The column was halted while both bulldozers snarled into a tangle of branching fungi that grew like a wall through the green jungle. Gills flaring fifty feet in the air shook clouds of poisonous spores when any part of the system was touched. Helmet filters protected the strikers, but Manager al-Ibrahimi had ordered clearance of a much wider path than usual to protect the colonists.
“I don’t tell Blohm how to do his job,” Farrell whispered. He had to force himself to speak at all, though he knew the creature couldn’t hear them talk. It raised twin crests of feathery tissue, sensory receptors of some variety. They could be for hearing or scent, or both together.
“Note the coils of vine attached to the outriggers,” al-Ibrahimi said. “When the vessel took off, their grip spun it sideways. The pilot wouldn’t have had time to respond.”
Like the aircar, Farrell thought as he looked at the tight spring of vine. He wouldn’t have noticed it without the manager’s comment. By timing its attack, the jungle had let the ship’s own power effect its destruction.
The beast’s crests shrank back against the skull; the head withdrew. Blohm’s unseen hands let the reed stems back into their original alignment, closing the realtime image in a blur of vegetation.
“Sir,” Farrell said to al-Ibrahimi. “I’m going to send my other scout to guide five strikers to the ship. I want to develop the threat and if possible to clear the vessel. A ship that size could carry five hundred troops and their equipment. Maybe they’re all dead, but if there’s a couple companies of them holed up in the bow I’d rather know it now.”
He half smiled. “Not that I’m sure what I’d do about it.”
The administrators’ headsets not only received Strike Force transmissions, they projected imagery as air-formed holograms without a combiner field. Al-Ibrahimi nodded as he watched an image that to Farrell was only shimmers.
“You are in tactical command, Major,” he repeated. “I myself am less concerned with the threat the Kalendru pose than in the question of what they’re doing on BZ 459, but I hope your plan will provide answers to both.”
The older man looked directly at Farrell. Even smiling his face was a swordblade. “That shows a foolish lack of pragmatism in me; which would surprise my colleagues no end, wouldn’t it, Tamara?”
His aide didn’t answer. She was viewing, or reviewing, images transmitted from the scout’s helmet.
Farrell gave his orders in a short series. He got a crisp, “Yes sir,” from Kristal, who’d be splitting a section of civilians among the strikers guarding the sections ahead and behind; an unenthusiastic “Yes sir, understood,” from Gabrilovitch, who had a damned good idea of what it entailed; and from Abbado, “Roger,” in a tone of vaguely resentful boredom, as though 3-3 had been ordered to pull a double guard shift.
Blohm didn’t make an audible reply. The dot that marked him on Farrell’s visor overlay winked twice.
Pretty much as Farrell expected. He’d have been a piss-poor commanding officer if his troops surprised him after this long together.
“The opening was too narrow for the animal’s whole body to get through,” Lundie said. “How could Striker Blohm be sure of that?”
“I don’t know that he was sure,” Farrell said. “If it had come straight out at him, he’d have reacted. He’ll react if it comes out another hole. It got in some way.”
Most of the time you weren’t sure of anything. You usually didn’t have a real target, you never had all the information. You played the percentages, you played hunches. You prayed a lot, said the words anyway; or you swore, using a lot of the same words, and you knew it didn’t matter a damn either way. If the universe decided this was your time, it was going to nail you whatever you did.
“Six, this is Two-three,” said Verushnie from the lead squad. “The dozers have opened a track. Shall we proceed? Over.”
“Two-three, roger,” Farrell said. “Out.”
The sound of brush tearing had ended. Metal clanged as a tractor was reattached to the trailers. The tone was off because foliage muted the high frequencies more than it did the low components of the sound.