War To The Knife

by Grant, Peter

  Jake bit back a laugh. “You’ve atoned for all your past crimes tonight, Harper. You’re going to help us damage the enemy like he’s never been damaged before.”

  “Glad to hear it, Sir – but I wish there were also a bit of gold at the end of this rainbow, if you know what I mean. It’s a professional weakness, I’m afraid.” White vapor began to rise from the lock, and Harper warned, “We need to step back now, Sir. You really, really don’t want that stuff in your lungs in high concentrations.”

  Jake backed down the narrow tunnel, glancing over his shoulder to where the rest of the raiding party waited ten meters back from the grating. As he approached, the first in line whispered, “Looks like it’s on fire up there, Sir.” The haze from the acid biting into the electronics had formed a mist that was slowly rising to a vent in the ceiling as air currents caught it.

  “Not a bad comparison, soldier, but it’s the enemy we want to get burned.”

  There came a faint snap! from the lock, audible even several meters away. Harper smiled. “That’s it, Sir.”

  “Just like that? No fuss, no bother?”

  “Sure, Sir.” He shook his head in professional disapproval. “Lockmakers usually set their products to default to fail-open mode, so that if the electronics stop functioning for any reason the lock opens. Thieves love that. It makes our job much easier. Instead of having to defeat multiple barriers or cut through hardened steel alloys, all we have to do is shut down the electrical side. You can change the setting to fail-locked, of course, but only security-conscious folks do that. They don’t mind paying for a locksmith, just as long as their stuff stays safe. Most people would rather not be locked out of their homes or whatever they’re securing. Those who installed the lock in this grating probably didn’t even think about it. They just fitted it as it came from the factory, coded it for secure access, then went on to the next job.”

  “And it won’t sound an alarm?”

  “Not from the lock, Sir – its electronics don’t exist anymore except as slag. I’ve bridged the wiring to the three sensors attached to the grate itself. When we open it, they won’t know about it.” As he spoke, he led the way back up the tunnel.

  Jake sneezed unexpectedly as the acrid aroma of the acid bit into his nostrils. “I see what you mean about that stuff. If it smells this bad after the ventilation system has sucked in most of it, I hate to think what it’d be like at full strength.”

  Harper smiled. “You wouldn’t smell it for long before your sniffer melted down, Sir.”

  “What a charming thought!”

  Grinning, the Corporal inserted a pry-bar and tugged hard. With nothing to resist its forcible withdrawal, the bolt slid back into the lock. He pushed the hinged grate, swinging it open into a recess in the tunnel wall. The long loops of bridging wire between its sensors and their cables on the ceiling of the tunnel pulled up and out as it moved, but didn’t reach full extension. The Corporal tied orange warning tape around them, cinching them to a pipe on the wall to pull them out of the way as far as possible, then waved a hand invitingly up the passage. “We’re in, Sir.”

  “That was very well done, Corporal! Thank you very much.”

  Jake turned and signaled to the others. They began to move forward as he stepped through the grate opening and walked down the tunnel, moving carefully to avoid knocking into the multiple conduits and pipes that festooned the sides and ceiling of the tunnel. They increased in size and quantity as they penetrated further into the security zone, crowding inward, producing a claustrophobic effect through the artificial perspective provided by their night-vision visors. Jake eventually paused, took off his web gear and unslung his weapon, and held them before him as he slid between the obstacles so that they didn’t catch against anything. Behind him his team followed his example without having to be told.

  At the cross-tunnel he stepped into the branch leading to the old traffic control center, then waved each of his soldiers through to other arms of the tunnels until the techs came up.

  “You take point from here on, Quincy. Are your toys ready to play?”

  “You bet they are, and so are we!” Grinning, the lead technician waited for Jake to move into another arm of the tunnel, out of the way; then he and his two assistants eased their way past and headed for their target. Each carried several containers strapped to their web gear, and a complex electronic console on their chests.

  Seventy meters down the tunnel they came to a side branch, much narrower than the main one. Quincy turned down it, followed by the other two. Jake signaled his soldiers to hold in place, then followed them. He caught up to them as they squatted at the end of the short branch. The tech nearest the partition at the end, into which the broad, heavy conduit above their heads disappeared, took a set of tools from a pouch and began to unscrew a ventilation grating. The other two opened containers and began extracting tiny mechanical figures with wings, laying them out in a long row on the floor of the tunnel. Peering through his visor, magnifying the image, Jake could see that the ‘head’ of each insect-like device bore a tiny lens set above two miniaturized tubes which vanished into its body.

  “How many of these do you have?” he whispered.

  “Lots!” Quincy assured him. He scowled. “The Bactrians modified their standard bugs, though. Across the settled galaxy security flitterbugs and nanobugs like these use a paralyzing neurotoxin for which there’s an antidote. They disable temporarily rather than kill. The Bactrians use a deadly poison on their microdarts for which there’s no antidote.”

  “If they’re so dangerous, how did we get our hands on so many of them?”

  “At first we went back to the ruins of the bases they’d infiltrated with them. They have so many of these things that they didn’t bother to recover those that ended up in hard-to-reach places. We waited until we knew their batteries would have run down, then we looked for them, brought them back to our main base, and analyzed them. Once we knew what we were dealing with we deliberately targeted their operators, trying to capture their bugs before they could launch them – also their control consoles. We also stole several shipments of them from resupply convoys, and your son brought us a very useful number of their latest assault bugs from the Matopo Hills. Most of those we’ve recovered are here now, ready to give the Bactrians an unpleasant surprise.”

  “It couldn’t happen to nicer people,” Jake grinned, savoring what he knew the bugs would do to help the attackers – including his own team – in just a few hours’ time.

  “I won’t argue with you about that!” He glanced at his subordinate, who was lowering the grating to the floor. “All clear?”

  “Sure, Quincy.”

  “OK, let’s make certain it’s safe to go in.”

  Jake watched, fascinated, as the techs used their consoles to activate the flitterbugs. Tiny synthetic wings unfurled and flapped furiously, lifting their miniaturized ‘bodies’ off the floor in almost complete silence. They flew through the aperture left by the grating and fanned out, each sending back vid from the lens set into its ‘head’. Quincy and his assistants hastily poked antennas through the aperture to make sure the weak signals from the flitterbugs’ tiny transmitters would reach them. They plugged their visors into the console, using them as displays to monitor the feedback from the flitterbugs.

  “As far as we know they don’t have any staff in the basement levels,” Quincy explained. “They control everything from their new TrafCon three blocks away. The only people here are off-shift guards getting some sleep in the security building on the surface, plus a two-man duty watch in the guardroom and two more on the gate.”

  “So we can work down here without them knowing anything about it?”

  “As long as we’re quiet. Of course, as soon as we cut the links to TrafCon it’s going to scream blue murder at the guards to get down into the tunnels and investigate.”

  “At which time your little friends here will be ready to meet them, right?”

  “Oh, yes.
Our little friends have one last harvest to reap – this time on our side!”

  As the flitterbugs moved through the different floors and rooms in the basement levels, some of them attached themselves to walls and doorframes to act as communications relays for those going ahead. The operators were able to keep track of their progress and see everything they saw. As soon as the bugs confirmed that no-one was present on any of the lower levels, the assault unit opened the partition blocking the tunnel and made their way into the old control center. Jake dispersed them among several rooms and advised them to get what sleep they could. “Things will get real interesting in a few hours,” he reminded them, “so I want you rested and ready.”

  He didn’t take his own advice. He stooped over the terminal where Quincy sat, tapping at its keyboard, brow creased in concentration.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve just entered the special transponder ID’s and instructed the computer to completely ignore them. It’s not to issue any warning of them to any other traffic, nor display their whereabouts either here on the planet or in orbit at the space station. As far as TrafCon is concerned, they’ll just be invisible little black holes in its coverage.”

  “Thanks.” Jake squeezed his shoulder gratefully.

  “Just you wait. What was it they used to say in the old days? ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’ I’m now setting up the feed for the shuttles and copying the Bactrians’ sensor feed, directing both to a special channel. I’ll activate it once the attack begins, and aim one of the backup satellite dishes on this building towards the space station as an ultra-broad-band relay. Dave and his people can record it on their shuttle until the space station or our dish is destroyed, then they can take it with them as evidence of our last stand. After that, I’ll upload our targeting programs and queue them to execute on command.”

  He frowned in professional disapproval. “The Bactrians really should have changed the tech support codes on our traffic control computer. I suppose they assumed since we’d never be able to gain access to it again, that wasn’t necessary. Besides, they don’t have many tech-savvy people to begin with, so they probably decided to employ them on what appeared to be more important tasks. Well, their carelessness is about to bite them in the ass.”

  ~ ~ ~

  CARISTO: GARRISON

  Dave looked around at the orbital team as he continued, “When we lift off in a few minutes, the traffic control system planetside and in space will recognize our transponder ID and completely ignore us. We won’t be plotted on the Bactrians’ displays as we leave here and climb to orbit. They won’t know we’re coming.”

  One of the soldiers raised his hand. “But, Sir, that’s only TrafCon’s radars. What about the warships? Won’t they plot us on their own radars as we get closer?”

  “No, they won’t, because it’s standard operating procedure for them to switch off their radars upon entering a parking orbit. The Bactrians found it caused too much interference if all their ships had radars broadcasting in close proximity to one another on common frequencies. Instead they all take a radar feed from the space station, showing every ship in orbit around or near the planet – but it won’t show us, of course.”

  “What about our drive emissions, Sir? Won’t they detect them?”

  “Not if we come in carefully. We’ll climb to orbit on the far side of the planet from them, then cut back our power as we close on them slowly from behind. We’ll drop it to no more than five per cent for our final approach. Don’t forget, an assault shuttle’s gravitic drive unit is minuscule compared to that of any spaceship, with emissions to match. What’s more, this SS shuttle has electronics that mask even that. They shouldn’t see us coming at all, not even when we dock with the space station.”

  “And if they do, Sir?” the soldier asked stubbornly.

  “Then we’ll just have to die as bravely as possible, won’t we?”

  There was a roar of laughter from the others as the man sat down, flushing scarlet.

  Dave clicked on to the next image. The portable projector threw a diagram onto the wall. “Here you see the spaceships currently in orbit. This is the space station in the center of the group. The Satrap’s yacht is on its port side, with two corvettes of the Bactrian Navy. The yacht is unarmed except for laser cannon for point defense, so given our limited number of weapons we’re going to leave her alone but take out her escorts. There’s a converted armed freighter on the other side of the station, which we’ll also target, plus one of her sister ships patrolling the system. We expect her to be far enough away from the planet to allow us to escape in this ship, here.” He indicated an icon beyond the warships. “She’s the Benbecula, a freighter from New Brisbane, a planet of the Lancastrian Commonwealth. As I explained earlier, we’ll be boarding her with our evidence and Mr. Ellis as soon as we’ve dealt with the space station and the warships.

  “We’ve had a lucky break. The crews of the Bactrian ships and the space station are at half strength, because they’ve sent the other half planetside to take part in the parade this morning. That means they’ll all be operating what I’m told is called an ‘anchor watch’. Mac, would you take over at this point, please?”

  “Thanks, boss.” The tech specialist rose to his feet. “At minimum staffing levels, they won’t have weapons or battle systems manned. They’re fools to do that, but they’ve grown complacent because there’s never been any armed opposition in space since they took over Laredo. It’s made them sloppy and negligent. We’re going to take full advantage of that.”

  Another soldier put up his hand. “But, Sir, when we open up on the warships, won’t they fire back at us?”

  “They’ll try, but they’ll find it difficult. Let me explain how this is going to go down…”

  March 31st 2850 GSC, 06:00

  TAPURIA: MILITARY GOVERNOR’S COMPOUND

  The sentries at the rooftop transport pad snapped to attention and presented arms as they approached. General Huvishka raised his hand to the gold-inlaid peak of his cap as he passed between them. Following in his wake, Captain Dehgahn and Lieutenant Yazata merely nodded at them.

  The General’s personal pilot and bodyguard came to attention next to his aircar. Both were in formal parade uniform, but the bodyguard wore in addition a white cross-shoulder belt supporting a pulser in its holster. His rifle was visible in the vertical weapon clamps in the middle of the console.

  “Good morning, Sir,” the pilot greeted her boss. She was a Captain – wearing, Yazata noticed, no less than three medals for valor in action. The bodyguard, a Staff Sergeant, wore a similar number. Clearly the General believed in entrusting his safety to those who’d demonstrated more than once that they could and would do whatever it took to ensure it.

  “Good morning, Captain. Are we ready?”

  “All except for our new transponder code, Sir. I’ll have to get that from Trafcon just before we exit the security zone around the Command Bunker.”

  “Very well. Let’s go.”

  He and his aides arranged themselves in the rear, the General alone in the back seat and Dehgahn and Yazata in facing pull-down seats, while the pilot and bodyguard got into the front compartment. They all strapped themselves into four-point harnesses. The pilot ran through the pre-flight checks and lifted to a low hover over the pad as she activated her microphone.

  “Laredo Six Alpha to Trafcon, departing Command for arena, request transponder ID, over.”

  “Trafcon to Laredo Six Alpha, authenticate Papa Alpha Golf, over.”

  She tapped three keys on her console and peered at the code it threw up in response. “Six Alpha to Trafcon, authenticating Bravo X-ray November, over.”

  “Trafcon to Six Alpha, confirmed. Transponder ID now being transmitted to your console. Acknowledge receipt. Over.”

  After a brief pause the flight computer beeped, displaying a four-digit code. The pilot entered it into another panel.

  “Six Alpha to Trafcon, entered zero-niner-three-
one, squawking, over.”

  “Trafcon to Six Alpha, ID is correct and your transponder has now been registered. You are cleared to proceed direct to the arena from your present position. Over.”

  “Six Alpha to TrafCon, understood, thank you. Laredo Six Alpha out.”

  Looking out of her window, Yazata could see the laser cannon nearest to the transport pad on top of the bunker. It had trained around to aim at them as soon as the aircar had lifted into a hover. Now it turned lazily back onto its normal bearing, aiming out over the ruins of what had once been Banka as the aircar pulled away from the bunker, climbing steeply. She relaxed inwardly. Battle systems were supposed to be fail-safe, but what human ingenuity had devised, human ingenuity could also screw up. The Bactrian armed forces had learned that the hard way during their years of hard fighting on Laredo. Technology was all very well as long as it worked. When it didn’t…

  Her thoughts were interrupted as the General gestured towards the newly-built Royal Palace. They were passing it well to starboard. “I wonder if the Satrap and Crown Prince slept any better than we did?”

  “Considering the huge meal they ate last night, Sir, I venture to doubt it.”

  He grinned. “As long as they don’t burp on parade. That’s so terribly un-military!”

  Yazata had to stifle a sudden giggle, even as she noticed that Dehgahn, the pilot and the bodyguard coughed and spluttered, the latter putting his hand hastily over his mouth. Clearly they were no strangers to their boss’s sometimes irreverent sense of humor.

  Huvishka looked slowly and carefully around the city, as far as he could stretch his neck and twist his body. “Everything looks peaceful. No sign of enemy action during the night?”

  “No, Sir,” she responded. “I checked with the operations room just before we left. Everything’s quiet.”

  He glanced across at her. “You don’t sound very happy about that.”

  “I’m not, Sir. I still think this is an event the rebels have no choice but to attack if they’re to retain any credibility. It’s too quiet for my peace of mind.”