Free Countdown: H Hour by Tom Kratman Page B

company.
    “Two, assuming I do punish him, it’s going to create bad blood between my people and yours.
    “Three, if I don’t punish him, your people are going to feel that their form of discipline has been spat on.
    “Four, if I do punish him, my people are going to feel like their form of discipline has been spat on.
    “Five—”
    “I get the idea,” Stocker said.
    “Oh, no,” Warrington corrected, “I’ve just begun to scratch the surface. Five, your people might or might not be needed. But we know my people will be. So because you had to butt in—”
    That touched a nerve. Angry now, Stocker raised his voice. “Now wait a God damned minute. In case you didn’t notice, this is a metal ship. An accidental discharge was going to ricochet until it hit somebody.”
    “There wasn’t going to be one!”
    “Six,” said Pierantoni, over the officers’ shouting, “it’s got the two senior ground fighters aboard arguing like children.”
    “I fucking hate it when you’re right,” Warrington said, sotto voce . Stocker just glared, though the heat of the glare dissipated quickly.
    “Which leaves us with what we’re going to do about it,” Pierantoni said. “Rule One is that we can’t, on our own hook, change the SOP. Any of our people carrying arms will not have them on safe. With what we do, where and when we do it, it’s a bad—a deadly bad—habit.”
    “Reconfigure the ship to separate out your people and mine?” Stocker suggested. “More than they already are, I mean. Maybe set up a different galley?”
    “Doesn’t buy us much,” Warrington said, shaking his head. “And we do need to get used to each other, if we’re going to end up fighting together. And, despite what I said before, we might.
    “How about training your people to our firearms safety standards?”
    Now Stocker shook his head. “Shoveling shit against the tide. That, or maybe starting a shit tsunami rolling downhill. You can’t imagine the trouble we’ve had drilling them into something like fanaticism over putting their weapons on safe. They’re good troops, but they’re still from the Third World. Changing this, now, would toss into question everything we’ve drilled into them. Confusion to us, rather than the enemy.”
    “So what, then?” Warrington asked of Pierantoni.
    “Three days bread and water for Hallinan, for mouthing off to an officer, then ignore it,” the sergeant major said. He shot a glance at Kiertzner, who nodded silent agreement.
    “It was just Emperor Mong,” Kiertzner said.
    Stocker snickered; the emperor was something of an inside joke to Commonwealth forces.
    “Emperor Mong,” Kiertzner sighed. “A malevolent celestial being. You never see him, but his unique talent is to encourage young folk to take the least sensible and most damaging course of action by making that seem like a splendid idea. He’s the one who whispers into a young soldier’s ear, ‘I know it’s Sunday evening and you have an early start tomorrow morning for a heavy week, but surely if you just go out drinking, stay out until 0400 and then don’t go to bed , you’ll be fine for PT at 0600,’ or ‘just go ahead and hook up your boogie box to the vehicle batteries using commo wire. What could possibly go wrong?’
    “It is the emperor’s proud duty to advise the young soldier that there’s no need to use a condom with the girl he just met who is practically leaking on the floor with her unquenched desire. He, too, serves as a kind of Cupid, or matchmaker, who will assure the young soldier that the tart he’s been seeing would make a fine wife. His Imperial Majesty will confidently assure the smallish infantryman that, why of course he’d be a match for that entire gun section of broad-shouldered gunners in the local tavern. His power is unfathomable, and his wickedness beyond measure.
    “His power is particular impressive in Scotland. And at sea. And when that space shuttle blew up? That was Mong,