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capital, but because he earned the nickname Danger Close as an artillery spotter during the tumultuous birth of the Ozark Free Territory. He’d infiltrate Kurian strongpoints and called in artillery fire literally on top of himself. His opponent, Zachary Thoroughgood, was a scion of the Thoroughgood family, owners of the Thoroughgood markets and a several hotels and casinos in Branson. They also controlled a brewery that produced a fine spruce-tip ale that Valentine’s old CO in Zulu company had been fond of as well.
    Valentine had first heard of Thoroughgood as a prosecutor who busted up criminal gangs operating from the borderlands and then for improving electrification and water supply across the UFR as a legislator. Thoroughgood’s friends and constituents called him “Lights,” and Valentine had heard him called “Lights, Camera, Action” here and there, for he was famously photogenic and traveled everywhere with a photographer.
    As to the “Texas bloc,” Valentine knew that in the legislature there were constant fights between the representatives from the old Ozark Free Territory and the newer regions. Rules of seniority favored legislators from the Missouri and Arkansas areas.
    General Martinez, of course, was an old enemy. Valentine had put Martinez on trial for the murder of a pair of helpful Grogs who’d followed him up from the Caribbean. Valentine had always suspected Martinez had, if not an entire hand, at least a pointing finger in his own arrest after the fight in Dallas that led to his exile from the UFR.
    Lehman got up and dug around in a pile of newsprint next to a bureau with liquor bottles lining their little rail like spectators. He tossed down a copy of the Clarion .
    STARPE STOPPED, read the headline.
    “I suspect there’ll be changes once Martinez takes over. I won’t be running the Mississippi front and parts east. All these boxes and such, they’re not me getting set to move out; they’re from the new broom coming in. There’s been a suggestion of malfeasance on my part over Javelin. Preservation of evidence and all that.”
    “How could you know it was all a setup? They fooled Brother Mark.”
    Lehman chuckled. “You’ve changed your opinion of him, then? Back when we were organizing Javelin, I got the impression he was a stone in your hoof.”
    “He grows on you. Even the men are starting to confide in him. He’s like the grouchy instructor nobody likes but still remembers ten years later.”
    “Soon I’ll be a memory here. If I don’t get retired, I imagine I’ll be checking locks on empty warehouses and filing reports on other reports that’ll end up going into my superior’s report. General Martinez and I don’t piss in the same direction on any number of things, starting with Kentucky. He penned an editorial for the Clarion about Javelin, Valentine. Of course, all the paragraphs featured the word ‘fiasco’ with the same arguments, but then the Clarion only has two tunes in their hymnal. Everyone around here’s tight as a turtle’s ass with the soup pot bubbling.”
    “What are our chances of getting some reinforcements into Kentucky? Garrison and training duty, until they can get themselves organized.”
    “Somewhere on the short block between Slim Street and None Boulevard, I’m afraid, Major.”
    Valentine stood up. “Whatever’s being said about Javelin, it wasn’t for nothing. Kentucky’s come in on our side, more or less. The Moondaggers, the ones who bled Kansas dry, they’ve left bodies scattered from the Ohio to the Tennessee.”
    “That was just the first wave, son. The signals and intelligence staff thinks something’s brewing in the Northwest Ordnance. Beyond the usual dance of reinforcements for the river crossings, with armed rebellion just across the river and over Evansville way.”
    Valentine wondered about Evansville. Technically it had been the extreme southwestern tip of the Northwest Ordnance, which encompassed the old rust belt