Gorwin nodded. “Sir, yes sir. Some of the other borgs saw it too. We told the loot. She said you were on the way.”
North peered into the rain, made his decision, and gave the necessary orders. “Wait ten, and tell the loot I went for a stroll. If I don’t return by 1800 hours she’s in command.”
“She ain’t gonna like that,” Gorwin replied sincerely, “and neither do I.”
“Sorry,” North replied, “but rank hath its privileges. See you later.”
The officer disappeared over the side. The corporal tried to stand and cursed her missing legs. The wind picked up, the rain came in sideways, driven by forty mile per hour gusts of wind. The clouds were so thick that it seemed night had fallen. Rocks that had been too hot to sit on steamed as the moisture hit them. Some, stressed by years of abuse, cracked in two. The sound resembled rifle shots—and came from all around.
The assault boat crouched like some sort of gray-black monster, water streaming off its heavily armored back, beacons strobing the murk.
A hatch whirred open. Admiral Kagan directed the exoskeleton out through the opening, and was glad he had agreed to use it. This was the first time he had set foot on the planet, and he felt vulnerable, very vulnerable, in spite of the steel cage that protected his rain-soaked body. Still, if ChienChu could do it, then he could do it, never mind the fact that the industrialist was all snuggy inside a T2. The ramp bounced under his weight, a gust of wind attempted to push him over, and the officer was forced to focus the majority of his attention on the normally simple task of walking. Once on the ground, the officer confronted six heavily armed Hudathans. They stood and stared. Kagan stared back.
ChienChu stepped into the hatch, scanned his surroundings, and walked down the ramp. The admiral’s servo- assisted exoskeleton was equipped with amber shoulder beacons. They flashed through the downpour.
DomaSa was the last to leave the shuttle, and Kagan saw a distinct change where the reception party was concerned. They came to rigid attention as the Hudathan diplomat cleared the ramp and stomped through the rain. Water ran over his shoulders, down his chest, and spurted away from his boots. A series of short sentences were exchanged, and the ambassador turned to explain. “We landed in the middle of a field exercise. Ikor IfanaKa has agreed to receive us ... but hopes to resume training in an hour or so.”
Having said his piece, DomaSa set off for a pole-supported shelter that had been erected a few hundred yards to the east. It was gray, like the world around it, and shivered in the wind. The Hudathan savored the warm damp air, the way the rain pelted his chest, and the feel of gravel under his boots. It was good to be home.
ChienChu drew abreast of the admiral, took note of how pale the officer looked, and spoke via a heavily encrypted corn channel. It took less than a minute to brief Kagan regarding DomaSa’s actual rank—and urge him to use caution. The meeting would be critical.
Kagan took the information in, realized what it meant, and felt a deep sense of betrayal. After all the Hudathans had done, after all the murders they had committed, ChienChu, along with a bunch of suckass politicians were going to sell the Confederacy out. All to defend against a bunch of machines that might not exist. The whole thing made him sick.
That’s when Kagan came to an important realization:
He could end the insanity, he could save the Confederacy, he could go down in history. If he got the opportunity—if he had the guts.
North jogged through the rain, availed himself of what cover there was, but knew it was just a matter of time before somebody intercepted him. Would they shoot him? Before he could reach the people in the shuttle? That was his second greatest fear.
His greatest fear was that he had unintentionally betrayed the Legion, his battalion, and himself. Danjou had had many opportunities to surrender but had refused to do so. Here was an opportunity for glorious death, the kind the Legion respected, but rather than embrace it, as so many others had, he was trying to cheat his fate. Why? For the sake of his troops? Or out of cowardice? The possibility gnawed at his belly.
The legionnaire angled toward some rocks. Water splashed his ankles and wandered into his boots. He swore, allowed himself to slow, and pushed in among the boulders. One of them had cracked right down the middle during some previous storm leaving a V for him to peer through. It looked like an old-fashioned rifle sight. The enemy could be seen just beyond, preparing a meal. The legionnaire shoved both his assault weapon and his sidearm under a rock, used stones to wall them in, and returned to the viewpoint. North swallowed the lump in his throat, stepped out through the V-shaped crack, and raised his hands in the air. Nothing happened at first, and the officer was about to move, when a shout was heard. The words were in Hudathan, but there was no doubt as to what they meant. The officer stood fast.
The rain seemed to part tike a curtain. The troopers were huge. They gathered around. One grabbed the officer from behind. Another punched him in the stomach. The blows came hard and fast. North felt himself fold.
If there were negative things about Hudathan culture, such as their tendency toward genocide, there were some positive characteristics as well. One was a distaste for the trappings of power that so many humans lusted after. It could be seen in DomaSa’s matter-of-fact no-nonsense manner, in the plain rather utilitarian shelter erected for IfanaKa’s benefit, and the way that he waved them over. Much to ChienChu’s surprise, there had been no attempt to disarm Kagan or neutralize the Trooper IF’s weaponry. A sign of respect? A sign of contempt? There was no sure way to know. The exoskeleton and the Trooper IF were big ... but so was the tent. They whirred, whined, and
