Gretta looked up from her post at the glowing situation board. "Rebel contact reported in the foothills. Seventh Section has Groups all through there. Mayz reports skirmishing. She thinks it's infiltration. They're closing."
"Rotted Gods! Why won't Fleet give us orbital recon?" Sinklar balled a fist as he looked up at the situation board: an orthographic holophoto depicting terrain, elevation, structures, and troop positions. Sink turned, staring through the polarized windows to see streaks of blaster fire beyond the city limits.
Gretta gave him an acid smile. "I think, Sink, that considering the wonderful support Fleet and Defense have given us in the past weeks, you know exactly why."
"Still the sacrificial First," he punned. "All right, so be it. We don't have any more information than the Rebels. We ought to be able to hold our own. "
Gretta frowned at the information coming into her headset. "Second Section reports contact along the northern defensive perimeter. Sergeant Kitmon is pulling back in a tactical retreat."
"This is it," he said softly as the realization ran through his mind. I've bet Targa-and the future-on this attack. Will they fall for the trap? Please, dear Blessed Gods, may it be so. If not ... well, death will be hard on the heels of mis rtune.
Sink took a deep breath to still the uncertainty pumping with his very blood. In moments, he'd know whether they'd won or lost. "If they have any sense, they'll be hitting Mac next. "
"Mac!" Gretta's voice rang out as she accessed comm. "Have your advance Groups ready. They're coming." Sink punched the button that accessed the room speakers so he could hear the entire net.
"Affirmative," Mac's voice came through. "We're ready to withdraw. I've briefed the troops on their part. My compliments to Sink, he called it on the noggin again. They're right on time."
Sinklar glanced up at the situation board while his guts squirmed. It could still go terribly wrong. "Now, let's pray to the Rotted Gods their commander has as much sense as I give him credit for." He paced back and forth popping his fist into his palm. "The only way we can lose is if the man's an idiot!"
Gretta pinned him with a cool stare and shrugged. "After Kaspa, I don't believe that."
"Maybe Kaspa was the result of pus-rotted luck," Sink reminded, his eyes going to the situation board. "Come on, Rebels. It's right there in front of -your noses-the key to the battle! Take it."
"Kaspa? Luck? You don't believe that." Gretta input new data as the Section Firsts chattered back and forth. "Mayz here. I've got a large contact in the foothills," the net crackled. "Groups A to D withdrawing under heavy fire. "
"Shiksta?" Sinklar called. "What is your status? We're about to take a major assault."
"We're ready, Sink. Got the heavy stuff positioned. My boys are briefed, nervous, and determined to do their part," the big black sergeant responded.
"Now, if Mac can just do his," Sinklar whispered, eyes going to the stat board as lights flickered.
An incredible rainbow display rippled across the plains east of Vespa. The Targan advance inched closer in an attempt to tighten a noose around the city.
Reports began streaming in as Sinklar moved his units, mind racing to counter the Targan offensive.
One of the other speakers crackled as the guard on the rooftop called, "First, I just spotted an intruder with my starlight scope. Looks like one person with some sort of pack. He came through one of the manholes in the back alley. Must have hit that passage we sealed off and decided to try something else."
"Got him!" Gretta snapped, accessing a screen to show an armored figure approaching at the lower doors. A woman advanced cautiously toward a side entrance. A bulky pack gave her a hunchback appearance.
Sink nodded as he watched the furtive figure. "Notice the lack of IR? That's a pretty sophisticated suit she's wearing. With that, she'd get by standard sensors without tripping an alarm."
"Yeah," Gretta agreed. "You thought they'd try something like this."
"It's their pattern," Sink agreed. "But I'm not Atkin, Kapitol ... or Mykroft." He turned to the building intercom. "Mhitshul? We've got our bogey.
Looks like she's headed for the west side door."
"Roger, First."
"Think you'll get her alive?" Gretta asked as she turned her attention to the situation board again.
"Depends," Sinklar mumbled absently. "Everything . . . depends."
The woman studied the side door. One by one, she bypassed the alarms. Then palm latches fell to her tools. She pushed hesitantly. No good, the doors had been deadbolted from the inside. With a vibraknife she sliced the hinges loose, catching the big door as it fell outward, muscles straining as she lowered it to the ground.
At that moment—with her attention diverted—Mhitshul's stun caught her. She stiffened as every nerve in her body fired, then slumped to the ground.
"Readings say she's out," Mhitshul reported.
Sink ordered, "As soon as you have her disarmed, scan her for implanted explosives, hollow teeth, poisoned nails, or anything else. Take no chances and leave her gear in the street. You know the drill."
"Yes, sir."
"She's very good to have found us at all. Must have been that supply car from munitions that tipped her off." Gretta went back to the boards.
"Ayms." Sink forced his concentration back to the battle. "You're twenty klicks to the east of Mac. That should be his defensive fire you see on the Killing Ridge. Stand by. You're in a perfect position if Mayz can hold on and kick them back. She's been playing wounded, drawing them in."
"Got it, Sink. Yeah, we've been seeing Mac's fire. It's getting a little hot here, too. We've been falling back. I make us to be three klicks northeast of the grain shipping terminal."
"You're doing great. Keep your head up. Things are going to be happening all at once."
Mhitshul and two privates carried the woman through the door and dropped her strapped and bound body onto a thick-cushioned couch in the plush living room.
Sink glanced up to see Mhitshul standing guard over the woman with a drawn weapon. "Mac? You're on the hot seat. Withdraw from the Killing Ridge. Slowly now. Don't let them think you're giving it to them. They've got to buy it with blood or someone will get suspicious."
Gretta continued to chatter in her calm manner as she reassured Group and Section leaders while they retreated from the massive onslaught of the Targan advance.
"It doesn't do you any good to pretend," Private Mhitshul interrupted Sinklar's thoughts. "Considering the way you just fought those bonds and the breath you took, you're more than awake."
Sink glanced at the board one last time. Everything looked like it would work—just like he'd planned.
"Why am I here? What will you do to me? Keeping me for rape? Maybe sale to the slave markets?" The assassin's voice absorbed Sinklar's attention with sultry promising tones. He turned and studied her, noting how her body strained at the fabric of her clothing.
Private Mhitshul shook his head slowly, and Sink could see that he, too, devoured the woman with his worshipful gaze. "No, not at all. You're the type we would recruit. You brought a satchel with enough explosives to blow the entire top of the building off to within a gnat's whisker of the First Assault Division's ops center. The other amazing thing is how you managed to avoid tripping the active IR sensors or stumbling over any of the booby traps we've panted around this place."
She stared at him through burning amber eyes, features hard. "How did you knock me out? I never saw or heard a thing."
Mhitshul leaned against the table as he fingered his pistol. "Sinklar doesn't leave much to chance. We had a man on the roof with a starlight scope—just in case. What you experienced out there was a device called a stun rod. I suppose the best way to describe it is that you have three types of nerves which provide you with sensation. One of those nerve types feels pain. The microwave length is tailored to fire just those synapses. I'm sorry to inform you that certain brain cells are also stimulated. We killed about as many as if you'd gone o
n a three-month drinking binge."
She nodded, taking another deep breath. "You don't fight like Regans."
Mhitshul laughed. "We know. Sink's about to prove that fact to that army out there."
"Optimism can sometimes bring grief. The Second Division found that out to their dismay." She glared at him, coldly provocative tones in her voice.
"Sinklar Fist is not Mykroft—and you're dealing with the First Division. We ain't anything like the Second." Mhitshul uncrossed his arms and lifted a shoulder. "Want to watch your Rebels take it on the chin?"
"No, but I'll watch our people rip your precious Regan asses to pieces." She shifted her gaze to Sink. "What now? Death? Torture? Rape? Slave sale?"
"I'm off the Killing Ridge." Mac's tense voice came through comm. "The Rebels have the whole thing. We took fifteen casualties—but I think they're satisfied they bought it the hard way."
"Nice work, Mac," Sinklar praised as the stat board lights changed. He turned, frowning at the assassin. Her curious eyes fascinated him. They pinned him, and, for a brief moment, he swayed in their amber power. The universe might have funneled into those hypnotic depths.
Enough to lure my attention away from the battle? Sink turned on his heel, striding over to meet the woman's stare with one of his own. Another front to this fight? he wondered as he bent down before her and locked gazes in a battle of wills. For long moments, he wavered, aware of the musky scent of her body, of her firm flesh and the delight it promised. Finally she gasped, blinked, and looked away.
The spell broken, Sinklar examined her. Young, her auburn hair draped in glorious waves over her shoulders to contrast with her amazing amber eyes, straight nose, and high forehead. She had perfect cheekbones over a delicate jaw, flawless tanned complexion slightly reddened by the excitement of the battle. The muscles of her flat stomach rippled. Her breasts strained at the formfitting suit she wore as if possessed of a desire to be free.
But her eyes, seemed so ... familiar! A sudden realization hit him: She's a Seddi assassin—just like my mother once was! He frowned, lips parting as he studied her. A warmth rose in his breast. But for the irony of time, this could have been his mother. Would Tanya Fist have had that same wild sensuality? Pate wrapped about him.
"Sink?" Gretta called with an unfamiliar tension. "There's a war on."
Sink walked back to the board, aware of Gretta's sharp scrutiny. He tilted his head in a questioning manner and Gretta's throat burned red as she turned back to the situation board. Jealous?
"Ayms," Sink called to the comm, "your people are on deck now; time to hit them back. If you and Kap can roll their flank up against the ridge while Hauws and Kitmon push back their side, we've got them right where we want them." He rubbed his chin nervously. Why did the Targan assassin seem so familiar?
"Well, that's it," Gretta finished wearily. "We make it or break it in the next half hour." She turned her attention to the assassin. "So you're the saboteur? What do we call you?"
The woman blazed with barely caged anger. "I am Arta Fera. I was only out for an evening stroll. Your man here got a little too zealous."
"With a satchel charge powerful enough to put us all in orbit?" Sinklar asked.
"You were most professional, so I assume you're in contact with the Targan resistance, possi bly with the Seddi themselves. Perhaps we can all come to terms and stop this nonsense."
"I thought you'd be older. You don't look like much of a Division First."
"You don't look like much of an assassin, either. I always thought an assassin would be older, less . . . obtrusive." Is that a Seddi trait? To use beautiful women, women like Tanya Fist?
Arta bit her lip and looked away. "I take it I am to be executed. Or would you use me as a bargaining piece when our forces overrun your positions?"
Sinklar considered as he kept one ear on the combat reports coming in through the comm. "I suppose that depends on the next half hour. I don't know who their First,is, but he's very good. I detect a sure hand, a bright mind behind their movements and training. We should have had him in position an hour ago. He's handled the battle quite adroitly. "
She laughed. "He's a comm repairman by trade. He is also the man who will break your Regan rule on Targa!" "A comm repairman?" Sinklar pondered as he turned his
attention to the blaster fire that streaked the horizon beyond the shielded windows of the penthouse. "I pray then that he survives. Talent like that is too good to be wasted. I would like to make him one of us."
"One of you?" Arta laughed at the absurdity of it. "Regan scum-sucker, he's fighting for Targa!"
Sinklar spun on his heel and he extended his hands toward her. The woman's lips parted as he whispered softly, "So am 1, Arta."
She swallowed and took a serious look at the stat board. The back-lighted orthographic photo glowed with colored lights to indicate Rebel and Regan movements. From the number of red positions, the Rebels had taken a major interfluvial ridge immediately outside of town. At the same time, the Rebel forces on the wide plains were being pushed inexorably back on the impregnable defenses of the ridge. The outlying perimeters of the fight surrounding Vespa seemed more or less stable. Defensively, the ridge dominated, the strategic key to the whole valley-and Targans held it.
"This comm repairman, what's his name?" Sinklar asked, softly. "I want to talk to him before it's too late."
"His name is Butla Ret." She gasped, a crimson flush supplanting her tan.
Sinklar's intuition triggered at the tone in her voice. "He is your lover?"
Would he be the modern analog to my father? Is that the pattern? If I see him, will I see a version of Valient Fist? Will I see my own origins?
"That is no concern of yours!"
He dropped to one knee, searching her face as his fingers took her bound hand.
Arta shivered suddenly as though a surge had passed from his flesh to hers.
He implored her, struggling to touch her very soul, "Arta, will you help me?
We can stop all this. His death serves no one. Not me, not Targa, not anyone.
Will he listen to an appeal from you? Could we stop the fighting long enough so he and I could meet? Maybe talk about a solution?"
She shut her eyes to escape his mesmerizing stare and bit her lip, as if pain might fight his soft insistent tones. Somehow she forced herself to resist.
"No, Regan. It's out of the question. "
"I'm not your enemy, Arta. I don't want to destroy him." Or am I only seeking to preserve a tenuous link to my past? She twisted her head away. Struggling, voice quavering,
she asked, "Destroy him? How, Regan? He's got the ridge!"
Sinklar stood and moved away. Arta blinked, her breathing coming more evenly.
Gretta's gaze followed the woman's as she looked back across the room to the situation board. Even a fool could see the gradual erosion of the Targan flanks around the ridge.
"That ridge," Sinklar said sadly as he pointed at the Targan position on the situation board, "is a death trap. Deep in the guts of the rocks we buried the reactor from a power unit taken from a crippled LC. As soon as we can roll the flanks back far enough, we will tell the Rebels what their situation is and demand their surrender." He turned to pin her with his oddly colored eyes. "I would rather take them alive." Maybe learn the secrets of who you are-find the key to my parents.
Gretta hunched in the chair, nervous gaze darting back and forth between Arta and Sinklar.
"Not Butla," Arta whispered, voice thick with dread. "Rotted Gods, no!" The amber eyes glazed crazily, setting a horrible shiver playing along Sinklar's spine. A warning triggered in his subconscious. She's teetering on the edge of something I don't understand. Beware, Sinklar, she's dangerus-more dangerous than anyone you've ever met.
"Will you contact him ... save him and his troops? I need them, Arta. Targa needs them. Alive." Sinklar bent down beside her again, gaze boring into hers.
She swallowed, expression haunted. "I will ... talk to Butla
Ret. "
"Don't let her, Sink," Gretta warned. "She's not sane. Something is terribly wrong with her."
Sink rubbed the back of his neck. "It's our only chance, Gretta. To save them, turn them to our side, I'll take a chance. How long until we're in position to destroy them?"
"From the way they're falling back, we could probably establish contact with the blast perimeter at any time." Gretta replied. "Should I attempt to make contact with this Butla Ret?"
"If you would." He smiled wistfully. "Let's see if we can t bring the killing to a stop."
Arta's glazed attention followed each of Gretta's moves as she began keying different channels into the comm, sending on all frequencies. A panicked expression flickered across the prisoner's face.
The minutes passed slowly as Arta studied the ridge, ominous where it dominated the stat board. Her perfect mouth came open as she stared, transfixed.
"This is Butla Ret. Who are you? What do you want? A deep bass filled the room.
Sink walked up to the comm as he composed his words. "Sinklar?" Gretta called, voice firm, pointing at the shivering assassin. Fera looked berserk as she writhed on the couch. Mhitshul had begun to sweat, licking his lips nervously.
Sinklar took a deep breath, and gave a shrug of desperation before he faced the speaker.
"I am Sinklar Fist, First of the First Targan Assault Division, Lord Ret. I want to stop this battle and meet with you to discuss bringing this war to an end." Fist crossed his arms and gazed at the stat board expectantly, eyes strained as if trying to see through the map, to find his opponent in the wrinkles and contours of the holograph.
"Why should I deal, Sinklar Fist? My forces hold the strategic ground. We've taken the Vespa Ridge-the key to any defensive position in the valley." His deep booming voice sounded imminently reasonable.
Gretta winced at the sight of Arta Fera, who twisted with horror.
So many lives hinge on this ... this crazy woman? Blessed Gods, help us!
Sinklar continued, "And if I told you the ridge was mined, that your flanks are being pushed back within the blast radius, what would you say then?"