“You can go ahead and look it up if you want, Doctor, but I already did that,” Jack said. “It’s aluminum and lots of it! There’s also steel, carbon-based alloys of all sorts, silicon, and even what looks like gold. And most of all, it must be highly polished for the albedo to be that high. And there has to be lots of it!”

“This can’t be right—”

“This can’t be right,” Shane muttered, glaring at the e-mailed copy of his orders.

“What’s wrong, sir?” Captain Tyler asked. The two had been in opposite cubicles since Gries had returned from Iraq. From CO of an in-combat company to Assistant S-4 would look lousy on a review, but it was just a holding position while DA figured out what to do with him. Usually, that sort of thing was worked out months in advance of a captain’s promotion, but in Shane’s case, something had gotten in the works. He’d been on the horn to DA nearly daily, trying to find out where he was going — CGSC, a major’s position “commensurate with career progression” or what. In the meantime, he’d been Assistant Rear Detachment S-4 (Logistics) officer, Field Grade Officer of the Day at Division Headquarters and any other jack-shit detail a field grade officer could get shafted with.

And now this.

“Orders,” Shane said, angrily. “I’ve got my orders.”

“And they are, sir?” Captain Tyler asked. He was the “real” assistant S-4, a supply officer who knew his career prospects were limited to maybe making full bird colonel in charge of an out-of-the-way depot instead of the strong possibility of stars. Despite that, the slight officer couldn’t resent Major Gries; the guy was just too damned nice.