“Oh, shit,” I moaned, and managed to climb even faster.
A bolt of white light flew past me. It might have been some sort of white laser, if there can be such a thing. It might or might not have been any more powerful than our particle beams, but the bolt cut through the cords around me and struck a wall. The spot it struck glowed white and orange, and distilled shit gas gushed out of it like blood from a bullet hole.
The men above me must have seen the shot, too. One of them leaned into the shaft, lowered an M27, and fired a continuous ten-second burst. “I can’t hit it!” Freeman yelled, but he did not say if his bullets missed or failed.
Two sets of arms grabbed me and pulled me out of the shaft. Philips and Thomer pulled me to my feet as Freeman dropped a grenade down the shaft. We sprinted out of the elevator station. Outside the station, the strange, gelatinous light continued to creep toward us. It was less than a mile away and moving at a slow pace. Running as fast as I could to the transport, I did not have time to stop and check.
“Can anybody fly this thing?” Thomer asked, as we rushed the ramp.
Freeman did not bother answering. He climbed the ladder and entered the cockpit with all the dexterity of a spider checking its web. A moment later the boosters sounded. We were already off the ground when the doors at the rear of the kettle banged shut.
I looked around the kettle and tore off my helmet. “Get harnessed,” I growled at my men. From here on out, we had to rely on luck, Freeman, and God. Of the three, Freeman was the only one who had not abandoned us so far. Leaving my helmet on the bench along the wall, I crossed the deck and climbed up to the cockpit.
Freeman sat at the controls, holding the yoke with one hand and hitting switches with the other. Through the windshield, I could see the landscape ahead of us. The tide of light continued to move toward us. I did not see tanks or gunships or armies moving inside it. Then Freeman rotated the ship toward the gravity chute.
Staring out of the cockpit, I saw Marines running out of elevator stations and transports taking off. We might not be the only ones who made it out, if we made it out. There was still the question about the gravity chute.
Freeman slowed down as he approached the chute the way Mogat pilots did. “Do you know how it works?” he asked.
“You just fly into it,” I said. “It’s like an elevator.”
We approached the chute so slowly that we seemed to inch toward it. I felt like we would simply drop. And then the updraft caught us, and we rose. I peered over the nose of the transport. I saw another transport below us; and then I saw the strange light spreading over everything below.
“Did you see that thing that shot at me,” I asked, then added, “in the elevator shaft?”
Freeman shook his head.
“It wasn’t human,” I said.
I could not shake the image of those metallic eyes watching me as I climbed up the dark elevator shaft. For the first time since I entered the Marines, I had felt real fear, mortal fear, fear undiluted by the delirious effects of the combat reflex. Even the hormone in my blood had not kept me calm. And now, standing behind Freeman, I realized that I was still trembling.
We rose more quickly up the gravity chute than I had expected. Whatever was happening in the Mogat city below had accelerated the natural convection. It was probably consuming thousands of Marines and millions of Mogats as well. Glare as bright as sunlight shone up the shadowy length of the chute. Rainbow colors spiraled on the rock just below us. At some point, the light faded, and a minute later we emerged on the dark surface of the planet. There was no hint of whatever was happening below.
Freeman flew us out of that hollowed-out mountain and straight up, out of the atmosphere. A few moments later, we received the message I think we both doubted would come: “U.A. Transport, this is the battleship Sakura. Please prepare to dock.”
EPILOGUE
“Wild Bill” Grace, the senior member of the Linear Committee, stood at the podium smiling at his audience. Gordon Hughes, the chairman of the Confederate Arms, stood behind him. Both men smiled so freely you would never guess that they had recently sent navies to annihilate each other. Behind them, two flags hung from crossed staffs—the Unified Authority stars and bars and the Confederate Arms map of the galaxy.
Seated at the back of the podium were Admiral Brallier, General Smith, and several other officers I recognized. An empty seat marked Admiral Brocius’s place. He was in exile back on the Central Cygnus Fleet. He had sent Freeman to die along with me and my platoon. He had deceived Ray Freeman just as he had the rest of us; but there was no programming in Freeman’s natural-born brain to cause him to overlook the indiscretion. Freeman would take his revenge. Once he learned that we had survived, Brocius fled to the safety of his ships.
Admiral Brallier looked particularly pleased with himself, sitting beside Brocius’s empty seat.
Brocius’s obsession with house odds had done him in. He tried to hedge his bets against the Mogats by sacrificing the Marines. Afraid that Freeman might try to avenge me, he improved the odds against Freeman by sending him to die on a wild-goose chase. Crowley was never on the Mogat planet; he died fighting his former allies when the Mogats attacked the Confederate Arms as they battled for control of the fleet. Yoshi Yamashiro gave us that scrap of information on our way back to Earth.
“Wild Bill” held a single sheet of paper. “Perhaps we can get started,” he said. “I’d like to start by introducing my colleague for this occasion, Mr. Gordon Hughes, chairman of the Confederate Arms.”
The reporters in the gallery obviously recognized the former Speaker of the House and chairman of the Confederate Arms Treaty Organization, but the introduction drew anxious whispers from the crowd.
“This afternoon at 2:30 Washington, DC, time, the Unified Authority and Confederate Arms launched an invasion into Mogat space,” Grace continued.
Judging by the gasps of the reporters in the audience, you might have thought that Grace had tossed a live grenade into the gallery. Some people merely raised their hands to signal questions. Others tried to push right up to the dais.
Grace ignored the pandemonium and continued.
“We sent an invasion force of sixty thousand Unified Authority Marines and two hundred Navy SEALs to the home world of the Morgan Atkins Movement. At the same time, the Confederate Arms sent its forty-ship self-broadcasting fleet to support the invasion.
“I am pleased to announce that the invasion was an unqualified success. The Mogat threat has been eliminated. We have destroyed their base of operations, and we have destroyed their self-broadcasting fleet.
“I think it is safe to say that we have closed the door once and for all on the Morgan Atkins uprising.
“Are there any questions?”
Reporters pushed and shoved to climb in front of each other. One man actually grabbed another by the back of his collar and yanked him out of the way.
Grace selected a pretty female reporter and pointed to her.
“When did you create an alliance with the Confederate Arms, and does this mean the Confederate Arms will be rejoining the Republic?”
“Perhaps I could answer that,” Gordon Hughes said, stepping up to join “Wild Bill.”