SEVEN

When they got the FCV rolled out and were halfway through the checklist, Jo got a call from the outlying sentry on the north road.

“Captain, we got company. J-Corps, a looie, sergeant, and four troopers, inbound in an AT roller. Should we let them pass?”

He sounded hopeful, but Jo didn’t want trouble with the GU. “Wave ’em through and smile politely. I’ll handle it.”

“Yes, Cap.” He sounded disappointed. There was little love lost between regular and corporate military—until the regular guys came looking for a job, of course.

Kay was already outside, standing in the hard-edged shade offered by the FCV, looking at the roller coming up the road.

“GU Army vehicle approaching,” Kay said.

“I heard. Why don’t you stand there and sharpen your claws or something while I speak to them. I know it’s against your nature, but try and look dangerous.” She grinned.

Kay whickered.

The roller arrived three seconds later, top up and a cold pump blasting—Jo could feel the cool draft from three meters away when it stopped and the doors opened. The soldiers exited.

The lieutenant, a tall woman with a military buzz, slipped her compact helmet on, adjusted the lid, and gave Jo a long, cool stare before she and the sergeant ambled over.

The sergeant was male, shorter, shaped rather like a brick, and had a face that had known too many fists and maybe a few boots over too many years. Both wore tropical greens, the camo unlit, and both sported issue 12mm Hauser pistols.

There is no need to fear, the Galactic Union Army is here…

The other troops stayed by the roller, rifles slung, in parade rest. Wouldn’t take long to heat their uniforms up to the sweat point. Military-issue garb was not nearly as breathable and fashionable as the Cutters’ own boilersuits.

“Who’s in charge here?” the lieutenant said.

“For the moment, the XO would be me,” Jo said. “Captain Sims, CFI.”

The sergeant grinned but the lieutenant kept her expression flat. “Captain. I’m Lieutenant Dodd, XTJC. I was given to understand that Cutter was here.”

“Colonel Cutter is unavailable at the moment, Lieutenant.”

The sergeant looked as if he was about to speak when something caught his attention. That would be Kay, stepping out of the deep shadow into the sunshine. Her orange fur gleamed enough so Jo could see it reflected on the sergeant’s scarred face.

Nice. Perfect timing.

He had missed her. A mistake, and he knew it.

The sergeant drifted his right hand nearer the butt of his pistol.

“Lay that hand on your weapon, Sergeant, and you won’t like what it gets you.”

He looked away from Kay and at Jo’s face. “Oh, really?”

“Hosep. At ease,” Dodd said.

“We don’t have to stand here and listen to this cutthroat make idle threats, ma’am—”

Dodd said, “Seal it, Sergeant. The captain here is running more augs than all of us put together, and that’s a Vastalimi less than four meters away, in case you lost your memory of how fast they can move. There are only six of us.”

He considered that. Outgunned, and he knew it. He nodded.

“We didn’t come to tussle,” Dodd said. “Only to deliver a message from Colonel Hatachi. We know why you are here. As long as you obey GU laws, we won’t have any problems. Step over the line, we come down on you like the thunderbolts of Zeus.”

Jo smiled. “Nobody is looking for trouble, Lieutenant; we’re just here to do our job.”

“Your job.” Hosep said. “That’s funny.”

Jo kept her smile in place. “Yeah, it is, kinda. Because if you’d been doing your job, probably we wouldn’t be here at all.”

Not true, it wasn’t their responsibility, but it was a good cheap shot. XTJC brought that out in her.

Whatever he might have said to that, Dodd cut him off: “That’s it. We’re done. Let’s go.”

She nodded at Jo. “Captain.”

“Lieutenant.”

They headed back to the roller, loaded in, and drove off.

Gunny drifted over from behind a stack of water barrels. “Been a while since Ah got to shoot any GU Army guys. Too bad he didn’t pull that Hauser. Time he got that tank out the holster, we could have been back in the FCV having a beer. If that old fart Gramps hasn’t drunk it all up.”

“What, you think I’m deaf in here?” came Gramps’s vox from the com.

“Why not? You blind. Let’s not even go down the road to ‘stupid.’”

He laughed.

Gunny said, “But that looie isn’t stupid, is she, Cap? She knew who you were, unless she has some way of seeing how many augs you have on board.”

Jo nodded. “Yeah. They did their homework. But as long as they stay out of our hair? No problem.”

“You think they will? Stay out of our hair?” Gunny said.

She sighed. “Do they ever?”

Cutter was still setting up his field office in the still-drying ferrofoam structure. Great stuff, ferrofoam. Put up a plastic mesh frame, spray it on, it hardened to a stonelike solidity in an hour. Three or four centimeters of it would stop most small-arms missiles. First thirty or forty minutes, it was pliable, easy to shape or cut. It had a harsh chemical stink until it dried, smelled like hot gun lube. A halfway decent engineer could make it into anything you needed for field ops. Unless you double-walled it, it wasn’t that good for insulation once it set, but that’s what heaters and coolers were for. It was cheap and easy to transport, and you could break it down with a chemical spray when you were done, leaving nothing but a little goo that didn’t even harm the environment all that much.

If he had any money, he’d invest in the company that made it. Beat the alternatives all to hell and gone.

Gramps stuck his head in the door. “Colonel, we got an incoming call from the kidnappers.” Before he could ask, Gramps said, “Rajah’s security hasn’t reported it to us, but we have a tap on his pipe.”

That was SOP. “Let’s hear it.”

Gramps waved a finger at his handheld.

“We have your daughter. If you wish to see her alive again, you will follow our instructions. We know about your mercenaries, and if you speak of this to them, the girl dies. We will call you again soon. Sorry about the songbird.”

The voice was synthesized, a voxbot, probably generated from text.

“I don’t suppose we got a backwalk?”

“Nossir, it’s planetweb, bounced from all over the world. They ain’t entirely foolish.”

Cutter nodded. “So they are testing to see if the Rajah is going to tell us.”

“Be my guess. Have to wonder why he’d bother hiring us if he isn’t, but you know how the clients get.”

He knew. Once the threats began, there were families that swallowed and rethought their decisions to hire recovery forces.

Gramps said, “The bit about the bird is to let us know for sure they were in the garden.”

“Yes. Or had access to the security recording.”

His com buzzed. Cutter held up one hand to caution Gramps to be quiet.

“Cutter.”

The call was on speaker: “Colonel, it is Rama here. The kidnappers have contacted us. The Rajah would like to see you when it is convenient.”

Gramps raised an eyebrow.

“On my way. Out.”

Once the connection was cut, Gramps said, “Well, I guess that answers that.”

“So it would seem. I’ll go and have a chat with him.”