Return To Kaldak

The lifters were now circling the guardhouse, as if they were asking permission to land. Detcharn was about to go inside and Sky-Voice to whatever fool of a guard commander couldn't make up his mind, when two of the lifters landed in a cloud of dust. The third stopped circling and came toward the cliff and the laboratories.

The raiders circled five times around the main guardhouse while Blade studied it to make sure there weren't any new weapons in place. All he saw was the same two lasers he'd seen while he was a prisoner.

Time to land. As Blade's two lifters settled down, Sparra's passed overhead on its way to the cliff. The men in it would blow up the heavy weapons on top of the cliff, then keep any armed Seekers or guards in the laboratories from crashing the party at the base.

The dust settled. Blade opened the door and climbed out. He wore the uniform of a Doimari rank which worked out to full colonel, so the guards at the door snapped to attention.

«Good morning, sir.»

«Good morning. Call your commander. My men and I want breakfast and hot showers.»

«Ah-yes, sir. Our own people are eating now, but-«

«We've been on patrol all night. Yours have spent all night in bed. Move!»

The guards decided this was the wrong time to argue. «Who shall we say is calling, sir?»

Blade took a deep breath.

«Moshra!»

Then he drew his laser and shot both men through the head.

Blade's shout of his battle cry and the shots were the signal to the other raiders. The turret-mounted laser on top of one lifter opened fire, knocking out one of the guardhouse weapons at once. Led by Ezarn and Ikhnan, forty Tribesmen in Doimari uniforms swarmed out of both lifters.

Blade threw a grenade at the guardhouse door. It buckled the metal, but flying fragments sang past his ears. Careful he told himself. With vengeance for Moshra so close at hand, it would be fatally easy to get careless.

Ezarn tossed two grenades up on the roof of the guardhouse. They blew the barrel off the second laser and most of its crew off the roof. Not all of them came down in one piece.

Then suddenly the grenade-buckled main door crashed open, and the guards came swarming out. Some of them had their guns in their hands, but others were unarmed. Some were partly clothed or even entirely naked. Even the armed ones didn't shoot at Blade. He fired a couple shots, then had to jump back to avoid being trampled into the concrete. The guards seemed blind with panic.

Then the Tribesmen and the heavy laser opened up together. The Tribal marksmen took the guards in front, and the heavy laser took the ones in the rear. Blade had to duck to avoid being shot down with the guards. His hands over his ears could shut out their screams, but he couldn't shut out the smell of burning flesh and fresh blood.

When he got up, the last few surviving guards were scattering frantically, with the best marksmen among the raiders shooting at them. In front of the door was a waist-high pile of charred and mangled corpses. Blade walked toward the pile, although the stench was strong enough to turn even his iron stomach. Something besides the raiders had thrown the guards into a mindless panic. He had to find out what it was and if it was dangerous to his men, even if he had to plow through the sickening pile of dead.

He didn't have to go that far. Through the open door he saw a pile of shiny steel cylinders, half-covered with tarpaulins. On the cylinders he saw the familiar red coding for the fever germs. If his grenade had exploded inside instead of against the doors, and breached any of the cylinders so that concentrated culture of fever germs sprayed out under pressure. .

He backed away so hastily that he ran into Ezarn. The big man's face turned grim as Blade explained. «No wonder they all came out from there like it was a fire up their arses,» he said. «I would've been out front of all of them!»

Now that the guards were gone, however, the guardhouse made an ideal command post. With the fever culture inside, nobody would dare shoot at it. Or if they did, it would be a sign they were so desperate that the raiders were doomed anyway.

One of the lifters took off, to drop the explosives made up into bombs into the missile silos. The Tribesmen unloaded the demolition charges from the other, then Blade flew it up on to the roof. From there he could cover the Tribesmen with the turret laser, while they placed the demolition charges by the fuel dump. Blade and five Tribesmen stayed on the roof to defend the lifters.

As Ikhnan and the demolition team scurried toward the bulging mounds of the fuel tanks, Blade forced himself to appear completely calm. So far the raid was going much better than he'd expected, but he had the feeling this was the calm before the storm.

He looked up at the top of the cliff, in time to see the first of the weapons mounted there explode.

Detcharn had just stepped out on the balcony again when the explosion went off overhead. He knew it was futile to curse, but did so anyway. It was impossible for him to stand here in silence, even if he couldn't give any orders.

Whoever was leading the raid knew the base much too well. Some traitor of a Seeker, or-and his breath stopped-Voros? Had Voros died in that accident?

If he hadn't, and it was him leading the Tribesmen and Kaldakans, that explained why the raiders were hitting the vital points. They had destroyed the operating equipment of both elevators in the laboratory complex, so nobody could get up to drive them off. And they'd smashed the Sky Voices, so Detcharn couldn't even give orders to the guards elsewhere who could move.

But-were the other guards still able to fight? Detcharn leaned over the railing and stared at the distant guardhouse. There wasn't nearly as much movement there as he would have expected, and a couple of lifters on the roof which shouldn't be there, and some smoke-

He'd have to get to the emergency stairs and down on the ground. Once there he could find someone who'd obey orders, and start fighting back. Here he was as useless as a kitten, while his people and his dream were being smashed.

Suddenly white smoke began gushing from the rocket tubes. Detcharn screamed incoherently. They were blowing up the rockets! Another explosion from overhead slammed him hard against the railing.

Something struck him hard from behind. His head and chest went clear over the railing. He clawed frantically at empty air, and only succeeded in destroying what was left of his balance. For a moment he hung upside down, his toes hooked over the railing. The moment was long enough for him to see Arsha standing there, naked but with a triumphant grin on her face.

Then as he reached for her ankles, she smashed her fists down on Detcharn's feet. His last hold on the railing broke, and he plummeted down into space. He had enough time to scream out one last desperate denial that this could be happening to him, before he struck the outward slope of the cliff. Then only a senseless, bloody doll was left to finish its three-hundred foot fall.

Shangbari was enjoying himself. After all, what better game for a great hunter than Doimari? There was both honor and vengeance in killing them-more honor, because of the vengeance.

He still did not let himself get so busy killing that he forgot to count the explosions that his men set off. Voros had said plainly, «All the fire-beams on the top of the cliff must die. Otherwise they will destroy our sky-machines. Then we will not be able to fly away, and kill more Doimari some other time.»

Shangbari did not fear dying, but he did want to kill many more Doimari before he did. He also wanted to please Voros so that he would lead the Red Cats against the Doimari again. So he was very careful in counting the explosions as his men smashed the fire-beams.