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

still intimidate, moved his hand to a heavy service blaster, worn crossdraw.
    It was an incorrect response.
    Goodnight touched his cheek, went bester. Before Pantakos's hand touched the butt of his blaster, Goodnight had it in his own grip. He twisted, and the bone snapped.
    Goodnight came out of bester in time to hear Pantakos yelp in agony.
    Goodnight spun him about and kicked him hard in the butt. Pantakos stumbled forward, fell on his face in front of his formation.
    One man reached for his gun, froze seeing Grok leveling down on him and the bodyguards unslinging their blast rifles.
    "As I have read from ancient Earth, you are a daisy if you do not," the alien growled.
    No one moved for a long moment, then the group turned, started back inside.
    No one bothered, until Goodnight shouted, to pick up the moaning Pantakos from the dirt.
    "What the hell was that about being a daisy?" Goodnight asked.
    "I read about some Earth gunman named Doc Earp saying it at a battle called the KO Corral."
    "Find a leetle more macho line next time, all right?" Goodnight said.
    "I cannot believe," Grok said, without replying to Chas's insult, eyes never leaving the retreating motlies, "that you have just turned moral on me, Chas."
    "Sorry," Goodnight said. "I didn't sleep very well last night. I won't disappoint you again."
    "I mean no insult, lady," the man in the oil-stained boilersuit said. "But you're evaluating my team's performance?"
    Jasmine King could have, possibly should have, lost her temper. Instead, she found it funny.
    They were in the cramped, rather littered office in a monstrous hangar, almost full of small patrol ships with various crimps or parts of their skin missing, and women and men with tools bustling about.
    "You mean someone who looks like I do can't know anything about technicals?"
    Jasmine wore a dark-colored, skintight coverall, slash-cut high boots, and a stylishly small pistol, carried in a shiny rig that matched her outfit.
    "Oh, no. Oh, dear no," the stubby man said, coloring. "That'd be dumb thinking, just to start with. What I meant was, well, us techies are generally at the shitty�sorry for the language�end of the stick when it comes to everything. And, uh, you, uh�" his voice trailed off.
    "I'm not sure I believe you, Mr. Ells," Jasmine said, grinning. "But I'll accept what you say. For the moment.
    "My team, as you might have heard, will be overseeing the freelance military people in the Khelat System. Which includes your Maintenance and Operations Section."
    "I hope, to be frank, that you're better than the Khelat," Ells said. "Because they've got the damndest assortment of for-hire idiots soldiering for them that I've ever seen� And then there'll be nobody in other slots where there should be someone."
    "Such as?"
    "Those half-wits that call themselves commandos just for openers, who shouldn't be allowed a kid's knife, for fear they'll cut themselves."
    "They're gone."
    Ells eyes rounded.
    "That's a good start. Now, what about hiring some pilots? The Khelat, may they be forever blessed, think that all it takes to push a starship around is to be a member of royalty."
    "I've seen the scrap heap," King said.
    "They can wreck �em faster than we can fix �em, and that's the pure truth."
    "That's something we'll have to look at."
    "I don't know if we're gonna run out of princes or TAC ships first," Ells said. "By the way, did you notice that the easy way to tell a prince�other than he's got more jewels than anybody�is he generally speaks Alliance instead of Khelat?"
    "I've noticed that," Jasmine said. "And wondered why."
    "I'm not real sure," Ells said. "But I think it makes them superior to the other swine they're ordering around. And nobody's wising them up to the fact that makes the silly bastards strangers in their own land."
    He shook his head.
    "I've gone through your people's fiches, and also the maintenance records," King said, changing the subject. "I figure you're putting in, each,