A Call to Arms

by David Weber

Chomps didn’t mind. He’d learned long ago to moderate his partying, especially when under the shadow of an early-morning order like this. Besides, after being cooped up aboard ship for two months, the chance to get out and stretch his legs was an appealing one.

  Sadly, not all of Damocles’s crew had his foresight or self-control. Of the five men and three women he’d been assigned to flog a few times around the block, fully half of them were sagging like wet noodles. The other half were vertical enough, but clearly less than thrilled at the prospect of sampling any world beyond their own eyelids.

  But the XO had ordered sweat, and she was going to get it. Lining them up, making sure to point out that EW Tech Redko’s squad was already half a block ahead of them, Chomps verbally kicked them off the curb.

  And off they went on a glorious two-klick run together in the early-morning cool.

  They’d gone three blocks when Chomps heard the sound.

  The sounds, rather. There were two of them, a sort of thump-thump. Not very loud. Certainly not very clear.

  But there was something about them that sent a sudden shiver up his back.

  “Hold it,” he ordered his squad, looking around. Peripherally, he noted that Redko had also brought his squad to a halt and was also looking around. “Hey—Redko. You hear that?” he called, jogging up to his friend.

  “Yeah, I heard it,” Redko said as Chomps stopped beside him. “Don’t know what it was, but I heard it.”

  “Sounded like shots,” Chomps said.

  “I don’t know,” Redko said, his forehead creasing in a frown. “They sounded to me like…I don’t know. Just out of place. What do you think we should do?”

  “Call it in,” Chomps said, raising his arm and punching the uni-link on his wrist out of standby mode. The prelanding info packet had included the local three-digit emergency code. He punched it in, trying to organize his thoughts—

  “Emergency,” a brisk voice came back.

  “I think I just heard a pair of gunshots,” Chomps said. “I’m at the corner of—”

  “Identify yourself.”

  Chomps took a deep breath. In the Star Kingdom, the identity of the uni-link’s owner came up automatically when Emergency Services was called. Apparently, whoever had set up the connections for the Manticorans’ visit hadn’t gotten around to that part yet. “This is Missile Tech Charles Townsend of the Royal Manticoran Navy,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. For all he knew, someone could be bleeding out right now. “I’m at the corner of Barclay Street and Marsala Avenue. You need me to repeat that?”

  “No, I got it,” the dispatcher said. Some of the snap, Chomps noticed, seemed to have gone out of his voice. “Gunshots, you say?”

  “That’s what it sounded like, yes,” Chomps confirmed. “Probably inside one of the buildings or parking garages—they weren’t very loud. There was a sort of echo to them, too, like they were coming out an open door or—”

  “Yeah, got it,” the dispatcher cut him off. “Okay, thanks. We’ll get someone over there as soon as we can.”

  There was a click, and the connection went dead.

  “Well, hell,” Chomps growled, punching out of the connection and glaring at the uni-link for a moment before dropping his arm back to his side. “That was a whole lot of nothing.”

  “What did he say?” Redko asked.

  “That he’ll send someone,” Chomps said. “But he won’t. Or at least they won’t break any speed records.” He nodded at the handful of citizens in view, none of whom was showing the slightest reaction to the sounds he and Redko had heard. “Not surprising, I suppose, given that no one else seems to have heard anything. He probably figures it was a figment of the crazy foreigner’s imagination.”

  “Do you want to call it in to the lieutenant?” Redko asked, his tone strongly suggesting that Chomps shouldn’t.

  Chomps couldn’t blame him. Redko clearly wasn’t as bothered by the sounds as Chomps was, and he wasn’t interested in collecting the fallout of waking up an officer to tell him they’d heard some bouncing garbage cans or something.

  And given the lack of alarm anywhere on the street, Chomps had to admit the odds were against his interpretation of events.

  But the odds didn’t matter. He knew what he’d heard.

  “Let’s take a quick look around first,” he told Redko, glancing over their two squads. Nine in his group, eight in Redko’s. “You and your squad head around that way. Split into pairs and look for anything suspicious. My squad will take those streets and buildings over there.”

  “Okay,” Redko said, a little doubtfully. “How long do we give it?”

  “Ten minutes,” Chomps said, making a quick command decision. He glanced at the two groups’ trim running outfits, noting with annoyance that no one except the two petty officers had bothered to bring their uni-links along. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Today, it might. “Pick a spot for your squad to rendezvous, compare notes, then call me.”

  “Okay,” Redko said. “You heard the man, Spacers. We meet back here in ten.”

  Chomps gestured to his squad. “We’ll meet at that corner,” he said, pointing to an intersection a block farther toward their designated search area. “Spread out and keep your eyes open. And watch each other’s backs.”

  Ninety seconds later, with the rest of his squad having peeled off, Chomps was alone, jogging down the street and wondering distantly what the bosun was going to say about this. Not to mention what Lieutenant Nikkelsen, Commander Shiflett, and possibly Captain Marcello himself would say.

  At least he’d put the others in pairs, which was shipboard SOP in any kind of potentially dangerous situation. Still, the fact that he himself was now alone was probably not the smartest thing he’d ever done. Sphinxian strength and Navy combat training were a great combination, especially in Casca’s .93 G field, but they didn’t confer any special bullet-dodging powers. He would have to make an extra effort to watch his rear.

  Around him, the city was starting to wake up, and a few more pedestrians and vehicles were making their appearance. A block ahead on the other side of the street was a line of three apartment buildings, each with a vehicle-sized opening that probably led to an underground parking garage. If he’d been right about hearing an echo in the gunshots, those would be good candidates for a quick look. Ahead was a crosswalk; turning into it, Chomps crossed the street.

  A dark-haired man just passing on the opposite sidewalk looked over as Chomps neared him, his eyes flicking up and down the big Sphinxian’s body. It was a common reaction among the Cascans, Chomps had already noted, and he gave the man a reassuring smile as he approached. The man smiled back and continued on his way. Chomps reached the sidewalk and turned the opposite direction toward the apartment buildings.

  He’d gone four steps when a sudden thunderflash seemed to light up his brain. The man’s smile…

  He jerked to a halt, spinning around and staring at the man’s back. Right height, right build, wrong hair, wrong face—

  “Sir?” he called.

  The man took another step, then paused and turned. “You talking to me?” he called back.

  “Yes, sir,” Chomps said. “I’m looking for the Manderlay Arms Apartments, and I can’t find it in any directory. Can you point me the right direction?”

  “Sorry,” the man said. “I don’t think I know the place.”

  “No problem,” Chomps said, smiling. “Thanks anyway.”

  The man smiled back, and turned around and continued on his way.

  Chomps turned back, too, a mass of ice settling around his heart. No mistake. The smile that he would never forget he’d now seen again. Twice.

  The dark-haired man was the murderer from the Havenite recording.

  He kept going, knowing better than to try to engage the man a second time, certainly not without a better excuse, definitely not alone. Lifting his arm, he punched Redko’s number into his uni-link.

  “Find something?” the other�
��s voice came back.

  “Maybe,” Chomps said. “Can you see me? No—never mind me. Can you see the man heading west on Barclay Street? Short, dark-haired, wearing a gray suit?”

  “Uh…yes, I see him.”

  “I need you to take a picture of him,” Chomps said. “Do you think you can do that without being spotted?”

  “Sure,” Redko said. “Who is he?”

  “I think he’s the murderer from the Havenite recording,” Chomps said, eyeing the parking ramps ahead. An enclosed van had pulled up beside the first of the openings and a group of men in workman coveralls were filing out. “And don’t get too close.”

  “Okay,” Redko said. “You want me to try calling the cops again?”

  “Not yet.” He could just picture what the dispatcher would say about a criminal identification made purely on the basis of a smile. Especially a smile he and Redko had had to hack into official government records to see in the first place. “Get the picture first. Then send it to them and tell them he’s a person of interest or something—say whatever you need to say to get them to pick him up.”

  “Got it,” Redko said. “What about you?”

  “I’m going to check out some parking ramps,” Chomps said. “And watch yourself, okay?”

  “Bet on it,” Redko said. “You, too.”

  The six workmen had collected some large, heavy-looking bags from the rear of the van, and as Chomps continued down the street five of the men strode off into the nearest of the three parking tunnels, leaving the sixth leaning against the vehicle’s side. At least Chomps wouldn’t have to bother with that one—if there was a freshly killed body in there he’d probably hear the workmen’s screams all the way out here when they spotted it. If Cascans were too manly for screams, he’d know when they beckoned silently but frantically to their loitering coworker.

  Chomps frowned. Only the man leaning against the van wasn’t looking into the tunnel where he could be beckoned to. In fact, he was looking everywhere but the tunnel: at the street, on the walkways, up at the windows of the surrounding buildings, and at Chomps. Maybe even especially at Chomps.

  And there was something about his stance and expression that was kicking off quiet alarms in the back of Chomps’s brain.

  The man wasn’t just watching the van, or loafing off.

  He was on guard duty.

  And Chomps was headed straight toward him. Toward him, and whatever the others had gone into the tunnel to do.

  Too late to turn back. The guard had him locked, and any sudden changes in direction would instantly brand him as suspicious. If the workmen were the source of the gunshots earlier, suspicion was the last thing Chomps could afford. There was no cover anywhere nearby, either, even if going to ground while unarmed wasn’t a totally useless waste of effort. Calling the cops was out, too—he was already too close to the guard for that.

  Which left him really only one option. In for a centicred, the old saying whispered through his mind, in for a credit.

  The workman and van were four steps away. Bracing himself, Chomps walked right up to him.

  “Hi, there,” he said, putting on his best embarrassed smile. “Can you help me? I met a girl last night, and she asked me to pick up her car this morning. Is that the garage down there?”

  “Yes,” the man said. His eyes flicked to the RMN logo on Chomps’s sweatshirt. “What was her name?”

  “Sylvia, I think,” Chomps said. “Or Linda, or Katie. Something like that. I’m still working through the fog. Thanks.”

  He headed down the tunnel, feeling the man’s eyes on his back. Whatever they were up to down here, they would hopefully shy away from the straight-up murder of a foreign national. That was the sort of thing that would likely kick them to the top of the Cascans’ find-and-nail list, and no one wanted that kind of trouble.

  He just hoped they were smart enough to follow that same impeccable logic.

  There was an open door off the tunnel to his left. Three steps away from it, Chomps lowered his eyes to his waist, fumbling in his side pocket as if looking for something. He passed the door, shot a quick look up from beneath his eyebrows, and continued on without slowing.

  The glance hadn’t shown him much. But it had shown him enough.

  Two of the workmen, kneeling beside a pair of long black sacks lying on the floor.

  One of those workmen scrambling to his feet, as if belatedly trying to block the view.

  Another door behind them opening into a small room, with three more workmen crouching beside something on the floor.

  Something Chomps was pretty damn sure was a body.

  He worked his pocket another two steps, finally retrieving the key to his locker aboard Damocles. Letting it dangle ostentatiously from his fingers, he continued down the tunnel, which he could see now made a hard right fifty meters ahead, presumably into the garage proper. Once out of sight of the men behind him, he would call the police, try again to convince them to get their butts over here, then find some place to go to ground until they showed up.

  He turned the corner into the parking garage proper without anyone shooting him in the back. Puffing out a sigh of relief, he started to key his uni-link as he looked for an empty parking slot where he could go to ground. The closest was about halfway down the first line—

  “You!” a voice growled from behind him. “Hold up.”

  Chomps clenched his teeth. He’d hoped they would be slower on the uptake. Unfortunately, with nothing but deserted echoing parking garage in front of him, there was nothing to do but continue playing stupid. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, coming to a casual halt as he did so.

  “Yes?”

  Two of the workmen were striding toward him, their faces cool and suspicious. Neither was holding a weapon, but both had significant bulges in their right-hand side pockets and another inside the chest fastening strip. “You look lost,” one of them said, his gaze dropping briefly to the uni-link blinking its ready signal on Chomps’ wrist. “You looking for someone?”

  “Not someone; something,” Chomps corrected. “A car. I met a girl at a party last night, and she asked me to come over here this morning and get her car for her.” He held up his key.

  “She did, huh?” the second man said, eyeing the key. “Bad news, buddy—you’ve been chumped. That thing’s not a car key.”

  “Well, sure it is,” Chomps insisted, peering at the key. “It’s the same size as my car key back on Manticore. What else could it be?”

  “What kind of car did she say it was?” the second man asked.

  Chomps thought quickly. One of the cars parked near the hotel had had the word Picassorey on the rear. “A light-green Picassoree,” he said, mentally crossing his fingers.

  The second man guffawed. “You mean a Picasso Rey?”

  “Oh,” Chomps said, wincing. Sometimes playing it stupid was easier than expected. “Sorry. It was noisy in the bar.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s still not a car key,” the man said. “Not on Casca.”

  “Really?” Chomps frowned at the key. “Well, hell. I really thought she was interested. I guess not.” Jamming the key back in his pocket, he started to head back up the tunnel.

  In unison, the men took casual sideways steps to block his path. “What’s your hurry?” the second man asked, all traces of amusement gone from his face.

  “You just said she lied to me,” Chomps reminded him, letting his expression go confused. “I guess I’ll head back and join my squad. We’re all supposed to be out there running anyway.”

  “Yeah, you don’t want to PO the CO,” the man who’d glanced at his uni-link commented. “That who you were going to call?”

  “Huh?” Chomps blinked at him, then produced his very best sheepish grin as he held up his arm. “Oh, this? No, no—I was going to call the girl. From the party. She gave me her com combo, so I was thinking I’d ask where the car was. Pretty dumb, I guess.”

  “Or maybe she just gave you the wrong k
ey, like you said,” the other man said. “Go ahead—let’s hear what she has to say.”

  And as Chomps’s grandfather used to say, the crapspreader had just reversed gear.

  They weren’t completely sure of what he might or might not have seen, or at least not sure enough to drop him on the spot. But they were obviously suspicious as hell.

  And he’d just painted himself into a corner, He could hardly contact the cops now, not while his new playmates were watching and listening. But if he didn’t call someone, they’d damned well know he’d been playing them.

  But who on Casca could he call? No matter how Chomps pitched a story like this, he knew that none of the women in his division would catch on fast enough. If the workmen insisted he put his uni-link on speaker—and as he looked into their faces he realized that was exactly what they were planning to do—the puzzled response from the other end of the conversation would damn him in double-march time.

  They might be hesitant about killing an offworlder. In fact, there was a fair chance their insistence that he call his imaginary girlfriend was some stalling of their own. One of the other men back there was very probably having a quick consult with some off-scene boss to decide whether Chomps was ignorant and stupid and could be turned loose or whether he’d seen too much and needed to be silenced.

  Either way, this uni-link call could make or break him. If they realized he was playing them, they wouldn’t care what he might or might not have seen. They would probably just shoot him where he stood—they were far enough out of the public eye here to get away with it.

  On the other hand, if he could somehow produce someone to play the part of the party girl, there was at least the thinnest of possibilities they might just buy his entire story. It was unlikely, but some chance was a hell of a lot better than no chance at all.

  But who could he call?

  He could think of only one candidate. Only one person who might offer him a slim, vanishingly small opportunity to pull this off. She was smart, she was quick, and she might at least be stunned into silence long enough for him to somehow clue her in as to what was going on.

  The two men were waiting. “Okay,” Chomps said, raising his uni-link. “I guess I can’t get in any worse with her anyway. I just need to remember—oh, right: that was her name.” He punched in the code for relay.