Cluster Command: Crisis of Empire II (15 page)

“In any case, based on their agreement with Haiken Maru, the Cernian fleet will expect an unopposed landing. They’ll be wrong. With your help, I intend to throw a little surprise party in their honor. You’re all invited.”

There was laughter—some of it nervous—around the table.

Merikur’s eyes swept the room as the laughter died away. “First, however, we must gain complete control of this planet. If we try to fight rebels and an invasion force at the same time, we’ll lose. It’s as simple as that. So we must defeat the rebels, and do it in record time. We don’t know when the fleet will arrive, but it’s liable to be very soon indeed.”

Merikur smiled. “While wandering around out in the jungle, I had plenty of time to think. About jungle warfare, among other things. Military history is full of jungle campaigns and they all have things in common. They’re miserable, nasty, and long. Even if we wanted to fight one, we don’t have enough time.” He smiled tightly. “So I’ve devised an alternative. Like most plans, this one isn’t perfect and requires some luck, but I believe it’s our only chance of controlling Teller before the Cernian fleet arrives. Major Fouts will provide a unit briefing in two hours. Thanks for your attention.”

* * *

Merikur stood on a hilltop one day later and watched Operation Boomerang get underway. The focal point of the operation was an enormous supply convoy which was supposed to resupply fifteen Haiken Maru mining stations.

Merikur had put the convoy together with Treeling’s reluctant help. After all, the Haiken Maru manager knew the Cernian fleet was on the way and knew that afterwards, he’d be allowed to transport supplies wherever he wanted to.

Unless, of course, something happened to tip the scales the other way.

So, unwilling to commit himself to the Haiken Maru-Cernian alliance prior to the fleet’s arrival, Treeling was forced to go along. Merikur made the process as uncomfortable as possible.

Citing Treeling’s earlier demands for help, Merikur had his marines strip the Haiken Maru warehouses of all supplies and load them aboard the convoy. He also took almost all of the troops guarding Port City and assigned them to guard the convoy.

The convoy was an awesome sight as it rolled out of Port City’s main gates and headed into the jungle. As he swept his imager across the scene, Merikur counted fifty huge tractors, each pulling five or six cars full of supplies. Armored weapons carriers rolled along on both sides, loaded with marines armed to the teeth. Scout cars ranged ahead dashing here and there while armed arrears skimmed the tree tops. Hundreds of feet above them, a full wing of LCSs screamed across the sky, throwing delta-shaped shadows across the land below.

A huge cloud of dust had risen to hang over the scene. Merikur could hear the radios in his troop carrier crackling with traffic. He smiled. It was one of the most impressive and absurd sights he’d ever seen. But it was just the sort of approach the rebels would expect. Brawn instead of brains. And Merikur hoped to use their expectations against them.

Jomu certainly knew the convoy was coming. After all, it had been loaded right in front of all the rebel spies and informants. The orders assigning most of Port City’s troops to the convoy were posted on walls. Then, just to make sure the rebels had enough time to react, Merikur had given them the better part of a day to talk the whole thing over. It was the perfect opportunity for the rebels to take and secure Port City while Merikur’s forces were running all around the countryside.

There was no question in Merikur’s mind that Port City, if garrisoned by troops as good as Jomu’s rebel army, could hold against any possible marine counterattack. Then Merikur would play his hole card and hope for the best. If it worked, he’d have control of the planet. If it didn’t, he’d be dead.

“But,” he thought grimly, “so will they.”

###

Jomu handed his imager to Horsehide and said, “See for yourself. The idiots have stripped the city of marines.”

Horsehide was tall and lean. He had bright brown eyes, high, flat cheekbones, and a nose hooked like a hawk’s. Long black hair hung down below his shoulders in the fashion of his ancestors, but there was nothing ancient about the repulsors he wore, or the ventilated armor that clad his muscular body. He was the more powerful and popular of the two human leaders and, therefore, the one summoned for a conference.

Jomu watched him refocus the imager and aim it at the convoy. The tall human looked for a long time before handing the glasses back with a shake of his head. “I don’t like it, Jomu. It just doesn’t fit. Maybe it’s a trap.”

Jomu blinked both his eyes. “How? Your own people swept the city. Outside of civilians and one company of marines, there’s nobody there. If Merikur had a larger force of marines hidden in Port City, you would have found them. In addition, my scouts have a rough head count on the marines assigned to the convoy, plus the marines holding the firebase. It adds up to the right number—eight hundred, give or take.”

“If they land more from orbit after we’re committed?”

Jomu’s mouth quirked down. “Then we eat them alive. We’ll have Port City’s fixed defenses and enough troops to man them properly. They can’t break through the perimeter any more than we could—until the fools stripped it to protect their convoy.”

Horsehide looked out at the huge dust cloud and frowned. Everything Jomu said made sense. Still, he couldn’t shake the empty feeling in his gut. If there were an honorable way out . . .

But there wasn’t.

“All right Jomu, we’re in. What’s the plan?”

* * *

Nugumbe guided her ground car through Port City’s main gates and waved to the bored looking sentry. She smiled. If Merikur’s plan worked, he wouldn’t be bored for long.

The streets seemed empty without the usual marine and Haiken Maru patrols. Shops were closing early, restaurants went without patrons. Valuables were disappearing into the ground.

As usual, all sorts of rumors were making the rounds, some of which were quite true. No one spared so much as a glance when Nugumbe slid her car into the usual place under the fourplex and got out.

After assuring herself that no one was looking, she walked around and opened the largest of the car’s three storage compartments. “It’s all clear, General. You can come out now.”

Merikur groaned as he unwound his long legs and scrambled out. “No offense, but that was the pits.”

“Well,” Nugumbe said primly, “most people like riding in my luggage compartment. Here, let me give you a hand with that.”

Bending over, she grabbed one of the two packs Merikur had brought along with him. It weighed a ton. She put it back down.

“On second thought, maybe you’d like to handle it yourself.”

“No problem.” Merikur picked up the first pack and another just like it without apparent effort. “Where to? It feels a little exposed out here.”

“Right this way.” Nugumbe palmed the lock and motioned him inside. Stepping through the door, Merikur rediscovered air conditioning. Cool air bathed him from head to toe as he put the packs down and looked around.

Elsewhere, Nugumbe’s quarters would have been average at best, but on Teller they were the height of luxury. Sun streamed in through a large window, splashy paintings decorated the walls, and comfortable furniture invited him to sit down.

“Very nice,” Merikur remarked, walking over to draw curtains across the window. “I like your taste.”

“Thank you,” Nugumbe replied, obviously pleased. “Can I get you something to eat? Or show you the rest of the place?”

Merikur s answer was delayed by the thump of distant gunfire and the wail of an emergency klaxon. The rebel attack had begun. Merikur smiled. “How ’bout the bedroom? I could use a little nap.”

Fouts swore under her breath. The whole damned thing went against all her training and instincts. She hadn’t joined the marines to
lose.

She’d said as much to Merikur. “About my orders, Sir, isn’t there some other way to get the job done?”

Merikur had looked up from the tac tank and raised an eyebrow. “Are you questioning my orders, Major?”

“No, Sir. I’ll back you a hundred percent. It’s just that, well, I don’t know what’s going on.”

Merikur slapped her on the back. “Don’t take it so hard, Major. Outside of Eitor, I haven’t told anyone else either. What if you were captured? What you don’t know you can’t tell. Just fall back and make it look good.”

Fouts’ mouth made a straight hard line. “Yes, Sir. But to make it look good, we’ve got to fight, and that means casualties. I don’t like throwing away lives for a plan I don’t understand.”

Suddenly, Merikur’s eyes were rock hard and his voice like steel. “End of discussion, Major. You have your orders. Follow them.”

Fouts was jerked back into the present as the com tech spoke. “It’s C Company, Major. They’re taking heavy casualties near the main gate.”

Fouts gritted her teeth. “Well tell them to keep fighting, goddamn it. That’s what marines are for.”

###

“There are only a few of them, Father, but they will not give up,” the runner said, still panting from his dash through the streets. Jomu waited patiently while the young Cernian gulped down more oxygen and spoke again.

“And that is not all, Father; the citizens are shooting at us from the rooftops and ambushing us in side streets. Father Lata requests instructions.”

Jomu did his best not to smile. “Tell Father Lata to kill them.”

The runner looked at him in astonishment. “There is no other message, Father?”

“No,” Jomu replied. “There is no other message.”

###

Merikur lay down, but found he couldn’t sleep. The sound of gunfire made that impossible. Outside, his people were fighting and dying. He told himself any other plan would have caused even greater casualties . . . but then Major Fouts would appear, asking if there wasn’t some better way.

* * *

The fighting finally stopped around midnight. Merikur prayed the casualties were light. He wondered what Beth was doing. He’d considered sending her up to Yamaguchi’s ship, but with a Cernian fleet on the way, they’d decided she was just as safe on the ground. When he finally drifted off to sleep, her face filled his dreams.

###

The rebels were in complete control of Port City by the time the sun rose the next morning. Jomu had placed his command post in the main square, the city’s defenses were ready for a counter attack, and the process of rounding up all Haiken Maru personnel was well underway.

Jomu knew that the convoy had returned during the night and, unable to enter the city, had entered the marine firebase.

He smiled. It was too little, too late. There were close to two thousand rebels inside Port City, almost his entire force. More than enough to stop the marines.

Yes, their ships were still in orbit and could turn Port City into molten slag if they chose, but he didn’t think they had the stomach for it. Not with the Haiken Maru prisoners he had and not until they’d tried everything else. When the support elements arrived from Cernia, the human navy would have its hands full.

Jomu heard a loud explosion as an empty building half a block away blew up. Klaxons went off, nervous rebels started firing in every direction, and Jomu ran outside.

He was back ten minutes later. A single missile perhaps, or some fool playing with a grenade. It made little difference.

At Jomu’s desk, sat a human who wore a marine dress uniform, complete to the holstered pistol. In his left hand was something that looked like a radio handset and the pleasant smile with which he greeted Jomu was belied by the tension obvious in every line of his seated body.

The intruder’s thick white hair and the comets on his shoulder boards left no doubt of his identity.

“I’ve been expecting to see you, General Merikur,” Jomu said. He was fairly sure he could shoot Merikur before the human drew his own repulsor and fairly sure that a solution so simple would turn out to have been simply wrong. “At a time more of my choosing, I must admit.”

“Please,” Merikur said with a sincerity underlined by what was surely a quaver in his voice. “If neither of us acts hastily, there needn’t be a problem.”

If he was so afraid of surrendering, why had he—

“I’m here to take your surrender, Commander Jomu.”

“What?”
It was only the movement of Merikur’s hand that froze Jomu’s instinctive reaction to draw and end this absurd exchange.

Merikur’s left hand. If what he held was a—

“I have two companions with me,” Merikur continued, nodding toward the canvas divider separating Jomu’s cot from the working area of his tent. “I’m going to have them come out now, very slowly.”

Merikur rose to his feet as he spoke, a careful, supple motion like that of a cat facing danger. The canvas was pushed aside by a human being propelled by the Cernian behind him with a hand over his mouth.

“I had to hold—” the Cernian said, releasing the human, Manager Treeling. Again, Jomu’s mind twitched toward his pistol, because if ever a man deserved to die it was that—

“Merikur!” Treeling snarled. “When this is over—”

“Jomu!” blurted Eitor Senda, Jomu’s brother.

“Eitor!” Jomu said in equal amazement. Nausea gripped him. “I know we didn’t agree, but to think a member of Nest Senda is a traitor . . .”

The Cernian whom Merikur knew only as the governor’s political advisor stepped forward, brushing Treeling aside as easily as he’d held the administrator a moment before. “Jomu,” he said, then caught himself. Jomu had seen the formal challenge on the tip of his brother’s tongue.

“Jomu,” Eitor resumed in a controlled voice. “Later we will discuss treachery and the Nest. For now—listen to General Merikur.”

“Killing me won’t affect the struggle,” Jomu said. “Not now. It’s over for you and—”

“This is a deadman's switch,” Merikur said, waggling the object in his left hand. “It’s coupled to the 20-megaton warhead buried in the center of the plaza.” He gestured with a nod.

“What?”
said Treeling, turning back to Merikur with a look of absolute fury.

“If I release the switch,” Merikur continued, noticeably calmer now that he’d gotten past the initial contact, “Port City is gone. A crater. And all the rebel forces you were able to concentrate for this assault. Gone. For good. Your rebellion is gone.”