An Officer’s Duty (22 page)

“An officer’s responsibility is to do these things by obeying his or her orders in a manner that is consistently legal, efficient, and moral, just like any soldier,” Ia said. “But it is also to
craft
their own orders to the soldiers placed under them with the same level of care for the legalities, the efficiencies, and the ethics to which all soldiers, commissioned or otherwise, must aspire. This is the second major difference between the two.

“For the third…it is the most important difference,” Ia stated, lifting her chin slightly. “In the course of enacting these duties and responsibilities, a
good
officer must ensure that those weapons, skills, bodies, and most especially lives are utilized to their utmost with the highest level of care, consideration, and efficiency for the soldiers under his or her command…because while an officer’s ultimate
duty
is to ensure that a particular job does get completed via the soldiers and resources within their command, their ultimate
responsibility
is to get it done with the least number of wasted resources, the least number of injuries, and the least number of lost lives. An officer must do their best to get everyone back home again, preferably alive. At least, in so far as I myself have observed, sirs.”

“Vell said, Cadet. Be seated,” Rzhikly added, gesturing at her seat.

Ia returned to her chair. She clasped her hands on the surface of the arm-table and affected a relaxed but sober, serious air. She knew, however, that her classmates were studying her. Some of them had already made the connection with the system name, Zubeneschamali. Others hadn’t yet grasped the link, but they would. Ironic as it was, as much as she needed the reputation and to have it be spread, she didn’t want it to spread too wild and fast, or for the wrong reasons. Or for it to draw the wrong attention at the wrong moment. She focused her gaze on Spada as he spoke.

“All of these versions are correct. They are incomplete without each other, and without much more besides, but they are correct enough for what they are,” the lieutenant commander allowed. “You, the members of Class 1252, are about to learn just how much more. Open your arm units and link to channel Beta 52, to download the data. You can see it on the main screen behind me, but you’ll want to have access to it later, since you’ll be tested on all of this by the end of this week.”

Leaning over the edge of her arm-desk, Ia quietly demonstrated to the newly recruited cadet next to her how to access the data channels on his arm unit. They weren’t designed quite like civilian units, though they were close in some regards. Rzhikly moved to help one of the other new cadets on the other side of the room.

Anyone not familiar with the military versions would have
trouble picking through the extra command buttons, particularly as many were merely symbols that had to be memorized. It was meant to obscure their function in case any of them were captured by enemy forces, but made them a pain in the asteroid to use, at least until the symbols were fully learned. Enlisted wrist unit versions were more complex than civilian ones, but simplified compared to the versatility of an officer’s arm unit. Certainly the screen was larger.

“It has been said for centuries,” Spada lectured as soon as most of the class was ready again, “that the real work of running the military lies in the hands of our noncommissioned officers. This is half true. It is true that the petty officers of the Navy—and the corresponding sergeants of the other three Branches—do tend to ensure that the majority of all work does get done in the end. As officers, should you graduate from this Academy, you
must
keep this in mind, and give your noncoms the respect they are due for all their hard work on your behalf.”

Fishing a small silver rod from his pocket, Spada extended it and tapped the projections on the wall with the red-lit tip of the wand. The pickups for the workstation powering the display responded by highlighting each segment of the flowchart and image associated with his lecture. Off to one side, the captain assumed a relaxed version of Parade Rest, his brown gaze surveying the students as they listened attentively to his co-teacher.

“Like officers, they are responsible in part for ensuring the soldiers in their care complete their missions
and
come back alive. But the planning of those missions often rests upon the shoulders and the minds of the commissioned officers above them. Commissioned officers plan what should be done; noncommissioned officers execute what must be done; and soldiers do what they’re told. That is,
if
everything goes according to plan,” Spada stated. “But it isn’t enough to plan, execute, and do. Officers must also motivate, without losing the extent and discipline of their authority.

“Your first series of lessons will be in military history and historical figures of consequence. Concurrent with each example will be a case by case study of military psychology: how each officer led their troops in a given situation, who they led, where they led, what resources they had to draw upon, and
why they completed their missions successfully…or why they failed to complete their tasks. You can learn as much from a person’s failures as their successes,” Spada added, tapping a red outlined section of the flowchart, then the green outlined chain of text boxes and images next to it. “But only if you know what to look for, and which questions to ask.

“If you have not yet mastered it, you
will
learn how to think critically and quickly by the time these lessons are through. I will put each and every one of you under a spotlight before you’ll be allowed to move on to the next phase of your training.” He shrugged eloquently. “Then again, so will the rest of your instructors. I suggest you get used to it. These are the habits that will hopefully allow you to plan
how
to make the most efficient, effective uses of the lives and resources under your command, in a legal and ethical manner…and hopefully allow you to plan for ways to ensure those resources and those lives are not wasted while you do so.”

Lieutenant Commander Spada paused and swept his gaze soberly over each row of cadets seated in the small auditorium.

“Learning how to make effective, efficient plans is the single most important part of becoming an officer…because each and every single one of your ‘forces’ is a
real
person. With a name, a family, a history, a set of interests and hobbies…even a favorite type of sandwich,” their chief instructor lectured them somberly. “You must
never
forget that they are
real
people, whether they are Humans, or naturalized K’katta, or Solaricans, or whoever or whatever ends up being placed beneath you in lawfully designated authority.”

Ia nodded slowly. That was exactly how it should be. Every single person she encountered, interacted with…and even killed in the name of her duty to the future…every single one of them had a name, a family, a history.
Except for Cadet Meyun Harper. I still don’t know why I can’t sense him in the timestreams…unless he’s some sort of anti-precog. Or a precog strong enough to interfere with my sensitivities…though I’ve never heard of the former. And of the latter, I’m far more likely to mess with
their
psychic reception, than the other way around…

“Thus it is vital for you to learn how to make the best plans and lay your contingencies carefully. One day, you
will
have
to order the meioas under your command into a situation that you know is lethal. It will be up to you to ensure through careful planning that the risks to life and limb remain a
potential
, and not a fact. Over the next year, it will be our responsibility to drill the necessary skill sets into your brains, over and over, until they become a flexible reflex. In the chaos and panic of battle, particularly when your plans have been blown to pieces,
you
will be the person your troops will look to for stability, sanity, and strategy. We’re here to teach you all of that until it is bone-deep in you, and becomes the foundation from which you will act.”

Amen, Brother. Preachin’ to the choir, here,
Ia thought wryly.
Unfortunately, that does mean I have to sit here for the next year, listening to you and your fellow instructors telling me things I already know. But you’re right, Commander. These are things that have to be drilled so deep, I can rely on them even when the mist descends and my precognition temporarily fails. It has before, and it will again, after all.

Cadet Bruer slid his tray onto the table next to Ia’s, settling into the empty chair on her left. “So, you’re really her?”

“Her, who?” Cadet Jinja-Marsuu asked, looking up from her salad. She glanced between Bruer and Ia.

“You don’t know?” Bruer asked, poking his thumb at Ia. “Man, I thought everybody heard! It made the news Nets everywhere, and like everything. April 11th, a group of Marine officers got kidnapped by this bunch of undergalactic crime lords. And
this
meioa-e goes in guns blazing and gets ’em out! She got a Star of Service for it, from the hands of the Secondaire herself!”

“They were actually kidnapped March 29th,” Ia corrected mildly, spearing another forkful of her meal. The steak strips and wheat pasta were excellent, if a little bland compared to topado-flour noodles. “The rescue took place April 1st, and the awards were handed out to several of us on April 11th. For the record, I myself did not go in guns blazing. I allowed myself to be caught, and started a distraction that allowed the
rest
of my Company to go in guns blazing. It was very much a team effort, not a solo fight.”

“But, the Star of Service!” Bruer argued. His voice carried past their own table, causing more than one head to turn. “You got a Star of Service, meioa. Surely that counts for
something
?”

“As far as I’m concerned, I was doing my job, which was to rescue my fellow Marines. Bringing them back alive was the best reward I could have earned, and the only reward I wanted,” Ia told him.

“Yeah, right,” Cadet Jinja-Marsuu snorted, stabbing into her salad. “Tell that to the reporters. What you
really
wanted was a fat medal. Admit it. We
all
do.”

“What I
really
want, Cadet,” Ia stated, setting down her fork, “is
not
to have had to tell the mother of Private First Class Paul McDaniels that he died under my command. We were running to take shelter in the subsurface emergency tunnels on Oberon’s Rock,” she explained quietly as more cadets joined them from the chow line, filling up the table. “I had just caught up with the others when the pirates strafed our section of the domeworld. We didn’t find him until almost an hour of digging later…and we were digging because we were going to suffocate if we didn’t find a fresh supply of oxygen.

“War is not pretty. It is not shiny. It is
not glittery
. I would gladly give up every medal I’ve ever been given to have him still walking around alive,” she finished bluntly.

Cadet Harper settled into the seat on her right, unnerving her. She hadn’t been able to foresee where he would sit, which meant anything he did or said might derail her plans for the future. His question as he settled into place seemed innocent enough, though. “So, why do you do it, then? Why did you join up?”

“I took up this job because someone needs to do it, and I happen to be one of the ones good at it. If I do it, that means someone else doesn’t have to. Someone who may be less skilled, less careful, and less likely to keep the meioas around them safe and alive. Or mostly alive.” Picking up her fork, she again stabbed at the strips of steak that had slipped partway off the tines. “Now, if my superiors think that what I do merits awards and ribbons, that’s their prerogative. I’m just doing my job, as best I can.”

“Yeah, but your nickname, Bloody Mary?” Bruer offered. “Don’t tell me you didn’t earn
that
. Even if only a
tenth
of all the rumors were true, it’s a Marine Corps nickname. Every Marine I’ve ever talked to said you have to
earn
one of those.”

“Hey, I never said it was a
clean
job. But since it isn’t, let’s change the subject. We
are
eating, remember?” Popping the forkful of food into her mouth, she chewed.

“Well, you’re in the Navy now, sailor,” one of the other cadets quipped. “You’ll have to earn an entirely new nickname. Besides, you might not end up in combat, next tour of duty. You could end up shuttling supplies back and forth, or pushing paper planet-side somewhere.”

“She got her Field Commission in combat, Jordan,” Bruer pointed out. “She goes right back into a combat position…provided she still passes the psychological exams.”

“I served several back-to-back tours in a combat-heavy Border zone without too many difficulties, so I’m probably considered quite well-adjusted.” Taking a sip of her juice—apple, a rare treat since that particular fruit didn’t grow well on Sanctuary—Ia speared another mouthful of pasta. “Actually, I’m hoping to get a Blockade Patrol, after this. Well, after some pilot training, too.”

Harper wrinkled his nose at her while she chewed. “You’re actively
hoping
for a Blockade Patrol? It isn’t nearly as glamorous as shows like
Space Patrol
make it sound, you know.”