Food could even be bartered for sex, or that’s what Vanderveen had heard, although she made it a point to avoid the aft end of the hold, where such transactions were said to take place. But one meal a day wasn’t enough, so even though the FSO looked forward to eating whatever was in her ration box, the human knew she was losing both weight and strength.
An hour later, the diplomat had fi?nished the tiny cup of fruit that she had traded a candy bar and some crackers for, and was about to take the empty packaging forward, when one of the so-called word-walkers stopped by. He was a small man with narrow-set eyes, a twice-broken nose, and a three-day beard. “There’s gonna be a leadership meeting,” the messenger whispered. “Ten minutes.”
Vanderveen thanked the man and took the trash forward to the “workshop,” where a team of prisoners was busy converting the MSMRE boxes into sandals for those who lacked boots, and multilayered body armor for the all-Hudathan assault team that would probably never have an opportunity to use it. Not unless the bugs made some sort of really stupid mistake. “But, it’s good to be prepared,” as Nankool liked to say. And work, any kind of work, was a morale booster. From there, Vanderveen made her way back to the point where a small group of people were assembled around Nankool. The fi?ltered light threw dark bars across the president and those crouched around him. Sentries had been posted in an effort to maintain security, but the FSO knew that there was no way to protect the most important piece of information that the prisoners had, and that was Nankool’s true identity. Everyone knew that, and because they did, were in a position to betray not only the president but the rest of the leadership team as well. Not that the bugs would have been surprised to learn that Commander Peet Schell, the Gladiator’s XO had assumed command of all military forces. But the rest of the leadership group (LG) wasn’t so obvious, starting with the president himself, who was posing as petty offi?cer Milo Kruse, the square-jawed Roland Hooks, and the slimy Corley Calisco. Unfortunately, General Koba-Sa, Ambassador Ochi, and Captain Flerko had been killed. Nankool, who seldom if ever lost his sense of humor, smiled as the FSO joined the group. “Welcome, Ms. Vanderveen. May I be the fi?rst to say how lovely you look today?”
Vanderveen, who was well aware of the fact that her skin was peeling and her hair was matted, made a face.
“Thank you, Chief Petty Offi?cer Kruse. And please let me be the fi?rst to congratulate you on the size and density of the furry thing that is in the process of eating your face.”
Everyone laughed, Calisco loudest of all, as he imagined what the diplomat would look like without any clothes. Maybe, if he moved in closer just prior to the next rain, he could score a look.
“So,” Nankool began. “For the fi?rst time since they put us aboard this tub, Vomin had something useful to say. It sounds like we’re headed for Jericho—which, if my memory serves me correctly, was one of the worlds that the Senate granted the Ramanthians as partial restitution for damage suffered during the Hudathan wars.”
“That’s correct,” Hooks confi?rmed. “You may recall that Ramanthian Senator Alway Orno was quite skillful in arguing his case.”
“Before he blew the Friendship to smithereens,” Schell added bitterly.
“Not that we can prove that,” Calisco interposed primly.
“It was a diversion,” Schell replied hotly. “The bugs stole thousands of Sheen ships while we were busy searching for survivors! How much goddamned proof do you need?”
“It doesn’t matter who triggered the bomb,” Nankool said soothingly. “Not anymore. The point is that the Ramanthians snookered us out of some prime planets—and now they want us to make improvements on one of them.”
“For their newborns,” Hooks added darkly. “Some fi?ve billion of them if our intelligence estimates are accurate.”
“Which is why the bugs started this war,” Schell reminded them. “To obtain more real estate.”
“Precisely,” Nankool agreed, as he scanned their faces.
“So, how ’bout it? Has anyone been to Jericho?”
Being the most junior person present, Vanderveen waited to see if any of her superiors would respond before raising a tentative hand. “I haven’t been there. . . . But I remember reading the survey report that was fi?led immediately after the second Hudathan War.”
Nankool smiled indulgently. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense child. Share your knowledge!”
Vanderveen’s blue eyes seemed to go slightly out of focus as she worked to summon the data acquired more than two years previously. “Jericho is an Earth-normal planet,”
she began. “Which means it is Hive-normal, too. And, judging from the ruins that cover much of the planet’s surface, it was once home to an advanced civilization. Based on studies carried out by archeologists prior to the fi?rst Hudathan war, there are notable similarities between ancient structures and artifacts present on Jericho and those cataloged on planets like Long Jump, Zaster, and Earth.”
“All of which is consistent with the possibility of a forerunner race,” Hooks observed. “Or races . . . Which might account for some of the physiological similarities between certain species.”
“Many of whom would rather slice off a nose or beak than admit to any sort of common ancestry,” Nankool observed.
“Go ahead, Christina. . . . You were saying?”
“I don’t remember all the details,” the diplomat confessed. “But I believe Jericho has a middle-aged sun, a stable orbit, and plenty of natural resources. Which is why the Hudathans sought to grab the planet during their expansionist phase—and the Ramanthians lobbied to take it away from them. A great deal of the surface is covered with jungle, however, which implies what could be a nasty food chain, not to mention some very uncomfortable conditions.”
“How nasty?” Calisco wanted to know.
“Real nasty,” Schell replied pessimistically.
“Which means it’s going to be tough,” Nankool said thoughtfully. “And we have an obligation to prepare our people for that. Christine, once this meeting is over, round up our doctors. What have we got? Two of them? Good. Tell them we need to build strength, but conserve calories, and see what sort of exercises they suggest. Then, once we have a regimen ready, pass it to Commander Schell. He’ll make it mandatory. Okay?”
What the president said made sense, and, as always, the FSO was impressed by the quality of Nankool’s leadership.
“Yes, sir,” Vanderveen replied. “I’ll take care of it.”
PLANET JERICHO, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
As the yellow-orange ball of fi?re began to appear over the eastern horizon, the usual cacophony of sounds began as thousands of arboreal life-forms hooted, screamed, and squawked their morning greetings. But, strange though some of the native species were by human standards, none could compare to the camo-covered alloy sphere that rested high in the branches of a towering sun tracker tree. Which, having a very fl?exible trunk, was already turning its huge heat-absorbing leaves toward Jericho’s sun. The construct, which was home to a human brain named Oliver Batkin, was very similar to the so-called recon balls employed by Confederacy military forces, in that the sphere was about four feet in diameter, and equipped with repellers that allowed it to fl?y at altitudes of up to three hundred feet.
The similarities ended there, however, since recon balls have tactical applications, and Batkin’s mission was to gather raw intelligence, upload it to one of the message torps in orbit around the planet, and send the vehicle back to Algeron. But not very often, since the number of reports the cyborg could make was limited by the number of torpedoes at his disposal.
Now, as the more vocal members of the local biosphere combined their multitudinous voices to wake the spy from his slumbers, Batkin activated one of the four high-resolution vid cams that had been built into his technology-packed body. He had a good view thanks to the fact that the sun tracker tree stood head and shoulders above all the rest. The top layer of the forest looked deceptively soft and inviting even though Batki
n knew that all sorts of dangers lurked below. But the view was beautiful, which was why the spy ball preferred to nest in the tallest of trees, standing like lonely sentinels over the jungle. That, at least, was consistent with how the onetime banker had imagined his new job, back in the hospital, when the recruiter dropped in to make her pitch. Six years working for the government. That’s what Batkin had agreed to in exchange for a Class IV cyber body, the kind that only the wealthiest humans could afford. Of course that was back just before the war, when the Ramanthians were members of the Confederacy, and he had been in intensive care. Since that time, Batkin been through a grueling training course, the bugs had precipitated a war, and the newly graduated spy had been sent to Jericho “to fi?nd out why the Ramanthians want it so badly.”
That, at least, had been accomplished, because about three months after the cyborg plummeted through Jericho’s atmosphere, the egg-ships began to arrive. That’s what Batkin called them, because that’s what the freighters carried, lots and lots of eggs. Thousands upon thousands of the big ten-pound monsters that crews of specially trained Ramanthians “planted” in the jungle and left to hatch on their own.
It didn’t take a genius to fi?gure out what was in the eggs, of course, but Batkin knew better than to make assumptions, and was therefore obliged to break one of the hard-shelled containers open and dissect its contents. A rather disgusting process that confi?rmed the spy’s hypothesis. A Ramanthian population explosion was under way, Jericho was being used as a gigantic nursery, and all of known space would soon be crawling with voracious bugs. All this had been documented, uploaded to a message torp, and sent to HQ, along with enough electronic intercepts to keep Madame Xanith’s analysts busy for a couple of weeks. The accomplishment provided the cyborg with a momentary sense of satisfaction.
But that was yesterday’s news, Batkin hadn’t uncovered anything since, and he was convinced he wasn’t going to. Not unless one counted the ugly-looking second-stage nymphs that had started to hatch and crawl around the jungle fl?oor. A biologically interesting process, no doubt, and one that Batkin was duty-bound to document, but hardly the sort of intelligence coup that the spy dreamed of. Because even if the ex-banker’s physical body had been reduced to little more than raw hamburger during the high-speed train crash—the ambition that drove him remained undiminished. Something which, unbeknownst to him, was among the personality traits that Madame X’s recruiters had been looking for. Because complacent, selfsatisfi?ed intelligence agents had a very low success rate, especially when working alone.
And so it was that the only spy on Jericho was resting among the branches of a very tall tree when artifi?cial thunder rolled across the land, six white contrails clawed the clear blue sky, and a fl?ock of red wings burst out of the jungle below. All of which caused Batkin to feel a sudden surge of hope. Because something was about to happen. The cargo compartment stank, or certainly should have, given the big globules of tan-colored vomit that fl?oated in the air. But Vanderveen couldn’t smell them, the stink of excreta, or her own rank body odor anymore. In fact, it was as if nothing had the capacity to offend her nose as Jericho’s gravity reached up to take hold of the Ramanthian shuttle and pull it down. Not just the ship, but the solar systems of vomit as well, which fell like a putrid rain. The POWs were standing cheek to jowl, front to back, dozens deep in the musty cargo compartment as the entire shuttle began to shake violently, a horrible creaking sound was heard, and somebody began to pray.
Vanderveen no longer cared by that time, and would have been content to die in a fi?ery explosion if that meant freedom from the sick feeling in her gut, the panicky claustrophobia that made the diplomat want to strike out at the people around her, and the man behind her, who in spite of the disgusting conditions, was determined to rub his erection against her bottom.
There wasn’t much room, but by lifting her right foot and stomping on the marine’s toes, the FSO forced the man to back off. Then the shuttle began to buck as it hit successive layers of air, fi?ttings rattled as if the entire ship might come apart, and the pilot said something over the intercom. Unfortunately, it was in Ramanthian, so Vanderveen couldn’t understand it. A warning perhaps? There was no way to know as the shuttle continued to lose altitude, and the ride stabilized.
What seemed like a month, but was actually only about twenty minutes, passed as the shuttle completed its descent. Then, after a tight turn to starboard, the ship came in for what even the Confederacy pilots had to admit was a very smooth landing. As the spaceship slowed, a human watched the shuttle turn off the main runway and taxi toward the apron where fi?ve similar craft were parked. Their passengers were already streaming out onto the hot tarmac. Both the airstrip and the long, low terminal building that adjoined it were temporary. Later, after the Ramanthians fi?nished the Class I spaceport that was being constructed some thirty miles to the east, the whole facility would be torn down. Not that Maximillian Tragg cared what the bugs did with it so long as they paid him. Which, having accidentally acquired a thousand POWs, the Ramanthians had agreed to do. And the renegade had huge gambling debts that would have to be paid before he could return to the Confederacy.
Tragg was an imposing man, who stood six-four even without his combat boots and looked like a weight lifter. Both a sleeveless shirt and the custom-made body armor that molded itself to Tragg’s wedge-shaped torso served to emphasize his muscularity. The fact that the human wore two low-riding handguns, and was backed by four heavily armed Sheen robots, made him look even more impressive. And now, as the POWs began to spill out of the fi?nal shuttle, the renegade’s real work was about to begin. Vanderveen felt a tremendous sense of relief as the shuttle fi?nally came to a stop, the back ramp was deployed, and a wave of thick humid air pushed its way into the cargo compartment. Orders were shouted from outside, and boots clattered on metal as the fi?rst wave of prisoners stumbled out into the bright sunlight, where two dozen helmeted Ramanthian troopers waited to take charge of them. Once the bodies immediately in front of her began to move, the diplomat followed. Her head swiveled back and forth as she made her way down the bouncing ramp and onto the heat-fused soil beyond. But there wasn’t much to see beyond the thick vegetation that threatened to roll out onto the tarmac, a row of neatly parked Ramanthian shuttles, and the crowd of POWs, who were being systematically herded toward a slightly raised platform. Five fi?gures stood on top of the riser, but they didn’t appear to be Ramanthian. And as the distance closed, that impression was confi?rmed. Hooks had taken up a position next to Vanderveen by that time and was the fi?rst to comment on the individual who stood out in front of the others. “What the hell is going on?” the offi?cial demanded. “That guy is human!”
“That’s the way it looks,” the FSO agreed. “But his friends certainly aren’t.”
Hooks might have commented on the robots but was prevented from doing so as Commander Schell shouted a series of orders, offi?cers and noncoms responded, and began to circulate through the crowd. It took about fi?ve minutes to sort everyone out, but when the process was over, the POWs were standing in orderly ranks. Vanderveen found herself toward the front of the assemblage and less than thirty feet from the raised platform. President Nankool was standing a couple of ranks behind her. From her position in the second row, Vanderveen found she could assess the man in front of them. The fi?rst thing she noticed was his height. Of more interest, however, was the man’s bald skull, dark wraparound goggles, and horribly ravaged face. It had, judging from appearances, been badly burned. The man’s eyes were effectively hidden, but his nose was missing, as were his ears. The ridges of scar tissue that covered his face were interrupted by the horizontal slash of his mouth.
And it was then, while Vanderveen was searching the man’s face, that his eyes came into contact with hers. The FSO felt the momentary connection as the black goggles came into alignment with her gaze and something passed between them. The diplomat felt something cold trickle into her bloodstream as the creature on the platform c
ame to some sort of decision and went on to scan the crowd. Having chosen the POW he was going to kill, Tragg spoke for the fi?rst time. “Welcome to Jericho.” The renegade had a voice that would have done justice to a regimental sergeant major, and it was amplifi?ed as well. Not by a standard PA system, but by the four robots arrayed around him, all of whom had external speakers.
“The Ramanthians see you as little more than domesticated animals,” the mercenary continued. “So, rather than force one of their offi?cers to supervise your activities, they hired me to handle the task for them. My name is Tragg. Overseer Tragg. And you will call me, ‘sir.’ ”
Tragg paused to let the words sink in before starting up again. “Because I am a paid contractor, and you are my work force, I need you in order to succeed. But by no means do I need all of you. Of course you may not believe that. So in order to prove that I’m serious it will be necessary to kill someone. Not because the person in question has done anything wrong, but because I believe their death will make a lasting impression, and ensure compliance with my orders.”
Calisco stood on the opposite side of Vanderveen from Hooks. “The bastard is crazy,” the undersecretary said sotto voce, but Vanderveen wasn’t so sure. Because everything the man named Tragg said was logical if amoral. And, based on the contact experienced only minutes before, the diplomat was pretty sure that she knew which person had been chosen to die. Something heavy settled into the pit of her stomach. The diplomat felt light-headed and struggled to keep her feet. Vanderveen saw a mental picture of her parents, followed by one of Legion Captain Antonio Santana, and felt a wave of guilt. The two of them had agreed to meet on Earth, but she’d been called away to become part of Nankool’s staff, and there was no way to tell him. If only there had been an opportunity to see Santana, to let the legionnaire know how she felt, but now it seemed as though that opportunity was gone forever.
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