The Burning Crown (Stone Blade Book 4) (12 page)

"Slib. Did I pass?"

***

The man gazed at Dunhall a moment before dismissing him and switching his gaze to Outremin. Heh!
That
was his game! Outremin matched his icy stare with a smile while Dunhall recovered his composure. Outremin gave the man another three points in his mental tally.

"Your record says you were dishonorably discharged from service," said Outremin.

"My CO was a coward! His stupidity got most of our unit killed!"

There was Outremin's desired reaction. He didn't show the smile he felt."

"Still, desertion is a serious charge."

The man opened his mouth, then clenched his jaw tight. Outremin saw those muscles twitch as he approached him.

"Careful, sir," said Dunhall.

"Not to worry, serjeant. Seigneur," Outremin paused and checked the data, "Stone will not strike a superior. Isn't that right, Stone?"

The man, Stone, glowered but didn't speak.

"Answer me, mister!" Outremin snapped it as a command.

"No sir!"

This time Outremin didn't hide his smile.

"What we have here, Dunhall," he said, walking slowly around Stone, "is a soldier. A true soldier and not one of the pathetic substitutes we so often see." From behind he brushed imaginary dust off of Stone's shoulder. "We have here a man who can and will kill for his cause, and he will do so without batting an eye. Isn't that right, Stone?"

"Yes sir."

"What we have here," said Outremin, now walking in front of Stone and facing Dunhall, "is a soldier who needs a leader. One who needs, wants and requires a leader. Not just an officer and not just a commander, but a leader. A leader worthy of respect. You, Stone. How many men have you killed?"

"I don't know, sir. I don't keep count."

"Of course. Do you like it? Do you like the sight and smell of death piled at your feet?"

"Not particularly, sir."

"So do you dislike it? Do you hate killing those poor souls whose only offense... is being in your way when they shouldn't? Do you deeply despise that, Stone?"

"Not particularly, sir."

Dunhall's eyes widened at that.

"You see, serjeant," said Outremin, "We have here a man dedicated to his craft and who excels at it, even though his craft is dealing out death. He also takes pride in his work. Don't you, Stone?"

"Yes sir."

"But when the mission is finished he lets it go, slams down a slosh to the buddies he lost and prepares for the next day's work. Right, Stone?"

"Yes sir!"

Outremin nodded. "Get him in uniform, Serjeant Dunhall. I'll have him in my personal service." He caught the slight relaxation in Stone's shoulders. "Also, serjeant, inform the other guards not to try some foolish revenge, else you'll be short more than one man. Prepare yourself, Stone. We may be leaving soon."

"Yes sir!"

Stone didn't smile but Outremin felt it. Now the man had a job he wanted and the leader he needed! Dunhall looked from Outremin to Stone and back, calculating the sums as he did.

"Yes sir, Sir Beau," said Dunhall, "I'll start him on Precedence, Peerage and Conduct as well."

Outremin walked out of the room and toward the comm center in a much lighter humor. Project Silver would continue, no doubt on that, but Outremin personally blessed the fortunate misfortune that led him right here right now. He'd spoken truth to Dunhall, but only the simplest of it. Dunhall failed to see the genuine treasure that Stone would become to the Great House of Varl.

After he informed his Laird of the important matters here he sent off a few queries to a better archive. He did so more to satisfy his curiosity than anything else; Stone's credentials spoke volumes for themselves!

***

John Thompson carefully placed their purchases in the back of the hover Kidwell rented and took a moment to admire the way she moved.

"So," he said as he maneuvered out of the Erin's parking lot, "How long have you known Charlie and Sergeant Stone?"

"Just since they transferred to Liaison," she said, lighting a drugstick.

"Heh. Lucky them."

She smiled and gave him a wink. "They might disagree, Cap'n John."

That puzzled him.

"Because of how much they've lost at cards," she grinned, "Friendship ceases, I play for blood and I win a lot."

Thompson couldn't help laughing at this. Though no closer to solving the puzzle of Charlie, Stone, Kidwell and their situation, he certainly enjoyed puzzling it out on her. She didn't change at all when Stone left so that ruled out anything besides friendship. She also didn't speak of Charlie any other way so that made the three of them friends. By the easy manner and banter between them, she and Stone had seen and survived high-stress situations, possibly even combat. But Kidwell didn't look, act, feel or move military. Then Stone presented Thompson a truly compelling mystery before he left yesterday.

As soon as Thompson grounded, cleared and rented a berth at the port, Stone and Kidwell dragged him to a bank of storage lockers and made him rent a retina-coded one. Afterward they went to CommTronix. C-Tron prided itself on supplying the best and highest-quality electronics and photonics throughout the League. They also had the highest prices but they didn't brag about that. After they finished there, they rented an economy suite at an inexpensive motel. Next he and Stone went job-hunting. Rather, thought Thompson, they went job-
looking
. By him they found a dozen openings either of them could fill but Stone expressed no interest in those. He did take copious notes but Thompson never caught a glimpse of them.

Back at their suite, Kidwell made Thompson surrender his chrono, datapad, comm and even his service ID. She replaced the gear with what they purchased at C-Tron and told him not to worry about the ID. She sealed all of his stuff in a bag and gave it to Stone, who left. Thirty minutes later he returned and informed Thompson that his things were in the storage locker and to leave them there for now.

The chrono and comm both showed subtle signs of tampering. It might have escaped notice by most people but Thompson found it. More, Kidwell knew he found it and knew he knew she knew. Puzzling.

"I suppose I can understand that," he said, "Cards are... serious business."

"They also don't like looking at my duff nearly as much as you do."

That caught him by surprise! He reddened and forced his full concentration into navigating the near-absent traffic. He thought he was being subtle.

"Don't worry about it, John," she said, patting his arm, "I don't mind, and it's really a compliment if you think about it the right way." He felt a wink. "Just don't complain when I... return the favor."

Thompson had to chuckle at that.

"So," he said, trying to recover, "What makes an average day in Protocol?"

"Oh that's subtle, Cap'n John. We train, we learn, we train some more and we take the afternoon off to spiff our uniforms. How long have you known Charlie?"

"Our first assignment was on the proud frigate
Jacob Crewley
. She was operating out of Slyco at the time and we'd just graduated. I enlisted before he did but he blew through Advanced Comm and Astrogation like it was sugarfluff candy. Heh. Rumor said he'd have graduated even sooner except for a few incidents involving data system penetration and compromise."

Kidwell nodded knowingly at that.

"He wasn't any better graduated," continued Thompson, "We were stationed in Sector Prime at... er, Sector Prime. Can't tell you where. We were on ground rotation and Charlie got bored. He got a bunch of us together in the rec room for a massive HyperDeath tournament. That was before Thunder Smite and its dot-twos, you understand. That was the best splatfest I ever did, no blather.

"We didn't find out 'till later that Charlie owned one of the base's petathread core servers to host it. The local brass were torqued off their pizzles... Ah, 'scuse that! They were really upset when one of their main warsim servers went down, stayed down and kept them out for the duration. That got us transferred to Topaz in the Regis sector, plus-plus fast. We probably should've gotten the big boot, I know Charlie should have, but rumor said he told a light admiral to his teeth that he absolutely would not tell them how he owned their box if any of us got punished.

"We were assigned to the
Isaac Ray
once we hit Regis and apparently someone rumored in her captain. He told Charlie to leave the cores the way he found 'em and not to threaten the ship's mission. Charlie jacked one the first time he got a chance. He and a bunch of scrubs had a splatfest, he put the cores back and the captain didn't say a word so we stayed aboard 'till Ceto. I guess you know the story from there."

"Truth," said Kidwell with a laugh, "That sounds just like him, too. At play he's all play and even at work he's still half play. Of course what he considers play usually involves owning someone else's stuff. You should hear him complain when he has to burn through security."

"Heard it, lovely lady. More than once."

"Did he ever tell you what he did before he enlisted?"

Thompson eyed her critically.

"No, Vera. He hinted once or twice at a choice between enlistment and something awful but he never went into detail. I didn't ask, either, because you don't. The Navy doesn't care what you were, only what you will. For truth, that's the only time I really saw him torqued. Some backwater-soggy scrubbie kept asking him and asking, and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Next leave he and Charlie settled it behind a port club. Charlie got two days in the brig and that scrubbie got a transfer somewhere awful. Didn't he tell you and Stone?"

"Nak. You just told me more than he ever did. I could tell he didn't want to talk about it, ever, so I didn't press. We all have histories and sometimes they're not pretty."

"What about Sergeant Stone?" Thompson tried not to sound too eager. He filed under 'interesting' the fact that she, Stone and Charlie fought hard together and Charlie still didn't let loose anything about himself.

"Strong, solid, straight-on and ruddy dangerous to anything in his path," she said, "That's Micah in a nutshell and anything else would make a novel."

Go on! Thompson tried to project that thought.

"Do you remember the ENW and LNN stories about Caustik?"

Thompson worked to recall. "Yes. Some kind of scandal. Long time ago."

"It wasn't that long ago and the stories were horrible. They have a rigidly stratified society with the haves lording it over the have-nots worse than the Imperium. They also had a military unit called the 113th TAS. Caustik called them 'elite' but they were the diametric opposite."

"Wait," said Thompson, "I remember that now. They were tough and dirty. They did stuff no military, or even civilized people, wouldn't think of doing. They sound like a bunch of Esavians, for truth."

"What made the news didn't even touch the surface. The rest of it was even worse." She lit another 'stick. "Those men were subliminally-conditioned and controlled juice troopers. In combat they were nothing more than flesh-and-blood killing machines. Amped-up robots juiced past any pain or injury or mercy."

"Yeah. I read something about that. Scary stapes." He shuddered. "I'm glad I never met one. Hades. That's scary just thinking about it."

"But you did meet one, Cap'n John. Micah was one of their best before they gave him the big kick. He survived the missions and the deprogramming."

The hover bucked and skidded as Thompson pulled off the road and grounded, both of them too rapidly.

"Blather," he said, "Double-blather! You can't be serious."

"Pure truth," said Kidwell, "It still haunts him sometimes."

"Heaven's flames." After a long moment of silence, Thompson started the hover and guided it back into traffic. "That man will never again pay for a slosh if I'm around! Frost! That's awful."

Kidwell nodded and they rode in silence a while.

"Tell me," he said finally, "No blather. What is Protocol?"

"No blather," she answered, just as seriously, "You really don't want to know. Just assume it's another specialized unit, which it is. It's just that the specialization is... not what you might think."

"Fair coin," he said, equal parts happy with what he'd learned and fearful about what he hadn't. Mostly. "So tell me. Charlie's scary smart and sneaky as hades when it comes to computers and such. Sergeant Stone is just six-sigmas scary. Scarier now. What are you?"

"I'm a people person," she said, smiling now, "From a single individual to massive crowds of them. I'm also really good at cards."

"Slib," he nodded, "No more questions then. I'll salute you as soon as we stop."

"I will cause you excruciating pain twenty different ways if you salute me," she said evenly, "Do not do that."

Thompson gave her a small chuckle but made a mental note never to salute her. She sounded quite capable of fulfilling that threat!

Chapter 6. House Connections

Blue frowned at her datapad and said an incredibly vile word. Karr had heard it many times before but never with such devotion.

"Trouble, m'lady?"

"Nothing makes sense." She powered down the 'pad and rubbed her eyes. "I've gone over all the data involving all the Fallstar Lines and BinSu sewer swishes over the past three years. None of them make any sense! None!"

Karr took her shoulders and began massaging them.

"You have ten years to stop that," she said, not opening her eyes, "I trow I've tried every type of correlation I know. I tried fixed and variable time intervals, ship intervals, same-ship, different-ship, cargo-type, owner, pilot... I even tried debt-amount correlation with what we have on it. Squelch!"

"I received just over a year's worth of debt run information today," said Karr, "Did you try it?"

"I did. A high proportion of them correlate with the loss-recoveries but that didn't really help with what I was trying."

"Perhaps Sir Allan will have something from the surrounding planets soon."

"Slib. What do we do until then?"

"I have a thought," said Karr obliquely, "Dinner at Sir Allan's gave me an appetite. I think it's time to make some House connections here."