Empire & Ecolitan (49 page)

“G
O AHEAD
, E
COLITAN
.” The shuttle copilot, doubling as disembarking officer, nodded.

Raw damp air gusted into the shuttle, and the copilot edged toward the protection of the corridor to the control area as she continued to watch the handful of passengers—virtually all Ecolitans—line up to file out. The single exception was a woman nearly two meters tall, wearing the beige and blue of the Halstani diplomatic corps. She stood halfway into the control area, talking to the shuttle pilot.

Jimjoy stepped onto the landing stage. He had carefully avoided the Halstani diplomat, and his tactics team had not volunteered his role, other than as an Institute instructor. Jimjoy's hands were empty as he glanced across the white ferrocrete—almost grayish in the winter light—before heading down the half a dozen wide steps from the shuttle.

Thelina—why hadn't he heard from her? Before he had left for Thalos, she said she would let him know when he should return planetside. That had been nearly three tendays earlier, and he'd heard nothing. He pulled at his chin, continuing to study the port area as he reached the bottom of the shuttle steps.

Roughly thirty meters in front of the port terminal, a single figure paced slowly back and forth on the pavement. Beyond the terminal waited several groundcars painted green, and a sole commercial taxi.

Two flitters with Institute insignia rested on the ferrocrete. One was for Jimjoy, but he did not head directly toward either, but toward the terminal and the Ecolitan in greens. Even with the Empire's blockade on Imperially based traffic, there should have been more activity.

The man in greens turned toward Jimjoy.

Jimjoy took in the deliberately slow steps, caught sight of the face, took a step left, then dived into a roll right, pulling the knife from his belt.

…hsssstttt
…

Thrummm…thrummm
…

Whunnk…thud
…

EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
…The shuttle's siren began to scream.

Jimjoy covered the remaining open space between him and the nearest flitter in a zigzagging and irregular sprint, ignoring the woman in greens with the knife in her chest and the stunner by her outstretched hand. A woman dressed deliberately like a man.

The flitter pilot already had the turbines turning by the time Jimjoy threw himself through the crew hatch.

“Lift it!” Jimjoy cranked the crew door shut from a prone position. Had someone already gotten to Thelina?

“Yes, ser. Lifting!”

Jimjoy finished cranking the crew door as the rotors began their regular
thwop, thwop
. Then he eased up into the space between the pilot and copilot.

The pilot, a chunky black woman with “Iananillis” stenciled on her flight suit, lifted the flitter, asking without looking at him, “What next?”

Jimjoy glanced at the copilot, a thin, sallow-faced younger man with limp black hair. His name patch was blank, but Jimjoy noted the partly unsealed flap of the right thigh pocket.

“Field unit three?” he asked Iananillis, suspecting the worst.

“Yes, ser. Do you have a destination?”

“The Institute will be fine…for now.” He looked at the copilot. “Jimjoy Whaler, Tactics.” He had raised his voice almost to a shout to override the sound of the turbines and to penetrate their flight helmets.

Both a knife and a stunner were in his hands, so quickly that neither pilot had seen them appear.

“Set it down! There!”

Iananillis looked at Jimjoy, then at the other pilot, her hand tightening around the throttles.

Crack!

Her face paled as she looked at her suddenly limp hand, wrist fractured from the unbladed edge of the knife.

“Don't try it.” He doubted that either heard his words, but both respected the weapons. Either that or the look on his face. His head nodded toward the pad at the end of the shuttleport. “There! Now!”

Iananillis glanced at her copilot, who gingerly took the controls and began a slow flare into the pad.

Jimjoy grinned. In the other's place, he would have done exactly the same.

Thwop…thwop, thwop, thwop
…

As the flitter settled onto its gear, Jimjoy's hands touched the harness locks. “Out…leave the helmets…”

The unnamed copilot left holding his ear. Jimjoy had been rougher than necessary in insisting that his helmet remain with the flitter.

Before the two had cleared the rotor path, Jimjoy had the pilot's helmet in place, although it was tighter than he would have liked, even with two of the shim pads quickly sliced out. Harness in place, he torqued up the turbines.

“Greenpax one, terminus. What is your destination?”

“Terminus, one here. Lifting for Diaplann.”

“Understand Diaplann.”

“Stet.”

Jimjoy kept the flitter low, below two hundred meters, and well clear of the shuttleport, noting as he circled south that both the former pilots of his flitter were running toward the terminal and waving at the second flitter.

Diaplann was southwest of Harmony. Although Jimjoy did not intend to go there, he eased the flitter into a southwesterly course and began a transition into full thrust and rotor retraction.

As the turbine whine increased and the forest-green flitter screamed over the southwest highway, he began to cross-check the course line for the Institute against the rising hills beneath him. Harmony sat farther north of the mountains than did the Institute, even though they were at roughly the same latitude, because the range curved gently south about fifty kays east of the Institute.

Once he got beyond the first hills, his course line would change.

He shook his head, automatically increasing altitude to maintain his ground clearance. Seeing Sabatini in greens at the shuttleport, dressed as a journeyman and carrying a stunner, was a good indication that Harlinn had made a decision, a very unofficial decision. The flitter pilots had just confirmed that. Earlier in the year, Thelina, Meryl, and Geoff—he winced at recalling Geoff—had begun to shift personnel in the field training divisions, partly on skills and partly on loyalties.

None of them would have sent a pilot from field unit three. Unfortunately, that and Sabatini's presence meant Harlinn had his own organization.

Jimjoy smiled faintly. Nothing like a civil war within a revolution. He wondered if all revolutions were this messy.

“Greenpax one, Greenpax one, this is Harmony control, Harmony control. Request your course line and elevation.”

“Hades!” He dropped the flitter's nose and inched up the throttles, leveling out less than fifty meters above the conifers on the rugged hillsides below. Still another ten kays before the first plateau lines.

“Greenpax one, this is Harmony control. Request your location. Request your location.”

He eased the flitter even lower, not that Harmony control had ground-to-air missiles. He'd checked that out earlier. But he didn't know who controlled Harmony control at the moment.

In fact, stupid as it sounded upon reflection, he didn't know who controlled what. Accord was so libertarian—so disorganized—that once you got beyond basic principles of liberty, it was difficult to get more than a small group to agree on any specifics. Any good revolutionary was going to have to sell his or her wares under basic principles and avoid discussing specifics, or be discussing specifics still when the first Imperial fleet arrived.

Underneath the flitter flashed a narrow road. The conifers began to thin, showing reddish sandstone as the hills steepened. Beyond the tabletop mesa covered with native gold grass and scattered ferril thorns, conifers, and bare red sand, the ground dipped into the transverse interrange valley. The valley stretched northwest, eventually paralleling the Grand Highway, to a point twenty kays short of the Institute. Without detailed satellite coverage, which Accord didn't possess, he would be virtually invisible to Harmony control for that part of the trip. They might guess, but they wouldn't
know
.

“Harmony control, terminus. Do you have a location on Greenpax one?”

“That is a negative, terminus. Negative.”

“Thank you, Harmony control.”

Jimjoy smiled behind the dark plastic face shield of the too-tight helmet. That seemed to answer one question. The controller at the shuttleport was on his side, getting Harmony control to indicate they had no idea where he was headed. Either that…He shook his head. The possible mind games weren't worth the effort. He'd know when he got to the Institute.

In the meantime, he continued to scan instruments, airspace, and the ground beneath, looking for any sign of unfriendliness. At his speed and altitude, his greatest danger was impaling himself and the flitter on some terrain feature—like a rock spire—that he didn't see.

The high clouds would have helped against satellite detection, but without a concentrated down-array, that wasn't a problem either. That left other aircraft and pilot error as his two biggest threats. In his state of mind, pilot error was the biggest threat.

Already he could see the end of the valley ahead. The first time he had made the trip to the Institute, it had been by groundcar. Now he was traveling as fast as he could push the flitter, and the distance seemed minimal.

His fingers toggled the receiver through the major frequencies.

Nothing but static, and he left the frequency selector on control as he raised the nose and began the climb back over the front-range hills.

“…control…location…one…”

“…negative…”

He frowned. Someone was still looking for him.

Ahead, he could make out the hills behind the Institute, but not the buildings. He crossed the Grand Highway and dropped the nose. For a number of reasons, a high-speed approach was advisable.

The flitter screamed in over the south side of the Institute at less than two hundred meters. Abreast of the lake, Jimjoy flipped it ninety degrees to the ground, dropped full spoilers, cut the turbines, and brought the stick nearly into his lap, watching the airspeed bleed off.

As it dropped below two hundred kays, he punched the rotor deployment and eased the flitter upright, nose high, to bleed off more speed.

Thwop…thwop, thwop, thwop
…

With the aircraft under full rotor control, he brought the flitter back around into the wind, scanning the space before the Administration building. At least a squad in field greens was deployed around the building. Two figures stood at the end of the walk to the circle drive. One, the shorter, waved a projectile rifle, indicating he should land.

The other, light-haired—was it silver-haired?—raised a hand. Jimjoy took a deeper breath and began his flare, easing the flitter into the open grass in the middle of the circle. At least Thelina was there, even if she didn't seem wildly enthusiastic about his arrival.

Even as the skids eased onto the grass, his fingers began the steps to shut down the flitter. Then he noticed that one of the Ecolitans—the one who had waved him in for a landing—had her weapon trained on him.

He raised both hands for a moment, then continued his shutdown.

Thelina stood outside the rotor wash, shaking her head sadly. Two Ecolitans, wearing field two patches and carrying the projectile rifles they were not supposed to have, were behind her. Neither was watching Thelina. One left her rifle loosely trained on the flitter. The other scanned the area around the Administration building.

As he shut down the turbines and continued through the checklist, bringing the rotors to a full stop, he noted the other Ecolitans in field greens scanning the area. He took off the helmet slowly, feeling his ears tingle. As he set it on the console, he rubbed his temples briefly with his right hand, then opened the cockpit.

The Ecolitan who had focused her rifle on him had now lowered it slightly.

Thelina waited for him to walk to her, not even lifting a hand, although he thought he saw a brief smile.

He wanted to put his arms around her, but she was waiting for him to get close enough to hear, and her body posture was formal—almost stiff.

“Congratulations, hotshot.” While her words were sarcastic, her tone was soft, almost sad. “You precipitated another crisis, just by refusing to take the right precautions and then waiting too long.”

“Waiting too long?” Jimjoy was puzzled.

“I sent you a message…”

Jimjoy was shaking his head.

“You didn't get it?”

“No. That's why I took the first shuttle I could. I expected something; you told me you'd be in touch. I didn't tell anyone…that's why, when that flitter team zeroed in on me and was from field three…and Sabatini was the clincher.”

“Field three? Sabatini? What happened at the port? What did you really do? Harlinn tried to lock us up. Didn't use enough force—”

Her posture wasn't stiff, he realized. “How badly are you hurt?”

“I'll be all right.”

“Let's see Hyrsa. You can tell me on the way.”

The dark-haired woman who had watched him nodded at his remark. “I'll get a groundcar, Professor.”

“I'll be fine,” protested Thelina.

“Are things under control?” he asked.

“Yes. Kerin's squad took over comm, and that boy Elias—Elias Elting, the one you carried to the infirmary that night—he literally pulled Harlinn from his flitter, along with some very interesting files.

“His partner, Mariabeth, made copies and circulated them to everyone, immediately. That quieted the few who were actively resisting.”

A groundcar purred up, stopping well clear of the grounded flitter.

“Is there anyone here who can get that flitter to maintenance?” asked Jimjoy loudly.

“Yes, ser. I can.” The voice came from the other Ecolitan who had been guarding Thelina. “Ytrell Maynard, journeyman forest spotter.”