The Eternal Emperor held up a hand, stopping him. He grinned at Mahoney and mock-tugged at his forelock.
"Where's the congratulations for your brilliant boss? I just bought you more time. Mahoney."
Mahoney was silent.
The Emperor caught it. leaned forward across his desk. Steepled his fingers. "Something wrong. Colonel?".
Mahoney hesitated.
"What's going on. dammit!"
"Our operative. Sten. I can't raise him."
The Emperor sagged back. "Which means?"
"Hell if I know, sir. All I know is Mercury Corps Appreciation: All bets are off."
And the Emperor reached for his own bottle. "Clot! I just may have outsmarted myself."
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
"HE... HE'S... DEAD?"
"I'm afraid so. dear."
And Parral bent forward to comfort his weeping sister. Sofia leaned into him for warmth and then jolted away. She wiped away her tears.
"But how?"
Parral gave her his best warm, brotherly smile. "Oh. he fought bravely, as did the other men. But I'm afraid it was just too much for them. A trap. They died to a man."
Sofia held her brother's gaze for a moment, wondering if it was true, wondering if her brother had—no. that was too much even for Parral.
With a great heaving sob she collapsed into his arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
"EGAN'S DEAD." THE Lycee girl said in a monotone.
Sten just nodded. There wasn't time or energy to mourn.
"He's dead," the woman continued. "He was just walking out of the shelter for rations and they flamed him."
Viola shut up. and sat looking at and through Sten with the thousand-meter stare. Before Sten could make appropriate comforting noises, Alex had led her away, taken the computer terminal from her pack, and set the woman to figuring out some kind of strength report.
Not that it was needed. The figures were already thoroughly graven into Sten's mind:
TROOPS COMMITTED: 670 (Sten had landed with 146 of his original mercenaries, plus 524 Companions.)
TROOPS REMAINING: 321.
Clottin' great leader you make. Colonel, his mind mocked. Only 50 percent casualties'? Fine leadership there. And now what are you going to do?
He heard a scraping sound behind him and turned to see Mathias crawling up. He crouched beside Sten, staring at him intently, his face pale, his eyes full of anger and hate. Hate... not at Sten... but...
"My father," he said. "Did he give the orders to abandon us?"
Sten hesitated and then said quite truthfully, "I don't know."
"His own son," Mathias hissed. "My Companions..."
Sten put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "It was probably just Parral," he said. "Parral playing his own game."
Mathias dragged a sleeve across his grimy face. "I should have suspected..." His voice trailed off. Sten steeled himself. He had to start thinking, not talking, not feeling sorry for himself.
"Mathias," he snapped, and the young man jolted to semireality. "Get back to your men. Await my orders."
Mathias nodded numbly and slithered back to his position.
Sten cautiously lifted his head above the boulder and eyed the perimeter. After they'd realized Parral's transports had abandoned them, the force had found a defensive perimeter in the four-block-wide chunk of demolished machineshops. They had dug in and waited for something to happen.
They were completely surrounded by the surviving Jann— a force that Egan, in the last estimate before his death, had surmised to be about five thousand.
Only about twenty to one odds. Easy—if you're a hero in the livies. So you have a little more than three hundred troops left, most of them wounded, Colonel. By the way, you forgot the Bhor.
Indeed. The thirty or so Bhor, since they could no longer fly, had fought on the perimeter as berserkers. Sten was only sorry that, evidently, Otho must've died in the original withdrawal. No one had reported seeing him or his body. Add thirty hulks. So, Colonel? What, then, are your options?
There are only four possibilities in battle:
1.-Win.
2.-Withdraw.
3.-Surrender.
4.-Die in place.
It didn't take a battle computer to run the options. Winning was out, and there was no way to withdraw. Surrender wasn't even an option—five of Sten's mercenaries had tried that tactic. Now they were out in the middle of no-man's land between Sten's perimeter and the Jann lines. Crucified on steel I-beams. It had taken them almost a day to die—and most of them had been helped by grace rounds from the mercenaries.
No. Surrender to the Jann was not possible.
So here it is, young Sten. After all your cleverness and planning. Here you are, facing your only option—to fight a holding action that'll go down in history beside Camerone, Dien Bien Phu, Tarawa, Hue, or Krais VII. Wormfood, in other words.
And then anger flared. Well, and his mind found the phrase from Lanzotta, the man who'd punted him through basic Guards training: "I've fought for the Empire on a hundred different worlds and I'll fight on a hundred more before some skeek burns me down, but I'll be the most expensive piece of meat he ever butchered."
He spun back toward the command circle. "Alex!"
The voice command—and Kilgour found himself at attention.
"Sir!"
"Six hours to nightfall. I want you and five men—volunteers from Ffillips' unit—standing by."
"Sir!
We have location on the Jann command post?"
"Aye."
"Tonight, then. We go out."
And a smile spread slowly across Alex's face. He knew. Indeed he knew. And it would be far better to die in the attack than huddled in this perimeter waiting for it.
CHAPTER FORTY
IT HAD TAKEN almost two days to dig Khorea and what little remained of his command structure out of the bunker. They'd found him, huddled under a vee-section of the collapsed ceiling, deep in trance state.
The Jann medics had quickly brought him out of it, and Khorea had refused further aid. He'd insisted on taking charge of the final destruction of the mercenaries.
Khorea was probably still in minor shock, delayed battle stress. He had ordered the slow death of the mercenaries who'd deserted and insisted that all Jann be ordered to take no prisoners. He was determined to wipe out the far-worlders who'd shamed the Jann—to the slow death of the last man and woman.
Khorea now sat behind the hastily rerigged computers and screens in the command post. He hated them and longed for the days when a leader led from the front.
Then he half smiled. Realized that all of his electronics, all of his analysis, produced only one answer—the mercenaries would not, could not, surrender.
He shut down his command sensor and stood.
"General!" An aide.
"Tomorrow. We will attack. And I will lead the final assault."
The aide—eyes wide in hero worship—saluted.
"Tonight, then, assemble my staff. We shall show these worms what Jann are, from the highest to the lowest. But tonight—tonight we shall assemble for prayers. Here. One hour after nightfall."
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
"... BUT BEFORE WE could stalk the streggan," the ancient Bhor creaked, "there was preparation. We fasted and considered the nature of our ancient enemy. And then, once we had determined our mind upon him, we feasted. Then and only then would we set out across the wave-struck ice to find him, hidden deep in his lair..."
Ancient, Otho thought, wasn't the word for the old Bhor. One sign of approaching death for a Bhor was for the pelt on his chest to begin turning gray. Shortly thereafter, the Bhor would assemble his family and friends for the final guesting and then disappear out onto the ice to die the death, lonely but for the gods.