Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series (24 page)

“They can’t do that, can they?”

“If the Musth subscribed to any sort of warfare rules such as humans try to adhere to, which they evidently don’t,” Felps said tightly, “our lawyers say they’d be in violation. You can’t make a prisoner of war work for you. But the Musth haven’t signed any of our treaties and, technically, no state of war exists between the Confederation and the Musth.”

“So I’m supposed to stand there and let them use the Force prisoners as … I guess you’d call them slave labor?”

“The Musth are willing to pay small wages,” Felps said. “Plus they’ll absorb all living expenses once they’re on C-Cumbre. Sorry, I find it very hard to think of it as Mabasi.”

“Don’t bother,” Jasith said. “It’s still C-Cumbre to anyone I take seriously. I guess, then, there’s not much we can do about it.”

She looked to either side, although there was no one in her mansion’s office. “Would you do me a large favor, and see if any of the prisoners is named Jaansma? Garvin Jaansma?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s a personal request,” she said, “and I want you to handle it yourself, and mention it to no one.”

“Certainly, Jasith.” The executive reached for the cutoff sensor, stopped himself. “Oh yes. One other thing, which I forgot. This order from the Musth has me somewhat upset.”

“As if you’re the only one.”

“The Musth also advised me we can expect them to provide other workers. Human workers. I asked from where, and they said they saw no purpose in criminals sitting in prisons if they could be doing something useful.”

Jasith Mellusin blinked at Felps.

“Crooks, too?”

“So it appears.”

“And, again, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

“Not if we wish to retain even partial control of Mellusin Mining.”

“Very well,” Jasith said and, without saying good-bye, cut the connection.

She got up, paced to the window, looked out at the bay, at the ruins. She considered swearing, realized that wouldn’t do any good. She went back to the com, started to call Loy, caught herself.

“And what would that get me?” she said aloud, knowing the most likely answer.

She thought about crying, but wouldn’t allow herself to, got up once again, and walked out of the office. She stopped at the black-framed portrait of her father, stared at it.

“What the hell would you do if you were me?”

No answer came from there, either.

• • •

That night, a Musth patrol challenged a young boy, twelve, putting up a poster. Instead of surrendering, he ran. Two Musth opened fire. The boy’s legs were nearly severed by the blasts. The Musth debated what they should do.

The boy bled to death before they decided to notify a human hospital.

• • •

“There is an unanswered question here,” Wlencing said in a half growl as his
wynt
orbited over the crowded streets of Leggett. “How did all these learn of that cub’s death so quickly? Do we not control all the holos?”

“We do, sir,” Rahfer said.

“And you reported all other cities report equal numbers of fools mewling about that young criminal?”

“That is what I’ve been told.”

“How did they learn about it so fast?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a simple answer — during the Rebellion both ‘Raum and their opponents had learned not to trust holos, and Cumbre had developed a very efficient, very rapid, if frequently inaccurate, jungle telegraph. Someone heard something, called five or more numbers, reported. Each of them called five or so coms, and so on. For better or worse, every city, village, hamlet, fishing boat, or hunter was plugged in to a systemwide rumor mill.

The parents of the boy had been original builders of that telegraph and, as always, the death of one person, one real person, meant more than the most horrifying numbers of anonymous casualties.

Wlencing stared down once more.

“What response should we make?” Rahfer asked.

“None,” Wlencing said. “They’ll get tired of shouting at closed doors and aircraft in a few hours and things will return to normal.”

But they didn’t.

• • •

There were five Musth, keeping to the center of the street as they’d been taught, patrolling the area around the main landing field in Launceston.

They wore night snoopers and looked about constantly. They had heat sensors on their belts and were fully alert.

Neither snoopers nor sensors read through a stone wall, where ten men, nine of them ‘Raum, the other a schoolteacher’s son, crouched. One ‘Raum held a mirror on a stick just beyond the wall.

He saw the flicker of the oncoming patrol, sharply tapped his fellow. The taps went down the line, and each man counted to ten to give the Musth time to get closer. Then they jumped to their feet and ran into the open. Each carried one of the simple projectile weapons provided by Redruth of Larix/Kura and given out by Gavin and his crew.

The startled Musth were less than four meters away.

There were no commands given — each man picked a target and fired until his weapon was empty.

One Musth managed to get a shot off, and burned a ‘Raum on his side before he convulsed and died with the others.

The wounded ‘Raum crouched in silent agony while the others hastily stripped the Musth harnesses of weaponry.

Another ‘Raum knelt beside him.

“Can you run?”

“Of course. It just hurts.”

“Then come. They’ll be looking for their fellows soon.”

The wounded ‘Raum got up and, with the others, disappeared into darkness.

Other Musth were attacked, but none as successfully as in Launceston.

• • •

Wlencing ordered more hostages taken the next day. The media, particularly
Matin,
were ordered to play the taking big.

• • •

“I’m looking for one flipping volunteer,”
Mil
Hedley said.

Cent
Erik Penwyth looked about the tent, saw no one but the two of them.

“I s’pose I’m the candidate?”

“You s’pose right.”

“I’m not much on volunteering,” Erik said. “The hours’re shoddy, and sometimes the work conditions’re pretty hazardous.”

“These hours are excellent, the pay is whatever you can make it … and I’ve no flipping idea what the hazard level is. Pretty low I’d guess at first.”

“What would you be interested in me doing?”

“Going back home.”

“Beg pardon?”

“The Force needs an agent with the Rentiers. We want you to slither back into your family and do the dissolute young man role, through with his frightening fling with the Force, ready to return to serious decadence with no flipping interest in Musth or Man. As you’re lounging, we want you to get a feel as to the Rentiers. Who’s playing the Musth game, who’s taking them seriously, who can we get to play on our side. The usual flipping subversion on any victims you deem worthy.”

“Mmmh.” Penwyth considered. “I don’t think I’ve made too many rabid patriotic speeches, and Buddha knows my fellows are too dumb to wonder where I’ve been and if I’m for real, so nobody’d be ready to nark me out. Certainly the family’s no bother. Advantages, one supposes, of being an only child.

“And I
am
getting tired of having one uniform and a change. It’d be nice to have a proper wardrobe again.

“But I think not.”

“Why flipping not?” Hedley said.

Penwyth took a deep breath.

“Because I’d feel like I was running out on the others. Goin’ back to champagne and all that, while you’re sweatin’ over here. No, the more I think ‘bout it, the less I like it.”

“ ‘Kay,” Hedley said. “We’ll try another approach. I’m detaching you to independent service, where I flipping want to put you.”

“Guess, when you put it like that, I haven’t much choice. What support will I get?”

“We’ll insert you in the next day or so back on the outskirts of Leggett. We’ll give you a standard transceiver, which you’re to keep well away from you, and check every two or three days for messages. Also you’ll have a coder and compressor, which you’d be advised to keep closer at hand.

“Your reports’ll be coded and blurted back to us. Mostly we’ll want to use you as an eye, no more. Until the flipping situation gets worse — worse for the Musth, anyway — I can’t see bringing you into the open. We’ll keep a channel open and try to extract you if you step in it.

“Any questions?”

Penwyth considered.

“S’pose not. I guess it
will
be interestin’ to have a bath oftener than when it rains, now won’t it?”

• • •

“It’s occurred to me,” Njangu said evenly, switching off the com’s newscast, “that there’s a rising going on, and we seem to be getting left out, and that ain’t the way it’s supposed to work, us being the moral arbiters and that sort of shit for this here system.

“I think I want to go play.”

“How?” Garvin asked.

“We tried for that frigging Wlencing once,” Njangu said. “I think it’s time we try again.”

“What makes you think this time’ll be any luckier than the last?”

“Because I’m going to take this team in myself,” Njangu said. “We’ll give it a shot without all the supertech, and see how he likes playing with the big boys.”

“As your commanding ossifer,” Garvin said, “I give my permission. I assume you’re going to clear things with Jon and Angara.”

“But of course, my leader.”

“Which means you’ll leave me here in the goddamned jungle with nothing to do but play with my pahdoodle,” Garvin said.

“Oh, I’ll bet, given my inspiring example, you’ll manage to come up with something obnoxious.”

• • •

Four days later, two women and two men showed up at the Seya labor exchange. They considered various possibilities offered, decided against the mines on Silitric, opted for common labor jobs on the Highlands of Dharma Island, building the new Musth base.

They didn’t seem much interested in the employment terms or the hours, shouldered their oddly heavy packs, and boarded the cargo lifter that took them across a quarter of the world, onto the mist-covered heights.

Some of their fellows had never seen a Musth except on the holos, and reacted with fear or anger when their employers materialized on the landing field. But the four didn’t seem bothered.

The workers were told off in teams by human overseers, assigned to rather shoddy barracks, given a list of rules and regulations, told their shift would start at dawn the next day and that work hours were thirteen on, thirteen off, and the extra hour was for transport to and from the work site.

The four never showed up for their first day on the job. But no one noticed — there’d been a fire that night in the personnel office, and that day was spent chaotically trying to sort out who was supposed to work where, and how much seniority and credits they were owed.

The four — Njangu Yoshitaro, Monique Lir,
Finf
Val Heckmyer, and Darod Montagna — had slid out of the camp through the rather casual security into the marshlands after they set the incendiary in the personnel office, and gone to ground.

They found a burrow against a hill, crawled inside with weapons ready, and found it opened into a respectable room, almost big enough to stand in. They speculated glumly about what sort of creature on this still-unexplored world made the cave, and hoped it had moved on to better locations or at any rate was noncarnivorous.

Nothing disturbed their sleep, and the next morning they moved closer to the workings and began observing, looking for their target.

They muttered at the almost-constant fog, but it made their task easier. Very seldom did the Musth sweep with light-enhancing devices, and they never seemed to use heat sensors in their complacency in this distant place.

They built several hides around the base, and moved from one to another, in pairs, both awake during the day, alternating watches at night.

Regularly,
aksai, wynt, velv
swooped overhead, landed at the ever-growing field. The only troops they saw were perimeter-checking aerial patrols and ground crews inside, not interested in anything beyond their tasks.

After five days, they reconvened at the burrow and allowed themselves the luxury of using heat tabs on their rations.

“I don’t have much of anything,” Njangu said. “The Musth keep way too far inside their perimeter. Way too far for me to be able to hit them. I know we got outside of the perimeter without problems, but trying to get back in and get closer might be a bitch. Besides, I didn’t see anybody who looked like he had any rank, let alone Wlencing.”

“Same here,” Montagna said. “As the team sniper, I was hoping maybe we could get a longarm dropped in, or maybe use a scoped SSW, but that goddam’ fog doesn’t help that.”

“Same thing with a missile,” Heckmyer said. “Assuming we could get a supply drop, who’d lug the bastard around?”

“Not to mention who’d want to fire it off and hope to haul ass before counterfire leveled his ears a couple of meters or so?” Lir finished.

“I hate like hell to just quit,” Njangu said. “We could chance having an explosive drop, work our way inside their guard, and blow up a bunch of shit, like aircraft, and take any shots we could on the way out.”

“Is that the best use?” Lir asked. “This is sort of a one-time operation, isn’t it, boss? I’d hate to set off a bunch of bangs, then figure out next week or next month that we could’ve done something serious while we were here. Already we’ve learned a KT and a half about the way these Musth operate up here. Pretty sloppy, as far as I can see. I guess they figure out here in the tules they don’t have to worry about goblins like us. I’d sure like to come back with a better idea and a bigger bang.”

“The same thoughts occurred to me,” Njangu said.

“So we just abort?” Montagna said. “I’m just a newbie, and you guys have all the experience, but that idea really blows stobor.”

“You’re telling me?” Njangu said. “Not to mention Garvin’ll be all over us. He’s probably out there having all kinds of fun and getting medals.”

“There’s always another party,” Heckmyer said.