Sten took out the miniwillygun he always carried in the small of his back and started for the Claggett, the only ship with an entry port yawning.
A saboteur? Spy? Or just a nosy Parker? It didn't matter. Sten put his six men on either side of the port and went silently up the ladder.
He stopped, listening, just at the mouth of the ship's tiny lock. There were clatters, thumps, and mutters sounding from forward. Sten was about to wave the guards up after him when the mutter became distinguishable:
"C'mon, y' wee clottin' beastie. Dinnae be tellin't me Ah cannae launch twa a' once."
Sten stuck his head out the port. "Sorry, gentlemen. I screwed up. I guess I do have a weapons officer. I'll file a correction with the OOD."
The puzzled sentries saluted, shrugged, and walked away.
Sten went forward.
"Mr. Kilgour!" he snapped at the hatch into the control room, and had the pleasure of seeing a head bang in surprise into a computer screen. "Don't you know how to report properly?"
Warrant Officer Alex Kilgour looked aggrieved, rubbing his forehead. "Lad, Ah figured y'd be off playin't polo wi y'r admiral."
Alex Kilgour was a stocky heavy-worlder from the planet of Edinburgh. He'd been Sten's team sergeant in Mantis Section, and then Sten had gotten him reassigned to the palace when Sten commanded the guard. Kilgour had made the mistake of falling in love and applying for a marriage certificate, and the Emperor had shipped him off to flight school months ahead of Sten, also commissioning him in warrant ranks.
Sten had no idea how or why Kilgour was on Cavite—but he was very clotting glad to see him, regardless.
"It wasn't much of a task't' be assigned to y'r squadron, young Sten," Kilgour explained over two mugs of caff in the closet that passed for the Claggett's wardroom.
"First, Ah kept tabs, knowin't y'd be runnin' into braw problems y' c'd no handle. Then a word here, a charmin't smile there, an' whiff, Kilgour's on his way. But enow a' young love. Clottin' brief me, Commander. Where's th' bonny crew?"
Sten ran through the problems. Alex heard him out, then patted Sten's shoulder in sympathy, driving the deck plates down a few centimeters.
"Noo y' can relax, wi Kilgour here. Y'r problem, son, is y' dinnae be lookin't for volunteers in the right places."
"Like hell! I've been recruiting everyplace but the cemeteries."
"It'll no get's' bad we'll hae to assign the livin't dead, Commander. You hae nae worries now. Just trust me."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"Dinnae they be a fine bunch," Kilgour said proudly.
Sten looked askance at the thirty-odd beings glowering at him, then behind him at the firmly sealed portals of the prison. "How many murderers?"
"Nae one. Twa manslaughters wa' the best Ah could do. Th' rest—"
Sten cut Kilgour off. He would have time later to agonize over the fiches. Suddenly the prisoners in front of him appeared as—at least potentially—shining examples of sailorly virtue. The problem was that Sten, never adept at inspiring speeches, was trying to figure out what to say to these beings to convince them that they did not want to remain in the 23rd Fleet's safe, sane stockade.
Alex leaned closer to him to whisper. "Ah could warm 'em up, if ya like, lad. Tell 'em a joke or three."
"No jokes," Sten said firmly.
Alex's response was immediate gloom.
"No even the one about the spotted snakes? Tha's perfect for a braw crew such as this."
"You will especially avoid the one about the spotted snakes. Kilgour, there are laws about cruel and unusual punishment. And if you even dream spotted snakes, I'll have you keelhauled."
Still glaring, Sten turned his attention to the task at hand. The glare must have had a great deal of heat behind it, because the men instantly stopped their shuffling and shifting.
Oh, well. At least he had their attention. Now all he had to do was some fancy convincing. Basic speechmaking—always talk to a crowd as if it were one person and choose one being in that crowd to address directly.
Sten picked out one man who looked a little less dirty, battered, and shifty than the others and walked up to him.
"My name's Sten. I'm commissioning four tacships. And I need a crew."
"Y' comin' here, you're scrapin' the bottom," another prisoner said.
"Sir."
The prisoner spat on the ground. Sten stared at him. The man's eyes turned away. "Sir," he grunted reluctantly.
"No offense, sir." That was the prisoner whom Sten had picked as the centerpiece. "But what's in it for us?"
"You're out. Your records'll get reviewed. I can wipe your charge sheets if I want. If you work out."
"What 'bout rank?" yet another prisoner asked.
"You qualify for a stripe, you'll get it."
"What'll we be doing?"
"Running patrols. Out there."
"Toward the Tahn?"
"As close as we can get."
"Sounds like a clottin' great way to get dead."
"It is that," Sten agreed. "Plus the quarters'll make your cells here look like mansions, the food would gag a garbage worm, and my officers'll be all over you like a dirty ship-suit. Oh, yeah. You'll be lucky to get liberty once a cycle. And if you do, it'll probably be on some planetoid where the biggest thing going is watching metal oxidize."
"Doesn't sound like there's much in it."
"Sure doesn't, sir." This was a fourth prisoner. "Can I ask you something? Personal?"
"GA."
"Why are you doin' it? Tacship people are all volunteers. You lookin' for some kind of medal?"
"Clot medals," Sten said honestly. Then he thought about what he was going to say. "You could probably get my ass in a sling if you told anybody this—but I think that we're getting real close to a clottin' war."
"With the Tahn." Sten's target nodded.
"Uh huh. And I'd a lot rather be out there moving around when it happens than sitting on my butt here on Cavite. Or, come to think about it, sitting here in this pen."
"I still think any of us'd be clottin' fools to volunteer."
"Just what I'm looking for. Clotting fool volunteers. I'll be in the head screw's—sorry, warden's—office until 1600 if any of you feel foolish."
To his astonishment, Sten got seventeen volunteers. He never realized that the final convincement was his slip of the tongue—only somebody who had been a jailbird or on the wrong side of the law would call the warden a screw.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"How many generations has your family been warriors, Lieutenant Sekka?" Sten asked with some incredulity.
"For at least two hundred," the man across from him said. "But that was after the Sonko clan emigrated from Earth. Before that, we Mandingos, at least according to legend, had been fighting men for another hundred generations. That's not to say that all of us have been just warriors. We have been military scholars, diplomats, politicians... there was even one of us who was an actor. We do not often discuss him, even though he was reputedly excellent." Sekka laughed. His baritone chortle was just as pleasing to the ear as the man's perfect voice.
Sten looked again at Sekka's fiche. It looked very good—there were just enough reprimands and cautions from superior officers to match the letters of merit and decorations.
"You like taking chances, don't you?"
"Not at all," Sekka said. "Any course of action should be calculated, and if the potential for disaster is less than that for success, the choice is obvious."
Sten put the fiche back in its envelope and shoved a hand across the tiny folding desk. "Lieutenant, welcome the hell aboard. You'll skipper the Kelly. Second ship on the left."