Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (38 page)

Underdirector Egrem heard the intentional slip. Danelka was pro-tem Director following Tvrdy's disappearance; his Directorship had not yet been ratified by the Threl, so technically he was still only the Subdirector. “He will regret missing your visit, Supreme Director,” replied Egrem. “Too much food and drink have laid many low this day.”

“Too much of anything when one is unused to it can be torture,” Jamrog sniffed. “Oh, well, I am not one to hold the weaknesses of a man against him. Still, you strike me as one who could handle a Directorship.”

Egrem blanched. Was Jamrog offering him, an underdirector, the Tanais Directorship? Here? Now? It didn't make sense unless, as they all suspected, Danelka was dead. “I count it an honor to be so highly considered, Supreme Director,” Egrem answered.

“Yes,” said Jamrog, as if thinking of it for the first time. “Come to me, and we will talk more about this. What with the trouble Tanais has had lately with its leadership, I believe a term of stability would greatly improve relations between Saecaraz and Tanais. Am I right?”

“Of course, Supreme Director. And I am flattered you think me capable of helping achieve this stability.” Egrem smiled warmly, much more warmly than he felt. All the time thinking, So Danelka
is
dead; the Hage is without a Subdirector.

“Good,” said Jamrog flatly.

Just then Mrukk, who had been conferring with one of the Mors Ultima in the bodyguard, interrupted saying, “A message, Supreme Director.” Jamrog inclined his head, and Mrukk stepped close and whispered something into his ear.

Jamrog's smile transformed itself into a scowl. “When?” he asked sharply.

“Only minutes ago,” Mrukk said.

The Supreme Director turned away from the Tanais delegation and spoke with the Mors Ultima commander. The official party stood looking on, whispering among themselves. When Jamrog turned back, he announced to the group, “Events take me elsewhere. I must return to Saecaraz at once. I'm sure you all understand.” There were murmurs throughout the party. “My boat will return you to Saecaraz,” he told his guests. To Egrem he said, “I require an em at once.”

“Certainly, Supreme Director.” Egrem nodded to one of the other underdirectors and the man disappeared, two Invisibles dogging his footsteps. Moments later the em appeared, moving slowly through the crowd, the Invisibles clearing a path for it through the mass of Tanais celebrants.

When the em arrived, Mrukk slid into the driver's seat with one of his Mors Ultima beside him; Jamrog climbed in the back with three more—one on either side and one behind, riding on the back of the vehicle. More Invisibles cleared the way in front of the em, and it rolled away. The remaining Invisibles then began herding what was left of the Supreme Director's party back to the waiting boat.

“I don't like this,” said
Cejka. Piipo and Bogney nodded grimly in the torchlight, their teams of raiders sitting quietly along the curved sides of the conduit. “Kopetch should have responded by now.”

The frequency monitor between them was silent. The last transmission had been the Nilokerus message to the Invisibles regarding the fire. They expected Kopetch's signal at any moment relaying Jamrog's movements to Tvrdy. The seconds, stretched by anxiety, ticked away slowly.

“Come on ... come on,” said Piipo under his breath.

Bogney stared at the monitor as if willing it to crackle to life. His lips remained pressed firmly into a straight line.

“Something's happened to him,” Piipo said, his voice pinging off the fibersteel walls. “The Invisibles have—”

“Shh! Listen!” Cejka pressed his ear to the ancient machine's speaker. “There it is!” He held up his hand for silence. The others held their breath.

A row of tiny red lights on the monitor's control panel lit up. The speaker crackled. “Old mother, Trabant sails ... but where is Trabant?”

Cejka's eyes flicked to Piipo, who stared at the monitor, a perplexed expression on his face. “What does it mean? 'Trabant sails, but where is Trabant' ...” the Hyrgo said.

“It means,” replied Cejka slowly, thinking, “that the boat left the Hage, but Kopetch did not see Jamrog.”

“That must be it!” agreed Piipo, then looked stricken. “But this is not foreseen—what are we to do?”

“We go to Saecaraz.” Bogney said it so matter-of-factly, the others blinked at him for a few seconds before understanding dawned.

“He's right,” said Cejka at last. “We have to go to Saecaraz. Tvrdy may need help. We won't go into Hage unless we're needed, but we'll be there and ready.”

He turned and described the situation to the waiting raiders, and they all hurried off together, Bogney and his Dhogs in the lead, guiding the way.

Tvrdy
received Kopetch's message halfway to the Saecaraz waterfront. He stopped and waiting for the trailing Rumon to catch up with him. With lookouts posted, they huddled in an empty passageway, and he explained the problem: “We don't know whether Jamrog is on the boat or not. He might be, but Kopetch couldn't see him. We can't be sure.”

The Rumon took in this information silently. “I think we should abort,” Tvrdy continued. “If we strike and miss Jamrog, none of us will get out of Saecaraz alive.”

“Director,” said one of the Rumon, a slim young man with a cool, thoughtful gaze, “permit me to make a suggestion.”

Tvrdy checked his first impulse to gainsay the suggestion at once without hearing it and instead answered, “Yes? You have something?”

“You have planned this operation well. It will still work. Only let us divide our number. Fifteen will go to the boat yard; the rest will go to the nearest border checkpoint.”

The Cabal had originally considered doing just that—covering two or more Hage entrances—but had scrapped the plan as requiring too many people, people who had to be armed and moved through the Hage, thereby increasing the risk of discovery. Instead, they had opted for precise information. Now, that had broken down.

“There are enough of us,” added the Rumon, “to cover each place.”

Tvrdy frowned.

The young Rumon pressed his argument. “If Jamrog comes by em, he cannot have his entire bodyguard with him. We could be at the checkpoint as planned. If he arrives, we take him and escape into Tanais.”

“What you say is true,” Tvrdy said slowly while his mind feverishly examined the idea from all angles. The only flaw that he could see was that dividing the force would leave those covering the dock shorthanded if Jamrog happened to be among his entourage after all—but not seriously shorthanded ...

His head snapped up, eyes shining in the darkness. “It could work. We know that most of his bodyguard will be on that boat, even if he is not. All right ...” The Director had made his decision. “We will do it.”

The
em careened through Tanais Hage toward the border checkpoint. Mrukk coaxed the maximum speed from the vehicle, the headlights swinging right and left as they wound through empty streets and deserted roadways. But as they approached the checkpoint, Mrukk slowed, his killer instincts pricked by some sixth sense.

“What is it?” demanded Jamrog impatiently.

Mrukk made no answer, but his eyes narrowed as the booth came into view.

The em rolled closer.

The lights of the checkpoint booth shone brightly, creating an island of brilliant white light in the darkness. Five guards stood at attention around the booth. They turned casually as the em came toward them, one of the guards stepping into the center of the road, weapon leveled.

Mrukk coasted nearer.

“Tell them to let me through,” said Jamrog. “I'm in a hurry.”

The Mors Ultima commander touched the switch on his chest and spoke into his shoulder mike: “The Supreme Director will come through.”

“Welcome, Supreme Director,” came the reply. Ahead, the guard in the center of the road moved off to the right. The em proceeded, still losing speed.

“Well?” Jamrog waved them ahead. “They've cleared us.”

Mrukk stared at the scene ahead, his senses quickened. Something was not right; he could feel it. Mrukk looked again and saw that each guard still had his weapon trained on the approaching vehicle ...
after
having given clearance.

Mrukk suddenly jerked the wheel to the side and pulled on the brake, sending the em into a sideways skid, crying “Ambush!” at the same instant.

The air around the em convulsed as five thermal weapons discharged simultaneously. The heatflash reached the skidding vehicle an instant later, blistering exposed flesh. But Mrukk's precise reflexes had save them. The em took the full force of the blast, which lifted it and rolled it onto its side.

The Invisibles leaped from the still rolling em, weapons drawn, firing, their clothing scorched and smoking. Mrukk threw himself from the vehicle and pulled Jamrog out, throwing him down on his face behind the em.

One Invisible racing for cover at the side of the road folded up in midstep and thudded to the pavement, his torso neatly creased in the middle. Another took a hit in the chest that flung him backward a few steps to drape himself over the side of the em, the front of his black yos sporting yellow flames.

The other two Invisibles reached cover and laid down a blanket of fire. The guard booth wilted under the blast and exploded, taking two raiders with it; another went down under Mrukk's expert marksmanship.

Mrukk touched the switch at his side and shouted, “Checkpoint under attack—Saecaraz-Tanais border! Supreme Director in danger!”

Shadows quaked and lighting sizzled around them while the air shuddered with a continuous earsplitting shriek. Jamrog kept himself flattened to the pavement as blast after blast shook the burning em, rocking it back and forth, raining sparks and hot metal debris down on the Supreme Director.

Then, just as suddenly as the firefight had begun, it stopped.

The two remaining Invisibles sized the chance and dashed forward. Mrukk jumped up. The raiders were nowhere to be seen.

“It's a trick!” Mrukk shouted.

But too late. The Mors Ultima were cut down before their commander's warning reached them. One moment they were sprinting for the flaming booth; an instant later they were tumbling through the air, bundles of blazing rags.

Mrukk, still standing in the open, marked the place where the raiders fired from, and directed a withering blast over the bodies of his men. The blast tore a flaming gash in the shrubbery; trees shriveled and burst into fireballs. At the same time a streaking bolt raked the ground at Mrukk's feet.

The Mors Ultima dove behind the burning em once more. “Do something!” cried Jamrog.

“Invisibles will be here any second.”

“We'll be killed any second! Go after them! Kill them!”

A voice sounded over Mrukk's shoulder set. “Squad in position, Commander. Awaiting orders.”

Mrukk turned his head and said, “They are in the ground cover to the left of the burning booth. I will draw their fire.”

With that Mrukk jumped up, firing a bolt into the smoldering shrubs. Hot sparks showered over him as the expected return fire smashed into the nose of the em. He flung himself down again as his hidden Invisibles loosed a blazing volley into the roadside thicket.

There was a choked scream and then silence, save for the tick of hot metal. Moments later, the advancing Invisibles gave the all-clear. Mrukk stood and helped a shivering Jamrog to his feet. The Supreme Director—face blackened, hair and eyebrows singed—shook with fear and rage. His fine hagerobe hung in smoking tatters, full of holes where hot shrapnel had burned through. He looked as if he'd been set upon by incendiary moths. The air was sour with the smell of ozone.

“They meant to take us upon re-entering the Hage,” Mrukk growled.

“Tvrdy!” Jamrog spat, the word a curse on his tongue. “I will have his head—”

Before he could finish, Mrukk was barking orders into his radio. “Emergency! All Invisibles—Supreme Director's bodyguard will be attacked. Saecaraz boatyard! Emergency! Unit heads two, three, and four move your squads into cutoff position in sector eight. Unit heads five and six advance squads to the boatyard.”

The Mors Ultima glanced up, smiling grimly. “We have him now. Tvrdy will not escape.”

The Supreme Director's boat
was a floating bonfire. Bodies lay sprawled on the dock and floated in the flame-tinted water. Tvrdy's only thought was to disengage and retreat. He knew that within minutes more Invisibles would be swarming down on them.

They had been waiting for the boat, hidden among the boathouses and equipment on the dock near the Supreme Director's mooring place. A squad of Invisibles had appeared and begun searching the boatyard. The Invisibles were thorough. Moments after their arrival on the scene, one of the Rumon had been ferreted out and killed on the spot. Tvrdy knew then that their plan had been discovered, and he opened fire on the Invisibles.

The enemy squad was cut down in seconds. The raiders had then fled back toward the feast site and had been waylaid by another squad of Invisibles. Tvrdy lost six of his fighters before he managed to break away and flee back to the docks. They arrived just as the Supreme Director's boat came gliding in, canceling any hope of escape over the water. Overanxious, Jamrog's bodyguard opened fire on them—a foolish thing to do since the boat was such an easy target. Pinched between the river and the Hage, the raiders attacked the boat, easily destroying it.

But now they were pinned down on the docks, the blue-white bolts of thermal weapons searing the air around them.

“We cannot stay here,” Tvrdy told his men. “There are more Invisibles on the way. We'll be surrounded. We've got to mount a counterattack at once. Concentrate your fire on the right—they appear weakest there. If we can break through, maybe we can reach Threl Square and lose ourselves in the celebration.”

The raiders put their heads down and, under a withering barrage, advanced from the dock to the boatyard. Each meter they gained cost them, however, and upon reaching the boatyard the counterattack floundered. They simply could not break the Invisibles' line.