Allan Cole - Sten

"But," he heard Doc say, "those are none of our personnel."

They weren't. "They" were a solid wall of Migs. Unarmed or carrying clubs or improvised stakes. They were charging directly into the concentrated fire of the patrolmen grouped around the entrance. And they died, wave after wave of them.

But they kept coming, crawling over the bodies of their own dead, and, finally, rolling over the defenders. There was no sound, but Sten could well imagine. He saw a boy—no more than ten—come to his feet. He was waving. . .Sten swallowed. Hard. There were still threads of a Sociopatrol uniform clinging to it.

More Migs ran forward, teams with steel benches ripped from work areas. They slammed at the doors to the Exotic Section, and the doors went down.

Jorgensen, still in his battle-computer trance, droned on. ". . .there are, however, examples of spontaneous success. As, for example, the racially deprived citizenry of the city of Johannesburg."

"Two Miyitkina," Sten snapped.

"Ah hae a wee suggestion," Alex said. "Ah suggest we be joinin' our troopies, or yon revolution may be giein' on wi'out us."

Sten stepped through the smashed windows of the rec dome's control capsule and looked down at the faces staring up at him in their thousands. Sweaty, bloody, dirty, and growling.

It made no sense. Militarily. One rocket could take out not only the assembled Mantis team, but all the resistance workers they'd so laboriously trained and recruited over the months.

Clot sense , Sten thought, and nipped the hailer on.

"MEN AND WOMEN OF VULCAN," his voice boomed and echoed around the dome. He assumed that there were still functional security pickups, and he was being seen. He wondered if Thoresen would be able to ID him.

"Free men and women of Vulcan," he corrected himself. He waited for the roar to die. "We came to Vulcan to help you fight for your freedom. But you didn't need our help. You charged the Company's guns with your bare hands. And you won.

"But the Company still lives. Lives in The Eye. And until we can celebrate that victory—in The Eye—we have won nothing.

"Now is the time. . .Now is the time for us to help you. Help you make Vulcan free!" Sten chopped the hailer switch and walked back into the capsule.

Alex nodded approvingly. "Ah, ye can no dance to it, but Ah gie yer speech a' fair. Now, if we through muckin' aboot, ye ken we'll shoot away our signal, an' gie on wi' our real business?"

MYOR YJHH MMUI OERT MMCV CCVX AWLO. . .

Mahoney moved aside and let the Emperor read the decoded message:

STEP ONE COMPLETE. VULCAN NOW IN COMPLETE INTERNAL TURMOIL. BEGINNING STEP TWO.

The Emperor breathed deeply.

"Deploy Guard's First and Second Assault according to Operation Bravo, colonel."

THE BARON STARED at the figure on his screen. Frowned. It was familiar. He tapped keys, and the camera moved in on Sten. Thoresen froze a frame. Studied Sten's face. No. He didn't know him. Thoresen punched the keys ordering the computer to search its memory for a possible ID. With a little luck, it would just be some Mig with a loud mouth and tiny brain. Somehow, Thoresen didn't think it would work out that way.

Ida's model of the Bravo Project lab looked like a gray skinny balloon, half full of water at one end. There wasn't much to study; Ida had still been unable to penetrate security.

The team members and Bet eyed the model morosely. Sten, Alex, and Jorgensen wore, for the first time since they'd been on Vulcan, the Mantis Section phototropic camouflage uniforms. Ida and Bet were fitted into the coveralls of a Tech/1st and /3rd Class.

There wasn't much to say. Nobody was interested in inspirational speeches. They shouldered their packs, silently got into the gravsled, and Sten lifted it off, into the corridors of a Vulcan gone insane.

Vulcan was quickly collapsing as the Migs took to the streets. Images of pitched battles, looting, and Sociopatrol defeats floated up on the Baron's vidscreen.

The Baron turned the vid off. It was hopeless. There was nothing more he could do to put down the revolt. He would just have to let it burn itself out, then try to put his empire back together again.

A light blinked for attention. Thoresen almost ignored it. Just one more report from a hysterical guard. No, he had to answer. He flicked his computer on.

His heart turned to ice. The computer had identified the Mig leader. Sten. But he was—How?—And then the Baron knew that his world was about to end.

There was only one possibility: Sten; the Guard; Bravo Project. The Emperor knew and the Emperor was responsible for the Mig revolt. Sten was part of a Mantis Section team.

Desperately, Thoresen searched for a way out. What would happen next? How was he supposed to react? That was it—The Emperor was looking for an excuse to land troops. Thoresen was expected to call for help. He would be arrested, Bravo Project uncovered and then. . .

And then Thoresen had it. He would go to the lab. Get the most important files. Destroy the rest and flee. The Baron would still have the Emperor where he wanted him as long as he had the secret to AM 2.

He rose and started for the door. Paused. Something else. Something else. The Emperor would have ordered the lab destroyed. Sten and his team could be on the way now. He hurried to his comvid.

The frightened face of his chief security man came into view. "Sir!"

"I want as many men as you can spare. Here. Now," Thoresen snapped. The security chief started to gobble. "Get yourself together, man."

The chief stiffened. "Yes sir."

He disappeared. Thoresen thought quickly. Was there anything else? Any other percautions? . . . He similed grimly to himself, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out a small red box. He shoved it into his pocket and raced out the door.

FRICK AND FRACK arced back and forth, high above the deck of the Bravo Project lab. Hugging the ceiling, they'd gone straight down the entrance corridor, above the security teams.

They hadn't been seen by human eyes. There were, after all, no birds or even rodents on Vulcan. What the human eye doesn't understand, it doesn't see.

The security watch officer eyeballed his fingernails. He'd chewed them to the quick last shift. And he'd systematically racked every patrolman within twenty meters. There wasn't anything to do but sweat and count his problems.

And he had a lot of them. Guarding a lab whose purpose he had no idea of, for openers. Plus the clottin' Migs were going crazy—his best off-shift buddy had been found with a half-meter glass knife through his chest. And now he'd been tagged that Baron Thoresen was on his way down.

The last thing he needed was the computers being as berserk as they were, he thought. He glanced at the screen. Experimentally slammed it with one ham fist. Didn't change things. It still indicated flying objects were inside the lab proper.

The watch officer wondered why he'd taken the Company's job. He could have been very comfortable staying on as head of secret police on his homeworld. He looked up at the two Techs trundling down the corridor. 'bout clottin' time , he decided.

The beefy first-class Tech swaggered into his office and lifted a lip. Clottin' joy , the watch officer thought. I gotta get a deesldyke. All I need now is hemorrhoids .

He smiled sympathetically at the poor third-class Tech behind Ida. Poor kid , he thought. Shows you. Bet that first-class clot tried somethin', an' her assistant didn't go for it, so the dyke makes her lug the toolboxes .

"'bout what I'd expect," Ida snarled. "Computer cracks up, an' all you can do is sit there puttin" your thumbs up your nose." She turned to Bet. "Men!"