Backshot (29 page)

Rear of a Vacant Building on Ranstead Street

“There he is,” Sergeant Gossner said. “Must have gone to the men’s room.”

Lance Corporal Dwan raised her maser to her shoulder and took aim. Lavager conveniently stopped to talk to someone, and his back presented as good a target as she’d ever seen.

“What’s he doing?” Gossner asked when he saw Lavager stop instead of returning to his table. Dwan didn’t answer immediately; she was pressing the maser’s firing lever. When she saw her target drop and released the firing lever, she said, “Going the way of all flesh,” then stripped out of her chameleons and pulled her clothes back on. Gossner broke the maser down and stuffed it back inside the bag while she changed.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Dwan said breathlessly when she finished dressing. Gossner was surprised to see the normally sharp-looking Dwan’s clothing was sloppily adjusted, as though she’d pulled it on in a hurry. Which she had, but still he would have expected her to have managed to be neater about her dress. Dwan slung her bag over one shoulder and grabbed Gossner’s hand, pulling him out of the rear room and down the stairs.

They exited the building via the front door and Dwan hustled them straight to their hotel. Gossner almost had to trot to keep up with her.

We must look like we started something and are in a hurry to get to a bedroom,
Gossner thought, glancing at her slightly disheveled clothes. They heard excited shouts coming from the direction of the restaurant and the wailing of sirens drawing near. But no soldiers or police were running about establishing a cordon or stopping people. Nobody had any reason to think Lavager had just been shot.

Ramuncho’s Restaurant

A strange, faraway expression suddenly came over Jorge Lavager’s face and sweat beaded his brow and cheeks. He swayed.

“Are you all right, sir?” Franklin al-Rashid asked, and reached for Lavager’s elbow. Before his hand got there, Lavager collapsed.

Gina Medina, still in awe of having been taken in by President Lavager, watched him returning from the rear of the restaurant. Her eyes sparkled as she watched him stop to talk with Franklin al-Rashid. She gasped when Lavager collapsed. Candace Lavager looked at her, saw where she was looking, looked herself, and screamed.

Al-Rashid managed to catch Lavager enough to ease him to the floor. He knelt over the fallen President and quickly examined him for wounds while he called out, “Call emergency medical. Tell them the President has collapsed.” There were no obvious wounds so al-Rashid checked for vital signs. Lavager wasn’t breathing and had no detectable pulse. Al-Rashid began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. By then, Candace and Gina had reached him.

“Get them out of here,” al-Rashid said. Sobbing, Gina let herself be led away, but a security agent had to pick Candace up and carry her. Candace Lavager kicked and screamed, fighting to break free to rush to her father’s side.

Room 1007, New Granum DeLuxe Inn

Dwan dragged Gossner into the room, tossed her bag into a corner, then twisted around and shoved past him to turn on the “Do Not Disturb” sign and make sure the door was secure. Then she threw herself on him and kissed him hard enough to bruise his lips.

“What—?” Gossner leaned back and reached for Dwan’s wrists to pull her arms from around his neck. Dwan let go before his hands reached hers and shoved him in the chest, hard, staggering him back. She stepped forward as he moved backward and shoved again.

“D-Dwan—” Gossner was baffled by her behavior and was beginning to wonder if he should be defending himself from an attack.

She shoved a third time and the backs of his knees hit the bed. He fell on it hard enough to bounce. Before he could roll aside, she leaped full on him and kissed him again.

“Shut up!” she rasped and began tearing at his clothes with one hand and her own with the other. “Kiss me!” She thrust her tongue between his lips. Tears flowed from her eyes onto his cheeks. Gossner finally began to respond. Uncertainly and cautiously, but he responded. It wasn’t until they were naked, her body pressed against his and her hips grinding against him, that he realized her body was wracked by her sobs and his face was running with her tears. It was one of those moments when a man doesn’t know what to do. So he hugged her and gently stroked her, while making gentling noises.

“Don’t hug me, take me!” she gasped, and rolled over onto her back, pulling him with her. “Take me hard!” She kissed him violently again. Gossner’s mind ran riot with thoughts of violated regulations; a senior having sex with a subordinate, them going counter to the note in their orders that their cover of a newlywed couple was not to extend to when they were in private, conduct unbecoming, and whatever other regulation they—and more particularly he—might be violating. And he was breaking the regulations with the Queen of Killers, a woman who was known to severely injure men who touched her; and he was doing more than merely touching her.

Her hips bucked against him. “Take me, dammit!”

So he pushed away other thoughts and did what she told him.

Later, after the roughest sex Gossner had ever had, he rolled off Dwan. She sighed contentedly and curled herself into his side. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he thought she was smiling. He lightly brushed his fingertips along her arm, her side, and her flank. He blinked, he could have sworn the Queen of Killers purred in response.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Fast Frigate CNSS
Admiral Nelson

Within hours after the AstroGhost bearing second platoon, Fourth Force Recon Company, docked with the CNSS
Admiral Nelson
, the starship broke orbit and headed system-north to a jump point. Two days later, the
Admiral Nelson
made her first jump into Beamspace, headed back to Halfway, again via New Genesee.

The wounded Marines who were brought aboard in stasis bags were left in them; the ship’s medical department had enough work tending to the other wounded Marines in addition to their normal run of underway injuries.

“Attention Marines,” the carefully modulated female voice said over the ship’s PA system shortly after the ship secured from the jump. “Sergeant Daly to the Captain’s quarters.”

Sergeants Bingh and Bajing, who were sharing a cabin with Daly, looked at him. He shrugged.

“I guess it’s routine for the ship’s captain to entertain the Marine commander as soon as possible after a mission,” Daly said. He took a moment to make sure his garrison utilities were shipshape, then headed for the captain’s quarters.

Daly identified himself to the petty officer third class standing guard outside the open hatch of Captain Emmert’s stateroom. The petty officer rapped his knuckles on a shiny brass plate set into the cowling of the watertight hatch and announced loudly, “Marine Sergeant Daly reporting, sir!”

“Enter.”

Daly had to stoop slightly as he stepped through the hatch. Inside, he drew himself to attention and faced the captain, who was examining something on a screen at a small desk set against the bulkhead.

“Sergeant Daly reporting as ordered, sir.”

Captain Emmert swiveled to look at Daly. “At ease, Sergeant,” he said after a second’s scrutiny. Daly relaxed to an easy parade rest and kept his eyes straight ahead. Emmert turned his screen so Daly could easily read it if he shifted his eyes. Daly did. The screen showed the medical department’s report on the Marine casualties.

“You had a pretty rough time down there, didn’t you?”

“Yessir.” He knew that Emmert wasn’t probing for details of the mission; Emmert didn’t have the need to know.

“I had a chance to talk with Lieutenant Tevedes before the ship’s surgeon put him in a stasis bag.”

“Yessir.” Tevedes had gone into the stasis bag before the
Admiral Nelson
broke orbit and Daly hadn’t had a chance to speak with him.

“He told me you performed extremely well after he was injured. ‘Outstanding’ was the word he used.”

Daly didn’t respond; there wasn’t really anything he could say.

“Are you aware that the ship’s captain on a Force Recon mission also files an afteraction report on the mission?”

“Nossir, I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Now you know. I think you should also know something of what is going into my report. I’m going to include Lieutenant Tevedes’s remarks on your conduct after everyone above you in the chain of command was killed or incapacitated. From everything I know about it, I want to add my own hearty ‘well done,’ Mr. Daly.”

Daly blinked. “Mister” was a proper address to use with company grade officers, not sergeants. “Thank you, sir.”

Emmert smiled briefly at Daly’s blink. “You did an officer’s job, and you did it well. If I need anything else from you, I’ll let you know. Now rest and recuperate. Did you take care of that other matter?”

“Yessir. I gave them to the ship’s quartermaster as per orders.” The “other matter” was orders he was given as soon as he reported aboard: to collect the chameleons the Marines had worn on the mission and bag them without laundering, so they could be examined for traces of chemicals picked up during the mission.

Emmert nodded and turned back to his desk. Daly snapped to attention. “Aye aye, sir. Thank you.” He executed a parade-ground about-face and stepped out of the captain’s quarters. His step was light on his way back to his own stateroom. When the
Admiral Nelson
ported at New Genesee, the ship’s quartermaster handed over the sealed bag with the worn chameleons, along with all the image-crystals and physical evidence the platoon had collected at the Cabbage Patch, to another navy ship headed for Earth.

Onboard the SpaceFun Lines Tour Ship
Blue Ocean
, En Route from Atlas to New Genesee

The stateroom Sergeant Ivo Gossner and Lance Corporal Bella Dwan shared on the
Blue Ocean
was much smaller than the hotel room they’d shared with little problem in New Granum. Actually, it was within cubic centimeters of the size of the stateroom they’d shared on the
Crimson Seas
on their way to Atlas.

But it felt much,
much
smaller. On the way out, they’d been team leader and sniper. Generally, they both had done their best to ignore the fact that they were a man and a woman sharing tight quarters, just as they’d ignored the fact that they were a man and a woman sharing a bed in the hotel room after they made planetfall on Atlas. At least, Gossner knew he’d done
his
best to ignore the fact that Bella Dwan was a very attractive woman. Now he wasn’t so sure she’d been ignoring the man-woman business all that time. In retrospect, he wondered if the apparent sexual signals he’d noticed had been deliberate. On the other hand, after the one powerful bout of sex, Bella Dwan had been prim and proper to the point of prudishness. Where they’d previously shared a bed, during their remaining three nights in New Granum, one or the other had slept on a blanket on the floor, or curled in an easy chair. Their stateroom on the
Blue Ocean
was tourist class and had two narrow berths, one above the other. Dwan had immediately claimed the upper. She didn’t invite him to join her, nor did she ever descend to his berth during the journey to New Genesee. Her nightclothes were more modest than she’d worn in New Granum, and she always changed in the stateroom’s minuscule lavatory with the door tightly secured.

She did, though, rumple one or the other berth every morning in such a manner that any maid who happened to come in to clean would think they’d spent time together overnight. Daly wasn’t sure how he felt about Dwan’s physical remoteness. He found her physically more attractive than he had before, and now he knew how satisfyingly wild she could be in bed. He hadn’t had a serious relationship with a woman back on Halfway, just an intermittent series of casual relationships, mostly with civilian women. The most recent was with a charming petty officer in the navy supply depot. The women he connected with usually broke the relationship off after he’d gone on a couple of missions; they had too many difficulties with the frequency of his deployments, or the idea that he could come back from a mission maimed or crippled—or not come back at all—to stay with him. But Dwan was a woman who could understand and accept the fact that he was a Force Recon Marine and there were risks that had to be accepted. And, as she was a Force Recon Marine herself, he could understand her better than he could the safe-and-secure women as well. Of course, if they had an ongoing relationship, one of them would have to transfer, it simply wouldn’t do for them to remain in their current supervisor-subordinate positions. Not to mention that such a relationship was a violation of Marine Corps regulations. It wouldn’t be a major disruption of the company if one of them transferred into one of the other platoons. If a vacancy came up in one of the other sniper squads, no disruption at all. They’d have frequent separations being in different platoons, one would be deployed on a mission this time, another the other time. But they were Force Recon Marines, and accustomed to being away from their friends, so neither should that create any problem. All of which ideas he could entertain so long as he didn’t look into her eyes. He did once, and the soul that looked back at him was that of the Queen of Killers, the woman who frightened men. When the Queen of Killers looked at him, he didn’t even want to be in the same stateroom, much less have a personal and sexual partnership with her. He backed off on all thoughts of resuming what they had done together after the kill. It wasn’t until they were supercargo on the Wayfaring Freight Lines ore carrier the
High Tide
that Dwan finally said something on the subject. Onboard the
High Tide
, En Route from New Genesee to Halfway Their cabin on the
High Tide
was even smaller than the stateroom they shared on the
Blue Ocean
. There was only one bunk, just wide enough for two people to lie spooned together, so they took turns sleeping sitting on a folded blanket on the small square of deck that was all there was between the bunk, the waterproof door, and the clothing locker. The cabin didn’t have its own lavatory, they shared a head with the occupants of the other seven so-called supercargo cabins. The head could only accommodate four people at a time, so it was fortunate that only two of the other supercargo cabins were occupied on that trip.

Dwan broke the awkward silence that had fallen over them since Atlas. “It was the kill, you know,” she said flatly. “Nothing personal, just the kill.” She didn’t look at Gossner when she spoke. He looked at her, then away. “I know,” he said just as unemotionally. “I know that happens. But you’d never given any indication before. So you caught me by surprise.”

“This was my first solo team mission,” Dwan continued with no more inflection than before. “Other times I had other outlets. It won’t happen again.” She looked at him during the last sentence. Gossner met her eyes. The Queen of Killers stared back. He also saw something else he couldn’t identify, and didn’t think he wanted to.

“I don’t imagine it will,” he said. Gossner looked away first.

After that, the silence between them was less awkward, and by the time they made planetfall on Halfway, they were back to normal. Or at least as normal as they’d been before they walked into Commander Obannion’s office and were given the mission orders.

Fourth Force Recon Company, Fourth Fleet Marines, Camp Howard, MCB Camp Basilone, Halfway

Commander Obannion looked over his company at morning formation. Not many of his one hundred and eighty-six Marines and sailors were present. First platoon was still on a training mission to Carhart’s World. Most of the squads from third platoon that had been on deployment when second platoon left for Atlas were still out and those that hadn’t been gone then were now, along with three of fourth platoon’s squads. Second platoon itself, with six dead and as many more too badly injured in its most recent mission to be available for duty, was truncated. Obannion’s gaze paused when it reached Sergeant Jak Daly, standing in the platoon commander’s position at the head of second platoon. He’d need to do some reorganizing before replacements came in. And he had other ideas for what to do with Daly. Other company business completed, Obannion finished with, “When I dismiss the company from formation, there will be platoon-level inspections in the squad bays. Everyone who passes inspection will be given a ninety-six hour shore liberty.”

The only visible reaction to the news within the platoon was an almost imperceptible shifting as the Marines stood a little bit taller and straighter. Obannion looked over the company one more time, then filled his lungs and shouted out, “COMP-ney, dis-
missed
!” He turned about and headed toward his office. Sergeant Major Periz walked with him, one pace to his left and rear.

“Sergeant Major,” Obannion said out of the side of his mouth, “tell Sergeant Daly that I inspected second platoon and they all passed, they’re free to take off. And tell him to stand by, I’m going to want to see him in my office.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Periz said and broke formation to head Daly off. On his way he eyeballed Sergeant Gossner and Lance Corporal Dwan. He hadn’t been able to find out what that mission of theirs was, but now that they were back, he’d find a chance to corner them one at a time and find out. Inside the barracks, Obannion signaled Captains Qindall and Wainwright to join him in his office. When Periz returned from passing the word to Daly, Obannion signaled him to come in as well and close the door. He indicated that the others should sit, and they did as soon as he took his place behind his desk.

“I’ve had my eye on Daly for some time now,” Obannion said as soon as everybody was seated. “But you know that. Well, he just had quite a baptism of fire as acting platoon commander. According to all reports, he acquitted himself well.” He looked at the others; they’d all had time to study the debriefing of the members of second platoon, including that of Doc Natron. They had also seen the deposition of Lieutenant Tevedes, taken onboard the
Admiral Nelson
before he was put in the stasis bag, and read the afteraction report filed by Captain Emmert of the
Admiral Nelson
.

“Can any of you think of a reason I shouldn’t ask him to put in for commissioning?”

There was a moment of silence before Captain Qindall, the Executive Officer, said, “I’m not so sure, sometimes he gets pretty arrogant. That’s not a particularly good quality in an officer.”

Periz barked out a sharp laugh. “Arrogance, not desirable in a Marine? Captain, arrogance is a quality that
distinguishes
Marines!” He leaned forward, and put his elbows on his thighs. “With all due respect, sir, Daly’s not arrogant, he’s a Marine. A lot of people, mostly the army, think Marines are arrogant. But we aren’t arrogant, it’s just that we know we’re the best at what we do—and we don’t see any reason to hide that fact.” He snorted, then continued, “Most Marines think Force Recon is arrogant. We aren’t, though. It’s just that we can do things nobody else can do, and we’re proud of it. If Daly seems arrogant to us, it’s just because he’s one of the best of us—and doesn’t see any reason to hide it.”