Lt. Leary, Commanding (37 page)

Tavastierna landed with only a moderate bang and bounce. That was a creditable performance given the car's heavy load, but Adele scowled anyway. She knew it wasn't fair to expect professional competence from a rigger who hadn't driven an aircar in months, but "fair" didn't have much to do with the present situation. The operation had very little margin for error.

"Shut off the motors!" she said, shouting to be heard over the whine of the fans spinning at zero angle of attack. Tavastierna looked surprised since their helmet intercoms would easily damp that level of external noise, but he obeyed without question.

"I've cut off helmet communications from now until we execute the entry," Adele said as the blades wound down octave by octave. "They could be overheard. I doubt whether the Captal's staff is that alert, but I don't choose to take a chance with the lives of our shipmates."

And our own, come to think of it, though that isn't the first priority for me at the moment,
she added internally.

Tavastierna had landed behind a ridge whose front side was a little over a thousand yards from the knoll on which the Captal da Lund had built his fortress. Even Adele could have climbed the slope on this side; Dorst and Tavastierna wouldn't raise a sweat. The weight of the guns the men carried—Dorst a stocked impeller, Tavastierna a submachine gun for the team's own protection—wasn't a significant factor either.

"Dorst, are you still comfortable with this?" Adele said. "Tovera can take over now if you have any concerns. Being unwilling to kill another human being is nothing to be ashamed of."

"No, ma'am," the midshipman agreed. "But you don't need to worry. I've trained for this."

When Adele checked the crew list for a sniper, she'd learned to her surprise that Dorst had been on the Academy marksmanship team and had won trophies in long-range competition. He'd assured her that his training involved hostage simulations rather than merely bull's-eye targets. He'd never done it for real—killed—but Adele well knew the effectiveness of training like what Dorst described.

A six-wheeled delivery van was trundling down the road from Spires; it would reach them in a few minutes. Adele and Tovera would join the spacers in the cargo box during the time the vehicle was out of sight of the Captal's residence, unless she decided to leave this job to Tovera after all.

Adele's servant looked at her and smiled. "He'll be all right, mistress," Tovera said. "If anything goes wrong, you or me can fix it then."

"Nothing's going to go wrong," Dorst said stolidly.

"No, I don't suppose it is," Adele said. She tried to smile. It doubtless looked forced, but her natural expression at times like these was something that only a sociopath like Tovera could find humor in. "Dorst, Tavastierna—you'd better get into position. Captain Leary is counting on you."

The spacers nodded and started up the slope at an amazingly fast pace. They moved like a rigger and a healthy young athlete, not a librarian with a tendency to trip over her own feet, of course.

It was odd what you remembered. The most vivid recollection Adele had of the duel she'd fought when she was sixteen wasn't the face of the boy when her bullet hit: it was instead the pink mist in the air behind him, a mush of blood and fresh brains. The simulators she'd used for hours in her parents' townhouse hadn't prepared her for that.

The van's suspension squealed and rattled as it approached. They—the Republic of Cinnabar, paying with funds which Mistress Sand had put at Adele's disposal—were renting the vehicle for a sum not much short of what it had cost new. Just in case, though, the vehicle's Sexburgan owner and its regular driver were aboard the
Princess Cecile
with all they wanted to drink. Half a dozen spacers were sitting with them to make sure that they didn't decide to leave and maybe call the Captal.

Tovera shifted her body, working muscle groups with a minimum of movement. She was perfectly cool, but after all she had no more emotion than the submachine gun in her hands. She looked at Adele and said, "I wouldn't be any better at long range than you would, mistress. Though I suppose either of us could manage if the need arose."

"I suppose," Adele agreed coldly. Why should it bother her that Tovera considered her mistress and herself merely a pair of killers at this moment? It was true, after all.

Unlike Adele, Tovera had no conscience. But that wouldn't make any difference. It never had before.

The van pulled up beside the aircar. Koop was driving, wearing a Sexburgan caftan and a soft cap. The rest of the team were in RCN utilities, comfortable and unobtrusively colored. If this event went wrong, there was no chance of hiding who was responsible for it, no matter what they wore.

Well, Adele didn't intend that it go wrong.

Woetjans lifted the roller gate and jerked Adele into the cargo box. Bemish offered Tovera a hand, but she'd already hopped aboard with her usual economy. Tovera didn't look graceful, but she moved without error. It was rather like watching a door open and close. The motion was without art, but it was always the same and always flawless.

"Go!" Woetjans shouted, and the van accelerated from its rolling stop. There were five spacers in the back; Koop drove with a submachine gun under a towel on the seat beside him. More personnel would have crowded the vehicle and wouldn't, in the opinion of Woetjans and Mon, have contributed to the success of the operation.

There were twenty-one people in the Captal's compound; the number hadn't changed since Dorotige had returned from South Land. They were on alert, but that was different from really
being
alert. The van delivered food to the compound on a regular schedule. The guards would search the vehicle, but they wouldn't be surprised to see it arriving.

Adele smiled faintly. The surprise would come shortly after that arrival.

Adele looked at the faces around her, lighted through the opera window in one of the door's upper slats. "Is everyone ready for this?" she asked, more because the spacers seemed to expect something from her than out of real concern for the answer.
"Ain't we just!" said Liebig, hugging his submachine gun to his chest. The others' guttural sounds of approval blended well with the groans of the van's suspension.

Adele put her visor down momentarily to check the distance to the Captal's front gate. She still wasn't comfortable with getting information from the helmet display; it made her resentful and more than a little angry not to be able to be able to use her personal data unit in normal fashion.

Normally she wouldn't be bouncing around in the back of a delivery van. Besides, the helmet display worked perfectly well as it read down the distance in yards: 831, 830, 829—a lurch as the vehicle rounded a switchback and its transmission shifted to a lower gear—827 . . .

Moronick began to sing under his breath:
"
When I'm home you call me sugar honey, but when I'm gone
. . ." His thumb covered and uncovered the receiver switch that controlled his impeller's power. It was in the off, safe, position. He didn't turn it on, but the touch of the plastic fascinated him.

" . . .
you run around and play.
"

Adele was the only one of those present who didn't carry a shoulder weapon, either a submachine gun or a semiautomatic impeller throwing heavy slugs. There was a small pistol in her left side pocket. It was the weapon she knew, the weapon she pointed as if her eye and not her hand controlled it.

It would do. It had done many times in the past.

The van slowed gradually, then slewed shrieking to the right as a brake grabbed. 14, 13, 11 . . . Koop corrected with his steering wheel and brought them to a juddering halt.

Adele could hear the wind now, blowing the last of the grit kicked up by the truck's wheels against the metal body. "Hey, where's Mariakakis?" an unfamiliar voice called.

"Mariakakis tells the boss he wants a raise," Koop said. The cab door opened, then slammed. "Boss tells Mariakakis fuck your raise, you're not worth what I pay you now. Mariakakis says fuck your job, then. And me, I get promoted when I just started work."

Adele blinked. Her impression of Koop was that he was rather more dense than the run of spacers. She'd told him to say, "Mariakakis is sick today," if asked. Koop's embellishment was wholly convincing, even though she
knew
it was nonsense.

"Yeah, well, get the back open and let's take a look," the gateman said, his voice moving along the side of the van as boots crunched on the road metal. Everyone in the cargo compartment squatted. Woetjans handed her impeller to Bemish and drew an arm's-length piece of high-pressure tubing from beneath her belt.

"Dorotige's got a wild hair up his ass and not letting us into town when we're off duty," the gateman continued. "There better be extra booze in this—"

The door rattled at Koop's touch, then shot upward as fast as Liebig and Gansevoort could raise it from the inside.

"—shipment—
hey
!!"

The gateman was a lanky fellow whose ginger whiskers tried to cover serious acne scars. Woetjans grabbed his throat with her left hand.

WHACK!
sounded from the top of the stone guard tower.

Woetjans rang the tubing off the gateman's skull, knocking off his mauve beret and putting a welt across his forehead. He went limp in her grip. Adele grabbed the keypad chained to his belt and punched in 5154, the code that raised the gate today. She could have entered the compound's security system through its communications link, but this was faster and simpler.

The body of the guard who'd watched from the tower's walkway fell flat on the ground beside the vehicle. There was a hole precisely between her staring eyes; apart from that she looked perfectly normal. From the amount of matter oozing through the fan of her hair, the slug had removed the back of her skull like the top of a soft-boiled egg.

The gate's two leaves cammed open; the row of spikes beyond began to sink into concrete sheaths. Koop scrambled back into the cab, pausing to snatch up the hat he'd lost in the flurry of activity.

The door at the foot of the guard tower was open. Adele and Gansevoort jumped out of the cargo compartment as Woetjans slung the unconscious gateman behind her rather than leave him on the ground. The sprawled corpse couldn't be seen through the open gate.

"Go!" Adele said, but it was only her adrenaline-speeded senses that made it seem that Koop was delaying. The van jerked into motion, making those in the cargo compartment sway forward and back. Under cover of the vehicle, Adele and the spacer with her darted into the tower.

The van's back door was still open. Woetjans had retrieved her impeller from Liebig. The bosun's face had a detached expression, as though she were deciding who to assign to a mildly onerous duty.

Stairs led up from the anteroom of the guard tower. Through the other door was an office with a couch and refrigerator besides the control station. Adele sat at the control station while Gansevoort took the stairs two at a time, heading for the automatic impeller on top of the tower. He was Sun's striker, working toward a rating of gunner's mate.

The display was swirling pearly light. Adele brought up the main screen. A dozen keystrokes took her through the interlocks to first enter the security system, then to take complete control of all the compound's electronics. She displayed the courtyard imagery in a corner so that as she worked she could see the van driving past the barracks to the separated power room.

The power room door stood open, so she didn't have to bother unlocking it. Woetjans had a crate of explosives in the van against the possibility that the door would be closed with a manual bolt, but Adele was glad they could avoid noise for the moment.

Her control station had a touchplate. Adele's finger's danced across it, moving with precision if not what she would call verve. First she shut down communications to the other two guard towers, then switched their power off as well. The automatic impellers could still be fired, but without power traverse the guards would have to horse the weapons around manually to aim toward the courtyard. That would take minutes that they most certainly would not be allowed.

The van stopped in front of the power room. Woetjans led the four spacers with her into the squat building. The van, with Tovera now in the cab with Koop, made a U-turn and drove toward the Captal's residence.

Woetjans looked out of the power room and waved her free hand. "Ready, Gansevoort?" Adele called over the intercom.

"Ready!" Gansevoort answered, so loudly that his voice echoed down the stairwell. The building vibrated as his impeller turned inward.

Adele keyed the fire alarms for the barracks and the residence building. An electronic wail filled the compound.

Nothing happened for a moment. Adele disconnected the power to both buildings. A moment later a servant wearing puffed red-and-yellow garments ran from the residence and three half-dressed guards from the barracks. They looked around in a mixture of anger and confusion.

"Stay in the open!" Adele boomed over the public-address system. She turned off the siren. Woetjans and three of her team walked toward the barracks, their weapons aimed. "No one will be har—"

The house servant turned. His arms flailed and he sprawled across the threshold at the feet of two more liveried servants.

Tovera got out of the van, pointing her submachine gun one-handed in what might have looked a negligent fashion to anyone who hadn't just seen her shoot. She beckoned the two surviving servants toward her with her free hand. One remained transfixed; the other knelt, clasped his hands, and lowered his head in prayer.

"No one will be harmed if you cooperate!" Adele said. Her amplified voice rumbled through the open doorways, cold and hectoring. The guards who were already in the open didn't try to run in the face of the spacers' guns, but no more came from the barracks.

Adele's brain warned her of movement. Instinct slid the pistol from her pocket, but the threat showed on her panoramic display rather than in the room with her.

"Northeast tower!" she shouted. "He's—"