William Fortchen - Action Stations

He smiled slightly, as if surprised at what he had just said. "Almost as good as what I could have done with those guns."

Geoff laughed and slapped Vance on the shoulder.

"You boys ready?"

Turner, with Hans by his side approached. Hans paused to look up at the damaged wing.

"Even getting paid fifty thousand ain't gonna cover this damage," he said grimly.

"If we still have a Confederation in a month, send me the bill. I'll see it gets paid. Come on, we can't keep Blucher waiting."

Geoff fell in two paces behind Turner, again trying to assume the role of a Confed officer working as an adjutant. He found it surprising that the president of the Landreich, Johann Blucher was willing to meet with them, based on nothing more than a call from Turner that had taken only thirty seconds. Even though Blucher was head of a state that the Confederation did not even recognize as a legitimate government, and some claimed was an outright haven for rogues, thieves, and murderers, Geoff was nervous about his appearance, and furtively tried to pick the dirt and grime out from under his fingernails as they strode across the scorching-hot tarmac.

A couple of ancient Gotha surface-to-space interceptors lifted off from the runway behind them, engines roaring at full afterburner as they nosed up to vertical and punched into supersonic speeds, the double boom slamming into Geoff so that he winced. Vance watched them disappear and grinned.

"Hell, if I tried that stunt on Johnson Island I'd be grounded for a month."

"Asinine rules, that's the Confed," Hans said casually as he lead the way into small concrete bunker. A lone guard, with a lightweight gatling assault gun stopped them at the entry, took a quick look at their IDs and tossed them back.

"All the way down first office on the right, he's expecting you."

Geoff bristled slightly at the guard's tone, but knew better than to say anything as he followed Turner down a winding staircase that took them through a dozen meters of reinforced concrete. A durasteel door blocked the bottom, where another guard waved them through, slamming the door shut behind them.

"Turner, you old son of a bitch."

A towering, cadaverous-looking man stood in the semidarkened corridor as if waiting for them. Winston took the man's hand and the two, laughing, slapped each other on the shoulders, both of them swearing affectionately at each other.

"Haven't seen you since you went back to hide behind a desk at your damned Academy."

"Well, I got tired of putting my ass on the line for idiots like you," Turner replied and the two laughed, slapping each other yet again and launching into another round of crude invective that left Geoff startled. He had never imagined that old Winnie had such a command of Anglo-Saxon derived words.

Turner finally looked back at the other three and introduced them. Geoff didn't know what the protocol was for saluting an unrecognized head of state of what was officially considered to be a renegade government, and decided in the end to err on the side of safety.

Blucher merely nodded at the salute and then looked over at Hans.

"So you're the new owner of Phantom."

"Lazarus, you mean."

Blucher laughed. "It was the Bouncing Belch before that and before that it was Snafu. Kelly wasn't all that bad, sorry he bought it."

"Bad luck."

"By the way, there's a ten-thousand-credit price on your head."

"Sara?"

"Yeah. Dumb bastards offered me five more if I'd turn my back. Can you believe the bastards? Anyhow, thought you should know. Look out for the boys on that Ugati docked upstairs."

"Thanks."

The two continued to talk for a couple of minutes about the Sarn clan, before Blucher finally pointed to his office door and ushered them in. Geoff looked around in surprise. He'd seen flats owned by newly minted second lieutenants that were more lavishly furnished. A battered sofa and three worn leather chairs were the only places to sit. Blucher opened the door of a gasping, rattling fridge and looked at his guests.

"Cold ones?"

"Thank God, yes," Turner gasped, and without asking the others Blucher pulled out five bottles of beer and passed them around. Popping the cap onto the floor, he sat down on top of his desk.

"Johann, take a look at this," Winston said, and reaching into the breast pocket of his coveralls, he pulled out a memory cube and tossed it over. Blucher got behind his desk, loaded the cube, and for several minutes he silently examined the data.

"Where did you run into these bastards?"

"Actually not sure. It was designated as jump point Epsilon out of The Pit. A Cat squadron came out of jump point Alpha, the one we used to go in. We took off and headed into Epsilon, saw these bastards and got the hell out."

"Know the place, traded there myself. Did they get old Gar? Damn, he was one crafty devil. He'd sell the teeth out of his dead grandmother's skull if he thought he could turn a credit. Funny though, he actually ran a pretty honest business in that old cylinder of his."

"Well, the cylinders inside the hole," Hans replied. "They must have smashed up at least twenty ships trying to get away, don't know if your friend made it."

"He'll survive, always has. By the way, you went into sector 42–33 Beta if you want to look on the nav charts we got of that region."

Hans looked at Blucher.

"I didn't know anyone had charts of out there."

"You never asked," Blucher replied. "Trade secret, boy, be glad to sell you one for a hundred thousand if you should ever go back out that way. But that's for private venture stuff only, not Confed business. If they want a chart it'll be a flat million or nothing."

Turner chuckled. "Hell, I didn't even know you had one."

"Well, you dumb bastard, you should have come and seen me first rather than go sneaking through here the way you did, hooking up with a green kid and then disappearing. Heard all about it after you left and was downright insulted."

"I was on something of an unofficial trip. Sorry. Too many people around you I don't know."

"Your problem, not mine. Anyhow, those Cats are at a good system. Eleven known jump points, half connecting back into the Empire, one angling into the demilitarized zone between here and the Confed, the others heading out beyond our systems and theirs. Logical place to marshal a fleet for an attack."

Turner briefly related the main points of their trip while Blucher continued to study the scan, punching in some enhancements to clarify the image. Geoff came around to the side of the desk and watched as the computer scrubbed the image. Though Blucher's office seemed like something straight out of a bad vid about frontier life, the hardware on his desk was of the latest design. From their long distance scan the computer created images of startling quality, providing analysis of external weapons systems, engines, estimated gross weight and last reported locations of many of the ships.

"Mostly their older stuff, some of it from the war against the Varni. So where the hell is the new equipment?"

"Poised somewhere else," Turner replied.

"It's those damn heavy assault ships that have me worried," Blucher said. "Look closely there-" and he pointed at the screen, " — those are armored space-to-surface landing craft. Each of those ships can handle a brigade of Imperial marines. This isn't a maneuver. The marines stay close to Kilrah, they're part of the Imperial line. If they're deploying their Imperial assault legions, this is an attack to take possession."

He pointed at another ship. "Look at this one, it's got one hell of a radiation signature. I bet the damn thing's packed to the gills with thermo nukes. Blast down the ground defenses, then send in the assault troops to mop up."

Geoff could not contain himself any longer.