At least if DeVries was right-and she probably was, he thought-the terrorists were probably even more uncertain of her position than he was stuck here in Marguerite Johnsen.
The Cadre brigadier shook his head and thanked God for Sergeant First Class Alicia DeVries. He'd lived through enough cluster fucks in his own career, if none quite this bad, to appreciate the magnitude of her accomplishments. Of course, Charlie Company was the Cadre, composed of the most rigorously selected and trained soldiers in the galaxy, but not even the Cadre could train people to take situations like this one in stride. Without her to hold them together, keep them moving....
His last message from DeVries was almost thirty minutes old. She'd reported the assault on the FALA blocking position in a terse, matter-of-fact tone which had fooled no one aboard Marguerite Johnsen. The disguised Fleet transport had worked with Charlie Company for over three standard years. Her crew had become part of the Charlie Company family, and Keita could feel their shock and grief all about him. But there'd been no trace of that shock or grief in DeVries' voice-only the clipped cadences the tick induced.
Keita would have been tempted to hate her, if he'd thought she truly were as unmoved, as machinelike, as that voice had sounded. But he knew better than that, because his own voice had sounded like that once or twice during his career. Because he knew all about locking down the pain until there was time to face it and taste it to the full.
"We're down to thirty-two effectives," she'd said. "We lost nine breaking through the saddle. We've lost five more since then, including Sergeant Hillman, when their air-cav came in to strafe, but they aren't doing that anymore. I think we've finally convinced them it's a losing proposition; they seem to be down to only two aircraft, and they're staying at extreme range."
She'd stopped speaking for what would have been a very brief pause for someone Keita hadn't known was riding the tick, then resumed.
"I think we've shaken them off, Uncle Arthur. We're not getting any more active sensor hits from their air-cav, and the two mounts they have left seem to be running a search pattern well behind us. I think they let us break contact after we nailed that last pair of strafers, and they haven't found us again."
"What's your ammunition state?" he'd asked, and hated himself for asking.
"Low," she'd replied. "We're down to an average of thirty-seven rounds per rifle. We're almost entirely out of of grenades, and we've got less than fifteen hundred rounds for the calliopes. We're down to only three plasma rifles-we lost Corporal Doorn and his weapon on the last strafing run-and we've only got a couple of dozen hydrogen pellets for the three we've got left."
"Understood," he'd said, then paused and drawn a deep breath. "What are your intentions?" he'd asked then.
"Unchanged," she'd said flatly. He'd opened his mouth to protest, but she'd continued before he could.
"We're most of the way to the objective, and I don't think they know where we are-not accurately, at any rate. Even if they've got a better idea where we are than I think they do, the only place anyone could get in here, whether with assault shuttles or recovery boats, is Green Haven itself, and our intel on that sucks. I haven't been able to get a good look at the spaceport there yet, but if they've got the kind of firepower and weapons we've seen out here in the mountains, they've got even more of it covering Green Haven, and you need to know how much when you start considering options. That means we've got to get in close enough to eyeball the situation there for you, at the very least, and we're almost out of sensor remotes. These people have demonstrated that they're pretty good at picking them off, too, so I've got all but one of the five we have left tied down until we get close enough for them to do us some good. I'll contact you again when we have. Winchester-One, clear."
That had been-he looked at the time display-twenty-eight minutes ago, and he hadn't heard a word from her since.
Where are you, DeVries-Alley? he worried. He longed to contact her, demand an updated situation report, but he suppressed the temptation sternly. If she was right, if she had managed to break contact contact, the less communication between them the better. And in the meantime -
"Sir Arthur?"
Keita turned quickly to find himself facing Marguerite Johnsen communications officer.
"What, Lieutenant Smithson?" he asked the Fleet officer.
"Sir Arthur, we've just received a communications request," Smithson said in an odd tone, then grimaced. "He says he's the terrorists' commander, Sir."
Keita's expression went more granite-like than ever, but his eyes narrowed slightly. He gazed at the lieutenant for perhaps three seconds, then shrugged.
"Put it through," he said.
"Yes, Sir." Smithson entered a command through his own neural headset, then nodded to Keita, indicating a live mike.
"This is Sir Arthur Keita," Keita said flatly. "What do you want?"
"Sir Arthur Keita? 'The Emperor's Bulldog' himself?" a voice replied, and its owner laughed mockingly. "I am honored! Of course, calling someone a bulldog is just another way of calling him a son-of-a-bitch, isn't it?"
"You're the one who asked to speak to me," Keita said, his voice still flat as hammered steel. "Was there something you wanted to say, or do you prefer simply asking rhetorical questions?"
"My, aren't we testy?"
"Com me back when you've got something to say," Keita said, and started to gesture to Smithson.
"You might want to remember that I've got six hundred Empies down here," the voice said, suddenly harsher and colder. "Cut this connection, and I'll send fifty of them back to you in body bags."
"You can do that any time you want to, regardless of whether or not I talk to you," Keita said unflinchingly. "Of course, doing that would constitute a different sort of escalation, wouldn't it? I really don't think you'd like what will happen if I decide you're going to kill the hostages anyway."
"Do you really think we're stupid enough to believe you wouldn't kill every one of us the instant you thought you could, whatever we do here?" the man on the other end of the com link sneered. "We don't have anything at all to lose from that perspective, Sir Arthur!"
"Except that if I believe you're going to start killing hostages for no better reason than the fact that I've hurt your feelings, then I'll decide there's no point in trying to get them out alive, anyway," Keita said levelly. "And in that case, I'll solve the entire problem very simply with an HVW strike."
There was silence for several seconds.
"You're bluffing," the FALA spokesman said finally.
"Maybe," Keita acknowledged. "And maybe not. Remember, you've given me a lot of reasons to want to see you dead. The only thing keeping you alive right now are those hostages. You convince me they aren't coming out alive, anyway, and I don't have any reason to keep you alive, do I? So suppose we both stop threatening one another and you tell me why you commed?"
"All right, I will. You say you don't have any reason to keep me alive if you think the hostages are going to be killed. Well, I don't have any reason to keep the hostages alive if I think my people are all going to be killed, either. Which is why Star Roamer had better not see any assault shuttles heading for the planet from that battlecruiser-you know, the one pretending to be a freighter-when it joins you in orbit up there."
So much for whether or not Ctesiphon's EW has them fooled, Keita thought.
"Before you waste any time lying to me about it," the terrorist continued, "I should tell you that Star Roamer's sensor arrays have been watching your precious battlecruiser ever since she arrived. Just as they were watching you, Sir Arthur. The Marguerite Johnsen might be able to fool some people, but we did our homework a little bit better than that. We knew who you were from the moment you arrived, and we were expecting your drop. Just as we've been expecting the arrival of reinforcements. I'm sure you have quite a few Marines aboard that battlecruiser, but I'd strongly recommend that you keep them there."
"And I'm sure you can hardly wait to tell me why I shoul
d take your recommendation to heart," Keita said when the other voice paused.
"Actually there are several reasons," the other man said, "but two big ones come immediately to mind. First, as I'm sure you've already realized, we have a lot more military capability down here than you assumed we did. In addition to what you've already discovered, we have ground-to-space defenses dug in around Green Haven. We can't stop an all-out assault, I'm sure, but we can kill all the assault shuttles you can pack aboard a single battlecruiser. So if you really want to send your Marines in and see them all as dead as your precious cadremen, I'm sure we could oblige you.
"Now, it's possible you're thinking that I'm bluffing, or maybe you're thinking I'm overconfident about what our defenses can do. I'm not bluffing, but it is possible I'm overestimating our capabilities... the same way you overestimated yours when you decided to land Charlie Company. Which brings me to my second reason you shouldn't try dropping Marines on our heads; if you do, and if it turns out we can't stop them after all, we will kill the hostages. We won't have any reason not to."
"I see."
"I imagine you do," the FALA spokesman said mockingly. "And while we're on the subject, if you try to land Marines somewhere else, outside our defensive perimeter, Star Roamer will inform us. And the instant she does, we'll kill three hundred hostages. Please note that I'm not threatening to kill them out of hand, or as a bargaining ploy, or even in a fit of pique. We won't kill them unless you try to get fancy, so you've still got six hundred-well, three hundred-reasons to keep me alive, don't you?"
"To what final end?" Keita asked. "It's obvious your original demands were nothing but a way to pass the time while you waited to ambush our people. Surely you don't think the Empire is going to leave you or your organization alive in the long run after something like this?"
"We've all been on your proscribed list for years," the other man said. "You can't kill any of us more than once, however much you'd like to. And just this minute, I think you should be worried more about who we might kill. We'll tell you what our final demands are when we're good and ready. In the meantime, keep your Marines the hell off this planet. Is that understood, Sir Arthur?"
"It is," Keita grated. "And if I do, what happens to my people on Fuller?"
"Why, they die, Sir Arthur," the terrorist spokesman jeered. "That was the whole point of our little visit here-or one of them, at any rate. They've butchered enough of our friends over the years, after all, so it's only fair we get a little of our own back, and we're looking forward to it. We've already killed most of them; in the end, we'll kill them all, and enjoy doing it. Unless, of course, you're prepared to commit to a major assault to save the handful of them who are still alive knowing all your precious civilians will die before the first Marine boot hits the Green Haven ceramacrete. Somehow, I don't think it would look very good in the Empire media if word got out that twenty or thirty cadremen were more important to you than six hundred of your Emperor's loving subjects, now would it?"
Keita said nothing, and the terrorist laughed.
"That's what I thought, too," he said. "Don't go away, Sir Arthur. I'm sure I'll have something else to say to you... eventually."
***
"Well, you were right, Sarge," Tannis Cateau said softly.
Alicia made an equally soft sound of agreement. She and Tannis lay side-by-side along the crest of a ridge overlooking the Jason Corporation facility and the not yet officially open Green Haven spaceport. Their armor's active sensors were shut completely down, and their passives' resolution wasn't all that great at this range, but what they could see was bad enough.
It was about one hour until local dawn, and Fuller's moon had set long since, which meant it was darker than the pit. The freedom Alliance terrorists had extinguished most of the exterior lights when they took over the industrial site, but even under those conditions, Alicia could make out the angular shape of heavy plasma cannon-the kind that could destroy heavy tanks or knock down even the most heavily armored sting ships. There were three cannon positions, each with four of the heavy weapons, spaced evenly around the Jason Corporation buildings, and she was almost certain she saw at least two hyper-velocity missile launchers, as well.
Her mouth tightened as she took in the weaponry so clearly on display. The terrorists had had the better part of three standard weeks since arriving here to prepare their defenses, but everything she'd seen so far shouted that the FALA had actually started the process long before that. They'd had to get the weapons and the personnel to man them on to the planet well in advance of Star Roamer's arrival, and it looked to her as if the air-defense cannon's positions had actually been ceramacreted at the same time as the parking apron around the Jason buildings. They'd certainly been graded out of the slopes of the hill under the building, almost like terraces set a little below the level of the rest of the parking apron. No doubt the architect's plans had shown some perfectly reasonable justification for them, but Alicia was grimly certain that their real reason for being was the purpose they were serving now.
Which means the "Jason Corporation" is going to get a very close examination from imperial Intelligence in the very near future, she told herself coldly. Not that that helps us a great deal right this moment.
"So what do we do now?" Tannis asked quietly.
"First, I send in my remote," Alicia replied, and sent the mental command to the small robotic scout riding her equipment harness. They'd lost two more of them since her last report to Sir Arthur, and a tiny part of her wanted to stroke the remote, as if it were some faithful, treasured hunting hawk, before she launched it on its way.
But she didn't. Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated on steering her flying viewpoint as stealthily as she could.
There were active sensors covering the terrorists' central position. She tasted them through the remote's senses, and she felt her way cautiously towards them. They rose in an almost unbroken barrier in front of her, but it was only almost unbroken, and their primary concern was with a direct assault landing. She hovered with her remote, a disembodied presence just outside the electronic fence, cautiously tasting its emissions for what the tick made seem a very long time, and then she nodded very slightly.
There was a gap. It wasn't much of one-certainly much too small for anything the size of an assault shuttle or a recovery boat to get through-but it was there, and she edged carefully, carefully into it. The remote carried a single detachable relay transceiver, and she guided the probe to the roof of the building and instructed it to detach the relay link. She positioned it very carefully, with the whisker laser directed back through the keyhole the remote had crept through. There was no guarantee that something or someone wouldn't stray into the transmission path and detect it anyway, but she could at least avoid the known detection threats.
Once the relay was in place, she lifted the remote higher, hovering directly above the central building. Its active sensors, like those of her armor, were locked down, but its passive sensors had a much closer look at the antiair defenses, and she grimaced. Her original impression had been correct, except that there were three multi-rail HVW launchers, one paired with each of the plasma cannon emplacements.
She studied them for several seconds even as she recorded every detail of the take from the remote, then sent her small henchman drifting silently along the building's eaves, looking for a way in. After a couple of minutes, she found one. The remote hovered under the roof's overhang, tiny cutting laser slicing quietly through the mesh-like grill covering the opening, and then floated very slowly through the ventilation intake.
The interior of the building looked much as Alicia had expected. A portion of it was cut up into office space and what looked like a cafeteria, but at least eighty percent of the vast structure was a single, open cavern dotted with maintenance workstations for the heavy construction equipment which should have filled it. There was a second-floor catwalk around the large, central area, and additional office space on that level, bu
t her remote's passives were more than adequate at such close range to confirm that only two or three of those offices had anyone in them.
Not that there weren't plenty of other people in the building.
The hostages huddled in the middle of the open space, most of them sitting on what appeared to be foam sleeping mats. There were portable toilets parked along the holding area's walls, and the remote's visual sensors showed her canisters of drinking water and what looked like standard Marine field ration packs. All of the captives were dirty and unwashed looking, and most of them sat folded in on themselves, with the body language of people who wanted to withdraw to some inner place, safely away from the terror which had enveloped them for two standard months.
On the other hand, there were actually fewer terrorists inside the building than she'd expected, and she smiled humorlessly at the realization.
We've seen so many of them out here that I've gotten into the habit of thinking they must have an inexhaustible supply of manpower, she thought. Well, obviously they don't.