McCade's Bounty (21 page)

Because the energy beam had cauterized the wound on its way through Banks' thigh there was very little bleeding, but it hurt like hell just the same. Phil gave him an injection. Banks was smiling sixty seconds later.

McCade found Abu Rami and thanked him for making the critical shot.

Rami listened politely, acknowledged the compliment with a nod, and turned his attention to the rifle. A thin layer of dust covered its outer surface. That would never do.

A stretcher was assembled from the pieces some of them carried and Banks was strapped onto it. It was difficult getting the stretcher up and over the lip of the bank but they made it.

They formed a column of twos and ran toward Zephyr. It was only two miles away. McCade could see the whitewashed buildings shimmering in the sun. With the enemy warned, and the sun up, there was no time for mine detectors or other niceties. McCade was gambling that the robo sentry worked along the inside edge of the mine field. If so, this area should be clear. If not, it was just too bad.

And now there was another danger as well, a danger they couldn't do a damned thing about. It lurked above them in the clear blue sky, or could, and might descend at any moment. A fighter, a chopper, an armed aircar, any and all of them could, and would, turn the team into chopped liver.

But when danger came it was on the ground. The first sign of it was a dust cloud coming straight toward them from Zephyr. Someone
had
noticed their run-in with the robo sentry and was coming to investigate. That pretty much ripped it, but if they were forced to surrender, McCade wanted to do it from a position of relative strength. Assuming that the government was willing to take prisoners, a proposition that was far from certain.

"There's company coming," Phil said laconically, the words jerking out with each breath.

"Yeah," McCade replied, "I see 'em."

Still running, the world rose and fell around him as McCade looked around. Outside of the oil pump off to the left there was no place to hide. "Okay, everyone, head for the oil pump, it's the only cover around."

They swerved and jogged toward the oil rig. A glance toward the growing dust cloud assured McCade that they'd make it in time. There was only one vehicle as far as McCade could tell, a troop carrier perhaps, or a military truck. Something big anyway, big enough to carry plenty of troops and a lot of weapons.

There wasn't much to the oil pump. Just a vertical mount, a steel cross-piece, and some shiny pipe that disappeared into the reddish soil. It went up and down, up and down, like a bird pecking at the ground. Standing next to it was an equipment shed and some empty oil drums.

The team spread out, found what cover they could, and got ready for their final battle.

The dust cloud was bigger now, much bigger, and McCade could see the vehicle that caused it. First he frowned. Then he brought the binoculars to his eyes, looked, and looked again. Then McCade recognized the conveyance for what it was and laughed.

A bus! A school bus, or crew bus, with a white flag flying from its antenna! It was big, lime green in color, and equipped with huge desert tires.

McCade triggered the team freq. "Hold your fire and stand by. This could be a friendly."

It could also be a trick, McCade thought to himself, and watched as the bus approached, then skidded to a stop. The enormous tires sprayed gravel in every direction. Now McCade could see the words "Harrington Industries" printed along the vehicle's dented flank.

A door hissed open and a man stepped out. He had white hair, a deeply tanned face, and an athletic body. The man was dressed in short-sleeved white shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of beat-up desert boots. He summoned them with a wave.

"My name's Harrington. You folks look like you could use a lift. Climb aboard, and let's get the hell out of here. We can expect a flight of T-40 fighters in about twelve minutes. Their base is a couple hundred miles away so it's taking them a while to get here."

McCade knew that it could still be some sort of an elaborate trick, but didn't think it was, and decided to take the chance. "All right, everybody . . . you heard the man . . . let's get aboard!"

Phil entered first, his ugly-looking submachine gun at the ready, making sure the bus was empty. It was, and he waved the rest of them forward.

Once the team was aboard, Harrington wasted little time in closing the door and accelerating away. McCade noticed the older man was wearing a headset, and from the speed with which they were traveling, McCade suspected that he had a means of tracking the T-40s. If so, they were coming on strong.

The bus swerved to avoid a rock and threw McCade against hard metal. He smiled. This was silly. Not only was Nigel Harrington a good deal different from the helpless old man that he'd imagined, the industrialist also showed every sign of rescuing his rescuers, and doing so with a good deal of panache.

Zephyr was clean and crisp up ahead, safe behind a carefully maintained wall, all curves and rounded corners. Then McCade saw the iron gate, the pillbox located next to it, and the troops spilling out of a government truck.

Harrington's voice boomed over the PA system. "They're on to me, so hang on, folks, we're gonna dent some government property!"

An automatic weapon opened up from the pillbox, but the gunner hadn't fired at a real target before, and put all of his slugs where the bus had been instead of where it was headed.

An officer waved her arms, mouthed some sort of order, and dived out of the way as Harrington accelerated toward the gate. There was a crash as the bus hit, a snow storm of shattered safety glass, and the stutter of hand-held weapons. McCade sensed rather than saw government troopers falling away as members of his team fired out through the windows.

Up front Harrington yelled, "Yahooo!" and put his foot down. The bus fishtailed around a corner, sideswiped a lamppost, and screeched its way up a well-kept boulevard.

Just then three barely glimpsed somethings roared overhead, shaking the bus with their combined slipstreams.

"That's the T-40s," Harrington yelled happily, "they can't fire on us without hosing the entire neighborhood! Most of my neighbors are government officials. Silly bastards!"

McCade made eye contact with Phil a few rows back and on the other side of the aisle. The variant shook his head in amazement and smiled. It was easy to see why Harrington Industries had been so successful.

The aircraft made one more pass during the time it took for the bus to wind its way down some residential streets and roar toward a pair of massive gates. They opened like magic and closed behind the bus as it bounced inside and slid to a screeching halt.

McCade was impressed with what he could see through the broken windshield. In the foreground were carefully planned rock gardens, thoughtfully interspersed with desert plants, and crisscrossed by well-swept walkways.

Farther back was the mansion itself, a huge rambling structure, all of which was blindingly white.

Harrington tried to open the vehicle's door and found it wouldn't budge. Not too surprising, since it had sustained a good deal of damage during the crash and was badly twisted.

A heavily armed security guard, dressed in a paramilitary uniform with a Harrington Industries logo stitched to his breast pocket, managed to pry the door open with a crowbar.

They unloaded Banks first, with the rest of the team tumbling out after that, and McCade last. Nigel Harrington was there to greet him. There was a smile on the older man's face. His grip was dry and firm.

"Captain Blake, I presume. Welcome to my home. I received word of your arrival a few hours ago."

Harrington gestured toward a tall spindly tower that soared up from the corner of the mansion. "Margaret had that built, God bless her soul. Used to sit on the observation deck and paint. I saw the whole battle from up there. Nasty business that. Could've been worse though. The night patrols were in and the day patrols were getting ready to go out. Idiots don't have enough brains to overlap their patrols. Be surprised if we don't whip the whole government in a week."

McCade thought Harrington's projection was more than a little optimistic but didn't say so. "We sure appreciate your help, sir, we owe you one."

Harrington waved the comment away with a smile. "Not for very long. I'll be owing you pretty soon."

Harrington looked around at his mansion, the gardens, and the pristine grounds. "I wonder how much of this will still be standing two days from now."

Three fighters flashed by overhead, their wings almost touching, the roar of their engines nearly drowning Harrington's last words.

McCade watched the fighters go. Afterburners glowed red as they stood on the tails and screamed toward the sky. He met Harrington's eyes. "That's hard to say, sir, but one thing's for sure, now's the time to dig in."

At exactly 0300 Mustapha Pong gave an order and death fell toward the planet Drang. It came in the form of drop modules, assault boats, bombs, missiles, and beams of pure energy.

And as Pong struck, so did the combine, quickly securing generous landing zones for the invading forces.

But the government forces were tough and, thanks to good intelligence, well prepared for the attack. They'd known since Salazar that war was inevitable, and that Pong would side with the combine. So they gave ground, but did so grudgingly. Every LZ was contested, every target defended, and every victory paid for in blood.

The night was full of fire. Assault boats blossomed into flowers of flame, aerospace fighters exploded, and cities glowed reddish orange. Death was everywhere.

As in most wars Drang's civilians came in for a large share of the suffering. There was no way to protect them against a damaged assault boat cartwheeling out of the sky, a pod of misdirected bombs, or a heat-seeking missile that couldn't tell the difference between a residential power grid and a military one.

But thanks to a common need to win popular support, both the government and the combine avoided civilian target as much as possible.

And because both sides wanted to live on the planet when the war was over, they refused to use nuclear weapons. Of course the fact that nuclear war was grounds for intervention by the Emperor might have had an impact on their thinking as well. Neither group wanted to live on a planet governed by Imperial Marines.

So, some five hours after the attack had begun, Pong was quite satisfied with the way things had gone. His forces had suffered casualties, but nothing unexpected, and thanks to the excellent leadership provided by Colonel Surillo, 81.7 percent of the primary objectives had been taken. A high score indeed.

Pong had watched the first hours of the battle from orbit with 47,721 at his side. A special booth made of one-way glass had been set up inside the flagship's situation room to protect the alien's identity.

Just one leak, one whisper of a previously uncontacted race, and Imperial intelligence would be all over the place. That would be inconvenient, and potentially disastrous as well, since Pong's plan depended on surprise.

Forewarned is forearmed, and if the Empire knew about the 56,827, there was a fairly good chance that they could win the ensuing war. Regardless of what the aliens believed, Pong knew his fellow humans were a tough lot and capable of amazing stubbornness. Not only that, they were also a good deal more technologically sophisticated then the 56,827, and mean as hell when threatened.

No, Pong thought to himself, I mustn't let that happen. Victory depends on a surprise attack by an absolutely ruthless race using weapons the Empire hasn't seen before. It would start when the moon-sized alien ship dropped out of hyperspace into near Earth orbit and cut loose with everything it had. A few hours later man's ancestral home would become little more than charred rock.

The Emperor would be killed along with his entire family, the seat of Imperial government entirely eradicated, and the home fleet destroyed. The rest of the Empire would burst like an overripe fava fruit, split into warring factions, and finish the process Pong had started.

And then, with some key victories over the Il Ronn, and a few other space-faring races, a new order would be born. A new order conceived by
him.

"By
us
," the Melcetian put in waspishly.

"Of course," Pong responded impatiently. "That goes without saying."

"It better," the mind slug replied, but thought better of it, and slipped Pong some soothing chemicals.

Completely unaware of Pong's thoughts, or his interchange with the Melcetian, 47,721 shifted in his seat. It was of 56,827 manufacture and served to cradle the alien's backward curving midsection. Both of its outward bulging eyes were swiveled forward in order to follow the action.

The privacy booth included three sophisticated holo tanks, twelve different video monitors, and a sophisticated com set.

Using video supplied by hundreds of spaceships, assault boats, drop modules, combat vehicles, and individual troops, a rather sophisticated computer had woven it all together to provide them with a live blow-by-blow account of the battle.

So skillful was the computer's manipulation of incoming information that it took on the quality of a holo drama, complete with ongoing characters and running subplots.

More than once Pong and 47,721 were watching when a particular video source disappeared from the screen and never returned. Often there was natural sound, explosions, or screams followed by silence.

Each time Pong was conscious of the fact that real men and women had just died, yet because it was little different from watching a well-executed holo drama, it didn't seem to mean much.

Not to Pong anyway, although 47,721 grew somewhat agitated during the scenes of personal combat, and his toe claws had left scratches in the surface of the durasteel deck.

All around the booth there was the quiet murmur of com traffic, an occasional burst of static, and the gentle hiss of air-conditioning. All of it comfortably distant from the battle that raged below.