Free Troy Rising 2 - Citadel by John Ringo Page A

any tears.”
    “And, again, the rate of repayment of the loans is actually miniscule,” Purcell said, sighing. “Think about this, though. In this particular instance, Gursy is the one who was the victim. So I'm penalizing the victim.”
    “That's a really backward way of looking at it,” Price said, his brow furrowing.
    “I'm sure that will be Mr. Gursy's argument, or his lawyer's, in the lawsuit,” Purcell said, smiling thinly. “But the truth is, I doubt that Mr. Vernon wants people like Gursy in his company and I think he'd probably take to Allen. Even though it is in the best short-term interest of the company to retain Gursy, it is in the best long-term interest, with some risk, to retain Allen.”
    “So get rid of Gursy and keep Allen?” Price said.
    “Since I work for Apollo, yes,” Purcell said. “That is in keeping with the overall mission and philosophy. If I was still with Shell or BAE, Allen would be transferred so fast he wouldn't have time to pack. And don't let the door hit you in the ass. As it is, that's what I'm going to have to do with Gursy.”
    “Drac, I need a quick word with Butch,” Price said, sliding into the probie quarters.
    “You want me to . . . ?” Vlad said, confused.
    “Go get a coke or something,” Price said. “This won't take long.”
    When Vlad was out of the room, Price picked the newbie up by his collar and slammed him against the bulkhead.
    “You ever try to pin something like that on me again, I will violate rule Niner-Delta in a way nobody will ever trace and you will be sucking vacuum for the rest of your very short life.”
    “Yes, Mr. Price,” Butch gasped. The team lead was a mountain. Struggling was pointless.
    “That being said,” Price said, lowering him to the deck, “and an understanding being reached, it was a very slick job. Not quite slick enough, but pretty slick. You also just barely missed being transferred.”
    “Yes, Mr. Price,” Butch said. He knew better than to say “Sorry.” It was the worst possible thing to say. You took your chances and you took your lumps if you got caught.
    “Gursy is getting transferred,” Price said.
    “Mr. Price?”
    “It was Purcell's call, not mine,” Price said. “He's already gone. There's going to be some grumbling but not much. Nobody really liked the asshole. But you'd better keep your nose clean as snow for the rest of your probation. I'll tell the crew it's time to back off. They won't quit, mind you. But they'll back off. Just keep learning your job and keep your nose clean.”
    “Yes, Mr. Price,” Butch said.
    “You may call me BFM.”

FIVE
    “You're not bad for a FUN,” Jablonski said, watching as Dana carefully went through the port gravitics relay checklist.
    Despite their relatively small size, the Myrmidons were enormously complex. The main power was supplied by a twelve terawatt matter-energy converter located directly behind the engineer station. That drove a repulsor drive capable of pulling four hundred gravities of delta v. Pulling that much acceleration would turn a human to paste, though, so the craft had to have an Inertial Stabilization System, ISS that kept the internal gravity more or less normal. More or less because beyond one hundred gravities of acceleration the system started to fall behind. At full drive, the internals—crew and cargo—were subjected to three gravities of acceleration.
    In addition to the drive and ISS, there were four magnetic grapnels capable of localized gradients of over nine hundred gravities. They were designed primarily to lock onto a ship for boarding but from what Dana had heard they were mostly used as ersatz tug systems. The Myrmidons could only “reverse” at sixty gravities so they were better for pushing than pulling. But they got stuff moved in space eventually.
    Since you had to get in and out of the boat somehow, there was a forward ramp and airlock system as well as an emergency hatch in the flight compartment. The ramp was