reception. Or you’ll find out why one of my nicknames is Bender. Be ready at eighteen hundred.”
* * * *
“Dana,” Barnett said, giving the EM a hug as soon as they were in their quarters.
“It is really good to see you, Chief,” Dana said, relaxing for the first time in she didn’t know how long.
“How bad has it been?” Barnett asked, finally releasing her.
“What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger,” Dana said.
“How’s the PTSD?”
“Better now than in a long time,” Dana said. “Whenever I have a bad night I schedule the division for a game of jungleball with the Pathans.”
“You’re playing jungleball with Pathans?”
“They don’t really know how to play null ball,” Dana said, sitting on the rack. “Jungleball is all they can understand. And they’re not really that good at it.”
“What about the rest of it?” Barnett asked. “I heard about the ‘reply by endorsements’”
“They’re just a pain in the butt,” Dana said. “Since the chain of command has to send them on, that’s the pain in the butt. Let’s say that my CO is getting pretty tired of them.”
“Is it the same crap we’re getting?” Barnett asked. “ ‘You’re being mean to my precious boy?’”
“You saw who their fathers are,” Dana said. “That’s the whole unit.”
“A whole unit of perfumed princes?” Barnett asked.
“Pretty much,” Dana replied. “They’re all just marking time until they’re admirals. Yeah, it’s been bad. I get reamed repeatedly about not ‘working with their culture.’ And I ignore it. Because to Mast me they’d have to order me not to make my guys keep the birds in shape. And nobody is going to order that. So as long as I stay on their ass, they work to my standards. I’ve gotten to where I can take my eye off them for, oh, five minutes?”
“Christ,” Barnett said, shaking her head. “That is really screwed up.”
“Not really,” Dana said. “Fact is, I’m good at being a controlling bitch. It’s not being a controlling bitch that’s stressful.”
“Heh,” Barnett said. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
“They’re not lazy,” Dana said. “It’s way more complicated than that. I mean... way more complicated. And there’s an upside. Now they’re your responsibility.”
“Great!” the chief said. “Thanks!”
“It’s not that big a deal tonight,” Dana said. “Tell them to dress up for a fancy ball and they’re on that like a shot. Especially Palencia. I suspect I’m going to look sort of tawdry next to him.”
“Is that a problem?” Barnett asked.
“Nah, I’ll just kick his ass at jungleball,” Dana said. “It’s more like tonight they’re on their turf. I’m not.”
“I’ll have your back,” Barnett said.
“I think it’s going to be... interesting,” Dana said.
* * * *
FIFTEEN
“Well, no issues with junior enlisted uniforms,” Barnett said.
The only place large enough for the preinspection was one of the shuttle bays. There was one other large compartment in the station, but that was being prepared for the reception.
The resplendent mess-dress uniforms of the three South American personnel looked decidedly out of place.
Alliance Navy Formal Uniform, Enlisted, Male, was based loosely on a tuxedo with tails.
All three of the uniforms were excellent but there was something subtly better about Palencia’s. Dana couldn’t quite put her finger on it. He definitely could carry it off better than Velasquez but it was less that than it appeared simply... better.
“Where in the world did you get that?” Barnett asked, looking at the uniform. “Even for mess dress that’s not standard.”
“Horsh and Wilhelm, Chief Barnett,” Palencia replied.
“I don’t recognize that,” Barnett said.
“Ouch,” Thermal said. He was wearing a standard dress uniform. “How much did it set you back?”
“Six thousand dollars, Engineer’s Mate,” Palencia replied.
“Ye flipping gods,” Barnett said, shaking her head. “Okay, we are to arrive first. Normally, we follow people into anything. But in this case, all the junior people are to be on site before the arrival of the bigs. So let us proceed to our appointed place now that we’re in our appropriate uniform.”
* * * *
The reception room looked like it was normally used for storage. At least, that was Dana’s guess. Light cloth had been hung from the walls and the floor was covered in rugs but it still had the look of a holding area. Small tables—they looked too delicate and were probably antique—were scattered around apparently for the pure purpose of holding flowers. There were chairs scattered about near the bulkheads and the back bulkhead was dominated by a large bar of fine wood. A group of waiters in white coats were gathered near the bar and there was a string quartet, currently tuning up, in one corner.
“Getting all this to Wolf, not to mention into Granadica, must have been a major logistic activity,” Dana whispered.
“Yeah,” Barnett replied. “Apollo is pulling out the stops.”
“Hello!”
The speaker was a short man with thinning blond hair in a very nice suit. Dana didn’t know much about suits but she recognized nice when she saw it.
“And you are... ?”
“Chief Barnett with party of six,” Barnett replied.
“Ah, good,” the man said. “I’m Carmen Mansour, Vice President for Hospitality and Protocol of the Apollo Corporation. You are, I believe, what is referred to as enlisted persons?”
“Yes,” Barnett said, smiling thinly.
“If I could ask you to spread out?” Mansour asked. “Perhaps a few over by the table with the bird of paradise on it? Two more near the bar. Two others by the purple dendrobium. A mix of male and female as much as possible with this group?”
“Okay... ?” Barnett replied. “And we’re doing this because... ?”
“It permits anchoring as the more important guests arrive,” Mansour said, smiling. “Sorry, but that’s how it is. People will tend to clump. By spreading persons initially, it creates a more free-form gathering.”
“Mutant, Velasquez,” Barnett said. “Palencia, Parker. Benito, Thermal, Me. Team one, the... whats?” She pointed to the first table but clearly couldn’t remember the name of the flowers. “Team two, other table. Team three... we’re hitting the bar.”
“That will not be strictly necessary,” Mansour said. “The waiters will be happy to serve. Simply near the bar if you don’t mind.”
“All teams,” Barnett said. “One glass of standard mix, which means wine, beer or mixed drink single. After consumption, minimum of one hour soft drink until second consumption. Sip, do not slam. Are we clear?”
“Clear, Chief,” Mutant said. “Done the drill.”
“We understand as well, Chief,” Palencia said. “There are, sorry, cultural aspects to take into account as well. T
here will be toasts. You are expected to drink your full drink.”
“Then after you have one, order fruit juice, not a carbonated beverage,” Barnett said. “The first person who shows signs of inebriation will be escorted back to quarters.”
“I’m on all fruit juice, then,” Dana said, grinning.
“All teams, spread out,” Barnett said.
* * * *
“Why us?” Dana asked.
“The most beautiful woman with the most handsome man?” Palencia said.
“Pal, I will have your ass back in my hands when we return to the Therm.” Dana said.
“Ah, and such sweet surrender it would be,” Palencia replied.
Dana shook her head and giggled.
“God, I hate that sound,” Dana said.
“I find it delightful,” Palencia said. “Sorry, this is the first time since our conversation on culture I have seen you look the slightest bit unassured.”
“And since this is your sort of thing you’re taking some delight in that.”
“A bit,” Palencia said. “A bit. On the other hand, you are, as you pointed out, going to have my ass back in your very capable hands soon enough. So you will understand that I’m going to do my best not to rub that in.”
“Thank you,” Dana said. “What can I expect?”
“More junior people will arrive soon,” Palencia said. “By that I mean the Navy and Apollo personnel. Most of them will be military officers and managers. I suspect that they will more or less ignore us. We are beneath their notice. We serve, basically, as decorations and I would guess we’ll be given various ‘hey, you’ tasks. When all the pawns, rooks and knights are in place, the kings and queens will start to arrive. Probably last will be Mr. Vernon. While my father might argue the respective importance of Mr. Vernon versus the foreign minister, he is clearly the highest level DP short of a prime minister of one of the Group of Ten. So he should arrive...”
He stopped as Vernon walked in and looked around the still nearly empty room. Not surprising Dana at all, he was wearing a tuxedo. She was starting to feel like a slob.
The Apollo guy scurried over and Vernon listened to him for a second, nodded, and made a beeline for her.
“Hey, Dana,” Tyler said. “Hey, um...” He was looking over his shoulder at the Apollo vice president who had followed in his wake.
“Mansour,” Dana whispered.
“Mansour? Can I get a whiskey sour? Thanks.” He turned back to her and grinned. “What, no champagne?”
“I’m on fruit juice tonight,” Dana said as a waiter floated over with a tray of champagne glasses and one whiskey sour.
“EM Parker will take fruit juice next,” Tyler said, taking the glass. “Thanks. How you doing?”
“Good, sir,” the waiter said. “Bit different than my usual job.”
“We had to recruit some of the better class of welders for this,” Tyler said, winking at the waiter. “Getting a lot of personnel into the system this quick was going to be tough. Most of the stuff was produced by Granadica. Heck, the string quartet are mostly from the Night Wolves.”
“And let me tell you, it took some doing,” Granadica said, a hologram of a Glatun head popping up. “I work better with steel than wood.”
“Granadica, Mr. Vernon, this is EM Palencia, one of my division.”
“Hey,” Tyler said, sticking out his hand. “Hear you guys absolutely kicked ass in engineering on that last MASSEX. Good job.”
“Thank you, sir,” Palencia said.
“You’re the one whose dad is with the Argentinean foreign minister,” Tyler said. “What’s that all about? I’d figure you for whatever your version of Annapolis is called.”
“Strangely enough, it’s called the Naval Military School, sir,” Palencia said, smiling. “Given our limited spacefaring ability and lack of fundamental experience, the decision was made to send persons who could be looked at as potential future leadership, sir.”
“Damned good idea, whoever thought of it,” Tyler said.
“Thank you, sir,” Palencia replied. “My father was one of the team which recommended the program.”
“I’ve been told there’s some point to having officers having been enlisted before they get frocked or whatever,” Tyler said. “Something like that?”
“Something, yes, sir,” Palencia said.
“That something cultural with South Americans?” Tyler asked.
“Not... normally, sir,” Palencia said.
The room was slowly filling up as others drifted in. Dana started to get really nervous looking at all the rank in the room. She stopped counting total “O” levels when it passed a hundred.
The various commanders, captains, and admirals were clearly trying to figure out why Tyler Vernon was already at the reception and spending his time talking to two enlisteds. Which just meant she was the target of more and more glances.
There was a flurry of activity at the doors and the Argentinean foreign minister, followed closely by the Chilean foreign minister, entered the room along with the rest of the South American contingent.
“Sir,” Granadica said. “The Argentineans and Chileans have boarded.”
“Ah,” Tyler said, draining his drink and handing his glass to Palencia. “Gotta go make nice. Dana, don’t go anywhere.”
“Wasn’t planning on it, sir,” Dana said. “Woof,” she added as he strode away.
“And you still maintain you are not friends?” Palencia said, looking around for somewhere to put the glass.
“I’ll get it,” Granadica said. The glass lifted out of his hand and headed for the nearest waiter.
“And you did that... how?” Dana asked. “I mean, grav, obviously.”
“Just a matter of knowing how to use it, kiddo,” Granadica said. “I have to move everything in the fabber with grav, obviously. If I couldn’t figure out grav equations I couldn’t do my job. I said I could be the only waiter at this reception but they wanted guys in white coats. Which were a bitch to produce, by the way.”
“I take it you didn’t produce the flowers?” Dana said.
“Nope,” Granadica said. “And they had to bring up the wood. I did the rest.”
“This is a very good replica,” Palencia said, examining the table.
“Thanks,” Granadica said. “I said tough. Compared to most of the stuff in a Myrmidon, it was a piece of cake.”
Dana looked over at the group around Vernon and saw another Glatun head hovering nearby.
“You’re carrying on two conversations at once?”
“More than that, kid,” Granadica said. “Got a shuttle on its way to the Naval Acceptance Yard under remote, two more over there, arguing with the Navy, producing parts for the next fabber, talking with Vulcan about issues producing Lud, in a meeting with some of the Night Wolves and I’m still running all my lines. It’s called being able to multitask.”
“And making you laugh caused a fault?” Dana said quizzically.
“Said ‘triggered my humor circuit,’” Granadica said. “That requires that I be using something other than rote action and response. Most conversations are action and response.”
“So you’re actually talking to EM Parker and using a Turing response program for discussions with the Argentinean foreign minister?” Palencia said.
“Right now I’m using a rote action and response to all the conversations except the one with the Night Wolves,” Granadica replied. “Including that response. I’m being asked questions that were easy enough to program in advance. This sort of meet and greet rarely gets beyond rote action/response.”
“That is...” Palencia said, then frowned. “Absolutely true. At least at the meet and greet level.”
“Just figured that out, kiddo?” Granadica said, hissing in Glatun laughter. “I knew that when Amerigo Vespucci got lost finding Argentina.”
“He didn’t get lost” Palencia said.
“Bet you a dollar?” Granadica replied.
“And
that was all rote response,” Dana interjected.
“Figuring out what will get an emotional response out of an Argentinean is like figuring out if a flipped coin will land,” Granadica said, chuckling again.
“Granadica,” Dana said. “Please don’t start any bar fights.”
