David Drake: The Forlorn Hope

"In the possession of her crew," said the mercenary, "but under thecontrol of the cannons trained on her, wouldn't you say?"

The hull shuddered. A pair of gantries had begun to winch the damaged fusion bottle out of the Power Room. The omni-directional bracing had been cut, but the weight of the unit itself had pressure-welded the bottle to the deck during years of service.

"Not that we plan to be unreasonable, Mr. Benoit," resumed Hussein ben Mehdi. He unfolded a print-out run from theKatynForest's own manifesting computer. "In fact," the mercenary said, "we have a proposition here that will reduce the out of pocket cost to your client by twenty percent."

Forty percent, in all likelihood, ben Mehdi said within his smiling face-though he would hold out for thirty-five down to the last. But Pyaneta would take the deal.

By Allah, they would take it if the Company had to ram it down their throats with gun barrels.

"How they hanging, Pavel?" asked Churchie Dwyer. He did not look up from the lap board on which he was dealing cards.

"Churchie, good God, he's been condemned!" blurted the Cecach private. "One of the repair crew just told me!"

"Yeah, that's old news," said the veteran, continuing to deal. "Guess you wouldn't have heard it, not leaving the ship-" he grinned up at the deserter-"so you don't get recognized and wind up in the next cell."

"Old news?"Hodicky repeated. He squatted to bring his face nearer to that of Dwyer. "Youknew that?"

"Yeah, we been playing poker with some of the guards at the Karloff Barracks," Churchie said. "They mentioned it a couple nights ago, didn't they, Del?"

Del Hoybrin was seated on the deck beside Churchie. He nodded happily. "Hi, Pavel," he said. "I can't believe this!" Hodicky said. "The Lieutenant saves your butt how many times? And all you care about's how much money you can win from theguys whore going tokill him!"

Dwyer peeked at each of the hands he had just dealt. He sighed and slid them together into a pack again. "Win?" he said. "Not with the cards I've been getting, kid. Why, evenDel here's been making out better'n I have."

"That's right, Pavel," agreed the big trooper.

"Tried everything, you know," Churchie went on while his fingers shuffled as if with their own sentience."Been carrying over liters of industrial ethanol, cutting it with juice while we play. Hell, those hunkies still clean me out every afternoon. And don't they crow about it!" The gangling man dealt the cards, face down as before.

Half a dozen workmen began manhandling the base unit of a vibratory cutter through the hatchway. The holds and the compartments aft were theirs, twenty-four hours a day while the repairs went on. The bridge and the cramped quarters forward provided a little privacy but no real quiet. Troopers had rented several rooms outside the port with the tacit approval of Federal officials while negotiations continued.

The Cecach private licked his lips. Anger gone, he pleaded, "Churchie, Iknow you don't mean that. Look, if you know people in the place he's being held, maybe you can get through to see him. There's got to be something we can do!"

"Churchie says he can appeal," put in Del Hoybrin. He frowned as he generally did after he had spoken of his own volition.

"Appeal!"Hodicky shouted."Appeal! Sure, to Commandant Friis. Hisis Morale Section. Mary and the Saints, he complains that his men ought to have the same authority everywhere that they have within ten klicks of the Front. To shoot people withoutany trial for 'crimes against discipline'!"

"Ever been in Karloff Barracks?" Churchie asked unperturbed."Thought you might have trained there or something."

The little man shook his head. He was unsure where the question was leading. "No," he said, "the place has just been the military prison since before I was born." He grimaced. "They stopped executing people there a couple years ago. Too many complaints about the shooting right in the center of town, since Friis really got Morale Section 'organized'."

"Well, Pavel," said the veteran judiciously, "I don't see there's much good in you getting your bowels in an uproar, then." He began to turn over the hands he had just dealt. "Feel like a game of something?"

Pavel Hodicky slumped. The anger had burned out. Now the hope was gone too. "Then that's it," he said dully. "After all he did for you, and you're just going to leave him to die."

"Umm, I don't remember that I said that," commented the veteran. He glanced over toward the dockers who were hoisting their apparatus into position. The six poker hands were nowface up on the board in Dwyer's lap. The first four of the hands he had dealt so swiftly were straight flushes, king through nine in each suit. The fifth hand was four sevens and the ace of spades.

The last poker hand was a trey and two pairs- aces and eights.

Churchie Dwyer picked up the last hand, the Dead Man's Hand which Wild Bill Hickok had held when a bullet spattered his brains over the card table. "No," said the veteran, "I don't remember saying that at all."

"Hey Doc," gibed one of the troopers in the rented room, "his hang better than yours. Maybe you ought to go back to bodies."

The crewman from theKatynForest beamed over the other sewing machine. He had just enough English to catch the drift of the compliment.

Marco Bertinelli gestured angrily. "Maybe you'd like nice business suits?" he demanded.

"Hey, I don't need the shears in my eyes," said Iris Powers, though the gesture had not really been that close. She stood with her arms out, ready for the Corpsman to drape her with the swatch he was cutting to length.

Bertinelli bent to his work again. "Look," he said, "tailoring, it's an art. My old man, he'd kill me-sure. But if you make fatigues-" he nodded to the wedge of camouflage print against Trooper Powers' arm- "they've got to look like fatigues, right?"

"Goddam," said Sergeant Hummel as she tried to tug down the legs of her own new garment. "I swear this crotch seam has teeth. But yeah, you're right, Doc. We're rolling our own instead of picking them up ready made so we don't ring too many bells. Looking like the Federation Guard isn't exactly a low-profile idea."

"There's plenty of troopsaround in tailored uniforms," objected the trooper who had made the first comment. "Hell, Praha's so rear-echelon it's ninety percent asshole."

"Sure," agreed Marco Bertinelli. Perfect, the cuff would be a centimeter too long. "But it isn't the strack troops who get assigned tothis kind of duty, is it?"

Pinched lips rather than words indicated agreement all around the room.

"Kings full!" sang the Sergeant of the Guard as he slapped his cards on the table. "Sweet bleeding Jesus, Churchie, it was the best night of my life when I ran into you in Maisie's last week. I swear to God, you're buying the best poker education a man could want."

There was a buzz from the monitor in the glazed booth attached to the guardroom. "Sarge," called the soldier there, "it looks like the van, but it's early."

"Well, handle it," said Sergeant Bles. His fingers trembled, organizing the pile of large-denomination scrip he had just swept from the table. The other two guards in the game watched their sergeant enviously, but they had folded after the draw. One of them took the deck as Churchie Dwyer passed it with a glum expression.

"I don't understand their papers," the man actually on duty called plaintively. The guard post was a brick room built against the inner face of the wall. The booth had a view of the entrance road, from the double-barred gates to the line of barracks converted to prison blocks. A fiber-optics system gave the monitors in the booth both a close-up and a panorama of anyone who pulled up to the front of the gate.