THE MPS PUSHED into the deserted trenches with no small amount of trepidation. They'd had to leave their vehicle more than a mile away. This place was as frightening as hell. . . .
For starters, why was it deserted? Were they going to meet Magh'?
For a second, dealing with drunken Vat-troops on leave in the city was one thing. Here in the front lines, they had a private suspicion that Magh' might be safer to meet than front-line soldiers. Still, they had their orders.
The sound of voices was a welcome one. It was a party of medics with stretchers.
"Halt!" said the Military Police captain.
"Fuck off, redcap. Get out of the way."
"That's an order, soldier!" snapped another MP.
"I'm a medic, asshole. With an injured soldier in my care. Go and look at your military law. Now get out of my way before I toss you out of the mine corridor."
It was something of a shock to the MPs. "Look, we just need to ask you if you know where we can find a Major Conrad Fitzhugh," said the captain, in a more reasonable tone of voice, walking next to the stretcher bearer.
One of the stretcher bearers halted. "Hear that, guys? The redcaps want to find Major Fitz." There was a ripple of laughter.
The medic gestured with his head. "He's back there. I guess about ten, fifteen klicks away. Where there is real fighting, you know. Not just poking a nightstick into a drunk's guts."
The captain bared his teeth at the disrespect. "How do we get there? We have a warrant . . ."
The orderly started walking again. He spoke quietly. "Turn around, MP. Quickly. And keep walking, until you get to your little truck. And then piss off. You go in there saying you've got a warrant for Major Fitz and you're not going to come back. Not even on a stretcher."
"If I don't get to you first," said a second orderly, darkly.
"We should let 'em go and talk to Ariel," said the man on the stretcher, waving a tourniquetted stump at the horrified MP.
Even the rest of the wounded laughed like hell.
General Cartup-Kreutzler was an angry, frustrated, underslept man. No matter how he tried he was not going to manage to hush this up. That stiff-backed major had said that the general could do his damnedest. Far from taking action against his guards, the major was going to reward them. It was their duty to arrest anyone who wasn't in possession of an ID card, even if they were an unrecognized drunk and disorderly general.
And on top of that the general knew his wife would be incandescent. Besides the Queen Ann chair . . . he and Daisy hadn't cleared up. He wasn't looking forward to going home. Her family had the money.
Then General Blutin barged into his office without even a knock. Cartup-Kreutzler's supposed superior was normally cowed in his presence. At power games in the channels of influence, Cartup-Kreutzler had a substantial edge.
But not now. General Blutin slapped the newspaper down onto the desk. "Just what is the MEANING of this, Kreutzler? You're supposed to keep me informed! I've just made a complete fool of myself denying this to three newspapers. And here it is, complete with photographs!"
The banner headline read FIRST VICTORY! above a high-res satellite pic showing a column of dust and several obvious explosions, against the background of spiral scorpiary walls. Cartup-Kreutzler read on. The subheading was "Big push succeeds thanks to Commandos!"
Then his eyes hit on the first three words of the article and blurred . . .
Major Conrad Fitzhugh . . .
His head hurt.
. . . leading the attack . . . hero . . .
General Blutin leaned over his desk, spraying him with spittle. "I want a full explanation. All the details. On my desk within half an hour. Do you hear me? How dare you do this without even notifying me? How dare you?"
The worm had finally turned. "Can I keep the newspaper?" Cartup-Kreutzler asked timidly.
"No! Get your own." The general stormed out past Daisy's empty desk.
General Cartup-Kreutzler sat silent. Captain Hargreaves would get back in a few minutes. He reached for the crystal whiskey decanter. It was rather low. He poured himself a good three fingers with a shaking hand, and knocked it back. Then he paused, the nearly empty glass still at his lips.
He sniffed.
Rat-urine has a characteristic odor.
Well, you could call it fighting. Some of the Magh' they encountered were warrior-types. But stupid, stupid, stupid! They'd only fight if you came too close.
The paratroopers had landed unopposed on the central dome. They'd regrouped and blown their way through into the scorpiary. There, on the upper tier of circles around the tower, they'd started hitting Magh' of all types. The Magh' were wandering around, aimlessly. Van Klomp soon figured out that all the paratroopers had to do was stay out of their way. The question was—where were the paratroopers going, exactly? There were plenty of signs that someone had been giving the Magh' hell. But where were they?
Then they heard the singing. A piece had been knocked out of the central tower's upper wall. And the sound of voices uplifted in joyous song could be heard . . .
"Shaid me Jolly tinker we'll have another round! Oh indeed she did! Yas indeed she did . . ."
It wasn't tuneful.
It wasn't Magh', either.
"Let's see if we can get a rope across there, Corporal."
All that practice with grappling hooks and assault courses finally paid off. They got three ropes to hook up. And they swung across, and then hand over hand, up and over.
Van Klomp, of course, was in the lead. The huge chamber was smoky and dim. A fire burned on the far side. He dropped a rope down and rappelled in. And then stopped, bangstick in hand. He was ready for anything . . .
No. He wasn't. Not for this. With difficulty, he wrenched his eyes from the naked breasts of the girl sitting up on the makeshift bed in the corner. Not very big breasts, but beautifully formed. He did eventually manage to shift his gaze higher. He dropped his bangstick. Virginia Shaw's face, even without the glasses, was fairly unmistakable. But the pictures hadn't been adorned by an indecently large, happy smile.
"Who is it, Chip?" she asked, blinking at them.
A stocky, scarred, spiky-haired, unshaven, and very tough-looking little man sat up. He had a bandaged shoulder, but otherwise seemed as naked as the woman next to him. "It's some kind of Orificer, Ginny. A major. Parachute brigade, I think. I thought all they did was formation jumps at parades. And if he doesn't stop staring at your tits, I'm going to escalope his private parts."
Van Klomp was a good judge of men. His balls were at real risk. He hastily tried to concentrate on faces.
Virginia Shaw put an arm around her man and kissed him. Then she turned to blink at Van Klomp again, who had been joined by almost the whole squad. She smiled sweetly. "Why don't you come back later, Major? Much later."
For the first time in his life, Van Klomp, the loudest man on Harmony And Reason, was utterly silenced. He watched as she pulled the stocky dark-haired soldier down onto the bed again, and threw one long, slim leg over him.
The paratrooper corporal at Van Klomp's side turned hastily towards the fire, brandishing his bangstick. There was something blue, hairy and totally alien standing there. And—
A one-eyed rat, a slightly plump bat, and a tiny, big-eyed, delicate little creature staggered their way around bloated Maggot bodies toward them. Arm-in-arm. Or arm on wing, anyway. The rat held out a bottle.
The unsuspecting Van Klomp took it, and took a swig. While he was still gasping, the small fluffy-toy cute creature, swaying a little, gestured at the large, hairy-armed, two-hundred-ten-pound Godzilla-in-human-form corporal next to him.
"How much, señor," asked the soup-mug sized creature, "for your sister?"