Rich Man's War (7 page)

“No worries,” Tanner nodded.

“I just think they ought to treat you better after everything you did,” grumbled Ordoñez.

Tanner hesitated, unsure of how to address this. “I feel a lot better being treated like everyone else, to be honest
. I don’t expect to get out of clean-up details or mess duty. I’m still a non-rate.”

“It’s not about you personally,” said Stan with a knowing grin. “Ordoñez is ‘new guard,’ like you. She’s still
kinda bitter about all the initial teasing you guys got when you first showed up.” He flinched but laughed when Ordoñez pelted him with a piece of candy.

“When did you
go through basic?” Tanner asked her.

“I went to Fort Melendez in the summer of ‘74,” Ordoñez answered. “We started with the old school program but then they
heard about the Fort Stalwart program and decided they wanted to shift over before we were done with the second week of training.”

“I did the six month deal, too,” groaned Sanjay, “
and
weapons and tactics afterward.”

Tanner was still stuck on the timeline. Ordoñez must have enlisted only a month or two after Tanner, and yet she was already through her rating school and
promoted to third class. The schools for ratings classes came open at irregular intervals based on the needs of the service, which was one reason why Tanner couldn’t get into the ratings he most wanted. Before this conversation, he’d felt indifferent about the wait. If he finished out his enlistment as a non-rate because his school never came up, that didn’t seem too bad. He didn’t want to make a career out of this life, anyway.

Yet now he wonder
ed how many of Oscar Company’s navy recruits were probably on their way to ratings schools already.
Joan of Arc
had been the destination of one Oscar graduate—a guy named Garrison—who left for school months ago. Tanner remembered watching older friends go off to universities while he sat in the wreckage of his own future plans. He wondered if he wasn’t setting himself up for the same experience all over again by sticking to his earlier priorities of slow-moving science or health ratings.

“So other than the saluting thing,” Ordoñez said, “what else is there with the Archangel Star?”

Again, Tanner blushed. He felt like putting the pillow over his head rather than under it. “Ordoñez, leave it alone,” said Stan.

“I’m just curious,” she said. “If it bothers you, I’ll shut up.”

“No, it’s fine,” Tanner replied with a sigh. “I’m supposed to get an invitation to the Annual Address every year. I get some of the retirement benefits after I get out, too, even if I only do this one enlistment. But mostly it’s just another medal, so like with some of the others it bumps me up a bit on transfer wish lists and promotion rolls, but I still have to jump through all the same—“

“Holy shit!” Ordoñez blurted out. Suddenly, Tanner found her head and arms hanging down over the side of her rack above his.
Her short dark hair dangled freely. Tanner had no idea how she was holding herself up. The holographic article came down with her, too, and she pointed at it. “You get an extra five hundred bucks a month
for life
?”

“Jesus Christ!” gasped Stan.

“Uh… y-yeah,” Tanner admitted, “but it’s all going to educational debt.”

“Five hundred? That’s it?” asked Sanjay.

“What do you mean, ‘That’s it?’ He’s making more money than I am!”

“Yeah, but you gotta pay taxes on
it, right?” Sanjay asked. “Just seems like a crap benefit when the Hashemites would’ve paid ten million credits for that pirate captain Tanner caught.”

“I heard they offered to pay
him anyway, but the government said no, we’re not mercenaries,” said Ordoñez.

“Wait, what?” Tanner blinked. “Where did you guys hear that stuff?”

“I read it someplace,” shrugged Ordoñez.

“Look, all that money is going to educational debt,” Tanner repeated. He couldn’t blame anyone for making a big deal out of the money. Anyone could use that sort of bonus.

“Hey, we’ve got educational debt, too,” said Sanjay. “Wanna help me with mine? I’ll let you have my desserts at chow.”

Rolling his eyes, Tanner reached up to jerk his privacy curtain shut.

A hand from above peeled the curtain back. Ordoñez’s grinning face still hung over the side of her rack. “Okay, we’ll leave you alone, but you’re taking us all out drinking next time we’re in port at least, right?”

* * *

Sarah Kessler seldom attended meetings of NorthStar’s executive committee in person. She often viewed the video or read the transcripts of them afterward, or at least portions that related to her department. She’d been to enough such meetings, though, that she hardly found them exciting or intimidating when she did attend. Her position required intelligence, a sharp memory, excellent social skills, mental stamina and unflappable nerves.

None of that put her in a seat at the table with some of the most powerful human beings in the known galaxy—not that
she wanted such a seat. It had, however, gotten her into the seats that formed a ring around that table. Sarah Kessler, executive assistant to NorthStar’s Director of Education, sat behind her boss with her holocom screens open and her eyes and ears attuned to any chance that he might need anything.

It was all routine enough that being present didn’t make her nervous. Behind her masterful poker face, though, Sarah had good reason to feel rattled to the core by this particular meeting.

“With Union certification all wrapped up, we are ready to implement the Test this year for all graduating secondary students as planned,” explained her boss, Edwin Garber. He stood at his seat at the conference table, gesturing to a large holographic display floating above the table’s center. Lights in the wide room remained dim to allow for clear visuals. “We expect our profit margins in many systems might increase. Simply put, kids across the Union may figure that if Archangel is ditching the current educational regime, the educational system’s days are numbered and they have less reason to take the Test seriously. That misperception will lead to better returns for us. That point also brings us to the elephant in the room.”

Garber gestured through his holographic control display to shift the larger image that served the whole audience. NorthStar’s Director of Education looked sharp as always in his finely-tailored suit and tight, well-groomed beard. It seemed a far cry from
how he’d looked just a few months ago, when he’d been forced to backpedal on one unfulfilled projection after another regarding Archangel’s unexpected “reforms”—which, to NorthStar’s view, involved state theft of company property and massive poaching of employees.

Sarah knew neither she nor her boss had quite gotten over the stress of those days. They’d been forced to make projections based on a situation with no modern precedent. The executive committee demanded to know what to expect even if it was based on wild conjecture. Garber noted the impossibility of
that task, directed his people to comply with those impossible demands, and then naturally had to make one retraction after another. Before long, Sarah wondered if he’d be asked for his resignation.

Fortunately
, the situation steadied out into something predictable as time went on. Garber and his department did their research and gathered their data. Sarah played a major role in crafting the report.

Or, as the private message that came across her holocom asked, “You put together all these graphs and charts yourself, didn’t you?”

She stepped on her nerves, forcing herself not to gasp or shudder when the real-time message window appeared. Passing messages was nothing new for the assistants on hand. Sarah glanced up across the table toward Greg, another executive assistant seated behind his boss just as Sarah was, and saw him wink knowingly.

In this case, Sarah felt grateful that Greg had been the one to initiate contact between their personal holocoms. He’d never have suspected anything had she been the one to open the point of contact, but just the same, she took this as a chance to get on with her real task.

Sarah’s fingers traced over a small icon in one corner of her holo display, input a confirmation code that no observer would think strange, and then did her best to look natural as the icon disappeared. In her head, she prayed she would remain unnoticed.

Her boss went on speaking. “We can reliably project how much revenue would have come from the current graduating c
lass in Archangel if they took the Test. In the grand scheme of NorthStar’s educational arm and our corporate profits as a whole, the losses naturally aren’t crippling, but it’s still a significant number. Those losses are put into better context when one considers the division’s low operating costs.” Garber didn’t need to rub it in; of all of NorthStar’s major divisions, from consumer goods to finance, education had always demonstrated one of the largest profit margins. Every young person in the Union had to go to school, after all, and NorthStar held great sway with the people who set the standards for success—which translated into the financial profits from a given student’s failure. Other corporations such as Lai Wa offered competition, but ultimately they relied on the same business model and reached for the same outcomes. The system always seemed secure until the events of the last year.

“After a good deal of lobbying and consultations, I can report that a full fifty-five percent of public universities across the Union have decided not to accept diplomas and transfer credits from students graduating from Archangel this year. The report also includes a cost-benefit breakdown of—“

“Fifty-five percent?” broke in an already fuming Jon Weir. The Chief Administrative Officer sat several places up the table from Garber. “That means forty-five percent of them
are
accepting students from Archangel? That’s almost half!”

Sarah quietly sent Greg a private note: “Does your boss ever actually read the reports before these meetings?”

“Again, we’re only talking about
public
universities,” Garber explained. “They aren’t afraid of us pulling our financial support, and while admittedly they make up a large share of the most prestigious universities, they’re still a distinct minority overall. They feel like Archangel’s schools are doing much the same job as they did under our management. The rest—”

“Of course those schools are doing the same job,” snorted Weir. “It’s all still the same staff teaching in the same schools that
we built
. What was the last figure you cited? Ninety-one percent of our people stayed on the job through the takeover?”

Greg’s response arrived before Weir finished speaking: “He has people for that, obviously.”

“As I said back in November and December, Jon,” Garber continued patiently, “the only way to hang onto most of those people would have been to offer new positions elsewhere along with relocation assistance. “

Weir waved off that argument, as he had months ago. “Gimme a break. If they’d wanted that kind of special treatment, they wouldn’t have gone to work as glorified babysitters.” He glanced around the table, looking for nods of agreement, and found
more than a few. “I’d just expect a little bit of corporate loyalty given all we’d already done for them.”

“We must not show resentment,” counseled the steely voice of Anton Brekhov. The CEO of NorthStar sat at the head of the table, his chair tilted somewhat to the side to
present a relaxed, calm image. His salt-and-pepper hair and minimal signs of age belied his exceptional lifespan, courtesy of the best longevity treatments that untold wealth could buy. “This is a struggle for public opinion. Right now, it is merely a single system government making a shortsighted gamble at the expense of its people.”

Like everyone else in the room, Sarah looked up at Brekhov’s face. No one missed the cold resolve in his eyes or in his voice. He expected his subordinates to hold to the company line as he stated it. “NorthStar and our friendly competitors are the glue that holds humanity together. The Union needs us. The people of Archangel need us. Regardless of what their leaders
allege, we are looking out for them. It’s unfortunate that the people of Archangel are suffering the natural economic consequences of their leadership’s gamble, but that can’t be helped—until they come back into the fold.

“When this is all over,” Brekhov continued, sweeping the room with an even gaze and a measured, firm tone that didn’t match the warmth of his chosen words, “we’ll need to help Archangel recover. We will implement programs to help them rebuild their economy, to
pay their debts
, and to become good citizens of the Union once more. Until then, we will take the high road in every venue, in every interview and through every public statement. We will keep our hand open and outstretched.

“And we will
not
allow this matter to set a precedent for other systems. We will not allow this to spread further. This is
not
a revolution—and we will not be cast as oppressors.”

Sarah had seen Brekhov’s talent for warmth and positive oratory. She’d seen him hold babies and cut the ribbon at new hospitals with a broad smile on his face.
At every Christmas party, Brekhov asked about her family with a perfect memory for names. But after working for so many years at this level of the corporation, Sarah also knew the other side of Anton Brekhov. She knew how bad life could get for anyone who did not heed the implicit threats in his tone. So did the rest of the room, as the chill silence settling over the conference table demonstrated.