He hung there, dangling, swaying, for a long time, momentarily numb. Then he recovered, ignoring the pain of bruised muscles and doing a quick inventory of his body parts. Nothing broken. He peered downward and saw Alex’s anxious face looking up at him. Which immediately broke into a smile, when Sten flashed him a weak grin and gave him a thumbs-up sign.
Sten spun around on the rope and looked up at the cliff’s mass looming over him. He took two shuddering breaths and started climbing again.
*
Sten chinned himself on the cliff’s summit. He kept tension in his fingers and shoulder muscles so that he could finally relax most of his body and turn the problem over to his eyes and brain.
The main body of the Octopus humped up at him black and glowing in the snow. The Citadel was merely a building constructed for a purpose. But it was a live thing. It was an animal that had to do animal things. It had to eat fuel, it had to breathe, and its enormous body had to retain heat and expel cold.
The last function was the constantly moving weather membranes. Sten’s way in.
Sten checked the plateau in front of him, hummocky ground rolling slightly uphill toward the Citadel. Even though it was impossible for any intruder to attack the Jann from this side of the mountain, they obviously put little faith in the impossible. The hundred meters or so of rolling ground between the cliff edge and the first building was thoroughly covered by sensor-activated guns.
The multibarreled lasers constantly swept the area, looking for movement. Sten slithered over the clifftop and snow-crawled forward, thankful, for a change, that he had hired Egan and his Lycée kids.
Sten halted just outside the first sensor’s pickup point. He fingered open his pack and slid out a powerdriver and a little metal box with dangling wires and heat clips. Sten dug into the snow and found the plate that guarded the sensor control system from the elements. He hesitated at the screws that held the plate in place and reminded himself of potential boobytraps. He placed the driver’s bit into the first screw and flicked the button for reverse. The first screw whirred out smoothly and Sten was alive.
He quickly removed the plate, fused in the heat clips, and then glanced at the nearest sensor guns that were ‘sniffing’ at the night.
It was an illusion, of course. The guns didn’t do anything but shoot. However, buried across the landscape were very efficient sensors that ignored the stray rodent but ordered the guns to cremate anything approximating man-size.
Sten turned the dial on the box until it told the sensor he’d just become a small furry creature, not worthy of a killing burst from the guns.
He stood up. And the guns kept searching. Ignoring him for larger game. The Lycée kids were right.
‘Come on up, Alex,’ he said in a perfectly normal voice. He braced himself for the hiss of the guns. Nothing. And he knew again that he was safe.
Alex effortlessly lifted himself over the cliff. ‘Y’ be takit tea oop here f’rit sae long?’ Then he glanced at the scanning guns. They didn’t react even to Alex’s body mass. ‘Aye’ was his only comment.
Alex turned to throat-mike the orders down to the rest of the mercenaries.
Kurshayne was the first up with all of Sten’s equipment, then Egan and his Lycée crew, who moved out and began permanently defusing the sensor guns. Next came Vosberh and his boyos. As Sten walked toward the curving hump of the Citadel, he consciously shut off any worry about his troops. He had to assume they were professionals. And that everything Sten had in mind would work.
Chapter Eighteen
Khorea bowed to the Citadel Commandant and stepped to the forefront of the podium. He had prepared a speech for this graduating event. But then he felt the movement deep in his mind – a feeling that he knew was the spirit of Talamein.
It could have been described more prosaically as a result of alcohol drunk by a near-teetotaler, adrenaline-response, and egotism. It was, however, doubtful that any Jann psychologist would have had the temerity to do so.
Khorea forgot his prepared speech and began: ‘We are being tested today. Tested as we, the Jann, have never been tested before.’
He looked out at the thousand before him and thought that the officers would be the most important graduates the Citadel ever produced. He also sensed that most of them would be dead in not too many months.
‘It is fitting,’ he continued, ‘that while we celebrate the Killing and your acceptance as Jann I tell you of the trials that we shall face.
‘Trials which we shall only overcome by strength. Our strength, the strength of our arms, our minds, and our Faith in Talamein.’
The cadets stirred. The speech was quite different from what they had expected and from what they were accustomed to hearing from their cadre.
‘These trials I shall now warn you of. They have been building for some time. We know the babblings of the madman Theodomir. And we know how dearly he would love to destroy the flame of truth, so it could be perverted into his own ashes.’
More like it. The cadets relaxed, and a few of them even smiled grimly. They were quite used to Theodomir diatribes.
‘But the madman has gone beyond ravings. He has determined to try us by force of arms.’
Large smiles from some of the cadets – in their final training cycle most of them had participated in raids against the poorly trained, ineffectual levies of Theodomir. Khorea understood their smiles.
‘This night you will become Jann. And then you will go out to face the armies of Theodomir. But be warned – these are not the rabble you have known.
‘Theodomir has chosen mercenaries. Men who have trained to the peak of killing madness in the gold-souled ranks of the Emperor of the Inner Worlds.’
Khorea ceremoniously spat.
‘Mercenaries. But a mercenary can fight, regardless that he defends an evil cause. This then is the trial you will face, Jann-to-be.
‘At this moment Theodomir, the False Prophet, is raising an army against our peaceful worlds. An army that does not believe. An army that, if it conquers, will ensure that the Truth of Talamein and we, his servants, will cease to exist. If they win, it shall be as if we had never existed.
‘Tell me, Jann-to-be – to keep that from occurring … is that not worth the Death? My death, your death – the death of every man in this room?’
Silence. And then one cadet came to his feet. Khorea automatically noted him proudly as the cadet screeched:
‘Death! Long live death!’
And the cadets howled, the long, enraged howl of hunting beasts.
Sten whirled the fusion grapnel twice, then cast it straight up. The line coiled at his feet disappeared upward, into the obscuring snow, and then the head of the grapnel hit the outer skin of the Citadel about twenty meters up and instantly melted itself into bond.
Sten gave a tug. Solid contact. He began catwalking his way upward, keeping his body almost ninety degrees out from the curving surface of the Octopus.
When he reached the grapnel’s head, he braced himself against it and hurled a second grapnel upward. Even with the crampons, he almost slipped and fell, before the grapnel hit, skidded, and then caught.
Sten leaned back onto the rope then began the next stage of the climb to the roof of the Jann sanctuary.
Below him Alex, Kurshayne, and Ffillips’ commandos began swarming up the awesome curve of the Octopus like so many ice flies. Grapnel, gloves, and boots found every protuberance in the smooth surface to keep from coming off.
Sten was the first to reach the weather membrane. He peered down through its red glow into the chapel below. It was empty. Alex pulled up behind him and tapped Sten’s boot.
Sten reached back for the blister-charge, and Alex, panting after the climb, slid it into his gloves. Sten gave one fast look at the charge, thanked the whiz-kids again, licked the charge, almost freezing his tongue in the process, and slapped the charge to that ‘breathing’ membrane. Then, still in one motion, he slid back down the rope.
The ch
arge fused to the membrane, glowed, and then the whole membrane surface began a slow melt. It peeled back and up, leaving a gaping hole directly into the heart of the Jann Citadel.
Sten took yet another grapnel from Alex, anchored it on the edge of the hole, and then unreeled the line down into the chapel below.
Then he descended, hand over hand, into the Citadel. Alex, Kurshayne, and Ffillips’ men and women followed. They landed, then spread out through the chapel, checking for intruders and setting up security.
Sten stood in the middle of the room. It was awesome. Sten could almost feel evil flowing from the walls. In the flickering torchlight, the huge military statues loomed at him like gargoyles, about to leap through the forest of wall-hung regimental banners. It was indeed a temple – a temple for the worship of violent death.
Behind him Sten heard Alex’s breath hiss. His friend shivered. ‘Ah nae hae seen aught s’cold.’ he whispered. Sten nodded, then looked over at Kurshayne.
‘Blow it,’ he ordered.
The Jann cadets were eating in silence. On the huge stage, the officers were also at their meal. General Khorea nibbled politely at each dish, then pushed it away. He refused when a servant offered to refill his wine glass.
Khorea looked around at the cadets and felt a great stirring of pride. Soon, he thought, all these young men would be joining him in the great Jann cause. Many would die, he knew. He also wondered if one of these young men at the tables would someday be a general like him.
And at that moment there was an enormous, soul-shattering explosion. For one of the few times in his life, Khorea felt an instant of fear. The enemy had struck where no Jann had ever believed possible. The Citadel was under attack.
Vosberh and his men raced toward the barracks. Minutes later, Jann guards, reacting to Vosberh’s diversionary blast, poured out of the barracks and died as Vosherh’s men sprayed them with a withering fire.
Vosberh snapped a command and his fire team hustled forward. Quickly they set up the tanks of the flamethrower, twisted the controls, and a sheet of flame gouted out.
The first barracks complex exploded into fire.
Kurshayne hustled up to a statue and draped a heat-pack on one huge metallic arm. Around the chapel Sten, Alex, and Ffillips’ men were doing the same.
Sten slapped his last heat-pack into place, whirled, and ran for the huge door. He and Kurshayne were the last men out. Sten barked an order, and Kurshayne hit the det button while still on the run. Behind them in the chapel the heat-packs detonated, one by one.
The fire began as a slight red glow, gradually growing larger and larger, and then a blinding flash of white.
Each pack was like a miniature nova. The heat radiated out, farther and farther, with white glow blending into white glow, until the whole chapel was blinding white.
The drapes and regimental banners were the next to go, crisped in the instant fire-storm. And the golden statues began to bubble and then melt. A molten river of gold streamed across the floor as the statues melted like so many giant snowmen.
Air howled through the hole in the roof and the open door like two tornadoes as atmosphere rushed to fill the semi-vacuum created by the fire.
And then, with a roar, the entire temple exploded.
That second blast shook the Citadel to its foundation. It hit the dining room like an earthquake, flinging Jann to the floor.
The enormous room was in chaos. Men shouted meaningless orders that no one was heeding anyway. On the stage Khorea dragged himself out from under the table, pawing for his weapon. He was appalled at the hysteria raging about him. A wild-eyed Jann officer ran toward him, waving his gun. Khorea grabbed the man, but the officer struggled free and ran on.
Khorea grabbed for a mike. In a moment his voice boomed through the huge dining-hall speakers, demanding order. It was a voice trained on a hundred battlefields and brought almost instant response. Men froze in place, recovered, and then turned to stare up at him.
But before he could issue any orders, the main doors blew open and Sten’s killing squad waded in. They punched through the unarmed cadets, ignoring them, and fanned out across the room in three-man teams, firing into the Jann officers on the stage.
A young cadet lunged at Sten with his ceremonial dagger. Kurshayne grabbed the boy with one hand and hurled him across the room. Behind Sten, Alex lifted an enormous table and threw it into a group of charging cadets. It sent them reeling back, effectively out of the fight.
Sten flipped a pin grenade into a group of officers, and they disappeared in a hurricane of arms and legs and gouting blood. The wall beside him exploded, and he whirled to see a Jann officer getting ready to fire again.
Kurshayne swung that monster shotgun off his shoulder and triggered it. The officer shredded in the hiccuping boom of the cannon.
Ffillips plunged forward onto the stage itself just as Sten and his team got moving again, up the other side.
Sten spotted Khorea instantly, recognizing him from Mahoney’s briefing. He slashed his way forward, going for the ultimate target. But there were dozens of men between him and the general. They died bravely, but they died just the same, trying to protect their general.
And Khorea saw Sten and instinctively recognized him as the leader of the attack. Khorea clawed his way forward. He wanted desperately to kill Sten.
A group of Khorea’s aides rallied, grabbed the general, and, ignoring his shouts of protest, did a flying-wedge toward the rear of the stage. Sten had one last, fleeting look at the man’s white, spitting face as the aides carried him through the rear door and disappeared.
Then Sten went down under a pile of bodies.
They punched and kicked at him, fighting each other in their blind fury for revenge. Sten slashed and slashed with his knife. And still they kept coming. Sten could feel numbness spread through his body.
Alex and Kurshayne fought desperately to get to him. For fear of killing Sten, they had to use their hands. Hurling men away, smashing skulls, and literally ripping limbs from bodies.
And suddenly they were there. There was no one in front of them but a battered and torn Sten, bleeding from a dozen superficial cuts.
Alex pulled him to his feet. They looked around for more Jann to kill. There was nothing but pile after pile of black-uniformed bodies and Ffillips’ commando teams, grimly making the same search.
Sten spotted Ffillips across the stage. She gave him a large smile and a thumbs-up sign. It was over. Before the Jann cadets could rally at the loss of their cadremen, the mercenaries were moving across the stage and out a side door.
Outside the Citadel, the mountaintop ran with rivers of fire. Vosberh had done his job well. All the barracks were crackling and exploding.
Sten, Ffillips, and their people linked up with Vosberh and Egan’s troops at the start of the exit roadway. They were in loose formation, ready to move out.
‘Casualties,’ Sten snapped.
‘Three killed. Two stretcher cases. Ten walking wounded. It was a walkover,’ Vosberh reported.
‘None,’ Egan said proudly.
Ffillips looked mournful. ‘Seven dead. Twelve more wounded. All transportable.’
Sten saluted his subcommanders and turned to Alex, pointing at the downward S-curving roadway.
‘We’ll walk this time.’
‘Ah’m w’y’, lad,’ Alex said. ‘M’bones ae t’ oldit to play billygoatgruff wi’ again.’
The mercenaries moved out briskly.
Behind them, the Citadel and its dreams of death and glory flamed into ruin.
Chapter Nineteen
The doctors hovered over the wriggling, leechlike creatures, waiting for them to shoot their potent narcotics into Ingild the Prophet’s veins. They were the perfect parasites for an addict, creatures who traded euphoria for a few calories. Ingild waved at the doctors impatiently, and they carefully coaxed the tiny bulbous monsters free of his skin.
Ingild sat up and motioned the men away. The doctors scattered,
not bothering with their usual professional bowing and posturing. The ‘False’ Prophet (as Theodomir would have called him) was in a snit. He glanced around the throne room at his guards, trying to compose himself before the comforting ego-drug took effect.
A little over half the guards in the throne room were black-uniformed Jann. Ingild fought back instinctive paranoia, even though he knew that in this instance it was a correct psychosis. The Jann guards, he realized, were more interested in watching Ingild than in protecting him from possible assassins. The rest of the guards were members of Ingild’s own family, which made him relax a little. He pushed aside the thought that there was an excellent possibility they had been subverted by the Jann.
The symbiotic narcotics began to filter through, and he felt a faint wave of relief.
He was Ingild, and before him all men owed allegiance.
Ingild, like his counterpart and opponent Theodomir, was a middle-aged man, not too far into his second century. But unlike Theodomir, he looked as if he was near the end of his time. Ingild was wizened, his skin blotched and peeling. His head featured a bald dome with unhealthy strings of hair dangling from the sides.
A traveling medico had given him the reasons for his scrofulous appearance many years ago. The doctor had said that Ingild’s deep-seated fears counteracted the benefits of modern longevity drugs. Ingild had the man executed for his advice, but had kept the compu-diagnoses and scrolled through them several times a day for insight.
A Jann guard walked over to him, very correct and military, but Ingild could sense the contempt.
‘Yes,’ Ingild said.
‘General Khorea,’ the guard announced.
Ingild covered the wave of fear and nodded at the guard. Khorea entered, made a slight bow, and strode over to the throne couch.
The ego-drug cut in for an instant, and Ingild did a mental sneer at Khorea’s appearance. The man had not even bothered to change, he thought, after the debacle at the Citadel. His uniform was torn and there were streaks of dried-blood on the exposed skin.
Khorea drew up before him and snapped a very respectful salute. Ingild just nodded his acceptance. Then Khorea shot a look at the guards, made a signal, and, to Ingild’s horror, all of them withdrew.
Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus) Page 35