Free Hero by Joel Rosenberg Page A

he called out. "Over here, if you please."
    Stiff-legged in his armor, the Thousand Worlder walked over, a brace of Peacemakers at each elbow.
    Peled's boys, their weapons held almost mechanically at port arms, looked over the Peacemakers carefully.
    "That is a red light on the assholes in the black armor, people," Peled whispered on All Hands One. "Big red light."
    Without even trying, Peled could remember a dozen times he would have liked to have blown away one of the Thousand of alone Worlders, but the TW assholes controlled the Gate system, and without the Gate system, Metzada would be isolated from the rest of the universe, and you couldn't have that.
    "Can we get a ruling on the status of the Freiheimers?" Shimon asked.
    "No." The observer's voice was mechanically distorted; Peled couldn't guess the observer's age, or even gender. "I am here to observe and report, not to judge."
    "Then observe this." Shimon jerked his head; guards dragged the two Freiheimers over to the side of the road and secured them, neck, wrist and ankles, to two trees.
    The guards moved away.
    "Dov. Aim."
    Dov slowly brought his shotgun out and lined it up on one of the Casas. The younger one, the silent one.
    "Start with the feet, Dov. Time's up, Fleiss. Last chance. I want some truth, and I want it now."
    Peled puffed for All Hands One. "Tel Aviv Ten. Shotgun, firing many."
    Behind him there was a hoarse whisper. "Nobody flinches. Nobody."
    "Dov," Shimon Bar-El said. "Now."
    Dov fired into the scream.
    He fired again, into the screams and the whimpers, and a third time, into the whimpers and the silence.
    And again, until the seven-shot clip was empty.
    "Somebody reload for Dov," Shimon said.

    They cleared out in an hour, taking with them a babbling Freiheimer stabsunteroffizier, leaving behind the Distacamento Fedeltà to deal with the bloody mess that had been a tree with a war captive tied to it, and the Peacemakers to see to the security of a gagging Thousand Worlds observer who was now out of the protection suit that couldn't get rid of a few ounces of sour vomitus.
    That was the first time that Mordecai Peled laughed all morning.

CHAPTER 6

    Questions

    Ari slammed the helo's door shut and then quickly backed away, ducking reflexively as the whirring blades sped up. The rush of air pushed him down, the dust raised by the wind beat hard against his faceplate as he stepped back, half bent over, a peasant leaving the presence of a king.
    At best.
    He wiped his hands on his khakis. He stank of blood and piss and shit, but none of the blood was his; you could get awfully dirty loading injured men and pieces of men into helos for the trip to the nearest hospital.
    The Casa helo lifted off its skids, rising only a couple of meters before it dropped its nose and moved off, building speed quickly, gaining altitude only slowly.
    Ari reslung his rifle patrol-style, then squatted and wiped his hands on his knees. They were about the cleanest part of his khakis. There was blood on his hands, and he couldn't get it off.
    What would Miriam say if she saw him now? What would his mothers say? And his—
    "Easy, easy, with the hands." Benyamin said from behind him. Ari hadn't heard him move up. "That's the last one."
    "Good." Ari kept wiping his hands.
    "Stop fidgeting," Benyamin said. He pulled an envelope out of his breast pocket and tore it open, handing Ari the stericloth. The cloth was wet and cool against his skin, and it cleaned the grime and gore from Ari's hands, but it didn't make him feel clean.
    There was always something special, if strained, about Ari's relationship with Benyamin. It wasn't that they shared a birth mother. Both of their father's wives had always treated all the boys the same, as far as Ari could tell, except that Yael—Tetsuo and Shlomo's mother—seemed to go out of her way a bit more for Benyamin than anyone else, watching out for him, just as Benyamin watched over Ari.
    "Just take it easy," Benyamin said. "It'll all be