Hangfire

by David Sherman

  "That wolf is fortunate," one of the watching soldiers said. "Had it been me down there, we would dine on fresh meat." He patted his flechette rifle.

  The other watching soldier snorted. "Had it been you down there, the wolf would have been in a pack and they would dine on fresh meat." He watched the wolf as it slunk away, and shivered at the thought of the pack the wolves normally hunted in. His entire team could be in danger if there were a wolf pack nearby. He increased his vigilance and vowed to tell the other soldiers about the wolf when they were awakened for their turn at watch.

  High above, flying scavengers glided away on thermals, their attention already diverted from the wolf, which was not going to bring down a meal for them.

  The sun was near its zenith and the herdsmen were finding shady spots near their kine when a sonic boom shattered the peace.

  Sword Cherub bolted awake and dove for a gap in the rocks in the direction he thought the sound came from. Without conscious thought he grabbed his flechette rifle as he moved. The other sleeping soldiers moved almost as sharply into defensive positions as he did.

  "Do you see anything?" he asked.

  "No, Sword," replied one of the soldiers who was on watch.

  The other watching soldier grunted that neither did he.

  The boom continued for several seconds, rattling into a higher register. Then it abruptly broke.

  "There!" a soldier shouted, and pointed.

  Cherub saw it at the same instant, a fast-flying aircraft in what looked like a landing approach, except it was flying entirely too fast for a landing. Was it possible that the rebels had aircraft, and that this one had been damaged in an aerial fight and gone supersonic to make its escape? It was too far away for Cherub to identify. He groped for his telescope and put it to his eye. The blocky thing with stubby wings that he saw speeding like a flung brick wasn't an aircraft, it was a shuttle! He'd seen a shuttle once when he was briefly assigned to duty in Haven. It had descended from its several degenerating orbits to spiral gently down onto the landing pad inside Interstellar City. It did not come down on a straight, fast glidepath like this one. If his memory was right, it had also looked different than this one as well.

  Sword Cherub braced his arms and the barrel of the telescope itself against rocks to keep the field of view as steady as possible as he swiveled the telescope to track the shuttle. Still the shuttle stuttered and jittered in his view as the air it slammed through buffeted it. He saw flame shoot from its front and the shuttle stagger more violently, and then, suddenly, it wasn't where he was looking. He swung the telescope back and found it again, moving much slower now. The stubby wings appeared to grow, and the shuttle seemed to stagger again as the wings bit into the air. Within seconds the shuttle was clearly in controlled flight.

  Cherub removed the telescope from his eye to get a view of the shuttle's path. He estimated that unless it altered its course, it would touch down three kilometers from Twelfth Station of Jerusalem. He picked up his radio.

  "Heaven's Vision Seventeen to Host. Heaven's Vision Seventeen to Host. Over," he said into it. "A shuttle is about to land at..." He gave the map coordinates when Host acknowledged his call. "That is right," he said when the incredulous radioman at Host questioned him. "An orbit-to-surface shuttle.Yes, I'm looking at it right now. Yes, I've seen a shuttle before, I know what I'm looking at." He waited while the Host radioman called for the watch officer, then repeated his information to the officer and added, "It just touched down." He propped his telescope on a boulder and looked at the shuttle through it. "It's disgorging something that looks like armored personnel carriers, looks like four. They're headed into Twelfth Station of Jerusalem. Yes, four of them, headed toward the village."

  He flinched at the crack of another sonic boom and turned his telescope toward it.

  "Sir, that boom was another shuttle. Sir, I have no idea where they came from. We didn't see anything before the sonic booms told us where to look. Yessir, I'm sorry, sir. This one looks to be in the same landing pattern as the previous one. If so, it will be maybe thirty seconds before it lands. Yessir, wait one." He shifted his telescope back toward the landed shuttle and scanned the scrub for the APCs. "Sir, the first shuttle is sitting there. The APCs it dismounted are about to enter Twelfth Shrine of Jerusalem. Yessir, that's right, it's just sitting there." He turned to one of his men. "Use your GPS and get a fix on that shuttle's position."

  The soldier looked through the scope of the GPS spotter he carried. "I can't get a precise reading," he reported. "The GPS doesn't have a size match for that shuttle."

  "Give it to me as near as you can." The soldier did, and Cherub relayed it to the officer. "Understood, sir. We will standby to guide the Avenging Angels."

  The watch officer at Host signed off.

  "Avenging Angels are being scrambled to strike the shuttle while it's still on the ground," he told his men.

  They grinned. Watching an air strike from a safe distance was exciting.

  The second shuttle didn't follow the path of the first all the way down, it altered its course and landed midway between the Heaven's Vision soldiers and the village. Three of the vehicles it debarked followed the first wave to the village. The fourth turned about and sped for the low hill.

  "They can't know we're here," Cherub assured his men. "It's scouting, and it's mere chance that it began scouting in our direction."

  But the armored and armed vehicle wasn't scouting and it wasn't chance that sent it toward the low hill any more than it was chance that had its shuttle alter its path and land closer to the hill. Sword Cherub's radio transmissions had been picked up and his position pinpointed, and now he and his men had held their positions too long to have any chance of getting away.

  They didn't live long enough to see the carnage in the village, or to see the four Avenging Angels disintegrate before they could get off their first missiles. They barely had time to hear the sonic boom of the third shuttle. They completely missed the way the twelve nimble land vehicles chased down and slaughtered the herdsmen and all the kine they could not carry off. Sword Cherub's last thought was a sincere prayer that he'd be forgiven his uncleanliness.

  Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent again stood before the Convocation of Ecumenical Leaders. His eyes were downcast on his hands, clasped in front of the pale rose necktie that bisected his starched white shirt. His main vestment was a suit of silver-gray sharkskin picked with a delicate gold pinstripe. When the herald finished reading the report, Bishop Ralphy Bruce raised his head and spoke in the holy cadences.

  "BRETHREN! You have all HEARD the herald's REPORT." Today he didn't strut back and forth along the chancel rail in the sacred choreography, nor did he stab fingers at his listeners. His mood was entirely too somber for such joyousness. But nothing could remove the sacred cadences from his speech. "It is quite CLEAR that the HERETICS who PLAGUE our hinterlands and MARTYR our blessed PEOPLE are not APOSTATES from among us! Rather, they are GODLESS ones come from AFAR to launch a CRUSADE against the PEOPLE of THE LORD!"

  Yes, the assembled leaders had heard the herald's report. At least, those of them who hadn't dozed through it, or hadn't been otherwise occupied in conversation with their neighbors or engrossed in their own thoughts. They had all read the report before assembling, and discussed it with their highest staffs and advisers. Many of them had other reports as well, made by their own agents within the Army of the Lord. The report of the attack on Twelfth Station of Jerusalem was far the most appalling they'd heard, even without considering the off-world implications of the shuttles.

  "MY FRIENDS! Archbishop General Lambsblood has CONFESSED to me that the ARMY of the LORD does not know what weapon this FOE has that can so SMITE our aircraft from the SKY! YEA, the archbishop general TREMBLED when he made this CONFESSION! I do not know whether his FEAR was from his lack of KNOWLEDGE or if it was righteous FEAR of the LORD'S WRATH for his FAILURE!

  "Archbishop General Lambsblood was so CONTRITE over his FAILURE that he
offered his RESIGNATION." He dropped his voice. "Of course, I refused it.

  "BRETHREN!" He flung his head and hands heavenward. "What are we to DO with HERETICS descending UPON us from AFAR!"

  The same aged cleric in white cassock and squared turban who spoke first the last time the convocation met rose slowly from his position in the front pew.

  "BROTHER!" Bishop Ralphy Bruce threw a hand toward him. "Do you WISH to give TESTIMONY?"

  "Bishop Ralphy Bruce," the old man said in his quavery voice, "I have been a member of this convocation longer than anybody else. I have stood where you stand more often than anybody else. I have seen more heretical movements come and be put down than anyone else here."

  "Do you have a point to make, Ayatollah Fatamid?" Bishop Ralphy Bruce asked impatiently.

  The old man cocked a rheumy eye at him. "If you will be patient for a moment, young man."

  Bishop Ralphy Bruce took a half step back. For all the grandiosity of his speech and gestures, he fully understood the delicate balance he was responsible for maintaining among the powers of Kingdom. "Forgive me, Ayatollah Fatamid, I beg you."

  Ayatollah Fatamid stared at him a moment longer, then spoke again. "I have seen more heretical movements come and be put down—I think I already said that. It does not matter who the heretics are or whence they come. The righteous people of the Lord will always prevail, even if we must contract with off-world mercenaries to take jihad to the home world of these heretics. Allah akbar."

  Someone gasped at the old man's use of an invocation specific to one religion, but was quickly hushed by those nearest him. Ayatollah Fatamid might have breached protocol with his last words, but he was widely respected among his peers. Besides, most of them knew he was somewhat senile and shouldn't be held responsible for everything he said. But his mention of hiring mercenaries to take jihad to the home world of the unbelievers who were raiding the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles, that bore discussion.

  The only outcome of the meeting was the appointment of a delegation to Interstellar City for the purpose of enlisting the aid of the off-world unbelievers in learning whence came the heretics. Maybe the Confederation would send its military there to teach them a lesson. After all, Kingdom was a full member of the Confederation of Human Worlds, and it was a violation of the Confederation's constitution for one member world to attack another without approval of the central government on Earth. Even then, the attacked world had to be served notice of the coming invasion. Violation of that section of the Constitution merited swift punitive action.

  Dr. Friendly Credence, a career diplomat, was the ambassador to Kingdom from the Confederation of Human Worlds. Before his arrival on Kingdom, he'd thought the reports he'd read and heard about the local government were somewhat exaggerated, if not downright hyperbolic. During the year and a half since he'd arrived to take over as the Confederation's primary representative to the theocracy, he'd come to the conclusion that those reports were understated almost to the point of criminal irresponsibility. The theocrats, in his view, were as vile as the worst despot on any other human world. In his entire thirty years as a Confederation diplomat, he had never seen so much repression in the name of religious freedom. So he wasn't in the least pleased when a delegation arrived to request Confederation assistance with what sounded to him like a rebellion that raged out in the countryside.

  "But we are not asking for assistance in putting down a ‘rebellion,’" insisted Metropolitan Eleison.

  "Oh...?" Creadence asked slowly. "Then—" He held out a hand palm up.

  "We believe we are being invaded by off-worlders. What we ask is assistance in discovering the identity of those off-worlders and where they come from."

  Creadence looked to his chief-of-station, an engineer by the name of Harly Thorogood.

  Thorogood looked surprised. "But Metropolitan, the only starships that have entered Kingdom's space in the past—well, since Kingdom joined the Confederation of Human Worlds more than a century ago—have been scheduled trade ships or Confederation Navy vessels on routine patrol."

  "Their base must be hidden on the far side of our moon, and they are coming down when you aren't looking. That would account for the irregularity of their raids."

  Thorogood shook his head. "Not possible. We have a station of our own on the moon's far side; it would have noticed. And we have constant satellite surveillance all around Kingdom."

  Metropolitan Eleison bit off a grimace. The string-of-pearls satellites the Confederation Navy had put in place a generation earlier was a sore point with the theocracy—they believed the ring of satellites spied on them despite the Confederation's assurances that the satellites were restricted to weather forecasting, geological surveys, and watching the approaches to Kingdom.

  "Besides," Thorogood continued, "ships leaving Beamspace are quite distinct. Believe me, we'd spot anyone coming here."

  Metropolitan Eleison looked thunder and lightening at the two Confederation representatives. "Then you are saying you need proof that orbit-to-surface shuttles are bringing in men and weapons before you will give us the aid we request, as is our right as a Confederation member?"

  "That would help," Creadence said.

  "Will you help us get that evidence?"

  Creadence almost salivated at the opportunity to put more people—and observation equipment—in Kingdom's rural areas. There was no telling what they might learn about how the theocracy operated where it couldn't be seen from Interstellar City, He appeared to consider the request, then said:

  "I think some form of assistance can be arranged."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  "Okay, candyass, I'll see your damned pair of fives and raise," Klink said. He shoved a handful of coins into the pot. Klink was a burly man with powerful, hairy forearms and a closely cropped bullet-shaped head. He had not bothered to shave in several days. In his younger days he had spent a lot of time in prison, hence "Klink." He sat at the table in his undershirt, a huge pistol tucked into a holster under his left arm.

  Bug, who was sitting to Klink's left, hesitated. Five stud, one more card and he couldn't beat the fives. "Playing three-handed is for the tourists," he said disgustedly, throwing in his hand. Bug was short and thin with a narrow face and a prominent hooked nose. It was difficult for him to sit still very long. He was always crossing and uncrossing his legs, moving his hands, twitching. Hence "Bug."

  "You trying to bluff me outta my pot, Klinker?" the man with the fives showing, whom everyone called Fader, accused Klink. "Okay, buddy, I call and—" He pretended to be counting his money. "—raise you back. How's that for balls?" Fader was squat, unshaven, his hair thin and graying; an unlit cigar stub stuck out of one corner of his mouth. Every now and then he'd spit masticated cigar fragments onto the floor. He was very fast with his hands and a dangerous opponent on his feet, thus the nickname Fader. Like Klink, he carried a pistol in a shoulder holster.

  "If you got any, you won't have them for long," Klink replied, but he only called. "Whatcha got besides them fives?"

  "Two pair," Fader replied, flipping over a jack in the hole to match the one face up.

  Klink swore mightily and threw his hole card down. He'd been betting on a pair of kings. Fader whistled merrily as he took in the pot.

  "Hey, fellas," Bug said, "don't you think we should be out looking around?"

  "Shaddup, Buggy! You want to check, go check, but it's raining like hell out there. Besides, they ain't coming to this hole, so relax," Klink said.

  Johnny Sticks had dispersed many of his men along the coast. Klink, Fader, and Bug had been assigned to keep an eye on the coast from Royale, in case O'Mol and the Marines tried a landing. They were heavily armed and ruthless, but Klink and Fader saw no reason to get wet on what they considered the very remote possibility that the fugitives might come back through the village of Royale.

  "These people don't like us," Bug sniffed. "Bastards. I bet they're all rebels. The place stinks too, like g
oddamned fish."

  "Fish smell, like something else I could mention, ain't bad, once you get used to it." Fader laughed, winking broadly at Klink.

  A powerful gust of wind rattled the inn's windows. Bug got up nervously and looked out into the main—and only—street. Nothing moved out there. Windblown gusts of rain swirled over the stones. It was nearly noon but already lights showed in the windows of some of the homes along the street. In such bad weather, the fishermen could not go out. Normally in that season they spent their days at the inn, drinking and socializing, but the three men from Placetas had taken over the inn as their "headquarters" and made it clear no one was welcome until their business was done.

  "Hey, Buggy, go out back and tell that bitch to make us up some sandwiches and bring in some beer," Klink said. "Goddamn woman must think she's on vacation or sumptin'. I hate these freaking hicks almost as much as the freaking tourists. Come on, come on, Fader, deal."

  "Move your ass, Buggy, I'm thirsty!" Fader yelled. Reluctantly, Bug turned from the window and walked slowly into the kitchen.

  Klink swore. "The guy's useless, Fader. Okay, just two of us? How 'bout some blackjack? Cut to see who deals."

  Someone knocked at the door.

  Fighting strong headwinds and very high seas, O'Mol and his passengers reached the mainland coast just before dawn on Tuesday. There was no sun that day, just rain and dense fog. He guided the boat into the mouth of a little bay fed by several streams. He anchored in the middle of the bay.

  "We'll hold up here until full dark," he told Pasquin. "Royale is about five kilometers from here. It's a fishing village but we should be able to commandeer ground transport once we get there. Then we'll pay Lovat Culloden a call and wrap this adventure up. How's that sit with you?"