And that we’ve done, Ace Barton thought.
Crewmen appeared at the aft hatches and caught lines thrown from the docks. The landing boat was winched in until it lay against the pier. The broad landing hatch opened.
“What the hell?” Barton said. A light armored vehicle rolled out. It was followed by a dozen armed men in dark cammies. “Command override,” Barton shouted. “Cover the dock area.”
Alarms hooted.
“Major, Guilford here.”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Wichasta says that’s ours. A present from Senator Bronson.”
“Tell the son of a bitch—Captain, put me through to him.”
“This is Chandos Wichasta.”
“Mr. Wichasta, you damned near started a battle.”
“I deeply regret any difficulties we may have caused,” Wichasta said. “I did not know they were coming. I have the captain of Norton Star on line now. He says they were conducting an exercise, and could not unload the assault boat and still land during this orbit.”
“And didn’t have any way to tell us.”
“I know nothing of that.”
“Yeah. And I can believe as much of that as I want to. All right, Mr. Wichasta, but those troops are under my command. Mine, not yours.”
“Of course.”
“Guilford, get me the officer in charge of that assault team.”
“Roger.” There was a pause. “Lieutenant Commander Geoffrey Niles here.”
“Niles, what the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“Sir, I’m sure Captain Nakata has explained. We were conducting an exercise.”
“Yeah. OK, Niles, I want your people off that boat. All of them, except the pilot and crew. That damned thing’s going to be overloaded as it is.”
“But of course, sir.”
“Good. Second, I want them out of the way. Take your vehicle up to the field on the east side of the house, and keep them there. All of them. Guilford, notify security we’ve got strangers among us.” He thumbed off the mike. “Wally, that’s all we bloody need.”
“Watchdogs,” Honistu said. “Looks like Bronson doesn’t trust us.”
“Yeah. And I don’t trust him, either.” He thumbed his mike again. “Get me Anderson on a secure circuit.”
“Captain Anderson here.”
“Barton. Bobby, I want you to have a Leopard where it can cover Bronson’s people.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. He don’t trust us, I guess, but come to that I don’t trust him.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
“No. Just be sure to do that.”
“Yes, sir. Anderson out.”
“Want me to assign someone in addition?” Honistu said.
“Oh, Bobby’s all right,” Barton said. “Maybe you ought to, though. OK, let’s get that damn ship loaded and out of here.”
Honistu gave orders. As soon as Bronson’s troops were clear, the waiting trucks drove out onto the docks.
Barton’s crew helped the ranch hands pull fuel lines out and connect them up to the landing craft. Rancher militia began unloading the trucks and carrying crates aboard.
“Well, Wally, this is what it was all for,” Barton said.
“Yeah. And none too soon, Major.”
“Come on, it was soft duty.”
“Sure, but—Hell, Major, you must have felt it. Wondering what Falkenberg was going to do. Not that there was much he could do, but it doesn’t stop the troops from worrying. He’s pulled rabbits out of empty hats before.”
“Yeah,” Barton said. “But it does look like we’ve stymied him this time.” He touched buttons on his sleeve console. “Patch me to the pilot of that landing boat.”
“Aye aye,” the comm sergeant said.
“Commander Perkins here.”
“Major Barton. Have a good trip?”
“Yes, sir, uneventful. Understand we surprised you with the troops aboard. Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, sure. When will you be ready to take off?”
“Assuming fuel and cargo are aboard, the next launch window for rendezvous with Norton Star will open at 0930,” Perkins said.
“Seventy minutes. OK, you’ll make that,” Barton said. He touched more buttons on his sleeve console. “Sergeant major, move it out,” he said. “You got fifty minutes to refuel and get that cargo aboard. Hop it.”
He turned his binoculars on the Bronson group and watched as they went up the hill. Then he took a toothpick from his pocket and chewed thoughtfully.
“Nagging doubts, Wally. I keep thinking Falkenberg has an ace up his sleeve.” He lifted his binoculars and swept them across the jungle edge. “But what the hell, he doesn’t know everything.”
* * *
Lysander could just see the assault boat through his peephole. It was the center of a flurry of activity. First the assault crew came ashore, weapons ready, and for a moment it looked like there might be a fight right there on the pier. Then they went northwards out of sight.
A crew snaked fuel lines out. A minute after they were connected up, they glistened with condensing frost. The fuel and oxygen lines crossed the road to the pier, and the ranch hands had put up a steel crossover to allow trucks to drive over them without pinching them off. Now a mixed crew of ranch hands and Barton Bulldogs was unloading crates from the trucks and carrying them aboard the landing craft. There were ranch hands in soiled coveralls; rancher militia in their jungle stripes; Barton Bulldogs in darker cammies; and in addition, there were darker blue coveralls which Lysander thought must be the landing ship crew. They were all mixed together. Can’t possibly know each other, he thought. And there were the troops from the assault boat itself.
“Harv. Get the insignia off our cammies,” he whispered. “May give us an edge.” Falkenberg’s legion wore a tiger-stripe camouflage uniform that wasn’t like either Barton’s or the rancher militia. With all those others mixed in, each group might think he belonged to some other. It was worth a try.
“We got a jackpot,” he whispered, and gestured for Harv to come look through the peephole. “Get the layout. When the time comes, we walk out there like we’ve got jobs to do. When we get into the ship, you handle the doors. Get the hatches closed and the lines cast off. I’ll get it off the water.”
“Right.” Harv grinned. “Be something to tell the phraetrie.”
“May be.” Of course I’ll also have to explain to Mother what the hell I was doing here.
He let Harv study the situation outside while he tuned one channel of his receiver to Falkenberg’s communications frequency, and slaved the other to his pocket computer. Then he called up a program to listen for and analyze electronic signals.
There were a lot of them. Apparently Barton wasn’t worried about electronic security any longer. There was energy in all the radar frequencies, and widely across the communications bands. The communications signals were not strong and couldn’t have been intercepted from very far away, but most of them were in plain English.
“—fifty minutes, you bastards! Move goddamit, that bird flies on schedule!” someone shouted.
Lysander tuned across the bands, and heard “Not now. Wait an hour and you got all the people you need, but let it wait.”
Fifty minutes. Wait an hour. It was an easy inference that the landing ship would fly then. Lysander frowned in concentration on Norton Star’s ephemeris, then nodded in satisfaction. It would be about fifty minutes before the ship was in the proper position for orbital rendezvous with a minimum-energy landing boat. They’d fly then, about 0930.
He tapped Harv on the shoulder and took over the peephole. Should have made two, he thought. Too late now.
Another truck rolled down to the dock.
Lysander tuned his transmitter to the frequency Falkenberg’s troops would be monitoring. He hesitated a moment, then keyed the microphone. “Yeah, this is Lion. We’ll be ready for liftoff in fifty minutes.” He cut off the transmitter and listened. There was a faint click. Lysander winked, and Harv grinned wolfishly.
* * *
“That was him, all right,” Corporal Tandon said. “Right on our frequency. I didn’t acknowledge except to key in a click, sir.”
“Good,” Falkenberg said. “That’s enough to let him know we heard him. Any sign they know about him, or us?”
“Not one damn thing, Colonel,” Tandon said. “They’re chattering away like nobody’s listening. Sir, Mr. Prince is a little off on the launch time; I’ve heard a dozen people say it goes up at oh-nine-thirty, and that squares with the ephemeris. Fifty minutes from his message is 0920.”
“I see. I think you underestimate him, Corporal. Lieutenant Mace.”
“Sir.”
“I want you to be ready to start your bombardment at 0915. Tandon, five minutes before that you will use the code we worked out to alert Mr. Prince. Be prepared to notify Lieutenant Mace to change that schedule if Mr. Prince requests it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Falkenberg studied the time readout on his sleeve console. “And now we wait. Lieutenant Mace, I think we should discuss your target priorities.”
* * *
At precisely 0910 Lysander heard Corporal Tandon’s voice in his earpiece. “Oh, hell, Lion, hold your horses, we’ll have the stuff on the way in five minutes flat.”