Angus glanced down at the inertial guidance unit's LED, checking its coordinates against the annotated City Engineer's map from the local civilian intelligence cell, and touched a ladder.
"We're here," he whispered to Tulloch, and MacAn-drew nodded, his face shadowed in the sepulchral glow of his slitted torch beam. The rest of their team was a vague blur in the darkness of the service tunnel.
`Aye, but I'd feel better tae ken just where she is."
"The lad wi' the map said they'd fetched her here. And - " Angus grinned hungrily ` - there's one Shellie bastard will tell me where tae find her, admiral or no. afore I kill him."
"Holiness." Lantu felt a flush of relief as the fleet chaplain closed the inner office door on his four-man bodyguard. If Manak had come for the reason Hanat feared. "What brings you here at this hour?"
"Forgive me." Manak sat heavily, his eyes dark. "I'm sorry to bother you so late, but I had to see you."
"I'm at your disposal, Holiness."
"Thank you, my son. But this - " Manak stopped and gestured vaguely.
"What's happened, Holiness?" Lantu asked gently.
"The infidels have driven the Sword from Sandhurst," Manak said wretchedly, and the admiral sat bolt upright. "They'll attack here within the week - possibly within days.'
"Holy Terra!" Lantu whispered.
"You don't know the worst yet. Jahanak will defend neither New New Hebrides nor Alfred! The coward means to fall clear back to Lorelei before he stands! Can you believe it?"
Lantu stroked the gun belt on his desk. "Yes, I believe it. Nor does it make him a coward. If he's been driven from Sandhurst, his losses must have been heavy, and there are no real fortifications here or in Alfred. He needs the support of the Lorelei warp point forts." He nodded. "Holiness, if I were in command, I would do the same."
"I see." Manak fingered his ring, then sighed deeply. "Well, if this is Holy Terra's will, we can but bend before it. Yet it leaves us with grave decisions of our own, my son."
Lantu nodded silently, his mind racing. He'd tried to blunt the Inquisition's excesses, but when the humans returned to New Hebrides and learned what had been done to its people, their fury would be terrible. It was unlikely they would recognize his efforts for what they'd been, but his own fate bothered him less than what it would mean for the People. If -
"We must insure the infidels do not defile this planet yet again." The fleet chaplain's fervent words wrenched Lantu's attention back to him.
"Holiness, Colonel Fraymak and I will do our best, but against an entire fleet we can accomplish little."
"I know that, my son, but the infidels shall not have this planet!" Manak's harsh voice glittered with a strange fire. "This was the Messenger's destination. If no other world is saved from apostasy, this one must be!"
"But -
"I know how to do it, my son." Manak overrode Lantu in a spate of words. "I want you to distribute our nuclear demolition charges. Mine every city, every village, every farmstead! Then let them land. Do you see? We'll let them land, then trigger the mines! In one stroke, we will return our souls to Holy Terra, save this world from defilement, and smite Her foes!"
Shock stabbed the admiral, and he groped frantically for an argument.
"Holiness, we don't have that many mines."
"Then use all we have! And Jahanak hasn't run yet,
Satan-Khan take him! I still have some authority - I'll make him send us more!"
Lantu stared at him, transfixed by the febrile glitter in his eyes, and horror tightened his throat. He'd sensed his old mentor's growing desperation, but this -! He searched those fiery eyes for some shadow of the fleet chaplain he knew and loved. and saw only madness.
"Holiness," he whispered, "think before you do this."
"I have, my son." Manak leaned forward eagerly. "Holy Terra has shown me the way. Even if we catch none of the infidel Marines in our trap, this world will be lifeless - useless to them!"
"That. isn't what I meant," Lantu said carefully. "Do you remember Redwing? When we fell back to save the Fleet?"
"Of course," Manak said impatiently.
"Then think why we did it, Holiness. We fell back to save the Fleet, to save our People - Holy Terra's People - from useless death. If you do this thing, what will the infidels do to Thebes in retaliation?"
"Do? To Thebes?" Manak laughed incredulously. "My son, the infidels will never reach Thebes! Holy Terra will prevent them."
Sweet Terra, the old man actually believed that. He'd made himself believe it, and in the making he'd become one more casualty of the jihad, wrappea in the death shroud of his Faith and ready to take this world - and his own - into death with him!
"Holiness, you can't do this. The cost to the People will - "
"Silence!" Manak's ringed hand slapped Lantu's desk like a pistol. "How dare you dispute with me?! Has Holy Terra shown you Her mind?!"
"But, Holiness, we - "
"Be silent, I say! I have heard the apostasy of others, the whispers of defeatism! I will not hear more!"
"You must, Holiness. Please, you must face the truth."
"Dear Terra!" Manak stared at the admiral. "You, Lantu? You would betray me? Betray the Faith?'t't Yes." he whispered, eyes suddenly huge. "You would. Terra forgive me, Father Shamar warned me, and I would not hear him! But deep in my heart, I knew. Perhaps I always knew."
`Listen to me." Lantu stood behind the desk, and Manak shrank from him in horror, signing the Circle of Terra as if against a demon. Lantu's heart spasmed, but he dared not retreat. "Whatever you thinK now, you tausht me to serve the People, and because you did, I can'tlet you do this thing! Not to these people and never - never - to our own People and workT"
"Stay back!" Manak jerked out of his chair and scuttled back. `Come no closer, heretic!"
"Holiness!" Lantu recoiled from the thick hate in Man-ak's voice.
"My eyes are clear now!" Manak cried wildly. "Get thee behind me, Satan-Khan! I cast thee out! I pronounce thee twice-damned, heretic and apostate, and condemn thy disbelief to the Fire of Hell!"
Lantu gasped, hands raised against the words of excommunication, and a dagger turned in his heart. Despite everything, he was a son of the Church, raised in the Faith - raised by the same loving hand which now cast him into the darkness.
But the darkness did not claim him, and he lowered his hands. He stared into the twisted hate of the only father he had ever known, and the stubborn duty and integrity that father had taught him filled him still.
"I can't let you do this, Holiness. I won't let you."
"Heretic!" Manak screamed, and tore at the pistol at his side.
Grief and terror filled Lantu - terrible grief that they could come to this and an equally terrible fear. Not for his life, for he would gladly have died before seeing such hate in Manak's eyes, but for something far worse. For the madness which filled his father and would destroy their People if it was not stopped.
Fists hammered at his office door as Manak's bodyguards reacted to the fleet chaplain's scream, but the stout door defied them, and the holster flap came free. The old prelate clawed at the pistol butt, and Lantu felt his own body move like a stranger's. His hand flashed out, darting to the gun belt on his desk, closing on the pistol grip.
"Die, heretic! Die - and I curse the day I called you son!"
Manak's pistol jerked free, its safety clicked off.
. and Lantu cut him down in a chattering blast of flame.
"Jaysus!"
Tufloch MacAndrew recoiled from the service hatch he'd been about to open as the thunder of gunfire crashed through it. The first, sudden burst was answered by another, and another and another!
"Mother o' God!" Davey Maclver whispered. "What i' thunder -?"
"I dinnae ken," Angus said, jacking a round into the chamber of his own weapon, "but'tis now or naer, lads. Are ye wi' me still?"
"Aye," Tulloch rasped, and drove a bull-like shoulder into the hatch.
The access panel burst open, and Tulloch slammed through it, spinning to his right as he went. A single guard raced towards him down a dimly-lit hall, and his rifle chattered. The guard crashed to the floor, and Angus and Maclver led the others through the hatch and to their left, towards the thundering firefight, while Tulloch followed, moving backwards, swinging his muzzle to cover the hall benind them.
More bursts of fire ripped back and forth ahead of them, and then a Shellhead leapt out an open door. He wore the green of a regular with the episcopal-purple collar tabs of the Fleet Chaplain's Office, and he jerked up his machine-pistol as he saw the humans.