Of those weapons with which he was familiar, he chose four grenades, an energy rifle, a wide-dispersion laser pistol and a pair of throwing knives. He’d be able to fight anything coming within a hundred meters of him; beyond that range, it was someone else’s concern.
Dressed and armed, now, he looked around to see what came next. People were organizing themselves into squads of ten. Hawker looked about and found the alien—a Spardian, he suddenly recalled—who’d talked to him in Vandik. Her group was not yet complete, so he went over to join her. If worst came to worst, he’d at least have one member of his squad to talk to.
The leader of this particular squad was a human, but Hawker quickly established that the two of them had no language in common. Once again the Spardian was pressed into
