“Well, it’s bleed out, die fighting or surrender with a grain of hope,” the woman said. “I retain my weapon.”
“You use it, and all the hope goes away.”
“Got that.”
Clarty fired the flare for the medic, figuring the worst of the shooting was over. There was still fire from the guards’ barracks. The dusty quonset hut sported spatterings of bullet holes and blown out places, jagged holes in the steel. One of the men lobbed in another grenade. What the hell, the building was ruined anyway. No use to his surviving men. He jogged over to the administration building to make sure Goatherd had things under control.
“Everything okay over here?” the merc asked.
“Yes. Everything okay.” Goatherd was breathing hard, clearly still pumped from the engagement. His eyes darted around as they were talking, looking for threats.
Clarty gestured towards the battered door, “You searched inside?”
“Yes. The doors and inside, it like that when we got here. We not take things.”
“Okay. Wait here.” That sounded like it might be trouble. If they had a satellite phone he’d have to check the bird schedules — or God forbid an AID. He’d better take a look himself. If the Gistar people had gotten word out, he’d have to load up the cargo choppers and leave now. He wanted to stick around and put the Indowy to work mining more, haul out as much additional ore as they could before the inevitable counterstrike to knock them out of here. Unlike most of his jobs, on this one he was getting a percentage of the haul. Rictis was getting a little long in the tooth, and he’d sure like to net enough to buy a juv job. Black market, sure, but still, two hundred years instead of five hundred, maybe, and just about all of it younger than he was now. He wanted a good haul bad.
When he didn’t find a satellite phone or AID in the office, he didn’t relax yet. There had to be one in the compound, and search of the supervisor’s office still remained. The assault had been fast. If they were lucky, nobody’d had time to get to it. He’d also have to have the bodies searched. He saw someone had broken into the office after something, most likely commo. It surprised him that anyone had managed to get there that fast.
Goatherd followed along during the search, clearly anxious that his men not be accused of misconduct.
“Start searching the bodies. Look for anything that looks like a little black box about so big.” The lighter-skinned man gestured to indicate an AID’s cigarette pack size. “Also, look for anything that looks even a little bit like this.” He handed Goatherd his PDA. “Don’t lose that. I’ll want it back.”
Clarty looked around at the burning barracks and various other flaming shit, and looked at his watch. He had about forty minutes before the next weather satellite — and thank god there weren’t as many as there used to be — swept overhead. Blind luck, really. He hadn’t been able to plan for everything. Less time, and they might have had to get the hell out of here a lot sooner than he planned.
Goatherd was already halfway to gone getting men started on the AID hunt. “Hey! Get some men putting out these fires. I want them dead cold and right now. Split ’em up into details and get on it!” Clarty yelled. With luck, by the time a bird went over there’d be nothing much to see.
He did stop on the way back past the now-ruined barracks to help stabilize the wounded until the medic got to them. Even if the word had gone out, he needed these guys. Be a shame to lose one to lousy first aid. Afterwards, he radioed the chopper crews to tell them the mine was secured and get them in the air and inbound. Once they were on the way, he searched the supervisor’s house himself. There should be something for communications in it. At least he hoped so, because otherwise his people were going to have to tear the mine compound apart looking for it or assume the worst.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he found a Personality Solutions’ PDA, complete with Suzie Q personality overlay and satellite phone, on an end table next to a half-drunk beer, clearly from the night before. Here was the supervisor’s personal link out, the lucky bastard, and he had definitely not had time to use it. Then again, not so lucky — the fancy phone hadn’t done the stiff much good after all.
This was going to be one hell of a big strike, all right. They should have at least four days, maybe a week, before Gistar got worried about the silence from their operation, assumed foul play and hired somebody to come in and dig them out. Bateman should phone him as soon as Gistar started putting together a strike, but he wasn’t going to bet his life on it. The other guys’ lives, sure, but not his own. He usually cultivated a reputation for taking care of the men he hired, but when it came right down to it, he was a mercenary because he could be bought. The money for this job was mighty attractive — attractive enough to override his few scruples. He’d be mounting a guard, but he’d also be sleeping up at the mine “for security.”
Nobody with any sense would mount an assault coming in over the big hill of the mine. Not when the approach on three sides was as inviting as that bowl. He’d pick himself a good spot, and first sign of the counterattack, he’d bug out over the hill. The first planned stop of one of his choppers was to park an ATV on the backside of the hill and camouflage it. The pilots were fellow professionals, they knew the score, and knew the bonus they’d get for retrieving him at the emergency pickup.
First plan, of course, was to get the hell out of here before the counterattack showed up, which was why his choppers were carrying a dozen IR motion detectors to put out around the rim of the bowl, as well as equipment to pick up radio chatter. It was a fact that his competitors’ radio discipline tended not to be worth a shit. Fundamental economics. Most raiders were simple bandits, operative word being simple. Very few raids were commissioned by a buyer, and even fewer by someone willing to pay Clarty’s rates. He had to do a speculative raid or two to keep himself in beer and skittles, but everybody did. He got raids for hire, too, because he was a cut above the typical half-assed thugs in the same business.
Gistar would hire enough men to overwhelm him with numbers, no question. Counterattackers in these kinds of operations would customarily leak radio chatter on purpose, on multiple frequencies. An informal convention between mercs. If he and his bugged out before they arrived, Gistar’s random collection of rabble got to walk in without a fight. After all, everybody had to know the attackers didn’t seriously intend to hold the mine. The Darhel authorities that had subleased the original mining concession to Gistar wouldn’t stand for it. That was all presuming the guy Gistar hired to lead it wasn’t a total dumbass. On the other hand, if he was that stupid, it’d be less trouble to get by him.
It should all work out okay for the men he’d hired, but when all was said and done, Rictis was willing to take more risks with their hides than with his own.
Now it was time to go explain the new realities to the Indowy, who had, predictably, been hiding in their own barracks until the humans quit killing each other.
In a white-walled room, a young woman, an old woman, and a young man sat in front of three desks. Each wore a phone headset. The old woman was knitting. The young man was playing a combat game based on the Posleen war. The young woman was reading a textbook on advanced gravitic physics. The latter two had their buckleys projecting the time-killers of their choice in front of them. The game holograms were squashed, of course, but tricks of perspective compensated for the lack.
The girl kept shifting. A crack in her chair made it sag slightly, suggesting to her that it might give way at any moment and dump her onto the floor. The young man sat balanced forward, stoically bearing the tendency of his own metal-legged chair to rock between said legs. The two had deferred to the older woman to the extent of letting her have the good chair. She was overdue for rejuv, but as with everything else, there was a shortage of the proper drugs. They had all heard the rumors that the nano-tanks had been refurbed and medical would soon begin catching up again. They hoped so. Mallory’s arthritis had gotten to be a pure misery. To Mallory, from the pain. To them, from compassion and because the liniment she wore tended to fill their small work area with noxious and mediciny smells.