Read Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program for Free Online Page A

aides?"
    The man obeyed.
    "Your contract has another month to run," Riss told him. "When it expires, it will not be renewed."
    "But� why?"
    "This planet needs teachers, not more cannon fodder. General, I'll give you a bit of advice. Mercenarying is primarily either instruction, techies, spaceship crews, or special ops these days. The local lads provide the blood and the charges. People who're good at chucking spears around rate very low on the employment roster. That's all."
    "Your troops," von Baldur said smoothly to Prince Barab, "are somewhat lacking in basic intelligence toward the enemy."
    Barab looked as if he was about to lose his temper, changed his mind.
    "Yes," he said. "That is a criticism that's been leveled before. That was one of the things the recently departed Alliance advisors were intending to help us with. The problem is that the Khelat are instinctive warriors, not particularly respecting the professions of espionage and such.
    "I shall continue to have my staff search for any accumulated information about the Shaoki."
    Von Baldur made politeness, cut off, as Jasmine came in with a handful of microfiches.
    "Anything?"
    "Not much," King admitted. "M'chel managed to find some reports about smuggling orbits into various of the Khelat worlds, if you want them."
    "Now, what would the Khelat want to worry about�" Friedrich changed his mind. "No. Ship them over. At this point a thin something is better than a fat nothing."
    "Colorful," Chas Goodnight said, voice dripping with scorn.
    He and Grok stood outside a ramshackle barracks. Behind them were one hundred of the king's body-guards that Goodnight had borrowed, calling the group a "potential teaching aid."
    "Aren't they," Grok agreed, without sarcasm, looking at the fifty men in a ragged formation. "The First Commandos, is that correct?"
    "That's what they call themselves." Goodnight shook his head. "Are any two of them carrying the same weapon? That'll make resupply interesting.
    "Come to think," he said, "are any of them carrying any less than three weapons? Not counting hideouts, sleeve guns, armpit daggers, and shit like that. I guess they need those just to show how baaaaaaad they are. And let's not even talk about their uniforms or strong need for baths."
    Grok didn't answer.
    "A goddamned disgrace to mercenarying," Chas grumbled. "Every damned unit we've looked at so far is either spit and stupidity or steel-teethed commandos. Disgusting."
    "You make a jest," Grok said. "You think soldiering for hire is a calling for a high moral standing?"
    Goodnight grunted, having temporarily lost his sense of humor.
    The leader of the rabble ambled forward, and threw a most casual greeting that he might have intended as a salute at Charles.
    "I am Captain Gorgio Pantakos, and we are at your service."
    Quite suddenly, Chas recognized him.
    "I remember your name being Dedan a few years back, correct?"
    Pantakos jolted.
    "No. You are thinking of someone else."
    "Right," Goodnight said. "Somebody who got involved in some little war and decided to settle things out by turning a bunch of the local yokels with flamethrowers loose on a medium-sized village. And there wasn't an unfriendly troop within parsecs."
    "That wasn't me," Pantakos insisted.
    "Yeh, it was," Goodnight said flatly. "As if war wasn't a shitty enough deal. I wanted to have a look at your team� which doesn't seem to have accomplished anything, other than tearing up some bars and terrorizing whores.
    "Now I have.
    "Even without recognizing you, Dedan, I was pretty sure I was going to terminate your contracts, if I didn't get reasons to change my mind. Of which there don't seem to be any. This poor goddamned cluster's got enough problems without sociopaths who can't hold it under control.
    "You and your crew are restricted to barracks, are to be disarmed immediately and transshipped back to whatever sewer the poor goddamned Khelat found you in."
    Pantakos/Dedan flushed, and, perhaps thinking he could