Was Once a Hero (35 page)

Shasti
was her usual contained self.
 
She gave
him the look she sometimes used for a smile, though he could see her mind was
already on the task ahead.
 
Concentration
was rarely less than total with Shasti.
 
In that much, she proved true to the sports-minded founders of Olympia.

Risky
wagged his tail, clearly figuring himself as part of the adventure, but they
had no plans to take the dog.
 
K-9s were
highly trained, but Shasti had not had him long enough for the dog to recognize
her as his handler.
 
He might bolt.
 
They could not afford such distractions.

As if
reading his mind, Shasti looked up from petting him.
 
“There’s no reason he can’t stay with us
through breakfast,” she said.

“None,”
he replied, “provided he keeps his nose to himself.”

They
left the room, which had been a little island of warmth for them, and headed
downstairs.
 
Fenaday’s chronometer read 2:17
A.M.
 
The other members of the team would
be awake soon.
 
Telisan had organized a
mess hall the day before.
 
Food, and more
important, fresh hot coffee awaited them.
 
Fenaday grabbed a few sausage and egg sandwiches while Shasti made up a
bowl for Risky.

Telisan,
who never seemed to need sleep, sat at a table sipping coffee, a human vice he
acquired in the Confed navy.
 
He smiled
broadly at the two of them as they came down the stairs.
 
Fenaday tried to forgive the Denlenn for his
morning cheerfulness.
 
At least he was
quiet about it.

“Sleep
well?” Telisan asked.

“Yes,
very,” Fenaday replied.

“Ah,
good,” said the Denlenn, smiling.

Shasti
joined them on the couch.
 
The Denlenn
grinned even more broadly at her.
 
She
looked back at him, “Something?” she asked.

“Mere
envy,” Telisan sighed.

Fenaday
began to wonder if he had their room bugged.
 
To his surprise, Shasti returned the Denlenn’s grin.

Duna
padded down the stairs next.
 
Fenaday did
not know what a sleepy Enshari looked like, but he suspected it looked very
much like Belwin Duna.
 
Next came
Connery, Li and Mmok.
 
Only the
half-cyborg looked in any condition to face the day.
 
He always radiated a metallic coldness, crisp
and alert.
 
Daniel Rigg walked in almost
on their heels.

With
the arrival of the others, the Shasti of last night disappeared, replaced by
her expressionless, no-nonsense self.
 
She finished her food and left to check equipment.
 
Everyone began doing last-minute teardowns
and cleaning of weapons.
 
Fenaday checked
each person for full canteens, a day’s rations, reloads, flares and
torches.
 
They went over the detonation
procedures.
 
Mmok made them simple but
impossible to do by accident.

After
everyone had their gear on, Rigg walked with them down the main hall to the
front entrance.
 
Guards on the windows
called out good luck.
 
Fenaday was
surprised to see a cluster of people at the entranceway.
 
The Tok brothers stood there.
 
They had bitterly protested being left out of
the assault force, but Hanshi was their only other pilot and Lokashti walked
with a bad limp.
 
Most of the medical
team with Dr. Mourner showed up along with Rask, Bernard, Fury and Morgan.

The
Tok bothers took their leave of Shasti, gripping her by both arms.
 
Fenaday shook hands with the doctors and the
others.
 
“Go get 'em, skipper,” Bernard
said.

Angelica
Fury looked at him.
 
“I’ll see to
Micetich,” she said, “if there’s a need.”

“Thanks,
do that,” he said.

“Best
of luck, Robert,” Mourner said, echoed by Yamata and Vashti. They shook hands
with each member of the team.

Shasti
held Risky’s collar and snapped an improvised leash on him.
 
She handed it to Daniel Rigg.
 
“Look out for him if we don’t get back,” she
said.

Rigg
nodded.
 
“You’ll do okay,” he said with
the casual assurance sergeants dispense before battles.
 
“We’ll see you on toward nightfall.
 
I don’t have to tell you anything.
 
You’ll be okay.”

She
nodded.
 
“Look after him anyway, though.”

“Yeah,
don’t worry about it.
 
If you don’t make
it back though, he may be looking after us.
 
He’s got the track record on survival.”

“I
hate long good-byes,” Fenaday said impatiently.

“OK,
let’s go to work, people,” Telisan announced, lapsing into Confed military
slang, from his normally formal standard.
 
They boarded the M-2 Rask brought to the front.
 
All three surviving HCRs stood around the
truck, motionless in the pre-dawn light.
 
The utility robots, including the one with the bomb on board, latched
themselves into position.
 
Eight other
crab assault models already hung off the truck.
 
It looked as if flat-gray beach creatures were consuming the
vehicle.
 

Fenaday
and the other spacers boarded the M-2.
 
Mmok’s saucer-like reconnaissance robot circled overhead on guard.
 
Duna, Telisan, Shasti and Fenaday rode in the
armored box of the cargo platform, glad for their leather flight jackets.
 
Barjan had something in common with the
desert: it was windy, and with the sun down, the wind was damn cold.
 
Shasti slid up and into the ring containing
the light caliber cannon Rask had mounted, hitting the charging handle on the
weapon.

The
M-2 hummed to life, pulling away from the embassy.
 
A cheer went up from the spacers left
behind.
 
As the M-2 rumbled down the
driveway, the gate guards pulled down the barrier wire to let them through the
perimeter.
 
Shasti’s Landing Force troops
joined the ASATs in a salute.

“There
is rather an air of finality about these farewells,” Duna observed pensively.

“Well,
we have very little chance,” Shasti said.

Fenaday
looked at her.

“But
maybe we’ll get lucky,” she added.

Telisan
shook his head ruefully.

“It
could happen,” Fenaday insisted.

Duna
grumbled something in Enshari that made Telisan laugh and went back to
surveying the landscape.
 
Fenaday rested
his tri-auto on the cab, watching the HCRs pace the slow-moving M-2 as they
wove around debris and vehicles, heading for the city.

The
domes and half-domes of the city became clearer as the morning light
strengthened.
 
Half-domes were generally
industrial or offices.
 
They rose to
considerable height but had none of the dizzying perspective of a Terran
skyscraper.
 
There were a few ruined
towers as well.
 
Up closer, the
devastation was more evident.
 
Bones lay
everywhere.
 
Empty window frames gave the
domed buildings a skull-like appearance.
 
They grew used to the crunching sound of tiny Enshari bones under the
M-2’s bulletproof wheels.
 
Fenaday
consoled himself with the knowledge that the dead wouldn’t mind the
desecration, knowing their mission of vengeance.
 
Still, the scene was oppressive.
 
The courage of morning coffee and a full
breakfast faded before the evidence of their unseen enemy’s power.

Fenaday
turned to Telisan.
 
The Denlenn seemed
the most affected by the sight of the dead city.
 
Maybe it reminded him of what he had seen, or
perhaps even caused, during the war.
 
The
grim countenance of his usually optimistic and self-assured friend worried
Fenaday.
 
He had come to rely on the
Denlenn’s sense of humor when things looked dark.

“When
we get out of this,” Fenaday said abruptly, “we’ll go up to where the fighters
augured in.
 
We’ll locate your folks,
your friend’s brother and give everybody a decent burial.
 
Least we could do, I think.”

The
Denlenn turned his golden, cat-irised eyes toward the human.
 
“I thank thee, my friend.
 
If we live, we shall do that, but in truth I
do not think we will live.
 
A whole world
fell to this enemy.”

“If
Duna is right,” said Fenaday slowly, “if we’re facing this ancient enemy he
suspects, it must be very old.
 
I’ve been
trying to remember what I felt when I was in physical contact with the
Shellycoat we fought in Duna’s library.
 
I told you before that it felt like I was in communication, receiving
something from it.
 
It’s difficult, like
recalling a dream after you wake up.
 
The
more you concentrate on it, the more it fades.
 
You’re left with the doubt that you dreamt anything at all.

“I
felt a sense of great age and a terrible anger.
 
The anger, I think, was directed at the Enshari rather than any of
us.
 
There’s more, much more, but that’s
what I have the most trouble remembering.
 
It’s easier to gather impressions than images.
 
I recall a feeling of weakness and confusion,
a lack of focus in the thing.
 
Otherwise,
I think it would have killed me.”

Fenaday
looked the Denlenn in the eye.
 
“After two
hundred thousand years, is it possible that our enemy might be senile?”

“Who
knows?” murmured Telisan.
 
“It might
be.
 
It just might be the case.
 
The attacks on us have varied, some with
intelligence and at least a degree of cunning, some not.
 
None displayed the coordinated brilliance of
the original two assaults.”

“Let’s
hope the thing doesn’t have a lucid moment while we’re trying to put it to
sleep permanently,” Fenaday said.
 
“It
wouldn’t take much more to finish us off.”

They
came to an area impassable to the vehicles.
 
Bones and bits of bodies were strewn everywhere.
 
Vehicles of all descriptions, from trucks and
aircars to small motorcycles, formed a nearly solid mass.
 

“We’re
within three hundred meters of the main roadway leading down to Barjan Old
Town,” Mmok said.
 
“From here, we walk.”

Crab
robots popped off the truck like fleas and moved up to join the three
human-form robots.
 
Utility robots,
carrying supplies and the warhead, came off the truck more slowly.
 
Fenaday and the others picked up their
equipment and shouldered weapons.
 
They
formed up in the center of the robot force and began to walk down the sloping
road to the tunnel entrance, where the roadway dropped into the earth.

As
they reached the entrance, Fenaday stopped, looking around a last time at the
sunlight and sky.
 
Then, taking a deep
breath, he stepped across the terminator thrown by the roof of the tunnel.
 
They started down the gentle slope, around
wrecked vehicles and in some cases, over them.

The
humans stuck close to the Enshari.
 
He
steered Mmok.
 
Mmok steered the
robots.
 
Spotlights popped from the crab
robot’s bodies lighting up the area.
 
The
spacers saved their torches and lanterns for later need.
 
The robot’s power supplies were more than
adequate for months of such use.

As
Duna had promised, the lights proved unnecessary.
 
The bioluminescent panels the Enshari were so
fond of dotted the roof of the tunnel, though the light was dimmer than humans
liked.
 
As they crunched through a vast
bone yard, hunting an enemy that might form around them in a nightmarish
second, they were happy for the spotlights.

Shellycoats
were not the only enemy to be feared.
 
They
faced bad footing, flooding, and decay in the city itself.
 
Barjan had suffered many fires.
 
Without intelligent agency to stop them, the
fires caused widespread damage.

The
smell of old smoke filled their noses, as did the smell of damp and rot.
 
These eased only when they passed a
shaftway.
 
Fortunately, shaftways were
common both for light and ventilation.
 
Some penetrated only dozens of meters.
 
Others dropped off to unguessable depths.

They
wound down the roadway until they reached a collapsed section.
 
Then Duna began to take them down the side
streets of the city.
 
As they moved,
Shasti drew luminous ranger marks at every turn.
 
The robots and Mmok could find the way back
with ease, but Fenaday wanted to take no chances of becoming lost.