The event was much more lively once Max and Nico returned to the dance floor, joining the group already twirling in time with the music. Events like the one earlier are nothing new to the local nobles, drunken indiscretions are practically the trademark of Duke Orleans’ children. They don’t see much of anything coming of it, the man has sway with Central Command that can keep the young man from facing any sort of actual retribution, while the young Major is just a Pilot from off-world.
The young men at the dance agree on one thing though, she does look lovely in that dress, unlike most of the returning soldiers, who have hardened from a decade of war.
“Lady Nico, might I have the next dance?” Colonel Marino of the 42nd armored asks, getting ahead of the youngsters who all have looks of lust in their eyes for the woman who would dare to publicly humiliate the most powerful noble of their generation.
“Of course, Colonel,” Nico responds sweetly, offering him her hand.
Max is a bit confused, Nico is never that sweet without a good reason. But once she is gone Max turns and sees a dozen sets of eyes locked on him. Now he knows why she was so willing to dance with the Colonel, despite not liking being in the spotlight. Her departure has left him open to all the debutantes that she was encouraging earlier..
Max is led through dozens of dances, sprinkled with rounds of drinks and assorted snacks from the trays that expertly made their way through the crowds. Most of the crowd doesn’t even leave the building that night, simply finding a convenient spot to sleep in one of the many side rooms of the event hall. As far as Max can tell, such impromptu pairings are so common that the event hall doesn’t even have booked rooms, you just find yourself an empty one, or in the case of some of the nobles, one occupied by people you know, and go there for the night.
That was more than a little bit of a culture shock to him. That is most definitely not military protocol, and even more certainly not how things are done in the slums, where they would never trust a group of party-goers to freely come and go from what amounts to a fancy hotel, at least not without checking them for missing items and room damages.
When the sun began to creep through the windows, Max finally found a chance to escape the event, as Nico made her excuses to a group of disappointed business Heirs and led him out front to catch the shuttle.
“Here, take these, and get showered and changed when you get back to your room. The mess hall opens for breakfast in an hour, and the recruits have their first training after lunch. I gave them all the morning off to settle in.” Nico whispers, handing him a pair of pills that Max recognizes as a detoxifier to prevent hangovers and the standard-issue mental focus pills that Pilots use on long missions. He might not get much sleep if he takes them, but he knows from experience that he won’t feel the need for it until at least tonight.
“Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without your foresight.” Max replies as the shuttle arrives for them and a few more officers who have joined the growing crowd headed home to the temporary barracks here on their homeworld. Later this week they will start sorting out places to stay, but for the next few days, they will be celebrating their successful return home from the relative safety of the barracks in the receiving zones.
“How was your first taste of political life?” Captain Catan Senior, the retiring leader of Bravo Company asks, walking up behind them with a giggling brunette debutante under his arm.
“More energetic than I thought it would be.” Max laughs, looking over the Captain’s disheveled clothing.
“It seems you received a warm welcome home, Captain.” Nico winks at Catan, who leans over to kiss his date for the morning.
“You could say that. Though this one was a bit more expected than most. Meet my fiancee, Nala. My parents informed me yesterday that they had arranged a marriage to keep me out of trouble, and once I met this lovely young lady, I had no reason to refuse. Her father is a local chemical engineer, who received the title of Knight for his contributions to improving agricultural efficiency.” The Captain informs her proudly.
Max didn’t see either of them last night, but going by the state of their clothes and the smell of hotel shampoo, not the military issue that Catan would have arrived smelling like, they were likely occupied.
The shuttle arrives as they are chatting, and the closest group of military officers climb aboard. The first stop is for the civilian transport terminal, where Catan and his bride-to-be get off, along with a few others whose families live nearby. Then at the barracks, which leaves only Max and Nico to head to the Abraham Kepler.
The security staff seems shocked to see them returning sober and well-dressed. Not many of the crew were entitled to go to the official party, or even leave the ship last night, but the ones they have seen returning mostly had hastily straightened clothing and at least one visible love bite, building on the resentment of the guards, who were stuck here all night long.
“Welcome back Majors. I am certain your unit is anxiously awaiting your return.” The guard smiles.
The departing troops had their own party last night, much less formal than the Ball for the Nobles and returning officers, and without most of the alcohol, but most of them were too excited to sleep anyhow.
“We have graciously given them the morning off training. I’m sure they will be rested and eager to show their worth this afternoon.” Max jokes back, scanning his wrist device to check into the ship.
Safely back in his room, Max checks his notifications, finding that the Young Master he is transferring out of the unit is still safely in quarantine and that the General worked out a deal with the Duke to send the other son to take over a quality control supervisor’s position at a meat packing plant that the family owns. After a few years surrounded by the smells of livestock waste and blood, the young noble will likely be at least a little repentant, though Max had hoped for more.
Then he sees the location, on the edge of a desert along the continental equator where the average daily temperature is well over 40 degrees celsius. Maybe getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and sweating in the heat all day while he checks fences and animal treatment by the farm transports might actually be worse than being in the ship’s galley, where he would at least get to hit on the female soldiers and work in temperature-controlled conditions.
It was good to be back in uniform. Despite being perfectly tailored to his size, the tuxedo was an uncomfortable outfit to wear, with layers where there shouldn’t be layers, and not granting him nearly enough freedom of movement. Max carefully stowed it in his locker and looked over the training results from yesterday.
They were far from getting through everyone’s assessments, and might not even finish them today with the late start, but so far the recruits he had received mostly lived up to their educational records. They were the elite of the local academy after all, no matter how low that academy’s standards were. It even looked like they had to pull Cadets from two graduating classes to make a single Special Tactics team. How the 42nd armored made it through the first few battle was a mystery to Max, assuming that they had it this hard with personnel.
There isn’t too much to do, so after a quick breakfast to settle his stomach, Max climbs into bed for a few hours of much-needed sleep. His mind might be refreshed by the pill he took, but a short nap never hurt anyone.
When he woke up, the cafeteria had just opened for lunch, and the unit was rapidly filling the seats, looking eager to prove themselves. Those who passed qualifications to the senior officers’ standards yesterday had an almost smug air about them, like kids who had finished their exams a day earlier than their peers and had nothing to worry about. In a way that was true, but they weren’t going to get off easy today just because they had proven that they didn’t cheat on their exams.
No, Max had big plans for this unit, and it was going to take him a lot of effort to get them in shape.
Step 1 was just the examination, but after that came the combat training that he had been doing with the officers and the men of Bravo company over the last month. That part would take the longest since it was the foundation for everything else they needed to know to survive. Step 3 would be to take that knowledge and expand it into a whole new fighting style for the light Mecha. The Comor Pattern Corvettes were even more agile than the standard pattern ones, so there was no reason that they couldn’t learn and execute an advanced fighting style with more melee competence than a standard Kepler unit.
The lack of Melee capability had been the downfall of a lot of units when the Cygnus Mecha joined the last battle, leaving the Kepler units unable to effectively defend themselves at close range, and not fast enough to properly maintain distance. Max was not going to allow that to happen to his Pilots.