Read Online Rich Man's War by Elliott Kay - Free Book Online Page A

late,” Stan explained, “so you should probably take Mike’s.” He pointed to the rack underneath Ordoñez’s. “I’ll send him a note so he doesn’t crawl in with you when he comes off watch. We’ll just shuffle around until morning and then figure it out.”
    “No worries,” Tanner nodded.
    “I just think they ought to treat you better after everything you did,” grumbled Ordoñez.
    Tanner hesitated, unsure of how to address this. “I feel a lot better being treated like everyone else, to be honest . I don’t expect to get out of clean-up details or mess duty. I’m still a non-rate.”
    “It’s not about you personally,” said Stan with a knowing grin. “Ordoñez is ‘new guard,’ like you. She’s still kinda bitter about all the initial teasing you guys got when you first showed up.” He flinched but laughed when Ordoñez pelted him with a piece of candy.
    “When did you go through basic?” Tanner asked her.
    “I went to Fort Melendez in the summer of ‘74,” Ordoñez answered. “We started with the old school program but then they heard about the Fort Stalwart program and decided they wanted to shift over before we were done with the second week of training.”
    “I did the six month deal, too,” groaned Sanjay, “ and weapons and tactics afterward.”
    Tanner was still stuck on the timeline. Ordoñez must have enlisted only a month or two after Tanner, and yet she was already through her rating school and promoted to third class. The schools for ratings classes came open at irregular intervals based on the needs of the service, which was one reason why Tanner couldn’t get into the ratings he most wanted. Before this conversation, he’d felt indifferent about the wait. If he finished out his enlistment as a non-rate because his school never came up, that didn’t seem too bad. He didn’t want to make a career out of this life, anyway.
    Yet now he wonder ed how many of Oscar Company’s navy recruits were probably on their way to ratings schools already. Joan of Arc had been the destination of one Oscar graduate—a guy named Garrison—who left for school months ago. Tanner remembered watching older friends go off to universities while he sat in the wreckage of his own future plans. He wondered if he wasn’t setting himself up for the same experience all over again by sticking to his earlier priorities of slow-moving science or health ratings.
    “So other than the saluting thing,” Ordoñez said, “what else is there with the Archangel Star?”
    Again, Tanner blushed. He felt like putting the pillow over his head rather than under it. “Ordoñez, leave it alone,” said Stan.
    “I’m just curious,” she said. “If it bothers you, I’ll shut up.”
    “No, it’s fine,” Tanner replied with a sigh. “I’m supposed to get an invitation to the Annual Address every year. I get some of the retirement benefits after I get out, too, even if I only do this one enlistment. But mostly it’s just another medal, so like with some of the others it bumps me up a bit on transfer wish lists and promotion rolls, but I still have to jump through all the same—“
    “Holy shit!” Ordoñez blurted out. Suddenly, Tanner found her head and arms hanging down over the side of her rack above his. Her short dark hair dangled freely. Tanner had no idea how she was holding herself up. The holographic article came down with her, too, and she pointed at it. “You get an extra five hundred bucks a month for life ?”
    “Jesus Christ!” gasped Stan.
    “Uh… y-yeah,” Tanner admitted, “but it’s all going to educational debt.”
    “Five hundred? That’s it?” asked Sanjay.
    “What do you mean, ‘That’s it?’ He’s making more money than I am!”
    “Yeah, but you gotta pay taxes on it, right?” Sanjay asked. “Just seems like a crap benefit when the Hashemites would’ve paid ten million credits for that pirate captain Tanner caught.”
    “I heard they offered to pay him anyway,