Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series (13 page)

“I’m aware of who your CO is,” Glenn said. “I should have been more specific. My client’s donation is specifically tagged to Intelligence and Reconnaissance Company, RaoForce Headquarters.”

“What the hell … sorry, who the hell is your client?”

“As I said before, the client wishes to remain anonymous.”

“A million … what the blazes would I&R do with a million credits? Perhaps your client doesn’t know Infantry and Reconnaissance has only one hundred thirty-four men and women.”

“My client is familiar with your personnel roster.”

“Uh, Counselor, what is this money to be used for?”

“My client said it was to go to, and I quote directly, ‘the betterment of the men and women of the I&R unit to perform their duties and living conditions, in any way the commander of that unit deems appropriate’ end quote.”

“You mean, I could build a brand-new barracks for the company with the money, if
Mil
Rao approves?”

“You could.”

“Or I could divvy it out to my troops, which’d give each of them, what, eight grand, let them blow it on whoopee, and your client wouldn’t give a damn?”

“My client might think that was somewhat unusual, but no, there would be no objections.”

“This is real irregular,” Garvin said.

Glenn nodded. “Exactly my comment when my client proposed the matter.”

“Obviously,” Garvin said, “I can’t make any comment about this right now, certainly not until I talk to my superiors.”

“That was anticipated,” the lawyer said.

“I’ll call you back after I do,” Garvin said.

“I’ll be expecting your call.”

“Wait!” Garvin said. “Is one of your firm’s clients Mellusin Mining, by any chance?”

A rather wintry smile touched the lawyer’s lips.

“We have represented that conglomerate in certain matters. Good day,
Alt
Jaansma.”

The screen blanked.

“Well toss me in the shitter and call me a chocolate bar,” Garvin muttered, as the door banged open, and Njangu wheezed in, wearing running shoes, shorts, and a sweaty undershirt, and slumped into a chair.

“Phys conditioning’s nothing more than stobor poop. Set an example my left testicle! Give me a nice lazy fellow who lets the other clown bust his ass running and jumping, then backshoots him while he’s puking! Glad to get in here out of sight, where the troops can’t see my lungs bleed out my nose.”

“Brace yourself,” Garvin said. “I’ve got a
real
surprise.”

Two hours later, Garvin’s shock wasn’t any less. After consultation with
Mil
Rao and the Force’s judge advocates, the grant was deemed perfectly legitimate.

“So what are we gonna do with Jasith’s money?” Garvin asked plaintively.

Njangu shrugged.

“Throw one
big
motherin’ party,” he suggested. “Better question: What are
you
going to do about Jasith, since it looks like she’s maybe trying to say she’s sorry the only way she knows how?”

• • •

The sea was phosphorescent, small waves of pure light hissing up the beach. Two Musth walked just at the water’s edge, talking quietly.

Camp Mahan glowed dimly in the center of the bay to their right, Leggett’s boardwalk to the left, and Shelburne pushed a gleaming finger into the ocean ahead.

Behind the Musth darkness moved, became four men, moving quickly if unsteadily. One slipped, went flat in the sand, and swore.

The Musth turned, saw the intruders.

“Who isss your busssiness?” one demanded.

A raucous laugh came, and a hurled bottle thudded into one Musth’s side. Her head darted, ears cocked, eyes reddening in anger.

“Leave usss,” her companion ordered, “or be killed.”

Another one of the four laughed.

“Yer bluffin’, not carryin’ yer weapons belts. We been watchin’, waitin’ to take our chance.”

“Get in wi’ em, Sayid,” a man shouted, and one man sprang forward, a belt knife in his hand.

The female Musth went to the side, her claws out, and she slashed, ripping Sayid’s shoulder open. He screeched, stumbled, and fell, rolling. The other Musth kicked at him, missed, and he came back to his feet.

Two men were on the female, one swinging a club, the other looking for an opening with a broken bottle.

The phosphorescence came alive, and a monster, wearing only swimming trunks, came out of the ocean, growling, and, moving very fast, was on the threesome.

The man with the bottle screamed as his arm snapped, then his breath died as a massive fist smashed ribs like twigs. The one with the club didn’t have his club anymore, and the end of it went into his face. He clawed at it, fell.

The fourth man pulled a small pistol from his waistband, aimed, and the monster Ben Dill spun inside his reach, pulled his gun arm hard, yanking it out of its socket, then head-butted the gunman in the face.

Sayid still stood there, knife ready, waving it back and forth.

“Don’t get any closer, or — ”

Dill didn’t waste energy talking, but snapkicked up. His hoof caught Sayid just short of the elbow, and the knife was gone. Sayid turned, trying to run, but Dill’s huge hand had him by the hair, jerked him backward across his knee, and Sayid’s spine snapped.

The man who’d had a club and a face was on his knees, whining, as four men and women in civilian clothes ran up. All four of them had pistols.

“Stop!” one shouted. “Confederation Military!”

“Confederation goddamned late!” Dill roared back. “Ben’s playtime now!”

He kicked the man on his knees in the chest, knocking him flat, then deliberately high-stepped forward, foot turning, and stamp-kicked down, into the man’s throat, crushing his hyoid.

Dill turned, saw the four holding guns on him, sneered.

“Little late, like I said.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stef Bassas, I&R, RaoForce demanded, recognizing the hulking officer.

“Going for a swim before a nice off-duty dinner, not that it’s any of your business,” Dill growled. “And aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Sorry,” Bassas said, “sir.”

“Better,” Dill said, recognized another of the I&R team. “Mahim, isn’t it?”

“Yessir,” the woman said, putting her pistol away.

“What’s the excuse?”

“Half a dozen left their consulate at the same time,” the woman said. “We picked the wrong ones to fly cover on, not figuring anybody’d try to drygulch someone around the Shelburne. Obviously, we were wrong.”

“You’re a medic, aren’t you?”

“Yessir.”

“You interested in tending to any of these casualties?”

“Don’t know, sir,” Mahim said. “Are any of them still alive?”

Dill looked around. “He’s gone … he’s gone … he’s a lunger and probably gone, but you could mess with him if you wanted … the guy I head-butted’ll probably be okay, even if his mommy won’t recognize him.”

“Not really that interested, sir, thanks for the offer.”

“Tell you what,” Dill went on. “You people go on about your business … which I assume is protecting Musth … and I won’t snitch you off for being a little on the laggard side, ‘kay?”

“What about them?” Bassas asked, pointing a thumb at the two Musth.

“You let me worry about my friends,” Dill said. “And next time, do a better job of bodyguarding, or I’ll do something about it after I get through personally wringing your necks.”

“Yessir,” Bassas said, and the four faded into the night.

“Sorry for what happened,” Ben Dill said. “This is generally a pretty safe place to be.”

“You came in,” one Musth said. “Helping usss.”

“Good eyes,” Dill said. “Yeh. So what?”

“I do not know we would do that for you.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to.”

“And, if I heard your wordsss correct, thossse othersss are sssoldiers, too, and asssigned to protect us? Without our knowing about it? Without telling our warrior leadersss?”

“That’s an interesting guess,” Dill said.

“We are in your debt.”

“ ‘At’s right,” Dill said cheerfully.

“How may we charge that debt?”

“You mean discharge, I hope.”

“Repay isss the word I sssought.”

“You have any Confederation money?”

One Musth fished in a belt pouch.

“We have been given sssome.”

“It better be enough to buy me a drink. C’mon, you two. Let’s go slumming.”

The Musth looked at each other in what might have been puzzlement, then followed the enormous human toward the beckoning hotel.

• • •

“Gentlemen,”
Mil
Rao said. “Have a seat.”

“This is Dr. Froude,” Hedley said.

“Doctor,” Rao said, “I’m sorry I haven’t taken the opportunity to meet you, but things’ve been very hectic.”

“On my front as well,” the mathematician said.

“I assume this has something to do with the navigation cylinder that was found?”

“Unfortunately not, sir,” Hedley said. “That matter’s proceeding apace. This is something else, and something a lot worse.”

Rao’s congeniality vanished.

“Go ahead.”

“Dr. Froude told me, just after he volunteered to help us with the charts Ho Kang acquired, he wished the Force would use science more than we do, that we should analyze things more systematically. Something came up, and I decided to take advantage of his offer.”

Hedley was watching his language around his CO with a civilian witness.

“I happened to notice something, going over an I&R training-mission report I thought was a bit strange. I checked other reports back as far as the initial Musth arrival. Most of them reported the same thing as the first one: when I&R teams went out, at some point they saw a Musth
aksai
nearby.

“No interference or contact was made with our soldiers at any time by the Musth, incidentally.

“However,” Hedley said, face most grim, “two things became apparent: These
aksai
only materialized after the unit had operated its com.

“Dr. Froude, what is the probability of those appearances being purely by chance?” Rao asked.

“So close to zero the difference is immaterial.”

“The Musth have broken our standard code,” Rao said. “That is just the sort of intel I needed before midday meal.”

“Worse, sir,” Hedley said. “I ordered I&R to use other codes, which they did. And for two weeks, the Musth still showed up, just like clockwork mice. Then they stopped coming at all. Obviously they’ve got somebody on their intelligence staff who got worried we might be on to them, and changed the rules.”

“How many of our codes are they reading?”

“Most of the normal low-level ones,” Hedley said. “Plus our emergency code …
and
the code used between this headquarters and PlanGov for emergencies.”

“This is not good,” Rao said. “Not good at all. I wonder how long they’ve been reading our mail?”

“Since the rebellion, at least, sir,” Hedley said. “I’ve taken a hard look at some of their miraculous appearances, which get a lot less miraculous with what we have now.”

“All right,” Rao said. “So we’ve got to change the codes from top to bottom.”

“Yes and no,” Hedley said. “Doctor Froude presented an option, and I think we ought to consider it.”

• • •

The man who used the name Ab Yohns sat in a nondescript lifter down the street from the Musth embassy in Leggett. He could just as easily have surveilled the waterfront building with a planted camera from his comfortable house in the mountain villa of Tungi, outside Leggett, to do his thinking. His campaign was still nowhere near action phase.

But he found it helped if he could see the enemy, or at any rate have some reminder of who they were.

He considered the possibilities he’d uncovered, and of Protector Redruth’s orders.

He frankly thought Redruth, if not mad, to be deluded and certainly egomaniacal, even though he’d never met the man. So the Musth had spoiled Redruth’s plans for the moment. So? There were other moments.

And as for his latest orders … the operator thought that would more likely worsen the situation, possibly irretrievably, rather than improve it for Redruth.

But that was none of Yohns’ concerns. He prided himself that he always carried out an assignment, assuming it wasn’t suicidal and the credits were good.

He’d done many well-paying jobs for Redruth, from the Confederation to this Cumbre system, and thought it somewhat amusing he’d never had a face-to-face with the man who’d made him fairly rich.

So he’d continue to serve, as long as the credits flowed, and the danger wasn’t suicidal.

If the worst case did happen, as had so nearly occurred when he’d nearly been caught making his last transmission, Yohns had a small yacht in a hidden bunker deep in the jungle, and Redruth would send a ship to pick him up once he exited the Cumbre system.

So if what Redruth had ordered ruined Cumbre … Yohns mentally shrugged, without ever moving. The only sign of life the napping rustic showed was the flicker of his eyes, watching the consulate in the lifter’s rearview scope.

The problem was, he decided, there wasn’t a target he could reach yet that was big enough to fulfill Redruth’s needs.

But there would be, he knew.

• • •

“Sir,” the technician reported, “one of our remote sensors on M-Cumbre reports ships in-system.”

“What’s the ID?” Rao asked.

“Musth, sir. They match the profile of the mother ships they came back in. Except that one is big. Really big.”

“Do you have an orbital prediction?”

“Affirm, sir. Destination is suggested to be E-Cumbre.”

The Musth headquarter world.

“Continue observation,” Rao ordered, and touched the red sensor.

Alarms shrilled across D-Cumbre, and the Force scrambled to full alert.

CHAPTER
7

The Musth ship was monstrous, dwarfing its escorts. It looked like an archaic artillery shell, with flying buttress-like “wings” tipped with smaller, manned “bullets” supporting, along with antigravity, the ship’s bulk. The Musth called it a
striking-point-commander;
humans might’ve typed it a command flagship. Since the Musth were never sentimental about machinery, it had only a number, not a name. It was Clanmaster Paumoto’s mobile headquarters.

It sat on one of the great landing fields of E-Cumbre, which the Musth called Silitric.

Silitric was E-normal, if a bit chilly for human comfort, with small oceans dotting the rolling tundra and low mountains. Virgin forest covered the heights. The Musth had only built three bases close to the mountains, half-underground, and only half-occupied at the busiest of times. Thus far, few Musth had found their interests leading them toward Cumbre.

In one of the ship’s conference places, Clanmaster Paumoto listened to Aesc and Wlencing. When they finished, he rose from his tail-brace and went to a view-screen, looking out at the subarctic landscape without seeing it, head darting back and forth as he thought.

Finally, he said, “I thank you for sharing this with me, even though I have no immediate interest in your actions.”

“Would you care to give us your opinions?” Aesc answered.

“Perhaps,” Paumoto said. “It might be of value if I make you aware of what is currently the thinking on our own worlds.

“Your actions in returning to Cumbre have been hailed by many. Keffa and his clique in particular are saying you are building the crossing to the inevitable future.

“Of course Senza and those of his ilk think you are bringing disaster on us, returning us to our barbaric past. You’ll probably be the cause of interstellar war between us and Man, and so on and so forth, and they want immediate withdrawal. None of which makes the slightest sense, but there are other Musth, motivated by their own concerns which follow different trails than yours, who agree with them.”

“Which side is growing stronger?” Aesc asked.

“I would hate to be held to an opinion,” Paumoto said. “But I would hazard a guess that there have been some of the 113 masters who favored your action who’ve retreated to the side of neutrality, and perhaps a few of the neutrals have decided to favor Senza’s course.”

“Then we are losing,” Wlencing said.

“Not necessarily,” Paumoto said. “But that is why I wished this conference to be on my ship, for I am assured it is completely sealed, and, while I’m confident you two share my views, I’m not so confident about other Musth, who might well be a link to Senza and his faction.”

“We are very interested in any help you might offer,” Aesc said.

“If something were to happen, some sort of incident,” Paumoto said carefully. “Something that shows the true depths of Man, something that would horrify our race to its base — ”

He broke off. Both Aesc and Wlencing had their mouths open, hissing from the backs of their throat, indicating amusement.

His ears cocked for an instant, then he understood.

“Ah. I am bringing salt to the ocean?”

“We have had exactly that idea,” Aesc said. “And since the men are being most uncooperative, we are trying to increase the possibilities of such an event.”

“We have moved down among them, establishing what they call consulates, as you suggested some time ago,” Wlencing explained. “We deliberately emplaced these in parts of their cities where we know, from our studies of Man’s patterns before the uprising, crime is most likely to occur, and the lower classes congregate.”

“Very clever,” Paumoto said. “Something happening to an underling, while unpleasant for them, could be most helpful to the rest of us.”

“Just so,” Wlencing said. “Unfortunately, we face a rather clever foe. Our idea seems to have been found out, and their soldiers are providing unobtrusive security to our people.”

It was Paumoto’s turn to be amused.

“So the leaper dances back and forth with his enemy,” he said, referring to a popular board game, “and larger pieces are stymied, and the game is in impasse.”

“I’m not sure it is that knotted,” Wlencing said. “Hardly beyond resolution.”

“We are moving very carefully,” Aesc said. “We want to make sure that, whatever incident occurs, there is no chance of it being, let us say, misinterpreted by Senza and his milk-drinkers.”

“Good,” Paumoto said. “Again, I appreciate your subtlety, System-Leader Aesc.”

“We could remain here all the planetary day,” Wlencing said, “using nice words to each other, while nothing happens except the sun moves. I have a question, Clan Leader. You say you have no immediate interest in the Cumbre system, yet you have visited us, without notice.

“I am hardly a cub, to assume you have done this merely from your innate desire to assist us.”

Again, Paumoto showed amusement.

“Of course not,” he agreed. “There are several contributing factors to my decision to visit Cumbre. I had already planned a periodic visit to some of the worlds I am involved with, and the jumps to Cumbre were not all that difficult to make. Another reason is that I have found the extraction of minerals of interest from time to time, and the geological reports on the riches of Cumbre are interesting.

“But there is a more pressing reason. Like you, I despise the direction Senza wishes for the Musth to take. He is an utter fool, who doesn’t realize a race, like a being, is either growing or dying.

“Only in expansion, continued expansion, to the limits of the universe, can the Musth fulfill their destiny, not to mention achieving the greatest personal benefits and satisfactions.

“The Cumbre system is but a beginning. If we hold here, if we reduce Man to his proper role of a humble servitor, the way lies open for us to expand into the worlds Man formerly held. We can follow the Confederation’s steps, avoiding worlds or systems that were not beneficial to them, and be handed golden world after world as our reward.

“No, I am hardly a fool who believes helping others without self-interest is sane.”

“Then,” Aesc said, “I have a suggestion, Clan Leader, on how you might assist us.”

“Short of murdering one of our own minorlings with a man-gun, I would be delighted,” Paumoto said.

“This ship is impressive. Perhaps we should announce a receiving on Man’s world for you, a well-known member of our ‘government,’ ” Wlencing said, putting the last word in Standard.

“I do not speak the tongue of Man,” Paumoto said.

“A government consists of an agreement they make among themselves, or else something another one imposes by force of arms, for all to behave in a certain manner for a prolonged period of time, supposedly for each other’s mutual good. The ultimate example is what they call the Confederation.”

“An absurd conceit.”

“True. But this is the way they claim to think.”

“That is not thinking, but dreaming,” Paumoto said. “But I veer with the surprise of that thought. Of course we should do some sort of showing of our potential force. I do not see how that will accelerate the time of reckoning, but when it does come, as I agree it must, the memory of our strength will certainly make them quail, and a cautious foe is already half-defeated.”

• • •

“Mighty big ship up there,” Garvin drawled. “Intimidating and all.”

“You’re right, boss,” his first
tweg
said. “If somebody put, oh, eighty kilos of Blok, nicely shaped, right on the edge of that fin there, which’d most likely cut right through its structural integrity, and maybe dump a Shrike right in the middle of their antigravs, that ship’d make a mighty big splash when it went down.”

“If you two clowns can stop parading your testosterone,” Njangu said, “you’ve got to admit the bad guys have a pretty healthy mother over there.”

Everyone on Leggett — and across a good-sized piece of Dharma Island — had to agree. The Musth ship towered almost as high as the Heights the Rentiers lived on, and could be seen not only on Chance Island but across the bay to the far peninsula. Three of the mother ships flanked it, almost filling Leggett’s main port.

“The thing that gets me,” he continued, “is their
escorts
are bigger than anything we’ve got to play with.”

“If they’re trying to impress us,” Garvin reluctantly agreed, “they sure succeeded.”

“And you, boss, you lucky little
felmet,
” Njangu said, “will get to be really impressed, by the way. The Musth are having a reception aboard, and the old man decided I&R’ll be a nifty honor guard, white gloves, spit-shined heinies, and all.”

“Buddha’s illegitimate mother!” Lir swore. “We’re not a bunch of parade-ground fakers!”

“At least we can afford the white gloves,” Njangu snickered.

“What?” Monique puzzled. Garvin hadn’t told anyone in I&R besides Njangu about Jasith’s gift, and gave Yoshitaro a somewhat dirty look.

“Never mind,” Njangu said. “Rao wants us to wave the sabers around because he thinks he might need a bunch of thugs looking innocent within easy reach, like happened with Redruth. Just in case this grand party turns into a big nasty.”

“Oh,” Monique said, relaxing. “Not bad. Boss, shall I fall the troops out and start helping them remember their ceremonials?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Garvin said. “They’re really gonna love this one.”

• • •

“We’ve flipping got it,” Hedley said. Beside him, Ho, Froude, and Heiser beamed exhaustedly at Rao and Angara. “Every point checks between our charts and the Musth. We can … I already had one of the patrol ships try it … use their coordinates to jump around the system.”

“Congratulations,” Rao said. “Now, what do we do with it?”

“Why,” Froude said, a touch indignantly, “we’ll use that information to decipher other Musth charts, which will give us kilotons of data about their planets.”

“And where do we get said other charts?” Angara asked.

“Why, steal them,” Heiser said. “Just like Ho got the first one.”

“Which’ll be simple,” Rao said, “once we bell the tiger … or rather, find the tiger to bell.”

“That’s the simplest thing,” Froude said. “Just get inside that great bloat of a ship of theirs and grab half a dozen.”

“All you’ll need is a good thief,” Heiser said.

Rao looked at them, started laughing. Ho, a bit more familiar with life as it was lived, looked a bit embarrassed.

But Hedley was thoughtful.

“Not that bad an idea,” he mused. “And I think I know just the flippin’ thief we might want.”

• • •

“Yeep,” Njangu said. “You never ask me to volunteer for the easy ones.”

“Those aren’t any fun,” Hedley said.

“Neither is getting dead,” Njangu said. He considered the holograph of the Musth command ship on the desk between them. “This is a real stinker,” he went on. “I was a pretty good heist artist, back before the Confederation civilized me. But breaking into an alien ship, when I don’t know zip from zap … I think my insurance rates went up.”

“Let’s assume you could get inside that dinosaur of theirs, just for the sake of argument,” Hedley said. “Make your way to the control room — ”

“Which would be where?”

“I’d assume at the pointy end, to use technonaval jargon.”

“Probably,” Njangu said.

“So all you’d have to do is slide in,” Hedley said enthusiastically, “grab the flipping charts, and then slide back out.”

“And if I get caught?”

“Can’t allow that to happen,” Hedley said. “That’d be a real embarrassment for RaoForce and Cumbre.”

“Not to mention me, as those goddamned pussycats slice me raw for breakfast.”

“What’s life without a few risks? Besides, Njangu, can you think of anybody else in the system who
might …
just
might
… be able to pull it off?

“No,” Hedley continued, changing his mind midstream. “I was wrong. Cancel the whole idea. It’s just too flippin’ risky, and there’s zero chance of getting away with it.”

“I’m on to your ploy, boss,” Yoshitaro said. “Now I’m supposed to bristle and say hang on a goddamned second, I haven’t said I wouldn’t do it, and you’d reluctantly allow yourself to be talked into letting me suicide.”

“Very good,” Hedley said. “I think it’s about time to promote you to
alt.
You’re getting smarter the longer you hang around me.”

“Bastard,” Njangu said, turning away from the projection and looking out the window, across the bay, at the Musth ship and its escorts. “Sweet-talking me isn’t going to make it any more possible to get in that pig.

“But,” he said, after a few moments, “I do have an idea. It’s just not
your
idea.”

• • •

“I’m quite looking forward to tonight,” Loy Kouro said. “Dear, is my cummerbund straight? It feels twisted in the back.”

“You’re fine,” Jasith said, glancing at her husband’s reflection in the great mirror. “But I don’t see why you think this is going to be such a thrill. I’m expecting this Paumoto to announce the Musth are finally through fooling around, and are simply taking over. Otherwise, why that monstrosity of a ship?”

“Come on, Jasith. You’re being paranoid. You ought to know important people travel in important ways. This is just a way of showing us how significant Cumbre can be to the Musth.”

Jasith put down the tiny spray of blush, swiveled to face Loy.

“So what are
you
expecting to happen?”

“Not much,” Kouro said. “At least, not much tonight. I’ll bet Paumoto just wants to meet the high-level people of Cumbre and figure out those he might be able to make whatever business arrangements he wants to with.

“You and I do the same thing. Something like this’ll winnow out the chaff, as the cliché goes. I predict the Musth and ourselves, now that the Confederation appears to be out of the picture for a time, can form significant, profitable alliances.

“That’s what I believe, and that’s the position my leader writers are holding to.”

“Which’ll make sure it comes true,” Jasith murmured. “I hope you’re right, my love.”

Loy grinned, came over and kissed the top of her head, rubbed her shoulders.