Revenge of the Damned (16 page)

"So maybe the war don't go like the lords and ladies want it. And maybe—sooprise—Heath's got a little different system of government. Like maybe we're payin' our taxes to Prime World.

"I'm thinkin'—in a case like that—Mr. Chetwynd might not get a little gold star by havin' set up some hero intelligence type to get his brain scanned and then burned. Might end up bein' some kind of war criminal.

"Wouldn't like that at all.

"Like I said, I back winners. So… least till things change, and I can get a better idea on what game we're playin', and with whose deck… I'm planning on doing just what I been doing about you. Nothing.

"That's all, prisoner."

* * *

Sten was about to make a decision he hated.

Even in escaping, there was strategy and there was tactics. Tactics—find possible escape route, build possible escape route, equip escapers—was very easy.

The strategy was the agony.

A POW's duties did not end with his or her capture. He or she was still a combatant. The war still had to be fought—even inside a POW camp. Everyone in Koldyeze not only had been hypno-conditioned during training but had accepted that with his continued resistance.

Part of that resistance was escape.

Escape did far more than get the poor sorry prisoner to home base and, hopefully, returned to war—it continued the war while it was being carried out. Each prisoner who was a pain in the butt to his captors took one or more potential enemy soldiers away from the lines and made them into guards. The bigger the pain in the butt, the more he or she decreased the available fighting strength. The fine line to walk, of course, was gauging at what point the enemy would decide that a bullet was more economically feasible.

Thus far, the prisoners of Koldyeze had done an excellent job of continuing the war and their own lives.

Cristata's tunnel might change all that.

That was Sten's decision, one that Colonel Virunga gave his opinion on and then qualified it.

Once the tunnel punched out beyond the walls, there were two choices for escape—mass or planned.

A mass attempt would mean that everyone who could fit down that hole would burst out onto Heath.

The end result?

Certainly all troops and auxiliaries on Heath would be yanked from their normal duties to hunt down the escapers. Other units, headed for battle, could well be diverted onto Heath. The end result would be that most, if not all, of the escapers would be rounded up.

And then murdered.

It was also very likely that the entire POW complement of Koldyeze would be slaughtered in reprisal.

That was Virunga's recommended option. Go for broke. We are all soldiers—and we all accept the risks.

Sten chose the second option, even though at best he was condemning people who had worked long hours on the tunnel to staying in captivity, denying them even the slightest possibility of making it to freedom.

The second option was to filter out a handful of completely prepared escapers, given every bit of kit the X organization could provide, from forged papers to money.

Sten did not reach his decision for any humanitarian reasons. Or, at least, so he told himself.

There had been almost no successful escapes by prisoners of the Tahn—at least very few that he had heard of. If Koldyeze broke out en masse—and the escapers were captured, given a show trial, and executed—that would effectively dampen any resistance, let alone further escape attempts from any of the other camps scattered through the Tahn worlds.

Better that one escaper make his or her home run all the way from the heart of the Tahn Empire—and the success be promoted.

Virunga grunted in displeasure. "I delegated… your decision. Now. Who goes?"

Painful strategy turned into more painful tactics. Sten would have to play God.

It was easier to start with the exclusions. Virunga, of course. He could not—and would not consider—abandon the beings in his charge.

Sten and Alex—Big X was banned.

Other beings who could not blend into the essentially human population of Heath. The crippled.

Who
could
make an attempt—and probably get killed in the process? Sten had only the original thousand prisoners, plus the various additions, to choose among.

Cristata and his three converts. It was their plan. Sten hoped to force the four into accepting some assistance and a plan more rational than flinging themselves on the mercy of country peasants.

Ibn Bakr and his partner.

Sten grimaced. St. Clair. He liked her about as much as she reciprocated. But if there was to be one solo attempt, he thought she probably had the best chance of anyone.

Hernandes. If anybody deserved to go out, it was he. Also, Sten figured that Hemandes's continuing sabotage operations were due to get blown, and Hernandes due for the high jump.

Completely unsure whether he had made the right decision, or even if he had made the correct choices, Sten left Virunga's room to begin the laying on of hands.

Naturally enough, nothing worked out as Sten had thought.

"My friend," Hernandes said slowly. "Thank you. But… I shall not be going out through the tunnel. I dislike enclosed spaces."

Sten, having more than a bit of a tendency toward claustrophobia, understood that. But Hernandes continued.

"Probably what you've said is correct. Probably I've run the game about as far as I can. But I don't
know
that. Do you understand?"

No. Sten did not.

"I'll try it another way. Assume that I manage to wiggle down that tunnel without making an exhibition of myself. Further assume that I am able to disappear into the unwashed of Heath and, using your—I am sure—most clever plan, return to the Empire. That is all very well and good.

"But what then would happen to me? I assume that I would be pridefully exhibited across the Empire as someone who managed to—capital letters please—Find Freedom.

"I would be far too valuable to ever get assigned to combat once more. Isn't that probably correct?"

"You assume a helluva lot in how far you'd get," Sten said. "But you're right."

"My granddaughter died. As I told you. And I am not convinced that a full repayment has been made.

"Now do you understand?"

Sten did. There had been more than a couple of times when Imperial orders and duty had fallen second to personal vengeance.

And so he made apologies to CWO Hernandes—and made mental allowances that when Hernandes was caught by the Tahn, none of Koldyeze's secrets would be exposed.

Similarly, Sten went zero for zero with Lay Reader Cristata.

He had come up with—he thought—a severely clever plan for the three humans and one nonhumanoid. Rather than vanish into a guaranteed-hostile countryside, they should, Sten proposed, stay inside the capital city of Heath. Cristata should present himself as an absolute convert to the cause of the Tahn. He should become a street preacher, loudly espousing how, in seeing the way his own world had been "liberated," he had come to know the true evil of the Empire.

It would take a long time, Sten knew, for people to question a true believer if that true believer was telling them that everything they did was correct.

"But that would be a lie," Cristata pointed out, and his acolytes nodded.

Sten practiced jaw clenching and unclenching as a substitute for answering.

"The Great One would withdraw his support if we taught such a lie," Cristata went on. "Also, I do not see what good we could do by remaining within this city, within this place of regimentation and uniforms."

"You could stay alive," Sten offered.

"Life is given and taken away by the Great One. It matters little which is the gift."

More jaw clenching.

"Also, you have failed to understand the teachings of the Great One. Only those who live close to the earth, who have avoided false mammon-professions and have realized that the duty of us all is to feed and help others, could understand and give us shelter."

Sten, remembering a long-ago time when he and his Mantis Team had been chased cross-country for several days by some supposedly uninvolved peasants, did not respond.

"I had hopes, Horatio," Cristata finished sadly, "that you were understanding my message and would become one of us. You did not.

"But we can still pray that those who will take advantage of what the Great One has given us will find truth within their own hearts and, once they return to freedom, will preach the light."

The best that Sten could hope for as he excused himself was that Cristata and his three friends would be sufficiently obvious to take the heat off the real escapers and find an easy and clean death.

St. Clair waited until the door closed behind Sten before she looked at L'n. Even in the dimness, she could see L'n's "hands" twitching.

"But you must go," L'n started without preamble.

Yes, St. Clair thought. I must go. I'm starting to go mad here. This would be escape number twenty-two? Or was it twenty-four? She had set the previous attempts at twenty-one but really did not want to know if she had tried more and failed in more.

This one had to succeed.

Because otherwise St. Clair could see herself, quite coldly and calmly, doing a run at the wire during assembly and getting killed.

Thus far she had avoided forcing herself to play in a rigged game because it was the only one in town. But the odds on staying cold and waiting until the numbers were right were becoming more and more slender.

And L'n?

At least she would have Sten to fall back on. She would survive, St. Clair told herself.

Besides, she was not an orphan. She was the Eel. A lone survivor and gambler. She needed no one and nothing.

Didn't she?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
he brilliance of Lady Atago was the same as that of the Tahn—and that of their failure.

In war, their plans were carefully worked out down to the last detail. If those plans went awry in midbattle, the Tahn were also geniuses at improvisation. They could—and did—cobble together units made up of the most disparate elements, pitch them into the front lines, and win.

The culturally programmed willingness of their warriors to die in place rather than yield did not hurt, of course. But what the Tahn lacked was the ability to modify a plan once the seal of approval was on it.

And so Lady Atago paced a battle chamber, her bootheels clicking against the emptiness.

She should have been busy briefing the twelve battlefleet commanders, giving final and full details for the attack on Durer, step by step. The battle chamber was fully equipped to show, on its hemispheric domed screen, any detail from the overall strategic advance to the disposition of the lowliest patrol craft.

Instead Atago had been informed, in the highest code, to postpone that meeting and stand by.

Further orders—eyes only—said that the head of the Tahn Council, Lord Fehrle, requested the privilege of conferring with the commander of the fleets at her convenience.

Atago did not bother sending anything other than a routine confirmation. Nor did she arrange to be waiting when Fehrle's battleship broke out of AM2 drive and warped alongside.

The side people and staff officers could provide the panoply. Atago was worried. Something was about to go very, very wrong.

She was very correct.

Fehrle entered the chamber, greeted Atago with all the formality her office required, and then dismissed his aides.

Lady Atago, maintaining propriety, asked if Lord Fehrle wished the honor of seeing her plans for the upcoming engagement.

"No," Fehrle said. "I am well aware, and certainly approve of them."

Then why are you here? Atago thought.

"The council has met, and is committed to the grand plan. In fact, they wish to increase its strategic impact."

Atago smelled a—no, several reeks. Reflexively she palmed a switch, and the projection of the attack against the Durer System sprang across the night galaxy simulation of the chamber above them. But neither Tahn looked at it.

"Perhaps I don't understand," Lady Atago said flatly.

"We have realized, through your brilliant planning and analysis," Fehrle went on, "that your attack should be implemented massively."

He turned to the screen and picked up the control.

"Here," he said. "Twelve battlefleets shall attack through emptiness toward the Durer System. Over here, the feint against the Al-Sufi System will engage the Imperial Forces in the cluster until far too late."

Atago did not even bother responding.

"The strike, as we have all agreed, is for the heart of the Empire. Therefore, after full analysis and discussion, we of the council have agreed that we should expand this plan, both because of its brilliance and because of its perfection to the Tahn ideal."

"Which means?"

"We feel that those fleets which have been kept in reserve could be better committed to the full battle. We shall not worry about our flanks but rather practice a policy of leapfrogging ahead. Any ship, unit, or fleet which becomes engaged shall drop out of the main thrust. Other units will drive through or around them, toward the main goal."

"The main goal, Lord," Atago said, "was to secure the Durer systems and use them as a springboard for the final assault."

"An easily achieved objective," Lord Fehrle said. "One which could conceivably require us to slow and regroup. The council has decided to leapfrog Durer and make the final assault."

Go for broke.

"Suppose," Atago said, looking at the display overhead, "that the Imperial Forces that will flank us, in and around Al-Sufi, succeed in breaking free? And then attacking the main thrust toward Prime World?"

"That will not happen," Fehrle said with a note of impatience. "We are confident that your plan of deception will make them defend the nongoal until far, far too late. Also—" He paused. "We have a further reinforcement of that deception."

"Go on."

"There is another reason," Fehrle said. "Lady Atago, this war has gone on far beyond our most pessimistic projections. We simply do not have the AM2 resources to luxuriate in any battle pause."