by Chris Bunch
He knew there had to be spoofers out there, but who knew about eyes?
His two cohorts looked at him oddly but said nothing.
Goodnight made another ‘cast.
Jasmine King was listening to a com sweep while she watched the shift change around the com sets. Boring was the mildest description she was thinking.
Something caught her:
“… Goodnight’s eye color, please respond.”
She grinned, listened to the ‘cast again.
Jasmine wondered if she should respond. Knowing somebody might have Chas tied to a chair and pulling his fingernails out, she decided to take the chance.
“Unknown station, this is Jasmine. Over.”
“This is Goodnight” came back at her. “Gimme an ID.”
“Rude bastard,” King said. “You give me one, Brown Eyes.”
“You used to work for the dog from hell.”
Jasmine laughed out loud. That was, indeed, Cerberus.
“It is you. What do you need?”
“I need some bangsticks. Big ones,” the ‘cast came back. “Also, if there’s anything in the air, I’d like them to do a fast flyover over the beeg park downtown, with bangs on the pad and laser pickups on.”
“I’ve got both,” King said. “Hold on.”
She remembered the call sign of the artillery unit Grok was piggybacking, commed it.
Grok got on the other end.
“We have laser-targeting capability,” he said. “Give me a launch time. Over.”
“Stand by. Over.”
She motioned to a tech, who handed her another microphone.
“Star Risk Inchcape, this is Star Risk Control.”
“Star Risk Inchcape here. Over.”
“Can you put your ships over that park in city center? I have someone in place with a laser painter. Over.”
“On the way. Inchcape out.”
“This is Star Risk Vian. Monitored your last. Do you want me to do the same?”
“That’s affirmative,” King said, feeling very much like a general.
Eat your heart out, Grok.
Speaking of whom …
“This is Star Risk Control,” she ‘cast on Grok’s frequency. “Stand by with your fire mission until air incoming clears your space.”
“Standing by.”
• • •
The starships whistled in. A few missiles came up, but the Khelat gunners either weren’t trained or didn’t have night sights, and they missed badly.
• • •
Chas Goodnight “painted” the obvious C&C ship with his laser designator.
High above, Inchcape’s weapon’s officer saw the target, “told” a missile where to strike, sent it on its way, then locked it.
Goodnight’s designator beeped, and he switched to another target. Again, after an instant, his designator beeped, telling him the target was acquired.
He wasn’t aware that he was grinning as he aimed at a third ship.
• • •
“The air is clear,” Grok reported as the ships passed. “Fire mission!”
The tubes chugged on full auto.
Now, this, he thought, would be a killing.
Rated …
He remembered a word he’d read in some ancient book, thought it fit.
Frabjous.
Yes, frabjous.
• • •
Riss ignored protocol, ignored the unit commander, and took it upon herself to order the lifters forward.
No one objected, and the monsters lifted and went toward the flaming wreckage of the park.
Khelat were coming out of their hasty positions with improvised white flags. Riss ordered the column on, not to stop for prisoners. She hoped the soldiers in the lifters didn’t misunderstand her commands.
• • •
A hasty com told Grok to raise his artillery fire as the lifters, infantry running behind them, entered the park, or its wreckage.
There wasn’t much more than a sniper here and there, and crew-served weapons took care of them, as well as whatever building they’d taken cover in.
• • •
One of Goodnight’s commandos, seeing the lifters, got up and started cheering and waving.
Chas knocked him down, lay across him as somebody sent a burst just over their heads.
“It’s dumb to get killed,” he hissed into the man’s ear. “It’s even dumber if it’s your own side doing the killing.”
• • •
At dawn, the reinforcements arrived. But there weren’t many Khelat soldiers to worry about.
It was, as they say, a famous victory.
TWENTY-ONE
Colonel Suiyahr tried a smile, found it didn’t suit her, and looked at Friedrich von Baldur as if he were a subaltern who’d been found embezzling the mess funds.
If it was intended to quail Friedrich, it didn’t work. She wasn’t the first to put on that expression to Freddie, nor the most justified.
“Of course, we’re impressed with the way Star Risk helped us win the great victory on Shaoki II,” she said, as if by rote. “And we hope there are many more in the future.”
“So what is the problem, then?” von Baldur asked.
“Frankly, it is the fees you’re charging us,” Suiyahr said.
“Oh? I was about to inquire about the possibility of a bonus, given our performance on Shaoki II, which certainly was not of a sort specified in our contract.”
“You jest, of course,” she said. “We of the council feel that your rates are quite exorbitant, and having done some research, feel that the contract should be revised to be more in keeping with what other firms elsewhere in the galaxy charge for equivalent or even superior service.”
“Might I ask what firms you’ve contacted to get such figures?”
“That isn’t the point,” Suiyahr said. “What is the point is that the council leads the Shaoki worlds, and considers itself responsible for the financial welfare of the people.”
Von Baldur sighed. He could have mentioned the luxuries the council members lavished on themselves, knew better. As it was, it was shaping to be a very long afternoon.
• • •
The adjutant of Hore’s battalion recognized Jasmine King.
“I’m honored,” she said, a bit sarcastically. “I’m trying to contact one of your troopers … an artilleryman named Liaros,” Jasmine said. “He’s been having trouble with his pay. It appears the Shaoki are at fault.”
“Hold on,” the adjutant said, turned to a computer keyboard, hit keys.
“Right,” she said. “Here he is. But I’ll have to take a message. His whole battery is on a detail.”
“Who’d they get on the wrong side of?” King asked incuriously.
“Nobody,” the adjutant said. “We’re just setting up our own armory. And I see there’s an entry on him in the unit diary, said everything’s straightened out.”
“Good,” King said. “But leave a message that I got back to him. We don’t want anyone thinking we’re turning into a bureaucracy. “King, out.”
Jasmine frowned for an instant, then lost the thought just as Vian came into the suite.
“You said something about wanting to learn how to drive a starship,” he said with a smile. “I volunteered. You want to make a swift run over to Khelat II and raise a little hell, strafing? A day or so gone.”
Jasmine did, but wasn’t sure she should. She glanced at her assistant, who held out his hands.
“We can manage without you,” he said, with a bit of hauteur.
“Then we’re on our way,” King said, standing and reaching for her combat harness hanging on the wall behind her.
“You won’t need that,” Vian said. “We’re the clean-fingernails sort, not hand-to-hand.”
Jasmine started to replace the rig, caught herself, remembering Riss, who supposedly took her showers with her harness on.
“The only time you won’t wear it,” M’chel had said,
her tones those of a high priestess, “is the one time it could have saved your ass.”
Jasmine shrugged into the harness.
“I’d be lost without it.”
Vian didn’t argue, just grinned.
• • •
“I am thinking,” von Baldur said to Goodnight and Grok, “after that snooty little interview with Her Ever So Arrogant Liaison with the Council, that we had best come up with a nice, spectacular target to keep the checks rolling in.”
“I hear you, boss. I’ll check with the crew,” Goodnight said. “See what’s whuppin’.”
• • •
“So here we are,” Vian announced as the three patrol ships broke out of hyperspace. “And the planet below should be Khelat IV’s third world.”
Jasmine realized her palms were wet from worry that her awkward navigation wouldn’t even be close.
“And what would have happened if something else was there?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“It depends,” Vian said. “If it were a sun, we’d go up like a spider in a candle flame. Another planet, and we’d calculate where we were and where we went wrong. If we were in the middle of nothingness, without a clue, we might have to embarrass ourselves and jump back to where we came from. But you plotted well, King. Just as I thought you would.
“Now if you’ll slide out of the way, I’ll take it in-atmosphere and the shooting can start.”
Jasmine unsnapped her safety belt, slid back into the supernumerary’s seat. She was slightly proud of herself, and also surprised that Vian had turned out to be a patient instructor.
“Next time,” Vian said over his shoulder, “you can take it in. And you can try a landing when we go back home.”
“Maybe,” Jasmine said. “That will be my third.”
The other two had been in yachts, with Riss as instructor.
“All right,” Vian said to the others on board. “We’re going in.”
The patrol ship shuddered as it bounced into the outer atmosphere. Its wings glowed a bit red.
On a nearby screen, she saw the other two ships flanking her.
The target, on the far side of the world, was a resort area favored by the Khelat royalty. It was what Riss called a “piss-off target” intended to get the Khelat princes grinding their teeth at being subjected to such inhumanities. Angry war leaders generally aren’t thinking coherently.
Vian’s three ships had deliberately come in on the “far side” of things. Vian didn’t really believe the Khelat were so totally inept as to not “see” the raiders. Hopefully, they’d launch whatever AA missiles they had at long range, thinking the target was Rafar City, and miss, leaving the three mercenary ships open targets.
Vian, as he brought the ship down toward the surface, yoinked it at irregular intervals.
That should further shake up whatever Khelat defense forces there were.
Jasmine had chosen the target on Riss’s recommendations. She’d noted the resort when Star Risk was still on the Khelat payroll, but wasn’t sure just how much they had in the way of defenses.
Since the resort was a third- or fourth-choice vacation, she assumed the security would be fairly light.
Everyone was almost right.
Jasmine was concentrating on holding on to her stomach. Even though the antigravity was on, the world spinning below her, getting closer by the instant, was still unsettling.
“I don’t like this,” Vian muttered, keyed his mike. “All Risk elements, this is Control. This is getting too easy.”
There were twin mike clicks back at him, acknowledging his ‘cast.
“The bastards should have started shooting,” he said.
Vian’s plan had been to bring the raiders straight down to about five thousand meters, flare out, streak for the capital like that was a target, then divert around Rafar City, which would be far too strongly defended, and fly over the deck along the shoreline to the resort.
They were at about ten thousand meters when a screen blipped.
“They’ve acquired us,” Vian’s weapons officer said. “Three, no, four sites.”
There was a pause, silent except for the now-loud hiss of atmosphere against the ship’s skin.
“We have a launch, sir. Six launches. All homing.”
Vian growled, and the patrol ship’s jinking became more furious.
“Closing …” the weapons officer reported. “Dumping chaff, firing countermissiles … three missiles fired … two acquired targets … closing …”
There were two bright flashes on a screen.
Jasmine took a deep breath.
She never saw the missile that exploded less than twenty meters away from the ship.
The craft bucked, rolled about its own axis, and spun down and down, toward the suddenly too-close planet.
Vian was fighting the controls, and the ship stabilized.
Khelat II’s surface was veering up at them. Jasmine King wanted to scream, but controlled herself.
The patrol ship was level, then spinning, still dropping, and Jasmine saw a flicker of land. Then there was nothing but water on-screen around them.
And then they hit.
TWENTY-TWO
Riss had lost friends before in combat and accidents, but somehow Jasmine’s loss hit her particularly hard.
Illogically her mind told her it was her fault — if she hadn’t wanted vengeance for Dov Lanchester, Jasmine would still be alive.
She thought about some kind of memorial service, then realized she hadn’t the foggiest idea of what Jasmine King believed or disbelieved in.
It was a greater shock to realize she knew just as little about the other Star Risk members. Other than their obvious vices and virtues, they kept to themselves.
It was a lonely life. By choice.
She put those gloomy thoughts away. All she wanted was out of this goddamned cluster, and solitude and quiet.
“Nonsense,” von Baldur said briskly. “We are not going to limp away licking our wounds.”
“No,” Goodnight agreed. “We’re going to tear an enormous strip or two off the Khelat.”
Grok snorted agreement.
“I think we will all feel better if we go out and break something.”
M’chel considered for an instant.
“We will,” she agreed reluctantly. “A very big frigging strip.”
“Well, then,” Goodnight said. “Shall we commence to plotting?”
• • •
Another message, this one in a simple business code, came from Alliance Credit, this one just saying that the previous person who wanted to establish contact with M’chel Riss had sent another message, repeating the first.
Riss thought about it, still didn’t know how to play the card with Prince Wahfer, so let it lie.
Besides, she was busy plotting blood and slaughter.
• • •
There was a war on, but the Khelat rulers hadn’t found it necessary to call for night shifts.
The huge shipyard was still, with only necessary maintenance machinery running, and the occasional two-man patrol, more to keep out thieves than anything else.
Star Risk wanted no mistakes, so there were none of Hore’s infantrymen, nor any Shaoki on the raid.
One of Vian’s patrol ships slipped in-atmosphere. The ship grounded at the spaceport attached to the yard, amid rusting and wrecked ships, and the four Star Risk operatives moved out.
They looked more like an equipment-repair crew than saboteurs, laden with strange packs, welding gear, and computers.
They cut their way through the double layer of wire at the rear of the plant, easily avoiding the alarm sensors, then found an easily jimmied door and went inside.
The building stretched for almost ten kilometers, and appeared impregnable.
Chas Goodnight licked his lips.
• • •
Grok eyed a huge hull-plate rolling mill, saw its weak spot. He tucked one of the demolition packs he was carrying in
to the huge gears at one side.
When the charge went, it would not only shatter the gears, but badly dislocate the great rollers, as well.
• • •
Friedrich von Baldur decided he felt like a ten-year-old again, as he kicked in the door labeled PRECISION MEASUREMENT DIVISION.
The shelves inside were stacked high with various gauges and calipers.
Friedrich went to work lustily with a large hammer he’d found, then set incendiary charges.
• • •
Riss struggled into a heat suit and sealed it.
Nearby roared two of the great smelters, kept running under robot control night and day. She opened one of the smelter doors, involuntarily jumped back as the flames reached out toward her.
Then she threw a boxful of floor sweepings into one smelter, then the next. Those contaminates should ruin this run, she thought.
Just to make sure, she put a small det charge on each of the doors’ hinges.
• • •
Grok grumbled as he pushed the sliding door open, into the plant’s central control room.
It hung from the roof of the yard building, all glass walls, looking down on the rows of machines and ships under construction.
He set to work, smashing here, cutting contacts there, zeroing out running computers over there.
Grok froze for an instant, seeing something move in a reflection in front of him. He whirled, and there was a watchman just outside the control room, a look of utter horror on his face, seeing the monster.
The man forgot about the blaster holstered at his hip.
Grok grabbed a table and hurled it through the glass at the man.
It hit him and he staggered back, over the metal railing outside the room, and fell 150 meters to the concrete below.
Grok went back to his destruction, thinking once, wistfully, how he wished Jasmine King were with him, to do a more thorough and subtle job.
• • •
Chas Goodnight sat at a computer terminal, tapping keys. He nodded satisfaction, looked out at the assembly floor.
Robot welders were moving, their torches glowing, as they set to work fastening themselves to each other and to the floor.
Damn, he thought. It does work. I never got a chance to try out my conditioning the Alliance gave me before.