Out of the Dark (60 page)

But if it might be a problem for him, it damned well
would
be a problem for el-Hiri, who was almost seven inches taller than he was.

El-Hiri glowered at him, then looked back at their bomb which, Torino thought, was probably the biggest Claymore mine anyone had ever built. It was essentially a huge triangular-shaped form, as if they’d chopped off an old-fashioned barn’s peaked roof, covered first with explosives and then with thousands of nails, bolts, nuts, and screws scavenged from abandoned hardware stores and building supply centers all over North Carolina. The angled shape would direct the blast upward, and the explosion alone ought to suffice to destroy the cargo bay he’d selected for his target at the base of the Shongair ground base’s central structure. He was pretty sure destroying
the bay would bring the entire building down—despite everything, he couldn’t quite get the vision of the collapsing Twin Towers out of his head when he thought about that—but even if he was stopped short of his ultimate target, he was confident the shrapnel, blasting through the flimsy fabric cover over the flatbed cargo area, would kill every exposed Shongair within a hundred yards or so.

“You’re both wrong,” another voice said, and the two of them turned to face the speaker. It was a young black man, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. “You’re both too tall,” he continued. “Whereas me. . . .”

He shrugged and indicated his own height . . . which was four inches shorter than Torino’s five feet eight.

“Forget it, Mu
ad,” Torino said instantly. “I am not sending a fifteen-year-old kid in with a suicide bomb!”

“I’ll be
sixteen
in another month and a half,” the young man replied levelly. “Or I would be, anyway. And I ain’t no ‘kid,’ either!”

Torino opened his mouth, then paused.

Mu
ad had a point. Two of them, really. The odds of his ever living to be more than sixteen were nonexistent, anyway, given Fleet Commander Thikair’s decision to exterminate the human race. And even if that hadn’t been true, he was scarcely a “kid.” He’d killed his first six Shongairi before he and his brother ever met up with Longbow Torino. And he’d shot down more of the Shongair recon drones than any other two members of Torino’s band combined. In fact, his skill with the Stingers had earned him the nickname el-Rumat—“the Archer.”

But even so, even now, something inside Dan Torino cried out against sending someone so young on a mission of death which could end only in his
own
death even if he succeeded.

Sure you don’t want to do it,
a voice told him.
But how much of that is worry about Mu
ad, or even about what losing Mu
ad would do to Abu Bakr, and how much of it’s the fact that
you
want to do it? You
want
this. Admit it. Everything you just said to Abu Bakr is true enough, but what it comes down to is that you personally want to kill these bastards. And there’s a part of you that wants to be dead, anyway. So why not wrap it all up in one great big package with a bow on it? Kill as many of them as you can and kill
yourself
at the same time? “Happy Birthday Longbow!”

“Look,” he heard himself say, holding up both hands in a stopping motion, “let’s not the three of us get carried away here. I mean, we haven’t even got it in the damned truck yet. We don’t have to make up our minds
tonight about who gets to drive it in. Except, of course, that it can’t be
you
, Abu Bakr. You’re still too damned tall!”

“So are you,” Mu
ad shot back.

“I don’t think so. But I
am
big enough to kick your butt if
you
try to drive it!” The young man glowered at him, and he shrugged. “Hey, I’m not saying that’s the way it’s going to be. I’m just saying we don’t have to make our minds up tonight. I’m sure we can settle it in some civilized fashion when the time does come, too. If we can’t do it any other way, we can always do rock-paper-scissors or something to decide, okay?”

“This has to be the craziest conversation I’ve ever sat in on,” el-Hiri said. “And I’ve sat in on some weird ones.”

“Don’t even tell me,” Torino retorted.

“Well, that’s—” el-Hiri started, then paused as someone else poked his head into the garage.

“There’s someone here looking for you, Longbow,” the newcomer said.

“Who?” Torino asked.

“Didn’t give his name. Big black guy, though—taller’n you, Abu Bakr. And he says he wants to talk to you guys about attacking the base.”

Fleet Commander Thikair felt a thousand years old as he sat in the silence of his stateroom, gazing at the blank display screen and cursing the day he’d ever had his brilliant idea.

It seemed so simple,
he thought almost numbly.
Like such a reasonable risk. But then it all went so horribly wrong, from the moment our troopers landed. And now this
.

First, Ground Base Seven—Shairez and all her personnel, dead.

Then, three of the humans’ weeks later, it had been Fursa’s turn and Ground Base Six and every one of its troopers had died. In a single night. In the space of less than one day-twelfth, two fully alert infantry brigades and an entire armored brigade—one that had been made up to full strength, despite the expedition’s losses in GEVs and APCs!—had been just as utterly slaughtered as Ground Base Seven.

And they’d still had absolutely no idea how it happened.

They’d received a single report, from a platoon commander, claiming he was under attack by what looked like humans. But humans who had completely ignored the assault rifles firing into them. Humans who’d registered on no thermal sensor, no motion sensor. Humans who
could not
have been there.

Thairys had to have been right about that,
Thikair thought now.
Whoever it is who’s helping the humans, they must be projecting holo images to distract and confuse—and terrify—our troopers. Of
course
our warriors fired at the threat they
saw
without asking themselves if perhaps the reason it wasn’t appearing on their motion sensors or thermal sensors was because it wasn’t really there! These humans have been such a nightmare to them from the very beginning, it’s no
wonder
the rumor mill is starting to call them outright night demons! And while our troopers are busy shooting at electronic ghosts, our
real
enemies, the ones operating under stealth, are slipping right past them
.

He told himself that yet again, but deep inside, it didn’t really matter. Not anymore.

Not now that Ground Base Two Alpha had gone the same way as Ground Base Seven and Ground Base Six. And this time, there hadn’t been
any
reports from inside the base. Only a sudden silence, more terrifying than any report. And instead of moving instantly, on his own authority, to relieve the base—or at least find out what had happened to it—Thairys had commed him to ask for orders. To
ask
for orders! A senior ground force commander of the Shongair Empire whose troopers had been attacked had asked for
orders
before responding.

Thikair never knew how long he simply sat staring at the display. But then, finally, he punched a button on his communicator.

“Yes, Fleet Commander?” Ahzmer’s voice responded quietly.

“Bring them up,” Thikair said with a terrible, flat emphasis. “I don’t care who’s down there helping them. I don’t even care if there’s no one at
all
down there helping them, Cainharn seize them! If there is, they can go the same damned way as the humans. I want every single trooper off that planet within three day-twelfths. And then we’ll let Jainfar’s dreadnoughts use the Dainthar-cursed place for
target practice
.”

•  •  •  •  •

It wasn’t that simple, of course.

Organizing the emergency withdrawal of an entire planetary assault force was even more complicated than landing it had been. But at least the required troop lift had been rather drastically reduced, Thikair reflected bitterly. Well over half his entire ground force—including maintenance and support techs, not just combat troops—had been wiped out, and he’d be bringing back less than one in twelve of his combat vehicles. However small his relative losses might have been compared to those of the humans, it was still a staggering defeat for the Empire, and it was all his responsibility.

He would already have killed himself, except that no honorable suicide could possibly expunge the stain he’d brought to the honor of his entire clan. No, that would require the atonement of formal execution. Even that might not prove enough, yet it was all he could offer the Emperor. And perhaps—just perhaps, threadbare though the hope might be—if he was right and the Shongairi’s enemies had deliberately arranged this disaster, his execution might offer the Emperor some flimsy cover. A way to assert that all
of it, from first to last, had been the consequences of a single, feckless utter incompetent’s having exceeded both the letter and the intent of his orders.