Starfist FR - 03 - Recoil (20 page)

“That doesn’t wash,” Jaschke said. “The board wouldn’t have let Mullilee call for help if they were behind the raids.”

“Mullilee used a back channel instead of submitting a formal request,” Daly told him. “The board might not have known about his message to Fargo.”

Kindy snorted. “If Mullilee sent that back channel on his own, it’s probably the only time he ever did something without getting Miner’s permission first.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that man takes a shit without asking the board ‘mother may I’ first. How the hell does he keep his job? He’s not doing anything for the Confederation; he just does the board’s bidding.”

“Planetary administrators are assigned to newly colonized worlds,” Daly explained. “Maybe for a generation or so. Their job function is intermediary between the new world and the Confederation, making sure that the colony gets whatever assistance it needs to succeed, and to let the proper authorities know if anything is seriously out of line. So if things are going well, just about all a planetary administrator has to do is file progress reports.”

Jaschke picked up the thought. “And things were going well on Haulover until the raids on homesteads started.”

“Except for the board of directors running everything,”

Nomonon said.

“Some other worlds have boards of directors,” Ellis objected.

“Yeah, but they don’t run their worlds like a band of robber barons,” Kindy snorted. “I still think Miner’s involved.”

Johnson Homestead, One Hundred Kilometers Northwest of Sky City Only a few hours of daylight remained when the Marines reached the site of the former Johnson homestead, so they got

to work immediately. Sergeant Kindy and his squad used ultraviolet lights and goggles, along with laser range finders and chemical sniffers, to examine the route the raiding party had followed between their aircraft and the homestead. Sergeant Williams and his squad plotted the destroyed area and used the same equipment, along with DNA sniffers, attempting to work out the sequence of events during the raid. They had no idea what they might find that the constabulary’s forensics people hadn’t found the day before. Nor had they any idea to what use they might put such information—or the findings of the police. But intelligence gathering is like police detective work and scientific research; you don’t often know what you’re going to find or what it means until you find it. Even when found, you don’t always know what it means until sometime later—if then. What that means, especially on a mission like this, is that you gather every bit of information you can find and hope it leads to some understanding. Unlike science, and more so than in police work, in military reconnaissance and intelligence, the information you don’t have can kill you. But they found nothing in the remains of the Johnson homestead to tell them who the raiders were, where they’d come from, or where they’d gone. After two frustrating days at the Johnson homestead, Ensign Daly used one of the Mark IX Echo drones to send his first report back to Fourth Force Recon on Halfway. In it, he gave an update on the number and increasing frequency of the raids. He detailed the lack of cooperation from the local authorities and briefly noted his suspicions of what might be behind the raids. He also included trids of the site they’d examined, in the hope that someone in Fourth Fleet Marine G2 might be able to find something he and his Marines had missed. During the following several days, the Marines visited the sites of the Claymont and Vijae homesteads. Each of them came up as empty as had the Johnson homestead. They hadn’t gone over even half of the Humblot homestead when Daly got a call that caused him to shut down the operation there. The call was from the Sky City Police Department. Another homestead had just been wiped out—and this time, they had everything they needed to gather the intelligence.

“Saddle up,” Daly ordered into his comm. “The raiders just hit somewhere else. We’re going there while everything’s still fresh.”

In fifteen minutes they had everything loaded into their Land Runners and were driving away from the Humblot homestead, headed toward the Shazincho homestead.

SEVENTEEN

In the Air, En Route to the Shazincho Homestead, Haulover The Pilot Master skillfully flew his aircraft nape-of-theearth, keeping ridges and high trees between his craft and any radar stations whose reach might extend to this stretch of the world the Earthmen called Haulover. Usually the Pilot Master enjoyed his job; he loved flying for the greater honor and glory of the Emperor. But this was the eighteenth raiding mission he’d flown on this operation, and the mere display of his skill for the edification of the Master, Leaders, and Fighters carried in the cabin of his flyer had lost much of its luster—he had naught to do between touchdown and takeoff save wait. The Pilot Master did not take easily to waiting on the ground. He didn’t even need to display his flying skills on these transport missions; the transport craft were stealthed, invisible to all the detection systems known to be on the Earthman world. Oh, how the Pilot Master yearned for the honor of going along with the ground fighters, and reaping a share of the glory when they slaughtered the Earthmen in the outpost that was the target of the raid, and razed the outpost to the ground so that no stick stood together with another. That was where the glory was on this operation, not in flying, no matter how skillful that flying.

Until the Earthman Marines arrived. Then the Pilot Master would have his chance for glory, flying a killer craft to slaughter the Earthman Marines as they scattered on the ground like ants fleeing a stomping foot. Or flying against the so-called Raptors of the Earthman Marines, and swatting them out of the sky like so many mosquitoes. That would be glory greater than these tiny raids against the small Earthman outposts. But just then all the Pilot Master could do was demonstrate his flying skills in ferrying the ground fighters on their raids. And that ferrying was becoming a tedious chore. The Pilot Master set his aircraft down in the exact center of his assigned landing zone and the thirteen-man raiding party disembarked and set off at a trot to the outpost they were to utterly destroy. The Pilot Master settled back in his seat to await their return.

Approaching the Shazincho Homestead, Three Hundred Kilometers North-Northwest of Sky City The Master commanding the raiding party snarled orders at the two Leaders. The Leaders in turn growled the orders to the Fighters. The snarling and growling of the orders was hardly necessary; this particular raiding team had already conducted nine raids on the Earthman world called Haulover and rehearsed their raids so often they could nearly conduct them while estivating. The Master didn’t bother inspecting the members of his raiding party, he’d inspected them before they boarded the transport craft. The Leaders gave the Fighters a cursory inspection, just enough to assure themselves that the Fighters hadn’t left anything behind on the aircraft, and that the tanks on their backs were properly balanced and hoses connected. The orders given, the ten Fighters assembled in two parallel lines behind the Leaders, who spaced themselves twenty meters apart, with the Master between them. At the Master’s barked order, the two squads trotted rapidly toward the Earthman outpost. Nearing it, they heard the sounds of saws cutting through wood and the shouts of the Earthmen felling trees here and there as they thinned the forest and hauled trunks to the

sawmill. About two hundred meters from where the trees were being cut, the squad on the left peeled away from the squad on the right, and the Master closed on the right-side squad. The Master stopped the remaining squad just out of sight of the Earthmen, and had the Leader of the squad with him emplace his Fighters. Then he waited for the signal from the Leader who was taking the other squad around to the opposite side of the outpost, near the sawmill, from which the Master heard a mechanical whining.

The Master concealed his impatience; he knew the wait was necessary if they were to let none get away. The Leader was less impatient, so he didn’t attempt to conceal his mild eagerness for action. The Fighters were not at all impatient; the desire to do anything except what they were told had been bred out of them, and they waited docilely. At the Shazincho Homestead On the far side of the outpost, the Leader positioned his Fighters. Once he was satisfied that they were in the best positions to take their initial actions, he hefted the incendiaries and approached the sawmill in a crouch, staying out of sight of anyone who might happen to look into the forest behind the sawmill. There was no need for him to go quietly, the zzzzz-zzzRRRWHOMPF! of the saws cutting tree trunks into planks covered any sounds he might have made; even the nearby gurgling of the stream that moved the mill’s waterwheel, providing power for the saws, was drowned out by the saws. But the Leader could not shrug off his many years of training; he moved so silently he could not have been heard approaching even if saws weren’t buzzing, planks thudding, and the stream gurgling. Forty meters from the sawmill, a small movement in a window halfway up the wall facing him caught his eye and he froze. He looked, not moving his head, merely angling his eyes upward. An Earthman was there, just inside the window, leaning against the frame. His head was down, as though he was asleep. Except the Leader knew that Earthmen didn’t sleep standing up any more than true People did. A closer look at the details showed the Leader that the Earthman was armed—he was an armed guard! The first the Leader had seen on any of the raids he’d gone on. The Earthmen must be worried about the raids, and hoped to defend themselves against them. As if they could. The Earthman’s body began to slump, and he jerked, his head flipping up. Blinking, he looked around, even into the interior of the sawmill. Evidently satisfied that no one had seen him falling asleep on guard, he shifted the weapon in his arms and peered at the forest. The Leader wasn’t particularly worried about the Earthman’s seeing him; his mud-colored uniform with its black and brown splotches blended in with the damp ground below the forest canopy, and he was still deep in the shadows of the trees. He waited patiently, and in a few more minutes the guard’s head began to dip again. The Leader rose from his crouch, made sure of his grip on his incendiaries, and sprinted on soft feet to the base of the sawmill’s wall. Working quickly, he placed the incendiaries and daisy-chained them together. That done, he had a decision to make: He could stay where he was and die in glory when he set off the incendiaries, and trust that his Fighters were well enough trained to perform their assignments without further leadership from him; or he could chance making it back into the trees unseen, and set off the charges from there. He slipped silently along the wall until he was directly under the window. He listened there, trying to discern any sounds below the din of the cutting inside. After a few moments he heard, as though from a remote distance, a cry, answered immediately by a shout from directly above, followed by faintly heard taps that might have been running feet. Cautiously, the Leader leaned away from the wall and looked upward. He could see no part of the Earthman in the window. He took a step backward, still looking at the window,

still saw nothing of the Earthman on watch. He spun about and dashed away from the wall, toward the safety of the forest shadows, his thumb on the ignition button of the controller clutched in his hand, half expecting the impact of fire or projectile in his back, resolved to press the button before he died. Panting, he reached the trees without hearing a weapon fired anywhere in the outpost. He dove for the cover of a tree trunk and carefully looked around its base. The window was empty, the sentry was gone.

The Leader pressed the button. He had planted and daisychained his incendiaries properly; all along the length of the wall there were small explosions, and flames erupted at the base of the wall. Accelerants spewed upward by the shaped charges inside the incendiaries splashed on the wall and drew the flames higher and higher. In seconds, the fire reached the level of the window from which the sleepy guard had watched the forest.

Inside, the saws continued to whine, but the thump of falling boards ceased and the whine rose sharply in pitch. Cries of panicked Earthmen sounded from within, and men started racing out of the sides of the sawmill. The Fighters were well positioned for what they had to do—

they began firing at the Earthmen fleeing the burning sawmill. Greenish fluid streamed from the Fighters’ weapons, arching at the Earthmen. The panicked cries of the Earthmen turned to shrill screams of agony when the green fluid struck them, and their flesh began to dissolve where the fluid stuck to them. The Master watched as the Earthmen fled the sawmill before the flames became visible above the top of the building. It was the sign he’d been waiting for, and he barked out an order. The Leader began directing the fire of his Fighters, and green arcs struck out at the Earthmen felling trees at the edge of the clearing. In less than a minute, all of the lumberjacks were down, writhing in the throes of death. Then the Leader had the Fighters stand and advance, shooting as they went at the Earthmen visible in the open between the edge of the trees and the sawmill. Sword in hand, the Master trailed behind the squad, checking the Earthmen who fell at the edge of the trees. Where one still gasped, the blade slashed across the Earthman’s throat. The Master continued into the clearing, ignoring the sporadic gunfire that came from the clearing’s remaining buildings, and dispatched any Earthmen he found still alive. The Leader saw that his Fighters were fully engaged in killing Earthmen, and the Earthmen’s attempt at defense was too feeble to cause much concern, so he ran zigzag to the nearest building and tossed an incendiary through a window. The Leader didn’t wait to see the flames, but ran to the next building, from which someone was firing a projectile weapon. He ignored the flaming Earthman who ran out of the building he’d just ignited. When the Earthman collapsed and began twisting into a fetal position directly in front of him, he sidestepped the body without more than a glance to note its position. Alongside the next building, the Leader readied another incendiary, and sidled to the window through which the projectile weapon was firing. He got a good grip on the incendiary, thumbed off the safety, and shot his hand inside the window to whip the device down, to go off when it struck the floor. He yanked his hand back out before the Earthman inside could react to it—but not before the incendiary went off, splashing the Leader’s hand and wrist with flame and accelerant. He didn’t have time to scream before flame completely engulfed him and vaporized him.