Their Master's War

Fourteen

"I hope you know what you're doing, Rance. There's chaos going down all over. If this ain't on the up and up, we could all be shot out of hand. There's headhunters all over the embarkation sites," the gunsaucer pilot said.

"Field police always show up when the fighting's over."

"That's as may be, but they still have weapons and the authority to carry out summary executions."

"I told you when we took off. I'm going to the nearest embarkation point to smooth the evacuation of my combat group."

"You're only a topman, Rance. You really think you've got that kind of clout?" "We'll find out, won't we?" "I guess we will."

"All I know is that I'm not going to be stranded on this ball of mud."

"And what about these other guys? How do we explain them?"

"They're my best longtimers. I need them with me." The gunsaucer pilot shook his head. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"So do I."

The big trap had been sprung. Word had come through the command channel immediately after the tunnel clearing had been completed. What everyone on JD4-1A had feared all through the long and grinding campaign was now coming to pass. The Yal were returning in force. Five huge enemy battleships had appeared out of jumpspace and were heading for the planet. They would be in operational range within a matter of planetary days. The Anah cluster, which had been majestically orbiting the planet for so long, was already powering up to jump for safety. It would be touch and go as to whether the now heavily outgunned complex of ships could get clear in time. On the ground, there was a sense of scarcely controlled panic. Those who were able to make it to the cluster in time would be safe, but there would be no waiting around. The ones who couldn't be evacuated would simply be left behind. Nobody knew what the Yal would do with a whole army of prisoners, but there were few who didn't fear the worst.

Rance had acted immediately. While everyone else was still in the grip of the initial shock and confusion, he had gathered Dry kin, Renchett, Dacker, and Hark around him.

"I don't intend to be left here for the Yal."

The longtimers had been a little surprised that the topman was putting self-preservation over duty. In a situation like this, they would have expected him to be one of the last into the lifeboat, not the first. He must have sensed what they were feeling.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm going to get out as many men as I can, but I'm also getting myself out if I possibly can.

The four longtimers looked at each other. "So where do we figure in all this?" Dyrkin said finally.

"Fin taking you with me."

"I ain't going to argue with that. What do we have to do?"

"Hill 4078 is being set up as an embarkation point."

"Where's that?"

"About two hundred klicks to the north." "What are we supposed to do, walk there?" "We're going to commandeer a gunsaucer." "We're what?" "I'm calling in all my favors." Dyrkin scratched the back of his neck. "Can I ask you a personal question?" "Why am I doing this?" "That's the one."

"Because a lot of good men are going to be left stranded on this forsaken planet, and there's nothing I can do about it. That's it. I'm damned if I'm going to be one of them. Besides, most of the people I feel I owe my loyalty to have been killed."

"It finally got to you."

"It finally got to me."

Renchett had grinned wolfishly. "So let's get ourselves a saucer and get the hell out of here."

Calling down the saucer was a simple matter of putting a request through the command channel. Convincing the pilot, a hard-eyed individual called Maso, had been a little more difficult. It had taken fifteen minutes of hard talking by Rance and a considerable trading of obligations before Maso finally agreed to fly them out.

"Just so long as me and my crew go out on the same e-vac as you," he said.

"What about the saucer?"

"Forget the saucer. There's going to be a hell of a lot of material left behind before this scramble's over."

Beneath them, Hill 4078 came into sight. Its cleared top stuck out of the surrounding fungus jungle like a bald head. On one side, sappers were still burning off the vegetation. Clouds of black smoke rolled into the air and were driven away from the site by a brisk wind. A number of e-vacs were already on the ground.

"I bet the bastard officers are getting away first."

Warning lights started flashing on the saucer's control panel.

"We're running into ground fire!"

Maso glanced swiftly at Rance. "You didn't tell me that we'd hit enemy fire."

Rance's expression was bleak. "What did you expect? The Yal are going to use every last chiba on this rock to slow us up."

Pulses of green energy arced lazily up from the fungus. Crew and passengers were pushed down into their couches as the saucer accelerated and banked steeply.

"I'm turning back."

"Back to what? There's going to be enemy around any place that e-vacs are jumping off." "Dear God!"

The craft rocked and rolled as an energy pulse burst beside them. Maso's fingers danced over the control keys. The saucer lifted vertically.

"I'll try and get above the flak."

There were two more explosions, but neither was as close as the first.

"Body gunners stand by for manual override."

"Check."

"When we're over the hill, I'm going to drop fast. I want blanket fire on the surrounding jungle. Anything to make those Yal gunners keep their heads down."

"Check."

"Comm here, chief. I'm getting a demand for identification from traffic control on the hill."

Rance spoke into his communicator. "Tell them we got an A-thirty priority clearance." "But we don't."

"If it's as much of a mess up down there as we think it is, they ain't going to know. Try and sound like an officer."

"Okay, I hope you're right."

A few seconds later, the comm operator came back on. "They seem to have bought the story. We're cleared to land."

"Dropping on my mark."

The ship fell like a stone, decelerating only at the last, bone-wrenching moment. Halfway down, the guns opened up with a shuddering roar.

"Torquing up here, Chief."

"Don't worry about it, I don't intend to take this thing off again."

The saucer hovered as its landing legs extended, and then it touched down. The passengers and crew unstrapped and stood up. Rance looked all around the cabin.

"If we run into a problem, let me do the talking."

The port opened. The saucer had set down some distance from where an e-vac was running its drive prior to a fast lift. The e-vacs, too, were drawing fire on the way in and out. The squat ugly ship was vibrating hard enough to pop its seams, and the noise was deafening. When it finally rose into the air, it went up screaming like a banshee, cramming on every last measure of speed. The backwash produced an instant dust storm all across the embarkation area. The men leaned into the hot wind as they climbed out of the port. The sound of the climbing ship died away, to be replaced by yelling in their helmets.

"Get down! Incoming! You by the saucer, get under cover."

Rance looked quickly around. There were some half- 1 finished slit trenches on their left. The digging equipment I seemed to have been abandoned by its crew.

"Run!"

They sprinted and dived. Orange fireballs streamed] from the jungle below them in a lazy curve that ended in] a tight group of explosions. A ground transport blew up. | Pieces of metal pattered down around the crouching J men.

"I've had better welcomes." "No shit."

"This is a place to get out of."

The firing ceased. There were three other figures also I sheltering in the trench. The trio were all sappers. They] had to be the digging crew, and they were probably the I ones who had shouted the warning. Rance called out to j them.

"Is that the end of it?"

"Stay down. There's likely to be a second burst. They mostly dust us off after a ship gets away. The bastards usually do us a second time to see if they can catch us I creeping out of our holes."

In absolute confirmation of the sapper's words, a sec- j ond burst of fire hit the area. Again it stopped. The sappers left it a couple more minutes before they raised their j heads.

"Looks like they've given it a rest." "How long have they been out there?" "They started last night." "Have they been hitting the perimeter?" "Not yet. So far they've just set up a couple of firing j positions."

"Who's in command here?"

"There ain't nobody in command. The officers are all 1 too busy getting their ass off planet. The closest thing is j the field police who are going around shooting everyone they don't like the look of."

"So where do I go to hook up with my ship's e-vacs?"

"You could try the traffic control dome. That's the big one over in the center. I doubt you'll get too far, though. We heard that they had just two standards to get everyone off this rock."

"Two standards? Is that all?"

"That's when the cluster's supposed to jump."

There was less time than even Rance had imagined. The sappers were climbing out of the trench and remounting the digger.

"Keep your heads down. And watch out for the head-hunters."

Rance turned to the troopers and the saucer crew. "You all heard that. We're going to go to this dome and see if we can bullshit a line to our own battle e-vacs."

Dyrkin and the others climbed out of the trench. The saucer crew seemed unwilling to leave its shelter. Maso was about to say something, but Rance cut him off.

"Did you think it was going to be easy?"

"We're going to get ourselves killed here."

"So what else is new?"

"You conned me, Rance."

Rance turned to go. "Take it or leave it. It doesn't matter to me. Now you've got us here, we ain't going to sweat it if you don't go the rest of the distance."

He started walking away. The troopers fell into step behind him. The saucer crew reluctantly followed. In the open spaces, people moved very fast. They tended to congregate in areas of cover. Most seemed to have little to do but wait. At regular intervals, a steamer would drop into the area. Their detonations had producted an acne of craters between ten and fifteen meters across. There was a burned-out digger beside where two craters overlapped. It appeared to have been bulldozing the first crater flat when the second missile hit. The field police, identifiable by the gray tabards that they wore over their suits and the starbursts on their helmets, prowled in groups of five or six. They were constantly stopping and questioning individuals. Rance and his party moved from one piece of cover to the next, doing their best to avoid them in a way that didn't appear furtive. While they were taking a breather in the shadow of a crawler, they saw their first execution. Seven men, naked except for their facemasks and placards that hung around their necks and proclaimed them to be deserters, were forced to their knees around the rim of a crater. The head-hunters stood behind them and burned each man in the back of his head. The bodies toppled forward into the crater, and a digger moved up to fill it in.

"Deserter seems to be the key word."

"We better make sure that we don't qualify."

Dacker opened his mask and spit. "Lucky we got our topman with us."

They reached the dome without drawing the attention of the police. The pressure lock was guarded by two troopers. Rance saw this as definite good luck. Troopers he could handle.

"Topman Rance. I'm here to collect my orders."

The guards treated him to a look of battle-tired irony. "You ain't going to find out no orders in there."

"I've got to give it my best shot."

"Suit yourself." The guard nodded toward the others. "Just you, though; the rest got to stay outside."

Within, Rance found the expected chaos. Riggers were still working on the main status board, and nothing was netted. Some equipment was functioning, but some still had to be unpacked. As far as he could see, there was some communication with the cluster and with the various main units down on the planet. Controllers were monitoring incoming flights, but nothing was coordi- nated. Unless they quickly got into the brain net, the evacuation would turn into a locked backup and nobody would get off JD4-1A. An overman in dress tans held down a first-line information desk just inside the entrance. He looked too young to be a combat noncom; he was probably some rear-echelon jerkoff. He regarded Rance with an expression of resigned boredom. "You want something?"

Rance pulled off his mask. "I want to get on an open line to my ship's e-vacs."

"You and everyone else. You got authority?"

Rance lied without hesitation. "I got my orders over the command channel. I was to pull out and get here as fast as possible to bring my e-vacs down."

The overman half smiled. "Your e-vacs?"

"My e-vacs."

"Who gave you these orders?"

"How the hell should I know? I was in the middle of a firelight at the timer"

"I'm afraid that won't be good enough. Without tangible authority from an officer, you ain't going to get out of here at all."

"So check on my orders."

"Check?"

"Get on to the Ten River task force and confirm my orders."

"You're out of your fucking mind."

Rance placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. "Watch your mouth, sonny."

The overman wasn't intimidated. "For a start, nobody's getting anything confirmed right now. And if that ain't enough of a problem, we ain't heard from the Ten River task force in over a hundred minutes. For all we know, there may not be a Ten River task force. The enemy are popping up all over. They must have been waiting for this."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Hope the field police don't take a dislike to your face."

Rance took a deep breath. "Let's look at this another way. How many officers are there in this area?"

"There may be a couple of parties waiting for a ship, but most of them have lifted out."

"So there may be no officers at all in the area?"

"No functioning officers, that's for sure."

"And we're virtually cut off by the enemy except in the air?"

"Whatever you're thinking about, forget it. You won't get out of here without authority."

"Are there any other topmen here?"

The overman sighed and jerked his thumb toward the other side of the dome. "Yeah, there's a bunch of them over there making a nuisance of themselves."

"Just like me?"

"You said it."

"Is anybody going to stop me going over there?"

The overman shrugged. "Not me."

Rance walked past the desk. A group of five topmen were gathered around a communication console, arguing with the operator. From their expressions, they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Rance recognized two of them. There was Benset from the Anah 5 and Kalgol from the Anah 2. They both turned as Rance approached the group.

"Hey, Rance, what's going on?"

"Just trying to get myself off this forsaken planet. Everyone I talk to seems to be a complete asshole."

"So what else is new?"

"I don't intend to get stuck on this rock."

"The Yal are going to slaughter everyone who's left behind, and that's a fact."

"There's going to be plenty left behind, too."

"I take it that none of you have any kind of authorization?"

"There ain't no authorization." "You got any ideas?"

Rance lifted off his helmet and ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair. "It seems to me that since the officers have all run, we should be technically in command here."

"Chain of command, right?"

"Right."

Benset rubbed his chin. He hadn't shaved in days. "The field police may not see it that way."

"They've pretty much taken over this evacuation," Kalgol added.

"Bastards."

"Maybe we should go talk to their commandant."

"We could just get ourselves shot."

"What other choice do we have?"

Kalgol looked at Rance. "You got any men with you?"

"Four of my longtimers. They wouldn't let them in here. I've also got the crew of the saucer we rode in on."

"Saucer crews ain't worth spit on the ground."

"I got some old boys outside dodging the head-hunters," another topman said.

It turned out that all but one of the topmen had each brought a handful of men with them.

"If push came to shove, we could take an e-vac by force."

"You got a point there."

A topman with Anah 7 patches looked thoughtful. "I think we should talk to the head cop first. Between us, we've got enough muscle to stop them screwing with us."

Benset nodded. "So what are we waiting for?" The group of topmen replaced their masks and helmets and headed for the dome's pressure lock. Outside, they discovered Dyrkin, Renchett, Dacker, and Hark standing guard along with the two original troopers. There was no sign of the saucer crew. "What's going on here?"

Renchett looked mock rueful. "We lost the flyboys."

"How?"

"The headhunters came calling."

"And?"

"We told them that we'd been assigned here. These guys-" He pointed to the original troopers. "-didn't say anything to contradict us. The flyboys weren't as fast on their feet, so the headhunters took them away. They were muttering something about desertion."

"And you didn't do anything to help them?"

"What could we do? We'd come up with a plausible story. It wasn't our fault that they couldn't."

One of the topmen grunted. "I said that saucer crews weren't worth spit on the ground."

The other topmen started gathering up the men they'd brought with them. Dyrkin and Renchett looked ques-tioningly at Rance.

"What's going on?" Renchett asked.

"We're going to see the field police commandant."

Dacker scowled. "From where I'm standing, that sounds like a bloody silly idea. We just had a run-in with those pigs."

"We've got to start taking control around here."

The other troopers started joining the group by the dome. All had the battered equipment and closed faces that were the hallmarks of the hardened longtimer. They gathered silently; there was little unnecessary conversation. When everyone had emerged from shelter, there were eighteen in all. Benset nodded grimly.

"This should be enough to make an impression. You want to tell them, Rance? It was your idea."

Rance nodded.

"Okay, listen up," he said. "The object of the exercise is to get off this planet and back to the ship while we still can. What seems to be stopping us at the moment is that the headhunters are in practical control of the field. Our objective is to take that control for ourselves. Or at least enough of it to get us all onto an e-vac and off planet. You follow me so far?"

There were a number of reluctant nods. Nobody looked happy.

"The central police post is in a bunker across the area, due north. We've got the firepower of almost a full twenty and the experience of a whole combat group between us, and we have to demonstrate that no one can push us around. We'll go to the police bunker in force. When we get there, we'll give their commandant one chance to cooperate. After that, we start leaning. We are going to get off this planet, and nobody is going to stop us. You understand me? Nobody. If we have to, we'll use any force necessary. If we are forced to fire, we won't hesitate. A lot of men are going to be left behind for the Yal, and we are not going to be among them."

Though the men weren't exactly standing tall, tired but fatal belligerence had taken hold of them. They knew that they were an elite, and they were tired of being messed around. Rance wished that he were as confident as he sounded. There were enough headhunters crawling around the area to be a real problem.

They started across the area in a tight skirmish formation. Men actually came out of cover to look at them. Field police groups followed them at a distance, but none approached. Rance glanced across the cleared hilltop. There were storm clouds gathering in the east. There would be rain soon. The spectators ducked as a streamer exploded on the other side of the field. The troopers went right on walking.

The police bunker was almost completely under- ground. There was just a low hump where a buried dome had been covered with banked and fused earth. It was the standard practice for quickly creating a protected command center. The police commandant had taken much more care with his lair than anyone had with the actual evacuation center. Four armed guards stood at the top of the steps that led down into the bunker. They stiffened as the troopers approached but seemed unsure of how to respond. They were heavily outnumbered even though more of their kind were within shouting distance.

Rance continued to assume command.

"You troopers fan out and cover our backs; we don't want any of those cop units coming over here and interfering. Topmen, we'll go talk to the guards."

The troopers walked slowly backward, their guns pointed at the following police. The topmen marched directly up to the four bunker guards.

"Step aside, we're going in."

The center guard, the tallest of the four, shook his head. "I can't allow that. I have orders not to admit anyone but police personel."

Rance pushed his face very close to the guard's and stared into his visor.

"And I'm countermanding those orders. Do you know who I am, boy?"

"No, Topman, I don't know who you are."

"I'm your new commander, boy. Now that there are no officers left, we topmen are in charge."

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Rance roared in the man's face.

"I…" The guard faltered.

Rance gestured to the other topmen. "Disarm them." The guards hesitated for a fraction too long before they raised their weapons. That was more than enough for the topmen. They had the MEWs out of the head-hunters' hands in one smooth, concerted movement. Rance peered down the stairs.

"Kalgol, take ten men and secure this entrance. I don't want anyone getting in here."

"Check."

"The rest of you follow me inside. It'll be a classic bunker clearing. They've probably seen us coming, but I doubt they'll expect a frontal assault. Benset and Dyrkin, I want you both up here beside me. I'm taking the point."

Instantly they were a team. They exchanged glances and plunged down the stairs. They went into the bunker fast, peeling off in twos into each room and passage. The men inside were calmly going about their routine duties. Most were in shirtsleeves, totally unprepared for being suddenly engulfed by armored troopers who wouldn't take no for an answer. It was hot in the bunker; there had been no time to install a cooling system. Six head-hunters, clad only in their underwear, were actually hustled from their beds and lined up against the wall with their hands above their heads. The only token resistance came in the main control room when a subkapo tried to draw his sidearm. An MEW was thrust into his face before he could clear the weapon from its holster.

"Shall we all relax?"

Rance looked slowly around at the faces of the occupants. Most of the field police in the nerve center were bunched around the central plot dais. None of them seemed inclined to make trouble. He spoke into his communicator.

"Area secure. How are things on top, Kalgol?"

"Everything's quiet. The headhunters are keeping their distance. It looks like it's going to start to rain any minute."

"Just hang in there."

The field police commandant pushed his way to the front of the knot of men by the plot dais. He was a portly individual clearly not recently accustomed to action. His head was shaved, and a livid scar ran down his right cheek. A tag on his tabard stated that his name was Mai-tov.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.

"I'm Topman Rance from the Anah 5. I am one of a group of topmen who have assumed command of this e-vac area."

"On what authority?"

Rance was getting tired of telling the story.

"Simple chain of command. We're now the senior combat noncoms on this base and therefore in command. We have come here to see if we can count on your cooperation."

"You know damned well that in any withdrawal situation, the field police have jurisdiction. What you're doing is little more than armed insurrection."

"The most important thing is that we don't like the way this operation is being conducted." He motioned to the armed men behind him. "We do have the upper hand right now."

"I suppose you want to get e-vaced out."

"Not only that, but we also want to see the evacuation speeded up. We want to get off as many experienced fighting men as we can."

"Then you'd be better off guarding the perimeter. The enemy are bound to stage an attack before too long. Why don't you get out of here and let me get on with my job? Nothing's happened here yet that can't be forgotten."

"I could simply shoot all of you out of hand."

"You'd probably live to regret that."

"You seem to have grown fat on it."

"Suppose we could reach a compromise?"

"Keep talking."

"You might be surprised to learn that my job here is to slow down the withdrawal."

"What are you talking about?"

"You must realize that most of the ground troops on this planet have been written off. There simply aren't enough ships to take off even a fraction of the forces committed here before the cluster jumps."

"We already figured that out for ourselves."

Maltov looked at Rance coldly but carried on. "As more and more units come in here looking for a way out, this area and the others like it will turn into a bloody nightmare with men fighting each other for places onihe last ships out. I have to hold off that degeneration for as long as possible."

"By mass executions?"

"Terror is a most effective method. The rank and file might as well stay more afraid of my men than they are of the Yal for as long as possible."

Rance didn't like the way he used the term "rank and file." "So what's the compromise?"

"That I let you onto one of the next e-vacs out, you topmen and the longtimers that you brought with you. In return, you let me run things my way."

Rance had known that it would probably come to this kind of deal.

"We need to get out as many of our experienced men as we can."

"You already brought your longtimers. They're the ones you need. They'll be the foundations on which you'll build your new battle groups."

This last remark caused Hark to start paying attention. He'd been one of the men who had followed Rance and Dyrkin into the control room, but up to that point he'd been standing in the background, not altogether grasping what was going on. After Maltov's remark about foundations, it had all fallen into place. Rance's abrupt departure from the battlefield and the fact that he'd taken the four of them with him hadn't been a matter of either self-preservation or mutual respect. He hadn't been bucking the Therem. Quite the reverse, he'd been acting exactly according to his programming. He was getting out his best men. After the Therem had gar-baged one army, these survivors would be the seeds from which a new one would be created. If Hark was angry at anyone, it was at himself for believing that anything could happen at random. Everything was planned.

Rance and Maltov were still in confrontation. Despite the armed men all around him, Maltov seemed to be getting the edge.

"So, do we have our compromise?"

Rance slowly nodded. It was probably the best deal that he'd get. The longtimers would certainly hate him for selling out the bulk of the men, but they'd have to share the guilt. They were getting out, too-if Maltov didn't double-cross all of them. /

"Yeah. It's a deal. When do we get an e-vac?"

"We'll go to the command dome and find out."

"Together?"

Maltov reached for his helmet. "Right.'4

Outside, Kalgol and the ten troopers were still holding the entrance to the bunker. A heavy tropical rain was falling, and the men were up to their knees in a mist of spray. Water was streaming from their suits. The hilltop landing area was rapidly turning into a desolate sea of mud.

"This ain't going to help matters any."

There was a brief conference between Rance and the other topmen, and then the whole party of troopers, plus Maltov and an escort of six field police, set off for the command dome. As they splashed their way through the mud, Rance kept everyone bunched up. If they were close to the commandant, they were probably safe from a sneak attack by the headhunters.

They were almost exactly halfway between the bunker and the dome when the alarms went off.

"Enemy in the wire, third quadrant!"

The command channel suddenly came alive with voices.

"They're throwing everything at this one point! We can't hold them; we're spread too thin." "What is it? Chibas?"

"I can't take no more! I can't take no more!" "Cut that out!"

"There's men in among them!" "It must be some of our boys making a break for it!" "They're in gray camouflage armor, and they're firing at us."

"What the hell is going on over there?"

"There's men! Men fighting with the enemy!"

There was the sound of an explosion, and the shouting stopped. The troopers had halted. Rance was looking at Maltov.

"I suppose you expect us to go charging over there and plug the hole."

"If we're overrun, nobody will get off."

"Are you sending in your men?"

Maltov spoke into his communicator. "All available men! Go immediately to hold that breach in the third quadrant perimeter!"

He actually smiled at Rance. "Your move."

"You're right, goddamm it!"

Rance turned and faced the men. "Okay, you heard it. Let's shag it! Let's secure their forsaken perimeter for them. I want to see these men that have gone over to the enemy."

There was a good deal of cursing, but no one disobeyed the order.

"Come on! At the double! Fan out and don't bunch up. You all know the routine."

The men struggled through the quagmire, heading for the smoke and steam that were already billowing up from the firelight on the perimeter. They came under sporadic fire but kept on going. A man was hit and went down. Rance was glad that it wasn't one of his. He didn't want to lose any of his longtimers in these last minutes.

"They're hitting on a very narrow front. Maybe there ain't too many of them!"

"Don't count on it."

Rance didn't push his men too hard. There were a number of other squads converging on the same point. He didn't see why they should be the first to get there. The odds were that the first to arrive would be slaughtered.

"Easy now! Don't get crazy."

There were figures coming toward them out of the rain. Visibility was so poor that it was hard to make out exactly who or what they were, but they seemed roughly human in shape. Then they started firing. The flashes were those of Yal weapons. So these were the renegades. Another man went down. It was Dacker. Rance cursed. The troopers were returning fire. The human figures were halted in their tracks. One by one, they were cut down. At least Rance had the satisfaction of knowing that his longtimers were better than whatever these things were. A voice from the wire came over their communicators.

"They're pulling back! The chibas are pulling back!"

Just then the rain stopped. The troopers walked slowly forward. The mud sucked at their feet and ankles, and moisture hung like a hot shroud. Rance stopped beside Dacker. The trooper was quite dead. Half his chest was missing, and his suit was slowly curling away from his lifeless flesh. As Rance watched, the suit stopped moving. It, too, had died. There were bodies all over, but everyone was making for the ones in the now mangled, fungus-gray armor. Everyone wanted to know who they were. Men bent over and pulled helmets from these strange corpses.

Renchett was the first of the squad to reach a body. "Hey, Rance, get a load of this."

They were not renegades. There were marked differences between the men who fought for the Therem and these creatures. Their skins were close to orange, and their eyes had a strange slitted configuration. Either they used some sort of depilatory or they had never grown hair on their heads. They were obviously human, but equally obviously they were a different race.

"Where the hell did they come from?"

"The Yal must have bred them."

"Yeah, but why?"

"Why do the Therem use us?"

Renchett was silently shaking his head. "Maybe they captured one of the home worlds and used its inhabitants."

"Surely they'd look more like us." Hark had a thought. "Maybe the Yal took them from the Earth when they were first forced to leave it." "The Earth?"

"The original world. Our original world."

Rance walked slowly over to where Hark was standing. "What do you know about the Earth?"

Hark gave a slight shrug. "A woman told me."

"You shouldn't believe everything women tell you."

It was the worn-out topman response, and the moment Rance had said it, he felt a little stupid.

Hark just looked away. "I believe this."

Renchett was bending over one of the bodies. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"It was probably these assholes that skinned those corpses back in the jungle."

Renchett had his knife out. He was about to carve off an ear. Rance stopped him.

"There'll be no more mutilation."

Hark was still deep in thought.

"You all know what else this means," he said slowly. "It means that we've started fighting our own kind. There are men on both sides in this damned war. Men are fighting each other for aliens that most of them will never even see."

"It sucks."

Hark was suddenly deeply angry. "Goddamn right it sucks. It makes it all totally meaningless."

The thought was still sinking in when the sky was lit by a blinding flash on the horizon.

"Nuke!"

"They don't have no nukes left!" "That's a fucking nuke."

They all threw themselves flat. The fireball was climbing into the air like a fast-rising sun.

"They must have had some stashed."

"Maybe the men were stashed, too."

"That was probably another e-vac area."

A voice from the command dome came into their helmets. "It was in the right direction for the Fourteen River base, the one that the dynes were shipping out from."

"How soon will the shock wave hit?"

The minutes passed agonizingly as the base waited for the shock. When it arrived, it came with the force of multiple hurricanes. Eddies of debris, dust, and smoke sped across the cleared ground like twisters. Men clung to the earth as the wind threatened to lift them clear off the hilltop. The shriek of static in their helmets threatened to deafen them. The ones who had remained on their feet either were whirled into the air or rolled through the mud. A gunsaucer was turned over, and panels were torn from the control dome. There was panic inside as the pressurization was lost and the men grabbed for their masks. The fury passed as swiftly as it had come, leaving behind a strange battered calm. The white mushroom cloud stood on the horizon like a terrible epitaph to the whole doomed, fruitless campaign. Nuclear weapons, although crude and ancient, were still viewed with fear and awe. Their destructiveness was so all-encompassing that their use remained a matter of desperate last resort. Touching off what amounted to a small sun on the surface of a planet was a frightening gamble.

Men readied their weapons, fully expecting an enemy ground attack. When none came, there was a distinct feeling of unease. It wasn't like the Yal to pass up any opportunity.

"If they can nuke that base, they can nuke this one."

An e-vac came down with is retros screaming. It looked as if it, too, had taken a beating from the nuclear shock wave. As soon as its landing legs touched, Rance sprang to his feet.

"Everybody up! Let's go! We're getting on that crate, and nobody's going to stop us."