Hero (11 page)

"—and Shimon, I didn't see any hint of it. Minor, maybe annoying, industrial sabotage, sure. Maybe that cavitation problem they were having with their
he
shells wasn't just quality control, and I'm damn sure that the premies they've been seeing with the pocket rockets are sabotage. But I've seen
nothing
to suggest an armed force like this. My evaluation—"

"Save it. You were saying, Yitzhak?"

"Other than that, I've no great criticism of me. I didn't try to overplan, or overmanage the firefight. I led from the front until I got shot, and I made the right call on the helo. I did okay."

"Yes, you did. Now, Deputy Regimental Commander and Chief of Staff," Shimon Bar-El said, as he turned to Mordecai Peled. "Are you happy about stalling on the knockdown?"

Peled's lined face reddened. "No, I'm not."

"Neither am I." Bar-El eyed the audience as a whole. "When you've got a green light, you shoot. End of discussion. Ezer, back on your feet. You have the report on the status of the knockdown."

Laskov stood. "There's not going to be any difficulty on that. The pravda is that it was done by the Freiheimers. Fleiss confessed to that."

Somebody snickered.

"And the Casas bought it?" Asher Greenberg asked.

"No." Laskov shrugged. "Or I don't know. But they're pretending to. The Distacamento de la Fedeltà doesn't have any authority over us, since we're technically allied, not subordinate—but if it was determined that a helo and crew was lost because somebody didn't listen to Chiabrera's request that they stay out of it, somebody would hang. Literally."

"Assholes." Rabinowitz shook his head. "Asinine to require hypocrisy."

"Yeah." Bar-El smiled. "We get enough of that anyway. Ezer, did you get anything else out of Fleiss?"

"Some data, but not much." Laskov shook his head. "He was ready to confess to the murder of Abel, and every crime since. I didn't see any point in keeping him around any more." He held his fists out in front of his chest and mimed wringing a neck.

"Fine," Shimon Bar-El said. "And may he rot in hell. Next—Meir, how did you mess up on the grazing fire?"

"Shit. Well, maybe I didn't do too bad, although I probably ought to be fucking shot for not having had a pistol drill for the past two thousand hours. We lost Pinhas Cohen when he tried firing over a fallen tree when there was plenty of room under it."

"He should have remembered that from Basic. Assume we're going into action in a week—how do you want to spend your time? Small arms work?"

"With what? You giving me a 260-man sapper team to take into the field?"

Bar-El scowled. "Don't ask silly questions. Two ten-man squads per battalion—integral to battalion. You put them together, you train them, but you don't own them. You get a sapper section attached to Regiment. The rest of your training detachment gets to be infantrymen—and we'll have too many three-man fireteams as it is. Now, you going to spend the next week at the Known Distance Range?"

Meir Ben David didn't pick up on it. "Fuck, no. One week, eh? Okay—twenty hours of classroom; forty or fifty of field time, half of that with the locals—"

"—and on the seventh day they rested," Ebi Goren said dryly.

"—and if we're going to have to depend on them for logistical support and replacement groceries, we'd sure as shit better be up on local methods and equipment. I'm real suspicious of some of the handling characteristics of that Ciottoloso plastique they like so much. I think it might—"

"Later." Shimon cut him off with a wave of the hand. "What you're telling me is that you really don't think that you need that much pistol training."

"You want my fucking recommendation, you've got it."

Shimon Bar-El smiled. "So I do. Recommendation accepted." He turned to Peled. "Still got to finish the critique, but put gambling next on the agenda. Minor thing, but I don't want it getting away from us.

"Now, on to the cleanup part of the operation. . ."

It was a long morning.

PART TWO

RECON

CHAPTER 8

Night Life

Ari was lying on his bunk when his brothers came into the barracks, each in turn snapping the rain from his slicker with a practiced flip of the wrist before hanging it up. Tetsuo didn't seem to see the poker game, while Benyamin stopped for a moment to exchange a few words with the players at the north end of the barracks.

They were both in khakis, wearing the short, plain field jacket over their uniform shirts. Tetsuo had one of his swords stuck crosswise in the nonstandard leather pistol belt that he wore tight across his hips, but at least it was only the short stabbing sword instead of the whole daisho. Ari had always thought it was just one of his brother's affectations, although Tetsuo claimed that he only carried them because the Nagamitsu blades were a thousand years old. He had the certificates to prove it, and he was always able to get them onplanet—a thousand-year-old sword couldn't be kept out on a Proscribed Tech regulation.

The x-shaped barracks was quiet, mostly empty. Down at the south end, salted troopers slept soundly under their blankets, oblivious to the overhead lights, while the never-ending barracks poker game was going on down at the opposite end. Ari's bunk was near the center of the x, just meters from the central arms locker; he knew that if he got up off his bed and peeked around the corner, he would see Galil and some clerks, at the far end eastern arm of the x, going over some paperwork.

"Officers work too much," Benyamin said, fingering the checkering of the striped insignia at his collar point. He unslung his Barak, tapped on the already-positioned safety, and then dropped it on a bunk, seating himself next to it.

"Some do," Tetsuo said. He didn't sit, and he wasn't smiling. "That why you never put in for a commission?"

Benyamin shook his head. "Nope. Mmm . . . maybe, just a little. Truth to tell, I don't
like
shouting 'Follow me' all the time, and dashing first into God knows what. I do enough of that as is." He touched his fused right wrist. "Plenty of officers in the family, God knows. Shlomo the Asshole, you, both Zayda Bar-Els—figured we didn't need another, what with the General here coming online shortly." He patted his hip. "And since Galil just put me up for my first class senior's warrant, the pay's just fine."

"He got you your warrant?"

"Yeah." Benyamin smiled. "I was thinking about sitting around the barracks and sewing on new stripes tonight." He shrugged out of his field jacket. Beneath, his khaki shirt was unadorned, except for the chain-circled Shield of David on the left breast. That was common, among both officers and men, although Benyamin generally went for sewed-on stripes.

"Pin them on, instead." Tetsuo dropped a pair of first class senior's collar pins to the bed. They looked just like the three chevron-and-double-rocker insignia Benyamin was wearing, except that the white and black checkering was finer, more squares to the centimeter. That only showed close up; they would still look like a gray blob in a sniper's scope. "I'm thirsty."

"Oh. Fair enough." Benyamin held the pins in the palm of his hand and considered them for a moment. "How'd you know?"

"Galil and I had a little chat. He mentioned it."

"He mention anything else?"

Tetsuo looked long at Ari. "Yeah."

Benyamin exchanged his second class senior's pins for the new ones. He turned to Ari. "Tet and I are going into town, Ari; I think we need a few drinks—celebrate my new warrant. You're coming along. Tet, you want a Barak?"

Tetsuo shook his head. "I'm fine." He patted the pistol holster on the right side of his belt reluctantly before resting his hand on the butt of his sword. Tetsuo didn't like guns.

"Kiyoshi never wore swords."

"Ki couldn't cut worth anything," Tetsuo said. "Good hand with a phut gun, though."

It all felt less like a discussion and more like a performance for his benefit, and Ari wondered what the purpose of it was.

"Hang on a sec," Benyamin said, walking over to the arms locker, coming back with a holster, a pistol and two spare magazines. He dropped it on the bed next to Ari. "Put it on," Benyamin told Ari.

Benyamin picked up his assault rifle and expelled the magazine. He checked to see that it was loaded, the chamber empty, then slammed the clip home with a solid chunk. A quick manipulation and the stock was folded in; he secured it to the right side of his web belt, as though it were an oversized pistol.

"Put it on?" Ari asked. "Eh? What is it?"

"This is what we professional soldier types call a semiautomatic pistol—Belge copy of an old IMI Desert Eagle, the one that originally had the idiot safety. This leather thing is called a holster. What you do is you put the pistol into the holster, and then you put your arms through the straps there, and then tighten it up. Wear your fatigue jacket over it."

"I know what it's called."

"Good." Tetsuo gripped his hand, and pulled Ari upright. "You're carrying a pistol tonight."

"Why?" Ari shook his head. Whatever they had in mind, he didn't want any part of it.

"Trade secret," Tetsuo said, without the hint of a smile. "Something they don't teach you in Soldiering 105."

"I . . . I'd just as soon stay here."

"Look, maybe we shoot people for a living, but there are some bennies," Benyamin said. "Me, I like to travel to strange worlds, see strange sights—"

"—drink strange drinks, et cetera. I like et cetera particularly," Tetsuo said. And then there was a smile for just a moment. "There's a section of Gonfiarsi they call 'La Inguine'—I like it a lot."

Benyamin pursed his lips. "You would." He turned back to Ari. "We're going into Gonfiarsi. Orders are to travel in groups, armed always. And stay in touch." He undipped his headset from his belt and set it on his head.

"Two is a group, if you feel like arguing. I don't, so we're going to be three." Tetsuo's hand dropped to Ari's shoulder. "You're three."

Ari started to shake his head, but Benyamin's smile broadened.

Tetsuo didn't let go of his shoulder. "Come on."

"No. I don't feel like it."

"Oh, you don't feel like it? Too bad." Benyamin's face was grim. "Until things clear up around here, we don't want you just hanging around. Somebody might say the wrong thing to you, or you might say the wrong thing, or not say the right thing."

"Besides," Tetsuo said, "there's parts of your education that need some remedying. So, little brother, let's go into town." His grip tightened until it hurt. "Now."

Ari's smile felt weak. "Sounds good to me."

Benyamin tossed Ari a slicker.

The rain was easing as they left the barracks and walked the two klicks toward the distant front gate, past rows of low, squat buildings barely illuminated by the light poles. The sidewalk was chopped up; it looked as though it had been idly chewed, sampled by some passing behemoth that had nibbled at it and then moved on. They stuck to the side of the tarmac lane that ran parallel to the dirt tank road.

Underneath the skullcap of their radar domes, a squad of sky watches kept guard on the night, the quadruple snouts of their wireguns shifting position with a crisp suddenness that made Ari jump.

Benyamin laughed.

Off in the darkness, rows of circled tank platoons huddled in the night, one trio of the big steel monsters lit with painful whiteness by portable field lights while a team of Casa mechs in greasy coveralls worked and swore and grunted, changing a set of treads on a big Araldo V, tools squealing against steel and clicking against ceramic.

The huge tank looked oddly vulnerable, its tread spread across the tarmac, one side of the hull tilted up on a set of field jacks, its main gun depressed the full ten degrees. The steel monsters were silent and immobile, the silence interrupted by only the chick-chick-chick of the field generator, the click and creak and whir of tools, and the occasional muttered instruction or curse.

One of the work crew didn't have a tool in his hands; he threw a sketchy salute in their direction, Tetsuo and Benyamin returning it.

"Why'd you do that?" Ari asked Benyamin. "He wasn't saluting us, just Tet."

"He didn't know that." Benyamin smiled. " 'When in doubt, salute it' works on a lot of worlds. Not my idea of—"

"Heads up," Tetsuo said, stepping off the tarmac, snapping down his faceplate. Ari and Benyamin did the same.

Wind and water whipped against their slickers and faceplates as a battery of 200mm howitzers approached, then hissed past, the three big guns riding on their aircushion carriers, their tubes strapped down and pointed rearward.

"Glad of the rain," Benyamin said, wiping his faceplate, then raising it.

"Yeah. The grit would've cut us to shit if it'd been clear."

Buses left every five minutes from the front gate, rising into the air and hissing off into the night. The outbound one was half full.

The rain eased; they climbed aboard.

The smell of garlic and grilling fish drew them to a vendor, a red-faced man who took a mouthful from a wine bottle and swallowed half of it before leaning over the grill to spray the rest across the curled pieces of fish. Steam hissed out into the night.

"Clearprawns," he shouted over the din of the trumpets blaring from the bright end of the dark alleyways.

They bought three flat breads—sort of like matzot, but limp—wrapped around a crunchy, garlicky, meaty something.

"You like?" Benyamin grinned.

Ari nodded.

"Local breed of shrimp," Tetsuo said, echoing their big brother's grin. "Shellfish. Tref. Not kosher."

Ari stopped in mid-bite.

"But the law doesn't apply off Metzada, and we, little brother, are off Metzada," Tetsuo said, taking another big bite of his sandwich. "When in Nova Roma, eat what the Nova Romans eat, eh?"

"But we're in Gonfiarsi, not Nova Roma."

"Same principle."

They walked on.

In the sticky darkness and light of La Inguine, it was hard to think of Gonfiarsi as a city at war; it looked more like a city at play.

There was a sprinkling of uniforms among the men, maybe about twenty percent. The rest wore a variety of clothes, from the stained coveralls of the dockworkers, to the tailcoats and trousers of the officeworkers, to the elegant satin tunics and leggings of the grandees.