Intrepid

21

Colonel Cortez did not like the smell of what lay ahead. The ground was low and stank of marsh. Not the honest stench of the marshes humans had known forever … and drained on Earth. No, somehow this waterlogged mess had an acridly sweet smell to it. Nothing was right on this godforsaken planet.

If Cortez hadn't already issued orders to put a stop to the bitching about ''Why not let the damn locals have the damn place,'' he would have muttered something like that himself.

He searched what lay before him with his binoculars. As the photomap Thorpe had sent him showed, there was swamp as far as the broom trees let him see. And directly in front of him a grassy mound ran straight and narrow for about three klicks.

It wasn't exactly a road. Like everything on this planet the natives called Pandemonium, it was different. No solid gravel or asphalt road for these folks. No, they'd planted this causeway with one of the perennial grains that the locals harvested. From the stubble, someone had actually come along recently and cut a crop off it. Must not get much traffic.

One of the officers from the psalm singers had a couple of local hostages wading in the ditches on either side of the causeway. They were nearly up to their necks.

''I told you it's deep,'' one local hollered, loud enough that no one could avoid hearing. ''We had to get the dirt for the road from somewhere. We dug it out of the muck beside where we put the road. And we kept a lookout posted with a rifle handy. There's something in this water that likes to nibble on toes.''

That last claim Colonel Cortez didn't know how much to credit. But it got a lot of the white berets around him muttering prayers and eyeing the water darkly. You couldn't see six inches into the muddy stuff.

''What do you make of it, sir?'' Major Zhukov asked as he climbed aboard Cortez's command vehicle, one of the few army green battle rigs on the planet.

Cortez shook his head. ''Here is where I'd ambush me, if I had anything like a formal fighting force. Your Guard Fusilier could lurk out there in the water and only surface to shoot this bunch to a bloody pulp. Not so?''

''Just so, sir. Just so,'' Zhukov said, with an expressive sigh. Zhukov had been sent along on this joyride by the wise fathers of Torun to make sure that the lone company of Guard Fusiliers they rented out was returned in good shape. Some battle experience gained … with someone else paying the bills … but no real damage to the merchandise.

Cortez had wanted to rent the entire Fusilier battalion, but the penny-pinching fathers of Torun had learned something about defending their planet from that unidentified squadron of battleships that suddenly appeared over Wardhaven while their own fleet was elsewhere. Cortez got one company from them and had to settle for filling out the rest of the battalion from New Jerusalem.

Oh, and the financiers had been glad for the savings.

Colonel Cortez turned to the major. ''Do the engineers attached to your Guard company have sensors that would let me see warm bodies in that muddy water or pick up the electrical impulses of a sharpshooter's heart if he's standing half a klick away behind that ironwood tree?''

''Certainly, sir. We have a fully capable company of engineers on Torun,'' the major said with a bleak smile. '' ‘But engineers, we don't need no stinking engineers on this pissant planet.' Isn't that what your investors told you and Thorpe when you asked the Council of Torun Elders to rent some to you?''

''Your treasurer set a mighty high price for a platoon of engineers.''

Major Zhukov snorted bitterly. ''Their expensive engineer toys were bought while he was cashing the checks. He squealed at every penny as it fell through his tight fist. The gear my infantry is wearing is ten, twenty years old. A lot better than anything we've seen on this planet, mind you, but not something our glorious treasurer had to pay for. He let it go ‘cheap.' ''

''I'm just glad he let it go. I don't know what we're facing, but it's got to be better than these psalm singers.''

''Don't knock them. They didn't look too bad on the march up. You got any estimate of what this Longknife kid has?''

''Nope. Thorpe's not telling me a lot about her. Cusses her plenty, but not a lot of hard data behind all the noise.''

''I don't have anything on Thorpe and her, but one of the junior officers from the Lord's Ever Victorious Host did confiscate this from one of his soldiers.''

Zhukov pulled a plastic flimsy from his shirt pocket and unfolded a large picture of a busty redhead in a white dress that looked only thinly painted on over her many curves.

''That the Longknife girl?''

''Unfortunately not, Colonel. That's Miss Victory something. Originally, the article came with a picture of her and Kris Longknife, but the kid who had this said she was just a thin beanpole. He zoomed up the Peterwald girl and ditched the Longknife kid.''

''Rather shortsighted of him.''

''At the time, I don't think he ever expected to meet either of those girls, except maybe in his dreams.''

Cortez glanced at the story. '' ‘Guilty of many sins for which both harlots will burn deep within the worst fires of hell.' What kind of rubbish is this?'' Cortez began to wad up the flimsy, but Zhukov put his hand out to stop him.

''It's from New Jerusalem, sir. They can't put pictures of near-naked girls from other planets on the covers of their tabloids without assuring the guys reading them that said girls will burn in hell.''

''And that matters to me why?''

Zhukov flipped the paper over, ran his finger down the second column quickly, then stopped. ''Read that paragraph.''

'' ‘Miss Longknife committed many licentious acts on New Eden, including riding in cars with men she was not related or married to, masquerading as a soldier, violating planetary data censorship rules, associating with hooligans of the worst sort.' Zhukov, this does not leave me quaking in my boots.''

''Keep reading, Colonel, the last sentence.''

Cortez skipped down a half inch. '' ‘After a major disturbance of the peace that left thousands dead of gunshot wounds and explosives, Miss Longknife was escorted off New Eden by Wardhaven Marines only moments before she should have faced judgment for her many sins.' ''

Colonel Cortez looked up as he finished reading. Zhukov raised an expressive eyebrow. ''How many Marines does it take to escort a debutante, and how heavily armed were they? Are they still with her?''

Now Cortez did read the graph, slowly, wringing it out. Not one extra drop of information dripped out for him. ''I don't know,'' he said slowly. ''Thorpe showed me pictures of the ship she rode in on. Small freighter.''

''What's a Longknife doing on a small merchant ship?''

''What's a Longknife doing interfering with our little rape, pillage, and put-under-new-management scam for this planet?''

Zhukov took off his helmet and wiped at the sweat running down his face. ''What is a Longknife doing here?'' He put the helmet back on. ''So, sir. What are we about to do here?''

''If I run this collection of rattletrap trucks down that mound of dirt, there's going to be no way to turn them around.''

''So we walk?''

''And leave our spare ammo, water, and heavy machine guns behind? I think not, Major.''

Major Zhukov made no more attempts to answer his own question. He paused, an expectant expression on his face. The one smart junior officers learned early in the Torun Guard.

''We will wait for your Guard Fusiliers to catch up, and for Thorpe to make another pass and see what's changed in front of us. Then, all together, we take the battalion across, with plenty of hostages out front.''

''They will think twice about shooting,'' Major Zhukov said.

''While we're waiting, Major, you might get some of the prayer group down on their knees … with knives.''