The Blackcollar

CHAPTER 23

Cerbe Prison was ready.

Commandant Kurz Ehrhardt's eyes swept the prison's control center with justifiable pride. The word had come down only an hour ago that the transfer would be taking place a day ahead of schedule, but Ehrhardt's team had risen to the challenge. The weapons turrets were manned and ready, the prisoners' cells had been cleared out to receive them, and an entire extra guard shift had been laid on in case of trouble. The two armed troop transports which had lifted off from Calarand a few minutes ago would arrive in about half an hour, and once in his prison those starmen weren't going anywhere. Anyone who didn't believe that was going to get a rude surprise, blackcollar or not.

"Commandant?" the Security man at the comm board interrupted his thoughts. "Aircar approaching. No insignia, but the pilot claims to be on urgent Security business and requests landing permission."

A trick? If so, they'd picked a poor target to try it on. Pulling his mike from its belt clip, Ehrhardt keyed it to the outside frequency. "This is Commandant Ehrhardt. State the nature of your business."

"Confidential Security matters, for your ears only," the pilot said promptly. The comm man had a picture now, and Ehrhardt studied the image carefully. A youngish man, in plain clothes, his face serious as he concentrated on his flying.

"Do you have an ID code?" Ehrhardt asked, trying to sound casual. Around him the room was unnaturally still, and Ehrhardt could see fingers hovering over alarm buttons.

The pilot's face disappeared, replaced by that of a woman in one of the aircar's passenger seats. "Commandant, this is Special Agent Renee Lucas, working directly under Security Prefect Apostoleris. Pre-code verbal: January, suborbital, denomination, Alistair. Main code follows."

Ehrhardt let out the breath he'd been holding as the tension throughout the room vanished, and he realized he'd actually hoped the aircar was a Radix trick. Spoiling for a fight, at your age! he chided himself. But the verbal pre-code and the electronic holocode now being received through the roof comm laser matched perfectly the code Apostoleris had personally set up not six hours ago. Still, if Agent Lucas was genuine, then something important must have happened. Giving orders for the aircar to be passed, Ehrhardt headed out to meet it. Perhaps he'd be seeing some action soon, after all.

Cerbe's central control area was on the lowest underground level, and by the time he reached the main gate the aircar had put down near one end of the enclosed courtyard. Agent Lucas, followed by the pilot and another young plain-clothes man, was walking swiftly toward the building.

Ehrhardt watched them approach, eyes narrowing with sudden uneasiness. It was impossible to tap into a secure laser system, and Lucas's companions had obviously been on normal Idunine dosage for longer than the Plinry blackcollars had been here. But there was something disturbing about them just the same. Perhaps the way they walked....

The commandant stepped over to the guard captain standing by the massive gate. "Full scan as they enter; check for weapons of any sort. If they're clean I want the men taken to the guardroom and their IDs run through the reader."

"They may not have IDs," the captain pointed out.

Ehrhardt frowned. Yes; if they were all on special duty they probably wouldn't. "In that case... layer-scan them and have the computer do facial-structure comparisons against the Plinry photos. And have six armed men around them at all times—dart guns, no lasers. Clear?"

"Yes, sir." The captain reached for his belt mike. A moment later, the visitors arrived.

The usual pleasantries of greeting were drastically abridged; Agent Lucas was clearly in a hurry and refused to say anything with others present. Ehrhardt complied with her wishes, leading her and a four-man escort to his office in silence.

"Please sit down," he told her, stepping to the far side of his desk. Out of her sight, one of the displays informed him the scans had revealed no weapons; glancing at the escort, he signaled them to wait in the anteroom. "Your men are being checked out down the hall," he added as the door closed behind the guards. "Purely routine, of course—"

"Never mind that." She was still standing by the chair. "I'm here to warn you that an attack on Cerbe may be imminent."

He frowned. "All right—we're ready."

"No, you're not. They've added a new twist." She nodded at the command room monitors. "You'll need to shift weapons control down here immediately and have the turrets vacated. The courtyard guards will have to come in, too, and you should probably put up a sensor drone."

Ehrhardt frowned more deeply. "You sound like you're expecting an air strike."

"Very perceptive. We think the rebels have a Corsair available to attack you with."

Another desk display flashed. The hallway facial scans indicated only a twenty-one percent chance that either of Lucas's companions was a Plinry blackcollar; the computer was still waiting for the more complete guardroom scans. "I'm aware of that, Miss Lucas, but I understand the blackcollars' Corsair never landed on Argent. Even if it was somehow hiding in close orbit it couldn't possibly launch an attack without giving us adequate warning."

"Of course not. But that's not the one we're worried about. Half an hour ago the Ryqril told us that one of their Corsairs has disappeared."

"I hadn't heard that," Ehrhardt said cautiously. What she was implying was supposed to be impossible.

"No one else has, either. If the rebels have tapped the comm net we'd rather they not know we've discovered the theft." She gestured impatiently. "If you don't believe me, call Brocken spaceport and ask for confirmation of Datum LL-18."

"No that's all right," he said, thinking hard. This changed Cerbe's defense needs completely—a Corsair lurking just over the horizon could be overhead and attacking in ten seconds or less. If it knocked the tops off all four turrets before the gunners could switch control back underground, he'd have only the prison's internal anti-escape weaponry to work with. The setup, designed to keep the perimeter defenses from prisoner control in the unlikely event of a control center takeover, was suddenly looking very vulnerable. "All right," he said slowly, reaching for his mike. "I usually prefer live gun controllers to automatics and remotes, but I can't see how the rebels could use that to their advantage." He hesitated. "Unless they've also stolen a ramtank?"

Lucas frowned slightly. "Good point. I haven't heard anything, but it should be checked. I suppose it's possible the Corsair theft was some kind of crazy feint."

Ehrhardt nodded, pleased he'd come up with a good idea. Punching for the control center, he gave orders to recall the gunners and outside guards; a second call started a search of the Security comm net for possible military thefts. There shouldn't really be anything to worry about; potent though a ramtank's ECM were, live gunners could be put back in the turrets before the vehicle got too close. "Any other suggestions?" he asked as he finished the call.

"No. I think that'll be adequate. Thank you for your prompt cooperation, Commandant; I hope these precautions will prove unnecessary," She glanced at her watch. "The prisoners are due to land in about five minutes. Shall we go to the control center?"

"Yes, I should be there," Ehrhardt said hesitantly. "I'm sorry, though—I didn't think about it before—but the doorway won't pass you without a confirmed ID. Since you didn't show me one...?"

"Correct," she nodded. "I don't carry one. I'd forgotten how your system worked, too. Perhaps I can wait somewhere near a monitor."

"Certainly," Ehrhardt said through suddenly stiff lips. A Special Agent shouldn't forget how top-level security systems worked!

His first impulse was to hit one of the alarm buttons on his desk, to have Lucas and her cohorts surrounded as fast as possible by a ring of lasers. But he resisted the urge. Better to give them a little more rope—and if they were Radix spies, he might then be able to find out what their plan was. As to her request, he had the perfect answer. "Certainly," he repeated, rising to his feet. "You can watch the proceedings with your companions on the guardroom monitors."

She nodded agreeably, and he led her out into the anteroom. To his surprise only two of the four guards he'd left there were present. "Where are the others?" he snapped, his right hand curling into the prison's private "danger—enemy present" signal.

"I'm afraid they're no longer available," one of them said coolly... and Ehrhardt's hand froze in mid-sign as he focused on the faces above the uniforms.

"My God!" he breathed. His eyes darted involuntarily to the monitor on his secretary's desk, as if he had somehow missed the flashing red "escaped prisoner" signal that must surely be there. But the screen showed only the routine messages of normal prison business. "You can't be here," he insisted, turning back to the two men. "There are video and audio monitors all over this floor."

"Sure are," the man who had piloted Lucas's aircar agreed mildly, relieving Ehrhardt of his belt mike. He was a large, strongly built man whose borrowed Security uniform was being gently stretched out of shape. "And you have a man who sits around watching those monitors with his fingers half a meter from an alarm button."

"That's right," Ehrhardt said mechanically. The sight of that wrestler's body belatedly linked up with a bit of data from the intelligence reports. "You're Kelly O'Hara, aren't you? And you—" he shifted his gaze—"must be Taurus Haven. The two who've been out of sight lately. Taking heavy-duty Idunine treatments, right?"

Haven nodded. "A simple method of disguise, but remarkably effective for all that. Now, shall we all take a quiet walk to the control center?"

"It won't do any good," Ehrhardt said, hands grinding into fists at his sides. "I just explained to your rad that you can't get in there without a Security ID."

"No problem." O'Hara shrugged. "We simply let you and your ID unlock the door and then one of us goes in instead."

Ehrhardt frowned. It would work, he realized suddenly; the man in the monitor booth was supposed to guard against that sort of thing, and if they'd already eliminated him.... A chill went up his spine, and Ehrhardt knew he was about to die. "I can't do that," he said with unexpected calmness. "My loyalty-conditioning won't allow it, even if you threaten to kill me. Holding me hostage won't do any good, either—my people can't give in to blackmail." He felt a tic start in his cheek. "But I suppose you'll have to kill me to prove that to yourselves."

"Maybe; maybe not," Haven said. "Tell me, does loyalty-conditioning require you to throw away your life for nothing?"

Ehrhardt frowned. "I don't understand."

"Sacrificing your life won't keep us out of the control center," the blackcollar went on. "We've got your ID, and we can take your thumbprints and retinal pattern along with us to show the scanners."

"How—by dragging me screaming down the hall?" Ehrhardt scoffed.

"Not all of you, no," Haven said calmly. "And what we had wouldn't be screaming."

Ehrhardt stared at him, his blood turning to ice water as he suddenly understood. "You wouldn't!" he whispered.

"We would," O'Hara assured him, his voice as glacial as his rad's. "Severed hands and head can be used for several hours before the retinal pattern decays enough for the machine to notice. I know; I've seen it done. It's your decision, Commandant."

Ehrhardt's throat felt very dry. "One question first," he said. "You left the gate area with six guards. What happened to them?"

"There's a section of the hall just outside the guardroom that's not covered by any of the cameras," O'Hara said. "Your men have a bad habit of bunching up; we just took them all out and then went down the hall to the monitor booth."

"But even if he couldn't see you, the noise of the fight—"

"There wasn't any noise," O'Hara told him. "We made sure of that."

Three to one odds... and no noise. They were unstoppable, Ehrhardt realized at last. One way or another they would get into the control center... and they were right: without specific orders the conditioning did not require him to throw his life away uselessly. "All right," he said, "I'll get you in. But even with full control of the defenses you won't be able to hold Cerbe for long. There are over a hundred armed guards roaming the various levels, and assault units can be sent from Calarand in under two hours."

"Let us worry about that," O'Hara suggested. "Let's go."

Ehrhardt didn't see what happened after Haven disappeared through the control center door; all he knew for certain was that no one inside got to an alarm button in time. "Who's next?" he growled, readying his ID again.

"No one." O'Hara consulted his watch and gestured down the hall. "Come on, we're heading upstairs."

They reached the elevators without incident. For a brief moment, as they entered an empty car, Ehrhardt considered hitting the emergency alarm button to alert the guards on the other floors. But with the control center in enemy hands it would be a futile gesture. Probably suicidal, too.... Punching for ground level, he stepped away from the controls.

"Now listen carefully," O'Hara said as the car started up. "Those troop carriers from Calarand should be down by now; my friend will have ordered the pilots and guards to come to the gate for consultation with you. We're going to lock them—and you—into the gate guard station. That's if you cooperate. If you don't, they'll have to be killed."

"With the turret weapons, of course," Ehrhardt said bitterly.

"Or the ones in the entrance hall. I'd rather do it without bloodshed, but it's basically up to you."

Ehrhardt swallowed heavily. The elevator doors opened and the three of them stepped out into the hall. Ahead was the main gate; through the hullmetal bars he could see men moving in the courtyard. The four gate guards were watching the arrival, too, and a half dozen wild plans tripped through the commandant's mind: plans for warning them, or of allowing their lives to be sacrificed to warn those outside. But it was all just a mental game, and he knew it. He couldn't stop the blackcollars now, and throwing good lives away would be stupidity, not loyalty. Better now to observe passively and to be alert for clues regarding their next move.

Fifteen minutes later the troop carriers lifted smoothly from the prison courtyard, their passengers still aboard, the two blackcollars at the controls. Jammed against one wall of the guard station by the crowd of swearing Security men, Ehrhardt watched them disappear over the hills to the west. The emotional reaction was starting to hit him now, the realization that he'd been defeated and would soon be facing the consequences of his failure. And yet, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of admiration for the skill and courage with which the operation had been carried out.

Though somehow he doubted Prefect Apostoleris would see that side of it.