The Disinherited

by Steve White

  But his destination was lower still, the lowest level of all. He wondered if it had been planned that way, requiring the maximum-security prisoners to pass through the regions of nightmare.

  The final enormous doors crashed open, and Tarlann was shoved through into a chamber that was on the larger-than-human scale of everything the Korvaasha built, and which also had the characteristic dreary, half-finished look. Piping and cables ran through crudely cut openings in ceiling and walls, and hissing steam escaped periodically from vents, varying the dull metallic clanging and booming that pervaded all Korvaash interiors.

  But Tarlann had eyes and ears for none of this. All he heard was the cry of "Father!" and all he saw was Iael's ragged figure stumbling toward him.

  For some timeless length of time they embraced in a silence that was too full to hold any words. Finally, Tarlann raised his head and looked around at the chamber's emptiness.

  "Your mother . . . ?"

  Iael gulped several times, then spoke in a series of disjointed fragments. "They brought us here . . . . She wouldn't talk, or eat . . . . I tried to feed her, but at last she . . ." His features seemed to crumple, and his voice dissolved into an uncontrolable spasm of dry, wracking sobs. Tarlann held him again, more tightly than before.

  At last Iael could speak in an emotionless monotone. "They used to come here and yell at us about what would happen to us if you didn't do as you were told. I couldn't understand all of the things they said. Mother never paid any attention to them. It was as if she didn't even know they were here—she just sat and hummed little songs to herself. It made them even madder."

  But they couldn't do anything about their anger, of course, Tarlann thought. The captives must be preserved in undamaged condition, lest their later destruction seem but a merciful release from repitition-dulled pain and degredation. He saw no purpose in telling Iael what the boy had been spared by Gromorgh's desire to preserve what he had called "hostage value."

  It hadn't saved Nissali, though. She had died of starvation and of her body's sheer lack of will to go on living in a world from whence her mind had already fled.

  Farewell, my love. I wanted to see you one more time, but it is as well that I did not. I will remember you as you were.

  For a long time, in the dank, echoing chamber, he clung to the son who was all that he had left, and wondered where was help.

  * * *

  "Attention on deck!"

  The Marines rose to their feet, the handful of Raehaniv ones with the eagerness of newbies and the Americans and Russians with the hangdog fatalism of veterans. The Raehaniv would get over it, Thompson thought as he walked down the center aisle with Kuropatkin and Tartakova. He mounted the podium and faced the packed ready room.

  "As you were. We'll begin with the intelligence portion of the briefing."

  Kuropatkin stood up and activated the holographic globe of Raehan. Little meteors of light swept slowly around it, indicating the orbital paths of their ships; Thompson had given up trying to understand how the Raehaniv did that.

  "The red lights indicate the four cities with major Korvaash fortresses," Kuropatkin began. His English had improved immeasurably. "The orange lights mark those of their missile sites in the hinterlands whose locations we know, either from the Raehaniv Underground or from their own activity since we took up orbit. These will be taken out as our assault is commencing, as they are in relatively empty areas where we can use nuclear weapons. But we are certain that there are others.

  "Of the four headquarters fortresses, the central one in Sarnath, the planetary capital, is naturally the strongest." One of the four red lights blinked for attention. "It has therefore been decided to commit the bulk of our powered-armor assets there. The other three will be left for the Raehaniv Resistance, with the aid of one Marine platoon for each. Major Thompson will go into specific unit assignments later. But this is the general pattern of deployment your assault shuttles will follow." Lights crawled around the image of Raehan, and patterns of smaller lights broke off from them, curving down to the planetary surface.

  "The landings will, of course be made under cover from the utility shuttles that have been reconfigured as atmospheric fighters . . . ."

  Thompson raised his hand. "A couple of questions, Boris." Kuropatkin didn't even sigh. He had long ago given up trying with the Americans. Not even his threat to rob them of their fun by legally changing his name to "Boris" had worked. "How are the Raehaniv Resistance types, who can't possibly have much in the way of heavy weapons, going to be able to take major installations like those with only minimal support? And how are our improvised combat shuttles going to avoid being eaten alive by Korvaash atmospheric fighters?"

  "To answer your questions in order, Major Thompson," the Russian replied with pointed formality, "the Raehaniv Resistance is better-armed than you might think. Remember, Varien readied their arms caches before his departure, in collusion with elements of the Raehaniv military. They don't have powered combat armor, of course; we had to recreate that on Terranova out of Raehaniv history, and until we did, it hadn't existed for five centuries. But otherwise they have the best that a personal fortune of almost inconceivable extent could buy.

  "As for Korvaash atmospheric fighters, there aren't any, at least not on Raehan. Fighter tactics require a degree of individual initiative which does not come naturally to the Korvaasha, or perhaps is merely disapproved of by their rulers—or, perhaps, centuries of the latter have resulted in the former. At any rate, they don't use them except when necessary to counter a specific threat, which has not been the case in their occupation of Raehan. They do, however, have antiaircraft weaponry which will pose a grave danger to our pilots.

  "Major Tartakova will now describe your targets."

  Irina Tartakova stood up, as formidably expressionless as ever—nobody ever called her "Natasha" to her face—and the globe of Raehan was replaced by a hologram of the central Korvaash headquarters in Sarnath. Then new images began to appear beneath the plane of light that represented ground level, layer after layer of them, down and down like a cancer eating into the flesh of Raehan beneath the skin. "This may be regarded as a minimal representation of extent of Korvaash works," Tartakova began. She went on to describe extrudable weapon emplacements, sliding blast doors, branching tunnels for escapes or sallies, and all the other products of a long-established school of military engineering.

  When she was finished, Thompson smiled crookedly. "And now, Major, what's the good news?"

  "Good news? Oh, I see. You joke. Ha." She reflected a moment. "Well, everything in fortress is built to Korvaash scale. In fact, their architecture uses proportions even larger than they need, doubtless for reasons inherent to their psychology. So corridors, doorways and so forth can accomodate your powered combat armor, which is normally unusable in enclosed spaces."

  Thompson turned and faced the room. "Alright, people, you heard the lady. We can kick butt in any and all parts of that fortress. We won't have to wait outside and let the Raehaniv Resistance have all the fun." A chorus of theatrical moans and groans arose. He smiled sweetly. "And kicking serious butt is exactly what we're gonna do. You've all heard the stories of what's been going on planetside, about the Korvaasha and their human goons." All at once there was total silence. "Well," Thompson continued softly, "I think this will be one of the times when we get to enjoy our work." Then, all business, "Attention to unit assignments . . ."

  * * *

  Viewed from a distance, the titanic Korvaash fortress in the heart of Sarnath had always suggested to Dorleann some obscene metal plug violating the world. Tonight, lit up amid the blacked-out cityscape, it seemed even more an unnatural intruder than usual.

  He put away his electronic binoculars and descended the stairs of the deserted building. Raenoli was waiting for him at street level.

  "Is everything ready?"

  She nodded. "Yes. We've gotten as many noncombatants into the slidewalk tunnels as we can." The moving ways had been
without power for some time, but the passages where they went under the great city's lowest levels might afford some protection from the destructive energies about to be unleashed upon old Sarnath.

  As the Korvaasha had gradually withdrawn from more and more of the city, consolidating their defenses, Dorleann's Resistance units had moved quietly in. Now they were in position, distant from the fortress lest they be caught in the air attack that would preceed tomorrow's landing from the orbiting fleet.

  The four urban fortresses around the world would be attacked simultaneously, as the dawn line was about to touch Sarnath. Sunrise would be heralded by another kind of light.

  In unconscious unison, their eyes rose to the zenith. It was a clear night, and the orbiting ships could be seen as streaking lights.

  "We should try and get some sleep," Dorleann said awkwardly. They were all alone.

  "I doubt if we can," Raenoli said. "I know I can't. And . . . we may never have another chance, Dorleann."

  Arm in arm, they descended the steps to the basement hideaway, leaving the street empty and waiting.

  Chapter Sixteen

  H-hour struck, and Raehan shuddered to a drumroll of nuclear impacts as the Korvaash missile bases were obliterated. They fought back with countermissiles and lasers, but eventually the defenses were saturated and the bases perished in fusion fire. Before dying, they got off as many of their own antispacecraft missiles as possible, and the Terran and Raehaniv ships grimly raised their own defenses. In vacuum, without a medium to transmit shock wave and thermal pulse, nuclear weapons aren't quite the terror they are in atmosphere. But none of the ships in orbit around Raehan could survive a direct hit.

  With the immeasurable advantage of sitting at the top of the gravity well, the human allies were able to stave off serious damage. But they were grimly certain that other Korvaash missile stations hid under other remote regions of Raehan, waiting. And they knew that the missile engagement, for all its frightfulness, was only a preliminary. Already the drop shuttles were falling planetward, commencing this day's real business.

  * * *

  In the no-frills converted utility shuttle, the jolt when the grav repulsion took hold was almost like the opening of an old-fashioned parachute. Naeriy loved it.

  She brought her fighter swooping around into the proper heading, then ignited the fusion drive. A sword of violet-white flame stabbed out from the stern, and G-forces pressed her back into her seat as the fighter leaped ahead.

  Normally, grav repulsion involved tradeoffs between altitude and lateral thrust—and, of course, other factors such as available power, for it was an energy hog. The shuttle had power to burn, and with the statutes against using fusion drives in atmosphere now a dead letter she could use the gravs purely to maintain altitude. The shuttle wasn't designed as a high-performance atmospheric craft, of course, but the generator now installed in the nose deflected the wind with an immaterial shield.

  She lost altitude and arrowed eastward over the starlit ocean. Her acceleration had left sound far behind, and she knew the water was boiling in her wake. Seen through her light-gathering optics, the ocean waves ahead were reduced to a blur by her speed. She sighed with pure contentment and silently thanked Aelanni for allowing her this. Her flag captain's position had become redundant now that Aelanni's was no longer an independent command, so she had been able to wrangle this assignment, flying one of the little craft with which she had fallen in love the first time she had test-flown one on Terranova.

  There! Up ahead was the coastline. With breathtaking speed it swept under her, and she suddenly needed to pay attention to her altitude. She cut her power—it always depressed her a little—and used the gravs to kill some of of her velocity. Finally she cut the fusion drive altogether and proceeded on gravs alone. They could manage a respectable speed at this treetop-clipping altitude, with the deflector to keep the craft from being buffeted by airflows it was never intended to handle. Very little time passed before Sarnath appeared, silhouetted against the first ruddy glow of dawn.

  They didn't detect her until she swept over the outskirts of the city. Heavily-shielded portals opened and underground weapons turrets rose up through the urban wasteland of rubble and twisted metal that surrounded the fortress. Missiles and lasers began to stab at Naeriy's fighter. Her computer riposted with puffs of anti-laser aerosol and clusters of little missiles that homed on the Korvaash fire-control sensors—the equivalent of Terran ARAD. As she got closer, mass-driver artillery tried to hose her down with streams of hypervelocity metal darts. The computer interposed the deflector. All the while—a very short while—Naeriy concentrated nervelessly on the magnified image of the onrushing fortress, with its superimposed target designator.

  She released a pair of fire-and-forget missiles, then followed them in, watching them impact and raking the fortress with lasers before pulling sharply up.

  Gaining altitude, she committed another criminal offense by doing a slow turn over the city on grav repulsion. Coming around, she did some computer-assisted damage assessment and confirmed that the others were coming in behind her—Taelarr was already starting his run.

  Bet that spilled their wine in there! She was still very young. Now to line up to cover the assault shuttles' landings.

  * * *

  The rolling thunder died away, and Dorleann and Raenoli cautiously raised their heads and peered over the barricade. They had never seen actual battle, and the gods of war were granting them a spectacular first look by the first light of morning, as the fighters swooped in from the west to meet the dawn.

  Even at this distance, the ground had jumped beneath their feet when the attackers' missiles had punched in the walls of the fortress with their shaped-charge warheads of ultra-energetic chemical explosives. Now they looked avidly through their electronic binoculars at the results.

  "Can any of them still be alive in there?" Raenali asked, awestruck.

  "Remember, its only the above-ground structure that's being hit at all. Nothing can touch the underground portions, short of nuclear weapons. But they did make some holes for us and the Marines to enter through." Dorleann paused and checked his chronometer. "Speaking of the Marines"—they had learned the word through their contacts with the Free Raehaniv Fleet—"their assault shuttles must be about to depart. Let's start toward the rendezvous area."

  They rose to their feet and turned to their unit leaders, clad like them in the combat dress of the wartime ground defense force that had never been used in the face of an enemy willing to call down nuclear devastation from orbit on any organized resistance. The coverall, with its ablative layer and its plates of metal-fiber composite armor for vital areas, and the HUD-equipped helmet, were more than many of their troops could boast. But at least there were enough of the Saelarien rifles to go around. The weapon was a Fourth Global War design, resurrected during the war. It used a binary-gas chemical propellant to fire either of two kinds of rounds from side-by-side magazines: armor-piercing high explosive or saboted penetrator core, at the firer's choice. It also incorporated an integral grenade launcher. In addition to standard electro-optical sights, it had HUD connection capability for those with helmets that could accept it.

  Dorleann had also been able to scrounge enough single-shot portable missile launchers to give at least one to each squad; his special-weapons squads had magazine-fed semiportable ones. Finally, there were a few semiportable railguns which, unlike handheld ones such as those the Implementers favored, could accelerate slugs rather than needles. They and the rocket launchers were the only weapons Dorleann had that would be of any use whatsoever against fully enhanced Korvaash cyborgs—he somehow doubted if the cyborgs would hold still long enough for his engineers to affix the explosive charges they were bringing along to use on the fortress's internal walls.

  Orders were passed, and the pick of the Raehaniv Resistance began to converge on the area where the Marines' assault shuttles were to land. As they began to thread their way cautiously through th
e urban maze, they saw the last of the attacking fighters take a direct hit and spin down like a flaming cartwheel into a distant row of buildings. Dorleann reminded himself that modern Raehaniv did not believe in omens.

  * * *

  Aelanni checked the latest figures and turned back to the communicator screen.

  "All the surviving fighters—over eighty percent of the total—are circling in position to cover the landings in all four cities," she told DiFalco. Behind him, she could see one of Guadalcanal's shuttle holds, and an assault shuttle in the last stages of loading.

  "Good," he nodded. "Go ahead and activate the pre-recorded order: 'Land the landing force.' " He grinned boyishly. "Thompson taught me that one. Speaking of Thompson, I'd better go if I'm going to see him off."

  Even at this moment, their gazes lingered on each other. Their reunion had taken place in the midst of frantic post-battle cleanup complicated by the whirl of meetings with the Free Raehaniv—all of which had been predictable, but that hadn't lessened their frustration. Their time alone together had been so limited that each of them could remember every stolen hour with the vividness of a dream interrupted by too-early awakening.

  It didn't matter, Aelanni told herself. Whatever happened, they'd never be separated again.

  "Right," she finally said. "Signing off." She cut the connection, and turned to face Varien.

  "Anything new?"

  "No," he said slowly. "No more unsuspected missile-launching stations in the hinterlands, it seems. Although they always seem to have just one more in reserve." He frowned in annoyance. The gradual one-at-a-time unveiling of the secret launching sites was not a tactic humans would have used, which made it unpredictable. "Is Eric returning to this ship soon?"

  "Yes, as soon as the last of the assault shuttles is away." She frowned. "I can't see why he felt he had to go to Guadalcanal and personally supervise the final readying of the assault force. Thompson is quite capable . . ."