"Now, Colonel," Mark said. "Aim your repeller directly at the lock plate. Blow it off, then hit the door with your shoulder at full speed so that you burst into the room. And remember, get it right the first time because you won't have another chance."

"I think I'm capable of handling this without your help, my man," Finch said with a sniff.

He pulled back his repeller's cocking handle, charging the weapon. The pellets were no bigger than unpopped popcorn grains, but when the repeller's electromagnetic coils accelerated them to many times the speed of sound their impact was as devastating as so many lightning bolts.

"Make sure you just shoot the door, Colonel," Yerby said. "The beads won't ricochet, they'll just blow up and do no harm. But if you hit the concrete-" He patted the corridor wall. "-a piece might fly out big enough to hurt somebody. Understood?"

"Yes, all right," Finch said. "May we get on with it?"

"I want everyone but the actors back twenty feet behind me," Amy said briskly. "Colonel Finch, run to within a few feet of the door, pause, and look over your shoulder so that I get a clear view of your face. You can shout something to your men. Then shoot the lock off and batter the door down to show exactly how much of a hero you are."

Finch scowled. He didn't like being lectured, especially by a young woman, but he didn't object aloud. He was smart enough to realize both that Amy was right and that he was dependent on her to record his actions.

"Are we ready?" he said in a less demanding tone.

"You bet we are, Colonel!" Yerby said, clapping Finch on the back. Mark unslung his gas gun and joined the group of bemused Greenwoods.

"Action!" said Amy.

"Come on, men!" Finch shouted. He ran down the corridor with the raiders stumping along behind him. Arm's length from the door, Finch turned to face the camera. Mark hunched so that he wouldn't block Amy's view, "Zenith and freedom!"

Finch pointed his repeller and held the trigger down for almost five seconds, emptying the thousand-round magazine. The crack of each multisonic pellet merged with the whack! of the shot when it hit the door. The racket was as echoingly loud as a saw cutting the whole fortress in halves.

The latch vanished in bright roaring sparks like a high-amperage electrical short. The stream of pellets ate a black hole in the plastic panel as if it was still hungry for a solid surface after the lock was gone.

"Follow me!" Finch cried as his shoulder hit the door and he lurched into the room beyond. His momentum carried him into the board that served as the latrine's seat. He broke it and plunged into the eight-foot hole in the floor.

"Holy sh-" Finch screamed.

There was a loud plop. A brown geyser spouted above the floor and sank back.

The Greenwoods crowding forward behind Finch stopped dead as though the horrible stench were a brick wall. Mark had known what to expect, so he'd held his breath, but his eyes started to water.

Yerby stepped into the converted pump room. "I don't guess I've ever been taken for a coward," he said, "but I'll tell the world I never done a braver thing in my life than this."

He bent over the hole. When he straightened again, he held Colonel Berkeley Finch dangling by the collar. Yerby walked into the hall, keeping the dripping, sputtering Zenith out at arm's length.

Almost everyone in the corridor, raiders and prisoners alike, dissolved in helpless laughter. Amy moved to the other side of the scene so that she could record Finch together with the spectators laughing at him.

"But you know," Captain Easton said sadly, "with proper preparation, it makes a really wonderful fertilizer."

"Don't worry, Colonel Finch," Amy called from behind her camera. "You'll get the only copy of this recording just as soon as the government of Zenith declares Greenwood to be a free and independent world."

Mark hugged the Alliance commandant. "Captain," he said, "believe me, your fertilizer has done more good for the whole planet of Greenwood than it could possibly have done for your plants!"

38. Next

Lucius Maxwell was the first man to disembark from the freighter Stellar Conveyor when it arrived at the military port on Dittersdorf Minor from Hestia. Four more starships waited in orbit for landing instructions.

Amy hadn't completely catalogued the heavy weapons warehouse in the bowels of the fort, but she'd guessed it would fill at least twenty vessels the size of the Stellar Conveyor, or over a hundred tramps like the ones trading to Greenwood. The Atlantic Alliance had saved money and effort by storing equipment on the frontier instead of shipping it home at the end of the Proxy Wars.

Now, twenty years later, the Alliance had to pay for that savings. The price would be their whole interstellar empire.

Mark waited at the bottom of the boarding ramp. There wasn't an official delegation to greet the reinforcements, but about half the raiders were standing around out of curiosity. Amy recorded events; Yerby's smile was one of real warmth.

Colonel Finch was present also, wearing his dress uniform. Nobody made a pointed comment, but he blushed whenever a Greenwood looked hard at him.

"I guess I should've expected you'd turn up, Dad," Mark said. He hugged his father. "I'm glad to see you."

"I'll be glad to see you, as soon as my eyes focus again," Lucius said. "On a matter of this significance the Assembly had to send an envoy, and I seemed the obvious one to go."

He chuckled and added, "For one thing, because I was willing. Dittersdorf isn't viewed as the garden spot of the universe, though I've always found Minor more attractive than the civilian port."

Lucius was in formal clothes. The four men and two women who followed him down the ramp wore battle dress of six individual styles. A squat, fifties-ish man noticed the turret from which a laser with a five-inch objective lens pointed toward the Stellar Conveyor. "Hey!" he said. "Does that thing work or is it just for show?"

"I guess it works," Mark said sharply. He was reacting to the challenge that he might not have recognized six months before. "I burned an acre of woods clear to test it, and last week we warmed an Alliance transport in orbit hot enough they decided to go back where they came from. Zeb's supposed to redirect it now that we're sure who you are, though."

As he spoke, the laser tube pivoted vertically again. Tags of vine, cut but not completely cleared from the turret, fluttered like deliberate camouflage.

The man who'd spoken raised an eyebrow. "Not bad, kid," he said. "I'm General Carswell. Come see me in a day or two and we'll talk about a job."

"I need to see an inventory soonest," said one of the women. "Can we…" She shrugged.

"I'll take them to the Command Center," Amy said, folding the lenses of her camera. She grinned wryly. "We can't be so busy recording history that we forget to make it, after all."

"I'll accompany you, if I may," Finch said. "General, I'm Colonel Berkeley Finch. I have an Assembly commission."

"Glad to meet you, Finch," Carswell said, but he didn't bother to shake the hand the Zenith offered.

Amy took off across the paved courtyard with the uniformed personnel in tow. The new arrivals walked like drunks, upright only because their determination overbore their disorientation.

A second starship glinted in the high sky at the start of its landing approach. The militia who'd come for the show walked away also, correctly deciding there was nothing more to see here.

"Yerby," Lucius said, "we've scraped up three hundred troops to take over from you here. With your permission, of course."

Yerby nodded. "Wasn't a place I figured to spend any more time than I had to," he remarked, glancing at the drab concrete and drabber vegetation surrounding them.