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"Yeah, but get this," grinned Tung. "They sited these prison camps on this
miserable outpost planet so s they wouldn t have to expend troops and
equipment guarding them - counted on distance from Marilac, and the
downgearing of the war there, to discourage rescue attempts. But in the period
since you went in, half of their original guard complement has been pulled to
other hot spots. Half!"
"They were relying on the dome." Miles eyed him. "And for the bad news?" he
murmured.
Tung s smile soured. "This round, our total time window is only two hours."
"Ouch. Half their local space fleet is still too many. And they ll be back in
two hours?"
"One hour, forty minutes, now." A sidewise flick of Tung s eyes betrayed the
location of his ops clock, holovid-projected by his command headset into the
air at a corner of his vision.
Miles did a calculation in his head, and lowered his voice. "Are we going to
be able to lift the last load?"
"Depends on how fast we can lift the first three," said Tung. His ordinarily
stoic face was more unreadable than ever, betraying neither hope nor fear.
Which depends in turn on how effectively I managed to drill them all...
What was done was done; what was coming was not yet. Miles wrenched his
attention to the immediate now.
"Have you found Elli and Elena yet?"
"I have three patrols out searching."
He hadn t found them yet. Miles s guts tightened. "I wouldn t have even
attempted to expand this operation in midstream if I
hadn t known they were monitoring me, and could translate all those oblique
hints back into orders."
"Did they get  em all right?" asked Tung. "We argued over some of their
interpretations of your double-talk on the vids."
Miles glanced around. "They got  em right... you got vids of all this?" A
startled wave of Miles s hand took in the circle of the camp.
"Of you, anyway. Right off the Cetagandan monitors. They burst-transmitted
them all daily. Very - er - entertaining, sir," Tung added blandly.
Some people would find entertainment in watching someone swallow slugs, Miles
reflected. "Very dangerous... when was your last communication with them?"
"Yesterday." Tung s hand clamped on Miles s arm, restraining an involuntary
leap. "You can t do better than my three patrols, sir, and I haven t any to
spare to go looking for you.
"
"Yah, yah." Miles slapped his right fist into his left palm in frustration
before remembering that was a bad idea. His two co-
agents, his vital link between the dome and the Dendarii, missing. The
Cetagandans shot spies with depressing consistency. After, usually, a series
of interrogations that rendered death a welcome release.... He tried to
reassure himself with logic. If they d blown their covers as Cetagandan
monitor techs, and been interrogated, Tung would have run into a meat grinder
here. He hadn t, ergo, they hadn t. Of course, they might have been killed by
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friendly fire, just now.... Friends. He had too many friends to stay sane in
this crazy business.
"You," Miles retrieved his clothes from the still-waiting soldier, "go over
there," he pointed, "and find a redhaired lady named
Beatrice and an injured man named Suegar. Bring them to me. Carry him
carefully, he has internal injuries."
The soldier saluted and marched off. Ah, the pleasure again of being able to
give a command without having to follow it up with a supporting theological
argument. Miles sighed. Exhaustion waited to swallow him, lurking at the edge
of his adrenalin-
spurred bubble of hyperconsciousness. All the factors - shuttles, timing, the
approaching enemy, distance to the get-away jump point, formed and reformed in
all their possible permutations in his mind. Small variations in timing in
particular multiplied into major troubles. But he d known it would be like
this back when he d started. A miracle they d got this far. No - he glanced at
Tung, at Thorne - not a miracle, but the extraordinary initiative and devotion
of his people.
Well done, oh, well done....
Thorne helped him as he fumbled to dress himself one-handed. "Where the hell
is my command headset?" Miles asked.
"We were told you were injured, sir, and in a state of exhaustion. You were
scheduled for immediate evacuation."
"Damn presumptuous of somebody..." Miles bit back ire. No place in this
schedule for running errands topside. Besides, if he had his headset, he d be
tempted to start giving orders, and he wasn t yet sufficiently briefed on the
internal complexities of the operation from the Dendarii fleet s point of
view. Miles swallowed his observer status without further comment. It did free
him for rear guard.
Miles s batman reappeared, with Beatrice and four drafted prisoners, carrying
Suegar on his mat to lay at Miles s feet.
"Get my surgeon," Miles said. His soldier obediently trotted off and found
her. She knelt beside the semi-conscious Suegar and pulled the encode from his
back. A knot of tension unwound in Miles s neck at the reassuring hiss of a
hypospray of synergine.
"How bad?" Miles demanded.
"Not good," the surgeon admitted, checking her diagnostic viewer. "Burst
spleen, oozing hemorrhage in the stomach - this one had better go direct to
surgery on the command ship. Medtech -" she motioned to a Dendarii waiting
with the guards for the return of the shuttle, and gave triage instructions.
The medtech swathed Suegar in a thin foil heat wrap.
"I ll make sure he gets there," promised Miles. He shivered, envying the heat
wrap a little as the drizzly acid fog beaded in his hair and coiled into his
bones.
Tung s expression and attention were abruptly absorbed by a message from his
comm set. Miles, who had yielded Lieutenant
Murka s headset back to him so that he might continue his duties, shifted from
foot to foot in agony for news.
Elena, Elli, if I ve killed you...
Tung spoke into his pick-up. "Good. Well done. Report to the A7 drop site." A
jerk of his chin switched channels. "Sim, Nout, fall back with your patrols to
your shuttle drop site perimeters. They ve been found."
Miles found himself bent over with his hand supported on gelid knees, waiting
for his head to clear, his heart lurching in huge slow gulps. "Elli and Elena?
Are they all right?"
"They didn t call for a medtech... you sure you don t need one yourself?
You re green."
"I m all right." Miles s heart steadied, and he straightened up, to meet
Beatrice s questing eyes. "Beatrice, would you please go get Tris and Oliver
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