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"We're going to a surprise meeting. Just me, you two, and the priest. And we're leaving now."
"Sir," Georgiadas said, "shouldn't we inform Captain Pahner?"
"I don't have time to call him, Spyros," Roger said, with a very slight emphasis on the first-person pronoun. "We have to go now."
"Yes, Sir," the grenadier replied. "Let's do it, then."
"After you, Bishop From," the prince invited, gesturing down the corridor.
"This should be interesting," Willis muttered as they left their post and accompanied the prince on his latest harebrained excursion.
"Yeah," Georgiadas whispered back as he used his toot to key his communicator for a subvocal message. "Like the Chinese curse."
"Roger just left for an unspecified location with Rus From!" Pahner snapped, as he slammed open the sergeant major's door.
"Shit," Kosutic responded, throwing on her tunic. Unlike the prince, the rest of them had to wear their battle-worn chameleon suits, but they'd finally had the time to really attack the stains and tears. There were also spares available from the wounded and the dead, and they'd been put to good use. The final patchwork suits had clearly seen hard usage, but they were no longer the stained rags they had been.
"Not good, Sir," Julian added from the other side of the camp bed. The intel NCO pulled on his boots and sealed them to his uniform, then picked up his bead rifle and checked the chamber. "Do we go after him?"
"And does he have any guards at all?" Kosutic demanded harshly.
Pahner looked from one to the other and not quite visibly shook himself. It wasn't that seeing two Marines together was unusual, but the Regs were very specific about relationships between two people in the same direct chain of command. There were, in Pahner's opinion, very good reasons for that regulation, given that Marines were still people and that favoritism-or the need to keep one's loved ones out of harm's way-remained an ineradicable part of the human condition. And whether the captain agreed with them or not, the Regs made any such relationship a "crash and burn" offense. If two people in the same chain of command wanted to marry or become lovers, that was just fine with The Book ... as long as one of them transferred out of that chain of command.
But there was nowhere on Marduk for anyone to transfer to, and Pahner felt a moment of absolute fury at Kosutic for allowing such a thing to happen. The sergeant major was his right hand. It was part of her job to make sure that other people weren't in violation of military law, not to go around violating it herself! Besides, she was forty years older than Julian-not, Pahner had to admit, that she looked it.
And Julian ... Julian was an experienced troop who'd been around the block a few dozen times. He damned well knew as well as Kosutic did just how far out of line they were and what a dilemma their actions were going to create for one Armand Pahner!
But even as those thoughts flashed through his mind, the captain knew it wasn't that simple or cut and dried. What were people supposed to do with themselves, with their emotions and their sex drives? Turn them off? Pretend they didn't exist? The Regs had never envisioned a situation in which a unit this small would be this isolated for so long, and what were two people to do when there was no place either of them could transfer to? And even if that hadn't been so, what was he supposed to do in this specific case? Oh, sure, Kosutic and Julian were both supposed to be setting examples to their subordinates, which meant holding their conduct to a higher standard, but how could he justify lowering the boom on them when he knew that they knew that he knew there were plenty of other similar relationships cooking away out there. Christ, there was even Despreaux and the prince to think about! God only knew where that mess was headed, and what was Pahner supposed to do if the two of them decided that the solution was to give in and do what they both so obviously wanted to do? Order them to behave-like that would do any good at all? Charge a member of the Imperial Family with violation of the Regs? Court-martial just Despreaux?
Besides, he thought as his initial, shock-born fury faded just a bit, he couldn't think of a single person less likely than Kosutic to let anything that was happening in her bed affect her decisions and actions in the field. Or, for that matter, less likely than Julian, despite the intel NCO's well-earned reputation for bending the rules. So if it wasn't going to have any negative side effects on the way they did their jobs, and if making a point out of jumping all over them was only going to unsettle his command structure and force him to take note of other, potentially even stickier relationships, then shouldn't he just keep his mouth shut and pretend he hadn't seen a thing?
"Derail your train of thought there, Armand?" the sergeant major chuckled.
"He has two guards," Pahner replied somewhat coldly. It was the first time Kosutic had ever addressed him by his given name in front of another member of the company, but the comment had been as effective a way to restart his mental processes as a slap to the face. Which was what the NCO had intended, he was sure. This whole situation was just going to have to wait, he decided firmly. Like maybe for the next ten standard years or so.
"Willis and Georgiadas, Sir?" Julian asked, apparently (and falsely, Pahner felt certain) unaware that there was any particular reason he ought to be sweating bullets. Or maybe he just had his mind totally focused on the job in hand. He was buckled up and ready to go, waiting only to be told where, so maybe that was all he was thinking about.
Yeah. Sure it was.
"Right. Georgiadas called it in," the captain said after only the briefest of cold-eyed pauses. "Rus From was the contact from the cabal," he added.
"Oh, my." Kosutic sat back down on the camp bed with a thump.
"So, no, we're not going in guns blazing," the captain continued. "We need to know what's going on before we make any decisions."
"We need to get Eleanora," the sergeant major said. "This is her area of expertise. And we'll need to crossfeed from Spyros to Roger."
"Julian," the NCO said.
"I'm on it, Sir," the intel sergeant replied, keying his helmet communicator. "I'll get her headed for the command post."
"Let's get to it, people," Pahner said, and stepped back out the door. Once it was safely closed against observation, he stopped and shook his head. Julian and Kosutic. He snorted. God. Like he had time to think about that right now.