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  But Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher took his responsibilities very seriously, and he was very unhappy. When Gunny Thatcher was unhappy with the men, they were unhappy as well. He made sure of that.

  "COMP-nee! 'Ten-HUT!" Thatcher bellowed as he hauled himself into the troop hold in the amphibious landing ferry, CNSS Sergeant Charles McMahon.

  The hold filled with clattering and clanging as the hundred-plus Marines swung from their hammocks, propelled themselves from the head, or otherwise moved from whatever position they'd been in to vertical, in relation to the hold's deck, and gripped handholds to stay that way. Amphibious landing ferries didn't bother with artificial gravity.

  Thatcher grasped a handhold and pulled himself out of the way of the company's platoon commanders who followed him. The Gunny didn't often glower at the men—he usually left that to First Sergeant Myer, who was so much better at it. But Thatcher glowered at them, and his most ferocious expression was aimed at the platoon commanders as they joined their men. He gave them a moment of silence to let the tension build.

  "Never, in my thirty-two years in this man's Marine Corps, have I seen as egregious a display of sheer ineptitude as you put on out there today," he said in a soft voice that carried clearly throughout the hold. Then he shrieked, "You were a disgrace!" He paused as his words reverberated through the hold, and gave a satisfied jerk of his head when he saw how everyone, including the officers, flinched.

  "Out of thirty fire teams, gun teams, and assault teams in this company," he continued after the echoes ebbed away, "only four managed to successfully enter the objective. Of those four, only one was fast enough to keep from getting wiped out by the ship's defenses." He looked down and shook his head.

  "You may be thinking that just because the McMahon and the training hulk are only going to be in orbit around Thorsfinni's World long enough for every infantry unit to have one training evolution that you're done with this abortion. Well, you're wrong. From now until we deploy again, you're going to be training with the breaching equipment whenever you aren't doing other training. You're going to train in hostile-boarding tactics until you can do them in your sleep." He gave a last, red-faced glower that seemed to be directed at each Marine in the hold, then spun about and arrowed out.

  The Marines of Company L cast cautious glances at each other, but no one spoke for a long moment. Then a lone voice broke the silence.

  "Hey," MacIlargie said, "is it our fault they gave us equipment that doesn't work?"

  "Hit him for me, Corporal Kerr," Sergeant Bladon said. "The equipment works. We just don't know how to use it properly."

  Kerr cuffed MacIlargie on the back of the head. But not hard. Privately, he agreed with the junior man.

  Chapter 2

  Val Carney's anger mounted with every kilometer of the suborbital flight from Fargo to the Republic of Liliuokalani. While the flight was short and pleasant, that did not mollify the congressman's anger at Oncho Tweed for demanding a personal visit before he would agree to accept the wonderfully lucrative deal that Carney had offered. The sonofabitch! he thought. I've made the bastard rich, and now that I've got the one deal that'll really matter, he demands I come to him halfway across the goddamned Pacific!

  Carney's anger began to boil over when they reached Honolulu. Instead of Tweed meeting him there as he had expected, to discuss business in one of the island capital's plush resort hotels, another jet was waiting to fly the congressman the three hundred kilometers to Tweed's corporate headquarters in Puuwai, on Niihau Island. He was almost speechless with rage as an attendant ushered him into the waiting aircraft. He had half a mind to turn back right there, but too much was riding on the deal.

  The Republic of Liliuokalani, formerly the state of Hawaii, had seceded from the federal union near the end of the Second American Civil War. Named after the last queen of the Hawaiians, the new republic had prospered as an independent nation. To encourage business development in the islands, the government of Liliuokalani had removed almost all restrictions on taxing and licensing of every kind of enterprise, from gambling to research and development. Both a gambler and a researcher, Oncho Tweed found the republic a most hospitable place to do business.

  The citizens of the Republic of Liliuokalani derived their major revenue from tourism, as had their ancestors for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, Val Carney was whisked about so quickly he had no time to take in the sights. Once on the ground in Puuwai, he was unceremoniously but politely loaded into a Bomarc Executive Starship and whisked straightaway to the island of Siargao on the other side of the Pacific, just north of Mindanao in the Philippines. More than once in the hour-long flight from Liliuokalani to Siargao, Carney wondered why Tweed hadn't just sent the Bomarc straight to Fargo.

  As he sat alone in the Bomarc's passenger compartment, his anger slowly cooled to a dull throb behind his right eyeball. A few minutes into the flight, he lit up a Clinton. The alcohol and the fine cigar soon calmed him down. He wondered just what Tweed had in mind for him when the Bomarc at last gracefully touched down at Tweed Submersible Recovery Operations' field testing facility in the Philippines.

  "Valley! Valley, my good friend," Oncho Tweed rasped as he extended one hamlike paw toward the little politician. Carney hated people calling him "Valley." Among his close acquaintances, only Petunia got away with it.

  Carney shook Tweed's hand perfunctorily.

  One massive arm around Carney's shoulders, Tweed propelled the little man toward a hydrofoil bobbing alongside the nearby wharf. Carney was always aware of Tweed's huge size and strength. He could kill me right here, he told himself. He put the thought out of his mind, but it was not the first time it had occurred to him. He looked longingly at the low concrete laboratory buildings that made up the test facility. At least they would have full climate control. Where they were, in the open, it was hot and damp. Already Carney was perspiring. Tweed, however, looked comfortable.

  "How was your flight, my dear partner?"

  "Smooth." Carney caught himself as the anger welled up in him again. "Goddamnit, Oncho, why in hell have you gotten me all the way across the world like this just to talk business? Next goddamned time, you come to Fargo!"

  Tweed rumbled sympathetically. With his free hand he stroked his thick black beard, but the other steered Carney relentlessly toward the waiting hydrofoil. "My dear friend, too much is riding on this deal. I feel safe discussing the particulars only somewhere secure from the big ears that festoon the sanctified halls of the Confederation Congress. Forgive me, Valley. I'll have the Bomarc fly you directly back when we're done. A mere two-hour flight and you'll be back in your office. I apologize again for the inconvenience, my dear friend."

  "Oh, stop this phony bonhomie, Tweed! You despise me." He sniffed, straightening his clothes diffidently as he spoke.

  "I don't despise you, my dear boy!" Tweed protested as the two men took their seats. "Our relationship has been very cordial and profitable and I owe you for that." He reached over and patted Carney lightly on the knee. Carney sighed.

  The hydrofoil sped away, due west, into the Philippine Sea. Two hours later, 150 kilometers west of Mindanao, it heaved to alongside Tweed's deep-sea research vessel, the Tammany. To his credit, Carney had not gotten seasick. He was queasy, but not seasick. He had sat glumly throughout the voyage, watching the waves as Tweed gorged himself on a tasty lunch and tried to make small talk.

  The Tammany was one hundred meters from stem to stern and displaced more than 5,300 metric tons. She had a crew of ninety-five, was equipped with a 500-horsepower heavy stern winch that could handle 9.5 kilometers of cables for dredging, coring, and other deep-sea industrial operations. She was also equipped with two fifty-horsepower hydra graphic winches that could be used for serial temperature measurements, lowering light instruments such as small coring apparatuses, and taking water samples. But the Tammany's main purpose was to support the Gotham, Tweed's undersea lab.

  Once on the deck of the Tammany, Carney stumbled and wo
uld have fallen if Tweed, laughing, hadn't caught him by the elbow at the last minute. "You'll soon get your sea legs, m'lad," he promised. Several crewmen stood about, smirking at the landlubber. Carney noted with rising horror that the queasiness in his stomach was beginning to turn violent. He forced himself to hold down his breakfast. He would not give these roustabouts the satisfaction of seeing him get sick.

  "Captain!" Tweed shouted to a Filipino on the bridge, "Ready the Boss!"

  "Aye aye, sir!" the officer responded.

  A flurry of activity erupted about the Tammany's stern as winches swung a small submersible out of its berth and lowered it gently into the swells. It bobbed there merrily as technicians swarmed aboard to ready it for submersion.

  "What...?" Carney asked.

  "Valley, my friend, that is the Boss! I use it to visit Gotham, my pride and my joy and the heart of the operation that's going to make both of us richer!" He slapped Carney hard on the back.

  Carney coughed and staggered under the blow. Then a disturbing thought occurred to him. "In that?" he gasped suddenly.

  "You bet!" Tweed answered enthusiastically.

  "Wha...? H-How far is the Gotham from here?"

  "Four thousand meters, Valley, not far at all."

  "F-Four thou-thousand meters...?" Carney pointed at the deck.

  "Straight down, m'lad, straight down!" Tweed roared.

  Val Carney doubled over and threw up on the deck.

  Gotham was actually a small city built on the ocean floor. It was staffed by nearly a hundred technicians and engineers who field tested the many devices Tweed Submersible manufactured to support a variety of operations to explore and exploit the oceans on every habitable world in Human Space. Tweed's great-grandfather, Onan Tweed, had founded the company, which was then run by his son, and then Oncho's father, Otho. In the fifty years since Otho Tweed's death, Oncho had run the vast enterprise with skill and cunning. He had been especially successful at getting lucrative government contracts, those let by the governments of individual worlds and ones the Confederation required. Most were obtained legitimately. Others he got through a web of contacts painstakingly developed over the years, people who could influence decisions at the highest levels in the government acquisition process. It cost him in kickbacks, but Tweed Submersible Recovery could afford them.

  And one of the key people in fixing contracts was Val Carney. Not only was Carney the senior member of the Ministry of Justice Oversight Committee, he was also Chairman of the Acquisition and Development Committee, where he was able to exercise great influence over the Confederation government's contracting process. His position on the Justice Oversight Committee also gave him access to confidential investigative reports, so Carney knew in advance which companies were under surveillance. Generous bribes to lawyers on the Justice Ministry's staff had more than once quashed investigations implicating Tweed Submersible and other companies Carney had sweetheart deals with. Finally, by cutting funding to the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Investigations, he had been able to ensure it had neither the staff nor the money to perform its duties effectively.

  It was inevitable Tweed and Carney would strike big deals. The Tweed Hull Breacher would be one of the biggest for both of them. Carney was counting on their arrangement to help him swing another deal, truly the biggest one of his life, so he had to treat Tweed with utmost care.

  The Confederation Navy needed a hull-breaching device that would permit boarding parties to enter hostile warships without degrading the vessel's life support systems. Navy warships could breach the hull of any known vessel and had done so numerous times in combat. Breaches were usually attained by devices that tore open airlocks, triggering ships' integrity systems, which were designed to instantly seal ship compartments and prevent loss of proper life support environment. That meant boarders had to enter a breached ship prepared to operate in a vacuum, then break through airtight hatches in passageways and into compartments until the airlock could be brought back on line. Then the boarding party had to blast its way into the rest of the ship to face a crew fully alert and ready to fight back.

  Salvage and emergency rescue operations in space were another matter, one the navy handled very competently, but they required techniques that were laborious and time-consuming. In combat, every second was vital. So most navy commanders facing a hostile situation preferred to blast a ship into submission rather than launch a laborious and dangerous boarding operation. That worked well in combat, but a hostage situation was a different matter.

  Not long before, political dissidents had hijacked a passenger vessel, and the navy commander on the scene used his ship's Marines in a combat-boarding operation. Unfortunately, hostages were being held in the very loading compartment the breached airlock opened into. The loss of life when the dissidents began executing the remaining passengers was terrible. To make matters worse, the ambush the dissidents set for the boarding party nearly wiped it out. As a result, the navy decided that a better and less predictable technique was needed to get inside a spaceship's hull quickly and safely.

  The specification written for the hull-breaching contract required that a successful prototype would: (1) Be fully transportable on board the smallest navy line vessel. (2) Be able to operate independently of a mother ship and capable of maneuvering extensively over a considerable distance for up to six hours. (3) Hold up to a ten-man squad of combat-loaded Marines. (4) Be able to breach any known hull construction in less than thirty seconds. (5) Be easy to operate, so infantrymen could employ the device without technical expertise.

  The contract also stipulated that once the bid was awarded, the successful bidder would deliver a prototype within six months of the award and provide all necessary training in the maintenance and operation of the device. Before the device was put into service, the manufacturer would guarantee a stock of spare parts to keep a small fleet of them fully operational. The manufacturer retained the right to license other companies to make spare parts, and the navy agreed to buy them from only the manufacturer or its licensees at prices to be agreed upon. Finally, the navy would pay for periodic overhauls to be performed by the manufacturer, who also agreed to keep technical representatives on call for emergencies.

  Only three companies bid on the contract. The first two, Tweed's competitors, submitted sealed bids far in advance of the closing date of the announcement. Carney managed to get Tweed copies of those bids, which he underbid when submitting his own proposals. Some contracting officers in the navy were dubious about giving the award to Tweed since projects that Tweed Submersible Recovery had previously done had raised questions about overbilling, cost overruns, and the workmanship itself. Carney had the objections quashed.

  This one contract alone would keep a company solvent for years.

  "It's a beauty," Tweed sighed. He never grew tired of operating undersea vehicles, and was an expert at it. Of all the submersibles he'd had designed and built over the years, the Boss was his favorite.

  "Yes," Carney agreed, thinking he meant the deal they'd brokered for the hull breacher. His initial panic at the Boss's steep descent had diminished as Tweed expertly guided the craft toward the ocean floor. At two thousand meters Tweed stopped their descent and set the onboard navigation system to maintain their position.

  "We won't be visiting Gotham on this trip, Valley. We'll just hang suspended here, have our little discussion, and then bob back to the surface and get you on your way home."

  That was fine with Carney, who had no desire to be anywhere near the bottom of the ocean. He wondered how much pressure there was on the hull of the Boss at their depth and swallowed nervously.

  Tweed leaned back in his captain's chair and put his hands behind his head. "I think we can talk securely now, Valley. We are the only two people on board the Boss. I have all my facilities swept periodically to keep electronic eavesdroppers out anyway, but now we have only our own ears to worry about."

  "You got me all the way out
here and into this, this..." Carney gestured at the bulkheads. "I mean, we've done business before without going to these—these extremes."

  "Yes," Tweed agreed. "Security is not the main reason I wanted to talk to you under these circumstances. No. I wanted you to come out here so you could see for yourself what it is I represent." He paused. When Carney said nothing, he added, "I want you to know that I am a man who actually works for a living. I make things. I make things that really work. This submersible is an example of that. I spare no expense when it comes to constructing things—machines, prototypes, or plans—that affect me personally, Valley."