TW01 The Ivanhoe Gambit NEW Read Free Page B

Lucas
knew
they were in trouble.
    "With your permission, sir," he said, accepting the cigarettes. "I mean no disrespect, but I've been in the service long enough to know that this sort of treatment is hardly s.o.p. This is the first time I've seen a referee clocked out to the Minus side. Somehow I have the feeling that this hitch is hardly going to be a soft assignment."
    The ref smiled. "Your point is well taken, Mr. Priest. You're quite correct in assuming that this is going to be an unusual hitch. There will be some risk involved, but you gentlemen should be accustomed to that. However, there are compensations. If you succeed in your objective, then the completion of this assignment will also constitute full completion of your tour of duty. That goes for all of you. The remainder of your service time, whatever it may be, will be waived and you will be given the option of retiring with the full pensions and benefits of first lieutenants or reenlisting as captains. And that goes for you as well, Mr. Delaney, even with your rather remarkable disciplinary record."
    Delaney spoke the first words Lucas heard him utter. "Shit," he said. "We're dead."
    Between the two of them, Lucas and Bobby had put in some pretty heavy service. Hooker was still fairly green, but Delaney was on his second tour of duty and had seen a lot of action. In spite of that, the training period that followed was the toughest any of them had ever gone through. Their drillmaster was a tough old bastard of indeterminate age. The antiagathic drugs made it difficult to accurately guess how old a person was, but the drillmaster looked like Methuselah himself. His name was Major Forrester. He was bald as an egg, wrinkled as a prune and as mean as a bear with hemorrhoids.
    "You men might think you're old hands at this sort of thing," he told them. "Well, you're in for one great big fucking surprise. I'm going to work you till you drop and then I'll kick your asses right back up again and you'll work some more. And just for starters, I want a hundred push-ups, two hundred sit-ups and thirty chins."
    "That's not so tough," Bobby whispered to Lucas.
    "And if you're not done in six minutes, you'll do it all again! Time starts right
now!"
    They were all used to strenuous demands placed on their bodies, but Forrester ran them ragged.
    Every night, they went to bed so sore that they could hardly move. The nature of their training left no doubt in their minds that they had been selected for a commando assignment. They were worked in the finer points of medieval combat, becoming accustomed to moving about in full armor and learning to control their horses by pressure of the knees. They were drilled in the use of weapons such as the broadsword, the axe, the mace, the crossbow and the long bow, as well. They trained with daggers and Hooker proved to be a surprise even to Major Forrester. He could throw almost any sort of knife with unerring accuracy. Lucas wondered where he had grown up and what sort of childhood he must have had. Hooker was barely nineteen.
    Due to their varied past experiences, some things came easier to some of them than they did to others. Lucas had brought to the assignment extensive experience in fighting with all manner of swords, from foils and sabers to the Roman short sword. Bobby was an accomplished archer, surpassing all the others with his skill. As an expert in several of the Oriental martial arts, Delaney took to a quarterstaff like a duck took to water and he brought some innovative techniques to fighting with a broadsword.
    A great deal of time and money had been invested in their training. They were subjected to everything from implant programming to conditioned reflex training, but it was not until they went in for cosmetic surgery that Lucas finally realized the true nature of their mission.
    It was going to be a fix-it job. Somehow, someone had screwed up in this time period and a little Trans-historical Adjustment and Maintenance was