Homefall

by Chris Bunch

About three kilometers away floated the mothballed remains of the Confederation fleet.

  Dant Romolo received them personally on the bridge of the Corsica, rather eagerly accepted the package they'd brought.

  "Is there anything else in your records that might be of use to me?" he asked.

  "No offense, sir," Chaka said. "But not exactly knowing what you want from our logs, it'd be hard saying. But you've got all the data our instruments normally assemble and record."

  "Good," Romolo said. "I'm sure it'll be of use to me… and to the People's Confederation."

  Again there was that peculiar, half-mocking emphasis on the word "People's."

  Chaka nodded, trying not to salute, and left the Corsica.

  "Now we'll see if all your forgeries keep him happy," he said.

  "They'll keep him quiet for a while," Liskeard said. "I hope.

  "Meantime, we've got bigger worries. I got a canned 'cast bounced from Big Bertha an hour ago.

  "That Gadu character they were telling us about has stood up in their Congress or Parliament or whatever the hell they call it, and has named Abia Cornovil a traitor to the People's Confederation, and said he's betraying them to foreign influences.

  "Since we're the only foreigners to show up lately, it looks like the shit is starting to come down.

  "There's another speech… a major address, according to what the 'cast said… that'll be made tomorrow.

  "I think we better get on home so we're right in the middle of the X-ring."

  Chapter 31

  Garvin thought that forever after he'd associate politicians, and their rhetoric, with the rotting smell of the Central Stadium.

  A holo was set up in the middle of the stadium's green room, which was packed, about half troupers, the other half Forcewomen and -men.

  Fove Gadu's image stood in the middle of a chamber with wooden paneling, and old-fashioned desks and chairs. But any dignity ended there. Gadu was raving, and Garvin swore he could see spittle fly:

  "… this beast, this betrayer, the man who once was the best of us all, this traitor Abia Cornovil, now corrupted and betraying the People's Confederacy with these outlanders!

  "My colleagues and I doubted our senses when we first had evidence of this betrayal, which would put all of the Capella system in the hands of foreign enemies, desperate animals and aliens who would shatter the centuries-old faith the people of the Confederation have had!

  "But the evidence was irrefutable, and with great sorrow, yet determination, last night an emergency plenum of this Parliament ordered Abia Cornovil's immediate arrest, and for him to be brought before us, and, through us, all Centrum and its worlds, to be judged!

  "Unfortunately, Abia Cornovil had made plans for his escape. In attempting to stop him, his lifter was brought down, and he died in the crash!

  "So should all of Centrum's enemies perish!

  "But our task is not yet over. For in the heart of Centrum these outsiders still linger, doing who knows what damage, who knows what damage has already been done in their insidious—"

  "Screw this," Lir said, slapping the off switch.

  "Yeh," Garvin said, getting to his feet.

  "You heard what the bastard said.

  "They'll be coming for us.

  "Let's not disappoint them."

  Chapter 32

  It only took a couple of hours for the Mobiles to show up. While they were waiting, the troupers blocked all the exits they could find, although Garvin wasn't sure they'd caught them all, and Forcemen took up fighting positions.

  Garvin and Njangu watched as the approach streets to the stadium slowly filled solid, the throng rolling slowly toward the stadium and the empty midway booths in front of it, chanting various slogans as they came.

  Garvin keyed the stadium's PA system, which included outside speakers, on:

  "Attention! This building will be defended if any attempts to enter are made. Do not approach, on danger of bodily harm or worse! Again, do not approach!"

  The crowds hesitated. Garvin started to give another warning, and, from somewhere in a building down the street, what appeared to be four blasters fired in near unison, and the speakers scrawked into silence.

  "Not bad shooting for basic rioters," Njangu observed.

  "Not bad at all," Garvin agreed. "How much you want to bet there's some Pipple's Militia posted out there?"

  "Hah. I've got better intentions than to die broke in a riot," Yoshitaro said.

  * * *

  Aboard Big Bertha, armorers swore as they unbolted missile pods from the three aksai and hoisted chaingun pods in their place.

  "Leave a couple of Shrike tubes on each bird," their warrant advised. "These Centrum people might have a patrol ship around for the potting."

  On the bridge, Liskeard looked again at a projection of the stadium, and also cursed. The people there would have to make their own escape. The closest landing point was at least five blocks from the stadium, in a tiny park he thought might be big enough for his ship to land in. Anything closer… he went over the ground centimeter by centimeter.

  There was a razed building less than a block distant, but its ruins were reaching claws, and he dared not chance landing on top of them.

  "Maroon all of us here," he muttered. "Hopeless. Frigging hopeless."

  But he kept looking at the holo of that building.

  Three volleys slammed into the stadium from gunmen in the front ranks of the Mobiles, sheltering behind the ruined midway. Darod Montagna had smashed a window, and set her sniper rifle up on a table, back far enough so there would be no reflection from her sights.

  She saw someone with a blaster, and shot the gunman… no, she thought, it was a woman… down, looked for another target.

  "You know," Ben Dill said thoughtfully to Kekri Katun, "there's always a chance that Ben isn't going to be able to save the day.

  "Particularly stuck in this goddamned cement mausoleum instead of boomin' around in my aksai."

  "Don't get gloomy on me," Katun said. She had a blaster cradled in her arms.

  "I'm not," Ben said, "Just bein' realistic. And…

  and, well, I want to know, in case anything happens, that I, well, I sort of love you."

  "Sort of?"

  "Sorry. I love you."

  Katun smiled at him.

  "And I love you."

  Ben leaned over and kissed her, then looked startled.

  "You know, I can't remember anybody ever saying that to me? Not lately, anyway."

  Kekri whispered in his ear, and Dill's eyes were wide.

  "And I can't remember anybody, ever, telling me they wanted me to do that to them."

  "Stick around, big boy," Katun said. "There's lots of things you've never done."

  "Maybe that's the best incentive I ever heard for not getting killed."

  Njangu and Maev were going downstairs toward the central floor when the speakers came alive again, and "Peace March" boomed through the stadium.

  "I think," Yoshitaro said, "I could learn to hate that frigging song."

  Jabish Ristori lay on his stomach, aiming a blaster through a kicked-out floor window.

  Danfin Froude sat next to him, back against the wall, wishing that they'd moved faster and gotten a blaster apiece.

  Two stories below, the Mobiles seethed and shouted, crashing through the midway booths. Rocks sailed toward the stadium, and an occasional blaster bolt or old-fashioned bullet whined off the cement.

  "There," Froude said, pointing. "That man right there, at the corner of the building. He's got some sort of weapon. Kill him."

  Ristori nodded nervously, found the man in his sights, and put his finger on the trigger.

  "Well?" Froude said.

  Ristori was shaking uncontrollably.

  Froude thought of saying something about Ristori's abstract bloodthirstiness, but kept silent. He pushed his friend away from the window and took the blaster from him.

  He took careful aim, touched the trigger.
>
  The round spanged off the building just above the gunman, who dived for cover.

  "At least I got him worried," the scientist muttered.

  Blaster fire chattered through the glass doors of the stadium, and the two Forcemen behind the tripod-mounted Squad Support Weapon spun away, lay moaning.

  Felip Mand'l ran to the gun, squatted behind it. He'd been watching the gunners as they carefully fired single rounds at named targets.

  "I think I've got it," he muttered to himself, sighted at a line of people, and let half a belt of caseless ammunition go. Bodies pinwheeled, there were screams, and people were running in panic.

  "I like this," he said, and then there were two troupers beside him, both clowns in full makeup, with boxes of ammunition.

  Lucky Felip found another knot of people trying to hide behind the midway's shooting gallery, sprayed the area with the rest of the belt.

  A clown slammed a new belt into the gun, its barrel smoking hot.

  "Hold down your shooting," he told Mand'l. "Don't want to burn out a barrel."

  Lucky Felip grinned at him, nodded acknowledgment.

  "The hell with pistols," he shouted. "I love this!" and more blaster bolts arced into the crowd outside.

  "Screw all you buggers! In the ear and in the ass!"

  * * *

  The two men pushed at the door again, then again. It refused to yield.

  A very big man with a very big hammer pushed his way to them, ordered them to stand back.

  His hammer smashed again and again, and the door went down.

  Whooping rage and excitement, the Mobiles were inside the stadium.

  Njangu heard the shouts, knew what they meant, and shouted orders to Forcemen around him to spread out, get down, and not get taken from the rear.

  Garvin, in his upper-floor observation room, also heard.

  "Come," Alikhan said calmly. "There is work for us below."

  The two grabbed their weapons and clattered downstairs toward the stadium's main arena.

  A ra'felan tried to pull himself higher in the rigging as he saw gunmen spill into the arena. One man saw the movment, crouched, aimed.

  Monique Lir, curled around the kingpost, blew him in half, grinned, found another man, killed him, and methodically continued her slaughter.

  Sopi Midt scuttled from the circus's pay tent across the arena floor, a large red box under his arm.

  He saw the woman with a pistol.

  "No!" he shouted. "I'll share… don't… you can't…"

  The woman, having no idea what Midt was screaming about, shot him in the chest, then again as he writhed in blood.

  The box hit the floor, smashed open, and credits spilled out.

  The woman dropped her pistol, scooped up money, and Lir killed her from above. Three others tried for the treasure, and Lir lobbed a grenade down.

  After that, the circus's cashbox was left completely alone, bills and coins spread across the arena floor amid sprawled bodies.

  "Come on, Ticonderoga," Emton coached. "Come on with the rest of us so we can find a place to hide, where we won't get hurt."

  Ticonderoga, crouched under Raf Aterton's podium, lashed his tail, looked in another direction, pretending not to hear.

  The other five animals- were already huddled in a large, wheeled carrier.

  "Come on, you horrible animal," Emton pleaded. He heard a noise, looked up, and saw two grinning Mobiles coming toward him, one with a club, the other with some sort of hook on a pole.

  "Oh, go away you silly creatures," he said, pulling one of the small pocket pistols the late Sopi Midt had procured from an inner pocket. He pointed the pistol at the men, squinched his eyes closed, pulled the trigger twice.

  He heard a scream, and a thud. Emton opened his eyes, saw one man laying motionless, the other writhing, clutching his stomach.

  Emton got up, went to the wounded man, put the pistol to the man's head and, again with closed eyes, pulled the trigger.

  By the time he got back to the podium, Ticonderoga was in the carrier, with the others.

  Rudi Kweik's horses were surging against the ropes keeping them in the big room used for a cage. One gelding slammed into the rope netting, and it tore away, and the horses ran for freedom.

  Kweik and his wives, shouting, waving their arms, were almost trampled.

  A gunman saw Kweik hobbling into the arena after his vrai, shot him.

  Jil Mahim saw Kweik go down, dropped the gun-man, then darted out, grabbed Kweik by the neck of his voluminous shirt, dragged him back into an en-tryway where Fleam crouched, weapon ready.

  "If any of the bastards get close… tie a knot in their tails," she said.

  Fleam actually smiled. "They won't even get close."

  She opened her aid pouch, tore Kweik's shirt open, winced as she saw the hole in his chest, close to his heart.

  Shaking her head, she felt his back, found an exit wound. It wasn't a lung shot, she thought hopefully.

  Kweik opened his eyes, smiled at her peacefully, then his body contorted, and he was dead.

  Mahim pulled his shirt back in order, glanced at Kweik's wives as they began wailing, put them out of her mind as she scuttled along the wall toward another casualty.

  A dozen men froze as Alikhan came out of a passage, a devourer-weapon in one upper paw, a wasp-grenade in his other. He shot two men, thumbed the wasp-grenade, and tossed it into the midst of the Mobiles.

  They screamed as the grenade went off, and the pseudo-insects hummed out of the shattered box, stinging as they went.

  Alikhan shot two more, and the others panicked, seeing the huge bullets strike, and then the maggotlike creatures inside spill out, expand, and begin eating.

  None of them made it back down the passage to the stairs they'd come up.

  Running Bear, sensibly clad in a coverall, ran at the head of fifteen troupers into the rear of the Mobiles.

  He shot a woman with a bloodstained butcher knife, then realized he was shouting aloud.

  To his eternal shame, it wasn't one of his people's half-remembered war cries, but the circus cry of "Hey, Rube."

  * * *

  Maev ran into the bear handlers' position, saw the two robots standing immobile, their handlers sprawled in death.

  "Son of a bitch," she said, pulled one body out of the way, put a helmet on as she got behind the controls.

  "I think I almost remember this," she muttered, and Li'l Doni came alive.

  She steered him out of the position, toward a cluster of Mobiles bent over a couple of bodies.

  One man turned, saw the shambling creature, and screamed. A woman shot the robot, saw her round impact, then Doni's claws ripped her throat away.

  The Mobiles ran in all directions.

  A few made it to safety.

  "Now, let's go looking for somebody else to mess with," Maev muttered and, out on the arena floor, Li'l Doni shambled about at her bidding.

  "The question is going to be," Sir Douglas said in a reasonable voice to Njangu, "whether we can put the pussies back where they belong, afterward."

  "Yeh," Njangu agreed, keeping his blaster ready, again remembering Garvin's story, long ago on a burning rooftop, about why he'd joined the military, after setting a circus's cats on a crowd during a big clem.

  "Well, nothing ventured," Sir Douglas sighed, and began opening the doors of the lifter-mounted cages.

  The animals hesitated, and Sir Douglas went to the rear of the cages, began firing his blank pistol into the air.

  "Come on," he said. "Help me."

  Njangu obeyed, clanging his blaster barrel along the bars.

  The cats reluctantly surged out of their cages and went down the passageway toward the arena floor.

  "I'd suggest," Sir Douglas said, "you get in here for a few minutes, where it's safe."

  Njangu thought that a very good idea.

  The cats, angry, scared, came into the arena crouched, tails lashing.

  Mobiles saw them, moaned i
n fear.

  Possibly if they'd charged the cats, they might have frightened them back down the passage. Instead, people made one of two very fatal choices: they either stood frozen in fear or they ran, both perfectly familiar behavior of animals' prey.

  Roaring, bounding, the beasts pounced, killing, killing again, and bloodlust built.

  A few of the Mobiles had the courage to shoot at the cats, but only one hit, searing a bolt down one lion's side. A moment later, a smashing paw tore his head off.

  The Mobiles were in full flight, back toward the side entrance they'd broken through.

  "I guess," Sir Douglas said reluctantly, "we'd best go and tuck our friends back where they belong."

  "I have one… three… five launches," an electronics officer reported. "Maybe more. Patrol ships of some sort. Medium-size."

  Liskeard stood in the center of his bridge, considering his options.

  There were none.

  He waved to a talker.

  "Is Boursier ready to launch?"

  The talker asked.

  "Sir, Boursier One is ready."

  "Launch!" Liskeard ordered. "Try to give any close support you can at the stadium, and take out any of those patrol ships that get in your way."

  The aksai in the hold dropped from its mag-couples, wobbled on its antigravs toward the open lock, was out into the open air.

  Liskeard took a deep breath, made a decision. "Close the lock and stand by to lift."

  The stairwell to the exit was packed with pushing Mobiles, trying to get out of this arena of horror.

  Njangu appeared at a landing above. He held a sack in one hand.

  "Hey!" he shouted.

  A few heard him through the din, looked up.

  Njangu thumbed one of the grenades in the bag to life, dropped the bag in the center of the throng below.

  He ducked back out the door he'd come in through, deciding he didn't want to see what happened in four… no, three seconds.

  The Mobiles boiled out into the street, just as Jacqueline Boursier, swearing madly, fought the aksai, never intended for low speed close air support, down the avenue toward the stadium.

  She saw people running, starting to shoot at her, gawping in horror, and she toggled a sensor.

  Her chaingun churned 35mm collapsed-uranium bullets in a six-thousand-round stream into the street below, red tracers, red death.