“Thanks,” Jon said simply.
Petor smiled grimly. “Good thing we did that target practice behind Margia’s back.”
Meanwhile, back at the front line, things were beginning to heat up.
The Gate had spread as the doors began to open, expecting at the very least for a wag to come from the large double doors. However, instead of the armored and fortified front line they expected, they were greeted by a procession of sec men on foot, charging from the open doors with their laser blasters raised.
“Hot pipe, they must be triple-stupe muties,” Dean breathed, leveling his Browning and picking off the first man out with a shot that penetrated the chest cavity with little problem.
AT THE FIRST LEVEL beneath the subbasement of the building, and the uppermost level of the redoubt, Simon Rack was seated in front of a bank of monitors next to Al Jorgensen. Rack had been selected to monitor the attack through the series of cameras planted around the building to record any movement in the vicinity. There were more cameras within these few hundred yards than in the rest of the deserted compound, and the monitors were banked together instead of separately in order for one operative to assist the head of sec in building an overall picture. Rack had been chosen because—despite his efforts to lay low— he was good at his job.
The thickset, jowl-heavy man by his side was in his late fifties, and had been head of sec for the past fifteen years. During that time, apart from a few skirmishes with stickies and one brush with a trading convoy that skirted the outer reaches of their territory, there had been no hostile activity or combat. Jorgensen hadn’t raised a blaster in anger for more than twenty-five years, and although he did the simulations, read the manuals and kept his people up to scratch in target practice, he was only too well aware that the lack of actual combat experience was telling.
Simon cast a glance at the man beside him. Al sat forward in his chair, hands gripping the armrests, posture stiff and rigid. Sweat beaded his upper lip, and his forehead was slick with moisture. The headset that crossed his cropped scalp was loose with the slippery state of his skin, and the mouthpiece quivered over his lips, parted slightly in disbelief as he watched the monitor in front of him.
The Gate had been taken by surprise by the speed at which the sec force had spilled out of the doors. At least, that had been Al’s hope. Despite the beating his people had taken on the plain, he had put that down to the greater numbers of the Amazon women, and had gambled that a roughly equal number of his own force spilling out the front would be a greater match.
Looking at it from his point of view, the facts were simple. He had an equal number meeting the Gate head-on, and a skeleton force attacking from the rear. His forces were armed with blasters that were far superior to anything that the Gate might carry. In terms of numbers and arms, his force should be able to counteract and eliminate the intruders with ease, especially as it had been so easy to fool them into following the path he wanted.
But now, watching the firefight unfold on the screens in front of him, while his attention directed every now and again to a particular screen where something was occurring by a word from the impassive Simon Rack, Al felt the world begin to cave in on him. A flurry of crackling voices rang in his ears, tinny and distorted through the rad interference and the size of the headphones. And all asked the same thing…what do we do?
Simon looked at Al. The older sec chief seemed almost frozen in…not fear, exactly, but a kind of indecision.
Oh, great, Simon thought, that was just what they needed.
OUT ON THE CONCRETE expanse that had become a battleground, crowded with bodies, blood and the sound of sizzling laser blasts punctuated by the staccato bursts of blasterfire, things were rapidly moving forward.
The sec forces who had moved out into the open had found that they had as little cover once they were in the open as the Gate warriors they were supposed to chill. They spread out as much as possible, but were already on the defensive, having lost the element of surprise as soon as the doors had finished opening and the first of their number had spilled out. The biggest problem had been with the single doors. Those sec soldiers behind the initial charge had been unable to lay down the covering fire they had hoped, for the simple reason that the narrow width of the door hadn’t afforded them the angle necessary to fire without actually cutting through their own people. That had allowed the Gate a free shot at those emerging sec men as they leveled their laser blasters to fire.