Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series (28 page)

Lifting blind, on instruments, the ships moved smoothly along the short approach lanes to takeoff points, readied for lift.

Then more alarms went off — unknown aircraft had somehow penetrated outer security, obviously acquiring targets as they flew slowly toward the runways. Evidently no one had those balloons on visual as they drifted toward the runways, or couldn’t get through on the jammed coms, so their radar images worked exactly as hoped for.

It still might not have been catastrophe if there hadn’t been some luck in the game. Too many of the ships were flown by half-trained, inexperienced pilots. Alarms, danger, yammering on the coms, and it took no more than half a dozen fliers to panic and decide to break up, to blazes with clearance, and go for open sky where they could see, not have to rely on these still-unfamiliar instruments.

An
aksai
smashed into a
velv,
and the destroyer exploded. More pilots broke, and there were other collisions. Traffic control, the formation commanders were screaming, trying to bring order, making things worse, and other ships smashed together, lost orientation, and ground-looped or just flew into the ground, or into buildings, and the runways were flaming confusion.

The Force team was halfway across the water to Mullion Island before the lead Grierson’s electronics specialist reported any Musth on her radar, and by that time the attack ships were safely under Zhukov cover.

And then they disappeared.

The Musth base was a disaster of fire and death, and it was two days before normal air traffic resumed.

The real casualties weren’t the dead or burnt pilots or ground personnel, nor the ruined hangars and buildings, but the morale and confidence of the Musth who heard about the debacle.

• • •

Another propaganda broadcast was prepared, and a team went out. But the Musth weren’t imbeciles — the relay station they tried to take over, not one of Loy Kouro’s, had been boobytrapped. Three members of the technical team were killed, two badly injured, the survivors barely extracted before the Musth reaction force arrived.

“We went to the well once too often, my friend,” Froude said.

“There must be something more effective,” Alikhan said. “Something more conclusive we can arrive at.”

“Dig out the rotten meat,” Froude said. “And this time, let’s get Ann Heiser in with us. Maybe another scientist can thicken the stew.”

• • •

The shaped charge of Telex was hastily plastered to the heavy gates of the main Cumbre prison in Leggett, and the two sweating, scared ‘Raum darted along the wall to safety. One triggered an alarm, and sirens screeched inside the prison, but it was too late.

The charge blew one gate off its hinges, ripped the other half-away.

A rocket team slid out of the office building across from the gates, crouched, aimed, and sent first one missile, then a second, through the gateway to explode against the inner gates.

One of the gun turrets above it swung around, but two SSW teams took it under fire. Rounds smashed, then blew in, the supposedly bulletproof glass, and the human guards inside died. There’d been some discussion about the impact of killing these guards, which ended with a cynical ‘Raum saying that no one cared about prison guards, not even their brothers.

Another rocket crashed through the gateway, and the inner gates were open.

The rocket team ducked out of the way, and the assault force, seventy-five experienced ‘Raum, attacked. Jo Poynton was at the head of the force until someone tripped her, holding her down while guns chattered and the leading ‘Raum were cut down.

Another rocket went through the gap, blew up in the main compound, killed the guards who’d gotten a tripod-mounted blaster into action, then the attackers were inside the prison.

Poynton, cursing the man who’d saved her life, ran through the smoking ruin, found three survivors of her special group. She unclipped a small demo pack from her harness, and the three hosed rounds at the administration building, cut their fire on her signal. Poynton zigged forward, tossed the demo pack, flattened as the charge blew the building’s door off. She rolled a grenade through the smoke and sent a burst after it.

There were screams, then someone shouted, “no more, no more. We surrender.”

Poynton and her three were inside, and at the cell controls. They were very familiar — one of the guards had decided to change sides two weeks earlier, and Poynton had been practicing on cardboard cutouts.

Automatic voice commands crackled as prisoners milled around their cells, listening to the gunfire and blasts.

“All prisoners, all modules, stand back from your cell doors … cell doors coming open …”

Then a real voice, a woman’s voice came:

“The gates are down! Anyone who wants to be free, run for it now. Move!”

Most prisoners obeyed, but a few, sure it was some kind of trick by the prison guards to kill them, stayed in their cells.

Prisoners, political, criminal, swarmed into the streets of Leggett.

Some were political hostages. The ‘Raum had guides waiting, tried to identify the political prisoners, hurried them to safety. But they missed all too many, who scattered in panic through the streets of Leggett. Some found safe hiding places, others were picked up by police and Musth patrols.

A handful, sadly, stayed where they were, and, within the day, were shot down as part of the Musth reprisals.

“Little by little,” Poynton told her subordinates. “We’re grinding them down, slow but sure.”

• • •

Ted Vollmer morosely chewed on an antacid, thought about quitting, remembered his mortgage and the new Musth policy of sending the unemployed to the mines, and tried to hide a glower at Loy Kouro.

“Yes,” Kouro went on, “a major policy review’s in order, I do believe. We’re allowing these renegades, these bandits, to control our holo, dictate what the main features are going to be.”

“You mean, we don’t want to run real news.” Vollmer didn’t make it a question.

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” Kouro said. “But I think we’ll have to reevaluate the emphasis on certain items. For instance, major accomplishments by our Musth allies could be featured more prominently, and this continuing violence downplayed a little, perhaps during the second take after the commercial messages, in a section we’ll call ‘Police Matters,’ perhaps.

“I think — ”

What Kouro thought was a mystery as the elevator doors crashed open, and five men, hooded, wearing black, with blasters ready, leapt out.

The men, or women, Vollmer corrected himself, were screaming at the top of their lungs to “Freeze! Move and die! Stand where you are!”

Vollmer, after that, never wondered why witnesses to an armed robbery so frequently disagreed, as everything got blurry and frightening.

Loy Kouro shouted, “Who are you! What are you doing in my holo!”

He yanked out a small pistol that Vollmer never knew he carried, and two of the men swung blasters toward him, aimed.

Ted Vollmer then did something he cursed himself forever after for, and knocked Loy Kouro headfirst into a filing cabinet, the gun flying away, Kouro lying motionless.

Amazingly, neither of the two gunmen shot Vollmer, and he swore one of them laughed.

“Stay frozen,” one of them said, his voice calm.

Three of the black-clad gunmen hurried through the newsroom, toward the broadcast studio.

The elevator door closed, and a moment or maybe an hour passed, then it came open, disgorging more armed men.

They, too, ran toward the studio.

Kouro moaned. Vollmer saw that the two guards left in the newsroom weren’t exactly watching him, and carefully kicked his boss in the head, almost as hard as he could. Kouro slumped back into unconsciousness, and Vollmer felt the happy glow of a task well-done.

Inside the studio, Garvin Jaansma held the three ‘casters at gunpoint. Monique Lir held a gun on a technician, handed her a cylinder.

“This goes out. Now.”

The technician’s head bobbed up and down, and she shoved the disk into a slot.

“You’re on.”

The holo sets around the room blurred, then cleared.

On-screen was a Musth, then he vanished, and the green/white/brown colors of the Cumbrian flag appeared, the planetary anthem swelling over it. The music faded, and a confident voice spoke:

“This is the voice of Free Cumbre speaking. We have taken over
Matin
for this broadcast.

“Men, women of Cumbre. You now live under the iron bootheel of the Musth. But nothing is forever. Some of us, many of us, are fighting back.

“We fight the best we can. Some of us know how to build and plant bombs against the hated foe. Some have guns and aren’t afraid to use them.

“Others are forced to work in their factories, and know that a bolt torqued just a little too much … or too little … will ruin that part, without anyone ever suspecting. A bit of dirt on a bubble can make a great machine self-destruct.

“Still others oversee shipments to the Musth or merely work on a loading dock. A change on the bill of lading, one misstroke of a key, and the supplies will go somewhere else, anywhere else, to be lost at a forgotten waystation.

“Brave boys and girls put up posters, telling us what the news really is, now that the holos are controlled by the aliens. Their teachers aren’t afraid to tell the truth, not the pap the Musth insist on.

“Some of us can’t do anything, we think. But there is much you can do. Don’t speak to the Musth unless forced. If you see something that appears none of your business, don’t report it. Don’t gossip to anyone.

“If you have a block captain, do all you can to make his task as difficult as possible.

“If you are a block captain, remember what we said at the beginning of this ‘cast. Nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, the Musth will be driven away.

“Then there will a reckoning for those who groveled to the invaders, who informed against their own.

“For those of you who’ve fallen under the spell of the aliens, it’s not too late to change, to refuse to cooperate further.

“The war goes on.

“It shall never end, until the Cumbre system is free and the last Musth driven off.

“Free Cumbre! Free once, Free again!”

By the time the ‘cast ended, most of the raiders had vanished, leaving only one in the newsroom, one supervising the cast. Those two — Monique Lir and Garvin Jaansma — not willing to chance the elevators, darted up the steps to the roof, where a civilian speedster waited.

They piled in, and the speedster dived down at full speed, leveling below office buildings, and vanished into the night over the bay.

Loy Kouro was treated for concussion, and spent the next week recuperating at his mansion. Unfortunately, his wife was too busy with problems on C-Cumbre to spend as much time with him as she wished.

• • •

“Perhaps,” Daaf ventured, “our policies aren’t as clearly thought out as they should be. They seem to be having little effect in calming the populace.”

Wlencing’s fur ruffled, and he glared at his aide through reddened eyes.

“Our policy,
my
policy, has been carefully made up. I see no reason at all to change to something ill defined, something that will appear as if we’re making cowardly concessions to these worms.

“We must continue the course, and intensify the severity of our response!”

• • •

“I think,” Alikhan said, sounding, for the first time, like the rest of his race, “we have a possssible anssswer.”

“To what?”
Mil
Hedley asked, widening the pickup. Danfin Froude was slumped back in his chair, an overturned glass beside him. Ben Dill was on the floor, snoring loudly. Only Ann Heiser appeared sober.

“We think,” she said, voice very precise, then marred by a massive hiccup, “we might have figured out a way to end this goddamned war.”

CHAPTER
22

“How drunk were they when they came up with
this
one?” Njangu asked.

“Very,” Hedley said. “Stinko, to be exact.”

“And the old man bought the idea?” Garvin asked.

“As a forlorn hope,” Hedley said. “In every sense of the word.”

“Um,” Njangu said. “Why are we gonna try stealing this particular mother ship?”

“According to Alikhan, it’s a semiobsolete model, which is why it’s mostly parked where it is on C-Cumbre. No more’n a standby watch aboard.”

“But it’s fueled, ready to roll?”

“Alikhan says it was carried on the boards as on standby. But probably without charts, rations, or anything not needed for in-system deployment.”

“So we lug human rats, water — ”

“No water,” Hedley said. “That’s on board as part of the coolant system. The Musth ships recycle.”

“Humans can drink Musth pee?”

“Evidently.”

“All right,” Garvin said. “So we’ve got our fat little paws on this ship — then we’ve got to figure out what troopies to use on the op. Then what?”

“Then we use the star charts we’ve already got to go visiting.”

“Who?” Njangu asked.

“There’s a Musth clan leader named Senza. He’s the main one preaching pacifism, Alikhan says. Or, at any rate, not wanting to fight humans this flipping century. Alikhan studied … I guess we’d call it philosophy … under this guy.

“Seems the Musth aren’t exactly the most cohesive folks around. Only a handful of their clan leaders backed the late Asser.”

“So we go chitchat with Senza,” Njangu said. “What does that give us?”

“Alikhan says with hard evidence of what a disaster this whole flipping mess has turned into, Senza will use his clout — I guess these Reckoners are what pass for Musth diplomats — to call off Wlencing.”

“What does the fact Alikhan is Wlencing’s kid do to things?”

“I guess it improves Alikhan’s credibility. Anyway, Senza’s been in a pissing match with the Musth war-hawks for years, always looking for a chance to pull their chains. Alikhan thinks he can give Senza that chance, which should make the Musth declare a cease-fire, and then we can force some sort of talks,” Hedley said.

“I guess the Musth must have got the fear of the gods put in them the last time they went roundy-roundy with the Confederation,” Garvin said.

“Or else Alikhan fancies himself as having a tongue of the purest iridium,” Njangu said. “Has anybody considered what we do if our road maps don’t happen to go to this Senza’s house? I mean, we’re all blessed with the luck of heroes and such — ”

“Already thought of,” Hedley interrupted. “We’ll use the charts we have to make a planetfall somewhere and Alikhan looks for the local map store.”

Njangu gave Hedley a somewhat incredulous stare. “Just that simple, eh? ‘Kay. Let’s go back to something that’s in our arena. I assume you assume I&R’ll be your raiders?”

“You assume right.”

“And after we grab the ship, we trundle off with Alikhan, becoming his bodyguards and the guys who bring the pilot coffee?”

“Right. We’ll have Ben Dill and anybody else who’s got anything resembling starship experience along. About fifteen more.”

“Not enough,” Garvin said flatly.

“I’m trying to keep my effectives as high as possible,” Hedley complained. “We’ll still have a war to fight while you clowns are out playing Space Rangers Against the Flipping Galaxy.”

“Nemmine about that, Garvin,” Njangu said. “I know where we can score more shooters — and they’re already in place,” Njangu said. “What I don’t particularly like is this elaborate scheme you’ve got for the insertion. Putt-putt freighter. The last
aksai
with phony signals … uh-uh. Too easy to get dead.”

“You know a better way?” Hedley asked.

“Remembering who else is on C-Cumbre, I do. And my cute, lovable colleague here with the forty-centimeter tongue is the key.”

“Now wait a minute,” Garvin protested.

“Go take a shower and tuck a flower behind your ear …
sir,
” Njangu said. “Froggie’s gone a-courting, doo-dah, doo-dah.”

• • •

“This is exciting,” Karo Lonrod told Erik Penwyth as he neatly grounded his speedster at the steps to Jasith Mellusin’s mansion. “I’ve never been a blind before.”

“And you make a gorgeous one, too,” Erik said.

“Or else,” Lonrod said, “I could think there’s something else between Garvin and Jasith?”

“Like?”

“Like something to do with the war … which also might explain why you’re so mysterioso about your comings and goings, and why my father wrote you a really big check last week that he wouldn’t explain.”

“The war’s over,” Penwyth said.

“I’m a good little bimbo, so I know that. Which is why I’m excited about being a blind, since that’s the other option.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Erik began, gratefully broke off as Jasith and her husband came out the door. Jasith kissed Loy briefly, hurried to the speedster. Erik rolled down his window.

“Sorry you can’t come with us, old boy,” he called. “The new gallery’s s’posed to be enormously educating.”

Kouro forced a smile, went back inside as Jasith squeezed into the backseat.

“Let’s lift! I swear, he gets to be more of a fussbudget old coot every day.”

• • •

“Documentsss,” the first Musth demanded, as the second stepped back, blaster ready.

Njangu, moving very slowly, held out a plas card with his left hand.

“Documentsss,” the Musth repeated more loudly, probably the only Basic he knew.

A thin tube in Njangu’s right hand thudded once, and the Musth gargled blood. Njangu spun the empty single shot weapon into the second Musth’s face, swept-kicked his blaster away as it went off, crouched, and leapt up, head slamming into the Musth’s face. The alien squealed, slashed reflexively with a claw, catching Njangu’s upper arm.

Yoshitaro spun to the side, smashed two strikes into the alien’s side, turned again as the Musth flailed at him. He blocked the Musth’s claw, was inside his guard, lunge-struck into the being’s throat, felt something crunch. The Musth staggered, fell, lay motionless.

“Very good,” Jo Poynton said, coming out of nowhere. “You moved before we could shoot.”

“Thanks anyway for the backup,” Njangu said, examining the slashes and the slowly spreading darkness that was blood on his jacket.

“I think I’m gonna have to set up a forgery section,” he said. “I could have guessed he wasn’t going to take my officers’ mess card. C’mon, Poynton. Get me to a bandage and a beer before more fuzzies materialize.”

• • •

It still felt odd to be drinking and socializing in the early afternoon, but Cumbrian society had learned the Musth dusk-to-dawn curfew was meant for everyone, even Rentiers.

Penwyth, Lonrod, and Jasith appeared at the gallery, were joined by the owner and, after Jasith bought two assemblages from the exhibit, he took the three into a back room with the artist. Both, ex-members of the Force, would swear the trio had been with them until whenever.

Waiting was Garvin Jaansma.

“We’ll be back in two hours,” he said.

“Why not three,” Penwyth suggested.

Garvin puzzled, then shrugged. “Three, then.”

He led Jasith out a side door.

“Wonder why Erik wanted me to be gone longer?”

“I thought you were a better spy than that,” Jasith said. “What do you think Karo thinks we’re doing?”

“Oh.”

“A good adultery takes a while,” Jasith said. “Or so they tell me,” she added primly.

Garvin, making sure there wasn’t a tail, took Jasith a few blocks away into the middle of the prewar rich shopping district, into an expensive furniture store’s back room. He locked the door into the showroom, barred the freight door into the alley.

Jasith watched, leaning back on a gold-lace-embroidered, wildly overstuffed couch.

“And what is it I can do for you?” she said.

“I need one of your ships to deliver some of my men to C-Cumbre.”

“You have it.”

Garvin was a bit surprised at her immediate agreement.

“Also, one of your lims.”

Jasith nodded.

This time, since she might end up implicated, he explained what he needed the lifter for.

“I can do better then that,” Jasith said. “I’ll set up a meeting with the Musth, and that should guarantee we can get into their base.”

Garvin noticed the “we.”

“But what happens to you when the shooting starts?” he asked.

“That’ll be no problem,” Jasith said airily. “You can tie me up … I’ll say I was kidnapped. Don’t worry about me. The owner of Mellusin Mining still has a little bit of respect with them.”

Garvin was skeptical, but said nothing.

“Is that all you need?”

“Yeh,” Garvin said. “No, goddammit! I want to kiss you.”

“Well, thank a goddess,” Jasith murmured. “I was starting to wonder if it’d been shot off.

“Now, slowly. We’ve got over two hours, and I want something to remember.”

• • •

“What about afterward?” Poynton asked.

“Your people disperse back to the mines and look innocent, along with my troops,” Njangu said.

“The wounded?”

“Walking, or any that you can carry out on stretchers — the Force’ll supply a med team at the mines for them. The others … they’ll have to be left to the Musth. Just like any of our troops in the same boat. We can give out lethal-pills, if you want.”

Poynton eyed Yoshitaro. “We taught you well how to fight this kind of war, didn’t we?”

“I learned from you,” Njangu admitted. “But I got basic nastiness back on an armpit called Waughtal’s World.”

“What about me? I get stuck on C-Cumbre?”

“Not a chance. You’re needed here. We’ll spirit you back after the smoke settles, probably on one of Mellusin’s ships, when my team comes back.

“That’s if you want,” Njangu said. “Personally, I’ve got a helluva better use for you. Go out with our Musth friend. You’re still a member of PlanGov, still on the
real
Council. If there is any hope to Alikhan’s plan, you’ll be there, able to speak for the humans in the Cumbre system.”

Poynton looked at him wryly. “Aren’t you a little young to be playing interstellar diplomat?”

“Politics hates a vacuum, I read somewhere. Why not seize the moment? Better than waiting for the Rentiers to get off their asses. And what’s this ‘young’ shit, anyway? You aren’t more’n couple of years older than me.”

Poynton laughed. “I forgot you’re somebody who calls a spade a frigging shovel.”

She was about to go on when a ‘Raum slid into the room and, without apology, whispered urgently to Poynton.

Njangu finished his beer, considered the room he was in. It was about ten meters underground, reached by a narrow passage down through rubble. It was long, fairly low-ceilinged, with carefully fitted stone walls, ceiling, floor. Other rooms opened off it. There were bedrooms, a kitchen, a ‘fresher, workrooms. Poynton told him it had been one of the Planning Group’s hides, and the bombing of the building above only made it more hidden.

It was immaculate, and a whispering air conditioner kept the hide fresh-smelling, comfortable. Some might have found it claustrophobic, but Njangu Yoshitaro, a creature of alleys, shadows, and the night, was very much at ease.

The ‘Raum finished, hurried out.

“The Musth,” Poynton said, “have deployed into the Eckmuhl in strength, looking for the murderer who killed their soldiers. So I wouldn’t think you’ll be wanting to leave for a while.”

“I guess not,” Njangu agreed.

“We’ll get you out of the Eckmuhl after dark. There’s dozens of passageways, old sewer lines, abandoned power ways.”

“So all we have to do is figure out a way to pass the time ‘til nighttime?”

“Do you have any ideas?” Poynton asked.

Njangu remembered her body’s smoothness. “I could think of a couple.”

“So could I,” Poynton said. “After all, you did save my life. Sort of.”

“That’s a crappy reason,” Njangu complained.

“Then … how about just I remember you as feeling good when you were inside me?”

Njangu realized his lips were quite dry.

“That’ll manage just fine.”

• • •

Three ore transports, the normal safety-conscious formation, guarded by a pair of overhead
aksai
, lowered toward the Musth-guarded dock area on D-Cumbre. Each ship carried the orange-outlined-in-black logo of Mellusin Mining.

Musth guards had already checked the warehouses for contraband. But the check was fairly perfunctory — who in a proper state of sanity would want to go to the dry, hot, dusty waste of C-Cumbre/Mabasi? The stevedores were robots, and the loading went smoothly, except for the problem around the lead ship, which was carrying both Mellusin Mining’s owner and a long, highly polished lim, also in Mellusin’s colors.

If anyone wondered why Jasith needed this monstrous lim, considering she was traveling with only one bodyguard, they didn’t say anything. Jasith was in a temper, raving loudly at the human stevedores moving the lim into a cargo hold, swearing that if there was a ding, one damned ding, she’d make sure none of them dot-and-carried on this planet again. There were mutters about frigging Rentiers, but quiet ones — Jasith had more than enough influence to unemploy the lot of them.

The Musth guards thought this was quite a show, far more interesting than their regular duties, and gathered around watching.

As a result, no one saw nearly one hundred men and women, heavily laden, stream into the middle ship, hidden from overhead observation by convenient rain shields.

Loaded, the small crews of the transports began the normal ship/traffic control chatter, and lifted for space.

Out-atmosphere, the guardian
aksai
were replaced by a single
velv
and, on secondary drive, set an economical orbit toward C-Cumbre.

The command group assembled in the flight leader’s owner’s quarters. Garvin Jaansma considered them. Jon Hedley had assumed he’d be in command, but Angara refused to release him, pointing out everything was in Alikhan’s hands, rather paws, and all that would be needed in charge was a good headbanger.