The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley by Assorted Baen authors, Barflies Page A
Authors: Assorted Baen authors, Barflies
Ads: Link
Jiltanith site has been more valuable to me than I could possibly express. I’m honored to know him, and anyone else who knows him understands that he has a huge heart, a marvelous, quiet sense of humor, and one of the sharpest brains around. There’s a reason so many Baen authors feel the kind of personal closeness with Joe which leads us to include him in our books and do the sort of horrible things to him that really, really good friends who are somewhat . . . twisted practical jokers find hilarious. And one of the best things about it is that Joe gets a laugh out of it, as well.
It’s been a privilege to have been his friend for lo, these many years, and I look forward to many more years . . . and, undoubtedly, at least a few more fatalities along the way.
After all, what are friends for?
Ashes of Victory
DAVID WEBER
As for the final member of the crew, Lieutenant Joe Buckley, the tac officer, the jury was still out. He was very good at his job, and had demonstrated a positive genius for tweaking and modifying his weapon systems’ software, but the consensus in the squadron was that he could not possibly be as innocent as his earnest expression and manner seemed to indicate. He was, after all, assigned to Cutthroat, and everyone knew what that meant.
Actually, Tremaine admitted to himself with an inner smile, Roden had managed to hammer his personal collection of misfits into exactly the sort of “LAC jocks” Captain Harmon had envisioned. Their record in sims and drills was second to none, Cutthroat ’s engineering readiness was the second best in the wing, and they had that swaggering confidence, verging on arrogance, which was the mark of an elite small-craft crew. Indeed, Tremaine was often bemused by how well they performed, since they never seemed to have the time to waste on things like practice. That would have dragged them away from their true passion, for the lot of them seemed addicted to cards, and particularly to the ancient game of spades, which they played with special fervor and bloodthirstiness. As a rule, they seemed to resent the intrusion of anything so ephemeral as an interstellar war on important things like setting the high-bidder in a hand of cutthroat, and Bolgeo and Paulk, the two who’d actually come up with the idea for locating the sternwall generator, were the worst of the lot.
Of course, it was an . . . offbeat approach, which was probably no more than was to be expected of those two. Indeed, it was hardly surprising that the more orthodox thinkers at BuShips had never considered such an outré notion, no matter how much sense it made once someone actually suggested it.
* * *
Two of Tremaine’s strike died, then a third. A fourth. Three more flashed the amber of serious damage, but they were through the Peep formation and streaking away, safe from further harm while their crews fought to make emergency repairs.
The three squadrons Tremaine had diverted to the battlecruisers swarmed over their massive foes, firing savagely. The sheer fury of their headlong attack seemed to touch them with invulnerability, and two of the Peep ships blew up in spectacular boils of light as raking graser shots slammed down the throats of their wedges and directly down their long axes. But the third survived, brutally wounded, probably dying, but still in action, and her commander wrenched his broken ship around, rolling his less-damaged broadside onto his attackers as they overflew him and receded rapidly into space’s immensity.
His fire ripped at them, and the sternwalls Roden and his crew had designed proved their worth as they bent and diverted the handful of shots which struck home.
But even as relief began to flash through Tremaine, the single Peep battlecruiser got off one last broadside . . . and a single graser struck squarely on the grav eddy Horace Harkness had spotted so long ago.
Her Majesty’s Light Attack Craft Cutthroat exploded as violently as any of her victims had,
It’s been a privilege to have been his friend for lo, these many years, and I look forward to many more years . . . and, undoubtedly, at least a few more fatalities along the way.
After all, what are friends for?
Ashes of Victory
DAVID WEBER
As for the final member of the crew, Lieutenant Joe Buckley, the tac officer, the jury was still out. He was very good at his job, and had demonstrated a positive genius for tweaking and modifying his weapon systems’ software, but the consensus in the squadron was that he could not possibly be as innocent as his earnest expression and manner seemed to indicate. He was, after all, assigned to Cutthroat, and everyone knew what that meant.
Actually, Tremaine admitted to himself with an inner smile, Roden had managed to hammer his personal collection of misfits into exactly the sort of “LAC jocks” Captain Harmon had envisioned. Their record in sims and drills was second to none, Cutthroat ’s engineering readiness was the second best in the wing, and they had that swaggering confidence, verging on arrogance, which was the mark of an elite small-craft crew. Indeed, Tremaine was often bemused by how well they performed, since they never seemed to have the time to waste on things like practice. That would have dragged them away from their true passion, for the lot of them seemed addicted to cards, and particularly to the ancient game of spades, which they played with special fervor and bloodthirstiness. As a rule, they seemed to resent the intrusion of anything so ephemeral as an interstellar war on important things like setting the high-bidder in a hand of cutthroat, and Bolgeo and Paulk, the two who’d actually come up with the idea for locating the sternwall generator, were the worst of the lot.
Of course, it was an . . . offbeat approach, which was probably no more than was to be expected of those two. Indeed, it was hardly surprising that the more orthodox thinkers at BuShips had never considered such an outré notion, no matter how much sense it made once someone actually suggested it.
* * *
Two of Tremaine’s strike died, then a third. A fourth. Three more flashed the amber of serious damage, but they were through the Peep formation and streaking away, safe from further harm while their crews fought to make emergency repairs.
The three squadrons Tremaine had diverted to the battlecruisers swarmed over their massive foes, firing savagely. The sheer fury of their headlong attack seemed to touch them with invulnerability, and two of the Peep ships blew up in spectacular boils of light as raking graser shots slammed down the throats of their wedges and directly down their long axes. But the third survived, brutally wounded, probably dying, but still in action, and her commander wrenched his broken ship around, rolling his less-damaged broadside onto his attackers as they overflew him and receded rapidly into space’s immensity.
His fire ripped at them, and the sternwalls Roden and his crew had designed proved their worth as they bent and diverted the handful of shots which struck home.
But even as relief began to flash through Tremaine, the single Peep battlecruiser got off one last broadside . . . and a single graser struck squarely on the grav eddy Horace Harkness had spotted so long ago.
Her Majesty’s Light Attack Craft Cutthroat exploded as violently as any of her victims had,
Similar Books
