“We got a visitor back at the trench, Sarge. An engineer.” Giradaux’s lean, angular face was split by a big toothy grin. “Say’s he’s got a couple of cruisers crawling up right behind him, and the dreadnaughts are on their way, tool”
Mclntyre looked at the grinning trooper, then sud, denly scrambled to his feet. Standing bolt upright, he stared down toward the valley floor.
About twenty Terran vehicles were scattered across the valley, smoldng and inert. The rest of the Mobile Force was streaming up the hillsides, along paths of raw arth gouged out by the engineers and the Komani bombardment, toward the crest of the hills—toward freedom.
Giradaux and the sergeant scampered back to the slit trench. A batde-scan-ed cruiser was -already there, and the troopers were clambering aboard its rear deck.
“He did it!” Mclntyre shouted to the young trooper. “That Star Watchman has pulled us outta the trap. We’re gettin’ outta this valley—alive!”
The engineer, grimy and hollow-eyed, called from his one-man scoutcar, “No time for celebration, sergeant. Let’s get out of here before the Komani try to hit us again.”
Mclntyre grabbed a handhold on the cruiser’s side and hoisted himself upwards.
“They ain’t gonna try anything now,” he answered, over his shoulder. “They’ve lost this battle, and they know it.”
The cruiser whined into life, lifted off the ground by about a foot, and rumbled off with the battered, jubilant troopers aboard. The engineer gunned his little scrambler and scooted up alongside, placing the crusier between himself and the Komani.