A short distance away stood a formation of gray-uniformed figures: the Regular Army peacekeeping force that the Omega Mob was relieving. Behind them was a local news crew, with cameras rolling. Phule beckoned to his officers, and together they strode over to pay their respects. “Captain Larkin?” said Phule to the officer in command.
“Yes, welcome to Landoor, Captain Jester,” said the dark-haired young woman commanding the Army unit, stepping forward to take Phule’s hand in a firm grip. “A pleasure to see you-though we wouldn’t mind spending another tour here, ourselves.”
The subordinate officers on either side were introduced and shook hands, while Phule asked quietly, “Anything in particular I need to know about the local situation, Captain?”
“Nothing you won’t find in the briefing books we’ll be handing over,” said Larkin, grinning. “It’s a pleasant world, and the locals seem glad to have us here-the closest we’ve come to action was when we had to break up an Astroball victory celebration that got a little rowdy. Gorgeous weather, no nasty bugs or beasties, and even the rebels over on the mainland seem pretty harmless. You people ought to have an easy time of it.”
“Well, I hope you’re right,” said Phule. “I’m not one to dodge trouble, but it’d be good to deal with something straight-forward for once. Our last assignment had more than its share of hidden problems.”
“Captain, if you want any trouble on Landoor, you’re going to have to go looking for it,” said Larkin. “I’ve been here over a year and haven’t seen the faintest sign of it.”
“With luck, neither will we.”
Larkin nodded. She pointed to a group of men in civilian garb standing in front of the nearest building. “Let’s go introduce you to the local authorities, then. Not polite to keep them waiting.”
“Yes, by all means,” said Phule. He fell in alongside the Army captain, and the two, followed by their subordinates, began a brisk stroll toward the waiting civilians. They had gone perhaps half the distance when a sharp report rang out from the roof of a nearby building and almost at the same instant, Phule heard something whiz past his head and strike the ground behind him.
“Get down! Somebody’s shooting!” he shouted, throwing himself flat on the ground. He heard several other bodies hit the tarmac at the same time, presumably following his advice. He couldn’t tell if the shooter had hit anyone.
The closest cover was a ground vehicle of some sort, maybe twenty feet away. Phule began a quick scuttle toward it, using his knees and elbows. He didn’t know if the shot had been intended for him, but the shooter might not be particular about who he hit. In any case, he wasn’t about to provide an easy target for a second try.
He risked a peek at the scene around him. The civilians were scattering like chaff, but nobody seemed to be hurt. Then another shot rang out, and he started crawling more quickly. He sensed rather than heard someone rush past him, going in the direction from which the shots had been fired: Louie, on his glideboard no doubt, with a splatgun ready at hand. Phule hoped the Synthian was taking evasive action; Louie was a small, elusive target, but the shooters might get lucky.
Moments later, something louder and larger zoomed over him; this time he did risk a look up. It was Chocolate Harry on a new hovercycle, with Spartacus riding the sidecar. Between the glideboard and the hovercycle, the would-be assassins would be lucky to escape. On the other hand, if they decided to make a pitched battle of it…he pushed the thought out of his mind, and quickly crawled the rest of the way to shelter.
Captain Larkin had gotten there ahead of him, and was leaning with her back against the vehicle, a drawn pistol in her hand. She watched him scuttle up, then said, “Just my luck-right as I’m about to leave, the party finally comes to life.”
“You’re welcome to stay awhile,” said Phule. Then, when he’d caught his breath a little bit he added, “I take it you don’t have any idea who might be doing the shooting?”
“Not a clue,” she said. “It looks as if your people came prepared, though. That was very quick response time.” She nodded approvingly.
“Let’s hope it was quick enough.” There hadn’t been any more shots since the first two, but that didn’t mean it was safe. Phule gazed intently back at where his troops had disembarked, trying to see what was happening. Most of his company, he saw, had taken whatever cover they could find. Brandy was peering over the shuttle’s hood, scanning the rooflines with binoculars and talking into her wrist communicator-presumably directing the response to the shooting. Seeing her, Phule reached down and turned on his own communicator.
“Jester here-what’s the story, Top?”
“Still trying to find out myself, Captain. C.H. and the Synthians are out scouting. No sign of the shooter yet. You all right?”
“Not a scratch. How about the rest?”
“A few scrapes and bruises when people ducked for cover, but nothing serious. Rev split a seam in his uniform.”
Phule chuckled. “Don’t tell me where, I swear I don’t want to know. Listen now, Brandy-I want you to secure the area so the civilians can get out of danger. Send the Gambolts to scout those rooftops, too. We can’t stay pinned down here all day just because of one sniper.”
“Will do, Captain. But stay behind cover until I tell you it’s safe, OK? There might be more than one sniper out there, and they might be gunning for us.”
Phule watched as a black-uniformed skirmish line moved quickly toward him, securing the spaceport and waiting for more shots. None came, but it was quite a while before they declared the area safe. And nobody found the sniper.
“I’m not used to having somebody shoot at me,” said Phule, pacing restlessly. He and Beeker had been herded to a secure room inside the spaceport terminal while the Legion and Army troops made certain no shooters were waiting somewhere to take another shot at him. Somewhere else in the building, the representatives of the Landoor government-including the head of State Security, Colonel Mays-awaited them.
“If you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, you might have thought of that before joining the Space Legion. It is hardly the vocation to choose if one is seeking to avoid being shot at,” said Beeker. His expression showed no sympathy whatsoever for his employer.
“Well, we can’t be certain they were shooting at me personally,” said Phule in a hopeful voice. “They might have been aiming at almost anybody on the landing field.”
“I would consider it highly unlikely, sir,” said Beeker. “After all, Captain Larkin told you there’d been no trouble at all during her tour of duty. It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that today’s shooting incident is directly related to our arrival.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Beeker. What could anyone on this world have against us? I’ve never set foot on it.”
“That’s rather disingenuous of you, sir,” said Beeker. “You can’t have overlooked the fact that this world was formerly New Atlantis. You should certainly remember how the civil war here ended, when a certain young Legion officer took it upon himself to have the peace conference strafed. I would think you might remember that incident, since you were subsequently court-martialed for it, and assigned to your present position.”
Phule began pacing again. “I could hardly have forgotten that, Beeker. I understood all along why General Blitzkrieg had the company assigned here: It’s the one place in the galaxy where I might have enemies.”
“The one place in addition to Headquarters,” Beeker noted dryly.
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Phule. “One reason I accepted this assignment was as a way to make amends for that incident. Still, never having been to the capital, I didn’t expect anyone here to recognize me-especially since I’ve changed my Legion name. Obviously, somebody’s leaked that information.”
Beeker nodded solemnly. “I wouldn’t be in the least surprised to learn that the general himself had revealed your previous identity as Captain Scaramouche to certain local factions to whom it might be of interest.”
“That’s the way to bet-though it’s probably pointless to try to prove it,” said Phule. “More important is to find out which of those factions decided to start shooting the minute I landed here.”
“I would think that would be easy enough to answer, sir,” said Beeker. “Who suffered the most when you strafed the peace conference?”
“Other than myself, you mean?” said Phule, with an ironic grimace. “I suppose whatever faction lost the most in the eventual peace settlement. The former government, I suppose-especially the diehards who kept on fighting.”
“My thought exactly. From their point of view, the strafing might appear as insult piled upon injury.”
“That would be very narrow-minded of them.” said Phule. “It really wasn’t at all directed at them personally.”