The Fortress in Orion (18 page)

“All right,” she said. “We're below the range of their security scanners.”

“It seems too easy,” remarked Ortega, frowning.

“Almost nothing but cargo and supply ships ever come here,” said Pretorius. “We couldn't pull this kind of stunt on Petrus IV or anywhere near it. That's why we're going to let a cargo ship take us the rest of the way.”

They touched down in a heavily wooded area, did what they could to camouflage the ship, then walked a mile to the road.

“Now we wait,” announced Pretorius.

“How much warning will we have?” asked Ortega.

“At least five minutes,” answered Pandora, constantly checking the smallest of her computers.

“Okay, we might as well set it up right now, just in case they speed up. Proto, become that truck you saw on the ship, but lay it on its side, half on the road and half in the ditch.”

Proto instantly created the image.

“I wish we could have some flames and a bunch of smoke, but we don't know if there's anything combustible in the damned machine.” He stared at the image for a few seconds. “Now give us the dead herbivore and put its head and neck at an impossible angle.”

Proto complied, and Pretorius turned to Michkag. “We want to make sure they stop, so sprawl out on the road as if the collision has thrown you there.”

Michkag did as he was instructed.

“Looks convincing,” said Snake.

“Djibmet, kneel down next to him as if you're trying to revive him or stop the bleeding. The instant the truck we're waiting for pulls into view, jump to your feet and flag him down.”

“Flag him down?” repeated the Kabori uncomprehendingly.

“Signal for help and make it look extremely urgent.”

“What about the rest of us?” asked Circe.

Pretorius looked around the area. “Circe and Pandora, get behind the shrubbery. On your bellies.” He turned to Snake. “You're better at hiding than anyone I know. Make yourself scarce but close enough to where the vehicle stops so that you can signal me if there's anyone still inside it once the driver stops and gets out to help.”

She nodded her agreement.

“What about me?” asked Ortega.

“Stand behind the image of the truck for a minute,” replied Pretorius.

“Okay.”

As Ortega was walking, Pandora called out, “Thirty seconds, maybe a little less.”

“What now?” asked Ortega.

“Just stay there. I wanted to make sure I couldn't see you through this image Proto's created.”

“Just stay here?”

“Right,” said Pretorius, walking over and joining him. “And when I tell you to, start shooting.”

“Kill 'em all?”

“If we were just a day from Petrus, I'd say disable them and tie them up. But we're nine days away, they won't stay immobilized for that long, and this is war.”

“Just checking,” said Ortega.

“I hope the situation doesn't arise, but if you have to, remember that you can shoot right through the truck here,” said Pretorius. “It's just an image.”

“I can't see through it.”

“I know,” said Pretorius. He raised his voice. “Djibmet!”

“Yes?”

“If you hear me yell ‘Hit the dirt!' I want you to instantly drop to the ground and flatten yourself out on it.”

Before the Kabori could answer an alien vehicle came into view. Djibmet got to his feet and began jumping and screaming and pointing at the prone Michkag.

The vehicle came to a halt about ten yards shy away from the image Proto had created of the capsized truck, and two aliens emerged from it.

Ortega raised his weapon and took aim at where the alien voices were coming from, but Pretorius held up a hand, signaling him to wait.

He scanned the darkness, looking for Snake, and finally he saw her squatting in a depression about fifteen feet from the truck. He gave her a questioning gesture, and she raised her fist in the air once.

He silently mouthed the words “Be ready!” to Ortega, then yelled, “
Hit the dirt!
”

As Djibmet dove to the ground Ortega started firing at where the alien voices had been.

“Proto, kill the image!” hollered Pretorius.

The disabled truck vanished, and they found themselves looking at four bodies on the ground, two of them the Kabori, one a dead alien, and one a barely twitching alien.

“Pay the insurance,” ordered Pretorius.

“I don't understand,” said Ortega.

“Kill him.”

“But he's almost dead already.”

“It's the almost dead ones that cause problems,” said Pretorius. “Dead ones never do.”

Ortega shrugged and aimed his burner at the back of the twitching alien's head.

Pretorius, burner in hand, carefully approached the back of the vehicle.

“Well, you certainly took your time getting here,” said Snake, who was leaning against it.

“Any aliens?” asked Pretorius.

She pointed to a dead body on the ground, her dagger protruding from its chest.

“He came racing out when he heard you yelling, so I didn't see any sense waiting for you.” She smiled. “A girl has to take care of herself when she goes out on a date with you, Nathan.”

Pretorius had Ortega bury the three bodies, and then his crew climbed into the vehicle.

“Wouldn't it be funny if, now that we've killed them all, we found that no one knew how to drive this damned thing?” said Snake.

But that was not the case, and in another minute they were on their way to the spaceport.

20

“Check that stuff in the back,” said Pretorius as Djibmet drove them to the spaceport, while Proto, in the guise of a Kabori, sat next to them and the rest all hid in the back. “Maybe we lucked out and waylaid a truck that was bringing a shipment of goods to the
Wayfarer
.”

“I can't read this shit,” said Snake from the back of the vehicle.

“I saw it when we were all preparing to climb in,” said Djibmet without taking his eyes from the road. “And it's a shipment for . . . well, it translates into Terran as
The Morning Star
.”

“Damn!” muttered Pretorius. “I guess we have to do it the hard way.”

“There's an easy way to steal the real Michkag?” said Snake with a laugh.

“No more of that,” said Pretorius firmly.

“I can't make a comment?” demanded Snake.

“You can't call or think of the being we're replacing as the
real
Michkag. The Michkag who's in this vehicle is every bit as real, and I never want anyone making the mistake of calling him the false Michkag or the Michkag clone or anything like that. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” said Snake.

“So what do we do when we get to the spaceport?” asked Circe.

“Well, we sure as hell don't hang around waiting for the ship to land,” said Pretorius. He turned to Djibmet. “Slow down.”

The vehicle halved its speed.

“Pandora, how long until the
Wayfarer
is due to touch down?”

She checked her computer. “About thirty minutes, if it's on schedule—and if it was very much behind schedule, more than ten or fifteen minutes, it would have signaled ahead.”

“Is
The Morning Star
on the ground?”

She stared at her computer. “There's one ship on the ground, but I can't read the name.”

“Can't read it or can't see it?” asked Pretorius.

“Can't read it.”

“Hand your computer to Michkag and let him read it.”

“Damn!” said Pandora. “I should have thought of that. I guess I'm a little tense.”

“Just because we killed some locals and are about to sneak aboard a ship bound for our enemy's stronghold?” said Snake with a chuckle. “I can't imagine why.”

Michkag looked briefly at the computer. “I cannot read it,” he said. “I guarantee Djibmet cannot either.”

“Good,” said Pretorius.

“Good?” repeated Circe.

“They could read
The Morning Star
. If they can't read this ship, that means it's not
The Morning Star
, and that the
Star
is still approaching.”

“Why is that a good thing?” asked Ortega.

It's a damned good thing you're such a perfect killing machine
, thought Pretorius,
because I'd hate to depend on your brain
.

“Because if
The Morning Star
was parked at the spaceport, we wouldn't have an excuse not to go directly to it,” explained Pretorius. “This way we'll at least have a chance to approach the
Wayfarer
in the truck instead of on foot. They'll figure we just got anxious, made a mistake, and approached the wrong ship.”

“And then what?” asked Snake. “We still have a shipment of goods for the other ship.”

“We'll see,” answered Pretorius. “Maybe seven of us will hop out in the darkness and climb aboard the
Wayfarer
, and the eighth can drive to
The Morning Star
, wait until they start loading it, and then make his way back to the
Wayfarer
.”

“
His
way?” repeated Snake.

“Got to be a Kabori, which means it's got to be Djibmet, and Pandora has to show him the override codes,” said Pretorius. He turned to Pandora. “Where's
The Morning Star
now? Is it going to land ahead of the
Wayfarer
?”

She uttered some low commands into her computer, then looked up. “It's not due for another two hours.”

Pretorius seemed lost in thought for a moment. Suddenly he smiled. “Perfect!” he announced.

“I don't understand,” said Circe. “Someone's got to position this vehicle so that the robotic crew of
The Morning Star
can unload it. What if the
Wayfarer
takes off before it lands?”

“It'll probably be best if it did,” answered Pretorius.

Circe frowned. “Explain, please?”

“If we hadn't waylaid the truck it would have arrived three hours before
The Morning Star
landed. We didn't pass the equivalent of a restaurant or a bar anywhere along the way, so they knew they were going to get here a few hours early. They also knew that they wouldn't have to handle their cargo, that the ship's robots would do that. So it stands to reason that they planned to eat or drink or visit some very short-term ladyfriends, or the equivalent, at the spaceport while waiting for the ship to land.” Suddenly he smiled. “And
that
means that when the ship
does
land and they're not there, no one's going to suspect foul play. They're just two guys who are eating or enjoying themselves and lost track of the time.”

“And when they never show up?” persisted Circe.

“They figured they were going to be fired anyway, so they just left.”

“I don't know,” she said. “That's awfully far-fetched.”

Pretorius shrugged. “Okay, arrest them and question them.”

Even Ortega laughed at that.

“I bow to your devious mind,” said Circe, inclining her head.

“Spaceport in about two minutes,” announced Pandora.

“Dark as hell,” remarked Ortega.

“Everything's done by instruments,” said Pretorius. “They don't need lights, and it'll make it easier for us to move around.”

“I still like the spaceports on Ballanchyne III, my home planet,” said Ortega. “They're lit up all over, and you feel as if all kinds of commerce is going on. This place feels deserted.”

“Yeah,” said Pretorius, “but your spaceport handles spaceliners, and thousands of travelers, and it provides services for them. This is just a little cargo port on a mostly uninhabited planet.”

“I didn't say I don't understand the difference,” replied Ortega, “just that I prefer the one to the other.”

“Not when you're on a covert mission, I trust,” said Pretorius as the vehicle entered the spaceport's grounds. “Okay, just follow the signs to the cargo-loading area.”

They drove another quarter mile and came to a single ship that was totally dark, with its doors and hatches all shut.

“Obviously they don't take off until tomorrow,” noted Proto.

Pretorius turned to Pandora. “How's
our
ship coming?”

“About five minutes.”

“Okay. Djibmet, pull over to a building, a tree,
something
that the
Wayfarer
will know not to hit as it lands.”

Djibmet drove the vehicle a couple of hundred yards to what looked like an empty warehouse and turned it around so that it faced the landing area.

“There it is!” said Circe, pointing at a rapidly moving object in the sky.

“Let's see where it lands and work from there,” responded Pretorius, looking to where she pointed. “You gave Djibmet the override codes for the ship and the robots, right, Pandora?”

“Right,” she responded.

The ship came in lower and lower, and finally it gently touched down on its tail, its nose pointing up. Two ramps extended to the ground, hatches opened, and the ship began to glow a very dull silver.

“What's going on?” asked Ortega.

“That's so everyone knows it's there and no one runs into it,” said Pretorius. He looked to his right, then his left. “Damn!”

“What is it?” asked Circe.

“It's not here for
us
,” answered Pretorius. “I was hoping whatever cargo it's picking up would be here already, so we could just climb into it.”

“I don't see anything approaching,” said Pandora, checking her computer. “It's quite possible that whatever they plan to load won't be here until dawn.”

“We can't wait that long,” said Pretorius. “It's going to be hard enough to pull this off in the dark.” He paused and considered their options. “Okay,” he said at last. “Everyone out!”