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Chapter Twelve

It took him only a moment to assess the situation. Half of the people in the auditorium, it seemed, were trying to move up the passageways between the rows of seats to the doors and the outside; the other half were moving down toward the center stage in a blind, stumbling rush, and the surging collision of the two had completely blocked the aisles.

There was only one way to get to the podium with any reasonable speed. Donal vaulted onto the back of an empty seat in the top row, took a big, unsteady step to the back of the seat ahead in the next row down, and swiftly made his way down the slope of the auditorium's bowl, stepping from seat back to seat back, sometimes moving over people still trying to get out into the jam-packed aisles.

At the front row, he shouldered his way through the mob; his uniform won him admittance past the struggling line of security officers, and he made it at last to the podium.

A dozen men had made it past the security line and were crowding their way up onto the stage. More were crowding in behind them, closing on the lone woman at the podium. "We want our questions answered!" a hard-faced man was demanding, shouting into Alexie Turner's face.

"Where's Muir?" another man shouted. "Why the hell haven't they sent us help?"

"What's the army doing?"

"What's the government doing?"

"Please, all of you," Alexie said. "Why don't you all—"

"Now you listen here, young lady," one of the more persistent men went on. "Your father relied, yes, relied on my advice, and I don't think you're wise to simply—"

"Do you need a military escort, ma'am?" Donal said sharply, his voice projected loudly enough to carry above the mob noise.

"Eh?"

"I've just arrived here from Muir, Director," he added, brushing past the persistent man and letting him see the rank insignia on his tunic.

The man's eyes widened. "You're from Muir! Help has arrived, then?"

"It's about damned time!" another man observed. "Has the Navy taken out the Dino fleet yet?"

"Nobody's taken out anything," Donal replied. "And they can't unless you let these people do their jobs!"

"I saw for myself what those monsters can do, and—"

"Do you people have a skywatch set up?"

The persistent man blinked. "A . . . what?"

"A skywatch." Donal pointed at the man. "What's your name?"

"Uh . . . Sam Carver."

"Well, Mr. Carver. You need a civilian skywatch here on Fortrose, and my instincts tell me you're just the man to organize it."

Carver's eyes narrowed, as though he was expecting some trick. "Well, I am pretty good at running things, uh, Lieutenant. . . ."

"I knew it! Now, here's what the Strathan Central Command needs you to do, Mr. Carver. You get together as many good men and women as you can. People with good eyes. Talk to the Wide Sky MLC to see about getting electronic binoculars."

"Uh . . . wait. MLC?"

"Military Logistics Center." He shook his head, grinning wolfishly. "If you're going to join up, you'd better learn the language, don't you think?"

"Now wait, wait! I haven't joined anything!"

Donal folded his arms and gave Carver a severe look. "I thought you wanted to help, Mr. Carver. If you do, I've got a whole list of things civilian groups could do under military direction, things that need to be done for the common defense."

"Yeah, but—"

"You can organize a skywatch to keep track of aircraft and surface vessels approaching Fortrose. That will act as a backup for the city's radar net, and maybe free up some military personnel for other duties. You could start organizing guerrilla forces from among civilians who have some experience moving around in the woods. Having this many people on board this floating city is just begging the Malach to come drown you all at once, so the faster we can get most of you back ashore, the better.

"In other words, Mr. Carver, you can get off your tail and do something about your situation here, or you can sit on that fat behind and moan and complain until the Malach come and sink Fortrose out from under you. If you choose to help, you will do so under military jurisdiction, if for no other reason than that we can't have you getting in the way. That means you and your people will follow orders. If you choose to moan and complain, I hope you can swim, because the official military designation of this city is 'VLST.' " When Carver blinked confusion, he added, "That's milspeak for 'Very Large Stationary Target.' Do we understand one another, sir?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess we do."

"What about the evacuation?" another man demanded. "We got all these transports out here. I say we load 'em up and boost for someplace safe!"

"Oh? And where would that be, Mister, ah . . . ?"

"Halliwell. Jess Halliwell."

"Mr. Halliwell, how is your arithmetic?"

"Huh? Whatcha mean?"

"The population of Wide Sky is something on the order of one hundred million, is it not?"

"I, uh, guess it—"

"When I was coming in to land this morning, I saw three Conestoga-class transports out there. That's more than you usually see in port at once. When used as troops ships, which means maximum crowding and no room for the amenities, Conestogas can carry about five thousand people. It's a one-week flight to Muir, another week back for a second load. There may be other worlds closer, but none that aren't in imminent danger of attack by the Malach. You've got other ships out there as well, but all of them together probably couldn't carry as much as one Conestoga. Let's be generous, though, and say you can carry another five thousand there. So, that tells me you can haul twenty thousand people off this planet every two weeks, which is actually pretty decent when you're trying to organize an interstellar mass migration. At that rate, how long is it going to take to move one hundred million people, Mr. Halliwell?"

Halliwell looked confused, then doubtful, then belligerent. "Look, none a' that is my business, see? I want t' know what the government is gonna do about these damned, four-eyed lizards!"

"Why, Mr. Halliwell. Weren't you listening a moment ago? We're going to draft you into the army."

"Now wait just a damned minute!"

"That way, we can most efficiently make use of your skills and talents in fighting the Malach. I can't promise, of course, that those skills and talents will suit you to any task more glamorous than cannon fodder, but we all must do what we do best if we're to survive this crisis."

"I, uh, that is—"

"C'mon, Jess," Carver said, tugging at Halliwell's shoulder. "We'll go talk to Major Fitzsimmons about this."

"Shoot," someone else said. "Old Fitz isn't going to do anything. . . ."

"Yeah, but he's better than the damned Cluster Authority. Drafted! We'll just see about this. . . ."

The crowd in front of the table was breaking up, however, the most belligerent moving away more hastily than the others. Some threw Donal dark glances as they left, and he heard the name "Muir" repeated several times. In moments, Donal was alone with Alexie Turner. The auditorium was slowly clearing as the crowd kept moving up the aisles. Riot, for the moment, at any rate, had been averted.

"Well," Alexie said. She had a dazzling smile, though there were dark smudges beneath her eyes that suggested that it had been a while since she'd slept. "You must be Lieutenant Ragnor. I heard the Search and Rescue boys had found you and brought you in."

"For which I thank you, Director."

"Uh-uh. Thank you," she said, shaking Donal's hand. Her grip was cool and firm. "And it's still Deputy Director. At least until we hold an election that makes it official." She looked past Donal at the rapidly emptying auditorium. "Frankly, anyone who'd want to be Director General of this circus has probably just disqualified herself. Mental incompetence. In any case, I really appreciated your help just now."

"My pleasure, uh, Deputy Director. All part of our cheerful, friendly service."

"It's . . . a little terrifying how fast friends and neighbors can turn into a murderous riot. I've known Sam Carver for years. He used to work for my dad."

"Well, we haven't really solved anything yet, you know. After they get outside and talk things over, they're going to spot the sleight-of-hand in my arithmetic lesson just now."

"What do you mean? You got it just right. There's no way we can move a hundred million people off of Wide Sky. Even if we had the ships, which we certainly don't, we couldn't load anything like the supplies we'd need." She grinned ruefully. "And I doubt that any other world in the Cluster would want a hundred million refugees dropping into their back yards, even if we could manage it."

"No, the sleight-of-hand was in the basic assumption. A hundred million people. Pretty soon, now, Mr. Carver and his friends will figure out that, so far as they're concerned, there's no need to move the entire population, so long as they get away to safety."

"You mean . . . they'd just take a ship? Hijack it?"

"They might."

"I can't believe that of Sam."

"Well, if I were you, I'd post a heavy guard on all of the spacecraft you have parked out there, just to be sure. Effective immediately."

"Yes, you're right. We have security people guarding the ships now, but . . ." She stopped, unhooked a personal transceiver from her wrist, and spoke into it for several moments. When she replaced the unit, she met his eyes with a smile. "Thank you again, Lieutenant. I must say, you seem to be pretty much on the ball."

"We try, ma'am."

"That's been our biggest problem since the refugee crisis started," she told him. "Knowing that, once it sinks home that there is no escape, we're going to have a real panic on our hands."

"It's a possibility," Donal told her. "Your big problem will be the few who are smart enough to see the angles, and who are selfish enough not to care about their neighbors. Usually in situations like this, there are always a few troublemakers. The majority, though, usually manage to rally themselves in a crisis, somehow."

"I hope you're right, Lieutenant."

His eyes met those of Kathy as she approached the podium. "Ah! Here's my pilot. Deputy Director Alexie Turner? Commander Kathy Ross."

"Pleased to meet you, Commander. I gather you're the one who spread a KR-72 Lightning across half of West Continent." Her smile robbed the words of any sting.

"Mmm. Yeah, that was me. You know, I may be in violation of Wide Sky's littering laws."

Alexie laughed. "I think we can let you off the hook this time. Extenuating circumstances."

"So," Donal said. "You're trying to lift your kids off in those ships parked out there."

"Yes. We want to evacuate as many children as we can, and enough young adults to ride herd on them all. We hope to get perhaps fifty thousand off of Wide Sky."

"Fifty thousand? I was figuring you'd be lucky to get twenty thousand. Or do you have more ships available?"

"No. Except for a few at the other floating cities, this is all we could scrape together, and at that we practically had to requisition the Conestogas at gun point. But children are small, and they don't mind crowding or lack of privacy. More can be squeezed into a cabin than adults."

"You'll send them to Muir, of course."

She looked up at him through long lashes. Her eyes, he only now realized, were a deep and lustrous blue. "You seem very sure of yourself, Lieutenant."

He shrugged. "You don't have a lot of choice. And, well, my bosses are going to need some convincing back there that this crisis is real. I can't think of a better way to convince them than dropping fifty thousand kids on their doorstep. And . . . you'll be with them, right?"

She shook her head. "My place is here. With my people."

"Mmm. Seems to me your place is wherever you could be the most help to your people. And that might be on Muir, convincing Governor Chard that the Malach are a threat to the entire Cluster."

"We'll give you the information you need, Lieutenant. Including downloads of everything the people from the university have put together."

"In my experience, Deputy Director, human beings have an innate capacity for ignoring information, in whatever form, that is nothing short of astonishing."

"Um, I know what you mean. Especially if they have administrative, bureaucratic, or career-related territories to defend."

"Exactly. Quite a few careers back on Muir appear to be founded on the principle that there's nothing dangerous in the Gulf. It would be too . . . inconvenient."

"I was thinking of sending Sam Carver as my representative, actually," Alexie said. "He's not a bad sort, despite the bluster. And he was head of a pretty fair-sized citizens' group back at Sea Cliffs."

"Maybe. But it would sound a hell of a lot more convincing coming from you."

"I'll take it under advisement." She sounded genuinely torn, but it was clear she was still sure her duty lay here on Wide Sky. "Our first priority is to organize the evacuation of the children, and that's not going to be easy. We'll decide who else gets to go when the kids are taken care of."

"Aren't you two forgetting something?" Kathy asked.

"What's that?" Donal asked.

She pointed one slim index finger toward the domed roof of the auditorium. "Our friends up there. The ones that shot us down, remember? You're gonna have a time of it trying to get three Conestogas past that blockade."

"We do have some space fighters left," Alexie said. "Major Fitzsimmons is still planning the operation with his staff, but the idea is that a sudden, surprise attack on the blockading fleet might open a hole long enough for the evacuation fleet to slip out. Once in hyper-L, of course, nothing could touch them."

"Could work," Kathy said. "I might have some ideas on the subject, too."

"I think," Donal said, "that you ought to have a talk with the major. He seemed reasonably receptive." He smiled. "Not as closed-minded as some I could think of."

"How soon are you planning on making your run for it?" Kathy asked.

"Wait," Donal said, holding up his hand. "What is that God-awful racket?"

A keening sound was wailing outside, the rise and fall stirring his hackles and goading the people still in the auditorium to push their way out even faster.

"Air raid siren," Alexie told him. "Fortrose is under attack." A moment later, a dull, heavy thump sounded from outside, followed by the redoubled screams and shouts from the crowd.

"C'mon," Donal said. "Let's have a look."

They hurried after the others as explosions rumbled and thumped from outside. Emerging through the auditorium's main doors, they found themselves on a broad and crowded plaza overlooking Fortrose's main lagoon. Most of the people in the crowd were scattering now in panicked flight, but a few clung to the safety railing, staring and pointing toward the western sky.

A pair of Gremlins shrieked low overhead, their shadows momentarily sweeping across the plaza as they passed between the floating city and the sun. Another explosion thundered as a plume of white water geysered into the sky just beyond the city's breakwater.

Eight tiny black specks strung across the sky just above the western horizon were rapidly growing, sweeping in toward the city with heartstopping speed.

Everything seemed to happen at once. As the eight invaders hurtled closer to the city, a massive Percheron on one of the city's landing pads—Donal thought it must be the craft that had rescued them hours before—began lumbering into the sky on howling ventral thrusters. A missile arrowed in from the west at the tip of an unraveling white contrail, striking the Percheron squarely in the center and detonating in a thunderous crash and rising ball of orange flame. The Percheron staggered under the impact, then tumbled back to the pad, metal crumbling and burning with a fierce white heat. Three more missiles streaked in through the air. The Gremlins banked left and right, scattering flares and antimissile scattershot. Two of the missiles detonated short of their target; the third sheared the wing off one Gremlin in a blossoming white detonation, sending the aircraft spinning wildly, tumbling out of control just above the crowded breakwater and smashing into the sea.

In another instant, the Malach aircraft were shrieking low above the city. Donal realized with a start of recognition that the vehicles were identical to the combat machines he and Kathy had seen on the beach the night before. The legs on each were telescoped in and tucked up tight against the belly, transforming the alien walkers into huge, winged fliers. Ducted venturis along the crafts' undersides held them aloft on shrieking blasts of hot plasma. Where those invisible jets touched the sea they erupted in boiling clouds of steam. As the craft drifted across the breakwater and over the artificial island, the jets kicked up swirling clouds of sand and dust, lashing the rows of carefully planted trees into whiplashing frenzies.

There was a desperate need, Donal decided, for high-powered cannon mounts or laser turrets somewhere on the city's walls or towers. A few dozen such weapons would have brought down those hovering craft in moments. Banking hard, the surviving Gremlin fired a pair of Skystreak missiles. Both impacted against the same Malach flier with dazzling flashes of high explosive, but the Malach craft kept flying, its armor scorched and charred in places but with no apparent damage to either its hull or its performance. Perhaps, Donal thought, it would take more than cannon mounts or lasers after all; those flying craft were tough, more like miniature airborne Bolos than traditional aircraft.

The last Gremlin fell from the sky, its tail sheared away by a beam as cleanly as a hot knife slicing through plastic. The Malach craft were circling the artificial island now, weaving back and forth in a complex pattern of multiple loops and figure-eights. A dazzling, blue-white beam like a razor-straight bolt of lightning flicked down across the lagoon, striking several boats in rapid succession. The attack stirred the milling, scattering crowd to greater panic. As flame and smoke exploded from the lagoon, people everywhere, on the plaza, on the walkways next to the lagoon, in the open, sandy areas covered by refugee tents, began fleeing wildly, running in no particular direction, guided only by a desperate need to escape the darting, airborne attackers. Several screaming men and women smashed past Donal, Alexie, and Kathy as they stood at the edge of the plaza overlook; one of them hit Alexie hard enough in the back that she nearly catapulted over the railing, but Kathy and Donal both grabbed her and kept her from falling.

"We'd better find shelter," he told them.

"It's too late for that," Kathy replied. "Look!" She pointed. Eight more airborne vehicles were approaching on shrieking ventral jets. These were similar to the first but larger, much larger, and as they howled over the breakwater, their legs began unfolding like complex puzzles, telescoping out with clawed, grasping feet that sank into sand or grated on seament.

The Malach were landing and in considerable force.

"Come on," Donal shouted. "We have to get out of here!"

"We'll go to Cee-cubed," Alexie said.

"Command-Control-Communications?" Donal asked her as they turned from the railing and started across the plaza, angling toward the central cluster of towers.

"We call it the City Control Center," Alexie replied. "Same thing, I guess, though. It's where Major Fitzsimmons will be. And we can follow things on the big city map."

As the women dashed on ahead, Donal stopped, turning to have another look at the grounded invader craft. They were opening up now, spilling large numbers of Malach troops, and Donal felt a small shock of surprise at the sight. Only a few minutes before he'd seen the computer-generated image of a Malach in the presentation in the auditorium; there was a vast difference, however, between the simulation and the reality. These creatures, no, these beings, moved with the fluid grace of born predators. Their heads didn't turn, they snapped from side to side with the quick and alert agility of birds. Their gait could be almost comical when they walked slowly, like the mincing strut of chickens . . . but then they would dash ahead with breathtaking speed, the muscles rippling beneath their green-and-ruby-scaled hides, and there was suddenly nothing in the least amusing about them.

Each wore a complicated harness of metal and black leather; each carried a weapon, a slim, exotically curved and fragile-seeming artifact that still managed to look deadly when wielded by those long-clawed hands. They tended to hold them in the upper, slender pair of arms, saving the lower, more muscular pair for picking things up or moving debris. As he watched, a pack of eight of the Malach sprinted ahead in a tight-packed wedge, plunging into the tent city near where their lander had parked.

"Lieutenant!" Kathy yelled at him from twenty meters away. "Come on!"

"You two go ahead!" he yelled back, waving them on. "I'll be along soon!"

He had to see this. If he ever made it back to Muir alive, his memories of the Malach in battle would be invaluable. Not for the Confederation Military Command, necessarily . . . but for Freddy and Ferdy, the two Mark XXIVs waiting for him back at the maintenance depot. He wished he had a vid recorder; the Bolos, almost certainly, would be able to analyze the Malach attack profiles and tactics with far greater accuracy and detail than was possible for any mere human soldier.

A pair of Malach fighters howled overhead, traveling so close to the city's surface that Donal was knocked down by a blast of hot air from one of those ventral jets. Ball turrets beneath the fighters' rounded prows loosed stuttering volleys of needle-thin, blue-white bolts that sprayed across the buildings of the central towers. Glass shattered, seament exploded in the heat, sending an avalanche of rubble cascading down the faces of several of the towers and smashing onto the plaza below, close to where Kathy and Alexie had been moments ago.

"Kathy!" he yelled. "Kathy!" Oh, God! Had they been caught by that avalanche? He couldn't tell. Scrambling to his feet, he started forward, searching. Pain clawed at his left arm. When he looked down, he saw that the sleeve of his uniform tunic had been burned away, and the skin beneath turned boiled-lobster red. He could feel burns on his side and his face as well, but only as a kind of tightness, as from a sunburn that hadn't really started to hurt yet.

No matter. He could still function. Where were Kathy and Alexie?

Behind, above, and around him, explosions thundered and civilians screamed. For them, he thought, it must seem like the end of the world . . . and in a sense, it was the end of this world, at least.

The Malach had arrived to challenge Man for the mastery of this planet, and, so far as Donal could see, there wasn't a damned thing that Man could do in the way of fighting back. . . .

 

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