"Just under a hundred and ten," said Cal, "if you don't count the Cambodian villagers. I've been trying to keep our presence here quiet, but word always leaks out. Some of the locals with military training have been trying to volunteer."
Don smiled. It was a case of impossible odds against far superior forces, and people were volunteering! It must say something about the human race.
He slipped through the cloth and went to see how Jo was doing. After that he would debrief the Dayak hunters. He was the only one who could speak any Indonesian, a small problem he had not foreseen.
The IT section was deep in the cave system, where it was cool and dry. It had solar panels on the slopes above, but there was an annoying limit on battery storage.
No one else was around when Don dropped in, so he put his arms around Jo and drew her to him. He winced as she hugged him back, and she immediately wanted to know why.
"Got a bit banged up on patrol today," he said, "nothing a day's rest and some painkillers won't put right – well, almost right."
He could see she wanted to know more, so he kissed her on the forehead instead, and told her if they survived this insane battlefield they would buy a cottage in the country, and he would bring her breakfast in bed every day for the rest of her life.
"No you won't," she said, "you always want to – you know."
"Oh," he said, "after that then."
She pushed her head back, so she was looking up at him. "I think my team's as prepared as it's ever going to be," she said. "There are a dozen ways I Wadu, Sufian, and I might be able to bring the citadel to a halt, if we can get into its electronic systems. The trouble is we don't know which ones are going to work.
"Just get us inside the citadel and buy us some time."
Don nodded. "How is the little guy?" he asked, and Jo took him to one of the crates along the back wall. I Wadu looked like old clothing, buried in the padding he'd been packed away with.
"No sign of life yet?" said Don. She shook her head.
"His vital signs are good – very weak of course – and I keep increasing his blood saline as he told me to. It replicates the way his body would come out of hibernation naturally."
It would be good to get him back as part of Jo's team. It had been I Wadu's idea to enter the natural hibernation state of his people for the trip over, to keep him out of sight. A week of fasting had brought it on.
"When he's up and rested, we'll introduce him to Cal," said Don. "Dassin's translation program can cope at a conversational level, right?"
Jo nodded. Five minutes later, Don was talking to Menan and Pejuang. They were very interested in the way he'd killed the Aeskri. Don hadn't put them in the field yet, but he knew a situation that suited their unusual abilities would arrive soon enough.
He watched in fascination as they carefully selected hardwoods from the surrounding trees. Then they carved projections they tied to the front of their blowpipes with seemingly endless amounts of thread. The blowpipes looked shorter than Don remembered. Perhaps they were adapting them to fight the Aeskri.
The three of them talked for a long time about tactics. The Dayak ways of bringing down dangerous animals in junge conditions made more sense in their current situation than Don's SAS training.
It was Pejuang who asked if they could speak to the Cambodian villagers who wanted to volunteer. Don promised to arrange an interpreter, and send someone to round up the most experienced of the Cambodians. Then he left.
Twenty minutes later, the strategy meeting at Cal's office wasn't going well. The more traditional commanders were trying to find ways to boost the strike force's firepower, and talking about acceptable losses. Don, and the more lateral thinkers, knew they had to come up with a completely new military strategy.
"Could you describe this body armour the Aeskrl wear," said Cal, and the large tent under the trees fell quiet.
"It's a body shield," corrected Don, "some type of energy barrier. It's impossible to see under normal circumstances, but it colours up during an impact, like a ripple that spreads out and dies away.
"As far as I could see the Aeskri wasn't wearing anything that directly generated the shield, so it must draw the power from the citadel itself. If we could see in the right spectrum, we might notice lines from walls and ceilings keeping the shield constantly charged, but that's only a guess.
"The question is, how do we get through that body shield."
"Insulation," said Brun, from Cal's Waiouru science team. "A non-conducting point is least likely to be sensed as an attack by the shield. Once a cylinder has followed the point through, the shield will reform around it. At least that's my understanding of Faraday cages and breaching points. Bullets should then pass through the cylinder and bypass the shield."
"I want a workable system in 24 hours," said Cal. "Tomas, get Brun and the rest of your team on it. Don, you're with them. Pass on everything you remember.
"There were some interesting reports from other patrols as well. Izem?" Izem sent Briggs forward to talk about the deactivation devices for the citadel machines that Jo's team had made up. Briggs had proved useful training the people of Izem's village, and he was currently running the twenty-four strong contingent under Izem's watchful eye.
In the end Cal had several projects underway, all marked 'extremely urgent'. He hoped to whatever God looked after this planet that one of them would open up a way of killing the invaders.
61
Cambodian citadel
Phnum Sankoh wildlife sanctuary, Cambodia
It was a strange assortment of soldiers and machines that crept out of the treeline around the citadel three days later. Don flexed his shoulder. He was pleased with his recovery from the damage he had sustained against the Aeskri.
The men, and some women, of the strike force should be immune to nanobots if the Aeskri had adapted them for warfare. The ways the soldiers could die, however, were still many and unknown. Continuing to fight under these conditions was bravery of the highest order.
Don and his team were coming off the ridge where they had started their first mission. Just along from them, four construction trucks and two scoop loaders were running on diesel the Cambodian villagers had scavenged from the surrounding area.
The machines had made their way up a ruined road and along a jungle path – turning it into a 4WD track as they went – two nights ago. They had left a roading depot at Veal Veaeng, on the outskirts of the wildlife sanctuary, and travelled one at a time through the jungle, as quietly as they could. Now they were roaring a challenge, and each one was followed by a number of fighters who were using it as cover.
The bay doors facing the ridge opened, all five of them, and squat black shapes wheeled smoothly out onto the causeway. Don realised from Cal's description that these must be the citadel's security guards. The doors closed behind them.
Don smiled. It looked like the Aeskri were ready for a scrap. It was nice when the enemy showed up early. He looked up at the sun, about an hour above the hills to the east, and knew he had done everything he could to prepare for this.
It was a little routine he went through each time he fought. Something that helped him let go of worries and thoughts. From now on he would live second by second, in a world of action and reaction. Most of it would be instinctive.
A jagged bolt of energy arced out from the top of the citadel, and the ground erupted under a platoon of Gurkhas on Don's far left. He watched as half of them picked themselves up, and the other half lay where they had fallen.
He looked up at the smooth bubbles scattered along the top of the citadel above the doors. The enemy stronghold wasn't round, but neither was it that irregular in shape. It looked like a rocky outcrop, with sheer sides and an unnaturally flat top. The bubbles had been placed where there was a bulge outward, and the bubbles were the stronghold's weapons.
He lifted his rifle and put two alloy bullets into a bubble above the bay doors. It didn't seem to have any effect. Other rifles cracked with t
he same hard, flat sound of the specialised bullets, and he saw more hits on the same bubble. It still had no effect.
He was about to organise a more targeted response when Cal's voice sounded crisply over his headset. Every rifle on Don's side of the citadel targetted the two bubbles above the line of bay doors. The bubbles gave with a blinding flash of light, and left a sizeable hole.
Cal was up on the ridge behind him, looking at camera feeds from all four points of the compass around the citadel. He had the drone back in the air as well. The strike force was getting detailed instructions as the action unfolded.
More bolts arced out from the citadel, and the first of the construction trucks was hit. It was thrown on its side, and Don saw in surprise that the middle of it was gone. The rest had expanded into an almost circular ring. It looked like a giant washer.
Cal's crisp tones sounded in Don's headset again, and the drivers of the remaining trucks and loaders jumped clear, leaving the vehicles in gear. The machines continued to grind their way slowly down the hill.
Several more energy arcs hammered out, and the troops spread out to make less of a target. Thinking that a position against the walls, directly under the bubbles, might be safer, the soldiers already on the causeway surged forward.
When they were halfway along it, they opened up on the squat shapes of the security guards. Lead bullets had no effect, but alloy bullets punched through the surface layers and chewed away at the machinery inside. The Gurkhas had a small number of RPGs with them, and these caused a satisfying amount of damage.
With only a few of the citadel guards remaining, the leading troops surged forward to the walls of the citadel. It was a mistake. The guards that were left went on the attack, and they were deadly at anything less than three metres. Their main weapon was a smaller version of the energy arcs, and long, bladed arms that snapped out and cut through flesh or metal.
A number of demolition charges, with short, fail-safe fuses, were attached to the bay doors, and then Cal's voice ordered the vanguard to fall back.
As the strike force retreated, the time for the charges to detonate passed without them activating. The explosives had been dealt with, probably by the spiders once again.
The only way to get inside the citadel at the end of the causeway was to blow the doors, but that wasn't working. To add to their problems the majority of bubbles around the top of the citadel were still intact. The strike force wasn't achieving anything, and Cal called the attack off. It was a hasty retreat, and more of the troops fell to the energy arcs.
That night the citadel tried to track down its attackers. The valleys closest to the citadel were hit again and again with random bolts of energy, and groups of the citadel guards patrolled the area the nanobots had scraped clean.
The Gurkha camp, however, remained unscathed. Colonel Thapa's careful camouflaging seemed to be keeping them safe from aerial surveillance. Don remembered the two alien space stations still circling above the Earth, and knew they were searching for the camp as well.
The following day Cal initiated a reserve plan. Teams of engineers and diggers went to map out the cave system they'd discovered, and find the points closest to the citadel. The mined area under the citadel would be huge, but how close to the caves was it?
Ground-penetrating radar, easily available before the earthquakes, would have been ideal. Now they could only dig quietly forward until they broke through. It had the marks of WW1 trench warfare all over it.
A week after the first attack on the citadel, one of the digging teams punched through into the cavern. From there it was a matter of moving their forces up as quickly as they could, and trying to catch the Aeskri by surprise.
Don's team were rostered in at the end of the first hour. A bottleneck had formed between an underground lake, and a side wall of the cavern. Don dropped behind a pile of rocks along the front line, Mosha and Bull beside him. Graham was already there, with two Gurkhas he had befriended. They had all been previously wounded, and were now a team, with their leaders' blessing.
The smell of noxious gases made Don look more closely at the lake. It was stagnant, and smelled of industrial waste. The Aeskri were treating their home base a lot worse than the citadels Cal had investigated.
The steady whump of mortars sounded behind the men, and there were bright flashes in the darkness ahead. An early shell had hit the roof of the cavern, dropping the pile of rocks Don and his team were now hiding behind. After that the mortars had moved back, and lowered their trajectories.
There had been Phillipino accents around the base camp for days now. Fishing boats were hauling in munitions from what was left of the US bases in the Phillipines. Don had marvelled at their arrival, so far from home. Cal was like a spider, with connections everywhere.
A group of citadel guards and mining machines burst through the bottleneck and advanced on Don's position. Stealthy figures moved out of the darkness to meet them. RPG trails scored the darkness as they closed in on the machines, and the cavern was full of fire and light.
Don's night scope took a moment to reset itself, and then he saw a citadel guard fry one of the human attackers with an energy arc. Another sliced at a figure beside it, the attack blocked by a rifle. The swinging arm cut deeply into the metal and carbon fibre, and snatched the weapon away as the arm retracted. The bark of alloy bullets from Mosha and Graham destroyed both guards.
The mining machines had been adapted for the purpose of killing. One on Don's right, down by the water, flashed brightly as the ores it was carrying turned to superheated gases, and went off like an incendiary bomb. It started to reset itself for another blast, and a human form ran up and slapped something onto its metal surface. The machine stopped moving.
Colonel Thapa dropped down next to Don.
"Thought that was you," he said, in perfect English. Don grunted a welcome.
"Those devices your IT team gave us work all right," he said, "but the Aeskri can tell when their machines have been compromised. You might want to get your head down."
Don complied, and a few moments later there was a thunderous roar as the mining machine detonated. Gravel and small rocks splattered down, and a cloud of dust obscured the area to their right.
"We're not getting anywhere, are we?" said Don, casting his eyes over the battleground.
"I've been thinking of pulling out for the last ten minutes," said Thapa resignedly. The withdrawal started five minutes later. A day later the parts of the cave system that came near the cavern were set up with mining charges and collapsed.
It was back to the drawing board for the resistance.
62
Strike force base
Phnum Sankoh wildlife sanctuary, Cambodia
The space stations attacked the base camp the same night. Most of the camp personnel had not yet retired to their sleeping quarters, and that saved many lives.
Fairy lights at the side of the path were guiding Don back to his dormitory, when brilliant flashes of white cut through the darkness. They were close, on his left and right. He knew without thinking it was the kitchen area and the shower block.
A white bubble the size of a truck appeared in front of him, and then collapsed in on itself. The stump of a substantial tree, shattered a foot above the ground, was all that was left. The end of a makeshift dormitory had been laid cleanly open.
Thapa started yelling something moment's before Don did. The message was the same, and it couldn't have been more urgent.
"Exfil to the caves! Check for wounded! Don't stop for anything!
"Going black! Going black! All personnel de-ass asap!"
At least Jo and her team were still at the IT site inside the caves. They'd been working all hours, and he usually had to drag her away to get some sleep around midnight. Don hoped that was the case tonight.
The attack broadened, and a line of white bubbles sprang up across Don's passage. He understood. The space stations had targeted heat signatures first, and now it was saturation bombi
ng.
He ran through the empty space where a bubble had just been. There was a strange metallic odour, and a fine white powder drifted slowly toward the forest floor.
The cave was some distance from the camp, and less of a target for the bubbles. Don was thankful for that as he ran the last hundred metres. A small crowd was standing by the cave entrance, and he got them inside. If the Aeskri were targetting heat signatures, there was no point in giving them another one to aim at.
The sharp crump of the bubbles continued for another five minutes. The stream of refugees from the camp dwindled away to nothing. When the bombing stopped, there was nothing left in an area a kilometre by a half.
Don thought wryly it saved burying the bodies. There was already a graveyard on a flat beside a stream, a kilometre from the camp. There would be a service for the dead when this was over – if there was anyone left to attend it.
Cal gathered the survivors in the largest part of the cave system, a good-sized chamber not far from the entrance. They found somewhere to sit along the wall, or sat cross-legged on the floor. There were less than half the numbers that had converged on the Gurkha camp nine days ago.
A plastic desk and chairs had been brought out from the office area, but Cal made a point of standing, so his voice would carry.
"We all knew we were going into the unknown when we agreed to this mission," he said. "Hell, there won't be any more missions if this one fails. We'll either be extinct on some whim of the Aeskri, or living in caves as hunters and gatherers."
"We're living in a cave right now," pointed out Graham. There was a smattering of laughter, and Cal let the comment pass.
"The attack tonight came from one of the two space stations the Aeskri still have," he said. "I had information showing the space station was altering its orbit, but I didn't realise it was going to overpass our camp here. If there's any fault to be found, it should be laid at my door."
Struggle for a Small Blue Planet Page 27