Thank you." Lantu squeezed the guerrilla's callused, too-wide hand. Then he slipped away into the night.
Lantu crouched under a wet bush, no longer a sleepwalker stumbling in his captors' wake, and thanked whatever he might someday find to believe in that the guerrillas he'd faced had been so few and lightly-armed!
The seven hundred humans with him were all but invisible. The Marines had brought camouflage coveralls for everyone, but even without them, they would have been ghosts. The Raiders were better than he'd believed possible, yet the guerrillas were better still; they knew their world intimately and slipped through its leafless winter forests like shadows.
More than that, he'd learned the difference between the obsolescent weapons which had equipped the New Hebrides Peaceforce and first-line Terran equipment. Two Theban vertols had ventured too close during their night's march, but Major M'boto had whispered a command and both had died in glaring flashes under the Raiders' hyper-velocity missiles - five-kilo metal rods which were actually miniature deep-space missile drive coils. The HVMs had struck their targets at ten percent of light-speed.
He'd felt a brief, terrible guilt as those aircraft disintegrated, but he'd made himself shake it off. Far more of the People would pay with their lives for the Faith's lies before it ended.
Now Angus MacRory slithered quietly over to him with the major, and Lantu tried to ignore the silent presence of the Orion who came with them. Kthaara'zarthan had never been out of easy reach, and he was coldly certain of the reason.
"Huark's favorite HQ," he murmured. "We've made good time."
"I can see why he feels secure here." M'boto made certain his glasses' scan systems were inactive, then raised them and cursed softly.
A wide barricade of razor-wire fringed the inner edge of a cleared hundred-meter kill-zone, and heavily sana-bagged weapon towers rose at regular intervals. The entire base was cofferdammed by thick earthen blast walls, and there were twelve hundred black-clad Wardens inside the wire and minefields, supported by two platoons of GEVs. Lantu eyed the vehicles bitterly, remembering his fruitless efforts to pry them loose from the Wardens. "How deep did you say those bunkers are?"
"About forty meters for the command bunkers, Major."
"Um." Mooto lowered his glasses and glanced at Angus. "The outer works are no sweat, Colonel. The HVMs'll rip hell out of them, and the blast will take out most of the open emplacements and personnel, but forty meters is too deep for them." He sighed. "I'm afraid we'll have to do it Admiral Lantu's way."
"Aye," Angus agreed, and settled down to await the dark while M boto and Lantu briefed their squad leaders.
Warden Colonel Huark sat in his bunker, staring at the small touchpad linked to the switchboard, and his fingers twitched as he thought of the mass death awaiting his touch. There had been no further word from the infidel admiral. Did that mean he would force the colonel's hand?
Huark stroked the touchpad gently and almost hoped it did.
"Tis time," Angus said softly, and Lantu nodded convulsively. The Orion beside him muttered something to M'boto in the yowling speech of his people, but the major only shrugged and extended a weapon to Lantu.
He took the proffered pistol. It was heavy, yet it didn't seem to weight his hand properly. Dull plastic gleamed as he openea his uniform tunic and shoved it inside.
"You ll know when it's time," he said, and Angus nodded and thrust out a hand.
"Take care," he admonished. "Yer no sae bad a boggit."
Thank you." Lantu squeezed the guerrilla's callused, too-wide hand. Then he slipped away into the night.
Warden Private Katanak snatched at his rifle as something moved in the darkness. He started to squeeze the trigger, then made himself stop.
`Sergeant Gohal! Look!"
The sergeant reached for his pistol, then relaxed as a stocky, short-legged shape staggered from the forest into the glare of the perimeter floods.
"Call the lieutenant, Katanak. That's one of ours."
Lantu tried not to show his tension as he stumbled up to the gate. His hunched shoulders were eloquent with weariness, and the artful damage his human allies had wreaked on his uniform should nelp. But nothing would help if Huark had learned the truth about his "kidnapping."
`Who are - " The arrogant young lieutenant at the gate broke off and stared. "Holy Mother Terra!" he whispered. "First Admiral Lantu?!"
"Yes," Lantu gasped. "For Terra's sake, let me in!"
"B-b-but, First Admiral! We - I mean, how -?"
"Are you going to stand there and blither all night?" Lantu snarled. Satan-Khan! I didn't escape from a bunch of murdering terrorists and sneak across a hundred kilometers of hostile territory for that't't"
"Forgive me, sir!" The lieutenant's sharp salute was a tremendous relief. "We thought you were dead, sir! Open the gate, Sergeant!"
The gate swung, and Lantu stepped inside past the metal detector. The weapon inside his tunic seemed to scorch him, but there was no alloy in it.
"Thank you, Lieutenant." He injected relief into his thanks, but kept his voice tense and harried. "Now take me to the CP. Those Terra-cursed terrorists are planning - Never mind. Just get me to the colonel now!"
"Yes, sir!" The lieutenant snapped back to attention, then turned to lead the first admiral rapidly across the compound.
"He's in," M'boto murmured. "I hope he's been straight with us."
Angus only grunted, but Kthaara hissed something unintelligible - and unprintable - in the darkness.
Lantu let his feet drag down the steep bunker steps, playing his role of exhausted escapee. The guards by the main blast door looked up boredly as the lieutenant hurried over, then whipped around to stare at Lantu under the subterranean lights. One of them - a captain - crossed to him quickly.
"First Admiral! We thought you were - "
"The lieutenant told me, Captain," Lantu said tiredly, feeling his heart race, "but I'm alive, thank Terra. And I must see the colonel at once."
"I don't - " The captain paused under Lantu's suddenly icy eyes. "I'll tefl him, sir."
"Thank you, Captain," Lantu said frigidly. The officer disappeared, and seconds were dragging eternities until he returned.
"The colonel will admit you, First Admiral."
Lantu grunted, ignoring the insulting phrasing, and followed the captain into the bunker's heart. The smell of concrete and earth enveloped him as his guide led him swiftly to Huark's staff section.
"Sweet Terra, it is you." Huark sounded a bit surly - apparently he'd been less than crushed by his succession to command.
"First Admiral!" Another voice spoke, and he turned quickly, eyes widening as Colonel Fraymak held out his Hand. Lines of weariness and worry smoothed on the colonel's face, and Lantu tried to smile as a spasm of bitter regret wracked him. Why in the name of whatever was truly holy had Fraymak had to be here?
"Colonel. Colonel Huark. Thank Terra I reached you! I have vital information about the terrorists' plans."
He made himself ignore Fraymak's flicker of surprise at his choice of words.
"Indeed?" Huark leaned forward eagerly. "What information?"
"I think it would be better if I shared it with you in private," Lantu said, and Huark's eyes narrowed. Then he nodded.
"Everybody out," he said curtly, and his staff filed out. Lantu watched them go, willing Fraymak to accompany them yet unable to suggest it. Huark's eyes swiveled to his rival and he startedto speak, but then he stopped, and Lantu's heart sank. Of course the Warden wouldn't risk his ire by ordering his most trusted subordinate to leave.
"All right, First Admiral," Huark said as the inner blast door closed behind his staff. "What is it?"
"The terrorists are planning a major attack," Lantu said, stepping back and casually engaging the blast door's security lock. "I stole one of their maps," he went on, reaching into his tunic, "and -
His hand came out of his tunic with a bark of thunder.
"Now!" Major M'boto said harshly as a cluster of Wardens suddenly surged towards the HQ entrance. If Lantu had failed, three million human beings were about to die.
Colonel Huark lurched back, shocked eyes wide. Blood ran from his mouth as it opened. More frothed at his nostrils, and then he oozed down the wall in a smear of red.
Lantu ignored him. He was on auto-pilot, locked into the essential task he must accomplish, and his weapon barked again. The touchpad on Huark's desk shattered, and the main com switchboard spat sparks as he fired into it again and again, braced for the thunder of Fray-mak's pistol. But when he whirled to face the colonel at last, his weapon was still holstered and he held his hand carefully away from it.