The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  “All right, let’s move things along.” She had already finished packing up her computer and personal effects, meager as they were, so she donned her command helmet, which covered her face very effectively while giving her an IR view of the cavern. She also wore breast-bands and extra padding to disguise her female shape. She strode out into the main cavern.

  “Commodore!” Her people snapped to attention, giving her a smart salute. She returned it, nodding briefly to soldiers who were busy loading equipment and supplies onto horses, mules, and small skimmers. They never made major shifts in larger vehicles, not even at night. Sonny had access to Jefferson’s satellites, whose military spy eyes had nothing to watch for in deep space, these days, but plenty to track on Jefferson’s surface. So Kafari gave them as little to track as possible, and what little there was, she did her best to make innocuous.

  The shifting of Kafari’s headquarters would involve only one truck, three personal skimmers, and no more than a dozen pack animals, which would move in groups of two or three over the course of the next three nights. Some of them would amble more or less straight to the new headquarters cavern in a canyon several kilometers to the south, but only after looping through many other stops and layovers. Others would join them tomorrow night and still others the night after that, playing a slow-motion, deadly game of hopscotch under cover of darkness.

  Kafari nodded to her people as she crossed the cavern, then climbed into the back of her command truck, which looked like a rickety, rusted-out produce truck with holes in the sides. It was crammed with the most sophisticated technology they’d liberated from Berran Bluff Armory. At the moment, it also held their “guest” — a supply agent from Vishnu who claimed to have good news that he would deliver to Commodore Oroton and no one else. He’d been stripped down to bare skin and had endured the most thorough body search Dinny Ghamal could conduct, a humiliating and painful process involving a fairly sophisticated arsenal of medical equipment, among other things. He’d come out clean. There hadn’t even been a nanotech squeak anywhere.

  They’d drugged him unconscious and brought him out here. Kafari would speak with him from the back of the truck, which he would not leave at any time, and then they would drug him again and take him back to town so he could return to Vishnu. Or they’d kill him, if the situation warranted it, and drop the body on some well-used game trail frequented by hungry jaglitch.

  Kafari climbed into the back of the truck. Dinny Ghamal climbed up behind her and swung the doors shut. Red Wolf, who was already there, nodded to her as she took her seat opposite a small table from their guest. He wore a blindfold and his hands were cuffed to the chair he sat in, leaving him no room to attempt anything untoward. He couldn’t even reach her with his feet. All his clothing and his shoes were missing. Kafari had replaced them from her own stores. He had to be feeling mighty vulnerable, which was exactly what she wanted.

  Kafari took her seat and tapped her fingertips lightly on the grip of her handgun, which she kept under her hand at all times. She studied the man in the opposite chair for long moments. He was a small man, with skin one shade darker than hers, even after four years in the Damisi back country, where harsh sunlight baked everything it touched. Like many natives of Vishnu, he was very slightly built, with straight black hair worn long. Her guest was showing signs of the emotional strain he’d been under for more than a day, now. “I’m told,” Kafari said in a soft voice that her helmet transmuted into a deeper, more guttural and masculine sound, “that you have a message for me, Mr. Girishanda.”

  He turned his head slightly at the sound of her voice. “That is correct, yes. I have a message for Commodore Oroton.”

  “You have my attention.”

  “I would prefer the freedom of my hands and eyes.”

  “I’ll bet you would. I’d prefer to see the sun rise, come morning.”

  To her surprise, he flashed a smile full of white teeth. “A cautious nature is a wise quality for a leader of rebels. Very well. We speak in the dark.”

  Kafari waited, giving him no assistance.

  “My employers have a certain commodity they feel may interest you.”

  Again, Kafari simply waited.

  Girishanda said, “I am told you have some, ah, fairly heavy artillery.”

  “You’ve probably been told a lot, if POPPA’s been talking. As for what you hear and what’s true…”

  He chuckled.

  Kafari frowned. “You’re pretty relaxed for somebody chained hand and foot.”

  “I am a Hindu,” he shrugged, rattling the manacles against the chair frame. “What would you have me say? The things I get wrong this time around, I will have a chance to get right the next time around. As badly as my life goes, sometimes, I suspect I’ve been trying to get it right for a thousand years. I haven’t managed it, yet. At worst, it’s a better life than, say, several centuries as a slime mold.” Teeth flashed again.

  Kafari couldn’t help it. She smiled “Very well, Mr. Girishanda. Why are you interested in my artillery?”

  “I have very little interest in what you have. I have a great deal of interest in what you might want.”

  Kafari considered. “And what might you have, that would tempt me?”

  “Hellbores.”

  Kafari sat up straight. “Hellbores? You care to explain that?”

  White teeth flashed again. “I have your attention, yes?”

  Kafari deliberately waited him out, telling her taut nerves to be patient, because she damned well wasn’t going to get what she wanted any faster by jumping at an offer that smelled like a very large rat.

  Girishanda smiled in her direction. “Your silence is a sign of patience, my friend. That is good. Even with the cargo I can deliver, you will need patience. And a great deal of cunning. We know what you face, in this struggle. We can help. If the price can be agreed upon.”

  “There are more things than price to consider.”

  The smile left his face and he sat up straighter, despite his bonds. “You are very right about that,” he said softly, as though she had passed some sort of test. “Very well, Commodore Oroton, I will answer some of the questions you carefully have not asked.”

  Kafari settled into her chair, prepared to listen. All night, if necessary.

  “During the war,” Girishanda — or whoever he really was — said, “refugee ships poured across the Void, running terrified ahead of the Deng. Some of those worlds had heavy artillery, not heavy enough to save them, but enough to buy evacuation time. You must know, Commodore, that many more ships came on to Vishnu than stayed on Jefferson. These people were panic-stricken. They wanted as much human space between themselves and the Deng as they could afford to cross. Some of them realized that the heavy artillery their worlds had purchased could be sold for a tidy sum of money, taking them farther away from a border that was shifting too rapidly for their peace of mind. So they brought that artillery with them. To… smooth the way, financially, so to speak.”

  Kafari could see the excitement in Dinny Ghamal’s eyes, could read it in Red Wolf’s flared nostils. Oh, yes, Mr. Girishanda definitely had their attention. Kafari’s, as well.

  “You are interested, then?” he asked.

  Kafari let him wait, again. If he was worth his salt as a bargaining agent, he would smell their interest. Note to self, a corner of her brain had the temerity to whisper, whenever you’re dealing for something really big, have someone light incense, first. Or douse the place with eau du jaglitch first. The very absurdity of the image restored her equilibrium. The long pause caused Mr. Girishanda’s self-assurance to falter slightly. Good. He needed to be jolted a bit.

  “I suspect,” she said at length, “that your price is beyond our means.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not much happening in our corner of interstellar space, just now. The market has shifted. We find ourselves with a stock of goods nobody wants.”

  Nobody else, he meant, of
course.

  That was understood.

  “You’re not worried about another breakthrough from across the Void?” Kafari asked, allowing surprise to color her voice. “Our respective star systems are still slam in the way of any incursion from the Deng homeworlds.”

  “The Deng,” Mr. Girishanda said dismissively, “are in no shape to come calling on anyone. Besides,” he grinned, “they’d have to come through you first, which means you’d get better use of the Hellbores than we would.”

  “Huh,” Kafari muttered, “we’d get our asses shot off first, you mean.”

  He tried to shrug; the manacles rattled. “Your Bolo—”

  “It is not our Bolo.” The hatred in her voice stopped him cold.

  The look on his face spoke eloquently about the difference in attitude one brought to the bargaining table when one’s visceral experience of Bolos involved being shot at by one, rather than viewing it as savior and protector from the wrath of alien guns.

  “No,” he said at length, with an unsettled expression as he tried to imagine what it must feel like to be on the wrong end of those massive guns. “It is not your Bolo. But it is a Bolo, nonetheless, and it’s programmed to defend this world from the Deng. Try to imagine what would happen if the Deng returned,” he said softly. “How long would it take for Vittori Santorini’s little empire to collapse like a house of cards? We’re not stupid, Commodore, or blind. Santorini’s done a good job with the propaganda, no doubt of that. The news that reaches Vishnu and Mali is full of flowers and honey. And his money talks, as well. Louder on Mali than Vishnu, you must understand?”

  Kafari frowned behind her helmet, trying to take in the multiple messages being thrown at her, some voiced, some unvoiced. “Go on.”

  “He’s fooled a lot of people. But spacers talk. So do refugees. And enough POPPA officials have sent their children to our schools to give us a very clear picture of what POPPA really stands for and what it’s capable of doing. And,” he added with a shrewd glance at Kafari’s top commanders, “what it isn’t capable of, which is just as important. If the Deng hit Jefferson again, that unholy little alliance of his will come apart at the seams. His P-Squads appear to be very skilled at terrorizing ordinary citizens and shaking down spacer crews for bribes and letting enormous amounts of contraband slip through unquestioned. But go up against Deng Yavacs? Or heavy cruisers? Even Deng infantry?”

  His voice held scathing contempt. “You don’t even have an air force left, do you? Let alone trained fighter pilots or ground support troops. If the Deng come this way — or Krishna-forbid, the Melconians — your troops, Commodore, and that Bolo are the only defense Jefferson will have. Perhaps it’s selfish of us, but we’d like to think there’d be something to at least slow them down, before they head for Ngara and our worlds.”

  It was a hell of a mess, when a Deng invasion looked positively attractive.

  He leaned forward, causing the manacles to clank again. “But consider this, Commodore, because I assure you, we have, more than once. That Bolo of yours takes his orders from the government. If you become that government…”

  Kafari caught the hiss between her teeth before he could hear. Just what were Mr. Girishanda’s motives? And connections? He sounded more like an official with Vishnu’s Ministry of Defense than a gunrunner. She narrowed her eyes beneath the battle helmet’s face mask. The ministry would doubtless feel a great deal safer if Kafari’s rebellion succeeded in removing POPPA and the Santorinis from power. POPPA fanatics would make uneasy neighbors, at best.

  When Jefferson’s economy collapsed — finished collapsing — the whole damned society would go under. It was inevitable. And the disaster wasn’t very far off, either.

  And when the collapse came, hungry and angry people were going to go hunting for what they needed to survive. Jefferson still had star-capable travel, with enough guns in POPPA’s hands to turn the P-Squads into a ravening horde of armed and deadly scavengers. The closest civilized port of call they could reach lay in the Ngara system. If Kafari had been a highly placed official in charge of defending Ngara’s worlds, she would have viewed the situation on Jefferson with alarm. Intense alarm.

  Even with the losses the P-Squads had sustained from steady attacks by Kafari’s freedom fighters, there were thousands of P-Squad officers out there. Nineveh Base had trained five thousand a year for ten years, before Kafari’s assault had wiped the base off the map. Even with the loss of Nineveh’s cadre of instructors, however, they still had an army of fifty thousand men already in the field. If pushed to raid off-world for what they needed, that army could smash Mali with ease and do massive damage, even on Vishnu.

  There was a Bolo on Vishnu, but in that kind of scenario, it wasn’t much use. A Bolo had to know in advance that a ship was a threat, before it could act defensively. A freighter crammed full of P-Squad marauders could land a devastating attack with literally no warning and escape again untouched, simply by picking a target on the other side of the planet from the Bolo’s depot. The depot’s location wasn’t a secret from anyone. Any ordinary school child could tell raiders exactly where to find Vishnu’s Bolo. There were several thousand POPPA students on Vishnu.

  And now Mr. Girishanda was offering to sell her the kind of firepower it would take to destroy Vittori Santorini and either destroy or take control of his suborned Bolo, which would end the threat POPPA and its fifty-thousand potential raiders represented. If Girishanda wasn’t on the Ministry of Defense’s payroll, he was acting on the ministry’s behalf. And probably on their orders, payroll or not. Kafari was ready to put money on it. Speaking of which…

  “How many Hellbores do you have available, Mr. Girishanda? And how much money do I have to lay down, to persuade you to part with them?”

  “Then you are interested?”

  “In winning this war? Absolutely. In your merchandise? That remains to be seen.”

  Mr. Girishanda’s smile blazed like the noonday sun over Hell-Flash Desert. “My dear Commodore, I believe we can both walk out of this deal as happy men.”

  Kafari couldn’t help her own smile. “You think so?”

  Dinny Ghamal was grinning fit to crack his face in half. Red Wolf merely looked pained. Girishanda, blissfully ignorant of the byplay, said, “It is my fondest hope.”

  Kafari leaned forward. “Convince me to put my money on the table.”

  They settled down to the serious game of dickering a price they could both live with, in every possible sense of the word. It took an hour of the hardest bargaining Kafari had done in her life. Money, per se, wasn’t the only factor in her strategy. There was plenty of money, if a person knew how to divert it from off-world investment portfolios and bank accounts. POPPA, itself, was supplying Kafari with most of the money they needed to wage this rebellion. No, the hardest portion of her job tonight would be the other demand that went along with the cash laid on the table.

  When Girishanda finally accepted a price that left him looking mournful, but likely beaming with self-congratulatory success in the privacy of his own thoughts, Kafari let the hammer drop.

  “There’s just one more little condition to meet, before we close this deal.”

  She couldn’t see his eyes behind the blindfold, but the rest of him shifted from easy relaxation to wary tension. “Oh?”

  “We have some merchandise of our own to ship out. Important merchandise.”

  “What does a commander of rebels have to sell?” Girishanda asked.

  “This commodity isn’t for sale.”

  “It’ll cost to ship it, then,” said with a frown. “How much it’ll cost depends on what you’re shipping. And why.”

  Kafari turned to Dinny Ghamal, who nodded and rose, leaving the truck and swinging the doors shut behind him.

  “Who’s that?” Girishanda asked. “Who left?”

  “That’s not important. We have a perishable commodity, a fairly bulky supply of it.”

  Girishanda gave her a sudden scowl. “Oh, no.
No, you don’t. I’m not transporting a shipload of escaped prisoners. I do not want that kind of risk, thank you, kindly.”

  Kafari regarded him for a moment. “You want to sell some Hellbores. I want to buy them. If you want my money, you’ll take my commodity and ship it safely to Vishnu. Or the deal is off.”

  “Don’t be stupid!” Girishanda snapped, sitting up straight and rattling the manacles when he tried to move his arms to emphasize the point. “Confound it, you need those Hellbores or that Bolo will tear you to shreds. You know it. I know it. POPPA knows it. Don’t put yourself — or my world — at risk over the fate of condemned criminals!”

  His reaction was no more than Kafari had expected. Her gut still clenched in icy rage. He did not, of course, know. Nobody on Vishnu could know, yet. Spacers and refugees might talk, but the former were restricted to the environs of the spaceport, these days, and the latter had fallen to a mere trickle, thanks to draconian shifts in emigration laws. With a total lock-down on interstellar communications and escape from the camps all but impossible, who could possibly have gotten word out to Vishnu? Nobody on Vishnu could know the vicious secret of POPPA’s detention camps, except Simon, and he couldn’t talk freely without putting her and her people at risk.

  “In a few moments,” Kafari told him, “you will eat those words.”

  Puzzlement drove furrows into his brow, but he didn’t answer. The door opened again. Dinny had returned with a young girl in tow. She had been pretty, once. Innocent, too. She was fourteen. The sea-green eyes that looked out at the world burned with an eerie copper fire, eyes that reflected the unspeakable horrors she had witnessed and survived. They were ancient eyes, lost in a child’s face, eyes it took a strong man to meet face-on and not flinch from. It had taken every ounce of strength Kafari possessed to meet Attia’s gaze, when Dinny had first brought her in, two nights ago.

  Kafari rose from her chair, taking her pistol with her, and touched Attia’s hand gently, beckoning her to take Kafari’s seat, then she stepped behind a partition that afforded privacy for a mobile toilet used by the crew in the command post. There was a video system in place, covering the interior of the command post, with its video feed tied into her battle helmet’s visor. It gave her a full, unobstructed view of the tableau unfolding out there.