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22

It was raining as Rola-4 trudged up the long slope toward Holding Area Two's main gate. The steady downpour had soaked her to the skin. Il Ronnian ground vehicles plus the passage of hundreds of construct feet had churned dirt into mud. It was thick glutinous stuff that formed clumps around her feet and made it hard to walk. Her sandals were long gone, pulled off by the mud, and left behind.

The fence was off to her right, a heavy-duty affair made of heavy mesh, and patched where Wexel-15's attack had breached it.

Rola-4 felt a secret warmth seep into her heart at the thought of Wexel-15. He had been extremely worried about her safety and had wanted to come along. But while sympathetic, the other resistance leaders had reminded Wexel-15 of other even more pressing duties, and he had stayed behind.

Rola-4 was not without an escort however. Eyes watched even now, peering down from the surrounding hills, ready to intervene should something go wrong. It was a comfort, but a small one, since Rola-4 knew that whatever protection they could offer would end when she reached the gate. Once inside she would be on her own.

The road moved closer to the fence and Rola-4 peered through the mesh. There was the chance that she would see someone she knew, or better yet catch a glimpse of Tusy-35 and Neder-33. That was the hope anyway, but all she saw were dark ghostlike forms, shuffling through the rain, too discouraged to even look her way.

Though never especially good, the conditions inside Holding Area Two had grown even worse during her absence. All the more reason to deliver the photos, free Neder-33, and wait for the resistance to rescue them.

Rola-4 clutched the waterproof case to her breast and approached the checkpoint. It was a flimsy affair made from cast-off lumber, ragged tarps, and empty cargo modules.

There was nothing flimsy about the weapons emplacement however. It consisted of an armored personnel enclosure reinforced with sandbags. The only opening was a long narrow slit through which a bell-shaped muzzle protruded.

Rola-4 saw the gun barrel drift her way as a Sand Sept trooper stepped out into the rain. She had noticed that in spite of the Il Ronnian reverence for water they hated rain. This soldier was no exception. Had her errand been any less important his scowl would have sent her packing. He wore a rain poncho and kept his weapon pointed in her general direction.

"Say your piece, geek, and make it good."

"I am Rola-4. I have some information for your commanding officer."

The Il Ronnian saw the case and held out his hand. "Fine. Give it to me. I will see that he gets it."

Rola-4 took a step backward. "No! I mean thank you, but no. I have strict instructions to deliver the information into his hands."

This was not strictly true, but Rola-4 was determined to get inside, and doubted that anyone would question it.

The soldier made a jerky motion with his tail. "Stay where you are. I will check."

The Il Ronnian stepped into the shack.

So Rola-4 stood there, rain pouring down around her, feeling the mud ooze up through her toes. It felt comforting, like harvest time, when the crops came in and winter began.

The trooper emerged. His boots made sucking noises in the mud. He motioned her forward. "Stand in front of me."

Rola-4 did as she was told.

"Spread your legs and hold your arms straight out."

Rola-4 gritted her teeth as the alien touched her. Neder-33. She must remember Neder-33 and suffer through anything that would return him to her arms.

Satisfied that she was not armed, or loaded with explosives, the sentry gave a grunt of approval. He pointed toward the gate.

"You may enter. Go straight to the command post. Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed will see you there."

Rola-4 nodded her understanding and walked up the slight incline toward the main gate. Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed. So that was his name. He had never said and she had never thought to ask. Why? It was so stupid. What if she had needed to know? A human would have asked. A light would have asked. The Lords had given them a tremendous advantage. It wasn't fair.

Two soldiers guarded the main gate. They swung it open at her approach. Rola-4 waited for them to stop her but nothing happened. She walked on through.

Now she could see the prisoners more clearly. A vast mob of shuffling constructs, heads hung low, waiting for whatever fate held in store for them. Rola-4 thought of the resistance fighters and smiled grimly.

Just a little bit longer, she thought to herself. Things are about to change.

The brave thought melted away as she approached the command post. The resistance would win in the long run. She felt sure of that. But this was now and Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed held the power of life and death over Rola-4 and her son.

The sentry was expecting her and gestured toward the door. Rola-4 pulled it open and stepped inside.

The command post was just as before. A muddy floor but otherwise clean. Beed sat behind his makeshift desk. He was talking on a comset. Another alien was present as well. He was seated in one of the two guest chairs and was inspecting his right hoof. He barely looked up as Rola-4 entered.

The second guest chair was barely visible under a pile of body armor, helmets, and other military gear. Rola-4 was tired but knew better than to move the equipment and sit down.

Beed continued to ignore her as he finished his conversation, tapped something into a portable computer, and arranged the things on his desk. Finally, when everything was just so, he looked up.

"So, you came back."

"I have the information you requested."

Beed looked skeptical. "That is excellent if true. So where is the machine called 'God'?"

Rola-4 offered him the plastic envelope. Water dripped onto the surface of his desk.

Beed accepted the package but made no attempt to open it. "What is this? And where did you get it?"

Rola-4 had been expecting the questions and had rehearsed her answers. "They were waiting for me when I left here."

"For you?" Beed interrupted.

"For anyone who could provide them with information about the conditions here."

"Go on."

"So I told them what it was like and asked if I could help with the resistance."

"And?"

"And they took me to some sort of headquarters. They blindfolded me for the last part of the trip but the location was underground."

Beed made a steeple with his fingers. "Why do you say that?"

Rola-4 shrugged. "Because there were no windows and people talked about conditions on the surface."

The Il Ronnian made a gesture with his tail. "Continue."

"They put me to work cleaning offices and corridors. That is where I got the photographs."

"You stole them?"

"Yes, but they were copies, and will not be missed."

"Let us see what you have."

Beed lifted the envelope, found the seal, and pried it open. The photos made a swishing sound as they left the package. The Il Ronnian frowned, did some sorting, and lined them up on the surface of his desk. He looked up. His face was angry.

"This is garbage! Pictures taken from our own satellites. And worthless besides. Look! Do you see photos of one particular place? No, these shots cover hundreds of square units!"

Rola-4 steeled herself against the alien's anger. Beed was seconds away from throwing her out, from ruining the plan, from cutting her off from her son.

"What you say is true . . . but that is the secret. The resistance leaders discussed it as I mopped the floor. The streets, the buildings, even the statues are part of God. He is enormous and covers thousands of square miles."

Beed started to say something, frowned, and took a second look at the pictures. He sorted through them. Understanding started to dawn on his face.

"By all that is holy I think you are right! That explains why we could not find it! The blasted machine is everywhere!"

Rola-4 felt a tremendous sense of relief. Beed understood, her mission was accomplished, and Neder-33 would be freed.

"Could I please have my son back now?"

Beed reached for his comset. "Of course not. You are much too valuable to shuffle around in the rain. I will send you back and learn even more!"

The Il Ronnian fed the photos into a slot at the bottom of his comset and spoke into the handset at the same time. The alien had deactivated his translator so the construct couldn't understand what he said.

Rola-4 felt hopelessness settle over her like a blanket. The alien had lied. And he would continue to lie. He would never allow her to hold Neder-33 in her arms again.

Time seemed to slow. The construct moved sideways. She saw the chair heaped with armor and other gear. She grabbed the one thing she instinctively understood. A shovel-shaped entrenching tool. It caught on something. She sensed movement as the second Il Ronnian turned her way. The shovel came loose. The soldier opened his mouth and started to stand. Rola-4 swung with all her might. Blood sprayed as the edge of the tool caught the alien's unprotected throat. He clutched the wound, made a gurgling sound, and died.

Beed dropped the handset and scrabbled for his side arm. Had he been a little bit faster, or favored a less cumbersome holster, he might have made it. As it was the shovel hit him in the forehead just as the barrel cleared plastic. The second, third, and fourth blows were completely unnecessary.

Beed collapsed onto the top of his desk, slid backward, and slumped to the floor. A barely heard voice squawked from the receiver. Rola-4 replaced the handset. Silence filled the room. The construct had something in her hand. She looked down. It was a shovel. There was blood all over it. She laid it on the desk.

Now what?

The thought brought no answer.

Lando followed Wexel-15's broad back up the corridor. Della was right behind.

What light there was had a greenish quality and came from the walls themselves. Dust swirled through the air and made it hard to breathe. The floor was scratched and grooved where heavy equipment had been dragged the length of the hall. Equipment designed for mining, only this mine went from the bottom up, and would terminate on the surface.

The corridor emptied into a small chamber. Some scaffolding occupied the center of it. A pair of massive heavies stood atop the structure passing boxes of ammunition up through a hole in the ceiling. Something came loose and a small avalanche of rubble came tumbling down. Dust exploded into the air and Lando covered his eyes.

"How much longer?" Wexel-15's voice was strong and commanding.

"Not long," one of the heavies answered. "Ten laks at the most."

Wexel-15 gave a wave of acknowledgment. He turned to the humans. "Wait here while I check on the troops."

Lando nodded and took a look around. The walls were decorated with mosaic tile work that made his head swim. Wait a minute . . . he'd been here before!

The smuggler sidestepped some heavies and worked his way around the scaffolding. Sure enough, there was the door. A peek inside confirmed his suspicion. The room was dirty, and packed floor to ceiling with equipment and supplies, but the oval shape gave it away. This was the same room where he'd met with Dru-21, Dos-4, Zera-12, and Pak-7—the lights, who in their own way had shaped the future by opting for a policy of cooperation rather than domination.

Little had he known as he met with the lights that Il Ronnian Fire Base One was just overhead.

The aliens had landed, leveled a building called the Hall of Life, and built their base on top of the rubble. A more careful investigation might have revealed one of three different paths down into the hill's interior. But God had ordered work crews to seal the passageways off immediately after the first Il Ronnians had landed. Later, when the aliens destroyed the building, the entrances had been buried under tons of rubble, making them almost impossible to find.

Lando left the room to join Della in the antechamber. She was busy removing a layer of dust from her custom-made assault weapon. Chunks of masonry clattered to the floor as the heavies continued to pass supplies up through the hole. He kissed her ear.

Her voice was soldier-hard. "What did you do that for?"

"You're cute when you play with guns."

Her expression softened. "And you are weird. Very weird."

"Weird enough to marry when this is over?"

Her eyes found his. They searched for something and found it. "Yes, weird enough to marry you when this is over."

Lando nodded solemnly. "It's a deal then. Shake?"

Della laughed. "Shake." Her hand was small and firm in his.

"Good. Then be sure to survive."

"You too."

"I'm surprised that your father didn't have a saying for a moment like this."

Lando thought it over. The truth was that he'd been using his father's sayings less and less of late. What did that mean? Increasing independence? Old age? He smiled.

"As a matter of fact my father did have a saying for situations like this one. He said 'when you find something worth keeping grab it and never let go.'"

Della laughed. "You made that up."

Lando smiled. "Yeah, I guess I did. It's good advice though . . . so I think I'll follow it."

The smuggler was interrupted as a heavy said something unintelligible and a pile of debris crashed around his feet. Wexel-15 appeared.

"Are we ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right then. Get out of the way. We have a war to win."

The lighting in Ceeq's cabin was subdued by Il Ronnian standards. Teex held one of the photos under an overhead spot. Ceeq and Half Sand Sept Commander Heek were huddled together looking at the rest.

"Amazing, absolutely amazing," Ceeq said smugly. "The machine was all around you, literally under your tail, and you missed it."

"True," Teex said pointedly, "but these are your satellite photos, are they not? Hijacked without your knowledge? And analyzed by some rather primitive geeks?"

"And that is enough of that," Heek said sternly. The light came down across his forehead and made dark pools under his eyes. He looked like one of the old-time Ilwiks, as stern as the desert, and as hard as rock.

"There is more than enough blame to go around. While we have a common interest in minimizing the magnitude of this failure to our superiors . . . we must be honest with ourselves. To do otherwise would be to compound the errors already made. We have consistently underestimated the opposition, failed to interpret incoming data correctly, and have been slow to respond. We must act, and act now."

Teex and Ceeq looked at each other in surprise. This was a different Heek from the one who fell asleep during meetings. The crisis had removed ten cycles from his age.

"So, what would you suggest?" Ceeq asked meekly.

"First and foremost a change in tactics," Heek responded. "Now that we know the machine called God is built into the very infrastructure of the cities we must allow the repairs to proceed."

"But that's exactly what they want us to do," Teex objected. "It is logical to suppose that our attacks have damaged the machine's capabilities and the geeks are trying to restore them. The resistance will be strengthened if they manage to do so."

"True," Heek answered calmly, "but so what? The time has come to send for reinforcements. The computer, plus its unique design, provide more than adequate justification. Imagine! As the repairs are completed, the reinforcements arrive, and we take control of a fully operational machine. What could be better?"

The plan sounded good, but something was wrong, and Teex couldn't quite figure out what it was. He took one last shot.

"So, what do you suggest? Withdraw and wait for the reinforcements?"

"Of course not," Heek answered caustically. "We will continue to harass them. The human represents an opportunity. I suggest that we take advantage of it."

"Some sort of hostage deal?" Ceeq asked brightly. "Surrender or the human dies?"

"Exactly," Heek answered. "The geeks may or may not care about his safety . . . but we can assume that the humans do."

"An excellent plan," Ceeq said ingratiatingly. "I will dispatch a ship along with a request for reinforcements. Teex can handle the hostage situation."

Teex resented Ceeq's attempt to give him orders but decided to hold his tongue.

Heek signaled agreement with his tail.

Teex cleared his throat. "There is another matter as well. As we heard from intelligence officer Deez, the photos and the voice transmission that accompanied them came from Holding Area Two. Why was the transmission cut off? And why have all attempts to contact Holding Area Two met with failure?"

"Excellent questions," Heek rumbled. "Get some answers."

Rola-4 wanted to panic, wanted to do anything but stay in the command post and think, but forced herself to do so. Thinking took time and she must allow for it. She forced herself to ignore the bodies and the buzzing comset.

The question was how? How to escape and take Neder-33 with her? What would a light or a human do? Pick up a weapon? Call the sentry inside? Kill him? Then what? She couldn't kill them all.

No, there had to be a better way, something intelligent. Wait a lak, what about the first part of that idea? What about using the sentry instead of killing him? Yes, that was more like it!

Rola-4 checked to make sure that her clothing was free of Il Ronnian blood, glanced around to make sure that the sentry wouldn't be able to see anything when she slipped out through the door, and took hold of the handle.

The door opened easily and closed behind her. The sentry was six or seven paces from the command post. He turned at the sound of the door. Rola-4 adopted her most servile persona.

"Excuse me, sir, but Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed asked that I give you a message."

"Well?" the sentry demanded. "Out with it? What does he want?"

Rola-4 cast her eyes down toward the sentry's muddy boots. "His Excellency Commander Beed asks that you locate the construct known as Tusy-35 and bring her here. And the child called Neder-33 as well."

The sentry gave a grunt of assent, turned his back on her, and trudged off into the rain. The position of his tail indicated what the trooper thought about officers who stayed warm and dry while he ran errands through the mud. But the gesture was wasted since the officer in question was dead and Rola-4 had no way to know what it meant.

The next twenty laks were the worst of Rola-4's life. Waiting inside the overly warm command post, with the scent of blood thick in the air, and the comset buzzing like some sort of insistent insect.

There was no way to know how long it would take Tusy-35 to arrive so she was forced into a constant state of readiness behind the door. She would have to kill the sentry, Rola-4 was certain of that, and the knowledge made her queasy.

She had chosen Beed's energy weapon over the other Il Ronnian's slug gun because it made less noise. The march, and the subsequent attack on Holding Area Two, had taught her which weapons did what.

Still, the buttons and levers were unfamiliar, so she had fired some test shots just to make sure. Steam rose from the holes in the floor.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, there was noise outside. The squishing of boots in the mud followed by the sentry's voice. "Get in there, geek, and take the brat with you."

Tusy-35 came through the door first as Rola-4 had assumed that she would. A lot of things happened all at once.

Tusy-35 caught sight of Beed's dead body and gave a gasp of surprise.

Neder-33 turned, caught sight of his mother, and said "Maa!"

The sentry realized something was wrong and pushed Tusy-35 aside.

Rola-4 waited for him to step forward, aimed at the side of his head, and pressed the firing stud. The bolt of bright blue energy burned its way through his head and hit the comset beyond. It stopped buzzing.

Rola-4 pushed the door shut as the sentry slumped to the floor.

Completely terrified, and afraid that she might be next, Tusy-35 offered Neder-33 to his mother. "Here . . . I took good care of him . . . see for yourself."

Rola-4 refused her son's urgings to pick him up and motioned toward the second guest chair with the still warm blaster.

"Shove the equipment on the floor. Place my son on top of the equipment. Sit on the chair."

Tusy-35 was really worried now. "Wha-what are you going to do?"

"Nothing half so bad as what you did to me," Rola-4 answered. "Now shut up."

It took a while to gather belts and equipment harnesses enough to tie Tusy-35 in place but Rola-4 got the job done. The other construct would eventually work her way free, but by the time she did, Rola-4 and Neder-33 would be long gone.

Tusy-35 snuffled piteously. "The aliens will blame me for this! They will kill me!"

"Really?" Rola-4 asked, slipping a gag into the other construct's open mouth. "That would be terrible. Good luck."

Neder-33 had crawled all over the floor by now, and was covered with mud, but Rola-4 hugged him anyway. And she was still hugging him when she opened the door, stepped outside, and made her way down toward the rest of the constructs. Her heart felt like it would beat its way out of her chest. It was evening, and the light had started to fade.

A section of fence separated the command post from the holding area with a gate to provide access between the two. No less than two sentries stood to either side of the gate, cursing the rain and wondering when it would stop.

One of them glanced at Rola-4, saw a female geek with child, and made an entry on his arm pad. Another waved her through. One and a half geeks came out, and one and a half geeks went back in. That's what they needed and that's what they had.

The other constructs paid scant attention at first. But a female from Rola-4's village saw her, remembered how she had been taken away, and called her name.

Rola-4 made no reply. She had an idea, the means to carry it out, and little time for idle chatter.

She'd been very, very lucky. Lucky that she had been able to retrieve Neder-33, lucky that no one had entered the command post, and lucky that the sentries had let her pass.

Now that luck would surely be running out, but before it did, she was determined to accomplish one last thing. Something that would free her and every other construct present.

The villagers followed along behind, excited by Rola-4's sudden appearance, and intrigued by her silence. She spoke with others, instructing them to tag along, and a crowd started to form.

In the meantime, on the far side of the compound, the sentries saw movement and realized that something was afoot. They radioed the command post for advice but received no answer.

The senior trooper, an assistant file leader named Geeb, signaled disgust with his tail and trudged up the slope. Officers were all the same. Stupid, and lazy to boot.

Rola-4 stopped in front of the fence. This was the most distant point from the command post and therefore the best. The other constructs watched in openmouthed amazement as she pulled a blaster out from under her clothes, aimed it at the fence, and pressed the firing stud.

Alarms shrieked as metal turned orange, red, and dripped downward. Rola-4 managed to make two vertical cuts in the fence before the power pak ran out. The crowd did the rest.

Assistant File Leader Geeb had just found the bodies, and was in the act of calling for help when the constructs pushed the fence outward and streamed to freedom.

Resistance fighters, the same ones who had been assigned to protect Rola-4, saw and took action.

Energy beams flashed, automatic weapons hammered, and Sand Sept troopers started to die.

Wexel-15 went first with Lando and Della right behind. The scaffold was easy to climb. The metal framework was cold to the touch and shook under their combined weight. Lando moved his hand off just in time to save it from an enormous boot. Della swore as an avalanche of grit fell from above.

Lando saw smiling faces look down, felt hands grab his combat harness, and was lifted through the hole. He landed on his knees and crawled forward to get out of the way. His assault weapon made a scraping sound as it dragged against the floor.

What light there was originated from portable work lights and was heavily filtered by the dust.

The smuggler tried to stand, felt cold concrete press down against his shoulders, and felt suddenly claustrophobic. He knew that there were uncountable tons of material pressing down from above just waiting to squash him flat.

"Over here." The voice belonged to Wexel-15. Lando checked to make sure that Della was okay, saw that she was, and duckwalked in the heavy's direction.

In the meantime a stream of heavily armed resistance fighters poured up through the hole, formed orderly rows, and waited for orders. Lando saw more than a few lights interspersed among the heavies.

Work lights back-lit them, threw gigantic shadows against the ceiling's uneven surface, and spread out to join the surrounding gloom. The crawl space was huge and seemed to extend endlessly in every direction.

Lando hit his head and swore softly. Wexel-15 nodded sympathetically. Given his greater bulk the confined space was even harder for him to maneuver in. His voice was little more than a whisper.

"We are very close. So close the aliens could hear us if they chose to listen. Follow me and be as quiet as you can."

Lando nodded, glanced at Della, and received a grim thumbs-up. She had smeared grease on her skin to darken it and wore a bandanna tied around her head. He noticed that a curl of bright red hair had escaped and dangled over her left ear. She looked fierce but very, very small.

The smuggler knew that she was a more experienced fighter than he was, knew that she had some of the fastest reflexes he'd ever seen, but still felt protective toward her.

And must have shown it in his expression because she winked at him and whispered: "I love you too."

Lando grinned and turned back toward Wexel-15. The heavy had turned his back and was in the process of crawling away. The smuggler held his assault rifle chest high, took the sling in his teeth to keep the weapon up off the floor, and crawled forward. It was easier on his leg muscles but hell on his knees.

The double row of lights reminded Lando of a runway. Wexel-15's bulk blocked them from time to time but they led arrow-straight off into the distance. Some flickered as their power paks wore down, and some were already dark, but they appeared and disappeared with monotonous regularity.

Time passed, and each minute brought more, and more pain. Pain in his knees, pain in his hands, and pain in his jaws where the unaccustomed weight of the assault weapon had started to take its toll.

Finally, just when Lando was almost sure that he couldn't take it anymore, he caught the faintest whiff of fresh night air. Mounds of rubble appeared to the left and right and the lights disappeared.

Lando imagined what it had been like, chipping away from below, breathing the ever-present dust, moving the debris one chunk at a time, waiting for the shock of sudden discovery. These were the true heroes, the constructs who had labored in secret, and opened a hole through which their comrades could pass.

Two of Wexel-15's heavies were waiting and both signaled silence by holding their hands palm downward over the ground. Lando needed no further warning. Stealth was everything.

The only chance for victory lay in putting a significant number of resistance fighters inside the enemy's perimeter right off the top.

If the Il Ronnians heard them, and found the opening right away, the entire plan would go up in smoke. Worse than that, the aliens would follow them downward, and find the arms factory hidden below. A serious if not fatal blow to the resistance.

There was a pause as the heavies whispered to each other. Wexel-15 nodded in response to a comment from one of the constructs, pointed toward the surface, and said, "Well, this is it. Time to—how do humans say it?—kick some serious posterior."

Lando chuckled. "That's how we say it all right."

"Good! Let the kicking begin."

The words were no more than out of Wexel-15's mouth than he was up and through the hole. Lando and Della came right behind.

The entry point was as good as they were likely to find. Away from the main bunkers, just north of the landing pad, and about a hundred yards inside the perimeter. A large pile of rubble had been dumped nearby and offered the resistance fighters an excellent place to hide while they prepared for the attack.

It took time to get two hundred-plus constructs through the hole and into Fire Base One. Time that Lando used to look around.

It was dark and a steady rain fell from the sky. Good. It would encourage anyone who was off-duty to stay inside. A section of fence gleamed in the distance. Pylons stood lonely vigil, their sensors and searchlights aimed outward, where there was nothing to see or sense.

A bit closer in lights appeared, then disappeared as doors were opened and closed. Snatches of conversation drifted through the night air. Shadows moved this way and that. Equipment clanked. A ground vehicle bounced toward the fence. Alien music wailed and was abruptly cut off. A voice complained. They were normal sights and normal sounds and all of them were about to change.

Lando felt a huge hand close around his arm. "Are you ready?"

The smuggler's throat felt suddenly dry. He swallowed to lubricate it. "Ready as I'll ever be."

Wexel-15's eyes gleamed with reflected light. "Myself as well. I want to thank you."

"For what?"

"For what you are doing, for what you have done."

Lando shrugged. "By helping you we help ourselves."

The construct smiled. "I know that, and Dru-21 reminds me of it from time to time. Still, you fight at our sides, and that speaks louder than words."

Lando smiled in return. "That's what friends do."

Wexel-15 nodded, looked right and left, and brought a toy whistle to his lips. There was nothing further to wait for. The whistle made a high-pitched warbling sound.

Loud though the whistle was, it was not that noticeable against the other background sounds, and provided the Il Ronnians with little warning.

The constructs covered the intervening ground with surprising speed, waiting until their targets were clear before they pulled the trigger, transforming the night into a hell of death and destruction.

The first five minutes of the battle would forever be burned into Lando's memory. He would never forget the heat and the smell of alien food as they burst into the underground mess hall. Nor would he forget the awful hammering of the automatic weapons, the screams of the dying Il Ronnians, and the sight of their bullet-ridden bodies.

Most of the troopers were off-duty, and had left their weapons in their bunkers, so there was very little in the way of resistance. Some tried to surrender and were immediately shot down. Others, like the noncom who charged Lando with nothing more than a two-pronged fork, died fighting as best they could.

It was slaughter pure and simple but the constructs had little choice. The Il Ronnians who were on duty would be heavily armed. In seconds, minutes at the most, they would figure out what was happening and launch a counterattack.

An attack that would move from the perimeter inward giving the constructs very little time in which to secure the bunkers and take up defensive positions. There would be no time, space, or personnel available to deal with prisoners.

The killing spread outward from the mess hall to the surrounding bunkers. What had been relatively easy became suddenly hard. Warned by the sounds of battle, the Il Ronnians still in the bunkers were able to arm themselves and fought valiantly. These were crack troops, hardened in previous battles, and fighting for their very lives.

Scores of relatively inexperienced constructs died making the mistakes that newbies always make, but a constant stream of reinforcements continued to pour up out of the ground, and rushed to replace them.

But that couldn't last forever. As both luck and circumstance would have it, File Leader Reeg was the one who led the Il Ronnian counterattack. He had been on a tour of the perimeter when the attack occurred.

It took some time to confirm that the attack had come from below, rather than from outside the fence, or from above, but once that fact had been established Reeg organized an immediate response.

An attack from below meant one or more points of entry. The first task was to seal the tunnel or tunnels off and prevent the geeks from reinforcing their initial assault team. That plus the timely arrival of some reinforcements should carry the day.

Reeg found a portable radio, selected the emergency frequency, and gave a long string of orders. Troops gathered, were assigned to ad hoc files, and led in toward the center of the compound.

They found the hole, discovered that it was heavily defended, and placed troops all around it.

Reeg decided that the reinforcements could deal with the hole later, mustered his remaining troops, and attacked the bunkers.

The insurgents had control of the bunker complex by now, but it was a tenuous control at best, and there were some rather stubborn holdouts to deal with. Still, the bunkers had been designed and equipped for a last-stand defense, and that worked in the constructs' favor.

The Il Ronnians came in a series of short advances, some providing suppressive fire, while others ran forward and threw themselves down.

Lando was hunkered down in one of the trenches that connected the bunkers together. He squeezed the trigger on his assault weapon, felt it jerk in his hands, and winced as it ran out of ammo.

It was routine by now: hit the magazine release, ram a new one home, and resume firing. Della and some others joined him but it did little good. The Il Ronnians were experienced, brave, and really pissed off. They kept right on coming.

Cap's eyelids felt as though they weighed a thousand pounds apiece. The wonderful, wonderful alcohol had taken him into deepest darkness where there were no problems, no emotions, and no failures.

He tried to open his eyes, tried to see what the aliens were up to, but couldn't quite summon the energy. Still, he could hear them well enough, and wore a translator. Like the hands that pushed and pulled at his body the words were rough and empty of all compassion.

"Look at this creature. Have you ever seen anything more disgusting? So inebriated that he cannot move. No wonder the humans have failed to expand their empire any farther. They lack the moral fiber necessary to do so."

There was a reply, but it was beyond the range of the translator, so Cap was unable to understand it.

He understood one thing however, and that was the fact that they had placed him on a stretcher of some sort, and were moving him to another location.

Another cell? Another ship? Down to the surface? His heart leapt with alarm and Cap felt his stomach muscles tighten preliminary to sitting up. He could do it now, he knew that, but should he? As long as the Il Ronnians thought he was unconscious, they might say or do something that would provide him with valuable information. He ordered his muscles to relax and spied on the Il Ronnians through slitted lids.

He saw the back of one Il Ronnian's uniform and assumed that another followed just behind.

The auto cart, or whatever conveyance he was on, moved smoothly, and tilted right or left as it negotiated the curves.

The bulkheads had the same tunnellike appearance that he'd observed before and were occasionally marked with alien script.

Then things changed, as the three of them entered what was unmistakably an air lock, and paused while it cycled them through.

And just as the air lock gave itself away through the way it functioned, so did the landing bay, with its vaulted overhead, briskly moving maintenance bots, and space-cold air. They were taking him somewhere. The only question was where.

Sorenson saw utility craft, aerospace fighters, and shuttles pass to the right and left. Interesting. The bay would remain open to space under normal conditions, facilitating the arrival and departure of smaller ships, and forcing the crew to wear space armor. Someone, either he or someone else, was deemed important enough to pressurize the bay.

Cap felt the cart slow. He opened his eyes a little bit wider and saw a smallish shuttle with an Il Ronnian officer standing next to it. One of the same officers that he'd met before. The one the others called "Teex." Sorenson closed his eyes as the Il Ronnian approached. His translator made the conversation intelligible.

"The human remains unconscious?"

"Yes, sir."

"Load him in the rear and be quick about it."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Cap felt himself sway back and forth as the surface under his back was lifted free of its undercarriage and handed in through the shuttle's rear door.

Then someone, a crew member perhaps, said something terse, and Sorenson was dropped into place. The impact made his head hurt. He considered sitting up and asking for something to drink but felt sure they wouldn't give it to him.

He felt them put the straps in place. One across his chest, the other over his legs.

He heard them move away and opened his eyes a tiny bit. The shuttle was very small. Two, maybe three rows of seats had been removed to make way for the stretcher, and Teex occupied one of the four positions that remained. The control compartment was forward and invisible behind a sliding curtain.

There was a lengthy wait while the bay was depressurized. Then Cap felt the shuttle vibrate, lift, and move forward. The artificial gravity disappeared a few moments later, letting the human know they were free of the larger ship and on their way.

The shuttle had been under way for little more than a minute or two when the message came in. The pilot piped it over the intercom. There was a speaker nearby. Cap's translator allowed him to listen in.

"I have Quarter Sept Commander Ceeq on freq five, sir."

"Put him through."

There was a pause, followed by a burst of static, followed by another voice. "Teex?"

"Affirmative."

"We have a condition six at Fire Base One."

"How bad is it?"

"Bad, very bad. The geeks found a way to come up through the ground. They took the main bunker complex. The mess hall was full. They slaughtered everyone in sight. Most of your officers are dead. File Leader Reeg launched a counterattack, but that met with strong resistance, and he has not been able to retake the bunkers."

Anger, sorrow, and frustration took turns trying to dominate Teex's emotions. He pushed them back. "Anything more?"

"Yes," Ceeq replied, "we have reports that the geeks are moving up the hillsides. The automatic weapons systems have engaged them but are insufficient by themselves."

Teex thought it over. The new assault could be a feint, designed to draw Reeg away from the bunkers, or it could be the real thing. The unmanned perimeter would make a tempting target. He came to a decision.

"Order Reeg to withdraw to a more defensible position. What about reinforcements?"

"They are loading now."

"Order them to hold. I will return and assume personal command."

"Affirmative. Ceeq out."

"Affirmative. Teex out."

Sorenson felt momentary G forces as the shuttle made a turn and headed back toward the larger ship.

His mind raced a mile a minute as he absorbed the news. A major attack! Lando and Della would be in the thick of it, with Cy and Melissa not too far away, and indirectly at risk. Teex, plus the reinforcements, meant almost certain disaster.

Cap felt the pressure close in around him like an ocean, weighing him down, suffocating him with its thick unbreathable mass. A drink! He needed a drink.

But there was no drink, only the knowledge of what he needed to do, and the desire to do it.

He pulled his hands out from under the strap with surprising ease. The buckle was a simple thing and came loose without difficulty. Weightlessness pulled him upward but the remaining strap held him in place. It came free as well. He floated away. The translator bumped him in the chin. He shoved it down under his shirt.

Then, with the stealth made possible by the complete lack of gravity, Cap gathered both ends of the second strap into one hand. Now came the moment he had been dreading, the moment of conflict, the moment when thought became action.

Teex remained where he was, facing forward, completely unaware of the human's actions. His entire being was engrossed in the problem at hand, plotting strategy, devising tactics, and repairing the damage.

That's why it took him a moment longer than it should have to understand the synthi-leather strap that passed in front of his eyes, to sense the presence behind him, and to bring his arms up.

By then it was too late. By then Cap had placed both of his feet on the Il Ronnian's shoulders, had pulled both ends of the strap in opposite directions, and was braced for the struggle that followed.

Teex did not die easily. He was a warrior, and had been all of his life, so he fought and fought hard. His side arm was in his overnight bag, and out of reach, but nature had given his kind long, sharp talons. They raked down along the lower part of Cap's legs. Blood spurted and fogged the air.

But the effort was wasted, having as it did no effect on the strap around the Il Ronnian's neck. He called for help but nothing came out. It was hard to breathe. Very hard to breathe. And hard to think. Very hard to think. He was doing something wrong. What was it? The harness! Yes! It was the harness that held him in place and gave the human such excellent leverage.

Darkness worked its way inward from the edges of the Il Ronnian's mind, crowding his thoughts, blocking all ambition. His fingers sought the release button, found it, but lacked the strength to make it work. Teex felt the final darkness pull him under.

Sensing the cessation of movement Cap loosened the strap. Nothing. Good. Tiny globules of blood floated past his head as Cap pulled himself down in front of the Il Ronnian's body.

Gun, gun, where was the bastard's gun? He was an officer, wasn't he? That meant a handgun of some sort. A blaster would be best, but a slug gun would do. Nothing. Dammit anyway.

Then Cap saw it, a small duffel bag, stuffed into the netting on the starboard bulkhead. His fingers felt like sausages as he pulled the netting outward and grabbed the bag. He opened it. Yes! A blaster! He kept the weapon and let the bag drift free.

After that it was a simple matter to pull the curtain aside, grab a handhold, and pull himself into the control compartment.

The pilot and co-pilot never knew what hit them. He shot each of them in the back of the head, hit the release on the pilot's harness, and dragged him out of the way. A gentle shove was sufficient to send him through the short passageway and into the compartment beyond.

The pilot's seat felt strange, the controls were different from anything he'd ever seen, but the basics were fairly easy to figure out. Some gentle experimentation confirmed which controls did what. The cruiser loomed large in his heads-up display. A voice flooded the cabin.

"Shuttle two-niner-one. I have you vector four, priority one."

Cap glanced around. The comset was obvious as was the seldom-used hand mike. He held it in front of the translator rather than his mouth. "This is shuttle two-niner-one. Affirmative that. Vector four and priority one."

There was a moment of silence, indicating that Cap had violated procedure somehow, and that the individual on the other end wondered why. But the moment passed, and whatever the gaffe was, it would die with everyone aboard.

"Shuttle two-niner-one is cleared for landing."

Cap smiled grimly and added power. Thoughts flashed through his mind. Visions of his long-dead wife, moments with Melissa, the disappointments of a life never quite realized.

Well, this would put it right, would put some sort of meaning into the whole thing, and provide an escape better than alcohol.

The shuttle entered the cruiser's bay at thousands of miles an hour, exploded, and took the Wrath of Imantha with it.

In a fraction of a second the fleet's most powerful ship was destroyed, the three most senior officers were killed, and the reinforcements for Fire Base One were lost.

Time would pass, and still more lives would be lost, but the war was effectively over.

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Framed