John Ringo - The Legacy of the Aldenata 5 - The Hero

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The Hero

By John Ringo and

Michael Z. Williamson

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are

fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-8827-X

Cover art by Kurt Millar

First hardcover printing, June 2004

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

BAEN BOOKS by John Ringo

There Will Be Dragons

Emerald Sea(forthcoming)

A Hymn Before Battle

Gust Front

When the Devil Dances

Hell's Faire

The Hero(with Michael Z. Williamson)

Cally's War(with Julie Cochrane, forthcoming)

The Road to Damascus(with Linda Evans)

BAEN BOOKS by Michael Z. Williamson

Freehold

To Robert A. Heinlein,

in hopes that we can pay the debt forward.

Chapter 1

The assembly room of the Deep Reconnaissance Team was as utilitarian and sere as the team itself.

The walls, floor and ceiling were a matte-gray unmarked plasteel, blank of lockers, tables or any other

appurtenances of human existence. There were two doors on opposite walls, both made of heavy

plasteel like a bank vault. The materials were as much a matter of safety as security; power packs and

ammunition bins did get damaged, and accidents happen. And when accidents happen with the power

packs, catastrophic was the mildest word possible.

Nobody wanted the accidents to happen to the troops, either. But better to lose a DRT than a

base. Or, at least, that was the opinion of the rest of the base.

Ferret was the first one in the room, carrying a snubby punch gun. Four others followed with

grav-guns and assorted personal weapons that were officially unauthorized, but few people were inclined

to dispute their right to carry them. Pulsers predominated. There was an extra grenade launcher and a

couple of large-caliber pistols also. Dagger came in last, easily swinging his sniper-spec gauss rifle.

They were bantering as they entered, Ferret laughing at Thor for taking on Dagger in a shoot-out.

"What, you thinking of trying out for the Olympics?" He laughed again as Thor winced.

Thor's account was lighter by five hundred credits. He'd beensure that with standard weapons he

could outshoot Dagger. After all, the sniper's rifle was a hideously expensive and custom piece of

equipment that took hours of tuning to set up properly. He would be chagrined at the outcome for days,

and could expect to hear it bandied about forever.

Dagger had used a standard grav-rifle, as requested, to put ten rounds in the X ring at five hundred

meters as fast as he could pull the trigger, then ten more at a thousand meters nearly as fast. He'd had

one flyer at that range, just out of the five and into the four ring. He'd barely taken time to aim, it seemed,

and had turned and left the firing line the moment his last round was fired, before any tally showed on the

screen. His features hadn't moved until he heard about the flyer, and then had sneered in disgust at

himself. The man was inhumanly accurate. It showed in his movements. They were fast but smooth and

with never a clumsy bump. Sniping involved stalking as well as shooting, and he was as good at both

skills as humans came.

Thor winced again as the rest chuckled. Finally, Gun Doll chimed, "Okay, this is getting boring,"

and they took the hint and changed subjects.

Dagger still didn't say anything about it as Ferret hit a switch and a set of tables and seats extruded

out of the floor. They were sterile gray, just like everything else. Gun Doll eased her lanky frame up

against the wall and hit a switch with her elbow—as her hands still cradled a bulky assault cannon—and

throbbing music came from all sides. It was one of the abrasive dance tunes she liked, but the volume

was quiet enough to prevent complaints. Holograms on the wall flared up, too, displaying unit murals.

One of them showed a garish swath of destruction, smashed hovertanks, bent rocket howitzers, crushed

combat bots. It started on the left at an insertion pod and terminated on the right at a huge, chiseled

NCO wearing the black beret of a DRT commando. His caricature had a heavy grav-gun in his hands,

an automatic grenade launcher over one shoulder, a light mortar over the other, knives and hatchets all

over his combat harness and a teddy bear sticking out of one pocket. It was captioned, "Excuse me, just

passing through." Another showed a drop gone horribly wrong with shattered combat armor scattered

all over it, smashed shuttles, artillery still splashing rings of dirt and small killer bots swarming

everywhere. At the center was a guy wearing major's tabs, tapping on a long-range communicator.

Caption: "I love it when a plan comes together." At that, the artwork was tame compared to pieces that

drifted around the nets and were posted on screens here and there, many of them making light of the

acronym DRT . . . "Dead Right There." Or sometimes, DRTTT: Dead Right There, There and There. Or

the DiRTies. Though few people would say that to one in a bar, unless they werevery good friends.

Masochism was the prime requirement for recon in nasty territory, so DRTs could take a lot of damage.

They could also dish out their share and a bit more.

The chat dulled slightly as they start laying out their weapons and stripping them down for cleaning.

The team was filthy with mud, sweat, grime and assorted shredded greenery; the weapons were merely

dirty from use. Good troops took care of their weapons because their lives depended on them. Between

pirates, feral Posleen still romping around from the war that had almost wiped out humanity, and the new

Blob menace, these troops expected to see action at any time. The weapons were cared for because

they were the difference between life and a cold e-mail to their survivors.

The weapons' receivers were coated with a chameleon surface that assumed the colors and pattern

of anything in the vicinity. As they were laid on the table, they shifted to match, becoming all but invisible.

Ferret cursed and said, "The surface stays active damned near forever, even when there isn't enough

juice left to shoot with." He pressed the surface switch to drop the weapon to neutral gray.

Gorilla, being one of the technical specialists, said, "No, it won't last forever. It will last a while,

though. The surface is small and the environment in here doesn't take much shifting. But I wouldn't try to

get that long out of an intruder suit. Otoh, it's easier to detect."

Ferret replied, "Teach your granma to suck Posleen; 'The expert scout uses guile and deception

rather than relying on technical devices.' " Shrugging his shoulders he turned back to his weapon.

The troops' sure fingers handled the parts without effort, as they would even in the dark. The dull

coated barrels with their internal grav drivers and small bores were shoved to the middle of the table and

the receivers to the edge, in a standard layout. In the frame of these, smaller parts, trigger assemblies and

sights were set in positions personalized by years of practice. The punch guns were rather simple: an

energy unit that slid out and wasn't to be messed with and the frame. Each soldier had his or her own

favorite layout, but all were clearly the product of the same basic training. Dagger sat off at a table by

himself, his sniper rifle being cared for by hands that almost caressed it. Dagger was like that. Always

part of the team, always alone.

Thor pulled the breech of his grav-gun and stared into it while waving his glowing light ball across

the table and down to illuminate it from the bore. As he inhaled the astringent tang of burned metal

wafting from the tube, he cursed at what he saw. The main problem with the weapons was that the

ammunition they had used was substandard. The factory-recommended ammunition was depleted

uranium coated with a carbon-based witches' brew and charged with a tiny droplet of antimatter. The

antimatter droplet was released by a shot of power and then the charge was scavenged from the AM

disintegration. However, the Islendian Republic did not have the facilities to produce such sophisticated

ammo, so the grav-guns were driven off external packs and most of the rounds used were simple

depleted uranium with a graphite coat.

The problem was that at the incredibly high speeds of the rounds, the carbon and then the uranium

sublimed and coated the breech and bore of the rifle with a substance that was damned near

uranium-carbon alloy. And nearly as hard to get off . . .

Thor reached into his ruck for a bulb of soda from his "emergency" rations, and paused. "What the

hell?" he muttered, finding something hard and not bulb-shaped. He grasped it and pulled it out. It was a

rock, about five kilograms' worth. Just a rock.

"You rat bastards," he said disgustedly. It was a running gag. Every time they came back from a

mission or a field exercise, some jackass was able to slip a local boulder into his gear. He must have a

pile of forty of the damned things in the corner of his barracks room now. No one knew why he kept

them. Neither did he, except that they were mementos, sort of. He even had one from Earth.

Everyone laughed aloud, except Dagger, and even he snickered. Gorilla said, "Another rock for

your collection, Thor."

"Yeah, yeah. Rocks, concrete core samples from the engineers, always something. Sooner or later

someone's going to get me busted for smuggling a Rumakian Sacred Piece of Granite or some shit. And

I'll make you guys cough up the duty."

"You'd have to," Ferret said. "Dagger would have allyour cash." Everyone laughed at that, even

Dagger.

The hazing about the shootout picked up again.

" 'Hi, my name is Thor, and I can't hit the broad side of a warehouse.' "

" 'Dagger, shoot me now before I try to beat you again.' "

" 'Duh, me Thor, me think me shoot straight.' 'Dat's okay, said the young maiden,' not wanting to

embarrass him, 'I'm thore too!' "

Dagger said nothing. He didn't need to. Thor said nothing, trying to make them pick something else

by being boring.

Ferret made a single comment and shut up. "You better be able to shoot better against the Blobs

than against Dagger," which let the conversation segue into a discussion of what the next mission might

be. There was no question that the next mission would be against the Blobs. There were few other

threats currently, and none that required the special skills of DRTs. The question was whether it would

be a raid, a recon, another casualty-racking attempt at a snatch or some new vac-brained plan from the

whiz kids on the Strategic Staff.

The so-called Blobs, the Tslek, were a recent enemy to the loose federation of planets that made

up the Islendian Confederation. They were dark, soft creatures with no fixed form, that extended

pseudopods for manipulation. So far, not many humans had seen a Tslek up close. At least not to report

back afterwards. Several remote colonies had been lost, their administrative centers smashed into

incandescent vapor by what were reported as kinetic weapons but seemed to pack more energy than

simple rock falls. As with nukes and antimatter weapons, such devices were forbidden among the

civilized races, especially among humans. The shock of the attacks had rippled through space with the

first reports. Reconnaissance and special operations craft had been sent out to determine the nature of

the threat. Some had come back.

The Tslek occupied an undetermined number of planetary systems near the fringe of human

exploration. So far the humans had only found one planet that had a Blob "civilian" presence. Or at least

a moderately large presence, because it was difficult to tell the difference between Blobs that were

military and civilian. The human task force commander had dropped a series of kinetic strikes in

retaliation and retreated. At the moment the situation was something like a "phony war" with both sides

probing forward. One could get just as dead in a phony war as a real one, though. The front was

insubstantial and shifting, but very real.

So far the Blobs had gotten the best of it; the frontiers in that direction had been hammered with

millions of dead colonists as a result. If, or more accurately, when a Blob raiding force got through to the

more heavily populated worlds the civilian casualties would be enormous; on the order of billions.

There were indications from scouting ships that the Blobs were planning on attacking towards the

Core worlds with a large fleet. The humans were grudgingly willing to accept the casualties that came

with this; the normal technique was to let a group attack then slash in behind them with light forces and

sever their supply lines. But the line of advance was the question. While Earth and the Core might not

care, the Islendian Republic didn't wish to be the route used.

The Blobs apparently had the same needs as humans: hydrogen to refuel their ships, spare parts,

oxygen and water and fresh food. They also used the same drive systems as humans, the low energy

"valley drive" that would take ships from system to system along "valleys" between stars called transit

lanes and the "tunnel drive," originally introduced to the humans and their allies by the enemy Posleen,

which at enormous energy cost could "tunnel" at hyperluminal speed through any region of space. This

meant that from time to time they had to resupply with hydrogen for their valley drives and antimatter for

their tunnel drives, besides taking on other consumables. Some of that could be brought forward by

resupply ships. But some of it, fuel especially, was more efficiently gathered along the way. It still made

more sense to have ships resupply on food rather than "grow their own"; plants took up space that could

be used for ammo and "legs" and weren't as efficient at cleaning the air as recycling systems.

For all these reasons the Blobs were going to need an advanced base on their line of march. It

would have certain requirements: it would have to have more than one good transit lane, it would need a

Jovian-type planet for fuel and it would probably possess a terrestrial planet with signs of Blob

agriculture.

The Blobs didn't strictly need a system with an Earth-like class planet, but that was the way to bet.

Not only did it permit areas to grow and process food without the expense of domes and other

necessities on moons but it permitted crew rest in decent conditions. The biosphere also was a

remarkably good cloaking material for all the normal methods of detection; it meant atmosphere to

deflect particles and other life signs to disappear among.

The Blobs did not appear to be stupid and they seemed to use the same general logic system as

humans. That meant that they were as aware of the needs as the humans. And they would guess that the

humans would know this. So they were probably prepared for a reconnaissance of some sort.

The missions related to this might be very nasty, brutish and short. The team knew this, and tried to

avoid admitting it by joking around the subject. Any mission could be their last, and current events were

less than promising. A couple of teams had disappeared lately. Nobody knew where they went, or what

had happened; they weren't on the need-to-know list about other team missions. They simply received

the bald reports that team such-and-so was "missing; presumed lost."

While the team discussed missing comrades, the team commander showed up. He was a familiar

enough sight, working with them daily as he did, and standing orders were not to waste time saluting

unless a field grade officer was along. They were formal enough for discipline, relaxed enough for

camaraderie. What made the team stiffen their postures and grow instantly quiet was the strange creature

accompanying the captain. It was a sight almost never seen to human eyes: a Darhel. In uniform.

The group instinctively bristled. Even after almost a millennium of contact the Darhel were not

popular. They had once been virtual slavemasters of the human race. They still had the reputation of

being dishonorable, untrustworthy Shylocks. The few humans who dealt with them found them to be as

shifty as sand and mean as rattlesnakes; they seemed to take great pleasure not just in making money but

in screwing people while they did so. While none of the team had dealt directly with Darhel before, they

all knew the stories.

Bringing warnings of the Posleen, voracious interstellar beings who stripped planets as locusts do

fields, the Darhel had provided technology and weapons to humanity in exchange for human strategic

expertise. That technology had been rationed out in such a fashion that, while the Posleen had been

stopped, casualties among the inadequately equipped human forces had been horrific. The Darhel

always insisted this had been unavoidable and due to logistical issues, but no one could miss that the end

result was a loss of eighty percent of the human race and nearly a century of the remainder being used as

mercenaries and pawns, while those "relocated for safety" during the war had wound up as scattered

refugees assimilated into alien societies, with a near total loss of their human thought processes. The

Darhel, of course, had graciously helped humanity rebuild and resettle Earth, at "reasonable cost," said

cost being set by the Darhel. It was not a history to inspire trust. Nor had they actually shared technology

—most of what humans had acquired had been reverse engineered from the little that had survived the

war. In the end, of course, it had turned out to be a grievous mistake on the part of the Darhel. They

should have either left humanity to its own devices or dealt with it fairly. When it became clear that they

had done neither, humanity's response had been . . . human. Some of the Darhel had survived the

sporadic programs of extermination practiced by the survivor states. Some.

This Darhel was pale and translucent of skin with cat-pupilled eyes. Most had green or purple

irises, this one's were purple with a bare turquoise tinge at the edges. His face was typical of Darhel,

narrow and reminiscent of a fox's. His hair resembled that of humans and was the usual silvery black

rather than the metallic gold tones seen more rarely. "Gold" and "silver" regarding Darhel hair meant

exactly what the words said; the hair was not blond. Darhel had pointed ears that tended to twitch under

stress, and sharklike teeth. They didn't smile much. They looked, in fact, like classical fantasy Elves. This

one wasn't twitching in stress, and bore a practiced closed-lip smile of greeting. By its eyes, the smile

could mean anything . . . or nothing.

To make matters worse, the Darhel wore gunny's stripes. The question was, had he earned them

from politicking, as a reward to his Shylock skills, or the hard way, from operating in the field? Almost

unnoticed amid the other shocks, he wore the badge of a sensat above his left pocket.

After thousands of years of striving, humans were finally starting to make actual strides in

extrasensory perception. The military, especially, had started using them for a variety of purposes. Very

few could "read minds" but many of them could sense emotions even at a distance. A few could get a

vague sense of the future.

There were the expected prejudices against them. Despite the fact that few could sense, much less

decipher, actual thoughts, everyone feared them for that potential ability to delve into the private

recesses of the mind. Every sentient being that the humans had met had thoughts that they preferred not

see the light of day. Thus, most found sensats uncomfortable companions. Most sensats, in fact, could

just barely sense emotions and occasionally very strong and focused thoughts. They might get a vision of

the last thing a dying person saw for instance. That didn't make people any happier.

A few were found on the Deep Recon teams. Generally they were empaths who could do things

like spot an ambush by the "lying in wait" emotions of the attackers. The Blobs were detectable by the

sensats. Indeed, because sensats could detect a Blob kilometers away, the Tslek apparently used

extrasensory perception as a normal means of communication.

"Welcome back. I hope it was a good exercise?" the captain greeted them. There was an

automatic but halfhearted flurry of mumbles and "sir"s as the team all but ignored him to stare at the

Darhel.

The captain had been prepared for that response, and rather than waste time, said, "Let me

introduce Tirdal San Rintai." The Darhel nodded at the introduction and waited patiently. "Tirdal is a

limited empath, a Class Two, and has completed the qual course for DRT sensat with a secondary skill

of medic. He will be accompanying you on the upcoming mission."

There were mutters and barely audible comments, which reached the surface when Dagger said,

"No offense, sir, Tirdal"—with a faint nod at the Darhel—"but we've been a team for a long time and

operate well together. We don't need unfamiliar personnel in our ranks at the start of a mission, with no

prep or training time. It's more likely to screw things up than help."

The captain fixed Dagger with a stare. "You think so, do you? You know what the mission is,

then?" Before Dagger could even shake his head, he continued, riding over any other arguments that

lurked beneath the surface. "Well, here's the facts: We have a warning order for an insertion on a

possible Blob planet, to recover intel and possibly artifacts and prisoners. Theonly team that ever made it

back from one of those had a sensat along. So we are taking a sensat. Period. Tirdal is available, trained

and has Level Four sensat scores. He's going with us. Is that all right with you, Sergeant?" His emphasis

while staring at Dagger made it clear he was tiring of Dagger's questioning on every mission order. The

man could shoot like nobody's business, and outstalk a cheetah, but his regard for authority left much to

be desired.

Dagger stared back, firmly though not obviously defiantly, and said firmly, "Understood, sir. Tirdal,

welcome to the team."

At that, Tirdal finally betrayed action, stepping forward to shake hands. "I greet you, Dagger. I'm

sure we can work together." His voice was sonorous and deep and his grip solid as Dagger took it.

Then it was more than solid, a strong, crushing grasp, accompanied by a violet and cyan stare that

locked with his eyes and seemed to look through them into the brain behind.

Dagger pressed down on the hand, hard. Besides being a multiplanet-classed shot he was one of

the strongest men on a team of very strong men. But he couldn't budge the Darhel's grip. After a moment

he felt the Darhel start to press down and it was like having his hand in the grip of a mechanical press.

After a moment's struggle his face finally betrayed a flicker of pain and the Darhel, smiling again, faintly,

released the pressure.

Dagger didn't betray any surprise outwardly, despite what he felt inside at Tirdal's disturbing

presence and strength. "Yeah, no problem," he muttered, trying not to shake his hand in reaction to the

pain. "I look forward to working with you," Tirdal said with a nod, his vertical-pupilled eyes never

leaving the face of the sniper.

The others shook hands and introduced themselves. Tirdal nodded to each in turn, saying almost

nothing else.

Chapter 2

The premission briefing bore no shattering surprises. There was fuzzy vid from a probe flyby, with

scientific data on geology and meteorology, botany and zoology. They were fuzzy because the probe

was the size of a basketball and had whisked through at meteoric velocities, then done a datadump;

anything larger or less covert would have given away the fact that someone was interested in the system.

Mission gear was listed, some as required, some optional. Another list had forbidden items. No

shocks there, either: nothing that could give away the location of an inhabited planet, no tech gear that

didn't include a self-destruct, nothing personal that was indicative of culture or language, etc. Also

tediously routine for the team was the situation: Enemy forces: unknown. Friendly forces: none. Attached

assets: none. They were needed at once and had only minimal prep time. There was never time to

rehearse it properly, but there was always time to waste a team or two. They would at least get two

days to shake down with their new member. The military was generous in its own way. Day One was

today, all talk. Day Two would be a field exercise.

"The planet is quite Earth-like," the team commander, nicknamed Bell Toll, said. "Climate is

temperate and moderate. I hate to sound too cheerful, but altogether it looks like a walk in the park

compared to our usual missions."

"How do we insert?" Gun Doll asked.

One of the intel weenies briefing them replied, "A stealthed survey ship found an open tunnel to the

system. It was quite unlikely, but there it was. The system they found contains both multiple Jovians and

this high-quality planet. Sensor bots were dropped for their usual sweep, when faint energy emissions

and hyper tracks were detected. The bots performed a cursory biosphere sweep and localized the

emissions."

"It's our job to do a drop," Bell Toll continued, "move to the area and determine, hopefully without

detection, if there is or is not a Blob base in the area. There'ssomething there, but it could be Blobs,

free-colonizer humans or pirates. Or even another, unknown, race. It's up to us to determine which. And

for that we'll need our sensat.

"Tirdal, attention, please," he asked, and Tirdal snapped upright. "Tirdal's been in service for quite

some time as an intel analyst and interrogator. He's only recently been through the DRT course, but has

some experience and time in grade, so, by the chain of command, he will be third in line of command,

after me and Shiva. At ease, Tirdal.

"Class Two, for those of you who slept through all the training sessions, means he can detect

emotions and thought processes, but not reliably acquire actual thought symbols. Level Four means he

can detect out to a variable but undefined range greater than Level Three. He's going to be one of our

early warning systems to keep us from walking into a tea party of Blobs. Also, if he can pick up any

signs from a distance, we may not have to go in as far. I'm sure you all appreciate the advantage of that."

They did. Brave fronts aside, anything that reduced mission risk was a good thing. Everyone took

another look at the Darhel, looking as cool as an Oort planet in his brand-new uniform. Most of the

stares were curious, but a couple were cold. He didn't seem fazed.

"With all that said, are there any questions not addressed in this briefing or your packets?" There

were not. All the questions that the team wanted to ask were on the unofficial forbidden list. "Why are

we doing this shit?" "Are we actually expected to survive?" "Is this a good time to ask for a transfer?"

Questions that flashed through most of their minds, at least from the second mission onward, but could

never be spoken. They were DRT and they hadn't gotten this far by quitting.

"Then you had better get last minute stuff fixed up and check your gear. Zero seven hundred start

tomorrow. The initial oporder will be Thursday at zero nine hundred. We'll probably lift sometime

around seventeen hundred to nineteen hundred hours. That's all. Tirdal, follow me," he finished with a

point of his finger. He knew better than to leave the Darhel alone for now. The team was still unwinding

from their last exercise and wouldn't react well to the stress of an incoming alien sensat. He could

already hear the grumbles.

Despite shorter legs, the Darhel strode easily down the duraplast hallway alongside the captain,

feeling the human's conflicting thoughts. Beneath the turmoil, there was order and confidence. Even more

than regular troops, sensats needed to know their commanders were prepared to deal with issues. Tirdal

felt the coming question arising before Bell Toll opened his mouth. "So what do you think, Tirdal?"

"Of the situation, Captain? Of the team? Of the preparations?"

"Of the team, for now."

"I don't think they like me much," Tirdal said slowly. He said everything slowly. His voice wasn't

taciturn or filtered to be deep and empty, that was just how Darhel spoke. His only expression was a flip

of his right ear.

The pictures to either side of them were more formal, line drawings and holos of battles and

locales. Bell Toll appeared to study them as he walked, though he'd no doubt seen them thousands of

times before.

"They may not like you," the captain said, frowning. "Yet. But small teams require trust and

teamwork. Since you're new and haven't been with the team in their exercises, or missions for that

matter, you're naturally going to experience a bit of standoffishness. This is just the nature of being new

to a team. Don't let it worry you. Do your job and everyone will forget that . . ."

"That I'm a shiftless Darhel freak?" Tirdal supplied with an ear flick.

"If you take that point of view things will be very rough indeed," the captain said, stopping to lock

eyes with the Darhel. "And I won't tolerate discrimination."

"Yes, sir," Tirdal agreed, tasting the forceful honesty in the statement. For a wonder, the team

commander seemed to accept him at face value: as a "newbie" team member, not a Darhel, not an evil

demon Shylock. Still, the captain was keeping him separated from the rest of the team at present. Tirdal

partly appreciated that because there was less stress in their thoughts when he wasn't around, but it

wasn't a good sign. They'd have to learn to be comfortable to function.

"But you still have to respect their unity and work to earn their trust," Bell Toll said, as ifhe were the

sensat. "If you try to mess with the experienced members, they will go hard on you, trust me. You're the

new boy, learn to deal."

"Yes, sir. I'm prepared for that."

"Good. They're—we're—going to give you the respect due your rank. But it is up to you to prove

that you're worthy to be here, not up to us to prove that we are."

"Yes, sir," Tirdal said as they reached the captain's office.

"I'm sure you've got your own preparations," Bell Toll said as he turned at his door. "Oporder for

the exercise is at zero nine hundred. Same briefing room."

Tirdal flicked his ear again, then left as Bell Toll closed the door.

Back in the team's briefing room, the NCO in charge had just returned. He'd arrived late and left

early to deal with details, and no one had had a chance to talk to him, yet. Shiva, as he was known,

walked in to the middle of the heated discussion about the Darhel. It was rather vehement, and he'd not

even sat down before Thor confronted him.

"We gotta goddamned Darhel sensat dumped on us, Sarge," he complained without even a nod of

greeting.

"I know, I was here," Shiva said. He was calm. Shiva was always calm. Considering the missions

and the troops, it was a good attribute, and he'd made it as long as he had and to his rank because of it.

"Good. What are you going to do about it?" Thor asked.

"Nothing," Shiva replied. "Nothing I can do, and he's the sensat we've got. Sorry, Thor, you'll have

to get used to him."

"They probably let the little shrimp ghost Q course," Gorilla put in. "They always go easy on

sensats." His voice was deep and gravelly to match his huge size.

"Think so, huh?" Shiva asked, turning toward him.

"Yeah, am I wrong?"

"Well," Shiva drawled, a faint smile of amusement spreading across his face as he spread across

the chair in a stretch. "He apparentlymaxed the course. Not 'exceptional,' but 'maxed.' I called Roy over

at Course and the instructors were impressed. And most of 'em hated his guts. So there was no

favoritism there."

"It's probably just like the way chicks get treated," Gun Doll said. "There's so few of us, still, that

we stand out. Everyone assumes that women, shrimps, aliens and civvy specialists get special treatment."

She looked over at Dagger, who'd hazed her mercilessly upon her arrival, before grudgingly admitting

she knew her job. "Right, Dagger?"

Dagger was putting away fine tools from his cleaning and maintenance kit. He was forever tinkering

with his rifle, and carried extra tools to that end. It was probably unauthorized for him to do depot level

adjustments, but he shot well enough that no one would dare complain. He laid down a probe and

shrugged very slightly.

"I put him where I put everyone else. If he does his job, I don't have a problem. If Shiva says he

maxed the course, I'll assume he can keep up, keep quiet and back us up." Closing the receiver on his

gauss rifle, he cycled the mechanism, pressed the stud, and listened to the snap of the ignition circuit. "If

he screws up, it'll make more work for me. Then we have a problem."

Gun Doll, Gorilla and Shiva stared momentarily at each other, not at Dagger. Dagger wasn't paying

attention to them. At least not outwardly. It was probably part of his act. He loved to play the cold killer.

It was annoying, but it was how Dagger was.

"Dammit, why did it have to be a Darhel? Why not a human sensat?" Thor groused.

"Because we don't have enough," Shiva replied. Human sensats were not only rare, but were

needed to produce GalTech materials, because the only way anyone had figured out to produce most of

the gear at that level was the way the Indowy did it—by "praying." Actually, it was a complex ritual of

meditation and thought, but it was very intensive and those doing it were not generally available nor

disposed to lugging huge rucks through dangerous wilderness. The Michia Mentat, the largest school of

the sensory arts, kept pretty much to themselves, and had since the Islendian Republic had split from the

Solarian Systems Alliance some hundreds of years before. They'd served more in a diplomatic role

between the Fringe and the SSA, and part of the treaty had been written to keep them out of military

matters. They'd sat out the rebellion, their focus being within, but everyone knew how badly Earth and

its allies would have fared had they been involved. "Don't see you going to sensat testing, Thor."

"Could be worse. It could be an Indowy sensat who we'd literally have to carry," Gun Doll said.

"We'll manage," Dagger said and snapped his firing circuit again after his last round of adjustments.

It couldn't be coincidence this time. Everyone stared at him.

"Right," Shiva said, breaking the tableau. "If you plan on drinking, getting laid or anything else

tonight, get your crap squared away now. If you don't make excuses, I won't have to make

explanations, and we'll all be happier. We're departing straight after a two-day run through. So live it up

now."It was well after 1700 hours when the prep work was done. Shiva was still doing administrative

stuff, which never ended—the troops had to be certified as to range time, medical appointments and the

other minutiae of military life. Bell Toll was scrounging data, trying to wheedle a few facts that could give

his people the edge in this op, as well as drafting the orders and acknowledging briefings. This op was

going to play hell with their training schedule for the Readiness Standards Evaluation, which since this

wasn't, yet, a "declared war," had to be met. That was the military; stick you out on the raw end one day

and put you through chickenshit the next.

Thor appointed himself patrol leader of the bar crawl, and proceeded to prod the others. He first

cornered Dagger in his room, who replied, "Thanks, but if I'm going to be shooting, I'd like to be as

sober as possible." His expression wasn't exactly condescending, but Dagger was very much the

psychotic loner. He almost turned into a cloistered monk before a mission, and wasn't much of a partier

afterwards. He'd been known to have three beers, once or twice. He'd even had an expensive shot of

Earth whisky once. He wasn't cheap, he was just a purist.

Tirdal was next, and looked somewhat confused. Behind him the lights were dim. His desk had

been cleared and set with a small candlelike object, a book and some other items Thor couldn't identify

from the door. They were some kind of religious or personal gear, and Thor didn't pry. It wasn't

politeness; he was embarrassed. To his inquiry about joining the entourage, Tirdal replied, "You wish for

us to appear in public as a group, then attempt to find private entertainment, then return to little sleep?"

"That's sort of it," Thor agreed. "It's supposed to be fun and help take the edge off."

Tirdal appeared to consider it for a moment, then replied.

"My presence would create a disturbance among others that would not be helpful to you, I think.

There will be nothing for me to do privately, and if left alone in public, there could be issues. As to

'taking the edge off,' I will meditate most certainly, and review recent events. I also need to study more

of both human interaction and technical matters. So I think not. But I do thank you for the invitation.

Perhaps when this is over the timing would be more appropriate."

"Well," Thor said, "if you want to observe human interaction, this would be the time."

"I'm aware of that, and the idea is intriguing," Tirdal replied. "But other considerations take priority.

I hope, however, that everyone has a good time on your 'bar crawl.' "

"Thanks, then," Thor said a bit awkwardly. "I hope your meditation goes well." It seemed the polite

thing to say.

He knocked on Ferret's door and found the specialist leaning back in his bunk with his fingers

interlaced behind his head.

"Bar crawl time," Thor said.

"I'm on it," Ferret said, rolling to his feet and slipping his feet into ship-boots.

"Glad to hear it," Thor said, with feeling. There was nothing lonelier than a single-handed bar crawl.

"The sarge can't make it, we don't want the captain along, Dagger's being himself and Tirdal doesn't

seem to understand the concept."

"Just as well," Ferret had told him. "Either of them would scare chicks away, and we don't need a

fight tonight, either."

Thus it was that Gorilla, Ferret, Thor and Gun Doll went looking for distraction before their

appointment to spend two months in space and muck. They met right outside the base gate, where

everything a homesick young troop could yearn for was available.

There was the branch of "Feelings, Inc," a company which had staked out space near every base

on three planets, to sell cheap trinkets to soldiers as "fine jewelry" for their loved ones back home,

wherever home might be. The prices were not cheap.

A vid arcade clattered and dinged, lights flashing through the door. Every machine in the place was

cranked to maximum difficulty. Entertainment equipment could be rented at stiff fees, the purveyors sure

of their income because troops' ID numbers could be called in to the base if funds were tardy, to be

forcibly secured from said troops while their commanders wrote them up for failing to be responsible

and for disgracing the service. Only the former mattered to the business in question.

An old electronics storefront had been converted, the sign out front proclaiming "Bambi's Lingerie."

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TheHeroByJohnRingoandMichaelZ.WilliamsonThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright2004byJohnRingo&MichaelZ.WilliamsonAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereofinanyf...

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