Allan Cole - Sten

The noses dumped away, and suited guardsmen spilled out. There was little resistance. None of the patrolmen inside had realized what could happen in time to suit up.

The Guard smoothly broke down into small, self-contained attack squads and moved out. Behind them moved their semiportable maser support units and, around the ships, combat engineers went into action, closing off the vents in the outer skin.

Resistance, compared to the Guard's usual opposition, was light. The Sociopatrolmen may have thought themselves elite thugs, but, as they discovered, there was a monstrous difference between larruping unarmed workers or crudely armed resistance fighters and facing skilled, combat-experienced guardsmen.

Mercenaries make rotten heroes, Thoresen decided as he watched the Sociopatrol officer wave his squad forward. About half of them huddled even closer behind the improvised barricades Thoresen had ordered set up just inside the lab's entrance. The other half reluctantly came to their feet and moved forward.

The Mantis troopers across the room opened fire. The fastest-moving patrolman made it three meters before legs exploded and he sprawled on the bodies of previous waves. The accountant part of Thoresen's brain shuddered at the tab. They have five men —Thoresen hadn't seen Frick and Frack, sheltered high above him on a beam— we came in with almost seventy. They've taken no casualties, and we've lost thirty patrolmen?

The com at his belt buzzed. Thoresen lifted it. He listened, then hastily muted the speaker. Slowly going white as anger washed over him. Mostly at himself. He had assumed the Emperor wouldn't move in without some pretext, but the panicked communications center Tech had notified him that the guardsmen were already in. Including the rebels' sectors, almost a third of Vulcan was taken.

Thoresen slithered backward to the patrol officer. "We'll need more men," he said. "I'll coordinate them from the security office." The wall above his head exploded as he snaked his way out of the lab into the corridor.

He got up and ran down the corridor toward the end. Stopped and took the tiny red control unit from his pocket, touched the fingerprint-keyed lock, and opened the unit. He tapped .15 onto the screen and closed the circuit, then forced himself to calmness as he walked away from the Bravo Project labs. A gravsled waited for him. "The Eye," he ordered, and the sled lifted.

Behind him, under the floor of the lab's main controls, the timer started on Thoresen's own Doomsday Device—a limited-yield single megaton atomic device that would obliterate the entire project lab and give Thoresen his only chance at remaining alive.

Ida raked fire across the patrolmen's barricades and grunted.

"Alex. You realize that if we stay pinned down and your charges go off, I'll never take you drinking again."

Alex wasn't paying attention. His eyes were locked on one of the instruments from his demopack. "Sten. We hae worse problems tha' the charges Ah set. Ah hae signs a' some nuclear device's running."

Sten blinked. "But where? Who set it?"

"Ah dinnae. But best we find it. Mah name's Kilgour, nae Ground Zero." He set the detector to directional, and swept its pickup around the room. "Ah, tha's so fine. Yon bomb's right across there." He waved across fifty meters of open space toward the central controls.

"Gie us some interestin' thoughts," he said. "Firs', we manage t'gae 'crost that open space wi'out gettin' dead. An' then Ah hae the sheer fun a' tryin' a' defuse it, wi'out knowin' when it's gonna go."

"Mad minute!" Sten used the aeons-old shout, and the team opened fire, spraying rounds at the barricades.

Alex grabbed his pack and rolled to his feet. Running, zig-zag. Riot shells crashed around him.

"Over there!"

Jorgensen elbowed out of cover and sprayed the patrolman shooting at Alex. Exposed for only a moment, and the patrol officer fired. The riot round armed and exploded hallway across tne lab, and barbed flechettes whined out.

Jorgensen's shoulder and arm were momentary pincushions, then the flechettes exploded. The Mantis troopers stopped shooting momentarily, but discipline took over, and they continued mad-minute fire. Sten watched Alex as he ripped the meter-wide floorplates up and slid down belowdeck.

"Our broodmate, almost. Yes he—" and Frick and Frack launched themselves from the dome. Frack armed one of her tiny wingbombs and folded her wings.

Plummeting in a vertical dive, she and Frick made no attempt to release. They died instantly as their tiny bodies slammed into the patrol officer. Then the bombs went off. The officer became a fireball, and shrapnel sliced through the squad crouched beside him.

Sten saw Doc crawl from his hiding place near Jorgensen's body and move toward the dead man's willygun. The small panda awkwardly turned the willygun toward the barricades, then staggered up with the crushing—to him—weight. One hand pulled the trigger back and held it until the magazine went empty. More shock. Doc really isn't. . .

Sten swept his sights over the barricade, and blew off the arm of a momentarily exposed patrolman. As the man reared up, screaming, Bet finished him.

Alex knelt beside the nuclear device under the floor-panels. Ah ken on'y hope , he thought, the amat'oors who built this lashup hae some respect f'r betters an gie some shieldin'. Ah c'd build a better A bomb then this be wi' a crushin' hangover an' mah teeth , he thought.

The bomb was an idiot-simple device. A metal ball covered with what resembled modeling clay. Small, directional blasting charges studded the surface, hooked to a radio pickup and what Alex assumed was a timer.

He started to yank the wires off, then squinted. There were extra wires he didn't see any purpose for. Booby traps, he decided.

Thin , he thought, we'll gae the hard way . And began gently lifting each blasting charge out of its slot. Ah, wonder how many ae these Ah'll yank out afore this wee bomb blows? He wiped sweat away.

The driver pushed the sled wide open, and he and Thoresen ducked behind its shield. The sled flashed down the corridor, and the Mig resistance fighters ducked. They spun, and the few with riot weapons opened up.

Far too late as the sled banked around the corridor and out of sight.

Thoresen looked up. Ahead of him was the entrance to The Eye. He sighed in relief—It was still held by a detachment of Sociopatrolmen.

"Ah hae it! Ah hae it!"

Sten saw, out of the corner of his eye, Alex's rotund form bounce out of the below-floor space and bound across the open area. He dived and skidded across the last five meters into shelter. "Yon wee beastie's safe'n mah gran," he said.

"Leaving us only one problem."

"Aye," Alex said. "Figuring how we haul butt afore we're hoist wi' our own petard."

At least fifteen patrolmen were stubbornly holding behind the barricades. "I don't think," Ida said, "they'd be much interested in a mutual truce."

"Correct," Doc added gloomily. "Prediction: Since they've been cut up so badly, they'll assume we're bluffing." He ran another few rounds through the willygun that Sten had wedged into position for him. "Kilgour. You realize this is all your fault. Now I'll never be able to have my own practice."

"Nae tha's an advantage Ah no considered," Alex managed. "Tae many bloodybones aroun' as ‘tis."

Bet shook her head in disbelief.

"Ida," Sten said suddenly. "Come on. Alex. We're going to try a superbluff. Flank 'em if they go for it."

Ida rippled to her feet, and the two dodged out, toward the freighter's lock. Puzzled, Alex, Bet, and Doc opened up with covering fire.

Sten wedged the flare to the freighter's control room window, and shoved the portable com into his coveralls. "You think they'll believe it?"