Starfist: Lazarus Rising (24 page)

"This is where I first got suspicious," the technician said as the trid played back on the monitor. The remotely piloted vehicle was poised before a window in what looked to be an unoccupied dwelling. "The people who lived here were members of the City of God sect that was wiped out by the demons out by the Sea of Gerizim,"

the technician volunteered. "Look! I thought I saw movement in there! Can't be sure, the way the light plays tricks on the Fly's optics."

"This equipment is obsolete," the lieutenant muttered behind the technician's shoulder. "Maybe our Glorious Leader will ‘reform’ our procurement system so we can get something that works." Then in a normal voice, "Hmm, yes, something sure moved inside there."

"I thought it was just the optics, sir, so I zoomed off down the main street. That's what you're seeing now. Place looks deserted, doesn't it?"

"Hold it! Back up the image," the officer said. "There! Freeze it." He stared intensely at the image on the monitor. "Look here." He placed a finger on the monitor. The technician looked. The lieutenant removed his finger.

The technician automatically wiped the officer's smudgy fingerprint off the screen.

"I don't see anything, sir."

"I think that's a footprint there. Can't tell if it's human or one of
them
. Look again."

The technician stared hard. He still couldn't recognize a footprint in the dust of the street. But what the heck. "Yessir, maybe it is. Smudged, sort of. I must have missed that. Hmmm. Well," he continued, "I got to thinking, and returned to that house.
Now
see what happens." The drone was looking back through the window when suddenly there was a bright flash and the screen went dead.

The lieutenant glanced at the bottom of the screen: elapsed time from shootdown, three minutes. He picked up the handset his sergeant was holding for him and briefed the battalion staff duty officer. Lord, wouldn't it be something if his section was the first to find some demons? "Request an Avenging Angel overflight, sir, and prep of the area before I inform my recon platoon.
I think we've found them.
"

There was a slight pause over the communicator, and then, "Roger that. I will have a flight airborne in zero-five. Time-on-target at coords you gave me, twelve plus five.

Tell recon to move out now. If they can make it before dark, go in and do a bomb-damage assessment, otherwise first light. Hold this line open." The duty officer contacted his air liaison officer and gave him a verbal frag order to strike New Salem. He came back on the line. "Birds on the way. Uh, Surveillance, problem with tactical troop airlift assets here. Lot of birds down for maintenance. Ground support will have to come overland. I will start them now, but tell Recon he won't be reinforced until late tomorrow at the earliest. Who'd you say was in command? Ben Loman? He's an aggressive one. Tell him don't—repeat, don't—engage the enemy, if anyone's left after the Angels make their passes. Keep me informed. Out."

The lieutenant looked up at his sergeant and grinned, "
Yes!
Time to rock and roll!"

Charles and Spencer Maynard were the last ones out of the village. They had brought up the rear to make sure nobody was left behind. As they jogged down the path toward the fort, Charles in the rear, they heard the first aircraft approaching from behind them. "Take cover!" Charles shouted to Maynard as he threw himself into some nearby bushes.

They proved to have sharp thorns, but Charles hardly noticed as he crashed to the ground. The aircraft, two of them, roared so low over where they lay that the ground beneath them shook. They circled off to the south and came back a second time, west to east, and on the third pass they unleashed their fury upon the village of New Salem.

Charles was suddenly someone else, somewhere else, no longer clutching the ground, staring through the thorns at Spencer's feet. He shouted at the top of his voice to be heard, "Dupont! Dupont! Get those goddamned pilots on the horn and tell them this is a goddamned
friendly
position down here!" Despite the danger from the predatory aircraft lazily circling the village, Charles grinned. Something like this had happened to him before! Wonderful!

His last name was Charlie Bass and he'd been in the armed forces of the Confederation of Human Worlds.

"Give me the list." De Tomas held his hand out as his Minister of Justice passed it to him. De Tomas glanced at it briefly and smiled. "Have these people been taken into custody?" He handed the list back to the minister.

"As of three a.m., my leader."

"Good, good. You have some rather talented people on that list. How will you employ them?"

"We require skilled hands in our industries, my leader. I'm sure some of these individuals can be trained to work in our porcelain factories."

Soon after taking power, de Tomas had begun arresting various prominent individuals—churchmen, preachers, theologians, writers, artists—people who for various reasons he felt might oppose his regime. The arrests were not called that. In view of the rampant "corruption" that had "infested" the theocracy, and the arrested persons' alleged involvement in that corruption, de Tomas had been taking those people into custody to "protect" them from the righteous wrath of the people. No specific charges had been preferred. Several hundred were being held in a prison compound in a remote suburb of Haven until the Ministry of Justice felt they could be released. Meanwhile, the prisoners were being subjected to hard labor. Many had already succumbed.

While the man in the street on Kingdom was being encouraged to show his emotions and express his opinion—within limits—the natural leaders of each community were being quietly rounded up and disposed of as insurance against the development of any organized resistance to the new regime.

"Keep developing the lists, Minister. Please excuse me now. I have another engagement." The Minister of Justice bowed and let himself out of the office.

The "other engagement" was with Miss Rauber, the cosmetician. She entered de Tomas's private office wheeling her instruments in a cart, a huge smile on her pretty face. "I am pleased to serve you, my leader." She curtsied. "Massage? Manicure?

Pedicure, my leader?"

"Sit down beside me and do my nails, Andrea." De Tomas held out his left hand.

Andrea dutifully took it and began cleaning the nails with a small file. They made small talk. Andrea Rauber came from a small village a few kilometers outside of Haven that had been destroyed in the Skink invasion. She was taken in as an apprentice by Gelli Alois and had worked for her for several years before de Tomas seized power on Kingdom.

"I wish I could see you more often," she whispered at last. She was consumed by a religious awe of de Tomas. He was the finest thing ever to come into her short life, a life she would gladly give if he asked her to.

"Alas, my dear, running the world takes up so much of my time."

"Your speeches are divine, my leader," she sighed.

De Tomas smiled. "I believe God has given me the mission of saving this world, Andrea."

Andrea hummed contentedly as she worked. She was not only an intimate of a great man, but a man whom God Himself had recognized as His disciple.

"Running a government is very hard work, Andrea. I feel like Sisyphus."

Andrea looked up at de Tomas. "Do I know him?"

"Sisyphus? No, my dear." De Tomas laughed. "He was a Greek, in ancient times, who never could get his work done."

"Oh, I knew a Greek once!" Andrea crowed. "They never sit down in church. I'm finished, my leader. May I please have your right hand now?"

"Let's go back into the private room now," de Tomas said, rising abruptly from the chair.

"Oh, yes!" The "private room" was de Tomas's bedchamber. Very few people knew where it was. "But my leader, I haven't even started on your right hand yet!"

"No matter, Andrea. It'll be there when we're done." Poor Andrea, de Tomas thought. If Gorman ever succeeded in finding him a consort worthy of a man of his stature, he would have to do something with Andrea. He had preached to the men of the Special Group many times that
hardness
was essential to success. A man had to steel himself to do unpleasant things for the greater good of his people. De Tomas was not running a harem, and besides, it was essential the people did not know about Andrea. When the time came, she would just have to be retired—without a pension.

The only complaint Andrea had about her hero was that he liked doing it on the floor while still wearing his boots.

General Lambsblood and Major Devi were sitting in the command post of the 2d Regiment of the 2d Brigade, 2d Division, Army Group B, when the word came through that a reconnaissance patrol had spotted some demons in the abandoned village of New Salem. Lambsblood had been in the field for several days, visiting units and observing operations. The general had also been conferring hastily and in private with his commanders, feeling out their attitude toward the new government and the reforms that had been imposed by it on the army.

"Do you have an aircraft that can get me out to the reconnaissance company CP?"

Lambsblood asked the regimental commander.

"I'm afraid, right now, sir, all our Hoppers are down. It's this confounded weather and the incessant dust storms. Been hard on maintenance, and we just don't have the spare parts we need. I've sent a request up to Division for the parts, but, my S4 tells me we won't have them here until tomorrow at the earliest. It's the same for the other units, sir. We're all in need of parts and equipment and the depots are nearly empty."

The colonel spread his hands helplessly.

"That's all right, Colonel," Lambsblood said with a barely concealed sigh. "It's not your fault. Keep me informed."

After the colonel had left, Lambsblood turned to his aide. "Maintenance and spare parts, the lack of them is killing this army, Devi. We have
got
to get the Confederation to kick in so we can replenish our depots. Having all the army's maneuver elements in the field at the same time is wearing us down. By the time we're through with this wild goose chase, the Army of the Lord will have broken its back."

"You don't think there are any of the demons left, sir?"

Lambsblood shook his head. "Even if there are, they can't be much of a threat, and we don't need the whole army in the field to deal with them. No, Major, there's only one reason we're out here, and that's so we'll be out of the way."

"You think...?" Devi lowered his voice to a whisper.

"I'm dead meat, Major. You too, our whole command staff. Do you think that bauble our Great Leader gave me at the ceremony actually
means
anything?"

Lambsblood sighed and hung his head in his hands for a long time. "I have been a fool," he whispered sadly. "And a coward."

"Sir, I don't think—"

"No, no, Major," Lambsblood said. "I can admit that now. I actually
resented
Sturgeon's presence here during the war with the Skinks. God, do I wish the man and his lovely Marines were still with us!" He leaned back in his chair. "And I stood by meekly when that man murdered our legal government. Stood by. Too scared to do anything, and God forgive me, consumed with ambition." He paused again, then leaned forward before he spoke. "Major Devi, I appreciate your loyalty. I am afraid that loyalty will soon be put to a severe test."

"What can we do, sir?" Devi asked. He was frightened that General Lambsblood himself had given words to what he had been thinking privately for some time.

Lambsblood shook his head in resignation and said, "Give me that overlay, the one that shows our dispositions in the vicinity of Haven." The general unrolled the overlay and studied it for a moment. "Major Devi, as soon as they have an aircraft available, I want you to fly to Army Group B HQ—no message traffic on this, purely person-to-person—and have a top secret meeting with General Bhoddavista.

You are authorized to tell him—
and him only,
no staff should be in on this—that his very life depends on secrecy and speed." He put a forefinger on the overlay.

Major Devi leaned over and looked at it. The finger rested squarely on the military map symbol for an armored infantry battalion.

"I want him to move that battalion to the maintenance depot in the outskirts of Haven, you know the one, and stay there on full alert until I personally give them the order to stand down or deploy." He straightened up and looked Devi right in the eye.

"The future of our world may depend on this move. And I want you to make sure those men in that battalion are alert and combat ready. You stay with them, as my personal representative. If we have to call on them, they must be ready to fight the Special Group." He whispered the last words into Devi's ear.

"Sir? General Banks has offered us help."

"So has Ambassador Spears. I'll meet with him when I get back."

"Sir?
What are we doing?
" Devi whispered.

General Lambsblood leaned very close to his aide and whispered directly into his ear: "That oath we took to that madman? It's worthless and illegal. We are planning a coup."

Major Devi stepped back a pace, then grinned and saluted. "Yessir!" he said.

As soon as the sound of the aircraft had faded into the distance, Bass jumped to his feet.
Dupont!
He remembered now! Dupont was a Marine and he'd been killed in an attack, the same attack that had wounded him and caused him to be taken prisoner. Was he a Marine? He'd been told the Marines had left Kingdom a long time ago.
They left him behind!
How could that have happened? The Marines didn't leave their own behind—he'd always heard that. Well, no time for that now. "Spencer!" he shouted. "To the caves! Quick!"

To Bass's utter dismay, he found the strong points unmanned. The people of New Salem were clustered about behind the barricades, some weeping, others shouting in rage.

Even Zechariah was beside himself. "Our homes, our farms! Destroyed, destroyed!" he shouted over and over, clenching and unclenching his fists in frustration and rage.