Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Fifty: 3032 AD

Storm took the cruiser in low and fast and put her down a hundred meters from Twilight's south lock. His weapons started talking while he was still aloft. Shafts of coherent light stabbed at everything outside the dome. Shellguns bit at the stressglass of the dome itself, chewing a hole through it two hundred meters west of the lock. Freezing atmosphere roared out, mixed with dust in violent clouds. His searchlights probed for enemies who never appeared.

The decompression was not explosive. The Twilighters would have time to get off the streets, into buildings that could be sealed. But time to insure personal survival was all Storm meant to allow them.

Helmut captured the lock before Storm finished cycling down. Darksword was moving the last of the raiders through it when Storm hit dirt himself. Accompanied by Korando, Pollyanna, Thurston, Lucifer, and Mouse, Gneaus set out for Twilight's equivalent of City Hall.

He had given orders to shoot anything that moved. He wanted these Twilighters cowed fast. The tininess of his force compelled him to hit hard and keep on hitting. He dared allow his enemies no time to regain their balance.

The only resistance he encountered was a lone sniper who surrendered the moment he received counterfire.

The entry to Twilight's City Hall, like Edgeward's, was a massive airlock. The outer door was sealed. "Blow it," Storm told Thurston.

His son placed the charges. "Stand back, people," he shouted just before the Boom!

Storm clambered through the wreckage, checked the inner door. It was not secured. "Rig something over that outer doorway," he ordered.

Mouse and Lucifer scrounged plastic panels and pounded them into place. "They'll still leak, Father," Mouse said.

"They'll prevent complete decompression. That's all I'm worried about now."

He did not want to hurt civilians. The ordinary people of Twilight, like those of nations at war at any time, were simply victims of their leadership.

He was in a generous mood. In other times and places he had been heard to say that people were guilty of their leadership.

Storm and Thurston poised themselves, ready for the inner door. "Go!" Thurston growled. Storm kicked. Thurston went through on his jump pack, rocketing at an angle across a chamber twenty meters by thirty. Laseguns probed for him. Their beams went wide.

Thurston let go an antitank rocket. Before the debris settled, Storm, Lucifer, and Mouse moved in, firing, and spread out behind furniture. Pollyanna and Korando had enough sense to stay out of action for which they had no training. They indulged only in a little supportive sniping.

Thurston's second rocket, accompanied by grenades from the others, convinced the opposition. They surrendered. They wore no combat suits. Only four of fifteen had survived the exchange.

Korando sealed the inner door before more atmosphere escaped.

"Where're the big people?" Storm demanded of the prisoners, after folding his faceplate back. "Where's Meacham?"

He received surly looks in reply.

"All right. Be that way. Lucifer. Shoot them one at a time till somebody answers me."

They looked into his one grim eye and believed him. He was not bluffing. He no longer cared, especially about Michael's men. The lives he valued most had been wasted already.

"Upstairs. Fourth level. Communications center. Yelling for help."

"Thank you. You're true gentlemen. Lead the way."

They balked.

A twitch of his trigger finger got them moving.

The elevators were dead. Storm shrugged, unsurprised. His guides led him to an emergency stairwell. Thurston blew the locked fire door. The big man could have achieved his end with a lasegun bolt, but he enjoyed the bangs.

A bolt poked through the smoke, stabbing a small, neat hole through Lucifer's right calf. The ambusher died before he could take a second shot.

"Pollyanna, take care of him," Storm ordered. "You four. Up the stairs. Smartly now."

Two went down before they reached the fourth floor. Three snipers joined them.

While Thurston prepared to blow the comm center door, Korando told Storm, "These men aren't Twilighters. They're not even Blackworlders."

"I didn't think they were. Blackworlders would be a little more careful about gunfighting in tight places. You spend your life worrying about vacuum, you don't go shooting where you might put holes in the walls."

"Exactly."

"Stand back. When that door goes we're going to get a lot of fire."

Thurston set off his charges. The counterfire came. Storm and his sons hurled grenades around the door frame, frags first, then tear gas, then smoke. After a brief pause they moved in.

Through the haze, using his infrared filters, Storm could see men trying to get out other exits. "Mouse. Stop those men over there. Korando, over there." He and Thurston bulled straight ahead, charging a group that looked like they could be troublesome. They were a tough-looking crew, and among them Storm saw his brother's son Seth-Infinite.

Thurston announced his approach with a rocket. Hands flew up. In all the smoke and tear gas the Twilighters could not determine the number of their attackers.

Seth-Infinite managed to slide away in the confusion.

Storm herded the gagging prisoners to the center of the room. He posted Mouse, Thurston, and Korando at doors. When Pollyanna, supporting Lucifer, arrived, he left the main door to her. He sat down and waited for the air to clear, for Helmut to report how it was going elsewhere.

The comm boards around him chattered wildly as people all across the city demanded instructions.

The air cleared enough. Storm opened his face plate. "Which one's Meacham?" he demanded.

A very sick old man, who fit Storm's notion of an elderly brigand, timorously raised a hand. The gases and smoke had left him puked out and aguey. From the corner of his eye Storm caught Korando's slight affirmative nod.

"Would you mind awfully, sir, explaining what the hell you've been trying to do? Would you kindly tell me why you broke your contract with Richard Hawksblood in favor of a deal with that bandit Michael Dee? Or Diebold Amelung, if you prefer? And, for the sake of heaven, why you've been using nuclears on my people in the Shadowline?"

Meacham's jaw dropped. He peered up at Storm in unadulterated disbelief. Gradually, an air of cynicism crept over his tired old body.

"Ah. I see," Storm said. "He's done it to you, too. Believe it or not, old man. It's true. I wouldn't be here otherwise."

Briefly, he sketched what had happened to Wulf.

"I didn't know... " Meacham mumbled. Then, "We lost communications with the Shadowline weeks ago. Equipment failure is what they told me. Amelung's son came back and said everything was going fine. He said our troops were holding you and work on the mohole was ahead of schedule."

"It isn't going fine at all. Not from your viewpoint. The fighting is over in the Shadowline. You lost. Because Hawksblood wasn't in charge. Because some nitwit Dee set it up that way. Now, tell me why the force that hit us Darkside? I thought that was outside the rules."

Meacham frowned. He was old, but obviously rugged. He was making a fast physical comeback. "What are you talking about?"

"About the convoy that's besieging Edgeward and the Whitlandsund. Somebody sent six armed crawlers with twenty-one mining units in support. Half of which are no longer with us, by the way."

Meacham stiffened. "Colonel Storm... I assume you're Storm? Yes? I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. I specifically forbade any action Darkside." The old man's spirits were rising fast. "Establishing a tradition of Darkside warfare would be insane, Colonel. It would be bad for business."

"And what's become of Hawksblood, Meacham? Why is Dee fighting me, leading Sangaree troops?"

The old man glared. "That's not possible." Then his spirits collapsed again. He dropped into a chair so suddenly Storm was afraid that he had had a stroke.

"Sangaree?" he whispered. "Sangaree? No. That's just not possible."

There was a stir among the prisoners. The offworlders were getting nervous. They knew, whether or not they were Sangaree themselves.

"You don't have to take my word, Meacham. Call Walter Carrington at The City of Night. We sent him some of the corpses we took in after fighting near Edgeward. He had his people perform the autopsies. The word's out to all the domes now. Twilight is using Sangaree troops."

"My nephew," Meacham said in a barely audible voice. "Talk to him. He was in charge of military affairs. A little too anxious for the old man to die, I thought. Responsibility would settle him down, I thought. That's why I put him in charge. He was too weak, I suppose. The devils. The bloody devils."

How pleased Dee must have been, finding such an ideally usable man, Storm reflected. "Divide and conquer. The Dee way, Meacham. Get them by the greed. No doubt there was a plan to wrestle stock away from your directors. But their plans went sour. We attacked when they were overextended. Their bomb crawler got caught in heat erosion. Where is your nephew now?"

No one there would admit to being Charles Meacham. Storm glanced at Korando. Korando shrugged. The elder Meacham surveyed his fellow prisoners, shook his head. Then he rose and slowly walked to the tumble of bodies near the door'Thurston guarded.

"Yes. Here he is. Caught up by his own sins." He shook his head wearily. "Children. They never quite turn out the way you want."

Storm sighed. It figured. The one prisoner who knew anything had been killed. Probably by Seth-Infinite's hand. He did not check to see if the nephew's wounds were in front or back. It was too late to matter.

What now? "Mr. Meacham, I'm going to draw up surrender terms. They'll be simple. You'll abandon your claim to the Shadowline. You'll agree to cooperate fully in bringing to justice members of the conspiracy to use nuclear weapons. You'll agree to help ferret out any Sangaree on Blackworld. You'll aid in the rescue and evacuation of personnel now trapped in the Shadowline. You'll free Richard Hawksblood and any of his men who might be imprisoned here. I expect Richard will have terms of his own to discuss... "

"Gneaus?"

Storm turned. Someone was at the door guarded by Pollyanna and Lucifer. "Helmut?"

The old warrior came to him slowly, wearily, his helmet open, his face as pale and strained as it had become when he had learned of his brother's death.

"What is it, Helmut? You look awful."

"Won't be any more wars with Richard Hawksblood," Darksword muttered. He laughed. It was a soft cackle of madness. "We didn't get to him in time. They had him down in the service levels. Gneaus, it was the work of the Beast. It was like something from the Second Dark Age. Like the camps at Wladimir-Wolynsk."

"He's dead?"

"Yes. And all his staff. Beyond-the-resurrection. And death was a gift for them."

Storm stared into eternity, lost among disjointed memories of what Richard had been to him, of what Richard had meant. All their conflicts and hatreds... which had had their own formality and inflexible honor... "We'll take care of them," Storm said. "An honorable funeral. Send them home for burial. I owe Richard that much."

One of the foundation stones of his universe had vanished. What would he do without his enemy? Who, or what, could replace a Richard Hawksblood?

He shook it off. Richard did not matter anymore. He had his own plans... He drew his ancient .45, slowly turned its cylinder.

"Father?" Mouse said softly. "Are you all right?"

"In a minute. I'll be okay, Mouse." Storm looked into his son's eyes. Today and tomorrow... What seemed to be a depthless sadness stole into his soul. "I'll be okay."

"I evened scores a little," Helmut said. "Dee's wife. One shot. Through the brain. May the Lord have mercy on her soul."

"Gallant, chivalrous Helmut," Storm mused. "What happened to you?" The Helmut he had always known could not have slain a woman.

"I learned to hate, Gneaus."

There was no way of resurrecting a brain-destroyed corpse.

"Seth-Infinite's here in the city," Storm said. "We saw him."

"Fearchild, too. He did Richard in. He was there when we arrived. We're hunting him now. The citizens aren't giving us any trouble, by the bye."

"Good. Be kind to them. And watch all the exits from town. Dees always have a bolthole."

"We've accounted for most of their hired guns. We get an estimate of fifty on hand. What I didn't see anywhere else seem to be here, except for maybe five or ten and the Dees."

"Helmut, be careful. They'll be worse than any cornered rats if they think the game is completely up."

Worse than cornered rats. The Dees were intelligent, terrified, conscienceless rats who went straight for the throats of those who threatened them.

They attacked through the door where Thurston stood guard, coming hard behind a barrage of rockets that slaughtered the prisoners without harming Storm's people. They came in screened by a handful of Sangaree gunmen.

Thurston killed one attacker by smashing his skull with a rocket launcher. Seth-Infinite shot Thurston point-blank, through the faceplate.

Beams stabbed around the room. People scrambled for cover. A rocket killed Albin Korando. Frog's orphan had returned home only to die.

Storm's old .45 spoke. A Sangaree died. Beside Gneaus, Helmut gasped and collapsed. Storm fired again, dropped another Sangaree. He got down and tried to drag Helmut to cover.

He was too late. Beams had punched fatal holes through Darksword's helmet and chest.

Storm crouched and, unable to do anything, watched Pollyanna try to pull Lucifer out her door. Beams found them both. Hers was a minor wound. She got off a killing shot herself before fainting from pain.

Me and Mouse, Storm thought. So it's finally here. The last battle. It's almost laughable. It's so much smaller than I thought it would be. Two of us against... How many?

He peeped cautiously around the end of the console that concealed him. Seth-Infinite, casually, was killing the last of Storm's prisoners. Getting rid of witnesses, Storm supposed. Leaving no one who could repeat the name Dee. Startled, he realized they might nuke the city if they escaped.

"Mouse... " he moaned softly. His favorite son lay on the floor before his door, his suit badly discolored along one side. He looked dead.

"Uhn... " Storm gasped. Mouse's head was turning slowly, toward Seth-Infinite. Mouse's suit had withstood the bolt. He was playing possum.

"I should've left him behind," Storm muttered. He smiled grimly.

Where was Fearchild? Storm assumed the men who had come in with the Dees were dead, killed by their employers if not during the attack. None were in evidence, and no Sangaree would have stood by while Seth-Infinite slaughtered his captured comrades.

An explosion slammed the console against him, tumbled him backward.

He had seen the grenade arcing through the air, could judge whence it had come. He seized Helmut's fallen weapon, rolled, bounced up, fired with both hands. He narrowly missed ending Fearchild's tale. Dee scrambled for better cover.

Storm's .45 roared at Seth-Infinite. He plunged back behind the console. The cabinet crackled as a lasebolt spent its energy inside.

Storm moved to his left, to get near a wall that would make flanking him difficult, and to make them turn their backs on Mouse. He fired as he went, to hold their attention.

The .45 stopped thundering, cylinder spent.

Storm reached the last cover available. He paused to catch, his breath.

Now what? They would be crafty-aggressive. They would be sure they had him. He would have to do more than stall... Was this the time for it?

He had decided there was a thing that had to be done before Michael's game could be beaten. The act would ruin all Michael's calculations, and blacken his heart with terror.

Now was the time to do it.

He was afraid.

Faceplate open, laughing at Michael's spawn, he rose and hosed lasegun fire over the area where they were hidden.

A bolt pierced his lung two centimeters from his heart. It did not hurt as much as he had anticipated. His weapon tumbled from his hand.

Fearchild and Seth-Infinite rose slowly, their faces alive with malicious pleasure.

Storm smiled at them. He croaked, "You lose, you fools!"

Mouse shot with preternatural accuracy, a single bolt stabbing through the back of each Dee skull. They did not have time to look surprised.

Storm smiled as they fell. And smiled. And smiled.

"Father?" Mouse had come to his side. The boy's hands were on his arm, urging him to sit.

"A time for reaping and a time for sowing," Storm whispered. "My season had fled, Mouse. The season of the Legion is gone. But the rivers still run to the seas... "

He coughed. Funny. It still did not hurt. "It's time for the young." He forced a broader smile.

"I'll take you to the ship, Father. I'll get you into a cradle." Mouse's cheeks were wet.

"No. Don't. This is something I have to do, Son. In my quarters in Edgeward. A letter. You'll understand. Go on now. Take command. You're the last Storm. I give you Cassius and the Legion. Complete the cycle. Close the circle."

"But... "

"Don't argue with orders, Mouse. You know better. Go help Pollyanna." Storm leaned against the console, turned his back on his son. "Don't rob me of this victory. Go on." Then, to himself, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What does a man profit?... "

Death descended on quiet, silken wings and enfolded him in gentle, peaceful arms.