Luna Marine(58)

“This court of inquiry finds the cause of the incident leading to the soldiers’ deaths to be human error but can assign no specific blame or responsibility in the matter.

“We hereby declare this case to be closed, with no further recommendations.” A gavel cracked on the wooden strike pad. “Case dismissed!”

“Attention on deck!” the bailiff cried, and everyone in the chamber rose as the panel of three Marine and two Army officers stood behind the bench, gathered their papers, then filed out of the room. Kaitlin watched Kaminski’s back as the young man, who’d been standing at attention to hear the court’s verdict, swayed a little on his feet. This is going to hit him hard, she thought.

She walked forward and touched his shoulder. He jumped.

“You going to be okay, Frank?” she asked.

“Uh, yes, ma’am! I’m fine.”

“You understand, don’t you, that you didn’t have to go through all of this because anyone thought you’d killed those men on purpose, or even because they thought you screwed up. The Corps has to go through the motions, to find out what really happened, and to try to make sure that accidents like this one don’t happen again.”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand all that. Mostly, well, I’m just sorry for those three guys I…that I killed.”

She nodded, patting his shoulder. “It was an accident. There is a difference between an accident and a screwup, Frank. It just happens that accidents tend to be especially deadly in an environment like space.”

“Doesn’t make it easier for their wives and families, does it, ma’am?”

“Sure doesn’t. But people get killed in war, and sometimes people get killed by accident. It wasn’t your fault, Marine. Remember that.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

As Kaminski’s commanding officer, of course, Kaitlin had had to testify at the inquiry. She’d emphasized the lack of coordination between the Marine and Army components of the US force at Picard and tried to assume responsibility for the IFF gaffe herself. If she’d just tried to force the issue with Colonel Whitworth. There simply hadn’t been time….

Her testimony had been accepted; her attempt at taking the blame had been rejected: likely, she thought, because both the Army and Corps wanted to keep the incident as low-profile as possible.

Even so, she’d been very much afraid that someone intended to throw Frank Kaminski to the wolves, a sacrifice to appease the media gods who’d been writing about the friendly-fire incident at Picard ever since the unit’s return to Earth.

The Second Battle of Picard Crater had been a complete victory for the American forces. Kaitlin’s ploy, holding a platoon in reserve south of the crater until the Chinese attack, had been a triumphant vindication of the longstanding Marine tactical dogma of fighting with two lead elements, and keeping a third in reserve. Casualties had been light: eight killed, including the three killed by friendly fire. Twenty-eight UN troops, all members of the seventy-fourth People’s Army of the Republic of North China, had been killed, and fifteen captured. Those prisoners, when added to the Italian POWs taken in the first battle, had posed a real problem, stretching American logistics and the ability to feed them and keep them breathing to the limit. The mining shuttle captured at Picard had been kept busy making runs to and from the Moon’s north pole, bringing in loads of polar ice for the base’s O2 converters. Even at that, by the time a relief expedition, including twelve more tugs, had arrived from Earth five days later, everyone had been on short rations, and off-duty personnel were kept in their racks, sleeping, to conserve oxygen.

One-SAG had returned to Earth and to a heroes’ welcome; maybe that was why the powers-that-were hadn’t pushed the court of inquiry thing further.

“You look mad,” a voice said in her ear.

She turned, looking up at Captain Rob Lee, trim and sharp in his razor-creased khakis. “Damn it, if anyone had to face an official court of inquiry,” she said, “it should have been me.”

“If anyone had to face a court,” he corrected her, “it should have been that idiot Whitworth. You done good, Kate.”

“Wish I could believe you.”

“You got the duty tonight, Marine?”

“No….”

He drew a deep breath. “Then I’ll tell you what. Ol’ Doc Lee prescribes dinner out tonight. Followed by a drive down to Gaviota and a moonlight walk on the beach. Say…I pick you up at nineteen hundred?”

“A moonlight walk?” She smiled. “Not as good as a walk on the Moon itself.”