by Lee Correy
“Purple Stomper, this is Stomper Leader. Join Yellow Stomper at Thirty-two for SAM suppression.”
Our ships went into blackout. When we came out of it, I heard the tacair mission commander call, “Red Stomper, join Yellow Stomper to cover for Purple Stomper. Never mind the comments. The tape replay will show what happened.”
We were over Vamori-Free’s western horizon now, but I couldn’t pick up Omer’s implanted landing beacon. “Slugger Leader, this is Bold One. Do you receive signals from Prong Alpha?”
Ursila’s voice came back, “Bold One, this is Slugger Leader. Negative on Prong Alpha. Something’s gone wrong, Sendi!”
“Boomer Leader, this is Bold One coming out of blackout with Slugger. We are negative on Prong Alpha. Repeat, negative on Prong Alpha. Any problem?”
“Uh, Bold One, this is Stomper Leader. Purple Stomper was too high, and Boomer Leader made his second pass low to deploy Prong Alpha. They had a mid-air.”
Ohmygawd! Omer! Omer! The Mad Russian Space Jockey had let it all hang out…and some damned fool was where he shouldn’t have been and cut it off. At a closure rate of Mach fifteen, neither had seen each other. The aerodyne may have been on Omer’s screen, but he probably didn’t have time to look at it.
It was my fault for mixing Mach zero aerodynes with Mach fifteen space ships!
There was no time to grieve then. We were less than five minutes from landing with no landing beacon to steer us in. If I didn’t do something instantly, there would be a lot of pranged space ships.
“Slugger Leader, this is Bold One. Did you monitor that?”
“Affirmative! Sendi, I’ll get down using calibrated eyeballs, but some of my pilots can’t do it without help,” Ursila reported. “Get a beacon down there. Any beacon!”
“Stomper Leader, this is Bold One. Can you put your aerodyne in Area Twenty-four with its beacon squawking four-zeroes?”
“I’ll draw fire if I do!”
“If you don’t, you’ll have real fire all around you from burning space ships! Or we’ll overfly and leave you up the crick. Take your choice. We need your beacon in four minutes.”
“I can’t risk my…”
“Stomper Leader, this is Citlmpy Prime One.” It was Kivalina who cut in. “Comply with Bold One’s request now! Everyone’s risking everything here. Topawa or the Dilkons!”
That was The General’s last call to his warriors before the First Battle of Oidak.
The reaction and reply were immediate: “Topawa or the Dilkons! Stomper Leader is cushioning in Area Twenty-four now, beacon squawking four zeroes. But please don’t land on me!”
“Don’t worry. And thank you,” I told him. “Sluggers all from Bold One, critical instructions. Tape for replay. No time to repeat. Landing beacon is squawking four zeroes at Area Two-four. Repeat: Area Two-four. Have your computer offset for your specific landing coordinates. No need to acknowledge. Comply and execute…or you’ll have a damned rough landing unless you put it in the ocean which isn’t much softer. Break, break! Moti, what’s the ground situation? Are they going to shoot at us?”
“Bold One, recon reports almost all enemy troops at Vamori-Free are involved with my units. Hey, Sendi, don’t get your legs shot up, okay?”
“Give me covering fire this time, Kivalina.”
With a momentary surge of grief, I recalled what Omer had taught me about working without the assistance of modern technology. I had two eyes and a functioning brain behind them. The Tomahok was a machine, a tool, and it was up to me to make it do what I wanted it to do. Omer had also been right in telling me that some day my life would depend on my ability to make a machine perform in spite of itself.
I had a load of swats, young Commonwealth space facility technicians and mechanics who’d gone through only Citlmpy training. I told them to strap down, secure weapons, and stand by to land.
Tomahok swung around the alignment circle and the Area 73 runway was ahead. At 350 kilometers per hour, there isn’t much time for making and correcting mistakes. I had it knocked until someone started shooting at me. A small SAM zipped past my nose and missed because I’d just deployed the forward canards which decelerated Tomahok with their drag. Then tracers laced the sky in front of me.
Forget the shooting! If I get distracted now, I’ll buy the farm anyway! If Tomahok took some hits, I didn’t notice them. I got on the runway and the hook caught the third decelerator cable, which wasn’t bad considering I’d landed with no help other than a pair of experienced eyeballs while being shot at in the process.
The two-gee stop was designed for cargo pay loads. My harness held because it was designed to. But three of my seven swats were injured.
It took all five of us to get the three unconscious young men out of the ship and into the ops shack. I left it to two Vamori-Free technicians there to patch up the busted legs and broken arms.
I went back aboard to get my AR-3 rifle and bandolier of clips, grenades, plastic explosive wads, and initiators. As I left the cabin, I looked back over the tail of the Tomahok and saw another space ship lined up for landing! Some green pilot got confused about his assigned landing strip. Once committed to a landing, there was no way on God’s little blue Earth that the pilot could abort and land elsewhere. I ran like hell because two space ships were going to hit.
The explosion blew me off my feet head first into the mud alongside the runway. One look at the pile of burning junk told me nobody had survived.
My swats were nowhere to be seen or found. They’d melted into the landscape to harass the enemy’s rear as instructed.
I heard the distant popping sound of gunfire accompanied by the occasional thump of a grenade or tube rocket doing its job. But there was no action around Area 73.In the propellant loading area next to the launch complex, I found an emergency shower and washed the mud and grime off me and my AR-3. A quick inspection revealed the assault rifle hadn’t been harmed. The old stories about its rugged constitution were right.
Where were Ursila and Ali? They were supposed to land in Areas 72 and 74. But no ships were in either area or in the sky. Everyone was down somewhere on Vamori-Free…I hoped.
I had to move without them. Getting to Topawa for the rescue was far more important than searching for my support. Vamori-Free was too big to search alone. If everybody else involved in the rescue mission followed instructions, they’d grab the nearest aerodyne or other transport to Topawa and get there as fast as possible. I had to hope Ali was in condition to do so, but I couldn’t worry about him any more than I could afford then to grieve over Omer.
A ComSpat aerodyne was parked near the ops shack. I got in, kept the window open with the black snout of my AR-3 sticking out, and punched the universal emergency start code: 11-20-01. I went up to ten meters in hover then headed southwest at full slot. I managed to see power lines and towers in time to go under or around them. I was hard to see coming because of my speed, and impossible to see after I’d gone by because of the sand, dirt, and other junk thrown up by the aerodyne’s exhaust. A couple of tube rockets did catch me but went harmlessly past, their aerodynamic stabilization joggled by the aerodyne’s blast.
I swiveled the aerodyne into a left slip with the muzzle of the AR-3 pointing along the line of flight because I saw a prime target I couldn’t ignore: about fifty men in grey uniforms getting into an armored aerodyne. The AR-3’s directionally-solidified bullets would penetrate that vehicle if they missed the men. I opened up on full auto at maximum range. By the time I’d used up the clip of fifty rounds I was over and past them.
There were a lot of aerodynes in the air, but none of them came close enough to shoot or be shot at. It looked like a hell of a fight going on to the west; there was a lot of dust and smoke, and the air was thick with tacair aerodynes.
When I zipped over a railway line, everything changed. I was suddenly over open country on a beautiful “blue” day with the railway line running straight toward the far white buildings of Topawa. I stayed at ten m
eters; I didn’t want to hit a train.
As I grew closer to Topawa, I discovered we’d goofed by not being briefed on Topawa’s layout and where the national museum was. Ali had said it was in the Centrum where the old colonial buildings still stood, some in use by the unusually small Commonwealth government, others left as exhibits and museums. I remembered from my first auto trip from the railway station to Karederu that there was a central plaza where the public gallows were located. That had to be the Centrum.
I roared down Chiawuli Street between the taller buildings and found the Centrum at the end of it.
It was deadly quiet and there wasn’t a soul in sight. They’ve moved the prisoners! I told myself. But it wouldn’t hurt to look anyway. So I cushioned the aerodyne in the Centrum plaza and got out, AR-3 at the ready.
Which building was the national museum? I had to go to each in turn to read the sign in front or look at what was cut into the sandstone above the entrance. The fourth one I came to was the National Museum. The front doors were open. I dropped to my belly and peered around the bottom corner of the huge entrance. Two armed men in grey uniforms were talking about twenty meters down the hallway. One wore a crew-cut under his grey beret, but the other wore a kaftan. I caught part of the conversation: “How long are we stuck here, Fritz?”
“They’ll bring ‘em out now, Ben. The aerodyne just arrived for the meat.”
I didn’t intend to wait. I stuck the barrel of the AR-3 around the corner and squeezed off two shots.
Both soldiers were thrown about four meters down the hall by the impacts. Almost before they hit the floor, I was on my feet and moving.
The sign was still there: Entrance Old Colonial Security Police Interrogation Chambers And Dungeons Children Must Be Accompanied By Adults Someone was in the spiral stone staircase that led down into the bowels of the building.
He was wearing the grey uniform of Kariander Dok’s Freedom Army, so I shot him through the chest. I followed his body down. Then someone else yelled in Arabic and shot from below. The bullet hit the stone walls and exploded, sending shards of chips into the stairway.
I didn’t bother to shoot back. I pulled the pin on a grenade and dropped it. Most of the shock wave was attenuated by the spiraling walls, and as it slapped over me I started down again.
Apparently, there’d been only two sentries by the heavy iron door at the bottom. I’d gotten them both.
But the door was latched from the inside. I couldn’t swing it open.
When I put my ear to the door’s surface, I heard the sounds of a scuffle beyond. I couldn’t tell what was going on.
But the door hung to swing outward on massive iron hinges at the top and bottom. I molded plastic explosive around both hinges, set the initiators for ten seconds, and ran back up the spiral stairway.
I hadn’t used much explosive, but it was enough to blow the hinges off.
The doorway was filled with dust when I got to it. I stepped through, ready to shoot down whoever was beyond the pall.
I got one of the biggest surprises of my life.
Heinrich von Undine lay on the floor, his belly slit open from chest to crotch. Standing over him holding an iklawa dripping blood was Conobabi Chukut Nogal, the President of the United Mitanni Commonwealth.
There were other bloody forms laying on the floor. I recognized one of them as Wahak Teaq who had apparently died with iklawa in hand.
A totally unbelieveable sight was Vaivan Teaq, clothes in tatters, the bruises of shackles on her wrists, neck, and ankles. She held Kariander Dok against the wall with one hand while she plunged an iklawa into his heart with the other.
Tsaya had been right. The word “iklawa” does resemble the sound the weapon makes when it’s withdrawn from the body of an enemy.
Chapter 20
Manna
“Nobody’s hurt beyond repair or disfigured permanently,” Tsaya explained. “With the expertise here in Vershatets and at Ell-Five, we can rehabilitate everyone, even those who were given psychodrugs and allopeptides. And thanks to biocosmetics, there won’t be any physical scars.”
“But there are psychological scars, Tsaya,” I added, “even among those who weren’t in that torture chamber.”
“Those scars may not be as deep as your cultural background may lead you to believe, moapa.”
“I didn’t like what I saw, and I don’t have to like it. Dammit, Tsaya, I don’t even like to think about the mercenaries I shot!”
“Sendi, you’re a professional military man. You should know that wars can’t be fought without casualties.”
I looked over at the AR-3 that now hung muzzle-down on the wall. “I thought I was a fighting man, but fighting in the air and space is sanitary. It’s something else to fire that AR-3 and watch a man weighing a hundred kilos get tossed four meters through the air by the impact of a bullet that also tears his guts out. I never before saw what happens to a man when he dies. Death turns out to be grisly…and real.” I snorted with distaste and looked away from the weapon. “I never want to touch that thing again.”
“Sendi, you may have to and you will when the time comes.” Tsaya sat in my lap and tried to comfort me. “Until everyone knows The General’s truth about the world of plenty, we’ll have to fight to protect ourselves from those who try to take things away and make us slaves. It’ll take time to conquer greed and power lust.”
“That can’t happen too soon for me.” I shook my head. “But why does it have to cost so much to get people to see the obvious?”
“People have never seen it before, Sendi.”
“The costs are enormous! Omer alone makes it too costly for my likes, but there was also Wahak…”
“You must go to Vaivan, moapa,” Tsaya told me.
“Dearest, you know the risks a man takes consoling a widow.”
“Of course, but we’re known for taking risks. You took a risk tackling me at Karederu that far ago night. And we both took risks in marrying each other yesterday.”
Why had I wed this cool, professional witch doctor? Do I have to have a reason? No one else needs one! It was far more than the heightened sexual drive that results from being shot at. I didn’t have to get married to bed Tsaya.
Some psychotechnicians claim a man marries a woman who reminds him of his mother. There may be something to that. Tsaya did with one exception: she showed her love. I hadn’t been celebate during my years in the Aerospace Force where succulent young people were always eager for those who’d assumed the heroic mantles of the sailors, railway men, aviators, and astronauts who’d preceeded them. But I’d never loved a woman before or had her love me. It’s a fortunate man who marries his first love.
But the marriage ceremony had disappointed me because I’m a romantic; most Americans are. In the hybrid Commonwealth culture, the wedding bore the greatest resemblance to the Muslim practice.
I never informed my parents in Santa Barbara because they existed only as a dim memory. I was now a different person with a different name and a different way of life half a world away.
I was very happy except for one nagging thing that nibbled at me and wouldn’t turn loose: Vaivan.
“Sendi, I know you better than you think. You must go to Vaivan. Please do so, moapa!”
Tsaya insisted.
Tsaya’s a strong-willed person, and I couldn’t reason with her. Actually, my excuses weren’t based on reason at all, but emotion. The images of that video transmission and those color photographs wouldn’t vanish from my memory over night.
I decided to treat it as the duty of visiting recently-widowed wives of pilot comrades who’d bought the farm by plowing it.
To my relief, I found General Vamori sitting with Vaivan on a porch of the R&R center overlooking the green, watered Vicrik valley and the towering white bulk of Mount Doradun and the DiIkons. Synflesh covered most of her reconstruction, but the mere presence of those dressings reminded me of her ordeal.
“Sit down, sit down,” The General offer
ed, swinging a chair around. “A spaceman is never used to standing or walking on Earth.”
“Yes, please sit down, Sendi,” Vaivan repeated, her voice and words thick because of the reconstructive surgery on her face and the lingering effects of psychodrugs. “I’m very glad to see you again.”
I took the chair and told her, “So am I. There were times when I wondered if we ever would, Vaivan.”
“It’s over,” she said.
“Not really,” I said. “It may never be over in our lifetimes. But this one’s over for now.”
“Do you foresee an end to it, Sendi?” The General asked.
“I don’t know. It’s too soon for me to straighten out my thinking,” I admitted. “The Tripartite still exists. We didn’t hurt them much.”
“But we survived the very worst they could do to us, Sendi,” Vaivan pointed out quietly.
“They can’t ignore us. We won’t go away. And they can’t destroy us. We have too many friends now.”
“And you changed the game, Sendi,” The General added.
“Me?”
“You,” The General said with a nod. “It’s no longer the same system. RIO is now a non-national space patrol that commands the respect of everyone. You made that transition happen with your willingness to throw away provincial loyalties in favor of broader ones—an extremely difficult thing to do because one loses old friends and can only hope to keep the new ones.”
I had to nod in agreement, too, but I did so sadly. “But because of what I did I can never go home again.”
“It was never ‘home’ in the first place,” The General observed, and he was right as usual.
“Sendi, the Santa Fe agreement collapsed yesterday,” Vaivan said.
“I didn’t know that. I’ve been…uh…busy.”
Vaivan smiled knowingly. “Yes. The League of Free Traders refused to operate to space ports that imposed the Santa Fe Tariffs. League captains simply diverted to Vamori-Free. The League action didn’t last eighteen hours because it disrupted commerce so badly that the various governments involved had to give in. You were the one who called the Tripartite’s bluff in Geo Base One, Sendi.”
