Fatal Blade (Decker's War#3) (24 page)

Another burst of plasma came streaming down from the top of the cliff, targeting the second combat car, which prudently withdrew into the tree plantation.

Catlow began to laugh uncontrollably.

“That was Gareth.  It had to be.  No one can shoot that damn Shrehari gun like he can.  They must have seen our escape from the farm and figured we’d need help.”

Decker slapped the rebel platoon leader on the shoulder and grinned.

“Good troops, your people.  Anyone who shows that kind of initiative when the boss is away will eventually beat the militia pukes.”

They had little time to celebrate their narrow escape.  Takan pulled the truck onto a rocky shelf overlooking the last bit of rapids and killed his fans.

“End of the line,” he shouted, jumping from the cab with his bag and gun.  “Everyone out.”

Decker gave Catlow a nudge and winked.

“You’re up, buddy.  Time to rejoin the others and go home.”

***

They met the rest of the platoon at the appointed rendezvous and simply kept walking.  The militia would be trying to track down the machine gunner who was responsible for destroying a skimmer and killing its crew.  After a four hour hike, they stopped in a hollow beneath a rocky outcrop, invisible from above and impervious to sensors.

The farmers were used to hard labor and physical effort but were exhausted nonetheless by their narrow escape from imprisonment, interrogation, and almost certain death.

“I guess it’s true then,” Larn Takan said, accepting a mug of coffee from one of the troopers, “the militia have Mathias and got my name from him.”

“More like
had
Mathias,” Decker gently replied.  “He probably didn’t survive interrogation.”

“Oh God.  Kari.”  Marnie Takan hand flew to her mouth while her face dissolved into a mask of anguish.  “If they capture her, she’ll die.”

Decker nodded slowly.

“Let’s hope she got your message in time and took it seriously.”

Marnie began to shake as she tried to hold back convulsive sobs.  Larn put an arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.  He glanced at Zack with a pleading look that crystallized the idea the Marine had been nurturing for the last few hours.

He emptied his cup and got up to join Catlow and his squad leaders, who were discussing the next leg of their journey back to the ruined L’Taung fortress.  They made room for him in their circle, and he squatted.

“I was just telling the guys how you saved our butts down there, Zack.”

“It’s nothing that anyone with good reflexes and a bit of common sense couldn’t have done.”  He shrugged dismissively.  “Can I have a word with you in private?”

“Sure.”  Catlow stood and took a few steps deeper into the shadows.  “What’s up?”

“The Takan daughter, Kari.  After the militia fuck-up at the farm, they’re going to analyze the video feed and realize she wasn’t with us.  They’ll be trying to track her down, and it won’t take long to find out she’s in Iskellian.  They find her, the girl will die, but not before spilling everything she knows, which is probably more than any of us figure.  Sharp kids pick up a lot of stuff.  I know I did when I was a teenager.  That’s not going to be good for anyone.”

“Agreed.”  Catlow nodded.  “May I assume that you’ve come up with an idea?”

Decker smiled.

“More than just an idea, actually.  I’ve got a plan that’ll kill a couple of birds at the same time, not least extracting the girl from under the militia’s nose.”  He scratched his chin.  “Though Verrill might not approve.”

“Verrill’s not here, and we can’t risk using the radio at this point, so it’s up to me.  Remember your comment about showing initiative when the boss isn’t available?  It’s one of those times,” Catlow returned Zack’s smile measure for measure. “So tell me.”

***

“How?”  Harend slumped back in his seat and sighed.  “How did we manage to lose the best link we’ve ever had into the rebellion?  How did they know we were about to close in on Takan?”

He squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.  The daily meeting with Governor Cedeno had not gone well – again - and he didn’t need another fiasco laid at his feet.

“Bad luck?”  Kozlev shrugged.  “Even if we have a leak somewhere, I doubt they’d have been able to mobilize an extraction force that quickly.  This wasn’t just another rebel cell taking care of its own; it was a full-fledged military operation.  Rebel cells don’t carry Shrehari-made machine guns around the countryside for shits and giggles.  I’m sure this was a patrol sent to follow-up on news of Mathias’ disappearance.  Someone put two and two together, and figured out what was going to happen next, someone who’s got a bit more background in this business than a bunch of farmers who headed for the hills with their hunting rifles.”

Harend nodded.

“Makes sense.  We know they’ve been hiring specialists from off-world. Why not hire intelligence experts as well?”

“That’s what I think, but I’ll have my dogs sniff around to see if they find a rebel sympathizer in our ranks anyways.  It’ll be good practice and who knows?  But it’s not all bad news.  The analysis of the drone’s telemetry did leave us one strand to pull on.”  Kozlev’s cruel smile reappeared.  “The Takan girl, Kari, wasn’t with them, which means she’s alone and vulnerable.  I’ve made finding her the top priority for my people.  We bring her in, she’ll give up enough to make it worth the effort.”

“Do we know where she might be?”

“Not yet, but I’ll find out soon enough.  Takan called someone just before leaving the farm, almost certainly the daughter.  He told her they’d be looking out for her, just like when she was a little girl, which could very well have been veiled instructions.  All I have to do is dig into the family history and see if something correlates.”

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy doing that but try not to spend all of your time on her.”

“No.”  She called up a still image from the video feed and tapped the screen with a perfectly manicured fingernail.  “I also want to find out who that is.”

“Hmm?”  Harend looked at her quizzically.

“One of these men is not like the others; the big one with the long hair.  He seems to have been in charge of the extraction.  Considering they all got away and we lost a squad of our best…”

“Another off-world specialist?”

“No doubt; he’s clearly a professional, not just an angry farmer.  But from where?”

Kozlev stared at the indistinct image of Zack Decker taken by the drone.

“Who are you?”  She whispered.

TWENTY-FIVE

“He what?”  Verrill sounded incredulous.  “How could you have let him go like that, Catlow?”

“If you’d seen how he handled things at Larn’s farm, you’d have approved his plan too.”

The platoon leader seemed unrepentant, and Talyn smiled.  She knew how persuasive her partner could be when he set his mind on something.

“So not only is Kari Takan out in the wind, but we now have Zack Decker where he can be snatched by the militia and squeezed dry of everything he’s learned about us since landing here.”  Verrill’s face tightened into a mask of disgust.  “Wonderful.  Just bloody wonderful.”

“Verrill?”  Talyn stepped forward.

“What?”  He snarled.

“Zack has been conditioned.  He’ll die in the interrogation chair before he says anything, so you don’t have to worry on that account.”

“So you say.  And what do we know about you, eh?  Diddly squat, just like your partner.”

“I’ve been conditioned.  There, now you know something about me you didn’t a moment ago.”

Her voice was soft, almost hypnotic and she smiled.

“Zack has a tendency to charge into situations sometimes, for the best of reasons, but I’ll give the big boy his due: he always manages to walk out of the fire with a few trophies hanging from his gun belt.  Hell, he brought two hundred former slave soldiers out of the Trans-Coalsack Sector on a starship he hijacked.  If anyone can get the Takan girl out, he’s your man.”

“Fine, so Decker is our newest hero.  What tells me you and he aren’t plants for the government?  Heck of a great excuse to high-tail it to Iskellian and give Harend the whole song and dance.”

Verrill’s anger seemed to be gaining steam.

“Fine.”  Talyn shrugged.  “Believe what you will, but would the colonial government go to the extent of having its plants not only deliver four shiploads of weaponry to the rebellion but give some very expensive mercenaries a very expensive bloody nose?  Not to speak of the damage they took during yesterday’s little escapade?  There are less costly ways of sneaking in a few spies, which I’ll wager you know already since you’ve been doing it to them.  Or at least I hope you’ve been doing it to them.”

Corde chuckled.

“She’s got you there.  Governor Cedeno doesn’t have the imagination to think of a double-blind scheme like that and Harend doesn’t have access to the public purse at will; nor would he throw away some of his most elite troopers willy-nilly, by the way.  He doesn’t have enough depth in his organization to be wasteful, considering the quality of his current recruits.”

The rebel leader took a deep breath and slowly released it.

“My apologies.  I meant no offense.”

“None was taken.  I’d be wary of a man in your position who didn’t have a healthy dose of paranoia.”

“What now?”

“Now?”  Talyn shrugged.  “You carry on with whatever your campaign plan calls for.  I’ll keep helping Corde with the intelligence analysis, and Zack will do his thing.  He’ll either succeed, in which case, we’ll hear from him in due course, or fail, in which case we won’t.  There’s nothing any of us can do, but as a favor to the Takans, I’d ask that you don’t take it out on Catlow.”

“I won’t.”  Verrill shook his head ruefully, embarrassed by his outburst.  “The commander on the ground needs to make his own decisions, absent direction from above, and Catlow did just that.”  He clapped the platoon leader on the shoulder and squeezed.  “Go, get cleaned up and have a beer.  You did right, and none can fault your decisions.”

“That sounded pretty cold-blooded,” Corde said when the two women walked back to the control room.  “If he fails, we won’t,” she quoted.

“Zack and I have an understanding,” Talyn replied, “and mourning isn’t part of it.”

Corde shook her head  while a burst of grim laughter escaped her throat.

“That sounded even more cold-blooded, but I get where you’re coming from, though I’m not sure I understand where you’re going.”

“Some days, neither do I, honey, but it’s a big universe, and anything can happen.”

***

The burly man walking down Tianjin’s main street towards the maglev station bore little resemblance to the one Rika Kozlev had fingered as an off-world professional.  The long hair and beard were gone, and his clothes, though they retained a cut eerily similar to that seen on the video feed, were now the dull blue favored by laborers and farmers.

Evading militia pursuit had been easy for the former pathfinder.  Most of them were city born and bred and tramped through the bush like drunken Shrehari marines.  He’d found a hiding spot well away from the rapids and watched the futile search while he transformed his appearance.  After a shave and a trim, the quick application of his blaster’s power pack to hidden electrodes on his garments had jolted the color pigments into a new alignment.

He walked with a deliberate slouch, to mask his bulk and avoid seeming like a man on a mission.  It would take a sharp-eyed analyst to connect him with the events of the previous day, but they existed in every organization, and the Garonne militia wouldn’t be much different, especially if there were a few key Celestan National Guard personnel seeded among them.

When he’d proposed going to Iskellian and retrieve Kari Takan, both her father and Catlow had initially been skeptical.  He was new to the planet, didn’t know anyone and wasn’t in any database, something sure to get the authorities’ attention if ever he were stopped.  But all of those were advantages too, provided he didn’t attract attention.  Plus, as he’d reminded them, he had a lot of experience getting tough jobs done in unfamiliar places.

Marnie Takan had finally put down her foot and blessed Zack’s offer.  They’d given him all the information he’d need to track Kari down, what money they carried and their best wishes for success.  He’d taken a few items that would be questionable at worst, innocuous at best, depending on who found them on his person or in his small pack, with the exception of his blaster and pathfinder blade, but there was no way he’d leave those behind.  Anything else that might tie him to the rebellion was left with Catlow and his troopers.

After a night spent waiting for the militia to withdraw, he’d washed in the cold river and then walked down the trail like any local out for a spot of prospecting.  No one he met along the way gave him so much as a second glance, though Decker suspected that for many it was because they knew that he wasn’t a local, which could very well make him a member of the rebellion which so many of the colonists secretly supported.

When he turned the corner near the station, he almost bumped into a pair of troopers, a man, and a woman, wearing the dark green uniform and peaked caps of the militia.  Both had holstered side arms, suspicious eyes, and a permanent sneer.

They stared at him briefly, as they did with every passer-by.  Decker looked away, trying to seem fearful in their presence, something they’d likely enjoy and increased his pace.  He thought he heard a soft snicker from the woman, but the call to stop and raise his hands over his head never came.

The maglev station was relatively new and built in a style evocative of a Celestan temple, no doubt to remind the locals of their colonial overlords.  On the far side of the tracks, opposite the station, a more utilitarian building with broad loading docks dominated the horizon.  It showed signs of heavy use, in contrast to the passenger side.

He stepped out of the bright morning sunshine and into the cool darkness of a vast hall that was almost devoid of life.  Tianjin was by no means a village, but the station’s interior decor was a bit much for an agricultural district capital.

Benches, strung together in seemingly random patterns, covered half of a shining granite floor.  The almost antiseptic neatness was only broken here and there by the irregular shape of sleepers waiting for the next train, a pick up that would never come or a change in their fortunes that would lead to a more comfortable shelter.

A matte screen dominating the room announced the arrivals and departures for the day.  The morning runs had already left and the first afternoon train was still hours away.  Decker briefly debated going out again to find a tavern where he could while away the time with a meal and a cold drink, but decided to imitate the few people who had taken to a snooze instead of pacing.

He found the ticketing terminal, but when he touched the screen, it demanded that he place his identification chip against the reader.  It was the first flaw in his plan.

Though he carried the Bill Whate credentials, he was pretty sure they’d be flagged as non-existent in the militia’s database in a matter of seconds.  After that, it would likely be a matter of moments before the two sneering specimens outside showed up.

He looked around for a human who might accept a few extra creds in exchange for ignoring the ID rules, but in vain.

Hitch-hiking might be an alternative, but he didn’t have time for such an unreliable mode of transport.  Every hour that passed brought the militia closer to finding Kari.

A bright reflection through the bay windows trackside caught his attention, and he found himself staring at a string of shiny, windowless cubes, like a giant metallic caterpillar minus the legs, floating by on the single rail.

It was a freight consist arriving from Iskellian, and that meant another, possibly the same, would leave Tianjin within a few hours.  If he could find a way aboard without being seen, he’d be able to bypass any identity check.

After a final look around the hall, to make sure no one was paying him attention, he left the station and retraced his steps to find the road that led to the freight terminal.  The two militia troopers had left their corner to go sneer at passing colonists from another vantage point, and he quickly found himself looking at a closed gate behind which he could see the immense, low-roofed transfer shed.  The only way in without triggering alarms would have to be on a vehicle entering to pick up whatever the incoming train had carried.

Another flaw in his plan.  If he’d had local knowledge, which he didn’t, as Takan and Catlow had pointed out, he might have found a sympathizer willing not only to let him into the freight compound but help him on the next train out of Tianjin.

“You alright, mate?”

He was startled by a gruff voice behind him and turned, his hand almost reaching for the hidden blaster.  It was a bad sign that he hadn’t heard the gray-bearded, stocky man in worn work clothes approach.

“Sure.”  Decker forced himself to relax.

The man chuckled.

“I bet you’re wondering how to get in there,” he nodded at the gate, “and hop a freight to Iskellian.”

“What makes you think that?”

“No other reason for a stranger to come down this alley.”  When he saw Decker’s face tighten, he raised a placating hand and smiled.  “You wouldn’t be the first looking to avoid the militia’s security measures, mate, and I doubt you’ll be the last.  Plenty of folks hate the greenbottles and like nothing more than to tweak their bloody noses.”

“And you’re one of them.”

“Aye.  I’ll not give you my name if you don’t mind, and I won’t ask for yours, but if you’re looking to hitch a ride, I’ll close my eyes and count to ten after you follow me through the gate.  Fair enough?”

“You work at the terminal?”  Decker asked, falling into step with the older man.

“Part-time, like when a consist comes in.  One a day doesn’t make for a full-time job.  It takes an hour to unload, an hour to load and back it goes.  And I go back to my other trade.”

He touched a small panel to one side of the gate, and just like that, Zack was in.

“You might as well give me a hand while you’re at it,” the man said once they were inside the shed.  “A big buck like you will look out of place sitting around grabbing his ass while I work.

“Sure,” Decker grinned at his newfound co-conspirator.  “Tell me what and where.”

“Good man.”  He thumped the Marine’s thick biceps with a closed fist.

It took just under an hour to off-load farming supplies and not much more than that to fill the cars up again.  As he was about to guide the last pallet aboard, the old man stuck out his hand.

“This is where we part.  You stay in the car when the loader comes back out.  The trip shouldn’t take more than three or four hours.  Freight doesn’t move as fast as the passenger runs, but it still moves faster than your legs can.  When you feel it coming to a stop, crack the door open and make sure no greenbottles are pestering my buddies at the Iskellian terminal.  If it’s clear, you just walk out with the load in your car like you belonged there.  The guys will see you out the gate and on your way.  If you see greenbottles, you’ll have to escape on your own.”

“Got it.  Thanks.”

“Good luck, mate.”  He dropped his voice and quickly glanced around.  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but if it’s to fuck with the governor and his pets, Godspeed to you.  Garonne is owed its independence.”

“I’ll see what I can do to help that along.”

Decker sketched a brief salute and vanished into the shining cube.  The door slammed shut behind him, and he found a spot hidden behind a few pallets of produce to stretch out.  Like every good infantryman, he knew how to take a nap anywhere, whenever he had the chance.