The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One Read Online Free

just pick a damned
name
for a service branch.”
    “Can’t be that bad…” Weston suggested, his smirk clearly making a liar of him even as he spoke.
    “Captain, the Marines are arguing tradition; they want the shipboard troops to be named ‘marines,’ of course.”
    “Of course.” Eric Weston, former Marine, smiled slightly.
    “Well, the main army representative is arguing that spaceships have nothing to do with anything ‘marine’ and the tradition is null and void,” Roberts replied. “His committee, however, is currently stymied by a two-way tie between ‘soldiers’ and ‘troopers.’ To be honest, that’s probably the sanest of them, too.”
    “Oh?” Eric asked, still smiling as he leaned back.
    “Yeah, there was one colonel in their group that wanted shipboard contingents named ‘rangers,’” Roberts replied with a hint of disgust.
    Eric raised an eyebrow. He happened to know that Roberts was a former US Ranger, so he found that reaction somewhat curious. “You disagree?”
    “Me and whoever doctored that idiot’s food,” Roberts replied testily, then gave Eric a grim smile. “He came down with a mild case of food poisoning on the day he was to present his argument.”
    Eric blinked, frowning in confusion. “And you think someone did it on purpose? Why?”
    “Why? Because no self-respecting soldier who wears a tan beret wants to be known as a freaking ‘space ranger,’ thank you very much,” Roberts growled.
    Eric couldn’t help it. It started with a snicker, but quickly grew into full, powerful laughs.
    Commander Roberts waited, more or less patiently, as his commanding officer laughed at his expense, fingers tapping on the hard composite surface of the desk. When Eric had gotten himself back under control, Roberts just gave his captain a cool look. “Are you done yet?”
    “Yeah, I think so,” Eric replied, snickering a couple more times. “But I have to say that I see your point.”
    “Thanks ever so much,” Roberts told him dryly. “I don’t suppose that the rest of the service is having these problems?”
    Eric shrugged. “To some degree or another, of course. The Navy and the Air Force went head-to-head on a lot of things when they were ironing out the command structure of the
Odyssey
. For the most part, though, the Navy took the arguments on the simple fact that their procedures were easier to adapt.”
    Roberts nodded, but Eric had the sense that he’d heard some of that before, though probably had missed out on the details.
    “So what we got was a bit of a hash, but not so much of what you seem to be dealing with,” Eric admitted.
    “Thankfully. Or we’d never have survived our first mission,” Roberts replied dryly.
    Eric shrugged. “Maybe. But don’t sweat the details is my advice, Commander. Things that don’t work out, we’llhammer into place as we go along. We’ve got time to work out our traditions ourselves.”
    Roberts nodded. “I suppose. It’s just rather frustrating that we can’t even seem to get past the name.” Eric hoped for Roberts’s sake that they could get past it for now—there were a lot more important things coming down the pipe.
    “That’ll be the worst of it,” Eric said. “Once you get past that, it’ll just be the minor details of who obeys who to deal with.”
    Roberts glared at the smirk on his captain’s face, but declined to comment. Instead, he just sighed and nodded. “I hope that’s all I have to deal with, then. Thanks for coming by, Captain.”
    Eric smiled, this time a little less in amusement and more in tolerance. “Not a problem, Commander. I’m sure that you’ll get it all figured out sooner or later.”
    Roberts nodded, standing up as Eric did likewise. “I know. It’s just going to drive me to drinking in the meanwhile.” Eric believed it already had.
    He couldn’t resist. “Buck up, Space Ranger,” he said, “you’ll do fine.”
    “Good day, sir,” Roberts replied through gritted