Drifter's War (19 page)

Della smiled as she topped the hill. She broke the horizon, slowly, gently, careful to keep a thin curtain of grass between her and the field below. What she saw was absolutely amazing.

Hundreds of female heavies and a scattering of lights stood gathered in the middle of a field. Della could not only
see
them, she could
smell
them, as the stench of unwashed bodies and open latrines drifted up to fill her nostrils. The adults were silent but many of the infants made a pitiful wailing sound.

A quick count informed her that there were six Il Ronnian ground vehicles and two air cars in the area. The ground vehicles were spaced out around the prisoners. The air cars were busy collecting a bunch of antigrav-equipped floodlights. Good. She would use the time to select a target.

Della flipped the rifle's bipod into the "down" position, aimed the weapon toward the field below, and looked into the electronic scope. Faces popped up to meet her. She moved the weapon from right to left. The faces became a blur.

The rifle felt awkward. Not too surprising since it had been designed for the largely left-handed Il Ronnians. And that, plus the fact that the weapon had never been intended for long-range sniping, made the task even more difficult.

Still, Della had pumped more than fifty rounds through it the day before, sighting the rifle in and learning its little quirks. Like the slight tendency to pull high and right. Wexel-15 had promised her some better weapons but they were days away. This was now and the rifle would have to do.

Della forced herself to concentrate. She needed a target. An officer if possible. Someone the troops would miss. It was God's idea and a damned good one.

An air car blurred through her sight. Wait a minute… She moved it back. There, standing in the rear, an Il Ronnian officer.

Teep checked to make sure that the last of the lights had been stowed, then turned around. The sun peeked over the distant mountains and speared his eyes with light. He blinked, caught what looked like movement, and brought the binoculars to his eyes. Carefully, taking his time, he scanned the horizon. The right-hand slope, the top of the hill, then the left-hand slope. Nothing. Satisfied, he turned around.

Della settled the cross hairs on the back of the Il Ronnian's head. Low to allow for the rifle's tendency to shoot high. A body shot would have been easier but Della felt sure that the officer's body armor would protect him at this range.

He had given the bounty hunter quite a start. For a moment there, just as his binoculars swept the top of the hill, she had been ready to run. Only the knowledge that running would almost certainly reveal her position had kept her in place.

Now the officer's back was toward her. It forced Della to confront something she had known all along. Like most bounty hunters she had been forced to kill. But this was murder. Premeditated, long-range, cold-blooded murder. She felt sick to her stomach.

Teep brought the mike to his lips. "We have a long way to go so listen carefully. You will make your way to the road and follow it north. Stragglers will be shot."

Della heard the Il Ronnian's words via the translator in her pocket and the plug in her right ear. They made all the difference. The sick feeling disappeared. She let out her breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.

A single shot rang across the valley. The bullet was high and slightly to the right, but, thanks to Della's effort to compensate, hit right on target. The impact of the heavy-caliber bullet threw Teep forward. Rola-4 watched in amazement as the Il Ronnian officer hit the side of the air car, flipped over, and cartwheeled to the ground below. His body hit the dirt with a soft thump. Dust exploded upward and blew sideways in the breeze.

The aliens dashed every which way at first, searching for the sniper, but having no idea of where they should look. But that came to a stop when the senior noncom, an assistant file leader named Qeeb, took command.

He ordered the ground vehicles to stand guard over the prisoners while the air cars used overlapping spiral search patterns to comb the surrounding area. It took less than two laks for them to find Della's trail and follow it to the hatch. One air car landed while the other hovered overhead. It would provide suppressive fire in the case of an ambush.

Qeeb had combat experience, and could have saved the landing party's lives, but was unable to see what they were doing from the other side of the hill. His ground vehicle had just jerked into motion when the troopers approached the hatch, pried it upward and looked inside. They disappeared in a flash of light.

The sound of the explosion was much more cogent than the almost hysterical sit rep provided by the driver of air car number two.

Qeeb swore up a storm as the command car rounded the hill and approached the circle of still smoldering grass. Blackened bodies had been hurled in every direction.

Qeeb wanted to descend into the tunnel, find the sniper, and break him in half with his own bare hands. But he knew better than to do so. There could be anything from booby traps to a full-scale ambush waiting down there. No, the sensible thing to do was recover the bodies, radio for reinforcements, and wait for some new instructions. He gave the appropriate orders.

It took a while for the importance of what had happened to sink in. The females stared at Teep's body, watched stoically as the Il Ronnians searched for the sniper, and looked at each other in wonderment.

Then it began to dawn. This was the sign that God had promised! Someone was fighting back! The aliens could be defeated!

Some of the females approached Rola-4 and tried to speak with her. Others shooed them away. There were fierce whispers of "Go back! Don't attract attention! Speak with her later!"

The others obeyed and Rola-4 was left to her thoughts. The aliens could be defeated. God had proved that. But what would happen next? What would he say the next time she placed the disk on her forehead? There was no way to tell. She shifted Neder-33 from one shoulder to the other and reconciled herself to wait.

Behind Rola-4, back toward the rear of the crowd, Tusy-35 came to the same conclusion. She had seen Rola-4's prophecy come true, had seen the way that the other females gravitated toward her, and knew what that meant. Less power for her.

Tusy-35 shifted her considerable weight from one foot to the other as a series of thoughts rolled through her mind. Time, that was the key. Rola-4 might be on top of the heap right now, but time brings opportunity, and she could afford to wait.

Tusy-35 smiled, crossed her arms, and inhaled the morning air. It smelled very, very good.

14

Lando followed Dru-2l out onto the catwalk that ran the circumference of the cavern wall. The gratings shook under their combined weight. It was a long drop to the floor below. The railing had been designed to protect the shorter, stockier heavies, and hit both of them toward the top of the thighs. The smuggler felt a wave of vertigo and backed away.

Dru-2l was completely unaffected. True to the genetic programming given his caste thousands of years before, the construct had no difficulty dealing with heights, enclosed spaces, or any other situation that might interfere with his work. The cavern was noisy and Dru-2l was forced to shout. Like Lando he wore a captured translator around his neck.

"This is the factory I told you about! We took captured Il Ronnian weapons, redesigned them, and retooled this facility to produce them."

Lando nodded. "Are there two weapons designs? One for lights, and one for heavies? Or just one?"

Dru-21 allowed himself a smile. "You raise an excellent point. Our physiologies are sufficiently different to require variations in design. Take assault weapons for example. Heavies have four fingers while we have six. That led to shorter grips for the heavies and longer grips for us.

"So the answer to the question you asked is 'Yes, there will be two types of weapons, one for heavies, and one for lights,' and the answer to the question that you
didn't
ask is 'Yes, the lights will fight alongside the heavies.'"

If Dru-21 expected Lando to show some signs of embarrassment, he was sadly disappointed. The smuggler nodded, got a good grip on a vertical support, and peeked over the rail.

A grid stretched the width of the cavern. It supported hundreds of floodlights all directed toward the activity below. The floor was packed with machine tools and the handful of personnel that it took to run them. Heavies mostly, with a scattering of lights.

The equipment was foreign but the functions were not. Lando saw computer-controlled lathes, drill presses, stamping machines, arc welders, and more. Whirring, banging, hammering, screeching, and buzzing, they made a cacophony of sound.

Even more impressive however was the efficient way in which each machine interfaced with all the others. Raw materials flowed smoothly, one process led to the next, and everything ran in concert.

Lando looked around. Other than the fact that the factory was underground he wasn't sure where it was. Should that bother him? He didn't know.

Dru-21 made his way along the catwalk and Lando followed. They had traveled fifty yards or so when a tunnel opened up on the left and the construct stepped inside. It was identical to the tunnel that had carried them out onto the catwalk.

The corridor had smooth machine-cut walls, and felt damp, like a place long closed. The light had a greenish quality and emanated from the walls themselves.

There were side passageways too, narrow things that cut across the main thoroughfare, and ran laser-straight in both directions.

Dru-21 led Lando down some of these, cutting right and left, until they arrived in a small chamber. The walls had been decorated with intricate tile work and had a three-dimensional quality. Lando tried to decipher the picture but found that it made him dizzy. He focused on Dru-21 instead.

The construct bowed formally and motioned toward the doorway on his right.

"After you."

Lando nodded and stepped through the door. The room was oval in shape. The table had been sculpted from native rock. It seemed to grow up out of the floor like something organic.

The longer walls boasted inserts, which, though bare, screamed for something to frame. The same substance that illuminated the corridors had been sprayed on the ceiling. Though hard on Lando's eyes it felt right in this particular room.

There were three lights seated around the table. All of them rose. Lando saw that two of the constructs were female and one was male. Dru-21 made the introductions.

"Pik-Lando, I would like to present Dos-4, Zera-12, and Pak-7. Taken together they speak for all our kind."

Each of the constructs gave a formal bow that Lando returned in kind. With that ritual completed Dru-21 turned to his peers. "Pik-Lando speaks for the humans."

Lando thought about Della, and how she might react to the notion that someone else "spoke" for her, and smiled. All four of the constructs smiled back.

Dru-21 gestured toward the table. "Please be seated."

Lando lowered himself into a chair and felt it squeeze his sides. Just one more reminder that the buildings, the constructs, and everything else had been built to suit the Lords.

Dru-21 looked around the table. "Pik-Lando and his companions come to us as valued allies. God knew of them, knew of their martial prowess, and brought them here in an ancient spaceship. Since that time the humans have proved their courage in battle, provided valuable advice, and slowed the rape of our planet. We owe them a great deal."

Lando listened with interest. Ever since their unexpected landing, the humans had assumed that God controlled the ancient spacecraft, and now it was confirmed.

Had the drifter survived the Il Ronnian attack? And did God continue to control it? If so, there might be a way to get back home, a way to come out of the whole thing one step ahead.

The lights wanted something from him, but what? And could he trade it for the drifter? Lando resolved to pay close attention to what the construct said.

Dru-21 paused, let the silence build for a moment, then broke it. "But what about the future? It lies just over the horizon and must be dealt with. That is why this meeting was convened. To discuss the way things are today and make plans for tomorrow."

The other three constructs nodded sagely, The female named Zera-12 was the first to speak. She had a pinched face, a zipper-straight mouth, and a long, slender neck. "Dru-21 is correct. We owe much to you and your companions. And the debt concerns us. What can we do to repay it?"

Nicely put, Lando thought to himself. But what she really means is what will your help cost us? And is it a price that we can afford?

The easy answer would be "a ride home," but could they provide it? Did they speak for God or the other way around? And what about the heavies? Where were they in all this? It was time to stall. Lando plastered a smile across his face.

"Your concern does you credit… but there are no debts between friends. We fight the Il Ronn because they are evil."

Pak-7 cleared his throat noisily. He had wide-set eyes, broad cheekbones, and a squared-off jaw. "Yes, of course. But there are certain realities to consider. Either the Il Ronn win or we do. We know what they want. Everything. The planet, God, his knowledge, and anything else that is not nailed down. But you are an enigma. What do you want?"

Lando smiled. So much for the stall. Pak-7 had seen right through it. Okay, he'd try something else. A more statesmanlike approach. And one that took the heavies into consideration.

"We want to defeat the Il Ronnians, see some sort of equitable social arrangement put into place, and go home. How's that?"

"It's very explicit," Dos-4 answered thoughtfully. "Thank you."

Dos-4 was short compared to the other lights and rather attractive in a hollow-eyed sort of way. "What sort of 'equitable social arrangement' did you have in mind?"

Lando did his best to look innocent. He shrugged his shoulders. "It would be presumptuous to tell you how to structure your society."