Better to Beg Forgiveness (2 page)

Stretching, he took a sip of water. The seat was very comfortable, covered with a finer fabric than most commercial liners, and powered to support his neck and back automatically, shifting as he did. Military flights didn't rate such expensive but spine-saving hardware.

Alex wouldn't admit it was his first trip off planet. The star flight had been smooth enough, and there wasn't much to say, so he ignored it. Both Elke and Jason had been off Earth, and Jason now lived off Earth, retired to a wealthy colony. He'd retired from the military, not from working in the field.

Anyway, it made sense to soak up the view, get firsthand intel. There was nothing wrong with being a paid tourist, either.

Salin was just a planet. It had analogs to much of Earth plant life, and a few lower animals. Not much local was above very simple amphibians, though the seas were fairly active. There were a few reptiles including some flying types. That meant a lot to the scientists who studied such. To him, it meant few nonhuman threats, which was fine, as there were enough of those. Salin was smaller than Earth, but had similar gravity and lots of metals in its core. Bob was a flare star, with periodic outbursts that weren't dangerous to a human with good UV block or a hat, and barely noticeable for their small violence. As with everything else around here, it was unspectacular. There was also a certain amount of metal in the asteroids here. Those were potentially profitable, being easy to transport through jump points, but the two large and one small nations on Salin had never been able to come to an agreement about them, so they remained unexploited. Planetary exports tended to be technology, foodstuffs, tourism, or rare minerals or gems. On the planet itself there were few people with education to create new tech, there was nothing rare here, barely enough food for subsistence and certainly nothing exotic, and the ongoing tribal wars and desolate or uninteresting terrain prevented any kind of tourism.

What a hole
, he mused.

He tensed slightly as they landed. This mission was still being put together and the Ripple Creek oporder did not have much information on infrastructure. It lacked details such as whether the port was automated, or if pilots had to manually land and if there were even navaids. All these intelligence holes were information he needed to get the job done, but he'd have to make do. The landing was uneventful as it turned out, and they taxied up to a very basic, sheet-roofed building that served as the terminal. That summed up what this place was like.

As soon as they rolled to a stop, he said, "Okay, debark, Elke and Bart, grab our weapons, and let's meet our principal at his new home."

Their craft was a civilian Broadwing, but was on contract to the military. Again and again that was happening, and Bart Weil didn't like it. He remembered when everything had been done at great expense with armor and combat craft. This was allegedly cheaper, but it was not safer and contractors weren't always reliable. He hated using them. Then he caught himself and laughed inside. He was a contractor and wouldn't be here otherwise. He'd done executive protection for years, but only been on military-type contracts a few months, like most of the team, and was still adapting to the mind-set.

He walked aft, out through a wave of heat and down the ladder rolled against the fuselage. They were debarking on the apron, which said what was needed about this backwater. He started sweating, but it was only from the weather, not from any threat. Yet.

There was a crew already unloading the hold, but not in the briskest fashion. That might be partly diet and climate—they had starvation-and-manual-labor physiques, even in this lower-than-Earth gravity—but he suspected a good part of it was laziness. Why work harder if it would not pay off?

Their pallet came out on the forks, and he waved to the operator for attention. There was a moment's mixup as he used a hand signal he thought meant "down" that the operator understood as "tilt forward." Bart was almost responsible for the pallet dropping and shattering, because it was the ground guide's job to direct; the driver couldn't see anything at that angle. Bart hated being in charge, or having to rely on someone, so neither side of this was good for him. He also knew there'd be a lot of that this tour. He was already tense from it. The operator, at least, had been competent if not industrious.

But he managed to guide the load down, and he and Elke snapped the wheels out from where they served as dunnage, to proper road position. The pallet could be driven by attached or remote control for as long as its ampacitors lasted, towed as a trailer, or pushed if it had to be. By itself it was an expensive piece of equipment, and what it contained . . . 

The others were around shortly, having brought all the personal gear, which was piled on the crates for easy transport. They took the spare time to examine the surroundings in person.

There were moister, cooler areas near the poles. These temperate and tropical zones were dusty and dry, largely, even close to the coasts. Rivers were few, small streams meandering into swamps being more common. Here was simply bright yellowish Boblight, flat terrain with local gingko analogs, and Earth palms with some coastal pines. The dust was dun.

No one commented. It was a place. That was all that could be said.

"So who's our escort? Paras?" Bart asked.

"Just an infantry convoy," Alex said.

"Great. A moving wall of raw meat to soak up fire. I hope they're large as well as stupid." He said it mostly to twit Anderson, and it worked. Bart could see his teeth grind. That made them even for the navy jokes the boy had been telling. "Sheep would be obvious" indeed. Humor was only funny when you intended it to be.

They sat on their crates. They had their personal gear and water, with a few rations in case of long delay. Ideally, they would have armed up at once. Unfortunately, a combination of factors prevented that.

First, the crates were heavily sealed and would require equipment to open. That was to prevent theft of their very high-value items by assorted elements. BuState was also worried about "weapons in civilian hands," which was very annoying. The team would not be the agents of that distribution. Still, until they were on-site, they were "civilians" and couldn't touch their own gear. Always politics, always in the way of getting the job done.

"It would be nice to fly in," Bart said. "In a vertol or even a helicopter."

"It would," Vaughn replied with a nod, "but there aren't proper facilities. They never had a pad at the palace, and the only aircraft here so far are the Army's. They're trying to avoid this whole 'BuState mess,' as they call it."

"Well, their priority is fighting the war," Anderson said. "You can't blame them for that." He was picking at loose pieces of plastic on the crates.

"I am not blaming them," Bart said. "I would do the same. But it would be nice."

"Give it a month," Vaughn said confidently. "It'll change."

"Must be our convoy," Sykora said, pointing across the high, dusty apron to an approaching line of vehicles, most of them military.

"Probably," Jason agreed. He hadn't done this for long, but he had been in the military for years, and his assessment of the convoy wasn't a pleasant one. Mostly wheeled vehicles, almost no tracks, thin-skinned and fine against small arms but no good against any kind of support weapon. Inadequate crew-served weapons aboard. Likely great air support nearby, but that took seconds in which troops could die. The UN didn't want to appear like an occupying force, so they were using the minimum amount of armed and armored military gear. Yet another way to sacrifice troops for appearance. He was again thankful he'd accepted retirement.

He couldn't wait to get to somewhere where he'd have Ripple Creek's own drivers and support. What a sad statement that he trusted them better than the troops.

The irony was that the Army felt exactly the same way about contractors. How could you trust someone who fought for a paycheck? How could you be sure they wouldn't bug out? Why trust people who were outside the chain of command, and exempt from the Military Code of Justice?

The reality was, all those same rules applied on contract, and they'd forfeit their pay and face criminal charges if they bailed. They had some wiggle room, being an independent command, so they could dispense with a certain amount of stupidity and paperwork. After all was said and done, however, they were still soldiers.

The convoy was accompanied by a wave of dust. Everyone squinted as it rolled up. There were twelve vehicles; quite an entourage for six bodyguards. Jason surmised that the rationale was probably enough vehicles to dissuade attack—on the troops, not on their "civilian" passengers. Alternately, they'd had errands to run.

"Ripple Creek?" someone shouted from the second vehicle.

"Yes," Alex agreed, and showed ID. He was motioned up close and touched in a code on a proffered pad screen. After checking that and his picture, the officer nodded. Jason took in the exchange, and looked at the officer closely. He was perhaps twenty-five, though his face was lined from exhaustion and sun.

"Have your people climb in the grumbly," he said, indicating the next-to-last vehicle.

"Check," Alex said. He waved and pointed, and the team rose and moved. Bart had the controller for the pallet, and rolled it closer to the line of vehicles to make attaching it for tow easier. In only a few minutes they loaded up and were ready.

The grumbly, so nicknamed for the low exhaust note of its cycloidal engine, seated eight. This one was configured with an open top, and had two pintles epoxied to it for mounting guns. That meant plenty of visibility, and no armor.

Eight was the nominal capacity. There were six on the team, the driver and codriver, and then four more troops squeezed in to the seats and adjoining bed. They were armed, so no one complained, even though it meant being crunched against dusty, sweaty soldiers with bulky gear.

It was a military convoy. That meant the seats were coarse, not well-padded, badly worn and flattened, and only better than nothing for reducing bumps from spine-shattering to mere bruise-causing. The drivers were going balls-out, and the reason became obvious.

It was a local sport to take potshots at convoys. The access road was straight, flat, and had ample clear space around it. Behind rises and distant buildings, however, a number of locals were shooting.

"Which faction are they?" Jason asked the sergeant in charge of their detail.

"Does it matter?" the sergeant grinned. "They shoot at everybody. It's just what they do."

The distance was far too great for any incapacitating weapon. The gunner above and behind had a real machine gun, and rapped off a burst here and there. Responding to every instance would waste ammo, so he was judiciously choosing targets he had a chance of at least disturbing, and ignoring the rest.

"Kinda fun. Can't wait until we play," Aramis said.

"Yeah. Fun," one woman rasped. "I ain't paid enough to call this fun." She flicked her eyes at Aramis, blazing jealousy, then turned back to the panorama, watching for threats. At least she took it seriously.

Jason took in technical details. It was a talent, a skill. He might not notice the contents of an adscreen unless it changed, but he'd damned sure notice additional wires or a ladder. The grumbly was worn, one pintle had been replaced and there were two extra ammo cases jammed in storage against a seat back. He also noticed definite tampering with the safety cover on the machine gun. That was supposed to be personalized to the operator and no more than two backups because of civilian paranoia about "weapons getting into the wrong hands." Soldiers were far more paranoid of not being able to return fire, with good reason.

"The safeties are pulled," he said softly to Alex and Elke. "Which I'm glad to see."

"Yeah, some regs are meant to be disobeyed," Alex replied. Elke just nodded and glanced over to confirm the fact.

Alex had been briefed on friction between contingents. Most of the military were not happy with the Executive Protection Details. EPDs could use nonstandard weapons, lethal force, and were almost immune from prosecution for all but deliberate murder. If the local government didn't complain, BuState wouldn't follow up. Then there was the EPD pay, which started at that of a field grade officer and went up.

Of course, in exchange for that money, the EPs were expected to throw themselves on grenades or take bullets for people they might rather see dead. The job wasn't about supporting their buddies or getting the benefits, it was about killing or dying for a buck. Aramis wasn't the only one who saw it as a way to make money and nothing else. Though most who'd done it for a while also had professional pride and the love of the challenge. They were still soldiers, just hired for specific operations.

He'd seen similar friction between active and reserve units, combat and support and various branches and nations. That was settling down a bit now that all militaries belonged to the UN's central alliance. Standards were leveling out and your backup could be almost anyone, which led to greater trust after a few missions. Contractors were always on the outside, though. That distrust worked both ways, but these soldiers appeared to be decent so far.

Shortly they were in town. That was a lesson itself.

Rough shacks lined the streets, interspersed with small stores. Some had electricity, generally wired straight down from a pole and looking improvised and unsafe. Several blackened rubble heaps might have sworn testimony to that, though they might also have been from arson, fighting, or other domestic causes.

Some of the buildings had windows of unbroken glass. The broken ones showed it to in fact be glass, not a modern poly. The construction was anything from native cut stone to hewn lumber to scavenged lumber and fiberglass or fiber panels. The roads were in poor repair, some fused, some paved with asphalt or concrete, and all broken and crumbling from age, wear, and the occasional explosion.

Then there were the people. They sat on porches or in yards staring aimlessly or wasting time with simple games. Many had the glazed expressions of alcohol or drug consumption.