Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

ship be safe, now that I have been entrusted with this great mission. Now we will be even safer, with you, God's own tail-gunner, protecting us and watching over us. Our vile and insidious foe will never penetrate our defenses with you, Bill, God's chosen vessel, in our crew.”
    Bill was certainly flattered to be considered God's chosen vessel and all that, but he wasn't too sure what god this screwball General Weissearse meant. It probably wasn't his own god, Ahura-Mazda — Bill had been raised as a strict Reformed Zoroastrian — and it may not have been the official god of the official Imperial Religion, which was of course the Emperor himself, but that still left a lot of possibilities. In an empire as big as the Empire, there were a lot of religions and nut-cults operating alongside the official one.
    Besides the Reformed Zoroastrians, there were the Revived and Amplified Mithraists and the Acoustic Mithraists, the Sunnis and the Moonies, the Buddhists and the Twiggists and the Leafists, worshipers of the Sun and Tau Ceti and Aldebaran and NGC4681, Confusionists, Taoists and Jonesists, Voodoos and Hindus, Elvists and Lennonists and Marxists (with a different sect for each of the brothers except Zeppo and Karl, who shared one), and enough other groups that the nondenominational chapels on a large ship were kept going around the clock with services.
    So there was no way of telling what god General Weissearse knew was on his side, and Bill figured it didn't matter all that much, but he would like to know which one had chosen him. If he was going to offer up a prayer, it would be nice to know the proper address. On the other hand, the General might just be screwball and talking through his hat.
    Bill hated to do it, but he had to find out more. He forced himself to take another sip of the — gack! — water, and asked, “That's all very flattering, sir, but what the bowb are you talking about?”
    The General stood up and started pacing. “I like your face, Bill, if not your manner of speech. You have maybe gotten into some trouble with drinking before, boyish kind of prank. But that won't happen on this ship.” Bill nodded his agreement reluctantly, unseen by the general who ignored him, getting his jollies instead from inside inspiration.
    "I trust you. The Lord tells me to trust you, so I do. We have a good relationship, the Lord and I.
    “But that's not what I want to talk to you about now. We have been honored with a very special mission. You and I — well, mainly I, with some help from God and you — will strike a blow that will preserve truth, justice and the Imperial way of life. To us the great privilege has fallen, and to us the glory of victory will come.”
    Bill was too old a Trooper to be taken in by the inspiration bowb. “This mission, sir, it doesn't by any chance involve people shooting at us? I've had some bad experiences with that...”
    “Not at all,” Weissearse heartily reassured Bill. “This will be a simple surgical strike, with very little resistance. The enemy is wily and dangerous, but we will destroy all their guns in the first wave, so we will be perfectly safe. There is nothing to worry about. Nothing can go wrong. Trust me.”

CHAPTER 4
    As General Weissearse described this wonderful mission, on which Bill would become a hero at absolutely no risk to himself, Bill became possessed of the feeling that not only wasn't this kosher but that there was a very big pig in the poke. He was sure that the eye-rollingly religious General was full of bowb. There was nothing he could put his finger on — or wanted to — but the more certain Weissearse got, the more doubts Bill had.
    At first look it appeared to be as straightforward a piece of stupid military-political action as the Troopers ever got sent into. The enemy was the government of Eyerack, a planet in rebellion against the Emperor. General Weissearse was very clear that neither he nor the Emperor nor anyone else in the entire