Gretta cocked her head, long brown hair shining in the faint light. "I wouldn't mess with Imperial firepower. What have they got out there? Untrained miners? So they have some pulse weapons and grenades? A couple of blasters in those hands are hardly enough to rout the might of the Empire."
"They wiped out the garrison," Sinklar reminded, ripping the seal off his energy bar. He watched as an old woman climbed the stairs hesitantly, her glance that of a scared bird as she cataloged the armored personnel resting along the halls. Kyphotic osteoporosis had curled her spine, giving her a hunched appearance. She clutched a large purse to her tightly bundled chest with age-spotted talon fingers — joints knotted from arthritis. She climbed one step at a time, making sure of her footing.
"Help you, ma'am?" MacRuder asked, speech slurred by the crunchy food bar as he stood and opened the thick glass door for her.
She nodded with frightened jerks of her birdlike head. "I… I need to see about. about my medical benefits,"
her voice came out frail and withered to match her agelined face.
MacRuder wiped a hand across his mouth and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "See Sergeant Hamlish in there." He indicated the room where once the Regan Postal Super had held court until the "Citizens' Committee" hauled him out and hacked him to pieces with mucking tools.
She avoided their eyes and nodded, hobbling painfully to the sergeant's room on brittle legs.
"Now there's a dangerous revolutionary," MacRuder said with a laugh. He ripped the tab out of the side of another energy bar. "So much for Targan resistance. We've got this place cowed, man!"
Sinklar frowned. "Yeah, maybe. You know, I was reading about the Sylene expedition Phillipia mounted when they were on their conquest jag a couple of centuries ago. The lesson—"
"Ancient history, Fist," Gretta told him. "What could a backwater war like that have to do with Imperial power?"
Sink lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Well, uh, there's lots of interesting things in history books."
"Like what?" MacRuder asked. "Cut and dried combat tactics? I mean, you read what somebody did a hundred ten counts ago and everybody who can read will know the tactics. You've got to think up new plans, constantly innovate. That's the key to the Star Butcher's success, you know. Think, Sink!" MacRuder pointed to his head and winked.
"Books, huh?" Gretta snickered. "You one of those Seddis, Sink?"
Color rose hot on his neck. As he became more flustered, it got worse. "No. I just studied is all… trying to gain entrance to the Regan University."
MacRuder laughed, mouth full of food. "Didn't get too far, huh? Man, you don't get to University unless you're a genius or you got noble blood in your veins — or an appointment signed by the Emperor."
"Yeah, I know. I thought I'd get it. I scored third in the Interplanetary trials."
His words evoked wide-eyed silence.
"Rotted Gods!" Gretta whispered. "Third! And they still didn't take you?"
Sinklar flushed and picked idly at his food bar. "No."
MacRuder shook his head. "They say why?"
Lie, Sink. You can't tell them why. From now on stick to the orphan story.
"No. Only that they were sorry. But. but I should not be discouraged from trying again next year."
Gretta's brow furrowed. "I knew a woman who made it. She placed eighty-sec…" She bit it off at the look on Fist's face. She took a deep breath and sighed. "Must have been political. Maybe an error in some office, huh?"
"Yeah, must have been."
The old woman came out of Sergeant Hamlish's office during the uneasy pause. Her heavy boots clicked across the floor as she passed. Her frightened glance met Sinklar's for a brief instant before she looked away. He pushed the door open for her and watched her hobble down the stairs, arms swinging for balance.
From the corner of his eye, Sinklar caught a glimpse of the sergeant heading for the men's toilet. Well, even sergeants had to go sometime.
"So what did you learn from your history of the Sylene wars?" MacRuder's manner had changed subtly.
"Don't concentrate your forces," Sinklar mumbled, thinking about the old woman hobbling rapidly across the uneven street.
Outside, loudspeakers blared yet another repeat of the terms of occupation as a military hover-craft, studded with heavy blasters and pulse cannon, passed over. The booming voice echoed, "Martial Law is currently in force. Persons needing travel permits, medical care, or police assistance must register with the military authorities. All comm requests will be handled in order of receipt. Remain calm and comply with military authority." And it went on, droning in the muggy air.
Sinklar chewed his lip and looked up at the brooding clouds. He had already started to hate Targa — and no one had even shot at him yet.
"Yeah, well, that goes against any axiom of military sense," MacRuder maintained. "Anyone knows that divide and conquer is the oldest rule in warfare. Strength allows defensive as well as offensive options that scattered troops—"
"Rotted Gods!" Sinklar cried, jumping to his feet. "Where's her purse?"
"What?" MacRuder's face twisted.
"Come on, let's go get her!" Sinklar grabbed up his rifle. "Lke Sylene, Mac. Hey! Somebody check the sergeant's office for that old woman's purse."
He charged down the stairs, eyes on the old woman as she scuttled around the corner of a gray-mortared building. Gretta and MacRuder followed along behind, resettling their helmets and hooking up their rifles.
Sinklar's feet hit the irregular cobbles on the street — but he couldn't remember what happened next. The world seemed to drop out from under him before it leapt up to smack him. He remembered rolling across the rough stone cobbles, time and space suspended in fire, and smoke, and fragments of bouncing mortar.
Stunned, ears ringing, he fought air ito his stinging lungs. He moved his legs and arms, aware they still worked. Numb, he got to his feet, weaving back and forth. The assault rifle had remained attached to the combat armor catches and dangled within reach. He groped for the weapon as violet light crackled past his head. Ducking, he dropped to one knee and fired a burst at the upper-story window the shots had come from. The front of the building jumped from the impact, dust flying from the cracks in the brick.
Sinklar turned, seeing MacRuder struggling to his feet. The postal building had been turned into dusty rubble. As Sinklar watched, one of the side walls teetered out and collapsed on the side street.
"By the Blessed Gods," Sinklar whispered. No one could have survived that. Somehow he got his wits together enough to pull Gretta up. Dazed, MacRuder gaped stupidly while blood ran out of his nose. Another shot ripped past Sinklar's ear. He charged for the far side of the avenue. Acting on instinct, he raised his rifle and blew the door before him apart, shoving his companions into the dark and the unknown.
"We play a deep game, Bruen." Magister Hyde drew an asthmatic breath, brows furrowed as he watched the inset monitor where the chestnut-haired woman systematically
demolished boulders with a pulse pistol. "The problem with psychological weapons is their inherent unreliability."
They sat side by side on a stone bench carved into the back of a rocky balcony that clung to the basalt cliff overlooking the Makarta Valley. The misty clouds had failed to defeat the inevitable sun for the first time in days. Now the valley burst with greenery and the sun warmed their retreat.
Bruen nodded soberly. "Circles within circles, my friend."
"Probability is one thing," Hyde interrupted himself to cough, "but the human brain? Hah! For centuries greater minds than ours have quested and poked and prodded, seeking the answers of the psyche. It makes me nervous to be cast in the lot of a god."
Bruen grunted at the monitor where Arta Fera, her lithe form outlined in the evening light, fired the last charge in the pulse pistol. Another of the rocks on the hillside exploded in a gout of dust.