David Sherman & Dan Cragg - Starfist 07 - Kingdom's Swords

PROLOGUE

Clouds made the night so dark a Soldier of the Lord would have had to step on a

raider to know one was in the area, and the rain and thunder masked what little noise

the raiders made as they crawled through the muck and ground cover toward the

Army of the Lord outpost. Lack of visibility didn't bother the raiders; their plan was

detailed, they knew their routes. Nor did the rain bother them. The receptors that

lined their sides detected and located life-forms, could tell the difference between

their own kind and others and were more effective in the rain than on a clear, dry

night.

The Soldiers of the Lord were all gathered in their barracks or in the duty office.

None of them manned the observation posts; on a night like this, they knew, there

would be no one about to guard against. Most of the eighteen soldiers in the duty

office ignored the displays from the remote sensors; the effectiveness of the sensors

was seriously reduced in severe weather, and they were unlikely to detect the

approach of any mass smaller than a mob or an army, though no mob or army

would be on the move on such a night. The Soldiers of the Lord had grown to like

dark and stormy nights, for it gave them a break from the toils of guard duty at that

remote outpost.

Which was why the raiders selected a dark, stormy night.

A Master led the night's raid, though with only fifty Fighters slithering and crawling

toward the barracks and duty office, it needed no more than a Leader in command.

This raid was the first direct strike in several months against the Army of the Lord,

and the Over Master in command of operations in that sector of Kingdom greatly

desired certainty of success.

Sword Worshipful, the duty noncommissioned officer, briefly glowered at the

displays. He took security duty in the farming lands more seriously than most; he

thought most of the soldiers in the outpost risked their immortal souls with their

laxness. But glowering at the displays did nothing to improve their efficiency.

"I am going to make the rounds," Sword Worshipful announced.

The other soldiers looked at him curiously as he donned his slicker. What posts

would he check? Everyone who should be manning a post was huddled in the duty

office, reading sacred tracts, talking, or sinfully playing cards. There were no

manned posts for him to make the rounds of.

"Soldier Truth, Soldier Hellsbane, come with me."

Soldiers Truth and Hellsbane grumbled at having to leave the dryness and warmth

of the duty office, but they didn't grumble loudly or long; Sword Worshipful was an

easy taskmaster, but a harsh disciplinarian. They shrugged into slickers and picked

up their weapons, then stood next to the exit while Sword Worshipful gave

instructions to the assistant duty noncom.

Outside, rain battered the three men as they headed toward Post One. It drummed

on their heads and shoulders, cascaded down their slickers, and gusts of wind blew

it up under their raingear. Except when bolts of lightning allowed brief glances of the

surrounding farmland, they could see no farther than a rod through the driving rain.

Yet, with the ease born of constant repetition, they found their way unerringly to the

post.

Sword Worshipful stepped down into the unmanned watch post. Under the

woven-reed overhead the rain dripped rather than pelted, but water flowed steadily

into the pit, and muddy water sloshed over the tops of his boots. Soldiers Truth and

Hellsbane huddled together on the post's leeward side.

Careful not to allow water to drip onto the infrared scanner Sword Worshipful

raised its waterproof shell and leaned his eyes into the viewing port. He scanned the

area assigned to Post One, saw nothing but wind- and rainswept grain as far as the

treeline windbreak. Carefully, he secured the scanner, then called in an "all-secure"

report.

They repeated the process at Post Two and Post Three. Soldiers Truth and

Hellsbane looked forward to returning to the warmth and dryness of the duty office.

The five Fighters were close to each other, and had a Leader seen them, they

would have been ordered to maintain the proper interval. But neither Leader was

close enough to detect their bunching up. Suddenly, a Fighter hissed at the

others—something—three somethings—was approaching from the left. They

needed a Leader to tell them what to do.

One of the five had a genetic defect—his intelligence was far higher than Fighters

were bred for, and he quietly harbored the ambition to become a Leader. He growled

an order to his four companions to get on line facing the oncoming trio. The four

hesitated; obeying orders from another Fighter was as unheard of as a Fighter giving

orders. But the one growled his orders more harshly, and the four recognized the

command voice of a Leader even though they knew it came from another Fighter.

They formed the line as ordered.

Three humans loomed out of the darkness, two slightly to the rear and flanks, one

centered and leading. The Fighter with the genetic defect aimed the spout of his

weapon at the centered Earthman, the obvious Leader, and shouted the command to

fire.

Each Fighter fired at the closest Earthman. Fluid, vaguely greenish in the dark, shot

from the muzzles of the Fighters' weapons and splashed on the Earthmen, eating

through the waterproof fabric, through the soldiers' uniforms, and into their flesh.

The screams of Soldiers Truth and Hellsbane were drowned out by a crack of

thunder. Sword Worshipful didn't scream; the fluid had struck him square in the

face, was sucked into his lungs, and he began burning from the inside.

The defective Fighter barked another order, and the other Fighters fired again at

the Earthmen. He ordered them to cease fire and crawled to the downed Earthmen to

make sure they were dead. One wasn't, but would be soon. The Fighter turned away,

leaving the Earthman to die agonizingly in his own time, and ordered his companions

to resume the crawl toward the duty office.

Some minutes later the assistant duty noncom noticed that Sword Worshipful was

late reporting in from Post Four. As he wondered why, the door of the duty office

burst open and ten shrieking, growling, barking, manlike hellspawn were in the office,

spraying greenish fluid. The soldiers screamed as the viscous fluid began eating into

their flesh. Five who weren't hit in the initial volley scrambled for their weapons, but

two of them were doubled up in agony before they reached the rack. A third was hit

before he could bring his weapon to bear. The fourth was hit by three streams, and

his finger spasmed on the trigger of his fléchette rifle, spraying miniature darts into

the ceiling of the duty office. One man got off a directed shot, and one of the demon

creatures screamed as fléchettes shredded its chest. Half a dozen streams of fluid

struck that soldier, and he died much faster, though with no less agony, than the

others.

Simultaneously, twenty raiders burst into the barracks. The weapons of the

off-duty soldiers were locked in racks. The slaughter was one-sided.

A Leader and three Fighters raced into the small side building that housed the First

Acolyte and Lead Sword who commanded the outpost. They caught the First

Acolyte in the bath and the Lead Sword at his prayers. Both died before they could

begin to fight.

The Fighters who had been left outside as a blocking force saw no action. In less

than a minute the fifty-six Soldiers of the Lord who manned the outpost were dead.

The Master commanding the raid ground his teeth when told of the Fighter killed in

the duty office. He ordered the body to be bagged and all interior surfaces of the

office to be sprayed with acid from the weapons, then had the building burned

down. The few helix traces left should prove impossible to find.

CHAPTER ONE

Big Barb's, the combination bar, bordello, and ship's chandlers that served as third

platoon's headquarters when the men were on liberty in Bronnysund, was jumping.

To start the evening out, Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass, along with Joe Dean,

Rock Claypoole, and some others, had shoved three tables together in what they

called the banquet room and ordered beer. Hours had passed, during which the

other members of third platoon had trooped in by ones and twos, each new arrival

greeted by loud cheers and hardy backslapping. Eventually almost the entire platoon

was crowded around the tables, drinking, eating, and singing, as Bass held court at

one end. Sitting nearby was Lance Corporal Chan, the unofficial honoree of the

evening. Chan would soon be the newest corporal in third platoon, and Bass and the

other NCOs were flexing their arms and clenching their fists in anticipation of the

pinning-on ceremony. Chan sipped his beer happily, eagerly anticipating the sore

shoulders that would plague him for a week after Captain Conorado pinned on the

new chevrons.

Owen the woo perched comfortably on Dean's shoulder, glowing the bright pink

of wooish contentment, rocking gently back and forth, seemingly taking in everything

with his enormous eyes. Top Myer had taken good care of the woo while Dean was

away on Havanagas, but he confided to the lance corporal upon his return, "Dean,

the little bastard never got beyond light gray the whole time you were away. He

missed you, lad!" Owen extended an appendage and snatched up a ceramic

fragment from a stein someone had broken earlier. The fragment disappeared down

Owen's gullet and stayed down. It seemed to like ceramics. Several Marines

applauded, and Claypoole, who was watching the woo carefully, was sure the little

creature appreciated the attention. Claypoole had not forgotten the corpsman's story

about the woo shouting a warning when the Skinks attacked his aid station on

Waygone. Though Claypoole had never heard the woo make any sound that could

be interpreted as words, he believed the story.

Barmaids flitted in and out of the room, trays loaded with one-liter steins of

Reindeer Ale. The women slapped away eager, groping hands and enthusiastically

traded verbal barbs with the Marines, to everyone's great enjoyment. To be a

barmaid at Big Barb's, a girl had to know English well and be able to think and move

quickly, because after a few beers many of the patrons forgot who was a barmaid

and who was a whore. But Big Barb's other girls were there too, matching the

Marines beer for beer, joining in with the singing and holding their own in the

repartee. To be a whore at Big Barb's a girl had to know some English, work fast,

and move men quickly to the upstairs rooms and give them what they bargained

for—and if they were really good, more than they bargained for. That's what kept

'em coming back.

But that night was special, not particularly because Lance Corporal Chan was

anticipating his forthcoming promotion, but because it was one of those nights

fueled by the magical chemistry of alcohol, companionship, and shared experiences.

It was just one of those magnificent nights for drinking with friends. They'd worry

about their heads in the morning.

Occasionally a Marine would get up, his arm around one of the girls, and drift out

into the bar, headed for the stairs. Everyone cheered and clapped and shouted ribald

advice to the pair, and those behind loudly ordered more rounds of beer to celebrate

a comrade's good fortune.

Out at the bar, sailors from the ships in port crowded three deep. Someone had

brought an accordion and another man a fiddle, and they wheezed and scratched

lively sea chanteys. Men and women stomped onto the dance floor, shaking the

boards with the pounding of their feet. The bonhomie was infectious: sailors

wandered into the banquet hall and were made welcome at the tables with the

Marines. And as Marines stumbled through the crowded bar to the rest rooms, they

were swept into the arms of the dancers and whisked around the room, to the

delighted cheers of the patrons.

But sometimes at Big Barb's it wasn't all just beer and skittles and a headlong rush

to the private rooms upstairs...

A new girl was holding court, seated on the bar in the main room. Hilma was

above average height, full-breasted and broad-hipped, with her hair a blond that

would have given even Mother Nature pause to wonder whether that shade of yellow

actually existed anywhere in the spectrum. Her laugh was full and nearly as brassy as

her hair. A dense knot of Marines and fishermen surrounded her, eager to get

acquainted. She laughed and sang and joked—and urged her throng of admirers to

drink up and eat more. The men roared approval with each sound she emitted, every

move she made. And her movements were many; exotic, graceful, and sexy all at the

same time.

So nobody noticed particularly when the door opened and John Francis walked in.

One of the many off-worlders who'd come to Thorsfinni's World to pursue the wild

and freewheeling life of the fisheries, Francis had the build of a tugboat and

short-cropped black hair above a moon face. He walked with a limp occasioned by

an encounter with a trawler that wanted to occupy the same space he and a dinghy

happened to hold. Looking around just inside the entrance, Francis saw an open

space at a table occupied by some acquaintances. He worked his way through the

crowd and slowly, like a davit lowering a fragile cargo into a ship's hold, levered

himself into the empty chair. The fishermen exchanged greetings. A harried serving

girl popped up at his shoulder almost immediately to take his order for beer and

brownies.

John Francis slowly shrugged off the satchel slung on his left shoulder. Moving

just as deliberately, he opened it and withdrew a portable trid viewer.

"Were any of you at Einaar's Fjord on First Day?" he asked. Without waiting for

an answer, he continued, "Rumbart Tomison ran his sprint-hover." He turned on the

viewer and popped a trid crystal into it. "I had my cam with me, got some beautiful

pictures." While he talked he fiddled with the viewer's controls, then turned it toward

the other fishermen. "Look at this. He hit 225 kph in the half-K run. He let me into

his pits and I got to work on the engine."

The others exchanged glances before they turned toward the viewer. They weren't

ready to talk about the races just yet, but they knew they had a choice: listen to John

Francis talk about the hovercraft sprints and watch his trids, or get up and leave the

table. There wasn't another open table, so moving wasn't much of an option.

John Francis talked and talked and showed his trids of the previous First Day's

sprints. His tablemates felt twinges of jealousy that they hadn't been there. He drank

his beer and ate his brownies. Every time the laugh of the new girl, Hilma, cut

through the din, he cocked his eyes toward her, and each time he did, his eyes

glowed more brightly. Francis wasn't known as a ladies' man, so the fishermen who

watched his sprints trids paid his glances no attention.

At length one of the fishermen in her circle broke through Hilma's mesmerizing

spell long enough to announce that he was taking her upstairs. The announcement

was greeted by an uproar of protest from the others.

"Excuse me," John Francis said to his tablemates, "I have to take care of

something. You know how to use this; you can look at more pictures." Then he

ponderously levered himself to his feet and heavily limped toward the bar, where a

good-natured argument was in progress about the selfishness of the one fisherman

who wanted to take Hilma away from the rest. Hilma, for her part, laughed about it

with raucous delight.

Limp or not, no crowd could divert John Francis's progress. He waded through

like an icebreaker in pack ice until he stood with his belly against Hilma's knees. He

looked seriously into her face. She looked back and a laugh dribbled away before

reaching full throat. Her broad grin melted into a sweetly timorous smile.

"Hi, sailor," she said softly, but not coquettishly.

"I'm John Francis," he said. "You're Hilma."

She nodded shyly. He backed just far enough to turn around without pushing her

knees, looked out at the surrounding men, and said in a voice that sounded like the

foghorn on the tugboat he was built like, "This one's mine!" He turned back to Hilma

and offered his hands. She slid off the bar into his grasp, and he gently lowered her

to the floor.

A hush fell over the bar and a way parted for them to the stairs. They went up.

They didn't come back down.

The next time anyone at Big Barb's saw Hilma, she was on John Francis's arm,

flaunting a wedding band on her finger.

Sometimes at Big Barb's everything wasn't just beer and skittles and a headlong

rush to the private rooms upstairs.

"I have a song!" Corporal Raoul Pasquin shouted, standing up and waving his

arms. The Marines listened attentively. That he could stand and wave his arms so

soon after what he'd been through on Havanagas was a bit of a miracle in itself, but

he was not the kind of Marine who'd let a few missing body parts keep him down

very long.

When Pasquin had joined 34th FIST from his old outfit, 25th FIST, he'd given

every indication he was a problem child, and gotten off to a bad start at Camp Ellis.

He and Dean had serious words just before they deployed to Society 437, but once

there, and during the Avionian mission, Pasquin proved he could handle himself in

combat and was accepted in third platoon as a trusted NCO. More important, on

Havanagas, where the corporal had withstood vicious torture at the hands of the

mobsters who'd been running the place, he'd proved to Dean and Claypoole that he

was far more than a Marine corporal, more even than their fire team leader. He was a

proven comrade, a man Marines could trust their lives to.

But the best proof that Corporal Raoul Pasquin was not the ass he'd started out as

was that Owen the woo had taken a liking to him. Everyone was sure Owen could

tell good from bad, and the Marines trusted his judgment.

So when Raoul Pasquin stood up, he was given a measure of respect. Dean and

Claypoole shouted for silence. Bass gestured him to continue.

"I learned this song in 25th FIST," Pasquin said. "It's called ‘Erika.’" He nodded

at Dean's companion, whose name just happened to be Erika. "No offense to the

beautiful lady here." Erika, who'd been leaning her head on Dean's shoulder, smiled

and blushed. "It's just coincidence, Erika, and the song's not dirty or insulting."

Several men loudly groaned their disappointment. Pasquin gave them the finger. "It

was the unofficial marching song of 25th FIST," he continued. "It's an old song

that's come down from the twentieth century or earlier. It's in a good march tempo.

Here, listen..." He hummed a few bars. "Get it? Here..." He sang the first verse: "In

the meadow blooms a tiny flower." Boom-boom-boom-boom, he stamped the floor

with his foot to get the cadence. "And we call her Erika! Get it?" He took a deep

breath and sang:

"In the meadow blooms a tiny flower / And we call her Erika.

The bees cannot resist her power / Little Erika,

'Cause her heart is soft and sweet

Her petals trim and neat / Dainty little Erika!

In the village lives a tiny maid / And we call her Erika.

She's prim and sweet and oh, so staid / Little Erika!

Yet she lets us kiss her, but not too long

And when we're done we sing this song:

‘In the meadow blooms a tiny flower / And we call her Erika...’"

Pasquin's singing voice was not the best, but the tune was catchy, and as Pasquin

warmed to his singing, he got better. Soon others began to join in, hesitantly at first

and then with more confidence as they learned the words. Everyone at the table

began to sing, and as they sang they stamped their feet at the appropriate place in the

music—boom-boom-boom-boom!—like a bass drum beating out the cadence.

When they got to the name Erika, they shouted it out at the top of their voices so it

rang in the rafters far above them. The real Erika's face turned brick red with pleased

embarrassment, and Owen the woo actually began to sway in time to the music.

It was a soldier's song, the kind men far from home have sung since the dawn of

warfare to keep up morale. But even if hearing it for the first time—as the men of

third platoon were—its subject was familiar and dear to all men who've ever worn a

uniform. Each man had known an Erika back home, or in a foreign town somewhere,

or hoped he would someday meet an Erika. Young men need young women as much

to comfort their souls as to relieve their hormonal urges, and "Erika" emphasized the

gentler side of sexual relations. It made Claypoole think of Katie, back on

Havanagas; and despite the real Erika snug against his side, Dean was reminded of

Hway back on Wanderjahr. Every man at the table cast his thoughts back to some

Erika, not thinking about sex with her, just wanting to relive the experience for a few

moments.

But they were young men, and young Marines at that, and ten seconds after the

music was done they'd all be thinking about the women around them again.

Pasquin jumped up on the table and led them in chorus after chorus. Between the

Marines' singing and stamping their feet in the banquet hall and the sailors' dancing in

the bar, the whole building shook.

A crash echoed through the building as the door to Big Barb's private office

suddenly slammed open and she sallied forth, her vast bulk bouncing startled men

out of the way. But the music and dancing did not slow a beat. She headed straight

to the banquet hall. Big though she was, none of the Marines noticed her rolling

down on them. Pasquin squawked in mid-verse as she grabbed him, one hand on the

seat of his pants, the other by his shirt collar. She picked him up bodily and dropped

him heavily into an empty chair.

Huffing and puffing with the effort, she waggled a massive finger at Gunnery

Sergeant Bass. "Charlie!" she gasped, "vat you doing? Ve haf der erdquake, mine

whole place comin' crashin' down!"

Everyone went silent for a moment. Several patrons from the bar, expecting the

fight of the century, stuck their heads cautiously through the door to watch. And

then Bass began to laugh. Big Barb couldn't help herself. She smiled. She was soft

on Gunny Bass. "Siddown with me, Barb, and have a goddamned beer," he said.

"Vell..." Big Barb frowned at the Marines. "Okay! Bud only one." She eagerly slid

into a chair beside Bass, snatched a nearby stein and drank. She made a terrible

noise, spit the beer out in a spray and threw the stein across the room. "Goddamn!

Somebuddy, he puts oud his segar in dat one!" A barmaid quickly offered her

mistress a fresh stein, and she drank thirstily. "Aaah." She wiped foam off her upper

lip and belched. "Pasquin! Dat song, is gut one, ya! You sings gut too. Owen, he

likes it too, dat liddle woo! But you gotta stop pounding wit der feets! You crazy

Marines, you gonna wreck my place!" She laughed and drained the rest of the beer

in one vast gulp. Someone thrust a full stein into her massive hand and she drank

again, one arm draped affectionately across Bass's shoulders.

"Charlie, ven ve gettink married?" Barb roared, her chins jiggling with merriment.

Although she was huge, Barb—whose real name was Freya Banak—carried her

massive weight well. She was more a solid woman than a fat one.

"Tonight! Right goddamn now!" Bass shouted, pounding the table

enthusiastically. The Marines roared approval. Bass winked clandestinely at Barb

and her face turned a bit redder. She was reminded of that time Bass was alone with

her in her office... that had been a sweet moment, but that was all it had been, just a

moment. Big Barb and Charlie Bass were the kind of man and woman who could be

good friends but never man and wife. Bass grinned fiercely at Barb over the rim of

his stein as a thought struck him: on a cold night, what did a man need most, another

blanket or an ample woman? And a girl, even a girl like Big Barb, could dream.

The onlookers at the door, realizing it would be just another night of drinking and

bonhomie, returned to the dancers in the bar, and Big Barb's establishment settled

down once again into the dull roar of drunken camaraderie.

Ten kilometers from Camp Ellis lay Mainside, the fleet naval base that was the hub

of Confederation military operations for that quadrant of Human Space where

Thorsfinni's World was located. Ten kilometers from Mainside was the dependent

housing area where the men who were authorized to have their families with them

lived. Marines in the grade of staff sergeant and up and equivalent naval ratings were

allowed to marry, but only those men occupying "key" command and staff positions

could have their families with them on hardship tours. And if a man was authorized

to have his family with him, his tour was automatically extended. The Confederation

Navy was not about to ship dependents to far-off worlds and then let their sponsors

return to civilization on a normal two year rotation. Not that that meant much to the

men of 34th FIST just then; they'd found out that somebody had secretly slapped

them with involuntary extensions.

The dependent housing on Thorsfinni's World was known as Safe Harbor and

consisted of two separate areas—one for the enlisted's families and one for the

officers'. Everything the residents needed was provided for at Safe Harbor—a

commissary, an exchange, medical facilities, a school for the children, recreational

facilities. Regular transportation between Safe Harbor, Mainside, and Camp Ellis was

also provided. For most of the family members a trip to Mainside was a regular

outing; dependents were not normally allowed on Camp Ellis. But trips to New Oslo

and other cities were a regular feature of the recreational programs available to them.

Senior field-grade officers—commanders, lieutenants colonel, colonels, and navy

captains—occupied single-family dwellings; all others lived in apartment-style

buildings. The grade of the sponsor and the number of dependents in his family

determined the size of individual quarters. All furnishings were provided by the navy

and were passed from family to family until they wore out. The Confederation was

not about to bear the expense of shipping anyone's furniture from one side of

Human Space to another. Permanent personal possessions were generally limited to

the family's personal transportation mass allowance, and when a family rotated out

of Thorsfinni's World, the things it had acquired while there were either given away

or sold to those who were staying, or to new families just coming in.

Life could be dull at Safe Harbor, but it was better than living years away from

husbands and fathers.

Unmarried men called navy wives "camp followers" (or worse) and their children

"navy brats" (and much, much, worse), and at Camp Ellis the enlisted Marines

referred to Safe Harbor disparagingly as the "Bay of Pigs."

In general, the Confederation military policy was that if it wanted its men to have

wives, they'd have been issued one.

Captain Lewis Conorado trudged wearily up the sidewalk into Tarawa Terrace, the

apartment building housing the families of company-grade officers. The Conorados

had not been living there long. Because of the shortage of family quarters when he

was assigned to 34th FIST, his family had originally been placed in spare housing

operated by the Confederation's embassy in New Oslo. Their apartment in Tarawa

Terrace had only recently been vacated by a navy family.

In the lobby, the children of a naval lieutenant in the supply corps were screaming

shrilly at their play. The shrieks reverberated painfully off the bare walls and floor.

"Shaddup!" Conorado bellowed. The children went silent instantly; Conorado was

known in the community as a man who tolerated no insubordination.

One of the children had urinated in the corner by the elevators, and the acrid odor

was heavy in the still air of the lobby. Conorado wrinkled his nose. "Who did that?"

he demanded, pointing a rigid finger at the large puddle. There were three of them,

ranging in age from six to nine. None answered. Conorado addressed the eldest

child: "Brian, you are in charge of your brother and sister. You let it happen, you

clean it up. If it's still here when I come down, I'm coming after you." He pressed his

palm into the entry pad and the elevator door hissed open. He turned and smiled

fiercely at Brian as the doors closed.

The Conorados' one-bedroom apartment was on the top floor of the building. As

the building's senior occupant, Captain Conorado could have squeezed a

two-bedroom apartment out of the billeting officer, but he felt that he and his wife,

Marta, should give up the larger quarters for some officer whose family was larger.

Two hours later, when the Conorados descended to the lobby on their way to the

commissary, the noisy children were gone. But the puddle was still there.

CHAPTER TWO

Colonel Israel Ramadan, deputy commander of 34th FIST, believed firmly that a

Marine officer should at all times demonstrate austerity in his personal lifestyle and

official conduct. He made it a point to eat in the enlisted messes several times each

week, and when a unit went on a field problem he would often accompany it and

share living conditions with the men. In this regard he was a carbon copy of

Brigadier Sturgeon, the FIST commander. The two officers complemented each

other perfectly.

Ramadan's bachelor living quarters were spartan, enlivened only by a wall of

bookshelves containing volumes of military classics bound in the old-fashioned way.

While almost everyone else was satisfied to get his reading material from vids and

trids, Colonel Ramadan had spent a fortune collecting his books, and he had read

them all many times. Books were his greatest indulgence.

But Colonel Ramadan had one other weakness, if you could call it that. He loved

David Sherman & Dan Cragg - Starfist 07 - Kingdom's Swords

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