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  * * *

  “Have a seat, Brandy,” the commander said, waving his top sergeant into one of the visitor chairs. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but for various reasons I wanted to save your interview for last.”

  “No problem, sir.” The ranking noncom shrugged, sinking into the indicated seat. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the military, it’s how to wait for officers.”

  Phule ignored the blatant dig.

  “Seeing as how it’s late, and we’re both tired, I’ll try to keep this short and to the point.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest as if hugging himself. “Tell me, Brandy, in your opinion, what’s the biggest problem facing me in this company?”

  The top sergeant widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows as she pursed her lips in a silent whistle.

  “That’s a rough one,” she said, shifting her sprawl to a different position. “I really don’t know where to start. If you’ve got any smarts at all, you don’t need me to tell you this company’s the pits, from top to bottom, inside and out. As far as any one problem being bigger than the others …”

  Her voice trailed off as she shook her head.

  “To me, there’s one problem that stands out like a beacon,” Phule said firmly. “In fact, it’s the only one I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “You.”

  Brandy pulled her head back, frowning.

  “Me, sir?”

  “That’s right. Now, don’t get me wrong. You’re good, Brandy … head, shoulders, and waist above any of the other personnel I’ve inherited. From your record, and from my personal observations this last week, you’re an excellent leader, easily as good or better than me.”

  The commander shook his head slightly.

  “The problem is that you’re a cynic. If you had been around when the Wright brothers were designing their first plane, you would have been the one saying, ‘It’ll never fly.’ Then, as it passed overhead on its maiden flight, your only comment would’ve been, ‘They’ll never get it down!’”

  A ghost of a smile flitted across the top sergeant’s face.

  “You got me there, Captain,” she admitted.

  Her smile wasn’t returned.

  “That’s the one thing I can’t have in this company … not in the top sergeant slot, anyway. I’m going to try to turn this company around, starting with getting every Legionnaire under my command to develop a better opinion of his or her self. I can’t do that if the main leader for the enlisted personnel keeps telling them that they’re dirt and there’s no point in even trying. I’m already figuring on a two-front war: with Headquarters and with the Legionnaires themselves. I can’t afford to open a third front by fighting with you as well.”

  The top sergeant gazed at him levelly. “Are we talking about a transfer, sir?”

  Phule grimaced. “I’ll admit the possibility has crossed my mind … and you’re the only one I’ve seriously considered it for. I don’t like it, though. It’s too easy, too much like quitting without even trying. I admire your abilities, Brandy, as well as your leadership capacity. I’m hoping we can work together; work with each other, not in opposition. The only way I can see that, though, is if there are some major changes on your part.”

  Brandy bit her lip thoughtfully before answering.

  “To be honest with you, sir, I’m not sure I could change even if I wanted to. Old habits are hard to break, and I’ve been the way I am for a long time.”

  “I’m not asking for any guarantees,” the commander urged earnestly. “For the time being, I’d be content if you were willing to give it a try. You see, Brandy … geez! I hate playing amateur psychologist, but … well, most of the cynics I’ve dealt with in the past, the hard-core ‘Who cares?’ types, actually care a lot. It’s just that at some point they’ve been hurt, and hurt bad. So bad, they won’t let themselves even hope anymore for fear of being disappointed and hurt again. I don’t know if that applies in your case, and don’t really care. All that I’m asking is that you give things a chance before you shoot them down. Give the Legionnaires a chance … and give me a chance.”

  Silence hung in the air for a moment as they both felt the awkwardness of two people sharing a sudden and unexpected closeness. It was Phule who finally pulled back, breaking the tension.

  “Well, think it over, Sergeant. If, in the end, you figure it’s not even worth a try, let me know and I’ll arrange for your transfer.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Brandy said, rising to her feet and saluting. “I’ll think about it.”

  “And Brandy …”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Think about giving yourself a chance, too.”

  * * *

  “Sir?”

  Phule opened his eyes to find his butler standing in the doorway of his office.

  “Yes, Beeker?”

  “Excuse me for intruding, sir, but … what with the relocation scheduled for tomorrow … Well, sir, I thought you should try to get at least a few hours’ sleep.”

  The commander rose, yawning and stretching his cramped limbs.

  “Right, as always, Beeker. What would I do without you?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir. Did the meetings go well?”

  Phule shrugged. “Not as well as I hoped … better than I feared. There were a few moments, though. Brandy—that’s the top sergeant—actually saluted me before she left.”

  “Quite an achievement in itself, sir,” Beeker said, gently steering his charge through the door.

  “And Rembrandt—that’s the lieutenant who wants to be an artist—after my interview with her and Armstrong, she hung back for a moment and asked if I’d be willing to pose for her. I thought she meant for a portrait … took me a bit aback when I realized she wanted to do a nude study.”

  “I see. Did you accept?”

  “I told her I’d think about it. It’s rather flattering, in a way, considering the number of subjects she has to choose from. Besides, it might be a nice gesture to help her with her art career …”

  * * *

  I really didn’t think it was my place to inform my employer … Actually I didn’t have the heart or the courage to tell him, and so left it for him to discover on his own. I had already had the opportunity to study Lieutenant Rembrandt’s work, both finished paintings and works in progress. Without exception, she had devoted herself to landscapes … until now, that is.

  Chapter Four

  Journal File #019

  Moving the company into the settlement so our normal quarters could be remodeled was an enormous undertaking. The Legionnaires themselves traveled light, as they had little personal gear to deal with. Packing and storing the company’s gear, however, especially the kitchen, proved to be a time-consuming task, even with everyone pitching in. Thus it was that we did not begin our actual trek into the settlement until nearly noon.

  Wishing to impress both the company and the settlement, my employer had shunned the practice of transporting troops in trucks like cattle (though, after having observed them dine, I had a new appreciation of the appropriateness of this practice), choosing instead to hire a small fleet of hover limos to move his new charges. While this might be seen as an extravagant gesture, I have noted before that he is not of a particularly tight-fisted nature, especially when it comes to making an impression.

  During the trip, the Legionnaires seemed to be in uncommonly high spirits, skylarking like schoolchildren on a field trip and playing with their newly issued wrist communicators. The ones I shared a ride with, however, took the opportunity to test the claim my employer had made the night before: that I could be spoken with on a confidential basis.

  * * *

  “’Scuse me, Mr. Beeker …”

  The butler looked up from the screen of his portable computer to regard the Legionnaire who had addressed him with a look that was neither hostile nor warm.

  “Just ‘Beeker’ will suffice, si
r. No other title is warranted or necessary.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. I was just wondering … could you fill us in a little on the new commander? It sounds like you two have been together for a while.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Beeker said, folding the screen and slipping the computer into his pocket. “Of course, you realize that my relationship with my employer is of a confidential manner, and that as such I feel at liberty to voice my personal opinions only.”

  “Say what?”

  “What the man’s saying,” Brandy put in from the other side of the limo, turning her attention from staring out the window to the conversation the other occupants were already listening to with rapt interest, “is that he’s not going to blab any secrets or details … just what he thinks himself.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Please be assured, however, that I will treat whatever discussions we might have now or in the future with equal confidentiality.”

  The Legionnaire turned helplessly to Brandy.

  “He means he won’t blab what you say, either.”

  “Right. Well, Mr. … All I want to know, Beeker, is if that guy’s for real. I mean, he talks a good line and all, but how much of it’s hot air? That’s it, plain and simple … and I’d want you to try ’n’ lay off the big words while you answer so’s I can understand without havin’ it translated.”

  “I see,” Beeker said, tapping his finger against his leg thoughtfully. “If I understand correctly, you’re asking if my employer … your commander … can be trusted. To the best of my knowledge, he’s always been scrupulously—excuse me, painfully—fair in all his dealings, both business and personal. As to his reliability … well, I don’t think it’s breaking any confidence to point out what the most casual observer would note in short order: that he’s seriously unbalanced.”

  For a moment, the Legionnaires in the limo were shocked into silence by the butler’s statement. It was the top sergeant who found her voice first.

  “What do you mean ‘unbalanced,’ Beeker? Are you saying the captain’s loony?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean to say that he’s dangerously insane or anything,” the butler corrected hastily. “Perhaps I chose the wrong word in my efforts to keep my vocabulary simple. My employer is unbalanced only in the way that many successful business men and women are, in that he has a tendency toward the obsessive. It’s not a matter of judging how his work fits into his life. His work is his life, and he views everything else in the universe in relation to that. This company of the Legion is his current pet project, and all his energies and resources are focused on advancing and defending it. Frankly it’s my belief that you’re all quite fortunate to be at the right place at the right time to be a part of his efforts. My experience has been that he rarely, if ever, fails once he sets his mind on something.”

  “Excuse me, Beeker,” Brandy drawled, “but I can’t help but notice you specifically said his current pet project. What happens to us if he gets distracted by some other shiny toy?”

  “Oh, I doubt very much that would happen. He’s remarkably tenacious once he undertakes an endeavor. Unless, of course …”

  Beeker let the sentence hang in the air.

  “Unless what?”

  “Well … your commander has near limitless energy and a drive that will sweep you along in its wake, even if you only choose to be passive to his plans and exercises. To discourage him—the only thing I can think of that might make him give up—would be active opposition from within the company on a massive scale. You Legionnaires would have to be adamant in your efforts to maintain your current images, individually and collectively.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “He means we’d have to work at being foul-ups before the commander would give up on us. Isn’t that right, Brandy?”

  “Hmmm? Oh. Right. No sweat there, Beeker. We may be a bit discouraged now, but we’re at least going to try to keep up with your boy wonder … and anyone who doesn’t is going to have to answer to me personally.”

  In the spirited discussion that followed, no one noticed that the butler, though silent, was smiling.

  * * *

  The Plaza Hotel, though it had seen better days and tended to be upstaged by its newer, more modern brethren, still maintained an air of aloof dignity and elegance. The fountain in the park across the street was adorned with the graffiti of countless passing junior terrorists, and the park itself had long since been abandoned except for the street urchins who used its walks and benches for their daredevil glide-board antics by day and for their territorial disputes by night, but the hotel itself seemed to stoically ignore what was going on around it, like a harried mother of seven during summer vacation.

  This beleaguered calm was shattered, however, as the first of the hover limos eased into the loading zone in front of the Plaza and disgorged its cargo of Legionnaires and luggage. Phule was in the lead vehicle, and left his charges to struggle with their personal gear as he descended on the front desk.

  “May I help you, sir?” the desk clerk said, nervously eyeing the gathering mob visible through the front door.

  “Yes. I’m Willard Phule. I believe you have a reservation for me … a hundred rooms and the penthouse?”

  The desk clerk hesitated for a moment, then moved to his computer terminal … coincidentally placing himself farther from Phule’s reach.

  “Yes, sir. I have it here. Willard Phule … the penthouse.”

  “And a hundred rooms.”

  “I … I’m sorry, sir. My records only show the penthouse.”

  The commander’s smile tightened slightly, but aside from that he showed no annoyance.

  “Could you check again? I made the reservation a week ago.”

  “Yes. I remember it coming in. It seems to have been canceled.”

  “Canceled?” Phule’s voice hardened. “By whom?”

  “You’ll have to speak with the manager about that, sir. If you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll get him.”

  Without waiting for a reply, the clerk bolted through the door behind the desk, leaving Phule to fidget impatiently as the lobby behind him began to fill with Legionnaires.

  Lawrence (never Larry) Bombest might be younger than most wielding his title and power, but early in his career it was apparent that he was a born hotel manager. He ruled the Plaza with an iron fist, and though the employees chafed under his tyranny, they were nonetheless grateful of his unshakable certainty when crisis struck, as so often happens in the hotel business, and, as now, were quick to duck behind him in times of trouble. Many a wave of tired, angry traveler had broken against this rock without moving or altering it in the slightest, and he brought the sureness of a veteran with him as he emerged from his office and took in the situation at a glance.

  “I am the hotel manager. What seems to be the trouble, sir?”

  The commander squinted briefly at the manager’s brass name badge.

  “Yes, Mr. Bombast. My name is Willard Phule and I’d like to know who canceled my reservation for a hundred rooms.”

  Safely out of the line of fire and sight, the desk clerk struggled to hide a smile. Phule had inadvertently hit upon the staff’s nickname for Bombest … Bombast … though, until now, no one had uttered it to his face.

  “That’s Bombest, sir … and I canceled that reservation myself.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Certainly. I assumed there had been a typographical error on the part of whoever placed the reservation. It was done by computer rather than through our staff, and I’ve found that such errors are commonplace.” The manager gave a smug smile, which was not returned. “Realizing the cost of a hundred of our rooms for a period of several weeks would be, shall we say, prohibitive, and, not being sure if the actual request was for one or ten rooms, I canceled the reservation as a courtesy. At the time, I felt we could accommodate you on site according to your actual needs.”

  “I see. I don’t suppose you bothered to run a check on the credit car
d number that accompanied the reservation?”

  “That is correct. As I said, the cost would be prohibitive.”

  Phule made a magician’s pass with his hand and dropped his credit card on the desk in front of the manager.

  “I think that should settle the question of prohibitive cost.”

  To Bombest’s credit, he neither gaped nor cringed at the sight of the card, but rather made a show of turning it over to examine the signature on the back. It was a Dilithium Express card, reserved for the ultra-rich in the galaxy and normally only used to expedite the buying and selling of companies. Despite his outward calm, the manager began to experience a vague niggle of fear that he had bitten off more than he could chew.

  “I see,” he said slowly.

  “And now that I’m on site, as you put it, shall we proceed with accommodating my needs? What I need is the hundred rooms I reserved … as you can see.”

  The commander indicated the now full lobby with a jerk of his head.

  Bombest was fully aware of the crowd. Since seeing the Dilithium Express card, he had been weighing the potential windfall of business against the horror of admitting a full company of Legionnaires to his domain. Realizing that his salary would not be affected one way or the other, he reached his decision.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Phule. At this time, we don’t have enough rooms available to grant your request. If you’d like, I could assist you in finding other accommodations more … appropriate to your party.”

  The manager was fully prepared for the burst of anger that an announcement such as this invariably drew. He was, however, taken by surprise when Phule responded instead with a lazy smile.

  “I don’t want to argue with you on this, Bombast …”

  “Bombest.”

  “… since, you see, the same computer I used to place that reservation told me that of your hundred and fifty rooms, barely a dozen are currently occupied. Instead, I’ll point out that there are three possible solutions to our little impasse. First, I could bring a complaint against you and the hotel under the law which states you can’t refuse lodging to anyone on a basis of race, religion, sex, or occupation … but that’s a lengthy, annoying process and doesn’t satisfy my immediate need for rooms. Second, you can start handing out the keys like a good fellow. Third …”