Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Forty-One: 3031 AD

The spaceport crawler crested the pass through the White Mountains. Storm saw Edgeward City for the first time. "Looks like a full moon coining up," he murmured. "Or a bubble of jewels rising where a stone fell into dark water." Only half the city dome could be seen above the ringwall surrounding it. It glowed with internal light.

His aide studied him, puzzled. Storm sensed but ignored the scrutiny. He reached for his clarinet case, decided he could not play in this lurching, shaking, rolling rust heap.

He had to do something to ease the tension. It had been ages since his nerves had been this frazzled.

He returned to the reports in his lap. Each was in Cassius's terse, cool style. The data and statistics summed an impossible assignment. Meacham Corporation had gotten a long jump on Blake. Though they had the more fragile logistics, they had used their lead time well. They had put military crawlers into production years ago. Twenty-four of the monsters were laagered in the Shadowline a thousand kilometers west of Blake's shade station. They would be hard to root out.

Richard's supply lines, which also supported the Meacham mohole project at the Shadowline's end, could not be reached from Blake shade. They were too far into sunlight for even the hardiest charter to hit and run.

Cassius said there was a tacit agreement to avoid conflict Darkside. Blake would not hear the suggestion of direct strikes. He insisted that fighting be confined to the Shadowline.

"Idiots," Storm muttered in a moment of bloodthirst. "Ought to run straight to Twilight, kick a hole in their dome, give them something to breathe when they surrender, and have done." Then he laughed. No doubt Richard felt the same way.

Mercenary conflicts were seldom simple. Corporations, while willing to fight, seldom wanted to risk anything already in hand, only what they might someday possess.

The only positive he could see was that the Seiners were still out there somewhere, eager to ease his communications problem. It had been a lucky day when he had let emotion convince him that Prudie's people deserved his help. Those Fishers never forgot.

Darling Prudie. What had become of that sweet thing? She probably wouldn't let him see her now even if he could find her. Fishers didn't believe in fighting Nature. She would be an old woman. Storm shuffled reports, forced his thoughts back to the Shadowline.

He tinkered with Cassius's suggestion for cracking Richard's laager till the crawler reached Edgeward's tractor depot. He was sure it was a workable solution, though they would have to run it past their employer's Brightside engineers to be sure. And past the Corporate Board. Those sons-of-bitches always had to have their say.

Blake met him personally. It was a small courtesy that impressed Storm because the man had to impose on his own handicap.

"Creighton Blake," the dark man said, offering a hand. "Glad you're here. You're recovered completely?"

"Like a new man. I've got good doctors." He glanced at the man behind Blake. He seemed vaguely familiar. "We've got the best facilities at the Fortress. You might want to try our regrowth lab."

"You know, I don't think so. I don't miss the legs anymore. And not having them gives me one hell of a psychological advantage over my Board of Directors. They get to feeling guilty, picking on a cripple." He grinned. "You have to use every angle on these pirates. Ah. My manners. I'm not used to dealing with outsiders. We all know each other here. The gentleman with me is Albin Korando. He's my legs. And my bodyguard, companion, conscience, and valet."

"Mr. Korando." Storm shook hands. "We met on The Big Rock Candy Mountain. At the wedding."

Korando looked startled. He glanced at Blake. Blake nodded slightly.

"Yes, sir."

Storm smiled. "I thought so. We walk from here? Which way?"

"You've got a good memory, Colonel," Blake said. "I believe you met Albin for just a few seconds."

"Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why did you plant Pollyanna on me?"

"Ah? You know?" Blake chuckled. "Actually, you weren't the target. I had no interest in you at the time. Ground-zero man was your brother Michael. We almost stuck her to him, too. But you tipped the cart over."

"Long as we're being frank, would you mind telling me why?"

Blake explained. Before he finished, Storm again found himself regretting his contract to protect his brother. Michael had outdone himself here on Blackworld.

"About the Shadowline," he said, trying to ignore the curious hundreds watching them pass, "how much interference am I going to have to put up with? Cassius tells me you've ruled out direct strikes at Twilight, as well as any other armed action this side of the Edge of the World."

"This is between Blake and Meacham, not Edgeward and Twilight. We feel it's important to maintain the distinction. And we don't want civilians getting hurt."

Storm cast Blake a cynical glance, realized that the man meant what he said. The idea startled him. How long since he had worked for someone with a conscience? It seemed like forever.

Blake's humanitarian impulses could spell unreasonable casualties. "You didn't answer me."

"You won't have much trouble from me. I'm no general and I'm willing to admit it. But my Board won't make the same confession, as your Colonel Walters has discovered. They didn't want to release tractors for nonproductive employment. Maybe they thought you were going to fight on foot."

"How much voting stock do you control?"

"Thirty-eight percent. Why?"

"Any of the Directors your men?"

"I usually get my way."

"Will you assign me your proxy for the duration?"

"Excuse me?"

"One of my terms was five percent of the voting stock and a seat on the Board."

"That was rejected. Unanimously, I might add."

"Where's my headquarters?"

"Back at the depot. We set it up in an obsolete repair shed. Where're you going?"

"I'm going to pick up my toys and go home. I'm wasting my time here. I don't have a contract."

"Go home? Colonel Storm... Are you serious? You'd dump us now?"

"Damned right I would. Things get done my way or they don't get done at all. I'm not Galahad or Robin Hood. I'm a businessman. My comptrollers will compute what you owe for transport and maintenance. I'll disregard penalty payments."

"But... "

"Would you like to test your meteor screens against a heavy cruiser's main battery?"

"We thought that was a giveaway clause, Colonel."

"There were no giveaway clauses, Mr. Blake. You were presented a contract and told it was a take it or leave it. In a seller's market prices get steep. You're hiring an army, not buying one crazy Old Earth shooter. Do you have any idea what it costs to maintain a division even on a peacetime footing? Win, loose, or draw, the Legion gets five percent, twenty-year deferred payments, expenses, equipment guarantees... "

"To be honest, Colonel Walters told us the same thing. We hoped... "

"Get somebody else. Van Breda Kolff is looking for something. But he won't be much cheaper."

"Colonel, you have us. We've got to have you. They'll cry a lot, but the Board will give in. Their fussing has put us so far behind now that it's criminal."

"I don't have time for games, Mr. Blake."

"They'll come around. They see the Shadowline slipping through their fingers like fine, dry sand. They want to get back what's been lost. You could hold us up for more and get it."

Storm saw that Blake was straining to control his temper. His Directors must have caused him a lot of grief.

He understood, once he was introduced to those select old armchair pirates. They were the sort who would buck a young whippersnapper like Blake simply because they resented his having come to power at such an early age.

Storm repeated his prima donna performance and stalked out. After what must have been a bitter hour of debate, Blake came to tell him they had acquiesced with the grace of virgins bowing to inevitable rape. Storm returned to the boardroom long enough to remind them of what happened to employers who defaulted contracts with the freecorps. Their bandit eyes became angry. He knew they had not surrendered completely.

He wondered why he bothered. The premonition could no longer be denied. Blackworld was the end. The last page of his story was going to be written on this hell of a world. What matter a contract?

The Fortress, that was what mattered. Even if the Legion entire encountered its death-without-resurrection, there were still the people of the Fortress. The dependents and retirees needed support. He hoped Mouse could handle the asteroid. Dumping the administration of the empire into the boy's lap as he had...

His aide finished preparing his quarters. With Geri and Freki pacing him and the ravenshrikes watching with hooded eyes, he walked the floor and nursed "Stranger on the Shore" from his clarinet. He played it again and again, each time more mournfully than the last. He was exhausted, yet too keyed up to rest. His mind kept darting here and there like a fish trying to find a way out of its bowl.

Poor pretty Pollyanna. So young to be so driven. That Frog must have been something. He would have Mouse send her home. There was no point to her going on with her game.

Poor Lucifer. Played for a pawn. Pray it did not blind his sensitive poet's eyes. Maybe the boy would have sense enough to go with his talent now.

Poor Homer. Poor Benjamin. Gone to do hard time in the hell of Helga's World. Could Ceislak get them out? Hakes was the most perfect of commando leaders, but his chances were grim. The Festung in Festung Todesangst was an understatement.

Poor Frieda. She was about to lose a husband she never really had. He had not been much good for her.

Storm could not think of his wife without guilt, though she was a soldier's daughter and had known, what she was getting into. Despite her peculiarities, she had been his best wife. In her way.

Poor everyone, Storm decided. There would be no winners this time. Not even the Sangaree Deeth. The shadow master was going to find the Shadowline a tool too hot to grasp. And poor Mouse was the dead-man's switch that would bring the Sangaree's folly home to him...

Storm finally relaxed enough to fall into a troubled sleep. His dreams gave him little peace. Only death itself promised that.