Grimmer Than Hell

by David Drake

  Kowacs shut off the projector. The list was reminding him of too much that he usually managed to forget while he was awake: hot landings . . . civilians that neither god nor the Headhunters had been able to save from the Khalians . . . Marines who hadn't survived—or worse, who mostly hadn't survived.

  "I don't . . . ," Kowacs muttered.

  "We'll be raising mixed units of our best and the Khalians' best to go after the Syndicate," Grant said. "You'll want to be in on the real kill, won't you?"

  From his grin, Grant knew exactly how Kowacs would feel about the suggestion of working with Weasels. It was the civilian's response to being told to fuck himself.

  "Besides," Grant went on, "What would you do as a civilian, Kowacs?"

  "I'll find something," said the Marine as he stood up. "Look, I'm leaving now."

  "Siddown, mister!" Grant said in a tone that Kowacs recognized because he'd used it often enough himself; the tone that meant the order would be obeyed or the next sound would be a shot.

  Kowacs met Grant's eyes; and smiled; and sat in the chair again.

  "Let's say that you're here because of your special knowledge," the civilian said. Grant could control his voice and his breathing, but Kowacs saw the quick flutter of the arteries in the big man's throat. "If you know who I am, then you know too much to think you can just hang up your uniform any time you please."

  But I wouldn't have to work much harder to be buried in that uniform.

  Aloud, Kowacs said, "You didn't call me in here to promote me."

  "You got that right," Grant said, his voice dripping with the disdain of a man who doesn't wear a uniform for a man who does. "We've got a job for you and your Headhunters."

  Kowacs laughed. "What's the matter? Run out of your own brand of sewage workers?"

  "Don't push," said the civilian quietly.

  After a moment, Grant resumed, "This is right up your alley, Kowacs. The Syndicate used cut-out bases in all their dealings with the Khalians, so the Weasels don't have the locations of any of the Syndicate home worlds. But we think we've got the coordinates of a Syndicate base—so you're going to grab prisoners and navigational data there before the Syndicate realizes they're at risk."

  Kowacs frowned as he considered what he'd just been told. There had to be a catch. . . .

  "All right," he said. "What's the catch?"

  Grant shrugged. "No catch," he said.

  "If there wasn't more to this job than you're telling me," Kowacs said, unsure whether he was angry, frustrated, or simply confused, "we wouldn't be briefed by the fucking Eight-Ball Command, mister. Is this some kinda suicide mission, is that what you're telling me?"

  But that couldn't be right either. Normal mission-control channels hadn't shown any hesitation about sending the Headhunters on suicide missions before.

  And the Headhunters hadn't hesitated to go.

  "Nothing like that," said Grant. "It's safer than R&R—you won't even risk catching clap."

  Kowacs waited.

  "You see," Grant continued, "you're going to use A-Potential equipment for the insertion. All points are the same point to the device you'll ride in. The Syndicate won't have any warning."

  That was the fucking catch, all right.

  The 92nd MRC had tested A-Pot equipment on Bull's-eye. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it got them dead. Dead wasn't the scary part of the stories Toby English and his Marines had brought back from that operation, though. . . .

  "I . . . ," Kowacs said. " . . . don't know how the guys are going to react to this. Seems to me that maybe a unit that's already got experience with—"

  "Wrong, Major Kowacs," Grant said. He didn't shout because he didn't have to shout. "You know exactly how you and your company are going to react. Because it's orders, and everybody knows what happens to cowards who disobey orders in wartime."

  For a moment, Kowacs couldn't see anything for the red film in front of his eyes. When his vision cleared, he noticed that one of the civilian's hands had dropped out of sight behind the desk.

  There was no need for that. The room's automatic defensive system which would trip faster than a human could if somebody tried to attack the man in Admiral Teitelbaum's chair; and anyway, Nick Kowacs wasn't out of control, was never out of control. . . .

  "As a matter of fact," Grant said in what was almost a conciliatory tone, "the Ninety-Second was the original choice for the mission, but they're still in transit. They've been switched with the back-up company. Yours."

  Kowacs swallowed. "You got the coordinates from a captured Syndicate ship?" he said, sure that he'd be told that sources and methods were none of his business. He had to change the subject, or—or else.

  Grant smiled again. "From the mind of a prisoner. Before he died. The prisoner you captured on Bull's-eye, as a matter of fact."

  "From his mind?" the Marine repeated. "How did you do that?"

  "Pray you never learn, mister," Grant said.

  "Right," said Kowacs as he got to his feet. He wondered whether his escort was still waiting outside the door. Probably. "I'll alert the company. I assume formal briefing materials are—"

  Grant nodded. "Already downloaded to the One-Twenty-First data bank," he said. "I'll take the lock off them immediately."

  "Right," Kowacs repeated. He reached for the latchplate of the door, then changed his mind and turned.

  "Just one thing, Mister Grant," he said. "My Headhunters aren't cowards. If you think they are, then come on a drop with us some day."

  "Oh, I will," the civilian said with the same mocking, terrible smile as before. "As a matter of fact, Major Kowacs—I'm coming with you on this one."

  * * *

  "Our job," said Nick Kowacs in the personnel hold of the intrusion module, "is to—"

  The high-pitched keening of a powerful laser cutter rose, drowning out his voice and thought itself.

  Sergeant Bradley glanced around flat-eyed, looking for the source of the noise. It came from somewhere between the module's double hulls. He started for a hatch, wiping his palms on his fatigues to dry the sudden rush of sweat.

  Kowacs grabbed the sergeant with one hand as he put his helmet on with the other.

  "Right," Kowacs said over the general frequency. "Lids on." He looked to see which of the new replacements needed to be nudged by their neighbors before they figured out that the rest of the briefing would be conducted by radio even though the Headhunters were all in one room together.

  "Our job," Kowacs went on, "is to capture personnel, data banks, and anything that looks like it might be navigational equipment. We aren't going in to blow the—"

  The laser shut off. A woman with commander's collar pips on the uniform she wore under her lab coat walked into the bay with two male technical representatives, speaking among themselves in low voices. Heads turned to watch them.

  Sergeant Bradley grimaced.

  "—place up, we're going in to gather information before the enemy blows it up. We've only got seventeen minutes. That's one-seven minutes, period. Anybody who—"

  The trio in lab coats gestured Marines away from a portion of deck and knelt down. One of the tech reps took an instrument from his pocket and placed it cup-end down on the decking. He frowned at the result; the commander growled at him.

  "—loses sight of the mission will have me to answer to," Kowacs continued.

  "And they'll wish they'd never been born!" added Sergeant Bradley. The field first sergeant got enough venom into the justified threat to take out some of his frustration about the way the briefing had to be held.

  And the way the mission was shaping up.

  Kowacs was holding the briefing here because the module's hangar was the only space in the huge headquarters complex both big enough to hold a hundred Marines—and cleared for this particular dollop of Sensitive Compartmentalized Information. Unfortunately, the module was still under test, and the technical crews dialing in the hardware had precedence over the briefing.

  The Marines wh
o were about to ride the hardware into the middle of enemies worse than the Khalians couldn't argue with the priority, but it didn't make life simpler.

  Kowacs touched a stud on the control wand a Grade P7 Fleet technician had given him. For a wonder, the system worked perfectly. The hold's circular bulkhead was replaced by a holographic display, the simulated interior of the Syndicate base the Headhunters would be attacking.

  "We'll be landing inside the docking bay," Kowacs said as a slow hammering sound began to work its way across the ceiling above him. "In all likelihood it'll be under atmosphere, but we'll be wearing ten-minute airpacks for an emergency."

  The two tech reps got up and walked toward the hatch, a rectangle with rounded corners in the midst of a holographic gantry. The commander followed them, shaking her head. She turned in the hatchway to frown at the deck she'd been examining.

  "Suits?" asked Laurel, a squad leader in 3rd Platoon.

  "Weapons Platoon will be in suits," said Kowacs. "They'll provide security for the module. The remainder of us'll be travelling light. We'll fan out in three-man teams. You'll all have pre-briefed objectives, but don't hesitate to divert to grab anything that looks like it might be valuable."

  Something popped within the hulls. The encircling holograms vanished. All the lights in the bay went out. First the display, then the lights, came back on moments later.

  Somebody swore bitterly.

  Corporal Sienkiewicz—the tallest, possibly the strongest, and certainly the toughest member of the 121st—looked bored as she lounged against a bulkhead covered by the image of an open corridor. She knew what the Headhunters' job was this time out—and she knew her own job on every operation, to cover Kowacs' back and keep him alive till the next time. The whys and hows of the operation didn't matter to her beyond that.

  "Sir," said a newbie named Bynum—five years a Marine but on his first operation with the Headhunters. "I looked this boat over and she don't have engines. No shit."

  "The ship," said Kowacs harshly, "is none of our business. Do you hear? The ship just gets us there and brings us back."

  "S'posed to bring us back," somebody muttered in what should have been general silence.

  "Listen!" Kowacs snarled. He had to take a tough line, because they all knew this could be a rat-fuck, and the only way his Headhunters were going to go through with it was by rigid obedience. "If there's any of you who don't think you want to chance life in a reaction company any more, I'll approve your transfer now. Want to be a cook? A recruiter? Just say the word!"

  Nobody spoke. A number of the Marines looked down, at the deck, at their hands.

  They were a good bunch, the very best. They'd charge Hell if he ordered it . . . only in part because they knew if it came to that, Nick Kowacs would be leading from the front.

  The laser cutter shrieked as it bit into an interior bulkhead again.

  "Is this an Eight-Ball Command job?" ask Lieutenant Timmes of Weapons Platoon.

  "Yes, it is," Kowacs said flatly.

  He looked around the crowd of hard faces and the blank visages of Marines who had opaqued their helmet visors. "If anybody's got a problem with that, the transfer offer still stands."

  "No problem," said Timmes. "Just wanted to know."

  "Them bastards," said a sharp-featured trooper named Fleur. "You never know what they're playing at."

  Kowacs suspected Fleur had been a disciplinary enlistment—volunteer for a reaction company or face a court martial—but Kowacs had no complaint to make of the Marine. He didn't guess any of the Headhunters, himself included, were good civilian material.

  "You don't know what anybody who's got any real authority is playing at," Kowacs said. He was restating the argument by which he'd more-or-less convinced himself. "It's just that people like you and me at the sharp end, we don't see the regular sort, the admirals and Sector Commandants. The boys in Interservice Support Activity, they may be bastards but they're willing to put themselves on the line."

  "Gotta give 'em credit for that," chuckled Bradley.

  The laser cutter had stopped. The sergeant removed his helmet to knuckle the bare scar tissue of his scalp.

  "I don't gotta give 'em a fuckin' thing but a quick round if I get one in my sights," muttered Fleur.

  Kowacs opened his mouth to react, because you weren't supposed to shoot putative friendlies and you never talked about it, neither before nor after.

  Before he could speak, Sergeant Bradley changed the subject loudly by asking, "D'ye mean we don't gotta wear those fucking A-Pot hardsuits that the Redhorse had all the trouble with on Bull's-eye?"

  Kowacs looked at his field first. Bradley gave Kowacs a half wink; Bradley and Corporal Sienkiewicz would straighten out Fleur, but it didn't have to be now and in public.

  A man in a white lab coat entered the hold and began making his way through the listening Marines. For a moment he was anonymous, like the noises in the hull and the other intruders who'd been focused on their technical agenda.

  "I don't know," the newly-promoted major said. "I'll have to—"

  The big technician in the corner of Kowacs' eyes suddenly sharpened into an identified personality: the man in the lab coat was Grant.

  "Fuckin' A," Sienkiewicz muttered as she drew herself alert.

  "I'll take over now, Kowacs," the spook said with as much assurance as if the Headhunters had been his unit, not Nick Kowacs'.

  Grant wore a throat mike and a wireless receiver in his right ear, though he had no helmet to damp out the ambient noise if the laser started cutting again.

  He stared around the assembled Marines for a moment, then looked directly at Kowacs' bodyguard and said, "No, Corporal, for this one you'll be using the same stone-axe simple equipment you're used to. If you tried to open an A-Potential field inside an existing field—the intrusion module. . . ."

  He smiled at the big woman. "You wouldn't like what happened. And I wouldn't like that it screwed up the operation."

  Grant met the glares and blank globes of the waiting Headhunters again. "For those of you who don't know," he said, "my name's Grant and you all work for me. You'll take orders through your regular CO here—" he jerked his left thumb in Kowacs' direction without bothering to look around "—but those orders come from me. Is that clear?"

  Beside the civilian, Kowacs nodded his head. His eyes held no expression.

  "And since you work for me . . . ," Grant resumed as he reached beneath his lab coat, "I've got a little job for one of you. Private Fleur—"

  Grant's hand came out with a pistol.

  "Catch."

  Grant tossed the weapon to Fleur. It was a full-sized, dual-feed service pistol, Fleet issue and deadly as the jaws of a shark.

  The Marines nearest to Fleur ducked away as if Grant had thrown a grenade. Kowacs, Bradley, and Sienkiewicz were up on the balls of their feet, ready to react because they'd have to react; they were responsible for the unit and for one another.

  "Private Fleur," Grant said, "I'm afraid for my life. There's somebody planning to kill me. So I want you to clean my gun here and make sure it's in perfect working order for when I'm attacked."

  Nobody spoke. Other Marines eased as far away from Fleur as they could. Even without combat gear, the Headhunters packed the hold. English's 92nd MRC was a demi-company half the size of the 121st. . . .

  Fleur stared at the civilian, but his hands slid over the pistol in familiar fashion. He unlatched one magazine, then the other, and slammed them home again.

  "Careful," added Grant as he grinned. "There's one up the spout."

  "I . . . ," said Fleur

  If Fleur's trigger finger tightened, Kowacs would get between the private and Grant . . . but he'd have to be quick, since Sie would be going for him and Bradley was a toss-up, Kowacs or Grant or Fleur, the only thing sure being that the sergeant would do something besides try to save his own hide.

  "My cleaning kit's back at the billet," Fleur said. He swallowed. "Sir."

  "T
hen you'd better return the gun, boy," said Grant. "Hadn't you?"

  Fleur grimaced. For a moment he looked as though he were going to toss the weapon; then he stepped forward and presented the pistol butt-first to its owner. Fleur's hand was dwarfed by that of the civilian.

  The laser started cutting again. Grant aimed his pistol at the open hatch. Marines ducked, though nobody was in the direct line of fire.

  Grant pulled the trigger. The flashcrack and the answering crack of the explosive bullet detonating somewhere out in the hanger removed any possibility that the weapon had been doctored to make it harmless.

  The cutter shut down. Technicians shouted in surprise, but nobody stuck his head in through the hatch.

  Grant put the pistol away under his lab coat. "All right, Fleur," he said. "You're relieved. Go back to your quarters and pack your kit. Your orders are waiting for you there."

  Kowacs felt exhausted, drained. Sienkiewicz gripped his shoulder for the contact they both needed.

  "Your new assignment's on an intra-system tug," Grant added. Then, as harshly as the pistol shot of a moment before, "Get moving, mister!"

  Fleur stumbled out of the hold—and the Headhunters. A few of the Marines flicked a glance at his back; but only a glance.

  Grant exhaled heavily.

  "Right," he said. "This is going to be a piece of cake, troops. The bastards won't know what hit them. There's just one thing I want to emphasize before your major here gets on with his briefing."

  He grinned around the bay. Sphincter muscles tightened.

  "The module will be on-site for seventeen minutes," Grant went on. "That's not eighteen minutes, it's not seventeen minutes, one second. Anybody who isn't aboard on time spends the rest of his life in Syndicate hands."

  "You see," the smiling civilian concluded, "I couldn't change the extraction parameters. Even if I wanted to."

  * * *

  An electronic chime warned that the Headhunters were three minutes from insertion.

  The hatches were still open. The intrusion module's bulkheads were hidden by images, but the hologram was not a simulation this time. The present view was of the hangar in which the vehicle had been constructed and the twelve sealed black towers surrounding the module at the points of a compass rose. The towers would presumably launch the module . . . somehow.