Direct Fire #4 Drop Trooper

away. “You’ll amend the report and hopefully Greg will man up and stop trying to make a big deal about this. I want to make sure we get the new squad leadership…”
There was a knock on the side of the soundproofed wall.
“Sir?”
The woman was a First Lieutenant, I could tell that from the insignia on her Fleet utilities. When she moved farther into the conference room, two NCOs followed her and all three of them wore pistols holstered at their waists. They were MPs. My gut fell out at the realization and I was suddenly, dolorously certain of their purpose here.
“Lt. Alvarez,” the woman said, the heel of her hand resting on the butt of her pistol, “I’m going to need you to turn over your carbine and come with us.”
Covington rose from his seat, a dark cloud passing over his face.
“You’d better have some orders to show me, Lieutenant,” he warned her, “or your career is about to take an unfortunate turn.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, her face turning pale at the words. She raised her ‘link and cast something over to his. “It’s directly from the office of the Judge Advocate General. Captain Cronje is pressing charges against Lt. Alvarez for insubordination, disobeying orders, dereliction of duty and threatening a superior officer. I’ve been ordered to remand him for custody in the Brigade HQ until a flight can be arranged up to the cruiser Trafalgar for return to Inferno for a court-martial.”
I didn’t move, couldn’t. I couldn’t think, could barely breathe, and probably would have sat there immobile until the MPs hauled me away if Covington’s voice hadn’t cut through my fugue with a tone of firm command.
“Give me your weapon, Alvarez,” he said, then motioned impatiently when I didn’t immediately respond.
I stood and unslung the carbine, not missing the hands tightening on the grips of sidearms as the MP’s watched me very closely. I handed the weapon to Covington and he slung it over his shoulder, glaring at the MP’s but talking to me.
“Fuck amending your report,” he told me. “The minute you get to Brigade, I want you to make a formal statement to the JAG Corps and the MP’s and get that moron charged with murder.”
One of the MP NCO’s pulled out a pair of restraints, but Covington shot him a glare that would have melted lead.
“Those won’t be necessary,” he said. The officer started to speak, but Covington interrupted her. “I said, those won’t be necessary. And if you wish to stay here and argue about it, I’m morally certain I can get Colonel Voss to see things my way.”
“It’s okay, Sergeant,” the MP officer said, waving the man off.
“Don’t worry, son,” Covington assured me. “Everything is going to be fine.”
He seemed very convinced of it. I wasn’t sure at all.
The woman blew into the room like an autumn wind, cool and dry and bringing portents of the killing frost to come. She wore a dress uniform, white and sharp and standing out like a sign that screamed ’please shoot me’ on an occupied enemy world, but I suppose the officers in Brigade did things differently.
She closed the door behind her and fell into a seat opposite me at the interrogation room table, glancing down at the loop on the table I should have been handcuffed to if the MP’s hadn’t listened to Captain Covington. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t mention it.
“So, you’re the infamous Lt. Alvarez,” she said. Her voice sounded like one of my Drill Instructors from Basic on those rare occasions when they’d been talking in a normal tone of voice, like someone who’d yelled a lot their whole life and had a hard time speaking normally.
“I didn’t realize I was infamous, Commander Hofstetter,” I replied, reading the info off of her name plate.
She was a Fleet Commander, which meant she was the equivalent of a Marine light colonel and I should be respectful, although she was also a JAG lawyer, which meant she’d received the rank at a more accelerated pace due to her training and was probably younger than most commanders, with less experience in the military.
“Well, let’s just say you’ve come quite close to meeting someone like me a few times in your short career. But you also have quite the list of commendations and awards, including a Silver Star, and you’ve participated in at least three of the most important battles in the war.” She shot me what could have been described as a smirk, but I had the intuition that it was just her way of smiling. “So, when someone with a record like that is accused of the crimes you are accused of by a company commander with a spotless record and a good reputation in the battalion, we tend to go to the source.”
“You reviewed our suit recordings,” I assumed.
“I did.”
“Pardon me for not knowing, ma’am,” I said, very cautiously, “but are you here as my prosecutor or my defense attorney?”
Now she laughed and it was a sound I didn’t expect from that voice, light and airy.
“Technically,” she said, “I’m your defense attorney…well, I was going to be your defense attorney until the Provost Marshall told me about your counter-charges. At that point, I met with him and we both reviewed the evidence.” She tilted her head to the side as if she was weighing up how to put what she said next. “Now, I have to tell you, there’s a lot of sentiment to just make all this go away.”
“Really, ma’am?” I raised my eyebrows, unable to contain my surprise. “I’d have thought Brigade would be all over this like stink on….” I paused, reconsidering my language. “…crap,” I finished. “I mean, either I’m right about this being an illegal order and Captain Cronje is guilty of murder, or he’s right and I’m guilty of insubordination. Either way, someone broke the UCMJ.”
“You left off the other possibility, Lieutenant,” she said, leaning across the table toward me. “That you’re both right and