Джеффри Лорд - Return To Kaldak

Good. Serving him like this was still unpleasant for her. If she ever came to enjoy it, he would have to find some other method of continuing her punishment. Arsha hadn't yet paid in full for her stupidity over Voros and Cheeky.

As the woman's lips closed on him, Detcharn once again regretted that Voros had been killed in that lifter crash. He'd deserved a chance to help punish Arsha, too. And if Moshra hadn't died, too, maybe they'd have learned a little more about telepathy from Voros and Cheeky. Oh, well, one Kaldakan deserter more or less could hardly make that much difference.

Then Detcharn gave himself up entirely to pleasure.

Blade saw the last campfires of the Red Cats fade into the darkness behind the lifter. He saw that the other pilot had the controls, got up, and went aft. He moved cautiously, so as not to affect the machine's balance. With twenty men and all their weapons and equipment aboard, the lifter was loaded to capacity.

The cabin was dark, but the air was thick with the smells of gun oil and unwashed Tribesmen. Near the open rear hatch, the air was fresher. Blade stuck his head out briefly, saw the other two lifters were following steadily a hundred yards behind, and relaxed. It was a clear night, and if it stayed that way there would be no problem with the lifters losing each other. In fact, there wasn't a bloody thing for him to do for about the next four hours! He might as well try to get some sleep.

Normally Blade would have found it easy to do this. Once a military operation passed the point of no-return, he usually found it easy to relax. Not this time. Was it the stakes being so much higher than usual-life or death for a whole Dimension-a Dimension that he himself had shaped? Was it the Dimension X secret being at stake? Or what?

A soft yeeep sounded at his feet. Then Cheeky hopped up on the edge of the hatch. Gently Blade took him by the scruff of the neck and put him back inside. Cheeky had insisted on coming along, the moment he knew that his master was going to war. Blade let him come, because if Blade didn't come back Cheeky wasn't likely to survive very long among the Red Cats or even on Bekror's estate. However, Blade also hoped he could be persuaded to stay inside the lifters when they reached the base. Blade would have too much else to do to spend time keeping Cheeky out of trouble.

Blade couldn't sleep, he couldn't smoke, he couldn't drink, and he couldn't pace up and down without disturbing the balance of the lifter and showing the Tribesmen that he was nervous. He couldn't talk to anyone because Ezarn was asleep and everyone else he knew was in one of the other lifters. In fact, there really wasn't a bloody thing he could do!

So he propped himself against the rear wall of the cabin, his rifle across his knees and his belt of power cells draped over it. He leaned back and tried to relax, even if he wasn't going to get to sleep ….

Half an hour later, a change of course woke Ezarn. He splashed his face with water from his canteen, then crawled off on hands and knees. He'd never liked to stand up in an airborne lifter. When he reached the rear of the cabin, he found Voros sound asleep, head sunk on his chest. Carefully Ezarn shifted him so that his neck wouldn't get twisted. You can't expect a man to lead in battle with a stiff neck!

Detcharn greeted the dawn on his private balcony. He wished it was the dawn of the Day; he was getting impatient. Also, he was short of sleep. To reduce Arsha to proper submission took a while. However, he'd finally succeeded. In fact, she was now so submissive that his pleasure was shrinking. Should he declare that her punishment was over, let her return to her work, and look about for a new woman?

Perhaps. But he would do better to decide this after breakfast. He stretched, letting the dawn breeze blow across his bare chest. He wore only trousers and his weapons belt, and he wore the belt only because it would set a bad example for the guards if he didn't. Arsha was so cowed that she would hardly have dared touch his pistol or one of his knives if he'd handed it to her!

The rocket base was beginning to wake up. Tiny figures scurried along paths, and steam tractors trailed dust and smoke. Three lifters slid in over the rocket pits, heading for the main guardhouse. Detcharn saw they wore regular military markings. Probably some company out on night exercises, hoping to negotiate a free breakfast and hot showers from him. They should have given him more warning, but they'd get what they came for anyway. It never did any harm, to make the regular soldiers more grateful to the Seekers.

The lifters were now circling the guardhouse, as if they were asking permission to land. Detcharn was about to go inside and Sky-Voice to whatever fool of a guard commander couldn't make up his mind, when two of the lifters landed in a cloud of dust. The third stopped circling and came toward the cliff and the laboratories.

The raiders circled five times around the main guardhouse while Blade studied it to make sure there weren't any new weapons in place. All he saw was the same two lasers he'd seen while he was a prisoner.

Time to land. As Blade's two lifters settled down, Sparra's passed overhead on its way to the cliff. The men in it would blow up the heavy weapons on top of the cliff, then keep any armed Seekers or guards in the laboratories from crashing the party at the base.

The dust settled. Blade opened the door and climbed out. He wore the uniform of a Doimari rank which worked out to full colonel, so the guards at the door snapped to attention.

«Good morning, sir.»

«Good morning. Call your commander. My men and I want breakfast and hot showers.»

«Ah-yes, sir. Our own people are eating now, but-«

«We've been on patrol all night. Yours have spent all night in bed. Move!»

The guards decided this was the wrong time to argue. «Who shall we say is calling, sir?»

Blade took a deep breath.

«Moshra!»

Then he drew his laser and shot both men through the head.

Blade's shout of his battle cry and the shots were the signal to the other raiders. The turret-mounted laser on top of one lifter opened fire, knocking out one of the guardhouse weapons at once. Led by Ezarn and Ikhnan, forty Tribesmen in Doimari uniforms swarmed out of both lifters.

Blade threw a grenade at the guardhouse door. It buckled the metal, but flying fragments sang past his ears. Careful he told himself. With vengeance for Moshra so close at hand, it would be fatally easy to get careless.

Ezarn tossed two grenades up on the roof of the guardhouse. They blew the barrel off the second laser and most of its crew off the roof. Not all of them came down in one piece.

Then suddenly the grenade-buckled main door crashed open, and the guards came swarming out. Some of them had their guns in their hands, but others were unarmed. Some were partly clothed or even entirely naked. Even the armed ones didn't shoot at Blade. He fired a couple shots, then had to jump back to avoid being trampled into the concrete. The guards seemed blind with panic.

Then the Tribesmen and the heavy laser opened up together. The Tribal marksmen took the guards in front, and the heavy laser took the ones in the rear. Blade had to duck to avoid being shot down with the guards. His hands over his ears could shut out their screams, but he couldn't shut out the smell of burning flesh and fresh blood.

When he got up, the last few surviving guards were scattering frantically, with the best marksmen among the raiders shooting at them. In front of the door was a waist-high pile of charred and mangled corpses. Blade walked toward the pile, although the stench was strong enough to turn even his iron stomach. Something besides the raiders had thrown the guards into a mindless panic. He had to find out what it was and if it was dangerous to his men, even if he had to plow through the sickening pile of dead.