And what will Barton’s communications monitors make of that? Lysander wondered. Assuming they heard it at all. He gestured to Harv and led the way through the passage between the packing crates. They unlocked the door and stepped into the corridor. There were two people there, one close, the other an armed Bulldog near the main door.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” the closest man demanded.
Lysander thought he recognized him as the man who’d come out of the store room earlier that morning. It hardly mattered. Lysander gestured toward the further man. Harv moved ten feet in a single flowing motion. As he did, Lysander spun the rancher around and brought his hand down in a sharp blow to the base of the skull. The man dropped. When Lysander looked up, Harv was dragging the soldier toward the store room.
They pushed both men inside. The rancher was still breathing. Harv thought the soldier was dead but he didn’t really want to know. He locked the door. “Let’s go.”
There was no one in the tractor shed. They walked through that and toward the dock, striding briskly as if they had an errand there. No one stopped them.
The fuel lines were still rigged. There was no way to tell how much hydrogen and LOX had been pumped into the ship. Probably not enough to make orbit. What would happen if they took off with the fuel lines still in place? Presumably there were automatic shutoffs, but were there? Lysander tried to remember if they’d told him in training, and decided they’d never mentioned it. Why should they?
Just before they reached the pier there were sounds of mortar fire from the jungle edge. Several of Barton’s people froze in their tracks. Someone shouted, “Incoming!” Several of Barton’s troops hit the dirt.
There was a series of explosions up the hill near the house. Then the rattle of small arms fire, and more mortars fired. Several rounds hit the house itself. Part of the veranda was blown away, and the roof was on fire. A nearby shed was also burning. At the dock area people began to run, toward the ship or away from it, while others lay on the ground, or stared, or ran in circles.
There were more explosions from up the hill. The Leopard swivelled its guns to aim at the jungle edge and began to fire. Trees fell at the jungle’s edge.
Lysander and Harv reached the dock and broke into a run toward the landing ship. A crewman was just beginning to close the hatch. Lysander leaped across the loading gangplank and pushed past the man, leaving him to Harv. Inside were narrow passageways.
“Who the hell are you?” someone called.
“Get the damn crates lashed in!” Lysander shouted. “Secure for immediate takeoff!”
“Holy shit!” the crewman shouted. “Sir, goddamit—”
“Hop to it! We’ll be under fire in a second,” Lysander said. He rushed forward to the pilot compartment. There was no one in the right hand seat.
The pilot turned with a frown. “What’s going on?”
“Immediate takeoff,” Lysander said.
“We’re not fueled for takeoff, you idiot!”
“We’ll be blown away if we don’t get off now. I mean now.”
“Off and go wh—uff.”
Lysander unclipped the lap belt and heaved the pilot over into the copilot’s seat. As he was securing the man’s pistol, a crewman put his head into the compartment. Lysander kicked him and pushed him out, then slammed the cockpit door and locked it. He climbed into the left hand seat and inspected the control panel.
* * *
Ace Barton took a final look at the map table and turned to Anton Girerd. He grinned widely. “All done here. We can watch the takeoff from the veranda. Wally—”
He was interrupted by mortar fire. There was the sound of crashing glass. The house shook, then shook again. The door to the next room smashed open. Another explosion shook them and his staff dived under the heavy table. A third explosion nearby knocked him off his feet.
“Fire! Fire!” one of the servants shouted.
Barton got to his feet. Something was burning in the next room, and he gestured toward the fire in annoyance. “Carruthers! Deal with that!” He punched in code on his sleeve console. “Comm room, report!”
There was nothing but static. Barton switched to speakers so that Honistu could hear, and methodically punched in codes for emergency communication channels. “Comm Central, report!”
Surprise. Barton recalled Falkenberg’s dry voice in the officers mess. “Surprise is an event that takes place in the mind of an opposing commander.” You son of a bitch.
“Comm Central, Centurion Martino here, sir.” The Centurion spoke slowly and carefully as he’d been trained to do. “We are under heavy mortar and recoilless fire from a battery in the jungle approximately four klicks to the east. There was no warning. The first salvo took out the power plant and damn near every antenna we have. I’ve got damage control and power crews out now. I have no estimate of the time required to restore power. Captain Anderson is switching control of his units to auxiliary antennas.”
Barton heard the sharp crump! of his own mortar units. “What’s he shooting at?”
“Stand by one,” Martino said. There was a long silence. “Counterbattery. Captain Anderson got some backtrack info with the secondary antennas. Is your plot table powered?”
Barton looked the question at Honistu. “Yes.”
“Stand by, Major, I’ll try to feed a report to the plot table now—plot responds. Successful feed.”
Lights blinked on the liquid crystal map table. Bright orange bordered in blue for his disabled units. Antennas and power plants, and now guns. Too many. More orange blotches on the house itself. Barton could hear frantic sounds from the next room, but he ignored them. The air smelled of smoke, but less now than before.
Red squares for suspected enemy installations. Four guns for sure, all in the jungle. The squares were large, indicating uncertainty in locating them. “There’ll be spotters,” Barton said. “Have the Leopards chew up the jungle edge. Mortar fire on the probable enemy locations. And have the choppers stand by for target information.”
Choppers. How had Falkenberg got troops into that jungle? They sure didn’t walk. “They may have some new kind of stealthy chopper,” Barton said. “Watch out for it. All AA units stand by.”
“Yes, sir.”
So what the hell did Falkenberg intend? “Martino, have they hit the landing ship?”‘
“Stand by one, sir.” Another silence. “No, sir, they haven’t been shooting at it.”
Haven’t been shooting at it. Barton’s head hurt. He put his hands to the back of his neck and willed himself to relax. Slow. Send the pain away. Ignore the ringing. Forget the smoke. Forget everything, relax, concentrate. Surprise is an event that takes place in the mind of an enemy commander. Me.
They haven’t been shooting at the landing ship. Why haven’t they been shooting at it? Why didn’t they disable it first thing? “Patch me through to the assault boat pilot.”
“Stand by.”
It seemed like an eternity.
“I’m still trying, but there’s no answer, Major.”
“No answer. No communications, or no answer?”
“Don’t know, sir. Tried four channels.”
“Keep trying. Sound a full security alert in the dock area. Then get somebody down there on line.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Wally, there’s something damned wrong out there,” Barton said. “Get your butt down to that ship and see what it is. Stay with Martino on Red Four. Martino, reserve Channel Red Four. You, me, and Captain Honistu.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Major?” Honistu asked.
“Damn it, get down there! Secure that ship! I won’t be happy until you’re sitting in the pilot compartment. Take whatever troops you need.”
“Right. I’m on my way.”
Barton thumbed his mike again. “Get me Anderson.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Another long wait. That son of a bitch. Power plants, antennas, comm shack, damn near got me. Two salvoes and we’re damn near out of business. That son of a bitch. He’s out there—
“Captain Anderson.”
“Bobby, aim something at that assault boat. Do that now, then stand by to disable it on my command.”
“Disable? With the fuel lines pumping? Not bloody likely, Major. We can blow it to hell, but I don’t know how to disable it.”
“Holy shit. Stand by anyway. Martino! Keep track of Captain Honistu’s group. I want security forces in that boat now!”
“Major, you must not, you must not destroy—” Anton Girerd’s hands fluttered frantically. “Major—”
“On the contrary,” Chandos Wichasta said. “You must arrange to destroy it before Governor Blaine can capture it.”
“He cannot capture—”
“Anton, of course he can,” Wichasta said. “Clearly their objective is to disable the landing ship. Major Barton has told us of the buildup on Dragontooth Island. Once that is complete we can’t hold Rochemont. It is obvious they know this is the central storage place. If they did not know before, the landing ship told them that. I wonder if—but no, they had soldiers in the jungle. They must have come before the landing ship. Or did they?”