by Timothy Zahn
Spadafora's slingshot snapped, and the aliens shied back as the box exploded in a shower of sparks.
"I got the controls," Spadafora reported, returning the slingshot to his belt and pulling out a soft pouch of his own.
"There'll be a backup system," Judas warned as he stepped back out of the flames.
"Right, but now they'll have to go and find it," Lathe pointed out as he pulled a small igniter from his belt and flipped it open. "By the time they do, we'll hopefully be inside. Spadafora?"
"Clear," Spadafora said, stepping back from the bunker.
"Clear," Mordecai added, his nunchaku ready in his hand.
"Clear, and fire," Lathe said. Turning half away, he squeezed the igniter.
There were a pair of muffled explosions; and the entire front of the bunker shattered and collapsed into the flames. Mordecai was through the gaping hole even before the wall had finished coming down, darting across the bunker and ducking through the half-open door into the ready room. Lathe was right behind him, half pulling Judas along.
There was, as it turned out, no need for haste. By the time Judas squeezed through the door, the fight was already over.
"Hell," he murmured, looking around at the five crumpled Ryqril bodies sprawled on the ready room floor. Mordecai, standing over them with his nunchaku cocked under his arm, wasn't even breathing hard.
"Very much so," Lathe agreed. "Anyone get out?"
Mordecai shook his head. "Sounds like most of them are waiting for us outside the mantrap foyer," he said. "I guess they were expecting us to come in the front door."
"We'd better clear them out," Lathe decided. "We don't want to leave them at our back while we're trying to get into the monitor room."
Judas felt his chest tighten. Galway, Haberdae, and Taakh were supposed to be watching the operation from the monitor room. "I thought we were going to the main core," he said.
"We'll get there soon enough," Lathe assured him. "But first things first. Let's go clear out the backtrail."
* * *
Behind Galway, the door slid open. He spun around, tensing; but it was only Haberdae. "Where have you been?" he demanded as the door slid shut again. "There's some kind of alarm going off."
"I know," Haberdae said calmly, glancing up at the silently flashing warning lights as he crossed the room. "From the commotion down the western corridor, I'd say your blackcollars have entered the building."
Galway glanced at the displays, most of them still showing nothing but static. "Did you see them?"
"Fortunately, that wasn't the direction I was coming from," Haberdae said. Leaning over one of the techs, he flipped up an orange safety cover and turned a knob over. "I was down near the south door, talking with Taakh."
"About what?" Galway asked, frowning at the knob Haberdae had just turned. "What did you just do?"
"Like I said, I'm making us all safer," Haberdae said. "Taakh and I had a quick discussion while he was getting his warriors ready, and we agreed that letting Lathe find a way into the building was all we really needed. We don't actually need him to get all the way to the core."
Abruptly, his face hardened. "Did you really think this was your ticket to fame and fortune?" he bit out.
"Hitching your future to a group of blackcollars?"
Galway's throat felt suddenly tight. "Prefect, what did you do?" he asked carefully.
"You're a very little man, Galway, from a very little world," Haberdae went on, ignoring the question.
"How you sold the Ryqril on this piece of froth I'll never know. But the only thing it's going to get you is a one-way ticket back to your private dirtball."
"What did you do?" Galway demanded.
"I activated the autotarget defense lasers in the corridor out there," Haberdae said, waving behind him.
"Your buddy Lathe gets five meters from that door and he's a cinder. Oh, put that down—we both know you can't use it on me."
Galway hadn't even realized he'd lifted Taakh's laser into firing position. "Taakh agreed to let them get to the core," he said, lowering the laser.
"And now he's changed his mind," Haberdae said. "He's a khassq, remember? He has the authority to change or modify general orders when circumstances require."
Galway felt his stomach tighten. "So that's why you supported me last night when I asked Taakh to let me be here today."
Haberdae shrugged. "I thought that in the heat of combat it might be easier to get him to see things my way."
"Your way being a little private vengeance?"
"Private?" Haberdae shook his head. "Hardly. These blackcollars aren't some advanced weapons system for us to use, something you can simply point and shoot. They're unpredictable, they're damned dangerous, and the sooner they're eliminated the better it'll be for the Ryqril and everyone else in the universe."
"They're a valuable resource," Galway insisted. "Haven't you been paying attention? I've proved I can maneuver Lathe into doing a job without him ever knowing he's actually working for the Ryqril. If you and Taakh get him killed, any chance of doing that again will be gone."
"There are other blackcollars around the TDE," Haberdae said. "I'm sure the high command can find someone else for you to play your mind games with if they really want to continue this insanity."
"But Lathe's the best."
Haberdae's face settled into a mask. "He made me look bad, Galway," he ground out. "In front of my men, and in front of the Ryqril. No one does that and gets away with it. No one."
"Prefect—"
"And don't even think about going near that control," Haberdae added. "I have direct orders from the ranking Ryq warrior on the scene. I can flatten you if you try to go against me."
Stepping to the monitor board, he snagged a spare chair and pulled it to a spot behind the row of techs.
"Relax, Galway—your blackcollars are coming." He smiled tightly. "Let's enjoy the show."
CHAPTER 19
The passage through the tunnel had been tricky enough when Foxleigh's hands had been available to help protect him from the multitude of protrusions that reached out toward head and feet and hips. This time, with his hands tied together, was far worse. He'd made it only halfway through, and had already given up trying to count the bruises he'd collected, when he heard the sounds of footsteps ahead.
He froze, holding his breath as he listened. It was footsteps, all right. At least a half-dozen sets of them, possibly more.
His first, hopeful thought was that Flynn had returned with the rest of the blackcollars. Surely between Flynn and Skyler he would find someone who would be willing to help plead his case to Jensen.
But the whisper of hope was barely formed before it evaporated in the cold light of reality. He'd traveled this tunnel with Jensen, and he knew how the other moved. There was no way a group of blackcollars would make the kind of noise he was hearing.
And if it wasn't the blackcollars, there was only one other possibility.
He collected another set of bruises as he retraced his steps back toward the base. But this time he hardly noticed, his full attention focused on making the trip with as much speed and stealth as he could manage.
Finally, after a short eternity, he arrived and set off across the storage room as fast as his leg would let him. Hopefully, Jensen had gone back to the Talus. If he hadn't, if he was somewhere else in the base, Foxleigh could search for hours without finding him.
And neither he nor Jensen had nearly that much time to work with. Clenching his teeth, pushing his leg as hard as he could, he reached the corridor and turned toward the elevator.
And gasped as something whipped across his vision to settle firmly against his throat. "It's me—it's me," he gasped.
"Yes, I see it's you," Jensen growled into his ear, the pressure of the nunchaku sticks against his throat not letting up even a little. "You have got to be the noisiest infiltrator—"
"They're coming," Foxleigh cut him off. "Footsteps in the tunnel. Lots of them."
"No." Foxleigh tried to shake his head, discovered he couldn't. "They're way too loud to be blackcollars."
Jensen hissed, an coldly ominous sound. "So Security's found the back door. Too bad."
"It sounded like a lot of them," Foxleigh said. "Let me help you."
"Thanks, but I can handle it myself."
"Your ribs are going to limit what you can do," Foxleigh persisted. "Besides, I learned enough tactics to know that a situation like this requires a double-flank trap. I can be the other flank."
"No."
"I have to help you," Foxleigh begged. "Please."
For a long moment Jensen remained silent. "You lied to me earlier," he said at last. "Tell me what you lied about."
Foxleigh closed his eyes, tears of ancient shame welling up behind his eyelids. So here it was at last. "I told you I was shot down in the final battle," he said, the words feeling like hot embers in his mouth. "I wasn't. I was driving back to the base when the Ryqril attacked."
"You were AWOL?"
"Not on purpose," Foxleigh said, wincing at the pleading defensiveness in his voice. "There was a girl I knew in Central City, and—I didn't expect the Ryqril to attack so soon. I swear."
Jensen sighed. "Yeah, that happened a lot in that war," he conceded. "What happened then?"
"What happened is that I never made it," Foxleigh said bitterly. "I saw them coming in and pushed my speed and took a curve too fast. I tried to keep going on foot, but I'd wrecked my leg the same time I wrecked the car. After that ... well, the rest of it goes pretty much the way I told you."
"Except for why you stayed in Shelter Valley," Jensen said. "You didn't just get used to it, did you? You were hoping for another crack at the Ryqril."
Foxleigh snorted. "Fine—so it's been an obsession. Haven't you ever obsessed over something?"
"No," Jensen said flatly. He hesitated. "Nothing that interfered with my duty, anyway."
"Your duty?" Foxleigh countered. "This is my duty, Commando. This is—" He broke off, blinking back another pair of tears. "That Talus we prepped, the one named Gotterdammerung?" he said quietly.
"That's my fighter, Jensen. The one I should have been flying in that battle. The one I should have died in."
For a minute Jensen didn't reply. Foxleigh waited, his mind wrapped in a strange sense of peace, as if thirty years of accumulated dread and anticipation and forlorn hope had been flushed away in the catharsis of his long overdue confession. Whatever happened now, it would simply happen.
And then, as the internal pressure of his emotional turmoil faded, so did the external pressure against his throat. "We'll take them in the storage room," Jensen said, stepping out from behind him. A knife flashed, and with a quick slash Foxleigh's hands were free. "I trust you remember how to use this?" he added as he handed Foxleigh the pistol he'd taken from him.
"Oh, yes," Foxleigh said softly as the familiar weight of his issue sidearm settled into his hand. At least once a day for the first five years of his self-imposed exile, he'd cleaned the gun, loaded it, and held the muzzle to his own head as he decided whether or not to pass judgment upon himself for his failures.
Now, after thirty years, he would finally have the chance to give his life for something more useful and fitting than simple punishment. "I remember very well."
* * *
There were more Ryqril waiting at the west door than Judas had expected. But their numbers actually ended up working against them, denying them the maneuverability that might otherwise have made the battle more even.
As it was, the fight was over very quickly. Taking on their enemies' lasers and short swords with nothing but hands, feet, shuriken, and nunchaku, Lathe and the others waded systematically through the crowd until every one of the Ryqril were incapacitated, unconscious, or dead.
"Everyone all right?" Lathe asked as he crouched over one of the bodies. "Caine?"
"I'm fine," Judas assured him, looking around the room with the sense of unreality he always seemed to experience when watching blackcollars in action.
"Nothing here," Spadafora said. He was crouched over another of the bodies, his hands darting deftly through the various pockets and pouches in his baldric and pants.
"Or here," Lathe agreed, standing back up. "That could be good or bad."
"What are you looking for?" Judas asked.
"Immunity transponder," Spadafora explained, crossing to where Mordecai was peering out the halfopen door leading into the inner corridor. "Something to shut down those autotarget lasers Shaw warned they probably have installed around the core." He nodded toward the bodies. "Only none of our friends here seems to be carrying one."
"Which either means they've shut down the interior defenses, or that this particular crowd was considered expendable," Lathe said.
"Or else that none of these particular warriors were authorized to leave this area," Judas pointed out, some of the tension between his shoulders easing. This one, at least, he knew the answer to—Galway had told him they would be leaving the lasers off.
"Maybe," Lathe said, picking up two of the short swords that lay scattered across the floor and sliding them into his belt at the small of his back where they'd be out of the way. "Let's find out. Mordecai, take point."
Mordecai nodded and opened the door the rest of the way.
And dropped into a crouch as a laser bolt sizzled past where his head had just been. Judas caught a glimpse of a Ryq crouched in partial concealment around the corner of the next cross corridor, dropping the muzzle of his laser as he tried to line up his second shot.
The shot never came. Mordecai's shuriken flashed across the distance and the Ryq toppled over, the throwing star buried in his forehead. Another alien started to lean out, ducked quickly back as Spadafora sent a primer cap past the corner to explode against the cross corridor's far wall.
And as he fired off a second cap to the other side of the intersection, Mordecai and Lathe were on the move, running silently toward the concealed defenders. They reached the intersection simultaneously, one turning to each side of the cross corridor and charging in among the hidden aliens. There was a single surprised squawk from someone; and then Lathe flashed a hand signal, and Judas and Spadafora ran up to join them.
By the time they arrived it was over. Five armed Ryqril lay scattered on the floor on Lathe's side, while six bodies decorated Mordecai's. The rest of the cross corridor, on both sides, was deserted. "One down, four to go," Lathe said, peering at the four cross corridors cutting across their path ahead. "Spadafora, watch the backtrail; Caine, stay close to him."
Shifting his nunchaku to his left hand and pulling out a fresh pair of shuriken with his right, he started forward.
* * *
There were nine of them in all: six heavily armed Security types followed by three lightly armed men carrying tech-type equipment boxes. All were young, all were clearly nervous, and as they filed one by one through the scorched entrance they formed themselves into a parade-ground-perfect semicircle perimeter until the three techs had negotiated the last part of the passage and joined them.
The whole spectacle was so training-school fresh that it made Foxleigh wince. Clearly, these were brandnew recruits to the Ryqril cause, chosen for their courage and stamina.
And, no doubt, their expendability.
He grimaced, fingering his pistol as the group reformed itself into a standard boxed-centipede formation and started moving toward the door. He couldn't afford to think of them as people, he reminded himself firmly. They were the enemy, their presence an obstacle to his own redemption.
Lifting his gun, bracing his wrist on the edge of the box he was hiding behind, he lined up the muzzle on the lead Security man and squeezed the trigger.
His aim was every bit as good as he'd promised Jensen it would be. The leader toppled over, and the rest of the group behind h
im erupted in instant chaos. For a few precious seconds they looked around in panicked bewilderment, the echoes from walls and ceiling apparently having confused the direction the shot had come from. Foxleigh lined up his gun on the next man in line; and as he did so one of the armed men in back twitched violently and similarly collapsed to the floor. Foxleigh fired his second shot, and one more of the enemy was eliminated.
But this time one of the others had apparently spotted his muzzle flash. There was a hoarse shout over the echoes, a pointed finger—
And suddenly Foxleigh's hiding place was the center of a hailstorm of return fire.
He ducked back as a horizontal hail of paral-darts thudded into his box or burned past to clatter against the far wall. He stuck his hand around the side, exposing as little flesh as possible, and blindly fired two quick shots before yanking his hand back. As he did so, the soft chuff-chuff of paral-dart fire was joined by the sharper cracks as some of the Security men switched over to flechette guns. Foxleigh could hear tearing sounds as the tough plastic of his refuge began to disintegrate under the assault. He started to stick his hand out for another shot, jerked it back as a stray flechette sliced a thin line of pain across his wrist. The barrage seemed to waver....
And then, abruptly, all was silence.
Foxleigh waited another handful of seconds, then eased a cautious eye around the corner of his box.
They were all down. All of them. Two of the three techs were still twitching, clearly still alive. None of the others was moving at all. Gathering himself back to his feet, Foxleigh limped over for a closer look.
He and Jensen reached them at the same time, the blackcollar pressing a hand to his thincast above his injured ribs. "Thanks for your help," he said, his voice strained a little.
"You're welcome." Foxleigh looked around at the bodies, feeling more than a little sick. "I wish to God we hadn't had to do that."
Jensen sighed. "So do I," he said. "This war was never supposed to be against our own people. Damn the Ryqril to hell for doing this to them."
"And to us." Foxleigh took a deep breath. "Speaking of hell, it's time for us to deliver some." He looked up from the bodies and locked eyes with Jensen. "I presume we're not going to have any more nonsense about who's going to fly my plane?"