The Slime Zone was a living desert; instead of sand, there was bacteria. Most soldiers couldn’t handle the bleakness, the smothering dark and the ever-present threat of death. But Lujan appreciated the quiet and the emptiness, the peacethere was nothing like it left above condensation level. Between the galleries of slime that filled former city streets, with the aid of a suitable, high-intensity light source, a person could see for blocks and blocks, and best of all as far as the major was concerned, not see another single person.
After Lujan crawled into position opposite the rear end of the semi-trailer, he stopped and panned the scene through his helmet visor. The battlesuit’s infrared sensor showed four lemon-yellow figures beside the hulking box on wheels. All were wearing rain slickers and boots, and antiphage bubbles. If they had body armor, it wasn’t artificially intelligent. All of them carried the laser weapons that Mitsuki had provided.
He unslung his own pulse rifle, which was already umbilicaled to his suit. When he powered up the weapon’s optics, the sights and range finder appeared in his visor, and the view behind them shifted as he swung the barrel onto the trailer and lined up the cross wires.
The distance to his targets was seventy-five yards. A piece of cake. One of the joys of sniper work with the tribarrel was that gravity wasn’t a complicating factor. Because there was no bullet drop to compensate for, he could have just as easily hit the sentries in the eye from ten times as far away. Lujan picked his kill order, working from left to right.
That done, he turned up the gain on his external microphone, snuggled into the bed of slime and lined up the first shot.
Lujan wasn’t by nature a trusting soul. As commander of the Mitsuki Tactical Unit, he had objected strenuously when his Global CEOs told him they were going to turn the abduction of the man from Shadow World over to a band of mercenaries led by a former Marine Corps sergeant. There were good reasons why Lujan himself couldn’t be directly involved in the kidnapping. If Mitsuki were linked to the operation, it would bring down the united wrath of the other members of FIVE. But Lujan was convinced that using Damm and his crew was a big mistake, that based on their combat records they couldn’t be trusted. Unfortunately the CEOs didnt see it that way. They saw the insubordinations, the failures to obey, the suspicious deaths of some of their commanding officers as the ideal background for members of a ruthless kidnap teamand the perfect cover for their own involvement. At Lujans insistance, they had authorized him to monitor things from a distance, unofficially, and to take all necessary action if the situation called for it.
When the mercs bypassed the turnoff for their arranged hiding place, the major knew he had guessed right about them, and that gave him no small sense of satisfaction.
It wasnt clear whether Mitsukis deep-cover operative, Nara Jurascik, was in on the double cross or not. At this point, she might well be a hostage, too. She didnt interest Lujan, one way or the other, because she had NVCno commercial value. The only life worth anything inside that semitrailer belonged to the Shadow man.
Because he wasnt a trusting soul, weeks earlier Lujan had used all his connections to get a look at the ultrasecret Shadow World transport manifest. Among other things, it contained a list of names, just 50,000 in all, which was the nucleus of society that Mitsuki intended relocating to the other Earth. The seeds of humanitys future had been carefully selected by the CEOs. NO way would they cross over without their families and their personal support staff, without scientists and engineers, without serious offensive and defensive capability. Lujan had been deeply relieved, and gratified, to find his own name among the others.
When the mercs made their move on Gloomtown, departing from the agreed-upon game plan, the major was following them at a discreet distance in one of the six metal-tracked armored personnel carriers. Though they were slower than wheeled vehicles, hed picked the tracked APCs because he thought the chase and the skirmish would take place on the wreckage-strewn freewaysthe personnel carriers could climb over just about any barrier they encountered. Hed guessed wrong about the freeways, but it still turned out to be a lucky break on his side. Wheeled APCs didnt provide good traction below condensation level. Tracked vehicles worked much better in the slime beds, and they were much quieter.