Empire & Ecolitan (23 page)

The pilot refrained from smiling. One small momentary victory for the underdog, and one which might give him a little edge.

He inched up the power again, easing the nose down a shade. Ahead, he could see the hazy lines that marked the edge of the badlands area, assuming the charts were correct. He edged the flitter more toward the starboard, estimating the most nearly direct course toward the ruined lands.

Herrol did not seem to notice the marginal change, but his apparent lack of understanding meant nothing. In Herrol's position, Jimjoy would have betrayed nothing.

The EGTs flickered, and Jimjoy held himself from reacting, mentally calculating the distance remaining between the flitter and the badlands. If he could maintain speed and altitude just a bit longer…

He could feel the sweat beading up under his helmet, the dampness oozing out of his pores. Always, for him, the waiting was the most difficult.

His eyes flicked across the board, across the range of readouts, but the EGTs were steady, as were the fuel flows. He tightened his lips as he saw the fuel flow needles flicker in turn.

“Gauntlet one, this is PriOps. Interrogative status.”

“PriOps, one here. Status green.”

“Understand green. Interrogative position.”

“That is affirmative,” answered Jimjoy, ignoring the second question. From the left-hand seat of the flitter, Jimjoy frowned as his eyes shifted sideways for a quick glimpse at Technical Specialist Herrol's profile.

Herrol looked tense behind the casual pose.

Jimjoy kept himself from nodding. Before long, he would have to act.

“That the badlands perimeter up there?”

“That's it, all right,” answered the man in the copilot's seat. “Have anything in mind?”

“Nothing special. Not yet. Wanted to get a good picture before I make a final decision.” The pilot studied the board. All indicators were normal, even the EGTs and the thruster power levels.

Herrol fidgeted in the copilot's seat, shifting his weight, his left hand straying toward the capsule ejection handle.

“Gauntlet one, PriOps. Interrogative present course. Interrogative position.”

“PriOps, present course three four eight. Three four eight. Status is green. Status is green.”

“One, understand course is three four eight, status green. Interrogative position.”

“That is affirmative. Affirmative.”

Herrol's right hand hovered near the now unsealed thigh pocket of his flight suit.

Jimjoy took a deep and slow breath before snapping full power off both the port and the starboard thrusters and pitching the flitter's nose forward.

As Herrol's right hand lurched from his thigh pocket, the edge of Jimjoy's right hand snapped across Herrol's wrist.

Crack!

The small stunner struck the canopy.

Crunnnch
.

The second backhand blow crushed the specialist's throat.

Wheeeeeeeeeee
…

“Emergency! Emergency! Ground impact in thirty seconds! Ground impact in thirty seconds!” blared out the flitter's emergency warning system.

Methodically continuing the emergency deployment of the flitter's rotor system, Jimjoy brought the nose back up to bleed off airspeed and reduce the rate of descent.

“Mayday! Mayday! This is Gauntlet one. Position is—” The pilot deliberately cut off his transmitter. He did not look at the dead man held in the copilot's seat by the emergency harness as he concentrated on his emergency descent.

The flitter was nearly over the transition area between the badlands and the cultivated High Plains as Jimjoy completed the turn to bring the flitter's nose into the wind. To his right he caught a glimpse of gray dust and cratered hills, a few marked with sticklike silver trunks of trees seasons, if not decades, dead.

He let the nose rise into a flare, then brought in full pitch on the blades as the flitter mushed into the golden and waist-high grasses that bordered the synde bean fields.

Shuddering as the blades slowed, the flitter sank into the soft ground.

Uuunnnnnnnnn
…

The blades ground nearly to a stop as Jimjoy applied the rotor brake.

Thunk
.

The final stop was more abrupt than any flight instructor would have approved, and the flitter shivered one last time.

As he unstrapped, his eyes scanned the control indicators a final time, checking the EGT and thruster temperatures, both of which were still well into the red. His fingers flicked across three switches in rapid succession, ensuring that the fuel transfer to the stub tanks would continue so long as there were power reserves remaining.

Flinging the harness from him and wriggling out of his seat, he unfastened the harness that held Herrol's body in place. Then he wrenched the dead technical specialist from the copilot's seat and levered him into the pilot's seat, strapping the body into place.

That misdirection completed, he manually opened the copilot's door and scrambled out, carrying his equipment bag with him.

He half tumbled, half jumped into the grass below.

Squishh
.

His boots sank nearly ankle-deep into the damp mud from which the grass grew. He shook his head as he pulled his feet from the mud. Swamp grass between the cultivated fields and the badlands—that he had not exactly expected.

He flipped the pack into place as he moved toward the starboard stub fuel tank and began to loosen the filler neck.

Whheeeeee
…

The sound was faint, distant, but increasing. Another flitter was heading toward the one Jimjoy had grounded.

“Don't leave much to chance, do they?” muttered the Special Operative as he wrenched off the tank's filler neck cap. Next he molded the adhesive around the small flare, and wedged both into the neck, giving the dial a twitch counter-clockwise.

Without looking backward, he began to lope northward through the grass, ignoring the squelching sounds and the tugging of the mud at his boots.

Whhheeeeeeee!

After covering the first fifty meters, he glanced back over his shoulder at the downed flitter, and beyond it at the black dot in the southern sky. He had another two or three minutes before the flare went, and perhaps five minutes before the pursuing flitter came close enough to see him.

By now he was within ten meters of the sterile ground that marked the edge of the rising and desolate slopes that lifted into the badlands. Changing his course to parallel the boundary, he kept up the long and even strides now more northwest and north.

Crummmp!

He dove headfirst into the still-damp ground. The grass, thigh-high, was deep enough to cover him, especially since he was more than half a kay from the fiercely burning wreck that had been a combat flitter.

WWHHHEEEeeeeeee…whup…whup…whup, whup, whup
…

From the sound alone he could tell that the pursuing Service flitter had deployed rotors and was hovering near the burning wreck.

Scuttling along with his back below the tops of the grasses, he continued his progress away from the wreck and the hovering flitter.

WHHUMMPP!

The shock wave drove him to his hands and knees, and he lowered himself all the way to the ground.

Whheeeeee…whup, whup…eeeeee…WHHHUMMP!

Jimjoy eased himself around and darted another look backward.

In a perverse sense, he was gratified to have his suspicions confirmed. The first explosion had been the metallic explosives he felt someone had planted on the flitter, although he had not been able to confirm that during his preflight.

He brushed the mud and grass off his uniform as well as he could and took a moment longer to study the devastation behind him. Where his flitter had been was nothing but dispersing smoke and a flattened expanse of grass and shredded synde bean plants. What remained of the chase flitter was a burning pyre, surrounded by smoldering plant life.

Someone hadn't known much about metallic explosives. Either that or they hadn't wanted to take any chances. A good fifty kilos of metalex had blown when the heat from the fire had reached the critical point.

The ensuing explosion had turned his flitter into a mass of shrapnel, which, in turn, had claimed the pursuing bird.

Jimjoy surveyed the scene, and seeing no immediate signs of life, reshouldered the small pack and began trudging along the edge of the field, ready to turn toward the highlands when the terrain offered some cover. He tried not to shiver as he stepped up his pace almost into a trot. No surprise that someone had wanted him dead. The surprise was how many. Herrol, with his background, had to have known the uses of metalex and would never have climbed into a flitter sabotaged with fifty kilos of it. Herrol had been watching the engine instruments.

So Herrol had either gimmicked the thrusters or had been told they were faulty. The technician had been duped as well. Which meant he would have died in any case.

But Jimjoy had killed a man who essentially had done nothing except make him nervous—that and pull a stunner in the cockpit.

The Imperial Operative kept walking, listening for the sound of another flitter, keeping close to the grass and hoping that he didn't have to worry about a satellite track. He felt cold, despite the heat and humidity.

More than one person had orders to eliminate him, that was certain. And without much regard for bystanders, innocent or otherwise.

As he reached the top of a low rise, he glanced back again. More than two kays separated him from the destruction he had left behind.

He started down the other side, studying the terrain ahead. From his earlier analysis, he estimated his jumping-off point was still another three kays ahead. He lengthened his stride, trying to ignore the tightness in his gut, his ears alert for the sound of the next wave of flitters that would be coming.

A
S
J
IMJOY STUDIED
the rugged and chopped hills from his hiding place near the ridge line, he thought.

Had his analyses been correct?

He shrugged.

The rebellion on New Kansaw had been in the making for years, mainly the work of a small group of idealists—zealots, most probably. The scattered nature of the resistance, despite the overall population's sullenness, clearly pointed toward a single small group with well-prepared and preplanned bases.

His eyes drifted over the empty riverbed at the bottom of the rock-jumbled valley. Roughly one hundred kays to the east was the diversion dam which had siphoned all the water from the Republic River into the eastern side of the Missou Plains, turning what had been arid steppes into irrigated synde bean fields.

The western half of the Plains, beyond the point where he had crashed the flitter, was served by a similar dam across the old watercourse of the Democrat River. Like a wedge, the badlands separated the northern parts of the Plains.

While the diversions had changed the dry but fertile soils of the steppes into lush fields, the mere surface water rearrangements had not caused the powder-dry dust and spiked silver tree stumps of the badlands—all that remained of the junglelike growth shown on the early holos.

The Imperial Engineers had gone beyond mere dams. After charting the flows of the major aquifers, they had used their lasers and impermeable plastics to build underground dams far more extensive and critical than the two massive surface diversion projects.

The former highland jungle, according to background reports, had consumed nearly fifty percent of the area's available water. Since the steppe soils would not sustain the silverthorns and the rampart bushes, the jungle mainstays, once the surface and subsurface waters had been diverted, the silverthorns began to die out immediately.

The highlands had been the remnant of a more extensive upland forest network which had already been drying out as New Kansaw's climate edged toward another ice age.

The Imperial Engineers had not waited for the ice age. Defoliants and laser-induced fires had followed the diversion projects. Now all that remained were thorn thickets, spiked silver trunks, and hectare after hectare of drifting silver ash and dust.

In a few spots, the original dark blue dust thorns of the steppes were sprouting from beneath the silver devastation, seeking a new home away from the too damp synde bean fields.

Jimjoy shook his head again.

He couldn't say he disputed the rebels, but the whole situation was bizarre. The original colonists had opposed the water reengineering, but only because they had claimed it would not work. The Engineers had obviously made it work, and the synde bean plantations were producing protein and oil for the Imperial fleets—though certainly not in the quantities once projected by the Imperial Engineers.

The violence of the rebellion had caught New Augusta totally off guard, although the few captured rebels had claimed that the increase in the Imperial production tax from forty percent to sixty percent had ignited the unrest.

A puff of dust caught the Special Operative's eye as he continued to scan the dry riverbed and the overlooking ledges. He relaxed as he watched the small four-legged creature scuttle from dry rock to dry rock.

While he did not expect anyone or anything to appear in the open, for him to move until nightfall would be dangerous. Evening would be best. Later at night was almost as dangerous as full daylight, but not quite, since positive identification would be difficult for a satellite sensor.

His strategy had been based on two simple assumptions—water and location. He could only hope he had been right. In the meantime, he retreated back into the sheltered and overhung semi-cave and curled into a less dusty corner, stifling a sneeze.

A short nap would help, if he could sleep.

Either the heat or the silence woke him, and he rolled into a ready position, the stunner appearing in his hand even before he was fully aware he was reacting.

Both the heat, rolling in shimmering waves down the valley, and the silence were oppressive. He tried to swallow, but it took several attempts before his parched throat worked properly. He edged forward into the observation position, watching, listening. The silence was near absolute, with only the barest hint of a rustle of ashes.

Finally convinced that no one was nearby, he slipped back under the overhanging rock and retrieved his water bottle, taking a healthy but not excessive swallow. Capping it carefully, he replaced it on his equipment belt.

Then he pulled out the old-fashioned magnetic compass, useless for directions now but sufficient for his purposes, and studied the needle. Though the thin sliver of metal fluctuated, the range remained within the same bounds, reflecting the underlying low-grade iron ore. The heat buildups and the iron concentrations would provide the rebels with a near ideal barrier to any deep satellite scans. In that respect, Jimjoy wondered why no one in the Imperial services had not reached the same conclusion.

Or had they?

He listened for the distant whine of turbines, but all he could hear in the heat of the late afternoon was the soft sound of the wind beginning to sift silver-and-gray ashes from one pile to another, breaking the oppressive silence ever so slightly.

He surveyed the dry riverbed, particularly to his left, where it wound in a northwesterly fashion back toward the Imperial-controlled synde bean fields.

He shrugged and shouldered the small pack.

Not much sense in waiting, not when there was nothing he could do where he was except lead the Impies to the rebels, and that would be deadly for everyone, mostly for one Jimjoy Wright.

He did not sigh, but took a deep breath and began to move eastward toward the presumed rebel base, trying to parallel the now empty underground aqueduct that had predated the last massive restructurings of the Imperial Engineers.

With each step, the feathery cinders and dust rose around his boots. Some fragments flew higher, worming their way into every opening in his flight suit and boots. Ahead lay more ashes and cinders, more dead silverthorns jutting out like sticks—just like the ashes and desolation behind. The sunlight itself seemed weighted with ashes and death.

In the dryness, the ashes rose and fell, rose and fell, as if searching for moisture. Jimjoy's neck itched, as did his forehead, his back, and everywhere there was the slightest bit of perspiration. Ignoring all but the worst of the itches, he forced one foot in front of the other.

After a time, he stopped, easing himself down under another dustcovered rock outcropping in an attempt to reduce the chances of any satellite detection that might reach through the overhead clouds, the clouds from which no rain ever fell on the badlands.

Jimjoy shook his head, wondering if he would ever understand the intricacies of ecology, if Ecolitan Andruz would have been able to explain why it was so dead and dry where he sat and so wet it was nearly swamp ten kays westward—when the opposite had been true just a few years earlier.

With a half groan, he pulled the pack into place and resumed his hike through the ashes. Common sense indicated he should hike at night when it was cooler. Common sense was partly wrong.

Hiking late at night would have been a dead giveaway to a satellite infraheat scan, even through the clouds. Jimjoy needed to be undercover before the temperature dropped too much. At the same time, he needed to get into the rebel base, assuming it did exist where he thought it might, before the Impies were convinced he was still alive.

He put one foot back in front of the other, letting the ashes rise and fall, rise and fall.

When he stopped again, the light was dim, a dusk that was not quite true twilight. He itched all over, and the contents of his canteen were limited.

Keeping behind a still-hot boulder, he pulled out the combination nightscope and binoculars, carefully unfolding the gossamer plastic to check what appeared to be an unnatural rock overhang across the dry riverbed.

One look was enough, and he slid further behind the boulder and began to study the area section by section. The geology was less than natural, although from overhead, or from any distance, nothing would have shown, not even the concealed portal big enough to accommodate a small ACV. The lines of the portal showed that it was built for casehardened endurasteel, nothing that a full battle laser or a set of metalex charges couldn't have sliced through in a matter of minutes.

While Jimjoy had the minutes, he lacked the charges or the laser.

The rebels could only be using passive snoops to monitor the area outside the entrance, since their base had not been discovered, and since Imperial technology would have tracked down any stray radiation. Especially in such an isolated and theoretically unpopulated area.

He eased the scope back into its small case, carefully folding the light plastic. Then he sat down behind the boulder out of sight of either a satellite heat trace or a direct optical scan from the rebel base, and opened a sustain ration.

The ration tasted like rust. Although Imperial technology had the ability to produce tasty field rations, the Service did not supply them. Not since a long-dead Inspector General had noted that the good-tasting rations were subject to a nearly eighty percent pilferage rate.

Jimjoy did not bother cursing the long-dead Inspector General, but choked down the rest of the sustain, forcing himself to chew in turn the even less tasteful but still nutritious outer wrapper as a last measure. A slow series of sips from the canteen completed his repast.

After checking his pack and the small stock of supplies and equipment, he stood and began to move eastward again. He was not looking forward to the next phase of the mission. But he needed to go underground, literally, before his former compatriots arrived in force, which they would.

The Special Operative sighed silently and continued his progress along the edge of the dust-and-ash-filled watercourse. The gloom deepened into dark, and the heat began to die as a breeze picked up. The silence remained near absolute, still enough for Jimjoy to hear his own breath rasping in the evening air. Overhead clouds blocked the light from either the nebula or Pecos, the single small moon.

He had covered almost a full kay before he reached what he was seeking. What had been an access tunnel for the early settlers had been reduced to a roofless ruin partly filled with a pile of rough-cut blocks.

Still cautious, Jimjoy approached the hillside ruin slowly, staying as far from the open dust and ashes as he dared, keeping on harder rock where possible and using the available boulders and dead thickets as cover. The loose ashes inside his camouflage suit seemed to be everywhere, and he itched continually.

Less than ten meters from the ruin, he halted behind the last small heap of rock and slowly retrieved the starscope from his pack.

He studied the old maintenance building, originally ten meters square, but could see no sign of the onetime trail that must have wound through the jungle growth that had preceded the ubiquitous ashes.

He swallowed, trying to moisten his throat, and to ignore the bitter taste of ashes.

The warm night air, the taste of ash and dust, the lack of any living scents, the drifting heaps of ashes, and the gray light, gray stone, and sticklike trunks of the silverthorns all resembled a vision of Hades.

Jimjoy returned the refolded starscope to his pack, then took another sip from his nearly empty water bottle, still listening for either rebels or Imperial pursuit. Hearing neither, he shouldered his pack and stepped toward the maintenance ruin.

The doorway was vacant, without even a trace of the original door. The roofing material had been consumed by the old firestorm or removed at some earlier point. The back wall, where a large pile of stones had apparently fallen down, showed the greatest destruction.

The Special Operative glanced from one wall to the next. Only the stones from the back wall, the wall on the side of the building partly sunk into the hillside, had fallen. The other walls, except near the roofline, were intact.

Fallen stones? He grinned.

Next he studied the jumbled stones, looking for the telltale signs of traps, but could detect nothing. He sighed, and began the tedious job of removing the pile, stone by stone.

Although it had been a long day, he forced himself not to hurry, to move each stone, each bit of rubble, carefully, and to study the remaining pile before proceeding.

After he had removed the top layer, he could see the frame around the access hatch. Jimjoy nodded as he continued the methodical removal of stones blocking the hatchway.

As he stripped away the last of the old building stones, he wiped his forehead. Despite the drier evening air, he was sweating from the effort, breathing more heavily than he would have liked, and plastered with fine ashes around his neck and forehead.

The hatch cover, or doorway, was of a dark and heavy wood that, despite its plastic covering, had turned black from the heat of the jungle fires. The plastic had run and bubbled in places. Jimjoy first tapped the wood, then pushed against the blackest section. The hatchway held firm.

He ignored the nagging thought that he was not as young or as well conditioned as he once had been, and turned to the small tool kit in his pack.

Taking one deep breath, then another, he sat down and tried to relax. A few minutes more now wouldn't matter, and once he had opened the hatchway, he well might need every bit of energy.

The hatch itself was held by a simple lock and two heavy industrial hinges. With a deep breath, Jimjoy stood up and removed the short pointed rod with the shining tip from the tool kit. He began to look for a rock of appropriate size.

Thud. Thud…thud
…

Clunk. Clunk
.

Whhssttt!

After removing the shattered lock, he sprayed the hinges and waited. While thumps and scattered impact noises always occurred in underground retreats, squeaking hinges meant something else entirely to anyone who might be listening.