Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hawking and O'Hara exchange glances. "We're ready," Hawking said.
Halaak came to a halt three meters from Skyler, his dark eyes glaring down at the blackcollar. "Who is in the nountain?" he demanded.
Skyler gazed up at him, a sudden whisper of hope floating through him. He'd been improvising on the mission plan ever since they'd arrived on Earth without ever really getting back onto Lathe's original track. Now, with Halaak demanding answers and Battle Architect Daasaa listening from across the clearing, maybe there was one last chance to do so. "There's no one else," he said mildly. "We're all here. You counted us yourself."
"A traitor 'ron Khoenix, then," Halaak persisted. "Who?"
Skyler shook his head. "There's no one in Aegis," he said. "No one but the nine men you just sent in."
"That's impossible," Poirot insisted, taking a step toward them. "They were fresh recruits who'd been in Athena since their loyalty-conditioning. You couldn't possibly have gotten to them with your damned Whiplash."
"No, we couldn't," Skyler agreed. "But then, we didn't have to."
Deliberately, Halaak drew his laser. "Traitor," he said, very softly. He lifted the weapon—
And turning, he pointed the weapon at Poirot and fired.
There was a brilliant green flash, and without even a gasp Poirot fell to the ground. "Traitor!" Halaak shouted again at the limp body. Shifting aim, he fired again, this time at the Security lieutenant standing beside Daasaa. "Traitor!" he said. He swung the weapon toward Colonel Bailey—
And in that instant, with the khassq's back to them and his weapon pointed the wrong way, the blackcollars moved.
Shoving off the ground and the tree trunk behind him, Skyler leaped to his feet. Flynn was right with him, bringing his shackled arms around as Skyler tossed his dragonhead ring into the boy's hand.
Halaak spun back around at the commotion, his weapon swinging around with him. But he was too late.
Dropping into a half crouch, Flynn twisted his torso and legs into the spinning kick that Skyler had seen him and Mordecai practicing for so many long hours back at the Hamner Lodge training center.
And as his leg and arms windmilled around toward the front, Flynn sent the ring spinning straight at Halaak.
The khassq, stepping casually back from a spinning kick he saw would be short, was caught completely off guard. Before he could do more than jerk in surprise, the ring's bat-wing crest buried itself in his throat.
The impact staggered him back, his reflexive shot going wild. He bellowed, a strange gurgling sound, as he tried to bring his laser back onto target.
But even as he lined up the weapon, O'Hara half leaped up into Hawking's cupped hands and was hurled into the tree branches above them, his weight pulling one of the branches straight down to slash down across Halaak's face.
The khassq bellowed again, swinging a hand up to push the branch aside, trying desperately to dodge out of its way to where he would be able to see again.
But once again, and for the last time in his life, he was a fraction of a second too late. Charging toward him at full speed, Skyler threw himself sideways at the Ryq's legs, catching him just below the knees and throwing his head and torso violently forward.
Just in time for Flynn's sideways door-clearer leap to catch him squarely in the face. There was a muffled snap of breaking spinal bone, and Halaak slammed onto the ground and lay still.
"Hold it!" Hawking snapped. "You hear me, Ryq? Stand down."
Skyler rolled out from beneath Halaak's legs and up into a crouch. Hawking had retrieved the khassq's laser, his manacled hands holding it pointed toward Daasaa and Bailey. O'Hara was kneeling in front of him, his shoulder providing a rest for the laser barrel, making it dead certain that the other wouldn't miss his shot.
And Daasaa clearly knew it. His own laser was half drawn, but still pointed at the ground, and he was making no attempt to draw it out any farther. "Rhy?" he shouted back.
"Because we don't particularly want to kill you," Skyler said. "On the contrary, we have a message we want you to deliver to the high command."
Daasaa looked at Bailey, then back at Hawking. Then, slowly, he lowered the laser the rest of the way into its holster and let his hand fall to his side. "I rill listen."
Skyler looked over at Hawking and O'Hara, caught the latter's eye and nodded toward Taakh. O'Hara nodded back in understanding. The khassq was almost certainly dead, but O'Hara would make sure.
"You okay?" Skyler asked, turning to Flynn.
The boy nodded, his eyes on Taakh. "It worked," he murmured. "It actually worked." He looked up at Skyler, the ghost of an uncertain smile touching his lips.
"It sure did," Skyler agreed.
And now this was it. His improvised tactics had gotten him here; but it was Lathe's message that would or would not carry the day. Taking a deep breath, he gestured Flynn toward Daasaa. "Come on," he said.
"Let's go end a war."
"You don't want to kill me," Galway said as Taakh took another step forward, a small part of his mind noting the insane irony of the words. Of course Taakh wanted to kill him.
And he would, too. Without a weapon, Galway had no chance in the universe of surviving a confrontation with a khassq-class warrior.
And then, from nowhere, came a small, desperate flicker of an idea. "Because if you do," he added,
"you'll never know what happened here."
"Yae are a traitor," Taakh said. "There is nothing else tae know."
"Don't you at least want to know Lathe's plan?" Galway persisted.
Almost reluctantly, Taakh slowed to a halt. "What ha' yae tae say?"
"Be careful, Your Eminence," Judas put in urgently. "He's stalling for time. The other blackcollars are here somewhere."
"I dae not 'ear the 'lackcollars," Taakh said contemptuously. "'Ery rell, traitor. S'eak."
Galway took a deep breath. He'd bought himself some time. Now all he had to do was figure out what to do with it. "We never fooled him," he told Taakh. "Not for a minute. He was on to our replacement of Caine from the very beginning."
"I knew it," Haberdae growled, glaring at Judas. "I knew he'd foul up somewhere."
"It wasn't anything Judas did," Galway told him. "Lathe's been expecting someone to try this trick ever since he found out that Caine was himself a clone. He followed the same logic we did—that the Resistance would have created more than just one—and knew we'd eventually track down one of the others and try a substitution."
"So he had some kind of private recognition signal set up," Judas murmured, wincing.
"Exactly," Galway said. "I don't know what it was. Not that it really matters."
"So Lathe knew o' the su'stitaetion," Taakh said.
"Yes," Galway said. "But he also knew we'd have to wait until the team reached Khala to make the switch. That's why he went to so much trouble to decoy us with those fake drop pods and sneak in another way. He needed a few minutes while they weren't under surveillance to call Shaw and arrange for someone to tail Caine once they made the switch."
"That tavern they first stopped at," Haberdae growled.
"Right," Galway said, nodding. "Shaw's people got there first and set up surveillance. When we took off with Caine, they just followed us up to the strongpoint." He looked at Judas. "And from that point on, everything that was said and done in your presence was designed to throw you—and us—off their real plan."
"All the backbiting between Lathe and Shaw," Judas murmured, his face looking suddenly old. "The changed plans, the fake hints—all of it."