Mercenary's Star

by William H. Keith

  What could be the purpose of this raid...for a raid was all it possibly could be. It was inconceivable that a large enemy force could worm its way into the University grounds through whatever forgotten gateway or tunnel they might have found. It must be a small force, probably a highly trained commando unit with some specific target.

  Target? He pulled at his lip, the fingers trembling ever so slightly. The rebels could well be after him, the Governor General. His death would not mean the end of Kurita rule on Verthandi, of course, but it would mean that that idiot Kodo would take command. If the rebels knew about the Kurita chain of command on this world, they might believe having Admiral Kodo in charge would give them a better chance at some planned coup or assault.

  He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small, deadly Sunbeam-Electric laser pistol, checked its power pack, and tucked it into the waistband of his uniform. Then he opened another channel on the intercom and summoned his personal guard.

  * * * *

  Grayson stepped across the sprawled, wide-eyed body of a blue-clad Loyalist trooper, checked the man's belt and pouches for keys or security devices, then moved with light-footed haste further into the warren of passageways ahead. He was under the main University Tower now, he knew. The descriptions provided him by Regis Blue deserters and liberated Verthandian prisoners were proving accurate so far.

  Gunshots and explosions echoed behind him. According to plan, forty of the commandos were launching their attack on the enemy's BattleMech maintenance area, not far from where the forgotten tunnel opened into the courtyard.

  Outside the University walls, the Gray Death ‘Mechs would be moving toward the Ericksson-Agro factory, firing at anything that moved along the walls above them, and preparing to take up defensive positions to cover the retreat of the raiders when they reappeared from the tunnel.

  Those two distractions ought to keep the Dracos and their Verthandian allies quite busy, for a few minutes anyway. Grayson and the ten remaining commandos had penetrated the underground levels of the central University Tower. Those levels were a maze of interconnecting rooms and passageways that the Dracos had converted from storage of records and supplies. The eleven had separated and spread out to better their chances of finding Lori quickly. Grayson was alone.

  He hurried on through the semi-darkness, following courses drawn and redrawn countless times on paper and in his head since he'd learned them people who had already travelled these corridors. The cells for special prisoners were supposed to be down one level and to the right. The stairway down ought to be...there!

  A man in a blue uniform appeared, a heavy automatic rifle slung across his shoulder. Grayson brought up his TK and fought the bucking, flashing muzzle as high-speed 3 mm slivers burned through the air to shred cloth and flesh in a fine mist of blood. The soldier was kicked up and back, then plunged headfirst down the stairs behind him with an unholy clatter of equipment and weapon. Grayson followed a moment later, somewhat more quietly.

  The lower passageway was well-lit and mercifully deserted. He shoved his IR goggles back on his head and checked the soldier's body. A small, black rectangle—a plastic security card—rested inside a breast pocket. Grayson retrieved it, then straightened, glancing about. That way!

  He found the cell doors, but there was no way of knowing who was in which cell. He picked the first door he came to, inserted the plastic card into a slot in an otherwise featureless box mounted on the stone wall beside the entrance, and stepped back as the door slid open. Inside the narrow, stone-walled cell was a woman, but his initial surge of elation faded when he realized it was not Lori.

  She blinked against the sudden light. "Who...are you?"

  "Cavalry to the rescue," Grayson said lightly. Where was Lori being held? "Quick! Come out of there!"

  The woman stumbled out into the passageway. Grayson was already at the next cell, fumbling with the card. That room held ten Verthandians, one-time students or teachers crowded into a three by four meter space stinking of sweat, excrement, and fear. The next cell held the same...and the next...and the next.

  A pair of soldiers in Kurita uniforms interrupted Grayson as he opened the cell after that. Someone yelled warning, and Grayson twisted his TK up and chopped the pair down before they could unholster their weapons. Their uniforms yielded two more security cards and weapons for two of the newly freed prisoners.

  With a small army unexpectedly on his hands, Grayson had to take time to organize them. He sent one party off with one of the guards' pistols to search for more weapons. The body by the stairway would yield at least one automatic rifle, and there were bound to be weapons lockers elsewhere in this warren. The rest of the ex-prisoners he divided into two groups, gave a security card to each group, and sent them in opposite directions with orders to open every cell they came to. The Verthandians scattered amid shouts and ragged cheers. Grayson thought to warn them to remain quiet, then decided there was no use. A fierce determination seemed to have seized every one of those dirty, ragged men and women, a determination to close with their Kurita captors and settle some longstanding scores.

  Confusion was spreading throughout the lower levels. The other commandos were finding and releasing prisoners as well. Soon, these levels and those above would be filled with freed Verthandians looking for Kurita blood.

  He skidded to a stop, his rifle up. The shadow he'd seen moving up ahead resolved itself into the black-clad form of another commando.

  He recognized her. "Sue Ellen! What the hell are you doing here?" He was aware of the odd light in her eyes, aware that the sight of these corridors must be bringing back memories of horror. He'd not known that she was among the ten who had volunteered to come down into these chambers. He'd thought she was with Ramage, on the surface.

  She laughed, an unpleasant sound. "Still worried about me, Captain?"

  He shook his head, ashamed of the lie. "Have you found anything yet?"

  "No. I don't think she's here."

  "Where, then?" He knew the answer, but had been denying it to himself. At the same time, a growing dread was urging him to hurry, to race through the passageways to the place Sue Ellen had described after her rescue.

  "Room 6, of course. Where they took me a time or two."

  The interrogation chamber was in the lowest level of all. The team's assault plan called for each of the commandos to close on Room 6 as they systematically checked the cells in the levels above. During the planning sessions for this raid, they had decided that sending a team straight to the lowest level would not be practical. There Were not enough troops available to do that and to also check the rooms above. Anyway, it seemed more likely that they would find Lori in one of the cells. Now, though, Grayson felt a cold and growing horror in the pit of his stomach telling him that Room 6 was exactly where Lori was at this moment.

  "Will... will you lead the way?" He watched Sue Ellen carefully as he suggested it. On the one hand, he didn't want to rekindle the horror for her any more than it already was. On the other, he was suddenly afraid to have her out of his sight.

  "No, Captain. There's something else I have do." She took a step toward him, and for a moment Grayson thought she meant to attack him. Her rifle was slung from her shoulder, but she held her combat knife in one hand.

  "We're going to take care of them. Sue Ellen. And you can help."

  She laughed, and the sound turned Grayson cold. "Help? I've helped you. Captain. The place you want is down that corridor, then to your left, then to your right. Room 6. There will be sentries outside the door."

  "Sue Ellen! What's...what's wrong with you? Come on..."

  "No, Captain. I'm not going there." She hurried past him, moving in the other direction.

  "Sue Ellen! What about Lori! You said...she was your friend..."

  She paused next to the still form of a Kurita guard, stooped quickly, and retrieved a sonic stun pistol. As she tucked it into her combat harness, she looked back across her shoulder. "She was my friend, Captain. And..
.I think you were, too. You accepted me, even after...after what I'd done. But I can't help you any more. Or her."

  "Of course you can..."

  "No, Captain. But...thanks anyway, for trying. There's something else I have to see about- someone I have to see."

  Almost, he called to her again, but the look in her eyes burned through to the marrow of his bones. He would have to try to track down Sue Ellen later.

  The sentries were where Sue Ellen had said they would be, a pair of grim-faced Kurita troops flanking a door marked Room 6. They shifted the black and vicious-looking automatic weapons in their hands to aim at Grayson as he stepped around the comer and into the main passageway.

  Grayson’s TK spat fire first, hammering one of the sentries back against the wall. The second man returned the fire, the roar of his subgun murderously loud in the narrow space between the dank stone walls. Grayson was already on the floor and rolling to the opposite side of the passageway. The TK bucked and yammered again, then cut off with a silence as deafening as its roar, the chamber clicking empty.

  But the sentry was dead, his body sliding to the floor, leaving a heavy trail of blood smeared down across the stone wall at his back.

  The door to Room 6 swung open, and Grayson plunged through into a scene of horror.

  * * * *

  Sergeant Ramage crouched low behind the crumbled pile of stone facing as submachine gun bullets ricocheted against unyielding stone, spraying him with tiny fragments of powdered rock. He touched his throat mike and yelled to be heard above the battle's roar. "Jared! Three o'clock from my position! You see him?"

  "Got him!" a tinny voice confirmed in his ear. "Wait one..."

  There was a thump from the darkness behind and above Ramage's position, followed by a crashing blast of noise from the doorway thirty meters to his right. The subgun's chatter was chopped short by the scattering shrapnel of the 20 mm grenade from Jared's launcher.

  A chorus of shouts and yells sounded from straight ahead, through the archway under the main tower. Ramage brought his laser rifle up, then froze, his finger still off the trigger. It was another wave of freed Verthandian prisoners, ragged in the gray uniforms they'd been given by their captors, haggard but still defiant. There were about thirty in this group. Many brandished weapons wrested from now-dead guards and chance-encountered Kurita troops. Ramage stood, shouted, and waved his own weapon until the band saw him. It was risky, but he thought his black night-fighter's garb set him apart enough from the usual denizens of the citadel that he would not be shot out of hand.

  Shot by accident, maybe, he thought, but out of hand, no...

  The prisoners surged toward his position with a cheer. Ramage's eyes widened as he recognized one of the faces, owlish behind the thick glasses he still somehow wore.

  "Citizen Erudin!"

  The former rebel council member grinned. "Hello, Sergeant. It's good to see you again!"

  "It's good to see you, sir. We...we thought all of you were dead."

  "If you mean the Council members..." His mouth twisted. "They shot poor Ericksson. They were keeping the rest of us alive, though, in case they needed us for a public hanging." He glanced past Ramage to where a blue uniform showed beside a fallen mass of stone. He stepped over to the body, stooped, and pried a submachine gun from stiffening fingers. "Are you in charge of this show?"

  "I am up here. Didn't the Captain let you out?"

  "Some of my fellow guests in this hotel let me out, Sergeant. I couldn't quite make out how they had been freed. Captain Carlyle's behind all this, then?"

  Ramage grinned. "Afraid so, sir. He makes a mess when he sets his mind to it, don't he?"

  "A glorious mess. Sergeant. I'm glad to see I didn't make a mistake choosing him...and you...after all."

  "Well, recriminations later, Citizen. How about you take charge of your people. Round 'em up. Get them Under cover over there. Any that have guns, send 'em along to that entrance over there...see it? Through there, fifty meters, then down. There's a tunnel that leads out of the University and into the factory next door."

  "Ericksson's AgroMech plant. I know."

  "Some of our ‘Mechs are waiting out there. They'll get your people to safety."

  "Right." Erudin turned, and began shouting orders.

  Altogether, Ramage estimated that there must be a hundred or so freed prisoners in the Courtyard already, with more arriving from the passageways leading under the main University Tower every moment. One large party had consisted of prisoners who had not burst into the courtyard, waving guns or shouting. They had shambled out, men and women led by the hand of their fellows, eyes staring but unseeing, their faces etched with shock, pain, or a blind emptiness. Some showed the scars or bruises or bloodied bandages of rough usage in those hell pits under the tower. All showed evidence of more serious scars somewhere behind their eyes. Ramage had taken time to give directions to the people guiding these walking wounded. He wasn't sure how the rebel army was going to take care of them without permanent facilities in the jungle, but he knew he had to get them away from these walls.

  A dull, low, booming thunder sounded from the main courtyard gate, the one to the south, leading to the downtown center of Regis.

  He touched his throat mike. "Kev? Can you see into the street?"

  "Kev's bought it, Sergeant," a woman's voice answered. "This is Greta. There're BattleMechs out there, coming up the main street A Warhammer just fired a round at the main gate."

  "O.K. Keep your head down, but watch 'em for me! Vince?"

  "Here, Sarge."

  "Company. Round up any anti- ‘Mech teams you can find, and bring 'em up here, fast!”

  “We're on our way."

  Hurry up. Captain, Ramage thought as he stared across the barrel of his gun at the courtyard gates. We can't stay here much longer!

  36

  As Grayson burst through the doors to Room 6, he took in the scene as isolated and unrelated fragments, with the unreality of a dream. He saw Lori—alive! Alive! He shouted in triumph at the sight of her, and she shrieked his name in answer. She was stretched out, bound at wrists and ankles and strapped to a hellish-looking steel table that had been tilted up to bring her face to face with her captors.

  There were three of these, a pair of brawny types in Kurita uniforms with pistols at their belts. In their midst was a smaller figure in a stained white smock. The one with the smock was just pulling a rod tipped with tightly wrapped rags from a shallow basin set on a tripod in the center of the room. The basin held some liquid that had been ignited, as well as a chilling array of sinister-looking, long-handled tools. The fire danced and flared halfway to the high, vaulted ceiling, casting weirdly distorted shadows on walls and floors, along the massive wooden beams that supported the ceiling, and across the stacks of crates and kegs that lined the room.

  The rags fixed to the end of the rod took fire from the basin as the man with the smock looked up, eyes wide and glittering in the light of the basin's flames. The guards fumbled at their holsters for their guns.

  Grayson's TK was empty. His rush at the door had carried him through almost before he'd realized the weapon had stopped firing. He continued his rush now, crossing the five steps from the door to the nearest Kurita soldier in a pell-mell charge, swinging the butt of the rifle up and into the man's jaw with the final step.

  The second guard had his pistol out, was yanking the slide back to chamber a round. Grayson swung the TK again with a roundhouse stroke that shattered the rifle's plastic stock against the man's temple.

  "Gray!" Lori's shriek rang from stone walls, stark with fear.

  "Behind you!"

  He stepped forward and ducked as something burning hot whooshed through the air just above his head. Grayson sidestepped as the torch swung again. He groped at his belt for his pistol, dragged it free, then felt a stinging shock as the torch snickered back and smashed against his wrist. Flames billowed in his face as his pistol clattered across stone to the far end of the room
. The interrogator advanced with deadly purpose, his smock flapping. The torch in his hands roared as he swung it a fourth time, missed, recovered, and brought it around again. With each swing of his arm, the flaming rags on the torch were fanned into a blazing meteor of fire.

  Grayson dropped and rolled. The torch smashed into the stone where his head had been an instant before, and sparks and shreds of burning rag skittered across the stone. The Kurita interrogator brought the torch up again, holding it spear-like in a clawed, white-knuckled death's grip. Grayson watched the burning end of the torch with a horrid fascination as the attacker advanced step...by step...

  He needed a weapon. His pistol was gone, the guards' weapons were out of reach, and even his knife was out of reach on his boot A grenade would kill everyone in the room, himself and Lori included. That was one way out, but...

  His hand closed on one of the three grenades on his vest. His attacker's eyes widened above the light of the torch, then narrowed with a fanatic's determination. The interrogator lunged forward, thrusting the fire at Grayson's face. Grayson twisted and backed away, smashing the back of his head against the wall behind him.

  Head ringing, he lunged to one side as the torch stabbed at him again. The flaming rags ground against stone, leaving a furiously burning patch where the liquid in the cloth was splattered against the wall. The grenade came free from Grayson's vest as he stepped back once more. His attacker swung around, the torch ready for another swing.

  Grayson hurled the grenade without pulling the pin to arm it. It hit the interrogator squarely in the mouth, sending him tumbling backward into a table set with utensils of horror. The torch dropped guttering to the floor. Grayson's opponent scrabbled among blades, clamps, and other nightmarish objects that glittered as his fingers reached for the long, deadly wand of a neural whip.