Cauldron of Ghosts by David Weber, Eric Flint Read Free Book Online

to say—his first words were:
    “Hey, guys, look at this! We did better than . . . what the fuck? ”
    * * *
    Showing a surprisingly limited lexicon for people whom a literary critic might call expansively ironic, Captain Tsang used the same words when Anderson and her two people suddenly drew their sidearms. Simultaneously, the tribarrel mounted on a bulkhead in the cargo bay swiveled to bring its deadly muzzles to bear on the Ramathibodi ’s contingent. And—a final insult—the three pleasure units drew tiny pistols from who-knows-where on their scantily clad persons.
    “What the fuck?”
    * * *
    In the end, they captured all but two of the slavers alive.
    The man whose skull had been bashed by Kabweza died eighteen hours later without ever regaining consciousness. Anderson made no criticism, though. Given the difficulty of the task and the training of Torch assault troops, having only one fatality was a minor miracle.
    The lieutenant colonelwas less philosophical about the matter. “I’ll never live this down,” she predicted.
    “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Ayi,” said Anderson soothingly. “One fatality isn’t bad.”
    “It’s better than nothing,” Kabweza replied. “But I’m still going to be the butt of everyone’s jokes when the rest of our people find out. Kindergarten playgrounds have more dangerous so-called ‘assault troops’ than we turned out to be.”
    * * *
    The death of the second slaver could not be placed at the feet of the assault troops, unless you wanted to accuse them of negligent homicide—which Anderson didn’t even consider, once the circumstances were explained to her.
    When the section left the mess hall, Takahashi Ayako picked up a kitchen knife that was lying on a counter. It was just a paring knife, having a blade no more than nine centimeters long. One of the assault troops spotted her doing it, but his only reaction was amusement.
    “Hey, look, I just thought she was cute,” Sergeant Supakrit X later explained to the battalion commander. “There she was, surrounded by apes armed to the teeth and armored to boot, but she still insisted on getting a weapon herself. If you can call a glorified toothpick a weapon.”
    “Cute,” said Kabweza, looking disgusted.
    Supakrit X made a face. “Look, Chief, I’m sorry. I misjudged.”
    “Cute,” Kabweza repeated. “Glorified toothpick.”
    * * *
    The four slavers on the bridge had surrendered as soon as Kabweza and her soldiers burst in. None of them had been armed except the com officer, Ondøej Montoya, whom Captain Tsang had left in charge while she went aboard Parmley Station. And Montoya’s sidearm—in a holster with the flap closed—would have been useless against the heavily armed assault troops’ armor.
    After they surrendered, Kabweza ordered all four slavers to stand against one of the bulkheads, leaning far forward and forced to support their weight on their hands. That rendered them not quite as helpless as if they’d been handcuffed, but Torch assault troops didn’t carry restraining gear because they weren’t usually given sappy, sentimental orders to take prisoners.
    Still, they were pretty helpless. Takahashi obviously thought so. No sooner had the four slavers assumed the position than the freed slave screeched pure fury, raced forward and stabbed one of them in the kidney with her little paring knife.
    The wound was not fatal. Given modern medicine, it wasn’t even very serious. But the shock and pain was enough to cause the slaver to jerk back, whereupon he tripped over Takahashi and the two of them went down—the large slaver on top of the small slave.
    Ironically, he’d have done better if their positions had been reversed. If Ayako had been on top, she would have stabbed him with full force; very dramatically, her hand rising above her head before she drove down the blade. She would have cut him up quite nicely, but the assault troops would probably have hauled her off before she could