Gridlinked

When Cormac had finished his briefing, ten regulars dispersed to their sky-bikes, which were parked haphazardly on soggy lichen-covered ground. They were to fly escort, and all other vehicles were to be warned off. Arn lifted the carrier into the sky with a smooth acceleration. Cormac took one of the four seats at the control console, along with the sergeant and Aiden.

'These ruins, Sergeant, describe them to me,' he said.

'So too. They're what's left of an old ES ground installation, sir. There's just a few fragments of a shield dome surrounding a couple of underground missile silos. Surrounding that is a radial scattering of old storage buildings, nothing very large. There are supposed to be bunkers under the ground around the silos, but no one goes in there. Still hot.'

'Would it be possible to land next to the underground silos?'

'Not so. No clear ground, and the roofs of the buildings would never take the weight of this carrier.'

'What's the scale?'

'Whole site's about two kilometres across. Silos were for Hunter Tens, about fifty metres deep and ten in diameter, three of them. Don't know anything about the bunkers… sir.'

Cormac nodded.

'The description you've given is sufficient, Sergeant. Most concise. Put us down on the perimeter, wherever you deem suitable.'

The sergeant allowed himself a tight little smile.

'Sarge, we got someone on the edge of detector range. Looks like they're following.'

'You know the drill, Corporal. Warn them off.'

'They don't respond. Shall I send back Cheng and Goff?'

Cormac leant forward. 'Cormac here.'

'Colonel, sir!'

'What's your name, soldier?'

'Tarm, sir.'

'Very well, Tarm, I want you and this Cheng and Goff to go back personally. Warn them off. Turn them if you can. If they fire on you, take them out. Otherwise I want them driven back a fair way, but not so far they won't be able to pick up on us again. Do you understand?'

'I think so, sir.'

'Don't be thick, Tarm,' interjected the sergeant.

'Oh… Oh, I see. On our way, sir.'

Cormac glanced out the window of the carrier and saw three of the sky-bikes peel away and accelerate on pencils of fire. He turned to the sergeant.

'We'll be at the ruins by nightfall, I take it?'

'So too.'

'Put us down as close to the storage buildings as you can. What will the light be like?'

'Moon's up, but the light's deceptive.'

'Good. When we get there, have your men leave their bikes, set up their tents and disperse into the buildings. Do anything else you can think of to make the camp appear occupied.'

'A trap, sir?' Arn smiled his tight little smile.

'Oh yes,' said Cormac. 'But I want at least one of them alive. You have stun weapons?'

'We've got an armoury, sir.'

'Good, you'll have opportunity to use it.'

'He's ECS and he'll be running a team to shut down the local syndicates,' said Corlackis.

The woman nodded, her comunit earrings glittering in the green light. Stanton knew the type: she wore a skin-tight shiny plastic from neck to feet and her thick brown hair spread in dreadlocks, plaits and artistic tangles across her shoulders and down her back. He could just make out a small aug in the shape of a star behind her right ear. At her hip was holstered a long-barrelled pulse-gun of the kind that fired ionized gas. Real fancy, but no range. She was obviously fascinated by the silent, glaring presence of Pelter, and by Crane who was crouching behind him. Stanton lowered the police-issue intensifier, its lenses whirring as it tried to compensate for this movement, and then he upped the gain on the directional microphone. That none of them had thought to use the damper showed Pelter's arrogance had to be catching. That the local muscle chose to have this meeting on the veranda of this cafe bespoke another arrogance. They wished to demonstrate to the great Separatist leader that this was an area they controlled.

The three men and the other woman were much like their boss: the kind that Stanton had hired on many occasions. He judged them to be supporters of the Cause only in that it gave them an excuse for racketeering, like so many would-be freedom fighters, they had probably found the attraction of easy money harder to resist than a few hazy ideals. They affected dress similar to that of Mennecken and Corlackis, but Stanton knew that the two mercenaries could go through them in a second. That of course was not their intention. These people were fodder. Stanton knew exactly what Pelter intended.

It had taken Stanton a day to find out where to look. It was the area of the city of Motford that had the highest crime rate, where weapons were worn openly, and where dubious characters loitered on the streets. After then asking a few questions in bars, he had found out who was running things in the area. Following the woman had been easy. Nothing about her was covert. She swanned about in an expensive Aston Martin replica as she and her heavies went on their collection rounds. Patient watching had finally produced this meeting.

'Why did he head away from the city?' the woman asked.

Corlackis replied smoothly. 'To set up a base of oper- ations. It's his usual technique: use local forces to establish a base where least expected, then, when he starts hitting you, you just won't know where to look. We saw it on Cheyne III. We spent months searching the most likely places and paying thousands in bribes to the local police. It was nearly all over before we discovered his base on one of the atolls.'

Stanton took his eyes from the intensifier and glanced behind, across the small AGC park on top of the building. Local police. He cursed the fact that they were so humanitarian here. This surveillance equipment, two stun pistols and a stun rifle had been the extent of his haul. The charge in the rifle he had used up at close range on the AGC, to burn the paint off. Not that it would have been much use to him. He could have been fairly sure of taking down the locals. But Pelter, Mennecken and Corlackis were another matter. Crane of course would have been unaffected. A stupid option, though. He wanted Pelter dead, not stunned.

'We can take him down,' one of the men drawled.

Stanton wondered how Corlackis kept a straight face at that.

'Not so easy if he has ES regulars with him,' he said.

'They're easy. Boys playing soldier games,' said the woman.

Corlackis shook his head. 'I admire your confidence, but would not want you to take on something you couldn't handle, nor would I want you to go unrewarded.'

The hook was in. Stanton shook his head at the ease of it all. They hadn't even asked why Corlackis and the rest would not be going in themselves. Corlackis now looked round at Pelter, who gave a nod. Corlackis tossed something on the table. One etched sapphire, Stanton bet. The woman snatched it up.

'Three more when the job is done,' Corlackis said.

'No problem,' said the woman.

The other four said nothing. They were too busy looking tough and confident behind their black eye-bands. Corlackis now reached under the table and picked up a cloth-wrapped bundle, which he placed before the woman. The woman reached across and nipped the cloth aside, completely unconcerned that anyone might see an assault rifle revealed.

'We have seeker bullets as well,' said Corlackis. 'We would not see you go in unprepared.'

'How many?'

'You can have this rifle and a sufficient quantity of seeker rounds. We've got laser carbines as well. As many as you need. We also have a nice compact mortar you can use.'

Stanton saw the greedy expression on the woman's face. She must think all her birthdays had come at once. Poor sap.

'We get to keep them?'

'But of course,' said Corlackis.

Stanton lowered the intensifier and shut off the microphone. He had heard and seen enough. He gazed out beyond the city line to the slabbed land beyond. Svent and Dusache had gone that way, after the military carrier and that was where the action would take place. Right now Stanton did not have a way of getting close to Pelter and killing him. Others did have the means. It did not matter to him how Pelter died, just that he did. He crouched back from the edge, stood up, then walked over to his stolen AGC. Pelter would leave soon, but Stanton had no intention of following him. He'd follow the five below. He would have no problem trailing such amateurs.