We beamed the Companies and in twenty minutes they were on their way.
Straight into the biggest trouble we had had since the War of Survival.
I expected trouble, but I didn't know how much. Pete Colenso tipped me
off.
Pete spoke across the light years on our beam. "Mandasiva says okay if
we guarantee the payment. I've deposited the bond with him and we're on
our way. But, Red, something's funny."
"What?"
"This place is empty. The whole damned galaxy out here is like a desert.
Every Company has moved out somewhere."
"Okay," I beamed, "get rolling fast."
There was only one client who could hire all the Companies at one time.
United Galaxies itself. We were in for it. I had expected perhaps ten
Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs.
It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe
there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his
word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies
were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy
Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make.
It gave us a day and a half. We would need it.
They came at dawn on the second day. We were deployed across five of
the dead planets of Menelaus XII in a ring around Nova-Maurania. They
came fast and hard, and Portario and his men had at least ten hours work
left before they could fire their reactors and pray. Until then we did
the praying. It didn't help.
Mandasiva's command ship went at the third hour. A Lukan blaster got it.
By the fourth hour I had watched three of my sub-command ships go. A
Sirian force beam got one, an Earth fusion gun got another, and the
third went out of action and rammed O'Hara's command ship that had been
leading their attack against us. That third ship of mine was Pete
Colenso's. Old Mike would have been proud of his boy. I was sick. Pete
had been a good boy. So had O'Hara. Not a boy, O'Hara, but the next to
the last of old Free Companion from Earth. I'm the last, and I said a
silent good-bye to O'Hara. By the sixth hour Rajay-Ben had only ten
ships left. I had twelve. Five thousand of my men were gone. Eight
thousand of Rajay-Ben's Lukans. The Sirians of Mandasiva's O Company
were getting the worst of it, and in the eighth hour Mandasiva's second
in command surrendered. It would be over soon, too soon. And the dream
would be over with the battle. I broke silence.
"Red Stone calling. Do you read me? Commander Stone calling. Request
conference. Repeat, request conference."
A face appeared on the inter-Company beam screen. The cold, blank,
hard-bitten face of the only Free Company Commander senior to me now
that O'Hara was gone, Jake Campesino of the Cygne Black Company. "Are
you surrendering, Stone?"
"No. I want to speak to my fellow Companions."
Campesino's voice was like ice. "Violation! You know the rules, Stone.
Silence cannot be broken in battle. I will bring charges. You're
through, Stone."