"What, good Alex, do you think of our Colonel Mahoney right now?"
"Ah'm thinkit h' beit puttin' us in ae world ae drakh. Ae this momit, Ah nae b'thinkit kindly ae th' boss."
"So we hire these kids?"
"Frae m'point, Sten lad, there be nae ither choice."
Computer printouts littered the room. Sten dragged a paw through his now-longish hair and wondered why the clot anybody ever wanted to be a general in the first place. He never realized how much paperwork there was before you got to say Charge!
Alex was sprawled on the couch, placidly going through a long, fan-folded report, and Egan hunched over the computer keyboard. He tapped a final series of keys and straightened.
"Ready, Colonel. All units are on standby."
"Aye," Alex agreed, tossing the logistics printout to one side and reaching for a nearby bottle.
"Sten's Stupidities," Sten said, coming to mock-attention and throwing a salute to the winds. "Ready for duty, saaah! I have two hundred who're—"
"Two hundred and one," the voice rumbled from the corner of the room.
Alex was on his feet, pistol ready, as Sten hit attack stance.
The voice shambled forward. Sten decided the man must be both the ugliest and most scarred humanoid he'd ever seen.
He held both hands up, palms forward, waist level, in the universal I-bear-no-arms symbol. Sten and Alex relaxed slightly.
"Who the drakh are you?"
The man looked down. Picture a giant, two-and-a-half meters tall, looking hunch-shouldered and shamefaced.
"Name's Kurshayne," he said. "I want to go with you."
Sten relaxed and grabbed the bottle. "We closed recruiting yesterday. Why didn't you apply then?"
"Couldn't."
"Why not?"
"I was in the clink."
"Nae problem wi thae," Alex said, trying to be friendly. "All ae us bin thae. E'en m'mither."
"But I ain't with any mob," Kurshayne said. "There weren't nobody to stand my bail."
"If you're solo, what are you doing on Hawkthorne?" Egan asked.
"Lookin' for work."
"Any experience?" Sten asked.
"I guess so," the giant answered. "I got this."
He pawed through his waistpouch, dug out a very tattered and greasy fiche, and reluctantly handed it to Sten.
Sten took it and dropped the card into the pickup. It started as a standard Guard Discharge Certificate:
THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE BEARER IS KURSHAYNE, WILLIAM PRIVATE
TERM OF ENLISTMENT: 20 YEARS
ASSIGNMENT: FIRST GUARDS ASSAULT MILITARY SCHOOLS: NONE DECORATIONS AWARDED: NONE HISTORY: 21 Planetary Assaults, First wave. 12 Relief Expeditions, 300 support assaults (TAB XI FOR DETAILS), Brought up for following awards: Galactic Cross, four times; Imperial Medal, eight times; Titanium Cluster, sixteen times, Mentioned in Dispatches, once. Reduced in rank, 14 times (TAB X2 FOR DETAILS).
The fiche continued scrolling. Sten looked up at the giant with considerable awe. Four times this Kurshayne was up for the Empire's highest medal? And...
"Why'd you get busted fourteen times?"
"I don't get along with people."
"Why not?" Egan asked.
"Dunno, really. I guess I like 'em okay. But then-then they do things. Things that don't look right. And I gotta do something about it."
I have more than enough troubles, Sten thought, and took the man's fiche out of the pickup. He handed it back to the man.
"Kurshayne, if we weren't fully manned..."
"Beggin't y'r pardon, Colonel." Alex.
Sten held. Alex paced slowly around the giant.
"Ah knae ye," he said, very, very softly. "Y'r a mon whae knowit th' right, but y' dinnae ken whae thae be't betters'n y' Aye, Kurshayne, Ah knae y'ilk."
Kurshayne glowered down at the rotund sergeant.
"Nae, Ah proposit ae wee game," Alex said silkily. "Y' ken aye punch?"
"I know one punch, little man," the giant said. "Do you want to play it with me?"
"Aye. Ah do thae," Alex said.
"You go first."
"Nae, m'lad," Alex said, a grin flickering across his broad face. "Y'be't thae applicant. Ah be't thae mon. Gie i' y'best shot."
Without warning Kurshayne swung, an air-whistling roundhouse punch that caught Alex in his ribs. The punch tumbled him, rolling and spinning back against the couch, the couch crashing over, and then Alex slammed flat against the wall. He lay motionless for a moment.
Then he picked himself up and came back. "Aye, tha be ae braw slug, m'lad," he said. "B'nae i' be't mae turn.
"An' Ah be't fair. Sportin', likit. Ah gie y'warnin'. Nae likit yae, wha hie me ae sucker punch ae i' y'be't ae Campbell. Nae, Ah w'hit ye, mon.
"But since Ah want ye in m'troop, Ah nae will damage y' severe't. So Ah tell y' whae Ah'Il be hittint y'. Ah be strikit y' ae th' center chest. Light-like, f'r Ah nae want y' hurt."
Sten had never heard Alex's dialect so thick. Correctly, he figured Kilgour was angry. Sten decided he was sorry for what was about to happen. Illogically, he was starting to like the dumb giant.
Kurshayne braced for the punch.'
Instead, Alex delicately reached forward and picked Kurshayne up with... clottin' hell, one hand, Sten realized... and lifted him clear of the ground. And then, seemingly casually, threw Kurshayne.
Two hundred kilos of Kurshayne, as if the laws of gravity had been put on hold, flew through the air. Hit the wall—two meters off the ground—and the wall went, crumbling into plas destruction in the corridor outside.
Kurshayne pin wheeled after the wall, out into the corridor. And, moving very, very fast, Alex went after him. He bent over the semiconscious relic and near whispered.
"Nae, nae, y'wee mon. Y'hae ae job, Ah reck. But y'll no playit thae game twice, Ah reck."
Kurshayne fogged his way to his feet. "Nossir."
"Ah'm nae sir. Ah'm nae but aye sergeant. Yon Sten, h'be't sir."
Kurshayne struggled into rigid attention. "Sorry, Sergeant."
"Ah ken y'be't sorry, lad," Alex crooned. "Nae, y'be't off aboot i', an' Ah wan' y'back here in ten hours, clean't up an' ready t'fight."
"Sir!"
And Kurshayne saluted and was gone. Sten and Egan were still gaping as Alex turned.
"W noo hae 201 soldiers, Colonel Sten," he said. Then staggered to the console and snagged Sten's bottle.
"Clottin" hell!" Alex groaned. "Yon lad nie near kilt me! Th' things Ah do't frae th' Emp—th' cause!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AND I HAD a great future as a cybrolathe operator, Sten thought mournfully, looking at his assembled troops. They were standing in what could only be called Parade Motley on the landing ground, just in front of the Bhalder.
Oh, Mahoney, I will get you, Sten groaned. There were Vosberh's troops. Unshaven, unbathed, but well armed and, Sten conceded, fairly lethal.
Beside them, giving many hostile looks, were Ffillips' commandos. Spit and polish.
There were other one or two at a time pickups and Egan's crew of studious-looking Lycee kiddies.
Why me all the time? Sten wondered.
Beside Sten were flanked Vosberh, wearing a simple brown uniform, Ffillips in her personally designed dress uniform (suspiciously close to Guards full-dress), Alex, and Kurshayne.
Kurshayne had evidently decided he was cut out to be Sten's personal bodyguard and had equipped himself with what he thought was an ideal weapon.
As far as Sten could tell, since Kurshayne refused to let anybody examine it, it was a full-auto projectile weapon, with about a one-gauge barrel.
Sten knew that no human could fire it without being destroyed by the recoil. Whether Kurshayne could do it was still a moot point.