Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (21 page)

“What's happening?” Apache John asked as he opened the front door and came in. “What'd I miss, white man?” he asked Chancey.

“White man!” Chancey laughed even harder and wiped his eyes. “Nothin', Geronimo. You didn't miss nothin'.”

I slumped into a chair at the table, trying to decide if I was more hungry, more sleepy or more embarrassed.

Sunny the cook had kept the five sous chef units and the boxes of ingredients inside a vehicle. Fortunately it was one of the two our people had escaped in. He brought Sophia and me plates of vegetables, meat, and mashed sweet potatoes with butter. “Hope this is enough,” he told me suspiciously.

“Plenty,” I said as I thought of the pancakes. “Looks great. Thanks, Sun. But, you know, Huff's hungry too.”

Huff looked up from where he lay by my side.

“Already in the pot, so to speak.” Sunny patted Huff's head. “Big chunk o' lard with eyeballs?”

Huff licked his lips. “Lots of eyeballs. Please.”

“Lots o' eyeballs.” Sunny chuckled as he walked back to the humming chef unit.

Sarge pulled up a chair and eased into it.

“Where'd all those come from?” I nodded toward stacks of rolled sleeping bags that lined one wall.

“Some of the boys drove to Wydemont after we got here,” Sarge said. “They hit the same store you did for the rifles. Poor bastard. Hope the owner's insured.” He pulled on his mustache and frowned thoughtfully. “So how do you figure they located us back at the camp?”

The men stopped talking and turned to listen.

I put down the fork. “When we were in the gun store, I went to the credcount to pay for the rifles. Ned and Adam must've used a comlink in the back to get in touch with Mack, or the mine.”

Sarge nodded. “That's what I figure, too. And then they told their contact they were headed for the mine to arm the slaves.”

I nodded. Suddenly, I wasn't very hungry.

Sarge leaned on his elbows. “Mack must've been watching when Attila killed the brothers. I figure he contacted the guards and the bunch o' them followed you and Attila back to camp.”

“How many men did we lose?” I asked quietly.

Sophia put a hand on my arm.

Sarge held up three fingers. “We lost a few more tags who just plain deserted.”

I looked around. “How many people are we down to?”

“Eleven warriors plus me, and your team of six.”

“I'm sorry,” I said into the silence and lowered my head.

Sarge tapped the table. “We all knew what we were getting into when we signed up. Nobody's blaming you.”

“But…we're back to square one,” I said.

“No.” Sarge stroked his mustache. “The guards and Mack lost a lot more people than we did. Killed. Wounded. Deserted.”

Joe and Chancey came and sat at the table. I picked at my food. Sunny brought Huff a plate of lard with eyeballs sticking out and placed it on the floor in front of him. Huff sat up, licked Sunny's hand, and began to eat. Sunny grimaced and wiped his hand on his apron.

“So what's the next move, Sarge?” I asked.

He studied the table, drawing on it with a finger. “We tried it my way. Now we'll try it your way.”

I stopped chewing and glanced at Joe. “You mean, we arm the slaves?” I asked Sarge. “Open rebellion?”

He smirked. “Have you got a better idea?”

I chewed again and smiled. “No.”

Sophia squeezed my arm.

Sarge wanted to talk and plan after we ate. But I was so tired. I stood up for a trip to the bathroom and swayed. “Why don't you talk to Joe,” I told Sarge. “He's the strategist on our team.” I staggered to what I thought was the bathroom door, opened it and went inside.

“Jules!” I heard Joe call.

“What?” I closed the door, turned, and walked into a wall. It was the closet.

Bat opened the door, chuckling, and took my arm. “This way, Bubba.” He led me to the bathroom.

When I came out, Bat had a sleeping bag unrolled on the floor. I lay down on it and sighed. “Thanks.”

“Any time.” He lifted my head and stuck an air pillow under it, then pulled off my boots.

I was half asleep when he unzipped my pants. “Get away from me, Sarge!” I mumbled and pushed at his hands.

“It's Bat.” He pulled off my pants and covered me with the bedroll. “Sleep tight, ya hear, Superstar.”

“OK.”

I felt Sophia lie down and cuddle against me. I lifted the bedroll, drew her closer, and covered her. Huff dropped down behind my back.

“Ah,” I heard Chancey say, “nice family portrait. The mommy, the daddy, and the…”

I was asleep before he finished, but I think he said “fur ball.”

I dreamed a crocodile emerged from a lake and grabbed my foot. “This time, I will whip you to death!” it said and opened its mouth. Sophia crouched behind a row of long teeth like white bars, calling to me. The croc sank into the lake. I followed, but a tower rose above my head. The croc laughed from the top of it. Sophia slid out of its mouth and fell. I tried to catch her but –
Ginny!
I cried in my sleep.

I awoke with a start. It was night. Sophia lay asleep beside me. Huff's deep breathing told me he was also asleep. Some of the men were snoring.

Be careful what you wish for,
I thought and laid my head back down. Hopefully, we would finally free all the slaves. I drew Sophia closer. But at what cost?

“We take no prisoners.” Big Sarge studied his warriors and my team by firelight as we gathered around his lead vehicle at midnight in our camp.

I lowered my head as I thought of Azut, the brash, young Altairian guard I had befriended. All he wanted was to return to his homeworld at the end of his tour of duty. Would he get the chance? I doubted it.

“Something tells me you've got a problem with taking no prisoners, Jules.” Sarge folded his arms.

I looked at the grim faces of men about to go into battle. “What if they surrender?”

“You tell
me
what?” Sarge asked with an edge to his tone. “You want them to live to fight another day? Or do we close down the goddamn mine once and for all!” He slammed the tailgate. “We're fighting the legal guards of a legal conglom. There
are
no POW camps in this war.”

“But this…killing them all,” I said. “It's even more brutal than what they do to the slaves.”

“You wanted a friendly war?” Sarge shifted position. “You should've taken up football.”

I glanced at Joe, standing beside me. Sophia was on my other side. “The end justifies the means, Joe?”

He scratched his stubbly beard. “In this situation, kid, I have to agree with Sarge. If we want it to end here and now, we don't have a choice.”

“Babe.” Sophia took my arm. “Why not just stay out of it?”

“I can't do that, Soph.” I didn't want to worry her, but I intended to go after Boss Slade, through his bodyguards, if need be, and kill the motherless piece of slime any way I could. “I'm committed too.”

Sarge leaned forward. “Can I brief my soldiers now, bossman?”

I nodded.

“Thank you.” He lifted off the tailgate and strode around the fire. “We've studied their pattern of security patrols at the perimeter of the compound. Jules and Chancey will instruct the slaves to wait for daybreak before they come out of their hovels firing, at our signal, a beetle that will explode in midair after sunrise. Once they're out, we begin our attack from an encirclement.” He pulled on his mustache and glanced around. “Remember, you fire into enemy positions and see if anyone returns fire before you waste your batteries.”

“Sarge,” Attila called, “why not a night offensive?”

Sarge paused and kicked a rock. “Too risky with untrained slaves. We don't want them shooting each other, or God forbid, shooting us, if we have to leapfrog in to support them. You get hot beams flashing around at night, the slaves might panic and run. During a day attack, we'll have the cover of trees, overlooking the guards' hideouts, and the slaves can see what the hell they're shooting at.”

“Leapfrog?” I asked.

“One team holds down the enemy with fire,” Sarge explained. “The next one rushes forward and takes cover. As usual, men, we move fast, and we don't stay in one place for more than a few minutes.” He studied the faces of his fourteen soldiers, there in the flickering red light. “The entire compound is a kill zone, including Boss Slade's tower. You got that, bossman?” he threw over his shoulder at me. “Our goal is to trap them and kill them.”

“I got it,” I said.

He leaned back against the tailgate. “Watch your asses if we have to go in. The explosive teams will have the perimeter mined. Nobody but us and the slaves leave that compound alive.” He reached back and picked up an air beetle from the trunk. “We've analyzed the mission, the enemy, the terrain. We've determined how to deploy our forces.” He turned over the beetle and checked to see that it was armed. “If the guards try to make a run for it in a motorized column, we break that column by attacking a key vehicle where the others can't pass.” He looked up. “That's it. Any questions?”

There was silence.

“If you drop your weapons, make sure you hit the ground first. Let's go.”

“What does he mean by that?” I asked Joe.

“Just that a weapon doesn't touch the ground unless you're dead or unconscious.”

“Oh. Dirt in the mechanism?”

“That's it, kid.”

I sat in the back of a vehicle as we bounced down the forest road toward the mine, squeezed between Joe and Sophia. Chancey and Bat were next to us. Huff and three soldiers sat in the open trunk with the weapons, while four more were squeezed in the front seat. Sophia had agreed to hang back from the action with Bat and Ty, to help our medics, should we have wounded. Joe would watch the action from a hillock and stay in communications with Sarge. Huff would help secure the road, with two warriors, should the guards make a break for it.

I thought of Big Sarge's words as I watched the high spotlights of the mine diffused as a sky glow above treetops.
We have one missile launcher left,
he'd said.
We lost our other two when the bastards attacked our camp.
A team will use it to knock out one of their laser cannons on the roof. If any of you manage to climb up there and secure the other one, or the one mounted on the stanchion, make good use of it.

If I could get to one of the lasers, I would turn it on Slade's office. Was he still there? I could only hope. I closed my eyes and smiled as I pictured chunks of croc meat raining down on the mine.

“What's so funny, man?” Chancey asked as I chuckled.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“I've seen that look,” Joe told Chancey, “he's dreaming up another wild scheme.”

But before any of this could happen, Chancey and I had to go into the mine and distribute rifles to the slaves.

The driver braked behind a boulder and we jumped out. The soldiers threw out the rifles, which were tied in bunches of five, with ropes to drag them, then ran to help encircle the compound.

“Uh oh,” I said as I peered around. The trees we intended to use for cover were all down. Logs littered the forest floor. “Looks like Slade's guards left us stumps.”

“So?” Sarge said. “You want egg in your beer? We'll use the stumps and the logs for cover.”

I turned to Sophia and embraced her. “Be careful, Soph.”

She nodded. “You too, Babe.”

I kissed her forehead and watched her move away with Bat and Ty. She looked back once. I raised a hand. Then they were gone into the night.

Joe hugged me. “No use telling you to be careful, son. But. Be careful.”

“You too, Dad.”

He nodded, turned, and trotted up the hillock for a high vantage point.

“Huff.” He stood in the back, as usual, always too shy to impose himself on others. “Huff.” I went to him and hugged him. “You be careful, you big fur ball.”

“This fur ball will go carefully.” I caught the catch in his throat. “You are in my liver, Terran Jules friend. If we meet again after the killing, it will be a good thing.” He licked my cheek. “Go with the Blessings of the Ten Gods of Kresthaven.”

“You too, Huff, my loyal friend.”

"Jules! Chancey whispered.

“Coming.”

We dragged tied rifles that had been wrapped in broad leaves to protect the mechanisms as close as we dared to the fence, and stacked them in good cover between two boulders, then waited for the next patrol to pass, and went back for more. We had about a hundred rifles, and there were about three hundred slaves. They would have to retrieve the weapons of fallen guards, Mack's men, if they were in on this, and their own comrades.

We were overlooking the hole under the electrified fence where I'd gone in to rescue Bat. I laid down and studied the upturned dirt through graphoculars set for night-vis. “That's not the way I left it,” I whispered to Sarge and Chancey. “The crotes filled it in! Could be a land mine under all that fresh dirt.” I lowered the graphoculars. “He's not working the slaves tonight. I figure Slade's waiting for us.”

“I figure that too,” Sarge said.

Slade's high tower window was lit. I saw shadows moving behind it. More than one. I trained the graphoculars on the tower's lit roof. “That piece of slimeshit,” I said. Under the glare of spotlights, I saw slaves tied to the ramparts. Armed guards walked the roof. Boss Slade had his protection in place. Guards patrolled the compound and the outside perimeter, but the rest of the slaves were in their hovels.

We knew that Adam and Ned had told Mack and Boss Slade about the stolen rifles and my plan to arm the slaves, when they made that secret call from inside the outfitter's store.

“What we gotta figure,” Chancey said, “is how the fuck we're gonna get in.”

I watched three Altairians, a foot patrol, stride along the outer perimeter of the fence. “Suppose,” I said, “we ask them to shut off the electricity from the outside control box, and then we beam a hole in the fence?” I pointed to three storage sheds inside the fence and looked from Chancey to Sarge's surprised faces. “If the fence is dead, it won't set off alarms. And the sheds are good cover, once we're inside. What say?”

Sarge nodded. “Sure!”

I crawled closer to the fence, to be nearer the next patrol, lowered my shields, and began to spin a red coil of tel. It would have to be powerful to affect three minds and direct them to do my bidding. I would have to work them like puppets on strings.

A small furry mammalian-type forest creature got caught in my expanding tel net and hopped closer. His simple response invaded my concentration. I tried to block him out, but he approached and clawed my wrist. Damn! I unholstered my stingler, spun the ring to the widest setting, stun, and zapped him, hoping it wouldn't kill his small body.

He froze, and rolled to his back. His little paws twitched in the air, then curled as his mind relaxed into an unconscious state. A catlike animal, also drawn by my tel, definitely a predator, this one, padded out from between logs and approached the tiny creature, sniffing. I picked up his small sleeping body, stuffed it into my inner vest pocket, and flipped a rock at the predator. He turned and loped back into the woods.

The next patrol was approaching. Too late. I let them walk by.

“Jules!” Sarge whispered from behind after they passed. “What the hell's happening?”

He wouldn't believe me if I told him. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing. The next patrol.”

I conjured the red coil again, and spun it behind my eyes. I forced it to grow into a diminutive tornado, tight as a fist, and ready to strike. I imaged it spinning faster, growing as it gained power from my life energy. There was a headache awaiting me, I knew, but that was the price of influencing autonomous thinking minds.

I closed my eyes as three Altairian guards silently approached. Their demeanor was grim as they studied the surroundings for hidden enemies. I imbued the red coil with all the force I had, and felt it expand until it seemed to fill my skull with its hot churning spin.

And then I threw it.
Boss Slade orders you to go to the control box and shut off the fence electricity. Shut it off! Do it now!
I felt like a vis tel-marketer.

They stopped as though they'd hit a wall. But one drew his weapon, crouched, and looked around. I felt him push back against my command. Damn! He was a sensitive. If I set my weapon for stun, they would all fall.

A blue flash over my head. The sensitive jerked and fell silently. Smoke rose from his shattered skull. Either Chancey or Sarge had shot him. I felt his kwaii leap from his body and seek a hold in the void between lifebinds. I concentrated on directing the other two guards to the control box and fought him off as he tried to breach my defenses and take hold.
Seek out great Mind!
I sent.
Spirit. Get him off me.

But Spirit must've been busy with the evolution of Halcyon. The other two guards were staggering and holding their heads as my abortive send sent their thoughts reeling. One tripped and fell backwards. He slammed into the fence and screamed as electricity surged through his body. He fell to his back, arms outstretched, his clothes smoking.

Oh, no,
I thought as his kwaii joined his companion in a frenzied attempt to find some safe anchor in the endless black sea of space. I threw up my shields and felt their kwaiis lurch against them.

The third guard staggered back, his snout open as he stared at his two dead companions. Then he turned and fled, his tail bouncing.

I jumped up and held my vest pocket closed as the small creature stirred, and went after the guard, but Chancey ran between us. “Don't kill him!” I called as Chancey fired. The guard threw up his arms and went down. A hole smoldered between his shoulder blades.

“Sarge! Get those bodies,” I called back, afraid that the next patrol would soon approach.

“Help me, Chancey.” I grabbed the guard's arm, and dragged him toward a control box near the fence.

“What're we doing?” Chancey took the guard's other arm and we pulled him along.

“Get his thumbprint on the control box sensor,” I said. “We can still shut down the fence.”

I heard the next patrol talking to each other as we reached the control box, lifted the guard's hand, and pressed his thumb to the sensor. The small door snapped open. Chancey yanked down the red handle marked ON/OFF. I shut the door and we dragged the guard behind a log by his tail and fell there ourselves. Leaves and dust wafted up.

“Did you hear something? Gluthe?” One of the two guards stopped.

I peeked over the log and saw Gluthe look around and draw his weapon. “I see nothing, Wervil.”

“Something moved behind that log, Gluthe. I heard the leaves.”

Dammit! If they saw us and radioed back to their headquarters, we'd all have to run for our lives.

The small animal in my vest pocket tried to scramble out. I lifted him, set him on his feet, and gave him a tap on his hindquarters.

Chancey's jaw dropped as the creature scurried away.

Gluthe laughed. “Now ye be frightening over tiny chippers, ye dumb prit.”

Wervil laughed too and holstered his weapon. The two continued on.

I wondered how often the patrols reported in through comlinks as I watched Chancey cut a horizontal hole at the bottom of the fence, where it wouldn't be easily seen. How long before the dead guards would be missed?

Sarge trotted up dragging four batches of rifles by the ropes. I rolled through the torn fence, grabbed the ropes and pulled in the rifles. I barely dragged them behind the sheds and dropped there myself when another patrol came by. I tried to quiet my breathing. The compound was obviously on full alert.