[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

full of a murky substance imaginatively called caff, talking away another dull watch.
All around them, working in their bones, was the hum of a spaceship under drive. TheBrns, on
secondary drive, was making a quick transit from D-Cumbre out to the research station/warning post on
K-Cumbre, with a small patrol ship as escort. The two I&R soldiers were aboard the transport because
CaudAngara had decided all ships traveling beyond the orbit of G-Cumbre must not only be escorted,
but be armed as well.
Plas blisters were hastily cast and mounted to merchant ships' hulls. Two Goddard shipkillers were
mounted inside the blisters, and small Shadow count-ermissiles added in smaller blisters to either side. A
control station was located somewhere within the ship that didn't get in the crew's way too badly, and
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
four Forcemen assigned as auxiliary military gunners. The ship's captain was their nominal commander,
unless special circumstances, clearly denned, required them to follow general orders issued by the Force.
Two of the Forcemen on theBrnswere assigned to the freighter on permanent duty one a Forceman
who was getting a bit old for hill-running, the other a new recruit. The other two, Lir and Montagna, were
floaters, dividing duty time between their normal station and a starship. The I&R people didn't wear rank
tabs or uniforms aboard ship, but civilian clothes or ship's coveralls, trying to fit into the civilian world as
cleanly as possible.
Other Cumbrian ships received the same weaponry, the same assignment of gunners.
There'd been some trouble at first. The soldiers resented the merchantmen's vastly higher pay and living
conditions during wartime, and the civilian crew members scorned the military for being not much better
than armed sheep.
Three things ended the potential feud CaudAngara's orders that gun crew would work as hard as any
crewmen on any task the captain chose to ask them to perform, whether or not it had to do with their
missiles; the slow realization that, if Larissan raiders hit the Cumbre system, these four women and men
would be a ship's only chance; and the wUlingness most Forcemen had to escalate, with Angara's tacit
approval, any forecastle brawl.
At first, many of the soldiers swore they'd never get any sleep offplanet, that the hum of the ship drive
would turn them into babbling idiots long before the ship ported. But after two days in space, they didn't
notice the noise any more than the crew.
"And here I went and thought riding shotgun on these transports would make life a little more interesting
than sitting around the barracks spit-shining a blaster." Montagna sighed.
"Careful, youngTweg," Lir warned. "Every war I've been in starts slow, with everybody pissing and
moaning about no action, and they're never going to get forward in time for the shooting, shitting and
shouting. A year later, people are stumbling around, shell-shocked, thousand-meter stare, wondering
why they were so damned foolish.
"Stand warned, Darod."
"Mmmh," Montagna said.
"Another thing about wars," Lir continued. "You always seem to remember the beginnings best. After
things get serious, it's just a dull, bloody blur. Also, the people that get dead at the beginning of a war
generally are the best remembered. So if you want barracks or a landing field named after you, now's the
best time to die heroically."
"I'll pass on that idea," Montagna said. "Question. How many wars have you been in,Adj-PremV
I&R troops might have been informal in combat or in their own company, but not around outsiders, and
the soldiers assigned to escort duty kept things especially formal, just as they kept themselves as
immaculate as possible, even in the rather oily working spaces of a merchant ship, with the whispered
slogan, "Anybody can be piggy enough to be a sailor."
Monique considered. "The 'Raum& then the Musth& then this bit& before that two minor campaigns
before the Force got sent to Cumbre. That was back when we were called Swift Lance, for shit's sake,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
underCaudMelk, and thenCaudWilliams, who got killed in the 'Raum rising. Plus, on Cumbre, chasing
what they called bandits in the hills, which never rates a campaign ribbon." She paused, tallied.
"Enough, I guess."
Darod thought better than saying Lir was obviously a little older than she looked, found another question:
"What was it like, being under the Confederation?"
"About the same as now, to be truthful. Independent Strike Forces like this one always were assigned to
the edge of nowhere. I never had the chance to operate with a full-scale Confederation army, just like I
never saw a full-tilt war." Lir sounded envious. "But there were differences. We had better supplies,
faster, naturally. 'Though when I think back, toward the end, when we were on& what was it, Qwet
VII, that was it, before we got shipped to Cumbre, we were operating pretty thin. Promotions were a lot
slower, since there were tests and stuff, and after you got temp rank, the promotion had to be vetted all
the way back to Army Headquarters on Centrum."
"What doyouthink happened to the Confederation?" Montagna asked.
"Hell if I know," Lir answered. "Most likely they got soft, got lazy, let other people do their thinking and
fighting for them. But I guess that's probably what any soldier'd say about any empire, back to Roma or
whatever, a long, long time ago."
"Okay, old soldier," Montagna said. "What comes next?"
"For who?"
"For us."
"First, we whip up on these Larissans, teach them not to be messing with their betters. Then we rebuild,
and, most likely, go looking for the next bastard."
"Which'll be?"
"Hell if I know," Lir said again. "I'm no pol or General Staffer. I go where they point me, kill people and
break things 'til they tell me to stop."
"Did you ever want to be anything but a soldier?"
Lir was quiet for a time.
"When I was a kid, I wanted to be some kind of professional jocker& an athlete." She shrugged. "But I
wasn't going to the right schools, my parents didn't have any money for special training, and the teams I
played on didn't have any talent in depth. Teams with only one star don't win tourneys or get noticed,
generally, 'cause everybody's got to have backup to win.
"The best I could do was, real young, join an opera company."
"What's that?"
"Doing stories live, on a stage, instead of a holo. Everybody sings, instead of talks. I didn't sing much,
but I was a decent dancer. And an acrobat. Which meant I got to do the fight sequences. There were a
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
couple of older dancers who knew a bunch of martial arts, and didn't mind passing time between
bookings teaching.
"We were good enough to tour a couple of star systems," Lir went on. "Then we got stuck in the middle
of a war with the government collapsed around us, and the best way to stay alive was to learn how to use
a blaster. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]