resulting mist shivered whenever a breeze came along to tug at it—
but seemed reluctant to part company with the row of crosses that appeared to fl?oat over it. Twelve of the POWs had been crucifi?ed. Not because of anything they had done, but because of something they hadn’t done, which was to reveal Nankool’s presence to the Ramanthians. That was Maximillian Tragg’s claim anyway. But as Vanderveen stood on one of the two crosspieces that were fastened to the centermost pole, she knew it was more than that. Especially in her case. Because to the renegade’s psychotic way of thinking, she had betrayed his trust. And made him look ridiculous, which was more than the mercenary’s fragile ego could handle.
There was something else, too. . . . Because once the newly constructed cross was laid out on the ground, and the diplomat had been forced to take her place on it, Tragg began to refer to her as “Marci,” a woman the renegade hated so much he insisted on driving the nails through Vanderveen’s wrists personally. The diplomat didn’t want to scream, and was determined not to, but the pain proved to be too much. So Vanderveen emptied her lungs as the spikes went in and saw how much pleasure that gave Tragg just before she fainted.
When Vanderveen awoke her cross was upright and fi?rmly planted in the ground. The center of what Tragg called his “garden.” Fortunately, most of the diplomat’s weight was supported by the crosspiece under her feet. The innovation was intended to extend both her life and her suffering. Which, without water, would probably last another fi?ve or six days. Or more if it rained. Not that it mattered because Vanderveen was in an altered state of consciousness when a shoulder-launched missile hit the watchtower located at the southeast corner of the compound. There was an explosion, followed by a loud boom, as hundreds of pieces of debris fell slowly toward the ground. That was followed by more explosions as the T-2s fi?red missiles at carefully selected targets, and large gaps began to appear in the fence.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Corley Calisco said, as the bombardment began. “The cavalry has arrived.”
Having fi?red their missiles, the ten-foot-tall war forms left the protection of the jungle, crossed the free-fi?re zone, and poured through newly created gaps in the security fence. There they were met by stiff resistance from the Ramanthian defenders, who, having been reinforced in the wake of the nymph attack, responded with a hail of gunfi?re from assault weapons, crew-served machine guns, and rocketpropelled grenades. Jas Hargo, the cyborg responsible for Major Hal DeCosta’s murder, placed one of his big podlike feet on a subsurface mine. There was a loud crump as the shaped charge went off and sent a jet of white-hot plasma upwards. The resulting explosion killed the bio bod who was strapped to the cyborg’s back and blew the T-2’s head off. It fell, rolled for a few feet, and came to rest looking upwards. That was when Hargo saw Snyder coming his way, and shouted
“No!” as a big metal pod descended on his face. Like his mount, Santana was completely oblivious to the manner of Hargo’s death as the cyborg’s brain box was crushed under him. Because just about all of the offi?cer’s attention was focused on the camp and the situation around him. Resistance was stiff, but that was to be expected, and the fi?rst objective had been achieved. The security fence had been breached—and Team Zebra had entered the compound! But where was Nankool? Batkin was in charge of fi?nding the chief executive but had yet to report in.
Snyder’s body began to jerk rhythmically as she opened fi?re with her .50-caliber machine gun. The big slugs tore into a fi?le of recently arrived Ramanthian troopers and ripped them apart. That was when the company commander spotted the row of crosses and knew the POWs must have been crucifi?ed after his departure the day before. One more group of people to remember once the extraction phase of the operation began.
It was a subject Santana continued to worry about because the pickup ships should have been in contact with him by then. Had the task force been intercepted? And, if so, what if anything could he do about it? But those thoughts were interrupted as Snyder spoke over the intercom. “Look at the cross in the middle, sir. Is that Miss Vanderveen?”
“No,” Santana responded automatically. “It can’t be because . . .” But then, as the offi?cer turned his head, he caught sight of some blond hair and made a grab for his binos. Snyder knew Vanderveen, having met the diplomat on LaNor, and could zoom in on any object she chose to.
So if the cyborg said that the person on the cross was Christine, then it might be true. And when the offi?cer brought the binos up he knew it was! More importantly, judging from a slight movement of her head, Vanderveen was alive!
That realization drove everything else out of Santana’s mind. Fearful that Vanderveen might be killed by a stray bullet, Santana hurried to pull the plug on the intercom and hit the harness release. Snyder started to object as the offi?cer hit the ground, but spotted a Ramanthian with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and had to respond. Gomez was about a hundred feet away and watched in horror as Santana began to run. “Alpha Two-Six to Alpha Six,” the noncom said desperately, but received no reply as bullets whispered around the legionnaire. Meanwhile the gazebo-like structure at the center of the compound exploded into a thousand fi?ery pieces, and a series of explosions marched across the camp. The assault, which had been so focused to start with, was beginning to falter. Gomez was about to urge her cyborg forward, in hopes of reestablishing contact with Santana, when an RPG hit her T-2’s chest. The noncom felt the resulting explosion, knew both of them were falling, and hit the harness release. Gomez felt herself fall free, but took an unintended blow from one of Vantha’s outfl?ung arms, and the lights went out.
The attack on Camp Enterprise made the War Mutuu angry rather than frightened, which was why the Ramanthian took his sword and exited the administration building through the front door. He should have been killed immediately, as were two of his bodyguards, but it was as if nothing could touch the haughty warrior. Those POWs still strong enough to do so had joined the battle by then, some with weapons acquired from dead Ramanthians and others with little more than improvised spears. Two of them ran straight at the War Mutuu, hoping to impale the Ramanthian on their sharpened sticks, but the warrior twisted away. Steel fl?ashed, and blood sprayed the ground as the fi?rst human went down. The second screamed something the War Mutuu couldn’t understand, took a cut at the Ramanthian’s retrograde legs, and made contact. The warrior stumbled and regained his balance, just as an SLM made violent contact with a Ramanthian air car. There was a primary explosion, quickly followed by a secondary, as the vehicle crashed into the dispensary. Most of the patients were killed. But there was no time to consider such developments as the War Mutuu deployed his wings, jumped into the air, and cut the second POW down. The human produced an ear-piercing scream as the blade sank into his shoulder, but the sound was abruptly cut off, as the warrior’s sole surviving bodyguard shot the wounded prisoner. That was when the stern-faced aristocrat saw that one of the invading animals had abandoned the protection of his cyborg and was in the process of running toward the crosses. The War Mutuu had no particular interest in the POWs Tragg had chosen to crucify but wasn’t about to allow an attacker to give them aid. A bullet hummed past the Ramanthian’s head, and a chunk of shrapnel missed him by inches as the warrior turned toward the crosses and began to advance. Finally, after years of patient waiting, his moment of glory had come.
Because of his status as a civilian, Watkins was the last member of Team Zebra to enter the compound, albeit on a lumbering RAV rather than a T-2, since all of the war forms were required for combat. That made for a slower ride but provided the media specialist with a relatively steady platform from which to record everything he saw and heard. But as the robot paused to fi?re a burst from its nose gun, Watkins was only marginally aware of the battle he’d been sent to cover. Because the only thing the civilian really cared about was fi?nding Maximillian Tragg and killing him. The problem was how? Reinforcements had arrived by then, and a T-2 exploded as it took a direct hit from an RPG.
