Escalante's tiny force stiffened as they heard the thunder ahead of them, and the lieutenant grinned fiercely.
"Well, Sar'major, sounds like some more of our people've dropped by."
"Can't hardly be anything else, Skipper," Abbot agreed with an answering grin.
"Let's go crash the party."
Sekah cringed as a fresh explosion sent rock dust eddying into the command center. Frantic voices in his headphones told him the infidels had dropped the tunnel roof on the rear battalion's lead platoon, but his people between them and the control room were still holding. Barely.
He punched commands into his console, looking desperately for troops to divert to the fire fight. If he could just bring in a few more -
Something made him look up, and he gawked in horror at the troll which had suddenly appeared in the unguarded hatch across the control room.
He was still lunging to his feet and clawing for his machine-pistol when Lieutenant Amleto Escalante, TFMC, blew him into bloody meat.
The Prophet swore with satisfaction as the elevator came to a halt. The doors slid open, and he stepped out, already turning towards the bomb.
The last thing he ever saw was the muzzle flash of First Admiral Lantu's assault rifle.
General Manning limped slowly along the tunnel, unable even now to believe they'd done it. Casualty reports were still coming in, and they sounded bad. So far, she had at least nine thousand confirmed dead - fifteen percent of her total force - plus God only knew how many wounded, and she knew damned well they were going to find lots more of both.
But for the moment she pushed the thought aside and opened the visor of her bullet-spalled combat zoot. Even the smoke inside PDC Saint-Just smelled better than she did after nineteen hours of combat.
She was on her last set of power cells, like almost all of her people, but the destruction of the command center had been decisive. The defenders' coordination had vanished, and when Montoya brought an entire regiment right into the middle of their position, the Shellheads had nowhere to go but Hell.
Which, she thought grimly, was precisely where most of them had gone.
She stepped over a heap of Theban bodies into what had been the command center, and her eyebrows rose as she saw both of their Theban allies. Incredible. She'd never expected any of that forlorn hope to survive.
People saluted, and she returned their salutes wearily. MacRory, she saw - and what asshole ever let a sergeant with his potential slip away without re-upping? - and M'boto. And somebody else.
"General," MacRory said, "`tis a fine thing tae see ye."
"And you, Colonel." She nodded to Colonel Fraymak and Admiral Lantu, filing away the latter's strange, deeply satisfied expression for later consideration, then turned her attention to the young man sitting on the computer console between MacRory and M'boto. A big, grim-faced sergeant hovered protectively behind him, and Tie was no longer wearing his zoot - for obvious reasons, given the blood-soaked splints on his left leg and arm. There were more bandages strapped around nis torso, and his face was pasty gray. Nasty, Manning thought, but all the bits and pieces still seemed to be attached. That was all the medics really needed these days.
"And who might this be?" she asked, for the youngster had lost his shirt in the first-aid process, and she saw no rank insignia.
"Och, tis the lad who saved M'boto's arse!" MacRory grinned, and M'boto nodded firmly. "Lieutenant Esca-lante, General."
"I'm afraid you're wrong, Colonel," Manning said. The injured young officer looked up at her in more confusion than pain-killers alone could explain, and she held out her right hand. He extended his own automatically, and she clasped it firmly, ignoring the baffled expressions all around her.
"This, gentlemen," she announced, "is Captain Esca-lante, the newest recipient of the Golden Lion of Terra."
It was really too bad, she always thought later, that she hadn't had a camera with her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE The Terms of Terra
Ivan Antonov glowered at the recorded image on his screen and tuned out the long, impassioned diatribe. Sooner or later the Theban would run down and get to the heart of his reply. And, unless the Theban race truly was insane, Antonov knew what that reply would be. Of course, he was beginning to wonder if, with the exception of a few individuals like Lantu and Fraymak, there might not be something to the theory of racial insanity.
PDC Saint-Just had cost less than he'd feared, if far more than he would find easy to live with, and if there were any justice in the universe its loss would have finished the Church of Holy Terra. But no. The surviving Synod had gotten together, canonized its dead Prophet, anointed a new Prophet in his stead, and announced its determination to pursue the jihad even unto martyrdom.
Personally, Antonov was about ready to oblige the svolochy.
Vanya, Vanya that's the nasty side of you talking! And so it was, but if he could contrive to hang just the Synod, perhaps the rest of the population might learn from example?
Of course, the best way to encourage fanaticism was to provide it with fresh martyr-fodder, yet he couldn't quite suppress the wistful temptation. It was really too bad he couldn't even voice it aloud, but he shuddered to think how Kthaara would react after all his lectures. And it didn't help his mood to find the Synod reacting to the truth about the First Prophet exactly as Lantu had predicted. The new Prophet stubbornly insisted that if infidels could extract data from Starwalkers computers they could also insert data, and his fire-and-brimstone denunciation of monsters vile enough to defile sacred scripture had brought Antonov to the point of apoplexy. And the worst of it - the absolute worst - was that the old bastard actually believed the polneyshaya he was spouting. They'd gotten rid of a clique of self-serving, lying charlatans only to replace it with a crop of true believers!
Religious fervor! The only thing it's good for is turning brains to oatmeal! And if mere's one thing in this galaxy worse than Terran politicians, it's theocratic politicians!
The Prophet's latest fulmination reached its peroration, and Antonov's eyes sharpened as the Theban who had once been Archbishop Ganhad of the Ministry of Production glared at him.
"And so, infidel," the Prophet said bitterly, "we have no choice but to hear your words. Yet be warned! Your accursed master the Satan-Khan will not pervert our Faith as he has your own! The true People of Holy Terra will never abandon their Holy Mother, and the day shall come when you and all of your apostate race will pay the price for your sins against Her! We - "
Antonov grunted and killed the message before the old fart got himself back up to speed. That was all he really needed to know - now he could let Winnie wade through the rest of this drivel and summarize any unlikely tidbits of importance. He felt a tiny qualm of conscience at passing the task to her, but rank, after all, had its privileges. Thank God.
"Actually," Lantu said, "I must confess to a bit of hope."
The first admiral's almost whimsical smile was a far cry from the tortured expression he'd worn before his personal extermination of the Prophet and his entourage, and Antonov envied him. Kthaara'zarthan envied him even more, but he was content. His defargo had been present if he couldn't be, and he'd almost purred as he made Lantu relive every moment of the encounter. The bared-fang grin of total approval he'd bestowed on his one-time mortal enemy haa surprised even Antonov; the rest of Second Fleet's senior officers were still in shock. And when Tsuchevsky had caught the Orion initiating the Theban into the pleasures of vodka -!
"You must?" Antonov asked, suppressing yet another ignoble urge to twit his vilkshatha brother.
"Indeed. Aside from his religious fervor, Ganhad is no fool. Once you get past his ranting and raving, it looks as if he recognizes the reality of nis helplessness, and unlike his predecessor, he truly cares about the People. That should make some sort of settlement possible.'
Antonov grunted and turned his glass in his hands. Delighted as he was by Pericles Waldeck's fall from power, the chaos on Old Terra had dumped yet another pile of manure in his lap. President Sakanami's administration had been devastated by Howard's Assembly revelations. One or two LibProgs were actually muttering about impeachment in the apparent hope of saving themselves by poleaxing their own parry's president, and his cabinet was a shambles. Of all the pre-war ministers, only Hamid O'Rourke remained. Waldeck and Sakanami had gone behind his back to transmit Aurelli's pre-Lorelei orders via the minister for foreign affairs, and his work since the Peace Fleet massacre, especially as Howard's ally within the cabinet, had won widespread approval.