Starfist FR - 03 - Recoil by Dan Cragg Page B

administrative honcho. You do well for me in this job and before this is all over you’ll have a senior sergeant’s stripes to go along with that Bronze Star there.”
    “Ah, ah—” Puella could not get the words out.
    “Some other things you need to know, Sergeant.” He smiled briefly. “I’m going to work you harder than you’ve ever been worked before. We’ll be up before dawn each day and we won’t hit the sack until long after dark. We’re going to get most of our important work done between retreat and reveille. That’s a promise. You ever come in here with the smell of alcohol on you, you’re finished, and believe me, I won’t just send you home. You probably won’t have time for much off-duty shenanigans, Sergeant, but you will not engage in same. You’re a full noncommissioned officer now and you will conduct yourself accordingly, is that understood? If anybody in this battalion gives you a hard time about anything that you can’t handle yourself, you let me or Top know about it. No hesitation. You work for me now and I won’t tolerate anyone’s giving my chief clerk a ration of shit. Is that clear?”
    “Yes, sir!” But she wondered just what he meant by that remark. Who in the battalion would ever give “Queege old Squeege” a “ration of shit”?
    “Very good, then. Your first day on the job begins right now. Sergeant Major Steiner’s got a heap of work for you to get started on. He also has your promotion orders and a new set of chevrons; pin ’em on. So go on out there and get busy. Two
    final things: If you ever need to see me about anything, don’t hesitate to come in here or grab my attention wherever I may be. As my chief clerk, you’re the next closest person to me after my sergeant major. Don’t abuse that position, but take advantage of it whenever you feel it’s necessary. And last, everything you hear and see up here stays up here. Guys will constantly pump you for information. Don’t utter a word to anybody, clear?
    Okay, big day dawning, we gotta get cracking.”
    Puella jumped to attention and raised her arm in a salute.
    “No, no, none of that!” Colonel Raggel smiled. “Henceforth and for as long as you are in Task Force Aguinaldo, you are in a combat zone, Sergeant. That’s the reason the uniform of the day is always field combat, no Class As, no mess dress. We’re in the field, no saluting required. Now”—he stood and extended his hand—“get to work, Sergeant!”
    As she left the colonel’s office, Puella was walking on air. She’d already forgotten what he’d said about anyone giving her a hard time.

CHAPTER
    EIGHT
    Office of the C5 Military Assistance to Newer Worlds, the Heptagon, Earth
    Robier Altman did have a contact at the Heptagon, the headquarters of the combined military of the Confederation of Human Worlds. Altman prepared a report for his contact, an army colonel by the name of Akhen Farbstein. Farbstein was an assistant director in C5, the civil affairs division of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. His specific job was to liaison between State and the military, and he was responsible for making recommendations for military assistance to recently colonized worlds. Farbstein was very conscientious about his work, and very good at it. But he was on leave when Altman’s report on Haulover reached the top of the queue on his console. His desk was being covered by a colonel named Archibald Ross. Every bureaucracy has someone in it who doesn’t read memos or daydreams through meetings or doesn’t pay attention to the news. If a bureaucracy is big enough, it will have someone who embodies all three of those failings. And face it, the Heptagon constitutes one of the largest bureaucracies ever devised by humanity.
    Colonel Ross didn’t read all the memos that came to him, daydreamed through many meetings, and didn’t always follow the news. His superiors knew that, though their realization hadn’t come until he’d reached his current rank. By