"Even that's out and you know it," I said. "United Galaxies won't even
touch peaceful ionics, too dangerous to even use."
"You can take a look first."
"A good look," I said.
I alerted Rajay-Ben and we took two squads and a small ship and Saltario
directed us to a tall mountain that jutted a hundred feet above the ice
of Nova-Maurania. I was not surprised. In a way I think I knew from the
moment Saltario walked into my office. Whatever it was Saltario was part
of it. And I had a pretty good idea what it was. The only question was
how. But I didn't have time to think it out any farther. In the
Companies you learn to feel danger.
The first fire caught four of my men. Then I was down on the ice. They
were easy to see. Black uniforms with white wedges. Pete O'Hara's White
Wedge Company, Earthmen. I don't like fighting other Earthmen, but a
job's a job and you don't ask questions in the Companies. It looked like
a full battalion against our two squads. On the smooth ice surface there
was no cover except the jutting mountain top off to the right. And no
light in the absolute darkness of a dead star. But we could see through
our viewers, and so could they. They outnumbered us ten to one.
Rajay-Ben's voice came through the closed circuit.
"Bad show, Red, they got our pants down!"
"You call it," I answered.
"Break silence!"
Surrender. When a Company breaks silence in a battle it means surrender.
There was no other way. And I had a pretty good idea that the Council
itself was behind O'Hara on this job. If it was ionics involved, they
wouldn't ransom us. The Council had waited a long time to catch Red
Stone in an execution offense. They wouldn't miss.
But forty of our men were down already.
"Okay," I beamed over the circuit, "break silence. We've had it Rajay."
"Council offense, Red."
"Yeah."
* * * * *
Well, I'd had a lot of good years. Maybe I'd been a soldier too long. I
was thinking just like that when the sudden flank attack started. From
the right. Heavy fire from the cover of the solitary mountain top.
O'Hara's men were dropping. I stared through my viewer. On that mountain
I counted the uniforms of twenty-two different Companies. That was very
wrong. Whoever Saltario was fronting for could not have the power or the
gold to hire twenty-four Companies including mine and Rajay-Ben's. And
the fire was heavy but not that heavy. But whoever they were they were
very welcome. We had a chance now. And I was making my plans when the
tall old man stood up on the small, jutting top of that mountain. The
tall old man stood up and a translating machine boomed out.
"All of you! O'Hara's men! Look at this!"
I saw it. In a beam of light on the top of that mountain it looked like
a small neutron-source machine. But it wasn't. It was an ionic beam
projector.