“We have the Navy on a long-haul push. One, maybe two ships, ETA thirty-six hours standard. Over.”
“Contact? Over.”
“Negative, sir. Not with field stuff. The muties could reach ’em though. Over.”
“Any reason to think they have? Over.”
“No, sir. Over.”
“Thanks, Six. Keep me advised. Over.”
A shell exploded in midair. Both officers kissed dirt as the device hurled bomblets in every direction. The explosions rippled along the side of a hill. Two legionnaires were killed and a third was wounded. He screamed, grabbed his thigh, and started to swear. A medic arrived, slapped a self-sealing dressing on the wound, and radioed for a stretcher.
Kattabi spit dirt. “They’re getting better.”
Kirby shrugged. “Practice makes perfect.”
The general turned to the fort. “De Vane needs to win... and he needs to do it
now
. Those ships could be loaded with mutineers—or packed wi
th loyal troops. He’s hoping for the former, but scared of the latter. Pass the word.... When the barrage lifts, DeVane will attack.”
Kirby questioned the certainty of Kattabi’s prediction, wondered if something less precise might be in order, but kept her opinions to herself.
Heavily armed troops and cyborgs packed the immense parade ground. Orders were shouted as infantry units assembled, servos whined as quads picked their way through the crowd, and radio traffic crackled as Trooper IIs and IIIs took their assigned positions.
Though reasonably well organized, the revolution lacked the precision officers would have insisted on. That bothered some of the troops, who knew Kattabi was good and didn’t want to die.
One level below, DeVane ran one last check on his systems, tried to ignore the unwanted passenger, and lumbered up the ramp.
The cyborg knew Kattabi could keep the mutineers bottled up inside the fort if that’s what he chose to do, but didn’t think he would. Partly because he was an ornery old bastard, and partly because he hoped to settle the matter before the Navy arrived, for the same reasons that DeVane did.
A victory would enhance the cyborg’s status if the vessels were friendly and strengthen his position at the bargaining table if it happened that they weren’t. He paused at the top of the ramp.
“Let’s get this show on the road. Strap the general into position, open the gates, and let’s kick some ass.”
Stohl had been sitting for about an hour by then, arms around his knees, ordering God to save him.
The officer struggled as the guards jerked him to his feet. They half carried, half dragged the prisoner across the parade ground. A metal cross had been welded to the front of DeVane’s quad. They wrestled Stohl into position, tied his arms to the crosspieces, and secured his feet to an eyebolt.
“There,” DeVane said callously. “Officers should lead from the front—don’t you agree? Hey! This would be an excellent time to consider the nature of your relationship with Kattabi. How much shit did you heap on the poor bastard, anyhow? Enough to piss him off? What goes around comes around. Should be interesting.” Stohl soiled himself and started to gibber.
A cheer went up, the gates opened, and De Vane marched out.
Kattabi, his elbows resting on the quickly melting snow, watched the quad appear. Not just
any
quad, but one with monster features, and a cross welded to its bow. Kattabi felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach.
The officer increased the magnification, and the heretofore unrecognizable blob leapt into focus. There was no mistaking the staring eyes, the contorted face, or the horribly bared teeth. It was Stohl.
Kattabi felt an irrational surge of anger. Damn the miserable sonofabitch to hell! Damn him for allowing such a thing to happen, damn him for being alive, and damn him for putting
me
in this position!
Kirby nudged his arm. “The man on the cross ... Did you see who it is?”
Kattabi answered without lowering his binoculars. “Yeah, he’s hard to miss.”
“So what should we do?”
The words seemed to hang there as Kattabi considered his options. One solution was to ignore Stohl, attack, and let the chips fall where they may.
But what if their positions were reversed? What if it were
he
on the cross? Or an officer that he liked and respected? What then?
And what about the troops? How would they view Stohl’s death? As an understandable sacrifice? Or the act of a commander so ruthless he couldn’t be trusted?
Surely some of them felt sympathy for the muties, would
be
muties if given the chance, and might turn on him.
There was movement in front of DeVane’s quad. Nothing much, but strange nonetheless. Kattabi raised a hand. “Hold ... what’s going on out there? Do we have an observer that far forward?”
Kirby got ready to say no, looked through her glasses, and saw riders emerge from a gully. There were two of them, both humans. One led the other. Major Booly and Connie Chrobuck! The older woman turned, met Kirby’s gaze, and smiled. The salute was parade-ground perfect. Her husband, face toward the enemy, sat straight and tall.
De Vane spotted the interlopers, swung his Gatling gun in their direction, and prepared to fire.
Kattabi saw the movement and yelled into his mike. “What the hell are they doing? Get them out of there!”
Kirby shook her head sadly. “Too late for that, sir. DeVane has a lock.”
Kattabi knew his XO was correct, swore as Chrobuck drew the long-barreled pistol, and knew what she would do. They had been officers themselves, understood his dilemma, and were determined to help.
Chrobuck took one last look at her husband, at the towers of Algeron, and the planet she called home. There was time to inhale the cold, clean air, marvel at what life had given, and say good-bye to her son.
The pistol shots were flat and dull. Stohl jerked under the impact, fell forward, and hung from his wrists. The battle had started.
The Gatling gun opened fire. A hail of metal tore the riders and their mounts to bloody shreds. Cheered by DeVane’s victory, and encouraged by their noncoms, the mutineers continued to advance.
A lump formed in Kattabi’s throat. He turned to Kirby.
“Kill the bastards. Kill every damned one of them.”
Kirby nodded, gave the necessary orders, and watched her armor move out onto the killing ground. Static roared as both sides initiated electronic countermeasures, energy cannons burped coherent light, and missiles flashed from launcher to target.
A quad exploded, a Trooper II somersaulted through the air, and one of the personnel carriers veered into a ravine. Legionnaires piled out, found some cover, and set their mortars.
The fight was far from one-sided, however, as DeVane led his troops forward, killed a Trooper III, and massacred its analogs. Artillery, firing from within the fort, dropped a curtain of steel behind the loyalist forces.
Kattabi watched the bloodshed and knew the terrible truth: No matter who won the battle... the Legion would lose.
It was warm within the cyborg’s metal belly,
very
warm, and Acosta wiped the sweat off her brow. DeVane had cut the air-conditioning half an hour before. The heat had slowed her work and forced the legionnaire to rest.
She braced herself against the cyborg’s movement and watched the monitors above her head. Naa Town passed to either side, and riders appeared ahead. One of them fired a pistol. Both ceased to exist as the Gatling gun growled and the hull shook.
The brutality of the action was like a bucket of cold water. The technician came off the bench, grabbed the power drill, and resumed her work.
The motor produced a high-speed whine as the bit chewed its way down through quarter-inch steel plate. The metal was thin compared to the external armor, but thick enough for her.
Acosta struggled to keep her balance as silver shavings curled up and away from the fourth hole. The bit surged as it broke through into the space beyond. Fifty-caliber slugs hammered the hull and made it ring.
The battle was under way, the technician
knew
that, but she couldn’t take the time to look. She was close,
extremely
close, and seconds were critical.
Acosta released the drill, fumbled for the saw, and got a grip on the handle. “All I gotta do is connect the dots,” she thought to DeVane, “and
your
ass is mine.”
The saw screamed as the blade ate through metal. It was sharp, and the cut went quickly. The technician hit hole number two, turned the comer, and went for three. She bit her lip. Would DeVane notice? And what would happen if he did? There was no way to tell.
The blade entered hole number three and turned toward four. That’s when the saw nicked the protective mesh that protected the cyborg’s brain, an alarm went off, and DeVane took notice. He fired on a missile battery and spoke through internal speakers at the same time.
“Okay, Acosta. You win. Drop the ramp and go.”
The legionnaire laughed as she lifted the newly created panel out of its hole. She could see the brain box through a layer of metal lace. “Sure, you’d like that. How far would I get? Thirty feet? Dream on, asshole.”
“No,” DeVane insisted. “Go—I promise not to hurt you.”
Acosta glanced at the monitors and heard a piece of shrapnel clang as it hit the hull. She wouldn’t get very far even he
did
honor his promise. The technician felt for the drill and found it.
“Tell you what, shit-for-brains....
If
you hold your fire, and
if
your friends do likewise, I’ll cut you some slack. Keep on fighting, and I’m gonna sink a drill bit into what’s left of your brain. You have ten seconds to decide. Nine... eight ... seven ...”
“Okay!” the cyborg exclaimed. “You win. I’ll issue the order.”
Many of the mutineers were happy to quit, figuring any punishment they pulled would be better than life under DeVane, but some were less cooperative. They took some convincing. The news that the Navy ships were not only loyal to the Confederacy, but prepared to attack from orbit, settled any remaining doubts.
It was only then,
after
the cyborg had lowered his ramp, that Acosta remembered how cold it was, and remembered her pants. They were dry by that time—and the smell didn’t matter at all.
10
To win without risk is to triumph without glory.
Pierre Corneille
The Cid
Standard year circa 1636
Planet Earth, Independent World Government
Colonel Leon Harco was tired,
very
tired, but unable to sleep. That’s why he rolled off the rumpled cot, ran water into the storeroom’s deep sink, and took a sponge bath. Then, wearing a fresh new uniform, he emerged to prowl the floor.
More than two weeks had passed since the revolt. The Global Operations Center hummed to the never-ending flow of reports, requests, and orders. People nodded or in some cases saluted, but kept their distance. They knew his moods.
Harco paused to consider the gigantic globe. The holo seemed to shimmer as it turned. A less conservative man might have been satisfied with the territory under his control: Most of North America, Europe, and Asia were red.
But all Harco saw were islands of blue, chunks of territory still identified by ancient names like Mongolia, Ethiopia, and a large part of Brazil. These were the places where resistance had grown and taken root. Partly because of the terrain, and partly because of the people, many of whom still knew how to survive beyond the limits of their cities.
Some of the so-called freedom fighters were civilians, like those in Asia, distant descendants of the Khan’s mighty hordes. Others were soldiers, like the 6th Marine Brigade stationed near Teresina, Brazil, or the 13th DBLE in Djibouti, East Africa.
Governor Pardo refused to take them seriously and liked to emphasize how isolated they were. Harco perceived things differently. He saw each blotch of blue as a proclamation of weakness, a magnet to which resources would inevitably be drawn, a cancer that threatened the entire organism.
That being the case, the officer continued to plead for the resources required to finish the job but found himself in line behind the politicians w
ho wanted troops for their municipalities, corporate executives bent on financial conquest, and his own voracious chain of command.
Some top-notch officers had aligned themselves with the revolt, but a disturbing number remained loyal to the former government. That forced him to take trash like Matthew Pardo.
The very thought of the manner in which his executive officer had murdered the cadet made his blood boil. How could they succeed and build trust so long as such acts of barbarism were tolerated?
There was nothing he could do about it so long as Governor Pardo supported her son and the cabal supported her. Much though the soldier hated to admit it, he had underestimated the politicians and been used by them.
Harco still had a considerable amount of power, however, especially in light of the fact that the Legion was loyal to
him
, or more accurately to
itself
, just as its motto said.
“Colonel Harco?” The voice was female. He turned.
“Yes?”
The corporal looked smart in her perfectly pressed khaki uniform. “The African operation, sir. You wished to observe.”
Harco nodded. “Thank you, Corporal. Lead the way.”
The legionnaire wound her way across the floor, and the officer followed. Though unable to marshal the resources necessary to wipe Fort Mosby off the face of the planet, Harco had authorized a force-three raid. If successful, the attack would test the loyalist defenses, keep the bastards off balance, and discourage those who wanted to join. And who knew? A success might attract more resources.