Homefall: Book Four of the Last Legion Series (25 page)

None of the dozen soldiers in their bay heard the quiet hissing begin. There should have been more off shift in the compartment, but the invasion wasn’t a calming influence.

The gas was nonlethal. Later, Njangu was accused of getting softhearted or -headed, particularly by Ben Dill and Alikhan, especially considering, as Froude had suggested, how much simpler a killing gas like hydrogen cyanide was to manufacture.

Yoshitaro protested, vainly, that he wasn’t getting sentimental, but was worried about the rather improvised piping springing a leak and killing people he cared about. “Although for somebody like you two, I’ll cheerfully make an exception,” he muttered.

Only one soldier heard the noise before she was overcome. After a few minutes, a suited member of the Legion checked the compartment, nodded in satisfaction, and left the sprawled bodies for a cleanup detail.

• • •

Two soldiers trotted down a corridor, blasters ready. They didn’t look up, didn’t see Lucky Felip crouched behind a pressuring unit overhead. Aiming carefully with the small-caliber projectile weapon his father’s father had carried against the pranks of the biggers, he shot both of them in the head, then sneered at the memory of Lir’s caution in not arming him, back on Cayle IV.

He jumped down onto one corpse, went looking for other targets.

• • •

The arms locker was open, and Running Bear was busily handing out weapons. He noticed, without much surprise, that more of the waiting people were from the circus than the Legion.

• • •

Seven Protectorates swept through one corridor in the animal caging. They whirled, hearing a growling, saw two bears charging them, huge-clawed paws sweeping the deck.

They fired … but the bolts smashed into the creatures without effect. Then the bears were among them, slashing, tearing with their fangs.

The sole survivor ran hard, put his back to a wall, and fired again.

The creature coming at him, blood dripping from its mouth, was unhurt.

The soldier went mad, spun his blaster and shoved the muzzle into his mouth, pulled the trigger.

Meters away, the robot bear’s operator saw and threw up over her control panel.

• • •

Now the “Peace March” boomed through the ship, and the troupers went looking for weapons.

• • •

A soldier was backing down a corridor, blaster ready, his mate in front of him.

He didn’t hear a hatch slide open. Then a soft voice said:

“Remember me?”

He spun, saw Sunya Thanon, a handler’s billhook in his hand. The hook slashed in, took him in the eye, and smashed him to the ground. Thanon twisted the hook free, drove it deep into the man’s throat.

“And how does
that
taste?” he asked.

The man’s partner had his gun up as Phraphas Phanon shot him through the open hatch.

“I do not feel bad,” Thanon said. “That was for all the cruelties we have taken.”

Phraphas Phanon shook his head.

“That is not good, that is not the Way. But I do understand.”

• • •

Somehow the horses’ enclosure had been sprung, and animals galloped in panic back and forth across the huge show area.

Rudy Kweik and his wives were among them, trying to bring them under control.

A soldier saw a shot, fired at Kweik. He missed, but the bolt sent splinters up from the metal deck into Kweik’s legs. He shouted, went down.

The soldier took aim to finish the man.

High overhead, in the rear of the control blister, Darod Montagna shot once, and the man spun back, fell dead.

She grinned humorlessly, looked for other targets.

• • •

Half a dozen Protectorates were crouched behind an improvised barricade. They heard growling, snarling, and saw Alikhan, flanked by Ben Dill.

One fired, and the two Legionnaires ducked for cover.

An overhead hatch opened, and Monique Lir dropped down onto the deck, Squad Support Weapon firing.

The soldiers tried to return fire, were too late.

One came into the open, and Alikhan dropped him with his acid-pistol, burning a head-size hole in his chest.

Ben Dill looked for a target, saw nothing but bodies.

“Aw, goddammit!” he growled. “You went and did it to me again!”

• • •

Erik Penwyth shot two soldiers down, thought they were both dead, trotted forward.

One rolled to his side, fired, and the round seared along Erik’s side. He shouted in pain, went down, hand reflexively pulling a grenade from his weapons harness, thumbing it into life, and rolling it against the soldier.

The man reached for the grenade, didn’t make it as it went off, tearing him almost in half.

“Medic,” Penwyth moaned. “Goddamnit, medic!”

• • •

The soldier ran hard down the corridor, away from the nightmare that had killed three of his fellows, a man with his face and chest painted in black-and-white stripes, stripped to the waist, wearing only a leather diaper and leggings. The horror had shot down two of the soldier’s companions with a pistol, hurled a small ax into the middle of the third’s face.

The soldier had fled, hoping to find the exit from this ship, from these alien people.

Something moved ahead of him, something small and black. He fired, missed, and the animal darted around a corner.

He ran on behind it, away from that monster behind him.

The soldier saw the animal again, no bigger than his arm, running hard, close to a cage. He had his blaster ready to club it down when a black, clawed foreleg flashed out, caught his uniform, pulled him against the barred cage.

An instant later, Muldoon’s hind leg tore at his neck, and blood gouted.

Tia came back around a corner, saw the body, and began purring loudly. An echoing purr came from Muldoon as he curled up, lifted his hind leg, and began cleaning it.

• • •

A soldier crouched in the center ring, behind a clown cart, trying to get a shot at Darod, high above.

He didn’t see the
ra’felan’
s tentacle until it had him around the waist. He tried to turn, to shoot at the octopod, then the
ra’felan
smashed him against a bulkhead.

The
ra’felan
considered whether it bothered him to have killed, decided not, swung back up into the top of the hold, looking for another soldier.

• • •

The shouts echoed down the corridors, louder than the booming “Peace March.”

“Rube!”

“Hey, Rube!”

The circus troupe, some with blasters, some with improvised weapons, combed their ship for the soldiers.

Two circus people were wounded, five died, but all of their panicked guards died.

• • •

“All right,” Garvin said. “That’s that. Dump the ones we gassed into a lifeboat and kick it out into normal space.

“Damned if I care where it ends up.”

“Your orders, sir?” Liskeard asked.

“Make the first jump for Centrum,” Garvin said, thinking that was probably as close to a historic statement as he’d ever make.

“Right,” Liskeard said, then stopped. “Sir, could we hold for a second? I’ve got to check with my electronics people.”

Garvin frowned, losing the historical moment.

“Go ahead.”

Liskeard touched sensors, and a mike swung down. He spoke into it, listened, then nodded.

“Sorry I didn’t report this before, sir. But our electronics people have picked up a stray transmission.”

“From where?” Garvin asked.

“From us. They’ve tried to track it down, but sans results.”

Garvin blinked.

“Going where?”

“We don’t know that, either. But it happens as we jump, then again when we come out of hyperspace.”

“I want to see that report,” Garvin said. “Right away. And hold on the jump.”

He waved the nearest talker over.

“Get Yoshitaro, Doctors Ristori and Froude to the bridge. Immediately.”

• • •

“If it weren’t highly unlikely,” Froude said, “I’d suspect that someone put a bug on us back on Cay le IV.”

“Somebody did plant a device,” Njangu said, and told them about the transmitter Kekri Katun had. “But I checked its recorder, and there’s been no transmission to or from her at all. Although I’ve got to remind you, Garvin, that she was told by Berti, that Director she was hired by, that she would be picked up at the proper time. Maybe he wasn’t lying.”

“Most interesting, interesting,” Ristori said. “Might I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s make the assumption that we are, somehow, bugged. Would it not be possible to delay this jump closer to Centrum, and, instead, jump to some dead system where we can sweep the ship until we find whatever it is that’s leaking, bleeding, transmitting?”

Garvin thought, saw Njangu nodding reflexively.

“Better safe,” he decided, “than dead meat.”

Erik Penwyth stared morosely at the screen as
Big Bertha
settled for a landing.

“All green and nice, lots of water, and no population?”

“If there is,” Garvin said, “they’re keeping well under cover, and don’t use any known frequency.”

“Yeh,” Penwyth said. “A no-doubt-goddamned Eden.”

“Sure,” Njangu said. “Since this whole system doesn’t seem to have a name, why not? This’ll be Eden IV, ‘kay.”

“Prob’ly monsters under every leaf,” Erik said.

“Now, just ‘cause this is the first time you went and got your plow shot off, don’t get cranky,” Njangu said. “Just to make you happy, we’ll call the system Eden, and this planet Lonrod after your honey. Howzat sound?”

Penwyth considered. “Fine, I s’pose, assuming that Karo and I are going to be together for all eternity.” He thought for a moment. “After due consideration, whyn’t you go back to Scheme A, and go with Eden IV?”

• • •

No monsters appeared under any leaf, and so Garvin approved of letting the animals out for exercise and air, which was almost precisely E-normal, and anyone who wanted out for exercise, assuming they were armed and stayed within sight of the ship.

Meanwhile, he put every woman and man with any electronics experience looking for the source of that beep. The problem was that no one knew what triggered it, so there didn’t appear to be any way of setting it off, short of making another jump.

Techs used signal projectors that broadcast up and down the spectrum of frequencies, but without result.

Njangu triggered Kekri Katun’s transmitter twice, but that produced nothing, either.

His mood grew sourer as the hours passed, and then they’d been onplanet for four local days.

Nothing.

• • •

Like his charges, Emton was an early riser, and, again like them, once dawn was properly greeted, he went back to bed.

He led his six yawning cats through the animal area, Tia ducking a mock-lunge from Muldoon as she passed his cage, to the gangway. He’d taught one of the cats to rear onto her two legs and bring a paw up in mock-salute for the watch, who, grinning, returned it.

The troupe went down the gangplank, into the dewy grass, just as the sun’s rim came above the horizon.

The cats were taken out to “stale,” Emton’s wonderfully archaic word.

Tia finished her business, tried to start a fight with another cat, was batted sharply twice.

She bounded through the grass, looking for trouble, finding none, and came to one of the ship’s monstrous fins.

As she’d done for three days, she sniffed at the metal, found where it not only didn’t smell right, but had exactly the right pliability.

Purring loudly, she began sharpening her claws, slowly at first, then, as they dug in, faster.

Emton came on her then.

“Ohmigawd … ohmigawd … Tia, get away from there! You’re ruining our ship!”

Tia gave it another pull, just to remind Emton of who was in control, allowed herself to be picked up, and thumped on the flank with Emton’s forefinger in punishment.

“Oh my God,” Emton said, staring at the bare plas, and the narrow rip where things, unknown things, strange-looking electronic unknown things, showed through. “I’d better tell somebody. Oh my God.”

• • •

“Well smack my ass and call me Sally,” Garvin said in some astonishment. There was a crowd around
Big Bertha’s
fin.

“I’m sorry, sir. Tia didn’t mean — ”

Garvin became aware of Emton and the throng.

“Mister Emton,” he said formally, “I think you may have done us the greatest service of any trouper, and you can, if the technicians are correct, count on a very, very large bonus when we jump for home.”

Emton blinked in bewilderment. Garvin motioned to Njangu.

“Clear ‘em out, if you would.”

“Big rog, Gaffer.” Njangu called his security people, ordered them to get rid of the gawkers.

“That’s what I think it is, isn’t it?” Garvin asked an electronics officer.

“Cats
shouldn’t
be able to scratch through the skins of starships, sir.”

“Careful, mister. Sooner or later you’ll be putting the uniform back on, and wiseasseries will be remembered.”

“Sorry, sir.” The officer knelt, ran his finger around the tear. “See how it protrudes from the ship’s skin just slightly? I’d guess maybe a mag-couple, maybe some kind of ultra-glue was used to stick it on.”

“So somebody snuck up on us,” Garvin mused. “Tied this can to our tail, and we’ve been banging away ever since.”

Garvin took Froude and Ristori aside.

“You think that’s what we’ve been looking for?”

“Might well be,” Ristori said.

“So how would it get word back?”

“Possibly some kind of device like my Ohnce-Bohnce buoys,” Froude said, “Or, another way that would work is for some sort of missile to be linked to the sender.

“Assuming Cayle IV as its origin, which is logical, when we jumped from there, the first missile was launched. It went into N-space after us, homed on that second signal, which makes it a pretty sophisticated piece of electronics right there, then jumped back out in whatever normal space we’d emerged in.

“Possibly another missile would then be launched to join it, and that one would leapfrog the first and jump with us when we left the next system. Or else the second missile would replace the first, but that would require the first’s fuel and drive to be constantly in danger of being depleted.

“Each missile, probe, whatever they chose to call it, would signal back to its mate, then that in turn would ‘cast a signal until it eventually reached this Berti.

“Very sophisticated, beyond my Ohnce-Bohnce so much so that I would doubt the system is original with Cayle IV. Probably provided by the Confederation, or maybe one of the science worlds.

“In any event, it’s something I plan to steal once we get back to Cumbre.”

Njangu had come up and heard most of Froude’s theorizing.

“So there’ll be another probe jumping into this system in a time?”

“Precisely. Which will leave us the thrilling task of finding it, a metal toothpick, in a star system,” Froude said. “That could take a while.”

“Like forever,” Ristori agreed.

“Or maybe not a probe,” Njangu said. “Maybe a couple of battleships.”

“Why?” Froude said.

“Let’s just say a certain date … and a certain event … back on Cayle IV, have passed,” Njangu said.

“Oh crud,” Garvin said, remembering the bomb.

“I’d be expecting the worst … or else nothing, assuming we got the right people,” Njangu said. “But I don’t think it’d hurt to put out the Nana boats on the edge of atmosphere, with sensors all a-twinkle.

“Chaka and his flight suits need some exercise, anyway.”

“Good idea,” Garvin said. “Now, let’s dissect this pimple and see what we’ve got, in reality.

“Make sure the techs work carefully.

“The bastards might have booby-trapped it, to discourage curiosity.”

• • •

It was dusk, near the end of the first dogwatch, and Erik Penwyth was looking forward to his relief. His side hurt, still not healed, and he was hungry.

The troupers were all inside, most still in the mess tent, and the trampled field around
Big Bertha
was empty.

Penwyth caught a flicker out of the corner of his eye. Reflexively, in case this world did turn out to have fangs, he stepped back inside the lock. He picked up a pair of stabilized binocs, looked out again.

On the edge of the field, where low trees rose, were two figures. He had time enough to see that they were dark-skinned, very hairy, almost fur-bearing, and stood half-erect. He caught a flicker of something at one’s neck — a bit of mineral on a thong?

Then they were gone.

Penwyth considered the name he’d given the system, the world, grinned wryly.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

• • •

Five days later, one of the Nana boats reported something.

Or, rather, three somethings.

Not probes, but former Confederation battle cruisers.

Garvin ordered the boats to lie doggo out-atmosphere and wait for orders.

A few minutes later, Kekri’s transceiver blurped into life. Njangu was all ready for that.

Several messages were already encoded — not quite the cipher built into the machine, but something just a bit off. The static machine also would confuse the issue. Plus the data being transmitted from Kekri’s transceiver to the battle cruisers was the engineering specifications for
Big Bertha’
s primary drive, in excruciating detail.

That would slow the code technicians aboard the cruisers down for a while.

“ ‘Kay,” Garvin reported to his war council. “Since this is the first time they’ve wanted data from this transceiver, plus something else that happened recently on Cayle IV, it’s pretty obvious this is where the hand gets played out.”

He smiled grimly.

“I’m very damned tired of being kicked around and running.”

• • •

The three
aksai
, with Dill, Boursier, and Alikhan prone in the flight pods, floated out of
Big Bertha’
s cargo area, then slowly climbed, through drizzle and heavy clouds, toward space.

They didn’t do their usual zooming because the secret armories on
Big Bertha
had been opened, and two ship-killing Goddard missiles, six meters long, 60cm in diameter, hung on the mounts set up back on D-Cumbre, under each wing of the
aksai.

Liskeard hoped the watch aboard the three cruisers might be a little lazy, and, as long as the locator showed the circus ship hadn’t moved, they might not be overeager on their radars. That was another reason for the
aksai
to lift at far less than full drive — the cruisers’ proximity sets might be set to shrill if anything closed on them at too high a speed.

The warships hung in a geosynchronous orbit over
Big Bertha
, halfway between Eden IV and its single moon.

The
aksai
cleared atmosphere, held their orbit until Eden was between them and the cruisers, went to full drive for deep space.

Close to Eden’s moon, they braked and reset their drives, to come back in a high-speed looping orbit directly at the ships.

Ben Dill watched them close on one of his screens.

“No challenge, no nothing, just sitting quackers, aw, poor babies,” he said, then, into his mike, “Dill One … beginning attack pattern.”

Two mike clicks came from the other
aksai
, indicating his ‘cast had been received.

He was no more than a thousand kilometers from the cruisers when he activated the Goddard targeting systems. Minutes later, both beeped. Target acquired. He set both for the nearest cruiser.

“Dill One … closing,” he ‘cast. “On the high ship, targeted. Launch One … launch Two … breaking off.”

“Alikhan … on the center ship. One is gone … two.”

“Boursier, on the last scrap pile. One fired … the second’s gone.”

There was no sign of alarm or alert from the cruisers as the six missiles homed. All impacted, and there was nothing but three perfectly circular balls of flaming gas in space.

“
Big Bertha
, this is Mrs. Dill’s favorite son. Coming home, with the broomstick tied to the mast … we’ve got a clean sweep here.”

• • •

“ ‘Kay,” Garvin said. “Now, if there’s no more dicking around to be done, let’s go on to Centrum.”

“Takeoff within thirty seconds,” Liskeard said.

• • •

The locator, and Kekri’s transceiver, had been left behind, just in case they held any surprises.

The circus ship lifted away, vanished.

Two days later, the two primates Erik Penwyth had seen found the courage to approach these strange objects.

The one wearing a bit of mica on a string of gut chanced touching the transceiver.

It beeped at her.

She yelped, and, followed by her mate, ran for the trees, never again to come near this cursed place.