Billiard was inclined to be a bit more pessimistic, since he knew the Redhats had done at least some direct testing. It had already produced those “black holes” in Earth’s universe. But he knew that to pursue the subject further would be to take a chance on blowing his cover with Goldaper. “And your leadership?” Billiard asked. “The man who wants to make himself God of the Lorian Empire?”
“Admiral Koppett. Former head of the Lori Space Navy.”
“A political admiral?” Billiard asked.
“Of course,” Goldaper answered with a grin. “Otherwise, why would we need a military instructor?”
Billiard briefly returned Goldaper’s smile, at the same time feeling the hot core of excitement building in his gut, telling him that the computer had been right. By answering the right ad, by waiting for just the right conditions, he was on an inside track toward the successful completion of his mission—his real mission.
“And what’s in it for me, other than a lot of hard work and a chance of being picked up and executed by the Redhats?” Billiard asked, not really caring what the answer might be, but knowing that Goldaper would be suspicious if he didn’t ask.
“Two thousand gilts a month and a commission as a colonel in the new Lori Space Fleet.”
“Goldaper, you’ve got yourself a colonel.”
II
The combat boat drifted silently, all power-broadcasting systems shut down, in a high orbit around Sutet IX, eleven light-years from the Lorian System but still well within the Lorian Empire. The planet below had only a small mining colony, concentrated in a two-hundred-square-mile area near its north pole. The rest of the planet was only marginally inhabitable and no attempt had been made at colonization, which made it the perfect place to plant an insurgent base.
The receivers and detector systems on the boat were wide open, one side waiting for a signal from the ground telling them it was safe to commit to reentry, and the other searching for any sign of an interception being attempted by the Lorian Navy. The Redhats suspected that there was an insurgent base somewhere on the planet, but the revolutionaries were not yet taken seriously enough for the Lorian God’s forces to take any concerted action to root out the cancer.
Billiard sat locked in the webbing of the copilot’s combat shell, his body still but his eyes constantly moving across the dim, red-lit instruments in front of him to the green orbital dynamics screen and to the com link, which would signal them when it was safe to start reentry. Most of all he studied the three men in the boat with him: the pilot, his command shell opposite Billiard’s in the cramped cabin; between and slightly behind them, the gunner, the board for the long-range lasers and kill-torps locked in front of him; and, in a jury-rigged combat shell behind them, Goldaper—now wearing the uniform of a colonel in the revolutionary navy.
The pilot appeared calm, waiting with the patience that is such a valuable trait to combat crewmen, and especially to a boat pilot. But the gunner was obviously nervous, tightly wound and ready to explode at any moment. Billiard had the feeling that the boy—he didn’t appear to be more than fifteen or sixteen—had never been in combat and was now wishing he had ignored whatever romantic urges had led him to enlist in the revolutionary forces.
Billiard was wondering whether or not he should take control of the weapons board from the young gunner, when there was a series of beeps from the com link over his head and suddenly the pilot’s hands were busy on the controls. The beeps were followed by a high-pitched whine, the sound of a course tape being transmitted at high speed from the ground and into the ship’s computer. Reentry data began overlaying the until-now-static pattern on the orbital dynamics screen; then the engines of the little ship came to life and they began their drop into Sutet IX’s atmosphere.
Twelve minutes plus, by the readout in front of Billiard, and they were down to atmospheric cruising speed. Next to him he sensed the gunner relaxing at the time when he should have been most alert, and he turned to reprimand the boy just as the alarms started going off on the detector panel. He spun his combat shell back toward the panel in front of him, but before he could get it locked, a giant hammer began pounding at the hull of the boat—shaking it, tearing at it. A high-toned scream told of holes through its pressure hull—holes that would have become rips only minutes before, had they been punched through during the fire of reentry. Had that happened all four men would have died almost instantly. Now it appeared to Billiard that death was going to take a few minutes longer.
Billiard’s glance shot toward the gunner just in time to see the boy’s hand reaching down to the red handle of the ejection-pod release. His hand snapped out, grabbing the youngster’s shoulder in a grip like steel; his nails dug into flesh, cutting the skin. He searched for, and found, a small nerve below the collarbone. His fingers now pinched deep around it, and the body in the gunner’s seat began to twitch and shake as the neural currents were disrupted all through its length. A hysterical scream began, only to be cut off as the boy’s neck muscles went into spasm; then his entire body began to jerk as if in the grip of an epileptic seizure.
Billiard slapped the locks on the gunner’s harness—locks designed to hold an injured man in place while his comrades continued the fight—snapped back a cover and threw a toggle from one position to another, and was in control of the boat’s weapons, the panel pivoting from in front of the gunner to the copilot’s position.
Gaining control of the weapons had taken less than three seconds, but those three seconds had given the enemy ship out there a chance to slip into the saddle, above and behind them, lining up its guns to shoot them out of the sky. Turn left or right and the enemy could turn inside them, pouring fire into their hull. Pull up and they’d be meat on the table. Nose down, and they’d never pull out again before spreading themselves all over the landscape. By all the rules, they were dead.
The insurgent ship’s pilot apparently had never heard of the rules. Either that or he had written the book, and had left a few things out. Quickly, he threw the wedge-shaped combat boat all over the sky, twisting and turning and tumbling apparently out of control, only to right the ship at the last moment before crashing. Under those circumstances, it was not long before the two ships’ positions were reversed. It shouldn’t have happened, but the Lorian interceptor was now in front of their sights, rather than behind them. The pilot of that ship, not even one of the fanatical Redhats, had not been as ready to risk his life as the pilot of Billiard’s boat, and now he was going to pay for his lack of dedication. With his life.
Billiard held the reticule for the kill-torps centered on the Lorian interceptor in front of him, but he waited—waited until they were almost in the ship’s exhaust stream, waited until they were almost too close to fire before he depressed the firing stud.
Twin streams of UHV torps reached out from the pods on either side of the central wedge, crossing the distance between the two ships in less than half a second, and converged in a growing ball of fire and wreckage. The tiny missiles, designed for use in outer space, moved so fast that atmospheric friction converted them into plasma even as they connected with their target. They tore the enemy interceptor to pieces.
Conversation was impossible inside the combat boat because of the roar of wind over the holes the interceptor’s cannonade had punched in the hull. As he checked over the ship for major damage, Billiard thought to himself how lucky they had been to be attacked by a Lorian interceptor aircraft. Had it been one of the small squadron of combat boats the Lorians kept stationed on Sutet IX—or, worse yet, one of the corvettes Billiard knew were in this quadrant of the Lorian Empire—the outcome would have probably been quite different. Against simple cannon fire, they had survived; against kill-torps or lasers they would not have been given a chance to survive.
On the way back to his combat shell after checking as much of the ship as he could reach from inside, Billiard glanced briefly at Goldaper and was shocked to see an expression of both fear and hatred there. Unable to stop
and speak, Billiard filed the look away until later, when he could take the memory out of storage and worry about it, gathering all the data he could from it and whatever other information he could find to try to make sense out of the totally unexpected reaction.
Twenty minutes later they were over the planet’s large equatorial plateau, and five minutes after that the boat was sliding to a stop on the concealed runway at the insurgent base. Billiard and the pilot needed several minutes to shut down the boat systems, paying special attention to the reactor system since the boat had taken several hits back around the reactor which Billiard had not been able to check from inside. Goldaper left the ship at once, however, and when they finished and Billiard climbed out through the lock he found waiting a young woman, a lieutenant by her shoulder tabs, rather than the expected Goldaper.
“What happened to Colonel Goldaper?”
Anger showed in Billiard’s voice. First one of the men Goldaper had evidently trusted, the young gunner, had broken under the strain of combat. Then Colonel Goldaper himself had disappeared before Billiard could take him to task about it.
As Billiard was getting his anger under control, a medical team pushed past him, carrying the still-unconscious gunner out of the boat, his face blue, his head flopping from side to side as the stretcher was passed down from the airlock to the ground. At sight of the gunner, Billiard’s anger at being put in such stupidly unnecessary danger flared again, and, almost yelling, he exclaimed to the lieutenant, “Look, girl, I want to see Goldaper. Now!”
“I’m sorry, sir. The colonel seemed to be in a rush to report in at once. He instructed me to take you to the officers’ quarters. And my name is Lieutenant Garth, sir. Not ‘girl.’”
The lieutenant knew she was caught in the middle of something she did not understand, but she wasn’t about to take any guff from this new officer, or become the scapegoat in a hassle between Billiard and Goldaper.
“Well, Lieutenant Garth, I’m countermanding Colonel Goldaper’s order. You’re to take me to him, at once.”
“But, sir—”
“Sir, your ass! That’s an order, Lieutenant!”
“Yes sir.”
The young officer, her face red, turned and started toward a group of camouflaged plasticene buildings on the other side of a large parade ground. Billiard momentarily wondered if the revolutionaries were also training ground-combat troops at this base as well as combat-boat crews—and if so, why. But he dismissed the thought as unimportant for now. At this moment Goldaper was his main problem, and he knew it was a problem that was going to have to be resolved without further delay. Otherwise, he was going to have constant trouble with the colonel, perhaps to the detriment of his prime mission, but most certainly damaging to his job as a training officer for the revolution.
The heat of Billiard’s anger was quickly replaced by ice as they walked across the parade ground. The problem facing him—to locate the Lorians’ encapsulation-probe equipment—was of such magnitude that he did not even notice the lieutenant’s trim shape under the attempted shapelessness of her field uniform. He did notice that she had the silver dart of a combat-boat gunner pinned to her breast.
Lieutenant Garth led him into the first of the plasticene buildings, and Billiard stopped in surprise immediately inside the door. He had been expecting some sort of office complex—rooms and hallways—probably the headquarters and operations units for the base: the lieutenant had said that Goldaper had appeared to be in a hurry to report in. Instead, Billiard found himself inside a large common room, obviously a rest and recreation room for the surrounding barracks and classrooms.
A quick estimate told him there were close to a hundred men in the room, men who had been relaxed and enjoying themselves, but who were now—to a man—silently staring at the stranger who had just come among them.
Over the years, back in his own universe, when Billiard had made his living working as a mercenary soldier, he had often served as an officer in charge of non-professionals—idealists. He had seen many groups such as this—a motley mob, not even a gang, which might some day become an effective fighting force. It had the usual sprinkling of young idealists without whom there can be no revolution, some professional military types obviously looking for a war, and a scattering of men who have the stamp of criminals and deserters. Billiard wondered how many of them he was going to have to beat, maim, or, perhaps, kill before he had established his authority over them to the point where they acted on command, without argument, without question.
Near one wall was a bar, and the same glance which revealed the population of the room showed Billiard where Goldaper had gone in such a rush. The colonel was standing against the bar, a glass of the clear, high-proof alcoholic drink the Lorians preferred in his hand. The red flush of his skin indicated he had already tossed down at least one, and perhaps two or three, before Billiard’s arrival. This, Billiard knew, was probably going to make the coming scene a lot more difficult. The Earthman, knowing that the eventual success or failure of his plan depended to a large extent on what happened in the next few minutes, made his way across the room.
“Okay, Colonel Goldaper. Just what the hell is going on?
Goldaper, who had turned away when he’d spotted Billiard moving toward him across the crowded room, spun around to face the man he had hired, spilling part of his drink down the front of his uniform in the process. Billiard was sure Goldaper had finished several drinks while he had been busy cleaning up the mess in the combat boat.
“I left orders for you to be taken to your quarters, Billiard. So what the hell are you doing here?”
“Colonel Billiard, remember?” he said quietly. But not so quietly that he wasn’t overheard by nearly everyone in the room. The common room had become very still since his entrance.
“Don’t let the title go to your head, Billiard. You’re still just a hired killer, and you’d best remember that.”
There was pure hatred in Goldaper’s voice now, and Billiard couldn’t understand the sudden change of attitude.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question, Goldaper?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I mind very much. I gave you an order, and I expect it to be obeyed.”
“First, tell me what happened on the boat to bring all this on.”
“What happened on the boat?” Goldaper yelled, disbelief in his voice. “You did your damnedest to both shame my family and kill my brother, and—”
“Your brother? The gunner?”
“Damn you!” Goldaper screamed, as he launched himself at Billiard in an insane attack.
Billiard’s highly trained combat reflexes were such that he was able to put his body on what amounted to kill-alert, then take it off that alert, relaxing into an unarmed battle stance before Goldaper’s charge reached him. The insanely angry man seemed to be moving in slow motion to Billiard, and as the form swam toward him the Earthman waited, then at the last minute stepped aside, letting Goldaper rush harmlessly past.
Part of Billiard’s mind was on the attack that was being pressed against him, while another part was busy evaluating the overall situation, examining the various options open to him. He could simply stop Goldaper cold, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. Not only would there then be a power at his back who hated him, but Goldaper had forced him into a confrontation before the very men he had been hired to train: only by putting on a display of force that would not be forgotten would he be able to command the instant respect and obedience he knew was going to be necessary. Merely beating Goldaper would not be enough. With sadness, Billiard realized he was going to have to kill the little revolutionary who had recruited him.
While he was thinking, he had given Goldaper a chance to reverse his direction. Though he still was not facing the Lorian, Billiard knew that Goldaper was coming at him again, and that this time he would have his combat knife out.
All Goldaper saw was Billiard’s back. A smile came over his face and his teeth bared. He could see that Billiard wasn
’t ready for him, and that the fight was over. Billiard was about to die.
Just as Goldaper reached him, the Earthman spun aside, so fast Goldaper didn’t even detect the movement before it was completed. One minute Billiard was in front of him, a target for his knife, and the next Goldaper had received a tremendous blow across the back and was flying through the air. It happened so quickly, and was so unexpected, that the Lorian had no chance to relax his body before hitting the floor. Hitting headfirst, he slid along, burning his forehead on the plastic flooring. Almost as soon as he stopped sliding he was ready to spring back to his feet, his face twisted beyond recognition by hate and fury as he levered his body upward. He never completed the move.
Moving with almost superhuman speed, Billiard crossed to where Goldaper was lying. Reaching down with both hands, he grabbed the prone man by the collarbone, pulling him roughly to his feet. For a second Billiard looked at Goldaper with what seemed to be sadness in his gaze, then he coldly slapped the revolutionary, following the slap with a backhanded slash that opened a bleeding gash on Goldaper’s lower lip.
He screamed, both with rage and with the realization that he was in trouble. Now he tried to hit Billiard, to break away from the iron grip of the big Mercenary. But Billiard slapped his flailing fists aside as if he were disciplining an unruly child. Then, calmly, emotionlessly, more as a lesson to the watching men than anything else, the Earthman began to beat Goldaper.
Hands balled into fists, moved with muscles trained to kill efficiently and cleanly, slammed into Goldaper’s stomach, rupturing the stomach wall, starting massive internal hemorrhages. Gasping with agony, Goldaper gave not even token resistance as Billiard methodically went to work on his face, ripping wide cuts where eyebrows had been, breaking his cheekbones, splitting both lips wide open so white tooth fragments gleamed in the bloody red flesh.
Through the Reality Warp Page 5
