Just as he said that last a small powered tractor towing a trailer entered the Junction point, paused a moment, then turned our way and started right toward us.
Pistols were out in a moment, and Koril hardly had time to hiss “Don’t miss!” as the thing chugged into view. There were only two people in the cab, both dressed in maintenance red. We shot them so fast I can’t even describe what they looked like. In another moment Ku dropped from the roof into the open cab, kicked the corpses out of the way, and brought the tractor to a stop.
“Quickly!” Koril said. “Park. Darva. Kaigh. You’re the biggest and strongest Get those crates off this thing!”
We hustled to do as instructed. The damned tilings were heavy, but not beyond any two of us, and we had them off the trailer and to the side of the little chugging train in a couple of minutes. During that time we nervously ignored other traffic sounds behind us. We were just far enough around the bend, we hoped, not to be noticed—unless somebody else wanted to come up our way.
Koril wasted no time on sorcery. He opened his laser pistol to wide scan and disintegrated the crates to white powder, taking the risk that the electronic spring like sound would be unheard or obscured by traffic noise. Quickly we climbed into the back trailer. Ku then stuck the small service cab into reverse, backed out carefully into the junction point, made the turn, then moved into the tunnel that headed for the Castle. We never knew what was in those crates.
Ku drove like a madman and hardly hesitated when we approached some troopers and maintenance personnel on foot. To my surprise they just stepped against the wall and let us by without a glance. A little further on, we passed a similar tractor going the other way. Ku waved, so did the red-clad driver of the other vehicle, and we passed with a few centimeters to spare.
Koril laughed out loud. “The fools! They figure we’re troopers. Well, we are! Weapons at the ready! This is gonna get hairy in a minute!”
With that, we entered the bottom floor of the Castle, a huge open area supported by rock pillars. Hundreds of men and women clad in red or black were there, and a number of vehicles and trailers were about.
We pulled in between some painted lines on the floor and Ku brought us to a stop. Koril, brimming with confidence, winked. “Now I’ll show you why bureaucracy is so evil.” He jumped down, bolstered his pistol, and walked briskly towards a gold-braided black-clad trooper, an officer of some kind and by his wa a powerful man.
The former Lord of the Diamond walked right up to him, started talking to him, and the trooper nodded, then pointed and said something back. Koril saluted and returned to us, hardly suppressing a grin. “Okay—out! We don’t have to walk up. We’re going to take Lift 4.”
A little numbly we complied, and followed him across the busy floor to the doors of a huge open lift. I wasn’t used to such a primitive device, but remembered that Koril had said these were moved by counterweight, not by any electrical power. They had to be—otherwise in a power outage they would be useless.
We stood there, looking about nervously, not quite believing what we were doing and feeling we stuck out like a sore thumb in our green uniforms. I couldn’t stand it any more than the rest, and eased up to Koril. “All right—how the hell did you manage this?”
He smiled and winked. “I just walked up to the chief operations officer there, told him we were a special security patrol ordered to defensive positions, and asked him for the quickest way to our station.” “And he told your “Sure. Why not?”
I wasn’t the only one shaking my head in wonder as the big lift descended, stopped, and form-fitted itself neatly into the indentation for it in the floor. There were a number of hand carts on it, mostly empty, with security troopers and maintenance personnel on them, all of whom paid us no mind whatsoever. I admit, though, that at least I, and almost certainly most of us, were close to being nervous wrecks at this point. Still, this was just the sort of stunt I might improvise if this were my old stamping grounds. I knew that our greatest danger until we got off wasn’t from these faceless men and women but from somebody’s nerve springing in our group and giving us away.
When the lift was cleared we stepped uneasily on, only to find that several troopers also came up, pushing carts with cases of what looked like ammunition for the projectile weapons and, possibly, laser pistol power packs. No sooner were they on than a loud gong sounded overhead, and we started up, one floor at a time. The system was obviously designed for slow ascent and descent. It would stop on every floor no matter what.
The next floor, and most of the others, were not open spaces like the warehouse level but instead opened on access corridors that went down a few meters, then branched off to the right and left. Security guards were visible on each level, wearing special color-coded passes which, I was acutely and suddenly aware, we did not have.
The troopers with us didn’t seem to notice, hut when one cart got off at the fifth level the security men did check badges. At the seventh level when the rest exited, badges were given an even greater scrutiny. Alone and rising, I shouted to Koril, “Badges!”
He nodded and patted his pistol in its holster. It was pretty dear that we’d have to take his lead and use brute force—and, once we did, all hell would break loose. As we cleared Level 9 he whispered, “Draw weapons and shoot as soon as you’re able!”
At Level 10, the topmost point you could go on these lifts without full security clearance, eight armed security guards waited for us with very ugly-looking projectile weapons. Even if they didn’t suspect us, and they probably did, they would be ready to shoot anyone on the lift at the slightest provocation.
As our heads came up over the floor and into the clear, I shouted, “Wait! Don’t shoot!” The guards naturally hesitated at that, and that was all we needed. As our shoulders cleared we opened wide rapid fire with the laser pistols. None of them had a chance against such concentrated fire.
“Everybody off—fast!” Koril shouted. “When they don’t give the go-ahead signal this thing!! drop like a stone!” We needed no other urging; the last of us was off before the lift levelled with the floor—and just in time, too. Apparently the guards above had the locking mechanism, and with no guard to throw it the big platform rumbled and dropped immediately from view.
Kaigh looked back at the gaping hole and shook his head. “Close.” We all turned our attention back to Koril, who was looking around critically.
Finally he said, “This is the primary guard floor for the upper levels. There’ll be some fifty, sixty people here even if the rest were drawn off by the outside attack. I doubt, though, if we could walk through to the main stair without getting slaughtered. Park, Darva, Kira—stay in the middle of our circle. No firing even if fired upon. Bluff, bravado, and conventional weapons will no longer get us anywhere.”
We knew what he meant and quickly formed up, allowing the sores to surround us. But neither Darva nor I put down our weapons. In the last analysis, something was better than nothing. Still, we’d gone through this procedure, and for now, I was certainly willing to let the pros do what they did best What bothered me most was that what they were going to do was form an actual circle as we moved. Should anyone in the circle fall, breaking contact, one of us would have to complete the connection and quickly. Otherwise, instead of the pooled power of the highly trained Class 1 sores assembled by KorQ, there would be only individuals—possibly capable of protecting themselves, but hardly me.