Into the Light

by David Weber

  “Stop trying to suck up to Dad,” Morgana told him with a twinkle.

  “Not gonna work, anyway,” Dvorak said. “Sorry, Malachi, but she’s got an unfair genetic advantage. Daddies are programmed to be suckers where their daughters are concerned.”

  “Damn betcha, Skippy!” Morgana said, and Dvorak laughed at one of her mother’s favorite comebacks.

  “In this case, though, she also has a point,” he continued. “I went back and forth over that same point with Alex, Trish, and Jane for the better part of an hour yesterday. We even got McCabe involved. And the answer we came up with is that it’s a crapshoot. It might help a lot, and it might throw everything farther into the crapper. So, since Myrcal avoided ous last meeting with Abu on the basis that ou had ‘a scheduling conflict’ and rescheduled it for day-half after next, we decided—no, I decided—that I’ll go ahead with the trip to Dianzhyr as scheduled and Abu can explain to Myrcal that he had instructions to request clearance for me to visit the Empire at the same time we were requesting clearance for me to visit the Republic. That way we can slap oum on the wrist and hopefully inspire oum to be a little more reasonable without risking ous feeling further publicly humiliated. Frankly, if ou feels a little personal humiliation, that’s fine with me. Ou damned well ought to understand how diplomacy works, and if ou wants to run with the big dogs, then ou’d better figure out that the sun doesn’t rise and set on ous exquisite sensibilities.”

  Morgana nodded, but she also darted a look across the table at her brother when her father turned his head and reached for the coffee pot.

  Malachi looked back and shrugged. They loved their dad, and they both thought he was one of the smartest people they knew. But he did have a temper, however successfully he hid it from most people, and it was evident that Myrcal MyrFarZol had hit his “I am pissed with you” button. Neither of them could argue with his analysis of the political equation, and both of them agreed that Myrcal needed to smell the terahk. But it sounded to them like this had turned personal for Dave Dvorak, as well. Their father, in irate mode, was capable of accomplishing a great deal in a very short interval, but there were times when it made him just a tad less empathetic and forgiving than he normally was. When, as their mother had put it upon occasion, he didn’t really care where the chips were falling as long as the damned tree got cut down.

  Dvorak finished pouring coffee and looked back at his children, and Malachi shrugged again.

  “You’re the boss, Dad,” he said, “and if the job were easy, they could’ve given it to someone like me, God help us all. So, if this is the way we’re going, it’s the way we’re going. Uncle Rob’s called a brief of all the battalion and company commanders for oh-nine-thirty, and we’ll be going over contingency plans then. But, unless you want to object—and I really don’t think you do, unless you want us reporting it to Mom when we get home—guess who’s going to be in command of your protective detail?”

  “Don’t have a clue,” his father said innocently.

  . XIV .

  CITY OF DIANZHYR, REPUBLIC OF DIANTO,

  SARTH;

  AND PUNS VANGUARD,

  SARTH ORBIT

  “Hannibal,” Captain Malachi Dvorak said to his phone, “communications check.”

  “All coms optimal,” the AI replied, and Malachi nodded in satisfaction. It was not unflawed satisfaction, given the itch still plaguing his nose, but he and his people were as prepared as they were going to get for whatever might happen.

  Which would have made him feel a lot better if it hadn’t been his father’s safety he was worrying over.

  “Hawk One,” he said, cuing the AI to connect him to the pair of heavily stealthed Starhawk fighters providing top cover, “Ground One, ready to roll.”

  “Ground One,” Captain Isidor Berarroa, the lead Starhawk pilot, replied, “Hawk One copies; ready to roll.”

  Malachi nodded again, then glanced at Corporal Mbarjet Celaj, his driver, who just happened to also be his wing.

  “Move us out, Margie,” he said.

  “Moving.” The Albanian-born Celaj was a woman of few words, at least on duty. Off-duty, now …

  Their vehicle rose on its counter-grav, floating a rock-steady thirty-eight centimeters above the pavement, and headed for the ring road. Malachi closed his eyes to concentrate on the imagery projected onto his corneal implants as the rest of the convoy followed in their wake.

  The Airaavatha was only lightly armored … by the Planetary Union’s standards, at least. Its frontal and side armor was proof against a direct hit from a pre-Invasion main battle tank’s main gun, however, and it was capable of speeds approaching five hundred kilometers per hour in ground effect and fifteen hundred KPH in flight. Normally, it was armed with twin-mount thirteen-millimeter railguns, but he wasn’t allowed to operate it in “normal” mode, so it wasn’t armed at all at the moment. It retained its defensive ECM and antimissile defenses, but all of that was pretty much concealed inside armored hatches. Personally, he was in favor of showing the baddest-ass guns available, but he’d been overruled. Apparently older and better-paid heads than his own—including, he acknowledged, his father’s—had felt that trundling around the capitals of sovereign nations in vehicles capable of annihilating the heaviest tanks their hosts might possess would be in poor taste.

  Which is a piss poor reason to get someone—including my father, bless his thick skull—killed, he reflected grumpily. Of course, if I had my way, we wouldn’t be making this trip on the ground at all.

  He decided not to dwell on that particular irritation. It wasn’t like dwelling would do him any good, and at least some of the arguments against it had a fair degree of applicability. Fwerchau Field, the Republic of Dianto Navy’s main dirigible base, was the only open spot handy to the capital that was big enough to land a Starlander, and it lay on the western outskirts of Dianzhyr. So whenever Terran diplomats visited the Sitting, perched atop its steep hill in the middle of the city with a magnificent view of the harbor, they had to land at Fwerchau. He understood that; where he parted company with those older and better-paid heads was that he would have made the trip from the dirigible base to the Sitting by air. Unfortunately, there was no flat, open spot convenient to the Sitting, either, and his father, in his infinite wisdom, had ruled that as a matter of courtesy to their hosts, they would travel using surface roads, just like any other diplomat. From Malachai’s viewpoint, that was a … less than inspired decision. They could easily have used those same surface roads to land someplace much closer to the Sitting, without crossing half the city at ground level, but, no. His father had insisted.

  Damn, but that man could be stubborn.

  At least they’d gotten his obstinate posterior into a modified Airaavatha command car rather than accepting the Diantians’ no doubt sincerely meant offer of a Sarth-built vehicle. Of course, he’d insisted that the upper deck armor had to be replaced with something less military looking, so the krystar armor had been removed and clear crystoplast had been fitted in its place. That was what they’d told his father, at any rate. Actually, it was two centimeters of considerably tougher armorplast which was proof against anything short of a Sarthian bazooka.

  Malachi Dvorak took considerable satisfaction from that particular deception.

  Now the convoy—Malachi’s command vehicle, followed by a second Airaavatha, then his father’s “limo” and two additional Airaavathas as chase cars—moved down the ring road towards Fwerchau’s eastern gate at a sedate sixty kilometers per hour. Each of the other Airaavathas carried two wings—four Space Marines—from Alpha Company’s 1st Platoon, while the Starhawks drifted overhead, invisible at four thousand meters on their own counter-grav. His Marines weren’t in Heinleins, unfortunately, but he was reasonably confident of their ability to handle anything any Sarthian threat might throw at them.

  “Troy,” Malachi reported to the orbiting assault transport as the gate came into sight, “Ground One is leaving Fwerchau with the Secretary.”r />
  “Ground One, Troy copies.” Malachi’s lips twitched as he recognized his uncle’s voice. “Try to keep him from doing anything … outstandingly unwise.”

  “Ground One copies, Troy.”

  * * *

  “I’M NOT SURE how much longer the package will last,” the operative reported over the phone.

  “Don’t worry,” Gauntlet Sydar HynSyTar nar Qwelth replied. “It’s almost time.” All of their communications were being conducted by landline. Sydar knew the Earthians had monitored their radio communications prior to making themselves known, and he knew the Diantians had the capability to monitor radio communications as well. “The Earthian ship has already landed, and they’ll be heading out soon.”

  “I hope so,” the operative said. “We secured it in place as best we could, but it’s so big it’s blocking the normal flow. At some point, someone’s going to notice the blockage and come looking, or the water pressure is going to rip it from its moorings.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Sydar responded. “Leave the area before you’re seen.”

  Sydar looked out the window and watched as the Diantian who’d been babysitting the “package” left a building across the street at the other end of the block. It had taken the better part of a Sarthian full-day for Bearer Sokyr’s devoted followers to smuggle the “package’s” contents into the sewers, one knapsack load at a time in obedience to “Trygau’s” orders, but they’d managed it without detection. Religious fanatics they might be, but Sydar had at least seen to it that they were well-trained fanatics. Now the babysitter, equally well trained in fieldcraft, vanished into the foot traffic, indistinguishable from any other local going about his business.

  The phone rang again. “Yes?”

  “They’re coming,” a voice said.

  “Good,” Sydar replied. He broke the connection and looked out the window again. There was nothing in view which could hinder their plans. His nasal flaps rose in a smile.

  * * *

  “GROUND ONE,” CAPTAIN Berarroa’s voice said in Malachi Dvorak’s cochlear implant, “Hawk One sees construction work on Qwyrk Street, three blocks north of Shyrdyn Street.”

  “Ground One copies construction work,” Malachi replied. “We were informed that the city was making repairs.”

  “Not on my brief, Ground One.”

  “That’s because they were supposed to finish up yesterday, but something’s wrong in the main storm drainage system. They haven’t located the fault yet, but they’re keeping us advised of their progress. I thought it had been added to your brief, but I admit I didn’t double check.”

  “As long as it’s all good,” Berarroa said.

  * * *

  ANTRO TAMANSYL, THE lowest ranking member of the road crew, crawled slowly from the sewer. She nodded her head, while the other members of the crew moved upwind and a couple of paces farther away. The smell was bad enough from where the sewer overflow had generated the complaint they were there to investigate; Antro, however, reeked.

  “Something’s blocking the sewer,” she reported, “but it isn’t from anything we did yesterday. The blockage is farther down the line. I went downstream as far as I could, but I couldn’t find it.”

  “I was afraid of that when you didn’t come right back up,” the team leader, Zhal ZhalBalFen, replied. “So I sent Samyk to check the flow in the other storm drains to find out how far down the blockage is.”

  The group waited for Samyk to return, staying well away from where Antro dripped on the paving stones. After a couple of kysaqs, he could be seen running towards them.

  “I found it!” he exclaimed, puffing heavily as he tried to catch his breath. “I found the blockage. Or its location, anyway.”

  “And?” Zhal asked, impatiently. “Where is it?”

  “The drains below Shyrdyn Street are dry as bones, but the one immediately above it’s flooded just like here. So the line has to be blocked somewhere under Shyrdyn.”

  “Well, we’d better get to work quickly, then,” Zhal said, ous nasal flaps shut tightly against ous junior team member’s continued stench. “That’s the route the Earthians are taking, and we can’t have it smelling like Antro as they go by.”

  * * *

  “JUST REMEMBER WHAT you told us all before we headed down,” Trish McGillicuddy told Dave Dvorak.

  “Which would be what?” he asked innocently.

  “That we aren’t giving the store to anybody, on either side,” she said with a severe look, and he smiled.

  Despite the fact that she had blonde hair and gray eyes, McGillicuddy reminded him a great deal of his own daughters. She was a bit stockier than they were, but she moved with a quick grace, and she was one of the smartest people he knew. She was also very attracted to Arthur McCabe, for some reason, although in Dvorak’s view, McCabe wasn’t remotely in her league. She clearly thought some of his personal beliefs were naïve and believed humanity couldn’t afford to buy into the “the Hegemony may not be all that bad” mindset, but aside from that the two of them got along very well.

  “I know not of what you speak,” Dvorak replied. “I have no stores, and, more importantly,” his tone turned a bit more serious, “I’m not giving anything to anybody today. We’ve got to get the Qwernians at least talking to us again, and I’m dead serious about the need to reach an agreement that covers the entire planet equitably.”

  “I know you are,” she said with a fond smile. “I just don’t want you appearing so effusively glad to see Qwelth and Sword Master Zhor that Myrcal and Juzhyr decide the Republic has us in its pocket.” Dvorak arched an eyebrow at her, and she snorted. “Boss, the problem is that you like people, and it shows. It’s one of the things that make you so effective. But just this once, you need to dial it back, at least in public. Alex told me to be sure I reminded you of that.”

  “Yes, Mom.” Dvorak sighed in a credible imitation of his offspring in their teens. “I know—I know! You and Dad will ground me if I’m out past curfew.”

  “You know, you really can be a pain, Boss.” The severity of her tone foundered on the chuckle in its depths, and she shook her head at him. “In fact, I think—”

  * * *

  SYDAR’S NASAL FLAPS rose in a grin as the first of the Earthian vehicles rounded the corner and came into view. The procession had followed its announced route, and the first vehicle floated up the street as if its driver didn’t have a care in the world, followed by a second and then a third.

  The grin became a smile of satisfaction as the occupants of the third vehicle came into view. The Earthians hadn’t even bothered to hide which one their leader was in! Sitting in the third vehicle, exposed to view, was Dvorak himself! The others were armored, but Dvorak had chosen to ride in one protected only by a layer of glass. Sydar nodded his head in disbelief.

  Two more vehicles followed Dvorak’s, but they were of no importance. Sydar waited a couple of seelaqs longer—until the middle one was over the sewer lid—then dove to the side as he pushed the button.

  * * *

  THE WORLD BLEW up.

  Malachi Dvorak’s Airaavatha skidded insanely sideways on its counter-grav as three and a half Terran tons of high explosive detonated. The shockwave slammed the IFV like an enormous fist, driving it across Shyrdyn Street at an angle that smashed it into and through a plate glass storefront.

  The second Airaavatha, caught in the fringe of the actual explosion, tumbled end-over-end to slam down on its nose with sufficient force to crumple even its armored hull.

  It was luckier than the two chase Airaavathas.

  The IED’s location had been chosen with care, utilizing a portion of the storm drain system which ran under Shyrdyn Street at an acute angle, and both of the IFVs were in the footprint of the shaped-charge explosion that ripped an elongated, forty-meter-wide gash through its paving stones. They rocketed upward, tumbling in the blast wave as their counter-gravs shredded and they lost all ability to control altitude or direction. One of them landed ups
ide down and slid a good fifty meters before it ground to a halt. The other was thrown into the second floor of a nearby office building, killing over twenty Diantians as the stonework disintegrated and the Airaavatha’s twenty-ton bulk smashed its way through interior walls like Thor’s hammer.

  And the last Airaavatha, the one carrying Secretary of State Dave Dvorak, flew out of the heart of the blast like a mangled tin can.

  * * *

  SYDAR ROSE FROM the floor slowly, the glass from the shattered widow falling from his back—the shards that weren’t embedded in his back, anyway—to make a tinkling noise on the floor. He could barely hear it, though; the concussion of the blast had damaged his hearing, as well as stunned him. He pulled himself to the window.

  He hadn’t trusted anyone else to do the job, and he wasn’t disappointed in the results. Most of the street had been transformed into a vast, gaping crater, he noted at a glance. The building fronts had been shattered, fires raged throughout its length, and only four of the Earthian vehicles were visible. He waggled his nasal flaps in amusement as he found the fifth; it had been blown into the second floor of the office building across the street.

  The detonation must not have been instantaneous, the professional side of his mind noted after a moment; although the last three vehicles had been destroyed, the first two had survived relatively unscathed. He’d intended to destroy the middle three to be sure Dvorak’s was in the center of the blast.

  He turned his attention to the center vehicle and realized another error. Although the canopy of the aircar looked like glass, it was obviously made of something far stronger; it had withstood the blast nearly intact. The vehicle as a whole, had not taken it so well, however. It lay on its side, shredded and crushed, and easily beyond repair. Although some of the Earthians were running towards it, he couldn’t see any movement from within, and a liberal amount of the Earthians’ red blood painted the not-glass in large splotches. As wrecked as it was, everyone in that vehicle had to be dead.