Homefall

by Chris Bunch

  Kars motioned Njangu to an open door, and the six went into an elevator, which dropped precipitately for quite a long time. Yoshitaro guessed they must've been a hundred feet or more underground before his stomach returned and the elevator stopped, and he was taken down a long corridor.

  There were no guards in the corridor, which impressed Njangu that perhaps Gegen kept his security where it was most important—very close at hand.

  Kars opened a double door, bowed, and Njangu entered the presence of Kuril Gegen of Degasten and Kohn, as he would no doubt style himself.

  This Gegen was also a model of a modern barbarian: He was not that tall, but very solidly built, a man who'd seriously lifted weights for a time, but, now in his thirties, had gotten a bit lazy. He had a neatly combed, short beard and close-cropped hair, just beginning to gray.

  Unlike Jagasti, he'd learned the virtue of simplicity, and wore plain gray, with a Sam Browne belt with holstered pistol, knife, and pouch. The only concession he made to barbaric excess was the Squad Support Weapon leaning against his chair—the Confederation-issue blaster, this one configured with a long barrel, laser sight, and bipod.

  Njangu noted something interesting, and added it to his datafile: there were clear plastic walls between the door and Kuril Gegen, no doubt blaster- and grenade-and bulletproof. A very careful man.

  Kars made a quiveringly correct salute, and Njangu touched his forehead with a respectful civilian knuckle.

  "I understand you have arrived here with two requests," Gegen said without preamble, in a nice bar-barically growly voice.

  "You are correct, Kuril."

  "Do you actually think my brother will give you leave for your… circus, it is, correct?… to come here and perform?"

  "Possibly yes, possibly no."

  "And what, exactly, did you wish to see me, personally, about Jagasti?"

  "About the possibility of his no longer being your enemy."

  Gegen snorted. "Ask the solar wind to stop blowing. Ask men to stop lusting after what their neighbor has. Ask entropy to reverse itself."

  "I didn't say anything about asking Jagasti," Njangu said.

  "Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by circus," Gegen said. "I looked it up in the encyclopedia, and there was no suggestion of your group having might enough to sway Jagasti in anything."

  "All that it takes to sway any man is a tiny bit of steel, correctly applied," Njangu said. "Which your brother well realizes, for he's commissioned me to remove you."

  Kars hissed, reached for his gun. Njangu ignored him. Gegen motioned, and Kars froze.

  "So you thought you could come to me and get a higher price for Jagasti's death?" Gegen sounded amused.

  "Exactly," Njangu said, giving Gegen his best see my steel teeth and realize what a killer I am look.

  "He bought your approach without requiring any proof of ability?"

  "Why not?" Njangu said. "He has nothing to lose. If I fail, I fail, and his vaults remain full. If I succeed…" Njangu held out his hands.

  "You mean you asked for no payment in front?"

  "I did not."

  "Hmmp. You are confident."

  "No, sir. Just competent."

  Gegen smiled briefly.

  "How would you go about such a task?"

  Njangu shook his head.

  "One of the people in our circus is a magician. He told me once he showed how his tricks were done, after a show, and the people were terribly disillusioned and disappointed."

  "What would you require of me?" Gegen said. "I cannot believe that you would sell out my brother without any credits changing hands."

  "I am confident in the quality of my work," Njangu said.

  "I must think on this." Gegen frowned.

  "While you do," Njangu said, "perhaps you would give permission for the handful of troupers I brought with me to show their abilities to however many of your upper echelon you wish."

  "No," Gegen said. "I trust you not, Yoshitaro. So I'll hardly play the fool and give your associates a chance to decimate my staff.

  "But you may perform if you will. My junior officers will be quite amused, I think."

  Njangu made a hasty readjustment to his plan, decided it'd still work, got up, bowed.

  "You are careful, indeed, Kuril."

  "That," Gegen said, "is how I survived growing up with a monster for an elder brother."

  The show wasn't much, but the small crowd, less than half a hundred, seemed to enjoy it. Njangu decided the most likely crowd on this first night would come from Gegen's bodyguard and headquarters, since those closest to the throne normally scarf up the first goodies.

  His plan, therefore, might indeed work.

  At least it would put some shit in the system.

  Dill did his strongman act, then Monique used him as a sawhorse and thrower for tumbling and acrobatics. Froude brought the dreaded Alikhan from his cage, and had him do some basic tricks.

  The soldiers eyed the monster warily, and the Musth did his best to appear completely crazed.

  Froude bashed him back into his cage, and used Njangu as a straight man for some card tricks and simple magic.

  Evidently prestidigitators weren't common with these people, for the officers were utterly enthralled.

  The four aliens, less, of course, the monster, were in sight the entire evening.

  Alikhan went out the back of his cage, using the hinged secret door, took a small parcel from its hiding place near the Nana boat's emergency lock, barely crowded through that lock into the open air. The parcel's timer had already been set, and it was mag-clipped to one of the patrol ships that'd brought Gegen's officers.

  The show ended, to roars of approval, and the soldiers dispersed.

  The timer on the parcel had ticked down fifteen minutes…

  An hour and three-quarters later, the first timer clicked, and the magnetic timer shut off. The parcel tumbled down through the air, into a dense forest, not far from Gegen's great fortress.

  "It is working," Alikhan reported from a control panel on the Nana boat. It was indeed, the pieces of the parcel breaking away, and thin metal legs unfolding. At the top of the tripod was a long tube, which glowed, and started emitting various radiations on various wave bands.

  "Our package is on its way," Dill said, noting a flashing readout on his heads up display.

  Just beyond the nav point the boat had used to enter the Degasten system, the first package Njangu had left came alive. It was a Shrike missile, given an auxiliary fuel tank, set to home initially on the drive of the Nana boat.

  "Now, let's get our target rearranged," Njangu said. "Makes me nervous that sucker's homing on my roof."

  Froude tapped fingernails against his teeth. "Let us see… assuming our homer came off the Protectorate boat when it should… that would put it down about here," he said, looking at a screen. "Gegen's headquarters are over here… so I'll target the Shrike… here. Close enough to wake the cooks up early."

  "Less talk, more setting," Monique urged. "I'm with Njangu, and don't appreciate incoming."

  "A touch… a slide… another touch… and there you have it, m'lady," Froude bowed. "It should wander in-atmosphere in a bit."

  The Shrike did, searing past the atmospheric patrol craft at near lightspeed, a searing comet in Ogdai's upper atmosphere, then a smashing explosion not three kilometers from Gegen's castle.

  At that speed, the missile, even with its small explosive charge, made quite a large, radioactive crater. It woke up the cooks and everyone else around Gegen.

  The device on the tripod a couple of kilometers away flashed, then fell over. The destruct charge on the laser sight "unfortunately" didn't completely destroy the device, and its power supply was more than enough to be found by searchers just after dawn, enough to explain that some monster had used the device to guide the Shrike in on its target, but without clues as to who operated the device.

  Njangu Yoshitaro stirred* in his sleep, perhaps feeling the explosion
through the kilometers of rock, and the boat's hull, then, smiling, returning to his dream of money.

  "Might I ask, Kuril, what has made up your mind so firmly to hire me?" Njangu asked.

  "No," Gegen said. "And if I had not had your ship watched continuously, I might think what I know to be impossible.

  "Let us just say you've proven your point, and that my brother is accelerating his plans for my destruction.

  "I bid you carry the war home to him, and, when you have succeeded, you can name your fee.

  "Within reason, of course."

  Njangu and company, still gloating gently at the success of their phony laser-guided missile attack, were picked up, as arranged, by Jagasti's waiting battleship for the jumps back to Mohi II.

  Jagasti's lim, with two battleships overhead, lowered toward the desecrated museum. As it passed below a thousand meters, a sensor clicked, and the left half of the lim blew off.

  The explosion pinwheeled guards into the air. Ja-gasti grabbed his seat cushion, jumped clear of the tumbling wreckage, had time to pull the straps on and activate the dropper.

  The antigravity mechanism clicked on, and slowed his fall, so his only injury was a broken ankle, making a bad landing on one of the statues he'd had ripped out of the museum.

  "Somebody did what?" Njangu asked.

  "Went after Jagasti's lim with a bomb," Garvin said. "Dunno how they missed him."

  "Son of a bitch," Njangu said slowly.

  "I assume that wasn't one of your fiendish thingies, given the sincerity of your response," Jaansma said.

  "There's more than me putting shit in the game," Yoshitaro said, then, still reverently:

  "Son of a bitch!"

  Chapter 20

  Tiborg/Tiborg Alpha Delta

  The Civic Palace was packed. In minutes, according to custom, as the year changed, the Constitutionalists would hand over power to Dorn Fili and his Social Democrats.

  Fen Bertl sat with the other Directors above the central podium, looking about beatifically.

  Things would change a bit now, with the new regime, but they would essentially remain the same, and Tiborg would be run as it always had been: carefully, economically, reasonably, with power remaining in the hands of those who deserved it.

  Thank the God he didn't believe in, Bertl thought, the flurry of trouble with Fili's ambition, that damned circus, and the Constitutionalists' intransigence had ended long before the citizens went to the polls and voted as they'd been taught.

  He looked down, at the podium packed with the elite of both parties and the outgoing Premier, then at the floor, at the party workers, happily working themselves up. As soon as Fili shook hands with his opponent, and uttered the time-honored words of "I succeed you, sir," they'd go into a mild frenzy and snake-dance around the stadium until dawn, chanting the slogans that, tomorrow morning, would be dust like the campaign itself, and Tiborg would go on as it had for another six years.

  Bertl took a moment to consider old business, par-ticularly that circus, now long gone. He thought of his spy, that woman, whatever her name was.

  He thought, ruefully, that he'd possibly overreacted with everyone else, first with the locator to follow them to the Capella system, if that was indeed their destination, and then adding… Kekri, that was her name.

  It would be just as well, he decided, to drop the whole matter, abandon the tracker probes they'd been sending out every time they were notified the circus made another jump, and not waste credits or energy launching more.

  There didn't seem to be much point in dispatching any expedition after the circus ship.

  Capella and Centrum could wait for another few years, and they could mount their own expedition if it seemed necessary.

  As for the spy… Bertl smiled. It was unlikely she'd come to harm, either remaining with the circus or wherever they decided to abandon her, if she was exposed. She was certainly a survivor type. And if they decided to take extreme measures…

  No. It didn't matter.

  The band built to a crescendo.

  The Constitutionalist Premier stood, smiling, and the smile looked almost real, waiting for Dorn Fili.

  Fili, flanked by Sam'l Brek, his aide, came up the podium steps. Bertl frowned. Brek should not, no matter how important he was to Fili, be sharing this spotlight.

  He could get his rewards, like the rest of the SD, in tomorrow's clear daylight.

  The Premier turned, holding out his hand.

  Fili took it.

  They waited for a moment, eyes on the cesium clock high overhead.

  "I succeed—"

  Lir and Montagna's bomb went off at that moment, just as it'd been set to do. A hundred kilos of Telex had been carefully fitted under the podium, formed to look like one of the supports, and color-matched by the two women.

  A shaped charge, it blew straight up, and Fili, Brek, and the outgoing Premier became no more than a reddish haze, as did almost all of the parties' hierarchies.

  Stonework fragmented, shotgunning up and out, decimating the Directors and then the faithful below.

  Bertl was sent tumbling backward, body cushioned by other Directors behind him, crashing through chairs, but landing on his back.

  Deafened by the blast, in shock, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, not realizing his right arm was broken in two places, looked in horror at the smiling head of another Director in his lap, pulsing gore.

  He knew, he knew who'd done this, who had to have done this, and the hell with forgiveness, the hell with forgetting about those aliens.

  Before anything else, Fen Bertl, in the end as human as anyone, now wanted revenge. For himself, for his party, for his fellow Directors, for Tiborg itself!

  Chapter 21

  Mohi/Mohi II

  Njangu Yoshitaro was going quietly nuts, especially since he realized he'd caused his own insanity.

  Kuril Jagasti had been hounding him near daily since his return from Degasten, almost an E-month earlier. When would he make his move against Gegen? What would it be? He had promised much, and so far had delivered nothing.

  Jagasti was right.

  Njangu thought at first he'd accomplished a deal with the phony missile attack on Gegen. But all that it seemed to have done, Jagasti's handful of agents on Degasten reported, was drive Gegen into the depths of his fortress, where he did nothing, as far as external events indicated.

  Njangu wondered if Gegen had more than one string to his bow, and had been responsible for the sabotage on Jagasti's lim.

  Without hinting anything to Njangu?

  That would make him a really subtle sort of barbarian, having two sets of killers in the field.

  The other likely candidate for the sabotage had to be Jagasti's little brother, Bayanti. And what would have set him off? The phony long-distance shooter, making him believe it was Jagasti behind the trigger men?

  But there seemed to be nothing amiss with Bay-anti's relationship with Jagasti. At least he said and showed nothing to Delot Eibar, who was definitely earning her bonus.

  Besides, what would Jagasti's death get him? Bay-anti didn't seem to have much interest in Jagasti's constant military maneuvers and evolutions, or, at any rate, said nothing publicly.

  Njangu didn't discard little brother entirely, but thought him not a likely candidate for this completely unknown Master Schemer.

  A local lad? Or lass? Somebody who'd decided enough of tyranny, now was the time to make a stand? But the scarce populace Njangu encountered were completely terrorized and worn down, and so he discarded that option.

  What made matters a little worse was Jagasti's habit of weekly banquets, like any decent techno-savage, at which he would praise the few who pleased him, and castigate the failures. Those, of course, included Njangu, and it didn't help that Jagasti couldn't be specific about Njangu's failures, but merely rail on at him for being an ignorant, boastful alien, whose only talent appeared to be fripperies and con games.

  A couple of Jagasti's goons
thought that meant Jagasti was calling Njangu a womanish sort, and decided to lie in wait for him after a banquet.

  Yoshitaro handily demolished both of them, not bothering to pull any punches, and, when questioned, shortly admitted to Jagasti he'd killed both of them, and why couldn't the Kuril control his own court?

  But that got little accomplished, except to raise the general hostility level.

  Meantime, the circus continued performing for the soldiery, even more popular than before.

  Especially popular was the tiny Jia Yin Fong, whose mother had made a small Protectorate uniform for her. She cannonballed around the top of the tent, from her parents' teeterboard to ra'felan high above to Lir, swinging from a trapeze, giggling happily. The soldiers thought she was their mascot.

  Njangu gloomed over maps of Gegen's fortress. Dammit, Angara should have let them take a nuke along… assuming he had some stashed somewhere in a secret armory. Maybe he could put a force atop Gegen's fortress, slide the nuke into an elevator, send it down, and…

  Gegen's quarters were probably shielded.

  And besides, he didn't have a nuke in Big Bertha.

  Njangu thought maybe the late Confederation wasn't quite as dumb as he'd thought.

  He checked military holidays, thinking that Gegen might come out to review his troops, and he could get Montagna and her hellshooter in range.

  But Jagasti's younger brother seemed content to sit far underground and wait.

  For what, Njangu knew: the assassination of his brother, Jagasti.

  Njangu considered that briefly. It would be fairly easy to smuggle some sort of gun in and give Jagasti a third eye. And then what? He wasn't about to mount a suicide mission.

  A bomb suggested itself, but after the incident with the lim, Jagasti had all rooms swept twice before he entered them.