The Man Who Never Missed (2 page)

Although he felt naked without the weapons, Khadaji stepped out onto the street as if he owned it and started toward the Jade Flower. He would have plenty of time to get there and collect another pair of spetsdods before his last station was due. So far, he’d only taken out five of the Confed’s finest, and he needed at least eight more to maintain his schedule. He wanted to average a hundred a week, but it was getting harder all the time. He’d been at it for almost six months and the first troops would be coming out of lock pretty soon. When that began to happen, it would be over. Even if the Confed military tried to lid it, word would eventually get out that only one man’s description kept coming up. They wouldn’t believe it, of course, not at first, but it would plant a seed. They would never admit that one man could mimic hundreds—military PR would smash the idea flat, that thousands of trained troops could be downed by a single assassin. But if they knew, it would be over fast. They were looking for guerrillas in packs, not the owner and operator of the Jade Rower, the biggest recreational chemical pub in the city, a man whose business depended on the military, as customers and patrons. Soldiers needed rec-chem almost as much as they needed sex and the Jade Flower supplied both in abundance. More than a few of the Sub-Befals spent time there. Khadaji made certain that upranks got the best whores, male and female, and the first drink or toke or pop was always on the house to anybody over line-grade. He was a popular man, Khadaji was.

So, two more stations, six more hits. He sighed. Nearly six months, and he was getting tired. He didn’t waver from his purpose—that was as clear as ever—but he was tired. Not much longer. Not many more.

He sighed again, and hurried along the street. A quad passed him, going the other way. The men all smiled and nodded at him. He smiled back. He would probably see them later.

One way or another.

Chapter Two

THE JADE FLOWER was always open. Before the Confed had honored Greaves with its massive squat tactics, the rec-chem pub had been only a small-time operation, serving the locals a narrow spectrum of alcohol and soporifics, minor hallucinogens and mood elevators. Two or three part-time prostitutes took care of anybody interested in buying sex, and the operation was, at best, a break-even proposition. With the coming of the military and its civilian support population, the character of the Jade Flower was bound to change. A greedy and well-prepared man would have made a fortune, but the previous owner was old and tired and not ready to deal with the influx of soldiers, bored spouses and children the Confed sent to the sleepy planet. When Khadaji arrived and waved enough standards under his nose, the old man was glad to sell.

Khadaji looked around the main room of the pub. It was early, not yet 1600, but already the place was crowded. Even with local zoning regs relaxed, there was usually a line of customers outside, waiting for someone to leave in order to enter. Khadaji always kept a dozen or so places open, for any highly-ranked officers who might be interested in a toke, poke or drink. Anjue, the doorman, had studied the holoproj of every uprank over the level of Lojt and if one showed up, he or she was escorted to the head of the line and inside. Rank, as always, had its privileges. The troops-of-the-line might gripe, but the powers-that-be all smiled at Khadaji when they saw him.

The main room, which was octagonal and dimly-lighted, boasted sixty circular tables with four stools each. The first thing Khadaji had done on buying the pub was to have the stools and tables bolted securely to the floor. He’d had thirty people applying for the job of bouncer and their first test was to see if they could move the furniture. Two men managed to uproot a stool each; one woman set herself and screamed, then tore the top of a table off its mount. And then—well, she was clever. The rest failed. Khadaji had longer bolts installed and hired the two men and woman who’d proved strongest. If a fight broke out, nobody was going to be bashing anybody with his furniture; and before it got too far, Bork, Sleel or Dirisha would be there to stop it. It was difficult to argue with a man holding you a half-meter off the floor, or a woman who could break three ribs with a flat punch. There was very little trouble in the Jade Flower.

“Ho, Emile, how’s it hanging?”

Khadaji looked to his right, to see Lojtnant Subru, smoking a flickstick. The man’s dark face was almost hidden behind the cloud of purple-black smoke.

“To the left, Subbie, just like always.” He grinned. “How’s the ratface job?”

Lojtnant Subru shook his head and exhaled a fragrant blast of flickstick smoke. The smell of hot cashews surrounded Khadaji. “Busy today, Emile. Word is there were several skirmishes within fifty klicks of town.”

Khadaji raised an eyebrow and tried to look surprised. “Really? Get any of the Scum?”

The dark soldier nodded. “Body count of fourteen, I heard. They nicked one of ours in a blastfight, but she’s okay.”

Khadaji didn’t have to work very hard to suppress his smile. He’d heard this kind of statistic too many times. “Good for the troops.”

“Yeah, we should have the Scum cleaned out pretty soon. Only problem is, I hear 1C has upped their estimates of the numbers. Even with the ones we’ve been cutting down, 1C says there are close to a thousand guerrillas in the field now.”

Khadaji shook his head. “Where are they coming from?”

“IC would love to know. I hear the Old Man would give his left nut and a kilogram of bauxite to be able to spike the leaders.” He took another blast from the flickstick. “You ever do any ratface-time, Emile?”

Khadaji smiled. “Sure. I did my tour sitting planet and pushing disks for a supply unit. Strictly button-thumbing stats, Subbie. Never saw action.”

“Yeah? What unit?”

“14-788 Quartermasters, on Tomodachi. Been a few years.” The unit was real enough, Khadaji had known men who served in it while he was training, but in fact his own unit had been the 14-433 Jumptroop Plex and he’d seen more action than most of the soldiers on this world. Too much.

The Lojtnant nodded, not really interested. He looked around for a table with an empty stool. “Emile, who’s working the sheets tonight? Anybody worth a week’s pay?”

“Marj is on, Brin, Roj, Davisito, and… let’s see, I think Sister Clamp is on at 1800.”

“Sister Clamp, huh? I heard she’s something else. Expensive, too.”

“You can’t take it with you, Subbie. Never know but you might get pulled out of that air-conditioned T-plex and put on the line.”

“Shee-it, they’ll have to be scraping the walls for that. Still, I might get flattened by a ground-effect tank crossing the street. Eighteen, you said?”

“I can put in a word, if you like, maybe get her to give you an uprank discount.”

Lojtnant Subru nodded again. “Yeah. Do that, would you? I’d appreciate it.”

The soldier wandered off, trailing the smell of cashews.

“Afternoo’, Chief.”

Khadaji’s head pubtender stood there, looking grave.

“Butch. A problem?”

“We runnin’ low on mid-range sops. Las’ week’s delivery was short two gross and we only got half what we need ‘til next shipment.”

“What do you think, Butch?”

“I think we put a limit on and ration them suckers out.”

Khadaji shook his head. “No. Business as usual and when we run out, offer high-range at the same price.”

“Jeet, Chief, we lose half a stad every tab!”

“We can afford it, can’t we? We want to keep the customers happy.”

Butch shook his head. “I don’ see how you make an’ profit, you keep tryin’ to give it away.”

“We get by, Butch, we get by.”

The pubtender left, looking even more grave than before, and Khadaji began to work his way around the octagon, smiling at the customers, listening and watching as he moved.

“—holes Uplevels wouldn’t know a Scum if it peed on—”

“—said she’s more fucking sensitive than I am—” “—Jammy’s still knotted in the stretch ward—” “—kid’s nine T.S. but sharp, lemme tell you—” “—couldn’t pull it out of her if you wanted to—” “—the Old Man himself said it, so I hear—”

The flow of conversation was full of the things which have always been important to soldiers: love, hate, sex, money, family, Uplevels’ stupidity, the campaign. Khadaji knew the talk. He’d only been nineteen when conscripted for his seven and he’d done six years with men and women like these. Most of them were young, but the military had a way of making you grow up quickly. He was thirty-nine T.S. now, he could have fathered most of the soldiers in the octagon. He felt a lot older than that sometimes, an old man among children.

“—your ass! Get up, elbow-sucker!” Khadaji froze for an instant, then turned. Two troopers were standing next to a table six meters away, squared off in military oppugnate stances, each waiting for the other to make the first stupid move—which both had already done by standing to fight in the Jade Flower. Khadaji wondered who was on this shift—ah. As he watched, Dirisha moved smoothly through the crowded pub toward the two soldiers. Dirisha was a big woman, close to Khadaji’s own 183 cm and eighty-two kilos, but she didn’t look it because she was so well balanced. She had short, dark hair, a winning smile when she was happy—like now—and expert rankings in three class one martial arts. She was about twenty-eight T.S. and in a one-on-one, could probably take either Bork or Sleel, the other two bouncers.

Dirisha reached the two men and slid between them, her back to the larger one. Khadaji strolled closer.

“Fighting’s not too bright,” she said. “I mean, make a list: fucking, soak-toke, good wine or cold simshi and where does getting your face smashed fit in?”

The soldier she was talking to was about eye-level with Dirisha and he was obviously angry. He wasn’t going to let go of his rage that easily. “Yeah? Well, I don’t think dick-nose over there can smash anything!”

Dirisha’s voice got very quiet, and she smiled, her teeth bright against her dark chocolate skin. People strained to hear her. “I wasn’t talking about him hurting you, Deuce, I’m talking about me. You can sit and smoke your smoke or you can walk, but you can’t fight in here.” Her voice was even and there wasn’t a gram of bluff in it.

The soldier seemed to wilt a little.

Khadaji smiled. Dirisha could take the soldier without having to suck a deep breath and the man was perceptive enough to pick up on it, even if he’d never seen her in action. If he had, he would have sat as soon as she approached. He had to get one last shot in, though.

“What about him?” He pointed at the man behind Dirisha.

She didn’t bother to turn and look at the second soldier. “He’s got the same options you do, Deuce. So what say you just have a seat and work this out like preachlegals.” It was not a request.

The tension seemed to drain away suddenly. The larger man behind Dirisha sat on his stool and reached for his mug of splash. The soldier facing Dirisha wiped at the back of his uniform collar with one hand and nodded. “Okay. We don’t want any trouble with the Flower, we can work it out later, maybe.”

Dirisha’s smile broadened. “Good thinking, Deuce. Tell you what, the house buys the next round for this table, tell the server Dirisha okays it.”

She turned and walked away quickly, in Khadaji’s direction. He smiled at her and she stopped. The pub noises picked back up around them.

“Nice work.”

She nodded. “For a second, it could have gone over and I would have had to thump him. You lose points when you have to thump them.”

Khadaji nodded. He understood. He had spent much of the fourteen years after Maro studying various fighting disciplines and that had been a point in most of them: to have to use physical technique was a failure of sorts. An expert should be able to project enough ki so that a potential opponent would stop hostility. A real expert could defuse almost any fight situation simply by being there.

“Ever give any thought to your future, Dirisha?”

She shrugged. “I take it as it comes.”

He thought about it for a few seconds. It was no riskier than a lot of other things he’d done. He said, “You ever hear of Renault?”

“Backwater world in the Shin System,” she said. “I don’t know much about it.”

“It would be a good place to be in three or four years,” Khadaji said, looking past her around the octagon. “Somebody there might make you an offer you’d find interesting.”

The big woman looked at him carefully. “What kind of an offer?”

He shrugged. “It might not happen. A lot of things could get in the way. Let’s just say if situations go as designed, Renault could be a place for you to stretch yourself a little.”

“Um. Any particular place on Renault?”

“There’s a small coastal town, Simplex-by-the-Sea.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “But how could I leave you, Emile? You need me here.”

He smiled, recognizing the fugue in her statement. “I expect to be out of the rec-chem business pretty soon.”

“And on Renault?”

He sighed. “No. You won’t see Emile Khadaji on Renault.”

She considered that, and apparently decided not to ask anything more. “I’d better get back to work,” she said.

“Good idea. I need to check with Anjue and see how the crowd is building. Later.”

He watched her move away. She walked with a smooth, rolling motion that bespoke her years of training and excellent physical conditioning. He didn’t really know Dirisha; she kept to herself, spent a lot of time working out in one of the local dojos, and had no lovers, male or female, that he knew of. But there was a strength in her beyond the physical, an essence of something deeper. She could be a piece of it, he felt.

He walked to the main entrance of the pub, where Anjue and his three assistants were working the line.

“Anjue. How is it going?”

“Ah, Emile, slow. I have only forty on my flat-screen, and three upranks have called on the com to say they are coming at seventeen.” He waved his hands in that typical gesture used by natives of Spandle—a kind of outward loop with each wrist. “The early darkness means a change in guard duty, so fewer troops are free and the eagle doesn’t fly for three days, so some are unlined, what can I say?”