At the landing site, each second seemed like an hour on the rack to Lisa. The Destroids had redoubled their efforts to hold out and, in a few places, had even retaken a little ground. But the Invid were pressing hard again.
Suddenly there was a crackling noise over the command net, and Max spoke, sounding choked up. "We got the kids, Lisa. They're all okay. Do you roger? I say again, all hostages are safe."
Max was starting to talk about arrangements to get the cubs to safety, but Lisa cut him off.
"Max, things are deteriorating here. Leave a security force and then get back here with every VT you can spare. Repeat, I need you here ASAP with every mecha you can-"
"Cap'n! Look!" A Spherian tech was pointing through the vast blister that roofed the bridge.
"What-" she said, ignoring Max's efforts to get her to finish her sentence.
All through the city, doors and windows and access panels were opening up on roofs and other vantage points, and intense fire was pouring forth, mostly Invid-style annihilation disks and beams.
From what she could see and what she began hearing over the tac net, Lisa concluded that all the fire was directed at the Invid. It was as if the whole city had been turned into one giant shooting gallery.
Caught from behind or above and sometimes even from below, the Invid army was being wiped out before her eyes.
She told Max, "Wait one, Skull Leader!" Then she got Crysta, who was with Jean Grant in the GMU, on the ship's internal net. "Crysta, what's happening?"
"I–I knew my people were secreting weapons against this time," Crysta answered. "But Lron and I-we had no idea!"
It's not wise to make an enemy of your armorer, it occurred to Lisa. "Crysta, when did they start-how long have the Karbarrans been preparing for this?"
"Since the hour they took our children," Crysta answered.
Lisa watched the weapons fire incandesce as the Karbarrans had their revenge.
"Baker!"
Karen Penn went straight for him as he sat there nonchalantly on the rump of a defunct Hellcat, looking off into the distance as if he didn't have a care in the world.
That stunt he pulled! Deserting his post in time of battle! Karen just wanted a little piece of him before Admiral Hunter went to work on him.
Of course, part of her anger was the ignominy of being carried back to the compound in the shuttle by three Battloids, like some kind of broken-down commuter craft. That wasn't the heart of it though, and she couldn't have explained just why she was so furious.
To top it off, he was sitting there with a stupid grin on his face, whistling! "Baker, say your prayers, because I'm gonna-"
He turned to her with a beatific look on his face. "Hi, Karen. Have a seat and enjoy the show; you'll never see another one like it."
She was clenching her teeth, but decided to see what he meant before the fight commenced.
"Huh-Oh!"
Down the hill a bit, the Karbarran children were being coaxed out of hiding by Dardo and his buddies. Battloids had put out most of the fires, and then stood back; the cubs had good reason to be wary of giant mecha.
But Dardo and the rest had the hostages coming out now, in droves. Most of the freed cubs were looking around blankly, but some of them were already beginning to caper and skip, jumping for joy.
Without thinking about it, Karen sat down next to Jack to watch. The cubs rushed around in the sunlight, romping and giving in to elation over their rescue. "I'd rather see this than get a duffel bag full of medals," Jack said soberly.
Karen looked at him for a second, then back at the cubs. "You have your moments, Baker, y'know that?"
"Et tu, Penn."
A little while passed. They saw Lron arrive, wading through the cubs, to lift up his son and fling him aloft. The cubs got braver where the mecha were concerned, and some of them were playing ring-around-a-rosy about the foot of Max Sterling's Battloid.
"What was that you were whistling?" Karen asked suddenly, without looking at him. "I sort of recognized it."
Still watching the cubs, he began again, a half smile touching his lips. After a few notes, Karen found herself laughing and snaking her head at him in exasperation.
It was "The Teddy Bears' Picnic."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A tragedy worthy of the Greeks, to be sure, or Shakespeare. A Universal Force or righteous Deity had forged a ring of iron, the Sentinels' leadership. And yet somehow a flaw had been tempered One is tempted to paraphrase, "Look upon these frailities, ye mighty, and be humbled."
Ann London, Ring of Iron: The Sentinels in Conflict
In the aftermath of the Sentinels' first true conquest-while the Karbarrans were still exacting their fearsome revenge and the cubs had yet to be calmed down for transport back to their parents-there were details that slipped through the cracks. Trying to bring order out of the chaos, and make sure they had really won the day-that there were no Invid backup divisions waiting in the wings-was keeping almost everybody busy beyond any reasonable demand.
And so no one noticed when Burak of Peryton rather than the regular duty officer showed up at the head of the security squad that was supposed to take Tesla back to his cell.
Burak was certainly on the roster as being able to commandeer a security detachment; he was within his rights as a principal signatory of the Sentinels to take custody of Tesla. But he had chosen this time because he didn't want to be interrupted, didn't want to be overheard, while he spoke to the enemy.
Once Tesla was back in irons, the aurok-horned young male of Peryton dismissed the mixed unit of Praxians and Spherians, and stood regarding the captive.
Tesla had turned away, but it came to him that Burak was still there. "Well? Can't you leave a helpless victim of war to his misery? I've given you what you wanted." An Invid stronghold was in flames, dashed under an invader's foot, and he, Tesla, had been instrumental in that. "Go away! Or, kill me. I no longer care which." He fingered the gorgeous collar with its hidden explosives.
"I want to save Peryton," Burak got out at last. "And if you don't help me, I will kill you."
Tesla saw that he meant it; a young Perytonian, scarcely more than a boy, he was as headstrong as any from the planet where there was still an annual ceremony in the rubbing off of the velvet from the males' horns and where fights over females still frequently led to death.
So, here was Burak, determined to short-circuit the Sentinels' judicious timetable because he suspected, not without reason, that it wouldn't address Peryton's crisis in time. "How do I save Peryton, Invid?"
Tesla saw that Burak had somehow gotten the detonator switch for the collar around his neck.
But for once, Tesla wasn't afraid-no, not at all. Standing there in his grand robes with the shimmering gems draped from his neck, he saw that the key to Burak was that Burak was vulnerable: Burak needed knowledge.
A certain kind of knowledge, but that didn't matter. That kind of craving put any seeker at a disadvantage if the teacher was unprincipled enough. And conniving was Tesla's specialty, even before he availed himself of the Sentinels' hospitalities.
Tesla came up close to the bars, so close that Burak backed away a step, one hand holding the detonator and the other a little firearm that seemed to be made of white ceramic and hammered brass.
But as he neared the front of his cage, Tesla settled down. He folded his tree-bough legs and sat in a meditative pose, the level of his gaze still higher than Burak's. Tesla's thoughts were like drowning rats, seeking any avenue of escape, marshaling in vaguest terms things that Burak might want to hear.
"The answers lie more within you than within me," Tesla intoned. "My powers tell me that your hour comes near. You have been chosen by Destiny to free your people from the curse under which they live second to second, constantly. This source of such pain to you has made it your Destiny. You have been aware of this for some time now."