Kelburney’s gunsight steadied on a low circular structure whose stone walls had a pronounced slope. Immediately slugs from an automatic impeller rang from the car’s armor. The heavy-metal projectiles ricochetted with green, purple and magenta sparks, vivid even in full daylight. One round must have struck the turret because the sight picture jolted skyward even as the car backed to safety behind a residence.
Daniel switched away from the remote image and overlaid his visor with a sixty-percent mask showing Homeland’s topography. The circular building was nearly in the center of town; it wasn’t simply a building but a thick ring surrounding a central citadel.
“The Falassan chiefs depend more on physical protection than the Astrogator and his predecessors on Dalbriggan do,” Daniel said with a grim smile. “That’s a confession of weakness, of course. It appears that we’ve picked the right side.”
Woetjans had come over to report. “Whichever we pick is the right side,” she said. Her tone made the pronouncement sound rather like a comment on the weather. “We’re securing the prisoners, sir. That all right?”
The corvette’s small utility aircar landed at the back of Daniel’s position. Gramercy, one of the power-room techs, was driving. He showed a gentler touch on the controls than Daniel had come to expect of RCN drivers; but then, perhaps he’d gotten lucky.
“Yes, carry on, bosun,” Daniel said. “Signals and I are going to discuss the next stage with the Astrogator.”
He walked toward the idling vehicle. Ash from the recent bath of plasma spiraled in the wash from the drive fans.
“Sir, I’ll come with you!” Woetjans said. She knew she had to remain here to command the ground party, but her request was as certain as sunrise.
“There isn’t room for you, mistress,” Tovera said as she stepped between Woetjans and the aircar. “But if you like, I’ll kill one of the locals for you?”
Daniel got into the front seat beside the driver. He’d never thought he’d see Woetjans with a shocked expression; but he knew exactly how she felt.
* * *
The Dalbriggans didn’t have a command channel: they had seven separate frequencies on which subchiefs and their followers gabbled orders and nonsense in their excitement.
“Don’t fire at the RCN aircar approaching from the north!” Adele said. She used her personal data unit to cue the corvette’s powerful transmitters for a multiband rebroadcast, hoping—another person would have thought “praying”—the message would reach every one of Kelburney’s gunmen.
She’d found seven frequencies. What if there was an eighth that she’d missed, that of a guntruck whose weapons were even now swinging on the jeep?
Adele’s mouth quirked in slight humor as she repeated, “Don’t fire at the RCN aircar approaching from the north!” In that case she was unlikely to live long enough to be tortured by failure. The universe had a kindly side after all.
Daniel switched on the jeep’s klaxon as the driver took them low through the streets of Homeland. When the vehicle swooped up on edge to slice between a building and a car with an automatic impeller welded to each of its four corners, Adele wished angrily that they’d lift high enough to hold a steady course across the community.
The thought didn’t reach her tongue, fortunately. It had scarcely formed when she realized that would mean a straight course down the throat of the Falassan holdouts. She had her duties and areas of competence; which were different, fortunately, from those of the spacer who was driving.
Adele could hear the sound of gunfire over the klaxon and the howl of the drive fans. A red spark shrieking like a banshee curved out of the sky and banged the car’s bow, just ahead of the open cockpit. The driver shouted and jerked his control yoke. Daniel reached past and steadied the vehicle before they wobbled into the building to the left.
“A ricochet,” he explained—to everyone in the car, but Adele was the only one who might not have known without being told. “Wars are dangerous places, aren’t they? But of course, you can slip in the bath and break your neck.”
Adele supposed he was only acting the part of a good commander in calming his troops, but on reflection she couldn’t be sure. Nothing seemed to faze Daniel.