The cliff stretches away to the west as a tall ridge which drops and breaks at the tip into two forks like the tongue of a Terran viper, creating two separate ridgelines, one overlooking the mine and the other overlooking a valley to the north, where the Enemy has concentrated a battle force. Terrain around the tips of these forked ridgelines is more open, providing the ability to move cross-country into the valley where the Enemy force waits. These two ridges are the goal of my Dismount Teams.
Another long, low ridgeline runs east-west directly south of the mine, almost like an island. The mine’s access road loops completely around this ridge so that arriving and departing ore carriers do not have to pass one another in the confined area of the mine itself. Outside the main facilities plant are open sheds which cover stacks of standard structural steel pipe, internal diameter 75 millimeters.
I determine that this pipe is used for steam fittings for pumping steam and hot ore slurry. Other open sheds house stacks of ore slugs in a standard Enemy unit of measurement, which translates to 73.99 millimeters by 147.98 millimeters. Large tanks house petrochemicals used in some capacity, I am not sure what. I am not a miner. I simply note their location and volume.
The reason for the presence of processed ore slugs becomes apparent: to speed up production capacity, the Enemy has installed a pre-processing facility to convert ore slurry to slugs. This facility also functions on fully-automatic status, converting hot ore slurry to finished ore slugs for easier transport. This plant clearly allows faster turnaround time for the ore cars, which now do not have to be cleaned by hand between trips to remove ore encrustations from their hoppers. The Enemy is impatient for war materiel. I file this discovery for proper reporting to FleetCom. The Fleet is due out of FTL in another seven hours. We must be ready to transmit our final intelligence report by then.
Ahead of me, ore cars begin to transmit their readiness to receive another load to the computer which operates the mine facilities plant. They transmit in turn as they approach the end of the access road. When my turn comes, I transmit on the proper frequency that I have experienced technical problems en route and must retire from the queue to await maintenance. A computerized response directs me to park between the storage sheds and the nearest of the ridgelines. This is happily near the spot in which I must take up my mission position in accordance with my Commander’s plan.
I move out of line. The parking spot I choose places me exactly where my Commander has requested me to position myself for this mission. I am now behind the shoulder of the “island” ridgeline. My rear hatch is in shadow. I am ready.
“Doug, are the Dismount Teams ready?”
“DT’s, prepare to move out!”
“DT-1 ready,” Gunny says.
Milwaukee seconds him. “DT-2 ready.”
My Chameleon screen’s projection will cover the opening of my rear personnel hatch. The Dismount Teams move into position near the hatch, awaiting my signal. They are suited for stealth.
“Set suit outer-skin controls to 16.71 degrees centigrade.” They adjust suit controls and wait until their suits chill down to the proper thermal signature. Their equipment is ready: passive scanners, man-portable weapons, line-of-sight communications gear, grid screens behind which they will dig in for the duration of this reconnaissance mission.
Similar to the energy-conversion screens I carry, these grids will absorb Enemy energy-weapons fire and convert it to a useable form to power their lightweight infinite repeaters. These repeaters will automatically return fire at anything which fires at the grid screens. Residual byproduct heat means the screens can protect the teams for a only a short time should they come under fire, offering minimal shielding, which is superior to no shielding. None of my boys has ever needed to use the grid; but I do not allow my Dismount Teams off my deckplates without it.
All equipment is carried in stealth-rigged packs which function in the same manner as stealth suits. I monitor the drop in temperature as the Dismount Teams adjust pack external temperatures to match their suits. Weapons are covered with thermal coverings to prevent the air in their barrels, which remains at the same temperature as the inside of my Crew Compartment, from triggering thermal alarms the Enemy may have in place. I scan the area. We are in shadow. No Enemy signatures register on my sensors.
“Go with care, my children,” I whisper. I open my rear personnel hatch.
My Dismount Teams salute my rear hatch scanners and exit. I close the hatch and watch their progress. They wait until their presence is screened by arriving ore cars, then move down the long ridgeline to the west. They pause, then vanish from my view behind the blunt end. I wait. The teams reappear, dodging arriving ore carriers to cross the road. It is an extreme risk to cross the road in this manner, but less of a risk than scaling the sheer wall and rappelling down the only other approach to the twin forked ridgelines. They reach the shadows of the far ridge. I monitor their climb.
DT-1 has the farthest to travel. DT-2 takes up position where our Commander has instructed, on the near ridgeline of the twin forks. I can see my boys dig in and set up their grid screen. They do a good job. I must use all my sensors to locate them and I know where to look. DT-1 travels beyond my line of sight to the far ridgeline. I worry. I am never at ease when I cannot see my boys.
DT-1 has orders to scan the valley north of their position for the Enemy. DT-2 will relay their findings to me in coded burst transmissions which will sound to the Enemy like background static in clear air. DT-2 signals that DT-1 has taken position. We wait. Banjo monitors readings from my sensors. Doug relays instructions and reviews mission plans again. We wait. DT-2 transmits preliminary data in a single burst. I decode it for Doug while preparing a file for transmission to FleetCom.
“Red, DT-1 reports a mother-load of ’em in that valley. Not as many as we found at that processing plant, but they see twenty Yavac Scouts, a couple of Class C heavies, maybe five hundred infantry. No spaceport facility; but they have air capability. Five air scouts. A heavy transport. Gunny says he’ll forward a detailed transmission when he finishes scanning everything into a data file. There’s activity to the east he wants to monitor—looks like maybe this enclave’s about to be bigger, he says. DT-2, out.”
My Commander swears in language he does not often use.
“You could order ’em back,” Banjo says.
“Yeah. And if that activity to the east turns out to be critical reinforcements in Deng fighting strength, we’ll kill a shipload of Marines taking this pit. We wait.”
The waiting grows increasingly difficult.
* * *
Gunny’s career had ensured visits to a lot of alien worlds. This one, nicknamed Hobson’s Mines because only mining generated sufficient cash to buy imported technology, was one of the most rugged he’d encountered. Tectonic forces had buckled its surface into fantastic canyons and cloud-piercing mountain ranges in the more remote areas, while erosion and ancient continental glaciers had “gentled” some areas into merely jagged ridgelines and glacial valleys with the occasional alluvial plain. Where they sat now, Gunny had a commanding view of the terrain for kilometers; yet he could see very few ground features except for what lay in the valley directly to the north and the ridgeline just south of him, where Milwaukee had dug in with DT-2.
In the distance, ridge after ridgeline marched away in the fading twilight, clothed in ruddy light and the low-growing, thorny scrub which clung tenaciously to the stony soil. The valley to the north was a classic, U-shaped glacial valley. It was—outside of the processing plant region—the largest stretch of flat land Gunny had yet seen on this mineral-rich world. It made an ideal staging post for the Deng. Farmsteads the length of the valley were now abandoned, their animals grazing wherever the concentrations of Deng hadn’t driven them off.
The terrain around Gunny’s position was an open, gentle slope to the north and the west; directly east, the ridgeline where he’d dug in soared upward in a nearly vertical wall. Behind them, to the south, the ridgeline sloped gently down into a V-shaped cut that separated Gunny and DT-1 from the other fork of the snake-tongued double ridges. DT-2 had dug in there for the duration. Beyond them were the mine and the ridgeline which concealed Red.
He watched and recorded troop movements into and out of the valley, noting that another mass of infantry came in by air. Wrong direction for someone coming from the processing plant. They must have another base of operations we don’t know about farther east. Gunny noted that in his growing data file. Meanwhile, more troops continued to flow in from the east, arriving by air. Heavy transports were bringing in more big Class One Yavacs. Additional scout-class Yavacs came in, as well.