by Timothy Zahn
"I'm sure you would," Skyler said quietly. "Maybe you'll get your chance."
CHAPTER 18
The sun had disappeared behind the buildings of Inkosi City as Judas and the three Plinry blackcollars sat in a car at the town's southeastern edge. Visible through the sparse woodland to their right was the Khorstron Tactical Center. An hour or so until sundown, Judas estimated, plus another hour to allow dusk to turn into night, and the attack would finally begin.
Seated beside him behind the steering wheel, Lathe stirred. "Almost time," he said.
Judas frowned past him at the clear blue sky. "We're not waiting until full dark?"
"With modern sensors there's not a lot of difference between day and night," Mordecai reminded him from the backseat.
"Except that they'll also probably assume we'll wait until dark," Spadafora added from behind Judas. "The first rule of warfare is to try not to play to the enemy's expectations."
"Of course," Judas murmured, wondering briefly if Galway and Haberdae would be caught by surprise by the schedule. If they weren't inside Khorstron already, he suspected, they weren't going to get there in time. "So how exactly is Shaw handling the initial attack?" he asked. "You're not all going to try to climb the fence at that one spot where the sensors got fried, are you?"
"With the Ryqril in the bunkers shooting leisurely at us as we popped over?" Lathe pointed out. "No, we have some nice camouflage all prepared." He pointed. "Here it comes now."
Judas peered out the windshield, shading his eyes with his hand. An unmarked panel truck was driving slowly down the access road leading to Khorstron's western fence gate. "I don't remember any truck bombs in the original planning," he said uneasily.
"A truck bomb wouldn't work here," Spadafora told him. "The fence's sensor array includes explosives detectors. A load that big couldn't get within three blocks without setting them off."
"Just stick with us, Caine," Lathe added. "We'll try to get you through what's ahead."
"Wait a second," Judas said, his skin starting to crawl. "I thought I was supposed to be on the penetration team."
"You are," Lathe said, smiling tightly as he gestured to the four of them. "We're it."
Judas stared at him ... and before he could think of anything to say the truck blew up into a cloud of heavy, dense, white smoke.
"Here we go," Lathe muttered as he started the car. "Filters."
"What is that?" Judas asked as he fumbled for his gas filter.
"It's your standard high-tech smoke screen," Spadafora said, his voice muffled by his own filter. "Shaw had a few left over from the war. Basically, it's a heavy chemical fog rich in suspended metallic particulates, which—well, there you go."
The Ryqril in the two guard bunkers flanking the gate had opened fire on the truck now, its outline barely visible through the fog rolling its leisurely way toward the tac center on a stiff westerly breeze. With each laser shot, the entire cloud lit up like a brilliant green strobe light. "Not only does it scatter some of the laser light, thereby reducing its effectiveness," Spadafora went on, "but as an extra bonus, it bounces that light all around and right back into everyone's eyes."
"Makes it very hard to see unless your goggles include a special polarized layer," Lathe added as he settled his own goggles into place. "Which ours do, of course."
He'd barely finished when the laser barrage apparently hit a sensitive spot and the truck disintegrated into a burst of flame that lit up the billowing cloud even more brilliantly than the lasers had. "Phase One complete," Spadafora commented as a fresh surge of white smoke boiled upward like a volcanic plume and started falling leisurely over toward the tac center grounds.
"Phase Two begun," Lathe said, pointing across Judas's chest. A dozen vehicles had suddenly appeared from various areas around the southern and western sides of the center, bouncing wildly as they drove at high speed through the trees. "They're coming in on the east and north sides, too," the comsquare added.
All of them heading straight for the sensor fence, Judas saw, and the sonic trap Shaw had warned was built into the posts. "And what exactly is this supposed to accomplish?"
"Just watch," Spadafora advised, an edge of malicious amusement in his voice. "Watch, and learn."
* * *
Taakh snarled something, and the half-dozen Ryqril techs seated at the security monitor room's wraparound console bent feverishly to work. "What did he say?" Haberdae muttered.
"I don't know," Galway murmured back. In the year he'd spent with Taakh he'd managed to pick up a little bit of Ryqrili, but not nearly enough for a situation like this. And the conquerors had been very careful not to give any formal language instruction to their human slaves. "Best guess is that he wants them to analyze the smoke screen."
Haberdae grunted and fell silent. Shifting his attention away from the approaching smoke, Galway concentrated instead on the monitors showing the views to north and south.
One of the techs was giving a short speech now. Taakh listened in silence, then turned to the two humans. "It is a chenical cloud designed tae con'use sensors," he told them. "It also scatters sone o' the strength o' laser 'ire." He jabbed a finger at Galway. "Yae rill nake a note o' it."
Galway nodded. "As you command, Your Eminence."
The Ryq turned back to the monitors. The smoke had passed the fence, Galway saw, and was starting to roll around the building itself.
And there they were, right on cue: fifty cars appearing suddenly from streets and driveways and from beneath camo nets, all of them charging at full speed straight toward the Khorstron fence.
One of the techs had obviously seen them, too. He snapped something at Taakh, and the big khassq stepped to his side. "Are they 'ools tae think re rill 'e caught un're'ared?" he growled contemptu-ously.
"Maybe they're a diversion while the real infiltration team sneaks over the fence where they fried the sensors," Haberdae suggested. "Without sensors, you'll never spot them in this damn smoke."
"Somehow, I don't think sneaking is the plan," Galway said.
"I thought that's what blackcollars did best," Haberdae growled.
Galway nodded at the monitors. "Let's find out."
The smoke screen was filling the entire grounds now, and the techs had switched the displays from straight visual to the false-color images of sensor scans. Galway had never found such scans to be very clear, and even the best of the images were now being hampered further by snowlike flickers. The worst of them showed nothing but multicolored static. "Those must be the pictures coming from the sensors on the building," Haberdae said, gesturing toward the latter group.
"With the ones where you can actually see something coming from the sensors in the fence posts," Galway agreed, nodding. "Whatever they've got in that smoke, it's damn good."
Haberdae grunted. "I just hope they don't realize how blind we really are."
Around the perimeter, the cars were braking to a halt, stopping ten to fifteen meters back from the fence. The doors swung open and blackcollars emerged into the smoke in groups of three, each group huddling close together as they hurried across the remaining distance. "What are they doing?" Haberdae demanded, starting to sound uneasy. "I thought they knew about the sonics in the fence posts."
"That's what Judas said," Galway agreed. The groups reached the fence, and in near-perfect unison the two end men in each set reached down to grab the feet of the man in the middle and hurl him up and over the fence.
Haberdae inhaled sharply. "What the hell—?"
"Relax," Galway said, pointing to the monitors as the flying blackcollars hit the ground and toppled over to lie flat and unmoving. "They're down. The sonic must have gotten them."
"The sonic and the mines," Haberdae corrected, pointing to the grounds schematic where five orange lights were flashing at various points just inside the fence. "I wonder whether that flexarmor is good enough to block scud grenade needles."
Across the room, one of the techs spat something. "So that is t
heir 'lan," Taakh rumbled. "The in'iltrators carry large quantities o' ex'losi'es."
"You think they're trying to blast the fence?" Haberdae asked.
"They could have done that from the outside and stayed away from the sonic and mines," Galway reminded him. On the displays, the shadowy images of the blackcollars still outside were drifting away, heading back toward their cars.
"'Re'ect Galray is correct," Taakh agreed. "They think tae wait until the sur'i'ing in'iltrators are reco'ered, then use their ex'losi'es tae 'last down the doors."
"While meanwhile the blackcollars still outside drive the cars through the fence?" Haberdae suggested.
"I' that is their 'lan, they rill 'e disa'ointed," Taakh said with malicious satisfaction. "The 'ence is 'ar tae strong tae crash through."
"Meanwhile, we have the inside group to deal with," Haberdae reminded him.
"That rill not 'e a 'ro'len," Taakh assured him. He snapped an order, and on the edge of the building monitor displays, just barely visible through the smoke, Galway saw the tips of laser rifle muzzles emerge from the firing slits in the bunkers flanking the building's doors, tracking downward toward the figures still lying motionless on the ground. "I don't like this," Galway warned. "There's some catch here."
"The catch rill 'e 'or they," Taakh said. Gesturing imperiously to one of the techs, he snapped an order.
* * *
Lathe had maneuvered their car through a line of trees toward the southwestern part of the fence as the smoke screen spread out over the base, heading for the section where Shaw had said the radiation-wrecked sensor post was located. The last thirty meters were done in near-total blindness as the fog settled down around the grounds. "Everyone out," the comsquare called as he shut off the engine. "Spadafora, get the shields. Caine, come with me."
"Sure," Judas muttered, grimacing behind his filter and goggles as Lathe led the way through the smoke. He'd had always hated blindfold games, hated them with a passion. "What exactly are we doing?"
"We're going over the fence," Lathe said. "Hold up here."
"You know, you promised I'd be kept in the loop," Judas said as he stopped. "This hardly qualifies."
"Events are moving faster than expected," Spadafora said, coming up behind him and handing over one of the body shields. "If you'd rather, you can wait for us in the car."
Judas swallowed a curse. In full honesty he would like nothing better than to sit this one out. The Ryqril in there would be playing for keeps, and the flexarmor he was wearing wasn't guaranteed against anything but the first laser shot. Maybe not even that much.
But Galway needed someone on this end of the attack to pick up on any details they might miss from inside the tac center. "Thanks, but I'm going," he growled.
"Good," Lathe said. "You can start by hooking your shield over your back to keep your hands free." He demonstrated.
Judas had just gotten the shield in position when his tingler came to life: all blackcollars, stand ready; launch in five.
"What are we launching?" Judas asked as Mordecai grabbed his arm and pulled him down into a crouch. "We're not using missiles, are we?"
"Of a sort," Lathe said. "We're tossing a few bodies over the fence."
In the distance, Judas heard a series of muffled thuds. "That didn't sound like bodies hitting the ground," he said apprehensively.
"Scud grenades," Spadafora identified the sounds. "Some of them must have landed on the mines."
Judas grimaced. "Are they all right?"
"As all right as the rest of them," Lathe said. "Turn your eyes away from the fence a moment."
Judas had barely complied when the inside of the cloud abruptly lit up with brilliant green light as a dozen or more lasers all fired at once.
And an instant later he was thrown to the ground as the whole cloud seemed to erupt in a single, violent explosion.
* * *
Even at the very center of the base, Galway felt the vibration of the multiple blasts. "Good God," Haberdae gasped as every sensor screen went solid white and then turned to static. "What the hell kind of explosives have they got?"
"It wasn't the quality," Galway said grimly. "It was the quantity."
"The what?"
"Don't you see?" Galway said, pointing to the fence sensor monitors. "Those weren't real people they tossed over the fence. They were more of those same sensor dummies they had riding their decoy hang gliders when they first arrived. Only this batch were loaded with explosives."
Taakh was snarling at the techs, who were in turn pounding frantically at their keyboards. "And they were lying right by the fence," Haberdae murmured, his voice suddenly graveyard quiet as he pointed to the grounds schematic. The entire fence line was flashing orange now, Galway saw. "Shaped charges designed to send a pressure wave through the ground when they blew," the prefect added. "Probably took out the whole minefield."
"And the whole fence sensor system, too," Galway said grimly. "Ready or not, here they come."
* * *
The hammering in Judas's ears faded away, leaving only a persistent ringing behind. Cautiously, he opened his eyes.
To find to his shock and dismay that the smoke screen was gone. On the far side of the fence, fifty meters away, he could see Khorstron's western entrance with its two flanking guard bunkers.
Both bunkers in full targeting view of them.
"Don't worry, they're probably still too blinded or dazed to shoot straight," Mordecai assured him, getting a grip on his upper arm. "Time to go."
"Right," Judas said, his explosion-dazed brain starting to put the pieces together. Obviously, the smoke screen was gone because the concussion of the multiple blasts had blown the smoke up and away.
Fortunately, the wrecked truck was apparently still churning out more of the fog. Even as they again moved toward the fence a fresh cloudbank began to flow in from the west.
Lathe was the first to reach the fence. "Up and over," he said, and started up.
Judas followed, the shield on his back bouncing awkwardly as he climbed. Half a minute later, with the fog thickening comfortingly around them, they were back on the ground and moving cautiously toward the building. "What now?" he asked, wincing as he walked past sections of torn ground where hedge mines had been.
Right on cue, his tingler signaled. Commence shutout.
"We start Phase Three," Lathe said. "Spadafora?"
"I'm on it," Spadafora said, dropping into a sniper's kneeling posture, his slingshot ready. Setting a small object into the weapon's pouch, he drew it back a few centimeters. "Ready."
Lathe nodded and reached under his sleeve. Lathe: ready, the message tingled against Judas's wrist.
In the near distance, Judas could now hear a crackle of small, oddly muffled explosions. "Primer caps being shot into the guard bunkers at the other three entrances," Lathe identified the sound. "The goal is to kill or otherwise incapacitate the Ryqril inside and keep others from replacing them."
Judas nodded. With the sensors in the fence gone and those on the building of limited range in the smoke screen, the warriors in the bunkers were about the only eyes Galway and Taakh had left. If Shaw could eliminate them, the blackcollars would have nearly free run of the Khorstron grounds.
The question was, what did he and Lathe intend to do with that freedom of movement?
He frowned, belatedly noting that Spadafora himself hadn't joined the slingshot barrage. "What about the bunkers on the western door?"
"Patience," Lathe said. "We have something special planned for them."
Judas shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't get any of this," he growled. "If we were going to blow the sensors on the fence anyway, why did we bother nuking the ones on that one particular fencepost? Just to give the Ryqril a little misdirection?"
"Partly," Lathe said. "For the past couple of days, ever since we assume they spotted the pellet barrage, they've probably been expecting a quiet infiltration from that one single direction and have been setting their pl
ans accordingly." He gestured toward the building, rapidly growing less distinct as the smoke screen continued to roll in. "But more importantly, the fence sensors spot explosives and fast-burning fuels. We needed a gap we could use to send in some extra surprises."
"Such as?"
"Patience," Lathe said. "As soon as Shaw gives us the okay—"
Lathe: go.
"And here we go," Lathe said. Spadafora's slingshot snapped—
And somewhere in the direction of the western door the white smoke erupted in flame.
Judas caught his breath. Spadafora fired again; and as a second sheet of flame burst into existence, he realized the fires were situated at the bases of the two guard bunkers. "Surprises, you say," he managed.
