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Arnold smiled tiredly and glanced at his watch. "Well, I think we don't have a lot of time to discuss this, since you, or I now rather, have a platoon scattered to hell and gone and some housecleaning to do. So I'll keep it brief. There is no battalion commander."
Pappas stared at him in perplexity. "Sir, even with missing officers and NCOs there is still a chain of command," he said definitively. It was a Rock of Gibraltar to the military. There is always a chain of command.
"The battalion commander is also the Charlie company commander. For all practical purposes that is all he is. Captain Wolf is hard at work keeping his company together. There is no `brigade' commander because although we are a separate combat regiment, we are effectively three separate battalions; there is no regimental commander or even regimental staff. The next actual commander in the chain of command of this company, after Captain Wolf, is General Left at Titan Base."
"Oh, shit," whispered Pappas.
"You think perhaps I should call him? `Excuse me, General Left, this is Lieutenant Arnold. My first sergeant is being mean to me and I don't know what to do.'" The officer smiled again.
"There is one, count 'em, one, field grade Fleet officer on the east coast, Major Marlowe, the S-3 and acting battalion commander of Second Batt down at Fort Jackson. I called him day before yesterday. He stated that he understood I had a problem, that he had so many he couldn't begin to count them, and that I was on my own until my own battalion staff started to show up. The `Triple Nickle' is the last ACS unit to be formed from American units. It is last in line for equipment, it is last in line for training and, especially, it is last in line for perso
Pappas was shaking his head. Not in disbelief, but rather in horror. "I didn't know we were that fucked up."
"Believe it, Sergeant. I can't believe you got rejuvenated. You are definitely one of the lucky ones. Over four million enlisted perso
"There was an article in the Army Times," he continued, "on the filling of unit positions. Only three percent of the combat arms and combat support brigade and lower positions are filled."
"Ouch!"
"The same thing goes for the equivalent enlisted ranks. Congratulations by the way, you are the acting battalion command sergeant major." He paused and ran his hand over his hair again.
"So, Smaj, where should I go? Oh, the CID and MPs. In case you didn't notice, there is something very like a war going on out there," he gestured with a thumb out into the darkness. "The MPs patrol in squads. At night they stay in their armed Humvees and the Humvees stay in reaction range of each other. A cantonment of this size would normally have an MP battalion. We have a company. We should have a platoon of CID, possibly a company. We have three perso
"So," Lieutenant Arnold smiled with grim humor, "as I said before, goddamn am I glad you showed the fuck up."
"What would you have done if I hadn't?" asked Pappas.
"Braced him, probably tomorrow or the day after."
"And then what?"
"I'd probably have been dead by morning," the officer answered with complete seriousness. "Four perso
Pappas shook his head. "Fuck, sir. It's the seventies all over again."
The officer wrinkled his brow. "What?"
Pappas shook his head again and took another scratch. He dusted the resulting dandruff off the table. "Never mind, sir. Way before your time." He thought for a moment and glanced at his own watch. "When does Morales usually show up?" he asked.
"He usually manages to roll in by nine," the lieutenant said with a chuckle. "Officially he does `solo PT.' The one remaining staff sergeant handles the formations. Sergeant Ryerson is probably all right, he's just learned to keep his head down and his eyes shut. I don't know about the CQ, though, he might have tried to contact Morales."
"Well, sir," Pappas said glancing at his own watch, "in that case maybe you could come on over to the barracks with me. I need you to verify the fact that I am now in the chain of responsibility. After that you can just sit back and watch. Sir."
"Oh, with pleasure, Gu
"Weapons, sir?!"
"We don't have suits yet, but we've already received our full supply of weapons. M-200 grav rifles, M-300 grav guns, terawatt lasers, mortars, grenade launchers and a basic load-out came in one package including the vault." The lieutenant smiled tightly again. "If I had to brace him this week, I was preparing a coup de main with certain elements of the company. As it is I'm glad to have you aboard; it would have gotten messy. We need to hurry. I doubt he knows you are here yet, so do you think we can do this without a full Operations Order?" he finished with a wry grin. His eyes were somber as he slipped his silks top on over the holstered .45.
"Aye aye, sir," said the gu
34
Andata Province, Diess IV
0821 GMT May 19th, 2002 AD
I think I should have waited to motivate them until now, Mike thought. Diess' rising primary cast a fierce green fluorescence over the tableau on the roof. Fifty-eight sets of combat armor were planted at various distances from the edge of the roof, some of them slightly crouched as if trying not to face something. One was parked right on the edge. The roofs could be seen stretching in a continuous checkerboard from the inland mesas to the far green sea. In the extreme distance to the west Mike noticed some breaks and of course there was the missing set against the mesa, the fallen Qualtren and Qualtrev. Almost the length of a football field away was another megascraper roof at the same level.
"How far away is that megascraper, Sergeant Wiznowski?"
The NCO focused his range-finder crosshairs on the far wall and confirmed his rough guess. "Seventy-two and a hair meters, sir," he answered, reading off his Heads-Up-Display.
"And do you happen to know the maximum jump range of a Warrior Combat Suit?"
"No, sir, sorry, sir."
"Right, well it just so happens that the maximum jump range in the specifications we called for was one hundred meters for warriors, one twenty for scouts and one fifty for command." Mike crouched and whispered an order. His suit rolled backward over the mile high drop and sprang outward. In apparent defiance of gravity it shot out and over in a back flip and landed neatly on the far roof. He then sprang back, landing with a thump in their midst.
"Sergeant Wiznowski, I want you to take a ru
"Uh, Mike, sir . . ."