David Weber - The Service of the Sword

All three citizen sergeants were back. All of them donned gloves to protect their hands.

"Have at it, then," said Yuri firmly. For reasons he could not quite understand, he was suddenly filled with confidence. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time.

The feeling didn't last, of course. But, as Cachat had stated, it was eventually over. Through one blurry eye—the other was closed completely—Yuri saw the pistol go back into the holster. And through ears that felt like cauliflowers, he dimly heard the Special Investigator pronounce him innocent of all suspicions. True, the words sounded as if they were spoken grudgingly. But, they were spoken. And properly recorded. Yuri heard Cachat enquire as to that also.

As Citizen Sergeant Pierce helped him over to the corner where the medics waited, Yuri managed to mumble a few words.

"Dink 'y noze id boken."

"Yessir, it is," muttered the citizen sergeant. "Sorry about that. We broke your nose right off. The Special Investigator's orders, Sir."

Cachat, you vicious bastard.

Later, after he was patched up, he felt better.

"You'll be okay, Sir," assured the medic who'd worked on him. "A broken nose looks gory as all hell at the time—blood all over the place—but it's really not all that serious. Few weeks, you'll be as good as new."

Radamacher spent the next several days in his cabin aboard the Hector Van Dragen , recovering from his injuries. Although he was no longer officially under arrest, and thus under no obligation to remain in the cabin, he decided that the old saw about discretion being the better part of valor applied in this case.

Besides, he got a full daily report from Sergeant Pierce anyway, concerning the events transpiring on the superdreadnought—indeed, throughout the entire task force. So he saw no reason to venture out into the corridors himself, since he had a perfectly valid medical excuse not to do so. Philosophically—especially with the aid of new bruises added to old saws—he thought that phenomena which went by such terms as "Reign of Terror" were best observed indirectly.

He got the term "Reign of Terror" from Pierce himself, the day after his interrogation.

"Just checking up, Sir," Pierce explained apologetically after Yuri invited him into the room, "making sure you were okay." The sergeant examined his face, wincing a bit at the bruises and the bandages. "Hope you don't take none of this personally. Orders, Sir. We Marines never had no beef against you, ourselves."

The sergeant's wince changed into a scowl. "Sure as hell never had no beef against Captain Justice. He shouldna had us do that, dammit. It idn't proper."

The injuries to Yuri's face caused his ensuing snort of sarcastic half-laughter to hurt . Especially his broken nose. He added that little item to his long list of grievances against Special Investigator Victor Cachat.

"Ide 'ay nod!" he wheezed. "Ma'ines an'd zuppose do bead dey own ovizuhs." He steeled himself for more pain. "'Ow iz Zha—Gabban 'Usdis—doin'?"

"She's fine, Sir," the sergeant assured him, almost eagerly. "We went as easy as—I mean, well—the Special Investigator left before we started on Captain Justice, Sir. So he wasn't there to watch. So—"

Pierce was floundering, obviously feeling trapped between human sympathy and duty—not to mention the possible Wrath of Cachat. Yuri let him off the hook. Given the difficulty of speaking, he also decided to ignore the citizen sergeant's unthinking use of the forbidden term "sir." He understood full well the word was an indication of Pierce's trust in him.

"Nedduh mine, Ziddezen Zajend. Z'okay. Iz 'uh noze boke doo?"

"Oh, no, Sir!" Yuri had to force down another laugh. The sergeant seemed deeply aggrieved at the suggestion. "Pretty a woman as she is, we wouldn't do nothing like that. Didn't knock out none of her teeth, neither. Just, you know, bruised her up good for the recorder."

Feeling two missing teeth of his own with a probing tongue—they also hurt —Yuri was pleased at the news. He'd always found Sharon Justice a very attractive woman. So much so, in fact, that on more than one occasion he'd had to remind himself forcefully of the prohibition against romantic liaisons between officers in the same chain of command. That hadn't been easy. He was a bachelor beginning to tire of it, Sharon was a divorcée about his own age, and their duties brought them into constant contact. Just to make things worse, he was pretty sure his own attraction to her was reciprocated.

The citizen sergeant began moving about the cabin, fussily tidying up here and there. As if trying, somehow, to make amends for the events of the previous day. There was something utterly ludicrous about the whole situation, and another little laugh wracked pain through Yuri's face.

"Nedduh mine, zajend," he repeated. Then, gesturing toward the door. "Wad's 'abbenin' oud deh?"

Pierce grinned. "It's a regular reign of terror, Sir. Look on the bright side. You're well and truly out of it, now. Whereas those sorry worthless bastards out there—"

He broke off, coughing a little. It was also against regulations for a Marine noncom to refer to the officers and crew of a State Security SD as "sorry worthless bastards."

Under the circumstances, Yuri decided to overlook the citizen sergeant's lapse. Indeed, with a lifted eyebrow, he invited Pierce to continue. Even went so far, in fact, as to invite the Marine to sit with a polite gesture of the hand.

For the next half an hour, Pierce regaled Radamacher with Tales of the Terror. He'd had a ringside seat at the proceedings, since he and the other Marines from the Veracity had continued to serve as Cachat's impromptu escort and ready-made police force.

"Got some StateSec people with us too, of course, making the actual arrests. But those are all okay folks. From the fleet. The Special Investigator brought 'em over from half the ships in the task force."

Yuri was puzzled. "'Ow did 'e know widge ones do ged?"

The sergeant's face flushed a little. "Well. Actually. He asked us, Sir—we Marines, I mean, especially Major Lafitte—which ones we'd recommend. If you can believe it. Then he went into Captain Justice's cabin—she's just down the corridor a ways—and cross-checked the names with her."

Yuri stared at him.

"It was weird as hell," Pierce chortled. "He went over the list with the captain just as calm as could be. Didn't even seem to notice the bandages."

No, the bastard wouldn't, Yuri thought sourly. Cachat would pass out beatings like he'd pass out any other assignment.

But there wasn't really much anger in the thought. Radamacher was just fascinated by the peculiarities of the whole thing. Cachat's actions were like a grotesque Moebius strip concocted in the mind of a torturer. First, Cachat used the Marine contingent from Sharon's own ship to beat her into a pulp. Then, he turned around and consulted with those same Marines with regard to StateSec assignments—and cross-checked the recommendations with the same woman they'd just gotten through torturing!

Utterly insane. Not simply the actions of a fanatic, but of one who was unhinged to boot. It wasn't precisely against regulations for an officer of StateSec to rely on Marines for their recommendations for StateSec staff assignments. But that was only because it never would have occurred to anyone that such a regulation was needed in the first place. It just wasn't done, that's all. As well pass regulations forbidding stars to revolve around planets!

As the days passed and the citizen sergeant continued his Tales of the Terror, however, Yuri soon realized that Cachat was not a man to concern himself with "what isn't done." Results were all that mattered to him, and—fanatic or not; unhinged or not—results he was certainly getting.