David Drake: The Forlorn Hope

"Hi, Pavel," said the ex-officer, ex-Cecach citizen. He gestured toward the jumble of ingots on which he sat. It occurred to him that he would need to borrow some kit for at least the next three days. "Make yourself at home."

"Thank you, sir," Hodicky said shyly. "I suppose I ought to call you Captain now." When Waldstejn looked at him with an odd expression, the smaller man added, "They've signed me on, sir-into Black Section with Churchie andDel. I'll be under you again. Ah, if you join."

Waldstejn managed to smile. He put out his hand. "Congratulations, Trooper Hodicky," he said. He shook with his beaming former subordinate. Then the smile faded. He added with the bitterness which had until then been internal, "It's not quite what you were raised for, though, is it?"

"Oh, you mean supply?" the new Trooper said in surprise. "Oh, that was just the army. But Lieutenant Mehdi says if I want, I'll get trained on really hot electronics, the sort of thing I'd never see back on Cecach. Not just computers, but commo and sensors like you wouldn't believe!"

"I suppose I meant the killing, soldier," the ex-officer said flatly. "That's the bottom line, isn't it? For a job as a 'contract soldier'."

Hodicky's face changed, but he did not edge back from the man beside him. "Yes sir," he said, "I suppose it is. I guess I can handle that, sure." He paused. "And I guess I'd rather do it for other people. Leavethem with the hate that eats them up every night. I don't like to feel that way myself."

Waldstejn blinked at the younger man. "Sorry, Pavel," he said, "I don't-"

"Don't understand what it's like to be so small that anybody on the block can beat the crap out of you?" Hodicky said. "And smart enough, smartass enough, that most of them want to try?" He took a deep breath and swallowed. With less passion he continued, "I guess your family had enough money that it wasn't a problem anyway. I'm glad for you, sir… But the first person I ever met who needed me and wantedme around was Q. Andhim and you were the only two who ever tried to stand up for me, ever. Well, I've got a family now, sir. It's not screaming kids and an old man who beats me with a chair leg whenever he's sober enough to move. I'm in the family business. And I'm going to be good at it, all of it."

The anger that had welled up out of the little man's past suddenly evaporated in a smile. He reached out to Waldstejn again, touching the older man on the wrist. "But Mother of God, sir, I won't be as good as you. You talk about killing? Yousaved the life of everybody in this ship!" He waved at the hold and beyond it, the troopers beginning to settle in for another night in a freighter. "And that's why they saved you. We saved you."

Albrecht Waldstejn turned his arm to link his hand again with that of the younger man. "Pavel," he said, "you don't have anything to justify. Certainly not to me."

Hodicky squeezed the hand, then released it as he stood up. "Look, sir," he said. He had lost both the shyness and the anger of previous moments. "I'm not a priest. Maybe Q's burning in Hell, even though he died to save me. But I don't think so. And I don't think God gave us talents we weren't supposed to use. You've got a hell of a talent for leading troops, sir." Smiling again, the little man gave a finger-to-brow Federal salute before he strode away.

I envy you your belief, thought Albrecht Waldstejn. His lips passed only a smile. , The tall, young man looked at his hands. This time he really saw them, the flesh and the crucifix ring, instead of shadows from the past and future. Most of the scrapes and cuts had healed, though there was still a pucker where the head of a deep-driven thorn was working back to the surface.

Waldstejn had not killed anyone, not directly. He was fairly sure of that, as clumsy as he had proven to be with a gun. But the flesh would have looked the same if every shot he fired had snuffed out a life.

And his soul?

It was a big universe, even the human part of it. Perhaps Hodicky was wrong, perhaps there was no God who granted talents… but at one level or another, Waldstejn, too, felt that doing a job well was good, a Good, and that doing a job in the mutual respect of one's companions was a Good as well.

Even if the job were slaughter.

The air whispered with a nearby presence. Waldstejn looked up. Sookie Foyle stood as Hodicky had, with a trace of nervous shyness on her plump face. When she caught the tall man's eye, she smiled into sudden beauty. "I just wanted to, to say I'm glad you made it, sir," she said. "And that I'm glad you're with us."

Instead of gesturing the Communicator to a seat, Albrecht Waldstejn took her by the hand. As he guided her gently down beside him, he said, "You know, Sookie, I've pretty well decided that I'm glad too."