“Another beer,” said the stocky man at the other end of the bar. His voice was mushy. The bartender ignored him.
“No, I don’t,” said the officer. “I don’t suppose I would even if I were on duty.”
“Bartender,” called his companion. “I’ll pay for that whiskey. As a matter of fact, sergeant, would you like to—”
He paused. The first officer was already sliding out of the booth, carrying his drink. “Would you mind if we joined you?” his companion said, getting up and heading for the bar before he completed the question.
“Naw, I’m glad for the company,” the sergeant said. “I just couldn’t take—I mean, peace with the weasels? We had ’em where we wanted ’em, by the balls. We shoulda kept going till this—” he tugged at his weasel-tail stole “—was the only kinda weasel there was!”
“I’m proud to meet a member of the Headhunters,” said the first officer. “My name’s Howes—” he stuck out his hand “—and my friend here is, ah, Mr. Lewis.”
Beyond any question, the two men were Commanders or even Captains Howes and Lewis when they were in uniform.
“Sergeant Oaklin Bradley,” the Headhunter said, shaking hands with both officers. “Sorry if I got a little short . . . but ‘cha know, it tears the guts outa a real fighting man to think that we’re going to quit while there’s still weasels alive.”
The bartender put the whiskey on the bar. Bradley’s back was to him. The bartender continued to hold the glass for fear the Headhunter would bump it over.
“You were there at the surrender, I suppose?” Howes said as he picked up the whiskey and gave it to Bradley.
The woman, an overweight ‘blonde’ in a tank top, got up from the table and made her way to the bar. She was dead drunk—but familiar enough with the condition to be able to function that way.
“Aw, Babs,” said one of her companions.
Earlier, the trio at the table had been having a discussion in loud, drunken whispers. Just as Sergeant Bradley entered the lounge, Babs had mumblingly agreed to go down on both enlisted men in an equipment storage room near the Red Shift.
If her companions were unhappy about losing the entertainment they’d planned for the evening, it didn’t prevent them from joining her and the two officers in the semicircle around the uniformed hero at the bar.
“Oh, yeah,” Bradley said. “I was there, all right.” He’d waited to speak until chairlegs had stopped scraping and everyone was close enough to hear easily. “We landed right in the middle of the weasel Presidential Palace or whatever. . . .”
“High Council Chambers,” Lewis murmured.
“Yes, yes, I’d heard that,” Howes said. His eyes were greedy as they rested on Bradley’s fringe of weasel tails. “The Khalians worship strength, so just reaching their capital put the Alliance on top of their dominance pyramid.”
The man at the end of the bar stared into his empty mug, turning it slowly and carefully as if to make sense of his distorted reflection in the bottom.
“We killed so many of ’em you could float a battleship in the blood,” Bradley said, licking his lips. “Never felt so good about anything in my life. We blew our way into the very fucking center of the place, caught all the weasel brass with their pants down . . . and Cap’n Kowacs, he said we had to let ’em surrender instead of burning ’em all the way we shoulda done.”
Bradley tossed down his liquor in a quick, angry motion, then slapped the empty glass on the bar. Babs shifted closer so that one of her heavy breasts lay against the Headhunter’s biceps.
“Well, it did end the war,” Lewis said, examining his fingernails and looking vaguely embarrassed for disagreeing with the hero.
“That part of the war!” Howes retorted sharply. “There’s still whoever it was behind the Khalians to begin with.”
The bartender refilled the whiskey glass.
The Headhunter at the bar of the Red Shift Lounge remembered. . . .
* * *
In the belly of Dropship K435, Captain Miklos Kowacs squinted to focus on the image of their target. His holographic display stayed rock-steady as they dived toward the huge Khalian complex, but Kowacs’ own eyes and brain vibrated like dessert gelatine.