Honor Among Enemies hh-6

by David Weber

  Harkness let silence linger for several moments, then leaned back on his elbows, half reclining across the bed. "Look, kid," he rumbled reasonably, "I know that's crap, you know it's crap, the Bosun knows it's crap, hell, even the Old Lady knows it's crap. You're lying your ass off, aren't you?" He held Aubrey's eyes with that same lazy challenge, then nodded when the younger man said nothing. "Yep, and so is Tatsumi," he went on calmly. "I don't really know as I blame either of you, Steilman can be a nasty SOB, but you don't really think it's going to end here, do you?"

  Aubrey felt a fresh, deeper chill as he heard Steilman's name. He hadn't told a soul, and he was sure Tatsumi hadn't, but Harkness knew anyway, and if he went to the Bosun or the Exec, Steilman would never believe Aubrey hadn't.

  "I..." he began, then closed his mouth and stared at Harkness helplessly.

  "Let me explain something." The senior chiefs deep voice held an odd note of compassion. "See, I'm not here to ask you to name any names, and I'm not gonna go running to the Bosun or Mr. Thomas with anything you tell me. I happen to think you should go to them, but that's up to you. It's not a decision anyone else can make for you, though you might want to think about what you're gonna tell Captain Harrington if she decides to ask. Take it from me, kid, when the Old Lady asks questions, she gets answers, and you don't want to be the one who pisses her off." Aubrey swallowed, and the senior chief chuckled. "'Course, that's up to you, too, and I'm not gonna tell you what to do about it. Nope," he shook his head, "I'm here for something a little more practical than that."

  "Practical?" Aubrey asked hesitantly.

  "Yep. What I want to know, Wanderman, isn't what you're gonna tell people about it. I want to know what your gonna do about it."

  "Do?" Aubrey sank onto his own bed, pressing one hand to his ribs, and licked his lips. The quick heal was working, but they were still puffy, and he swallowed again. "What . . . what do you mean, 'do about it,' Senior Chief?"

  "The way I see it," Harkness said calmly, "Steilman beat the crap out of you, and then he probably said something along the lines of I've got friends, so keep your mouth shut, or else." He shrugged. "The only problem is, if you do keep your mouth shut, then you're gonna have to come up with something to get him off your back yourself, or the end result's gonna be the same. I know assholes like Steilman. They like hurting people; it's how they get their kicks. So just how were you planning on handling him next time?"

  "I..." Aubrey broke off once more, expression helpless, and Harkness nodded.

  "S'what I thought. You haven't thought about that part of it, have you?"

  Aubrey shook his head, not even realizing that to do so was to tacitly admit that he had not, in fact, fallen... and that Harkness was right about who'd attacked him. His eyes clung to the senior chief's, and Harkness sighed.

  "Wanderman, you're a good kid, but Jesus are you green. You've got just two choices here. Either you go to the Bosun and tell her what really happened, or you deal with Steilman on your own. One or the other. 'Cause if you don't, you can bet Steilman's gonna deal with you as soon as he figures it's safe. So which is it gonna be?"

  "I..." Aubrey dropped his eyes to the deck and drew a deep breath, then shook his head. "I can't go to the Bosun, Senior Chief," he admitted hoarsely. "It's not just me, and it's not just Steilman. He's got friends... and so do I. If I turn him in, how do I know one of his friends won't go after me or Gin..." He paused and cleared his throat. "Or one of my friends?"

  "Okay." Harkness shrugged. "I think you're making a mistake, but if that's the way you feel, that's the way you feel, and I ain't your momma. But that only leaves one option. Are you really up for that?"

  "No," Aubrey muttered hopelessly. His shoulders sagged and his face burned with humiliation, but he made himself look up from the deck. "I've never had a fight in my life, Senior Chief," he said with a sort of forlorn dignity. "I don't even know if I'd have the guts to try to fight back next time, but even if I did, I wouldn't be very good at it."

  "Guts?" Harkness repeated very softly, then laughed. "Kid, you've got a hell of a lot more guts than Steilman!" Aubrey blinked at him, and the senior chief shook his head. "You're scared to death of him, but you're not exactly falling apart in panic," he pointed out. "If you were gonna do that, you'd've been screaming for the Bosun the minute you reached sickbay. Nope, your problem, Wanderman, is that you've got too much guts to panic and not quite enough to do the same thing 'cause you thought it through and realized it was the smart move. You're sort of stuck out there in the middle. But I want you to think about Steilman for a minute. Think about who he decided to beat the crap out of. He outmasses you, what, about two to one? He's more'n twice your age, and he's got ten times your experience. But did he pick a fight with me? Did he stand up to the Bosun? Or Bruce Maxwell? Nope. He went after a green kid he figured for an easy mark, and he was real careful to get you alone. How much guts d'you think that took?"

  Aubrey blinked. The senior chief was wrong about his own courage, Aubrey knew that, but maybe he had a point about Steilman. Aubrey had never even considered what had happened in that light.

  "See, the thing you have to understand about people like Steilman," Harkness said, "is that they're sure thing players. Steilman likes beating people up. He enjoys hurting 'em, and he likes feeling like top dog. And he's a big bastard, too, I'll admit that. He's bigger'n I am, and strong, and he fights dirty, and I imagine he likes to think he's a tough, dangerous customer. But he's not really very smart, lad. If he were, he'd realize anybody can be dangerous. Even you."

  "Me?" Aubrey stared at the older man and then laughed a bit wildly. "He could take me apart with one hand, Senior Chief! For that matter, he already did!"

  "You have hand-to-hand in basic?" Harkness countered.

  "Of course I did, but I was never any good at it. You're not going to tell me six weeks of training taught me how to beat up someone like Steilman!"

  "Nope. But it did give you the basics, that's why they call it 'basic,'" Harkness said with such total seriousness that Aubrey had to listen to him. "Course, you knew it wasn't for real. It was just training, and you figured, hey, I'm a little, wiry guy, and I've never had a fight, and I'm never gonna have a fight, and I don't want to have one, even if I could. That about sum it up?"

  "It sure does," Aubrey said feelingly, and Harkness chuckled.

  "Well, looks to me like you were wrong. You are gonna have a fight, the only question is whether you're gonna win it or get your fool head busted. And do you know what the secret to not getting your head busted is?"

  "What?" Aubrey asked, almost against his will.

  "It's busting the other guy's head first," Harkness said grimly. "It's making up your mind going in that you're not just gonna try to defend yourself. It's deciding right now, ahead of time, that you're gonna kill the motherfucker if that's what it takes."

  "Me? Kill someone like Steilman? You're crazy!"

  "It's not nice to tell your elders they're crazy, kid," Harkness said with another of those lazy grins. "When I was your age, I wasn't a lot bigger'n you are now. Oh, taller, but I didn't have any more meat on my bones. But what I was, Wanderman, was a hell of a lot meaner than you are. And if you want to deal with Steilman and come out in one piece, then you're gonna have to get mean, too."

  "Mean? Me?" Aubrey laughed bitterly, and Harkness sighed and sat upright on the other bed again.

  "Listen to me," he said flatly. "I already told you you've only got two choices here, and you've already told me you aren't gonna do the smart thing. All right, that only leaves the dumb thing, and if you're gonna go that route, you've got some things to learn. And that's why I'm here. The one thing in the world that Steilman's never gonna expect is that you'll go for him next time, and I’ll tell you a little secret about Steilman. He doesn't know how to fight. Not for real. He's never had to learn, because he is big and strong and mean. So that's why I'm here, kid. If you want to learn how to kick this bastard's ass up between his ears, me and Gu
nny Hallowell'll show you how its done. We can't guarantee you'll win, but we can guarantee this much, Wanderman. You give me and the Gunny a few weeks to work with you, and you'll sure as hell be able to make the son-of-a-bitch work for it."

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  Aubrey had seldom felt so utterly out of place. His eyes flitted around the Marine gym, and he swallowed nervously as he watched hard, fit men and women throwing one another about with sobering efficiency. It wasn't like the basic unarmed combat courses the Navy taught its recruits. That was almost more of a stylized form of exercise, not the basis for serious mayhem, because Navy types weren't supposed to indulge in such low-brow combat. They threw megaton-range warheads and beams of coherent light or gamma radiation at one another, and, like most of his fellow recruits, Aubrey had considered his rudimentary hand-to-hand training no more than a concession to military tradition.

  Marines were different. They were expected to get down in the mud and the blood, and they were entirely serious about learning how to disassemble their fellow humans with bare hands. They were all volunteers, and like most military people from societies with prolong, they'd signed up for long hitches, the minimum was ten T-years, which gave them plenty of time to study their chosen trade. Most of them were working out full contact, in light protective gear, and he winced at the solid, sharp thud with which some of those blows and kicks went home as he watched Major Hibson at work.

  The major was a little bitty thing, less than half the size of her opponent, but she was built for speed, and for all her small size, she appeared to have been assembled from leftover battle armor parts. Her sparring partner was no slouch, with a formidable advantage in size and reach, and it was obvious they both knew all the attacks and counters. Those moves were so ingrained, came so automatically, that, to the casual eye, he and the major might have been engaged in some elaborately choreographed dance, not trying to take one another's heads off. But they were deadly serious, and for all her smaller size, Hibson was pushing the pace. She was working the perimeter, dodging and feinting with blinding quickness. Even Aubrey understood what she was trying to do, and he was certain her opponent did, yet he had to respond. The major was taking punishment, her partner had gotten in several solid shots, but she seemed to accept that as the price of doing business, and somehow she was always moving away from his best attacks. She blocked them, or rode them to rob them of their force, or simply absorbed them and kept on attacking with a ferocity Aubrey found vaguely chilling, and eventually one of her opponents punishing jabs went a few bare centimeters too far.

  Hibson seemed to sway sideways, eluding the head strike, and this time she was moving in, not away. She was suddenly inside her opponent's reach, and her padded workout shoe flashed up in an impossible-looking back-kick to his jaw as she spun to turn her back on him. He staggered, and her hands darted down while she still balanced on the toes of one foot. She caught his ankle and yanked straight up, and even as he went down, she dropped backwards herself and landed squarely on top of him. He tried to envelop her in a bear hug, but he was half-stunned and just a fraction of a second too slow. She drove a piledriver elbow into his solar plexus, twisted like a freshly landed fish, and ended up kneeling across his chest while her right hand flashed down in a lethal blow that stopped dead just before it crashed into his exposed larynx.

  Aubrey shook his head. This was crazy! These people spent years training in this kind of thing, but he was an electronics tech, not a Marine. He supposed it should have been enheartening to see someone Hibson's size face her opponent, but after she had to take down such a big man he'd also seen how to work for it ... and recognized the degree of skill it had required. He didn't have that kind of capability, and the thought that he could somehow acquire it before the next time Steilman tried to cave his head in was ludicrous. He should turn around and...

  "Sorry I'm late, kid." Aubrey jumped half out of his skin as a meaty hand clapped him on the shoulder. He spun with a gasp, and Horace Harkness grinned at him. "Seem to be moving pretty good there, Wanderman. Quick heal must of taken hold on those ribs, hey?"

  "Uh, yes, Senior Chief," Aubrey muttered.

  "Good! Come with me, kid."

  Aubrey considered telling Harkness he'd changed his mind, but he couldn't quite get the words out, and he was distantly surprised by how important it seemed that he retain the senior chiefs respect. Pride, he thought. How many people over the years had gotten the crap kicked out of them out of a misplaced sense of pride?

  His thoughts broke off as Harkness gestured to a giant in a faded sweat suit. The black-haired, dark-eyed man stood at least two meters tall, and heavy eyebrows seemed to meet across the bridge of his nose. His face was darkly weathered, his shoulders were preposterously broad, and his hairy hands looked like cargo grapples, but he moved with a sort of lazy grace which looked out of place in such a big man.

  "Harkness." Like the Bosun, the giant had a distinct Gryphon accent, and his voice was even deeper than the senior chiefs. It was also soft, almost gentle, as if its owner seldom needed to raise it, and Harkness nodded to him.

  "Gunny, this here's Wanderman. He's got a little problem."

  "So I hear." The black-haired man surveyed Aubrey thoughtfully, and the younger man felt his shoulders straighten as he realized who the other was. The Royal Manticoran Marines no longer used the rank of gunnery sergeant, but the senior noncom aboard any Queen's ship was still referred to by the ancient title of "Gunny," and that meant this giant was Battalion Sergeant Major Lewis Hallowell, effectively the Bosun’s equivalent in Marine Country.

  "Oh, ease off, Wanderman," the sergeant major rumbled. Aubrey blinked, and Hallowell grinned. It made his dark, weathered face look suddenly like a mischievous little boy's, and Aubrey felt his own lips quirk, then forced his spine to relax. "Better," Hallowell observed. "You're among friends, even if you were introduced by this miserable old vacuum-sucker."

  Aubrey blinked again, but Harkness only grinned back at the sergeant major, who snorted before he returned his attention to Aubrey. He pointed at a pile of exercise mats, and Aubrey sank obediently down to sit on them. Hallowell folded himself effortlessly to the deck facing him, planted one fist on each knee, and leaned forward! "All right, Wanderman," he said more briskly, "the only question I've got for you is how serious you are about this." Aubrey started to glance at Harkness, but Hallowell shook his head sharply. "Don't look at the Senior Chief. I want to know how serious you are."

  "I'm... not sure what you mean, S-Gunny," Aubrey said after a moment.

  "It's not hard," Hallowell said patiently. "Harkness here's briefed me on your problem. I know Steilman’s type, and I know how deep a hole you're in. What I want to know is if you're really serious about digging your way out, because doing that's going to take work, and it won't be easy. You're going to spend a lot of time sweating, and even more time groaning over bruises, and there're going to be times you wonder if Harkness and I aren't worse enemies than Steilman is. If you're going to fold up on us, I want to know now, and if you tell me you aren't, you'd better be ready to back that up, kid."

  Aubrey swallowed hard. This was the moment, he realized. He was still frightened out of his mind and more than half-convinced the entire project was an exercise in futility, yet he'd come this far. And if he told Gunny Hallowell that he was prepared to stick it out, the same sort of pride which had brought him across the gym on Harkness' heels would come into play. If he tried and failed, his already battered sense of self-worth would take crippling damage, and he knew it. But even as those thoughts flickered across his mind, he realized something else: he wanted to do it. He wanted to do it, and a slow, lava-like anger began to burn through his fear at last.

  He drew a deep breath and looked deep into Hallowell's eyes, then nodded.

  "Yeah, Gunny," he said, and the firmness of his voice startled him, "I'm serious."

  "Good!" Hallowell leaned closer and smacked him on the shoulder, so hard he almost fell over, and grinn
ed. "There's going to be times you're sorry you said that, Wanderman, but when this worn-out old vacuum-sucker and I get done with you, you'll never have to worry about the Steilman’s of the universe again."

  Aubrey grinned back, nervously but with feeling, and Hallowell settled himself even more comfortably on the deck.

  "Now, the first thing you've got to understand," he began, "is that Harkness and I, we've got different styles. I like finesse and skill; he likes brute force and meanness." Harkness made an indignant sound, and Hallowell grinned, but his deep, soft voice was entirely serious as he went on. "The point is, kid, that both styles work, and that's because there aren't any dangerous weapons, and there aren't any dangerous martial arts. There are only dangerous people, and if you aren't dangerous, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you're carrying or how well trained you are. Get that locked in right now, 'cause it's the one thing no one else can really teach you. We can tell you, and we can show you, and we can lecture till we're blue in the face, but until you figure it out for yourself at gut level, it's all just words, right?"

  Aubrey licked his lips and nodded, and Hallowell nodded back.

  "Now," he went on, "I know what they taught you in basic, and the base course isn't too shabby. At least it teaches you how to move and builds a decent foundation. The way I see it, we don't have time to teach you a lot of new moves, and it's probably been a while since you worked out properly on the ones you already know, so the first thing we're going to do is run you through my own personal brand of refresher course. After that, you'll spend at least three hours in the gym every day, working out with me or Harkness, or maybe both of us. After a week or so, we may get Corporal Slattery involved, too; she's closer to your size and weight. We'll stick pretty much with what you already know and just teach you how to do it for real. Speed, violence, and determination, Wanderman. Those're the keys for now. Of course, if you wind up enjoying it, there's a lot more we can teach you, but for the moment, let's just concentrate on keeping you in one piece and kicking Steilman's worthless ass, right?" Aubrey nodded again, feeling just a bit giddy and yet suddenly aware that a part of him really believed he might actually be able to do this. At least Senior Chief Harkness and Sergeant Major Hallowell seemed to think he could, and that same part of him told him almost calmly that the two of them were surely better judges of his capabilities than he was. It was a surprisingly comforting thought, and he managed to return Hallowell's smile.