Looking Glass 4 - Claws That Catch (4 page)

"Then there is the fact that military families face stresses unfamiliar to the culture that produces them. Police officers and firefighters face as many risks and during times of peace even more than the military. But if a firefighter or policeman is injured or killed in the line of duty, the families find it out almost immediately. And the officer's commander is there to bring the bad news.

“With the military, death or injury can occur so far away that it takes time for information to reach the families. And there is the unknowing. The waiting for news, good or bad, and so often convincing yourself that it's going to be bad.”

“That I know about,” Brooke said, finally really getting it. “I met Eric just before his last mission. And I was on pins and needles waiting for word.”

“Quick work, buddy,” Lyle said, doing the math.

“I asked her to marry me as soon as we got back,” Berg said, grinning. “She made the mistake of saying yes. And almost the whole time, since, I've been in OCS.”

“That sort of separation is normal in the military, unfortunately,” Miriam continued. “Civilians don't have to put up with it, normally, and find it very strange. They don't understand the stresses even if they try to be nice about them. Often, they don't understand why the spouse puts up with them. So the military tries to help, often doing the opposite, with spouse support groups. They're generally organized by the commanding officer's wife, one of the duties that you'll have to take over if Eric ever reaches that lofty state. Sometimes there are severe generational clashes, but those are fading. There are always societal clashes, especially with newlyweds. Newly wed spouses often don't understand the point. That is, until they need the support of people like them. And, of course, as with anything bad leadership can make something like that truly horrible. In which case, they're generally voluntary.”

“Yeah, but if she decides she's going to sit it out, a bad CO's wife will go complaining to her husband,” Lyle pointed out. “Sometimes you can have a great CO and a horrible wife. Or the other way around. I knew one unit that wished its boss and his wife could change places. Nobody knew why she put up with the bastard.”

“Eric, do you want to be a career officer?” Miriam asked. “Do you want to do twenty years and retire as a colonel? Or do you want stars?”

“I got all of that but stars,” Brooke said.

“She's asking if I want to be a general,” Berg said. “Sure, I mean I've thought about it. Who doesn't? But I'm not sure if I'm going to even reup as an officer. I more or less have to do four years, but . . .”

“Brooke, would you prefer that he just do four years then get out?” Miriam asked, turning to the bride. “Or do you want him to be a general? Do you want him to wear stars?”

“I want him to do whatever will make him happiest,” Brooke said.

“I feel the same way about Brooke,” Berg interjected.

“Then, Brooke, you have to decide if you want to be Mrs. General Bergstresser,” Miriam said, gesturing to the commandant's wife, who coincidentally was chatting with Brooke's mom. “If you do, behind every successful person is a strong spouse. Officers are no different, be they male or female. You have to decide if you're willing to play the political game and back your new husband, often at your own expense. There are tremendous sacrifices that military families make, long separations, bad housing, often a degree of hostility from the local community and lower pay than they can generally get in the civilian world. You'll spend years raising your children on your own, knowing your husband often as a stranger who drags in a bag of dirty laundry and leaves as soon as it's done. And if he continues in the vein he's chosen so far, never knowing when you'll get a call from his CO saying that he won't be coming home. A casket filled with parts will be lucky; more likely it will just be weighed down with sandbags. And even if you have played the perfect wife, which will often be at the expense of whatever career you've chosen, you'll have lost the game. And you'll have little or no control of how that game's been played.”

“This is a great conversation for a new bride to hear,” Lurch complained.

“Mrs. Commandant probably had something she was planning on doing today,” Miriam pointed out, shrugging. “Because her husband, for whatever reason, decided to attend this event, she had to give up her plans. It's the sort of thing he had to bring his wife to. And she had to go. Or he'd never have made commandant. And now he's leaving, without her.”

“What?” Berg said, looking over at the door. The senior brass were quietly filing out, followed by their aides but not their wives. Weaver was with them, as well. But not Miller who was holding up the bar and apparently telling war stories. But he caught the exit, Berg could tell.

“That bodes poorly for us,” Lurch said. “Because that looks like an emergency exit.”

“And an emergency for the Gods eventually becomes our emergency,” Berg said. “But I'm not even in-processed. So if you end up launching tomorrow, I won't be there.”

“Be a shame to launch without our good-luck talisman,” Lurch said, grinning. “But if we gotta . . .  Oh, hell, I haven't had pre-mission, yet.”

“Pre-mission on the cruise again?” Berg said, wincing. “I know that's going to be my lot. Just once I'd like to get pre-mission in in the normal timeframe.”

“I, however, have had pre-mission,” Miriam said, smiling. “I wheedled it out of Dr. Chet as soon as we knew a mission was coming up.”

“You're supposed to be in lock-up,” Berg said, frowning.

“Different rules for technical specialists,” Miriam said. “Brooke, you look as if you're still processing what I told you.”

“I am,” Brooke admitted. “And trying to catch up with the language.”

“I can give you a dictionary,” Miriam said, smiling. “I wrote it after the first mission. Nothing that violates operational security, but it might help.”

“If you would, please,” Brooke said, nodding.

“I'll e-mail it to you,” Miriam replied. “Have you given any thought to it?”

“I sort of already did,” Brooke said. “Eric and I were . . .  Well, we were sort of on a date when he got a call and had to go.”

“The term for which is 'recalled,' ” Miriam said. “I was supposed to be presenting a paper that day; I remember it well.”

“And then I didn't know what was going to happen,” Brooke said, frowning. “I got one short message from him and sent him one.”

“And did you talk to your friends, to your mother, about it?”

“Yeah,” Brooke admitted. “And my friends . . .”

“Didn't get it,” Miriam said. “And thus we're back to the spouse association. The point of such an organization, a well run one anyway, is that they do get it. There's a lot of claptrap associated with it, stupid parties that are sincerely lacking in men; dresses and hats and gloves, fortunately, have mostly gone the way of the dinosaur. But the point, under all the formality and the social overlay, is a group of people who are stuck in an unusual situation and have to adapt to it. A situation that the people outside that group, the friends they had back home for example, generally don't 'get.' ”

“I get it,” Brooke said, grinning. “What does your spouse, who I presume isn't military, think about it?”

“What spouse?” Miriam asked, holding up her left hand. Other than a ring in the shape of a spider on the middle finger it was unadorned.

“And, uh, you go on these . . . missions?” Brooke asked.

“I promise I won't steal your husband, Brooke,” Miriam said softly. “He's a very nice guy and you make a great couple. But, frankly, he'd bore me to tears in a month, no more.”

“Well thank you very much,” Berg said.

“Two-Gun, you're a very nice young man, but you are very young and although you're very smart you're also very focused,” Miriam said. “And not in areas I find interesting. From where I stand, that adds up to booooring.”

“What about me?” Lurch asked when the group stopped laughing.

“Nice boy-toy, maybe,” Miriam said. “Less than a month. Weekend at most. No, three hours. Max.”

“You're very . . . frank,” Brooke said.

“Only when it doesn't hurt people,” Miriam replied. “Sergeant Lyle, were you hurt by that comment?”

“Not a bit,” Lurch said. “You're pretty, but I've been around you when you're bored. No thank you. Crazier than a ferret on catnip.”

“And the new ship doesn't have any pipes to paint!” Miriam wailed.

“You guys are nothing but in jokes,” Brooke said. “Can you at least explain that one? And why people call him Two-Gun?”

“Gentlemen,” the President said, shaking the admirals' and generals' hands. “Thank you for coming. Some introductions are in order. Bob?”

“Gentlemen, General Wang Zhenou, Army of the People's Republic of China,” the national security advisor said, gesturing to an Asian gentleman in a polo shirt and jeans. “General Anatoly Karmasov, Russian Army,” a short, heavyset man in country and western wear that looked a tad ludicrous, “and General Amjit Meennav,” a tall, slender and dark skinned man in Sikh dress.

“Admiral Townsend, Chief of Astronautic Operations, and Admiral Blankemeier, Director of Astronautic Operations. General Holberg, Commandant of the Marine Corps. Captain Weaver, Executive Officer of the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade. And, of course, Colonel Fordham-Witherspoon, of Her Majesty's British Government.”

“And so we are gathered,” the President said as a steward served coffee. “General Wang, would you care to lay out your initial statement?”

“The People's Government finds it unacceptable that the United States has concealed the ability to not only defy gravity but fly into space from the peoples of the world,” the general said, gruffly. “This is a direct insult to the People's government and all governments who believe in sovereignty and respect between nations.”

“If you truly believed in sovereignty then you would not raise an issue with another country concealing such a thing,” the Indian said in an Oxford accent. “So your response seems somewhat hypocritical. What you really mean is you want it and you're trying to pressure the Americans to give it to you.”

“I have a point of order,” the Russian general said in a thick accent. “The Motherland's government has had knowledge, for some time, that our dear neighbors to the south were aware of the dastardly experiments on the part of the Americans. However, I am wondering why my esteemed colleague from the sub-continent is present.”

“In other words, our subs weren't chasing the Americans so how could we know?” the Sikh asked. “At the insistence of their British 'colleagues,' the Americans brought us in on the secret some two months ago. And it's a bit broader than you're aware. So I would suggest you hold all your bluster and opening arguments for a later time, because, in the Adar vernacular, we are seriously grapped.”

“Captain Weaver?” the President said. “I understand you prepared a briefing?”

“Actually, an overworked lieutenant commander in AstroOps prepared it, sir,” Bill said, standing up. “I'm just giving it. Gentlemen, I give you the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade Mod One,” Weaver said, keying on the screen.

“One?” the Russian asked, sitting up.

“Oh, don't tell me you haven't noticed the changes,” Bill said. “Your intel corps is better than that. The Vorpal Blade One was designed around the former USS Nebraska. The engine, which I'm sure you're all itching to study, was an artifact the Adar found and we Americans got tinkered into a drive. Were we actually to release it for study, which we're not, trust me and my professional background when I say that you would find it as baffling and enigmatic as we have. It is so far ahead of our technology, it is not even funny. Magic is a better description. It is not only capable of normal space flight, but of warp flight.”

He stared at the Chinese delegate as he said that and couldn't get anything from him. If the Chinese knew about the warp capability, the general wasn't letting on.

“Using it, we have accomplished two separate deep-space missions,” Bill continued. “The first was a local area survey during which we encountered several astronomical issues, landed on a few planets, got ourselves beaten up thoroughly, encountered another friendly alien race and got ourselves beaten up even more thoroughly by a biological planetary defense system.”

“Was this Dreen?” the Chinese delegate asked. The Chinese had not had any Dreen gates in their country. Since the war, however, there had been reports of occasional Dreen outbreaks. As with many countries, they had looked upon the Dreen as a potential biological weapon of enormous ability. And like every country that had tinkered with them, save the U.S. and Britain as far as Weaver knew, they'd lost control of the infestation.

Dreen spread-fungus was nasty. It actively tried to escape and would produce enzymes and acids until it found a combination that got it out of its holding vessel. Keeping the result from spreading was nearly impossible.

“No,” Bill said, switching to the next slide. “The system was either designed by the Cheerick, this chinchillalike species, or some older race. However, it was determined during the mission that the Cheerick could control it. It produces various ground and air combat systems as well as a space combat system termed dragonflies. They are capable of normal space operations and fire laser beams from their compound eyes.”

“Oh, very good,” the Russian said, starting to stand up. “This is some joke you play on us, yes?”

“General, this joke blew the hell out of our ship,” Bill said tightly. “We were slag when we got back to Earth and that was after we did repairs on Cheerick. The dragonflies are no joke, especially with a couple of hundred coming at you.”

“You were there?” the Chinese general said. “You were on this mission?”

“I was the astrogator, General,” Bill replied. “We lost all but five of our forty-one Marines and about half of our Navy crew as well as numerous civilian scientists and all of our Special Forces scientific assistants. May I continue?”

“Please,” the Asian said.

“The second mission was an emergency mission to determine why we'd lost contact with a colony,” Bill said, bringing up another slide. It was of a standard harsh-world science station, bubble tents and rocky soil. "The planet was HD 36951 Gamma Five. It was an archaeological station that had been attacked by an unknown force. We determined that it had been destroyed by the Dreen and rescued one survivor. Then we found remnants of a battle in the Tycho 714-1046-1 system. Following the trail of one of the ships, we encountered another race, the Hexosehr.