William Keith Renegades Honor

by Renegade's Honor

  But it might be too late now. "I just came up from there this morning. TOG is initiating Project Gael."

  MacCandless wrinkled his brow. "They're scattering the squadron?"

  "More than that. They're putting in motion the propaganda machine to evacuate the Five Worlds. Immediately."

  "What?" Douglass's face could not hide his shock. 'That's impossible!"

  "I don't think Lieutenant Commander Douglass knows the details yet," Morganen said. "Tell him, Caius."

  Elliot took a deep breath. "The Empire doesn't like having neat, self-contained and self-sufficient populations of.. .call them nationalists. That's an old term from when a single world might be divided among many governments. Isolated groups who owe their first loyalty to each other, rather than to TOG."

  "Understandable," Fairfax put in. "What does that have to do with us?"

  Elliot looked at Douglass. "Tell me, Commander. Are you an Alban or a citizen of the Empire?"

  "Why...both."

  Elliot shook his head. "If you feel that way, you're an Alban. The planet of your birth shouldn't matter at all if your first loyalty is to TOG."

  "I'm not sure I see the distinction," Douglass said. "My being a TOG citizen can't change who I am, or where I was born."

  "No? Some day we must talk about the realities of bureaucratic government, young man...but not now. The point is, the Empire will feel safer when the Gaels of the Five Worlds are safely living elsewhere... scattered across a couple of hundred other worlds in the Galaxy."

  "Good God, why?" Fairfax asked. "We're no threat to the Empire!"

  "Maybe Caesar and some of his Overlords see things differently. In any case, the word has come down from Senior District Administrator Lord Grethan himself. News is to be circulated of suspicious disturbances noted in one of the Gael Cluster's larger, hotter suns. Within the next few weeks, a full-blown scare rumor will be going around to the effect that Cridhe is about to go supernova."

  "Gods above. That's close enough to truth to cause a real stampede..."

  "Of course. The best lies always have a measure of truth. I suppose someday Cridhe will blow up.. .but as Humans measure things, it's not likely for quite a while yet. But if it did blow, the bubble of radiation would sweep out at the speed of light. In fifty years, every world in the Cluster would be sterile."

  Morganen leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "When will they start moving people out?"

  "No date's been set yet, but I saw the requisition order for a pair of Aldebaran Class transports."

  Douglass whistled. "Aldebarans! Those are big suckers..."

  "B ig enough to transport five thousand people each, stacked in cold sleep." He hesitated, as if uncertain how to say what he had to say. "And I've seen another order."

  "What?"

  "The Governor has put through a computer search. All the families of the officers and crews of the Gael ships...they're being tagged."

  Douglass' eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'tagged?'"

  "I think they're going to be the first to be rounded up for... resettlement."

  "No..."

  Morganen shook his head. "It's got to be a bluff. Something they can hold over us. Maybe they're afraid the Squadron will put up a fight."

  "Maybe," Elliot said. "The way I read it, they '11 be issuing an order for the Gael Squadron to be broken up and scattered soon...maybe within the next few weeks. By the time the order comes, they'll have your families aboard their transports. If there's any argument from the Squadron..."

  He left the consequences unspoken.

  "Why not just bomb our worlds the way they did at Trothas?" Douglass asked after a moment's silence.

  "Because, despite what happened at Trothas, TOG does not casually blow planets away for fun. There was a reason for what they did at Trothas. They would destroy one or more of the Gael worlds if they thought it would help them to...prove a point, frighten the others...whatever. They might do it still. But if the Empire can claim five new worlds for no more than the cost of a few old colony transports, they will."

  "But our planets aren't all that rich," Fairfax protested. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

  "Maybe, but a world is still a big place. And common as they are, a world where men can walk about without wearing protective suits or breathing gear is still a precious thing in this Galaxy. They'll have a use in mind for your worlds, be sure of that."

  Morganen frowned. "You're saying, I take it, that their moving things up is likely to interfere with Operation Old Man?"

  "It means there will be many more Imperial troops here very soon...maybe even before the rescue ships get back here. They've already transferred most of the troops out of VLCA Alba and brought them here to Alba Port."

  "Why?"

  Elliot shrugged. "To keep an eye on you people, partly. Also to have a ready troop reserve to land at hot spots on Alba, once they start njaking announcements. It means it will be harder to get the Gaidheal and the Damadas free...harder to explain where they've gone when Admiral Arada begins looking for them." He passed his hand across his face. What he had to say hurt. "I'm beginning to think that Old Man should be dropped, that we should concentrate on hijacking our ships, getting your families, and leaving at once."

  Kendric, I'm sorry! Ramsay...The sense that he was betraying them shook Elliot deeply. Kendric would not be a slave in a crystal mine now if he had not intervened in the boy's career in the first place. He had tried to balance things, to make things right, but now it was the lives of hundreds of men against the freedom of one.

  "No." Morganen shook his head slowly. "No."

  "But Lenard..."

  "Dammit, we need him. The men need him. You didn 't see the way they cheered him at Trothas."

  Elliot nodded, staring at his hands clasped on the table before him. He wanted to agree...

  "A leader to pull them together. Someone the men will follow. Maybe that's why they chose him as their first target. They feared him, feared the potential he showed at Tallifiero." His eyes flicked up toward Morganen. "It isn't that you're not able, Len..."

  "Hell, I know my limits. If nothing else, he knows what the Imperials will do, how they' 11 react, if they decide to turn to... a military option. I can't handle it myself."

  "You may have to, you know. This rescue is not certain. And you... you're risking...not just the Squadron, but thousands of innocent people...the men's families..."

  "Not if we move quickly enough. No! We've got to try it! You're the bureaucrat with the red-tape skills. You work in the Governor's office. You can find a way to delay things until we get back...with Kendric Fraser."

  Something like relief flashed through Elliot's mind. It had seemed that Kendric's rescue and helping the Gaels had become mutually exclusive operations, but perhaps that wasn't the case at all. He knew, though, the danger of letting emotion swamp his reason. There was far too much at stake, for all of them.

  "Mmm," the Administrator said. "Maybe. It'd be worth a try, certainly. It's hard to see any other option at this point."

  Morganen reached out and touched a switch on his desk console. "Communications."

  "Communications, aye."

  "Put a message across to the Gaidheal, tight-beam and scrambled. For Captain Neal, eyes only. Say...'It's going down. Recall your liberty parties and stand by for visitors...Lenard.' Then put the same out to Captain Lyle, Damadas. That's all."

  The Communications Officer read the message back, then signed off. Morganen looked at the others in his cabin. "Gentlemen, I don't think this changes a thing. It does put a time limit on our operation, though. We had planned to move in a month or two. Now, we'll have to move in days! I suggest we get started!" He turned to Elliot. "You were afraid someone was following you. Is that still a problem? I could lend you some of our people..."

  "Not necessary. If they haven't moved against me this far, they're probably just keeping an eye on me." He sighed. "Besides, we're almost there now. You rescue Kendric...and I'll
see what I can do about keeping your people off those transports.

  "But we'd better hurry. Believe me! The TOG bureaucracy is ponderous, but when it starts moving, it's like a black hole. It eats everything in its path...and there's no stopping it!"

  Hours later, Caius Elliot made his way do wn the tunnel of the Gael Warrior's, transplex brow to the Alba Port concourse beyond the docking bay. He felt better after his talk with the Warrior officers. His agents had provided him with precise and specific information. Now, if the events he had planned could be set in motion, success might yet be his. Meanwhile, Operation Old Man would proceed, with departure of the two ships set for as soon as they were ready for the flight. He would remain behind and work on arranging a special set of orders that would detach the Gael Squadron for special convoy duty.

  A new idea had occurred to him. It might be possible for the families of the Squadron' s crews to be picked up and put aboard a transport... then to officially deliver the transport into the keeping of an escort of Gael ships! If the squadron could be ordered to escort one of the Aldebaran Class freighters out of the Cluster, all of their problems would be solved. TOG's bureaucracy would help clear the way for a change!

  Yes, there was still hope, still a very good chance for success. He

  quickened his pace toward the Alba Port administrative offices.

  So intent was Elliot that he did not notice the two men standing in the concourse across from the Gael Warrior's docking bay. One looked up as Elliot passed, then nodded to his partner. The first man started off through the crowd, following the Administrator. The second lowered his head and began speaking rapidly into the small radio transmitter hidden in the fashionable, pleated collar of his blouse. No passerby was close enough to hear his words or even realize that he was speaking. When the man had completed his report and listened to the reply through the receiver clipped to his ear, a cold smile of satisfaction played over his face.

  Finally, after weeks of watching, it was time to move in.

  TOG naval activity within the Gael Cluster is up almost 30 percent over the last five days. Two Aldebaran Class freighters have arrived, and there is an increase in the number of naval units in and around the inhabited planets. TOG Legionnaires have been put on alert in all major cities. Particularly disturbing is an order to round up families of men assigned aboard the Gael Squadron, directing that they be put aboard a pair of fleet transports and held in orbit. This may be a TOG attempt to maintain control over the Gael Squadron, to prevent open mutiny when the order to disband comes.

  I fear my own activities may be under observation. I may not be able to continue reporting for long.

  —Report filed to Commonwealth Intelligence by agent Clarity, Cathandra, Source: Classified: Most Secret, 20 Sep 6830

  Another shipment of raw meat arrived early during Kendric's second 20-shift, and Kendric traded his shovel for a hose. For six hours at a time, he would stand alongside one of the horizontal conveyers, playing a stream of water across the piles of mulch and rock that trundled past him. By unspoken mutual consent, Kendric and T.C. stood side by side as he learned this new job. Washing rocks required no great physical or mental expertise, but T.C. was able to teach him to recognize the dun-colored gennarite as it was exposed and to call warning to the packers standing at the head of the conveyor that paydirt was heading their way.

  It was the responsibility of the packers to identify the ore and to scoop it from the conveyor before it reached the right-hand vertical tube. That lift carried waste up and out of the mine and spewed it into the tailings down one side of the mountain. It was the left-hand lift that carried the ore up to the top level, spewing it into the waiting hoppers to be packaged for pick-up by a star freighter. Still, the work numbed the brain after a time, and the warning "paydirt on number two" served to keep the packers alert. Each pit had a quota, measured in kilograms per shift, of gennarite. Failure to meet that quota usually meant loss of water for every barracks on the level for a 20-shift. There were also the threats of transfer to one of the "more unpleasant levels," as they were euphemistically known, or the possibility of death for everyone on the level.

  Tie death rate among the slave miners was high, though not from the spectacular tragedies of cave-in or eruption that Kendric had first imagined. Rumor—the single news service available to the miners— had it that Barracks G and K on Level 3 had both been wiped out within a single 20-shift by a disease thought to be cholera. Four died in D Barracks in the same period, three from a wet, hacking cough that T.C. believed was probably pneumonia, and the fourth when the same cough made the victim too weak to work. The others of the group held him up through muster, but the man kept passing out during work shift until finally apair of bosses waded into the muck, took him by the arms, and dragged him away.

  Seven more died in D Barracks for no discernible reason except that their wills had become weaker than their bodies. Kendric had noted with mild surprise that though the miners' food rations were not large, they were enough to keep them going. Many of the slaves seemed to thrive on the combination of simple diet and hard, physical work. Perhaps their masters kept them relatively well-fed on the theory that slaves on a starvation diet could not produce enough work to justify their keep.

  What killed more miners than starvation or disease was despair. With no hope of reprieve, slave after slave "walked down the hill" and was never seen again. It was rumored that the mountain was surrounded by a mound of sulfur-crusted bones, though no one who had gone down had ever come back to verify the report. Countless more simply stopped eating and drinking and wasted away until they were dead or too weak to work. Some few refused to work, or attacked a boss, or simply went shrieking, gibbering mad. All of these were subdued by the custos and dragged away, never to be seen again.

  Worst of all were those who simply gave up. Kendric remembered one of the miners in D Barracks, a young woman named Lani who could not have been more than twenty years old. She was already painfully thin at the time Kendric first arrived at the mine. Two weeks later, she was still working, even eating, but she had grown thinner and thinner. From the look in her eyes, Kendric realized that the wasting was more in the mind than in her physical body.

  One morning at reveille she did not get up, and the custos dragged her away. Kendric never did learn whether she had been dead when they took her, or simply unable—or unwilling—to stand.

  "Tell me something," T.C. yelled one day as they worked side by side at Conveyor Two. The din of conveyers and lifts made such a clatter that she had to shout to be heard, yet their conversation was relatively private. For the most part, every slave labored in a private world of his own, oblivious to everything but the monotony of heat, water, and work. "Your first day here...did Lynch tell your group something about the two-day life expectancy being a myth?"

  Kendric nodded as he blasted away at mud and gravel with the hose. "Something like that. Lynch told us it was a lie." Kendric had often thought about Lynch's words and decided that the boss had been telling the truth. Even the TOG Empire could not afford the extravagance of shipping thousands of criminals across the Galaxy if they would only provide two days' or less work in return. Slavery, as an institution, made sense only if there was profit in it.

  "I've been thinking about that," T.C. said. "I've been thinking that I could stand it for two days. This...this reality...is worse..."

  Kendric had stolen a glance at her then. With the constant spray of water from the hoses, the washers did not become covered with sticky gray-black mud like everyone else in the pit, at least not from the waist up. T.C.'s face was clean except for smudges on her nose and at the angles of her jaw.

  Etched there, he could see pain and defeat.

  "Remember our pact, T.C.," he said. "We've got an agreement, you and I!" Her eyes met his, but he saw no life in them, no answering spark. He remembered the look on Lani's face just before she died, and felt a shock of recognition and fear.

  The quake began as a barely
perceptible tremor underfoot. Cushioned by the mud and water, few of the slaves felt it until the first stones began to spill from the mist-clogged darkness overhead. When a pair of head-sized rocks splashed in the mud, a woman screamed. Then the tremor became a thundering roar. The walls of the cavern seemed to writhe and sway, and the muddy water turned to froth around them.

  Kendric didn't stop to think. Dropping his hose, he swept his arm around T.C.'s waist and hauled her under the shelter of the conveyor. The bottom of the track was just high enough to give them room to keep their heads above water. Through the spray and pelting hail of rock, Kendric held T.C. close and desperately surveyed The Pit, looking for their best chance out. Something heavy struck the conveyor above their heads, and tortured machinery shrieked protest.

  With the first rending scream of rock, three-quarters of the slaves in the Pit had panicked and run—every one of them straining toward the narrow entrance to the main tunnel. Now the rampway leading up to the tunnel's level was packed with naked, muddy bodies struggling to escape. Kendric saw a custie pinned with his back against solid rock, saw his fist still clutching his virga above the mob, saw the hand spasm, turn bloody, and slide down the wall and into the crowd.

  The roar increased, drowning the mindless shrieks of the slaves. A boulder the size of the D Barracks interior came spinning out of the darkness above. It swept away a catwalk and a pair of screaming custies as though they were cobwebs, then plunged into a packed mass of humanity at the foot of the ramp. The frothing mud and water in The Pit turned scarlet.

  The roar ended as suddenly as it had begun. Miraculously, though the main lighting was out, numerous fluorotubes still glowed in air that had become thick with mist and dust and that sparkled from the gravel spilling and clattering in cascades from above. The thunder of falling rock was replaced by the continued screams and groans of the wounded, the dying, and the merely terrified. One of the conveyors continued to clatter and rattle toward the lifts, both of which were still working somehow. The power leads from the surface were well-shielded and must still be intact.