They were saluting me. Well, what the hell, I told myself, they were supposed to be saluting me, I was their commanding officer. I returned the salute, and four arms whipped down smartly.
I said, “At ease.” They snapped their legs apart, arms behind them. I thought about it. I said, “Rest.” They relaxed their bodies slightly. I thought about it again. I said, “Hell, men, sit down and let’s meet each other.”
They sprawled into chairs and I hitched myself up on the instructor’s desk. We stared back and forth. Their faces were rigid, watchful; they weren’t giving anything away.
I wondered what my face looked like. In spite of all the orientation lectures, in spite of all the preparation, I must admit that my first glimpse of them had hit me hard. They were glowing with health, normality, and hard purpose. But that wasn’t it.
That wasn’t it at all.
What was making me want to run out of the door, out of the building, was something I’d been schooling myself to expect since that last briefing session in Arizona Base. Four dead men were staring at me. Four very famous dead men.
The big man, lounging all over his chair, was Roger Grey, who had been killed over a year ago when he rammed his tiny scout ship up the forward jets of an Eoti flagship. The flagship had been split neatly in two. Almost every medal imaginable and the Solar Corona. Grey was to be my co-pilot.
The thin, alert man with the tight shock of black hair was Wang Hsi. He had been killed covering the retreat to the asteroids after the Great Breakthrough of 2143. According to the fantastic story the observers told, his ship had still been firing after it had been scrambled fully three times. Almost every medal imaginable and the Solar Corona. Wang was to be my engineer.
The darkish little fellow was Yussuf Lamehd. He’d been killed in a very minor skirmish off Titan, but when he died he was the most decorated man in the entire TAF. A double Solar Corona. Lamehd was to be my gunner.
The heavy one was Stanley Weinstein, the only prisoner of war ever to escape from the Eoti. There wasn’t much left of him by the time he arrived on Mars, but the ship he came in was the first enemy craft that humanity could study intact. There was no Solar Corona in his day for him to receive even posthumously, but they’re still naming military academies after that man. Weinstein was to be my astrogator.