Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) (36 page)

Bees charged in and we helped the Prof and his daughter out of the growing holocaust. The girl appeared to be suffering bad burns from the fire and from her father's red-hot A-suit.

As we helped Prof towards the cargo shuttle squatting outside in the middle of that hellish red cloud, we passed a group of female overseers huddled on the grass. One of them was labeled in red on the tacmap – H01. "Just a mo," Bees said. Then she pointed her E at H01 and shot her in the face, blowing her head clean off.

"Angels, Rob. More aircars on the way!"

"Hold 'em off, Rob," I said. "Anybody counting? Do we have all the girls?" We dragged Prof into the cargo hold, laying him out on the deck, surrounded by a host of girls. He was out cold, but would not let go of his daughter. She was gasping in his armored grasp.

"Unlock the chestplate," I suggested, snapping his faceplate open. Bees found the catch and the chestplate loosened.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Don't die! Daddy, I love you! I love you so much! Don't die, please don't die!"

"Get to work, Bees," I suggested. "Attention all Angels, all Angels, get onto the cargo shuttle now, now, now! We're lifting off
NOW!
If we've missed any girls, bring them! Got to go! Count off, Arie where are you?"

"Right here," he said, leaping into the cargo dock.

"Smiley, where…"

"Smiley is here," he announced, dragging a girl with him into the craft.

"All right, Prophet and Bees and the Prof are here. That's it, pilot, let's get the hell out of here
NOW!
"

"Gotcha!" The cargo door slammed shut with a mighty crash and the ship shot upwards abruptly, knocking all the standees to the deck like bowling pins.

"How is the Prof?"

"Gimme that cyro."

"Got to stop the bleeding."

"Pressure!"

"Get that god-damned armor off.''

"No no, stop the bleeding!"

"Please don’t die, Daddy, please don't die!"

"Somebody get her outta the way."

"Stuff this pressure pad in there. Yes, yes, yes."

"Scut! Life signs falling!" All four of us were clustered around the Prof – Arie, Smiley, Bees and me. Blood was splattering everywhere.

"Biotic charger – stand back!" The chestplate was off by then. Bees slammed the device against Prof's chest and triggered it. His body jerked. The life signs shuddered, then dropped off again.

"Again, again. And again!" Bees wasn't about to let up. Her brow was beaded with sweat.

"Please don't die, Daddy! Please please please! Dear God, don't let him die, dear God I pray to you don’t let him die!" She was frantic, hot tears streaming down her scorched face.

I think I was in shock by then. Who the hell could I pray to? I didn't have anybody to pray to, I suddenly realized. Deadman, I'll pray to Deadman. Deadman, let him live, damn you to hell! You let him live!

In stardrive on the
Voodoo Honey
, heading back to Pandaravos, we heard about Galinta. It was a pioneer world way out in the Gulf frontier, an independent world of mostly Outworlders who wanted to make their own future without interference from any of the regional Gulf slave states. The Demons hit them hard, and launched a full-scale invasion. They used the same tactics they had with the O's – flood the skies with hundreds of saucers, drop a heavy rain of antimats on the main population center, annihilate it, land vast numbers of armored troops and slaughter any survivors. In Galinta's case, they didn't have to worry about any opposition. The locals didn't have space or air defenses. Yes – it sure looked like this was the entire Demon race, migrating into our universe, into our little slice of the galaxy. First Traunair in the outer reaches of Omni vac, now Galinta right in the Gulf. I was pretty sure I knew what was going to happen.

"How you feeling, Prof?" I settled down on an airchair by his bed in one of the posh passenger cabins of the
Voodoo Honey
. His lovely daughter Carol was by his side, and she hadn’t stopped smiling since Bees had announced that her dad was going to make it. A crowd of teen girls was at his service at all times. They all knew that he was the man who had liberated them, and they worshipped him. The ship was full of girls now, and it was a lot nicer aboard than the grim atmosphere that had prevailed when we were heading for Quatar. Arie and Smiley were both getting to know all the girls better. They found out quickly that some of them had severe psychological damage. I was keeping my distance, I guess. I didn't really trust myself around all those lovely, shattered souls.

"Better, Prophet. Much better." He gave me a weak smile.

"What do you think the Legion will do about Galinta? Will we be landing there?"

"Certainly. Absolutely. We must counterattack, and crush them, and show them that they cannot continue to attack us."

"But can we do that? Are we ready?"

"We'll see. I have to check our progress with the ship, and on the Demon weapons. We'll see. I don’t think we'll attack until we believe we can be victorious."

"We're going to live happily ever after, Daddy," Carol said. "Just like in the fairy tales. You're my hero. I'm never going to leave you!" Her joyous face was gleaming with medgel.

I guess that one moment, that one sight, was justification for all the misery I had endured in Basic and on Planet Hell.

Δ

Once we returned to Pandaravos, we dropped the girls off in Sajadhervana where ConFree Ambassador Burke and his staff took charge of them – all but Carol, who accompanied the Prof back to Site S. There were going to be thirty-four joyful family reunions, all over the inhabited galaxy, thanks entirely to the Professor.

When we arrived back at Site S, things had changed a lot. Everyone appeared frantically busy. The Prof limped off on a metal crutch to see Bird and the ship and Kimmie and the Demons. I reported to Doggie that we were back. He was looking over a huge, glowing wall screen when I walked into his office. It showed a gigantic swath of space, scattered with stars and nebulae. Blackie, our wolf mascot, noticed me before Doggie did. Blackie stood up but did not react with hostility. He appeared to have been expecting me. What a beautiful animal!

"Prophet!" Doggie said, "how did it go?"

"It worked out fine," I replied.

"I heard that the Prof turned down a peaceful turnover of his daughter in favor of raiding the detention facility and freeing everybody."

"That's right. And it almost cost him his life. The man is a saint."

"That's a ten. Easy, Blackie. Friend!" Blackie was sniffing me anxiously. At the word from Doggie, he settled down again, panting lightly, lying on the floor.

"What's the starmap?" I asked.

"Area of Operations," Doggie replied, turning back to the map. "That's Galinta, right there." He lit it up with a crimson laser. "Right in the middle of nowhere. It's the armpit of the Gulf, too far away and hostile to be claimed by anybody except for the crazies who settled it." It looked like a jewel, floating in paradise, surrounded by sparkling nebulae and glowing molecular clouds. "The closest major human settlements are Asumara, Nimbos and Angaroth and nobody there has any interest in the fate of Galinta." He lit them up with the laser.

"Don't those fools know they will be next?"

"No. They're stupid. The Asumara Holy Commune, the Gulf Union and the Pegal Stelcom. They're psychotic, cannibalistic genocidal criminals who should be removed from power and executed like the subhumans they are. Maybe we can do that later, once we deal with the Demons."

"So we're going to drop onto Galinta?"

"You betcha. That's the plan. Counterattack, defeat them, kill them all, liberate the planet. The objective is to show them that they'd better rethink their plan to inhabit our galaxy."

"And when is this going to happen?"

"As soon as our weaponry has been re-engineered to face this new threat."

"And how long is that going to take?"

"I don't know. But I'd guess it will be soon. They're planning a full-scale effort. Initial word is four full legions will participate. And four battlestars. And you can believe the Andrion Deep and the Condor Regiment and the 9
^th
Legion will be very well represented. This is the war that the Director of ConFree told us about – remember?"

Yes, I remembered it well. She had made the sign of the Legion, and said,
May Deadman bless you.

"I understand the locals on Galinta didn't have a starfleet or any fighter defenses or even any infantry," I said. "Is that right?"

"Sure is."

"And the Demons still took out their little town with a shower of massed antimats. And hunted down and killed any survivors."

"Yep."

"So. They haven't met the Legion yet."

"Not yet. But that's going to change."

"Good," I said. "That's good." And I meant it.

Δ

A week later, squad Delta was all present in Doggie's office. Even Bird had torn himself away from the saucer for the event. It was almost time. This was the squad briefing, to fam ourselves with Galinta, the Demons, their capabilities, and our new weapons systems to counter them. The huge starchart had transformed into a battle map of Eden and the surrounding terrain. Eden was what the settlers had named their main settlement. Now it was just a vast pile of smoking rubble that the D's were rapidly transforming into their own settlement. The mapview came from eyemotes floating high above the action, but we could see great grey bulldozers flattening the rubble and what looked like portable building mods rising in their wake. Not far off, the forest had been flattened and Eden's little spaceport greatly enlarged. Hundreds of saucer starcraft were parked there. Demons were everywhere, like ants. When we focused in on them, we saw that most of them were not even wearing their A-suits any more. They were clad in dark-colored utility coveralls. Good. This giant live battlemap was covered with labels – groups of D's wearing armor, suspect military Hqs, starport facilities, suspect tunnel excavations. There was a lot we did not know yet, but there was a lot we had done as well.

"'All right, settle down," Doggie said. We were all pretty excited, discussing the live map. Blackie jumped to his feet and barked, once, authoritatively. We shut down.

"Good dog," Doggie said. "All right, now for the part you will like most. Professor?"

"Thank you, sir. You are most kind." If anyone else had said that, Doggie would have suspected sarcasm but the Prof was so sincere you could tell he really meant it. He never called Doggie by his warname. He thought Doggie was not a dignified name for our leader.

The Prof looked us over, both hands resting lightly on his metal cane. "We can thank our loyal friends and allies, the Assidic nation, for the events that enabled us to get our hands on the enemy ship and weaponry. We should also be grateful to the Cheers Donut Company for their delicious treats." We all broke into laughter, but I realized that it wasn't really funny – it was damned serious.

"Shielding," the Prof said, and the screen filled with an exquisitely detailed full color diagram of a Demon A-suit fully encased in a sinister flickering green force field. "Investigation of the Demon individual A-suit force field shows it to be superficially similar to the Omni individual force fields, which as you know, we successfully countered with hypervelocity canister darts," the Prof said. "Both Omni and Demon shielding consist of superaccelerated flash fields of quantum webbing. Each is set to a different frequency, so darts set to the Omni frequency cannot defeat the Demon force fields. But, because the Demons were foolish enough to allow themselves to be captured by our valiant hosts, we are now aware of the exact Demon frequency and have integrated it into your E's. Fire canister dart and you will, in most cases, take down the Demon's individual force field."

"That's wonderful!" Arie exclaimed.

"Yes it is, isn't it?" the Prof said. "Armor." The image of the green force field vanished, leaving only the A-suit. "All right, the shield is down, but the D is still alive, and dangerous. Now we face the A-suit. This is a formidable defensive weapon – very similar to our own A-suits. But, like our own armor, it is vulnerable. Angled xmax hits will ricochet off or burst and ricochet without fatal damage. Multiple non-angled xmax hits may penetrate the armor and explode, with fatal results. Angled fighting laser hits will also reflect off quickly. But direct, non-angled laser on a flat surface will burn through quickly, again with fatal results. So, his shield is down. Are we equally matched, in our A-suits? No."

We awaited more info. I was holding my breath. "There is a weak spot in the Demon armor," the Prof said. "Had we not been able to examine their suits, we would never have known this. The seal between helmet and upper body armor is not sufficiently armored. Had one of our people designed it, he would have been executed for gross negligence treason. Don't bother to aim for this spot – if you fire at any Demon in an unshielded A-suit, your tacmod is going to guide your rounds right there. It may or may not work, but it's your best chance. Use xmax if you have a choice."