Moyshe chuckled. "They wouldn't understand what the fighting was about, Mouse. They'd laugh themselves sick."
Danion and her sisters went into geosynchronous orbit well above Angel City's horizon. The message was not lost on anyone. If there was too much foolishness downstairs, the fire could fall.
Moyshe, in spacesuit, wrestling a load of armaments, joined Storm for the journey to their departure station.
"Wish we had real combat gear," Mouse said. "These suits won't stand much punishment."
"Be nice."
"Get any sleep?"
"Couldn't. I kept watching the news from Angel City." Moyshe had been shaken by the reports.
"Me too. Something big is happening. There're too many undercurrents. Be careful, Moyshe. Let's don't get bent with it."
"You ever feel like an extra cog?"
"Since the first day I worked for Beckhart. There was always something on that I couldn't figure out. Here we are. And Jarl looks excited."
Kindervoort was overseeing the loading of the four lighters that would make the initial landings, in pairs at fifteen minute intervals. Storm and benRabi would command the teams aboard the lead pair.
"You're going overboard, Jarl," benRabi said as they approached Kindervoort.
"Why? The more we impress them now, the less trouble we'll have later."
"You won't impress them. Not when they have three squadrons here. Go take a look at what Operations has on those ships. Three Empire Class battlewagons, Jarl. The Second Coming wouldn't faze them."
"I smell Beckhart," Mouse said. "Something about the way things are going... He's back in the woods somewhere, poking holes in our plans before we know what they are ourselves."
Kindervoort said, "Make sure that... "
"I know! I know!" benRabi snapped. "We've been over everything fifty times. Just turn us loose, will you?"
"Go easy, Moyshe," Mouse said.
"You take it easy, Mouse," he replied, gently. Storm had begun shaking. He was thinking about the long fall to the planet's surface.
"I'll be all right when things start rolling. I'll go AM if I have to."
"Things are rolling now," Kindervoort said. "Get moving. Take your musters."
Work helped settle Moyshe's nerves. He mustered his men, checked their suits, made sure their weapons were ready, and that they had the first phase of the operation clearly in mind. He rehearsed it for himself. The lighter sealed off from Danion. Moyshe joined the pilot. He wanted to remain near the ship's radio.
"All go, Moyshe?" from Kindervoort.
"Landing party go."
"Pilot?"
"Ship's go."
"Stand by for release."
The pilot hit a switch. His visuals came up, presenting views of Danion's hull, stars, and The Broken Wings in crescent. The planet was a huge, silvery scimitar. Its surface lay masked by perpetual cloud cover.
The Broken Whigs was a very hot, very wet world, with a nasty atmosphere. Its handful of cities were all protected by huge glassteel domes.
"Dropping," Kindervoort said.
The magnetic grappels released the lighter. The pilot eased her away from the harvestship. Radar showed Mouse's boat, almost lost in the return from Danion, doing the same a hundred meters away.
They picked up their service ship escort and began the long plunge toward Angel City's spaceport.
Kindervoort would lead the second wave. Behind him would come armed lighters from other harvestships, ready to provide close air support if that proved necessary.
The planet grew in the viewscreens. On infrared it looked rather like Old Earth. Moyshe told his pilot, "The first survey teams thought this would be a paradise."
The pilot glanced at the screen. "It's not?"
"It's a honey trap."
A greenhouse effect made it a permanently springtime world. It was a riot with a roughly Permian level of life. Its continents lay low. Much of the so-called land area was swamp. Methane made the air unbreathable. The planet was on the verge of a mountain-building age. Three hundred kilometers north of Angel City lay a region locally dubbed the Land of A Million Volcanoes. It added a lung-searing touch of hydrogen-sulfide to the air.
The first wisps of atmosphere caressed the lighters. The escort braked preparatory to pulling out. The landing teams would be on their own the last 100,000 meters.
Mouse's boat screamed down less than a kilometer from benRabi's. Their pilots kept station almost as skillfully as Marine coxswains. They had handled atmosphere before, somewhere.
Moyshe became ever more tense, awaiting some sudden, unpleasant greeting from below. There was none. It was a picnic fly, except that it was a penetration run without thought to economy or comfort, just getting down with speed. Moyshe kept a close monitor on the radio chatter of the second wave, already in the slot and coming down.
The lighter rocked and shuddered, braking in. BenRabi staggered back to his men.
There was barely time for him to hit his couch before, with a bone-jarring smack, the ship set down. Moyshe sprang up and turned to the opening hatch, lase-rifle in hand. Behind him came two men with grenade-launchers, then the rest of the team.
Moyshe jumped out, dodged aside. Two hundred meters away Mouse hit tarmac at virtually the same instant. His pathfinders spread out to place the target markers for vessels yet to arrive.
The thing became anticlimactic. No one was home. The field was naked of ships and people.
Then a stiff-necked, thin old man in a bubble-top, The Broken Wings swamper's outsuit, stepped from a utility shed. "Beautiful landing, Thomas," he said on radio. "Ah. And Mouse, too. You've taught well, boys. But you had the best teachers yourselves."
"Beckhart!" Mouse gasped.
"You were expecting St. Nick, son?"
"You said you smelled him," benRabi snapped. "Mouse, raise Danion. Tell them to stand by on the main batteries. General alarm. Have Jarl come close circle with the air support."
"Thomas, Thomas, what are you doing?"
"The question is, what are you doing?" He covered Beckhart while Mouse handled the communications chores. Kindervoort came up on the suit frequency, chattering wildly. He wanted an explanation for the panic.
"I just came out to welcome you," Beckhart said. "I wanted to see my boys." All operatives were "son" or "my boys" to Beckhart. He treated them like family—when he was not trying to get them killed. BenRabi had strong love-hate feelings for the man.
He stifled his emotions. For the moment Beckhart had to be considered the most dangerous enemy around. His presence altered everything.
"What is all this?" the Admiral demanded. "An invasion? This is a free planet, Thomas."
BenRabi foresaw a sorry, sad old man act. The act that so often won the Admiral his way. One means of beating it was to throw him a hard slider. What the hell was his first name? Using it would rattle him.
"We heard there was some dust getting kicked up here," Mouse said. "Nicolas! Will you get those men deployed? What the hell do you think this is?" The Seiners were standing around gawking, stricken motionless by the sheer hugeness of the planet. How could you be military the first time you saw open spaces and an infinite sky? "We don't take chances, Admiral."
Beckhart chuckled. "There was a spot of trouble. I've got it under control."
"We heard something about martial law," benRabi said. "How does that fit with your standards of neutrality?"
"We pick on everyone separately but equally." Beckhart chuckled again. He glanced around at the Starfisher landing parties, then at the sky. "There's no violation in spirit, Thomas. I need what you're selling. You'll sell it in peace if I have to break every head on the planet. That's why I elected myself your welcoming committee. Now then, I think I've got everything ready for you. Why don't you ride in with me and tell me about your adventures?"