It was two hours before the lights of the base showed clearly on the shore ahead, clearly enough to show the six big hydro-fliers anchored offshore and the complex of hangars and sheds that housed the others. To landward the base was well lit, with brilliant white lights pouring glare down on high chain-link fences. As they drew closer, Blade could see the shapes of sentries patrolling the fence. Getting in there from the shore would have been impossible. He went below and began to prepare for his assigned mission. In spite of his wounded thigh, he was still the best man for it.
When he returned to the deck, stripped to the skin and with his body blackened with camouflage cream, Stramod handed him a belt to tie around his waist, a belt from which hung six small but immensely powerful bombs and two fighting knives in sheaths. Beamers could not survive being submerged. Leyndt held out her hand to him and he grasped it briefly, but he was grinning as he slipped over the side into the cold water. Commando work had always been one of his favorite things.
One of the patrol boats was ambling slowly back and forth about two hundred yards away, the heads of three men visible inside it. He began to swim silently toward it, while the boat behind him continued on a course intended to draw the patrol toward him. Blade saw the patrol boat suddenly turn as its crew noticed the larger craft gliding across the water, heard a harsh challenge, saw one of the men in the patrol boat rise to his feet and flash a light toward the intruder. He gambled that they were now too preoccupied with the other boat to notice him, and quickened his stroke to a racing pace.
He shot up to the boat just as a man in it turned to look down and squalled a warning. He grasped the sides of the boat with both hands and heaved himself out of the water, then in a single fluid motion pivoted on his arms and swept his muscular legs across the boat like a scythe. One man went clear overboard with a splash and a cry, his beamer flying out of his hand as he did so; a second slammed up against the side, fumbling for his beamer. The third ducked below the swinging legs and grabbed for the communicator in the bottom of the boat; he was about to speak into it when Blade chopped him across the back of the neck and he collapsed. The second man now had his beamer coming up into firing position, but Blade's knife came out of its sheath before the man could complete the movement, and rammed into the man's chest before he could fire.
A movement behind him made Blade swing around. The first man was climbing back over the side of the boat, a knife in his hand, held in the point-up stance of the trained knife fighter. Blade did not rush in on this man; he was too dangerous. But he still had to kill him, and quickly, before somebody on shore noticed the commotion.
The man came at him, cat-footed and cat-quick, one arm held out as a blocking shield against Blade's knife while his own knife flickered in and out like a striking snake. Blade tried to use his longer reach to go in over the man's guard, but the other was too quick for that, and Blade nearly had his arm laid open. The other launched an attack; Blade had to parry a lightning slash at his jugular.
Then Blade stepped on the arm of the man fallen over the communicator. Like a fallen log the arm turned under him, and he went over backward. By a fraction of an inch he missed smashing his head against the control panel, but lay full-length on the deck. His opponent leaped forward, knife held out and reaching for the life of an apparently helpless victim.
As the man came within reach, Blade rolled his torso aside while both legs shot out and his ankles clamped tight around the other man's calves. Blade heaved, with every muscle in his body contributing in its own way to that heave. He heard the other man's leg bone crack, and heard him let out a scream that must have carried across the water to the base. The man crumpled onto one knee, the knife in his hand slashing down but only nicking Blade slightly under the left arm. Then Blade brought his own knife up before the man could recover and parry, and the man sank down onto his face, blood gushing from his throat.
Without worrying about whether the remaining man was dead, Blade stood up in the boat and gave the agreed-on signal with his arms outstretched. He heard the motor of the other boat speed up, then rolled himself over the side of the patrol craft into the water and headed for the farthest of the three fliers at the left end of the line. His six little bombs were for them. There would still be scores of fliers of all sorts and sizes that the Conciliators could use, but the Unionists could at least put out of action the three that could give pursuit most quickly.
He made no effort to swim silently now, but plunged through the water like a hunting shark. He saw lights in the cockpit windows of the fliers as he passed them, and lights moving around on shore in an aimless and frantic pattern. How thoroughly the base had become alerted during his fight was a nasty question. That knife fighter had delayed him beyond reason.
The little bombs were only the size of hand grenades, but each contained more than enough explosive to tear a flier apart. The first one was looming up now, with a figure silhouetted black against the light in one hatch. Blade estimated the distance to the hatch, dove under, and came up precisely below it. The man had no time to scream as a long arm snaked out of the water and plucked him over the side, then a razor-edged knife drove into his chest. Blade set the fuses of the two bombs and slapped them against the hull below the waterline. An adhesive plate would hold them against the hull. Then he turned and thrashed away toward the second flier.
This one had no one watching on the side he approached, and he was able to place his bombs unseen. To save time he then plunged under and swam beneath the flier, staying under until his breath seemed to pound red-hot in his throat and chest. He surfaced, took a deep breath, and plunged under again, passing beneath the third flier and coming up in the shadow of the tail. It concealed him from any watchers in the forward cabin, but gave him a clear view of the shore and what was happening around the other three fliers.
The big boat was moving among them, and people were throwing their beamers and bags into their open hatches, then slipping over the side and swimming across. Black figures stood silhouetted in the hatches, snagging gear out of the air and flinging it inside. He saw Nilando and Stramod standing atop the cabin of the boat, urging people to hurry, saw Leyndt drop over the side and scramble up into the nearest plane, followed by Pnarr. He slapped the two bombs onto the hull of the flier sheltering him and swam out into the open.
On shore now was a flurry and alarm visible even at this distance; running figures, lights swiveling around, shouts and alarm sirens wailing. A large boat with a beamer turret mounted amidship was putting out from shore, its deck crowded with armed soldiers. Blade heard the engines of the farthest flier crack and whine into life, then settle down to a swelling roar; he increased his pace. So did the approaching boat; the beamer turret was swinging around now, but the shore-based beamers were holding their fire to avoid hitting it.