by Джеффри Лорд
For a while Blade wondered if he'd made a mistake. Some of the leaders seemed to favor an agreement. Others went on muttering suspiciously. Since one of the things they muttered was «holding that Kananite bitch Riyannah as a hostage,» Blade decided to leave.
As he headed toward the door, two of the leaders drew their guns and things got rather lively. Blade shot one man in the leg and clubbed another with the butt of his own pistol. Riyannah tripped up a third, then hit him over the head with a chair. Before anyone else could move, Blade and Riyannah were out of sight, on their way to the cave where their equipment was stored.
They reached the cave, left a message outside, then closed the door and fused it shut with a hurd-ray blast. The message read:
Targans,
Study the films and see if we are telling the truth. If you think we are not giving you enough, say so. We will be happy to talk about giving you more.
But we will not come out until you are ready to talk, one way or another. If you try to break down the door, we will blow up this cave, along with all of your supplies, most of you, and ourselves. We are very tired of trying to be polite to people who do not understand that we all have only one enemy-Loyun Chard.
Richard Blade
Sar Riyannah
Riyannah signed the message, but she looked hard at Blade before she did so. «Would you really blow up this cave and everything in it?»
«Not really. There are ways we can keep ourselves out of the underground's hands without doing them real damage.»
«You're bluffing?»
«More or less. But they don't know it, and they can't afford to risk finding out the hard way.»
Inside the cave they pulled out mattresses and blankets, dropped them beside the piled gear, and settled down to wait. The cave was warm, heated by an underground hot spring, and Blade pulled off his tunic and shirt. Riyannah looked at him for a moment, then jumped up and disappeared around the pile of gear.
She was back in a moment with a small package wrapped in an exotic Kananite fabric with luminous embroidery. She placed it in Blade's lap.
«Should I open it now?» he asked.
«Yes. I'd meant to wait until we were taking off for the starship. But those people out there might be angry enough to break down the door. I want you to have it now, so-«She shrugged, and Blade mentally filled in the rest of the sentence, «-so you can be wearing it if we have to make our last fight here.»
Blade unwrapped the package. It held a bracelet of Kanan's woven metal, lighter than aluminum but stronger than steel, inlaid with patterns of dust-sized jewels. Across the top was a black band that seemed to absorb light. Blade put the bracelet on, then saw faint shapes begin to glow within the blackness. The glow brightened, the shapes flowed and shimmered, then they joined into one and Blade was looking at a full-length portrait of a nude Riyannah.
He raised his head, to see Riyannah lying on her mattress, head propped on one hand, as nude as her portrait. «In the black band are more jewels, arranged to make the picture of me. The heat of your body makes them glow.»
«Yes, and the heat of your body can make me glow.» Riyannah laughed, as Blade stood up and began slipping off his trousers.
The Targans came the next morning, when both Blade and Riyannah were still comfortably asleep in each other's arms. They woke up quickly enough when they learned that the Targans were ready to make peace and start planning.
There was still more talking, but no more nonsense. The leader Riyannah had hit with the chair attended, his head bandaged, but Blade's two victims didn't. Blade never saw either of them again and suspected it wouldn't be tactful to ask what happened to them.
In any case he and Riyannah were much too busy. First he had to retrieve the technical films as soon as the Targans were through copying them, then replace them on his thigh and cover them again with artificial skin. Then there were days of studying the plans of Dark Warrior, maps of enemy bases, lists of underground bands and their available weapons-a dozen different kinds of paper, piling higher each day. They talked with the underground's leaders, with various scientists, engineers, and spaceship pilots who'd fled from Chard's bases, and with a dozen men and women who'd led the underground's field teams in combat.
Then Blade and the team leaders picked fifty of the best fighters on hand, and the serious training for the attack on the starship began.
Chapter 20
A steady drizzling rain was falling. Water dripped from the trees above as Blade crawled through bushes on his hands and knees. Riyannah was close behind, moving almost as silently as Blade.
They came to the end of the bushes. A few scattered trees lay ahead, then open country fading off into the rainy darkness. In that darkness a string of lights glowed a pale orange. They were the lights of Station Four, Blade's target and the first step on the way to the starship.
Still on their hands and knees, Blade and Riyannah reached the nearest tree. No sight or sound of any alarm, and visibility was getting steadily worse.
That wouldn't be all to the good. It would make the fighting in the station confused and risky, if the guards didn't go down at the first rush. It could also delay the reinforcements needed to move on to the next stage of the plan.
On the other hand, the rainy night would be perfect cover. The first attackers would certainly be hard to see and hear until it was too late. The sentries would be thinking mostly of the rain trickling down the backs of their necks and squelching in their boots. Even the best of Loyun Chard's soldiers didn't care for bad weather, and these sentries wouldn't be among the best. As far as Chard was concerned, the underground was on the run, too crippled to be a danger even to isolated shuttlecraft bases like Station Four. So why waste good men guarding it, far off in land that hadn't been settled since the Great War?
The rain would also make Blade's own job a good deal easier. Station Four had to be taken completely by surprise and captured before any messages could reach the outside world. There were two ways such messages could go out. One was by laser beam to a communications satellite high overhead, the other was by radio. The rain and overcast would make the laser virtually useless, so Blade now had only one target. If he could smash the radio station before anyone gave the alarm, Station Four would be unable to call for help or send out a warning.
Slowly Blade stood up. He was wearing Targan uniform, with a major's insignia. On his back was a conventional Targan field pack with unconventional contents. It held several charges of Kananite explosive, each the equivalent of more than half a ton of TNT. It also held a compact hurd-ray projector, small enough to fire with one hand but powerful enough to burn through several inches of steel.
Riyannah also stood up, unhooked a Targan helmet from her belt, and handed it to Blade. He put it on and tightened the chinstrap.
«How do I look?»
«You look enough like one of those piles of dung to make me shudder,» she said. She was wearing Targan uniform herself, with a sergeant's insignia. She might even pass for a Targan as long as the rain kept falling and the enemy's soldiers were too busy to look closely.
«Good,» said Blade. «That should get me inside, and there's half the battle. All I need to worry about on the way in is meeting some officer with more rank.» He gripped Riyannah by both shoulders and kissed her. «Don't let anyone get too close while I'm knocking out the lights. It's going to be chancy shooting even with the projector.»
«We'll be careful if you will,» she said. Then Blade turned and strode out from behind the tree toward the light of Station Four.
The plan for destroying the starship Dark Warrior was mostly Blade's creation. With the information the underground gave him, he was able to work out a much better one than they'd been able to do. The underground people were brave and intelligent, but they didn't have Blade's years of experience against opponents far tougher than the soldiers of Loyun Chard.
Several basic facts shaped the plan. First, Dark Warrior was so heavily escorted that she would h
ave to be attacked by stealth. No suspicious ship could hope to get within ramming distance or even missile range. That ruled out the simplest and most ruthless form of attack-a straightforward kamikaze mission.
So the attackers would have to slip a boarding party into the ship. Fifteen or twenty armed men with hurd-rays and explosives could wreck the ship beyond repair. They might even be able to escape afterward in the confusion. The problem would be getting them on board in the first place, then keeping them alive long enough to finish their work.
The Targans threw in an extra requirement that made things more difficult. They did not want Dark Warrior attacked while she was in orbit around Targa. They wanted the boarding party to wait until the ship was millions of miles out in space on her way to the asteroids. As one leader said to Blade:
«If we cripple the ship far out in space, she will never get home.» Neither would the boarding party, Blade thought, but decided not to mention that. «If we cripple her in orbit, the missiles and lasers will still survive. Dark Warrior will become a gigantic orbiting fortress, able to strike down from space at any point on the planet. Even if Chard can no longer threaten the Kananites, he will be able to threaten his own people. He may also turn Dark Warrior's weapons loose on our hiding places. If we lose too many more people, we cannot hope to do much even after Chard is overthrown. We will only be one fraction in a civil war, and not the strongest one either.»
In spite of these plausible arguments, Blade's first reaction was to tell the Targans, «You're all crazy!» Then he thought the matter over and realized they had a point. The starship had to be taken out of Targan politics as well as interstellar politics. The underground could not be asked to suffer more than it had already, and Targa could not be condemned to a long, bloody, and pointless civil war that could only leave the planet a wreck. Some of the Kananites might not mind seeing Targa dissolve in such a war, but Blade would have no part of that idea.
There were also some real advantages to waiting. If the boarding party could lie low until Dark Warrior was within range of the patrol ships around the asteroid base, they might have help. The patrol ships might not be able to do much damage but they would certainly distract the starship's crew. After the fighting was over, the patrol ships could also take off any survivors of the boarding party.
Blade saw one more advantage of waiting that he didn't mention. If a dozen or so intelligent Targans saw the asteroid base, they'd know far more about the Kananites and the Menel. They'd know too much to let the Kananites go back on any further promises of technical assistance. Blade still didn't trust Kanan's War Council and he'd be glad to do anything he could to take matters out of their hands.
The Targans' idea of having the boarding party wait until Dark Warrior was deep in space would still have been suicidal, except for the way the ship was built. She bristled with lasers and missile launchers. She was also designed to carry more than two thousand soldiers and settlers to new planets, and huge cargoes of raw materials back to Targa. She had enough cabins to hold the population of a small town, and cargo holds large enough to swallow half a dozen smaller spaceships.
On the mission to destroy the asteroid base, the ship would be carrying only her fighting crew of three hundred men. Or so the underground had heard, from their spies in the space program.
«How reliable are these people?» asked Blade.
«Reliable enough so we're willing to risk the boarding party on their reports.» The underground's leaders seldom gave away unnecessary information, and Blade respected them for that. The man hesitated. «There may be more, but I don't think they'll be fighting men. The last report said that one block of cabins is being fitted up luxuriously, but it won't hold more than fifty or sixty people.»
It sounded to Blade as if some of the VIP's in Loyun Chard's space program and armed forces were inviting themselves along for the ride. So much the better. The boarding party could blow a large hole in the upper ranks of Chard's government as well as in his precious starship.
In any case, there would be plenty of room left in the starship's cabins and holds. If the boarding party could get on board without arousing suspicion, there was a good chance they'd be able to hide until the time came to strike. Blade doubted that the ship's crew would even know all the compartments and cabins aboard, let alone bother inspecting them regularly. A boarding party hiding itself snugly aboard their magnificent and invincible starship would be about the last danger the crew would think of.
So there it was: Blade's plan. Capture one of the ground bases for the orbital shuttlecraft. Fly a shuttle up to the starship, meanwhile covering their tracks on the ground. Get the boarding party and its weapons aboard the ship, then hide them. Wait however long it took, in whatever discomfort they had to endure, until the starship headed out into space. Wait a little longer, then STRIKE.
Very simple-until the time came to carry it out.
Blade strode forward, trying to move silently. He expected to be spotted and challenged but he didn't want it happening too soon. Some trigger-happy sentry might shoot before challenging. Blade was wearing body armor of Kananite woven metal under his uniform, so even the heavy Targan slugs probably wouldn't hurt him. Shooting would almost certainly give the alarm, though, and that would be worse.
The rain pattered on Blade's helmet and drummed on the soft earth. He slogged through mud and splashed through puddles. Once he stopped to adjust the sling of his rifle, another time he stopped to make sure the throwing knife up his sleeve moved freely in its sheath.
Suddenly a beam of light danced across the ground toward him, then leaped up to shine in his face.
«Halt! Who goes there?»
Blade wanted to laugh. The orders of sentries seemed to be the same in every army in every Dimension he knew. He called back:
«Major Harbo, Military Inspector's Office. Glad to know you're on the alert.»
There was a long silence. Blade used the time to spot the source of the light and walk toward it. As he'd expected, praising the sentry caught the man off balance.
Blade was only ten feet from the open gate when the sentry spoke again. «Sorry, sir. You'll still have to give the password.»
Blade lowered his voice. «Not so loud, you idiot. I'm doing a security inspection on this station. You've passed, but I won't appreciate it if you alert all the other sentries.»
«But — «
«Damn it, keep your voice down! You'll have all your friends thinking the underground is attacking!»
The sentry laughed-then died with the laugh stuck in his throat as Blade drove the knife into him. Blade held the man upright until he stopped kicking, then lowered him silently to the ground. He bent to pick up the sentry's flashlight, then stiffened as another figure loomed out of the darkness beyond the gate.
Blade knew he was caught red-handed and didn't even bother opening his mouth. He jerked his knife out of the body, caught it by the point, and threw. The approaching man reeled backward, rifle falling from his hands, the knife sticking out of his face. He started to scream, then Blade closed in and chopped him across the throat. Again Blade lowered a dead body to the ground and retrieved his knife.
Blade knew he had to move fast now. He pulled the hurd-ray projector out of his pack and used it on low power to cut most of the wires around the gate. Now it could no longer be closed. Then he stalked in through the gateway, projector held ready to fire.
To his right towered the launching platforms for the shuttlecraft. Two of the platforms were occupied. The shuttle-craft looked very much like the winged-disk jet planes, but were three times as big. In their bellies they carried anti-gravity units and in their tails racks of solid-fuel rockets to kick them into the air. The Targans' antigravity was less reliable than the Kananites' and could not safely be used within fifteen thousand feet of the ground.
No lights showed in the cockpits of the shuttles. That meant no one aboard to send out signals over the shuttles' radios. If Blade took out the main radio station, th
at should do the job.
The station with its hundred-foot mast was on the left, just under two hundred yards away. Light spilled out through the open door, illuminating a wide expanse of grass and concrete in front of the station. Blade saw two soldiers standing on the roof, a rocket launcher lying between them. Fortunately they were looking the other way. He crept to the edge of the illuminated area, looked in all directions, and saw nothing suspicious. Then he sprinted toward the open door.
The thud of his feet alerted the men on the roof. He heard one of them shout as he came pounding up to the door. Then he was inside the radio building, pulling the door shut with one hand and raising the hurd-ray with the other. He was in a short corridor with doors opening off either side, leading to a large room filled with consoles and switchboards. Blade aimed the projector and fired a long burst, sweeping everything he could see. Metal cracked and melted, wiring shorted, threw sparks, and gushed smoke, heavy objects crashed to the floor, and voices started screaming, cursing, and shouting all at once.
Blade started down the corridor to catch the people in the room before they recovered from the surprise. A door to his right flew open and an officer with a drawn laser pistol popped out. The two men collided. The laser beam hissed past Blade and knocked a chunk out of the ceiling. Blade punched the officer in the stomach, then smashed the butt of the hurd-ray across the back of his neck. Blade leaped over the fallen man and charged into the main room.
Bullets flew past Blade as one of the radio operators swung in his seat and emptied a pistol. The bullets smashed more radio gear without touching Blade. Then the hurd-ray was sweeping along the consoles and all three radio operators slumped in their seats, two headless and one burned completely in two. Blade fired two more quick blasts to quiet the writhing bodies on the floor, then played the beam in a complete circle around him. By the time he'd finished, every recognizable piece of communications equipment in the room was half-melted junk. Blue and green smoke swirled like a fog and clawed at Blade's mouth and nose.