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.