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"I know-a little light for stopping a Reaper in full charge," Gamecock said. "I threw in some boxes of silverpoints. Team Fumarole's had good results with them. They don't flatten out against Reaper cloth so much."
"I don't suppose you've got any Quickwood bullets."
"We got a box of 7.62 for the whole team, suh. One lousy box. Production problems. Wish they'd tell me where the trees were. I'd make myself some friggin' stakes."
"I'll show you one personally when we get back. Assuming some farmer hasn't cut it down for tomato stakes. By the way, where's the accent from?"
"South Carolina born. First name's Scottie, suh."
"Val will do from now on, when things are less formal. Grateful to you, Scottie."
"Grateful to you, suh. My boys are ready to kill each other. Only three things will keep a Bear quiet if there's no fighting going on: sleeping, eating, and . . . well-"
"Screwing," Valentine finished. "Lieutenant Nail in the old Razors put it a little more colorfully."
"Any case, suh, we've all put on ten pounds and everyone's caught up on sack time. I got all I can do to keep the women and chickens round here safe."
* * * *
Pizzaro at Rally Base greased the entire operation, even setting up an escort by a contingent of the "Skeeter Fleet," Southern Command's own force of low-draft vessels that were employed in riverine combat. The SF's airboats and fast motorboats weren't a match for the bigger, cannon-mounted craft of the Quisling river patrol, but they could cause enough trouble somewhere else to draw off the forces guarding one set of loops in the twisting Mississippi.
Valentine practiced entry drills with the Bears and ran short patrols with the Wolves, always taking a few of the company with him. It did a little for their confidence and it was good to see the men getting over some of their wariness when it came to the Bears. Most of the men thought Bears would just as soon kill a man as look at him, and the day might come when members of the company would have to guide a Bear team to a target.
Valentine expensed three hundred rounds training with the new gun while Bee worked on sawing off the barrels and smoothing down the stocks on the old shotguns she'd been converting to pistol grip. Valentine practiced changing magazines until he could do it without thinking about it. Then he cleaned the weapon and test fired a couple more rounds to make sure he didn't foul something up.
The Bears and most of the Wolves were employed in a strike at a collection of river patrol docks and blockhouses on Island Ten, while a short platoon of Valentine's company, escorted by a striking team of Wolves, made for the armory. The rest of his command remained at either side of the Mississippi under Rand, blowing up rubber boats and improvised rafts called "Ping-Pong ball miracles" in preparation for the trip back.
The trip across and the movement to the armory had gone off well, with the Skeeter Fleet bringing them across just before dawn on New Year's Eve, their camouflage-painted twin-outboard boats growling into the muddy Mississippi waters like dogs giving the angry warning that comes before the leap.
Valentine's picked team of twenty, Bee, and the Wolves paralleled the east-west highway heading into Mayfield, Kentucky, and then turned north into the Grog country, the Wolves out front and behind and flanking, continually restoring contact like sheepdogs with a flock.
They took advantage of a chilling rain to make good time down the road, which had deteriorated into a rutted trail. According to Rollings no one "who counted" lived up this way, in a region of low, sandy hills and scrub forest. River patrol supply trucks and Grog recruiters were all that used the roads meeting at the armory.
They rested, ate, and observed while the skies cleared and the sun went down. Valentine taped a thin commando dagger to his forearm-it never hurt to have something in reserve.
After giving everyone inside a chance to get deep into REM sleep, Valentine decided the time was ripe.
He, Rollings, and Bee approached from the east down the tree-throttled road, three Wolves trailing through cover behind. Valentine carried his 18 Select in a battered leather courier pouch filled with a meaningless assortment of captured paperwork. Valentine smelled harpies on the cold wind blowing down from the northwest.
As they approached the gate, he slipped on the brass ring he'd won in Seattle. He didn't like to wear the thing.
"No Kurian towers around here, right?" he asked Rollings, nervous as he felt the warmth of the ring when it contacted his skin.
The armory had old-fashioned bars around it, linking cement columns. Valentine wondered if something more ostentatious had once stood on the other side of the fence. This was like garlanding a turd.
"No, sir. Well, none that I know about. Never went into the harpy woods, though, or met any Reapers on the river road that way. Is that what I think it is, Major?"
"Yes."
"You take it off a-"
"It's a long story."
A dog barked as they approached, a mud-splattered, hungry-looking thing that seemed to be a mix of a German shepherd and a long-haired camel. It jumped atop its shelter to better sound the alarm.
Behind its house was a line of trucks and a wrecker. The trucks looked rusted and worn, though they had hedge-cutting blades fixed below the front bumper and iron bars welded across the windshield and windows.
Valentine approached the buzz box on the post outside the gate and opened the dirty glass door covering the buttons.
