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"Hola," he gri
"What you want?" asked the dealer in a bored voice. "We got about everything."
"Need some high-test booze, man. We're just in from basic and got us a powerful thirst!" He gri
"That's pretty expensive, man," said the dealer. "Booze is hard to get. The fuckin' MPs keep raiding my stash."
"Hey," said Stewart, whipping out a wad of bills, "I got nothin' but money, man. You got some high-proof tequila?"
"Sure," smiled the ratty little soldier. He gestured to one of the girls who reached in a spray-painted ammunition box and pulled out an unmarked bottle. "That's sixty."
"Jesus," said Stewart, shaking his head, "that is steep." He counted out the bills and took the bottle. One sip was all it took to ensure that there was sufficient alcohol in the mix for his plan. "How! Time to Party!"
"Yeah," the dealer said sourly. "Somewhere's else, I got other customers."
"Sure, man, later." Stewart smiled again and walked back to the squad.
"Sniper on the top of the bleachers," whispered Wilson. "I can't see the rifle, but it's there somewhere."
"Can you take him from the other end?"
"Not with this fuckin' little Astra. Maybe you, but even then not with the first shot. And somebody's already got that end staked out."
"No problemo. People are always willing to recognize talent," Stewart smiled.
"You are a fuckin' nut, Manuel."
"My name is James Stewart. Don't ever forget that."
"Sure, and I'm the king of Siam."
"Handkerchiefs," Stewart said without comment, holding out his hand. The squad handed over the items and he tied them on the ends of the broken broom handles. Doused with the two-hundred-proof tequila they were torches waiting for a match.
"Here goes nothing," he said and walked towards the group that had staked out the section of bleachers away from the area's single dealer.
"Hey, folks," he said to the group of white soldiers. They watched him approach suspiciously. He nodded at the obvious leader, a heavyset balding sergeant with rolls of fat on his neck.
"You know what this party needs," Stewart asked in a loud happy voice.
"A fuckin' idiot?" asked the leader. His group laughed at the rough humor.
What an Einstein, thought Stewart. "No, some entertainment!" He hopped up on the bleachers and took a swig of the raw whiskey. With a flick of a lighter he spit it back out in a cloud of fire. The belch of dragon's flame lit the area and there were gasps from the group on the bleachers.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he called out to the surroundings, "welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth! I will shock and amaze you with my powers of prestidigitation and psychic abilities! My powers know no bounds!" As he spoke he whipped out the batons, lit them and began twirling.
* * *
"Okay," said Pappas, "that's the signal. Get ready to move."
The wait as Stewart moved into position had been an eternity, but now that the show had started the crowd was, in fact, moving. He decided to move with it.
"Fourth, head towards Stewart, try to get as close as possible. Third, head into the middle of the field. When Fourth is in position, head for the barracks." He shook his head. "Fuckin' everybody and their brother is headed for that little idiot."
* * *
It was the largest crowd he had ever performed for; even the dealer and his bodyguards had moved over. These people must be really hard up for entertainment. On the other hand, it had gone well. The mental act always amazed people and the tequila had held out long enough to do both the juggling act and the fire-swallowing.
But he was down to magic tricks and it was about time for the big finale. He gestured at Wilson who rolled up his sleeves. He positioned himself across from Stewart and looked toward the squad. One of the members tossed him a knife and he tossed it to Stewart. Stewart tossed it back and they started a two-man juggle. One of the other members of the squad started to sing a well-known dance tune and they began dancing up and down the bleachers spi
* * *
"Gu
29
Andata Province, Diess IV
0019 GMT May 19th, 2002 AD
The journey of a hundred meters begins with one push, thought O'Neal. The suit lights had banished the enveloping darkness, but the twisted masses of plascrete and rubble they revealed was just as depressing.
"Okay, have you come up with any ideas?" he asked his AID.
"Only one. There is a small open area 3.5 meters away at 123 degrees mark 8. If you can worm your way there, you can work your way towards the nearest exit by blasting small openings with the activator charges on your grav rounds."
"What, you mean use them as explosives? How?"
"If you jam one of them firmly in place then shoot it with your grav pistol, it will fracture the antimatter activator charge, releasing the energy as an explosion."
"That sounds . . . odd but possible. Okay, all I have to do is make it ten or eleven feet up and to the right. How do I turn over? Never mind . . . I've got an idea." His right hand was, fortunately, near his grav pistol. The suit's biomechanical musculature made short work of the intervening rubble and he sighed as his gauntlet contacted the familiar grip. He drew it and angled the barrel across his abdominal cuirass, the point that seemed most tightly constricted. Whispering a brief prayer to whatever gods might be watching this dust bowl of a planet, he triggered a single round into the plascrete mass.
The concussion belled unexpectedly loud through the armor, transmitting by contact noise that previously had been comfortably muffled. Despite the muffling underlayer, his ears rang as though someone had put a tin bucket over his head and whacked it sharply with a stick. There was a moment's freedom as he rolled quickly to his left then his right shoulder stuck fast again. If he were out of the suit, he could have flexed his shoulders inward and made the turn. On the other hand, if he was out of the suit he would be dead. The external monitors indicated very low oxygen levels and aerosol toxins, probably a result of all the combusted fish oil and associated burning.
He worked the barrel upwards and carefully turned his head to the side. If the round struck the helmet or any part of his armor dead on he would be pureed as effectively as that poor private in the first contact. Pressing the barrel as much as possible into the slab, he triggered another round. This time it skittered ineffectually along the plascrete and ricocheted off his cuirass. The relativistic teardrop left a deep, glowing trench in the refractory armor that had shed thousands of lower velocity flechettes in the earlier battle and the heat dissipated through the underlayer.
Rattled by the near miss he tried again and on the second attempt cracked the refractory plascrete. He twisted like a cat and found himself on his stomach facing slightly downward. Although there was pressure on several points he could move the rubble after a fashion, courtesy of the tremendous power available from the combat armor. After he twisted back and forth for a bit, the slab piece that had cracked to the left of his shoulder and was now across his right slipped beneath him with a resounding crash and a small area was opened to the upper right. He holstered his pistol and snaked a hand up to a convenient handhold revealed in his suit lights. With a firm grip on a piece of structural ceramet he dragged the rest of his body sharply up and to the right. Since this was the way he wanted to go he braced his feet on the rubble he had extracted himself from and pushed upwards. He was rewarded by sliding sharply backwards.