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Citizen Major Diana Citizen cleared her throat. "I've got a sacrificial lamb, if you need one." Her thin, rather pretty face grew a little pinched. "Except calling him a 'lamb' is an insult to baa-baas. He's a pig and a thug and I'd be delighted to see him slammed as hard as you can. Assuming you can figure out a charge that would stick. Unfortunately, he's slicker than your average shipboard bully. Keeps his ass covered. Name's Henri Alouette; he's a rating—"
"That fuckhead!" snarled Ned. "Me and him damn near came to it, once, in the mess room. Woulda, too, if the bastard hadn't backed off at the last minute. Too bad, I woulda—"
"Citizen Sergeant Pierce." Yuri's tone was as pleasant and relaxed as ever, but the unusual formality was enough in itself to draw the citizen sergeant up short. Normally, in this i
"I will remind you that I've stressed—any number of times—the critical importance of keeping tensions between the regular military stationed on this ship and its StateSec complement to a bare minimum." He smiled easily. "Which I dare say having a Marine citizen sergeant pound a StateSec rating into a pulp—yes, Ned, I'm sure you woulda and coulda—might cut against."
"Don't count on it," piped up StateSec Citizen Sergeant Rolla. "Alouette's notorious all over the ship, Yuri. I'd give you three-to-one odds all the StateSec ratings in that mess room would have been cheering Ned on."
"You'd 'a won the bet," gruffed Ned. "Two of 'em offered to hold my coat. Another asked the fuckhead what blood type he was so he could make sure to tell the doctors in the ship's hospital."
Radamacher eyed Pierce for a moment. He'd been on such friendly personal terms with the big citizen sergeant for so long that Yuri tended to forget what a truly ferocious specimen of humanity the man was. Jesting aside, he didn't have much doubt at all that anyone who'd apparently angered Pierce that much would be needing transfusions after the brawl was over.
"Still." Yuri swiveled his chair around and began working at the keyboard of his computer. "We've gotten morale to such a good point on the Hector that I'd just as soon avoid any possible interservice problems." He glanced over his shoulder, still smiling. "I'm sure I can find a better way to nail Alouette than have Ned here try to frame him up on a brawling charge. Not even Special Investigator Cachat would believe for a minute that somebody deliberately picked a fight with him."
He turned back, letting the easy laughter fill the room while he worked.
It didn't take long. Less than five minutes.
"I must be slipping," he muttered. "How'd I possibly miss this?"
"Working eighteen hours a day at everything else?" Major Lafitte chuckled. "What'd you find, Yuri?"
Radamacher jabbed a stiff finger at the screen. "How in the hell did Alouette pass his required a
He swiveled back around. "Well?"
The two Marines in the room had bland, blank none-of-my-business expressions on their faces. The sort of expressions which polite people assume when another family's skeletons are spilling out of an opened closet.
Radamacher approved. This was StateSec's dirty laundry. As was obvious from the scowls on the faces of the two StateSec officers and—even fiercer—on the face of StateSec Citizen Sergeant Rolla.
"That rotten SOB," Rolla hissed. "Give you three-to-one—no, make it five-to-one—that Alouette's been intimidating his mates and the section chief. Probably threatened the rating recording the test results, too."
Citizen Major Citizen looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, that's probably it. I hate to say it, seeing as how I sure didn't shed any tears over those bums that the SI blew away, but their absence did hurt us a lot in security. It left holes all through my department, which I still haven't been able to get filled up all the way. Especially since I had to start from scratch coming over from the fleet."
"Nobody's blaming you, Diana," Yuri assured her smoothly. "Isolated little tumors like this are bound to turn up, now and then, when a ship's security department was in the hands of human cancer cells for years. Which is about the most polite way I can think of to describe Jamka's cronies."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "To be perfectly honest about it—cold-blooded, too—this is damn near perfect. Cachat'll rub his hands with glee over a bust like this one. Beats a pe
"Aw, c'mon, Yuri—" Ned started again. "The SI's not—"
The sudden burst of laughter from everyone else in the room caused a look of grievance to come over the citizen sergeant's face. "Well, he's not that bad," he insisted.
Radamacher didn't argue the point. At the moment, he was in such a good mood that he was even willing to grant that Special Investigator Victor Cachat probably didn't really match up to Torquemada. His understudy, maybe.
He looked to Citizen Major Citizen. "You'll handle this, Diana? Mind you, I want a good, solid, rock-hard case against Alouette. Nothing flimsy."
She nodded. "Won't be hard. Assuming we're right, everybody in the section will fall all over themselves spilling the beans—as long as they're sure that Alouette will get put away for a long time. Somewhere he can't retaliate against them."
"Have no fear on that score. Just going by a minimum reading of regulations, if Alouette has been threatening his mates with violence in order to cover up his skill deficiencies—much less a senior rating like a section chief—he's looking at five years, at least. That's five years served in a StateSec maximum security prison, too, not a ship's brig."
Yuri's face was grim. "That's if he's lucky. But I think Alouette's luck just ran out on him. Because his case will be coming up after the Special Investigator's return, and Cachat has the authority to mete out any punishment he deems proper. Any punishment, people. After I got my new assignment, for the first time in my life I studied carefully all the rules and regulations governing the position of Special Investigator. It's . . . pretty scary. And Cachat's already made crystal clear how he looks on StateSec perso
He studied the far wall of the stateroom. It was a wide bulkhead, as you'd expect in a top staff officer's suite in a superdreadnought. Almost as wide as the bulkhead which Cachat had used as the backstop for his firing squad.
Everyone else in the room seemed to share Yuri's grim mood, judging from the sudden silence.
Not for long, though, in the case of the two noncoms. "Hey, Jaime," whispered Ned. "Any chance I could volunteer—just the once—to serve on a StateSec firing squad?"
"S'against regs," Rolla whispered back. "But I'll put in a good word for you."
Yuri sighed. There were times—had been for many years, now—when he felt like a sheep ru
The half-rueful, half-amused thought lasted for perhaps five seconds. Then the office hatch snapped open with no notice at all, a commo rating burst through the opening, and Yuri discovered that his long-extended fortnight had come to an end.