Endgame

The silent La’hengrin laughs. “Still waters and all that.”

“We’re nearly to the drop point,” Vel interjects.

Loras scrutinizes the landing site, an estate that’s fallen into disrepair upon the death of the legate who owned it. His heirs are all off world, and the man promoted to the position doesn’t receive personally owned property as part of the promotion. Which means nobody ever comes around here. There’s no staff, no witnesses, but there’s always the risk of being detected on Imperial scans.

“Bring it in. Drop to single thruster and kill it before we hit the ground.”

Vel complies even as he objects, “That will interfere with the stabilizers.”

“I have faith in you, Ithtorian.” Loras has steel in his voice. He expects the impossible, and people deliver it.

Me, among them.

The shuttle spins a little, but Vel lands in accordance with Loras’s requirements. Tonight, it’s dark and still, no moon, clouds obscuring the stars. It’s ominously quiet for a modern world. No ships overhead. No lights in the countryside to reveal civilization.

Apart from the major cities, the invading “protectors” have broken La’hengrin society down into pockets of isolated slave camps they call villages. It has been so long that most of them can’t remember what it’s like to have power and running water. They’ve been forced into medieval conditions without adequate housing or medical care, and they couldn’t even fight the changes that came down, law after law, for their own “protection,” preventing them from striking back.

Grimly, I swallow my disgust and outrage. I’m doing what I can to make it right. That’s all anyone can do.

Vel guides the shuttle into an outbuilding, where we’ll hide it until further notice. From this point, our cell devotes itself to dismantling the infrastructure in the capital. From what I heard while on leave, it’s already unsteady without an influx of reinforcements and supplies from Nicu Tertius. The Imperials stationed here aren’t the best of the best, bright-eyed and full of ambition. So without backup, they don’t know what the hell to make of our little rebellion; they also have no idea how big it will eventually become.

Vel is telling Loras, “It is not invisible. A dedicated search will—”

“Erase all the destinations in the nav com,” Loras interrupts. “If they find the shuttle, I don’t want them uncovering any clue where we’ve been. Can you do that?”

“Assuredly,” Vel replies.

“The rest of you, grab your gear and huddle up. I have some last-minute instructions.”

I obey; my pack is light compared to what I carried on Conglomerate missions. But we had better gear then. Better odds, too, despite the bullshit I feed myself on a regular basis. I’m sure the others do the same. Well, except for Zeeka. He still thinks the good guys always win; it comes from getting most of his culture from old vids.

“We go in on foot. From there, we’ll be splitting into four teams.”

“Two, two, three, three?” Bannie asks.

She’s questioning how we’ll divide up. I don’t blame her for being nervous. We’ve worked together for a while; even if it wasn’t thrilling, we’re used to each other. It’ll be different inside the city, all of us possessing separate missions.

“That’s correct,” Loras answers.

“Will you give us the breakdown now?” Zeeka asks.

Loras sighs. “If it will relieve your minds. Farah, you’re with me.”

That announcement draws some ribbing, but the others shut up when Farah crosses her arms. Sometimes, she’s scary.

Loras continues, “Zeeka and Rikir. Vel, Jax, and Xirol. Bannie, Eller, and Timmon. I’ll give your individual assignments as we march.”

It’s forty klicks to the city. No telling what we’ll run into between here and there.

CHAPTER 29

The march should take seven hours, tops, but things get interesting ten klicks in. Loras signals, and I scramble off the road. I crouch behind a wild, thorny hedge, waiting for whatever he heard. The others have their heads cocked, listening; and then comes the rumble of an engine.

“Imperial,” Rikir whispers.

Xirol nods.

By the sound of the vehicle, it’s an aircar, not a shuttle, and it’s zooming at a pretty low altitude, skimming what used to be roads, long before the Nicuan came. Now, they don’t maintain them, so they’re just dark, frayed ribbons threading through a green wilderness. Some La’hengrin exist in remote poverty their whole lives, fearing their protector will sell their shinai-bond.

“It’s probably a legate,” Loras says. “On the way to his country estate. They’re the only ones who own property in this region.”

Like the dead one whose place we’re using to hide the shuttle.

“If we can stop the vehicle, we can use him.” Zeeka tilts his head, tracking the lights. I can see them now.

“How?” Xirol asks.

Z seems a little nervous, but he outlines his plan: “Remember how you meant to send Vel in as a centurion to gather intel on Imperial installations?”

I nod, along with everyone else.

Encouraged, Z goes on, “It seems like a legate would be much more valuable, and this is a prime opportunity to snatch him for the infiltration.”

Holy shit, he can supplant this legate in the capital. This is so much better than the original plan. It will be risky, certainly, but the rewards could be immeasurable.

Loras nods. “Good thinking.” He turns to Vel. “Can you do it?”

“With sufficient time for study.”

“I’ll get them to stop,” Farah says.

She doesn’t look at Loras. Instead, she drops her pack and strips down to her black tank top and matching panties. The La’hengrin males freeze; they can’t stop staring at her. Loras growls low in his throat, but she doesn’t turn toward him. He lunges at her, but Rikir catches his arms.

“Let her work, man.”

I hear his teeth grinding as she pushes through the bushes. The thorns tear at her skin, so her distress will be real when the aircar lights skim over her. The blood, too, is real. It’s hard to get my breath as she slumps onto her knees, beautiful even in misery. Overhead, the purr of the engine rumbles louder, closer, until I can’t hear anything but that sound.

As I watch in disbelief, the aircar cruises by. I didn’t think anyone could resist Farah. Beside me, Xirol mutters, “I’d have bet fifty credits against that.”

“Me too,” Rikir replies.

Loras snarls, “Shut it, both of you.”

Then the lights overhead swerve, spiking back in our direction. The aircar hovers, yellow beams skimming the ground all around. The constant uncertainty has taught them to be wary, if nothing else. It’s smart.

“Be still,” Vel whispers.

“Beautiful girl alone in the wilderness…” Eller says. “Of course they think it’s a trap.”

Loras gestures for silence. “We have a minute, maybe less, to take that aircar. I need you to flank quick and quiet. Farah will buy us that much time.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, along with everyone else.

I check my weapons. No guns. He wants a silent kill.

It should be easy. Aircars aren’t big enough to hold a whole squad of soldiers. The aircar’s passengers apparently decide there’s no trouble on the ground, just a helpless La’hengrin female. This must seem like a gift from the gods because slaves this beautiful ordinarily cost a fortune. The legate probably imagines her shinai has been killed in one of the raids, leaving her helpless. They don’t wonder why the resistance abandoned her…because that’s the kind of thing the centurions would do without a second thought.

The car whines as it lands. Then a falsely commiserating voice asks, “Are you hurt?”

“A little,” Farah breathes.

Though her back is turned, I can imagine her tremulous look. I count four men, one legate, three centurions, and I glance at Loras for the order. He gives it in a curt hand gesture, his face white and livid in the moonlight. As I break cover, I understand why. The legate has his hands on Farah—and if I had any doubts about her relationship with Loras, they’ve been put to rest.

Knife drawn, I move in smoothly along with Vel, Timmon, and Xirol. For all his levity, he’s a skilled killer. Vel and I, odd as it sounds, are veterans—and Timmon, well, he doesn’t like seeing bastards touch his sister. I can’t blame him.

Timmon kills the legate with a jab to the kidney; no armor blocks his blade. It enters cleanly, and as the Imperial falls back, he slices his throat. The rest of us work as efficiently. Xirol goes for a clean break, twisting the centurion’s head to the side whereas Vel crushes the larynx with his talons, then finishes the job. I take my foe with an initial stun to the stellate ganglia. Quick downward strike with the handle of my knife, and I follow the stun with a vertical stab into the subclavian artery. Five seconds later, he’s on the ground, dead. It should bother me how good I am at this. Before, I could say with sincerity that I was just a jumper. I can’t anymore.

Farah pushes to her feet, smiling. “Good work. Does someone have my clothes?”

Sometimes I think she’s as much Loras’s second-in-command as I am. But I’m not interested in debating that at the moment. After Timmon hands them to her, she dresses quickly. It’s cold enough that I can see my breath, so she must be freezing. The clouds threaten rain; we’re far enough south, away from the mountains, that precipitation falls in drops rather than flurries.

“Get the centurions off the road,” Loras orders.

Nobody drives on them, but there’s a small chance another aircar could spot them. Best to shove the bodies into the thornbushes and leave them for the animals, as we did in the first village. Xirol, Rikir, and Eller get busy while Loras studies the vehicle.

“This isn’t going to work,” Bannie says. “It won’t hold all of us.”

Farah nods. “We might cram everyone inside, but there’s no way the engine has enough lift to carry everyone.”

“What’s the new plan?” Xirol asks.

Timmon starts to grab the legate, but Loras throws up a hand. “No, he comes with us so Vel can replicate his features.”

I assess the aircar, then say, “It’ll carry six, tops. Five if you’re taking the corpse.”

Loras makes a swift command decision. “We’ll rendezvous at the legate’s country estate. There may be resistance, but my team can handle it.”

“There probably won’t be many centurions,” Zeeka says.

Vel nods. He’s tapping on his handheld, using the aircar as a wireless router to piggyback connection to Imperial databases. Hopefully, they won’t be able to tell his interface from the legate’s data stream. This war effort has crippled his usefulness because he can’t access information like he does on other worlds. He finds it frustrating.

Now he’s in his element, at least. “This Legate Flavius is a minor official. Twenty centurions serve him. Ten are reported to guard his residence in the capital. And we just killed three.”