Starfishers Triology - Shadowline Part 32

Ca.s.sius did not.

Deeth's nerve betrayed him. He froze. He never touched his weapon.

Deeth found himself aboard his escape vessel without remembering how he had gotten there. Just one image remained clear in his mind. Meeting the eyes of Ca.s.sius's companion in the street, over Rhafu's body.

It went sour after that. He did not have Rhafu's enchanted touch.

Storm stunned Deeth by attacking Helga's World. He gathered the Norbon forces. His raids.h.i.+ps blundered into a trap more disasterous than that at Amon-Ra.

Blackworld was becoming a debacle. Michael just could not handle his half of the ch.o.r.e.

Deeth remembered a shattered piece of jade and wondered.

He lost his temper. He ordered the attack on the Fortress of Iron, "I may not get them all," he told himself, "but they'll know they paid the price of Prefactlas."

He had abandoned hope of profiting from Blackworld. And he had abandoned Michael Dee.

"My son, if you've done your best, you deserve an apology. But I suspect you've subtly sabotaged the whole thing. Enjoy the trap you've built yourself."

His last few fighting s.h.i.+ps reached the Fortress's surface. His troops.h.i.+ps went in. His men forced the entry locks.

The fighting continued for days, cubicle to cubicle, corridor to corridor, level to level. His soldiers encountered only women and old people, but they too were Legionnaires.

Near the end one of his people told him. "Lord Deeth, enemy scouts.h.i.+ps have been detected..."

"d.a.m.n!" The Fortress was almost clear. Only a handful of defenders remained, holding out in the old Combat Information Center. "Very well." He could not run now. He had to finish. For Rhafu. For his father. For his mother and the Prefactlas dead.

"All right. I want everyone out but the crew of Lota's raids.h.i.+p. Take s.p.a.ce like you're in a panic. Let them intercept messages that will convince them that there's no one left alive here."

"Yes sir."

Deeth joined the one raids.h.i.+p crew in the final attack. His partic.i.p.ation brought him face to face with Storm's wife, Frieda.

Book Three

GALLOWS

What are the carpenter's thoughts as he constructs the gallows?

Fifty-Two: 3052 AD

Never be amazed by me. My teachers were cla.s.sics. Strategy and Tactics: Professor Colonel Thaddeus Immanuel Walters. Command and Administration: Professor Colonel Gneaus Julius Storm. Hatred, Vengeance, and Puppet-Mastery: Professor Sangaree Head Norbon w'Deeth. Cute Tricks, Cunning, Duplicity, and Artful Self-Justification: Professor Entrepreneur, Adventurer, and Financier Michael Dee. Between them they provided me a very solid background. Cuss the Admiral if you want. The most he did was give me an opportunity to do post-graduate work.

I was a stinker when he recruited me.

-Masato Igaras.h.i.+ Storm

Fifty-Three: 3032 AD

Mouse crouched over his father for a long time, holding Storm's hand, fighting back tears. Someone came and rested gentle fingers on his shoulder. He looked up. Pollyanna had come over, using a laserifle as a crutch.

"He's dead," Mouse said. Disbelief distorted his face. "My father is dead."

"They're all dead. Everybody's dead but us." Her voice was as dull as his.

He rose slowly, mumbling, "Everybody. Helmut and Thurston. And Lucifer. And everybody." The magnitude of it slowly sank in. His father and two brothers. His father's friend. And all the people and family who had died already...

"I'll kill them," he whispered Then, screaming, "All of them!" He started smas.h.i.+ng consoles with his rifle. But it was a delicate weapon. Soon he held nothing but a shard.

"We've got things to do, Mouse," Pollyanna reminded, indicating the corpses and wreckage. Her voice held no real interest. She was in such a state that getting on with the job was the only glue holding her together.

"I suppose." The dull voice again. "Will you be all right while I hunt up some of our people?"

"Who's left to hurt me?"

Mouse shrugged. "Yes. Who's left?"

He went hunting Legionnaires, using business like a sword with which he could fend off the madness clawing at his mind "All of them," he kept muttering. "Someday. Every Dee. Every Sangaree."

Withdrawing from Twilight took a day. Too many people, including Hawksblood and the brothers Dee, could not make it to the Ehrhardt Ehrhardt under their own power. And the dome had to be patched, and someone had to be found who would take charge in Twilight, someone whose loathing for Sangaree was insurance that Michael would have nowhere to run, insurance that Twilight would not come under the worldwide sanctions being threatened by her Blackworld sister cities. Mouse found his candidate after a long search. Most Twilighters wanted shut of any identification with the seat of power. They seemed afraid the Sangaree disease was contagious. under their own power. And the dome had to be patched, and someone had to be found who would take charge in Twilight, someone whose loathing for Sangaree was insurance that Michael would have nowhere to run, insurance that Twilight would not come under the worldwide sanctions being threatened by her Blackworld sister cities. Mouse found his candidate after a long search. Most Twilighters wanted shut of any identification with the seat of power. They seemed afraid the Sangaree disease was contagious.

Time to leave arrived. And a new problem raised its Scylla-like head.

"Polly," Mouse said, "I don't know if we're going to make it back "

"What? Why not?"

"I'm the only pilot left, and I'm not rated on anything like the Ehrhardt Ehrhardt."

"Call for somebody to come up here."

"Can't waste time waiting for somebody to come overland. I'll just give it my best go myself."

"Don't be stupid."

"It can't be that much harder than piloting Ca.s.sius's corvette. I managed that fine."

"With him there to help if you got in any trouble."

"Yeah." He truly believed he could handle the cruiser. And he was determined to try. "Strap in, lady."

"Mouse..."

"Then get out and walk."

She grinned. "You're as stubborn as your father."

He grinned back. "I'm his son."

His liftoff was a little rocky.

"Gah!" Pollyanna grunted, nearly throwing up.

"We're off!"

"That was the part that had me worried. Anybody can come down. It's just how fast you're going when you get there..."

"A man does what he has to," Mouse told her.

For a few hours the pain and hatred did not touch him. The cruiser demanded all his sweat and guts and concentration.

He managed to get the Ehrhardt Ehrhardt to and down on Edgeward's landing field without any irreparable damage. to and down on Edgeward's landing field without any irreparable damage.

Getting down required some careful maneuvering. A bank of s.h.i.+ps had arrived during their absence. They were the battered bones of the Legion's once-powerful little fleet. They had brought Hakes Ceislak in from Helga's World. They were still off-loading the commando battalion.

Mouse had not informed anyone that he was returning, but the word was out by the time he entered Edgeward. Blake was waiting for him.

"Where's Colonel Storm?" Blake asked. His face was drawn. He feared the worst.

"My father was killed in action against Sangaree..." Mouse stopped to look inside himself. Somehow, for the outside world, he was removing himself from his feelings. He was reporting it as if it had happened to a stranger.

"And Albin Korando?"

"Killed in action, Mr. Blake. I'm sorry."

"No. That's terrible. I'd hoped...What about Colonel Darksword?"

"Dead, sir. If you don't see someone with me, he's dead. The cruiser is full of bodies. It was rough up there."

"Your brother Thurston, too?"

Mouse nodded.

"Who's going to take charge? Colonel Walters is cut off in the Shadowline..."

"I speak for the Legion, Mr. Blake. We have a new commander. Nothing else changes. If you'll excuse me?"

Blake struggled to roll along with Mouse. "What happened?" There was an almost whining, pleading note in his voice. The Shadowline War was tearing him to pieces.

For a moment Mouse could sense the man's feelings. Blake was thinking, What have I wrought? What have I unleashed? What did I do that reduced Blackworld to this state? What have I wrought? What have I unleashed? What did I do that reduced Blackworld to this state?

Mouse shut everything out. He strode toward City Hall, unconsciously imitating the walk of Gneaus Julius Storm. Knifing through his pain was a driving need to demonstrate his competence, to show everyone that he could step into his father's role.

Heads turned when he entered the war room. He checked the boards. Dee now held the Whitlandsund. Ca.s.sius's marker had reached the shade station. The unit markers were dense there. Only a handful lay more than five hundred kilometers west of the station. Those were all small units meant to aid the Twilighters in their withdrawal from the Shadowline's end.

The situation was in balance, in tension. Ca.s.sius was ready to jump off. It was discussion time.

"Get Colonel Walters on the scrambled clear trunk," Mouse ordered.

The man responsible, who seemed on the edge of exhaustion, gave him a brief who-in-the-h.e.l.l-are-you? look before turning to his equipment.

Ca.s.sius came on quickly.

"Masato, Colonel."

"Mouse. How are you?" Then Walters got a better look at his face. "What happened?"

"Father's dead. And Helmut. And Thurston and Lucifer. Both younger Dees. And Richard Hawksblood. They murdered him and his staff."

Ca.s.sius frowned.

"All beyond-the-resurrection."

Ca.s.sius's features grew taut, grim.

"Ca.s.sius, we're the only ones left."

"It's ending, then. But first there's Michael Dee. And his Sangaree."

"Dee is trapped. We cleaned out Twilight. He can't go back."