Freehold (14 page)

“This will never do,” one of them said with a grin. He had wavy black hair, even features, calm brown eyes, and a neatly trimmed mustache. “If we all shoot each other, Pops will make a fortune selling our clothes and weapons and we'll die broke.” With that, he slid his blaster into a thigh holster and the others followed suit.

“It's okay, Zack,” Stell said, and the Sergeant Major holstered both his handguns.

Samantha smiled sweetly. “Thanks, honey ... but you're just not my type.” The burly man flushed and released her. As he did, the wrist gun disappeared up her sleeve. Gesturing broadly, she said, “Commander Falco ... meet General Stell.”

The man with the wavy black hair chuckled and met Stell halfway across the room. “It's a pleasure, General ... I'm Jack Falco. Sorry about the reception, but well, we've had some unwelcome visitors of late.” Falco introduced the others, all pilots in his wing, and Stell reciprocated by introducing Sam and Como. With the introductions out of the way, Falco pulled up three more chairs, motioned toward them, and said, “Now, General ... what brings you to this mudball?”

Stell accepted a chair, and then proceeded to lay it out from start to finish. The pirate attacks, the possible connection to Intersystems, the brigade's decision to settle on Freehold, the tactical situation—he held back nothing. “And that's about it, Jack,” he concluded. “We're in pretty good shape on the ground, but wide open in the atmosphere and above. And I hope that's where you come in.”

Falco nodded soberly. “I'd like to. Normally, we'd agree on money, load up the wing, and your troubles would be over. But not right now, I'm afraid.”

Stell raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Problems?”

Falco forced a grin. “You could say that. Actually, I suppose it's kind of funny in a way. You see, the wing has been repossessed.”

“Repossessed?” Stell asked. “You mean, like taken over by creditors?”

“Just one creditor, in this case,” the female pilot answered. She was probably attractive, but the dressing that covered one side of her face made it hard to tell. “A slimy Zord named Ithnar Goteb, to be exact. This,” she indicated the bandage, “was courtesy of his thugs.”

“Carla was duty officer when they took over the wing,” Falco explained. Along with the others on duty, she put up a fight. They left her for dead.”

“We killed five of the rotten bastards, though,” Carla added with evident satisfaction.

“In any case, General, we'd like to help, and we sure could use the money, but until we raise half a million credits, he's got our interceptors—plus, he's holding about a third of our people hostage. So I'm afraid it's no-go.”

“Unless the General could front us some cash?” Carla asked hopefully.

Falco frowned and started to say something to her, when Stell's laughter stopped him. “I'm not laughing at you,” Stell said holding up a hand, “it's just that we were hoping you'd accept
delayed
payment!”

The whole room broke into laughter at that, and when he could talk again, Falco said, “We're obviously a team ... let's drink on it!”

There were murmurs of agreement all around, and the street urchin materialized to take their orders, then scurried for the door with a squeaked, “Me go now.”

Once Pops had come and gone, leaving a round of drinks behind, the two groups toasted each other and traded war stories for a while. Then Stell asked, “All right, Jack, just as a point of professional interest, how did this guy—Goteb?—how did he manage to repossess a whole wing? And why would he? How does he expect you to make the money to pay him if he sits on your fighters?”

Falco looked embarrassed. “It is, as they say, a long story. Business hadn't been too good for a while, and we needed money to overhaul and upgrade our interceptors. They take a lot of maintenance, you know. Anyway, we decided to borrow it from Goteb. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do, because we finally had a client signed, sealed and delivered. As soon as we showed up in his system, the client would pay, we would pay Goteb, and everything would come out just fine. So we used the contract as collateral and borrowed the money from Goteb. We did the work on the interceptors at a small airstrip near here because it's easier to do dirtside than in orbit. When we were done, we flew ’em to the
Nest.
She's our carrier. Then, per our contract, we took off for New Hope. That's where the war was supposed to be. But as we came out of hyperspace and approached New Hope, we were intercepted by a speedster with our client aboard. He says the deal's off. Seems peace is breaking out all over. ‘Keep the down payment,’ he says, and ‘good luck.'”

“To which Jack says, ‘That wasn't the deal,’ “Carla said, picking up the story. “The deal was full payment on arrival, war or no war. ‘True,’ the client says, ‘but you haven't arrived yet.’ ‘Oh yes we have,’ Jack says. ‘Take a look at your screens,’ our client says, ‘maybe you'll change your minds.’ Well, we look at the screens, and guess what, there's two cruisers sittin’ a few lights out, just waitin’ for our client to say the word. They were close enough to cook us good before we launched a single interceptor, and
Nest
ain't up to dukin’ it out with no cruiser, much less two of them.” Here she paused dramatically, and then said, “Needless to say, we changed our minds!” Carla and her fellow pilots laughed uproariously, as though it was the funniest joke they'd ever heard.

When the pilots had calmed down a bit, Sam asked, “So when you got back here you didn't have enough money to pay off the loan?”

Falco smiled. “That's about the size of it. We gave Goteb what we had, promising to pay the rest as soon as we could, and he agreed. So we brought the wing down to do maintenance and practice atmospheric combat, and that's when the bastard nailed us. He hired some humans to ambush one of our supply vehicles coming out from town. They killed the driver and his assistant, loaded a big force-field projector in the back, and tried to talk their way past the guard station. But Carla spotted them right away, so they clubbed her, shot the sentries, broke through the gate, and turned on the projector. We tried to help ... but there's no way to break through that force field. That projector must be a monster, because it throws a field big enough to cover all our fighters. Short of bringing in some energy cannon, nothing's going to break it down. Meanwhile, Goteb says we either give him the money or he'll sell the interceptors
and
our pilots. About a third of our people were sacked out in there when it happened. And slavery's legal here, you know. Anyway, I think he'd prefer to sell our fighters and crew. He thinks he'll make more that way, and he's probably right. Meanwhile, we sit here waiting for the axe to fall.” He shrugged eloquently. “It's as simple as that.”

“So this is everyone who wasn't taken prisoner?” Stell asked, gesturing toward the pilots.

Falco shook his head. “No ... there's some more. We take turns standing guard duty around the field. If they let that field down for even a second, we'll be on ’em like a Tobarian Zerk Monkey jumping on a fava fruit.”

“What about the local authorities,” Stell asked. “Doesn't all this violate a law or two?”

“Evidently not,” Falco replied. “But to be honest, we haven't pressed the point. It seems that Goteb's brother is the Governor, or the Mayor, or whatever. In any case, I doubt he's exactly impartial.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Stell said, taking a sip of his drink, “what's the power source for that portable field generator, anyway?”

“The fusion plant in town,” Falco replied, “but I know what you're thinking and it won't work. We thought of it, too. Blow the plant and shut down the field, right? Only trouble is, we had our own fusion generator at the airstrip ... and he's got that for back-up. It's all hooked up and ready to go. Carla learned that much by bribing one of Goteb's tame humans.”

Stell nodded thoughtfully, and turned to Sergeant Major Como. “Well, Zack, what do you think? It kind of reminds me of that supply dump on Envo.”

Como thought for a moment and then smiled. “Damn right, sir ... I think it'll work.”

Falco looked back and forth between them, trying to follow the conversation. “What might work?”

“Well,” Stell explained, “a couple of years back we accidentally learned something about portable field generators. We had one set up around a supply dump on Envo IV, mostly to keep the wildlife out. Then, for some reason the fusion generator began to run wild. While the techs went crazy trying to dampen it down, the added power hit the force-field generator like a ton of bricks. For a second there we thought it would blow and us with it, but it didn't; instead, the perimeter of the force field leaped out another hundred twenty feet beyond max. Later, we found out there's a built-in safety factor over what's supposed to be max, for just that kind of situation. Of course, if you continue to feed it too much juice, for too long, then it'll blow.”

“So?” Falco asked.

“So,” Stell answered, “the force field didn't
slide
out a hundred and twenty feet, it
leaped.
By chance, it enclosed a couple of grazing Envo Beasts. Ever heard of them? No? Well, they weigh about three tons apiece, have the worst tempers this side of a Rath snake, and when they bumped into the field it must have zapped them with a static discharge, because they went berserk. Ten minutes later, our supply dump looked like a garbage dump.”

Falco frowned for a second, as though trying to understand the significance of the story, and then gave a loud whoop of joy. “Of course! We position our people just outside the edge of the force field, goose the fusion reactor in town, the field expands and we're inside! General, you're a genius. If it works, you've got yourself awing.”

“And that's the general idea,” Stell thought to himself as he smiled, and raised his tankard with the rest.

“A toast, everyone,” Falco proclaimed solemnly. “To the perfect plan!”

One rotation later, crouched in the blackness just outside of Goteb's force field, with Endo's eternal rain dribbling down his neck, Stell wasn't so sure about the perfection of his plan. What if this field generator worked differently? What if it didn't leap over them, but went through them instead? Or blew up? A thousand possibilities passed through his mind, each worse than the one before. Bull Strom had always said that he worried too much. “Listen, son, more than half of winning wars is just pure luck. So make decisions as best you can and then forget ’em. Chances are it's the luck of the draw anyway, so instead of worrying, you could be doing something worthwhile, like drinking or chasing women.”

Stell smiled in the darkness. What was he doing out here when he could be chasing women? Trying to stay alive is real high on the list, he thought wryly. He sampled the night air, searching for the whiff of smoke from dopestick, the tang of fresh lubricant, the click of equipment, the scrape of a boot on gravel—all little things—but things that could save your life. However, the only smell was the damp night air, and the only sound was the monotonous hum of the force field. When it disappeared, he'd know Como and Samantha had taken the town's fusion plant. He hoped Sam wouldn't do anything stupid. Although she drove him crazy, he'd always be a little bit in love with her. Which brought Olivia to mind. He'd already faced the fact that he loved her. Her hair, her eyes, the smell of her clean, smooth skin, the little noises she made when they came together—each was a precious memory to be taken out and enjoyed time after time. And suddenly he realized that he finally had something and somebody to fight for, outside of the brigade. Even during his affair with Sam, she'd been part of the brigade, an extension of his profession, an echo of himself. He smiled. For the first time in years, it all seemed worthwhile. Even the huddled misery of the present. Sticking his head up for a quick peek, he saw the shimmer of the field, the glow of buildings beyond, and the shadowy movements of Goteb's guards. Looking right and left, he could barely see the indistinct shapes of Falco and his pilots, as they, too, huddled in the rain. For space jockeys, they were doing very well. He dropped down again, forcing himself to wait patiently. Sam and Como made a good team, and were probably mopping up the fusion plant at that very moment.

“Lightly guarded ... isn't that what you said?” Sergeant Major Como whispered to Captain Samantha Ann Mosley.

They were crouched in a dark alleyway opposite the power plant, which was lighted up like a pleasure dome on Saturday night. Numerous Zordian guards stood at key points, while others wandered around in seemingly random fashion.

“Well, it was lightly guarded three hours ago,” she whispered back defensively. “How was I supposed to know they doubled the guard at night? Besides, more guards makes it more interesting.”

“And you are completely out of your mind, lady,” Como growled cheerfully.

“Oh yeah?” she whispered. “Well, I'm not the one who's about to lead a bunch of pilots on an infantry assault against a heavily defended power station. You are.” Even though she outranked him, it never occurred to Samantha to assume command. This was his area of expertise, not hers.

“That remains to be seen,” Como answered softly as he swept a night scope across their objective. “If I can't get better intelligence reports, I may quit.”

Sam snorted in reply.

Como paused for a moment, having completed his inspection. “At least they aren't very well trained. That'll help.”

“But neither are we,” Sam replied mischievously, indicating the pilots hiding on either side of them in the dark.

Ignoring her comment, Como mused out loud, “If we were trying to destroy the place, this would be easy. But somehow we've got to take out the guards without harming the plant.”

Samantha looked thoughtful for a moment, and then whispered, “Maybe a diversion would help.”

“Sure,” Como replied. “A troupe of dancing girls would be nice.”

“They're Zords, silly. They couldn't care less about dancing girls. No, I have something a little more violent in mind. Tell your troops to watch their night vision and be ready to move fast.” She glanced at her wrist-term. “Give me ten minutes.”