Or maybe not. I began to wonder if the Skorpis had already scouted the area and noted the gully. Perhaps when they attacked—tonight, if Manfred was right—they would send a team to probe this sunken highway. If they found it undefended, they might send the main force of their attack along its length, to erupt deep inside our perimeter and shatter our defenses.
That’s what I would do if I were in their place. Now how could I turn it into a trap?
I started back toward our lines, my head buzzing with ideas.
My three lieutenants were skeptical.
“Invite them to push along the gully?” Lieutenant Vorl asked, her voice high with anxiety. “Let them penetrate our perimeter?”
We were in my bubble tent, squatting on the plastic floor like a quartet of Neolithic tribesmen. Again I was struck by the physical similarities among the officers. Sandy hair, freckles, sky blue eyes. Their skin was a light tan, almost golden, as if blended from all the races of Earth. Vorl and Frede could have almost been twin sisters. Quint, my second-in-command, their brother.
“We don’t have the manpower to hold the entire perimeter against them,” I said. “And we need another six hours before the blasted transceiver is operational. If we can trap a major part of their force and annihilate them, we might be able to break their attack and stay alive long enough to get the transceiver working.”
“What about reinforcements?” Quint asked.
I turned to Vorl, my communications officer.
“No reinforcements,” she said sullenly. “I worked my request all the way up to the admiral, and the damned lizard turned us down cold.”
“We have to hold on until the transceiver starts bringing in the heavy weapons,” I said, for about the twentieth time.
“But inviting the enemy to infiltrate down that gully…” Lieutenant Vorl shuddered.
“I agree,” said Quint. “It goes against standard tactical doctrine.”
“Lieutenant Frede, what’s your opinion?” I asked.
She shook her head, said nothing.
“All right, then,” I said. “Three against and one in favor. The ayes have it.”
They looked surprised, almost angry. But they took my orders without further grumbling. We spent the hours of twilight setting up our perimeter defenses and mining the gully. I placed a weak screen of automated rifles about a third of the way down the gully, just to give the enemy the impression that the gully was not totally unguarded. I did not want them to discover that they were in a trap until it was too late for them to escape. At the end of the gully, a scant fifty meters from the edge of the transceiver itself, I placed ten of the steadiest troops with Sergeant Manfred. If the enemy reached that far, they had to hold them until the rest of us could come to their aid.
All work on assembling the transceiver had to stop when it became truly dark. We needed every soldier on guard, and I did not want our work lights to illuminate the area for the enemy. Not that they needed illumination. True to their feline heritage, the Skorpis could see quite well in darkness that would seem total to a human.
At least we had the antimissile lasers up and working. If the enemy tried to take us out with a missile attack, we were ready for them. I hoped.
Waiting was the toughest thing of all. The night was dark. No moon, and thick low clouds scudding across the distant twinkling stars. The biting insects swarmed at us again, making everyone miserable. Voices hooted out of the woods, night birds clacked and chirped with almost mechanical regularity. Now and then something would give out a weird, high-pitched howl.
Nothing bigger than a tree lemur had been identified on Lunga, I reminded myself. But those howls sounded as if something quite large was making them.
We scratched at our bug bites and grumbled and waited.
I was hunkered down in a shallow dugout a few meters to the right of the gully, in full armor—dented legging and all. My rifle rested on the sill of upturned earth in front of me. My belt and webbing were studded with grenades and spare power packs. Pistol on my hip, combat knife in my boot. I thought again of the dagger that Odysseus had given me; I missed its comforting presence, but it would have been of scant use strapped against my thigh, beneath my armor.