The traitorous offi?cial attempted to call for help at that point, but took a blow to the jaw and was soon subdued. Ironically, it was Calisco, the very man Vanderveen had been so suspicious of, who helped her up off the fl?oor. Batkin would have smiled had he been able to do so.
“Where was I? Ah yes, the holo!” The recording reappeared at that point, giving everyone present the opportunity to hear Hooks cut his deal and see the turncoat’s face as he stood. Nankool was shocked. “Damn it, Roland . . . Why?”
“Because you’re going to die anyway,” Hooks said dispiritedly. “Can’t you see that? Especially after today?”
“What I see is a traitor,” Nankool answered coldly.
“Yes, every single one of us may die here. . . . But who knows? Maybe one of Batkin’s message torps got through. Perhaps help will come. But regardless of that, we have a war to fi?ght—and we’re going to fi?ght it.”
Schell frowned. “Sorry, sir. But I’m not sure I follow. We’re prisoners, so how can we fi?ght?”
“The space elevator,” Nankool replied grimly. “The bugs need it—and we’re going to destroy it. But not until they have invested lots of time, work, and money in it.”
There was a moment of silence after that, followed by grim laughter, as half a dozen POWs nodded in unison. Unlikely though it might seem, the prisoners had declared war on their captors, and the fi?rst battle had been won. It was about four hours later, when even Tragg was asleep, that something landed on the fence and the camp’s alarms went off. More than a dozen Ramanthian guards were already busy trying to remove the badly charred body when the overseer arrived on the scene. Given the fact that the guards were under strict orders to keep the fence electrifi?ed at all times, it was necessary to pry the corpse loose with long wooden poles.
Only when that process was complete, and the corpse fell free, was it possible to make a positive identifi? cation. Tragg felt something cold trickle into his veins as he looked down into the traitor’s staring eyes. Why? the overseer wanted to know. Why would a man who was about to go free take a run at an electrifi?ed fence?
But Hooks was dead, none of the guards could speak standard, and the people who knew the answer were elsewhere. Mutuu made a brief appearance, but being ignorant of the agreement between Hooks and Tragg, took the episode at face value and soon went back to bed. Finally, as the jungle creatures screamed and hooted, the long, bloody day came to an end.
9.
A brave Captain is a root, out of which, as branches, the courage of his soldiers doth spring.
PLANET ALGERON, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS
Captain Antonio Santana lay belly-down on a layer of ice-encrusted scree and stared through a pair of Legionissue binos. Each time the crosshairs passed over an object, its range and heat index appeared next to the image. Santana knew that the long U-shaped valley below him had been gouged out of Algeron’s surface by a retreating glacier roughly ten thousand standard years earlier. Then, perhaps nine thousand years subsequent to that, a tribe of nomads wandered into the basin and decided to stay. And, thanks to the hand-dug well from which the community took its name, the settlers eventually developed a dooth-powered, pump-driven water distribution system.
It took hundreds of years of backbreaking work to clear the fi?elds of rock, build the stone walls that split the valley into a patchwork quilt of family farms, and construct the low one-and two-story homes that were so markedly different from the subsurface dwellings typical of most Naa villages.
All of which explained why Deepwell had prospered, not only as a center of agriculture but as a bustling market town. Until two standard weeks earlier when a large contingent of bandits under the leadership of a Naa named Nofear Throatcut seized control of the town. Deepwell’s warriors had given a good account of themselves according to Nostop Footfast—the Naa youth who lay to Santana’s right. But given the element of surprise, and a force of heavily armed fi?ghters, the bandits won the battle with ease. And that was when the hellish rampage of murder, rape, and theft began.
It took Footfast the better part of seven standard days to reach the nearest village, where the elders passed word of the outrage along to Senator Nodoubt Truespeak, who brought the matter to General Booly. And it was then that Santana caught wind of the situation and requested permission to lead Team Zebra against the bandits. Not out of a sense of altruism but a very real need to test his newly formed company against an enemy that could shoot back. And who better to test a group of convicted criminals against than another group of criminals?
And the timing was perfect, because after weeks of waiting, a rescue mission had fi?nally been authorized. And not a moment too soon. . . . Because having learned that Nankool was alive, the cabal had been about to load Team Zebra onto one of Chien-Chu’s freighters and send them to Jericho without permission when the order came down. Some of the conspirators felt that the rescue force should depart immediately in spite of Santana’s request for a combat mission, but General Booly counseled patience. He pointed out that if some part of Team Zebra was going to break, it would be far better to identify the fl?aw on Algeron than somewhere on the surface of Jericho. Which was why Santana found himself about to lead his ragtag company against a gang of criminals. Clever criminals in this case, who, rather than pillage Deepwell and leave, had taken up temporary residence there. A low key presence intended to lure unsuspecting caravans into the village, where they could be slaughtered.
“What do you see?” Footfast wanted to know, as he thought about his family. His father had been killed during the initial attack. He knew that because he’d seen the body. But what about his mother? And his sister? The bandits did horrible things to females—and there was a profound emptiness at the pit of the youngster’s stomach as he looked out over the valley.
“The village looks normal,” Santana answered honestly, as he panned the binos from left to right. “Except for the fact that the streets are virtually empty, new stone walls have been constructed, and the holding pens are jampacked with dooths.”
“We must attack,” Footfast said fi?rmly. “Give me a weapon. . . . I will go fi?rst.”
Santana lowered the binos as another two-hour-andforty-two-minute day started to fade. “You are very brave,” the legionnaire said soberly. “But it will take more than bravery to win. We must be smart as well.”
