It had been a long but jubilant night-march from the maneuvers area to the compound. Most of the brigade's personnel were picked up by big TTMs at their headquarters area and flown out, but now and then a convoy of army cargo trucks had passed on the road. Each time the hum of their approach was heard at the rear of the column, the word went by radio to Romlar, up front, and he gave the order to double-time. To the army drivers, it seemed that the mercs ran the whole twenty-odd miles back. Their reputation would not suffer from it, and in the soldiers' tellings, the distance grew to forty.
At the barracks, the previously evacuated "dead and disabled" had already been notified of the victory. They'd decorated the barracks with what they had on hand—toilet paper twisted and strung about. The cooks, army though they were, had gotten out more colorful paper to decorate the messhalls, and a feast was ready for the stoves and ovens when the word came of the approximate meal time.
The trainees arrived tired but happy. Shower rooms filled with steam and laughter. Evacuees, some of them, got dragged in with their clothes on. Then everyone dressed in clean field uniforms and trooped to the messhalls for a four-in-the-morning breakfast—a breakfast like none of them had seen before: sugar-cured ham, potatoes and gravy, buttered goldroot, green vegetables, hot rolls with butter, tart rilgon jelly, pie and ice cream. There were impromptu speeches, especially in A Company mess, which after all held the trainee regimental commander, the 1st Battalion's trainee C.O., and the man who'd killed the enemy general.
Afterward everyone went to their barracks and collapsed, being allowed to sleep almost till muster, which wasn't till 1300 hours. For most, the afternoon was dedicated to laundry and cleaning the barracks. After supper, they knew, there'd be assembly.
Each trainee officer and noncom, though, got a mini-debriefing by his T'swa counterpart. At 1600, the T'swa met with Voker to give him anything particularly noteworthy that they'd been told.
Tain Faronya had returned well ahead of them, in the referees' floater with Voker and Dak-So. She was tired too, but the stress had been nervous, not muscular, and she wasn't sleepy. She'd looked up Lotta Alsnor, who it turned out was busy with one of the evacuees. So with her repellent field on, Tain went out for a long, solitary run on familiar forest roads, till she was physically tired. Then she showered and went to bed, her alarm set for the normal hour.
As usual she ate breakfast with Voker, his staff, and the battalion staffs, in the command dining room. The T'swa were amiable as always, but there was an added spark, a certain ebullience even, that she hadn't seen before among these scarred veterans of various wars.
She spent her day editing the hours of recordings—audio and video—that she'd compiled during the exercise; dictating draft commentary; and outlining a plan to get the additional material she deemed necessary.
Coming back in the floater, the night before, Voker had let her know there'd be an assembly in the evening, to review the maneuvers with the trainees. She was there a few minutes in advance, on her feet in the rear, a fresh power slug in both recorders, audio and video, her camera helmet conspicuous. At 2003 hours, the trainees began filing in, and while they were entering, she saw a number of civilians, two dozen at least, come in through a side door, the girl Lotta among them. They took seats in a separate row at the rear of the hall, seeming as happy as the trainees.
When everyone was seated, Colonel Voker got up from his chair on the podium, stepping front and center. "Good evening, men," he called out.
"Good evening, sir!" the regiment boomed back. The roar kicked in the volume modulator in Tain's audio recorder. It also kicked in a distrust of broad and enthusiastic consonance. The thought returned to her, from days earlier, of "drills" and psychoconditioning. Irritated, she shook it off. She knew these youths, and Voker, and liked them all very much. As she did the T'swa, foreign though they were.
"This won't take a lot of time," Voker went on, "and when we're done, you can stow the benches for a party. But first I want to congratulate you all for the great job you did in maneuvers. Give yourselves a hand!"
The place erupted with cheers, whistles, and the sound of strong, callused palms beating together in what quickly became a rhythmic unison. Voker let it go on for a minute or longer before he cut them off.
"And I especially want to congratulate—" He paused, let them wait a few seconds. "I particularly want to congratulate your regimental commander, Artus Romlar, for his ingenious, and more importantly his successful, strategy. Artus, stand up!"
Romlar did, and the place erupted again. After fifteen seconds, Voker, grinning broadly, once more waved them quiet. "Artus," he called, "come up here."
The big trainee, also grinning, hopped up onto the podium, ignoring the steps, faced Voker and saluted. Voker held something in one hand. He stepped up to Romlar, pinned it on the young man's collar, and stepped back. "The bronze fist of a subcolonel," he said. "Colonel Romlar is now your official regimental commander. Ranks and insignia will be presented to others at ceremonies later in the week." He shook hands with Romlar. "But the cadre and I still rank you, young fellow. Till your training is over. Take a seat now."
"Thank you sir," Romlar answered, and taking the steps down, returned to his bench.
"All right. Now for a brief review. I won't go into details, but starting with less than forty percent of your opponent's manpower and less than a tenth his firepower, lacking any support services, and threatened and harassed by his air support, you maneuvered him into an exposed position with his forces spread out and dispersed. And without his getting the least notion that he was being manipulated. You destroyed his operations control center, killed his commander and part of his command staff, took control of much of his hover stock, totally disrupted his operation, and inflicted substantial casualties—casualties somewhat heavier than your own. In the eyes of the army's own referees, you performed more than creditably; you won the game brilliantly and decisively.
"In fact, Major General Thromlek, Lord Carns, was in the referees' floater during the final shift, and he sends his personal 'very well done' to all of you. He was extremely impressed not only with Colonel Romlar's strategy, but with your mobility, your endurance, and your initiative and resourcefulness as individual units and fighting men. As well as your coordination as separated, sometimes widely separated units, mostly with only one-way communication. He plans to recommend that the army's infantry and officer training be reexamined in the light of what you accomplished out there."
Voker paused and looked his audience over. "Although the army doesn't have warriors to work with in any large numbers. On the Matrix of T'sel, most soldiers are at Work, not Play, and training and tactics have to recognize that. But on the other hand, units of soldiers well trained and led can be very effective. In the Kettle War, for example, a majority of the Orlanthan army was not warriors, but determined soldiers."
He paused and looked them over again. "You've noticed I didn't refer to the 8th Brigade as 'the enemy.' And I suspect that many of you could tell me why. They were your playmates, not your enemy. Just as Colonel Dak-So's old Lightning Regiment and Captain Tuk's Ro-Sok Regiment were playmates when they warred against each other on Gwalsey."
In the back of the hall, Tain Faronya stared, a numbness creeping along her spine as she absorbed what Voker had said about the T'swa. They'd killed each other for pleasure!
"Brigadier Shiller, killed in action at his operations control center, had no comments for us, even after being returned from the dead. For one thing, he was suffering from a concussion. I'm afraid that Trainee Alsnor, the warrior who killed him, slightly miscalculated the impact necessary to prevent the newly dead brigadier from raising an alarm before the umpires could make his death official."
The colonel paused, looked them over. "Incidentally, the umpires who witnessed the event agreed that striking the brigadier, while startling and unprecedented, was not unreasonable under the circumstances.
"Which brings me to another matter. The umpires and referees assigned from the army did a generally fair and unprejudiced job—and a competent job—in their part of the exercise. Although the army in general has not been friendly to the concept of elite forces like yours."
Voker glanced back at the T'swi sitting to one side. "Now I'll turn this meeting over to Colonel Dak-So, who'll look at the overall results with you and give them some perspective. Colonel?"
Dak-So stepped front and center. "Let me add my voice to Colonel Voker's," he said. "You all did very well indeed. I speak for your entire cadre in saying that; we are all very proud of you."
Dak-So's words, in his deep resonant T'swa voice, nudged Tain partly out of her numbness. Pride was something she empathized with, and she did not doubt the black colonel's sincerity. It occurred to her that the drills might actually have been just what Voker had said—something to develop in the trainees a T'swa emotional stability. Something had.
"You performed splendidly," Dak-So went on. "And consider the stated scenario of the game! You were a regiment without support, caught within hostile territory. The opposition sent a brigade to destroy you. You broke that brigade.
"But meanwhile—" He paused for emphasis. "Meanwhile you were running out of food. Your ammunition was seriously depleted, although you might have replenished it with captured supplies. You had lost more than twenty percent killed, and left wounded scattered over many square miles of forest. And you were still within hostile territory.
"The maneuvers were over, but in a sense the game was not. It was simply well begun. Very successfully begun, but just begun. You had reached, or were approaching, a time when your strategy and tactics would need to change. What changes you might have decided on would reflect circumstances not described in the scenario provided you."
He scanned the regiment. "I want you to play with these thoughts, and someday soon we will discuss what you might have done next.
"And now—" He stopped, grinned. "We T'swa have watched you grow and develop as warriors. At the beginning, we thought of you as 'the recruits.' Soon that changed, and we thought of you as 'the trainees.' Now, with this experience, this victory under your belts, to us you are more than trainees, though there is still a great deal you will learn. To us you have become 'the troopers.' "
He paused, then continued more slowly, to stress what he would say next. "It is the custom, in the Lodge of Kootosh-Lan, for the novice warriors to name their own regiment. Occasionally they change their minds later, and rename it when they've graduated. You may conclude that it is time to name yours. But until you do, your cadre has decided to call you by an informal name of their own selection. One we feel fits you." He paused again. "After your performance of the last three days, to us you are—" Once more he paused. "You are now The White T'swa."
Tain wasn't sure what she expected. A concerted cheer, or possibly a palpable sense of embarrassment. What she got was a long moment of silence, and a sense of sudden sobriety that seemed could not be hers, must be theirs. Then Artus Romlar stood up. "Sir," he said, "we are honored." His big voice was tight with emotion. "And on behalf of the troopers of the White T'swa Regiment, I thank you for all you've done to help us become what we are—to help us fulfill our purpose."
Romlar stopped and looked around. His voice had been on the verge of breaking, and when he continued, it had lowered in both pitch and volume. "I also thank the Ostrak Project for all they've done. Project personnel, those of you still here, please stand up." He waited while they did, then turned to Dak-So. "Without them you could have made us warriors, but you'd never have decided to call us 'White T'swa.' "
Turning again, he raised both hands overhead, fisted, and his voice became a sudden trumpet. "Regiment! On your feet!"
They stood, and Tain, covered with chill bumps, could feel something building.
"Let's let our cadre and the project both know what we think of them!"
It wasn't instantaneous, but when it came, it was abrupt. The cheering that arose was wild and elemental, more emotional then anything Tain Faronya had ever felt or witnessed. Then the regiment left their places, stepping over benches, some headed for the T'swa, some for the civilians near her in the back. There were embraces, handshakes. The grins were unbelievable, many mixed with exuberant tears, and she stood apart confused, almost in shock, getting it all with her helmet camera, not understanding nor fully trusting, but deeply moved by what she saw and how it felt.
For just a moment their emotion shook Voker almost to tears of his own, and it troubled him not at all that the assembly had come apart as it had. This was needed. So much had happened in nine deks. Nearly two thousand young men whose dreams, whose drives, had been frustrated, had had their purpose validated here, had found themselves and felt their lives salvaged.
Several of them jumped grinning onto the podium, converging on himself and Dak-So. His hand was being pumped. He was hugged. After a moment the first troopers were off the podium again, but more were coming. Voker stepped quickly to the microphone—he'd need it to be heard—and spoke.
"Men, the assembly is over. When you've finished doing what you're doing, stack the benches and we'll bring the goodies in and continue from there."
Then he turned his attention to another round of embraces and handshakes.