Dorsai! (24 page)

“Captain, I . . . very well,” said Donal. “You and ten men. Now.” He produced an architectural plan from inside his jacket. “If you'll all look here; this is the job we have to do.”

The plan was that of an underground residence on Coby, that planet which had grown into a community from a collection of mines and never been properly terraformed. Indeed, there was a question whether even with modern methods, it could be. Vega, an AO type star, was too inhospitable to its planets, even though Coby was the fourth out from her, among seven.

The plan itself showed a residence of the middle size, comprising possibly eighteen rooms, surrounded by gardens and courtyards. The differences, which only began to appear as Donal proceeded to point them out, from an above-ground residence of the ordinary type on other planets, lay in the fakery involved. As far as appearances went, someone in the house, or in one of the gardens, would imagine he was surface-dwelling on at least a terraformed world. But eight-tenths of that impression would be sheer illusion. Actually, the person in question would have ultimate rock in all directions—rock ten meters overhead at the furthest, rock underfoot, and rock surrounding.

For the assault party, this situation effected certain drawbacks, but also certain definite advantages. A drawback was, that after securing their objective—who was a man Donal did not trouble himself to identify—withdrawal would not be managed as easily as it might on the surface, where it was simply a matter of bundling everyone into the nearby ship and jumping off. A great advantage, however, which all but offset the drawback mentioned, was the fact that in this type of residence, the rock walls surrounding were honeycombed with equipment rooms and tunnels which maintained the aboveground illusion—a situation allowing easy ingress and surprise.

As soon as the four with him had been briefed, Donal turned the plans over to El Man, who went off to inform his assault party, and suggested to Lee and Ian that they join him in getting what sleep they could. He took himself to his own cabin, undressed and fell into the bunk there. For a few minutes his mind, tight- tuned by exhaustion, threatened to wander off into speculations about what would be taking place on the various worlds while he slept. Unfortunately, no one had yet solved the problems involved in receiving a news broadcast in deep space. Which was why, of course, all interstellar messages were taped and sent by ship. It was the swiftest and, when you came right down to it, the only practical way to get them there.

However, twenty years of rigid training slowly gained control of Donal's nerves. He slept.

He woke some twelve hours later, feeling more rested than he had in over a year. After eating, he went down to the ship's gym; which, cramped and tiny as it was, was still a luxurious accessory on a deep-space vessel. He found Ian methodically working out in the Dorsai fashion—a procedure the large dark man went through every morning when conditions did not prohibit it, as conscientiously and as nearly without thought as most men shave and brush their teeth. For several minutes Donal watched Ian on the single bar, doing arm twists and stands; and when his uncle dropped to the mat, his wide torso gleaming with perspiration and the reek of it strong in Donal's nostrils, Donal took him on at grips-and-holds.

The results were a little shocking to Ian. That Ian was stronger than he was only to be expected. His uncle was the bigger man. But Donal should have had a clear edge in speed, both because of age and because of his own natural reflexes, which were unusually good. The past year's strain and physical idleness, however, had taken their toll. He broke three holds of his uncle's with barely a fraction of a second to spare; and when he did, at last, throw the older man, it was by the use of a feint he would have scorned to use his senior year at school back on the Dorsai, a feint that took sneaking advantage of a slight stiffness he knew to be the result of an old wound in his uncle's deep-scarred left arm.

Ian could hardly have failed to recognize the situation and the reason behind the slightly unfair maneuver that had downed him. But nothing seemed to matter to him these days. He said nothing, but showered and dressed with Donal; and they went in to the lounge.

Shortly after they sat down there, there was the medication warning, and—a few minutes later—the shock of a phase shift. On the heels of it, El Man came walking into the lounge.

“We're in range, commander,” he said. “If you want the news—”

“Please,” said Donal.

El Man touched one of the walls and it thinned into transparency through which they could see the three-dimensional image of a Cobyman seated at a desk.

“. . . Has been spreading,” came the voice of the man at the desk, “following quickly upon the charges brought by the Commission for the Common Market System against Commander in Chief Graeme of the United Planetary Forces. The Com Chief himself has disappeared and most of his deep-space units appear presently to be out of communication and their whereabouts are presently unknown. This development has apparently sparked outbreaks of violence on most of the civilized worlds, in some cases amounting to open revolt against the established governments. The warring factions seem split by a fear of the open markets on the part of the general populaces, and a belief that the charges against Graeme are an attempt to remove what safeguards on the rights of the individual still remain in effect.

“As far as this office has been informed, fighting is going on on the present worlds—Venus, Mars, Cassida, New Earth, Freiland, Association, Harmony, and St. Marie; and the governments of the following worlds are known to be deposed, or in hiding—Cassida, New Earth, and Freiland. No outbreaks are reported on Old Earth, Dunnin's World, Mara, Kultis, or Ceta. And there is no present violence here on Coby at all. Prince William of Ceta has offered the use of his leased troops as a police force to end the disturbances; and levies of Cetan troops are either on, or en route to, all trouble spots at the present time. William has announced that his troops will be used to put down trouble wherever they find it, without respect to what faction this leaves in power. ‘Our job is not to take sides,' he is reported as stating, ‘but to bring some kind of order out of the present chaos and put out the flames of self-destruction.'

“A late signal received from Old Earth reports that a number of the insurgent factions are agitating for the appointment of William as World's Regent, with universal authority and strong-man powers to deal with the present emergency. A somewhat similar movement puts for ward the name of Graeme, the missing Com Chief for a similar position.”

“That's all for now,” concluded the man at the desk, “watch for our next signal in fifteen minutes.”

“Good,” said Donal, and gestured to El Man to shut off the receiver, which the scarred Dorsai captain did. “How long until earthfall?”

“A couple of hours,” replied El Man. “We're a bit ahead of schedule. That was the last phase shift. We're on our way in on straight drive now. Do you have co-ordinates on our landing point?”

Donal nodded; and stood up.

“I'll come up to control,” he said.

The process of bringing the N4J in to the spot on the surface of Coby, corresponding to the co-ordinates indicated by Donal, was a time-consuming but simple procedure—only mildly complicated by Donal's wish to make their visit undetected. Coby had nothing to defend in the sense a terraformed world might have; and they settled down without incident on its airless surface, directly over the freight lock to one of the subsurface transportation tunnels.

“All right,” said Donal, five minutes later, to the armed contingent of men assembled in the lounge. “This is an entirely volunteer mission, and I'll give any of you one more chance to withdraw without prejudice if you want to.” He waited. Nobody stirred. “Understand,” said Donal, “I want nobody with me simply because he was shamed into volunteering, or because he didn't want to hesitate when his shipmates volunteered.” Again he waited. There were no withdrawals. “Right, then. Here's what we'll be doing. You'll follow me down that freight lock and into a receiving room with a door into a tunnel. However, we won't be taking the door, but burning directly through one of the walls to the service section of an adjoining residence. You've all seen a drawing of our route. You're to follow me, or whoever remains in command; and anyone who can't keep up gets left behind. Everybody understand?” He looked around their faces.

“All right,” he said. “Let's go.”

He led out down the passageway of the ship, out through their lock and down into the freight lock into the receiving room. This turned out to be a large, gloomy chamber with fused rock walls. Donal measured off a section of one wall and set his torchmen to work. Three minutes later they were in the service section of a Coby residence.

The area in which they found themselves was a network of small tunnels wide enough for only one man at a time, and interspersed with little niches and crannies holding technical devices necessary to the maintenance and appearance of the residence. The walls were coated with a permanent illuminating layer; and, in this cold white light, they filed along one of the tunnels and emerged into a garden.

The cycle of the residence's system was apparently now set on night. Darkness held the garden and a fine imitation of the starry heavens glittered overhead. Ahead and to their right was the clump of main rooms, soft-lit with interior light.

“Two men to hold this exit,” whispered Donal. “The rest of you follow me.”

He led the way at a low crouching run through the garden and to the foot of some wide stairs. At their top, a solitary figure could be seen pacing back and forth on a terrace before an open wall.

“Captain—” said Donal. El Man slipped away into the bushes below the terrace. There was a little wait in the artificial night and then his dark shadow was seen to rise suddenly upon the terrace behind the pacing figure. They melted together, sagged, and only the shadow of El Man was left. He beckoned them up.

“Three men to hold this terrace,” whispered Donal, as they all came together at the head of the stairs. El Man told off the necessary number of the assault party; and they continued on into the lighted interior of the house.

For several rooms it seemed almost as if they would achieve their objective without meeting anyone other than the man they had come to seek. Then, without anything in the way of warning at all, they were suddenly in the middle of a pitched battle.

As they emerged into the main hall, hand weapons opened up on them from three converging rooms at once. The shipmen, automatically responding to training, dropped to the floor, took cover and returned the fire. They were pinned down.

They
were, but not the three Dorsai. Donal, Ian, and El Man, reacting in that particular way that was a product of genes, reflexes and their own special training, and that made the Dorsai so particularly valuable as professional soldiers—these three had responded automatically and in unison a split-second before the fire opened up on them. It was almost as if some small element of precognition had entered the picture. At any rate, with a reaction too quick for thought, these three swung about and rushed one of the enemy doorways, reached it and closed with their opponents within before that opposition could bring their fire to bear. The three found themselves in a darkened room and fighting hand to hand.

Here again, the particular character of the Dorsai soldier paid off. There were eight men in ambush within this particular room and they were all veteran soldiers. But no two of them were a match at hand-to-hand fighting with any single Dorsai; and in addition the Dorsai had the advantage of being able, almost by instinct, to recognize each other in the dark and the melee, and to join forces for a sudden common effort without the need for discussion. The total effect of these advantages made it almost a case of three men who could see fighting eight who were blind.

In Donal's case, he plunged into the dark room right on the heels of El Man and to El Man's left, with Ian right behind
him
. Their charge split the defenders within into two groups and also carried them farther back into obscurity—a movement which the Dorsai, by common silent consent improved on for the purpose of further separating the enemy. Donal found himself pushing back four men. Abandoning three of these to Ian behind him under the simple common-sense precept that you fight best when you fight only one man at a time, he dove in almost at the level of his opponent's knees, tackled him, and they went down and rolled over together, Donal taking advantage of the opportunity to break the other soldier's back in the process.

He continued his roll and came up, pivoting and instinctively side-stepping. A dark body flung past him—but that instinct spoken of before warned him that it was El Man, flinging himself clear across the room to aid the general confusion. Donal reversed his field and went back the way from which El Man had come. He came up against an opponent plunging forward with a knife held low, slipped the knife, chopped at the man's neck with the calloused edge of his hand—but missed a clean killing stroke and only broke the man's collar bone. Leaving that opponent however in the interests of keeping on the move, Donal spun off to the right, cornered another man against the wall and crushed this one's windpipe with a stiff-fingered jab. Rebounding from the wall, and spinning back into the center of the room, his ears told him that El Man was finishing off one opponent and Ian was engaged with the remaining two. Going to help him, Donal caught one of Ian's men from behind and paralyzed him with a kidney punch. Ian, surprisingly enough, was still engaged with the remaining enemy. Donal went forward and found out why. Ian had caught himself another Dorsai.

Donal closed with both men and they went down in a two-on-one pin, the opponent in a stretcher that held him helpless between Donal and his uncle.