The Price of Peace (29 page)

"Damn it! Hicks,
Bascom
, go find those little shits and bring them to me. Now!" Zylon relished the look of fear on the two men's faces as they jumped at her words, grabbed three others, and hustled off to do her bidding.

"Damn it!"
Tru
hated to be reduced to vulgarities. At the moment, that was all she had. "The Great Wall 4630s have five generally available back doors," she muttered so the majors hovering over her shoulder could know something of her problem, "and two that even the production crew didn't know about. All seven have been locked out on this installation. Every one! Nobody closes all the work-
arounds
. You have to leave an opening in case everything blows up."

"One might suspect these people of being paranoid,"
Urimi
muttered. "Or that they didn't want people doing unto them what they'd done unto others."

"Sounds like it, sir."

"How's our cracker doing?" came from the
comm
unit, in the all too familiar voice of the ship's captain.

"Not so good. Firewall doesn't seem to have any of the usual holes. We're ready to go to plan B."

"Figures. I got the station folks wanting to start unloading. Can she be ready to offload in five minutes?"

Tru
stood, a soldier at her elbow, loaded with most of her gear, ready to run her up to the first cargo container, "Go."
Urimi
ordered, and the soldier took off at the double.
Tru
galloped with him, breaking into a sweat, which she detested, and wondering why she'd volunteered for this in the first place.

Ruth ran her fingers lovingly over Trouble's throat. She wanted to hug him, kiss him, have him make love to her. What she did was yank at the pods on the thin plastic cord around his neck. No surprise; they didn't move. "Try cutting them off," Trouble said, pulling out the knife they had taken from Kick.

Working the blade between Trouble's vulnerable throat and the cord, Ruth tried. The knife refused to even dent the thin strap. "There's got to be some way to get at these pods," she finally gasped in exasperation.

"Look it over. Batteries or damaged parts have to be replaced," Trouble suggested.

To Ruth's eyes, the pod was smooth metal or plastic. In the fading light, she saw no seam in the casing's surface. She ran her fingernail over the pod. Something snagged. Trouble handed her a lighter Kick had no further use for. She didn't want to risk fire, for fear either of it being seen or of burning Trouble. She flicked it on. Yes, there was a small indent, neither for a blade nor Phillips head screwdriver, but for an L-shape. She went back to the knife. Like her father's, it had plenty of blades to choose from. Where Pa's had a Phillips head, this one had one L-shaped. She applied it to Trouble's pod and turned the screwdriver clockwise. Nothing. Counterclockwise didn't work either. She put her hand between the pod and Trouble's neck, leaned with all her weight and slowly twisted it clockwise.

It moved.

She kept the pressure up, slowly turning the knife in her hand. It slipped once. Trouble stifled a cry of pain as the blade cut into him, but urged her back to work. She tried going light on the pressure, but the blade lost its grip. Weighing heavy on her man's neck, she turned it again and again and again. Finally, it got easier. She paused for a moment's rest; a crack showed down the middle of the pod.

"It's coming apart," she whispered. And went back to work. A long minute later, half of the pod fell into her hand. "It's got three batteries in there. I'm
gonna
pull them out."

"Nothing beats a try but a failure, my mom used to say," the marine answered, and clenched his jaw for a shot of pain. None came. The batteries dropped into Ruth's hand with no sign of a farewell jolt to Trouble.

"There are some chips and stuff in here. Should I do anything to them?"

"Probably the receiver for the controller's signals. Use the knife to mess them up."

She did. Then she attacked the second pod. It didn't come apart any easier, but now she knew what to do. Ruth just had the batteries in hand and was attacking the rest of the pod's circuitry when the door to the warehouse slid open noisily.

"Check it out," a rough voice ordered. Flashlight beams worked along the ceiling and through the cracks between the barrels. Someone climbed up the stack and played a beam along the tops of the barrels. "Nothing here. I told you they'd be heading for the fence." "Hicks and his boys are covering the fence. We check all the buildings. So check them." When they left, they didn't shut the door.

"Think they'll be back?" Ruth asked.

"I'd figured to hide here until early tomorrow, then run." Trouble produced Kick's wrist unit. "We can monitor their chatter to decide when to move. Now. at least, they can't zap me silly." Ruth gave him a hug. "If we can get to my tractor, we can get out of here fast."

Zylon was unhappy and getting unhappier. This was not supposed to happen to a senior farm manager, definitely not when she was entertaining company. She was the boss. People did what she ordered. When she wanted results, they produced them.

"
Vahan
, get me the serial numbers on that
Tordon's
control units. Then rig a controller to them. Let's see how well he can hide when he's screaming." She smiled at
Mordy
.

Vahan
ran to do her bidding; he was back in less than five minutes. Zylon tapped her
comm
unit. "I'm about to send a wake-up call to Mr.
Tordon's
neck pods. Listen up for the scream." "Why didn't we do that in the first place?" she heard on net. She recognized the voice. He'd look great naked in a knife fight; for now, she pushed
Tordon's
button.

There was no answering scream. "That's impossible,"
Vahan
breathed.

"Did Kick have a pod repair kit?" Zylon asked on net. "I think so" came from several sources.

"Okay, we do this the old-fashioned way. I know these people slough off on me. Where do they hide when there's work to be done?" Zylon snapped.

"We got the field hands in sight every minute of the day,"
Vahan
whined. "They slough off, they get a taste of the whip."

"Sometimes, the gals at the vats seem hard to find," a guard said slowly. "You go hunting and you don't find her 'til next day. Ask girls, and they say she's over there. Girls yonder say, no, somewhere else." He shrugged. "Maybe they do hide."

"Bring me the vat girls."

That didn't take long at all. Zylon took their measure; none met her eyes. No back talk here. "Where do you girls hide when you want to duck work? Or a guard?"

There was a general shake of the head and a mumbled "We don't do that." Why didn't Zylon believe that? She grabbed one who stood a little straighter than the others. "Where do you hide?"

The answer was slow in coming. Zylon reached for a guard's dagger. "We don't," the woman answered quickly.

"You dodge work, you get beat and lose a meal. We all work."

That was the official line. Stupid answer. Zylon slit the woman's throat, reaching for a second woman even as the first collapsed. "Where do you hide? Where are the two runners?"

"The warehouse, ma'am. Sometimes, some of the girls hide among the barrels. Deep among them. I never done it."

Zylon sent the woman sprawling. "I knew one of you girls would remember." She tapped her
comm
unit. "Search the warehouse. Take the barrels down one at a time if you have to. They're in there."

Izzy had her hands full. The station manager was demanding she unload. "We got three more coming in right behind you." As if she wasn't all too aware of them. She wanted to offload ... the first couple dozen containers, the ones that put the hackers in contact with the station's hull. However, as more containers were shifted to the station, the sleek and glistening lines of a cruiser would become all too visible. Izzy had hoped the confident cracker's plan A would open the station up for a friendly takeover. Now it was plan B. Plan C involved shooting the station up or running like hell. Which one, tiger?

Not time to decide yet. Still, breathing down her neck were three Daring class cruisers. With a trio to work over, Sensors had caught enough leaks to get a clear picture of them this time. No way to tell if they were carrying slaves or captured crews. There was no question they were still gunned.

Stan ambled over from his own command; the Junior was docked next to the
Patton
. With luck, the two loads of containers would provide a good excuse for slow unloading. If not, a couple of the winching systems would have to develop the flu. "How long we got?" was Stan's greeting as he crossed the bridge hatch.

"Six hours, maybe a tad more." Izzy waved him to a side screen where she was planning her space battle. "Can't afford a head-on pass. That would put them between us and the station with us doing a slow turnaround to get back. No, we swing around Riddle and cross their paths as they come into orbit. That ought to give us thirty to forty-five minutes of shooting before they can get a bead on the station."

"Why, thank you. Commodore,"
Urimi
said as he entered the bridge and the conversation simultaneously.

"How's
Tru
doing?"

"Her container, with the rest of Erwin's best nutcrackers, are now in contact with the station hull, as close as any container gets. They should be forcing an entry to the station in about five minutes."

"Well, Major, here's the schedule she's got to meet. To handle the three incoming cruisers, Stan and I got to back away from this station in five hours. To do that, we got to offload all of our containers by then. I figure in about two hours, we'll have offloaded enough containers that the little fan dance we've been doing with them won't work any longer, and my cruiser's fine lines will be bare-ass naked to the lusty eyes of station security. If we don't have the station the easy way in two hours, Erwin's First will have to take it the hard way."

"That was my estimate too."
Urimi
tapped his
comm
link. "Tell Goldilocks she's got ninety minutes to heat up that porridge." He eyed
Izzy's
board. "That what you plan to do for fun?" "Can't have three pirates interfering with you ground-pounders' fun and games. How's the assault planning coming?"

"You know more about those pirates than I do about that damn planet. Never heard of an urban area so silent on the electromagnetic spectrum. We figured out where the power plant is. A few factories, too. Beyond that, I can't even guess where the
comm
hub is."

Izzy had reviewed the planet data an hour ago. Beyond separating agricultural and urban, they were pretty much in the dark. Was a tall building full of apartments or pirate offices? Was that a country club or the city hall? With no microwave intercepts, it was impossible to tell.

"We need Trouble and the guys he's found," Izzy said.

Trouble knew they were in trouble when he heard the shouting. The men were being whipped out of their barracks and driven over to the warehouse. He and Ruth had heard the women being trooped off to Zylon a few minutes earlier and decided it was time to make a move ... just in time. Under the cover of the shouting and carrying on as barrels were knocked over, shoved aside, and pushed around, he fueled the tractor and lifted two spare gas cans into its cab.

"Why doesn't Zylon use the
comm
link to issue orders?" Trouble muttered. He was learning a lot more from the yelling and shouting than he was from the captured link.

"I don't think these people are real comfortable with their gear," Ruth whispered back. "Look at them. Trying to grow stuff by tossing a bunch of seeds on the ground. Running around whipping you guys. That's no way to run a profitable farm. Now most of those ex-Unity draftees are bawling orders at the top of their lungs and using the
comm
links for chattering. Trouble, these people are stupid."

"But the last three I saw were toting guns. Let's put them down as stupid, but dangerous." "So, when do we get out of here?" Ruth asked.

That was the question: how to time their dash? "The more time they spend knocking around the warehouse," Trouble whispered, "the more tired they'll be chasing us when we bolt. Maybe they'll work themselves to exhaustion and we can tiptoe out of here when everyone's dead asleep."

"You ever seen a tractor tiptoe?" "No."

"Well, I've done everything else with one. Why not tiptoe it? I guess we wait." "I think so."

Ruth snuggled up close to him, huddled down, out of sight. It would be nice to come home to her every night for a snuggle like this. Maybe not like this. He could skip the smell of gasoline, the hounds out for their blood. Still, the feel of her flesh against his. Yes, she would be nice to come home to. If a marine had a home.

"Damn it, there's not supposed to be cabling here,"
Tru
snorted as she eyed the results of the first drill probe through the station's hull. With nothing better to rely on, they were using the standard design prints. Clearly, this was no standard design. "Try again, twenty centimeters to the right."

The corporal started drilling, while the private patched the station's hull. Next visual showed an open compartment; a full spectrum analysis revealed no activity of any sort. The cable that had spoofed them the first time was a water pipe.