“I changed them.”

“You can’t have! That’s against regs!” Sanders protested, and Merrit laughed.

“Colonel Sanders, you have no idea how many regs I’ve broken in the last six months! If you expect ‘Leonidas’ to get you into Nike’s system, then be my guest and try it.”

“Damn you!” Atwell hissed. The gunman looked at his chrono yet again, and his eyes were ugly when he raised them to Merrit once more. “You’re lying. You’re just trying to make us think we need you!”

“I could be, but I’m not,” Merrit replied, the corner of his eye still watching the display behind Deng. Come on, baby! Come on, please! he whispered to it, and smiled at Atwell. “Ask Colonel Sanders. Psych Ops had its doubts about me before Central sent me out here. Well,” he shrugged, “looks like Psych Ops may have had a point.”

Atwell spat something foul, but Sanders shook his head suddenly.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You may have changed the codes from the ones on file at Central, but only a lunatic would change them without leaving a record somewhere.” Merrit turned his head to look at the colonel, and Sanders rubbed his hands nervously together. “Yes, there has to be a record somewhere,” he muttered to himself. “Somewhere… somewhere…”

“We don’t need any records,” Atwell decided in an ugly voice. He stepped closer to Merrit and lowered his needler’s point of aim. “You ever seen what a burst from one of these can do to a man’s legs, Merrit?” he purred. “With just a little luck, I can saw your left leg right off at the knee without even killing you. You’ll just wish you were dead, and you won’t be-not until we’ve got that code.”

“Now wait a minute!” Merrit stepped back and licked his lips as a crimson code sequence blinked on the display behind Deng at last. “Wait a minute!” He looked back at Sanders. “Colonel, just what the hell is going on here?”

“Don’t worry about him!” Atwell snarled. “Just give me that code phrase-now!”

“All right. All right!” Merrit licked his lips again, cleared his throat, and made his voice as expressionless as he could, grateful that computers needed no special emphasis. “The code phrase is ‘Activate Alamo.’ “

It almost worked. It would have worked if he’d had the fifteen additional seconds he’d needed to complete the system reconfiguration or if Major Atwell’s reflexes had been even a fraction slower.

Lieutenant Deng was slower; he was still trying to figure out what was happening when the power rifle unhoused itself above the main command console and blew his chest apart. He went down without even a scream, and the power rifle slewed sideways, searching for Atwell. But the bogus major’s snake-quick reaction hurled him to the floor behind the planetary surveillance system’s holo display even as the rifle dealt with Deng. His frantic dive for cover couldn’t save him forever, but it bought him time-a few, deadly seconds of time-before the computers found him again.

The power rifle snarled again, and sparks and smoke erupted from the display, but it sheltered Atwell just long enough for him to fire his own weapon.

Merrit was already sprinting towards Deng’s fallen gun when Atwell’s needler whined. Most of the hasty burst’s needles missed, but one didn’t, and Merrit grunted in agony as it punched into his back. It entered just above the hip and tore through his abdomen, and the impact smashed him to the bunker floor. He rolled desperately towards the command center door, away from Deng, to avoid Atwell’s next burst, and a fresh shower of needles screamed and ricocheted.

Then the power rifle fired yet again. Atwell collapsed with a bubbling shriek, and Merrit rolled up onto his knees, sobbing in agony and pressing both hands against the hot blood that slimed his belly.

Sanders stared in horror at the carnage, and then his huge eyes whipped up to the power rifle. It quivered, questing about, but it didn’t fire again, and his breath escaped in a huge gasp as he realized what had happened. Merrit had been able to bring the bunker’s automated defenses on-line through the command chair keypad, but he hadn’t had time to override their inhibitory programming. The master computer would kill any unauthorized personnel when its commanding officer’s coded voice command declared an intruder alert, but Sanders was authorized personnel. His name, face, and identifying data were in the Brigade’s files, just like Merrit’s… and that meant the computer couldn’t fire on him!

Even through the pain that blurred his vision, Merrit saw the realization on the colonel’s face. Saw fear turn into the determination of desperation. Sanders flung himself to the floor, hands scrabbling for Atwell’s weapon, and there was no time for Merrit to reach Deng’s.

He did the only thing he could. He dragged himself to his feet, staggered from the command deck, and fled down the passage outside. He heard Sanders screaming his name behind him, heard feet plunging after him, and somehow, despite the nauseating agony hammering his wounded body, he made himself run faster. He caromed off walls, smearing them with splashes of crimson, and only the fact that Sanders was a desk-jockey saved his life. The needler whined behind him, but the colonel’s panic combined with his inexperience to throw his aim wide.

Merrit reached the vehicle chamber and flung himself desperately into the recon skimmer’s cockpit. He slammed the canopy with one blood-slick hand while the other brought the drive on-line, and needles screamed and skipped from the fuselage. He gasped a hoarse, pain-twisted curse at his inability to use the skimmer’s weapon systems inside the bunker. The safety interlocks meant he couldn’t shoot back, but Sanders’ needler couldn’t hurt him, either-not through the skimmer’s armor-and he bared his teeth in an anguish-wracked grin as he thought of the air lorry outside. He could damned well use his weapons on it, and he rammed power to the drive.

The skimmer wailed out of the vehicle chamber, and he cried out in fresh agony as acceleration rammed him back in the flight couch. Pain made him clumsy, and the skimmer wobbled as he brought it snarling back around the bunker towards the lorry while he punched up his weapons. He bared his teeth again as the fire control screen came alive, capturing the lorry in its ranging bars, and That was when he realized his combat instincts had betrayed him. He should have headed away from the bunker immediately to get help, not stayed to fight the battle by himself. And if he was going to stay, he should have brought his defensive systems up first, not his weapons.

But he hadn’t, and Sanders’ third companion was no longer in the air lorry. He was standing over fifty meters to the side, with a plasma lance across his shoulder.

Merrit had one instant to see it, to recognize the threat and wrench the stick hard over, and then the lance fired.

White lightning flashed, blinding bright even in full sunlight, and the skimmer staggered as the plasma bolt tore into its fuselage. Damage alarms howled, and Merrit flung full power into the drive, clawing frantically for altitude. Smoke and flame belched from the skimmer, and he coughed as banners of the same smoke infiltrated the cockpit. Two-thirds of his panel flashed with the bright red codes of disaster. All of his weapons were down, and his communicator. His flight controls were so mangled he couldn’t understand how he was still in the air, but they were hanging together-for now, at least.

The power plant wasn’t. He groaned in pain, fighting the fog in his brain as he peered at the instruments. Five minutes. He might be able to stay in the air for five minutes-ten at the most. Assuming he could live that long.

He coughed again, and screamed as his diaphragm’s violent movement ripped at his belly wound. God! He didn’t know how bad he was hit, but he knew the high-velocity needle had wreaked ghastly havoc. He felt the strength flowing out of him with his blood, and his eyes screwed shut in pain while despair flooded him, for Sanders had been right. Only a lunatic would have changed Nike’s command code without leaving a record. The new code was in his personal computer, not the main system, but it wouldn’t take Sanders long to find it if he thought to look in the right place. Once he had it-and once Merrit was dead-the renegade colonel could take command of Nike, give her whatever orders he pleased, and she would have no choice but to obey.