Strong Arm Tactics by Jody Lynn Nye Page A

with the programming of your so-called most vital item! And I don’t even want to talk about the extra mess. Now, if you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’d like to get back to what I was doing on my restday before you decided to waste my time.” With a shove, he propelled the infopad back toward Daivid, who caught it just before it fell off his side of the counter. Sargus backed up and stabbed a button with his thumb. The security wall crashed down out of the ceiling, sealing the supply hatch before Daivid could reach over the counter and grab him by the neck. Fuming, Daivid stormed out of the building and marched back toward the transportal.
    O O O
    “ What unauthorized modifications?” Daivid demanded.
    After forty minutes bottled up on the transport where he couldn’t even vent his temper because security eyes were all over the tube-train, he had stormed all over the barracks looking for someone, anyone, to explain the last humiliation to him. Having dismissed everyone to enjoy the remainder of their restday meant hunting out the various hiding places in which the Cockroaches could find a little peace and quiet without the brass coming upon them casually with a scut assignment. He had managed to find Thielind practicing tai chi in his swim fins in the mess hall.
    “It’s not for me to explain, lieutenant,” Thielind explained, leading Daivid back to his quarters. “I’m just the ensign. But I have got about a dozen locations where Lieutenant Borden or Chief Lin might be.” He held up a small personal tracking device. “They’re in the memory.” Daivid reached for it, but Thielind held it just out of reach. “Looey, don’t let this finder get into range of an infopad. It took us ages to get those spaces the way we like them. If the data hits the base source computer everyone will know they exist. I mean, they could use our implant tracers to find us in ’em if they really wanted, but … just don’t, sir. These are our vacation spots.”
    Daivid gestured impatiently. “Agreed, ensign,” he said. He activated the little device, noticing that its ‘eye’ had been covered by a strip of duct tape. Thielind was right: that wouldn’t stop a handshake transmitter from picking the unit’s memory. But Daivid wasn’t out to destroy yet another Cockroach tradition. All he wanted was either Lin or Borden, in front of him, immediately.
    The screen showed the first nook no more than fifty feet from where he was standing. His feet driven by the memory of the smug look on Chief Sargus’s face, he strode toward it, readying a diatribe on not giving him sufficient briefing to handle a situation, and how he felt, personally, about being humiliated.
    He missed the entrance three times before he found a gap between two ancient and battered metal tanks feeding the water-purification plant. He squeezed through it and discovered a circular area about four meters across and lined with discarded ship’s carpeting. He hastily backed out again.
    “… The contemplation of the newfallen snow is less lonely with you beside me, and the stars look down upon us and laugh for joy …” Mose read off an infopad. He lay with his head on Streb’s chest at the far end of the enclosure. The muscular petty officer plucked grapes from a bunch in a bowl beside them and fed one to the poet, who continued with his reading, letting his warm baritone voice echo magnificently in the metal tube. “… Cold the future, and cold the past, but warm the present held in your hand fast.…” Daivid backed hastily out; hoping Streb and Mose hadn’t noticed him. Activating the tracker again, he headed for the next ‘vacation spot.’
    It amazed him how many dead areas there were on a spaceport where every square centimeter was supposedly in use and under tight surveillance. Adri’Leta was lolling in the sun reading a book out behind a spent-fuel storage block. She glanced up in surprise when he appeared almost beside her, and he threw her a