March Upcountry by Weber David & Ringo John

Author:Weber, David & Ringo, John [Weber, David & Ringo, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780671319854
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2001-05-01T06:00:00+00:00

Empire of Men 1 - March Upcountry

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“Clear,” Pahner said, nodding his head at the report over the helmet radio. It had nearly killed him to let Lieutenant Sawato take point on managing the company, but he’d had to be at the dinner. And better him on the line than anyone else in the company when that particular bucket of shit hit the rotary air impeller. Except, maybe, Roger. Which still had him floored.

Pahner was not the type to judge anyone by his ability to shoot. He’d known too many consummate bastards who happened to be good combat shooters to do that. But between Roger’s surprising ability with weapons and the occasional depths he revealed, the captain was feeling distinctly whipsawed. Ninety percent of the time, he wanted to throttle the spoiled brat, but, lately, there’d been times when he was almost impressed. Almost.

He checked the maps and grunted at the report from Jin.

“Okay, I’ll take it up with His Majesty. Make sure you hold the treasury, but don’t get involved otherwise.”

He looked over to where Xyia Kan was sitting. Most of the blood had been washed off, but the king was still a sight. Bits of dried blood clung to the decorations on his horns and on his face, but he looked up alertly at Pahner’s motion.

“Yes? It goes well?”

It had, in fact, gone perfectly in the castle. The ring leaders had been seized, and their crimes had been detailed to the other house-​leaders. Those leaders had then been instructed to send orders to their own Houses to stand down their guards on pain of the same sort of assault. Pending the delivery of proof of their crimes, the leaders of N’Jaa, Kesselotte, and C’Rtena had been separated and imprisoned. Those who apparently hadn’t had any knowledge of the plot had been released to return to their homes; the others were still being held in the dining room, surrounded by the now rotting blood of the dead guards. The psychological effect was salutary.

“It goes okay,” Pahner said. “We took casualties at C’Rtena, which I didn’t expect. No one got hurt bad, though, and other than that, we got off clean. But we have fires at C’Rtena and Kesselotte, and the troops need somebody to come put out the flames. And your guards are looting. My people can’t get them under control.”

“They will,” Grak said with a resigned handclap. “How do you stop soldiers from looting?”

Well, you can, for example, kill them until the survivors figure out it’s not permitted, Pahner thought with a mental snarl.

“I don’t suppose you can,” he said aloud, calmly. That shrug-​your-​shoulders, what-​the-​hell attitude was the sort of thing he had to ensure didn’t happen with Roger, he told himself. There was a fine line between ruthless and evil . . . and another between sloppy and barbaric. At the back of his mind, though, the song called. “I suppose that’s what makes the boys get up and shoot.”

“I’ll send servants to put the fires out,” the king said.

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