R'gal turned from the screen. "Those bombs go up, we're here for a long time." Behind him, Devastator's main bridge screen showed an aerial view of the Hill. Hargrove had sent a suicide squad up through a hidey-hole-they were busily raining hand grenades and machine-pistol fire down on the SK sapper unit at the main entrance. Orange tracer rounds snapped back, raking the hilltop, followed by a dual stream of rockets exploding among the defenders as a Fokker-Cobra chopper came in low and fast.
Seen without audio from the battleglobe's bridge, it was silent, colorful and deadly, the bodies tumbling from hilltop to snow, or crumbling where they stood in perfect pantomime of death.
"Get down there and clean it up," said R'Gal, pointing at John, K'Raoda, S'Rel and Guan-Sharick.
"Who's down there?" said K'Raoda, pulling the white survival suit on over his boots. The personnel equipment lockers were in what had been a security ready-room, off the battleglobe's smallest flight hangar. The rectangular niches where AI security blades had lain at rest were now stuffed with survival suits, silver warsuits and gray field packs, their black duraplast straps dangling over the edge of the storage shelves. A double rack of loaded M32 blaster rifles sat to the right of the double doors leading to the hangar area.
"Down there's our old friend Admiral Hochmeister, Heather MacKenzie, about a thousand soldiers and four hundred megatons of booby-trapped nuclear weapons." John stopped by the arms rack, slid back the retaining bar and picked up a rifle. Checking the charge indicator, he tossed it to K'Raoda, then took one for himself. "We go to bring them sweet reason. Better take an extra chargepack, T'Lei." They stepped together through the doors.
"Rhode Island," John had dubbed this, the smallest of Devastator's hangar areas. Over five thousand AI assault craft lined the twenty miles of deck. Round and black, about forty meters in diameter, each with three gun blisters, the small ships could carry several hundred AI security blades into the heart of battle-three wedge-shaped meters of intelligent, pitiless steel, slicing and blasting their way through the enemy ranks.
The two men turned right, walking quickly past the silent assault craft, boots echoing in time down the immense battlesteel canyon. "Fifty hangars much like this on every battleglobe," said K'Raoda, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. "That's two hundred and fifty thousand infantry assault craft per battle-globe, times two hundred security blades per craft, times one million battle-globes." K'Raoda raised a clenched fist over his head. "Forward, men!" he cried, then laughed-a slightly hysterical laugh.
"I'm afraid the Fleet of the One's going to be disappointed when it gets here," said John. Ahead of them, center deck, sat a K'Ronarin Fleet shuttle, silver against the black of its surroundings, an oblong craft resting its landing struts, passenger ramp extended. S'Rel and Guan-Sharick stood waiting, watching as the two men approached.
"Disappointed?" said K'Raoda.
"Sure. They've been preparing for a million years to come after the God-Emperor or whatever he was and those all but magical ships that nearly broke them in the Revolt. Well, no one even remembers the God-Emperor's name, the magic's gone and all that's left is us, stumbling into each other. Hello, S'Rel, Guan."
"Don't give up on us yet, John," said S'Rel with a grin. "Not until we've stumbled into the enemy."
"Let's get down there before they blow each other up," said S'Rel, turning and stepping up the ramp and into the shuttle.
After a moment, the ramp retracted, the shuttle rose and accelerated with a faint whine of n-gravs. Piercing the blue shimmer of the hangar's forcefield, it soared up into the simulated sunshine of Devastator's atmosphere, breached the shield layers and was gone.
Heather rose from the office floor peering into the pale glow of the emergency lighting. There was no sign of Hochmeister. Automatic-weapons fire was echoing through the cavern-multiple, staccato bursts that rattled down the entrance tunnel, resounding in overlapping waves off the rock walls of the Hole. Running to the desk, Heather jerked open the bottom drawer-the destruct terminal was gone. "Shit," she whispered.
Holding the Magnum high and two-handed, she stepped into the corridor that ran past the offices to the tunnel entrance.
Smoke and the dim flicker of orange flame filled the tunnel, the thick tendrils of white smoke spreading slowly into the complex. As
Heather watched, three men wearing gas masks and clad in ski jackets burst through the smoke, turning to fire their machine pistols back down the tunnel.
Return fire ripped through them, tumbling their bodies to the granite as the first SK squad broke into the complex-six or so black-uniformed troopers who leaped the bodies of the dead defenders, charging straight for Heather. You're not taking this rebel alive, she vowed, raising her pistol.
A rough hand jerked Heather into a side corridor. Twisting free, Heather turned, finger thumbing back the hammer, and saw Hargrove, shirt blackened and torn, blood trickling down his face from a nasty scalp wound. "Run!" he ordered, jerking his head down the tunnel. As Heather ran, he pulled the pin on the grenade, chucked it back at the intersection and stepped into a rubble-filled alcove.
Heather ran.
The SK squad rounded the corner at a dead run, opening fire just as the grenade exploded, turning Colonel Ritter's point squad into four corpses and two badly wounded men. One of them was still screaming in pain-racked agony when Hargrove finished the job with two quick bursts from his minimac.
"Come on!" said Hargrove, catching up with Heather. Behind them, assault whistles echoed down the corridor as the two companies of SKs penetrated the Hole.
"Bomb room," gasped Heather as they ran. "Manual destruct."
"Back door," agreed Hargrove.
"Cuckoos have entered the nest. Cuckoos have entered the nest." It was the amplified voice of Hargrove's executive officer, sent echoing throughout the complex by the PA system. "White dove to chicks. White dove to chicks."
White dove's coming to hatch her chicks, thought Heather, keeping up with Hargrove. And kiss it all good-bye.
Back behind the tunnel's sheltering curve, other boots now echoed.
Futile, the whole project, she thought. And Hochmeister walking in as if strolling down the K'dam, slipping in through that ultra-secret entrance… Treason, something whispered in her head. It was a whisper she trusted, child of a broken nation in a treacherous world.
They halted, panting, at an intersection. To their right, the original tunnel continued. To the left, the remains of some old cave-in choked the passageway.
Hargrove stopped, hands feeling along the side of a vertical support beam. Watching him, Heather seemed to see him for the first time.
There was a sharp click and the tumbled pile of stone blocking the left-hand passage rumbled into the wall. They hurried through and the passageway resealed behind them.
Where does a nuclear bomb sit? thought Heather. Anywhere it wants, she answered, looking down at four hundred kilograms of plutonium 235, encased in fifteen dull blue shells of pure cobalt. They were fat little bombs on which some bored staff had painted fat little smiling faces, complete with jowls, and they sat on their dollies in a semicircle around the room's single console. The center bomb, the one facing the console, wore a deep frown-as it should-with the dual terminals of a thin, hard wire strung into its broad nose.
"Better get to it-white dove," said Hargrove, stepping down the short metal staircase and into the bomb room.
"King's bishop to white dove four." Admiral Hochmeister slowly walked to the center of the room, hands in the pocket of his unzippered parka. "My game, I believe," he said, hand on the console.
"Not yet," said Heather, and fired, sending three quick rounds into Hargrove's back. He was dead before his face could even mirror his first dull surprise.
"White dove takes bishop's knave," said Heather, advancing, gun leveled. "Only he and I knew about that bolt hole, Admiral -and I sure as hell didn't tell you."
"Look again," said Hochmeister, nodding at the body.
Heather risked a quick glance and stood transfixed: green, over six feet tall, tentacles extending from its shoulders, antennae on its head, mandibles where its mouth should be-a S'Cotar transmute lay dead on the floor, three large, ugly holes through its thorax.
"You sonofabitch," said Heather, looking at Hochmeister and raising the Magnum. "The bugs are back and you sold out."
He shook his head. "No. That one was one of Guan-Sharick's loyalists, working for me by mutual agreement.
"My offer to you still stands, MacKenzie," he said. "It won't be repeated."
"Step away from that console, Admiral."
Hochmeister looked up and behind her. "Ritter, kill her if she takes another step."
Heather turned at the snick of rounds being chambered-Colonel Ritter and three SKs stood in the doorway.
"I opened the door while you looked at the bug," said Hochmeister as they took her gun away. "Get your ordnance people in here, Colonel," he ordered.
"Excuse me, Admiral," said Heather as they handcuffed her hands behind her back. "When you opened the door, how many times did you push the switch?"
"Twice." Frowning, he looked at the small green button, then back at Heather. "Nothing happened the first time. Why?"
She laughed-a high clear sound that echoed through the room. "Baby chick takes all the king's horses and all the king's men. When this installation's on alert condition, that little green button becomes a booby trap-one opens the door with five seconds' delay. More than once within five seconds…"
"Destruct sequence activated." It was a recording, playing automatically from the overrun defense center. "Mark thirty. Twenty-nine
"Cut that cable!" Ritter ordered the three-man ordnance team just coming down the stairs, packs in hand. He pointed at the line running from the console to the frowning bomb.
As the first man touched the cable a green laser beam fired from the wall, boring a neat hole in his chest. He crumpled at Hochmeister's feet.
"I don't suppose there's a deactivation code?" said Hochmeister to MacKenzie. Behind them, Colonel Ritter was shouting into his transceiver to find and cut the auxiliary power.
"You might try 'Sic Transit Gloria Mundi,'" said Heather.
Hochmeister smiled ruefully, shook his head and took off his biofocals, polishing them carefully as the recording said, "Fifteen. .."
"Final matters," said the admiral. "You've always had my respect, MacKenzie. It's unfortunate we have to end this way."
Before Heather could more than open her mouth, three figures appeared in the room's center. Two SKs on the stairway raised their weapons, only to drop them as red lightning flashed from S'Rel's eyes, touching the machine pistols.
"Three, two…" said the PA system as Guan-Sharick stared at the console. Console and cable vanished.
"One," said the tape, and clicked off.
"Hold your fire, Colonel," called Hochmeister.
Ritter raised his hand as more SKs rushed into the bomb room. "Hold your fire," he repeated.
"Not that you'd get a shot off," said S'Rel, eyes scanning the troopers' faces. "I'm very good at this."
"Got yourself into a mess, Heather?" said John, walking over to the physicist-guerilla.
"John, I don't know where you came from…"
"A shuttle, parked outside, my dear."
"… but I'm delighted and relieved to see you." She turned her back to him, manacled hands outthrust. "The big thug in the corner has the key."
"I don't believe it's been established whose side they're on," said Hochmeister, pulling on his glasses. "Whose side are you, Mr. Harrison?"
"Our own, I'm afraid," said John, turning from Heather to face the admiral. He nodded toward the blonde. "You've met Guan-Sharick before."
Hochmeister bowed slightly. "Not in such a comely guise.
"Your associate's come to a bad end," he said to the transmute, indicating the dead S'Cotar by the stairs.
The blonde shrugged. "We've come to make you an offer you can't refuse, Admiral."
"Himmler once said the same thing to me," said Hochmeister. "And I said no."
"We're taking all your atomic weapons, including reserved fissionable materials," said the transmute.
"What for?" said the admiral.
"Fuel."
"What are you fueling-the moon?"
"About the same size," said John. "Only made of battlesteel and loaded with armaments. It's parked in orbit, needing a refill."
"Why tell us at all?" said the admiral. "Why not just take it?"
"We would have," said S'Rel. "Except that you people were about to dispose of this material-and yourselves-very dramatically and very uselessly. Instead, we'll dispose of it for you."
The bombs and Guan-Sharick were gone.
"Do you know how much work," began Heather, her face very pale, "how many people died…"
"We're off to fight the AIs on their own turf, Heather," interrupted John. "If we don't win, you'll all die. They know you're here, they'll come for you when they've finished with us."
"Harrison," sighed Hochmeister, polishing his biofocals, "take it all-all the filthy stuff. Just make sure, if you're cleaning us out, to do the same for the Russians."
"That's very generous of you, Admiral," John smiled. "Especially since you don't have any choice."
Guan-Sharick reappeared. "Ready to go?"
"One thing," said John, turning to Heather. "Tell my blond friend where you want to go-softly."
"I'm not a taxi," said the transmute as Heather crossed the room. She whispered something in Guan-Sharick's ear. The blonde nodded.
"Long life and happiness," said John as the two disappeared.
"It's unlikely she'll have either," said Hochmeister as the transmute reappeared.
"And the same to you, Admiral," said John.
Only Germans were left in the bombless room.