Inside his visor, one of the squares on the laser mine grid lit up. The ensuing chain reaction happened too quickly for Gabhart to follow the four sides of that one grid square ignited the four squares around it, they ignited eight more, which ignited twelve more, and so on, to the periphery of his vision. The brilliance of the sudden flare of light wiped away the grid altogether. The colonel blinked in disbelief as the afterimage danced before his eyes. According to the battlesuit’s display, every laser on the west side of the village had fired almost simultaneously, which was flat-out impossible, unless they were being attacked by an overwhelming force. He keyed up an instant replay. A very disturbing instant replay, as it turned out. The video showed a cluster of mines jumping up around a pair of Shadow females, then the site was struck by a tremendous blast of energy that overloaded the sensors. The recorded flash was so bright it made Gabhart groan. By the time the screen cleared of the overload, the mines were already lying on the ground. One female was down, the other was falling.
Both were clearlyand surprisinglyintact. “Did you mark that surge?” Connors said. “EM ran off the fucking scale!”
“Toasted the mines,” Ockerman reported. “They are no longer responding to input.”
“Neither of those females is carrying a pulse weapon,” Hylander said. “So where did that surge come from?”
Then someone shouted an obscenity at them, putting an end to the speculation.
Gabhart turned toward the sound. One hundred yards away, a lone Shadow man popped up from behind a pyramid of concrete rubble and immediately opened fire. The caliber registered on the colonel’s visor. Nine millimeter. From a personal-safety standpoint, even more of a ho-hum than the 7.62 mm rifle rounds that had been thrown at them earlier.
The burst of automatic weapon fire kicked up a line of dust puffs between Gabhart and the missile truck. As quickly as it started, the shooting stopped. Six rounds fired. Gabhart looked at the side of the rocket and was relieved to see no evidence of bullet strikes.
Meanwhile the shooter, who wore a brimmed hat and eyeglasses, ducked back behind cover. Out of sight, he shouted his demand. In exchange for the safety of the missile, he wanted the return of the one-eyed man.
Through the helmet comm link came Ockerman’s explosion of laughter. “Who does he think we are?” the systems engineer said. “Fucking CEOs? He’s got Ice Nine for brains if he thinks we’ve got the power to make any kind of a trade.”
“Maybe we’ve landed on the Planet of the Dopes?” Connors said.
“There’s no way we can arrange a swap,” Gabhart said, “but our Shadow friends out there can put the missile or the satellite out of commission with a single, well-placed bullet. When I give the word, kill them if you can, but make sure you drive them off.”
The colonel keyed his external speaker and assured the shooter that their mission was peaceful.
The Shadow man responded by issuing his final ultimatum if they didn’t comply he was going to drill the missile with bullets.
“Do you believe the stones on this guy?” Hylander said. “He’s asking to get his butt relocated up under his chin.”
“Hey, Colonel,” Connors said, “tell him the only ‘dicks’ that are going to do anything memorable around here are ours.”
Gabhart did nothing of the kind. He had no intention of provoking a fight just yet. Instead, he told the shooter he needed until dawn to close the deal. Actually, he needed about twenty secondsthe time it took for his people to unobtrusively work their way into position.
The man in the hat didn’t go for the stall. In a loud, clear voice he started counting down from ten.
As he broke into a run, the colonel switched over to helmet comm. “Get that fucker!” he growled. “Saw the bastard in two!”
Before he could reach his tribarrel, gunfire pounded the street from two sides. It came head-on at the missile, at 600 rounds per minute, and in widely spaced, single shots from the other end of the street. The hail of bullets sailed all around him. Ricochets skipped off the ground and rattled into the sides of the missile truck.