Starfist: Hangfire Read Online Free

fire team leaders barked.
    "Any serious injuries? Other than the guards you had to overcome at the entrances to the command center?"
    "Sir, we might have given a guard a concussion," Corporal Kerr said. He gave the number of the room where they'd subdued the five people.
    "Sir, a guard put up a pretty good fight," said a fire team leader from Kilo Company. "I think we broke his nose and an arm." He gave the number of the room where they had stashed the man.
    Nobody else had anything more severe than bruised egos to report. They were all pretty smug.
    "Don't feel too good about yourselves," Van Winkle told them. "Imagine if it had been actual hostiles who burst in here? There'd be quite a few dead people here, and we'd be getting ready to move out on a live operation. With the navy command center in hostile hands, we'd have no way of knowing what we were up against or how much intelligence they had about our strength and intentions." He looked at his Marines sternly. He was pretty sure, though, that no one else could have made it all the way to the command center without being discovered the way his six fire teams had. If for no other reasons than nobody else was likely to have the floor plans.
    "Well done, Marines," he finally said "Now Lieutenant Troud will debrief you. Lieutenant."
    "Sir!" Troud came to attention.
    Van Winkle left the room and the debriefing got under way. The navy was going to want to know every detail of how six Marine fire teams got from outside the building all the way into the command center in its heart without anybody sounding an alarm.

CHAPTER TWO
    It was a quiet Sixth Day night in Big Barb's. Only a half-dozen or so fights had broken out. No more than three patrons of the combination bar, restaurant, ships' chandler, and bordello had to be carried out insensate from the vigor of the fisticuffs. The usual raucous singing seemed muted, fewer voices than normal shouting imperfectly remembered lyrics. Raised voices didn't stay raised for long—the more boisterous speakers seemed cowed by the hollow booming of their voices in the relative quiet.
    There wasn't anything in particular wrong. It was simply that the Marines of Lima Company's third platoon, the main military habitués of Big Barb's, were tired from the training exercise late the night before. And the fish the inhabitants of the area of Thorsfinni's World called "herring" were running, so most of the fishermen and other seamen who were the bulk of Big Barb's clientele were at sea.
    Tired Marines and absent sailors made Big Barb less than her normal jolly self—she wasn't making as much money as on a normal Sixth Day night. Her great bulk threatening a stool's integrity, she sat alone at one end of the scarred bar and glowered out at the half-empty room. She sniffed; not even wonderful Charlie Bass was there. She remembered the deal she'd made with him for the promotion party nearly a year earlier, and a smile threatened to break up the storm cloud of her face, but she battened the smile down.
    Several Marines from third platoon sat at a table in the corner nearest the kitchen exit. A few of Big Barb's girls kept them company—partly because they enjoyed the company of the Marines, partly because they hoped to entice some of them to the private rooms upstairs, where the girls made most of their money.
    Carlala, a new girl, sat on Claypoole's lap. With the fingers of the arm draped around his shoulders, she idly played with the short hair on his scalp. She leaned against him so that a breast settled lightly on his chest. From time to time, in seeming casual movement, her cheek gently brushed his. Carlala might have been new at the business, but she already had distinct ideas of how to arouse a man without being overt. She wanted to jiggle her bottom on him because her subtlety didn't seem to be getting any reaction, but jiggling would be too overt.
    Instead of being aroused, Claypoole absently lay an arm around her waist and let his hand curl