“Those are the fortunes of war. And I am sorry to rush you, First Delegate, but judging from the proximity of our missiles, you have approximately ninety seconds to decide if you are actually surrendering to us.”
Hu’urs Khraam slumped into his couch. “Mr. Downing, you have made the decision for us. We return this place to your control.”
O’Garran leaned back down into the service shaft. “All clear.”
Opal double-timed it up the ladder, pushing back the thermal imaging goggles as she did. There were lights on overhead. She emerged into a relatively tidy subbasement, quickly moving aside so the other thirty surviving tunnel rats could swarm up and out behind her. “No sign of security cameras?”
O’Garran pointed at a human model mounted high in a corner of the room. It was probably thirty years old, and had some kind of Arat Kur relay unit attached to it. “Well, there’s that—but it’s as dead as a doorknob.”
“Unattached?”
“No, that’s the odd part. It’s still warm from current going through it. But its control elements are gone—and I mean gone. I hooked up a loop-generator, so that if the Roaches brought it back online it would keep showing the same boring picture of an empty room. But none of its electronics would turn on.”
“Fried by the EMP?”
“Nope. Its logic circuits carry current just fine. It’s more like somebody wiped the Arat Kur controller that was retrofitted to it.”
Opal nodded. “Maybe someone did wipe its circuit board, and a whole bunch of others to boot.” She turned to Wu. “Anything on the fiber-com about—uh, a computer virus being used against the Roaches?”
Wu looked over the commo traffic again. “Nothing, Major. But there is a garbled mention about a high-priority extraction subject here in the compound: OPCOM apparently has telemetry on his location.”
“Telemetry?” Opal frowned. “How the hell do you get telemetry when you don’t have any satellites left?” Very suspicious. Definitely beyond the capabilities of what little human technology was still functioning in Indonesia. Not necessarily beyond the Dornaani and their technomagic mojo, however. “So, who’s the bag job?”
Wu scanned, read. “The extraction subject is a human diplomat named Caine—”
“—Riordan,” she finished. Oh, there is a God in heaven, after all. Hold on, Caine.
I’m coming to get you.
Trevor Corcoran looked up the street that ran between the buildings they were going to blow down. Where they ended, eighty meters away, stood the nearest walls and buildings of Jakarta’s extended presidential compound. Which, if all went according to plan, were also going to be blasted aside. “Ready?” he asked.
Lieutenant Christopher “Tygg” Robin looked back over the heads of two-score semiuniformed insurgents who’d spent some time in the military, and were now hunkered down in ranks. “Ready, Trevor.”
Trevor looked at Stosh, whose grin was as large as ever as he asked, “Can we kick some alien ass now, Captain?”
Trevor stared at him, made sure his own eyes did not show fear. His abject, utter fear. How does Stosh manage to hold life so lightly in his hands? Why haven’t I, after dozens of combat missions, mastered that skill? Will I be fearful all my life? Trevor just nodded, ducked his head. He heard, did not see, Stosh begin the attack:
“Sync detonator leads to the master timer. And five, four, three, two—fire in the hole!”
Chapter Fifty
Downing’s voice was low and respectful. “We accept your surrender, First Delegate Khraam. But I must ask that, for the record, you explicitly agree to all our terms, not just a capitulation on the ground.”
Darzhee Kut saw the two Hkh’Rkh rear up, move past Caine, their claws flexing. One of the Arat Kur computer techs—having nothing else to do—noticed their ominous approach, wormed a claw surreptitiously into the leg-brace-appearing grip of his sidearm. Darzhee Kut glanced at him, made an affirmatory gesture toward the computer tech’s weapon, and then looked back at the two Hkh’Rkh—who stopped, uncertain of what to do.
Hu’urs Khraam’s response to Downing was reedy, ancient. “I surrender our fleet and all other units under my command, according to the terms you offered. But again, since I am still unable to communicate with all of my forces, I cannot assure you that—”
The First Delegate was interrupted by an abrupt rumble that, in rapid steps, became a roar—like the approach of a supersonic freight train. Which seemed to explode into the command center, the right side of the room shearing away in a whirlwind of sound, flying masonry, shattered glass, discorporating consoles and screens. The blast that had amputated one wall of the room sent debris spinning against and through the three remaining walls—and through many of the beings that stood between them.
Darzhee Kut, already deafened, felt the shock waves hit, went with rather than resisted them, let himself roll under an unused human conference table. The largest chunk of rebar-studded wall finished its shallow arc directly atop the couch occupied by Hu’urs Khraam. Darzhee Kut heard the sickening crunch quite clearly and felt his upper digestive tract squirm. Nearby, he saw one of the Hkh’Rkh sway drunkenly, stare down at his chest, discover the protruding chair leg that had impaled him from the rear, try to pull it out, dying as he fell, tugged down by his own hand. Riordan, unharmed, had evidently been in the shielding shadow of the Hkh’Rkh. Rising, he took a quick look around; his eyes stopped on another figure just getting to its feet. The second Hkh’Rkh. Riordan bolted into the roiling dust as the Hkh’Rkh pulled his weapon, fired, and leapt after him into the gaping hole that had been the fourth wall, pursuing the human.
“There you are, Advocate!”
Yaargraukh, weak from multiple wounds and blood loss, swayed around. Across the cratered courtyard, Graagkhruud loped at him swiftly. He stopped a leap away. “You have been busy, Advocate.”
“There is much work for a warrior today.”
Graagkhruud almost seemed to forget his contempt of Yaargraukh, evidently pleased by the ritual response. Then First Fist’s normal, contemptuous tone returned. “You will now be my direct assistant.”
“Odd. I expected I would be your next victim in Challenge.”
Graagkhruud considered him carefully. “Had the Arat Kur not ruined us this day, your expectation might have been accurate. But now we have time only to serve the race and its First Voice. We must now take matters into our own claws.”
“Stranger still. I was just told that we have capitulated and that the combat air patrol—or what is left of it—is grounding.”
“Yes, when First Voice sent me to find you, the grubbers were beginning to think such craven thoughts. What you have now heard confirms his worst fear. That they would betray our alliance if our situation became grave. And so sent me after you, since you have several technical skills which will be essential if we are to carry out our contingency plan.”
“Which is?”
“We must reach our own grounded troopships. They were powered down when the human virus infected the grubbers’ systems, and so are still serviceable. First Voice foresaw that the Arat Kur might fail us, even feared they might have tried to infect our ships with a disabling virus that they could trigger at will. So he kept our ships’ systems unreachable by them.”