Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Fifty-Six: 3032 AD

Cassius found himself a laserifle and climbed the crater ringwall.

The fighting was close, grim, and positional. Rock by rock, bunker by foxhole, his men flushed Dee's and drove them back. Man by man, they broke the Sangaree defense. The Legionnaires invested all their skill and fury. Dee nearly fought them to a standstill.

What had Michael said to make his people so damned stubborn? Cassius wondered.

"Wormdoom, this is Welterweight. I've got my hands on a prime chunk of ringwall rim real estate. Give me some big guns."

"You've got them, Welterweight."

Finally, Cassius thought. A break. He ordered all the artillery possible into the position Ceislak had seized.

The nets resounded with chatter about furious counterattacks and dwindling ammunition stocks. Cassius decided to join Ceislak. The man's position had to be held. It provided a platform from which the interior of the crater could be brought under fire.

He studied the fighting from the rim. It took time to fall into patterns. He had nothing but weapons flashes by which to judge.

"I think that last one was their last counterattack," Ceislak told him. "We're ready to finish them." Gesturing, he indicated the far rimwall. Heavy weapons flashes had begun to appear there. Legionnaires were coming over from the Shadowline side. Ceislak's bombardment had broken the stubborn defense of the ringwall.

A dwindling number of enemy weapons flashes indicated failing powerpacks and munitions supplies on the other side.

"Looks like we might manage it," someone said.

Walters turned slowly, wondering who had broken radio silence. One of a pair of figures, just joining the crowd and barely visible in the backflash of Ceislak's weapons, raised a hand in greeting.

"It's me. Masato. I said it looks like we've finally got them."

"That's Michael Dee down there," Cassius growled. "He'll still have three tricks up his sleeve. What the hell are you doing here? You're the last Storm."

"It isn't a private war," was all Mouse said by way of defending his presence.

Cassius turned back to the crater. The boy was his father's son. There would be no talking him out of staying.

A flash illuminated the face of Mouse's companion. "Damn it, Mouse! What the hell's the matter with you, bringing a girl out here?"

Pollyanna reminded him of that niece he had lost during the Ulantonid War. He felt strangely avuncular and protective. He was startled by an insight into his own ambivalent feelings toward Pollyanna. Tamra had meant a great deal to him.

The flashes on the far rim showed the Brightside troops making good headway. Michael's people seemed to be running out of ammo fast. Good. "Looks like we won't have to offer terms."

Mouse stuck with his previous contention. "She has as much right to be here as anybody. Her father... "

"Was I arguing? I've heard all about it." He caught a ghost of something in the timbre of Mouse's voice. The little slut had gotten her hooks into another Storm. "Let's stick to business. It's time to find out if Michael's ready to give up."

Michael contacted him first.

One of Cassius's officers called on Command One.. "Sir, I've got Dee on a public frequency asking to parlay with Colonel Storm. What should I do?"

"I'm on the rimwall right now. Tell him he'll be contacted as soon as possible. And don't let on about the Colonel. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

With Mouse and Pollyanna tagging along, Walters descended to his crawler. He ran through the command nets, ordering his officers to keep the pressure on hard. Several units reported the surrender of individual human, Toke, and Ulantonid soldiers.

One commander reported, "Their munitions situation is so desperate they're taking small arms ammo from their troops and saving it for Sangaree officers."

"Good old Michael," Cassius said. "Really knows how to make and keep friends."

He started to signal Dee, suddenly stopped. "I just had a nasty idea." He went across the command net again. "Wormdoom. Gentlemen. I want a radiation scan on that crater. These guys used a nuke on us once before."

In two minutes he knew. There were two radiation sources not identifiable as tractor piles. They were nowhere near any of Dee's heavy units.

"Looks like my dear old uncle was going to close the pass after he made terms with Father."

Cassius smiled. "He's in for a surprise."

"He'll be asking merc terms, won't he?" Mouse asked.

"Of course. But he's not going to get them. If I end up dealing at all. I'm going to be against the wall hard before I let Sangaree get out."

"Better get hold of him before he panics."

Cassius found the band on which Michael was waiting. "Dee?"

"Gneaus? Where the hell have you been?" Only Dee's word choices betrayed his anxiety. His voice was cheerful. "I've been waiting half an hour."

Cassius silently mouthed, "He hasn't caught on about Twilight yet. That gives us the angle on him."

"Set the hook and reel him in," Mouse suggested.

"Been out directing artillery," Cassius said into the pickup. He kept the visual off so he would not correct Dee's presumption that he was speaking with Gneaus Storm. "What you want?"

"Keep it on the edge of the band or he'll recognize your voice," Mouse whispered. Cassius nodded, made a fine adjustment.

"Terms. We're beaten. I admit it. It's time to stop the bloodshed."

Cassius controlled a snort. "What reason do I have for giving them? We're winning. We'll have you wiped out in a couple hours."

"You promised... "

"I didn't promise your people anything. They aren't covered by any of the usual conventions anyway. They're not merc. They're Sangaree hired guns."

"But... "

"If you want to talk, come to my crawler. We'll sit down face to face."

Dee crawfished. He wriggled. He squirmed. But Legionnaires now held all the heights. Their artillery made an ever more convincing argument.

"You think he'll come in?" Mouse asked.

"Yep." Cassius nodded. "He isn't finished, though. He's got a trick or two up his sleeve yet. Besides the bombs. If he wants to have any men left to help pull whatever it is off, he's got to get them out. He'll come trotting over like a bad little boy expecting to get his hand slapped."

"I'm going to call Blake." Mouse cleared another channel, spoke with the city. "Cassius, he did it. City of Night and Darkside Landing are sending crawlers."

Cassius felt a century younger, knowing there was a chance.

"What about those nuclears?"

"I've got a plan. Stand back and be quiet. I'm going to call him again. Michael? You coming over here or not?"

"All right. But you make sure nobody shoots me on the way."

"You're clear. I'll leave the carrier on as a homer." Walters gave orders for one crawler to be allowed to leave the crater.

"Better watch him close," Mouse said. "He could have those bombs rigged to blow on signal. He won't give a damn if he loses his army."

"Maybe not. But he'll parlay first. Now listen close. Here's what I want. You two just be hanging around here when he comes in. I'll be back in the next section. You cover him and make him get out of his suit. Make him get out of everything, just in case. You don't know what he might be carrying."

Which was exactly what Mouse and Pollyanna did while Walters watched through the cracked door to the slave section. Stripping with a great show of wounded dignity, Dee kept demanding, "Where's your father?"

Michael had grown gaunt during his sojourn on Blackworld. He had spent so long in-suit that he was emaciated and pale. He shook noticeably. His nerves seemed to have been stretched to their limits.

Cassius watched, and searched his soul. He could find no sympathy for Michael Dee. Dee had made this bed of thorns himself.

He stepped into the command cabin. "Michael, you've got one chance to live out the day."

"Cassius!" Dee was startled and frightened. "How the hell did you get over here? You're supposed to be in the Shadowline." He whirled to face Mouse. "And you're supposed to be at the Fortress. What's going on? Where's your father?"

"Tell us about the nuclears you've got planted up there," Cassius suggested. "And I might give you your life."

And immediately Walters found himself fighting an intense desire to kill Dee. Wulf. Helmut. Gneaus. All the others who had died because of this fool... But Storm's ghost whispered to him of his duty to his men, to the thousands still trapped in the Shadowline.

He did not often run on his own emotions. He almost always ran on the feelings and ideals of his dead commander. His own inclination, at that instant, was to let the bombs blow and send the Legion off in one huge, dramatic stroke. It would be like the ancients sending their dead out to sea in a burning ship.

He had very little purpose left in life, he thought. Since leaving the Shadowline he had not looked ahead, beyond surviving long enough to exact revenge. He was no longer a man with tomorrows.

"Tell me about those bombs, Michael. Or I'll kill you now, here."

"You can't." Sly smile. "Gneaus wouldn't permit it."

"Oh, my poor foolish friend," Cassius said, wearing his cruelest, most self-satisfied smile. "Have I got news for you. Gneaus Julius Storm died leading a successful assault on Twilight Town. You and yours are all mine now."

Dee became more aguey and pallid. "No! You're lying."

"Sorry, boy. He died at Twilight, along with Helmut, Thurston, Lucifer, and your wife and sons." Metallic chuckle. "It was a classic bloodletting. And now you've got no exits."

Dee fainted.

"The circle closes, Michael," Cassius said when Dee recovered. "The cycle completes itself. The last revenges are in the wind. Then it begins anew." Wearily, Cassius drew the back of his handless wrist across his forehead. "Those were some of your brother's last thoughts."

Mouse picked it up. "A revenge raid on Prefactlas to even scores with the Sangaree, and from the ruins a survivor returned like a phoenix to exact a revenge of his own. Now Cassius is the only survivor of the Prefactlas raiders. And of Deeth's people there's only you."

The word had come, while Michael was unconscious, that Navy had caught up with the remnants of the fleet that had attacked the Fortress. No quarter had been given. None ever was.

Though there was no physical proof, Cassius wanted to believe that the Sangaree Deeth had died there. But there was no justice in this universe. His hope might prove mere wishful thinking.

"You and me, Michael," Cassius said. He laid a gentle hand on Mouse's shoulder. "Then it begins anew, with Gneaus's phoenix."

He was sad for Mouse. The boy was filled with hatred for his father's killers. He had done some tall and frightful promising during Michael's unconsciousness. "Mouse, I wish you wouldn't. I wish you'd just let it be," he said.

A stubborn, angry expression fixed itself on Mouse's face. He shook his head.

"Michael? About the bombs?"