Freehold (36 page)

"No school," he said, shaking his head. "We'll have Warrant Chilton give you the end of course test. If he's happy, we'll document it for headquarters."

"Uh, sure. sir," she agreed. "If it'll help."

"It's impossible to have too many trained personnel," he replied. "And if you develop other skills or can act as a unit instructor, let Sirkot know. We'll keep you busy."

"Yes, sir," she acknowledged.

She took the test, impressing Warrant Leader Chilton and surprising herself. Then she found out that her pay would be bumped an additional five percent for each secondary skill she had. No wonder people competed for slots in the military, she thought. Free training in as many skills as one could manage and extra pay based on it. She'd already seen that employers preferred veterans. On Earth, she'd found out during her hitch that propaganda to the contrary, most employers regarded the military as a pool for losers.

The Freehold forces were paid far better than the UN. There were no taxes or other deductions, either, but there were additional expenses. One had to furnish housing, unless ordered to lodge on base, when duty required immediate availability. All meals had to be provided, except during exercises or combat. Kendra had planned on living with Rob and Marta and commuting, but the difference in their schedules made it awkward, as did traffic. From Marta's on the far south side of the metroplex to Heilbrun was about 150 kilometers, or 280 going around the bustle of downtown. It was just too far to commute twice a day with the heavy workload and no automated mass transit.

She paid the minimal amount of Cr5 a day to stay on base the first month and went home on weekends, then bought a small unicar. It was a ground-only; flight fees added up quickly. She still only made it home on weekends and a couple of days a week. She lived out of a duffel bag, kept her ready gear in the car and her battle gear at the unit.

Weekends were still fun and she appreciated the three-day format. She occasionally met one or both of her lovers at Rob's apartment for dinner or a tryst or both. Sometimes they'd travel up to see her. Still, she had less of a social life than she'd had on Earth. She wasn't unhappy; her work kept her busy and was productive. Rob invested her additional income in a variety of capital ventures and sent her regular reports on her assets. Her income was better than she'd had in the UNPF by a factor of three. Better than her father paid his technical employees, in fact.

She'd always been taught that pure capitalism was automatically evil. While not "pure," the Freehold system was as unregulated a system as had ever existed. Investors and shippers from all over space flocked to operate within its minimal restrictions and exported technology, labor requirements and sales. There was profit available for anyone willing to buy in. She took advantage of it with her pay and donated a monthly stipend toward an adoption center, deciding that was the local charity she wanted to sponsor.

Complicating social matters was the fact that about once a month the unit would deploy for anywhere from three days, in the case of a space assault exercise, to a week for ground exercises. She found out that they did longer ones twice a year. They were gearing up for an arctic exercise the next week. She shuddered at that thought. She hated working outside in the cold. Certainly, it got cold in Minneapolis, but people stayed inside; it was a modern, civilized town. People did not go out in subfreezing weather if they didn't have to.

The exercise that week was a surprise to her. She'd been in the military long enough to know how these things worked. They were woken early by comm and ordered to report in. She blinked awake, grabbed her gear and stumbled to the shop. She was second to report in and grabbed a cup of hot water and coffee powder from her bag. Freeholders might be chocoholics, but she preferred caffeine to theobromine as a stimulant. She slurped the warm, bitter brew.

What would happen next was they would wait around interminably while people staggered in, except for one or two incompetents who would claim to have slept late or that their comm wasn't working. She was surprised to find that everyone was present by the time she finished her first cup.
Good shop,
she thought. No,
great shop.
 

Next would be almost a div of screwing around while they checked everybody's gear, made up shortages, listened to people whine that they couldn't keep their bags ready and make trips back to the barracks to get missing items. It would be worse, she thought, since many of them lived off base. While she was pondering this, Sirkot directed her to detail a soldier to warm up her team's GUV. She sent Jackson to do it and wondered when they were planning on checking gear. She asked.

"What?" Sirkot replied, looking confused. "If they freeze, it's their own faults. Everyone knows the requirements for arctic deployment."

Which was exactly Kendra's thought. "No UN unit ever operates like that," she said. "A commander would be cashiered if a troop got injured in the field through any avoidable error."

"I've heard of that," he said. "It's called 'lack of discipline.' But thanks for double-checking; that's what NCOs are for."

They drove to the airfac, loaded into VC-6s, flew up to the tundra and began at once. It was an all-day trip, low and slow across the continent, endless kilometers of trees giving way to endless kilometers of prairie, then scrub, then frosted ground. Their first task as they deployed was to clear the area of a few boobytraps left by the aggressor forces, who were simulating the enemy. Then they pitched camp, including heating gear and set shifts and watches. The exercise proper commenced immediately. Aircraft flew, artillery launched and fired and infantry squads went out to raid and recon.

Kendra was given a data dump of tasks, including finding bodies for fighting positions, watch schedules, perimeter patrols, work details and normal logistics functions. She was partway through that when the "enemy" attacked on ACV skimmers. She dove outside to take cover and return fire, but couldn't find a fighting position. There was supposed to be one right outside the temp.

She burrowed into the snow in her mottled gray and white parka suit and prepared to engage any targets. None came near her position and all clear was called shortly. She rose, dusted off and went back inside. "Jackson!" she called.

"Yes, Corporal?" he responded, running in from the passage from the rear temp, which served as an ersatz loading bay.

"Where is my fighting position?"

"Um . . . I'm sorry, Corporal. I got distracted by some requisitions," he said, looking embarrassed.

"Well, please get undistracted and dig me one now. Unless you want me killed off in this exercise?" Red-faced, he grabbed a shovel and fuser from near the entrance and headed out.

That was about the only problem she encountered all week. She asked Sirkot about the problem and how to resolve it.

"You did, didn't you?" he asked.

"Well, yes, but doesn't it have to be written up?" she asked.

"What? For a basic mistake? Do they do that in the UN?" he asked.

"For every little detail," she confirmed.

"Bullshit," he said and sighed. "We must get you to leadership school. No, no, you're doing great. You are more than competent for a sergeant's slot, but you must learn the fine details. An error was made, an NCO corrected it, and that's as far as it goes. If it becomes a pattern, refer him to me, and if it doesn't stop then,
then
we'll write it up. How does the UN function with that much adminwork?"

"Uh, not as well as we do here," she admitted, and went back to work.

She still hated the vicious cold she encountered on her tasked infantry duty. The wind howled across the dunes of snow, which crunched under her snowshoes. Her visor polarized to cut the glare and cut the details, too, turning everything dull gray monochrome. She despised diving into the snow for cover and was only too glad to get back to the camp.

None of it was as bad as using a field latrine at -30 degrees. She apparently wasn't the only one with that opinion, because someone had taken a leak through the rear door of the shelter. She found the stained, melted snow, reported it, and thought Naumann was going to demand DNA analysis to identify the perpetrator. He ranted about sanitation and health and she was sure that the culprit was suitably scared. She was rather struck by his reaction herself.

Gealday morning, she again expected a disorganized mess, what was known in military parlance as a "clusterfuck." Again, it didn't happen.

The way it was supposed to work was that once marching orders were given, some few troops would proceed to try to get things done. Others would offer bad advice and get in the way. Still others would simply complain about how long it was taking and why couldn't everybody else hurry up? There'd be frayed tempers, all around incompetence and anger at "them" for not running a better operation.

Again, the Freehold forces declined to operate according to standard military procedures. The temp was being dismantled around Kendra as she stuffed her gear aboard the GUV. By the time she had all the equipment boxes she was signed for checked off and tagged for loading, she was standing on packed snow that had roughly the shape of the temp, outlined in banked snow where the walls had been. An engineer was dragging off their generator and heaters and the concealment netting was already crated with the admin squad's gear. The newest troops were filling in fighting positions and policing up trash. She began counting heads and realized most of them were already aboard the vertol. She was surprised and elated as she ran up the ramp. She dumped her data to Sirkot, who nodded and forwarded it, and within a seg, they lifted. The whole process had taken about sixty segs. Kendra fell asleep en route to catch up from the tiring schedule.

Once they were in the compound, before they had everything put away, Naumann's voice boomed through the air and the comms. "Listen up! After-action review tomorrow for all squad leaders and above. Overall, quite good, a few areas need some tweaking and tightening.
No more peeing in the snow!
Get the gear stowed and dismiss by squads. The unit will buy the first round at the club starting in one div. That is all."

There were a few cheers. Kendra decided she liked the way this military operated. She almost missed the morons and jerks who inevitably got in the way of real work. She was shortly educated to the fact that Freehold had them too.

"Knavery and flattery are blood relations."

—Abraham Lincoln

Sergeant Davis left the unit the following week. He had orders to the factory ship
Force
. Things were a bit hectic for the week after that, Kendra performing both his and her duties. Then his replacement arrived.

Her first impression of Sergeant Jim Wayland was a good one. He was outgoing, cheerful and imposingly big. He towered over her by a good ten centimeters. He shook hands and greeted everyone while cracking jokes.

"Kendra, glad to meet you," he said. "I'm looking forward to working with you."

"Jim," she said. He was brawny, with a craggy face and a goofy grin.

He immediately turned to Sirkot and didn't say another word to her. She figured he'd need some time to settle in and said nothing. He left shortly to finish inprocessing and she finished the workload for the day, although it took her an extra half-div.

Her perception changed as the week wore on. Jim seemed to find numerous excuses to miss appointments. He did good work, but only the bare minimum, leaving Kendra to pick up the slack. He missed PT completely on Ashday, claiming inprocessing incomplete. She sighed and ignored it. There was one in every shop.

Private Jackson did not get along well with him, either. Jackson was an arrogant twelve-year-old, but a damned good worker. He just had a bit more individualism than was good for him, a fairly common trait among Freeholders. It was still awkward to deal with in a military environment. She overheard one exchange.

"You don't understand, Jackson," Wayland was saying, condescension dripping from his voice. "You're a private, so you do the work. I'm an NCO, so I supervise."

"Sirkot told us both to do it," Jackson replied, "and it's a two person job. We'll be here all day if you sit on your ass."

"You'll bark like a dog if I tell you to," Wayland replied, laughing. It clearly wasn't intended to be derogatory, it was just a badly phrased attempt at humor. He seemed to need to make a joke of everything.

Shortly, Wayland left and was gone the rest of the day. He didn't inform anyone, and left invoices incomplete again. She exchanged looks with Sirkot.

The following week, Wayland loudly announced his intention to put in an application for an instructor slot at NCO Leadership School. Sirkot diplomatically replied, "While technically a sergeant can apply, no matter how good your fitreps are, you'll take second to any senior who applies."

Wayland nodded and acted as if he didn't hear. "It's all in who you blow. If they want someone, the rank doesn't matter."

"There is work you could do here, Jim," Kendra suggested.

"I'll get to it," he promised. He'd been promising that since he arrived. "Or I could make it worth your while to cover me, er, cover for me," he grinned, nodding with his whole upper body. Again, it clearly was intended as his necessary joke in every exchange. Kendra sighed and stared at her hand for a second.

"Please do not make sexual innuendoes, Sergeant," she said.

Nodding again, he replied, "Sorry." His face said he really wasn't. "Just think, though, if this works out I could be one of your instructors at NCOLS."

She didn't express her opinion of that idea.

They had a spaceside exercise the following week. Wayland actually did do all his prep work and the lift was smooth. Kendra hoped things were finally shaping up. An abrasive personality she could deal with, if the work was being done. She ignored his posturing and attempts at popularity as they lifted. It was going to be a long week.

The shuttle docked with a training ship. Rather than the usual cruiser, it was an antiquated frigate. The gangtube clanked into place and they swarmed across into the ugly, smelly little tub. They were crammed in like insects in a nest and were going to stay that way all week. The only good part was that she, Sirkot and Wayland were each on different shifts. Her fears had included being assigned under the loud jerk or sharing a battle station with him. His continued innuendoes had made her uncomfortable with the idea of being naked in front of him. She knew it was silly, but he brought out all her old hang-ups. "Naked" equaled "defenseless" in her mind.