The armored personnel carrier, already several meters in the air, did a touch-and-go grounding whose violence proved the driver was nervous. The platoon leader, Lieutenant Filerly, hung out of the re-opened hatch and jerked Hansen aboard.
Hansen grabbed the microphone flexed to the vehicle’s radio.
“This is Rainbow 6,” he lied, aware of the nervous intensity with which Filerly stared at his CO’s scorched fatigues. “Blue, Green and Yellow elements, land and secure the area. I’m taking Red Two to Headquarters immediately to report.”
The APC’s driver was listening on the general push, because the big vehicle surged forward before Hansen gave him a direct order.
The holographic periscope in the cupola showed the other six vehicles of the escort landing and dropping their side panels to spew troops. Wind scattered black smoke from the puddle of fuel and wreckage.
Hansen rested his fist against the vehicle’s computer/communications console. He felt a faint crunching as his ring chopped a micropathway through the console’s casing. The unit began to hum and buzz without Hansen’s direct input.
“The officer commanding the Headquarters guard detachment is Colonel al-Kabir,” said the artificial intelligence in Hansen’s ring. “He’s off duty and asleep at the moment, but he will shortly be roused because of the raised threat level.”
“Have the security police confine al-Kabir to quarters on orders of—of the High Council,” Hansen thought. “You can do that?”
“It is done,” the AI responded with what Hansen suspected was an electronic sneer.
“You’ve got his appearance?” Hansen added.
“Full physical details are in the central files,” the AI said. “Of course.”
“All units!” squawked the console unexpectedly. “Threat Level 2 is in effect. Repeat, Threat Level 2 is in effect.”
“Ah, Major Atwater?” Filerly said. “We don’t have clearance for even the outer HQ Zone when the threat level’s above 5.”
“I’ve received the handshake from the headquarters identification unit,” the artificial intelligence said. “It will recognize us as Colonel al-Kabir.”
“Proceed to the main entrance, driver,” Hansen ordered coldly. “The High Council has cleared us through because of the information I’m bringing.”
Lieutenant Filerly looked at him doubtfully, but it wasn’t the business of a Ruby officer to question a direct order.
They were overflying wind-carved badlands at less than ten meters’ altitude. The tops of the richly-layered plateaus loomed above the vehicle. Occasionally Hansen caught sight of antennas or a dug-in missile array flashing by beneath them.
“I hope you’re—” the platoon leader started to say, and the APC howled out of the ring of miniature buttes into a vast area of ocher dirt, pocked and studded with armaments.
Guns and missile batteries tracked the vehicle, but none of them fired. Hansen glanced sardonically at the lieutenant, wondering what the expression looked like on his present female features.
“Be ready as soon as I’m out of the vehicle,” Hansen thought.
“I am ready to act as soon as we are out of the vehicle,” the artificial intelligence corrected coldly.
A concrete elevator head that looked like a pillbox stood in the midst of four tanks with their bows facing outward.
“In the middle of the tanks?” the car’s driver asked.
“Land in front of the two nearest tanks,” Hansen ordered.
Each tank’s main armament was a 20-cm laser, augmented by a coaxial automatic cannon and blisters holding a variety of other guns. All the weapons that could bear did so as the APC grounded in a spray of dirt and grit. Hansen reached past the crew chief and pressed the door switch.
The hatch cycled open. Hansen stepped out into the shimmer of dust and heat haze in the guise of a fifty-year-old man with a shaven scalp and a colonel’s star-in-square lapel insignia.
“Hey!” cried Lieutenant Filerly, reaching for his holstered pistol as he watched the transformed figure stride toward the elevator door opening in obedience to the command of Hansen’s ring.
The AI snapped out a second prepared command to the defense array. Both tank lasers ripped the armored personnel carrier at point-blank range, hurling bits away in the blast and sparkle of the automatic weapons joining the chorus of destruction.
Hansen dived into the elevator cage. The back of his neck and ears stung with the awful radiance bathing Lieutenant Filerly and his vehicle. As the elevator door slammed shut, Hansen saw one of the tanks sliding forward to crush anything remaining in the blaze of slag and fire.