by Chris Bunch
"Something delicate there. Sorry. Forget I spoke."
"Didn't mean to be touchy," Garvin said. "I'm just not sure what happened… what didn't happen… meant."
"Like I said," Njangu said. "Forget about it. You want to clear your head even more, I've got a nice, nasty little bit of nastiness about to ripen. Nothing but in, bang, bang, bang, and we go home.
"This clever operation emanates from careful study of my stumbling around a few weeks or so ago trying to pot ol' Wlencing that didn't play out like it should've. But I always knew something good'd come out of that."
"You mean Lir figured something out?"
"Sharrop," Njangu said. "If you want to come, you're a straphanger, and I'm in charge. Better… big strong lad like yourself can be commo, and lug the set."
"I'm your boy. Gimme ten to put a harness together."
Actually, the idea really was Njangu's. A husband-and-wife team, going to work for the Musth at the Highlands base took some uninflated metalloid-coated balloons with them, together with a can of gas. They had an elaborate story all ready, involving a birthday and absent friends, and were somewhat disappointed when their gear was barely glanced at, and the balloons ignored. They also had, hidden in the handle of a suitcase, a tiny transceiver, set on a single frequency. .
Njangu's team, inserted about two hours' hike from the base by Grierson, consisted of half a dozen gun guards from I&R, together with ten men and women from an infantry company's combat support platoon. Each carried a light mortar and an apron pack of rounds.
They reached the cave Njangu had found on his previous trip, holed up. At dusk the next day, they ate and washed from a nearby pool.
Njangu checked the wind direction. As always at that hour, it was blowing from the southwest, at about four knots. Perfect. And, as always, the fog hung close about them. He had trouble seeing ten meters in any direction.
The team moved by compass to the location Njangu had picked, just behind a low hillock. Two hundred meters on the other side of the rise the base perimeter began, with its guards and alarms.
The mortars were carefully positioned by SatPos, sandbagged, their aiming stakes set. They would fire on predetermined azimuths and ranges.
Three rounds per tube were fused, the correct increments set, and the guns were ready.
Garvin touched a sensor on his transmitter, and the transceiver inside the camp beeped once. The woman holding it glanced around the barracks again to make sure everyone except her partner was sleeping, twisted the handle, and waited until a responding beep came. Then the pair filled the balloons, opened their barracks window, and freed them.
Sixteen silvery blobs floated away, across the base toward the runways…
Njangu waited ten minutes, then tapped two I&R women. They doubled across to the mortar teams, clicked fingers, came back.
Ten gunners held rounds over the tubes, pulled safety pins, and dropped the rounds. Nearly simultaneously, the guns cnuNGed , and small bombs lofted into the Musth base. Another volley, and a third.
The first alarm was shrilling as the team broke their tubes down, shouldered them, and trotted away, keeping the hillock between them and the Musth base.
Njangu, on point, touched sensors as they retreated, and tiny lights they'd clipped to bushes along the path lit for a few seconds, then burned out, leaving nothing but a trace of ash to mark their presence, fireflies guiding the attackers back toward their aircraft.
Meanwhile, mortar rounds slammed in across the base, and the Musth went to full alert. A rocket battery managed to get a location on the mortar launches and ripple-fired a return volley, then corrected and sent hell flaming around where the mortars had been.
Aksai, wynt, velv all followed alert plans, and their pilots and scurrying ground teams got drives started, and the ships lifted, getting away from danger.
Lifting blind, on instruments, the ships moved smoothly along the short approach lanes to takeoff points, readied for lift.
Then more alarms went off—unknown aircraft had somehow penetrated outer security, obviously acquiring targets as they flew slowly toward the runways. Evidently no one had those balloons on visual as they drifted toward the runways, or couldn't get through on the jammed corns, so their radar images worked exactly as hoped for.
It still might not have been catastrophe if there hadn't been some luck in the game. Too many of the ships were flown by half-trained, inexperienced pilots. Alarms, danger, yammering on the corns, and it took no more than half a dozen fliers to panic and decide to break up, to blazes with clearance, and go for open sky where they could see, not have to rely on these still-unfamiliar instruments.
An aksai smashed into a velv , and the destroyer exploded. More pilots broke, and there were other collisions. Traffic control, the formation commanders were screaming, trying to bring order, making things worse, and other ships smashed together, lost orientation, and ground-looped or just flew into the ground, or into buildings, and the runways were naming confusion.
The Force team was halfway across the water to Mul-lion Island before the lead Grierson's electronics specialist reported any Musth on her radar, and by that time the attack ships were safely under Zhukov cover.
And then they disappeared.
The Musth base was a disaster of fire and death, and it was two days before normal air traffic resumed.
The real casualties weren't the dead or burnt pilots or ground personnel, nor the ruined hangars and buildings, but the morale and confidence of the Musth who heard about the debacle.
Another propaganda broadcast was prepared, and a team went out. But the Musth weren't imbeciles—the relay station they tried to take over, not one of Loy Kouro's, had been boobytrapped. Three members of the technical team were killed, two badly injured, the survivors barely extracted before the Musth reaction force arrived.
"We went to the well once too often, my friend," Froude said.
"There must be something more effective," Alikhan said. "Something more conclusive we can arrive at."
"Dig out the rotten meat," Froude said. "And this time, let's get Ann Heiser in with us. Maybe another scientist can thicken the stew."
The shaped charge of Telex was hastily plastered to the heavy gates of the main Cumbre prison in Leggett, and the two sweating, scared 'Raum darted along the wall to safety. One triggered an alarm, and sirens screeched inside the prison, but it was too late.
The charge blew one gate off its hinges, ripped the other half-away.
A rocket team slid out of the office building across from the gates, crouched, aimed, and sent first one missile, then a second, through the gateway to explode against the inner gates.
One of the gun turrets above it swung around, but two SSW teams took it under fire. Rounds smashed, then blew in, the supposedly bulletproof glass, and the human guards inside died. There'd been some discussion about the impact of killing these guards, which ended with a cynical 'Raum saying that no one cared about prison guards, not even their brothers.
Another rocket crashed through the gateway, and the inner gates were open.
The rocket team ducked out of the way, and the assault force, seventy-five experienced 'Raum, attacked. Jo Poynton was at the head of the force until someone tripped her, holding her down while guns chattered and the leading 'Raum were cut down.
Another rocket went through the gap, blew up in the main compound, killed the guards who'd gotten a tripod-mounted blaster into action, then the attackers were inside the prison.
Poynton, cursing the man who'd saved her life, ran through the smoking ruin, found three survivors of her special group. She undipped a small demo pack from her harness, and the three hosed rounds at the administration building, cut their fire on her signal. Poynton zigged forward, tossed the demo pack, flattened as the charge blew the building's door off. She rolled a grenade through the smoke and sent a burst after it.
There were screams, then someone shouted, "no more, no more. We surrender."
Poy
nton and her three were inside, and at the cell controls. They were very familiar—one of the guards had decided to change sides two weeks earlier, and Poynton had been practicing on cardboard cutouts.
Automatic voice commands crackled as prisoners milled around their cells, listening to the gunfire and blasts.
"All prisoners, all modules, stand back from your cell doors… cell doors coming open…"
Then a real voice, a woman's voice came:
"The gates are down! Anyone who wants to be free, run for it now. Move!"
Most prisoners obeyed, but a few, sure it was some kind of trick by the prison guards to kill them, stayed in their cells.
Prisoners, political, criminal, swarmed into the streets of Leggett.
Some were political hostages. The 'Raum had guides waiting, tried to identify the political prisoners, hurried them to safety. But they missed all too many, who scattered in panic through the streets of Leggett. Some found safe hiding places, others were picked up by police and Musth patrols.
A handful, sadly, stayed where they were, and, within the day, were shot down as part of the Musth reprisals.
"Little by little," Poynton told her subordinates. "We're grinding them down, slow but sure."
Ted Vollmer morosely chewed on an antacid, thought about quitting, remembered his mortgage and the new Musth policy of sending the unemployed to the mines, and tried to hide a glower at Loy Kouro.
"Yes," Kouro went on, "a major policy review's in order, I do believe. We're allowing these renegades, these bandits, to control our holo, dictate what the main features are going to be."
"You mean, we don't want to run real news." Vollmer didn't make it a question.
"I wouldn't put it quite like that," Kouro said. "But I think we'll have to reevaluate the emphasis on certain items. For instance, major accomplishments by our Musth allies could be featured more prominently, and this continuing violence downplayed a little, perhaps during the second take after the commercial messages, in a section we'll call 'Police Matters,' perhaps.
"I think—"
What Kouro thought was a mystery as the elevator doors crashed open, and five men, hooded, wearing black, with blasters ready, leapt out.
The men, or women, Vollmer corrected himself, were screaming at the top of their lungs to "Freeze! Move and die! Stand where you are!"
Vollmer, after that, never wondered why witnesses to an armed robbery so frequently disagreed, as everything got blurry and frightening.
Loy Kouro shouted, "Who are you! What are you doing in my holo!"
He yanked out a small pistol that Vollmer never knew he carried, and two of the men swung blasters toward him, aimed.
Ted Vollmer then did something he cursed himself forever after for, and knocked Loy Kouro headfirst into a filing cabinet, the gun flying away, Kouro lying motionless.
Amazingly, neither of the two gunmen shot Vollmer, and he swore one of them laughed.
"Stay frozen," one of them said, his voice calm.
Three of the black-clad gunmen hurried through the newsroom, toward the broadcast studio.
The elevator door closed, and a moment or maybe an hour passed, then it came open, disgorging more armed men.
They, too, ran toward the studio.
Kouro moaned. Vollmer saw that the two guards left in the newsroom weren't exactly watching him, and carefully kicked his boss in the head, almost as hard as he could. Kouro slumped back into unconsciousness, and Vollmer felt the happy glow of a task well-done.
Inside the studio, Garvin Jaansma held the three 'casters at gunpoint. Monique Lir held a gun on a technician, handed her a cylinder.
"This goes out. Now."
The technician's head bobbed up and down, and she shoved the disk into a slot.
"You're on."
The holo sets around the room blurred, then cleared.
On-screen was a Musth, then he vanished, and the green/white/brown colors of the Cumbrian flag appeared, the planetary anthem swelling over it. The music faded, and a confident voice spoke:
"This is the voice of Free Cumbre speaking. We have taken over Matin for this broadcast.
"Men, women of Cumbre. You now live under the iron bootheel of the Musth. But nothing is forever. Some of us, many of us, are fighting back.
"We fight the best we can. Some of us know how to build and plant bombs against the hated foe. Some have guns and aren't afraid to use them.
"Others are forced to work in their factories, and know that a bolt torqued just a little too much… or too little… will ruin that part, without anyone ever suspecting. A bit of dirt on a bubble can make a great machine self-destruct.
"Still others oversee shipments to the Musth or merely work on a loading dock. A change on the bill of lading, one misstroke of a key, and the supplies will go somewhere else, anywhere else, to be lost at a forgotten waystation.
"Brave boys and girls put up posters, telling us what the news really is, now that the holos are controlled by the aliens. Their teachers aren't afraid to tell the truth, not the pap the Musth insist on.
"Some of us can't do anything, we think. But there is much you can do. Don't speak to the Musth unless forced. If you see something that appears none of your business, don't report it. Don't gossip to anyone.
"If you have a block captain, do all you can to make his task as difficult as possible.
"If you are a block captain, remember what we said at the beginning of this 'cast. Nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, the Musth will be driven away.
"Then there will a reckoning for those who groveled to the invaders, who informed against their own.
"For those of you who've fallen under the spell of the aliens, it's not too late to change, to refuse to cooperate further.
"The war goes on.
"It shall never end, until the Cumbre system is free and the last Musth driven off.
"Free Cumbre! Free once, Free again!"
By the time the 'cast ended, most of the raiders had vanished, leaving only one in the newsroom, one supervising the cast. Those two—Monique Lir and Garvin Jaansma—not willing to chance the elevators, darted up the steps to the roof, where a civilian speedster waited.
They piled in, and the speedster dived down at full speed, leveling below office buildings, and vanished into the night over the bay.
Loy Kouro was treated for concussion, and spent the next week recuperating at his mansion. Unfortunately, his wife was too busy with problems on C-Cumbre to spend as much time with him as she wished.
"Perhaps," Daaf ventured, "our policies aren't as clearly thought out as they should be. They seem to be having little effect in calming the populace."
Wlencing's fur ruffled, and he glared at his aide through reddened eyes.
"Our policy, my policy, has been carefully made up. I see no reason at all to change to something ill defined, something that will appear as if we're making cowardly concessions to these worms.
"We must continue the course, and intensify the severity of our response!"
"I think," Alikhan said, sounding, for the first time, like the rest of his race, "we have a possssible anssswer."
"To what?" Mil Hedley asked, widening the pickup. Danfin Froude was slumped back in his chair, an overturned glass beside him. Ben Dill was on the floor, snoring loudly. Only Ann Heiser appeared sober.
"We think," she said, voice very precise, then marred by a massive hiccup, "we might have figured out a way to end this goddamned war."
Chapter 22
"How drunk were they when they came up with this one?" Njangu asked.
"Very," Hedley said. "Stinko, to be exact."
"And the old man bought the idea?" Garvin asked.
"As a forlorn hope," Hedley said. "In every sense of the word."
"Urn," Njangu said. "Why are we gonna try stealing this particular mother ship?"
"According to Alikhan, it's a semiobsolete model, which is why it's mostly parked where it is on C-Cumbre. No more'n a standby watch
aboard."
"But it's fueled, ready to roll?"
"Alikhan says it was carried on the boards as on standby. But probably without charts, rations, or anything not needed for in-system deployment."
"So we lug human rats, water—"
"No water," Hedley said. "That's on board as part of the coolant system. The Musth ships recycle."
"Humans can drink Musth pee?"
"Evidently."
"All right," Garvin said. "So we've got our fat little paws on this ship—then we've got to figure out what troopies to use on the op. Then what?"
"Then we use the star charts we've already got to go visiting."
"Who?" Njangu asked.
"There's a Musth clan leader named Senza. He's the main one preaching pacifism, Alikhan says. Or, at any rate, not wanting to fight humans this flipping century.
Alikhan studied… I guess we'd call it philosophy… under this guy.
"Seems the Musth aren't exactly the most cohesive folks around. Only a handful of their clan leaders backed the late Asser."
"So we go chitchat with Senza," Njangu said. "What does that give us?"
"Alikhan says with hard evidence of what a disaster this whole flipping mess has turned into, Senza will use his clout—I guess these Reckoners are what pass for Musth diplomats—to call off Wlencing."
"What does the fact Alikhan is Wlencing's kid do to things?"
"I guess it improves Alikhan's credibility. Anyway, Senza's been in a pissing match with the Musth war-hawks for years, always looking for a chance to pull their chains. Alikhan thinks he can give Senza that chance, which should make the Musth declare a cease-fire, and then we can force some sort of talks," Hedley said.
"I guess the Musth must have got the fear of the gods put in them the last time they went roundy-roundy with the Confederation," Garvin said.
"Or else Alikhan fancies himself as having a tongue of the purest iridium," Njangu said. "Has anybody considered what we do if our road maps don't happen to go to this Senza's house? I mean, we're all blessed with the luck of heroes and such—"
