The imposter twisted around. A quick-release catch snicked, shooting the knife from his left sleeve into his palm.
Sienkiewicz closed her right hand over the imposter’s grip on his knife hilt. She twisted. Bones broke.
The knife came away from the hand of her keening victim. She slammed the point down into the bar top, driving it deep into the dense plastic before she twisted again and snapped the blade.
“Big hero . . . ,” she whispered. Her expression was that of nothing human. She gripped the weasel-tail stole and said, “How much did these cost ‘cha, hero?” as she tore the trophies away and flung them behind her.
The bartender’s finger was poised over the red emergency button that would summon the Shore Police. He didn’t push it.
Sienkiewicz’ grip on the imposter’s throat was turning the man’s face purple. Nobody moved to stop her. Her right hand stripped off the uniform sleeve with its Headhunter insignia and tossed it after the stole.
Then, still using the power of only one arm, she hurled the imposter into a back booth also. Bone and plastic cracked at the heavy impact.
“I’m okay, Sie,” Kowacs repeated, but he let his corporal put her arm back around him again.
As the two Headhunters left the Red Shift Lounge, one of the enlisted men muttered, “You lying scum,” and drove his heel into the ribs of the fallen man.
Kowacs found that if he concentrated, he could walk almost normally. There was a lot of traffic this close to the docking hub, but other pedestrians made way good-naturedly for the pair of big Marines.
“Sie,” Kowacs said, “I used to daydream, you know? Me an old man, my beard down t’ my belt, y’know? And this little girl, she comes up t’ me and she says, ‘Great Grandaddy, what did you do in the Weasel War?'”
“Careful of the bollard here, sir,” Sienkiewicz murmured. “There’ll be a shuttle in a couple of minutes.”
“And I’d say to her,” Kowacs continued, his voice rising, “‘Well, sweetheart—I survived.'”
He started to sob. Sienkiewicz held him tightly. The people already standing at the shuttle point edged away.
“But I never thought I would survive, Sie!” Kowacs blubbered. “I never thought I would!”
“Easy, sir. We’ll get you bunked down in a minute.”
Kowacs looked up, his red eyes meeting Sienkiewicz’ concern. “And you know the funny thing, Sie,” he said. “I don’t think I did survive.”
“Easy. . . .”
“Without weasels t’ kill, I don’t think there’s any Nick Kowacs alive.”
SMASH AND GRAB
A Story of The Fleet
The receptionist facing Captain Kowacs wasn’t armed, but there was enough weaponry built into her desk to stop a destroyer. Her face was neutral, composed. If she was supposed to do anything besides watch the Marine captain, she was fucking off.
This was like going through a series of airlocks; but what was on the far end of these doors was a lot more dangerous than vacuum.
The inner door opened to admit a guide/escort—Kowacs’ third guide since hand-delivered orders jerked him out the barracks assigned to the 121st Marine Reaction Company.
His company, his Headhunters. And would to God he was back with them now.
“If you’ll come this way, please, Captain Kowacs,” said the guide.
This one was a young human male, built like a weightlifter and probably trained as well as a man could be trained. Kowacs figured he could take the kid if it came to that . . . but only because training by itself wasn’t enough against the instant ruthlessness you acquired if you survived your first month in a reaction company.
Captain Miklos Kowacs had survived seven years. If that wasn’t a record, it was damn close to one.
Kowacs was stocky and powerful, with cold eyes and black hair that curled on the backs of his wrists and hands. The Fleet’s reconstructive surgeons were artists, and they had a great deal of practice. Kowacs was without scars.
On his body.
“Turn left at the corridor, please, sir,” said the escort. He was walking a pace behind and a pace to Kowacs’ side. Like a well-trained dog . . . which was about half true: if the kid had been only muscle, he wouldn’t have been here.