Honor Among Enemies

the senior chief chuckled. ''Course, that's up to you, too, and I'm not gonna tell you what to do about it. Nope,' he shook his head, 'I'm here for something a little more practical than that.'

'Practical?' Aubrey asked hesitantly.

'Yep. What I want to know, Wanderman, isn't what you're gonna tell people about it. I want to know what your gonna do about it.'

'Do?' Aubrey sank onto his own bed, pressing one hand to his ribs, and licked his lips. The quick heal was working, but they were still puffy, and he swallowed again. 'What . . . what do you mean, 'do about it,' Senior Chief?'

'The way I see it,' Harkness said calmly, 'Steilman beat the crap out of you, and then he probably said something along the lines of I've got friends, so keep your mouth shut, or else.' He shrugged. 'The only problem is, if you do keep your mouth shut, then you're gonna have to come up with something to get him off your back yourself, or the end result's gonna be the same. I know assholes like Steilman. They like hurting people; it's how they get their kicks. So just how were you planning on handling him next time?'

'I...' Aubrey broke off once more, expression helpless, and Harkness nodded.

'S'what I thought. You haven't thought about that part of it, have you?'

Aubrey shook his head, not even realizing that to do so was to tacitly admit that he had not, in fact, fallen... and that Harkness was right about who'd attacked him. His eyes clung to the senior chief's, and Harkness sighed.

'Wanderman, you're a good kid, but Jesus are you green. You've got just two choices here. Either you go to the Bosun and tell her what really happened, or you deal with Steilman on your own. One or the other. 'Cause if you don't, you can bet Steilman's gonna deal with you as soon as he figures it's safe. So which is it gonna be?'

'I...' Aubrey dropped his eyes to the deck and drew a deep breath, then shook his head. 'I can't go to the Bosun, Senior Chief,' he admitted hoarsely. 'It's not just me, and it's not just Steilman. He's got friends... and so do I. If I turn him in, how do I know one of his friends won't go after me or Gin...' He paused and cleared his throat. 'Or one of my friends?'

'Okay.' Harkness shrugged. 'I think you're making a mistake, but if that's the way you feel, that's the way you feel, and I ain't your momma. But that only leaves one option. Are you really up for that?'

'No,' Aubrey muttered hopelessly. His shoulders sagged and his face burned with humiliation, but he made himself look up from the deck. 'I've never had a fight in my life, Senior Chief,' he said with a sort of forlorn dignity. 'I don't even know if I'd have the guts to try to fight back next time, but even if I did, I wouldn't be very good at it.'

'Guts?' Harkness repeated very softly, then laughed. 'Kid, you've got a hell of a lot more guts than Steilman!' Aubrey blinked at him, and the senior chief shook his head. 'You're scared to death of him, but you're not exactly falling apart in panic,' he pointed out. 'If you were gonna do that, you'd've been screaming for the Bosun the minute you reached sickbay. Nope, your problem, Wanderman, is that you've got too much guts to panic and not quite enough to do the same thing 'cause you thought it through and realized it was the smart move. You're sort of stuck out there in the middle. But I want you to think about Steilman for a minute. Think about who he decided to beat the crap out of. He outmasses you, what, about two to one? He's more'n twice your age, and he's got ten times your experience. But did he pick a fight with me? Did he stand up to the Bosun? Or Bruce Maxwell? Nope. He went after a green kid he figured for an easy mark, and he was real careful to get you alone. How much guts d'you think that took?'

Aubrey blinked. The senior chief was wrong about his own courage, Aubrey knew that, but maybe he had a point about Steilman. Aubrey had never even considered what had happened in that light.

'See, the thing you have to understand about people like Steilman,' Harkness said, 'is that they're sure thing players. Steilman likes beating people up. He enjoys hurting 'em, and he likes feeling like top dog. And he's a big bastard, too, I'll admit that. He's bigger'n I am, and strong, and he fights dirty, and I imagine he likes to think he's a tough, dangerous customer. But he's not really very smart, lad. If he were, he'd realize anybody can be dangerous. Even you.'

'Me?' Aubrey stared at the older man and then laughed a bit wildly. 'He could take me apart with one hand, Senior Chief! For that matter, he already did!'

'You have hand-to-hand in basic?' Harkness countered.

'Of course I did, but I was never any good at it. You're not going to tell me six weeks of training taught me how to beat up someone like Steilman!'

'Nope. But it did give you the basics, that's why they call it 'basic,'' Harkness said with such total seriousness that Aubrey had to listen to him. 'Course, you knew it wasn't for real. It was just training, and you figured, hey, I'm a little, wiry guy, and I've never had a fight, and I'm never gonna have a fight, and I don't want to have one, even if I could. That about sum it up?'

'It sure does,' Aubrey said feelingly, and Harkness chuckled.

'Well, looks to me like you were wrong. You are gonna have a fight, the only question is whether you're gonna win it or get your fool head busted. And do you know what the secret to not getting your head busted is?'

'What?' Aubrey asked, almost against his will.

'It's busting the other guy's head first,' Harkness said grimly. 'It's making up your mind going in that you're not just gonna try to defend yourself. It's deciding right now, ahead of time, that you're gonna kill the motherfucker if that's what it takes.'

'Me? Kill someone like Steilman? You're crazy!'

'It's not nice to tell your elders they're crazy, kid,' Harkness said with another of those lazy grins. 'When I was your age, I wasn't a lot bigger'n you are now. Oh, taller, but I didn't have any more meat on my bones. But what I was, Wanderman, was a hell of a lot meaner than you are. And if you want to deal with Steilman and come out in one piece, then you're gonna have to get mean, too.'

'Mean? Me?' Aubrey laughed bitterly, and Harkness sighed and sat upright on the other bed again.

'Listen to me,' he said flatly. 'I already told you you've only got two choices here, and you've already told me you aren't gonna do the smart thing. All right, that only leaves the dumb thing, and if you're gonna go that route, you've got some things to learn. And that's why I'm here. The one thing in the world that Steilman's never gonna expect is that you'll go for him next time, and I’ll tell you a little secret about Steilman. He doesn't know how to fight. Not for real. He's never had to learn, because he is big and strong and mean. So that's why I'm here, kid. If you want to learn how to kick this bastard's ass up between his ears, me and Gunny Hallowell'll show you how its done. We can't guarantee you'll win, but we can guarantee this much, Wanderman. You give me and the Gunny a few weeks to work with you, and you'll sure as hell be able to make the son-of-a-bitch work for it.'

Chapter TWENTY-THREE

Aubrey had seldom felt so utterly out of place. His eyes flitted around the Marine gym, and he swallowed nervously as he watched hard, fit men and women throwing one another about with sobering efficiency. It wasn't like the basic unarmed combat courses the Navy taught its recruits. That was almost more of a stylized form of exercise, not the basis for serious mayhem, because Navy types weren't supposed to indulge in such low-brow combat. They threw megaton-range warheads and beams of coherent light or gamma radiation at one another, and, like most of his fellow recruits, Aubrey had considered his rudimentary hand-to-hand training no more than a concession to military tradition.

Marines were different. They were expected to get down in the mud and the blood, and they were entirely serious about learning how to disassemble their fellow humans with bare hands. They were all volunteers, and like most military people from societies with prolong, they'd signed up for long hitches, the minimum was ten T-years, which gave them plenty of time to study their chosen trade. Most of them were working out full contact, in light