Starfist FR - 03 - Recoil by Dan Cragg Page A

about the prospect.
    “We’ll both try. If she doesn’t work out, okay, I’ll send her home. But I’ll tell you what, Top, there’s more to this girl than meets the eye. I think if we can wean her off the booze, we’ll find us a mighty fine soldier under all those suds. I think her problem might be that nobody’s ever given her a chance to show what she can really do when she puts her mind to it. All right”—he set Queege’s sheet aside—“let’s winnow out the rest of the deadwood.”
    They spent the rest of that day going through the records. Once they’d decided on who was going to be relieved, they went back through the keepers and decided who would fill the positions of the men being sent home. It was already dark by the time they finished.
    “Top, take the files on these rejects down to battalion personnel. If they’ve gone back to the barracks for the day, roust ’em out. I want reassignment orders on these men in my hands by zero-six hours tomorrow morning. First thing tomorrow I want this Queege standing tall in my office at HQ. I’m going to talk to her. Next, I want the men we’re sending home assembled so I can talk to them. I’m telling them precisely why they’re being relieved and then you will see that they’re on their way. Once that’s done, call the battalion into formation. I want to talk to everyone who’s left over. I apologize for keeping you up like this, Sergeant Major, but we’re both going to lose a lot of sleep before this battalion is ready to go into its deployment training phase.”
    “Well, sir, I had an old first sergeant a long time ago who
    used to say, ‘You git yer best work done between retreat and reveille.’ ” Steiner chuckled and stood, extended his hand.
    “Thanks for keepin’ me on, sir. We’ll surer’n shit shape this outfit up, ’n it’s about gawdam time someone did!”
    Office of the Commander, Seventh Independent Military Police Battalion
    “Funny, isn’t it, how our paths have crossed, Corporal,” Colonel Raggel said. “Did you know we heard about what you did in that bank at Phelps all the way up to General Lyons’s headquarters?”
    “N-No, sir,” Puella answered. It was “oh-dark-thirty” in the morning, she’d had no booze since leaving her home world, Lannoy, and she was very apprehensive that her new battalion commander had called her into his headquarters office at that ungodly hour for an “interview.” Everyone in the battalion knew vast changes were coming and they all expected this new broom of a colonel to sweep the unit clean. She shifted her weight in her chair and licked her lips nervously. Colonel Rene Raggel was of medium height and weight, broad at the shoulders, eyes a bright blue, close-cropped hair light yellow. Everyone knew he’d been close to General Davis Lyons during the Ravenette War. It was mystifying to Puella how such a man had gotten appointed CO of the battalion, but here he was, fresh as a daisy and full of energy even at such an ungodly hour.
    “Well, we did know about you, Corporal. That”—he gestured at the ribbon on her tunic—“is partly the reason I’m not sending you home with your first sergeant.”
    Puella gasped, “Yer sendin’ Top home, sir?” She knew better than to ask why although she really did not know why. She felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. Who would run the company now?
    “And I’m bringing you up here to be my chief clerk, Corporal Queege.”

    “S-Sir?” Surely she hadn’t heard him right. Colonel Raggel smiled at the mixed expression of horror and astonishment that crossed Puella’s face.
    “And, as of right now, you are Sergeant Queege.”
    “Sir?”
    “You heard me. The TO&E calls for a sergeant major, but that’s Steiner and I’m keeping him on up here, and a senior sergeant as chief clerk in my office. I am also authorized two junior clerks but they won’t be available for a while yet, so you’re it, three-in-one, my one and only