“Two, please,” Red said. Delicate manipulator arms ran along a rail the length of the cramped box which comprised living quarters for six men and bunking quarters for eight. There were a few spots in the compartment Red couldn’t reach, but not many. A folding table which could be lowered into the deckplates served the crew for meals and recreation. At the moment, Red’s manipulator “fingers” held five ordinary playing cards. Red slid her discards to one side. Gunny dealt two replacements.
“Thank you, Gunny,” Red said politely.
Willum wondered if anyone else had considered the practical side of betting against a machine with video monitors capable of seeing everyone’s hand, not to mention medical monitors capable of detecting the slightest changes in biological responses. It seemed to him a little like asking the mouse to step onto the cat’s tongue; then he decided it would be unforgivable to accuse a lady of cheating. He asked for three and received them.
They began to play.
Gunny bet four. Hopper folded. Crazy Fritz grinned and met the bet, then raised two. Eagle Talon grunted and dropped six into the pot. Red and Willum stayed in, too.
“Call,” Milwaukee said.
Red had two queens and a pair of threes.
Fritz had a straight.
Willum kissed his money goodbye.
Milwaukee grinned and took the pot with a straight flush.
“Damn your lucky hide,” Fritz groused. “Best hand I’ve had in a year and you go and beat it.”
“Refreshments, boys?” Red asked as she delicately gathered and shuffled the cards. The process fascinated Willum. If he got through this mission, he was going to ask for a transfer. He wanted to find out how they put these babies together. Red continued the shuffle with the skill of a riverboat gambler. “I could do brownies in ten or an apple pie in twenty?”
“Brownies,” Gunny voted.
“Pie,” Crazy Fritz countered.
“Pie,” Milwaukee agreed.
Eagle Talon grinned. “Brownies,” he said, as though tying the vote were the most sinfully delightful task in the universe.
Hopper exchanged glances with Willum. “Uh . . . Brownies?”
Willum’s turn. “Pie.”
Red actually chuckled. “Oh, goody, I get to break the tie. How about both? Brownies going in now. Pie’ll take a little longer, boys, but it ought to be good. And there’s cold milk in my fridge. My deal and the game is seven-card no-peek . . .”
And so the hours passed.
“Okay, men, listen up.” Hart stepped into crew quarters and banged on the bulkhead wall. Willum blinked sleepily and pulled himself out from under. “Move it,” Hart rasped. “We’re about to leave the river. Before we go, we review mission priorities one more time.”
A general groan met that order; but Red’s crew rolled out of their hammocks and folded them away, taking their seats to await the briefing. Willum, blinking sleepily, had to stand, since his place was up in the Command Compartment when he wasn’t asleep. Hart motioned for him to remain where he was. At the front of the Crew Compartment, a vid screen lit up with a map that could only have come from the mining colony’s own archives. Hart took a lecturer’s stance beside it. Banjo, on duty as officer of the watch, remained sealed off in the Command Compartment.
“This is our original Target Prime,” Hart said crisply. Red thoughtfully highlighted a spot on the map for him. “It’s a fully-automated mining facility. We believe a heavy Deng concentration lies here” —another spot lit up about three kilometers away—”where the terrain will accommodate a larger number of Deng transports. But we’re not sure. Our job is to confirm and estimate enemy strength and emplacements, extrapolate attack plans, and report back to FleetCom with our findings the instant they drop out of FTL.”
The map changed. “LRH-1327 was charged with scouting this position. Ordinarily two LRH units would not be dropped this close together; a mission like this would be entrusted to one team. Fortunately, two teams were dropped for just the kind of emergency we’ve encountered: destruction of one team during combat drop. LRH-1327’s target becomes our new Primary. This is a processing plant, semi-automated. Terrain here will accommodate a very large Deng force. It’s reasonable to assume the Enemy would concentrate its assets on this site, since it’s capable of producing a finished product ready for export.
“We scout this location first, from extreme range. Terrain will allow for long-range monitoring. Once we’ve reconnoitered the processing plant, we fall back to our original Target Prime and complete our mission. Red, how far is the processing plant from us now?”
“Twenty-nine point six kilometers upstream. The colony situated this facility on the closest area of flat ground suitable to accommodate a space port. There is a good road.” The map changed to a broader-scale view. A thin red line flashed to indicate the road. “The mines are 63.5 kilometers upstream from the processing plant.” Two dots appeared, marking the targets.
“Okay. Questions?”
Gunny spoke first. “Do we have any photos of these facilities? Or pics of the terrain around them?”
A collage of photographs flashed onto the screen.
“Thanks,” Gunny said, moving closer to study the images. “Looks like we won’t need to dismount for the processing plant. That’s open ground. Visibility’s as good there as anywhere on this ball of rock, I expect. What’ll you use for cover, Red?”
“I will engage Chameleon screens to simulate the appearance of an ore carrier.” Another photo appeared, this one of a large, unwieldy tracked vehicle that Willum recognized as one of the completely automated types developed for remote worlds just like this one, where the labor force was small but the planetary coffers were rich. “The map indicates a parking compound for ore cars in need of maintenance here.” The processor-plant map reappeared. A circle of light marked the maintenance depot.
“If Commander Hart agrees, I intend to park in this compound and gather data over the course of twenty-four hours, provided there are enough vehicles in it to act as camouflage and provided no Enemy or human personnel approach closely enough to recognize the Chameleon screens for what they are. If I cannot use this site, I will move along this road, circle this position eight thousand meters from the processor plant, then retrace my route and initiate the second phase of our mission.”
“What about that damned mine?” Crazy Fritz asked uneasily. “That place looked treacherous.”
“That’s our job,” Gunny grinned. “If it’s treacherous, we’ll tackle it.”
Danny Hopper looked scared again.
Hart said, “Okay, Red. Your plan for the processor plant looks good. What about the mine?”
Red switched maps. “We will need Dismount Teams, Doug. The mine is situated at the base of a cliff and runs 12.5 kilometers beneath the surface. A narrow draw curves away from the surface-level facilities plant through here. An access road capable of supporting ore cars runs through it, between these two ridgelines. The suspected concentration of Deng forces is here, north of this larger ridge.”
“All right,” Hart said, studying the map. “Gunny, put DT-1 here, where the contour lines form a point south of this V-shaped cut at the tip of the ridge. You should be able to scope out the Deng in this wider valley from there. Milwaukee, I want you here on the second fork of this double ridge, line-of-sight to Gunny, overlooking the access road in this draw. Red, you I want here, behind the tip of this third ridge, hidden but line-of-sight to Milwaukee. That’ll put us close to the mine; but colony records indicate it’s completely automated, so we shouldn’t encounter anyone. We take readings, transmit data to Red for transmission to FleetCom, and get the hell out of there. We’ll be operating on a very tight schedule. Given the distances we have to cover and the speeds we’ll be restricted to, I estimate we’ll have less than half a day at the mine before FleetCom drops out of FTL and requests our data.”
Gunny asked, “Red, how far is the mine from pickup point?”
“Forty point six kilometers.” A new map flashed onto the screen. “Pickup point sits atop this mesa. I should have no trouble gaining the top via this route.” A series of dots marked the route she intended to take, along the edge of a precipitous canyon.
“Good,” Gunny nodded. “Time frame on these missions?”
“An ore car’s top speed is 48.3 kilometers per hour. From our current position, I estimate 36.7 minutes to reach a position from which we can conduct our recon of the processing plant. I will do a thorough survey, to include Deng departure and arrival schedules. This is, after all, the larger of the two assigned targets which must be scouted.”
Hart just nodded.
“It will take approximately one hour eighteen minutes to reach the mine from the processing plant. Due to the proximity of the mine facility to extrapolated Enemy positions and the need for Dismount Teams, I do not advise a prolonged recon effort here.”