“Yes, please.”
“I’ll bring a tray.” Go back to your seat, that meant. He took the hint but chose to sit at the table. There was plenty of light to eat by; the attendant brought him a full pot of tea, cream, sugar, another roll, two flaky pastries, a small pot each of jam and honey, and silverware—it felt like actual silverware—wrapped in a warm napkin.
“Thank you,” he said. “This will be ample.” He finished the first mug of tea, and the roll with a generous spoonful of berry jam, feeling better, more solid to himself, with every bite. He poured another mug and had just taken a large bite of a flaky pastry filled with nuts, honey, and cinnamon when his skullphone buzzed. His hand jerked; he hit the teapot, dropped the pastry, and nearly choked trying to get the pastry safely out of his way. “Ughnh?”
“Master Sergeant MacRobert, this is Master Sergeant Pitt.”
His mind came fully awake. It was her voice. “What can I do for you, Master Sergeant?”
“I need to get a message directly to Admiral Vatta; can you alert her that I’m insystem and that I need to speak with her? I’ve read the sitrep she sent Rector Vatta.”
“I’m not sure,” MacRobert said. “I am not current on her situation right now; I was—detained, drugged, and was sleeping off the drug until a few minutes ago.”
“I see. Is there someone at your location who can? It’s fairly urgent.”
“I’m not certain how secure this line is,” MacRobert said. “I’m not behind the same firewalls. I’ll call you back.”
“I’m on Vanguard,” Pitt said. “Transferring to one of my unit’s ships in three hours. I’ll be out of contact for several hours then.”
“Sooner than that,” Mac said.
Grace was stirring; soft as he’d spoken, she’d roused. “Mac?”
“A call from Ky’s old friend in the merc fleet,” he said. “They got here fast, or I was out longer than I thought.”
“What’s she want?”
“To contact Ky directly. Now, if possible.”
Grace flung back her blanket and sat up. “Rafe: we need you.”
Rafe and Teague both jerked awake, rolled off their beds, and reached for weapons.
“Not that way,” Grace said. “Rafe, a mercenary rep—someone Ky knows—needs to contact Ky directly, now. Can she use a skullphone, since that thing you two have doesn’t interface with anything else?”
“Another skullphone?”
“The person’s on a ship, somewhere in the system—it’d have to be ansible-boosted. And Ky needs to know a call’s coming.”
“I’ll call her. It’s—oh, it’s probably after noon where she is—or something dayside, anyway. Grace, tell whoever it is to wait a half hour, in case it takes me that long to get Ky to hook in.”
Grace raised an eyebrow at Mac; he called Pitt and told her that Ky could take a skullphone call but not for a half hour, because it would take that long to locate her and set it up.
“Good,” Pitt said. “That’s still in the safety margin.” A pause then, “How are the other guys?”
“Mostly dead,” Mac said.
She chuckled, then her voice firmed. “It’s not clear from the data we have whether a cruiser could land on that strip—do you know?”
He felt his brows rising. “You’re thinking of taking your ship down—the whole thing?”
“It can do a planet landing. It’s apt to make a bit of a mess.”
“I don’t know anything about the strip except what we’ve been able to see the last fifty days—under a blanket of snow, mostly. No data on construction, no data on foundations. Nobody knew it was there—well, nobody but those who were keeping the secret.”
A longer silence. “I’ll tell my captain. It’s shuttle-length, though?”
“It’s used to supply a base there. Heavy aircraft use it twice a year; I’d land a shuttle on it if I had one. I don’t know what defenses might be in place.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Pitt said. MacRobert could hear the grin in her tone.
“You have the admiral’s skullphone code?”
“Oh, yes. She gave it to me back on Cascadia. We’ve chatted a few times.” Another pause. “I don’t suppose you have any interest in that young fellow who transferred to us…”
“Ky’s classmate at the Academy? Hal?”
“That one, yes.”
“Frankly,” Mac said, “I don’t. Nor, I expect, does the Admiral.”
“I wouldn’t mention him to her,” Pitt said. “But as a point of information, he is not involved in this operation you hired us for, and will never be part of any contract we hold with Slotter Key or the Vatta family.”
That had not even occurred to him. Now he felt a chill satisfaction. Hal would never see home or family again. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I had not made any connection yet.”
“Not surprising.”
“And while we’re waiting…the mercs your enemy’s hired are on the low end of tactical skill, but very definitely dangerous. They picked up a lot of Turek’s bunch who survived the war, as well as some of Turek’s supplies. Street says this contract was prime and they spent a lot at one of the dealers. No data on what they bought; it would take us longer than we had to find out. We don’t know for certain the ones sent were all Turek’s, but the word is they’re a meaner bunch now than before.”
Grace, now fully awake, was gesturing. “Just a moment,” Mac said. “The Rector’s signaling.”
“Rafe’s told her a call’s coming,” Grace said. “And your call’s gone on long enough. Just in case.”
“Contact’s made,” Mac said. “You’re free to call. I have to go.”
“Thanks,” Pitt said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
MIKSLAND
DAY 220
That night, in one of the smaller openings, Ky woke repeatedly to hear nothing, see nothing amiss. But every instinct told her that danger was much closer than it had been. In the morning, she was tired, and instead of eating lunch she lay down in that day’s rest stop and told Gossin to wake her when it was time to leave. She had just dozed off when the familiar stench woke her instead. She fumbled the cable from around her neck, and felt along the wall for the outlet. Green light. She plugged it into her implant.
“Ky, check your skullphone signal.”
“Rafe, how nice of you to call. Yes, I have a live skullphone connection. Why I have it when I haven’t had it for days now—”
“You’re about to get a call from someone you know, on a ship you know.”
“My, how mysterious.”
“Ky—it’s important. Are you awake? It should be day where you are.”
“I’m quite awake.”
She was certainly awake now.
“Don’t unplug your ansible cable. Leave that connection on, and answer your skullphone when it pings.” The ping of her skullphone followed.
“Hello again, Admiral. This is Master Sergeant Pitt.”
“Well met,” Ky said, still wondering what Rafe had done to the phone signal.
“We’ll be landing a fully equipped force in about two days; we received the sitrep you sent the Rector. Can you hold for two days?”
“Yes,” Ky said, her mental fingers crossed.
“Good. See you after we land.”
After that, sleep was almost impossible. She wanted to call Rafe back on the implant ansible and demand to know how he’d punched a skullphone signal through, but that would take more time than she had before Gossin came in to wake her.
She needed to stay alert and focused for whatever they actually found, and that meant—if she could stay awake this afternoon—using her implant to ensure better sleep than last night. They finished the day with another 180 kilometers covered, all boring.
NEARING PORTMENTOR
DAY 220
Rafe woke with a jerk when the pilot announced they were two hours from landing. “All’s clear so far. We’ll be on the ground unloading
the scheduled freight; relief crew will take her on.”
The cabin attendant was up; Rafe smelled coffee and what was probably breakfast. MacRobert was asleep; the Rector was awake, sitting at the table. She had changed clothes; Rafe wondered how long she’d been up. Teague turned over abruptly, opened his eyes, yawned. Rafe made his way to the toilet and back to the table.
“If you want to wait, you can shower in the Vatta offices after we land,” the Rector said.
“Then I’ll wait. What’s next?”
“I thought you wanted to destroy their data center.”
“I do. Easier and safer on the ground. If I do it from here, they could trace the source. Because we’re moving.”
—
A shuttle with the Vatta Transport logo stood on the apron nearby, pallets moving down a conveyor onto a flatbed attached to a tug. Rafe looked out the cockpit windows. Early-morning sun lit the taller buildings of Portmentor, the sea beyond showed varying shades of blue. To the right a headland jutted out, thickly forested almost to the water. Rafe could not see the mountains, looking west, but knew they were a tall mass to the east.
“And here she is, right on time—” Grace interrupted his observations.
A skinny ship Rafe recognized from his own trip in it had just landed at the far end of the long runway. “Is that the same Vatta courier—?”
“Yes. We should go out the back way. Come on.” The cabin attendant handed them each gray coveralls with the Vatta logo on the back; Grace pulled hers on as if she’d done that many times before. She led the way to the back of the plane, past cargo racks full of boxes and bags. At the rear, the attendant opened the passenger exit ramp, and as they started down it, other hatches opened on the plane’s sides. Ground crew pushed over conveyors and soon cargo was moving out of the plane onto more flatbed carts.
A flight crew waited at the foot of the steps; when Teague, last in line, had cleared the ramp, the flight crew headed up. Grace led the way into the Vatta offices and then up into the second level, where they had an almost-unobstructed view of the action below and what was outside the hangar. By this time the Vatta courier was almost to the hangar. Rafe gave it a glance and then looked around.
“Communications center here?”
“Through that door,” Grace said. “Have fun.”
Rafe glanced at Teague. “You want to do this?”
“You need me?”
“No. Just offering.”
“Then no thanks. It’s your game.”
Rafe set to work. He already had the linkages he needed, and he uploaded the probes to power sources, carefully routing them variously, with lockouts to protect this location. One by one he opened the gates, directing more and more reserves toward the data center. Though it was just dawn here, it would be several hours before dawn there. He brought up the satellite surveillance for that sector, zoomed in on it. The sky there was partly cloudy, but he could see, in the infrared band, the heat signature of every cooling vent.
All he had to do now was open the last few circuits, the ones he’d primed from Grace’s house. This…this…and finally…with the surge protectors all disconnected, the overload went through the entire center. He imagined the arcs from machine to machine, to everything electrical, all the circuitry from HVAC to lighting, from doors to…and there, the scale alongside the infrared scan shot up—much hotter inside. The first visible light, at one end of a building, brighter than the security lights on the perimeter. They would have explosive charges to protect vital data—and yes, there went the first. The second. Every office building everywhere had something flammable in it, if the temperature was high enough. There would be flames soon, with those temperatures.
Red flashing lights appeared at the entrance end of the facility—alarms would be going off. Rafe grinned at the images on the screen. Tiny dots of light were moving around, but increasingly hard to see against the glare of explosions, fire, and the steadily climbing temperature. Smoke obscured the visual bands now, but the infrared showed long blocks of white, one building after another. The only thing missing was sound, but he could imagine that. Right about now, the pipeline should—and there it was. He could see the shock wave; the communications masts went down, not onto the burning buildings but into the parking lot and entrance gates. He glanced back at the outer room, to see if anyone else was watching. Stella was there now, talking to the Rector. He turned back to the screens, now with his headset on, listening across the bands for any chatter about it.
About an hour later, what he heard made him yank loose his ansible cable and plug it in.
“What?”
The Rector, damn her, was right beside him; of course she noticed his sudden movement. “They’re moving. They’re moving now. I didn’t delay them; I kicked them loose. I have to get to Ky—”
“Do it, then.”
DAY 221
Again Ky woke to the familiar stench. She had gone to sleep easily that night, aware that the enemy might already have landed, but also that they had hundreds of kilometers of lead on them, with a lot of very thick doors in between. Yawning, she hooked up the cable.
“Ky! Get out now; they’re almost there!”
“Calm down—”
“No, seriously—they left early. I thought frying their data center would slow them down, but it didn’t.”
“You fried their—how?”
“Never mind how—you’ve got to get out. We thought there were just over a hundred; there’s two hundred, on four aircraft. They’ve already taken off from the Pingat Base and they’ll be there in just a few hours.”
“I told you we’d left days ago.”
“But you’re moving slowly—you can’t be more than a hundred kilometers ahead of them.”
“I knew you didn’t get all I said. We’re much farther away than that; more like six to seven hundred kilometers. With doors they probably can’t open between us and them, assuming they even realize there are doors.”
“But they were in the base every year for…years. They have to know every inch—”
“No. Didn’t you tell me it’s not the same troops? It’s those other mercs. They won’t know anything.”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Away from where they’re landing. I told you—” She stopped. “Maybe north. How’s the relief force coming?”
“Slower than I’d like. Stella just landed—uh—we’re in Portmentor; we’ll be flying again in a few hours, getting closer to you.”
“Not too close. Let the professionals handle it.”
“And what about you? Are you—oh. You’re a professional, too. Dammit, Ky, be careful.”
“I will be as careful as I can. And that means getting some sleep now, while I can.”
“Ah. Sorry; I should have realized—”
“Get some rest, Rafe. I’m going to.” She pulled the jack free and realized she was grinning. She’d surprised him again. She liked surprising him. Rafe was alive and well, the enemy had lost a data center, and somewhere in space Master Sergeant Pitt and a Mackensee landing force were on the way. Two days, Pitt had said. Even three wouldn’t kill them, she was sure. With any luck she had enough lead on the enemy that she’d merely have to deal with the boredom of riding a slow vehicle in a gray tunnel for several more days.
She let her implant put her to sleep.
CHAPTER FORTY
SLOTTER KEY, MIKSLAND
DAY 222
As one of the two designated liaisons for Mackensee’s landing force, Master Sergeant Pitt rode down to the surface of Slotter Key in the second shuttle. She felt some satisfaction in noting that, as usual, no plans had survived the first shots fired—neither side’s.
Ky had not expected any of this, from the shuttle crash on, and certainly not to be hunted by mercenaries. The Black Torch had been inserted as a covert force; they had no reserves in orbit and—as near as could be determined—only small units of local military on their side. They had not expected the arriv
al of a merc troopship—probably still didn’t know about it—or what was about to land right on top of them.
“Aircraft on the deck” came a voice in her headset. “Three big ones, one medium. Slotter Key military numbers. Are we sure those are Black Torch mercs?”
“Check their preferred band.”
“It’s them, all right. Same codes as last time we scalped ’em. And they have live scan. And auto-defense is hot.”
“Master Sergeant Pitt, inform our employer that we need the go button.”
Pitt switched to the channel the Rector had given her.
“Post Delta,” came a male voice.
“Requesting authorization code direct.”
“A moment.”
Then a woman’s voice. “This is the Rector. Operation is go.”
“Thank you,” Pitt said. She signaled to the com operator at the next desk. “You requested an open channel during action; will this suit?”
“Very well. Is this the Master Sergeant Ky knew?”
“Yes,” Pitt said.
“You’ve met MacRobert; he’ll take over if something flaps here. What’s it look like?”
“Active anti-air defense set up on the ground. Not a problem; we just launched at it and I don’t expect it to survive the next five minutes. We’re seven from landing. They very kindly cleared the snow off the runway for us.”
“Any sign of our side?”
“No, but we didn’t expect any. You’d told us they’d fled deep underground.”
“As best we know. They aren’t talking to us.”
“We’re dropping fast now,” Pitt said. Her helmet gave her a view out the front of her shuttle; the exhaust glow of the first dropped below her vision to a field now lit by fires on the ground.