by Rick Shelley
“I just don’t understand it, Colonel,” Allison said. “This just shouldn’t be possible. Look at them.”
They were not pretty. The visible skin was livid, marked by blotches and lines of dark red going black. “It looks like massive hemorrhaging, as if all the blood vessels exploded,” Allison said. “I don’t know any way that could happen, not from what I gave them.”
“It looks as if the enemy doesn’t want us questioning their people,” Magnusson said.
Lon glanced at him. “Some kind of booby trap in the blood?”
Magnusson shrugged. “Sounds like a good guess. Hit them with any nanobugs without neutralizing the defenses, and zap.”
After a hesitation, Lon looked toward the ceiling and said, “Same thing might happen if we use truth drugs.”
“Probably,” Magnusson said. “Maybe we can get enough from a postmortem to find the triggering agent, and how to counter it.”
“Colonel?” Allison waited until Lon looked at him. “You mean they rigged their men to die if they got captured?”
“That’s what we’re thinking. We need to get these three and some of the raiders who were killed outright to Lincoln for detailed examination. Ron, will you take care of that?”
“Yes, sir,” Magnusson said. “I’ll get my lead sergeant right on it. Send the bodies back on one of our shuttles.”
“I’ll have Major Osterman make the arrangements on the other end,” Lon said. He turned and walked away, leaving the building.
Outside, he walked down to the bottom of the valley, near the thin stream, and looked up into the sky. After a moment he squeezed his eyes shut.
“No easy fix this time,” he whispered. “Unless we find a way to counter whatever they’ve done, it’s going to be just like before, hunt them out on the ground.”
13
Lon could think of dozens of things he would rather do, or should do, that evening other than attend a formal dinner at Government House. But there was no avoiding Governor Sosa’s invitation. The political aspect of leadership demanded Lon’s gracious attendance, and that of his second-in-command.
“I really don’t like for both of us to be away at once, Vel, but that’s the way it goes,” Lon said after they donned formal white uniforms. A car was coming to pick them up.
“A couple of hours, Lon, and it’s not as if we had to jump to Q-space for it. We’ve got our radios and we can get back to base in, what, five minutes if we have to?”
“I know, it’s just”—Lon hesitated for ten seconds or more—”I’ve never been comfortable with the highbrow stuff.”
Vel laughed. “Seems that, once upon a time, I heard someone suggest that you got married just to escape going to all those junior officer functions, the grand balls and all that.”
Lon couldn’t help a smile. “No, that wasn’t why I got married, but it sure as hell was a nice bonus. I couldn’t get out of all the social nonsense, but once I had Sara along, it wasn’t nearly as hard to bear. Three or four times a year, when we’re in garrison, I can manage. Snag is, now that I’ve got the battalion, I’m going to have to go to more of those affairs, be on display, play the game.” See and be seen. Talk with the right officers, smile at the right officers’ wives. Play the game, the inevitable politics of command.
“How’s the food at Government House?” Vel asked. The limousine was just pulling to a stop in front of the headquarters building in the militia compound.
“Okay, I guess, the two times I ate there. But that was a lot of years ago. They might have a different chef now.”
Polite conversation. Soft music in the background. Introductions and meaningless smiles. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Men in uniforms or dinner jackets. Women in fancy gowns, festooned with too much jewelry. Lon tried to give the evening all the attention he could, but it was difficult. He played the game, but absently, his mind wandering to the events of the day, the fight and the gruesome death of the injured prisoners. There were no final reports yet on the postmortem examinations. Tests were still being conducted and analyzed. Maybe in the morning, CIC had told Lon while he was dressing for the governor’s affair. All the medical lab could confirm so far was that whatever had been added to the medical nanosystems of the dead raiders, it had self-destructed after death, making analysis difficult, perhaps impossible. They would try to reverse-engineer the nanotech agents. That seemed the necessary step if any antidote could be fashioned, but that might also prove impossible without too much time and better facilities than were available on Bancroft or aboard the Dirigenter ships.
The “dinner is served” announcement was a small relief to Lon. It meant that the end of the evening was a little closer. The preliminaries were over. An hour, maybe ninety minutes, would see the end of dinner, and it might be possible for Lon and Vel to excuse themselves not too long after the meal.
Most of the other guests seemed excited at the victory over the raiders, especially since it had been accomplished without any Bancrofter fatalities and without the loss of any of the metals and minerals that fueled the world’s economy.
Lon scarcely noticed the quality of the food. He ate in mechanical fashion, keeping up a portion of his share of the table talk, trying to pay attention to what was going on around him. It wasn’t easy, but he kept reminding himself that he had to play the game. Vel Osterman seemed to enjoy it. He kept the talk going, turning phrases that brought polite giggles from the women seated at either side of him and holding the attention of most of the people at the table.
Dessert. Brandy. Lon sampled both only sparingly. His primary interest in them was as indications that the dinner was nearing its conclusion. He watched. Either the governor or, more likely, his wife would stand and make some trifling comment. That would be the signal for everyone to rise. There would be a general migration toward the formal parlor and, after that, guests would be free to leave. He did not notice the servant who came up and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
“Excuse me, sir,” the liveried attendant said, “the governor requests you and Major Osterman to give him a few minutes after dinner. I will conduct you to the governor’s office.”
“Of course. Thank you,” Lon said, thinking, So much for a quick exit.
The governor made excuses and promised his other guests that he would join them in the parlor as soon as possible. He moved toward a narrow door that was almost concealed by a tall cabinet at the side of the room. The servant conducted Lon and Vel through the same door, down a corridor to the governor’s office.
“I’ll only take a moment, gentlemen,” Governor Sosa said. He had remained standing. “I was most distressed to hear of the fate of the prisoners taken this morning at Xavier’s Beak. I can’t believe that Earth has become so barbaric.”
“It was unexpected, Governor, but I can’t say that I’m especially surprised at it,” Lon said. “Shocked, yes, but not surprised. Human life doesn’t carry the same value on Earth as it does on most worlds. It’s obvious that Earth knows, or surmises, that prisoners were taken before and were questioned. They don’t want to take the same risk again.”
“Will you be able to find a way to neutralize whatever it is that causes such a ghastly death?”
Lon spread his hands. “I can’t even make a decent guess. We’re working on it, full blast, in the labs on Long Snake and Taranto, but it might be beyond the scope of what we can do here. A message rocket couldn’t carry sufficient samples to Dirigent, and I don’t want to detach one of my ships to make the trip.”
Sosa started to speak, but stopped with his mouth open. Then he shut it and started over. “I see why,” he said. “A month in transit for the round trip, and whatever time your ground labs might take to analyze the problem and come up with a solution…if there is one.”
“I have a lot of faith in the research people back home,” Lon said, “but this is something that might take years to puzzle out, if we can at all. Computer models can’t take the last step, to verify anything they reverse-e
ngineer, and this isn’t the kind of thing we would ever consider doing live trials on.”
“Of course not,” Sosa said. “Nor would we.” He paused, frowned. “This does complicate matters.”
“Possibly. It certainly robs us of the easiest shortcut to solving your problem,” Lon said. “But aside from the macabre fail-safe Earth seems to have infected its soldiers with, the encounter this morning was encouraging. Your garrison got word out of the attack fast, and both your people and mine were able to get to the scene fast enough to stop the raiders cold.”
Sosa nodded absently. “They were not scoring every time they hit before, Colonel—not to belittle your contribution. But I wonder if part of our success this morning might have been due to the fact that you were in the air when the raid started and were able to get to Xavier’s Beak even before your fighters.”
“It’s possible,” Lon conceded. “There might be a lot of factors that went our way this morning. That particular raid might have been staged just to let the raiders gauge how we react to an attack, feeling us out, trying to figure out what changes they might need to make in their tactics.”
Three in the morning. The dream was one that Lon welcomed being wakened from, even for bad news. The ghost of Dean Ericks, nearly transparent, defined more by dripping blood than form, had come to him. Though nothing had been said yet, the dream fit an all-too-familiar pattern. Lon was certain that Dean was coming to tell him that Lon, Junior, had been killed on contract.
“Colonel Nolan! Wake up, sir!” The voice was Jeremy Howell’s.
Lon opened his eyes and blinked several times against the light in his room. He lifted his arm to shade his eyes. “What is it?” There was nothing sluggish about Lon’s voice. He had wakened completely—the better to escape his nightmare.
“A raid. At least we think it’s a raid,” Howell said.
Lon swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat up. “Calm down, Jerry. Start at the beginning.”
“Mining camp called Three Peaks didn’t make a scheduled check-in at oh-two-hundred, then didn’t answer when militia HQ called. There’s no netlink with the camp. Then one of our Shrikes spotted smoke rising from the location.”
Lon had gotten to his feet and stretched while Howell was talking. “Three Peaks—that’s one of the places the raiders hit when we were here last time,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I recognized the name.”
“Are we responding?” Lon asked. His answer came from outside. He heard the engine sounds of two attack shuttles taking off just south of the militia base.
“That’s Alpha Company, Colonel,” Howell said as soon as the initial roar abated enough for easy talk. “And the militia OD said they’ll have two companies on the way in five minutes.”
Lon sat on the edge of his bed again. He glanced at the timeline on the complink on the nightstand. “You might as well get back to bed, Jerry. I’ll stay up until we’ve got a report from Captain Girana.”
“Would you like some coffee?” Howell asked.
“No. I want to be able to get back to sleep once I know what’s going on.”
Lon yawned as Jeremy left. His moment of peak alertness had passed. Then he moved a little, to get closer to his complink. He keyed in instructions and got a radio link to Girana aboard his shuttle.
“Tebba, I want a direct report as soon as you get on the ground and know what’s going on at Three Peaks.”
“We should be touching down in about twelve minutes,” Girana said. “A few minutes to get into the camp, unless the landing is contested. I’ll keep you posted.”
Lon closed the link and yawned again, after noting the exact time. He was moderately surprised at the return of sleepiness. He felt no excitement, no nervousness. There was no urge to jump into battledress and take a shuttle to Three Peaks to see what was going on for himself.
Age, I guess, he thought. Trouble would come when it wanted to. He felt no call to go looking for it. Twenty years of winning other people’s wars with our blood. He yawned. The thought was no longer novel, no longer revolutionary to his mind.
He sat slouched over, head occasionally nodding. There was a pleasant feeling of detachment as he hovered on the edge of the slide back into sleep, an anesthetizing warmth. Outside, there would be the chill of a spring night. It had been noticeably cool when he left Government House five hours earlier. Early spring. The nights could still get close to freezing in Lincoln.
When his complink buzzed to alert him to an incoming message, Lon was startled. Twenty minutes had passed since he had talked to Tebba. Lon had nearly been asleep. He reached quickly to accept the call.
“We’re on the ground at Three Peaks, Colonel,” Tebba Girana reported. “It’s bad. Looks as if everyone here was killed, militiamen and miners. The raiders are gone, presumably with whatever was worth taking.”
Sleep was banished. Lon could feel his heart start to beat more rapidly. He sat up straighter.
“First glance, it looks as if the raiders hit with grenades, got past whatever snoops the militia had planted, knocked out the netlinks before anyone could call for help,” Tebba said. “The buildings were all torched—intentionally, I’d guess. It’s been raining here, and one building didn’t burn all the way to the ground.”
“You send patrols to see which way they went?” Lon asked.
“Not yet. I thought I’d better check with you and give the Bancrofters time to get organized. They’re still moving away from the landing strip.”
“Right. You’ll have to work with the senior officer. Get a perimeter set up, then put out patrols to look for the raiders’ trail. Anything more might have to wait until daylight. Is it still raining there?”
“Yes, sir, and fairly heavy. Miserable. The pilot said the cloud deck extends all the way to the ocean and the ceiling is nine hundred feet—below some of the peaks in this area.”
“Which limits what we can see from above,” Lon said, more to himself than to Tebba.
“Limits what we can see on the ground, too,” Tebba said. “The odd bolt of lightning hurts more than it helps, blurs the night-vision gear.”
“Do what you can tonight, Tebba. I’m going to have to confer with Colonel Crampton before we fix anything past the immediately necessary. You know what to do.”
The conference with the Bancrofter militia commander came sooner than Lon expected. Before he could call BCM headquarters, Colonel Crampton linked through to him.
“I heard,” Lon said before Crampton could say why he had called. “I just got off the line with my senior man on the scene. Your people had just arrived.”
“I told my company commanders to put themselves under your man,” Crampton said. “I assume we go right after these raiders.” There was no question in his voice.
“If possible,” Lon said. “We’re putting patrols out to try and pick up their trail. There’s a lot of rain in that area now. That might make it impossible to find any trail we can follow.”
“We can’t let them get away scot-free!”
“If it’s humanly possible to prevent that, we will, Colonel,” Lon said. “Right now, we’ve got to give the men on the ground there a chance to do their jobs. Swimming blindly in the mud won’t do us any good.” Neither will hysteria, he thought.
“I’ll be heading out there shortly,” Crampton said. “Time it to reach Three Peaks at dawn. The forecast says the rain should let up by then. It’s starting to rain here now, but Lincoln is right on the edge of the system.”
“Tell you what, Colonel. Why don’t you come over here and we’ll take my command shuttle. Takeoff in an hour, maybe an hour and a quarter.”
Crampton scarcely hesitated. “I’ll be there.”
Coffee, a shower, more coffee. Lon gave orders to have his shuttle prepared, and had Phip wakened to gather a few men to ride with them. Shave, eat a quick breakfast, drink more coffee…go to the latrine. Lon plodded through the routine, as if this were just a normal morning. As far as he could, he p
ut off thinking about Three Peaks. There would be time enough for that later. Once Colonel Crampton arrived, it might be impossible to escape discussing the raid.
Crampton arrived before Lon finished but did not intrude. Crampton went to the communications center and talked with his officers in Three Peaks—getting the latest tally on the disaster. The duty officer informed Lon that Crampton had arrived.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Lon replied, and he made a point not to rush through the few remaining necessities. When he left his room, Lon was in full field kit, carrying his battle helmet under one arm and his rifle slung over the other.
“No warning this time?” Phip Steesen asked as Lon came out of the bedroom.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Lon said. “You ready to go?”
“We’re ready. I’ve got a fire team in the shuttle, and the pilots should be through their checklist by now. Just waiting for you, me, and Colonel Crampton and his people.”
“How many did he bring?” Lon asked.
“Just two. They’ll fit.”
“We can’t let these raiders get away with an attack like this one,” Crampton said while the men were walking across the compound toward the gate on the south side. “We’re talking about sixty people killed, most while they were sleeping.”
“No one’s letting anyone get away with anything,” Lon said. He had his helmet on with the faceplate tilted up, away from his face. There was a steady rain coming down over Lincoln now, but without much wind to drive it. “That’s why we’re here, to stop these raiders. It just might take time.”
“After this, we’ll play hell keeping miners at any of the camps. We might even have to evacuate some of the villages, bring people into the towns. And that plays hell with the economy, on top of the way our citizens are going to feel about a massacre like Three Peaks.”
Lon stopped walking and turned to face Crampton, almost colliding with him. “Look, Colonel, I know how you feel, but snapping your fingers and saying, ‘We’ve got to do something this minute’ won’t accomplish one damned thing. We’re here. We’ll do what is possible, as fast as possible. You’re a good officer, but you can’t think straight getting emotional. Get a grip on yourself.”