It was a very grim, very sour Masato Storm who watched the big
board in the war room. It looked terrible.
Someone moved a chair into place beside him. He glanced up at at
a commtech. He was holding the chair for Pollyanna.
Mouse smiled weakly. “How are you? Any better?”
“Ready for anything. Except I limp a little. They say
it’ll go away. How is it going?”
“Not good. I haven’t heard from Cassius for days.
I’m scared for him. And up
there . . . ” He indicated the board
showing the Whitlandsund. “We made some gains when the first
wave came over, but it’s slowed down. Way down. We’re
still pushing them back, but not fast enough.”
“But you outnumber them.”
“We’ve lost too many tractors. We can’t bring
our people over fast enough. It looks like we’ve only got two
chances. Either Cassius turns up or my uncle runs out of
ammunition.”
“Sir!” one of the commtechs yelled. “Sir,
I’ve got Colonel Walters on Tac One.”
“Put him on over here. Pollyanna, you’re a good-luck
charm. Maybe I’ll strap you into that chair.”
She smiled wanly. “I wasn’t too lucky for Frog. Or
Lucifer. Or . . . ”
“Can it.” Cassius’s grim face came on screen.
They argued back and forth about Ceislak’s battalion, and
Mouse tried to discover how Walters had gotten to Darkside. Cassius
broke off.
“He’s in a foul mood, isn’t he?”
Pollyanna asked.
“That he is. And he can be just as nasty as he wants as
long as he does his job. I feel a thousand percent better
now.”
“Sir,” commtech said a few minutes later, “I
have Colonel Walters again.”
“Put him over here.”
“Mouse?” Cassius said, “Sorry about snapping.
It’s the nerves, I guess. It’s grim out here. As your
father would put it, the Oriflamme is up.”
Pollyanna frowned a question. Mouse whispered, “No quarter
given or asked.”
Cassius continued, “We’re in a bad spot. Nobody can
back down. It’s all or nothing, and the losers die the
death-without-resurrection.”
“I understand, Cassius. We’re all under
pressure.”
“Your uncle has got what he wanted. His
battle to the death.” A nasty smile crossed Walters’s
mouth. “I don’t think the fool counted on being part of
it, though.”
“No. One thing. He doesn’t know
about Father yet. I want to save that as a special surprise. Let
him count on that last-minute protection till it’s too
late.”
“But of course! That’s why I wanted to keep it
quiet.”
“The Legion never fought this bitterly,”
Mouse said.
“Never before. We’ve got an emotional stake
in this one, Mouse.”
Had it not been for the topographical advantages,
Michael’s crew would have been obliterated long since.
Dee’s men were good fighters, but they were not soldiers, not
in the sense that the Legionnaires were. They were unaccustomed to
extensive teamwork and the complexities of large, enduring
operations. Though largely of human origin, they were tainted with
the Sangaree raid-and-run philosophy.
“Michael’s people aren’t doing bad.”
“They’re cornered. I’ve got to get back to it. I
just wanted to say sorry for growling.”
“It’s all
right.”
Cassius’s battalions shoved Dee deeper and deeper into the
Whitlandsund. The lines facing Edgeward had been thin and
unprepared for a heavy stroke.
The hours cranked along. Mouse sat that chair till his behind
began to ache. Pollyanna remained beside him, partly because she
was interested in events, partly because she sensed his need for a
bridge to the Mouse that used to be.
Dee’s resistance stiffened.
“He’s figured it out,” Mouse said.
“He’s shifting men now.”
Cassius kept the pressure on. At the far end of the pass
Legionnaires from the Shadowline began to make headway against
defenses weakened by the removal of men shifted to halt
Cassius.
Pollyanna touched his hand lightly. “You think we’re
going to do it?”
“Uhm? What?”
“Win.”
“I don’t know. Yet. I think the odds are
shifting.” He caught fragments of tactical chatter. Cassius
was moving Ceislak’s commando battalion into position.
Hours dragged on. Finally, Pollyanna whispered,
“You’ve got to rest before you collapse.”
“But . . . ”
“Your being here or not won’t change anything,
Mouse. They can tell you if they need you.”
“You’re right. I won’t be any good to anybody
if I pass out from exhaustion. I’ll stagger over to the
apartment . . . ”
Pollyanna went with him.
When he returned to the war room he carried a ravenshrike on
his shoulder. The commtechs’ eyes widened. A secret
understanding seemed to pass among them. Mouse surveyed the boards
as the warhounds began their fruitless search for enemies.
He sensed the change in the men. They had accepted the shift in
power. It was not a matter of humoring the Old Man’s kid
anymore. He had become the Old Man.
The boards did not look good. Things had gone static.
“Sir,” one of the commtechs said, “Colonel
Walters would like to speak with you at your
convenience.”
“Okay. Get hold of him.”
Cassius was on the scrambled trunk in minutes. “Coming up
with a few problems, Mouse. We’ve pushed them from both sides
till we’ve got them surrounded in a big crater. They’ve
dug in on the outside of the ringwalls, where they can fire down
into the pass. They’ve pulled back into a small enough circle
so that they can run men from one place to another faster than I
can make surprise attacks. I was going to cut them up one place at
a time. Slice off a little group and take them prisoner.
They’ve managed to keep me from doing it. Looks like it could
turn into an old-fashioned siege.”
“There’re thirty thousand people in the Shadowline
who don’t have time for that, Cassius. They’re running
out of air.”
“I’ve heard the reports.”
The breathables situation was becoming dangerous. Food and water
were good for weeks yet, with rationing, but there was no way to
cut back on a fighting man’s air. Recycling was never
completely efficient, and lately the equipment had begun to
deteriorate.
Mouse said, “I got the medical people started putting the
wounded into cryo storage yesterday. We can resurrect them when we
open the pass. They suggested we do the same to Meacham’s
people.”
“They have the cryo storage facilities?”
“No. Not enough.”
“I may start using some of Hawksblood’s people. If I
can get them over to this side.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes you run out of ways to finesse. Then the only
thing left is the hammer. Hit hard, with everything you got, and
grit your teeth about the casualties.”
“Your munitions picture don’t look good for
something like that.”
“That doesn’t bother me as much as the air
situation. It looks like Michael will run dry first. His fire
patterns show he’s trying to conserve ammunition.”
“That’s a plus.”
“I don’t know. What I’m afraid of is having to
offer terms so we can save the people across the way. I think
that’s what he’s doing now. Trying to hold on till
we’re ready to trade his outfit for ours.”
Mouse glanced at a depressing visual from Blake’s shade
station. The station was surrounded by a tide of emergency domes
occupied by men waiting to be evacuated or sent into action. The
encampment grew steadily as Hawksblood’s men and
Twilight’s miners filtered in. Dee could lose his war and
still win a Pyrrhic victory.
Mouse looked over at charts listing the various crawlers and
their status. “Cassius, we’re going to be in trouble no
matter what. We don’t have enough crawlers to get everybody
out.”
“So don’t be proud. Ask your neighbors for help.
Have Blake call the City of Night and Darkside Landing and beg for
help if he has to.”
“We’ve tried once. They say they won’t risk
their equipment if there’s fighting going on.”
“Keep trying, boy. I’m looking it over here.
I’m going to try one more big push, then see what Michael is
willing to dicker about.”
“Don’t deal. Not unless there’s no
choice.”
“Of course not. I saw the trap that got your
father into.”
Mouse summoned one of the techs. “See if you can find Mr.
Blake. Ask him to come down.”
Blake joined him a half-hour later. Pollyanna accompanied
him.
“Mr. Blake, could you try Darkside Landing and City of
Night again? You can tell them the fighting will be over before
they can get their equipment here.”
The worn wreck of a man in the wheelchair showed a sudden
interest in life. “Really? You’ve finally got
them?”
“Not exactly. We’re going to try one more
push, then negotiate if it fails.”
Blake protested. Boiling anger resurrected the man who had ruled
the Corporation till the impact of the Shadowline War had driven
him into hiding.
“My feelings exactly,” Mouse agreed. “I
don’t want any of them getting away. But we may have no
choice. It could be negotiate or let the men in the Shadowline
die.”
“Damn! All this slaughter for nothing.”
“Almost. We could console ourselves with the thought that
my uncle isn’t getting what he wants, either. In a way, even
if he negotiates his way out of the Whitelandsund, he’ll have
lost more than we have. He’ll be on the run for the rest of
his life. He used nuclears. He served the Sangaree. Navy
won’t forgive that. They’ll confiscate his
property . . . ”
Pollyanna had been rubbing Mouse’s shoulders. Now her
fingers tightened in a surprisingly strong grip. “You
negotiate if you want. You make a deal for the Legion. You make a
deal for Blake and Edgeward. But don’t count me in, Mouse.
Don’t make any deal for me. August Plainfield got away once.
He won’t again.”
Mouse leaned back, looked up. Her face betrayed pure hatred.
“You been drinking snake venom again?”
She squeezed so hard his shoulders ached. “Yes. I drink a
liter with every meal.”
“Wait.” Mouse indicated the boards.
Cassius was starting his attack.
“Sir, he’s sending in everybody this time,”
one of the techs reported. “He’s even stripped the
crawlers of their crews.”
Mouse stood up. “Mr. Blake, find me a crawler. Anything
that will run. I’m going out there.”
It was a very grim, very sour Masato Storm who watched the big
board in the war room. It looked terrible.
Someone moved a chair into place beside him. He glanced up at at
a commtech. He was holding the chair for Pollyanna.
Mouse smiled weakly. “How are you? Any better?”
“Ready for anything. Except I limp a little. They say
it’ll go away. How is it going?”
“Not good. I haven’t heard from Cassius for days.
I’m scared for him. And up
there . . . ” He indicated the board
showing the Whitlandsund. “We made some gains when the first
wave came over, but it’s slowed down. Way down. We’re
still pushing them back, but not fast enough.”
“But you outnumber them.”
“We’ve lost too many tractors. We can’t bring
our people over fast enough. It looks like we’ve only got two
chances. Either Cassius turns up or my uncle runs out of
ammunition.”
“Sir!” one of the commtechs yelled. “Sir,
I’ve got Colonel Walters on Tac One.”
“Put him on over here. Pollyanna, you’re a good-luck
charm. Maybe I’ll strap you into that chair.”
She smiled wanly. “I wasn’t too lucky for Frog. Or
Lucifer. Or . . . ”
“Can it.” Cassius’s grim face came on screen.
They argued back and forth about Ceislak’s battalion, and
Mouse tried to discover how Walters had gotten to Darkside. Cassius
broke off.
“He’s in a foul mood, isn’t he?”
Pollyanna asked.
“That he is. And he can be just as nasty as he wants as
long as he does his job. I feel a thousand percent better
now.”
“Sir,” commtech said a few minutes later, “I
have Colonel Walters again.”
“Put him over here.”
“Mouse?” Cassius said, “Sorry about snapping.
It’s the nerves, I guess. It’s grim out here. As your
father would put it, the Oriflamme is up.”
Pollyanna frowned a question. Mouse whispered, “No quarter
given or asked.”
Cassius continued, “We’re in a bad spot. Nobody can
back down. It’s all or nothing, and the losers die the
death-without-resurrection.”
“I understand, Cassius. We’re all under
pressure.”
“Your uncle has got what he wanted. His
battle to the death.” A nasty smile crossed Walters’s
mouth. “I don’t think the fool counted on being part of
it, though.”
“No. One thing. He doesn’t know
about Father yet. I want to save that as a special surprise. Let
him count on that last-minute protection till it’s too
late.”
“But of course! That’s why I wanted to keep it
quiet.”
“The Legion never fought this bitterly,”
Mouse said.
“Never before. We’ve got an emotional stake
in this one, Mouse.”
Had it not been for the topographical advantages,
Michael’s crew would have been obliterated long since.
Dee’s men were good fighters, but they were not soldiers, not
in the sense that the Legionnaires were. They were unaccustomed to
extensive teamwork and the complexities of large, enduring
operations. Though largely of human origin, they were tainted with
the Sangaree raid-and-run philosophy.
“Michael’s people aren’t doing bad.”
“They’re cornered. I’ve got to get back to it. I
just wanted to say sorry for growling.”
“It’s all
right.”
Cassius’s battalions shoved Dee deeper and deeper into the
Whitlandsund. The lines facing Edgeward had been thin and
unprepared for a heavy stroke.
The hours cranked along. Mouse sat that chair till his behind
began to ache. Pollyanna remained beside him, partly because she
was interested in events, partly because she sensed his need for a
bridge to the Mouse that used to be.
Dee’s resistance stiffened.
“He’s figured it out,” Mouse said.
“He’s shifting men now.”
Cassius kept the pressure on. At the far end of the pass
Legionnaires from the Shadowline began to make headway against
defenses weakened by the removal of men shifted to halt
Cassius.
Pollyanna touched his hand lightly. “You think we’re
going to do it?”
“Uhm? What?”
“Win.”
“I don’t know. Yet. I think the odds are
shifting.” He caught fragments of tactical chatter. Cassius
was moving Ceislak’s commando battalion into position.
Hours dragged on. Finally, Pollyanna whispered,
“You’ve got to rest before you collapse.”
“But . . . ”
“Your being here or not won’t change anything,
Mouse. They can tell you if they need you.”
“You’re right. I won’t be any good to anybody
if I pass out from exhaustion. I’ll stagger over to the
apartment . . . ”
Pollyanna went with him.
When he returned to the war room he carried a ravenshrike on
his shoulder. The commtechs’ eyes widened. A secret
understanding seemed to pass among them. Mouse surveyed the boards
as the warhounds began their fruitless search for enemies.
He sensed the change in the men. They had accepted the shift in
power. It was not a matter of humoring the Old Man’s kid
anymore. He had become the Old Man.
The boards did not look good. Things had gone static.
“Sir,” one of the commtechs said, “Colonel
Walters would like to speak with you at your
convenience.”
“Okay. Get hold of him.”
Cassius was on the scrambled trunk in minutes. “Coming up
with a few problems, Mouse. We’ve pushed them from both sides
till we’ve got them surrounded in a big crater. They’ve
dug in on the outside of the ringwalls, where they can fire down
into the pass. They’ve pulled back into a small enough circle
so that they can run men from one place to another faster than I
can make surprise attacks. I was going to cut them up one place at
a time. Slice off a little group and take them prisoner.
They’ve managed to keep me from doing it. Looks like it could
turn into an old-fashioned siege.”
“There’re thirty thousand people in the Shadowline
who don’t have time for that, Cassius. They’re running
out of air.”
“I’ve heard the reports.”
The breathables situation was becoming dangerous. Food and water
were good for weeks yet, with rationing, but there was no way to
cut back on a fighting man’s air. Recycling was never
completely efficient, and lately the equipment had begun to
deteriorate.
Mouse said, “I got the medical people started putting the
wounded into cryo storage yesterday. We can resurrect them when we
open the pass. They suggested we do the same to Meacham’s
people.”
“They have the cryo storage facilities?”
“No. Not enough.”
“I may start using some of Hawksblood’s people. If I
can get them over to this side.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes you run out of ways to finesse. Then the only
thing left is the hammer. Hit hard, with everything you got, and
grit your teeth about the casualties.”
“Your munitions picture don’t look good for
something like that.”
“That doesn’t bother me as much as the air
situation. It looks like Michael will run dry first. His fire
patterns show he’s trying to conserve ammunition.”
“That’s a plus.”
“I don’t know. What I’m afraid of is having to
offer terms so we can save the people across the way. I think
that’s what he’s doing now. Trying to hold on till
we’re ready to trade his outfit for ours.”
Mouse glanced at a depressing visual from Blake’s shade
station. The station was surrounded by a tide of emergency domes
occupied by men waiting to be evacuated or sent into action. The
encampment grew steadily as Hawksblood’s men and
Twilight’s miners filtered in. Dee could lose his war and
still win a Pyrrhic victory.
Mouse looked over at charts listing the various crawlers and
their status. “Cassius, we’re going to be in trouble no
matter what. We don’t have enough crawlers to get everybody
out.”
“So don’t be proud. Ask your neighbors for help.
Have Blake call the City of Night and Darkside Landing and beg for
help if he has to.”
“We’ve tried once. They say they won’t risk
their equipment if there’s fighting going on.”
“Keep trying, boy. I’m looking it over here.
I’m going to try one more big push, then see what Michael is
willing to dicker about.”
“Don’t deal. Not unless there’s no
choice.”
“Of course not. I saw the trap that got your
father into.”
Mouse summoned one of the techs. “See if you can find Mr.
Blake. Ask him to come down.”
Blake joined him a half-hour later. Pollyanna accompanied
him.
“Mr. Blake, could you try Darkside Landing and City of
Night again? You can tell them the fighting will be over before
they can get their equipment here.”
The worn wreck of a man in the wheelchair showed a sudden
interest in life. “Really? You’ve finally got
them?”
“Not exactly. We’re going to try one more
push, then negotiate if it fails.”
Blake protested. Boiling anger resurrected the man who had ruled
the Corporation till the impact of the Shadowline War had driven
him into hiding.
“My feelings exactly,” Mouse agreed. “I
don’t want any of them getting away. But we may have no
choice. It could be negotiate or let the men in the Shadowline
die.”
“Damn! All this slaughter for nothing.”
“Almost. We could console ourselves with the thought that
my uncle isn’t getting what he wants, either. In a way, even
if he negotiates his way out of the Whitelandsund, he’ll have
lost more than we have. He’ll be on the run for the rest of
his life. He used nuclears. He served the Sangaree. Navy
won’t forgive that. They’ll confiscate his
property . . . ”
Pollyanna had been rubbing Mouse’s shoulders. Now her
fingers tightened in a surprisingly strong grip. “You
negotiate if you want. You make a deal for the Legion. You make a
deal for Blake and Edgeward. But don’t count me in, Mouse.
Don’t make any deal for me. August Plainfield got away once.
He won’t again.”
Mouse leaned back, looked up. Her face betrayed pure hatred.
“You been drinking snake venom again?”
She squeezed so hard his shoulders ached. “Yes. I drink a
liter with every meal.”
“Wait.” Mouse indicated the boards.
Cassius was starting his attack.
“Sir, he’s sending in everybody this time,”
one of the techs reported. “He’s even stripped the
crawlers of their crews.”
Mouse stood up. “Mr. Blake, find me a crawler. Anything
that will run. I’m going out there.”