Belinski sighed. “You’d think we’d have done away with that by now and made everybody full citizens.”
Kindy snorted. “You’d be surprised how many people left Earth to settle new worlds because they wanted to return to ‘the good old days.’ Sure, ‘good old days,’ with lords and ladies, peasants, indentured servants, women as chattel. Give me modern civilization any day.”
“So it’s possible that Buben really doesn’t speak any Standard English,” Daly said, and cocked his head at the prisoner. “An illiterate, uneducated peasant. He isn’t much use to us, is he? Pity we wasted that food on him.”
“Yeah, it is,” Williams said, catching on to what Daly was doing. “No point in keeping him around.”
Daly seemed to give the question some consideration, then said, “We’re going to test that weapon of his tomorrow. We can take him along and test it on him, see exactly what the acid does to human flesh, how long it takes to kill someone.”
“And then,” Belinski said, also understanding what Daly was doing, leaning forward with a vicious grin, “we can give him a bolt from a blaster, and you can see for yourself how they flare up.”
“That’ll sure get rid of the evidence,” Kindy added. “I sure wouldn’t want to be accused of abusing a prisoner.”
“Excellent thinking, Sergeant! We’ll do exactly that. I’m certainly interested in seeing it for myself. Not that I believe it’s literally true, you understand.” Daly turned to look speculatively at the prisoner.
Buben had craned his head around to look at them with interest while they were talking, but his face gave no sign that he understood a single word they said. Now he focused on Daly and bowed his head. He used his free hand to indicate that he needed to relieve himself.
“Either he really didn’t understand us or he’s got exceptional control over his face,” Daly said. “So everybody be alert for him to try to break away while we take him for a head call.”
The prisoner was docile when they took him to the nearest bathroom. They had to show him how to use the facilities but had no other problem, not even when they took him back to the secure room and bound him to the bed.
Ensign Daly prepared another message to send via drone to Fourth Fleet Marine Headquarters on Halfway. The message began with a detailed account of the firefight at the Rebetadika homestead, though Daly hesitated over including some of the details—people simply didn’t flare up into vapor when shot with a blaster, and they couldn’t breathe underwater either. People at Fourth Fleet Marine HQ were liable to think he’d suffered a brain injury or chemical imbalance when they read that. But he was also feeling a real sense of urgency. And if people at 4FMHQ thought he’d gone around the bend, they might speed up getting the navy to send a starship to Haulover, a navy warship and some more Marines. After the events of the day, Daly suspected that whoever the raiders were, they needed to be dealt with forcefully, and with more power than two Force Recon squads could bring to bear. He ended his report with detailed descriptions of the captured weapon and the prisoner. Included with the written descriptions were images, 2-D and trid of both, along with an account of the prisoner’s behavior. Almost as an afterthought, he appended a recording of the prisoner’s speech. He was positive that 4FMHQ would be able to identify the language. They’d just as positively be able to identify where the raiders had come from. After some internal deliberation, he added a strongly worded plea to get the navy to Haulover fast; he knew he could keep the acid-shooting weapon secure until the navy showed up, but he also wanted to keep the prisoner out of local hands and wasn’t sure how long he could keep the small man under wraps.
As trepidatious as Daly felt about the reception some of the details in his report would receive at 4FMHQ, he had no such misgivings about the reaction to them at Fourth Force Recon headquarters. Force Recon Marines saw—and did—things that were stranger than could be conceived of by the headquarters pogues.
The Wee Hours, Approaching Sky City
A Senior Master led a Master, two Leaders, and six Fighters on the road to the capital of Haulover. The Master drove the landcar they’d captured from an Earthman outpost. The Leaders had grumbled between themselves about stealing a landcar without killing the Earthmen in the outpost, or destroying the buildings, but not loudly enough for the Master or the Senior Master to overhear. Had they been overheard, they would have been disciplined, and discipline in the Emperor’s army was severe; and if they survived the discipline they would be reduced to mere Fighters with no chance of being returned to the position of Leader. The two Leaders didn’t know, but they suspected the Master was likewise displeased. If he was, he didn’t complain within their earshot. Both Leaders had served under the Senior Master leading them that night, and knew him to be an exceptionally harsh disciplinarian. They suspected that if the Master complained about doing nothing more than stealing the landcar, the Senior Master might well have executed him on the spot for protesting the Grand Master’s orders.
The six Fighters had no opinion on the matter.
The Master drove the Earthman landcar. It was a very quiet vehicle. Which was fortunate, since the Master had little experience of Earthman landcars and had difficulty starting it and then confining it solely to the road. Had the vehicle not been so quiet, the theft would have awakened the Earthmen at the outpost, and the real People would have had to kill them—as the Leaders, and probably the Master as well, desired to do. As it was, the Master did drive the landcar off the road a few times, and even collided with a tree once. But by the time they reached the plateau on which Sky City perched, the Master was driving the landcar as though he’d been doing it since his youth.
The ten were garbed in Earthman clothes, since they were going into the Earthman city and might be seen by someone who questioned their presence. They could kill such a person, of course, but would do so only if letting the person live jeopardized their mission. They were required to kill any of the Earthman Marines who might be in their house—and the captured Fighter if he was there. But killing a questioner might draw unwanted attention to the group and thereby alert the Earthman Marines so that the mission to kill them and the captured Fighter could fail. That was why the Over Master who planned the mission assigned a Senior Master who spoke the Earthmen’s primary language to command it. The Senior Master should be able to deflect any potential challenges simply by talking.
Once they killed the Earthman Marines and their prisoner, they could kill as many of the Earthmen of Sky City as they desired. But most important was killing the Earthman Marines and the captured Fighter. The killing of their enemies would surely bring out any other Earthman Marines who might be hiding on the planet to where they could be killed by the Emperor’s Third Composite Corps. Or bring large numbers of Earthman Marines there if none were present.
It did not matter if the ten members of the raiding party lived to return to headquarters. If the mission was not successful, they would not return.
The landcar strained climbing the road to the top of the plateau; it wasn’t meant to carry as many passengers as it held. Still, it reached the top of the plateau three hours before dawn. The map drawn by the Masters and Leaders who had earlier scouted the location of the Earthman Marines’ quarters was true and easy to follow. The raiders saw few other people or vehicles along the way. When they reached their objective, the driving Master drove a hundred meters farther before stopping. The ten got out and hid their weapons, projectile throwers taken on raids against the outposts—weapons better suited for fighting inside the house than the acid shooters they normally used—under their Earthman garments then headed for their strike positions along the sides and rear of the building. The Master and two Fighters took position along one side, next to windows; the two Leaders and two Fighters by windows on the other side; the Senior Master and the remaining two Fighters went to the rear entrance to the building.
While the strike team arrayed itself around its objective, a pair of observer Masters took positions m
ore than half a kilometer away. Regardless of developments, they were not to engage in the fighting at the Earthman headquarters. If none from the strike team survived their mission, the mission of these two was to report what had happened.
Marine House
Corporal Nomonon yawned and checked the time for what felt like the two hundredth time, but it was only a couple of minutes after his last time check. Normally he’d be much less restive during guard duty. But his normal watches were in the field, and there he could patiently maintain watch for twenty-four hours without moving. Twice that long if necessary. But one lousy hour inside Marine House, that was driving him nuts. It was the first time they’d had an overnight watch since they arrived on Haulover; it was also the first time they’d had a prisoner to watch over.
Nomonon’s eyelids drooped and his head lowered. His chin fell to his chest and bounced right back up. “Damn!” he swore softly. “Can’t fall asleep.” He wasn’t thinking of being disciplined for falling asleep on guard duty, he was more concerned with the ragging he’d get from the other Marines if he fell asleep during a lousy one-hour fire watch. He decided to stand and take a look through the house. Not that there was anything to look at or for, but walking around would keep him awake.
He was in the kitchen getting a drink of water when he heard a whistle from behind the house, followed immediately by the tinkling of glass from the back door.
CHAPTER
* * *
THIRTY-ONE
Marine House, Sky City, Haulover
The Skinks
The raiding party didn’t have any communications devices; they didn’t want to risk alerting the Earthman Marines by having their transmissions intercepted. The Senior Master commanding the mission looked along both sides of the building to verify that his raiders were in position and had withdrawn their weapons from under their clothing, then took his own place next to the door on the back of the building and blew a short blast on his whistle. On that signal, one of the Fighters with him poked the muzzle of his weapon through a pane of glass in the door and reached in to fumble for the securing mechanism and fling the door open.
The scouts who drew the map that led the raiders to the quarters of the Earthman Marines had not been able to enter the building, so the raiders didn’t have an accurate layout, but the scouts had been able to see enough from the outside to know that a hallway led from the back door to a large front room, and that several smaller rooms opened off the hallway.
The Senior Master ushered the two Fighters through the door ahead of him. They raced to a door on the left and opened it, filling the hallway with thunder by firing their weapons into the room beyond. The Senior Master himself threw open the first door on the right and dashed inside without firing. No light came into the room from outside, but he turned on the light globe hanging around his neck. He had to blink against the sudden brilliance, but then he lowered nictitating membranes over his eyes and was immediately able to see reasonably clearly. The room was unoccupied—except for the captured Fighter.
With a cry of triumph, the Senior Master ran to the narrow bed where the Fighter was secured. As he pulled a bottle from one pocket in his pants, and a spark maker from another, he ignored the Fighter’s shouted words: “The Earthman Marines, they treated me well! They are not evil!” The Senior Master opened the bottle and doused the Fighter with the accelerant it contained, then lit the spark maker and jumped back far enough that the resulting flames wouldn’t ignite him. It was necessary to vaporize the Fighter in cleansing fire; if he was merely killed, his body would remain behind to possibly tell the Earthmen who they were, and where Home was.
Only after the body of the captured Fighter was returned to its component elements did the Senior Master become aware that he had heard a sizzle-whoosh from the hallway, and saw the bright light that flashed there.
The Marines
At the sound of the whistle and breaking glass at the rear of the house, Corporal Nomonon roared out, “INTRUDERS!” and spun to race from the kitchen to the front end of the hall; in one movement, he dropped the glass from which he’d been drinking and went for his sidearm. He was so intent on what was happening at the rear of the house that he almost missed the sound of breaking glass behind him. Reflexively, he dove to his left and rolled to face the kitchen windows, completing his draw and pointing his hand blaster toward where he’d heard the noise. His reflex movement was fast enough; two projectiles, accompanied by BOOMS! magnified by the confines of the room, slammed through the space he’d just occupied.
Two smallish men holding projectile rifles were clambering through the windows. He squeezed the trigger of his hand blaster and blinked in shock when one of the small men immediately flared into flame. The other twisted and flowed, moving as fast as Nomonon had moved diving from the initial projectile fire, to escape the fireball. He moved far enough, fast enough that Nomonon’s first shot at him missed. But the invader flashed into vapor at the Marine’s second shot.
Nomonon hadn’t seen the third intruder, who had been behind the others. But in his last seconds of consciousness he felt the impacts as the man fired his rifle through the window and put three rapid projectiles into the Marine’s chest.
The Skinks
With the first part of his mission accomplished, the Senior Master turned his attention to the sounds and lights from the hallway, the sizzle-whoosh and flashes of brilliant light. He also heard the guttural shouts of his own troops mingled with the harsh, confused cries of the Earthman Marines. In the hall, he saw the scorch marks where one of the Fighters had been immolated by the terror weapons wielded by the Earthmen—weapons terrible because they didn’t merely kill but ignited the oil-permeated cells of the bodies of the People and vaporized them. He also saw the scars burned into the walls and floor of the hall by plasma bolts that had failed to strike the other Fighter who had entered the room across the way. That Fighter stood just inside the opposite door, patiently, even placidly, awaiting orders.
A plasma bolt struck the doorjamb near the Senior Master’s head. He flinched and belatedly realized that his light globe was still on, that its glow must have drawn the fire. He flicked the light off and waited for more fire to come his way. When none did, he signaled the Fighter across the way to get ready to poke his Earthman projectile thrower around the corner of the door and blaze away down the length of the hall. The Fighter mimed what he would do when he received the order, and the Senior Master was satisfied.
The Senior Master wished he’d thought to bring a periscope, or, failing that, that he had a mirror that he could use to look down the hallway without exposing himself. But he had neither. Not that it would necessarily matter, not if the Earthman Marines were wearing their invisibility uniforms. The Senior Master stripped off his shirt and turned to face the front of the house, to better sense the locations of the Earthmen. He signaled the Fighter to do the same.
What he felt made him jump to the side and draw his projectile sidearm, then empty the weapon through the corner of the walls toward the front of the house.
The electric emanations he felt along his sides didn’t change, and he nodded to himself. He hadn’t been present during the debriefing of the Leader who was the sole survivor of the previous day’s encounter with the Earthman Marines, but he’d listened to the recordings, so he knew the Earthman Marines could be much closer than their electrical emanations would indicate. That was why he was surprised and had emptied his sidearm through the wall. But since his projectiles had no discernible effect on the enemy, he deduced that there was something in the invisibility uniforms that damped the electric signals, making the Earthmen seem farther away than they actually were.
He inserted another magazine into his sidearm while he analyzed anew the signals he was receiving. He didn’t know the layout of the house, or how the electric conduits snaking through it or other sources of electric signals might be masking the locations and numbers of the Marines. But he had not risen to Senior Master and would not h
ave been in line for promotion to Over Master had he not been able to locate the electric field of a life-form in a jumble of other signals.
Closer to the front of the house, inside rooms near the far end of the hallway, were three or four Earthmen; two on this side of the hall, one or two on the other. Two or three more were beyond that, to the left side, a single one and either one or two more, he couldn’t tell for sure. Of his own troops, he sensed one on the right side of the front part of the house and two on the left. With the one across the hallway, that meant he had four remaining, to face at least five and possibly seven of the enemy. Against those odds, it was likely that he and his troops would die. But they had accomplished their primary mission, and would take at least half of the Earthman Marines with them when they died.
That would be a satisfactory conclusion to the mission.
The Marines
Corporal Jaschke was a sound sleeper, but not so sound a sleeper that certain noises couldn’t penetrate his consciousness and bring him to instant wakefulness. High among the short list of Get-Up-Right-Now! sounds was an alarm cry from another Marine. So when Corporal Nomonon shouted, “INTRUDERS!”, Jaschke was rolling out of bed and reaching for his weapons before his eyes were even open. In that second, he had achieved enough situational awareness to recognize the thump and gasp from the other side of the room as Lance Corporal Ellis doing the same things he’d just done.
Confused sounds came from other parts of the house. A hand blaster went off in the kitchen, along with the sharp crack of projectile-throwing rifles. There was the tinkling of breaking glass from the side wall of the living room. And gunfire at the end of the hallway near the back door—along with a whoosh, as though something had gone up in sudden flame.
As he grabbed his helmet and pulled it on, Jaschke scrabbled to the door and eased it open. He slid his light-gatherer screen into place and eased his head into the hall at floor level, his sidearm in his hand poking in front of his face. He was in time to see a smallish man, who looked very much like the prisoner except that he was dressed and armed, step out of the room opposite the secure room. Without hesitation, Jaschke snapped a plasma bolt at the intruder.
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