By Blood Alone

by William C. Dietz

  Booly watched with skepticism as Ho took Chien-Chu’s disk, dropped it into a slot, and triggered the holo.

  There were thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people being held by the new regime. Why risk his troops for this one? Because her uncle was a billionaire? No, not now, not ever.

  From the moment the video stabilized, it was obvious that it had been captured surreptitiously. There was the strange ceiling-eye view, for one thing, not to mention the fact that the audio sounded hollow and was peppered with static. Antisurveillance static that had been processed, filtered, and rerecorded.

  Still, the holo was serviceable enough, and Booly watched with reluctant interest as the threesome played footage taken at the gravel pit known as IQA-14.

  Maylo Chien-Chu was nothing like the spoiled society girl that he had expected. She was smart, brave, and undeniably attractive. She turned into the shot, looked directly into the lens, and pointed to Booly’s left. “How ’bout you, Citizen? You’re wearing blue.... What do the blues expect of you?”

  There were more words, followed by chaos, but it was Maylo Chien-Chu’s eyes that captured and held the officer’s attention. Eyes that sent a chill down his spine.

  Where that holo ended, another began. There were gaps that the surveillance team had been unable to cover, but the basics were clear. Booly watched from the vantage point of a steadily circling fly cam as they placed a hood over Maylo’s head, forced the executive into the back of an unmarked car, and took her away.

  Chien-Chu handled the narration. “My company has been around for a long time and, like any successful organism, owes its longevity to a number of survival strategies. A number of protective processes kicked in the moment that Noam Inc. seized control of the company.

  “In spite of the fact that most of the revenues seemed to disappear, they were actually siphoned away, and delivered to secret subsidiaries, front companies, and numbered accounts.

  “Some of those funds go straight to suppliers, some are channeled to employees, and the rest support Radio Free Earth, the resistance, and military operations such as your own.

  “This Qwan person knows the money has been diverted—and wants it for himself. That’s why he took my niece.”

  The words were delivered calmly, almost matter-of-factly, but Booly sensed the other man’s anguish. More than that, he discovered that in spite of the fact that he had never met the woman in question, he shared the other man’s concern. The officer watched as a van, with a barely seen figure sitting in back, was admitted to a heavily guarded building.

  “So, where are they holding her? It’s a long walk to Los Angeles.”

  Chien-Chu wasn’t fooled. The words had an edge—but his eyes told a different story. He took the plunge.

  “Fortunately, for reasons I’m not sure of, Noam Inc. moved my niece to Africa. She’s being held just north of Johannesburg. A hop, skip, and a jump from where we stand.”

  Booly took a remote off the worktable, clicked through a series of wall maps, and stopped on the one he wanted. It showed the southern half of Africa. The “hop, skip, and a jump” that Chien-Chu dismissed so lightly spanned the former countries of Ethiopa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, plus a healthy chunk of South Africa.

  Impossible to make the trip on the ground, given the fact that Harco’s forces were out there waiting for them, and iffy by air even with Tyspin’s help. Stupid, really, unless . . .

  The officer moved the cursor onto the word “Johannesburg” and clicked. A map of the city appeared. “Do you know where the building is?”

  Chien-Chu nodded.

  Booly handed him the remote. “Show me.”

  Chien-Chu directed the cursor to the north, east of Soweto, and clicked on one particular intersection. A shot obtained from an orbital satellite bloomed. The buildings appeared flat and rectangular. The shadows suggested that they were three or four stories tall.

  The industrialist chose the one to the southeast and used the arrow to circle it. “This is the building where Maylo is being held.”

  Booly frowned. “An office building?”

  “No, a warehouse.”

  The officer nodded. A firefight inside an office building could produce a lot of civilian casualties. He had no desire to turn one tragedy into many. “What, if anything, have we got on the building? Security systems? Number of guards? Anything would help.”

  Chien-Chu felt a sudden surge of hope and hurried to offer a second disk. “Not everything—but quite a bit.”

  Booly summoned Captain Winters, Lieutenant Nightslip, and First Sergeant Neversmile. They discussed strategy, timing, logistics, and more long into the night.

  Later, while lying awake in his room, Booly wondered about his motives. Why had he agreed to go? Because Maylo Chien-Chu could help the resistance effort? Or because of her eyes? They haunted his dreams.

  The sun was little more than a quickly fading orange-red smear by the time the fly form deposited Booly, Fykes, Nightslip, and the Special Recon Squadron’s 2nd platoon at Djibouti’s airport. The 1st platoon had already arrived.

  There was a thump as the skids touched down. Booly released the safety harness, stood, and pulled his gear out of a rack.

  Lieutenant Barr had ferried Booly across the gulf what seemed like years before. She spoke via the PA system. “Good luck, Colonel.... Sorry I can’t take you all the way.”

  Though large, and well suited for carrying heavy loads over relatively short distances, the insectoid fly forms didn’t have sufficient range to cover the nearly six-thousand-mile round trip without a stop to refuel. The fact that the cyborg had a top speed of only five hundred mph didn’t help either.

  Booly offered a thumbs-up to the nearest camera. “That makes two of us, Lieutenant.... Watch your six.”

  Barr didn’t have eyes, not anymore, but she had feelings, and the fact that Booly knew who she was, and had taken a moment to speak with her, meant a great deal. She said, “Roger that, sir,” wished she could say more, and bit a nonexistent lip.

  A security team had spent most of the previous day sweeping the airport for electronic surveillance devices. They vacuumed up no less than 3,216 of the tiny machines, all left by Harco’s forces.

  The next step was to “turn” the bugs by feeding false input into their CPUs. The stratagem wouldn’t work forever, the muties were too smart for that, but the entire mission, travel time included, was slated for ten hours, or twelve, if things got hairy.

  Additional security had been provided by Captain Margo Ny, who, along with a force of carefully reconditioned Trooper IIs, patrolled the airport’s perimeter. They had orders to kill anything that moved, and, judging from the occasional rattle of machine gun fire, they took the responsibility seriously.

  That made for lots of dead snakes, rodents, and anything else that might conceal, harbor, or actually be an enemy surveillance device. Servos whined, sensors probed, and the scent of ozone tinged the warm night air.

  Booly made his way down the roll-up stairs, felt the heat push its way up through the soles of his boots, and started to walk.

  The 2nd platoon jogged past as Booly made his way toward the hangar where the final briefing was scheduled to take place. The Naa ran double time, or one hundred twenty paces to the minute, and sang verse three of Le Boudin: Our forebearers knew how to die

  For the glory of the Legion;

  We shall all know how to perish,

  Following tradition.

  The officer looked up into the quickly darkening sky. Had the first blow been struck? He certainly hoped so ... because if the newly named Rear Admiral Tyspin failed to provide the necessary air support the raid was doomed from the start.

  The muties had spy sats, plenty of them, many of which could and did monitor his activities. They were up there right now, watching the airport, feeding data to Harco.

  Tyspin’s job was to take them out. Not just some, the ones that could report on Africa, but all of them worldwide. It would be a m
ajor blow if the admiral could pull it off.

  The suggestion to enlarge the scope of the mission to include strategic objectives had originated with Chien-Chu. That was proof of the industrialist’s experience and long range purpose—all of which made Booly feel better about the older man’s motives.

  The troops were assembled and waiting by the time Booly passed under the hangar’s lights. Not ideal prior to a night mission, but there would be time for their eyes to adjust. The legionnaires stood in a semicircle, their backs to an old bush beater, the smell of fuel hanging in the air.

  Fykes had gone to some lengths in order to beat his commanding officer into the hangar, and looked sharp enough for inspection. He shouted “Ten-hut!” and the entire squadron crashed to attention.

  Booly nodded and scanned their faces. The words were Naa. “Welcome to Operation Phoenix. The objective of tonight’s mission is to rescue a prisoner, put the resistance effort on the offensive, and kick some mutie ass. That okay with you?”

  The Naa were thrilled to hear their language. More than two hundred voices replied in unison. “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  Booly grinned and switched to standard. “I thought you might say that! All right ... let’s run the mission one last time.” He looked at his wrist term.

  “We load twenty-eight from now, and lift at 1800. There are two birds, one for the 1st and one for the 2nd. Decoys will depart just before we do, scatter in every direction, and lead the fighters away.

  “I’m going with the 1st. Lieutenant Nightslip will command the 2nd. Standard night ops and radio procedures are in force. Check your wrist terms for call signs, passwords, and a copy of the TO.”

  Booly motioned to a tech, said, “Light the tank,” and accepted the remote. He pointed to a spot in what had been the ancient country of Ethiopia. “This is Addis Ababa, or what’s left of it, after your last visit.”

  The city had been one of the Legion’s favorite watering holes prior to the revolt, and most of the troops had been there. They laughed, just as they were supposed to, and Booly waited for the noise to subside.

  “The muties fly a transport out of here at roughly 1900 hours every evening and head straight for Johannesburg.

  “Tonight will be different. The transport will run into a shoulder-launched missile just south of Jima. That will be our cue to pop onto the radar and complete their journey. Questions?”

  One of the older legionnaires, a brindled corporal, raised his hand. “Yes, sir. That makes two blips instead of one. Won’t they notice?”

  “Not if we fly so close together that we can swap scents,” Booly replied in Naa.

  The aliens laughed, while their human counterparts looked nervous. Had the joke been on them? There was no way for them to know.

  Another hand went up. The officer nodded. A silverback asked his question. “What about the return trip, sir? What if we lose a transport?”

  “Good question,” Booly replied. “Each aircraft will be half full. If we lose one bird, the other will collect the survivors. Anything else?”

  There was one other question—but no one chose to ask it. What if they lost both transports? The answer was obvious.

  “So,” Booly continued, “the 2nd will attack the antenna farm just south of town, do what damage they can, and boogie. The 1st will land, secure a four block area, and release the prisoner.

  “While we’re busy doing that, Captain Hawkins will drop a heavily armed reaction force into the hills near Kasama, Zambia, in case we’re in trouble and need a friendly place to land. The swabbies will send air cover. Questions?”

  No one spoke this time, so Booly released the troops to their NCOs, slipped into his combat harness, and joined the 1st.

  Each legionnaire carried the same basic combat load. It included frag grenades, smoke grenades, flash grenades, a wicked assortment of highly personalized combat cutlery, sidearms, assault rifles, and twelve 30-round ammo clips. Each of them had been lightened by two rounds, in order to ease the pressure on the feeder spring and ensure its ability to shove a round into the weapon’s receiver.

  That was an old theory, and entirely fallacious as far as Booly knew, but taken seriously by the troops.

  Specialists, and that included the machine gunners, rocket teams, mortar squad, medical personnel, and com techs, carried additional gear, though less than a full field kit. Everyone humped extra belts of ammo, rockets, and power paks.

  The legionnaires paired off, checked each other’s gear, and jumped up and down. Anything that clicked, rattled, or squeaked was identified and secured. Once that process was complete, the troops boarded the transports.

  One aircraft had been stolen by an airline pilot, and still bore the company’s markings, while the other belonged to Chien-Chu. The diversionary craft, few of which would make it back, had already departed. Rescue units had been dispatched to retrieve the pilots.

  The moment of departure seemed almost anticlimatic after all the effort involved in preparing for it. The ships rose, turned toward the west, and skimmed the desert. A group of nomads, their tents flapping in the breeze, turned to watch them go. The night swallowed them whole.

  Tyspin took one last look around. In spite of the fact that the bridge crew was composed entirely of humans, the loose, nearly transparent folds of their emergency pressure suits made them look alien.

  Everything that could be nailed down had been nailed down in case the argrav failed. Engineering had assured her that all systems were good to go, damage control was on standby, and, with the exception of missile launcher P3, which needed parts, the ship’s weapons were on-line. Some of the would-be mutineers had been reintegrated into the crew; others remained under lock and key.

  Tyspin stared into the battle tank that separated the command chair from the control consoles. Earth looked much as she would if viewed from one of forward ports. An enormous blue-green globe, mottled with brown and capped with white. The moon huddled beyond, while all sorts of space habs, ships, and satellites orbited.

  The latter came in two colors—red for the muties, or those objects that might be mutie, and blue, as in true blue, for loyalist assets.

  The number of red symbols was roughly equal to the number of blue symbols, which, in the absence of active leadership, had resulted in defensive clustering.

  It was almost as if the mutie ships didn’t want to fight, or thought they wouldn’t have to . . . which made Tyspin wonder what they knew that she didn’t. Had some sort of deal been struck with the Confederacy? Where were the worthless bastards, anyway?

  Lieutenant Rawlings put an end to her mental meanderings. “All units report battle readiness, ma’am.”

  Tyspin nodded, fought the urge to clutch the arms of her chair, and gave the necessary order. “Phase one ... execute.”

  It seemed as though the words were barely out of the officer’s mouth when the tiny red dots started to vanish off the display.

  Those located nearest the loyalist ships were destroyed first, followed by mid-range targets, and a few on the far side of the planet. Spy sats mostly, mined by tiny self-propelled robots and rigged to blow.

  The response was a little slower than Tyspin had expected. Were the muties napping? Or was their chain of command subject to the same sort of vacillation that hers was? They had all come up through the same system—so the question was stupid.

  The naval officer shrugged, ordered her ships to attack, and said a little prayer. It was silent, but Rawlings read her lips. The “amen” was hers.

  The lights were red, to protect their night vision, and purposely dim. Booly watched his troops through half-closed eyes, noting how those seated in close proximity to him handled the stress.

  The civilian videographer, a wispy woman named Claire something or other, fussed over her equipment. Booly didn’t like the idea of holo coverage, but Chien-Chu insisted that the RFE broadcasts were important and promised to control the hype.

  Lance Corporal Fareyes squinted at a Ramanthian slot puzzle,
slid a piece sideways, and swore when it didn’t fit.

  Corporal Warmfeel continued to hone an already sharp clan knife, his eyes unfocused, his jaw hanging slack.

  Private Hardswim snored softly until his head fell forward. That was his cue to jerk it back, peer at his companions, and start all over.

  Fykes dealt a card to Neversmile, scanned the Naa’s countenance for an expression, and failed to find one.

  The engines droned monotonously, air blew against the back of the officer’s neck, and the miles slipped away.

  The Gladiator flinched as another flight of missiles left her launchers and flashed toward the enemy. Most were detected and intercepted. Two made it through. They struck the Conquistador aft of her heat stacks, and punched their way through the older ship’s hull. She shuddered, exploded in a sudden flash of light, and disappeared. A cloud of metal, flesh, and bone marked her final orbit.

  The bridge crew cheered and slapped each other on the back. Tyspin clutched the arms of her chair. “There will be silence on this bridge! You can celebrate when the battle is over, assuming you’re alive—and assuming you have the stomach for it.”

  The celebration stopped, and the naval officer regretted her words. The crew were entitled to their celebration, but she had served on the Conquistador, and knew some of the crew. Not as enemies, but as friends.

  She eyed the holo tank. A dozen red deltas, each of which was an enemy vessel, were formed into a globe. Their flagship, the Samurai, hung at its center. The gap left by the Conquistador spoke for itself.

  Tyspin gave the order: "Gladiator to battle group. Close on me. Prepare to engage.”

  Booly felt someone touch his shoulder, snapped into instant wakefulness, and was surprised to find that he had fallen asleep. Fykes nodded. “We’re fifteen from the LZ, sir. Figured you’d want to join in the fun.”

  Booly grinned. “Thanks, Sergeant. How’re the troops?”