Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) (25 page)

"You ready?" I asked the Prof on private.

"You betcha!" I was really worried about him. What would happen if his daughter was not there? Slaves move fast, they say. She could have been sold years ago and might be on any world by now. She had been eleven on that fateful day, and would be thirteen now. If she was still alive.

"Insertion in ten. Cloaking on. Good. Safeties off. Delta – death!" Ten black A-suits cast in blood, ruby faceplates, black weapons, safeties off, all green, all green.

Death, I thought. It was our motto. The Phantom hovered, gently glided forward. The assault doors snapped open. We leaped out and ran. I followed Honey's directions, a clear green path laid out in the darkness. Trees whipped all around me in a great windstorm. The night sky was full of invisible, silent aircraft and the fields and forests were now full of invisible, silent killers.

We advanced into the installation, our point men firing silent canister darts that took out the first sentries without a sound.

"Stand by for antimats." The world erupted, blinding flashes up ahead, off to the right, to the left, titanic blasts that sent entire buildings shooting up into the air, nothing but debris, ugly evil flaming orange and golden mushroom clouds writhing up into the night, illuminating empty fields and forests that were actually swarming with Legion troopers. We were violently erasing any buildings that we knew did not have any captives in them.

A bunch of shocked hostiles came tumbling out of one surviving building in underclothes and bare feet, carrying SG's, looking around wildly. I took out one, two, three of them and the rest of the squad was also firing. We used hypersonic darts that moved so fast there was no noise – other than a creepy little buzzing. The darts tore them apart. They never even saw us. We were fully cloaked, after all.

We continued to our first position and went to our knees and it was like a shooting gallery. The hostiles ran around like insects that had been disturbed by an earthquake, frantic, looking for intruders, finding none. They carried SG's and E's but there was nothing for them to shoot. We took them all out with the darts, cutting them down wildly, without mercy. When they realized what was happening they began to fire back, blindly, into the darkness. We finished them off. Then their armored reaction team appeared – a squad in armor. And fully visible. Delta was closest. Smiley fired his Manlink once, twice, three times. Three tacstar bursts ripped through the air and tore three violent holes in reality, three dazzling white hot bursts, swirling into the night, sparkling, blinding me temporarily.

"Auto xmax!" Doggie commanded. Then we all fired auto xmax, with a little laser thrown in for luck. The reaction squad was by then a pile of glowing metal.

Another giant antimat hit, this time at the spaceport, blowing it all to hell, a flaming orange fireball writhing upwards, lighting up the whole base.

"Clean up, Deltas," Doggie said. "Let's clean these buildings. Use darts for hostiles, vac if you're unsure. Dolly will do it for you. Building 301 – now." We kicked in the door and went in firing vac. Honey ID'd the targets for me.
HOSTILE
, glowing in red. I fired darts, he fell.
UNKNOWN
, yellow, I fired vac, he or she went down.
FRIENDLY
, green, that meant a confirmed captive,
UNARMED
, I seized her – it was a girl – and handed her off to Bees, who was collecting our catch. The poor girl probably thought she was being kidnapped by ghosts, since she could not see us at all. We went through all the buildings doing that. So did a lot of the other squads.

"All right, Delta. The shooting is over. Cloaking off!" Doggie ordered. Everybody was turning off their cloaking. It was surprising to see all those A-suits. Some troopers were dragging bodies to a flat muddy space that they had turned into a morgue. There were a whole lot of dead slavers. The word was we had two casualties, both hit by hostile xmax, most likely by sheer accident. In both cases the xmax had penetrated the armor. Both wounded troopers were now evaced to the
Wasp
and it looked like they would survive.

"Squad infos, the friendlies are being sorted in Structure 14. All infos report to Structure 14." The Prof didn't have to be asked twice. He was off like a shot for Structure 14, and I was right by his side.

We found a largely empty warehouse that had been chosen to sort our newly-freed slaves. The big warehouse sliding door was open and a Phantom, now visible, had landed nearby and was being unloaded by the
Wasp
's med units and some squad medics who had been drafted for the task – including Bees. They were towing airtrays full of stretchers, medical equipment and coolers of water and quick energy snacks. Interview tables and chairs had already been set up where the girls were being interviewed, medically examined, sorted out and then divided up into groups where they could sit or lie on the stretchers and help themselves to drinks and snacks on the refreshment tables. Those who needed it were immediately evaced to the
Wasp.

The Professor was shown to an interview table where he and other info types were to seek information on the Brothers in Blood and their operation. The Prof set up shop there but immediately walked to one side of the warehouse and went from one girl to the other, just looking at each one briefly.

There were a whole lot of girls – it looked like close to a hundred. They ranged from subteens to older girls in their twenties, but most appeared to be teens. They were of all races and nationalities, and they were all dirty, bruised, and weary, with stringy unwashed hair. They were mostly clad in dirty blouses and ratty shorts. They looked like they could just barely drag themselves around. Some of them clung to each other for support. Many were crying, and all were starving. They attacked the snack tables and fought over the food and guzzled the icy water while shivering, perhaps in terror. The medics put out an emergency call for more substantial rations. It was pitiful just looking at them.

The Prof examined every one of them. He showed each one a holo of his daughter. Nobody knew her. When he was through doing that, he sat at his table and interviewed as many as he could, while the other info types were doing the same. The holo of his daughter was at his side.

I stood behind him while he worked. We didn’t need a bad guy this time, but I stood there anyway.

"So – Lucy Waldemark. When and where were you taken?" he asked. A skinny teen girl sat before him, hollow cheeked, sunken green eyes, filthy brown hair. She was sipping from a water bottle and sharing it with a second girl, name of Janie, a few years younger, who was with her because she wouldn’t let go of Lucy Waldemark's left arm. Janie held tight with both hands, twitching, tears streaming. The medics had tried to separate them but gave it up when Janie became hysterical. Janie was maybe fourteen, dark haired, skeletal, dirty and battered. A third girl showed up and began feeding Janie some snacks from the refreshment table because Janie wouldn't let go of Lucy Waldemark to get her snacks. I had to turn away for a bit when I saw that.

"I'm from Wintergreen," Waldemark said. "They took me – a hundred years ago. Yes, it seems like it was a hundred years ago. I guess it was only two years or so – but I've lost track of time here." She gave her companion another long drink of water, and Janie wearily rested her head in Lucy's lap.

"I was just a little girl when they took me. But I'm not a little girl now. I'm a very experienced rape victim. That's my job. That's what I do. That's all I do, here. Day and night. I'm a filthy, diseased rape victim. I used to pray they would sell me – to anyone else. But they didn't."

"Have you ever seen this girl? She was eleven when this holo was taken. She'd be thirteen now."

"No. I'm sorry. How many of these slavers did you kill?"

"Well – we don't have a final count yet, but we killed most all of them."

"You have to kill any survivors as well. They're not human. They're dangerous subhumans. You have to kill them all. Otherwise they will keep doing what they've been doing. They like it, and they're not going to stop until you shoot them right in the head."

Δ

I didn't want to do it, but I knew I had to tell the Prof. It was very late. He was still in the warehouse compiling his reports although most of the girls had been evaced to the
Wasp
by then.

"Professor. Some of the girls were killed during the raid. There were some last-moment changes in position that the eyemotes missed and some girls were taken to sites that had been categorized as captive free. They've got seven bodies they're about to evac to the Wasp. Would you like to see them?"

The Professor stood up without a word. He followed me to the temporary morgue the medics had set up for the dead girls. They were all on airglide stretchers, grounded, lined up in a row, seven spotless white body bags zipped and closed.

"I have to see the faces," Prof told the on-duty medics. They zipped the bags down to reveal the faces.

I forced myself to look. Some of the bodies were very badly damaged, but the medics had attempted to restore a little dignity to the corpses. They had carefully closed the eyes, and covered face damage with medpads. Most of the faces were identifiable.

"Do you have names yet?" the Professor asked.

"Sorry, no sir. We've taken genetic samples and we're hopeful all will be eventually ID'd."

Seven dead girls. Teens. They weren't just bodies. Pale bluish flesh, cold and dead and gone. Temples, where souls once lived – now empty. But I could still see them, gone or not. They were individuals. Each one was different. Look 'em in the face! I could see them in my mind's eye, at a carefree party, chatting with each other, gossiping about whoever wasn't there, talking about boys. Doing what teenage girls were supposed to be doing. They didn't belong here, at the end of creation, in some Gassies hellhole, being gang-raped by subhumans. And then being cut down by their rescuers, by sheer chance – friendly fire, right. There was no such thing as friendly fire.

It was just like lava, flowing in my veins. I wasn't the same any more, I realized. It wasn't Richard Rains looking down at those poor ghosts. He was long gone by then – a very distant memory of some shallow kid who never had an original thought in his life. I was someone very different now. That was a fact. I didn't know if it was good or bad. But it was a fact.

"We have recently received another message from the Omni Horde. Or government, or whatever term you may choose," she said. "There are no words attached to the message. It consists entirely of visual images, but these images are perfectly clear, and we have to decide how to respond." She paused again, glaring at everyone. "Our response may determine whether or not ConFree survives or perishes. Indeed, it may determine whether or not mankind survives or perishes. So we've got to get it right. No pressure, of course. Let's look at the message." She jabbed at a control on her desk and the great picture window turned dark and one wall lit up with a huge d-screen. It flickered briefly and then the images appeared.

It showed a panoramic view of what appeared to be a great city or town, under a pale green sky. The buildings were all low-rise, seemingly constructed of a silvery crystalline substance, quite beautiful, soft pink facets reflecting the sun. Omni hives. Pale white trees with dark palms rose above the structures, all over town, giving a calm, pleasing effect. A greenish-white star glittered overhead, behind puffy white clouds. Off to one side, some white towers could be seen, and a slender aircraft was gracefully slicing across the sky. Down on the pathways between the buildings the tall figures of Omnis could be seen, walking – minding their own business.

Suddenly there was something wrong with the sky. What was it – little dark specks, filling the sky. As they entered the atmosphere each dot left a white streak behind it, hundreds of vapor trails falling leisurely down, slowly, slowly approaching the surface. Many, many of them.

When they hit, the blinding flashes lit up everything, blotting out the view with a glaring burning white infinity, again and again and again, each new hit flashing and burning, the image shaking as if the image source was being battered. The screen continued erupting, new hits, again and again and again. Nothing could be seen except a continuing, blinding series of flashes. This continued for some time.

As the shower of explosions finally ceased, the screen registered some new images. The crystalline city was no longer there. A vast pile of glowing rubble was burning fiercely, and great swirls of greasy black smoke clouds shot skywards, laced with orange flames. The sky was now shot through with flaming black clouds. The distant white towers were gone.

Then more activity could be seen above – in the sky. A distant fleet of saucer-shaped craft appeared, approaching the site of the disaster. They cruised slowly overhead, as if observing the target. There were many of them – twenty, thirty, more – eventually it appeared there must have been hundreds of them. Metallic saucers, reflecting faint colors. Glowing greenish with some kind of shielding. Wobbling slightly in flight.