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"Don't worry, Tiddle. You did the right thing. Both times."
"How can it be right both times?"
"Good question. Why don't you think about it for a while?"
Valentine decided to forget everything Tiddle had told him, if possible. Whatever Boom had or hadn't done, survival was their main concern now.
"Sir, if you don't mind me saying, there's one more thing that's worried me."
Trust established, Tiddle seemed intent on unburdening himself entirely. Valentine wondered if he was going to hear about Tiddle's loss of virginity to a cousin.
"Colonel Bloom, sir. She's been kind of distracted lately. Just like Colonel Jolla at the end.
Absent, only half listening."
Valentine bit off a "Are you sure?" Stupid question. He had to act.
"I'll talk to her. Thanks for expressing your doubts, Tiddle."
"Whatever's going on, nip it in the bud now, would you, sir? I don't want to be known as the com officer who's had two commanders shoot theirselves."
* * * *
"I'm not sure we should be in such a hurry to leave," Valentine said, trying to wash down a hunk of legworm jerky and sawdust at the next route-planning meeting.
"How's that now?" Bloom asked.
"After their last try, the Moondaggers seem content to just nudge us along. They haven't made any real attempt to cut us off or even engage. Maybe they're licking their wounds from the last fight."
"Time is on their side, then."
"Not necessarily," Valentine said. "They're used to getting their way, and they're used to shoving around civilians when they don't. The legworm clans, they're not poor Kansas farm collective workers who don't know a rifle from a hoe. These boys can ride and shoot and they don't back down."
"They backed down easily enough back at the union," a Guard captain said.
"Now they're on their own land, though. I remember how startled I was, seeing Quisling uniforms walking around in Little Rock. Made me kind of mad. Felt more like a violation. I'm hoping the legworm ranchers will feel the same way," Valentine said.
"So what of it? They get jacked and take out a few Moondaggers in return. Does that help us?" Bloom asked.
"It gives the Moondaggers a new set of worries," Brother Mark said.
"The Moondaggers will respond the only way they know how. It could grow into a full-scale revolt. There could be advantages to that. Like better supply for us," Valentine said.
Moytana shook his head. "And disadvantages. There's a big garrison in Lexington and another in Frankfort. Right now they seem content to sit and not make waves."
"And the Ordnance, just over the Ohio," someone else added. "They've got a professional army. A lot of Solon's best troops came from there. If the Kurians there think Kentucky is up for grabs, they might make a move."
"We came across the Mississippi to establish a new Freehold," Valentine said, giving the table a rap. "I'd still like to do it. But I want it to be the ranchers' idea, not ours."
"Too risky, Valentine," Bloom said. Javelin's low on everything."
"We win a battle and we might get more local support," Valentine said. "Right now they're just obeying the Moondaggers because they've seen that we aren't doing anything about them."
Bloom glowered. "Pipe down, Valentine. You're dancing toward a line marked
'insubordination.'"
"Sorry, sir," Valentine said, using the soothing tone that always worked with his old Quisling captain on the Thunderbolt.
