The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) - Joe Haldeman Page 0,34
first face-to-face contact between humans and Taurans. The only new people in my platoon were Luthuli and Heyrovsky. In the company as a whole (excuse me, the “strike force”), we had twenty replacements for the nineteen people we lost from the Aleph raid: one amputation, four deaders, fourteen psychotics.
I couldn’t get over the “20 Mar 2007” at the bottom of the T/O. I’d been in the army ten years, though it felt like less than two. Time dilation, of course; even with the collapsar jumps, traveling from star to star eats up the calendar.
After this raid, I would probably be eligible for retirement, with full pay. If I lived through the raid, and if they didn’t change the rules on us. Me a twenty-year man, and only twenty-five years old.
Stott was summing up when there was a knock on the door, a single loud rap. “Enter,” he said.
An ensign I knew vaguely walked in casually and handed Stott a slip of paper, without saying a word. He stood there while Stott read it, slumping with just the right degree of insolence. Technically, Stott was out of his chain of command; everybody in the navy disliked him anyhow.
Stott handed the paper back to the ensign and looked through him.
“You will alert your squads that preliminary evasive maneuvers will commence at 20:10, fifty-eight minutes from now.” He hadn’t looked at his watch. “All personnel will be in acceleration shells by 20:00. Tench…hut!”
We rose and, without enthusiasm, chorused, “Fuck you, sir.” Idiotic custom.
Stott strode out of the room and the ensign followed, smirking.
I turned my ring to my assistant squad leader’s position and talked into it: “Tate, this is Mandella.” Everyone else in the room was doing the same.
A tinny voice came out of the ring. “Tate here. What’s up?”
“Get ahold of the men and tell them we have to be in the shells by 20:00. Evasive maneuvers.”
“Crap. They told us it would be days.”
“I guess something new came up. Or maybe the Commodore has a bright idea.”
“The Commodore can stuff it. You up in the lounge?”
“Yeah.”
“Bring me back a cup when you come, okay? Little sugar?”
“Roger. Be down in about half an hour.”
“Thanks. I’ll get on it.”
There was a general movement toward the coffee machine. I got in line behind Corporal Potter.
“What do you think, Marygay?”
“Maybe the Commodore just wants us to try out the shells once more.”
“Before the real thing.”
“Maybe.” She picked up a cup and blew into it. She looked worried. “Or maybe the Taurans had a ship way out, waiting for us. I’ve wondered why they don’t do it. We do, at Stargate.”
“Stargate’s a different thing. It takes seven cruisers, moving all the time, to cover all the possible exit angles. We can’t afford to do it for more than one collapsar, and neither could they.”
She didn’t say anything while she filled her cup. “Maybe we’ve stumbled on their version of Stargate. Or maybe they have more ships than we do by now.”
I filled and sugared two cups, sealed one. “No way to tell.” We walked back to a table, careful with the cups in the high gravity.
“Maybe Singhe knows something,” she said.
“Maybe he does. But I’d have to get him through Rogers and Cortez. Cortez would jump down my throat if I tried to bother him now.”
“Oh, I can get him directly. We…” She dimpled a little bit. “We’ve been friends.”
I sipped some scalding coffee and tried to sound nonchalant. “So that’s where you’ve been disappearing to.”
“You disapprove?” she said, looking innocent.
“Well…damn it, no, of course not. But—but he’s an officer! A navy officer!”
“He’s attached to us and that makes him part army.” She twisted her ring and said, “Directory.” To me: “What about you and Little Miss Harmony?”
“That’s not the same thing.” She was whispering a directory code into the ring.
“Yes, it is. You just wanted to do it with an officer. Pervert.” The ring bleated twice. Busy. “How was she?”
“Adequate.” I was recovering.
“Besides, Ensign Singhe is a perfect gentleman. And not the least bit jealous.”
“Neither am I,” I said. “If he ever hurts you, tell me and I’ll break his ass.”
She looked at me across her cup. “If Lieutenant Harmony ever hurts you, tell me and I’ll break her ass.”
“It’s a deal.” We shook on it solemnly.
Seventeen
The acceleration shells were something new, installed while we rested and resupplied at Stargate. They enabled us to use the ship at closer to its theoretical efficiency, the tachyon drive boosting it to as much as 25 gravities.