really heal perfectly, even in a young man. And Kemp’s not that young.”
* * *
“You’re getting too old for this, you know, Sergeant Kemp,” said Reilly, visiting his wounded in their hospital rooms. He’d showered and put on a clean uniform, not for his own sake, but because Doc Joseph and the medical staff would have met him at the door with rifles if he’d tried to bring any unnecessary dirt into their pride and joy.
Kemp shook his head no but verbally agreed. “No shit, sir.” His leg was in a cast. Reilly was pleased to see that he wasn’t in any kind of traction.
“They won’t tell me anything here—afraid to upset me, I guess—but who did we lose?”
“Well …Milo Wilkes is dead. Do you remember that much?”
“Yes, sir,” Kemp replied. “Better now than at first. You’re not likely to live when half your brain goes up in the air while the rest of it stays behind your face.”
“No, not likely,” Reilly agreed. “Anyway, we lost him and Simowitz, dead …”
“What happened to Sim?” Kemp asked.
“Hit a tree head first. Broke his neck.”
“Shit.”
“Shit,” Reilly agreed. “Thing is, we were actually lucky. If your Eland had been moving half a kilometer an hour faster, the thing probably would have hit it. Then nobody would have survived.”
“What are we doing with the bodies?”
“Milo’s folks wanted him sent home. His corpse goes out tonight with an escort. Simo’s don’t seem to care much; he’s going into the regimental cemetery tomorrow afternoon. We, at least, care.”
That seemed reasonable to Kemp. He asked, “Do we know what happened?”
Reilly nodded his head, then explained, “We froze the battery in place and checked all data. It was fine. Then we grilled the crews. They swear there was no change to the settings after the freeze order. Right now we think—we’re pretty sure—that it was a bad lot of one-o-five. Going through that lot, we’ve found defective charges in about an eighth of the boxes we’ve looked at so far. Stauer’s ordered the entire lot sequestered and destroyed, about a million bucks’ worth. We’re not going to have much 105mm firing in support for about four months; that’s how long it will be before an order for more will be filled. I think there are only about twelve hundred rounds left in the inventory after the bad lot’s taken out. And Stauer says we can’t use any of it until our full load is replaced.”
Kemp nodded his head, but only once before a wave of nausea overtook him. After several long moments of heavy breathing, he asked, “The others?”
“All hurt, except for one, but they’ll be fine.”
“The Eland?” Kemp asked.
“Seriously fucked up. We going to part it out and take a new, rather a rebuilt, one from the float park.”
Kemp nodded, then winced. That made sense. Hesitating, in the way a man will when he doesn’t necessarily want to hear the answer, he asked, “Me?”
Reilly sighed. “You’re a problem,” he admitted. “Right now you’re doped up. Doubt you can even feel much of what’s wrong with you. But your injuries make it extremely unlikely you’ll be fit for a squad, let alone a platoon, anytime this side of the sun running out of hydrogen.”
Doped up or not, for Kemp that was a jolt of pure fear for the future. “So now what? Am I out on the street, sir?”
Reilly shook his head. “The regiment doesn’t play that way. You’ve got some choices. You can take a lump sum disability—and it isn’t especially ungenerous—and go home to therapy. Doc Joseph’s working on setting something up in Houston for that. Or you can go as a supernumerary to either the regimental three or four shop. For that, we can hire a local physical therapist and you’ll take time off from your normal duties for therapy. Or, you can go to Texas for therapy, still draw regular pay, and then go to either regimental three or four.”
The three shop, for “S-3,” under
* * *
“You’re getting too old for this, you know, Sergeant Kemp,” said Reilly, visiting his wounded in their hospital rooms. He’d showered and put on a clean uniform, not for his own sake, but because Doc Joseph and the medical staff would have met him at the door with rifles if he’d tried to bring any unnecessary dirt into their pride and joy.
Kemp shook his head no but verbally agreed. “No shit, sir.” His leg was in a cast. Reilly was pleased to see that he wasn’t in any kind of traction.
“They won’t tell me anything here—afraid to upset me, I guess—but who did we lose?”
“Well …Milo Wilkes is dead. Do you remember that much?”
“Yes, sir,” Kemp replied. “Better now than at first. You’re not likely to live when half your brain goes up in the air while the rest of it stays behind your face.”
“No, not likely,” Reilly agreed. “Anyway, we lost him and Simowitz, dead …”
“What happened to Sim?” Kemp asked.
“Hit a tree head first. Broke his neck.”
“Shit.”
“Shit,” Reilly agreed. “Thing is, we were actually lucky. If your Eland had been moving half a kilometer an hour faster, the thing probably would have hit it. Then nobody would have survived.”
“What are we doing with the bodies?”
“Milo’s folks wanted him sent home. His corpse goes out tonight with an escort. Simo’s don’t seem to care much; he’s going into the regimental cemetery tomorrow afternoon. We, at least, care.”
That seemed reasonable to Kemp. He asked, “Do we know what happened?”
Reilly nodded his head, then explained, “We froze the battery in place and checked all data. It was fine. Then we grilled the crews. They swear there was no change to the settings after the freeze order. Right now we think—we’re pretty sure—that it was a bad lot of one-o-five. Going through that lot, we’ve found defective charges in about an eighth of the boxes we’ve looked at so far. Stauer’s ordered the entire lot sequestered and destroyed, about a million bucks’ worth. We’re not going to have much 105mm firing in support for about four months; that’s how long it will be before an order for more will be filled. I think there are only about twelve hundred rounds left in the inventory after the bad lot’s taken out. And Stauer says we can’t use any of it until our full load is replaced.”
Kemp nodded his head, but only once before a wave of nausea overtook him. After several long moments of heavy breathing, he asked, “The others?”
“All hurt, except for one, but they’ll be fine.”
“The Eland?” Kemp asked.
“Seriously fucked up. We going to part it out and take a new, rather a rebuilt, one from the float park.”
Kemp nodded, then winced. That made sense. Hesitating, in the way a man will when he doesn’t necessarily want to hear the answer, he asked, “Me?”
Reilly sighed. “You’re a problem,” he admitted. “Right now you’re doped up. Doubt you can even feel much of what’s wrong with you. But your injuries make it extremely unlikely you’ll be fit for a squad, let alone a platoon, anytime this side of the sun running out of hydrogen.”
Doped up or not, for Kemp that was a jolt of pure fear for the future. “So now what? Am I out on the street, sir?”
Reilly shook his head. “The regiment doesn’t play that way. You’ve got some choices. You can take a lump sum disability—and it isn’t especially ungenerous—and go home to therapy. Doc Joseph’s working on setting something up in Houston for that. Or you can go as a supernumerary to either the regimental three or four shop. For that, we can hire a local physical therapist and you’ll take time off from your normal duties for therapy. Or, you can go to Texas for therapy, still draw regular pay, and then go to either regimental three or four.”
The three shop, for “S-3,” under
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