"No," her father said. His arm had tightened around her. "Not from you." Jacintha gave a miserable nod of confirmation.
"Very well. Could you please return to your house for the rest of the night? And I can assure you, there won't be a repeat of this incident."
"Thank you."
Lawrence was impressed by the way such a simple phrase could be made to project so much derision.
The Skin holding Lawrence handed him over to Nic and Amersy. The two of them had to give him plenty of support as he limped back to their A-frame. Everyone else was heading back to bed, talking in low tones.
Denise suddenly appeared in front of Lawrence. She smiled up shyly. "Thanks." She raced away back to her family before he could say anything.
Nic laughed. "Got yourself a new girlfriend, Lawrence. A looker, huh?'
"Give me a fucking break."
Ntoko appeared where Denise had been a moment before. He wasn't smiling. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, man? You want to be a hero, do it on the company's time."
"Come on, Sarge, like you'd play it differently."
"I would have got me some backup. Don't you learn anything in training?"
"I called you."
"Jesus."
They arrived at their A-frame and went up the stairs to the balcony. Lawrence had to grip the handrail. Now that the adrenaline and endorphins were wearing off, he seemed to hurt everywhere. As soon as he was in the lounge, he fell into the sofa. "I need a drink."
Kibbo cracked a can of Bluesaucer and handed it to him. Lawrence took a sip and decided that was just too macho. Ntoko sat beside him, and opened up the first-aid kit. "Hold still, hero."
Despite the medicines, Lawrence was stiff everywhere when he woke the next morning. He took a hot shower, which eased things a bit. One ankle was badly swollen. Both legs were grazed. He had bruises everywhere. But Ntoko had insisted that the injuries were all superficial. "Nothing that gets you out of duty."
He had breakfast with Nic and Amersy, who had a good time joshing him over the fight. The sergeant didn't eat with them; he'd left the A-frame while Lawrence was still in the shower. He arrived back as they were finishing the meal. "You two get lost," he told Nic and Amersy.
"So what's happening about last night?" Lawrence asked.
Ntoko poured himself some coffee and sat down opposite Lawrence. "I've been talking to the captain about last night He wants this shut down fast."
"What does that mean?"
"It means no righteous heroes kicking up a fuss when we get back to barracks."
"What are you saying, that those three get off free? They were going to gang-rape a seventeen-year-old, for Fate's sake. I'm not eating that kind of shit sandwich."
"We all know what they were doing, and they're not getting away with it. But there are ways of dealing with situations like this where we don't all have to lose out."
"How?" Lawrence asked with deep suspicion.
"Okay, let's take it your way, clean and honest, all our dirty laundry out there in public. Morteth, Laforth and Kmyre stand trial. They're guilty, obviously, they get shipped home under guard and serve their fifteen years. Fair enough. But after the facts get read out in court, there's going to have to be an inquiry to find out why it happened."
"They're a bunch of drunken bastards. That's why it happened."
"Sure. But specifically, why didn't Lyaute have enough discipline over his men to prevent them even thinking about this? Why didn't Four-eight-two-NK-three's sergeant stop what was going on? It's the NCOs who take the immediate blame, you know that. How come the Skins on guard duty didn't see what was happening and step in?"
"They should have."
"I know, man. But things are damn slack around here. You've seen how everyone's been helping themselves to everything these poor old hillbillies have. Lyaute should have stepped in hard and fast right at the start. But he didn't, because he wanted a quiet life. So it just keeps getting worse until those three assholes pull a stunt like last night's and land all of us up shit creek. If this ever gets on an official report, half of the convoy is going to have a reprimand on our files."
Lawrence drank some tea, which was getting colder than he liked. "You mean if I do what's right and testify to the commander I'll screw everyone else?"
"Like I said, there are ways of dealing with this. Lyaute can operate through different channels, if you let him."
"What sort of channels?"
"Okay, I'll lay this on the line for you. Say nothing, and you'll come out of this campaign with a commendation on your report that's better than anything you could get for saving the general's ass in full combat and there'll be a stripe on your shoulder for sure. Morteth, Laforth and Kmyre will be quietly shitlisted once we get home. They'll be discharged or given latrine duty for the rest of their lives, and they certainly won't get any sort of campaign bonus, neither will they get any kind of reference from Z-B. Without that, no employer on the planet will touch them. It's the slammer without walls."
"And Lyaute gets himself out of this with a clean record."
"Yeah. Along with a whole bunch of other people who don't deserve a bad rap because he screwed up. And next time, he'll know how to run a command properly. That's got to be worth something, Lawrence. You and I know we've got damn few decent officers."
"Don't, Sarge. Don't try and sell this by telling me I'm going to be improving that useless asshole."
"Okay, man. You look at it any way you want to. But it's your call, and you've got to make it now. This can't be ducked. And if it helps any, I'd have done the same thing last night. It was the right thing."
"Something you haven't mentioned."
"Yeah, what?"
"The girl. Jacintha. What about Jacintha?"
"What about her?"
"Three of Z-B's finest tried to rape her."
"But they didn't rape her, did they? Thanks to the hero of the hour. She had a nasty shock, which is never going to be repeated, because we're never coming back. She can get on with her lotus-eating life again. Six months' time, we'll just be a bad memory fading away."
"That's it? She doesn't count?"
"This is politics, man. Her stake in this isn't as big as ours. So what's your decision?"
Lawrence grinned, even though the bruise on his lip hurt when he did it. At least the sarge was being diplomatic, pretending he even had a choice. He knew damn well if he carried this through and screwed Lyaute and the other sergeants he'd be the one who wound up shitlisted.
That was the way the companies worked. The way they'd always worked. The way they always would work.
He drank some more of his cold tea. "I guess I must have got these bruises falling downstairs last night."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN