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The sergeant who'd lost his hand had gone down to his knees and had picked up his appendage. He pressed the severed end to his bleeding stump, pale and growing paler.
Valentine put his knee into Brage's kidneys. "Call off your dogs and I'll take care of my Cat."
"Fuckin' trannies!" one of the hatchet men said. "Save it for the enemy."
Bee loomed from the top of the sand-and-slat wall, assault rifle pointed into the trench.
"Graaaawg?" she asked.
Depending on circumstance, the word might mean help, need, or distress. Bee put the barrel between the two unengaged hatchet men.
"Good, Bee. Safe," Valentine said, releasing Brage. "Medic! Call a medic," he shouted toward the fire control dugout. One of the audience ducked back inside.
"Beeeeee!" Bee agreed.
"I'll have you both on charges," Brage began.
"You drew first, Sergeant. I was defending a member of my command who posed no threat to anyone."
Duvalier looked Brage in the eye. "Just try it. Throw your weight around. Someone else'll be carrying that clipboard by the time a Jagger gets here, and you'll be scattered across the country-side in easy-to-carry pieces.
"You all heard me," Brage said, looking around for support. "She threatened me."
"Let it go, Brage," McClorin said. "Goebler's about to go into shock."
"I'm fine," the one-handed man said. "Should I put my hand in ice or what?"
"Keep pressure on the stump and put it above your head," Valentine said, ripping the field dressing he had taped to his weapon belt off. He picked up Brage's dropped pistol and tossed it up and out of the trench and then moved to help the wounded man.
Duvalier released her captive. He had a sizable stain running down his right leg. "You," she said, taking a quick step forward and holding her blade pointed like a spear. "The one who called us trannies. Come over here and lick your friend clean."
"Stop it, Ali," Valentine said. He turned his attention back to Brage. "I think you all might want to return to Southern Command now," Valentine said. "Colonel Bloom is perfectly capable of organizing a retreat."
"Not a retreat," Brage said. "A reallocation of assets."
As it turned out, there was no immediate fallout from the blood shed in the dirt next to Igraine. Valentine had a half-dozen witnesses ready to swear Brage threatened Valentine and pulled his gun first. All the rest that followed was necessary to prevent the death or injury of Southern Command personnel.
Only Pencil Boelnitz, who'd heard about the scene one way or another and regretted missing it, brought it up after Colonel Bloom's query was closed. Lambert shrugged and told him: Service with David Valentine gives no end of future anecdotes-but rest assured he's even tougher on the enemy.
Valentine kicked Duvalier's information about the new Northwest Ordnance movements up to headquarters at the next, and what turned out to be final, staff meeting.
"Not my problem anymore," Bloom said. "We'll be gone in a few days."
"Thank you for seeing the work to the fort through," Valentine said. The brigade had worked hard at finishing setting up Fort Seng as a working base-and, in a typical military irony, wouldn't be around to take advantage of the comforts they'd installed.
"Now that word's got out that we're doing a last dash home, everyone wants to get going as soon as possible," Bloom said. "You sure you don't want us to bury half that Angel Food around the joint, just in case you have to blow it up quickly?"
"We'll be able to handle that. Did I get any volunteers to stay?"
"Aside from your devoted shit detail, you have a couple skutty types who know they'll do time in the brig as soon as we get back to the Jaggers. Wouldn't trust them any farther than I could smell 'em."
"The Bears are staying, suh," Gamecock, the officer in charge of the three four-man Bear teams, said. "I took it up with the boys. Consensus is the Kurians are going to hit you as soon as the rest of the brigade leaves. They figure it's the quickest way to get back to fighting."
"How about the Wolves?" Valentine asked Moytana, the captain in charge of the Wolf company that had scouted for Javelin.
"I'm under direct orders to return," Moytana said. He had the slow, assured drawl of a long-service cowhand.
"What can you leave us?"
