In the meantime I got my corporal's stripes, nominated by Jelly and confirmed by Captain Deladrier in the absence of a commissioned officer of our own. Theoretically the rank would not be permanent until approved against vacancy by the Fleet M. I. repple-depple, but that meant nothing, as the casualty rate was such that there were always more vacancies in the T.

O. than there were warm bodies to fill them. I was a corporal when Jelly said I was a corporal; the rest was red tape.

But the gunner was not quite correct about "loafing"; there were fifty-three suits of powered armor to check, service, and repair between each drop, not to mention weapons and special equipment. Sometimes Migliaccio would downcheck a suit, Jelly would confirm it, and the ship's weapons engineer, Lieutenant Farley, would decide that he couldn't cure it short of base facilities—whereupon a new suit would have to be broken out of stores and brought from "cold" to "hot," an exacting process requiring twenty-six man-hours not counting the time of the man to whom it was being fitted.

We kept busy.

But we had fun, too. There were always several competitions going on, from acey-deucy to Honor Squad, and we had the best jazz band in several cubic light-years (well, the only one, maybe), with Sergeant Johnson on the trumpet leading them mellow and sweet for hymns or tearing the steel right off the bulkheads, as the occasion required. After that masterful (or should it be "mistressful"?) retrieval rendezvous without a programmed ballistic, the platoon's metalsmith, PFC Archie Campbell, made a model of the Rodger Young for the Skipper and we all signed and Archie engraved our signatures on a base plate: To Hot Pilot Yvette Deladrier, with thanks from Rasczak's Roughnecks, and we invited her aft to eat with us and the Roughneck Downbeat Combo played during dinner and then the junior private presented it to her. She got tears and kissed him—and kissed Jelly as well and he blushed purple.

After I got my chevrons I simply had to get things straight with Ace, because Jelly kept me on as assistant section leader. This is not good. A man ought to fill each spot on his way up; I should have had a turn as squad leader instead of being bumped from lance and assistant squad leader to corporal and assistant section leader. Jelly knew this, of course, but I know perfectly well that he was trying to keep the outfit as much as possible the way it had been when the Lieutenant was alive -- which meant that he left his squad leaders and section leaders unchanged.

But it left me with a ticklish problem; all three of the corporals under me as squad leaders were actually senior to me -- but if Sergeant Johnson bought it on the next drop, it would not only lose us a mighty fine cook, it would leave me leading the section. There mustn't be any shadow of doubt when you give an order, not in combat; I had to clear up any possible shadow before we dropped again.

Ace was the problem. He was not only senior of the three, he was a career corporal as well and older than I was. If Ace accepted me, I wouldn't have any trouble with the other two squads.

I hadn't really had any trouble with him aboard. After we made pickup on Flores together he had been civil enough. On the other hand we hadn't had anything to have trouble over; our shipside jobs didn't put us together, except at daily muster and guard mount, which is all cut and dried. But you can feel it. He was not treating me as somebody he took orders from.

So I looked him up during off hours. He was lying in his bunk, reading a book, Space Rangers against the Galaxy -- a pretty good yarn, except that I doubt if a military outfit ever had so many adventures and so few goof-offs. The ship had a good library.

"Ace. Got to see you."

He glanced up. "So? I just left the ship, I'm off duty."

"I've got to see you now. Put your book down."

"What's so aching urgent? I've got to finish this chapter."

"Oh, come off it, Ace. If you can't wait, I'll tell you how it comes out."

"You do and I'll clobber you." But he put the book down, sat up, and listened.

I said, "Ace, about this matter of the section organization—you're senior to me, you ought to be assistant section leader."

"Oh, so it's that again!"

"Yep. I think you and I ought to go see Johnson and get him to fix it up with Jelly."

"You do, eh?"

"Yes, I do. That's how it's got to be."

"So? Look, Shortie, let me put you straight. I got nothing against you at all. Matter of fact, you were on the bounce that day we had to pick up Dizzy; I'll hand you that. But if you want a squad, you go dig up one of your own. Don't go eying mine. Why, my boys wouldn't even peel potatoes for you."

"That's your final word?"

"That's my first, last, and only word."

I sighed. "I thought it would be. But I had to make sure. Well, that settles that. But I've got one other thing on my mind. I happened to notice that the washroom needs cleaning... and I think maybe you and I ought to attend to it. So put your book aside... as Jelly says, non-coms are always on duty."

He didn't stir at once. He said quietly, "You really think it's necessary, Shortie? As I said, I got nothing against you."

"Looks like."

"Think you can do it?"

"I can sure try."

"Okay. Let's take care of it."

We went aft to the washroom, chased out a private who was about to take a shower he didn't really need, and locked the door. Ace said, "You got any restrictions in mind, Shortie?"

"Well... I hadn't planned to kill you."

"Check. And no broken bones, nothing that would keep either one of us out of the next drop—except maybe by accident, of course. That suit you?"

"Suits," I agreed. "Uh, I think maybe I'll take my shirt off."

"Wouldn't want to get blood on your shirt." He relaxed. I started to peel it off and he let go a kick for my kneecap. No wind up. Flat-footed and not tense.

Only my kneecap wasn't there—I had learned.

A real fight ordinarily can last only a second or two, because that is all the time it takes to kill a man, or knock him out, or disable him to the point where he can't fight. But we had agreed to avoid inflicting permanent damage; this changes things. We were both young, in top condition, highly trained, and used to absorbing punishment. Ace was bigger, I was maybe a touch faster. Under such conditions the miserable business simply has to go on until one or the other is too beaten down to continue—unless a fluke settles it sooner. But neither one of us was allowing any flukes; we were professionals and wary.

So it did go on, for a long, tedious, painful time. Details would be trivial and pointless; besides, I had no time to take notes.

A long time later I was lying on my back and Ace was flipping water in my face. He looked at me, then hauled me to my feet, shoved me against a bulkhead, steadied me. "Hit me!"

"Huh?" I was dazed and seeing double.

"Johnnie... hit me."

His face was floating in the air in front of me; I zeroed in on it and slugged it with all the force in my body, hard enough to mash any mosquito in poor health. His eyes closed and he slumped to the deck and I had to grab at a stanchion to keep from following him.

He got slowly up. "Okay, Johnnie," he said, shaking his head, "I've had my lesson. You won't have any more lip out of me... nor out of anybody in the section. Okay?"

I nodded and my head hurt.

"Shake?" he asked.

We shook on it, and that hurt, too.

Almost anybody else knew more about how the war was going than we did, even though we were in it. This was the period, of course, after the Bugs had located our home planet, through the Skinnies, and had raided it, destroying Buenos Aires and turning "contact troubles" into all-out war, but before we had built up our forces and before the Skinnies had changed sides and become our co-belligerents and de facto allies. Partly effective interdiction for Terra had been set up from Luna (we didn't know it), but speaking broadly, the Terran Federation was losing the war.