The Blackcollar Series

by Timothy Zahn

  “Why six?” Colvin asked.

  “Because that’ll make it eight days since we sent the message out to the scout ship,” the comsquare told him. “That’s round-trip time between here and Plinry for the Corsair Quinn should have sent right after our break.”

  Caine glanced at Pittman’s carefully controlled expression, noticing as he did so other surreptitious looks that were headed that way. So far Pittman hadn’t shown any willingness to talk about his involvement with Galway, and up till now no one had felt the need to press him on the subject. But now Braune cleared his throat. “Round trip to Plinry…with bad news aboard?”

  “You could say that,” Lathe acknowledged. “Project Christmas will be bad news for someone—and if it’s the Ryqril who get the hot end, they may go a little berserk here trying to find us.”

  “Does Bernhard know about this?” Colvin asked.

  “No. Why? You think he might stall in hope’s Quinn will drop the roof in before he has to do anything concrete to help us?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  Lathe shook his head. “Actually, I think Bernhard’s lost his last chance to betray us directly to Security. Remember, he presumably doesn’t want Ryqril in Aegis Mountain any more than we do—else he could have told them about the back door years ago when he was making his tacit peace with them. After tomorrow, though, if he turns us over to Security the secret will be out—and if Quinn can’t get the back door’s location from us, he’ll chase Bernhard down for it. No, Bernhard’s much more likely to try killing us himself if he still wants us dead.”

  Hawking grunted. “Cheerful thought. On the way to or from the soft probe tomorrow, you think?”

  “He’ll wait until the main expedition,” Jensen said quietly. “Tomorrow he’ll be surrounded almost entirely by blackcollars. He’d know enough to wait until the rest of Caine’s team is along, in hopes they’d get in our way in a fight.”

  Almazad snorted. “Thanks a lot.”

  “He’s right, though.” Lathe nodded thoughtfully. “And it leaves us with only one practical approach—which I was going to recommend anyway. Suppose we do the following.…”

  The sounds of soft conversation filtered through the heavy door: Jensen and Alamzad, presumably. “I hope,” Pittman murmured as Caine reached for the doorknob, “you know what you’re doing.”

  “Me, too,” Caine answered frankly.”

  “But this is our mission, remember. We have a right to know what’s going on.”

  The room was considerably smaller than Caine had realized, more like a vertical crawlspace than a room per se. Alamzad and Jensen were indeed there, crouched over some sort of mechanism at the far end but looking back at the newcomers. “You should have announced yourselves,” Jensen growled, sliding a shuriken back into his pouch.

  Caine swallowed the automatic apology that came to mind. “We had other things on our minds,” he said instead. “Your private scheme, to be specific.”

  Jensen cocked an eyebrow. “So Lathe’s caught on, eh? Knew he would, eventually. Is he really so worried about me that he sent you to snake out the details?”

  “He doesn’t know we’re here,” Caine said. “This is on my authority as head of the mission.”

  For a long moment Jensen gazed at the two of them in silence. Then, slowly, he nodded his head. “All right,” he said. “But not for you personally, and not because you’re my titular commander on this. I’ll tell you because Pittman’s earned it.”

  “Pittman?” Caine frowned, shooting a look at the other.

  “That’s right. Pittman stayed loyal to you and all the rest of us, no matter what it might cost him.” Jensen’s mouth was tight. “That’s the mark of a true blackcollar, Caine: loyalty. Loyalty to your teammates, to other blackcollars…and sometimes even to allies you don’t approve of.”

  A shiver went up Caine’s spine. “You’re talking about Reger, aren’t you?”

  “Lathe’s the one who makes our deals and alliances,” Jensen said, his eyes focused elsewhere. “That’s the doyen’s job, and commandos don’t expect to have much voice in those decisions. Fine. But there are other ways I can influence events.”

  “Such as by building a death-house gauntlet in Reger’s mansion?” Pittman asked quietly.

  “You’ve got it,” the blackcollar said grimly. “Think of it as a loyalty test…with death as the punishment for failure.”

  Caine focused on Alamzad. “Did you know what he was planning?”

  Alamzad shook his head. “I still don’t,” he added. “But I think I should.”

  “It’ll cost you,” Jensen warned. “All of you. If I tell you, I’ll want your assistance in carrying out what’ll essentially be an execution.”

  Caine took a deep breath. Far back in his mind, the thought occurred to him that this, too, was part of what it meant to be a leader. “You’ll have it.”

  They set off before dawn the next morning: Lathe, Caine, Skyler, Bernhard, Kanai, and one of Reger’s drivers, riding in tight discomfort in a car that had been designed for at least two fewer passengers.

  “Why the hell didn’t Reger give us a decent vehicle?” Bernhard growled as they headed out into the mountains. “Even a van would’ve been better than this.”

  “True,” Lathe agreed. “But we’ve been using vans a lot lately, and I thought it might be a good idea to throw Security a minor curve in that area. They know how many of us there are and so will probably be watching most carefully for vans or large cars.”

  Bernhard snorted and fell silent.

  Whether Lathe was right or whether the Security spotters were simply not watching the right place at the right time, they made it to the jump-off spot the comsquare had chosen without incident. “Everyone out,” Lathe ordered, heading back to the trunk. “Get your kits and let’s get started—we’ve got a long hike ahead of us.”

  Caine glanced around in the predawn glow, a strange sense of déjà vu tickling the back of his mind. The creek trickling quietly alongside the road, a particularly striking bluff rising above the hills to the south…and he caught his breath as the landscape clicked. “Lathe, do you know where we are?”

  “A couple of klicks northwest of the Aegis Mountain entrance,” the comsquare said. “As good a spot as any to strike out overland from. Why?”

  “Oh…no particular reason, I guess. Only that we’re just a ridge or two northwest of the spot we headed out from when we checked out the base.”

  “Ah. Well, at least this time you won’t have to worry about your car being stolen.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when the car beside them pulled away, making a U-turn and heading down the road in the direction it had come. Caine swallowed as he watched it disappear around a curve, knowing it was the best way but still not really liking the arrangement. A vehicle parked here would be horribly conspicuous, true; but on the other hand they had only Reger’s promise that the car would indeed come by twice a day until they rendezvoused with it.

  If the others were worried, though, they didn’t show it. “Which way?” Skyler asked as he tightened the straps of his pack and hunched his shoulders a couple of times to settle it.

  “Through there,” Lathe told him, pointing along a rock-strewn cut between two steep hills. “Single-file, and keep an eye out for aircraft overhead.”

  They’d been hiking for just over an hour when a Security man stepped out of the undergrowth fifty meters ahead directly onto their path.

  All six men froze into statues as Lathe, in the lead, flashed the appropriate hand signal back to them. The Security man, Caine noted uneasily, was heavily armed, with both a holstered paral-dart pistol and a shoulder-slung laser assault rifle. Radio headphones peeked out from under his mountain cap, and infrared-enhancement goggles were slung around his neck.

  Caine gnawed at his lip. The soldier wasn’t looking their way at the moment—was, in fact, facing ninety degrees away from their line of approach. But balancing that was
the fact that the terrain and sparse foliage near him precluded any kind of quiet approach. They’d have to take him out from where they stood.

  But Lathe was making no move to draw either his slingshot or a shuriken—was making no move at all, in fact. “When are we going to take him?” he whispered to Skyler as the seconds crept by.

  “Just relax,” the other whispered back.

  And to Caine’s surprise, the soldier turned and walked casually away.

  “What…?” he hissed, totally confused now.

  “You weren’t paying attention to his stance and equipment,” Skyler explained as they started forward again. “Both were more appropriate to a sentry than to someone on bush-beating duty. Bernhard, what’s out here that anyone might want Security protection for?”

  “No idea,” the other said with a puzzled frown. “Kanai?”

  The other shook his head slowly. “Nothing I know of. Possibly a major intake to the city water supply?”

  “That’s right—you got a map of that network a few days ago, didn’t you?” Skyler commented to Caine. “Maybe they still think we’re out to sabotage the system.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lathe put in. “From his positioning I’d guess the center of the ring is a ways south, off to our left. We’ll veer north and see if we can avoid any more contacts.”

  “Right,” Caine said. He glanced at Skyler, caught the other’s signal. “Bernhard, Kanai—do either of you know what those things were around the guard’s neck? I’ve never seen goggles quite like those before.”

  Bernhard snorted and launched into a rather condescending explanation of infrared-enhancement equipment. Caine kept the whispered discussion going for several minutes longer as they continued on, plying both him and Kanai with more such naive questions. It was an annoying role to play, but as a diversionary tactic it succeeded remarkably well. By the time the conversation ended, Skyler had returned to the group as quietly as he’d left it, without either of the Denver blackcollars having noticed his absence.

  The sun rose higher in the sky, eventually passing zenith, as they continued to hike. “It sure didn’t look this far on the map,” Caine complained once as they broke for a ten-minute lunch.

  “Uphill climbs never do,” Kanai puffed, as out of breath as any of them despite his high-altitude acclimation. “For your full expedition out here, Lathe, I suggest you make the jump-off point a little closer. Reger isn’t really going to learn anything useful about your destination, no matter where along the road his driver lets you off.”

  “You may be right,” Lathe conceded. “Anyway, the worst part is over. I read the entrance as being just on the northern side of the peak over there.” He pointed.

  Caine looked and sighed. “What’s that, another two or three hours?”

  “One hour tops,” Lathe promised. “Let’s go. I want to find the entrance, figure out what we’ll need to get it open, and be back at the pickup point before dark.”

  Lathe’s estimate turned out to have been on the optimistic side, but not by too much. Exactly an hour and fourteen minutes later they came to a halt beside a rocky overhang and the ventilation tunnel intake.

  Caine had wondered how the hell a two-meter grille could have remained unnoticed all these years, but now that he was here he realized that it wasn’t nearly as unlikely as he’d imagined. Shielded from above by the rock overhang, its surface covered by strategically placed grasses and other plants, the actual intake openings scattered in an irregular pattern instead of a normal crosshatching—the more he studied it, the more he realized that even someone searching for the damn thing could walk right by without noticing it.

  Lathe might have been reading his mind. “Lucky for us you knew precisely where this was located,” he commented to Bernhard. “Wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” the other said shortly. “Hadn’t you better get busy on your studies?”

  “Yes, well, we’re actually not in as much of a hurry—”

  “Shh!” Kanai cut him off. Caine froze with the others, straining his ears.…

  “Behind us,” Bernhard murmured, drawing a shuriken. “Someone’s coming.”

  “A lot of someones, actually,” Skyler told him stepping over to examine the grille. “It’s Mordecai and the rest of the group.”

  “What?” Kanai frowned, peering into the distance. “But you said—”

  “I guess he lied, didn’t he?” Bernhard snarled, jamming his shuriken back into its pouch. “That’s all. Lathe’s just making sure we all know who the boss is around here. All right, Comsquare; we’re properly impressed. You going to level with us now?”

  “Sure.” Lathe nodded at the grille. “We’re going in. Now.”

  “In other words, you never planned to make any preliminary studies.” Kanai’s face was beginning to redden with anger. “I thought we were allies now—you had no cause to lie to us.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Skyler put in before Lathe could answer. “But we’ve been at least as truthful as your leader was. Haven’t we, Bernhard?”

  Kanai spun on him. “And I’ve also had about enough of that—”

  “This supposedly hard-welded grille’s already been cut free,” Skyler interrupted him coldly.

  “What?” Kanai frowned, his anger cooling into confusion. “That’s impossible…isn’t it?”

  “Done fairly recently, too, I’d say—certainly since the war,” Skyler continued. “It’s being held on by twisted wires at a dozen or so places.”

  “Twisted from…?” Caine asked.

  “The outside.”

  “Well, well.” Lathe turned back to Bernhard. “This remarkably well-hidden door, and someone managed to find it. Any ideas on how they might have done that, Bernhard?”

  Bernhardt face had become a mask. “As you said, someone else must have stumbled on the place.”

  “Someone else who?”

  “How should I know?” the other countered.

  Lathe snorted. “Right.” Turning his back on Bernhard, he joined Skyler and Kanai by the grille.

  Fifty meters back, Hawking came around a clump of scraggly evergreen trees, the other blackcollars and Caine’s teammates following in his wake. “Any trouble?” Caine asked as they approached.

  Hawking shook his head. “Saw another of those Security guards after Skyler came back to warn us about them.”

  “Did you have to take him out?” Lathe asked.

  “No, he was way to the south of us, sitting on a flat rock jutting out from the hillside. They’re definitely guarding something, though.”

  Lathe grunted. “Well, whatever it is, it shouldn’t be our problem. Braune, Colvin, Pittman get busy assembling those rope ladders. We’re going to need them right away. Hawking, Alamzad—come up here and check this thing out for booby traps and alarms.”

  But whoever had jury-rigged the entrance apparently hadn’t thought to leave any hidden deterrents behind. By the time Caine’s teammates had the rope ladders ready, Hawking and Alamzad had removed the grille and made a visual examination of the first part of the tunnel beyond.

  “You see that mesh lining the inside?” Hawking pointed it out. “Looks like a multistage electric barrier, with potentials starting at the slight-jolt stage out here and going up to lethal on the last ring.”

  “Sensors?” Lathe asked.

  “Between the rings—there and there. Probably mostly passive types: sound and motion detectors and maybe photobeam or laser bounce reflectors. You don’t want sensors this close to the surface that use lots of current or throw off detectable electromagnetic fields. That stuff will be deeper down.”

  “What about the stage-one weapons Bernhard mentioned?”

  Hawking pointed. “Right at the end there, where the tunnel starts going vertical. At least one reasonably heavy laser and what look like a pair of flechette repeaters. Probably got gas and acid jets hidden behind the electrical mesh, too—I think I see where the metal has been acid-protected.”

  Caine licked hi
s lips. “How likely is it the stuff’s running on automatic?”

  “It’s not,” Bernhard said. “Everything but the electric mesh was manual control, and the fuel cells for the mesh probably drained themselves years ago.”

  Lathe cocked an eyebrow at Hawking. “True?”

  “Probably.” The other shrugged. “Hard to tell until we try going in, though. The mesh, at least, doesn’t seem to be responding to pressure anymore.”

  “In other words, we’ve learned all we can from out here,” Lathe said. “Let’s suit up, then—full flexarmor, including gas filters.” His eyes shifted to Bernhard. “And we’ll let our guide go first.”

  Kanai gave the comsquare a long, hard look. “I thought we were going to be allowed to leave once we got here,” he said. “Just another lie?”

  “The grille’s been opened,” Lathe told him. “Bernhard’s the only one we know of who knew how to find it. You can draw your own conclusions.”

  Bernhard snorted. “Oh, I see—you think I came up here five years ago and added new traps to the tunnel in case someone from Plinry forced me to let him in someday. Come on, Lathe—you’re being ridiculous.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Lathe said. “Let’s just say I’ve grown accustomed to your company.” He hesitated. “Though on second thoughts there’s no real reason you have to come along, Kanai. If you want, you can leave now.”

  Kanai seemed to consider that. Then, with a glance at Bernhard, he shook his head. “Thank you, Comsquare. But as long as I’m here anyway, I might as well see it through to the end.”

  “All right.” Lathe took a deep breath, glanced around the group. “Mordecai, you’ll stay up here on guard duty. The rest of you…let’s go.”

  Chapter 34

  BERNHARD WENT FIRST, UNROLLING the rope ladder before him as carefully as if setting out a fur-skinned runner for a visiting eminent. But nothing fired at him, blew up under him, or sprayed lethal fluids toward him, and by the time he tilted the rest of the bundle over the edge of the vertical shaft Caine was starting to breathe again.