The Man Who Never Missed Read Online Free PDF Page A

dangerous. He was fourteen years past his Realization and he still had to fight the sense of superiority it had given him.
    He heard voices approaching from a side street and slid to a halt in the shadow of a trash-recycle hopper. A pair of quads ran by, heading back toward the T-plex. Close.
    Yes. It could happen at any time. A stray bullet triggered by a falling trooper could do it, a slip while running from pursuers, any one of a hundred things. For nearly six months he’d been careful and lucky.
    He ran back toward the Jade Flower. He recognized that his worry meant the time for the end was getting nearer. It gave him a fluttery stomach to think about it, a tingle in the muscles of his buttocks even as he ran.
     
    “Have a nice nap, Chief?”
    “I feel much better, Butch. How’s business?”
    “Goin’ pretty good, now. I heard Anjue on the com a few minutes ago, he said when Sister Clamp came in, fifteen troopers joined the line.”
    Khadaji nodded and strolled into the octagon. The place was at capacity, save for the spaces saved for upranks. He smiled a little to himself. At least one Sub-Befal wouldn’t be dropping by tonight.
    There was a man drinking splash alone at one of the spare tables. Khadaji walked to the table and nodded down at the man. He was a quad leader, a Sub-Lojt, and he looked familiar, though Khadaji couldn’t place him. “Evening,” Khadaji said.
    The man looked up and nodded, but didn’t speak.
    “Drinking alone can be depressing. Mind if I join you?”
    The Sub-Lojt shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I was just turning over a few bad memories.”
    A server brought Khadaji a flare full of Moet & Chandon, from his private stock of vintage champagne. He sipped at the pale amber liquid slowly. “Another splash for the Sub-Lojt,” Khadaji said.
    “Thanks,” the man said. He finished his current mug and leaned back. “You know, I was going to flake out when my impress was up, but I went for another tour. Probably the biggest mistake I ever made.”
    Khadaji nodded slightly, but said nothing.
    “I just left the knot ward—one of my quad is in his second month.”
    “Hit by the Scum,” Khadaji said. That’s where he’d seen the man’s face, obviously. Only, he couldn’t remember the particular attack. There had been so many.
    “Yeah. It was dark, we didn’t see ‘em until it was all over. We were lucky, they only got Rudy. I check on him every once in a while.”
    “You must really hate them,” Khadaji said.
    The Sub-Lojt shook his head. “You know what the funny thing is? I don’t, really. But seeing Rudy reminds me of what it is I do for a living.” The man paused to stare at his splash for a moment. “I was remembering a time on Wu,” the trooper said. “That’s in the Haradali System.”
    Khadaji nodded again. “I’ve heard of it.”
    “Yeah, well, we had to go in and flatten a local insurrect—bunch of malcons somehow managed to get control of a city and were making a lot of noise. A simple operation, by-the-tape, more gunship diplo than anything else. We waved the flag from a battlecruiser and a couple of support ships and sent a few centplexes down to show Confed muscle, you probably know the drill.”
    “Yes. I know it.”
    “Well, I went down with my quad and got stuck doing guard duty on a secured perimeter, no perspiration. Then, some fuzzbrain in the malcons got the idea to try a raid. They sent maybe a hundred against us, armed with sticks and thero-knives and a few chemical-only slug guns.”
    The Sub-Lojt paused and took a drink of the new mug of splash. “Stupid,” he said. “Practically unarmed against a quad, none of us virgins. We cut them down like it was target practice. It was stupid of them, stupid?”
    Khadaji sipped his champagne.
    “It was not our fault, they’d have wiped us, they could have, we were only doing our jobs. But after it, I went with the medics to check for survivors. We were using .177s with the harrad load, so there