He was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, when the door opened again to reveal Ninja and Mele Darcy. “Hi, Ninja,” he said, feeling better just seeing her once more.
“I’ve only been gone an hour,” Ninja said, smiling as she leaned over to kiss him.
Rob returned the kiss. “Leigh Camagan stopped by.”
“I already heard,” Ninja said.
Rob looked at Mele Darcy, who was favoring one leg and had a light cast on her upper right body and arm. “I haven’t seen you since my shuttle lifted for Squall. How are you, Major?”
“Are you talking to me?” Mele Darcy looked behind her as if in search of whoever Rob had spoken to. “I don’t see any majors around here.”
“What?” Rob stared at her as Ninja sat down next to him and reached out to grasp his hand with hers. “You, too? Are they hiring Marines from Earth Fleet?”
“Nope,” Mele Darcy said. “Mind if I sit down? It just seems a simple former enlisted Marine like me ain’t up to the job of running anything big, especially since what Glenlyon is standing up will be ground forces, and not Marines, who are a real pain in the neck sometimes, or so I’ve been told. There were some complaints that I ran a little roughshod over people while trying to get that big assault on Scatha’s base done in a few days like I’d been ordered to do.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Rob asked, surprised that he could joke about it.
“Beats me,” Mele said, feigning bafflement. “Apparently, some of the time and effort I spent trying to defeat Scatha should have been lavished on sucking up to council members and being polite to production managers.”
“I guess I should have been doing that, too. Did they offer you anything?”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied disdainfully. “They’re planning on hiring veteran officers from Brahma and Amaterasu, but those officers are going to need support. So they offered to make me a sergeant again. A junior sergeant, of course,” Mele added. “In a support role.”
“Getting coffee for the boss?”
“You got it. What about you?”
Rob flipped a dismissive hand. “Coffee gofer. With a rank of lieutenant, but otherwise pretty much the same deal offered to you.”
Mele Darcy snorted as if uncaring, but Rob could hear from the sharpness of the sound that there was anger underneath the nonchalance. “We should have expected it. The gratitude of kings and all that. Still sucks, though.”
“I’m really sorry,” Rob told her. “You deserved better.”
“You both did,” Ninja said. “If someone had broken into private discussions among members of the council, she would have learned that a lot of them thought that they should have defended Glenlyon and weren’t happy that someone else had done the heavy lifting. Making too big a deal of what you two did would just emphasize how little the council had prepared and how little you had to work with. That’d be awkward, you know? And other members were arguing that Scatha just shows what happens when people with certain mind-sets become too powerful, or too popular, which should be a lesson to Glenlyon. The fact that you accepted Danielle, who had been working for Scatha, was being waved about as proof that all of you are just the same under your uniforms. Or so I’ve heard,” Ninja added.
“I’m glad that you didn’t break into those discussions,” Rob said.
“Yeah,” Ninja agreed, not even cracking a trace of a smile. “That would’ve been illegal.”
“Why do they trust the people they’re hiring from Old Earth and the Old Colonies?” Mele Darcy asked. “Did you, uh, hear anything about that from whoever might have broken into those conversations?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Ninja said. “It seems Earth Fleet has these long-standing traditions about being obedient to government decisions and blah, blah, blah. And so do the Old Colonies.”
“Just where do they think Rob Geary and I came from?” Mele Darcy asked.
“Somewhere dark and dangerous, I guess.”
“Danielle Martel lectured me about how important it was to support the government,” Rob said, feeling bitterness rising again. “But they slam her memory, in private anyway. Oh, Ninja, I turned down the offer from the council. I’m currently unemployed.”
“Really?” Ninja raised her hands in mock despair. “Whatever will we do if I’m the only one hauling in paychecks?”
Rob glanced at Mele Darcy. “All right, I can tell you two are not saying something. What is it?”
Mele Darcy grinned. “While you and I were positioning ourselves for those great job offers, your Lady Ninja here was working on something that might help take the sting away.”
Ninja gave Rob a wide smile. “The contracts are being let for operating the main orbital facility. The biggest pieces of it are being towed in after being built at a shipyard at Franklin and should show up within the month. I’m on the inside. That facility is going to need an officer to run the dockyard and repair section. And guess what? You played by far the biggest role in saving the people on the ground here who represent the corporation that will be finishing construction on the complex and running it. And those people know that.”
“It seems they’ll also need someone to run a security force,” Mele Darcy said. “Council Member Camagan has told the corporate recruiters that if they hire me, they won’t be sorry. And they like that you and I have proven we can work together. Apparently that’s not a given with sailors and Marines.”
“Really?” Rob asked.
“That’s what I hear,” Mele said. “So, we not only get to do honest work, but the officers from Old Earth and Brahma and other places who took our military jobs are going to have to ask us for our help and cooperation on a frequent basis.”
Rob hadn’t thought he would be smiling again anytime soon, but he did as he thought about that. “It’s a good thing I’m not too vindictive.”
“I can be vindictive enough for both of us,” Mele Darcy said.
“Don’t burn too many bridges, you two,” Ninja cautioned. “Glenlyon thinks it’s done with you. But I think Glenlyon is wrong. This part of space is still a mess. You guys gave Scatha a bloody nose, but Scatha is still out there. And that Apulu Star System that gave you a hard time, Mele. Not to mention whoever bombarded Lares and threatened Kosatka, and whoever was stirring up other trouble on Kosatka, and other star systems that could be trouble that we haven’t even heard of yet. Glenlyon is going to need you again.”
“So what if they do?” Rob asked. “Why should we care if they need us again? Don’t you think I’ve learned my lesson?”
“You’ll care,” Ninja said. “You’ll care because that’s who you are. No matter how many times you get screwed over doing the right thing, you’ll still care. You and this grunt, both. They’ll need you badly, and you’ll step up.”
Mele shook her head. “Do you think I’m some kind of idealist? I’ll bet you a twenty, right here and now, that never happens.”
• • •
Three years later, Senior Dock Officer Rob Geary looked over from his display as the door to his office on the orbital facility opened, expecting to see another fleet officer either demanding or begging for priority at a repair dock.
Instead, Captain Mele Darcy of the Security Division stood there, holding out her universal wallet. “I owe Ninja a twenty.”
“What? Why do you owe my wife a twenty?”
“Haven’t you heard? The Claymore was blown apart, along with Commodore Hopkins and half the crew. All hell is breaking loose. And guess who the council is asking for help?”
Jack Campbell is the pen name of John G. Hemry, a retired naval officer who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis before serving with the surface fleet and in a variety of other assignments. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Fleet series and The Lost Stars series, as well as the Stark’s War, Paul Sinclair, an
d Pillars of Reality series. He lives with his indomitable wife and three children in Maryland. Visit him on the Web at jack-campbell.com.
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