They commandeered a scoutcar and started off crosscountry, guided by the car’s infrared lamps. Ordinary lights would have been detected too easily, both by the Komani and the occasional Terran patrols.
Mclntyre drove, with Merdon in the skipper’s seat directing him. The five troopers sat in dark silence amidst their jetbelts, guns and grenades, listening to the whine f the car’s engine and the rain pelting the armored roof just above their helmets.
“There’s the forest coming up,” Merdon said, pointing into the viewscreen in front of Mclntyre. “You won’t be able to take the car very deep into it.”
Mclntyre nodded as he eased up on the throttle. “I’ll put ‘er in a little ways, so she’ll be under cover.”
Within a few minutes, the seven of them were slogging through the rain-soaked woods.
It took nearly two hours of steady marching through the angry rain before they cleared the forest and saw the edge of the Komani camp.
Crouching in the bushes at the forest’s edge, Merdon scanned the camp with infrared binoculars.
“Only a few guards,” he muttered, “and plenty of open space between them. The camp is almost completely blacked out. The rain has even put out the ceremonial fires.”
“Don’t they have automatic detection equipment that sets off an alarm as soon as somebody crosses th’ energy screen?” Mclntyre asked.
“No. That’s a Terran refinement that the Komani don’t have. Guards with snooperscopes . . . that’s what they use. Believe me, it’ll be tough enough to get through them.”
They skirted along the edge of the encampment, looking for their best opening. At last they found a spot where the foliage nearly reached the energy screen. There were only about twenty yards of open space between the forest shrubbery and the nearest Komani tents.