“Just leaving now, sir.”
“Very good.” The Trader addressed the two goons: “Follow this man. Act menacing. Loom.”
Both of them grinned. “We can do that,” the smaller one agreed cheerfully, and when Carson started across the deck they flanked him, half a step behind.
Dhuvenig addressed Peters: “Satisfactory?”
“Not entirely,” Peters told him. “We won’t have trouble with him again, but the question of whether we were responsible for the accident remains open.”
“Znereda thought of that,” Dhuvenig said, and the little teacher cocked his head and grinned. “Our next stop is their quarters, where we will explain retarder operations in some detail. We intend to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind.” He looked around. “I think we’ll wait elsewhere, though. You and your friends probably want to get out of here.”
“Yes,” Heelinig said cheerfully. “Peters especially needs to get back to his quarters.”
“Why do you say so, Heelinig?” Peters asked her.
She smiled broadly. “Cherin tells me you have the book I want to read next. You need to have the leisure to finish it.”
“I’ll have it back as soon as possible,” Peters assured her.
“Oh, no,” she waved that off. “Take your time and enjoy it. Just don’t dawdle.” She smiled at the group of gaping sailors, nodded slightly, and turned to walk away.
Dhuvenig and Znereda followed. “Gad,” said Kraewitz under his breath. “What was that last bit about?”
“It’s a joke, like. I’m readin’ a book the XO wants a chance at. She wants me to have time off to finish it so she can have it next.”
There was a thinking pause. “Peters, remind me not to piss you off.” Kraewitz’s grin was a little crooked.
“How’s that?”
The tall sailor looked at Peters. “With the caliber of the guns you can bring up when you want to, I want to stay on your good side. You wan’ see peektures of my seester?”
“It’s not like you to be so quiet all the time,” Todd remarked. “It’s been, what, four days? Over three llor. If the Master Chief was going to call you in for a chat it’d be over and done with by now.”
Peters hunched his shoulders. “Yeah, I reckon you’re right. Stood watch yesterday, Ms. Briggs just kinda half-smiled and went on in the office.” Watches at the entry to enlisted quarters had long since been abandoned, but someone was always on duty in the detachment watchroom. “I can’t help waitin’ for the slug to drop, though.”
“Yeah, well, you’re pretty good at being out of range lately,” Todd commented a little slyly. “You been visiting that engineer chick?”
Peters managed a sour grin. “Nope. Mostly I been hangin’ around the library.”
Todd looked sidelong, grinning, or rather smirking. “Of course in your case it might not matter much longer.”
“What the Hell are you talkin’ about?”
“Haul out your gadget and tell me what the date is back home,” Todd suggested, still looking sly.
Peters obliged, giving the younger sailor puzzled looks between button pushes. “Says here… Well I be damned. January 22, 2055. We done missed Christmas. Again.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Todd reminded him. “Now refresh my memory. When’s your re-up date again?”
Peters went white. “April seventeenth,” he said in a whisper.
“That’s what I thought.” Todd spread his hands. “When we first came aboard it didn’t matter much, we thought we’d be done and back home before first of the year. Then things started going down.” He shrugged. “I’m almost in the same boat, my date’s November the third. If we don’t get back early… but my point is, all you gotta do is not re-up. Then you can wear whatever you want.”
“I am gonna have to look this up,” Peters mused. “What happens if I don’t re-up? Far as I know my CO can extend me, at least until the deployment is over.”
“Yeah, but who’s your CO? Or mine?” Todd pointed out. “According to what the Master Chief understands it’s Dreelig. Can Dreelig extend you in the U.S. Navy?”
Peters considered their recent interactions with Dreelig… “Not hardly, I don’t think. This here is gonna take some research.”
“Keep me posted.”
They didn’t know the name of the planet that loomed gibbous in the aft opening. Incoming ships were visible, black dots against the blue-white limb of the planet and sparks adjacent to it. “Look alive, people,” Howell advised, eyeballing the newcomers through his binoculars. “They’re hot.”
Closer, closer…
Wham! The lead ship boomed in through the door, high and to starboard and way too fast. Three of the fields let go with bull-fiddle twangs, but the fourth held and brought the ugly brick-shape down to a fast walking pace. “Dial ‘em up, everybody,” Howell said grimly. “We got a bunch of cowboys here.” A quick estimate based on the one that was already in would have the settings about right if they were behaving within reason. They cranked the mass readings up and left the speeds where they were. No reason to give the bastards an easy ride.
The second ship banged in, low and to port this time but just as fast. Three twangs, caught on four; they all cranked the mass setting up another notch. The other six were just as bad. Apparently nobody had ever told them about velocity matching. At least they weren’t bouncing off the bulkheads.
Finally there were eight ugly blocks of junk scattered higgledy-piggledy to either side of the ops bay. Warnocki was shouting and being ignored; apparently they intended to leave their vehicles parked any which way. The ground guides had waved wands and flags for parking guidance and finally given up. No matter, as soon as they were out of sight that’d get fixed. The hatches were opening.
There were two of them per ship, one big bruiser and one skinny shrimp each. They had on what looked like kathir suits in bright and clashing colors, cloth caps with narrow bills, and boots that looked like cordovan leather and came to just below the knee. They collected by pairs and moved off to starboard in a loose group with no apparent discipline. Chief Warnocki was still screaming, but if the new guys were impressed they didn’t show it.
“This is gonna be a fun bunch,” somebody said over the earbugs. Once in a while the processors picked the damnedest things to pass on.
“Attention on deck,” Chief Joshua said without great heat. “All hands secure from flight operations. Set the on-orbit watch. Green section, report to Chief Warnocki. Let’s get the ops bay in some kind of order.”
With their zifthkakik inactive the ships were so many lumps, but they all had little wheels on the skids like some types of helicopters. It took a hunt to come up with a bar that would fit in the socket, but before long they were all up on casters and moving. Armstrong effort was enough in most cases, but the one they were assigned had a cracked wheel; Rupert went and begged a towmotor from the plane captains. How to attach it wasn’t obvious, but they got the thing moving, thumping loudly with each turn of the broken wheel.
“Purty, ain’t it,” said Rupert when they had the thing parked.
“Hunh. That ain’t the word I’d choose,” Peters drawled. The ship was a rectangular block, too clunky to be as graceful as a brick, painted in garish semi-geometric designs that were probably numbers and/or squadron mascots, with exposed whatnots of no obvious purpose stuck to the surface. Where it wasn’t garish the bare metal was dull and grimy. At the front was a filthy transparent panel, and behind that were the seats for the crew, two across behind a set of controls as bare as any they’d seen.