Star Risk - 01 Star Risk, Ltd (20 page)

The troll turned off the main path, and pushed brush aside.

Riss saw the first guard, with a nocked arrow pointed at her chest.

"Her" troll squeaked severally. The other one shook his head, but didn't shoot.

Another guard, this one armed with a weapon as primitive as the first troll's, came from nowhere, then two, then half a dozen.

They were chittering away, and Riss didn't think they were making friendly greetings.

She counted thirty, perhaps forty of the trolls, in various sizes, all dressed similarly, all armed. She couldn't make out any signs of their sexes.

One came close, and fingered her arm. She looked down at him, and the alien spread jaws in what might have been a smile, made a pinchers with his claws, and mimed pulling off a piece of Riss's flesh and putting it in his mouth.

And I could have kept right on trundlin', Riss thought sourly. But I wanted an invite to Saturday night's dinner.

As the main course.

The camp was as primitive as any she'd seen on any world, or in her anthro studies: a tree-covered clearing, with huge boulders around it. The boulders concealed small caves, and a great slab sheltered a cooking fire.

Primitive, but effective, Riss thought. The rocks'd hide any infrared, the caves'd sleep dry and fairly warm, and the trees would block visuals.

She'd seen�hell, she'd made�worse herself in the field.

Her troll indicated a rock for Riss to sit on. She set the child's body down as reverently as she could, put the rifles on the ground.

It was as if the trolls noticed the weapons for the first time, squeaking away as if it were Crossmass or something.

Riss tried to improve her lot, indicated the weapons, then motioned to the trolls, with a smile.

There was silence.

Her troll came close, and held out his hand for her blaster.

Reluctantly, she gave it to him, thinking that if things didn't work out, he'd be the first to die.

Two trolls came out of a cave. Both carried short staves.

They rapped them together, and there was silence.

One indicated M'chel's troll. She decided he had to have a name, couldn't remember what any of her childhood trolls were called.

She pointed to him, and raised an eyebrow.

As if he'd understand that meant a question.

He pointed to his chest. Riss nodded. He squeaked twice, very shrilly. That might have meant "Who me," a name, or even, "My chest, dummy."

She decided Two Twitters would be name enough.

He turned away from her, and began chattering away to the two with clubs, pointed at the two bodies, and there was a moaning.

He motioned walking, then reached up four times, indicating the men who'd caught him and killed his wife and child. Riss was making large assumptions about age and gender, but then, these were her trolls by right of discovery.

He went on with his story, and there were gasps at the torturing, then wide eyes when he was rescued, and Riss heard murmurs that might have been sympathy.

Two Twitters finished, picked up one of the blasters, and pointed. M'chel thought it might have been in the same direction he had before.

Murgatroyd's base?

The two chiefs, if that was what they were, went to one side, and consulted.

The argument went on for almost an hour, and it was getting dark.

Riss, even though she knew they were debating her fate, yawned.

It had been a very long day.

Then the two of them came back, and squealed to Two Twitters. He swung his head to the side twice, then turned, and picked up her blaster.

Holding it by the grip, he came toward her.

M'chel braced. He'd be the first to die, then she'd be on the two guys with the clubs.

When they went down, she'd try running, hoping the shock would scare the trolls long enough for her to break free.

Two Twitters turned the blaster, extended it butt first to M'chel, then pointed the way they'd come in.

Riss stood up, holstered the weapon.

She bowed to the chiefs, to Two Twitters, started away.

Then she stopped, wondering what the hell was going through her head.

Marines didn't retreat, goddamnit. Even ex-Marines. At worst, they just advanced in another direction.

Besides, these shorties knew where the goddamned raiders hung their hats.

She turned back.

"Guys," she said slowly, knowing the trolls weren't understanding a word, "you can welcome your new advisor.

"I'm gonna show you how to get back at those pimps. Hell, I'm gonna show you how to get back for every frigging thing that humans have done to piss you off since First Contact."

Major M'chel Riss's smile was not particularly pleasant.

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THIRTY-FOUR � ^ � Sit down, Atherton," the woman said, not introducing herself, and Goodnight understood what Navarro had meant when he said the five or six "real bosses" wouldn't be hard to recognize.

The woman wore a well-tailored, conservative civilian suit, and her long, dark-blond hair was curled on the back of her head. Goodnight guessed her to be in her mid-fifties.

And she oozed self-control and power.

Goodnight wondered why she'd gone foul of some law on some world or system, instead of being what she looked like�a very high official in the Alliance.

He wondered if that was exactly what she was, working under deep cover, then discarded the notion, even though the Alliance, to his personal knowledge, had done things far more underhanded. This operation didn't have, for one thing, the top-heavy rank and structure so beloved by the Alliance military, overt and covert.

"You're a bester," the woman said.

"I am."

"We don't see many of those," the woman said. "The Alliance doesn't like to lose people they've put as many credits into as you."

Goodnight shrugged.

"In my case, they weren't consulted. Things went wrong, and it was their damned fault. I don't mind getting killed by my own stupidity, but not when it's gonna be by the people who're running me."

"A nice sense of loyalty."

"A nice sense of self-preservation," Goodnight corrected.

The woman allowed a wintry smile, looked at a hidden screen.

"When you were first available, on Puchert, we thought you could still be with the Alliance. However, you proved us wrong. Deliberately?"

"Deliberately," Goodnight said.

"You besters are more than just modified muscle," the woman said. "Very good. I can tell you that we had immediate plans for you as soon as we realized you weren't a double. After a very short testing period, we intended to put you in charge of one of our raiding teams, in the asteroid belt.

"However, circumstances here on Glace have changed somewhat.

"When the transport you were aboard was approaching this base, it was somehow spotted by ships belonging to the free-lance security team working for our enemies.

"We destroyed the ship, but evidently there was at least one survivor."

Goodnight held up a hand.

"I'm confused. What's this free-lance security team? And how do you know our ship wasn't seen by whatever military Glace� the Foley System� has got?"

"Transkootenay Mining has retained a small independent company, foolishly trying to save money, but all to our benefit. And we know� you do not need to know how, but it is one hundred percent� that the tracking ship didn't belong to Foley's own space force."

Goodnight filed that for later contemplation.

"Fine," he said. "Go ahead."

"These survivors of the crash managed to evade us, and seem to have linked up with the subhumans in the jungle, the ones we call 'Grays.'

"We lost a four-man patrol the day after we destroyed their scout ship, and six more of our security element outside this base have been killed.

"Killed and stripped.

"The Grays have always been our enemies� humanity's enemies� attacking our patrols and even listening posts when and where they can. But it was always smash-and-kill, no more than one man at a time, and that man or woman killed with the most primitive weaponry.

"These last ten were cleverly stalked and murdered with modern weapons, weapons taken from our dead.

"Somehow these survivors have managed to ally the Grays with their own designs.

"It's intolerable to have our flanks being nipped at like this, when we are almost ready to begin a final push to drive Transkootenay Mining from the system, and our final goals realized."

Goodnight wanted to ask, "Which are?", but knew better. He kept his expression bright, interested.

"There are no more than half a dozen Gray settlements in our immediate area. That's not a precise estimate, for these savages have a certain ability at hiding from our detectors.

"Be that as it may, we're putting together a hunter-killer team, which will be led by you and an experienced jungle fighter. Twelve men, and they shall all be experienced in ground combat.

"Your task will be to first find these survivors� we suspect three or four� and kill them."

"What about the Grays?"

"Obviously any that stand in your way are to be destroyed. We do not wish to encumber ourselves with prisoners. When we have the survivors of that scout ship, the Grays will return to being no more than an annoyance.

"That's all. Navarro will provide you with whatever equipment you need, maps, and so forth."

The woman stood.

Goodnight remained seated.

"Is there a problem, Atherton?"

"Well," Goodnight said thoughtfully, "I joined without too many specifications about my job description. But this assignment sounds not just interesting, but a little on the dangerous side.

"Perhaps we should reconsider some of the terms of my contract?"

The woman started to look angry, then smiled her cold smile once more.

"That can be arranged. And, if I had any doubts of your legitimacy as a mercenary, there are none at all now."

The experienced jungle fighter called himself Siegfried. No last� or maybe first� name. But he appeared to know what he was talking about.

The other ten were a little less impressive. They were service experienced, but few of them had much in the way of combat, other than chasing dissidents in the hills on one-day patrols.

"What can you expect?" Siegfried told Goodnight.

"Hard goddamned times when most of the galaxy's at peace.

"A nice gawdawful war, and there'd be a lot more of us for rent with headbanging time."

"Not to mention more competing for fewer jobs," Goodnight said.

"Yeah," Siegfried said. "That's true enough. Maybe things are best as they is."

As for equipment, there wasn't much in the quartermaster's for in-atmosphere combat, although a great deal of up-to-date gear for suit fighting.

Goodnight sorted through what there was, kept the eleven he'd been assigned from ladening themselves down with every comfort, and decided it was time for some real training.

He went over the maps, found an area not far from the base that was hostile, but not, at least by previous reports, all that hostile. He didn't want his soldiery to get immediately wiped out, especially when he was around.

Goodnight wondered how he was going to play this hand�certainly he didn't want to kill these survivors, whoever they were. Although he might have to, to keep from blowing his own cover.

He wondered if he would be able to turn his tracking device on and get Star Risk inbound for a rescue before things came to a head.

He certainly didn't want to flip it on until he was sure the base electronic monitoring couldn't pick up his signal, and then expose him.

Nor did he want to bring Star Risk in fat, dumb, and happy on this base and get their plows shot off.

He would have to wing it.

In the meantime, he and Siegfried had to teach his hammerheads how to move in a jungle, how to spot natural ambushes, how to set an ambush of their own, and all the other things that would be forgotten the first time something loud went off in their ears, but hopefully remembered when the adrenaline pulsed a little less.

They moved out of the base, with Navarro's assurances they were being tracked, and if anything went wrong, there'd be rescue on the way within seconds.

That told Goodnight not to start providing for his own rescue with the beacon.

These grunts weren't used to something as nasty as a jungle. They thumped into each other, loudly complained when they tripped, wanted to take too many breaks and those in nice, open, deadly clearings.

And they moved too damned fast, in spite of Siegfried and Goodnight's constant chiding.

They'd been out for a day and a half, with zed contact, when the woman Goodnight had on point, the least inept of his troops, was leading them up to a ridge crest where Goodnight intended to set up some sniffers and hopefully get a lead on some Grays to provide targets.

She froze, held her palm out, flat. The others took a moment to read the sign, then obeyed, and went down.

She touched her shoulders, then motioned toward the front.

Officer up.

Goodnight took that to mean him, and slithered up to the lead, past the team.

The woman's eyes were wide, and she pointed.

Goodnight dug binocs out of their case, turned them on, and scanned the jungle as directed.

He saw them, gathered around a promontory: five, no, six squat, dark-skinned nonhumanoids. Purely Stone Age, except for the very modern shoulder blasters three of them carried.

And, in their midst, a tall human in a tattered shipsuit.

The human had short, blond hair.

He turned, and became a she.

Goodnight hit the zoom button, and the she became M'chel Riss, and he barely suppressed a moan of "Aw, shit, God. Whydaya gotta go and play games with me all the damned time?"

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THIRTY-FIVE � ^ � L.C. Doe came through the lock of the Boop-Boop-A-Doop with a cagey expression, and a sample case in one hand.

The ship was parked on one of Glace's main fields, three patrol craft around it.