STARDANCER Read online

  Chapter One

  T'Mar was at his desk in the Consulate dispensary, handling what was left of a day's worth of filework, when the 'call waiting' block began to blink in blue in the lower right corner of his vid screen.

  Blinking red would have indicated an emergency; an injury or an illness. Blue was for intraoffice communications. It was probably just more of the bureaucratic garbage he'd encountered since taking the Consulate job.

  T'Mar sighed and let it blink as he finished cataloging the last few emigrant examination forms, then tapped the blinking block with a forefinger.

  "Yes?"

  The face on the screen was that of L'Nis, secretary to the Consul, herself. Her expression as she turned to face the vid screen made T'Mar wonder what he'd done.

  "Your presence is required in the Consul's office," she said. "Immediately."

  No greeting and no good-bye. She simply clicked off.

  T'Mar sat gazing thoughtfully at the screen for a moment. Was he in trouble of some sort? He couldn't imagine what he might have done to deserve so terse a summons. He'd only been on the planet for two weeks. Less, really. Twelve days.

  He mentally reviewed his work. Except for a few departees that he'd flagged as questionable and marked for further examinations, things had been rather routine.

  Certainly, it would have meant that a few people would have to delay their travel plans for a few days, but it was his job to screen Eiranian travelers, and because he was the new guy, he'd gone strictly by the book all the way.

  Maybe one of those travelers had friends in high places and had bitched about being delayed. Was he about to become a diplomatic sacrifice, fired for having done his job too well?

  There was an air of tense confusion in the hallways. As he passed one office, someone asked what was going on. He shook his head, shrugged, and kept walking.

  The Consul's huge office was packed with people when he arrived and squeezed into the room. When the big doors shut, Consul L'Tan stood up and one of her aides called the room to attention.

  She was a tall, solid-looking, reasonably attractive woman in her mid-forties, and her commanding demeanor was almost tangible. She had short hair and a jacket and skirt ensemble that could have been a uniform if it had only been the right color.

  Lady L'Tan was an appointee from one of the outworlds, he remembered. Retired military. Probably just putting in a few more years of government service to enhance her pension. Not retired long enough to know how to relate very well to civilian employees, in his opinion.

  More than one staffer had filed a grievance against her during her few months as Consul, and he suspected that each grievance was at least nominally deserved. He also expected that nothing short of a criminal offense would oust her. She had friends in very high places or she wouldn't be in the Consulate's big chair at all.

  After a moment of waiting for the assembly to finish quieting down, the Consul said, "Quiet!" and slammed a palm flat on her desk.

  Her palm made a sound like a shot and her voice was one that had trained combat troops. The room immediately fell silent.

  "I have some bad news, people. I've been quietly informed that we may - that's may - find ourselves in the midst of a religious revolution within two days. In case some of you are wondering, this situation is not my fault."

  She grinned wryly for a moment as the polite laughter subsided.

  "Evacuation preparations begin tonight. Families first, then personnel. By the book all the way. I want everybody inside the compound and ready to go by dawn. Some of you are military reservists and you may be active duty again by tomorrow, so get your affairs in order, just in case. That's it. Everyone not a department head may now go back to work and wait for orders. It's business as usual until I receive confirmation. By the way, no one is to leave the compound without permission or to mention anything about this to anyone who is not of this Consulate's people."

  T'Mar knew that Eirania had been a marginally civilized colony world for over two hundred cycles, supplying mostly a single energy-rich ore to the rest of the Confederated Worlds, and that the current regime had a penchant for modernization.

  He had also known of the local religiously oriented revolutionary movement, but no one had thought it to be capable of much more than acts of terrorism and rhetoric-laden anti-everything speeches.

  Without a family to consider and with no other instructions, T'Mar joined many others in the Consulate's dining hall to wait for further word. He found the atmosphere anxious and stifling, so he retired to his room to pack.

  T'Mar was awakened well before dawn by the fire alarm and someone running down the hall, beating on doors. He quickly dressed and grabbed his two bags and joined the throng in the hallway.

  Before he could reach the stairwell, a military guard there shouted, "There's no fire! No fire! We're evacuating the building! Use the elevators!"

  He could hear - and feel - explosions occurring elsewhere within the building as he trotted along the hallway with a small group of fellow evacuees.

  T'Mar turned with the others and headed back down the hallway. At the elevators there were other military guards who were separating people from their luggage.

  "One bag!" someone shouted. "Damn it, you people had the lecture and you know better! One bag! Essentials only! Hurry up!"

  T'Mar asked one of them what was going on as he shuffled a few things of supreme importance to him into one bag. The soldier had no time to talk. He was having to prod some people into cooperating with the 'one bag' requirement.

  The Captain yelled, "When an elevator arrives, you're either ready or you aren't. If you're not, all of your luggage stays here when you go."

  At the other end of the long hallway, an object thrown from the stairwell bounced off a wall and rattlingly rolled across the floor a short distance toward them.

  The soldier at the stairwell shouted, "Grenade! Grenade! Get down!" then he jumped down the stairs. Rifle fire and a scream, then silence, came from the stairwell.

  T'Mar dropped flat, then kicked the backs of the nearby legs of a woman who simply stood staring at the grenade. She managed to catch herself to a degree when she fell, but she fell pretty hard, anyway.

  The grenade was nearly fifty feet away. It exploded with a deafening 'bang', and some of those who'd been too slow to duck were hit by shrapnel.

  Two of the military people at the outskirts of the small crowd quickly piled up some luggage for cover and aimed their weapons down the hallway. They were quickly joined by the other two and T'Mar and some of the others also piled up luggage to form a low wall.

  The first Eiranians who appeared were mowed down, but others quickly replaced them. Screaming and firing at the group of escapees, the Eiranians flooded the other end of the hallway and then began the long run to reach their quarry.

  Although dozens fell to fire from the Captain's guard team, dozens more hurdled the bodies of the fallen and rushed forward. Another grenade landed near T'Mar.

  He side-arm threw it back at the attackers, and it sailed over the heads of those in front to detonate somewhere in the midst of the horde. Those injured or stunned were shoved aside or trampled by others who rushed forward.

  The gunfire was savagely intense for a few moments. Anyone foolish enough to even raise their heads too high above the luggage-revetment were cut down almost instantly.

  The luggage-wall didn't fare well against the gunfire. One of the soldiers soundlessly fell away from his firing position; some of his head was gone. The other soldiers continued firing rapidly at the onrushing horde as one of the Consulate employees pulled the body away and took his place at the barrier.

  The Eiranians were having to climb over their fallen comrades in order to continue their attack. This made those who
did so easy targets, but there were so many of them that the Consulate guards were running low on ammunition.

  T'Mar opened the belt pouches of the dead guard and handed one of the four magazines he found to each of the men at the luggage wall, then went back to trying to help the wounded.

  The elevator on the left chimed and its doors opened. Those who could do so scrambled to get into it. Many were cut down by gunfire, but several made it inside.

  A fallen man's leg kept the doors from closing, and someone in the elevator tried to shove the body back out, but new holes appeared on the doors and the body, and the man fell away from his efforts.

  Apparently one or more of the attackers decided to focus his fire on the open elevator. The opening and closing doors were speckled with holes from top to bottom and there was silence in the elevator.

  One of the women on the floor near T'Mar had been hit in the arm. T'Mar pulled her with him as he crawled toward the other elevator doors. When that elevator arrived, he shoved her inside as soon as the doors opened, tossed his bag into the doorway to keep it open, and looked for others to pull into the elevator.

  Another woman was pulling a man toward the doors and T'Mar crawled to help them, risking a quick look at the situation beyond the luggage wall. A grenade slammed into his chest and bounced to the floor a few feet away.

  The Guard Captain dove to grab it and tossed it back at the onrushing horde, but his action cost him dearly. Several rounds struck his chest and head and he fell back to lie still.

  The grenade went off just down the hall, killing and wounding untold numbers of the advancing revolutionaries, but it also ripped a large gap in far end of the luggage wall.

  Neither of the soldiers at the wall was firing and the remaining soldier was screaming about his eyes as he tried to sit up. He was flayed by incoming fire.

  T'Mar slithered backwards into the elevator as rounds dug up the floor in front of his face, then tried to see if he could reach the woman. She lay staring and still, so he looked for anyone else nearby.

  A man who seemed otherwise unable to move reached with his good arm for one of the rifles and shoved it into the elevator with a grin that might have been no more than a rictus of agony at the effort.

  "That's...my...wife in there. Help her...?"

  T'Mar nodded and pulled the rifle completely into the elevator.

  Another grenade landed, and the man reached for it and struggled to tumble it back over what was left of the luggage wall. T'Mar frantically yanked his bag out of the elevator's doorway and hunkered against a sidewall as the doors closed.

  The doors had closed and the elevator had begun its descent when an explosion buckled the tops of the doors inward. The elevator halted with a grinding jerk, then something near the top of the doorway loudly ripped free and descent continued.

  The woman in the elevator made a small gasping sound, then toppled slowly to her right and lay still. T'Mar hurried to her and found that she'd been hit in the back, as well. Of the fifty or so people who had been massed to escape, he alone had survived.

  He didn't know where he was going, other than down, and he didn't know what sort of reception awaited him when the elevator stopped. T'Mar picked up the rifle and dropped the magazine out. He could see that it contained at least four rounds.

  T'Mar slapped the magazine back into the rifle and propped it on top of his bag to aim it at the door from a prone position.

  Chapter Two

  When the elevator stopped, the doors had trouble opening, but they slid back enough that he was able to shove his bag into the gap. As he scooted forward to reposition his rifle's muzzle slightly beyond the doors, he quickly scanned outside to see where he was and who might be waiting for him.

  He saw nothing in the poorly lighted area beyond the door. No one. Easing forward a bit, he peered as far as he dared to each side. He was in the lowest level of the Consulate; the vehicle storage area.

  When he continued to see and hear nothing, he eased the bag forward and slid himself through the doors behind it. The doors immediately closed and the elevator began moving upward. Nowhere to retreat.

  T'Mar cautiously stood up, looked around again, then picked up his bag and headed toward the line of flitters. He knew how to operate one of the big, boxy vehicles well enough to at least get the hell away from the building. The problem would be getting it out of the building.

  The big door at the surface end of the ramp was closed, of course. Whether it would require human operation or not he didn't know. Ordinarily an incoming or outgoing flitter would identify itself and that would be enough, but with all the...

  A harsh whisper came from his left.

  "Stop right there. Put the rifle down. Set it on your bag."

  T'Mar froze. As the adrenalin pumped hard through him, he considered...

  "Don't," said the voice. "I can take your head off at this range."

  A woman? He glanced left and saw her shadowy outline where she aimed at him over the cowling of a flitter, not fifty feet away. It was a shot that he felt he could have made easily, and he hadn't touched a rifle in two years. She'd have to be a very poor shot to miss.

  "You're with the Consulate," he said. "So am I."

  T'Mar lowered the rifle on his bag, then stood back up. The woman stepped from the shadows and approached him cautiously to within ten feet or so. She wore a military dress uniform and had Captain's bars on her collar and an energy rifle in her hands that was aimed at him. Except for the E-rifle, he noted, she was rather attractive.

  "Name?" she asked.

  "T'Mar-Sen. I work here. Emigrations and dispensary."

  "Prove it. One hand only. The other stays up."

  T'mar reached into his shirt pocket carefully for his Consulate ID tag and held it out to her.

  "On the floor. Slide it over here."

  He did so, kneeling to slide the tag to her. She stopped it with her foot. After kneeling to pick it up and checking his picture with his face, she slid it back to him and stood up, still covering him.

  "How'd you get your hands on a guard's rifle?"

  He told her in fair detail what had happened on the fourth floor. She nodded, gazed at him silently for another couple of moments, then let the muzzle of her rifle drop.

  She said, "They jammed all communications and flooded the place with troops. That report sounded military. What rank were you and what did you do?"

  "Sergeant-6. Medic, gunner, clerk, and ambulance driver. Who are you?"

  "Captain L'Sil. Communications. What's left in that rifle?"

  "Four rounds. Maybe five."

  "We only carry those indoors. I have two of these E-rifles. The other one's in that flitter behind me. Can you pilot a flitter?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. You take one and I'll take one and maybe one of us will get to the docks."

  T'Mar pointed at the garage entrance. The big blast doors were shut.

  "What about those doors?"

  "Blast doors are made to keep things out. If they won't open automatically, we'll send one of the flitters at them at full speed. They'll open."

  She was about to say more, but a sound at the other end of the garage made her almost dive back behind a flitter. T'Mar grabbed his bag and rifle and followed her as quickly as possible.

  They watched anxiously as someone emerged from the doorway, keeping low, and scooted behind a pillar. Seconds later, the figure quietly ran to the shelter of another pillar. After a short time, the figure moved to the next pillar in line.

  Both T'Mar and L'Sil silently kept their rifles aimed at the figure as it grew closer.

  "T'Mar," whispered L'Sil, "I've got him. You cover the door. Where there's one, there may be more. Hold your fire for the moment. They've rushed groups into everywhere else. These may be some of our people."

  He nodded and covered the door. Sure enough, another dark figure slipped to the first pillar, then to the second, as the first figure continued forward. As the figure advanced again, he
saw that she was a woman and tapped L'Sil's shoulder.

  "The revolutionaries are religious fanatics. They don't have any female troops."

  "I know," said L'Sil. She raised her voice slightly and said, "Hold it right there, please. Identify yourselves."

  There was silence for a moment, then a soft chuckle.

  "Please? You first," said the woman. "Who are you?"

  "Captain L'Sil, Lady L'Tan. I recognize your voice."

  "Then show yourself. Please."

  L'Sil stepped out from behind the flitter, her rifle at port arms. From behind the pillar stepped the imposingly tall form of Lady L'Tan, Head of the Consulate. Her rifle was not at port arms until after she'd taken a good look at L'Sil.

  "Good to see you, Captain. Who's your friend?"

  T'mar said, "T'Mar-Sen, ma'am. I work in your dispensary."

  L'Sil said, "He's ex-military, ma'am. Medic and gunner."

  "Nobody's ex-military today, Captain. Glad you're both here. We'll need fifteen flitters linked to convoy. I have a hundred and fifty or so passengers with me."

  She turned and waved behind her, then said, "Corporal L'Kes, bring them down here. Hurry."

  The other figure stepped from behind her pillar and said, "Yes, ma'am," then headed back to the stairwell.

  L'Sil said, "A hundred and fifty? That'll take at least twenty flitters, ma'am."

  "Most of them are women and children, Captain. There'd have been more, but the bastards tossed grenades into the auditorium. Enough talk. Get the flitters linked and ready to go while we bring them down here."

  L'Sil ran from flitter to flitter, keying them in sequence and accepting default convoy parameters. The flitters lifted, one by one, and lined up behind each other.

  Moments later, the garage was filled with running children, herded along by their mothers and teachers, and half a dozen wounded men and women.

  L'Tan said, "Everybody get on a flitter, sit down, and shut up! T'Mar! L'Sil! Put as many as possible on the flitters and start in the middle of the line. The two flitters on each end stay empty, and the third one from the front is my command flitter. At least one adult in each flitter. T'Mar and L'Sil, you're flying with me."