A bloody-browed Guard corporal looked at Valentine over his scuffed knuckles. "Pull off, mister, otherwise he can't go down."
Valentine turned the soldier sagging against him, saw the bruised ruin of a face, then let go his grip. The man sagged to his knees, mumbling something in Spanish.
"Knees ain't down. Finish him, Greggins!"
The corporal stepped forward, corded muscles bulging from his rolled-up sleeves.
Valentine held up a hand. "It's over, Corporal. I'd say you won."
"What're you, his manager? Fight's not over until he's flat. He questioned my authority."
Valentine looked at the beaten man's uniform. "I see sergeant's stripes on him, Corporal. If I were you I'd be worried about a court-martial for striking your superior. Even if he were a private, a fistfight isn't the way we keep discipline."
Something in Valentine's voice made the man lower his fists.
"Now help him to his feet and get him to a medic. Better have him look at you as well. That eye doesn't look good."
The corporal took a step forward, then lashed out with a roundhouse. Valentine was ready for it, and slipped under the blow. He brought a driving knee up into the corporal's off-balance stance, and hammered him in the kidney with an elbow as the corporal doubled over. The corporal dropped, his mouth open in a silent scream.
Valentine looked at the circled men, not quite sure what they had seen in the blur of motion. "This how you do things now? Is there a sergeant in this circus?"
A man with a handlebar mustache stepped forward. "I'm a captain, Eighteenth Guards, East Texas Heavy Weapons. Who are you?"
"He's logistics, just come outta Texas, Randolph," Finner said.
"Don't see a uniform."
"I find my duties in the Kurian Zone easier to perform if I don't wear a Southern Command uniform, Captain." Valentine said, and a few of the men chuckled.
"I don't care for spies," Randolph said.
Valentine got the feeling Randolph wanted to see if he could be provoked into another exchange of blows. He reduced lifesign-the old mental technique that also did wonders for his temper.
"I know him, sir," Finner said. "Good man. Wolf officer."
"Disperse, damn you," Randolph said, rounding on the men. "Fight's over. Get some sleep." He turned back to Valentine. "Is that so? We'd better get you to the General, Captain, so he can decide what to do with you. We shoot spies trying to penetrate the camp, you know."
The men helped the brawlers to their feet. Randolph jerked his chin and put his hand on his pistol holster. Valentine walked off in the indicated direction, and the captain drew his gun. He didn't point it at Valentine, but the muzzle could be brought to bear easily enough.
Finner trailed along behind as they walked. Only Valentine had ears good enough to hear him click the safety off inside his rifle sheath.
* * * *
"The General keeps late hours," Randolph said as they approached a vintage twentieth-century house. Lights burned inside and sentries stood on the porch. Where a swing had once stood, piled sandbags and a machine-gun post dominated the parked vehicles in the yard in front of the house. Valentine smelled a barbecue pit in the backyard.
"We've got a LC just in from Texas to see the General," Randolph said to the lieutenant who appeared at the other side of me screen door. "Or so he says."
"I brought him in," Finner added.
"Thank you, Sergeant, that'll be all," Randolph said.
"Let them in, boys," me lieutenant said. He had golden, braided hair and bare arms protruding through a Reaper-cloak vest hung with pistols and hand grenades. Four red diamonds stood out on the meat of his forearm. Valentine suspected he was a Bear. The lieutenant looked Valentine up and down. "I think I've seen your face. Can't place where though."
"Red River raid, sixty-five. You Bears hit the power plant and armory while two companies of Wolves raided some of the plantations. I was the junior in Zulu Company. Never got your name though."
"Nail's the handle. I was in Team Able. We had a hell of a skedaddle out of Louisiana on mat one, as I remember, Captain ...."
"Ghost is what goes down on me paperwork for me," Valentine said.