Angles of Attack (Frontlines #3)(43)
“Get up,” he says. “Military police is here to pick you up.”
We stand up as instructed. Dmitry yawns and stretches. He still looks like our predicament is boring him to tears, but I can tell that he is sizing up the cop in the door with a quick glance. Colonel Campbell just looks pissed off.
The cop in the door steps out of the way, and four MPs walk into the room. One stands by the door, hand on his holstered sidearm. The other three each step up to one of us.
“Let’s go, folks,” the MP by the door says. His rank sleeves identify him as a sergeant. The other MPs are a corporal and two privates first class.
“I’m not ‘folks,’?” Colonel Campbell says. “I’m a colonel and the captain of a fleet ship. I don’t give a shit who sent you or where you are taking us, but you will address me as sir.” He gestures at Dmitry and me. “For that matter, every one of us outranks every one of you.”
“You know rank means nothing in a detention berth,” the MP sergeant replies. “Sir,” he adds after a moment.
The MPs put flex cuffs on our wrists. When they get to Dmitry, he flexes his shoulder muscles just a bit, and the PFC putting the cuffs on him takes an involuntary step back. The sergeant at the door tightens his grip on his pistol.
“Boo,” Dmitry says. He cracks a smile in my direction, and I can’t help but return it. The man is nominally my enemy, and two months ago we may have faced each other on the battlefield, but I like him. I also think he may be just a little bit nuts, or maybe I’m just not used to Russian attitudes yet.
“What exactly are your orders, Sergeant?” Colonel Campbell asks.
“I am to get you on the shuttle and deliver you to the receiving brig at Norfolk. You can talk over the legal stuff with them down there. I’m just a sergeant. Sir.”
Colonel Campbell nods toward the door. “Let’s not waste time, then. After you, Sergeant.”
The MPs march us out of the security booth and through the large airlock that separates Foxtrot concourse from the rest of the station. Out in the main part of Independence, there’s a bit more activity than in the concourse behind us, where Indy’s berth is the only occupied one. The civilian yard techs and shuttle jocks going about their business on the main concourse look at us as we pass by, two fleet sailors and an SRA noncom handcuffed and flanked by four armed military police officers.
We walk down the concourse about a hundred meters when the MPs direct us to another concourse to our right.
“Echo,” the sergeant in charge says. “We’re this way.”
“You know that Sergeant Chistyakov here isn’t subject to the UCMJ, right?” I say. “He’s not a POW. The Alliance is going to be pissed when they find out that you crapped all over the treaty.”
“The Alliance can kiss my ass right now,” the sergeant says. “I am just executing orders. Not my circus, not my monkey.”
“You call me monkey, I take electric stick off belt of yours and stick it up your big ass,” Dmitry says matter-of-factly from behind the sergeant.
The MP sergeant stops and turns toward Dmitry, who looks at him with an unconcerned little smile on his face.
“You don’t shut the fuck up and march, I’ll flush your ass out the nearest airlock, Russkie.”
I tense and prepare to jump into the tussle that’s sure to break out any second now. We are cuffed and unarmed, but I bet I can get at least this blustering asshole on the ground before they take us down with their stun sticks.
Behind us, there’s a minor commotion in the main part of the station. I hear the tromping of armored boots on the nonslip deck around the corner. We all turn to look back at the airlock we just passed through, not ten meters behind us.
Two SI troopers in full battle armor come around the corner and train their rifles at us—or more precisely, at the MPs surrounding Dmitry, Colonel Campbell, and me. Their targeting lasers paint green streaks across the light armor shells of the MP uniforms, which look pitifully inadequate compared to what the SI troopers are wearing.
“Hands off the weapons,” an amplified voice booms. I recognize it as Staff Sergeant Philbrick’s. “Away from the fleet guys and on your knees. Do it now.”
Dmitry moves away from the MP escorting him. The MP grabs his flex cuffs and tries to pull him back, and Dmitry reverses direction and butts the MP corporal aside with his shoulder. The corporal is almost a head taller than Dmitry and in light armor besides, but he stumbles aside as if he has been hit by an opening airlock hatch.
Next to me, the MP sergeant draws his pistol from the holster by his side and raises it toward Dmitry. He sees the muzzle swing toward him and dashes forward, but there are five meters between them, and there’s no way Dmitry can outrun the MP’s trigger finger. I am much closer, and I act on reflex.
I hurl myself at the MP sergeant and bring my cuffed hands down on his pistol as it comes up. My left hand hits the top of the weapon’s slide near the muzzle end. I grab the front of it and push it aside, away from Dmitry and me. The gun raps out a three-shot burst that’s shockingly loud so close to my face. There’s a sudden searing pain in my left hand that makes the headache I’ve been nursing for the last hour seem laughably mild in comparison. I scream and tighten my grip on the gun with the other hand, but my fingers slip off the now blood-slick polymer, and I drop to my knees. Then Dmitry is in front of me, and he plows into the MP sergeant and sends him flying backwards. I look to my right and see two green targeting lasers converging on his chest armor.