Even at lowest power a radio signal might be detected. Miscowsky was linked to the central communications computer through an optical fibre phone line, as thin and flexible as a thread. The fibre optic system was totally undetectable. It was also incomplete, since not everyone was wired into it. Miscowsky panned his binoculars across Rochemont again. There was more activity.
“Falkenberg.”
“Colonel, they’ve opened the roofs on most of their buildings,” Miscowsky said. “Antennas everywhere, sweeping everything. They don’t care if somebody detects them. Field strength here’s pretty amazing.”
“Will they spot you?”
“Not me, Colonel.”
“Sorry I asked. Do you think they’ve spotted Mr. Prince?”
“Colonel, I can’t tell. All I know is all of a sudden they popped the roofs, and they’re sweeping like hell.”
“Right. How many observers do we have, and can you pipe any of it back here?”
“Five lookouts, and yes, sir, the cameras ought to be picking stuff up now.”
“Thanks. I’ll have a look, but keep talking.”
“Yes, sir. OK, they’re opening the rest of the sheds. I see guns. Couple on the roof of the manor house. More in the sheds. AA and dual purpose stuff mostly. Christ, Colonel, they’ve got damn near everything Barton owns here! There goes a Leopard. Nasty little bugger.” The Leopard was a self-propelled twin rapid-fire gun system mounted on a tank chassis. Used in connection with long-range smart missiles, it was highly effective against helicopters. It could also deliver high volume direct fire against ground targets. “They’re moving it this way. Still coming. My guess is they’ll put it on the rise about a klick west of here.”
“Right. Make sure the computer knows where it is.”
“Aye aye, sir. There goes another Leopard, and a couple of missile launchers. I sure wouldn’t want to try getting in here with a chopper. Colonel—hah. One whole goddam side of Rochemont hill is opening up! Chopper coming out. Two of them. Two choppers revving up.”
“Command override, command override.” Lieutenant Mace’s voice broke into Miscowsky’s helmet phones. “All personnel, secure against aerial observation. Choppers on the rise. I say again, all personnel, take cover, conceal from aerial observation. Choppers coming. Do not fire. I say again, do not fire.”
Miscowsky touched the ACKNOWLEDGE button. The computer would collect the responses and tell Mace who hadn’t answered.
“Anything else?” Falkenberg asked.
“Well, yes, sir, there’s just a lot of activity. People milling around. Last time I looked, the dock area was empty, but there’s lots of people there now. Bunch more going into the hill. Looks like a truck coming out of there— Must be a big cave. Truck coming out, heading for the dock area. Bunch of guys hanging on the running boards. Not Barton people, not most of ’em anyway. Different cammies, like what the ranchers wear.”
“Any sign of Mr. Prince?”
“No, sir, none at all. Barton’s troops still don’t act like they’ve seen anybody, though.”
“Carry on, Sergeant.”
Miscowsky nestled closer to the squishy ground and adjusted his binoculars. They were definitely moving stuff from the house down to the dock area. Lots of stuff. “Has to be the drugs,” he reported to Lieutenant Mace at communications central. “What else could it be?”
“No attempt at concealment?” Lieutenant Mace asked.
“No, sir, none at all. Like they don’t care who sees—Holy shit.”
They all heard it. A double sonic boom that crackled across the jungle. Then the roar of a hypersonic jet overhead.
“I think we can guess why they don’t care who sees them,” Mace said. “Command override, command override. Landing ship approaching. Full alert, I say again full alert. Battle plan Alfa, battle plan Alfa.”
* * *
It was still grey dark when Lysander and Harv came ashore. They took off their flippers and moved silently toward the building Miscowsky had identified as a fueling station. Part of the building was an open-roofed area. Two tractors and a large harrow were parked there. They slipped into the shed area and toward the door to the building itself.
“Those tractors run on hydrogen,” Harv whispered.
Lysander nodded. It made sense. It was easier to make hydrogen from seawater than to ship other kinds of fuel on a primitive world. It also made for less trouble with the various ecology groups. And if you could make liquid hydrogen, you could certainly make LOX. “Tanks are probably underground.”
The main entrance to the building was a double door wide enough for vehicles. The long corridor beyond was dimly lit with overhead bulbs. There were a number of doors off the corridor.
They could hear soft voices inside, voices too low to be understood. This went on for a few minutes. Lysander looked around the shed area for a place to hide. Nothing looked very promising. The area was too open. He had decided they’d have to risk going inside when the nearest door off the long interior corridor opened.
A man and a woman came out. They leaned on each other and were obviously drunk. The man wore the faded camouflage uniforms favored by the Tanith rancher militia. The woman wore grey coveralls opened to the waist. They giggled as they walked past Lysander and Harv.
“Of course I love you,” the man said. “Couple more years, I’ll have enough saved, we can buy out—” He looked around furtively. “Best be quiet.” They went out of the shed and toward the worker barracks.
Lysander waved Harv forward and pointed to the door the two had come out. The lock was a simple one that took Harv only seconds to open.
The room inside was filled with crates of spare parts for tractors and farm machinery. Lysander locked the door behind him, then risked using a flash held hooded in his fingers. He found a narrow passage through the crates. It led to a small compartment not high enough to stand in. There was a mattress and several empty beer and whiskey bulbs. A heavy air of sweat filled the compartment.
Harv wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“Yeah, but it looks OK for us.” Lysander looked around the small area again. “Looks fine. Now we wait.”
* * *
Their compartment was against the east wall of the shed. Lysander used his knife to make a tiny peephole in the corrugated sheet plastic wall. When there was enough light outside he could see part of the docking area. Perfect, he thought. We’ve been lucky.
Luck counts, Falkenberg once told him. But it’s no use at all if you don’t know enough to take advantage of good luck.
They waited. Harv dozed like a cat, his eyes opening whenever Lysander shifted weight or anyone moved outside. After a while Lysander let himself drift to the edge of sleep.
They heard the alarms first, then voices.
“Get them lines laid out, Hapworth,” someone shouted. “Hardy, get the wrenches. Come on, come on, we ain’t got all damn day!”
Sonic booms shook them, then there was the roar of the landing ship.
XXIV
Ace Barton listened to staff reports as long as he could stand it, then left Captain Guilford in charge and took Honistu out to find some fresh air on Rochemont’s wide veranda. The breeze off the sea felt heavy, laden with moisture, but it was better than the atmosphere in the staff room.
Honistu pointed out to sea. Barton scanned the area with his binoculars. About two kilometers out, the whitecaps were tinged with scarlet, and the water roiled with dark shapes. “Worst I ever saw them things,” Honistu said.
Barton nodded. “Maybe so.” There had been feeding frenzies before. Once the battalion cook had stimulated a frenzy by dumping garbage off the pier. The nessies had come for the garbage, and one rose out of the sea and grabbed the cook’s assistant. Troops came running up to help, but it was too late to save the recruit. One of the man’s messmates shot the nessie, and half a dozen other nessies attacked the wounded one. The resulting frenzy almost destroyed the docks.
After that they were more careful where they threw the garbage . . . .
There was a sharp double sonic boom.
“Right on time,” Honistu said.
Barton’s binoculars gave him an excellent view of the stubby-winged craft as it settled in on the choppy water. It skirted the crimson waves where the nessies were fighting and sped across to the dock area at too high a speed, turning just in time. It had come full speed close enough to the pier to make Barton wince.
“Hotshot,” he muttered. Most landing boat pilots were.
“Worried about nessies. I would be too,” Honistu said.
The Talin class was the smallest of the CD’s assault/pickup boats. It looked fairly large, but most of its bulk was tankage and engines behind a small cabin and cargo area. The Talin class was designed to carry a marine assault section, two metric tonnes, to orbit, or bring twice that mass from orbit to ground. Its mission was to land troops in unexpected places.