Not For Glory by Joel Rosenberg

I'm assigned."
    That registered. "Understood, sir. I will leave the shuttle with the wounded, sir."
    I unplugged the phones. "We're all set," I said as I turned to Suki, and went personal long enough for a quick kiss on the lips. "And with—"
    "ETA one minute."
    "—one minute to spare."

    We pay for the life of our people with pieces of ourselves.
    Sometimes that's a figure of speech; often it's literal. The teams of stretcher-bearers first brought down men who were missing pieces.
    It was a bloodless affair. Outward bleeding had been stopped for hundreds of hours.
    "I'll wait here while you have your little reunion." Zev snickered again.
    "Just what I was going to suggest." Asshole.
    As the stream of stretcher-bearers worked its way from the shuttle toward the doors, I ducked my head as I stepped out into the frosty air, then dodged to one side to avoid two thickset medicians carrying the upper two-thirds of a man on a stretcher. He was missing from about the thighs down.
    Don't talk about regeneration therapy. It doesn't always work, and when it does, it takes a bitch of a long time to regrow anything that's both major and peripheral, like a pair of legs. Two years, minimum, until you'll see baby-pink toenails; another year until new muscles learn to work hard enough to match the ones they've replaced. And that's if you push hard on your therapy sessions.
    The stretcher cases ended, followed by the walking wounded.
    The next man, walking quickly, not at all supported by the medician at his right, seemed unhurt, save that his hands were missing.
    The next one, an uninjured man supporting each arm, half-guiding, half-carrying him, had a well-bandaged face, his features swathed in cloth like a mummy. Eyes aren't too bad. Unless the nerves leading back to the brain have been thoroughly damaged, it only takes about six months to grow them back, six months of walking around in the dark.
    The next was Master Private Dov Ginsberg.
    Dov was a huge and ugly man; his ragged hairline came to within a couple of centimeters of his heavy brows. From within deep sockets, two seemingly unblinking eyes stared coldly at the world as he walked down the stairway from the skipshuttle all by himself, one thick hand pressed against his abdomen, as though trying to hold himself together.
    He brought his free hand up against the side of his face, a sound like a butcher slapping a side of beef, then walked out of the line of walking wounded, gesturing me to accompany him.
    It's not his size that makes Dov what he is, although that and his strength helps. I'm not sure what it is, really; it's Something Extra. A Talent, Rachel calls it, like the way her mother can work miracles with a cube of rock and a chisel.
    It's not his training in hand-to-hand—he's never had any. Master Private Dov Ginsberg is something else. Leave it at that.
    "You say you are going to see Shimon." The voice didn't quite match the body. It's almost high-pitched, not at all the basso rumble you'd expect, and it cracks at unexpected moments. That's about the only thing that does. Dov's loyalty to Shimon Bar-El never wavered. It's a personal matter, going back to before his name was either Dov, or Ginsberg—before he was a Metzadan or a Jew.
    "I said perhaps." I shrugged. "The old woman got a letter from him. He says he has some knowledge Metzada wants. If it's important enough to involve us, it may— may —be important enough to bring you in on." I didn't go into detail.
    He thought that over for a moment. "You won't try to hurt him this time, sir." It wasn't really a question. Or a threat Just random movements of his mouth, while he tried to figure out what Shimon would want him to do.
    "Don't be silly," I said. "Of course not." Unless it was necessary. Which he knew as well as I did. He also knew that I'm an inveterate liar. That comes with the job.
    But Dov had learned long before that he couldn't kill everyone in the universe who might want to hurt Shimon Bar-El. "I will