But it was so tempting.
The dead were piled several layers deep against the inner face of the parapet—deeper in the angle than the natural slipperiness of blood-lubricated dead flesh would allow. Not all of that flesh was dead. Vibulenus had let himself relax from the knife-edge concentration of combat, let his muscles feel the trembling exhaustion and stiffen with fatigue poisons. His sword was still rasping from its sheath when the three natives lunged erect, daggers glittering in their hands as they threw themselves towards the Commander.
Clodius Afer’s shield slammed one sideways, and the centurion’s sword gutted the native while he fought for balance.
Cursing silently, Vibulenus threw himself forward, forcing speed out of abused muscles. He didn’t think the Guild would be much concerned with abstract rights and wrongs if the Commander was knifed in the presence of the assets who were supposed to absorb the hurt.
Something warm and salty struck him in the face. His vision blurred, but not so much that he couldn’t see the follow-through of the Commander’s ape-long arm and the track the four razor claws had cut through the native daggerman’s neck. The Commander was smiling—Vibulenus saw the expression and hoped it wasn’t really a smile—as he dug the claws of both hands under the last assassin’s ribs and dragged him forward. Then, with an almost casual motion, he bit off the top of the local’s skull.
“Incompatible proteins,” he said, after he spat the mouthful out and tossed aside the corpse. “Where was I? Ah, yes. The natives hostile to the interests of the Guild and galactic progress were probably aware that the Federation bans advanced weapons on planets such as this.”
He beamed coldly at the Romans. Shreds of matter and feathery not-hair dangled between the multiple rows of teeth. “But as always, they underestimated the organizational skills of the finest trading guild in the galaxy!”
The Commander turned and swept away, followed by his armored guards. Vibulenus smiled wryly as he sheathed his sword. “Good thing we can both resist temptation, isn’t it?” he said.
“Sir, yessir,” Clodius Afer said, cleaning his weapon and doing likewise. He turned his head to look out over the piled dead that carpeted the ground, to the edge of sight in the dull gray light of predawn.
“Looks like ‘e said. They underestimated the fuckin’ opposition, all right,” he said.
Gaius Vibulenus Caper, military tribune, member of the Equestrian Order and citizen of Rome, put his hand on his fellow-Roman’s shoulder. “They underestimated us, by the gods of my hearth,” he said.
They both looked after the Commander, to where the blue-suited figure had vanished behind the smaller turtles that brought water to the legionaries, and the greater one that picked up the repairable dead. Far and faint came wailing from the fortress on the hill, as the natives saw their hope receding with the fleeing barbarians.
“And someday—” Afer went on.
Vibulenus smiled, an expression no less sharkish than the Commander’s serrated rows of teeth. Someday, someone in a blue bodysuit is going to underestimate us.
Everyone made mistakes. But that was going to be the last mistake some Commander of the Guild’s Roman assets ever made.
CARTHAGO DELENDA EST
Eric Flint
I
“What is the point of this?” demanded Agayan. The Guild Voivode emphasized his irritation by flexing the finger-clusters of his midlimbs.
Yuaw Khta ignored both the question and the cluster-flex. The Guild Investigator was immune to the Voivode’s displeasure. The Guild’s Office of Investigation had a separate command structure from that of the Trade Web. Although Agayan was its nominal superior in their current mission, Yuaw Khta’s career in no way depended on the Voivode’s goodwill.
“Again.”
The Gha sepoy it commanded twisted the native’s arm further. Gobbling with pain, the native struggled furiously.
Its efforts were futile, despite the fact that the orange-skinned biped was not much smaller than its Gha tormentor. It was more slender, true—although much of the Gha’s squat bulk was the product of its heavy armor. Still, the native was every bit as tall as the Gha. But the real difference lay beneath the surface. For all the near-equivalence of size, the native was a child in the hands of an ogre.