The Peace War

Anybody they caught would probably be important to the enemy cause. She stepped back from the map display. 'Very well, General, let's take a look at these civilians. Get your intelligence teams together. It's going to be a long night for them.

'In the meantime, I want you to move your command and control elements over the ridgeline. When things start happening, they'll be much safer in mobiles.'

The officer looked at her for a moment, probably wondering just who she was sleeping with to give such orders. Finally he turned and spoke to a subordinate.

He glanced back at Della. 'You want to be present at the interrogations?'

She nodded. 'The first few, anyway. I'll pick them for you.'

The parking-lot detention area was several hundred meters on a side. It looked almost like a fairground. Diesel freighters loomed over small horse-drawn carts and wagons. The truckers had already started fires. Some of their voices were almost cheerful. The delay by itself didn't worry them; their businesses were internal to the Authority and they stood to be reimbursed.

Lu walked past the staff car the general had ordered for them. The officer and his aides tagged along, uncertain what she would do next. She wasn't sure yet either, but once she got the feel of the crowd...

If she were Miguel Rosas, she'd figure out some way to hijack one of the Peace Authority freighters. There was enough volume in a freighter to hide almost anything the Tinkers might make. Hmm. But the drivers generally knew each other and could probably recognize each other's rigs. The Tinkers would have to park their freighter away from the others, and avoid socializing. She and her entourage drifted through the shadows beyond the fires.

The freighters were clumped together; none was parked apart. That left the non-Peacer civilians. She turned away from the freighters and walked down a row of wagons. The people were ordinary enough: more than half in their fifties and sixties, the rest young apprentices. They did look uneasy — they stood to lose a lot of money if they had to stay here long-but there was little fear. They still believed the Authority's propaganda. And most of them were food shippers. None of their own people had been bobbled in the purges she had supervised the last few weeks. From somewhere over the hill she heard choppers. The intelligence crews would be here shortly.

Then she saw the banana wagons. They could only be from the Vandenberg area. No matter what intelligence was saying nowadays, she still thought Middle California was the center of the infestation. An old man and a woman about Lu's own age stood near the wagons. She felt tiny alarm bells going off.

Behind Della, the helicopters were landing. Dust blew cool and glowing around her. The choppers' lights cast her group's shadow toward the pair by the banana wagons. The old man raised his hand to shade his eyes; the woman just looked at them. There was something strange about her, a straightness in her posture, almost a soldier's bearing. For all that the other was tall and Caucasian, Della felt she was seeing someone very like herself.

Della clapped the general's arm, and when he turned to her she shouted over the sounds of blades and turbines, 'I have some prime suspects-'

'The bitch! Is she some kind of mind reader?' Mike watched Lu's progress across the wide field. She still wasn't coming directly toward them, but edged slowly closer, like some cautious huntress. Mike cursed quietly. They seemed doomed at every step to face her and be bested by her.

The field grew bright; shadows shifted and lengthened. Choppers. Three of them. Each craft carried twin lamps hung below the cockpit. Lu's wolves, eyes glowing, settled down behind their mistress.

'Mike. Listen.' Wili's voice was tense, but the words were slurred, the cadence irregular. He must be in deep connect. He sounded like one talking from a dream. 'I'm running at full power; we'll be out of power in seconds — but that is all we have.'

Mike looked out at the helicopters; Wili was right about that. 'But what can we do?' he said.

'Our friends... going to distract her... no time to explain everything. Just do what I say.'

Mike stared into the darkness. He could imagine the dazed look in Wili's eyes, the slack features. He had seen it often enough the last few evenings. The boy was managing their own problems and coordinating the rest of the revolution, all at the same time. Rosas had played symbiotic games, but this was beyond his imagination. There was only one thing he could say. 'Sure.'

'You're going to take those two armored equipment carriers at... far side of the field. Do you see them?'

Mike had, earlier. They were two hundred meters off. There were guards posted next to them.

'When?'

'A minute. Kick loose the side of the wagon... now. When I say go... you jump, grab Allison, and run for them. Ignore everything else you see and hear. Everything.'

Mike hesitated. He could guess what Wili intended, but'Move. Move. Move!' Wili's voice was abruptly urgent, angry — the dreamer frustrated. It was as unnerving as a scream. Mike turned and crashed his heels into the specially weakened wall. It had been intended as an emergency escape route. As the tacked nails gave way, Mike reflected that this was certainly an emergency-but they would be getting out in full view of Peacer guns.

Lu's general heard her order and turned to shout to his men. He was below his usual