Shedding the Demon (33 page)

Damon extracted his combat blade—
only one, Kyndra curse
it!—
and modified its shape to be blunt instead of sharp. He moved as close
as he could without being seen, and then burst into motion to close the last
twenty feet at top speed. He swung the ECB in wide arc, trying to incapacitate
the guards without killing them. Both guards tried to raise their weapons, but
the first went down immediately, while the second had time to dodge.

Damon’s strike didn’t connect cleanly with his head, but it
sent the man sprawling anyway. Damon followed through with a left-handed punch
to the face that cracked the man’s visor and his nose below.

Both men were unconscious, and Damon had not detected any
transmissions in the few seconds of the attack. However, the alarm would be
certainly be raised soon. He quickly checked to make sure both men were alive,
and then bounded up the stairs in three easy strides.

Damon checked the timer—about an hour and a half until the
strike teams arrived. He continued up the stairs until he ran into more
resistance. This time he was moving too quickly and could not sneak up on the
group of four guards. Nevertheless, he did take them by surprise and two went down
before the others wisely spread apart. He was forced to take them down with his
slug guns. Fortunately, the damage to his left wrist had not touched these
weapons.

Finally, Damon detected a communication signal alerting the
tower to his presence. To his surprise he felt relieved; the sneaking around
was hard on his nerves. Now it would be a running brawl, Damon’s natural
element. This type of battle allowed him to flow with his instincts and not
take time to think or plan.

It also allowed two other things that brought him a feeling
of comfort: he immediately sent out a powerful active scan that gave him a
rudimentary map of the entire facility, except for a few heavily shielded
areas—a give-away in itself—and he could now break out the slug guns.

Damon’s biggest worry was that the guards would have
needle-flak guns, but he hadn’t encountered any yet.

He checked on the guards he had dispatched with the slug
guns. They were unconscious, but alive, due to the modified rounds Ken had
procured.
Some sort of nano-tech,
is all Damon knew. S
o I can hit
them full-on and not worry about killing them. Sure makes things much easier!

With the sensor-generated map, Damon made much better time.
He encountered more resistance, but still no heavy weapons that would give him
any trouble. He moved through each group of soldiers quickly, leaving most of
them incapacitated and the others disoriented. When confronted with a dead-end,
he made his own doors, a luxury he did not have when he was trying to be quiet.

A blip in his HUD told him that Leland’s ships had arrived
in system, meaning the troops would arrive in about an hour. This part could go
bad real fast if the ships were identified as anything other than regular
commercial traffic.

Best to keep their attention focused on me,
he
thought as a different warning symbol popped up, indicating the energy
signature of Heavy Weapons Platforms moving in fast.

“Now we’ll get this party started,” he said to no one in
particular.

 

“WHAT?” Renard Trueblood stared at his aide, Jeffrey Allen,
unable to comprehend what he had said.

“We have an intruder in the Spire, and it’s been positively
identified as the Demon,” Jeffrey repeated.

Renard’s mind reeled.
He’s dead. We shut him down,
destroyed him.
He sat down in the couch, his legs unable to hold him up.

“You said he was destroyed. What happened?”

Jeffrey looked decidedly uncomfortable, and took a few
moments to respond, “I don’t know, but I’ll tender my resignation immediately.”

Renard sighed heavily. “Am I
truly
such a tyrant?” he
asked looking up at his friend.

Jeffrey quickly knelt down in front of Renard and took his
hands. Renard flinched back, the action by Jeffrey was so unexpected and out of
character. “I swear to you, Renard, that I was positive the Demon was dead. I
would never take any chance with something that could hurt you.”

Renard found himself unable to speak as he saw tears welling
up in Jeffrey’s eyes. After a moment, he stood, raising Jeffrey along with him.
Once standing, he squeezed his hands tightly. “I know that, Jeffrey. And I
never doubted your loyalty or skills.”

Renard gathered himself mentally, and affected his persona
of wise and loving religious leader. As a role he’d played most of his life, he
was quite comfortable in it.

He dropped Jeffrey’s hands and moved to the bank of screens
on the wall over his desk. “Now, what can we do to stop this Demon? He’s either
here to kill us all, or to capture Avelina. We’d better bring her up here
quickly. There must be a way to stop him.”

Jeffrey stepped back into his persona of efficient aide, and
joined Renard at the screens. “I’ll have Dr. Baksa up here in a few minutes. As
for the Demon, we have only a couple of the needle-flak guns available. Most
have not been brought back from the last mission.” He paused, and then quietly
added “I didn’t think there was any need to bring them back quickly.”

Renard glanced over, it was not in Jeffrey’s nature to make
excuses. He put his attention back on the screens.

Jeffrey continued without noticing Renard’s look. “The
Augies are arriving in-system in twenty-six minutes, and they can use emergency
measures to be here in little more than an hour.”

“Emergency measures?” Renard asked, not sure he wanted to
know what it meant.

“High-boost pods can accelerate them far beyond what normal
humans can withstand, greatly decreasing their transit time.”

“Of course. Will they will arrive in time?”

“Hard to say exactly. We’re tracking him easily enough,
since he’s not trying to hide, but he’s not making great time either.”

Renard couldn’t keep the detached facade up any longer. “Jeffrey,”
he said earnestly, “this is not your fault. You’ve stopped him before, we can
stop him again.”

Jeffrey smiled. “Time to call in the big guns.”

 

**** ****

 

Waiting was nerve-wracking. Leland McKrae
fought the shaking in his hands where they sat in his lap. Loaded aboard a
nondescript freighter, all he could do was wait and hope they didn’t raise any
suspicions.

Altogether, they had sixteen ships of various types and
sizes with ten to twenty soldiers in each. The amount of traffic around Havyn
should easily cover their approach, but anything unusual might alert the
authorities to their intentions. Ken Westron and Ted Khasan put a lot of time
and effort into the dispersion of and cover for the ships, but any small
mistake or overlooked detail could give them away.

Leland closed his eyes and ran through the newly-acquired
sensor map of the Spire supplied by Damon on site. He prayed quickly for
Damon’s safety, and for the safety of all his troops now sitting idle and
waiting.

The map provided invaluable data on the Spire, but we wished
he had more detailed WERA scans available. Once they were setup on site, they
could deploy the portable WERA, but by then it might be too late.

Forty-five minutes later they entered the orbit flight paths
leading to touchdown nearest the Spire.

“Augie ships arriving in orbit, sir,” the pilot said to him
and a corresponding icon popped up in his HUD. “They’re a little ahead of
schedule, but we’ve got a head-start on them.”

“Not much time, we’ll need to be sharp,” Leland said
unnecessarily.

“WHA-?! Sir, they’re firing missiles!”

Leland unbuckled and strode into the cockpit, even though he
would not be any help whatsoever. His mind raced, trying to determine what
might have alerted them. Something didn’t make sense -

“Six minutes to impact! Seven of our guys are changing
course, should we?”

Leland thought furiously. Something did not add up and he
couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Sir? Evasive?”

Then he had it. “Any shots coming from the surface? Or the
orbiting warships?”

“What?” the pilot’s eyes flicked over his screens, “No. No
other bogeys on screen. The warships are quiet, as are the satellites and
ground defenses.” He visibly calmed down as he saw what Leland was thinking. “What
are they doing? Six incoming bogeys, now five point five minutes out.”

Leland thought for a moment. “Those aren’t missiles. Well,
not missiles intended for us. Sit tight and stay on the plan. And get those
other guys back in line, fast,” he said calmly.

Inside, Leland was anything but calm. His best guess was
that the Augies themselves were in those missiles, and if that was true they
would beat his troops to the ground by a good half hour, throwing their whole
plan into disarray. Leland found he was grinding his teeth and had to make a
conscious effort to release his jaw.

A very long five minutes passed as the missiles approached
and passed, heading directly into the atmosphere. Tracking confirmed that they
hit near the Spire, but there were no explosions and no apparent damage.
Must
be the Augies! I hope Damon’s up to this.
Deep down, Leland had no idea how
Damon could stand alone against all six of them.

Time seemed to crawl after that, and Leland could barely
keep himself from screaming as they made their slow, methodical approach to the
landing site.

 

**** ****

 

Jonathan Kline leaned back in the
expensive chair behind his gigantic desk in the auditorium-sized office he
called home. His back was to the two huge windows overlooking the city where
one could just barely see the rough desert scrub-land beyond. It was late in
the day and he was trying to clear his calendar for the rest of the afternoon
so he could take his three sons fishing.

He loved this planet, Dhanna, one of the original Big-Five
colonies and headquarters of the vast Kline empire. He was thankful that its
development had been limited to a handful of large cities, keeping the natural
beauty intact. The Kline family had learned the harsh lessons of Earth and kept
true to environmentally-sound development ideals.
Of course, we completely
overran Darnall and Mastura with factories, but they were barely-habitable
rocks in the first place.

 His mind wandered away from the paperwork in front him as
it had countless times before.

Jonathan jumped as an alarm klaxon sounded harshly in the
room. His involuntary reactions nearly caused him to fall over backwards, but
the chair was able to keep its balance and brought him quickly to an upright
position. He was running for the door as soon as his feet hit the ground, and
he nearly ran over his assistant on her way into the room.

“What is going on?” He demanded while she spoke
simultaneously.

“Ships! Warships! Traffic control on the line! Response
units rolling, asking for specific orders.”

Jonathan pulled up the emergency message from his HUD,
realizing in the back of his mind that’s what he should have done first.

“Mr. Kline,” the controller said, “we have multiple
unidentified ships just arrived, obvious warships now that they are detunneled.”

“Who?”

“They’re not squawking, but we have a 95% identification as
Burdekin.”

“What? How many?”

“Thirty-five, sir.”

Jonathan couldn’t speak for moment, not quite believing what
he heard. Dreading the answer to his next question, “How many ships do we have
here?”

The controller hesitated, unwilling to deliver the bad news.
“Sir, we have only ten.” Into the ensuing silence he added, “Most of our fleet
is protecting the factories on Darnall and Mastura.”

“Of course. As they should be. I assume you’ve alerted the
local Admiral, as well as those in the other fleets.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, leave the defense in their hands. Tell them I said
they do not need to route any decisions through me, they have ultimate control.”
He paused, realizing he might need to add one command, “Only one directive: do
not jeopardize the safety of the factories by diverting more craft here unless
it is deemed strategically feasible beyond a doubt. Understood?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll relay the message.”

Esme Burdekin, you little snake. Jonathan thought as he
pictured her face with its eternal scowl. Except when she looks at Pryke, of
course! If she’s suddenly this bold, Pryke must be involved, too.

I’ll have to contact Renard and Stacey to see if they are
under attack. I know Renard could not be working with Pryke, but I’m not so
sure of Stacey.

Steeling himself he addressed his aide, “You should go home
to your family and get them into the city, under the domes.”

She started to move, but turned back, “I’d rather stay, Mr
Kline. My family’s already in the city, and there’ll be a lot of coordination
and planning needed to get as many people to safety as possible. We’ll need
buses, trains, aircraft, whatever we can pull together . . .”

“Yes. Good thinking!” Jonathan couldn’t help but smile as
she babbled her plans to herself and left the room to work on the solution. He
knew the operation was in the best possible hands now.

He thought about the defensive domes that would soon be
energized over this city and handful of others across the planet. Unbelievably
expensive on such a scale, he now thanked his mother who’d had the foresight to
have them installed. Using a variation of the Kline-drive technology, the domes
were nearly impenetrable, but could be fashioned to allow small openings on
demand to allow foot- and small-vehicle traffic. He knew the domes could hold
out against an assault of a mere thirty-five ships, but he was worried about
the possibility of an ensuing siege. Water and food would be a problem for the
millions people inside the domes after only a few weeks.

With all of our technology we are still so quickly and
easily reduced to the ancient-Earth Dark Ages.
He went back to his desk to
make some contacts, starting with some little-known smugglers who might be
surprised to hear from him.

 

**** ****

 

Alexander Pryke liked what he saw.
Reports came to him from attacks on Dhanna, effectively trapping Kline, where
he could be bled to death slowly. Soon the forces would arrive at Darnall and
Mastura where he was confident they would be able to overwhelm the Kline
defense. He smiled at the prospect of owning the Kline drive technology. He
still hoped that Kline would be dumb enough to pull some of his defenses to
come to his aide at Dhanna, but it appeared he wasn’t falling for that ploy.
No
matter, we’ll crush his navy anyway. If not, we can always call in Renard’s
precious Augies to help.

Thinking of how easily he had usurped Renard’s greatest
triumph made him want to laugh out loud, he was nearly bursting with
excitement.
Any minute now, he’ll realize the Augies are mine, just as he
called them in to protect him!

Alexander was still a little confused, however, over
why
Renard had called in the Augies with such urgency.
Surely he couldn’t have
gotten wind of our impeding attack, could he?
Bits of doubt nagged at the
back of Alexander’s mind. Something was happening at the Spire on Havyn and he
didn’t know what it was.
No matter, Nachman will be on site soon enough and
will take care of any problems there.

Alexander calmed his worries and got back to enjoying the
inevitable victory.

 

**** ****

 

Stacey Magourik was nowhere to be
found. At least, she hoped she was. Days before, she had been contacted
in
person
by Alexander Pryke, who had showed up unannounced at her private
home on Amani. She went through the entire encounter in a haze of surprise and
confusion. He talked of breaking up the Council by killing Reverend Trueblood,
who he called a false prophet, and Jonathan Kline, who would not share the
profits from his Kline drive.

Alexander claimed to have Esme Burdekin on board already,
although he said he’d rather be allied with Stacey. He claimed that she would
take the place of Esme immediately if she wanted to join him.

He courted her for hours with his smooth-talking facade, but
she wanted nothing to do with him. Fortunately, despite her shock, she was able
to think clearly enough not to disagree with him directly in that situation.
Instead, she did a little acting of her own and convinced him she would give it
serious consideration. Alexander eventually stopped pushing, and when he left
she could only hope that he bought her feigned interest.

The moment his ship tunneled its way out of the system, she
was in motion. She didn’t know which side of this conflict she hated more -
Reverend Trueblood with his over-developed need to control everything, or Pryke
with his undisguised ambition for wealth and power. Therefore, she took the
only option available to her.