Read Online Strong Arm Tactics by Jody Lynn Nye - Free Book Online Page A

doors, getting bitten by a range of insects and scraping himself up by falling out of trees or off rocks, learning how to make annoying noises and how to tell even more annoying jokes, the bigger boys teaching but just as frequently picking on the younger boys. The counselors attempted to impose discipline from above, but things had a way of getting settled down in the lower echelons by themselves by means of minor torture and often cruel practical jokes. The perpetrators got away with it because to rat out a fellow camper was punishable by even more of the same. Camp and the space service had a lot in common. Simple times. Simple responsibilities. Simple relationships. Simple revenge.
    He had held his own back on Parker’s Planet, learning the bigger boys’ techniques and turning it around on them. No one got the better of a Wolfe. No one should . Involuntarily his upper lip drew back, showing his teeth. Suddenly, he caught Borden staring at him.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    “With respect, I don’t like the look on your face, sir,” the officer said. “You … looked for a moment like you might bite someone.”
    “Nothing like that. I just had an idea,” he replied, unable to keep from grinning ferally. “I was just thinking that you learn a lot about coping with life from living with your peer group. Were you ever at sleepaway camp?” Borden nodded. “Ever heard of the Vortex?”
    “… No …”
    “Well,” Wolfe said, flicking out another bedsheet with practiced hands. “Watch and learn.”
    She did watch, respect dawning on her face for the first time.
    “Sir, we can’t do that?”
    Daivid was in no mood to argue. “This is an order. If I have to earn the privilege from you I’ll do it later. For now, just do it.”
    Borden watched him again, as he took all the bedclothes off Ewanowski’s bunk and remade it deftly. “No, sir, you’ve earned this one just for teaching me something new. I never saw that before.”
    “Good.” Daivid made sure she knew all the steps, then turned her loose to work on her own. The tall woman’s hands were even more adept than his. Very shortly, the two of them had remade all the beds on one side of the room, and were starting on the other.
    “What’s wrong with Lizzie?” Wolfe wondered aloud. “It’s in your bio. At least, it’s a derivative of one of your middle names.…”
    “With all due respect, sir,” Borden’s voice returned to its original ice-cold tone of the day before, “I don’t care for the implication. Everyone in this unit has a combat name, a handle. If you perused the records you have seen them all noted. Mine is not Lizzie.”
    In his mildest voice, Daivid said, “I just thought it was a nickname, lieutenant. No offense intended.” He bent all of his natural charm on her, smiling warmly, willing her to thaw out. As one of the only people in the company to prove a trusted ally, he didn’t want to lose her good will. In some lights he knew his yellow-hazel eyes could turn a mellow gold. He’d used the effect to beguile treats out of schoolmates, and less innocent favors out of dates. “Please. I’ve been here less than a day. You’ll have to let me have more than one gotcha.”
    Borden hesitated. “Well …”
    Daivid fluttered his eyelashes. “Pretty please?”
    A brief smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Aye, sir. Sorry to be so quick on the trigger. You’ve walked into an ancient minefield.”
    A bright ping! from the cleanerbots informed him that they had finished their assignments. Daivid went to inspect. All the windows glistened, the tabletops and even the locker tops had been cleared and wiped, and the lavatories looked pristine enough to do surgery on. The barracks was clean.
    On the other hand, he wasn’t. His neatly pressed dress uniform was now a mass of crumples and smudges from bumping into the edges of the bunks. It was a quarter to eleven. There wasn’t time left to put the uniform through a full