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  "Tel Aviv Ten. Get it. I'll have some samples for you to compare."

  "Fine. Now can I get—"

  "Tel Aviv Ten. You will follow comm discipline, Two Twenty."

  "Tel Aviv Two Twenty to Tel Aviv Ten. Aye, aye, roger and will cooperate on that, sir," Laskov said, his intonation carrying not a whiff of insubordinate irony.

  "Tel Aviv Ten out."

  Peled flicked his identity switch back to Battalion, and called up the company commanders. Everything was quiet. He slashed the shirt off and bagged it, too. Just as he thought. Real Casa shit. He—

  Shimon's voice cut through the thought. "Ebi's on RHQ One for you. Too busy?"

  It was a reprimand; Peled should have delegated somebody to monitor regimental freaks while he was doing battalion commander things. His own deputy would normally have done that for him, and while he hadn't picked out a deputy yet, that didn't excuse the lapse.

  "Tel Aviv Ten. I'll get it."

  There was a crackling in his phone. "Hebron Twenty for Tel Aviv Ten."

  "Tel Aviv Ten."

  "Hebron here." Chaim Goren—called "Ebi" by everyone, in a not-particularly-funny bilingual joke; he was barely one hundred sixty-five centimeters tall—sounded tense. But Ebi was always tense. "We're down; next shuttle is due in one-two-five minutes. Orders?"

  Hebron was the administrative designation of the second group of men down—the Aggressor/Defender Company, the Special Training Group, and the third Troop Training Detachment.

  It had been just an administrative designation, until now.

  "Tel Aviv Ten," Peled said. "Hebron—you are now Second Battalion; go operational now, and when we're done, call up Bar Yosef and Laskov for briefings."

  "Hebron. Got it. Hang on." There was a click, but Goren was back in about five seconds, less time by at least ten minutes than it would have taken Peled to issue even the preliminary orders to turn an odd collection of units into a hastily operational battalion. Who was his deputy? Natan Horowitz? Was he that good? "Hebron Twenty. We're operational in five-zero minutes, but I've got one company up now."

  "Your Ag/Def detachment?"

  "Yeah. You need relief?"

  "Tel Aviv Ten. Negative." But exactly the right question; this was the sort of thing Goren was good at, and Ebi wouldn't need more than a hint. "Yossi Bernstein is taking care of your transport; he's going to arrange a full escort—and you ride in APCs, not buses. Have Laskov fill you in on the situation, then call up Bernstein. It won't be there for a few hours, at least, but in any case you wait until Third Bat's down, and you—that's both battalions—stay operational for the trip to Camp Ramorino. You're senior; you take command."

  "Hebron. Understood. Any idea of how soon we can expect to move?"

  "Tel Aviv Ten. I told you, we're working on it." What the hell did Goren expect? A bus schedule?

  "Hebron. I don't like things so up in the air; what say I assume we're going to throw up a quick biv just this side of the fence and you come get us in the morning?"

  The Commerce Department busies wouldn't like that, but they weren't likely to make a big fuss about it; there was room on the reservation for a dozen battalions to camp.

  Peled pulled his maps out of his chestpack and found the one covering the TW reservation. "Tel Aviv Ten. Tentatively, sounds good; I'll check with Shimon. Coordinate with the local CD Inspector's office; Map Gimel One, Hex Oh Eight Two Three. I'll see about getting rats out to you. Anything more?"

  "Not to worry—I'll send Meyer Kaplan out to the Commerce Department company store. I've got some tweecie vouchers."

  "Tel Aviv Ten. Fine. Out?"

  "Out."

  That would do, for a start. Maybe it was locking the barn after the horse was stolen, sure, but damned if Mordecai Peled was going to let any more of his brothers and cousins die administrative, not here. Maybe the locals didn't like foreign troops going operational this far behind the front lines, and maybe that was in the contract, but Peled would be perfectly happy to explain to even a TW observer why he should overlook the violation: he'd stick the observer's ass in the front seat of a bus going from the port to Camp Ramorino.

  "Mordecai," Shimon said over their private channel. "If you're done playing soldier, I've got some work for you. Minor problem of prisoner custody. Need a light touch."

  Not too fucking light. He clapped his hands together to get the attention of the soldiers in the clearing. An improvised five-squad commando was about right. He pointed out five squad leaders one by one, spread and closed his fingers, then pumped his arm up and down.

  By squads, form on me, it said.

  He reclaimed his rifle from his clerk and led his commando back up the slope, the butt of his rifle braced against his hip, like a trapshooter out for a few clay pigeons. His finger was away from the trigger, but the safety was off.

  Shimon was supervising the final loading of the last of the wounded under the watchful eye of the rest of the Casa DF squad.

  A platoon of Casa regulars stood watch a couple of hundred meters down the road at either end of what had been an ambush, but was now a roadblock.

  There were a lot of white knuckles among the neatly uniformed Casas, as they looked over the somewhat scraggly Metzadans.

  Hey, c'mon, boys, haven't you seen combat soldiers before? Actually, it was possible that they hadn't, not soldiers with fresh blood on their hands. They all made Peled's hands itch—the Casas were wearing the same kind, the same shade of uniforms as the Freiheimer attackers had.

  The line of halted trucks and buses was up to about half a dozen on either side, watched over by twin merkavot riding low on their air cushions. Despite their Hebrew name, the merkavot were of local manufacture from local plans—the name had caught on here, too—but each of the lightly armed air-cushion vehicles had a Metzadan gunner in the lefthand seat.

  "Tel Aviv Ten for Haifa C Twenty," he said into his microphone, even though Reuven Zucker was only thirty or so meters away. "You're sure that this is it?"

  "Haifa C Twenty. Affirmative. Last of the criticals." Zucker didn't waste words as he and a junior medician helped Private Yonaton Shapir onto the helo. Shapir didn't look too bad—his left eye and right hand were heavily bandaged, but he held onto his own assault rifle and ammo kit, and accepted help with his pack reluctantly.

  Either the local medical teams understood triage, or Zucker had managed to have Metzadans run the evacuation, Peled decided with satisfaction.

  Accompanied by the whine of the engine, the slowly turning rotor picked up speed. Peled snapped down his faceplate and turned away as the helo lifted into the air.

  There were only two helos left, and it was getting to be time to clear out.

  But first, there were the Casas to deal with. And the fucking Commerce Department observer.

  He—well, it could be a she, but most of them were male—looked silly, standing off to the side in the red, bulky, all-over body armor that the Thousand Worlds Commerce Department provided for wear in the field. It was important to the CD that their representatives be both visible—and the bright, day-glo crimson was that—and protected. The armor, a product of offworld technology that even Metzada couldn't duplicate, and certainly wouldn't be permitted to import, could protect the TW observer from a stray round or even burst, or a near miss of a grenade. Additional protection for the observer was provided by an overhead CD helo and a squad of Peacemakers, each in shiny black reticulated armor, looking for all the worlds like a half dozen oversized insects.

  The armor and bodyguards wouldn't do any good, not outside the fringes of a real battle, and it was a certainty that the observer knew that. The TW might be run by a bunch of assholes, but that didn't make them cowards.

  Under the eye of the silent observer, Shimon Bar-El squared off against the fedeltists.

  II Distacamento de la Fedeltà, the Casalingpaesesercito Loyalty Detachment, dressed its officers and enlisted differently than the plain olive drab or speckled camo of the Casa regulars: their un
iforms were black tunics over scarlet trousers, the three officers' tunics trimmed in gold and silver, their six enlisted bodyguards' in yellow and white. They were all in garrison uniforms, not field gear, despite the businesslike rifles the bodyguards were carrying. Each of the officers had a shiny chromed pistol in an open holster. Ridiculous, for a combat zone.

  Peled never liked garritroopers. Standing next to rumpled, dirty Colonello Sergio Chiabrera, who held a borrowed Barak in two clenched fists, they looked like toy soldiers.

  But if an apparently harmless writing stylo could kill—and Peled knew that it could; he had done it—so could a shiny chromed pistol, completely unsuited for a combat zone.

  Chiabrera pursed his lips and nodded a greeting at Peled.

  Shimon, Dov looming next to him, had squared off with the Casas. That put them squarely between where the Casas and Sergio eyed the captives—

  No. Peled caught himself. Shimon and Dov stood between the Casas, including Sergio Chiabrera, and the Freiheimer captives, each hand-and leg-cuffed, each controlled by two husky Metzadan PFCs, rifles and knives rigged properly, well out of the prisoners' reach.

  "—you really must turn the prisoners over to us. We'll find out the truth, never fear, General," said the senior fedeltist, a major. He was a short, stocky man with a too-easy grin, his cheeks and chin covered in a manifestly affected combat soldier's three-day beard. "We'll find out the truth." He spoke Basic with the fluid melody of a native speaker of Italiano.

  Shimon shook his head. "Negative on that, Maggiore Zuchelli. Once I turn them over to you, they're saboteurs. Caught out of uniform, local rules apply. We caught them in your uniforms. If they're Casalingpaesan—"

  "Please."

  "—if they're Casas, dammit, then you're in violation of our contract: deliberate assault on friendly forces."

  "And our helo? What was that?"

  Bar-El's lips whitened. "My men, dammit, came under fire from the Casa helo, after it was warned off. You want to make something of it?"

  "Three of his men were killed by that helo, Maggiore," Chiabrera said quietly.

  "No. That's not the way I play the game, Colonel Chiabrera. Irrelevant," Shimon Bar-El said. "We didn't down the helo because it killed some of my men; I ordered it down because it posed a threat to my regiment. Claro?"

  Next to him, Dov stiffened, desisting at Bar-El's microscopic headshake.

  The fedeltist didn't catch it. "These sorts of things happen, Generale, as well you know. 'Friendly fire is not,' eh?"

  Bar-El looked the DF officer over long and hard. Then he shrugged. "Fine. And as to these, if they're not Casas, then they've dressed as Casas in order to provoke an apparent violation, and that puts them outside the rules. They stay under my control. Your local rules are more restrictive, but at the moment they're captives of war—no rights."

  The fedeltist opened his mouth as though to say something, but closed it. He smiled broadly, then spread his arms, wordlessly announcing that he wouldn't be bothered by issues of rights in his questioning of the prisoners.

  It was half-clever, and Zuchelli almost strutted his pleasure. The TW observer was behind him, and wouldn't have been able to see the smile. From the point of view of the Thousand Worlder, the fedeltist had thrown up his hands in frustration at the Metzadan's intransigence. On Shimon's head be it.

  Bureaucrat. Peled turned his back to the fedeltist and puffed for his private line to Bar-El. "He's just playing for the observer, Shimon," Peled whispered into his microphone. "I don't think he really wants them; he just wants to make it clear that he's not responsible for what we do to them."

  He turned back in time to see Shimon Bar-El shake his head, as though to say, "Don't bother me with the obvious."

  The elder of the two Freiheimers straightened fractionally; a Metzadan hand whipped out and clutched the back of his head. "I am Horst Fleiss, stabsunter-offizier, Der Freiheimdemokratischrepublik. Upon proper request, I will give you my vater's name and my service number; I will tell you nothing more." He squinted hard against the daylight, and didn't appear to be focusing properly. Metzadan doctrine for controlling prisoners in the field called for a few drops of carbachol sprayed into each eye.

  Shimon didn't seem to hear him. He looked at the other Freiheimer. This one was younger, probably about eighteen standard years, wide-eyed. There was a trickle of fresh blood at the right side of his mouth.

  Shimon looked at Dov and raised an eyebrow.

  "Not me, Uncle Shimon."

  "I didn't like the looks of one of his molars," Sergeant David Elon said, brandishing his medician's scanner.

  "Poison pill?"

  Elon grinned, then shook his head. "Just a lousy crown," he said, digging two fingers into a chest pocket, pulling out a bloodied white tooth. "I guessed wrong." He shrugged. "Not all that elite, eh? Exit-pill was in his pocket," he said, rattling a small glassine vial.

  "Name?" Shimon asked.

  The younger Freiheimer didn't answer.

  "You will not make him talk, either." Fleiss drew himself up proudly.

  Bar-El puffed out his cheeks and sighed in irritation. "I don't have a lot of time for this, but let's give it a try, anyway. You were caught in Casa uniforms; by local rules, that makes you saboteurs. Death sentence, but the Geneva protections apply.

  "But we're not under Casa authority, not at the moment. We're technically allied, not subordinate. That means that you've attacked us in allied uniforms. By my reading of the codes, that puts you outside the rules, and makes you captives of war. No rights. I can't turn you over to the Casas, 'cause all they can do is kill you or interrogate you under Geneva rules. And if they don't execute you as saboteurs, they'll prisoner-trade you.

  "I'm not going to have that. Once we're out of my area of operations—and, shit, this is only technically my AO because you jumped us in it—they'll have the authority to ask for you, and they will, unless I've got some results out of you.

  "I can't turn you over to my interrogation team for a sharp needle and a quick chat, because they're still skyside." Bar-El shrugged. "Comments?"

  "It sounds like you have a problem, Herr General Bar-El." The stabsunteroffizier's voice dripped with sarcasm.

  "Dov. No."

  The big man had shifted marginally; he froze in place.

  Shimon Bar-El sighed as he looked over at Peled. "You've got your battalion staff put together?"

  "Not really. Not yet." Dammit, Shimon, you know I'm not an organizer.

  "Fine. I'll take care of it," the general said, turning back to the prisoners. "Well, then, we'd better end this now," he said, more to himself than to anybody. "Observer," he called out. "Over here, if you please."

  Stiff-legged in his armor, the Thousand Worlder walked over, a brace of Peacemakers at each elbow.

  Peled's boys, their weapons held almost mechanically at port arms, looked over the Peacemakers carefully.

  "That is a red light on the assholes in the black armor, people," Peled whispered on All Hands One. "Big red light."

  Without even trying, Peled could remember a dozen times he would have liked to have blown away one of the Thousand of alone Worlders, but the TW assholes controlled the Gate system, and without the Gate system, Metzada would be isolated from the rest of the universe, and you couldn't have that.

  "Can we get a ruling on the status of the Freiheimers?" Shimon asked.

  "No." The observer's voice was mechanically distorted; Peled couldn't guess the observer's age, or even gender. "I am here to observe and report, not to judge."

  "Then observe this." Shimon jerked his head; guards dragged the two Freiheimers over to the side of the road and secured them, neck, wrist and ankles, to two trees.

  The guards moved away.

  "Dov. Aim."

  Dov slowly brought his shotgun out and lined it up on one of the Casas. The younger one, the silent one.

  "Start with the feet, Dov. Time's up, Fleiss. Last chance. I want some truth, and I want it now."


  Peled puffed for All Hands One. "Tel Aviv Ten. Shotgun, firing many."

  Behind him there was a hoarse whisper. "Nobody flinches. Nobody."

  "Dov," Shimon Bar-El said. "Now."

  Dov fired into the scream.

  He fired again, into the screams and the whimpers, and a third time, into the whimpers and the silence.

  And again, until the seven-shot clip was empty.

  "Somebody reload for Dov," Shimon said.

  They cleared out in an hour, taking with them a babbling Freiheimer stabsunteroffizier, leaving behind the Distacamento Fedeltà to deal with the bloody mess that had been a tree with a war captive tied to it, and the Peacemakers to see to the security of a gagging Thousand Worlds observer who was now out of the protection suit that couldn't get rid of a few ounces of sour vomitus.

  That was the first time that Mordecai Peled laughed all morning.

  CHAPTER 6

  Questions

  Ari slammed the helo's door shut and then quickly backed away, ducking reflexively as the whirring blades sped up. The rush of air pushed him down, the dust raised by the wind beat hard against his faceplate as he stepped back, half bent over, a peasant leaving the presence of a king.

  At best.

  He wiped his hands on his khakis. He stank of blood and piss and shit, but none of the blood was his; you could get awfully dirty loading injured men and pieces of men into helos for the trip to the nearest hospital.

  The Casa helo lifted off its skids, rising only a couple of meters before it dropped its nose and moved off, building speed quickly, gaining altitude only slowly.

  Ari reslung his rifle patrol-style, then squatted and wiped his hands on his knees. They were about the cleanest part of his khakis. There was blood on his hands, and he couldn't get it off.

  What would Miriam say if she saw him now? What would his mothers say? And his—

  "Easy, easy, with the hands." Benyamin said from behind him. Ari hadn't heard him move up. "That's the last one."

  "Good." Ari kept wiping his hands.

  "Stop fidgeting," Benyamin said. He pulled an envelope out of his breast pocket and tore it open, handing Ari the stericloth. The cloth was wet and cool against his skin, and it cleaned the grime and gore from Ari's hands, but it didn't make him feel clean.