They know something’s up. They’re reinforcing hell out of the mines. Dammit, how many more of ’em are scheduled to arrive here? Worse, what looked like a whole infantry division was headed west up the long, open valley, escorted by a point guard of Yavac armored scout vehicles, each as large as Red, moving on jointed, multiple legs like their creators.
Gunny shivered inwardly and glanced at the chronometer inside his faceplate. Fleet was due out of FTL in seven minutes. They had to relay what they knew to date so Red could warn FleetCom. Leave it to the damn spodders to wait till Fleet’s due out of FTL to start a major troop movement. Red’s transmission would instantly give away her position; but the mission was more important than the men.
Even when Red was one of the “men.”
He glanced at Eagle Talon Gunn and Icicle Goryn, read in their faces that they, too, knew the score. One LRH unit or thousands of Marines and an entire world lost. . . .
Wordlessly, Gunny compressed his data files and encrypted them, then sent them to Milwaukee in a burst transmission.
“They’ve seen us, Gunny!”
“What?” Gunny jerked around toward Eagle Talon’s position just in time to see the hellfire blaze of energy weapons fire streak through the twilight. “Shit—!”
The screen flared and sizzled under the impact.
“We’re taking fire! Milwaukee, get DT-2 the hell out of—”
The screen flared and sizzled again.
“One Yavac Scout visible, Gunny,” Eagle Talon said tersely. “Closing on our position—”
“BEHIND YOU!” Icicle shouted, pointing toward DT-2’s position. Another Yavac Scout was moving in fast, monstrous in the growing darkness, guns trained on the Dismount Team trying to scramble toward Red.
Gunny yelled into his transmitter, “Milwaukee! Behind you! Get under that screen! That’s two Yavacs—no, three, God— They’re coming out of nowhere—”
Energy weapons tore into the hillside, forcing DT-2 back under the cover of their energy screens. Gunny checked the time. Fleet still hadn’t dropped out of FTL. They were pinned down and completely on their own.
“We’ve gotta keep ’em away from Red’s position until she transmits to FleetCom. Let’s entertain ’em, boys.”
He could tell from their eyes that Eagle Talon and Icicle were every bit as terrified as he was. That didn’t stop them from opening up with all available weapons. Eagle Talon took charge of the infinite repeaters, depressing the stud which activated the automatic-fire sequence and tracking controls. Icicle added energy-rifle fire to the automatic weapons fire their screens now generated with every new hit. The temperature under the screens began to climb with every murderous energy bolt that slammed into it. Their suits would compensate for a while; but only for a while. He glanced at the chronometer again: six minutes before estimated Fleet arrival.
It was going to be a long, long six minutes.
Gunny unslung his own rifle and opened fire.
I receive a coded burst from DT-2, transmitting Gunny’s report. FleetCom is due in six minutes, twenty seconds. Two point seven seconds later I receive a second coded burst which translates as “We are compromised.” Explosions light the darkening sky: energy weapons have been fired at DT-1. I receive a third coded burst: “We are taking fire.” More explosions occur along the far ridgeline. Only the tip of my sensor array is exposed above the shoulder of the ridgeline I am concealed behind. I watch DT-2 attempt to scramble down from their position. The appearance of a Class One Yavac Scout cuts off their retreat. It fires into the hillside. My boys scramble for safety under their screens.
Under the strict rules of engagement which govern my mission parameters, I can do nothing to help them until FleetCom has made contact and I have transmitted my intelligence files. I understand this need. But I also understand the need for urgent action. These are my boys. My overriding responsibility, programmed at the deepest levels of my psychotronic circuitry, is to safeguard their welfare. I must help them.
I must.
I review the tactical situation in which my Dismount Teams are trapped. I find a potential solution. I move quietly toward the storage sheds where the colony has stored stacks of pipe.
My Commander speaks sharply. “We can’t engage, Red. Not until FleetCom makes contact.” The fluctuations in his voiceprint register extreme stress.
“Yes, Doug. I am making preparations to help our boys the moment I have transmitted Gunny’s reports. I think I see a way to improve our chances of extricating them without directly engaging the Enemy.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I am already preparing key elements of my plan as I explain.
“We must create a diversion. I can’t do that myself without coming out of hiding; but I can use these pipes and ore slugs to create one while remaining concealed. A diversion may give them a chance to get off those ridgelines and back inside.”
“Do it. DeVries, belay that! Strap in! Banjo, help him. Red, advise me when you receive FleetCom signal.”
I set up ranks of pipes, pushing them into the ground with my external manipulator arms. I drain petrochemicals from the nearby storage tanks and pour dark liquid into the pipes. I retrieve ore slugs and drop one slug into each pipe. I am nearly done when I receive FleetCom’s signal. They have dropped out of FTL twenty-three seconds ahead of schedule.
“FleetCom signal received, Doug. Transmitting.”
I transmit my Dismount Teams’ surveillance reports, so critical to the success of this campaign, in burst encryption mode. My transmission may give away my position to the listening Enemy. We must take evasive action. I move even as FleetCom signals receipt of encrypted surveillance reports. My duty is discharged. We have successfully completed this mission.
“FleetCom has acknowledged receipt of the encrypted data, Doug.”
“Let’s do it, then.”
I move west, far enough to locate DT-1 with the tip of my extended whip array, and prepare to rescue my boys.
The world under the grid screen was hot.
Hotter outside, of course, in a figurative sense, but literally hot as Hell inside and getting hotter by the minute. Every time another energy bolt blasted that grid, the temperature went up another five degrees. Their suits protected them from the worst of it; but when the air temperature under the grid screens hit 93 degrees centigrade, even the suits began to malfunction. Gunny didn’t need a palm reader to know their future was very, very short.
“Shit—ahh, shit . . .” Eagle Talon snatched his hand off the controls of the lightweight infinite repeater. The fire-control mechanism had burned through the suit glove.
The gauge in Gunny’s suit climbed past 98. To the south, Milwaukee Petra’s screens took another direct hit.
“Milwaukee! Can you read?”
Static . . .
Then, patchy: “. . . over?”
“Can’t stay here much longer! Deng are bringing up massed infantry against us from the north!”
He didn’t know how much—if any—of that made it through. Another bolt slammed into the screens. Eagle Talon had found a loose chip of rock to depress the control stud on his weapon. He resumed firing at the Yavac Scout directly north of their position. Trouble was, the damned thing was too big for their little weapons. They’d been armed to deal with unarmored personnel and light ground transports, not something as big and tough as a Yavac Scout.
Hell, they weren’t supposed to get caught in the first place. That didn’t matter now, of course. What mattered was surviving. His hindbrain kept whispering, “run!” He ignored it. The Yavac Scouts had them nicely trapped, anyway; there literally wasn’t anywhere to run.
One Yavac had walked down the access road between the tongue-shaped ridgeline and the wedge-shaped “island,” cutting off retreat toward Red. Another sat between Gunny and Milwaukee’s respective positions, just off the tip-ends of the double ridgeline. From there it could fire at both Dismount Teams—which it did with murderous accuracy. The third sat to the north, in the shallow valley, pinning them down while the mass of the Deng battle force moved into position. At their back was that damned sheer rock wall.
They were surrounded.
And a mass of Deng infantry boiled up from the valley, bolstered by heavy covering fire from the Yavac armored scout. The Enemy infantry moved like a black, shaggy growth of bread mold, spreading out westward along the tongue-shaped ridgeline and moving forward in a primal wave that Gunny knew nothing short of a Mark XXI Combat Unit’s firepower could possibly stop.
They didn’t have a Mark XXI Combat Unit.
All they had was Red. And she was no match for even one armored scout-class Yavac. That mass of infantry would roll right over them unless they ran; but the Yavac Scouts covered every possible line of retreat with withering fire.
“Gunny!” Icicle Goryn called from his belly-down position. “How come those damn Yavacs aren’t using anti-personnel shells? We’d ‘a been dead by now if they had.”