“I’m sorry about that, Ceel Banash,” Admiral Suntoro said as soon as the conference had broken up. “General O’Neal should be more respectful of his betters.”
“General O’Neal’s record speaks for itself,” Ceel Banash said, calmly. “He is hyper-competent in his field. As was just proven. He was right, Admiral. I had considered only the point about how long it would take to get the Legion here. The other points were equally important if not more so. I have no issues with the conference.”
“Very well, Ceel,” Admiral Suntoro said, confused.
“I shall continue my planning of the recovery of this lovely world,” Ceel Banash said. “I suggest that you ensure delivery of supplies to the redoubtable ground-commander.”
As soon as the call was terminated the Ceel used all his willpower to suppress lintatai. He wanted to crush that impudent human, to rend him, to…
He took a breath and muttered a mantra, trying and trying to keep the surge of hormones down to a survivable level. If only…
The Legion was as thoroughly controlled as any unit in the military. The officers were utterly dependent upon the Darhel, every one having major financial problems that the Darhel were more than willing to remedy as long as they stayed in line. If the Legion had taken over the rest of the work on this planet its secret would assuredly remain safe. As it was, so far there was no indication the humans knew. But if the 11th remained, it would come out. The secret must NOT…
Indowy Neena knew the signs. As soon as the conference call was terminated it sent a muscle-cued message to its subordinates. The transfer-neuter watched, impassively, as the young Darhel wrestled with his inner emotions then suddenly jerked. For a moment, Neena thought it would die as the light of fury erupted in the Darhel’s face. Sometimes the Darhel could survive in the thrall of tal hormones for as long as fifteen seconds, long enough to kill up to a dozen Indowy if present. But this one barely jerked then slumped, his face going slack.
“Send a message to the Tir Dal Ron,” Neena said as a half a dozen Indowy scurried into the room. “This one has entered lintatai. We’re going to need a replacement Ceel. I will inform the Admiral.”
“Shall we place him in the airlock until he is gone?” Indowy Tak asked. The junior servant was new, out of the megascrapers for the first time. But if he was bothered by the condition of his former master it wasn’t apparent.
“Humans are confused by such things,” Neena said. “We will have to baby him until we get back to an Indowy or Darhel world. Then we can set him out.”
“I will see to his needs for now,” Tak said. “I can do that by myself.”
“Very well,” Neena replied, turning and leaving the compartment.
A second left to compose a message to the Tir who had sent Banash on this assignment. The others quickly tidied the small amount of mess the Ceel had caused them then left.
As soon as he was alone, Tak lifted the body and dragged the unresisting Ceel to the comconsole. Few humans realized the strength of the diminutive Indowy but, like chimpanzees, appearances were deceptive. The only problem with carrying the much larger Darhel was getting his limp legs to not dangle on the floor. The Tak sought a particular message then laid the Darhel’s hand on the control pad and positioned his face in front of the screen. Last, he slid a small device over the Darhel’s eyes. Darhel secure messages were, quite literally, for their eyes only. The laser would only shine into the Ceel’s eyes and could only be decrypted if he was physically watching it. Having him go into lintatai was a real coup for the junior Bane Sidhe.
The Indowy downloaded the decrypted message then picked the Darhel up and set him on the large bed. It was going to be a long time before anyone came to relieve him but he had some interesting reading to pass the time.
Tak was not, in fact, “straight out of the megascraper.” A member of the rebel faction called the Baen Sidhe by humans, he had travelled extensively and spent more time with humans than was considered either normal or proper. And despite extensive training in covert operations, he had developed some very bad habits.
One of them was a very human whistle when he was surprised.
“Whoooo,” the Indowy shrilled as he read the missive. “As Cally would say: The Darhel are sooo fucked!”
CHAPTER THREE
A month. Thirty-two days, actually. That was how long it had taken to get to this point.
Mike shook his head as he looked around the cavern. Adjectives were bothering him.
“So, is this a cavernous cavern?” he muttered.
“How ’bout one big motherfucking cavern, sir?” Rawls suggested. “And chock full of salty goodness, too.”
The… facility was clearly the center of the Posleen’s industrial capacity in the redoubt. Nearly two thousand meters under ground, deep enough in the bedrock that it was damned well hot, the six hundred meter long, one hundred and twenty meter high facility was packed with Posleen auto-forges. Enough in this one facility to outfit a dozen factory ships. At a billion credits a pop, on the open market, Mike was looking at a serious haul.
Getting there, though, had been tough. Casualties had approached ten percent in the first week. The unit was being decimated in all but the truly literal sense. However, the resistance had dropped off from there. The much more dangerous God-Kings thinned out, replaced by hordes of half-wild, but heavily armed, normals. They had thrown themselves into the ACS troops in wild charges in narrow tunnels, in some cases blasting so much firepower into same that they were collapsed.
Others were intentionally rigged by the remaining God-kings, dropping on units as they advanced. But having a mountain fall on you was old hat for ACS troops; they’d been dealing with that since almost their first battle. And they could dig like gophers.
Slowly, in the face of mass charges and collapsed tunnels and feints and flanking maneuvers, the corps had slowly ground its way to the center of the redoubt, finally taking this cavern.
By that time, it was mostly mopping up. There were still feral Posleen filling the extensive tunnels and mines of the redoubt, but the last crop of God-kings, probably the commander and his “staff”, had been killed only a few hours before.
“How much do you think?” Rawls asked.
The Darhel had actually instituted the program of paying units for “recovered materials.” Human commanders from Western societies had initially argued against what they saw as archaic “prize” rules but the law was encoded in Galactic regulation.
Over the years, Mike had made a tidy sum from prizes. But…
“Enough for a drunken weekend for every survivor,” Mike said, coldly. “Even after the triple tithe for the next of kin. But add it all up and it won’t even pay for the suits, much less the SheVas. And while there are bean counters aplenty that can give you a precise value for every one of my boys killed, I’m not going to even try.”
“Sorry, sir,” Rawls said.
“It’s not enough, sergeant,” Mike said. “It’s never ever enough.”
“Madre de Dios,” Julio muttered, looking into the pit.
“What’cha got?” Sergeant Dylan Glover asked.
Julio’s team had been attached, more or less of necessity, to the general’s bodyguards as the assault ground forward. The Hammers had taken even higher casualties than the rest of the division trying to protect their headstrong commander. While Julio’s team hadn’t had their same level of training or experience, more bodies were more bodies.