“Okay, Captain Short. Looks like you get your chance. You’re running hot, I take it?”
“Yes, sir,” lied Holly, all too aware that Root would suspend her immediately if he knew she’d neglected the Ritual.
“Good. Then sign yourself out a sidearm, and proceed to the target area.”
Holly glanced at the view screen. Scopes were sending high-res shots of an Italian fortified town. A red dot was moving rapidly through the countryside toward the human population.
“Do a thorough reconnaissance and report in. Do not attempt a retrieval. Is that understood?”
“Yessir.”
“We lost six men to troll attacks last quarter. Six men. That was belowground, in familiar territory.”
“I understand, sir.”
Root pursed his lips doubtfully.
“Do you understand, Short? Do you really?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Have you ever seen what a troll can do to flesh and bone?”
“No, sir. Not up close.”
“Good. Let’s not make today your first time.”
“Understood.”
Root glared at her. “I don’t know why it is, Captain Short, but whenever you start agreeing with me, I get decidedly nervous.”
Root was right to be nervous. If he’d known how this straightforward Recon assignment was going to turn out, he would probably have retired then and there. Tonight, history was going to be made. And it wasn’t the discovery-of-radium, first-man-on-the-moon, happy kind of history. It was the Spanish Inquisition, here-comes-the-Hindenburg bad kind of history. Bad for humans and fairies. Bad for everyone.
Holly proceeded directly to the chutes. Her normally chatty mouth was a grim slash of determination. One chance, that was it. She would allow nothing to break her concentration.
There was the usual line of holiday visa hopefuls stretching to the corner of Elevator Plaza, but Holly bypassed it by waving her badge at the waiting line. A truculent gnome refused to yield.
“How come you LEP guys get to go topside? What’s so special about you?”
Holly breathed deeply through her nose. Courtesy at all times. “Police business, sir. Now, if you could just excuse me.”
The gnome scratched his massive behind. “I hear you LEP guys make up your police business just to get a look at some moonlight. That’s what I hear.”
Holly attempted an amused smile. What actually formed on her lips resembled a lemon-sucking grimace.
“Whoever told you that is an idiot . . . sir. Recon only ventures above ground when absolutely necessary.”
The gnome frowned. Obviously he had made up the rumor himself, and suspected that Holly might have just called him an idiot. By the time he’d figured it out, she had skipped through the double doors.
Foaly was waiting for her in Ops. Foaly was a paranoid centaur, convinced that human intelligence agencies were monitoring his transport and surveillance network. To prevent them from reading his mind, he wore a tinfoil hat at all times.
He glanced up sharply when Holly entered through the pneumatic double doors.
“Anybody see you come in here?”
Holly thought about it.
“The FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, MI6. Oh, and the EIB.”
Foaly frowned. “The EIB?”
“Everyone in the building.” Holly smirked.
Foaly rose from his swivel chair and clip-clopped over to her.
“Oh, you’re very funny, Short. A regular riot. I thought the Hamburg incident might have knocked some of the cockiness out of you. If I were you, I’d concentrate on the job in hand.”
Holly composed herself. He was right.
“Okay, Foaly. Fill me in.”
The centaur pointed to a live feed from the Eurosat, which was displayed on a large plasma screen.
“This red dot is the troll. He’s moving toward Martina Franca, a fortified town near the city of Brindisi. As far as we can tell, he stumbled into vent E7. It was on cooldown after a surface shot; that’s why the troll isn’t crispy barbecue right now.”
Holly grimaced. Charming, she thought.
“We’ve been lucky in that our target has bumped into some food along the way. He chewed on a couple of cows for an hour or two, so that bought us a bit of time.”
“A couple of cows!” exclaimed Holly. “Just how big is this fellow?”
Foaly adjusted his foil bonnet. “Bull troll. Fully grown. One hundred and eighty kilos, with tusks like a wild boar. A really wild boar.”
Holly swallowed. Suddenly Recon seemed a much better job than Retrieval.
“Right. What have you got for me?”
Foaly cantered across to the equipment table. He selected what looked like a rectangular wristwatch.
“Locator. You find him, we find you. Routine stuff.”
“Video?”
The centaur clipped a small cylinder into the accommodating groove on Holly’s helmet.
“Live feed. Nuclear battery. No time limit. The mike is voice activated.”
“Good,” said Holly. “Root said I should take
a weapon on this one. Just in case.”
“Way ahead of you,” said Foaly. He picked a platinum handgun from the pile. “A Neutrino 2000. The latest model. Even the tunnel gangs don’t have these. Three settings if you don’t mind. Scorched, well-done, and crisped to a cinder. Nuclear power source too, so plug away. This baby will outlive you by a thousand years.”
Holly strapped the lightweight weapon into her shoulder holster.
“I’m ready . . . I think.”
Foaly chuckled. “I doubt it. No one’s ever really ready for a troll.”
“Thanks for the confidence booster.”
“Confidence is ignorance,” advised the centaur. “If you’re feeling cocky, it’s because there’s something you don’t know.”
Holly thought about arguing, but didn’t. Maybe it was because she had a sneaking suspicion that Foaly was right.
The pressure elevators were powered by gaseous columns vented from the earth’s core. The LEP tech boys, under Foaly’s guidance, had fashioned titanium eggs that could ride on the currents. They had their own independent motors, but for an express ride to the surface, there was nothing like the blast from a tidal flare.
Foaly led her past a long line of chute bays to E7. The pod sat in its clamp, looking very fragile to be rocketing about on magma streams. Its underside was charred black and pockmarked from shrapnel.
The centaur slapped it fondly on a fender. “This baby’s been in service for fifty years. Oldest model still in the chutes.”
Holly swallowed. The chutes made her nervous enough without riding in an antique.
“When does it come off-line?”
Foaly scratched his hairy belly. “With funding the way it is, not until we have us a fatality.”
Holly cranked open the heavy door, the rubber seal yielding with a hiss. The pod was not built for comfort. There was barely enough space for a restraining seat among the jumble of electronics.
“What’s that?” asked Holly, pointing at a grayish stain on the seat’s headrest.
Foaly shuffled uncomfortably.