by Peter Grant
There was a brief pause. “How do you want to handle this? I’m not giving you any hostages until I’m sure you’ll hand over the depot with no tricks.”
“How about this? You come out to meet me halfway between the depot wall and the bush line. We’ll stand there together. You’ll be under the guns of my people, and I’ll be under the guns of yours. We’ll both be targets if anything goes wrong. We’ll stand there while I count the hostages – you’ll have to get them off their buses for that – and a couple of your people can verify that the Eksalansari’s in our sick bay. Once we’re both satisfied, we’ll make the exchange. Over.”
Another pause. “All right, but I’m not coming alone. I’ll bring a few of my people with me.”
“That’s OK with me. I’ll come alone, and bring something to keep us warm while we’re waiting.”
“OK. You move first. Come out halfway, and I’ll walk to meet you.”
“I’m on my way.”
He slipped the radio into the left chest pocket of his coveralls, where its bulge would help to disguise the pulser beneath the cloth, and went back inside. He put one of the brandy bottles into the cargo pockets on each thigh. The third bottle went into his right chest pocket. Taking a deep breath he turned back towards the door, reaching for his radio and adjusting the channel.
“Maxwell to all units. It’s showtime.”
~ ~ ~
The low, threatening clouds blocked the moonlight, but their cargo of rain was still falling only in isolated drops. Steve nodded to the guards at the gate to open it, then glanced to his right. Behind the shelter of the wall, out of sight of those outside, a fire team of Qianjin spacers waited, their rifles ready in their hands. He knew their comrades were deployed along the wall and on the roof of the administration building.
He walked through the gate, hearing it close behind him as he stepped forward into the lighted area surrounding the wall. The Qianjin spacers had rigged lights every twenty meters along the perimeter. Their illumination extended almost a hundred meters before fading into the blackness of the night. Steve took a pair of spectacles from his pocket and put them on, grinning slightly as he recalled being issued them on Midrash several years before. They looked like normal glasses, but offered night vision and other capabilities. Their built-in processor integrated their sensor input with ambient light, allowing him to see as well as possible under almost any circumstances. He’d found them so useful – particularly in detecting an assassin’s target beam, thereby saving his own life and that of his partner – that he’d managed to avoid having to return them after the operation, and carried them with him ever since.
He took the radio from his pocket as he reached the edge of the lighted area. He wanted to stay where the riflemen covering him from the depot could see their targets if possible. He keyed the microphone. “Maxwell to Métin. Here I am.”
The radio crackled. “I see you. I’m coming out.”
His enhanced vision showed him six figures moving out from the bushes towards him. He knew from the information provided by the hoversat’s sensors that as many more would have remained under cover, ready to open fire at the first hint of treachery. The little drone aircraft was now hovering silently near the mortar emplacements.
As the six men drew nearer, five of them fanned out into a semi-circular formation behind the center man, their weapons raised ready in their hands, looking around suspiciously. The leader came to a halt about three meters away. “All right, what next?”
“I suggest you and I stay here where our people can see us. I want to count and check the hostages – and not aboard booby-trapped buses! Even if you keep your word, look at the weather.” He gestured upward, and as if in answer to his words a flicker of lightning lit up distant clouds. “I’m not going to take a chance on a lightning strike setting off a detonator.”
“But if I get them out of the buses, they might make a run for it.”
“I’m willing to bet these five aren’t the only people you brought along. I’m sure you have enough to shoot anyone who runs. We’ll tell each busload that they’re to stand in a group against the wall of the depot, there to the right of the gate. A few of your people can stand guard over them if you like. Meanwhile, one or two others can go look at the Eksalansari. They’ll have to leave their weapons out here, and I’ll have a couple of my people escort them. Like I said, he’s in our sick bay. He’s not conscious – our Doctor says he was concussed in the shuttle crash this morning, so she’s sedated him for a day to allow any swelling in his brain to subside. I’m sure you know what he looks like, so your people can confirm it’s him and report back to you.”
“Yeah, we got pictures from the news vids this week. That sounds OK so far. And then?”
“Then we make the exchange. The hostages will wait against the wall while I bring my people out of the depot aboard our transporters. There’ll be some empty ones to carry the hostages. As soon as they’re aboard, we’ll pull out and the depot will be yours. We’ll still have our weapons aboard the transporters, so we can make it costly for you if you try any tricks; but I don’t reckon you will. You’ll have enough supplies to keep your rebellion going for months, plus the best hostage on the planet, so you won’t need us anymore.”
“You got that right!” The other tried just too hard to put conviction into his voice, Steve thought. “You’re out here under our guns, so I reckon your people inside won’t try anything that might get you killed. They can shoot at me if my people do anything stupid, so I reckon we’re our own insurance policies while we make the exchange.”
“That’s how I see it too.” Steve tried to grin convincingly as he lifted his hand towards his right chest pocket. One of the men behind Métin instantly swung up his rifle menacingly, and Steve protested, “Hey, relax! I’m just getting a bottle out of my pocket.” He waited until the man’s weapon was lowered once more, then brought out one of the bottles of brandy. “I thought we could all use something to relax while we wait.”
He unscrewed the cap and offered the bottle to Métin, but the other drew back suspiciously. “How do I know you ain’t poisoned it?”
Steve laughed aloud as he put down the bottle on the ground and took out the two others from the cargo pockets over his thighs. “What would be the point? You’d shoot me as soon as you felt its effects. I brought three bottles. Pick any one at random and I’ll take a drink from it first.”
“Like hell! You’ll drink from all three!”
“Hey, I need to keep a clear head, just like you do. If you want to test all three, get a couple of the hostages up here to test the other two.”
“Well…” Métin looked dubious, but pointed at the rightmost bottle. “Drink from that one.”
“Sure.” Steve picked it up and took a mouthful, coughing as the strong spirit went down his throat. He held it out. “Try it yourself.”
“He did it right, Boss,” one of the watching men confirmed. “The level’s dropped.”
“Yeah. I reckon we can trust him – about the likker, anyway.” Métin accepted the bottle, wiped its neck with his hand and raised it to his lips, swallowing several times before lowering it. “Aah! That’s good stuff!” He gestured to the other two bottles. “The rest of you can split those two.”
The other five men visibly relaxed as two of their number collected the bottles and passed them around – precisely the reaction Steve had hoped to achieve. Métin changed his radio channel and said, “Susik, we’re going to bring up the buses one at a time and unload them. Send up the first when you’re ready, but hold the others until I tell you to send the next one.”
“Please have the drivers take the buses back as soon as they’ve dropped off their hostages,” Steve requested. “I’d hate for a lightning strike to ruin things.”
“All right. What about the Eksalansari?”
“I’ll have my people escort two of yours to the sick bay.”
“OK.” He motioned to two of his men, who handed their rifles t
o others and headed towards the depot’s gate.
Steve raised his radio. “Maxwell to Depot. Escort these two rebels to the sick bay to look at the Eksalansari, then bring them back to the main gate to report to their boss. Over.”
Spacer Tung answered from the commcen, “Depot to Maxwell, understood, over.”
“Maxwell to Depot, standing by.”
As the two rebels disappeared through the depot gate, the swelling whine of a vehicle power pack came from behind Steve. He turned to see a bus lurch onto the hardstand, moving slowly. It pulled to a halt next to them, and the door opened. An armed man climbed down and began urging the hostages inside to dismount.
As soon as the group had assembled, Steve raised his voice. “You’re being freed in exchange for us handing over this depot to the rebels. You’ll be escorted over to the wall. Stand there in a group and don’t try to resist or escape. If you do, the rebels will shoot you, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. When all of you are assembled, we’re going to put you aboard transporters and get you out of here. If anything goes wrong, drop where you are, hug the dirt and wait for orders.”
Métin had listened closely as Steve spoke, his eyes narrowing as he mentioned the possibility of anything going wrong. “You’d all better pray real hard that nothing goes wrong, because if it does, you’re our first targets! We got mortars an’ rifles targeting you right now, so don’t get any dumb ideas about bein’ a hero. They’ll just get you dead!” He nodded to the guard who’d preceded the prisoners. “Take my three with you, put ’em all against the wall in a group, away from the gate, and mount guard over them. Add the others to them as they come up.”
“Got it, Boss.”
As the group moved towards the wall, the two rebels Métin had sent inside the depot reappeared at the gate. They walked towards him, clearly relaxed. As they drew near one called, “It’s the Eksalansari all right, Boss. No doubt about it. He hit his head real hard when the shuttle crashed, but the doc says he should be OK after a few days’ rest.”
Métin exhaled explosively with relief. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day! Bairam was real insistent we had to get him. He’s worth more as a bargaining chip than all our other hostages put together.”
They waited as the other two buses came up, one at a time, and offloaded their hostages. As each was emptied it turned and drove out of sight. As the third vanished into the darkness Steve said, “Mind if I count them?”
“Sure, but I’m coming with you.”
“No problem. Bring these two as well, if you like.” That’ll get them closer to the wall and make them easier targets, Steve silently added in his mind.
The four walked over to the group of hostages, and Steve conducted a quick count. “I make it ninety-seven,” he said with satisfaction.
“Yeah, me too. They’re all here.”
Steve had spotted Major Emory among the hostages. He waited until he was sure that Métin and his men weren’t looking at him, then winked at the Major and pointed unobtrusively downward with his finger. Imperceptibly the Marine nodded.
Steve took a deep breath. He knew that as soon as the two rebel emissaries had left the depot, the Qianjin spacers would have taken up their final positions. Everything was ready.
He glanced at Métin. “OK if I call the transporters? It’ll take them a few minutes to get all our people aboard and come out through the gates to form up in convoy.”
“Sure, go ahead.” The rebel leader sounded relaxed. He’d clearly decided that things were going so smoothly that there was little need for further caution – apart from the ambush he’d prepared for the escaping convoy, of course.
Steve raised his radio. “Maxwell to Depot. Load the convoy. I say again, load the convoy. Over.”
Tung replied from the commcen, “Depot to Maxwell, convoy loading. Stand by.”
Steve accepted the bottle from Métin once more, sipping sparingly at the strong liquor as his thoughts raced. He could picture in his mind’s eye what was happening. Somewhere out there in the darkness, Gunnery Sergeant Kinnear would have deployed the portable controller he’d brought from the spaceport during their unauthorized ‘requisitioning’ of weapons and equipment a few nights ago. Steve smiled inwardly as he remembered how the Marine’s eyes had gleamed when he’d spotted several cases of nanobugs and flitterbugs in a warehouse. He’d appropriated one case of each. Earlier that evening he’d carefully attached a cargo module to the hoversat. It contained a dozen security flitterbugs, each equipped with two firing tubes launching needles laden with a neurotoxin that inflicted temporary paralysis.
Now the Gunnery Sergeant would be setting the hoversat in motion from where it hovered several hundred meters above and to one side of the mortar emplacements. It would be swooping in a low, almost silent pass, dropping three flitterbugs over each mortar and the last three over the ammunition dump. The bugs would fly down on their tiny insect-like wings and launch their needles at any human target near their objectives, paralyzing them within a matter of seconds and rendering them incapable of further action. Any flitterbugs with needles remaining after the initial assault would hover protectively over each target, firing at anyone else trying to get to the weapons.
Even as Kinnear set the aerial assault in motion, watching its results through the hoversat’s sensors and warning his Marines to stand by, Steve knew that a dozen of the best shots among the Qianjin spacers would be ready for action inside the depot. Six of them were on the roof of the Administration building, lying low behind its parapet. They had three of the grenade launchers and three rifles. Six more would by now have moved up to the other side of the wall along which the hostages were gathered, rifles at the ready.
The moments seemed to drag past interminably as they all waited for the signal. Steve forced himself to stay casual, handing the bottle back to Métin as he said, “Thanks. You’ll find more of the good stuff in the depot.”
“I gotta admit, I’m lookin’ forward to a decent meal. Out there in the bush we –”
Gunnery Sergeant Kinnear interrupted him. His voice came over Channel Nine, crackling from the speaker of Steve’s radio in a prearranged phrase designed to sound like it was part of the departing convoy’s preparations. “All units, mount up!”
Métin’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Who’s that?”
Even as he spoke Steve moved, driving his hand into the gap in his coveralls and drawing the pulser waiting inside. As he did so heads and shoulders appeared over the top of the wall and the roof of the Administration building. The rebel leader’s eyes widened in sudden shocked understanding. He began to yell as he dropped the bottle and grabbed for his rifle.
“Look out! It’s –”
He never finished his sentence. Steve’s first shot, fired at only arm’s length, smashed into the bridge of his nose. Métin’s head snapped back and he crumpled bonelessly to the ground. As Steve fired, a barrage of shots came from the wall. The three guards covering the hostages had followed their boss’s lead and slung their weapons. They screamed, staggered and fell before they could bring them into action.
Steve swung his pistol smoothly, lining its sights on the chest of one of the two men with Métin and squeezing the trigger button. Even as his shot sounded, the man’s head jerked sideways as one of the riflemen on the roof of the Administration building – the best shots among the Qianjin contingent – found his target. The two impacts spun the man around and collapsed him in a heap. Steve brought his pulser down out of recoil as he looked for the third man, but by then the riflemen had taken care of him as well. His body hit the ground limply.
From the Administration building came a series of short, sharp bass thumps. Steve could imagine the guided grenades arcing high overhead, aimed at the figures that the hoversat had shown to be in the bush line from which Métin had emerged. Even as he began to sprint towards the hostages – who, urged by shouted commands from Major Emory, had hit the dirt as soon as the shooting started – explosions soun
ded from the bushes, followed by a couple of screams.
Steve yelled, “Everyone inside the depot! Inside the depot now! MOVE!”
As the first hostages struggled to their feet and began to run towards the gates, an outbreak of firing sounded in the distance. Steve knew that would be Gunnery Sergeant Kinnear and his armored Marines, ambushing the ambushers along the road to Surush. Kinnear had planned a short, sharp, brutal assault, saying to Steve, “The fewer we leave alive, the fewer we’ll have looking for evens later. They figured on setting up a killing ground for us. Let’s make it theirs instead.”
The spacers along the wall and on the roof of the Administration building kept up a heavy fire, directing their rounds along the line of bushes at the far edge of the hardstand. They didn’t know how many rebels had survived the initial burst of fire, but there were bound to have been some, and they had to be encouraged to keep their heads down. Unfortunately, the spacers couldn’t target their fire accurately in the absence of Marine sensors. Geysers of dirt began to erupt as rebel riflemen got into action – not many of them, but enough to make Steve yell even louder, “HURRY UP! They’re shooting at us! Get inside the depot as fast as you can!”
There was a hoarse tearing rasp of gunfire behind him, something with a very high cyclic rate. A line of holes appeared magically in the hardstand alongside Steve, dirt and bits of rock spurting in all directions, stinging his left leg. He dodged to his right, only to have another line of impacts appear on that side as the shooter tried to follow his movements. He dodged left again as he approached the gate, gasping with relief as the last of the hostages dashed through it – only to shout aloud in pain as a red-hot iron seemed to sear along his right calf. Stumbling, suddenly limping, he reached out a hand in a desperate attempt to maintain his balance. A Qianjin spacer standing behind the gate grabbed it and yanked him bodily through the gap, then he and another spacer swung the gates closed.
June 28th 2850 GSC, night