William C. Dietz - By Force of Arms

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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should he aware that

this book is stolen properly. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"

to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received

any payment for this "stripped hook."

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously,

and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BY FORCE OF ARMS

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with

the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / June 2000

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part.

by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Pulnam, Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York. New York 10014.

The Penguin Pulnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

http://www.penguinputnam.com

Check out the ACE Science Fiction & Fantasy newsletter

and much more on the Internet at Club PPI'

ISBN: 0-441-00735-X

ACE®

Ace Books are published

by The Berkley Publishing Group.

a division of Penguin Putnam Inc..

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ACE and the "A" design are trademarks

belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATfcS Oh- AMERICA

10 98765432 1

For my dearest Marjorie ... Here's to the Lizard!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go to Joel Davis, co-author of Mirror Matter

for the concept of "White Holes," and how to harness

them, to Dr. Sheridan Simon for his help in building this

particular universe, and legionnaires past, present, and

future. Vive la Legion.

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Distasteful though it may be, one stroke of the as-

sassin's axe may have an effect greater than that

produced by a large number of troops.

Grand Marshal Nimu Wurla-Ka (ret.)

Instructor, Hudathan War College

Standard year 1957

Planet Earth, the Confederacy of

Sentient Beings

The assassin moved quietly, as if her life depended on it,

which it definitely did.

The house had been constructed more than five hundred

years before, back when Portugal was a nation rather than

an Administrative Region (AR), and the floorboards had a

tendency to squeak.

The killer paused for a moment, assured herself that it

was safe to move, and gestured to her companions. They

wore black hoods, black bodysuits, and black slippers.

They glided over the hardwood floor.

A shaft of sickly yellow moonlight came down through

the transparent bubble roof to pool on the rumpled bed.

Maylo Chien-Chu was awake, staring up through the plas-

2 William C. Dietz

tic, listening to her lover breathe. He was asleep and had

been for an hour now.

The sex had been good, very good, but something was

missing. Was it her? Was it him? Or, and this was what

she feared most, was it theml

Something creaked—and her thoughts continued to

chum.

The hallway was long. wide and dimly lit. Huge pieces of

furniture and statuary lurked in the heavily anchored

gloom.

In spite of the fact that Earth's legally constituted gov-

ernment had been restored, and most of the mutineers had

been placed in prison, where they awaited military trials,

there were still plenty of renegades, outlaws, and psycho-

paths who would like nothing better than to assassinate

Legion General William "Bill" Booly III, who, along with

Admiral Angie Tyspin and a number of civilian resistance

groups was credited with winning the battle for Earth. That

being the case, Naa commandos, the best special ops

troops the Legion had to offer, were assigned to protect

him night and day.

Corporal Hardswim had served with Booly in Africa,

where the officer had not only managed to restore disci-

pline to the 13th DBLE, but had won a number of battles

against the mutineers, and led the famous raid on Johan-

nesburg. A raid the Naa had been part of—and had a

medal to prove it.

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The legionnaire grinned at the memory, looked down

the dimly lit hall, and turned to the window. It was a likely

point of entry and a way to break the boredom. There

wasn't much to see outside, just the moon, and the lights

of Sintra.

The assassins glided from one pool of shadow to the next,

careful to make no sound, weapons at the ready.

Each and every Naa was gifted with a supersensitive

BY FORCE OF ARMS 3

sense of smell. The invaders knew that and had gone to

considerable lengths to counter it. Each assassin had

bathed repeatedly prior to the mission, used scentless soap,

donned specially prepared clothing, and been sprayed with

an essence derived from the house itself, A not altogether

unpleasant combination of furniture polish, fresh flowers,

and a touch of mold.

Protected by their clothing and carefully honed skills,

the assassins continued to advance.

Maylo turned onto her side, felt Booly stir in response,

and examined his face. She couldn't really see it—the

moonlight wasn't bright enough for that—but didn't need

to. The short hair. steady gray eyes, and determined chin

were etched in her memory.

He was intelligent, romantic, and very, very brave.

When a member of me cabal had imprisoned her in Jo-

hannesburg it had been Booly who led the mission to res-

cue her. She would never forget the moment when light

spilled into her cell, when he spoke her name, when he

swept her into his arms. Just like in her childhood story

books except for one very important thing: He might be

me one, and they might live happily ever after, but she

wasn't sure.

Hardswim looked down on the lights of Sintra, imagined

the interior of his favorite bar, and cursed his luck. The

general got laid, his buddies got drunk, and what did he

get? The stinkin* shaft that's what...

Hardswim paused in midthought as his nose tried to tell

him something. A scent that shouldn't be mere? No, too

much of the scent that should be there!

The Naa was already drawing his sidearm and turning

toward me light switch when the assassins took him down.

One hit the back of his knees, a second pulled his head

back, and the third slit his throat. The blood looked black

4 William C. Dietz

in the moonlight. It took less than three seconds. The body

made a soft thump as it hit the floor.

Moving quickly, lest the body cool, the diminutive kill-

ers towed the Naa over to the bedroom door, raised him

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up, and pressed a palm against the print-sensitive lock. The

mechanism made a soft but distinctive click.

Maylo heard the door lock click and frowned. Hardswim

never entered the room without requesting permission

first—not to mention the fact that it was the middle of the

night.

Having been awake for some time, the executive's eyes

were fully adjusted to the half darkness that pervaded the

room. She saw the door open a crack and made up her

mind. There had been a time when she would have laughed

at the notion of assassins, but that was before she had spent

months as a political prisoner, and been forced to shoot a

man at close range. Better to look stupid than dead.

Booly felt a hand cover his mouth, came instantly

awake, and felt for the handgun. It had a tendency to mi-

grate during the night, especially when they made love,

but it happened to be in the spot where he'd left it. His

fingers closed around cool metal as lips brushed his ear.

"Someone opened the door."

The officer nodded, nudged Maylo toward the far side

of the bed, and nicked the safety to the "off' position.

Someone else might have yelled something like "Who's

there? I have a gun'" but Booty didn't believe in that sort

of nonsense. He figured that anyone who mistakenly en-

tered a locked room during the middle of the night de-

served to die. He rolled to the left, saw motion, and opened

fire.

The first assassin staggered as two bullets ripped

through her body, but the second and third made it through

the door, and opened fire with handheld flechette throwers.

The dans sampled the air, identified epithelial cells

BY FORCE OF ARMS 5

that matched the DNA they were programmed to seek, and

steered themselves accordingly.

Booly continued to fire, saw two additional shadows

fall, and felt rather than saw the missiles that accelerated

past his torso. Smart darts! Targeted to Maylo!

The officer turned, threw himself out over the bed, but

knew it was too late.

Having rolled off the right side of the bed, Maylo sensed

the attack and raised the pillow out of reflex more than

anything else. She felt the darts hit the foam rubber, fell

backward in an attempt to reduce the extent to which she

was visible, and saw Booly throw himself into the line of

fire.

The bed creaked as the officer landed on it, three heavily

armed legionnaires burst through the door, and the lights

flashed on.

Maylo, surprised to learn she was still alive, lowered the

pillow. Nine flechettes protruded from the opposite side.

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The previously white linen was yellow where some sort of

liquid had started to spread. Booty yelled, "Poison!" and

Maylo threw the object away.

Booly rolled off the bed, stood, and approached the bod-

ies. He was naked, which meant that anyone who cared to

look could see the mane of silvery gray fur that began at

his hairline and ended at the base of his spine. Proof that

he was one-quarter Naa—and a matter of pride for his

bodyguard.

Sergeant Armstrong had gold fur streaked with white, a

bald spot on his right biceps where a bullet had ripped

through it, and carried an assault weapon in his right hand.

He knelt by one of the bodies. "They murdered Hard-

swim."

Booly swore, bent over, and tugged at one of the black

hoods. It came off rather easily. The small almost feline

head bore large light-gathering eyes, pointed ears, and hor-

izontal slits where nostrils might have been.

6 William C. Dietz

Maylo peered down across her lover's shoulder.

"Thraki."

"Yes," Booly agreed. "But why?"

Maylo frowned. The Thraki race was but one element

in a very complicated political picture.

Humans, along with a number of alien species had

founded a star-spanning government called the Confeder-

acy of Sentient Beings. First conceived as a military alli-

ance, the Confederacy had become much more than that,

and me key to interstellar peace and prosperity. Not that

all of its members could or should be trusted. The Clone

Hegemony along with the Ramanthians and others had

agendas of their own and had been at the very center of

the effort not only to subvert Earth's duly constituted gov-

ernment but to destabilize the Confederacy as well.

A rather complex situation made all the more difficult

by the arrival of the Thraki, who dropped out of hyper-

space, formed a relationship with the conspirators, and

took possession of a world called Zynig-47. Other planets

had been colonized as well, most with permission from the

Hegemony, but some without it.

All during a time when the Confederacy's armed forces

were not only suffering from the cumulative effects of se-

rial downsizings but were divided by the recent mutiny.

Then, as if those problems were not enough, Maylo's

uncle, a businessman-politician named Sergi Chien-Chu,

had learned that the Thraki were on the run from some-

thing called "the Sheen," and hoped to use the Confeder-

acy for what amounted to cannon fodder. All of which was

extremely important—but didn't begin to answer Booty's

question. What did the Thrakies hope to gain? And which

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