If all that wasn't bad enough, here he was, facing his new company commander, Captain Conorado, and Company L's other officers and senior NCOs, and they weren't doing a very friendly job of welcoming him aboard. Instead of the captain and other officers taking him to the officers' club, the eight of them were all crammed into the Skipper's office. Conorado was leaning back in his swivel chair, playing with a stylus and not doing a lot more than eagle-eyeing him until he became uncomfortable. The others were doing their best to keep a distance from him, and not one of them looked in the least bit happy about his presence.
Conorado finally leaned forward and placed the stylus at a precise angle near the corner of his small desk.
"Mr. Bestwick," he said, "you are in a very difficult position. And I don't mean simply being so unceremoniously dumped into a situation none of us signed up for. Tomorrow morning you are going to take over third platoon, and that's a tough job for anyone who hasn't already proved himself." He held up a hand to forestall anything Bestwick might want to say about a need to prove himself. "Yes, I know you've performed well through your entire Marine career. It's all right there in your record and in the letters of recommendation from your former commanders up to FIST.
"But you haven't proven yourself to the Marines of third platoon. They're going to be judging you against one of the harshest scales I can imagine. Every step of the way they're going to be comparing you to their former platoon commander, Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass, who was killed by the Skinks on our most recent deployment.
"There's hardly a man in this company, up to the rank of staff sergeant, who wouldn't have wanted to be in Charlie's platoon. Probably a majority of the men in the infantry battalion would have liked it. That's who you have to follow." Something must have shown in Bestwick's face, because Conorado rushed right on with, "Don't labor under the misconception that popular commanders are necessarily poor commanders. I know, we all know, that history is replete with commanders who were very popular with their men but wound up getting them killed and losing battles and even wars because they were poor commanders.
"Charlie Bass wasn't one of them. Charlie Bass's platoon won their battles, all of them. His platoon won battles for the entire company. If he'd been willing to accept a commission and go up through the officer ranks, he could have been an outstanding FIST commander. But he didn't want to be more than a platoon commander.
"Mr. Bestwick, in effect, you're following a legend. That's a tough act to follow. I don't envy you."
He stood abruptly. "Gentlemen, I believe the sun has passed the yardarm. Let's retire to the O Club and give Mr. Bestwick a proper welcome aboard before we throw him to the wolves."
Epilogue
The air scrubber in First Sergeant Myer's little cottage was fighting a losing battle with the Fidels. Sergeants Major Shiro and Parant both risked burned lips from the stubs they managed to keep burning in the corner of their mouths. Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher gnawed more than puffed his and had to frequently relight it. Chief Hospitalman Horner puffed more sedately and still had three inches of Fidel between the fingers of his left hand. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa had just snubbed out the stub of his and looked at the humidor, wondering if he should take a second without a specific invitation from their host. Myer himself was on his second, a full twenty centimeters of stogie jutting from his mouth. The thoroughly masticated end of his first lay soggy in the ashtray that sat near his wrist.
"You're showing part of a busted straight and you're staying in, Bernie?" Thatcher snarled. "You think I came in with the kwangduks, I can't tell a bluff when I see one?" He was showing a pair of deuces. "I'm in."
Parant removed the cigar stub from his mouth and turned up the edge of his hole card as though looking at it for the first time. Then he regarded Thatcher blandly. "Goldie," he said as he dropped his stub in his ashtray and reached for a fresh Fidel.
Myer harumphed and looked at his hole card again. He showed a tray, seven, and ten of spades. "Who dealt this garbage?" he groused.
"You did," Horner said.
"Oh. Well, in that case, dealer's in." He tossed a kroner into the pot. He looked around the table. "Nobody's out. I'm surprised. Wang, stop mooning and take another Fidel before Fred gets the last good one."
Hyakowa's poker face slipped for a second, then he reached for the humidor and barely managed to beat Shiro to it. The FIST sergeant major glowered but let the junior man have his choice.
"Six, got a pair showing, Frigga high," Myer said as he dealt Hyakowa his fifth card. "Frigga, no help," to Horner. "Odin, there goes Bernie's straight." He tossed the card to Shiro. "Nope, busted straight's still alive." He glanced at the open place, then dealt Parant a seven to go along with the eight, ten, and Thor showing. "Ten, no help," to Thatcher. "Dealer gets a..." He flipped the top card over. "Shit. Dealer's out." He turned his cards facedown. "Wang, it's up to you."
Hyakowa finished lighting his fresh Fidel and studied his four up cards. "Two." He tossed two kroner into the pot and looked at Horner.
"I'm out," the infantry battalion's second-ranking corpsman said, and flipped his cards facedown.
Shiro studied his cards, peeled up the corner of his hole card, and drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
"Your choices are see, raise, or fold," Myer said. "You're showing garbage."
"But you don't know what this is," Shiro said, and plunked a finger down on his hole card.
Thatcher snorted. "Garbage is garbage, your hole card doesn't matter."
Shiro shrugged and tossed two coins into the pot. "I want to see if you've got that third deuce."
"See, raise." Parant shoved three kroner into the pot. His face showed nothing, not even awareness of how close the coal of his Fidel was to his lips.
Thatcher leaned back and stared at Parant. "You do think I just came in with the kwangduks. A busted straight is garbage. See." He put three kroner into the pot.
"You still in, Wang?" Myer asked. "Your pair of sixes beats the deuces, but there's a possible flush and a possible straight showing."
Hyakowa leaned back and thought. His hole card was another Frigga, which meant he beat anything Thatcher could have unless his hole card was another deuce. But what were the odds of Shiro or Parant filling their flush or straight? He began to extend a hand, but nobody but him ever knew whether it was to ante up or turn his cards over because the door suddenly slammed open.
"Good, you saved a place for me," Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass said. He dropped a small duffel on the floor. "Where's the beer? I'm thirsty."
"In the cooler next to your chair."
That was the last thing anybody heard clearly for the next several minutes. The six men jumped to their feet and rushed to greet Bass back to the living; they knocked over chairs and jarred the table, scattering cards and coins. Two ashtrays thudded to the floor.
Finally things calmed down enough for Bass to tell them, "I made planetfall less than twenty minutes ago. I don't know if someone else is in my quarters in the barracks, so I couldn't go there. It's late enough that the mess hall is closed. I'm hungry and thirsty. What do you have to eat and drink?"
Parant used his arm to sweep a clear space at the table while Myer ordered his food servo to cook up a reindeer steak with all the trimmings. It was ready before Bass half finished the bottle of ale Horner pressed into his hand.
Myer resumed his place and asked, "How the hell did you survive? That site was spattered with gore. Other than your helmet and ID bracelet, all we found of you was a few strands of DNA. We figured their rail gun zeroed in and vaporized you."
The mention of the rail gun caused a digression while Shiro explained how the navy engineers figured out what the Skinks' new weapon systems were.
Bass whistled when Shiro finished. "Damn," he said around a mouthful of steak and trimmings, "I'm just glad they haven't figured out how to turn that into personal weapons."
"Shut your mouth, Charlie," Thatcher snapped, and knuckled him in the short ribs. "We don
't want to give those things new ideas. And what were they doing capturing you? Everyone was convinced they never took prisoners."
"I don't know." Bass shook his head and took another bite. He didn't answer until he swallowed his food. "They used drugs to mess with our memories. Mine is still mostly blank on what happened when I was a POW."
"So you just woke up one day and everybody was gone?"
Bass nodded, using a piece of bread to push the last crumbs of his meal onto his fork. "That's about right. Except there were four of us."
That set off so many questions he had to let out a parade ground roar to get them to shut up.
"How about if you just let me tell you what happened and hold your questions until I'm finished?"
They grumbled, but agreed. They grumbled even more when they noticed how the cards and money had been messed up.
"I'll put the pot aside, we'll use it to enrich the next hand," Myer said. That was greeted with more complaints, but nobody said not to.
Bass told his story, and his audience listened enrapt for half an hour.
"I always thought those theocrats should be overthrown," Myer mused at the end, "but not that way."
Horner nodded. "Got rid of one bad government for another just as bad."
"All it took was one good Marine with a wild hair up his ass to fix matters," Hyakowa said.
Everybody laughed. Not too loudly, though. In their self-image, it was well within the capabilities of "one good Marine" to overthrow a planetary government. And it wasn't as though Charlie Bass had done it single-handed. He'd merely led one small faction and coordinated its final activities with a larger faction. Besides, he hadn't even had a direct hand in the demise of Dominic de Tomas or his chief henchman.
"So what happened on the campaign after I was captured?" Bass asked when the polite laughter ebbed. Everybody began talking at once, and he popped another brew while he patiently waited for them to sort themselves out to tell the story.
At the end of the telling, he breathed a sigh of relief. "No more dead in third platoon, that's good. The only new names I'll have to learn are the replacements for the men who died before I was captured."
Silence thudded over the group.
Bass looked warily around the table. "What haven't you told me?"
"Ah, Charlie," Myer said, "some of the replacements that we got are officers. An ensign got assigned to Company L. He's getting third platoon."
Bass fell back in his chair, stunned by the news. He was losing his platoon! "Damn! What's going to happen next, do I get assigned to issuing sports equipment for the FIST?"
"There is one out, Charlie," Shiro said.
Bass looked at him like the "out" might be worse than losing command of third platoon. "Tell me."
"I can get the brigadier to offer you a commission tomorrow. If you accept it, he can find another position for that ensign and let you keep your platoon."
"Damn," Hyakowa muttered. "Isn't it bad enough I have to take orders from him, you mean I'll have to salute and call him ‘sir’ too?"
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