Storm Force: Book Three of the Last Legion Series (11 page)

“Mister Dill? Mister Nectan?”

Dill, grim-faced, thumbed the two det switches as Nectan did the same.

The four charges blew at the same time. Dill had planted his against the penstock gates, and the blast sent them pinwheeling up, and the control room splitting apart.

The other two, deep underwater, blasted at the same time, and silver boiled up as the blast crashed against the concrete wall.

Perhaps the dam had been improperly surveyed and laid on a fault, perhaps the contractor had fiddled the concrete mix, perhaps over the years the dam was naturally breaking up.

The blast should have cracked the dam wall enough for water pressure to slowly tear it away. Instead, a good third of the dam folded forward, dropping into the valley, and water avalanched, taking control room, turbines, and the power station below with it.

The soldiers on the wall had no time to run, swept over the wall with the current.

A great wall of water, seventy-five meters high, rushed down the canyon, obliterating the guards’ compound.

There were small villages perched amid the rocks farther down. The water swept them away as if they’d never been.

Five kilometers downstream, the canyon widened into a valley. The water rushed through it, killing herding animals, sleeping villagers, even a scattering of Redruth’s soldiers, and roared on.

Another twelve kilometers away, the water boiled into a second, larger reservoir, and another wave rose, smashed across the lake against the greater dam. One powerhouse was shattered, the other’s controls were ruined.

But the dam held, and the city below wasn’t destroyed.

• • •

“ ‘Kay,” Garvin said, as the booming echoes of the wave died against the valley walls. “Now let’s get on back to the RP. Tomorrow we’ll wander downstream, take a look at whatever damage we did, decide whether we’ll have to blow that second dam.”

He turned to Dill.

“Ready?”

“I wonder,” the big man said slowly, “if I’d been in front, I would’ve had time to drop that asshole.”

“Come on, Ben. What’s past is past, who’s dead is dead.”

“Yeh. Yeh. Now I’ll never get a chance to do paybacks for that goddamned fart of his.”

The seven soldiers picked up their weapons, packs, moved away into darkness.

• • •

A half day later, after they’d maneuvered past the ruined dam, the lake draining, its blue waters now muddy, the lake villages far distant from the water, they reached a hillcrest, and Garvin was able to see the second dam and its reservoir.

“ ‘Kay, gang. Bad news. We didn’t take out the second dam. We’re going to do a reprise, but this time louder and funnier.”

But two E-hours later, a shot came from behind them, was echoed by two more ahead.

They were being tracked.

“You notice,” Maev went on, “we’re in a nice, isolated corridor, where there aren’t any big or small ears. I swept it myself before I ambushed you.”

“Young woman,” Njangu said, flailing, trying to sound paternal, someone far too old to have been a recruit within this person’s lifetime, “I have no idea at all what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not wired.”

“Only the fact that I have the greatest respect for Protector Redruth and his Protector’s Own is keeping me from calling for a guard and having you taken away for mental examination. Perhaps, Commander, you’ve been working too hard lately.”

Maev’s smile slipped a bit, then came back as Njangu took a notebook from his pocket and scribbled an address on one side, a note on the other:

He flashed ten fingers once, nine fingers again.

“Very careful, Njangu,” Maev said. “Nothing incriminating at all. And remember, I don’t know if you’re wearing a wire, either.

“But I’ll take the chance. I’m desperate to get the hell out of this trap I’m in, and I figure if you found a way in, you’ll have set up a way out.”

She snapped a salute, pivoted, and hurried away. Njangu watched her go, hoping his face didn’t show how worried he was.

• • •

By the evening, Njangu had recovered and even made a plan, assuming Maev wasn’t Redruth’s, Celidon’s, or some unknown enemy’s, agent. A plan of sorts, anyway, that involved what one of his goons had told him on the day he’d gone to work for Njangu.

Yoshitaro thoroughly swept his office, both with instruments and visually, then told his bodyguards and his staff he was having an important meeting this night and didn’t want to be disturbed for
any
reason. The only reaction was from one of his companions, Brythe: “My, my. A
fifth
one to join us? Have we started taking vitamin supplements?”

“Why couldn’t it be a secret meeting with Protector Redruth? Or Fleet Commander Celidon?”

“You wouldn’t look guilty if you were meeting either of those
Leiters
.”

Yoshitaro made a noncommittal noise, wondering if he was really cut out for being a spy.

Maev showed up exactly on time, befitting an army officer. But she wore an outfit more in keeping with a streetwalker, black net pants and a matching shirt that stopped below her breasts. Her black hair was cut as short as Njangu’s.

Njangu blinked in surprise, but said nothing until they were in the safe room.

“You came prepared for a body search? Although, wearing that, there’s surely no need.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Maev said. “Don’t you think I’m watched, too?”

Njangu shook his head, pretending he didn’t understand.

“I’m assuming somebody saw the two of us talking today,” Maev went on, “and might wonder what a Commander and a top
Leiter
might have in common. I’m giving them the obvious answer. All the buttbreath men who run Larix/Kura think that every woman would give her firstborn to bed them.”

“Oh. Sorry. Would you like a drink? Or something to eat? My kitchen staff is still on duty,” Njangu said.

“I ate at the officers’ mess,” Maev said. “As for drinking, I don’t drink much, and never when there’s business.”

“Well forgive me all to hell for being an alcoholic,” Njangu said, going to the bar. However, he contented himself with a beer.

“Here’s where we stand,” Maev said briskly, sitting in a plush chair, but not relaxing. “If you’re really Ab Yohns, the Protector’s own spy against Cumbre, you have me on toast, since you could have a dozen bugs around the room.

“But I don’t think you are, as I said. Your inviting me here makes me even more sure.”

“I could,” Njangu said, “be subtly sucking you in, to find out what other Cumbrian confederates you have.”

“That would fit with the Protector’s thinking,” Maev agreed, “and probably get me pumped full of talkee-talkee drugs, which means, with a good interrogator, I’d blab that I think you’re Njangu Yoshitaro … I remembered your real last name about an hour ago … which wouldn’t do your career any good at all. Would it?”

“No,” Njangu agreed. “ ’Kay. No games. I’m … who you think I am.” He wondered why he was so reluctant to speak his name. “And by the way, back on the
Malvern
, I don’t remember taking the time to look at your name tag.”

“Maev Stiofan.” She relaxed a little. “Yeh. We were … busy, weren’t we?” A tiny smile appeared.

“So give me the hot word on what happened to you,” Njangu asked, “after Celidon took the ship and I made my exit.”

Maev was very brief. The recruits had been taken to Larix, scattered through various formation, and put through Redruth’s harsh training. “I’d enlisted in the Confederation military for communications training, thinking that’d be a skill I could use anywhere once I got out, since I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea of spending the rest of my life on the farm world I grew up on. I realized, a little late, just after signing the contract, I didn’t want to spend all my time sitting with a com in my ear. I didn’t have much interest in hiking through the mud, either.

“So when I got to Redruth’s personnel office, I applied for, and was trained, in long-distance communications with a Zhukov squadron … that was the Confederation designation. We call them Ayeshas. They’re — ”

“I know what they are,” Njangu said. “We use them on Cumbre, too.”

Redruth required all able-bodied men and women to serve three years, one training, one in branch training, one in active service.

“A surprisingly large chunk of those troops with anything going for them end up in the fleet,” she said. “Redruth evidently thinks starships are his primary protection. The army, in spite of its size, is mostly a super police force. Not that there’s any Resistance. He and his father and grandfather ground everybody down so well nobody even thinks about the possibility of change.”

“That’s what I’ve seen, too,” Njangu agreed. “A hard goddamned regime to overthrow.”

“Which is why I assume you’re on Larix Prime,” Maev said. “Redruth’s been making noises about Cumbre being rightfully his since I was a ranker.”

She looked desperate. “Njangu, is Cumbre in touch with the Confederation? What the hell is going on, anyway? We don’t ever find out anything, and I’m not dumb enough to believe Redruth’s propaganda machine.”

Njangu told her what they knew of the Confederation’s evident collapse.

“So our media wasn’t lying. What happened? Does anybody know?”

“We know just what I told you, no more. Maybe things out there aren’t as bad as they’re presented, and there hasn’t been a complete collapse. I hope. Go back to your story.”

Maev survived the somewhat brutish barracks by being very quick with an equalizer, whether a kick in the crotch or a roll of coins hidden in her fist, and even quicker with a scheme. “Nice military Redruth’s got. Nobody seems to give a shit if a warrant takes it in his … or her … mind to order a lower ranker into bed, or to give up a meal here or there, or shine boots or become a goddamned servant. A one-striper gets screwed by a two-striper, a two-striper … you get it.

“Plus there’s legalized dueling for warrants and officers. You can only challenge an equal or inferior, although generally someone who outranks you and wants you out of the picture just arranges for you to be transferred to some asteroid space suit. And somehow there’s a lot of people who just ‘happened’ to take over their superior’s slot after a duel for which the superior was dumb enough to issue a challenge.

“I’m amazed there’s any military at all. But I have to admit it’s passing efficient,” Maev grudged, “even if it seems to kill as many of its own as anybody else.”

“So why’d you stay in? It’s been almost five years, and you said the enlistment was for three.”

“The military sucks fungi, but it’s better than being at the bottom rung as a goddamned peasant,” Maev said. “If you’ve got any intelligence, don’t mind work, and volunteer every now and then, that automatically sets you apart from three-quarters of the poor buggers they drag kicking and screaming into uniform. So you get noticed and get promoted.

“After a while I realized the Ayeshas weren’t the answer, did what seemed necessary with some people who paid their debts and ended up being recommended for officer training, which was a bigger pile of shit then enlisted training, then got myself assigned to the Protector’s Own.

“I figured, close to Redruth, here in the palace, here in Agur, maybe I could find some way to get the hell out. But nothing came up until I saw your smiling face.

“So what happened to
you
, and what’re you doing here?”

Njangu gave her an abbreviated version of his travels, and how he’d come to replace the late Ab Yohns.

“A mole, eh?” Maev mused. “Get in, report … can I ask how you report?”

“No. Sorry.”

“I wouldn’t tell anybody either. Anyway, so you report and then get out when the getting’s good. I assume you’ve got a back door and can make it fit two people, which is why I’m here.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

Maev blinked. “Are you suicidal?”

“Just dumb. The theory was I’d hold in place, doing what I could, until war started, then talk about extraction.”

“Which won’t be long,” Maev said. “I’ve heard rumors we sent a mission against Cumbre.”

“You did. Nuclear-type,” Njangu said. “Everything’s very classified, but Celidon’s claiming significant damage on D-Cumbre, that’s our capital world. I don’t know if it’s true or not.”

“Will Cumbre declare war?”

“I’m sort of surprised we haven’t already.”

Maev looked at him closely. “I get the idea that you’re not exactly in touch with your high command. Or are you just being very, very careful?”

“You
are
clever,” Njangu said, deciding to take a chance and tell the truth. “I’ve got a way of sending data, but no way of receiving. The powers that be don’t like anyone, not even a Leiter, having access to an interstellar com setup, and I haven’t figured a way around it yet.”

“But
I’ve
got one,” Maev said smugly. “I assume that you know a frequency that might be transmitting to you?”

“I do.”

“Given the numb-nuts I’m in charge of, and all the com gear that’s lying around, I could have a dozen coms listening to any damned frequency I want. I’ll throw that into the deal.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Njangu said. “However, I’ve got a better proposition … or, anyway, one you might be interested in. When you’re a muckety like me, you get to pretty much requisition any people you think you want.”

“No kidding,” Maev said. “I’ve had three
Leiters
who thought I’d be just perfect guarding their mattress perimeter.”

“Make that four. Hang on a second before you beat me bloody,” Njangu said. “When I was looking at the Protector’s Own, I noticed there’s a certain number of your troops that’re just a little bit on the overly dedicated side.”

“Yeh,” Maev said. “We call them the Death-or-Glory Kids. Not very loudly, though. Any one of those idiots’d cheerfully nark us off as traitors if it got them an autographed pic of Redruth.”

“Are these people dumb enough to, say, take over a spaceship if they were told it was part of an exercise?”

“They’d insert it in their butts if I ordered them to,” Maev said, her voice excited. “So that’ll be your way off?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just looking at setting up an exit. I’m not ready to scarper yet,” Njangu said.

“Good,” Maev said. “I become your bedwarmer, plus you’ve now got a private army of a couple dozen D or G idiots.”

“That was sort of what I was thinking.”

“So I guess I’m spending the night, you incredibly masculine
Leiter
, you, and I’ll stumble out in the morning, eyes dazed with your passion and potency.”

“You get the bed,” Njangu said. “I’ll stack some cushions on the floor.”

Maev looked at him in astonishment.

“Don’t be stupid. Or do you think your maids, your laundry people, your servants don’t see everything and talk about it later, or not see anything, like marks of wild passion on the sheets?

“Besides, I’ve thought back, on what we were doing back on the
Malvern
more than once, especially since I blew in your ear, not the other way around. Remembering that’s kept me from throwing up sometimes when I was with other people who weren’t nearly that much fun.”

• • •

The next day, after Njangu digested and tried to analyze a surprising com from Redruth, Goons Alpha and Beta were introduced to Commander Stiofan and told of the planned increase in the security detachment. They seemed to approve of having others who could take care of the scutwork that went with security, so they could specialize in looking lean and mean in public places.

Njangu ordered Kerman, his head of household, to see to the housing of Maev and her detachment.

“I assume, sir, you’ll want her bedroom next to the other four?”

“Uh … for the moment, anyway.”

Strangely, Njangu felt a little uncomfortable about his companions. He pushed that aside.

“I’ll be away on an inspection tour with the Protector.”

Kerman looked impressed.

“The Protector Himself, sir? What an honor, sir. For how long, sir?”

“I have no idea. I just got invited. I don’t even know what I’m going to be inspecting.”

• • •

Protector Redruth beamed down proudly, his face ruddy in the reflection of the blast furnace. Below the catwalk the hull of a ship was moved surely, quickly, by robot handlers through the stages of assembly.

“This plant,” Redruth shouted in Yoshitaro’s ear, “can produce a destroyer, almost as big as my
Corfe
, in six weeks. And there’s three others like them on Prime, another two building on Secundus. Not bad, considering I ordered their construction just over two years ago, when the Musth problems were building, and I was prescient enough to realize Larix and Kura needed greater protection.

“They’ll be the start of my battle fleet, that one day might reach as far as the heart of what was once the Confederation!”