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Chapter Ten

“What did you expect?” Harry’s visitor asked sarcastically. “You threatened to cut the wrong throat. Uncle Sugar doesn’t appreciate that. Only authorized throats are to be cut. Or have you forgotten how we both got here?”

“Not funny, Marco,” Harry replied, grunting through another hundred push-ups. “Besides, it’s only been a couple days.”

“That’s Sergeant First Class Marco Rodriguez to you, sir,” Rodriguez said, flipping a sheathed Ka-Bar from blade to grip and back again, without looking. The experienced NCO perched on the edge of Harry’s desk, casually swinging one foot while he scrolled through entertainment feeds. “By the way, do you always carry a holdout?”

“Always,” Harry answered in the space between one push-up and the next. “What fool doesn’t?”

“Huh. Well, here’s something from a fool: if you watched your mouth and stopped playing barb, your promotion to major wouldn’t be on the block. Right?”

Harry didn’t answer until he finished his set and bounced to his feet, shoulders brushing against the room’s fixtures. The single bed built into the ever-present gray bulkheads was made up with a dark blue whipcord cover, on top of which Harry’s desk chair was laying. Above the bed, Harry had epoxied a series of plastic hooks to the bulkhead. Hanging from them was an eclectic collection of mementos and personal equipment. Around the rest of the space, every drawer and accessory tray was shut. Even the compartment’s sink was folded up, leaving a narrow strip of deck from the door to the desk.

“Is there anything more useless than a promotion in this place and time?” Harry asked, watching Marco flip the knife. It seemed to hang forever as it tumbled in the low-gee field, which was less than half normal in station berthing. Despite months of experience in space, most of the Lawless still got a kick from experimenting with the low gravity. “You won’t have much use for it if Murphy catches you with that pig sticker. No personal weapons allowed on-station.”

“Officially maybe, but no one’s looking too hard at little old me. I’m not the knifeman, part-time barbarian, and full-time notorious SEAL, Harry Tapper.”

Rodriguez paused, studying the screen.

“Ah, here we go.” Rodriguez tapped a key. Instantly, the room filled with the rhythmic clicking of drumsticks clicking on the edge of the drum, followed right away by the distinctive sound of a bongo. A few moments later, the singer begged the listeners’ indulgence as he introduced himself as a man of wealth and taste.

“Ah, the classics,” Harry said, cricking his neck left and right.

“Classics, hell,” Marco said. “This is current events.”

The singer went on to describe how he’d been around for a long, long year and stolen many men’s souls and faith.

“You know, the longer I have this job, the more I understand that bastard,” Harry said, briefly inclining his head toward the speakers before snatching up the desk chair and clicking it into the clamps set into the deck. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Grevorg.”

“He’s lucky he didn’t get searched,” Rodriguez replied. “I happen to know he was carrying something bigger than your little blade.”

“He’s a good man,” Harry said.

“Good man,” the sergeant agreed affably.

The song continued; the singer was asking who killed the Kennedys. Harry was content to sit and listen. The Ka-Bar described its endless, irregular flip, flip, flip. The song wound down and the next started, the singer crooning about his brown-eyed girl. Naturally, Harry began thinking of Stella, who he hadn’t seen since his last trip to R’Bak, several weeks ago.

He must have fidgeted.

“You miss your girl, right?” Rodriguez asked.

“Fucking Murphy denied my request to bring her back,” Harry said, balling his fists. “He’s just pissed I called him on his bullshit.”

Harry hadn’t thought about Stella for almost an hour and instantly began to seethe again.

“You know, I’m not often in a position to counsel an officer—”

“So don’t.”

“—but a few things occur to me,” Rodriguez said, still moving his boot in time to the music. He gestured at the bulkhead over the bed. “Isn’t that a claw off the godawful, meter-long poisonous land-lobster you had to eat at the Sarmatchani victory feast? The one after we shot down the airship and just before you hooked up with Stella?”

“Venomous, not poisonous,” Harry answered, looking up for a moment before starting to pace in the short confines of the room. “Safe to eat, just don’t get bit or stung. Actually tasted like chicken after you roasted it. Yannis was testing me. Checking my character. I think he wanted to know if I was worthy of his daughter. Guess he was wrong on that score: I can’t even get back to the fucking planet! To my kid!”

“Well, then you need to hear this, Harry.”

Harry glanced up at the unusual use of his first name. Rodriguez was no stickler for protocol, but neither was he familiar with officers. In fact, Harry knew Rodriguez usually only brought out more than one sir per hour if he was really pissed and wanted to get some dumbass officer’s attention. He stopped pacing as Rodriguez held up one finger.

“First, Murphy was right. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. You gotta knock that off. Figure your shit out before you pop off again. Next time, Murphy might not be able to save your ass. And he did save your ass. The reason you’re in here is as much because he’s shielding you from the consequences of your actions as it is for any personal beef he may have with your whiny ass. Next time, he might not be able to protect you, because our survival depends on keeping the RockHound Legate onside. So, more likely than not, what the Legate wants, the Legate will damn well get.”

Harry didn’t answer, but dropped and started doing push-ups again, this time with his feet on the chair.

“Next, while you ain’t exactly a paragon of military courtesy, you are a good operator with a pretty unique skill set.” Rodriguez’s endless speech was seriously interfering with Harry’s count of repetitions. “I don’t much care for shitty officers, but I haven’t once had the urge to roll a frag into your tent, if you know what I mean.”

Harry grunted, continuing to push them out. He knew every member of the Lawless had something seriously wrong with them, or the Ktor would have brought them out of suspended animation with the rest of their kidnap victims and used them for the one-way mission to implicate Earth in war crimes and break up the Accords.

How screwed up are you when a murderous alien race thinks you’re too unreliable to be used, even as a criminal?

In Rodriguez’s case, it was because he had a documented propensity for killing superior officers who made lethally bad decisions. For that matter, it might be why Harry was here, too. Of course, it begged the question about people like Murphy and Lee and the rest of the cadre.

Rodriguez continued, “While you’ve been in here cooling your heels for a few days, Makarov slid us some advance notice on the next phase of the op.” The sergeant kept ticking off points on his fingers. “Frankly, it looks like another Death Star run.”

When the Dornaani had dropped them off in the Shex system, they’d included a huge data packet. Buried in that were Terran history, education, and entertainment files. Digesting the last century of human history had been an unpleasant shock. The entertainment dump had been much, much more pleasant. Pretty much everyone had gone crazy for the same Star Wars movies Harry had loved as a kid, especially the World War II veterans. To his shock, they’d even made several more movies in the series, although he’d missed them in hibernation.

Small favors.

However, the original films were frequent reruns in the refectory; for an annoyingly long period, both the earlier Lost Soldiers and the SpinDogs had greeted one another with way too many “May the Force be with yous.”

“Impossible odds, high casualty rates, and no medals for the enlisted?” Harry replied. “Chewbacca got screwed.”

“Pretty much, pretty much.” Rodriguez nodded. “Same old Saigon Puzzle Palace bullshit. Thing is, your current plan is even shittier. Winning is a much, much better plan. And, if you play your cards right and think like an old hand who’s used to maneuvering inside the Big Green Machine, you’re more likely to get your ass out of this crack and get what you want, all at the same time.”

“You think I have a plan?” Harry gestured around the tiny room, letting his gesture end at the closed door. “You look at this and think, damn, that Harry Tapper is an absolute mastermind?”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” Rodriguez said, chuckling. “But sure. I’ve seen second looies land nav better than you’re hiding your plan. Accumulate as much non-credit cash as you can. Maintain your ties to the surface and keep your barb battle buddies close. Wrangle a last trip down, just as we pull everybody out. Figure out a way to double some shuttle loadmaster, or a sympathetic interface-craft back seater, and once you’re on the ground, go AWOL all the way back to the Sarmatchani.”

That last was uncomfortably close, but Harry didn’t so much as twitch.

Rodriguez laughed anyway.

“Then disappear and migrate to the poles during the Searing, living happily ever after with your barb girlfriend.”

“She’s more than my girlfriend,” Harry growled, popping to his feet. He stared Rodriguez down. “And you know it.”

“Easy, El-Tee, easy,” Rodriguez said, relaxed as ever. With a final flip, he caught the Ka-Bar by the forte, and set it on the desk. “You know it, I know it, and anyone that gives your situation a think is going to know it. Do you think you’re the first man who lost everything and then found a soldier’s girl in the middle of the shit? Being in-country makes everything more intense. Higher highs, fucking shitastic lows. And everyone can see you’re in it up to your thick-ass, highly tanned frogman neck.”

Harry deflated, just a bit, and turned to sit heavily on the thin mattress.

Before he could formulate an answer, the door jumped to a heavy knock.

“Come,” Harry called.

“Hello, Harry,” Major Lee said, swinging the door open. “Got a moment?”

“I was just leaving,” Rodriguez said, surreptitiously pushing the sheathed Ka-Bar a little more to the side of the desk, where it was obscured by Harry’s oversize trunk and thick arms. He brushed past both officers, offering Lee a nod. “Major.”

“Sergeant.”

“Heya, Bruce,” Harry said, once the door was closed. He leaned backward against the desk, so he could face the doorway squarely.

“You done fucked up good, Harry,” Lee said, sighing as she folded her arms across her chest. A silver set of master aviator wings caught the light from the overhead lights. “Could you have done something less dramatic, like booby-trapping an airlock?”

“If I skipped a chance for drama, they’d pull my Trident, Bruce.”

“Sure they would, dumbass. Except ‘they’ are several dozen light-years away and dead. Here, now, the Hounds want your head. You put Murphy in a real spot. And then you managed to piss him off even more. What did you say, right at the end?”

Lee was a thirtysomething helo pilot who’d done her share of hairy missions on the surface. She kept her dark hair short, noticeably shorter than Harry’s own mop. Like most of the Terrans, she carried more muscle than her RockHound counterparts. Her forearms were bunched under the sleeves of her flight suit.

“I might have begun to point out we’re the ones on the sharp end while he was mostly in the rear with the gear.”

“Give me fucking strength, God,” Lee said, tilting her head to address the pipes and bundles of wire overhead. “And I suppose the black-market drugs on the table were yours?”

“They were about to be,” Harry replied, and then held up both hands in response to Lee’s subsequent glare. “Don’t blame me! All the old shit we used to play for is used up. I haven’t seen a pack of gum or a cigarette in months.” Harry started to think through what Lee’s presence meant in the current context.

Lee was good people. She gave a shit about the Lost Soldiers and the R’Baku. She was also another Terran who’d fallen in love with a local. She’d lost her man but gained a daughter. If anyone would understand Harry, it would be her.

And she’s still doing her job.

Thinking it through, Harry felt about three feet tall.

Of course, that’s probably just why Murphy sent her. Can you trust her?

Before Harry could pursue that line of thought, Lee interrupted. “Well, you have Murphy as spun up as I’ve ever seen him.”

“I fucked things up, Bruce.” He tried for a look of dogged repentance. “What can I do to help unfuck it?”

“First, you get to grovel a bit,” she said crisply, raising one eyebrow. “You’re going to apologize to the annoying RockHound officer, and you are going to make him believe it.”

“I can do that.”

“Then, when you’re done sitting here in this doghouse, you’re going to come when they whistle for you and sit like a good boy at the formal briefing that’s pending. And while there, you are going to help Colonel Murphy persuade some SpinDog and RockHound VIPs to do things his way.”

“What’s the op?”

“Right now, the job is to persuade our hosts our plan is sound, and you’re our subject matter expert,” Lee said, looking at Harry impatiently. “Later, the op is whatever Murphy says it is. Now, is that going to be a problem, or can you get it done?”

“A SME, eh?” Harry asked, pronouncing it “smee.” He tried to keep the suspicion out of his tone. This was too easy. “I can be persuasive. What am I going to be persuasive about?”

“Whatever Murphy needs,” Lee said, sweeping the door open and stepping through into the hallway, where she paused expectantly. “If he says hop, you jump and make ribbit noises. And you’re going to start now.”

“Imitating an amphibian is my specialty.”

“Yes, but first,” Lee said sourly, “there’s the matter of apologizing to an asshole.”

Harry shoved off the desk and moved into the companionway. “Let’s go do this, Major.”

Behind him, the desk blotter was empty.


Forewarned, Harry knew their next stop was the RockHounds’ electronics fabrication area. He had to step out, since Major Lee was leading briskly, employing the low-gravity stride all the Lawless had learned was the best way to move without bouncing off the overhead. However, the extra hip action both sexes adopted for efficiency in minimum gee tightened her flight suit with each stride, prompting entirely inappropriate thoughts that made Harry feel vaguely incestuous.

Harry shook it off and instead began to silently compose a little speech for Korelon’s benefit. Amity among allies and so on, no hard feelings among fellow warriors—Harry would baffle him with bullshit. He also took a preparatory round turn and a couple half hitches in his emotions, a prerequisite he surely needed before stress-testing his newly sworn self-control. Harry carefully didn’t think about what he’d slipped into the small of his back.

Lee moved comfortably through passageways that were off-limits to most Terrans, moving far enough along the diameter of the station that Harry could feel the pull of increased gee. This part of the station reminded Harry of the petroleum plants in Texas and Oklahoma. They navigated a labyrinth of pipes, tanks, caution signs, stained floor tiles, and sharp smells. Fortunately, the tall RockHound officer was in the first workroom they checked, watching a few techs labor over a very old-fashioned circuitry test bench. Lee brought them to a halt, side by side.

Harry opened his mouth to begin his rote delivery, and then left it there when the RockHound raised one stiff hand, like a semaphore of arrogance. The RockHound muttered an order to the techs, dismissing them, before he turned to face the pair.

Hand still raised, he briefly eyed Harry before lowering it to his side and pointedly addressing himself only to Lee.

Like an elementary school crossing guard who only talks to grown-ups.

“Major, thank you for your visit,” Korelon said, his teeth gritted so firmly he almost appeared to be smiling. “Having anticipated such a gesture was in the offing, I wish to assure you despite the…intensity of my sporting banter with Major Tapper, there is no need to meet or for him to seek me out at a future date.”

Harry opened his mouth to try to apologize anyway but didn’t get any further. The RockHound interrupted again, repeating himself. As far as he was concerned, the matter was forgotten. Any attempt for unneeded rapprochement would be inappropriate. Persistence would be ignored. Neither Terran was allowed a word. The techs were as far from the threesome as the limits of the compartment would allow.

There was a long pause, during which Korelon never once looked away from Lee. Harry began to take a step forward, to demand the RockHound’s attention, but before he could do more than shift his weight, Lee spoke.

“I see,” she said, her tone matching Korelon’s icy composure. “In the event the situation changes, I look forward to the opportunity for Major Tapper to present his points to you.”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and moved to the door. Harry waited a beat to see if Korelon would even look up. However, the RockHound turned away and immediately found something just fascinating on the work bench, so Harry turned to follow his escort. “Well, that certainly went well.”

“That pure-blind conceited moron!” Lee hissed, eyes blazing. “That perfect specimen of inbred, ill-advised, self-important insolence!” It was the start of a modulated but highly descriptive diatribe. Lasting a scant minute, it wasn’t as thorough an indictment as the chewing out Murphy had delivered to Harry, but it was easily as heartfelt. For his part, he merely watched the storm and enjoyed her command of prose. It much resembled a high priestess preparing a sacrifice to a thirsty god, and all she had to offer was the—as yet unspilled—blood of her enemies.

“Right,” she finished. A long exhalation through her nose. “I’m done. He’s an ass. You got off light, Harry. There’s something more going on. More than his stupidity, I mean. Something I need to know? Why didn’t he want to listen?”

“He’s embarrassed,” Harry replied. “The way a RockHound would see it, he got taken by an inferior opponent. Worse, his boss knows about it, so his pride is doubly bruised.”

“Ahh, so the best outcome for Korelon is if we all pretend to forget it happened.”

“Well, that’s simpler than tossing him out the airlock, Bruce,” Harry said, testing the depth of Lee’s relief. “But not as funny.”

“Do you see me laughing, Tapper?” she asked as they arrived back at his compartment. “Now get back in your doghouse.”

“And how long until the briefing?”

“God only knows. Getting RockHound and SpinDog VIPs into the same room at the same time is about as easy as getting cats to walk in formation.”

Harry put on his best crestfallen face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll see if I can get you galley privileges, at least. Now get in there before someone sees you out here and convinces Murphy I’m being lax and undermining his orders. It wouldn’t do to have him pissed at both of us.”


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