David Drake: The Forlorn Hope

Still, you do not ignore your guard dog when it starts to growl at children; and Waldstejn did not intend to ignore Private Quade when he started to shake with frustration and rage. The Major could wait for his figures.

The Supply Officer did not bother to close his tunic front, but he did snatch up the equipment belt which he had looped over a drawer pull. He carried it in his left hand. The weight of the radio and holstered pistol made it swing as he strode.

There was a rustle from the other end of the warehouse. Private Hodicky was scrambling out of his sleeping quarters at the back. This was Quade's night for late duty, but Hodicky could hear the knocking and shouts; and he could extrapolate an outcome as well as his Lieutenant could. Waldstejn decided to handle the problem himself anyway. His rank and his assurance that he was acting on instructions of the battalion commander might quiet someone determined to get supplies on the orders of some lower officer.

Besides, it would give Waldstejn a chance to unload some of the frustration which he owed properly to the Major's request.

The knocking, paced but determined, continued as the Lieutenant strode through the lobby. When the call from Headquarters came through, Waldstejn had ordered Quade to letter a sign for the front door: CLOSED BY ORDER OF BATTALION COMMANDER. NO REQUESTS ACCEPTED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Now as Waldstejn threw open the door he shouted, "What's the matter with you? Can't you read the bloody sign?" Then he blinked. Switching to English and a subdued tone, he said, "Oh, ah, Vladimir. Look, I've got another fifteen, thirty minutes work for my CO and there's nobody else here who can run the computer. I really can't even talk to you now."

"Ah, sir," said Private Hodicky from behind the counter. "I can handle the computer, if that's what you want. We had the same unit in my lyceum."

The little man had not intended to admit his competence with the system. As short-handed as the Supply Section was, he would probably wind up with his previous duties as well as work on the computer. For another thing, it was the lyceum computer which had gotten him sent down with six months active and a forced enlistment for the duration of the war. Hodicky had broken into the school office at night and used its terminal to transfer funds to his own bank account. The transaction had been flawless from a technical viewpoint; but the branch manager had known perfectly well that a seventeen year old slum kid should not have been able to withdraw thirty thousand crowns. Using common sense instead of what the terminal told him, the manager had called the police.

But Hodicky had not expected to be serving under an officer like Lieutenant Waldstejn, either…

"I don't mind waiting," said Vladimir Ortschugin. He massaged the heel of the hand with which he had been pounding. "But I need to talk to you as soon as you're free, Albrecht."

"Sure," the Lieutenant said, "just a second." He had tossed a few glasses with the spaceman in company with the two mercenary officers. He could not have remembered Ortschugin's last name for a free trip to Elysion III, however. Switching back to Czech, Waldstejn exclaimed, "You can really work that bitch, Hodicky?" The Private nodded. "Well, you're one up on me," Waldstejn continued. "They're in the middle of a staff meeting and somebody decided they had to know everything about arms, ammunition, and ration stocks. Not justour stores, mind, but unit stocks as well. That means we've got to run platoon and section accounts, issued and expended, for the whole six months to get the bottom line. You can really handle that?"

"Yes, sir," the little man said. He turned and trotted back toward Waldstejn's alcove.

"That's a silver lining I didn't expect," the tall officer muttered in English. He led Ortschugin into the counter area where therewere a pair of tube-frame chairs. They left the outer door open. After struggling with the accounts for two hours, it would be relaxing to handle the sort of oddball supply requests that might come up at this time of night.

"I apologize," Ortschugin said. "I know you must be busy, but-" he took a leather-covered flask out of his breast pocket and uncapped it"we know now what we must have, and it is crucial that we learn as soon as possible who we must see to get it." He handed the flask to Waldstejn, shifting his cud of tobacco to his right cheek in preparation for the liquor's return. "We must have a truck power receptor so that we can fly to Praha on broadcast power."

Waldstejn choked on his sip of what seemed to be industrial-strength ethanol. "What?" he said through his coughing. It was not that the request was wholly impossible, but it certainly had not been anything the local man had expected.

The Spacer drank deeply from his own flask and belched. He stared gloomily upward before he resumed speaking. Several of the brighter stars were tremblingly visible through the plastic sheets. "Our powerplant is gone, kaput," the bearded man said at last. "Replacement and patching the hull, those are dockyard jobs. Wecan fly, using the APU to drive the landing thrusters-but minutes, you see, ten, twenty at most before the little bottle ruptures also under load and we make fireworks as pretty as those this morning, yes?" He swigged again, then remembered and offered the flask to Waldstejn-who waved it away. "So we are still sitting when your Republicans take over, yes?" Ortschugin concluded with a wave of his hand.

The Swobodan's flat certainty that the battalion would be overrun chilled Waldstejn. "That may be, I suppose," the local officer said carefully, "but- well, from what you said that night with Fasolini, that you just shuttled cargo, you didn't mess with politics… I wouldn't think it would make much difference to you. The Rubes don't have much time for mercenaries, I'm told, but like you say, you just drive a truck."

Ortschugin did not at first answer. He began craning his neck, trying to look all around him without getting up from his chair. Waldstejn, guessing the ostensible reason for the other's pause, hooked a wastebasket from under the counter. The spaceman spat into it.

The delay had permitted Ortschugin to consider the blunt question at length. He found he had no better response to it than the truth. "You are right, of course. The problem is not-" he gestured with both hands and grimaced- "patriotism, it is mechanics. We can use the broadcast power line to fly to a dockyard-ifwe have a tuned receiver, andif the dockyard is in Praha. Budweis has an adequate dock, surely; but there is no pylon system to Budweis. We must leave now, and for Praha, if theKatynForest is not to lie here until she rusts away… and ourselves, perhaps, with her. I-"

The Swobodan paused again. He made no effort this time to hide his embarrassment at how to proceed. At last he blurted, "We-Pyaneta Lines- can pay you. To save the vessel, they will pay well, only name it. But there are troops guarding the trucks still in camp, and the officer in charge will not deal with me. You are our last hope."

Waldstejn stood and walked idly to the terminal on the counter. He cut it on. "Diedrichson won't deal with you?" he remarked. "Wonder what got into him. It wasn'thonesty, that I'm sure of." He began tapping in a request, using one finger and wondering how Hodicky was doing on the other terminal. "Diedrichson and the Major are close asthat," the Supply Officer concluded, crossing his left index and middle fingers and holding them up. A massive silver ring winked on the middle finger. A crucifix was cast onto the top in place of a stone setting.

The local officer turned again to his visitor. "So," he said in a tone as precise as a headmaster's, "because you couldn't bribe the fellow in charge of the vehicles themselves, you decided to bribe the Supply Officer. Right? Figured I'd be an easier mark than Diedrichson because we'd had a few drinks together? Thatis right, isn't it, Lieutenant… you know, I've forgotten your last name?"