When All Seems Los lotd-7 Read online

  “Kill me.”

  It was a reasonable request given the circumstances, but the cyborg knew that his main source of protection lay in the fact that the bugs were unaware of his presence. So if he put the poor wretch out of his misery, there was the possibility that one or more Ramanthians would happen along and realize what had taken place. Especially since Batkin lacked the means to dispose of the body. But the chances of that seemed remote, so the cyborg activated his energy cannon, and there was a whir as the barrel appeared. “I will,” Batkin promised solemnly. “But fi?rst . . . Can you tell me where you were captured?”

  Both of Cassidy’s startlingly blue eyes had disappeared by then, and there was a long pause, before the pain-fi?lled orbs opened again. The long, drawn-out answer came as a sigh. “G-l-a-d-i-a-t-o-r.”

  Batkin felt an almost overwhelming sense of despair. He was cut off on Jericho, with no way to receive news, but if the Ramanthians had taken the Gladiator, then the Confederacy was in dire straits indeed. “You’re sure?” the spy demanded. “You were aboard the Gladiator?”

  “Y-e-s-s-s,” Cassidy hissed. “Kill m-e-e-e. . . .”

  So Batkin fi?red the energy cannon, the marine was released from hell, and the rain continued to fall as the cyborg followed the trail east. Even though the spy’s top speed was rather limited, it didn’t take him long to catch up with the tail end of the column. But what Batkin lacked in speed, he more than made up for where sophisticated detection equipment was concerned, which was fortunate indeed. Because it wasn’t long before his sensors detected a substantial amount of electromechanical activity and he made visual contact with four Sheen robots. And, for one brief moment, the machines made contact with him.

  But Batkin had disengaged by that time, activated all the cloaking technology resident in his highly sophisticated body, and taken refuge in thick foliage. So, having been unable to verify a contact, the robots continued on their way. As did a large heavily armed human whose eyes were concealed by a pair of dark goggles. The only human on Jericho other than Batkin who wasn’t a slave.

  Cautious now, lest one of the robots spot him, Batkin propelled himself out and away from the column. Then, having given himself suffi?cient electronic elbow room, the cyborg sped ahead. After about fi?fteen minutes, he turned back again, located the trail, and snuggled into a treetop. In spite of the rain and the curtain of leaves that served to screen his hiding place, the spy had a mostly unobstructed view of the point where the POWs would be forced to cross a small clearing. With his cloaking measures on, and most everything else off, the agent was confi?dent he could escape detection. And thanks to some truly magnifi?cent optics, Batkin would be able to snap digital photos of each person or thing that crossed the clearing. An important step in verifying whether the bugs had captured the Gladiator or not.

  A full fi?fteen minutes passed before the fi?rst poor wretch emerged from the dripping trees to splash through a series of puddles directly opposite the spy’s position. Batkin took at least one frame of each person’s face, and couldn’t help but be moved by the misery that he saw there. All of the men wore beards, most of the prisoners were fi?lthy, and some were clearly lame. A woman who was walking with the aid of a homemade crutch tripped on an exposed tree root and fell facedown in a pool of rainwater. And when a man paused to help her up, a Ramanthian trooper subjected both prisoners to a fl?urry of blows and kicks. And so it went as the long, ragged line of POWs passed before Batkin’s high-mag lens. There were hundreds of them, so the faces began to blur after a while, until the unmistakable countenance of President Marcott Nankool appeared! The chief executive was wearing a beard, but was quite recognizable to a political junkie like Batkin. Still, the cyborg continued to wonder if such a thing was possible, until he spotted Secretary Hooks! A person he had met at a political fund-raiser and was likely to be at the president’s side.

  The discovery resulted in a heady combination of consternation, fear, and excitement. Because if he was correct, and Nankool was a prisoner, the sighting was a very big deal indeed! But even as the cyborg continued to snap his pictures, one aspect of the situation continued to trouble him. Assuming that the man who had already crossed the clearing and reentered the jungle was Nankool—then why was he being treated in such a cavalier fashion? Surely, assuming the Ramanthians knew who they had, the president would be treated in an entirely different manner. He would be more heavily guarded, for one thing, transported via fl?yer for another, and held separately from the other prisoners. But what if the bugs didn’t know?

  That possibility would have caused Batkin’s heart to race had he still been equipped with one. But the sensation was very much the same as the cyborg took pictures of the Sheen robots and the strange-looking human who trailed along behind the main column. Then the POWs were gone, having been consumed by the jungle, as the column continued on its way. That was Batkin’s opportunity to depart the area and upload his report to one of the message torps above. No, the agent decided, make that two message torps, just in case one went astray. Because of all the reports that Batkin might eventually fi?le—this was likely to be the most important.

  Confi?dent that it was safe to leave his hiding place, the cyborg fi?red his repellers, and “felt” the surrounding leaves slip over his alloy skin as he rose up through the thick foliage to emerge into the open area above. And that was when a host of threat alerts began to go off, and the sphereshaped monitor that Tragg liked to refer to as “Tail-EndCharlie,” began its attack. Tragg was a careful man, so even though the overseer wasn’t aware of a specifi?c threat, one of the airborne robots had been ordered to follow along behind the column just in case somebody or something attempted to follow it.

  And, had the Ramanthian-manufactured machine been equipped with more potent weaponry, Batkin would have been blown out of the sky. Still, the remote did have a stun gun, which it fi?red. That was suffi?cient to partially paralyze the cyborg’s nervous system, which caused the spy ball to shoot upwards, as his now-clumsy brain attempted to reassert control over the nav function. All this was effective in a weird sort of way, because it was impossible for the alien robot to predict what would happen next and plot an intercepting course. But Batkin had entered a death spiral by then, the jungle was coming up quickly, and the remote stood to win the overall battle if the human cyborg crashed into the ground. In spite of the numbness that threatened to end his life, the spy summoned all of his strength and forced a command through the neural interface that linked what remained of his biological body with its electromechanical counterpart. The response was immediate, if somewhat frightening, as the cyborg suddenly swooped upwards. The monitor pursued Batkin at that point, but the device lacked suffi?cient speed, and it could do little more than follow the spy as he led the robot away from the trail. Meanwhile, as the effects of the stun gun began to wear off, Batkin regained more control over his body. Still hoping to conceal his presence on Jericho, the spy chose to activate his energy cannon rather than the noisy .50 gun that was also hidden inside his rotund body. Conscious of the fact that there wouldn’t be any second chances, the recon ball dropped into the jungle below.

  The robot followed, and for thirty seconds or so, the creatures of the forest were treated to a never-before-seen sight as two alien constructs weaved their way between shadowy tree trunks and fl?ashed through clearings before exploding out into open spaces. Then the chase came to a sudden end as the monitor swept out over the surface of a rain-swollen river where it was forced to hover while its sensors swept the area for signs of electromechanical activity.

  Meanwhile, just below the surface of the river, where the cool water screened the heat produced by his power supply and other systems, Batkin took careful aim as he fi?red a steering jet to counteract the current. Had there been someone present to witness the event, they would have seen a bolt of bright blue energy leap up out of the suddenly steaming water to strike the monitor from below. There was a loud bang, followed by a puff of smoke, as the robot fell into
the river. The mechanism was light enough to fl?oat, and was in the process of drifting downstream, when a large C-shaped grasper broke the surface of the water to pull the monitor under.

  Batkin spent the next couple of minutes piling river rocks over and around the robot before fi?ring his repellers and bursting up out of the river. Water sheeted off the construct as it shot straight up into the air, turned toward the protection of the trees, and moved parallel to the ground. Then, having established himself high in the branches of a sun tracker tree, the spy hurried to establish contact with two of the message torps orbiting above. It took less than a minute to upload both the images the spy had captured and a verbal report that would put them into context. Then, having instructed the vehicles to pursue different routes, Batkin sent the torpedoes on their uncertain way.

  6.

  Murder is a tool, which, like all tools, can be used to build something up or to tear it down.

  —Hive Mother Tral Heba

  Ramanthian Book of Guidance

  Standard year 1721

  ABOARD THE CONFEDERACY VESSEL EPSILON INDI,

  IN HYPERSPACE

  The combined effects of the worst headache the offi?cer had ever experienced, plus an urgent need to pee, brought Santana back to consciousness. The legionnaire’s eyes felt as if they’d been glued shut, and once he managed to paw them open, the offi?cer found himself looking up into an unfamiliar face. A med tech, judging from the insignia on her uniform, and the injector in her right hand. The name tag over her right breast pocket read “Hiller.”

  The rating had big brown eyes, mocha-colored skin, and a pretty smile. “Welcome aboard, Captain Santana. You’re on the Combat Supply (CS) vessel Epsilon Indi, presently en route to Algeron, with a full load of supplies. Roll to your right so I can get at your arm.”

  Santana winced as the injector made a popping sound, and some sort of liquid was forced in through the pores of his skin. “There,” Hiller said as she took a step backwards.

  “That should help with the pain.”

  “Algeron?” Santana croaked. “Why Algeron? My outfi?t’s on Adobe.”

  “Beats me, sir,” the technician answered blandly. “But maybe Major Lassiter can fi?ll you in. . . . He wants to see you at 0930, so we’d better get cracking.”

  “I gotta pee,” Santana said thickly.

  “And brush your teeth, and shave, and take a shower,”

  Hiller added pragmatically. “In fact, you might even want to get dressed. Can you sit up for me?”

  So Santana sat up, but the process was painful, as was the act of standing. Not only because of the many contusions suffered during the battle in the Blue Moon Bar and Fight Club—but as a result of whatever drugs had been administered to him thereafter. A subject the legionnaire planned to raise with Major Lassiter. “There was a noncom,” Santana said, as Hiller escorted him toward the head.

  “A corporal named Gomez . . . What happened to her?”

  “Gomez has been up and around for quite a while now,”

  the med tech replied. “She comes to check on you every couple of hours. The corporal says that while you have a lousy left hook, you’ve got some major cojones, and that’s rare where offi?cers are concerned. Her opinion—not mine.”

  One hour later, Santana was shaved, showered, and dressed in one of his own uniforms. Which had clearly been removed from the hotel room in the MEZ and brought aboard the Indi. The pain still lingered but was under control by the time Hiller provided the legionnaire a hand wand and sent him out into the ship’s labyrinth of corridors. The Epsilon Indi was more than three miles long, could transport fi?ve million tons of cargo, and carried a crew of more than two thousand bio bods and robots. The corridor that ran the length of the ship wasn’t all that crowded as Santana followed the directional wand toward the stern, but that would change quickly once the watch changed. The overhead glow panels marked off six-foot intervals, the durasteel bulkheads were gray, and brightly colored decals marked maintenance bays, emergency lockers, and escape pods. A steady stream of infl?ection-free announcements continued to drone through the overhead speakers as the directional wand tugged Santana to the right. What seemed like a seldom-used passageway led to a hatch and a programmable panel that read, “Legion Procurement Offi?cer.” The title didn’t bode well since Santana had a bias against REMFs (rear echelon motherfuckers). But orders were orders, so Santana rapped his knuckles against the wooden knock-block mounted next to the hatch and waited for a response. It came in the form of a basso “Come!” pitched to carry over the PA system, the chatter of a nearby power wrench, and the eternal rumble generated by the Indi herself.

  Santana took three paces forward, executed a sharp left face, and came to rigid attention. “Captain Antonio Santana, reporting as ordered, sir!”

  In spite of the fact that the legionnaire’s eyes were focused on a point over the major’s head, he could still see quite a bit. The offi?cer on the opposite side of the folddown desk had short gray hair, a weather-beaten face, and a lantern-shaped jaw. And, unlike so many of the staff offi?cers that Santana had encountered in the past, this one wore ribbons representing some rather impressive decorations. A good sign indeed. “At ease,” Major Lassiter said.

  “Grab a chair. . . . I got blindsided once, and it still hurts. How do you feel?”

  “Better, sir,” Santana answered truthfully, as he sat down. “How did you know I was blindsided? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Corporal Gomez was kind enough to fi?ll me in,” Lassiter replied dryly. “She likes you—but I get the feeling that her affection for offi?cers ends there.”

  “No offense, sir,” Santana ventured cautiously. “But why were Gomez and I put aboard the Indi? Are we in some sort of trouble?”

  “No,” the major said, as he leaned back into his chair.

  “You aren’t. Not that I’m aware of anyway. . . . General Booly sent orders to fi?nd you, and my team was busy touring all the dives in the MEZ when we came across the Blue Moon. You were already laying on the mat by then, so we had you removed and put aboard a shuttle. About halfway through liftoff you returned to consciousness, attempted to escape your stretcher, and were put back to sleep.”

  “General Booly?” Santana said incredulously. “The Military Chief of Staff? Why would General Booly send for me?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Lassiter replied lightly. “But then I rarely do! When the general wants something, it’s my job to fi?nd it for him. But he rarely tells me why, and I always forget to ask.”

  “So you’re a member of military intelligence,” the line offi?cer concluded.

  Lassiter smiled and shook his head. “No, of course not!

  I think of myself as a procurement offi?cer. Just like the sign says.”

  But there was a lot more to Lassiter’s job than procurement, of that Santana was sure, even if the other offi?cer wasn’t willing to admit it. “So, what about Corporal Gomez?” Santana wanted to know. “Did General Booly send for her as well?”

  “Nope,” Lassiter answered. “But given that the order to fi?nd you was highly classifi?ed, it seemed best to bring her along.”

  “And you can do that?”

  “Of course,” the major replied with a grin. “Procurement offi?cers can accomplish just about anything. So,”

  Lassiter continued, “let’s move on to the real purpose of this meeting. And that’s to let you know when you aren’t plodding through virtual-reality scenarios—you’ll be working out with a company of really gung ho marines.”

  Santana eyed the major suspiciously. “And that’s all you can tell me?”

  “That’s correct,” the other offi?cer confi?rmed mischievously. “I’m afraid I won’t have time to join you—but I hear the marines are looking forward to the opportunity of spending some time with a cavalry offi?cer!”

  Both men were well aware of the long-standing animosity between the Legion and the Marine Corps. So when Lassiter said that the jarheads were “looki
ng forward” to the workouts Santana knew he was in trouble. He stood. “Sir, yes sir!”

  “One last thought,” Lassiter added, as his expression became more serious. “I don’t know why the general sent for you, or why he wants to make sure that you’ll be in tiptop shape by the time you arrive on Algeron, but there’s bound to be a very good reason. So bust your ass. Understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  And Santana’s leave was over.

  THE THRAKI PLANET STARFALL (PREVIOUSLY ZYNIG-47) What light there was emanated from a small window set high on the earthen wall and a single battery-powered lamp on the makeshift desk. Thrakies might have been comfortable in the underground chamber, thanks to their thick fur, but the Ramanthian was cold. Very cold. Which explained why ex-ambassador Alway Orno sat swathed in heavy blankets as he brought the pistol up and placed the barrel against the side of his insectoid head. There was a loud click as the fi?ring pin fell on an empty chamber. Satisfi?ed that the fi?rearm was fully functional, the Ramanthian broke the tubular weapon open and dropped a stubby bullet into the shiny fi?ring chamber. Then, having placed the weapon to one side of his desk, the fugitive returned to work. The letter was addressed to the Egg Orno—and would soon be found next to his body.

  Rather than record his voice, or compose his message on a computer, Orno had chosen to write an old-fashioned letter. During the manufacturing process the paper had been fl?ooded with a thin layer of colored wax and left to dry in the sun. Now, as small amounts of the surface material were removed with an antique stylus, clusters of white characters appeared.

  “The end has come dearest,” the letter began. “And my heart yearns for one last moment with you. But with every pincer turned against me, I cannot return to Hive. So there can be no reunion until we meet in the great beyond. Then, with you between us, the War Orno and I will—”