Stargate: Rebellion by Bill McCay

Author:Bill McCay [McCay, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, High Tech, General
ISBN: 9781561006793
Google: ddoOAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1561006793
Publisher: Bookcassette
Published: 1995-09-30T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

UMC's Abydos operation used jeeps instead of the government Humvees. When Draven an-nounced his intention of going to Nagada, Lockwood immediately offered him a jeep and driver, plus a three-man security detail.

"Fine," Draven had replied, "just get those boys out of their camouflage suits and into civvies." If the locals had developed a hatred for gray suits, it did not behoove UMC's negotiator to turn up surrounded by those uniforms.

From the looks of his escort, some of the mercs hadn't bothered to bring civilian clothes with them. One had a gaudily patterned Hawaiian shirt that hung around him like a tent. Another wore a white shirt that strained over his shoulders and had to be left unbuttoned because it wouldn't stretch across his beefy chest.

Between their guns and the expressions on their faces, they looked more like a lynch mob than a guard of honor.

Well, a lynch mob might well be what Draven would encounter inside Nagada.

They fired up the jeep and headed out of the camp. Draven enjoyed the smooth ride as far as the mining pit. Whatever Lockwood's shortcomings, he'd planned and executed a well-graded road.

"Does the native militia still maintain a watch post?" Draven asked his driver.

The mercenary shrugged. "Sure do. We usually find a couple of slopes peeping at us up top of the next sand dune."

"Then pull up the jeep," Draven ordered.

"Hello!" he called, feeling like a perfect fool. "We're going to Nagada. Will one of you come with us?"

A voice came out of the shadows, replying in passable English. "You're going to Nagada? I'll come."

A young man seemed to flick into existence about halfway down the face of the dune, riding the hard-packed sand as if it were a slide. He was slim but sturdy-looking, and he seemed to notice neither the hostile looks nor the weapons of Draven's bodyguards.

The young militiaman enjoyed riding on the jeep, much more so after they'd passed the mine and the road for all practical purposes seemed to disappear. Draven's jeep shifted and swooped over what seemed to be the best path for a mastadge to take through the shifting dunes.

Draven noticed that their local guide didn't bother to fire a warning shot for the keepers of the gate. Then he realized that the sound of the jeep's engine obviated the necessity. Trumpets mooed, but when they arrived before the great gates, they remained closed.

"My name is Draven. I've come through the StarGate—all the way from Earth—to speak with Kasuf and the Elders."

"Thought so," the youthful militiaman said. He called up to one of the adobe towers flanking the gates. After an exchange of shouts the portals grudgingly swung open.

"You know where are the Elders?" the self-sufficient young man asked.

"Ah, no," Draven admitted.

"I'll take you," the boy soldier offered.

Following their youthful guide's directions, the driver jockeyed the jeep through the hodgepodge city's twisting streets. Draven had paranoid visions of ambush, of the young militia seizing the jeep and his guard detail's weapons.

Certainly, Draven didn't remember this part of town from his first visit.

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