Was Once a Hero (33 page)

Greywold
stepped back, dropping his eyes.

The
dog, a large but gaunt German shepherd, walked closer to Shasti, but still hung
back, afraid.
 
She continued to talk
softly, throwing a small piece of food—hastily snatched up by the animal.
 
The big shepherd looked at Shasti, sniffing
the others beyond her.
 
He whimpered and
walked back and forth, wanting people, but afraid after so long alone.
 
The dog crept closer to Shasti, who held
still more food in her hand.
 
He nibbled
hesitantly; enjoying the food and the soft sounds that Shasti made.
 
It was the old bond, being offered
again.
 
Shasti kept her hand out and the
dog sniffed it, then licked.
 
His tail
began to wag and he moved closer, whining anxiously and butting his head
against Shasti.
 
She scratched the dog’s
ears, and he sat delighted.
 
As far as he
was concerned, happy times had returned to Enshar.

Fenaday
walked up slowly and sat down a little away from the dog.
 
The shepherd came over to him slowly.
 
Fenaday held out a hand, speaking the way he
would have to one of his father’s hounds.
 
The tail came up, and the dog practically jumped into his lap, knocking
him over.
 
Fenaday petted the animal,
feeling its too thin body as it tried to lick him.
 

Shasti
laughed.
 
The dog, perhaps realizing the
significance of the event, abandoned him to return to his first love.
 
Shasti started talking to him.
 
Fenaday handed Shasti a ration can from his
pack.
 
She opened it and dished it out
for the shepherd’s noisy enjoyment.

Shasti
reached over and looked at the synthetic collar around his neck.
 
This required more petting.
 
The collar and its I.D. tag were nearly
buried in his fur.

“His
name is Risky, according to the collar, it’s got a military ID.
 
I thought he might be a K-9.
 
They’re genetically enhanced, bigger and
smarter than a regular pet.
 
He must have
been assigned to embassy security.”

Fenaday
looked at her curiously.

“When
I trained on Olympia,
I worked with K-9’s.
 
They were the best
friends I had.”
 
She stood slowly.
 
The dog looked wary, his tail down.
 
She stepped away then patted her leg and
whistled.
 
Risky trotted up and walked
alongside her toward the others.
 
She
made several people come up, one by one, so as not to alarm the dog.
 
Some offered snacks Risky happily accepted.
 
Shasti quickly stopped that.
 
“He won't be used to such rich food
anymore.
 
Let’s not make him sick.”

The
dog greeted everyone with enthusiasm, even a chagrined Greywold.
 
Duna and Telisan stayed back.
 
Dogs meant nothing to either, and the
shepherd was nearly as big as Duna.
 
Fenaday couldn’t blame him.
 
He
turned to Cobalt, the nearest robot.
 
“Log this creature as a member of the landing force.
 
Update all fire control protocols.”

“Linked,”
the robot replied, “update complete.
 
Please identify the new crew member.”
 
The breeze kicked up and lifted the robot's hair.
 
For a moment, it looked nearly alive.

“Identify
the new crewmember as Risky, a K-9 unit,” Fenaday said.

“Acknowledged,”
Cobalt replied.
 
The robot turned to the
shepherd, which eyed it without much interest, having classified it as a
man-made thing and hence useless as a source of treats or pets.
 
“Arf, Arf,” the robot said.

They
all stared at Cobalt for a second.
 
Fenaday snorted.
 
“Very funny,
Mmok.
 
I have heard of living
vicariously, but you take the cake.”

With
Risky on the team, they reentered the embassy.
 
A familiar maelstrom had struck its interior.

“Shellycoat
attack,” Telisan said.
 
Fenaday nodded.

“I
don’t know if it makes a difference,” Fenaday said, “but I want all this debris
moved out of here.
 
It may be that if
something was a Shellycoat once, it might make it easier to become one
again.
 
All the bones are to be buried
and everything else, burned, buried, or put in the stream out back.”

Telisan
nodded.
 
“After we check the place out,
I’ll have Mmok put the robots on it.”

“Let
the ASATs take care of the remains,” Fenaday cautioned.
 
“They might not want the bones handled by
machines.
 
I don’t need any trouble from
that quarter.

“Have
Rask hook up one of the multi-fuels to the helicopter wreck.
 
Drag it off the pad.
 
I want to bring the
Banshee
in back there.
 
We’ll
put
Pooka
down on the front lawn.”

Telisan
nodded and went off to get Rask.

One
of Mourner’s medtechs came up the stairs and over to Fenaday.
 
“The embassy follows the standard pattern,”
he said.
 
“There’s a good-size clinic in
the basement for situations local doctors might not be able to handle.
 
None of the drugs are usable, of course.
 
The equipment and computers were off-line.
 
They must not have had any medical emergencies
that day.”

“Good,”
Fenaday said.
 
“Inform Dr. Mourner and
prepare it to receive all our casualties.”

He
turned to Shasti.
 
“First bit of good
luck we’ve had in a while.”

She
nodded.
 
“We were due.”

Connery
came up to them.
 
The red-haired Irishman
had a grin plastered across his face.
 
“Whatever hit here got to them before the emergency power could go
on.
 
The units are still off and look to
be in working order.
 
The generator is a
multi-fuel.
 
Rask should be able to get
it running.
 
We’ll need a portable
battery pack from one of the shuttle’s stores.

“The
armory is intact.
 
They must not have had
time to use more than the weapons that were at hand.
 
There is a fair supply of claymore mines,
plastic explosives and additional barrier wire.
 
That means we have power in the building and for the exterior
defenses.
 
We’ll also have more weapons
than we have hands to shoot them.
 
We’ll
be ready for a fight, Captain.”

“The
good news,” Shasti said grimly, “is that we have power.
 
The bad news is whatever hit these people
took them out fast.
 
Seconds, minutes
tops.”

Connery’s
face fell.

Fenaday
shot her a warning look.
 
“Good work,
Connery.
 
By nightfall, we’ll be forted
up so tight that the Conchirri fleet couldn’t dig us out.
 
Go get the equipment and tell Rask we have
another engine job for him.
 
He’s in the
back with one of the M-2’s trying to clear the helipad.”

“Yes
sir,” said Connery.
 
He headed for the
rear doors of the embassy, casting dubious looks at the piles of bones on the
floor and shining a pocket torch at any dark corners.

After
he left, Fenaday leaned slightly toward Shasti.
 
“Remember, everyone else here comes complete with fear and doubt.
 
They need hope to keep their morale up.”

“Self-deception,”
she judged, “but if it motivates them, so be it.
 
I’ll be more careful.”

“Shasti,”
he said gently, “everyone needs hope.”

She
looked at him without comprehension.

They
converted the embassy to a fortress in short order.
 
Behind the main building, Rask and his M-2s
cleared the landing pad.
 
Telisan, their
best pilot, drove a mule back to the airport to take
Pooka
in himself.
 
Fury
switched over to the
Banshee
,
relieving Hanshi.
 
She had the easy
approach, a nice wide helipad.
 

The
landing spot in the front of the embassy was far trickier.
 
Fenaday and Shasti watched from the roof as
Telisan brought the big red shuttle between trees, fence line and the
outbuildings.
 
Fenaday’s own hands
unconsciously flexed as if he had the controls.
 
The Denlenn zoomed up to the clearing, dropping the shuttle into the
narrow landing site in a maneuver that made Fenaday cover his eyes.
 
He opened them, expecting to see a smoking
disaster.
 
Instead, he saw Telisan
smiling happily as he popped the cockpit door and jumped out onto the lawn.

“Do
you think he actually waited long enough for the engines to switch off?”
Fenaday wondered aloud.

“You
said he was a hot pilot,” Shasti said.

“God
damn all fighter jocks,” he griped.
 
“We
just made the last payment on that thing.”

Shasti
gave a brief laugh.

Fenaday
and Shasti hurried down the stairs and out onto the lawn.
 
A few of the landing force only now peeked
out of their foxholes to see if it was safe.
 
Dr. Mourner came out the back of the shuttle with the first stretcher
case.
 
She shot a venomous look at the
unaffected Denlenn.
 
As she went by, she
looked at Fenaday, “Next time, you fly it or I’m walking.”

Medics
came out to help take the wounded to the basement clinic for better care than
the shuttles could supply.

Armed
with equipment from the shuttles and with the help of the robots, Fenaday sent
work parties to get a suitable area prepped for the evening’s fighter
landing.
 
At least three more of the
wounded would be sent up to the safety of the ship.
 
The area beyond the helipad looked best
suited for the task.
 
In three hours,
they cleared a rough field on which the fighters could safely land.

Troops
encircled the grounded shuttles and the embassy itself with barrier wire.
 
A fire-team manned each small shuttle.
 
Fenaday ordered mines laid in abundance down
every likely avenue of attack.
 
Crew-served weapons set up on the roof and sighted in.
 
Mmok positioned the robots for maximum
effect.
 
Quickly the force divided into
watches.
 
Those without immediate
assignments did the sensible thing—they sacked out in anticipation of a long
night.
 
Fenaday, Duna and the others
nervously watched the sky.
 
Bad weather
could mean a return of the enemy’s forces, but the sky remained cloudless as it
darkened toward evening.

Before
nightfall, the
Wildcats
returned.
 
The more wounded crew went up
in the ambulance pods.
 
Another of the
less wounded rode up in
Wildcat Two’s
back seat.

Ninety-one
of them remained on the planet, including six wounded, not counting the
robots.
 
They gathered close as Mur set in the west, taking with it the comfort of its
fierce light.

Shasti
reported to Fenaday as Mur’s light began to
fade.
 
“Two fire-teams are on the roof,”
she said, “additional guards man every window.”

“We’ve
never been attacked in the open, during daylight by the Shellycoats,” Fenaday
said.
 
“All the attacks occurred in the
dimness of buildings or at night.”

“We
don’t know,” Duna said, “if that’s because we keep relocating too quickly to
trigger a massive attack during the day, or if the things dread bright
sunshine.”

“That
sounds too much like an old ghost story to me,” Fenaday said.
 
“I prefer to believe we’ve covered too much
ground in the shuttles for our enemy to track us.
 
On the chance that light does bother them, I
ordered Shasti to have every light in the embassy switched on.
 
One can only guess in such a battle.”

“Did
you find anything on the computers, Duna?” Shasti asked.

“Telisan
and I have tried, without success, to find any part of the Barjan Computer Net
that is still in operation, using the medical computers downstairs.
 
All the other embassy computers are
inoperable.
 
After three fruitless hours,
we gave up.
 
Barjan’s net is gone.”
 
He pulled out the disks he made from his home
system.
 
“We are going to devote our time
to a detailed analysis of the video from Creda.”

“You
think it’s particularly significant?” Fenaday asked.

“Yes,”
Duna said.
 
“Barjan Deep is the name for
a special area many miles long in the oldest section of the city.
 
It had been underdeveloped for cultural
reasons as I told you.
 
In the last few
years, it acquired a certain style as an address.
 
This led to the digging boom that I believe
uncovered the cause of the disaster.
 
We
hope to pin down the exact location using the video.”