The commander had left tagtales. Very sensible of her. What had she known about that he didn't, and why hadn't she told him? He pushed that thought aside, grunting as he squeezed into the second tube.
There. The search lights picked up the glint off the hunting rifle's barrel first, then he saw the little red dot on the far wall. The laser sight was still on, the power pack unexpended. His breath came short. Was it a trap? Her trap, to test her followers? The sea boomed outside, and filled the tube with a wash of cold wet air; the walls glistened with it.
Closer . . . and he realized that some of the glistening surface was blood, not seawater. Smears and pools of blood, a few shreds of flesh . . . and something had been dragged, something heavy, from here to the edge of the tube, to the sea, where a crumpled wet tarp lay, its edge flapping with every gust of wind.
That damnable, conniving, fornicating Corporal Meharry must have survived the fall . . . climbed here, hoping for refuge—no, to retrieve a life raft he'd stowed here. And the commander had figured it out, had been waiting for him, only in the struggle one of them had killed the other (such a lot of blood, and he was a man who could estimate spilled blood accurately) and escaped in the raft.
But which? Logic said Meharry; Bacarion would have come back.
Unless that was part of her plot. Unless she had planned to betray them all, and escape herself. She had, after all, come down here without telling anyone. Perhaps she had counted on Meharry's death, and the life raft was for her own use.
He chewed his lip, trying to figure it out, and finally decided it didn't matter. They were in it up to their necks, and a witness—which witness didn't matter—had escaped.
He would have to go on with it. Too many clues might remain, even though he had used a firehose to flush the lava tube of evidence. If they could get offplanet before the person in the life raft made contact with anyone, the plan could go on as originally formed.
He ran his thumb under his belt, along the strips of ears that he had taken. They were, he was sure, only the beginning.
Within the prison population, tension had risen in the past few days. Prisoners studied jailers in both their roles, as the predators they had been (and were in spirit) watch prey, and as the prey watch predators around them. Slyke knew exactly which prisoners were supposed to be released, but his own assessment suggested a few additions. First he had to find a way to contact the conspirators in orbit, and convince them of his identity.
Establishing the contact was easier than he'd feared.
"We heard." The voice contact, generated from random snips of synthetic speech, would defeat voice recognition software.
"Ready to initiate Bubblebath," Slyke said.
A long hissing silence. Then—"You?"
"Better go ahead," Slyke said, leaving out "sir" with an effort. "Investigation of the major's disappearance—"
"Affirmative. ETA stage one?"
Slyke had calculated this carefully. "Two-seven minutes plus original."
"Good."
Now he had to signal his fellows. Sergeant Copans and Sergeant Vinus looked worried, but heard him out.
"But sir—with the commander's disappearance, Fleet Security will be all over us like crushers on a broken spacer."
"Yes, and if we wait around here, chances are they'll find something the commander left that will incriminate us. Either we do it now, or there's a very good chance we'll be in there"—he jerked his thumb at the cell block's outer doors—"with them. Is that what you want?"
"No, but—"
"Did you earn your ears, Sergeant?"
"Yessir."
"Then hop to it."
R.S.S. Bonar Tighe requested permission from Traffic Control to practice LAC drops into the Big Ocean. Many of the warships which visited Copper Mountain took advantage of the opportunity to test their drop crews. Traffic Control approved the drop zone—200 klicks south of Stack Islands—and also advised them that the only traffic was a prop jet doing SAR to the northwest.
Bonar Tighe's crew had coalesced around the charismatic Solomon Drizh, hero of Cavinatto, and just too junior, like Bacarion, to be closely investigated as a Lepescu protégé after the admiral's demise. The conspirators had learned from the mutiny aboard Despite, and the proportion of those supporting Drizh and his allies was much higher in every ship, the chain of command much tighter. This time they were not acting for the Benignity, but for themselves . . . the Loyal Order of Game Hunters.
Fleet had gone soft, Drizh had declared; the whole Familias Regnant had gone soft as a rotting peach. With anyone of real vision in charge, there would have been no piracy, no incursion by the New Texas Godfearing Militia—and certainly no attempt to preserve the lives of those scum once they'd taken the Speaker's daughter. All the NewTex worlds would be taken, their vicious militia subdued . . . though Drizh had to admit that he rather admired the men who would attack big ships with little ones.
The Loyal Order of Game Hunters had survived Lepescu's death and, in the years since, had even grown. Its leaders used one political event after another to demonstrate the need for more toughness, a more realistic attitude towards war, more loyalty between brothers in arms. Weakness in high places—from the king's abdication to Lord Thornbuckle's inability to keep his daughter in line—proved the need for a stronger, more warlike, military arm.
Like Lepescu, they saw themselves as more loyal, more dedicated, than other Fleet members, and the others as wishy-washy, irresolute, and ultimately ineffective. They recruited widely, more often in the NCO levels than Lepescu had—as Drizh said, if their founder had a fault, it was his misplaced belief in high birth.
The removal of senior NCOs and flag ranking officers because of problems with rejuvenation gave them an obvious window of opportunity. The following burst of temporary promotions gave the group a flag rank member again. He might be only an admiral-minor, and only for the duration of the emergency—but that emergency would last long enough for his purposes.
Bonar Tighe's three LACs dropped into atmosphere under control of the orbital Traffic Control. Atmospheric Traffic Control on Copper Mountain was minimal except near the main training centers—and the Big Ocean had none. Once below 8000 meters, they were automatically untagged on orbital screens.
Still they stayed on course until under 2000 meters, when they angled northward, towards the Stack Islands.
* * *
CPO Slyke did not know exactly how Commander Bacarion had intended to deal with the prisoners and guards who were not part of the conspiracy. For his part, he had no intention of leaving witnesses behind, even on that isolated base. When the storm passed, and the radios once more punched through with the usual demands for daily reports, he'd had to say something to divert suspicion, and had reported Meharry and Bacarion both as "missing, presumed swept away by waves." Incredulity had followed; he knew that someone would send an investigative team as soon as possible, along with a new CO. No one must be left to talk about it. Even if the mutineers gained support of the orbital station, they wouldn't have the whole planet by the time someone could get here and write a damning report.
His confederates first took care of those members of the staff who were not part of the conspiracy. Those bodies he left in place . . . he hoped later investigators would think it a prisoner breakout. Killing the uninvolved prisoners was another matter. He had them brought out into the courtyard and then turned the riot weapons on them. They had time to scream . . . and when the prisoners he'd recruited came out, they were more respectful, just as he'd hoped.
By the time the LACs were in atmosphere, he had the prisoners lined up and waiting. The most reliable had the weapons and PPUs out of the guardroom. When the first LAC screamed out of the sky, and settled on the cold stone of Three Stack's landing pad, Slyke didn't wait for the hatches to open—the men were in motion, running. The first LAC lifted, and the next settled in place. Sixty more men raced aboard, just ahead of another rain squall. Then another sixty, and another. Slyk
e rode the last one up.
Behind him, a driving rain battered the corpses sprawled in the courtyard, washing the blood into gutters, and finally through drains down into the sea. When the squalls moved on, the seabirds came, and for a time made a column of flickering wings above the towering stack.
Bonar Tighe's LACs screamed south, and rose from their designated drop zones back to orbit an ample twelve minutes before Martin-Lehore finally fixed MetSatIV's glitch.
MetSatIV picked them up at near-orbital level, but they were outbound, carrying Fleet beacons; the satellite's AI tagged them as friendlies.
The first LAC eased into Bonar Tighe's drop bay and settled onto its marks. Pivot Anseli Markham, who always read manuals and followed them to the letter, aimed the hand-held bioscan at its fuselage.
"Put that down," growled her boss, Sergeant-minor Prinkin.
"But sir, the manual said—" Anseli goggled at the readout. The LACs had gone out empty, with flight crew only, and her instrument was showing dozens and dozens of little green blips.
"Put it down, Pivot; it's out of order."
"Oh." Anseli racked the instrument. So that's why it was showing troops aboard an empty LAC. "Should I take it to the repair bay, Sergeant Prinkin?"
He gave her a sour look. "Do that, Pivot. You're no damn use in here anyway."
Anseli unracked the bioscan and headed toward the repair bay. She was tempted to turn it on and see if it worked when it didn't have to read through hull material, but she could feel Sergeant Prinkin watching her. He'd never liked her; he was always sniping at her, and she tried so hard . . . she let her mind drift into her favorite reverie, of how much better she would treat pivots when she made sergeant-minor.
The repair bay for small scan equipment was out of sight of the LAC service bay. Once around the corner, Anseli experimented with the bioscan. When she pointed it at her foot, a green blurry foot-shaped image appeared. When she aimed at the squad coming down the passage, it showed all eight of them. When she aimed it at a bulkhead, there were two squatting shapes . . . and then a rush through the water pipes that made her blush. She hadn't meant to do anything like that.
Chief Stockard, in the repair bay, took the bioscan and gave her forms to fill out.
"But I think it's working now," Anseli said, trying to fit the entire thirteen-digit part number into a space only two centimeters long. Print clearly, the directions said, but how could she print clearly that small? And why did she have to fill out forms at all, when the computerized ID system would read the part number right off the bioscan itself? She did know better than to ask that one; it wasn't her first trip to the repair bay. "I tried it on people coming along here, and it always registered them."
"If your sergeant said it wasn't working, then it wasn't working," Stockard said, folding his lips under. "It may be working now, but it wasn't working then. What was he trying to do when he said it malfunctioned?"
"He wasn't using it, Chief. I was. I was taking a bioscan reading of the incoming LAC, just like it says to do in the manual, and he said put it down, it's not working right. And I guess it wasn't, because it said the LAC was full of troops."
"LACs usually are," Stockard said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "I don't see what's wrong with that."
"But they dropped empty," Anseli said. "I was there; I scanned them going out, just like the manual says, and they carried only flight crew. It was just a practice flight."
Stockard froze, his hands flat on the counter between them. "Are you saying the LACs went down empty and came up full?"
"Well . . . no, sir, not really. They couldn't have. It's just this bioscan unit, but since it's malfunctioning—"
"You just wait there a minute." Stockard turned away, and Anseli could see him talking into a comunit, though she couldn't hear him. He turned back, shaking his head, still muttering into the comunit. Then he gave her a rueful look. "I guess it malfunctioned . . . I just asked Chief Burdine if the LACs carried troops, and he said no. Oh—he says for you to take a detour up to Admin and pick up the liberty passes for the section. We'll be docking in a few hours."
"Yes, sir." No chance that her name would be on the list, given Sergeant Prinkin's animosity, but maybe he'd go, and she'd have a few hours of peace.
Chief Burdine, on the LAC service bay deck, strolled over to Sergeant Prinkin as if making his usual round of stations. "Just had a call from Stockard in repair—that idiot pivot of yours told him all about the malfunctioning bioscan showing the LAC full of troops. I think Stockard bought my assurance that they're empty, but how much chance that pivot will blab to someone else about the bioscan reading?"
"Near a hundred percent," Sergeant Prinkin said. "The girl's got no sense."
"Is she popular?"
"She's got friends. Hard worker, shows initiative, always willing to help out."
"A milk biscuit." That with contempt.
"Oh yes, all the way through."
"I wish we didn't have any of that sort aboard," Chief Burdine said. "They could have a happy life milking cows somewhere; what'd they have to join Fleet for?"
"For our sport," Sergeant Prinkin said.
"That's true." Burdine grinned at him. "Though it's little sport someone like her will give us."
Running up to Admin from the repair bay meant running up a lot of ladders, which other people seemed busy running down. Again and again Anseli had to stand aside while one or more officers or squads of NEMs clattered down. She wasn't really in a hurry, because the longer she was away from Sergeant Prinkin the better, but standing at the foot of ladders wasn't her idea of fun. Her mind wandered to the LACs and the bioscan. If LACs could drop and pick up troops . . . or drop troops off . . . why couldn't they pick troops up? Go down empty, come back full? And if you didn't bioscan the LACs, how could you tell?
"Stand clear!"
She flattened herself to the bulkhead yet again, not really seeing the uniforms flashing past her. What if there were people on the ship who weren't crew? People from down on the planet?
Of course, everyone on this planet was Fleet, so it didn't matter. Did it?
Anseli knew that pivots weren't supposed to think—well, not beyond memorizing instruction sets in manuals. But she'd always had a sort of itchy feeling in her head if she didn't get things straight. Machines either worked or they didn't, in her very clear interior universe. A bioscan which reported on real, verifiable human-sized beings behind one wall didn't turn liar and report that there were people where there weren't any. That very same bioscan unit had reported nothing in the LAC holds when the LAC left . . . when it was known to be empty. So how did the sergeant know the LAC was empty when the bioscan said it was loaded with troops? Sergeants knew everything, but . . . her mind itched.
A non-itchy part of her mind began its own commentary on the crew members who kept coming down the ladders. There had been no general alarm, so why were the ship's security details on their way to the LAC bays?
By the time she reached Admin, her mind was worse than a case of hives, and the only way she knew to scratch it was ask questions. The chief in Admin growled and handed her another job to do. How was she supposed to learn if no one answered her questions?
Bonar Tighe reported its LACs recovered, and requested and received permission to dock at the orbital station. This, like the request to practice LAC drops, was standard procedure, and the Traffic Control gave Bonar Tighe a docking priority assignment based on her ETA. The stationmaster approved station liberty at the captain's discretion, and forwarded the station newsletter. Ships of Bonar Tighe's mass could not microjump so close to a planet, so the cruiser had to crawl patiently in a spiral to catch up with the station, a process which took several hours.
Chapter Seventeen
Margiu Pardalt boarded the odd-looking aircraft before dawn. If not for the briefings, she'd have had no idea that such craft existed. On Xavier, she had seen only surface-to-station shuttles and low-flying aircars or flitters. Her years at t
he Academy had introduced her to high-altitude passenger aircraft like the one she'd been in from Drylands to the coast. But this uneasy compromise between aircraft and boat looked like something a mad scientist would come up with: four fat engines on the high-set wings, with whirligig propellers set into adjustable ducts; a peculiar blob hanging from the end of each wing, suspended on a thin pole. The bottom of the fuselage had the conchoidal shape, scooped and ridged, that she associated with shattered glass. She found it hard to believe it would actually fly.
This time the craft carried only three passengers besides its crew. One was a gray-haired major, with a pinched mouth and a narrow line of decorations which she recognized as efficiency awards. Admin, most likely. He went to the head of the little line waiting on the dock as by rights, boarded first, and installed himself in a seat midway down the port side, where he immediately flicked on his seat lamp and opened a handcomp.
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