Free Empire Of Man 3 - March to the Stars by John David & Ringo Weber Page B

wanting.”
    She turned back to watch the training and shook her head.
    “I mention this only to note that the Brotherhood of Baal would eat Bebi's team for lunch. The Brotherhood has used the Imperial freedom of religion clause to perform some tinkering on themselves that gives most of the rest of us Satanists cold chills. I doubt that any court would consider an abbott of Baal human if he or she didn't have documents to prove it. But you have to see them to believe it.”
    Roger watched as Bebi collected his “dead” and “wounded” and started the debrief.
    “I imagine that Christians are . . . somewhat ambivalent about that approach.”
    “We don't preach,” Kosutic said. “We don't proselytize. We certainly don't discuss our beliefs around the general public. And, frankly, we believe that as long as Christians and Jews and Muslims are being 'good,' they're violating the intent of their controllers. So we applaud them for it.” She turned and gave him a truly evil smile. “It really confuses them.”
    Roger chuckled and shook his head as Despreaux began enumerating the team's faults. The plan had been good, but when they'd hit the door, they'd forgotten it and fought by the seat of their pants. They had, in fact, been fighting the way they would have fought Mardukans. But the next major conflict would probably put Bravo Company—what was left of it—up against humans. True, those humans would probably be pirate scum and garrison troopers, but standard colonial defenses called for space-intercept capable plasma cannon, monomolecular “twist” wire, and bunkers with interlocking fields of fire. And then they had to capture a ship.
    It wasn't going to be a walk in the park.
    “Well,” Roger said with a sigh. “I just hope whoever the 'good guys' are, they're on our side.”
    * * *
    Captain Pahner looked around the cramped cabin. The one fault of Ima Hooker's design, which no one had considered in advance, was that the schooner had never been intended as a command ship. Poertena had recognized the necessity of designing around higher deckheads to allow more head room for the towering Mardukans of her crew. There was a limit to what he could do, but the final result—however claustrophobic the natives might still find it—was that even the tallest of the humans could stand upright without worrying about hitting his head on a deck beam. But however the ship might have been stretched vertically, there was only so much that could be done horizontally in a hull of Hooker's length and beam. Despite the fact that Pahner, or Prince Roger, rather, had a minimal “staff,” its members packed into the wardroom of the command schooner only with difficulty. Especially the Mardukans.
    And that was before adding Roger's pet. Or his asi “bodyguard.”
    “All right,” Pahner said with a grim smile. “We need to keep this meeting short, if for no other reason than so that Rastar can unbend his neck.”
    He looked over at Rastar Komas Ta'Norton, who stood hunched forward with his horns banging on the ceiling. The former prince of the Northern League wasn't large for a Mardukan, but he still towered over the humans.
    “How're the civan doing?” the captain continued.
    “As well as could be expected,” the Northerner said with a shrug. The ostrichlike, omnivorous cavalry mounts were actually related to the vastly larger packbeasts, so they had leathery skin and were more capable of handling desiccation than the slime coated, amphibian-derived Mardukans. But they still weren't well-suited to a lengthy sea voyage. “They fit into these toys as well as we do, and they never had to deal with the pitching and rocking before. At least they have more head room aboard Snarleyow than we do here, and that outsized coll fish has stretched their feed supply nicely, but they aren't happy. We haven't lost any, yet, but we need to get to land soon.”
    “According to our map, we should,” Julian commented. He tapped his pad,