“No,” she said. “Our home is worth fighting for, no matter what it costs.”
“But that’s just it,” Haid said. “I’m fighting for something that isn’t even my home. What about the others? Where are they when we need them? Why aren’t they fighting?”
“When the status quo shifts,” Neva said, “what might once have seemed intolerable suddenly becomes desirable. Especially in the city, where conditions are relatively comfortable. Although they keep secrets from you during times of peace, you must realize that your most ardent supporters now are from the desert.”
“I know, I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier.” The rebel leader slumped forward. “Where the hell is Emmerik, anyway?”
Silence fell. Sensing a need to keep matters focused on the immediate future, Roche leaned forward to outline the plan to the two rebels who had elected to join them. Cane also watched with interest, quickly picking up the essentials of the plan and adding useful advice of his own.
Half an hour passed slowly. When the briefing was running under its own steam without her input, Roche leaned back to rest, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the heat buffeting her face.
After a moment, she realized that she could hear voices—not those of Cane and Neva running over the plan, but two others, inside her head.
said one, male: Veden.
Roche opened her eyes. Neither Veden nor Maii displayed any sign of the fierce debate occurring between them. To all around them—except Roche—they might have been sleeping. Only an occasional wince betrayed the pain the Eckandi was feeling. If he knew that Roche was eavesdropping, he made no sign.
But... why was she able to listen in on the private conversation? The two previous mind-dumps Roche had received had been concerned with Maii’s origins and Veden’s plan to liberate Sciacca’s World. There had to be a reason for Roche to be a witness to this conversation as well. With renewed interest, Roche closed her eyes again to listen more closely.
Veden expected to die, and soon. She could sense it in his words, in the thoughts he directed at his young ward. The fact that he was prepared to die alone while Maii fought elsewhere was convincing proof of how strongly he felt for the reave. He had already hurt her by dragging her to Sciacca’s World with him; he didn’t want his death to hurt her further.
Maii, naturally, denied this possibility, being more concerned with his well-being than her own. The strength of his feelings gave his side of the argument more credence than it deserved—for how would Maii feel if Veden did indeed die while she was elsewhere? She would blame herself for the rest of her life, regardless how long or short that might be.
Roche was surprised to realize she could understand how Maii felt: some of her dislike for the trader really did appear to have vanished. Perhaps it was seeing him in such poor health, or—more likely, Roche thought—she understood him better now. She suddenly realized that the information Maii had fed to her served a double purpose, without her being aware of it: not only informing her of Veden’s history, but also revealing the side of him that she had yet to experience directly, the side that bonded Maii to him. In the dream-dump, the threat that he had once seemed had been effectively neutralized, without once resorting to covert mental nudges.
The reave hadn’t lied, after all. She may have manipulated Roche when they first met, but not since then. The fact that Roche’s feelings for the Eckandi had changed, making her sympathize with Maii’s side of the argument, was nothing to be concerned about. If anything, she should feel relieved that she was thinking with her own mind, her own thoughts.
Clearly Maii thought a reconciliation between her mentor and Roche was possible. Perhaps Maii had brought Veden up to date on Roche in a similar way. Certainly he had greeted her with less resentment than at any other time since they had met—actually going so far as to initiate a conversation, an indication that his previously automatic dismissal of her no longer held sway.
But there was more than just reconciliation at stake. Roche could sense that, even as she struggled to decipher what the rest might be. She didn’t know whom to sympathize with most, but she knew how to break the stalemate. If that wasn’t what Maii intended, then Roche was out of ideas.
“If he can’t walk,” she said, cutting across the other conversation in the van, “then I can carry him.”
Veden, startled, opened his eyes, and Maii turned to face her.
“What?” said Neva, staring at her in confusion.
Roche shook her head. The voices had ceased, leaving an emptiness in her mind where they had once been. “It doesn’t matter. My mind was elsewhere.”
At that moment, the engine crackled into life. The passenger door at the front of the van opened, and Emmerik slid into the seat.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said the Mbatan to Haid, putting his rifle down between them.
“All organized?” The rebel leader searched Emmerik’s face for any sign of difficulty.
“I took the liberty of spreading the word here and there, along the way. In half an hour or so, we’ll have a diversion to keep Enforcement occupied.”
“And the rest?”
“The land lines are still intact. They’ll be ready in three hours, and will await my signal.”
“Good.”
“What’s good?” asked Roche, crouching forward in the van to speak to both of them.
“Reinforcements, I hope,” said Haid, and put the ancient motor into gear. With a jerk, the van backed out of the lot. Taking the hint, Roche retreated into the cab. Cane caught her eye and winked once.
Roche resisted the impulse to protest that it was her plan, and that she deserved to be kept up to date on new developments. But the whining of the engine made conversation virtually impossible, and the uncertain tone in Haid’s voice suggested that maybe she didn’t want to know anyway. Better to work with resources presently at their disposal, rather than rely on a deus ex machina that might never arrive.
And as they headed off along the dusty street, two words penetrated Roche’s irritation:
16
Sciacca’s World
Port Parvati
‘954.10.34 EN
1475
The van pulled out of the wide freeway leading from the city center and onto a rising exit ramp that took them up and over the empty main thoroughfare. As the lower road swung away to the left, their new direction curved steeply to the right. Behind them, smoke from a dozen fires blotted out the horizon: the distraction Emmerik had promised. A kilometer farther on, they crested the long rise—and Roche saw their destination for the first time, silhouetted against the slowly setting sun.
The landing field.
A tall, electrified security fence appeared in their path, vanishing left and right to the periphery of her vision. Beyond it, every last piece of vegetation had been cleared and replaced with a scattering of nondescript buildings on seemingly endless tarmac. There was no visible space that had not been cleared and rebuilt.
The van swung right, following the imposing fence line. To her left she could make out the MiCom building itself, still a good kilometer away but surprisingly close to the fenc
e. She knew the exact distance from the main gates to the complex foyer—one hundred five meters—but somehow the reality of it still surprised her. It made a mockery of the elaborate perimeter and for lousy security all around, despite the guardhouse resting midway between the complex and the gate. She supposed that the plateau upon which the landing field stood was only so big; in order to give maximum area to traffic demands, the MiCom building had to be shunted off to the side. Whatever the reasons, it was close enough to the gates to give her plan a chance.
Roche felt her muscles tighten as the Enforcement tower drew rapidly closer. Almost there. She glanced across the huge dry docks, deserted except for one orbital freighter and a couple of suborbital transfer barges. The landing field at Port Parvati had seen headier times.
As the van broached a shallow hill, one of the interior hangars came into view. Through its open doors she glimpsed a snub-nosed combat shuttle. Every angle was curved and lumpy, reinforced , for maximum structural strength, giving it an almost squat appearance. Such ships didn’t look like much, but they made up for it in battle; they had demonstrated their rugged endurance time and time again.
Roche recognized its origins immediately. The Commonwealth of Empires didn’t build ships like that. Only the Dato Bloc did.
The van swept down the hill and past the Enforcement tower. When the hangar disappeared from view, Roche returned her eyes to the road ahead.
“Do it again,” said the rebel named Jytte from beside her.
Across the cab from the rebel, Maii sighed and concentrated.
Jytte’s eyes glazed for a moment, then cleared. “Incredible,” she said in a low voice. “If that doesn’t get us through the gates, nothing will.”
Roche knew what the woman was seeing: an Enforcer in full uniform where the young Surin had once sat. Only an illusion—with the detail that Maii’s knowledge lacked filled in by Jytte’s own imagination—but a convincing one nonetheless.
“Enough,” said Roche. “Don’t wear her out.”
Roche shook her head uneasily. She didn’t like it. Even though it had been her idea, she wasn’t comfortable with using epsense on the battlefield. The talent was too ephemeral, too contingent on Maii’s state of mind to depend upon absolutely. She would much rather have a squadron of Intelligence agents behind her than one young girl, talented or not. Relying so heavily on one person unnerved her.
Cane’s voice cut across her thoughts. “Not far now.”
Leaning forward and peering past Haid’s and Emmerik’s heads, Roche could see the main gates in the distance—wide open, as she had hoped; more laxity. Once through the gates and past the guardhouse, they could accelerate across the front lawns and parking lot, through the MiCom building’s front windows and to the base of the target stairwell within thirty seconds. Haid and the others would have the MiCom doors blown and be inside the first level within a further ten seconds. Cane and his single companion would have penetrated the admin building within the same period.
The main problem would be getting through the gate and past the guardhouse without arousing suspicion. If a firefight broke out in that area, they were likely to lose.
And, in this instance, losing meant that they were dead.
She silently reaffirmed her vow: whatever it took to reach Intelligence HQ, she would do it. Her mission was the most important thing on this world. If she could help others along the way, then that was just an added bonus.
“Traffic,” said Emmerik suddenly, breaking the silence. The Mbatan was watching the road behind them via an external mirror on his side of the van. “One groundcar. Not sure where it came from. Didn’t spot it until a few seconds ago.”
Roche clambered to the van’s rear window. Sure enough, a wide-nosed vehicle cruised steadily behind them.
She felt a surge of alarm when she saw how close the car actually was—and how quickly it was closing the gap between them.
Haid began to accelerate, trying to maintain a constant distance between the two vehicles.
“Do you think it could be a problem?” she asked. “I’m not sure.” Haid’s eyes flicked from the mirror to the road and back again. “Maii?”
Maii’s invisible gaze drifted out to infinity as Haid continued to accelerate. Roche watched her, acutely conscious of the main gates drawing closer with every second.
the reave said.
“Damn.” Haid’s foot went down all the way on the accelerator. The van’s ancient automatic transmission kicked into a lower gear as their acceleration became more urgent. Roche felt the first trickle of sweat begin to edge down her spine.
She leaned over to touch Maii’s shoulder. “Anything else?” she asked.
said the girl to all of them, not just Roche.
Roche’s hand gripped tighter. “What?”
Haid cursed loudly, urging the van faster with his words.
“They’re on the other side of the gates,” Roche said. “We can still go in.”
“But they’ll be ready for us by the time we get there,” Haid retorted. “Someone must have tipped them off.”
The van had almost reached the gates, but there was still no movement from Enforcement. Before Roche could respond to Haid’s comment, a single uniformed figure ambled slowly from the gatehouse to see what was going on.
“No...” Relief parted her lips into a wide grin. “Enforcement doesn’t know we’re coming! The Dato have tried to do this alone.”
The rebel leader studied the movements of the Enforcer for the briefest of moments before saying: “Agreed. That gives us an edge. Maii, keep tabs on that Enforcer. Don’t let her sound the alarm. If we can make it past the Dato, our plan still holds.”
The reave nodded once.
Behind the van, the groundcar continued to close, but not quickly enough to reach them short of the gates. The group blocking the road on the far side of the fence had spread out. It was going to be tight.
The Enforcer from the gatehouse stood transfixed, watching their approach. She was unarmored and didn’t seem overly concerned at what was occurring around her.
“Good,” Roche encouraged. “Keep it up just a little longer; Maii.”
“Push her harder,” suggested Cane. “Make her worry about the Dato presence, why they are threatening an official vehicle.”
Maii nodded again.
Roche watched the lone Enforcer at the gate more closely. Within seconds, the woman turned to shout to other Enforcers inside the gatehouse. Two joined her, and a hurried conversation ensued between Enforcement and the Dato landing party. As the van approached, Roche could make out both anger and confusion on the faces of the Enforcers.
Maii said.
“Just a few seconds more,” shot back Haid. “That’s all we need.”
Roche gripped the metal base of the bench as the gate loomed ahead of them. Too late, the Enforcers on the other side realized that they had been tricked—that what they had thought to be an official vehicle was actually nothing more than a worn-out solar van. Two dived for cover, the third stood stunned, and behind her the Dato finally raised their weapons.
Haid spun the steering wheel. Roche heard him manipulate the rear
brakes, felt the back of the van slew around to the left, saw the gates swing into view through the front window. The van lurched forward as Haid’s foot crashed down once again on the accelerator. With barely a moment to spare, the third Enforcer leapt out of the way.
In a barely controlled slide, the van sideswiped the front of the gatehouse, peeling off the armored paneling and sending it flying ahead of them as they screamed through the gates. Roche lifted a pistol and used the butt to punch through the side window, then quickly fired at the one Enforcer who had the presence of mind to take a shot at them. She hit him square in the chest, saw him topple and fall, then swung her gaze back to the front. Fifty meters ahead she saw Enforcers pour from the main guardhouse.
Roche exchanged the pistol for a percussion rifle and set it to scatter. She saw Emmerik toss something out of the passenger window and also grab a percussion rifle. In unison, they began pumping charge after charge at the emerging Enforcers.
She had a brief view of figures scattering and snapped off a few more shots. Then they were past, crashing through a low perimeter fence and bouncing over the edge of the parking area. As they careened directly toward the front of the main complex, Roche made out the few people visible through the wide windows already running for cover.
She glanced behind the van and saw the pursuing groundcar swing through the gates, narrowly avoiding a collision with the rest of the Dato squad.
Then a brilliant explosion blossomed under the front of the leading vehicle: a pressure mine, dropped by Emmerik as they drove through. Through the flash and sudden roiling smoke, the groundcar climbed up and sideways, rising meters into the air, twisting as it went, to come crashing down on its side against the electrified fence. Energy pulsed and crackled, engulfing the stricken vehicle. The blue truck swerved wildly to miss it and slammed into the corner of the gatehouse, bringing part of the already weakened structure down in front of it.
Someone shouted in triumph. Both pursuers were suddenly out of the chase, temporarily if not permanently. It was more than Roche could have hoped for.
The Prodigal Sun Page 28
