by Bruce Bethke
"That makes sense. But, sir, what if they're just out to blow up the dome, like at Volodya?"
The colonel shrugged. "Well in that case, Captain, we are well and truly screwed."
Fifteen minutes later the hopshuttle was beginning its final approach, and the silver-gray bubble that enclosed the Grimaldi Colony was growing visibly larger. Bunny felt her stomach tighten. It's just nerves, she told herself, just nerves. Not fear. But the knot inside grew tighter as the metallic dome expanded to fill her vision.
The pilot and his navgunner were both featureless behind their black-visored flight helmets, but she could sense that they were afraid, too. It was something in their posture, the tense awkwardness of their hands as they performed the familiar motions they must have performed a thousand times before.
"Any doubtfuls?" she leaned forward and called to the navgunner.
"Nothing," he assured her. "Hell, if their flight control system was active, you'd think we were dropping off the mail. Everything looks natural."
"Great," she said, relieved. But as she looked up at the screen displaying the external camera view, she saw the shuttle ahead of them stop its descent and level out, still twenty meters above the lunar surface. Not five seconds later she saw the first blue-clad figures drop from the belly of the wingless vehicle, falling slowly to the regolith below.
"What the hell?" Bunny swore angrily.
"Sorry, Captain. We've got orders straight from the wing CO for a bounce insert. We'd have done a high drop, except you aren't equipped for it."
"Damn!" She turned to her troops. "All right, men, it looks like the flyboys are in a hurry to get their butts out of here, so we're going to do a low drop. Blue-Green-Red is the order. Masrur, Shayek, you're responsible for getting your men on your feet and in the dome, got it? Okay, let's lose those straps, and whatever you do, don't lock your knees."
"The dust can be soft, but not so deep," Masrur added. "If you sink, don't panic, and remember we're radio silent. NVC only!"
"Sergeant, my touchpad isn't responding!" The voice of Mastora, one of the new men, held a note of panic as he frantically punched at his forearm.
Shayek, the NCO who had replaced Hasan as the Green Team leader, bent over to examine the touchpad, then raised his hands in dismay.
Masrur pointed to the man, and Rasul edged his way past two of the other Greens and ran his fingers over the lifeless black buttons. He grabbed the man's arm and, using both hands, whanged it loudly against the hard plaz side of the shuttle.
"Hey!" Shayek protested, but Mastora held up his arm triumphantly. The buttons on the touchpad were glowing a brilliant neon green. Rasul bowed deeply, and a couple of the troopers applauded.
Just in time, Bunny thought. Then the shuttle dropped suddenly and came to a halt as a panel slid back to reveal an opening in the floor.
"Go-go-go!" the navgunner shouted, and Bunny realized that the man was as scared as she was. If the nuclear core of the dome blew, everything inside the circle of the vast crater that enclosed Grimaldi would be vaporized. No doubt the pilots didn't plan to delay their departure for a second. Bunny couldn't blame them; she just wished she could stay on the vehicle and fly away with them.
I can't deal with this, she thought, and finally gave in to the impulse she'd been fighting since boarding the shuttle; she punched the command into her wristpad that sent a mild sedative coursing into her bloodstream. She immediately felt calmer, and it was with an almost tranquil air of detachment that she watched Shayek and the Green Team follow the last of Masrur's men out of the shuttle.
Who cares if the flyboys bug out? she thought. We don't need them anyway. Then it was her turn, and she cradled her pistol in both hands as she fell. Regulations called for keeping the weapon holstered during a low drop, but she was damned if she'd let it go. The ground came at her slowly, and the drugs in her system made the bluish gray surface appear to blur and swim. She didn't feel as if she was falling at all but rather floating gently to the surface, like a feather or a snowflake.
The impact brought her back to her senses with jarring jolt as she crumpled and rolled sideways. Then she was on her feet and moving in huge strides that took her into the airlock in only five bounds.
Colonel Houston was there, along with Squad One. She looked around and counted heads, relieved that the twelve members of her squad were all there.
Houston waved her over, and his voice spoke in her helmet. "No need for radio silence here. We've scanned the area and haven't picked up a thing yet. How was your flight?"
"A little rough on the landing, sir, but we're none the worse for wear."
"Good." He pressed a few buttons on his touchpad. "BatCom sent me a layout of this dome on the way over, and I just uploaded it to your suits. I want you to clear quadrant four, the area marked in blue. We don't have time for a thorough search, so go as quick as you can and let me know the minute you're done, because we're leaving quadrants one and three for last."
"Where's First Platoon going?"
"Straight for the core. I don't want to risk another Volodya. I'm taking this crew over to quadrant two; we'll secure the other main airlock, then make our way to the communications center."
"You want one of my teams?"
"No. The weapon crates from the recent shipment are probably in the warehouse, in your quad."
"Okay, I see them on the map. They're marked in green." "Right. If the Loonies aren't going for the core, they're probably there, so you better be in full effect." "Yes, sir. Good luck, sir."
Houston clapped her on the shoulder. "Just watch out for the second team this time. And think nice thoughts about First Platoon while you're at it."
"Yes, sir! I just wish we had a little pixie dust, sir." Bunny saluted and gestured to her men. "All right, Squad Two, call up your map and zoom to the blue area, quad four. We're on a fast search-and-destroy, but we also have to secure a weapons cargo in the warehouse area; that's green on the map. Red and Green Teams will enter the quadrant from the main hallway, and Blue will go around and move in from the south. Got it?" She clapped her hands. "Good. Let's do it!"
The air of confidence she was trying to project buoyed her up and banished her fears for a moment—until she heard Asrad over the comm link: "And if the core goes, may Allah receive our souls."
Dalton peered ahead into the murk at the tunnel's end, trying to see what luck, if any, Britt was having with the panel on the wall in front of him. The ventilation shaft was gray and dingy, and even with full light amplification it was somewhat difficult to make out details due to the monochromatic gray-and-white design of the walls.
He watched as Britt tried for the third time to slide a generic smartkey into a small slot on the panel, but as before, the lock's defenses easily defeated the key's de-scrambling virus and beeped out a warning. Since they'd already shut down the dome's communications center, they couldn't just tap into the Central Computer; instead, they had to work their way past the individual defenses of every door and elevator.
Thoughtfully tapping his gloved fingers on the soft gray insulation of the wall he was leaning on, Dalton extracted a device from his black utility belt and stepped forward.
"Maybe I can help," he suggested. Britt nodded and stepped to the right, making room for Dalton in front of the panel.
Unlike Britt's smartkey, Dalton's norton had a thin cable sticking out of it, causing it to resemble a credit card with a rat's tail. He plugged the cable into a socket on his forearm, just above the touchpad, linking the norton to his suit's computer, then inserted the card into the lock slot. There was a brief pause, and a digital readout began appearing on his helmet's heads-up display.
The lock's antivirus was a standard one, hard if not impossible to bypass if you didn't recognize it or didn't have the proper tools, but it was no problem for Dalton. He murmured a few words into his speech link and clenched his fist in triumph as the v-hack identified him to the lock as a registered user. He pressed the button on the small pa
nel next to the slot, and the lights on the panel switched from red to green just as a loud mechanical whine was heard. Somewhere nearby a door had been unlocked.
None of the commandos said anything, but Britt gave him a thumbs-up, and he could sense that the others were relieved that their intelligence was correct, and perhaps even somewhat impressed with him. Stahl's helmet angled toward him briefly in something that might have been a nod. Dalton began to understand that the commando team probably did need a computer specialist after all.
He removed the card from the slot and popped the cable out of his arm, then tucked the norton back into his belt. He started to fall into his place at the end of the line, but Akkerman, the Swiss commando from Volodya, stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Akkerman tapped his own ACR, then pointed to Dalton, reminding him to draw his weapon. Dalton's newfound confidence began to dissipate again.
Dalton turned the corner and stopped in confusion. The narrow hallway ahead had four passageways leading off of it, two to the left and two to the right, and there was no sign of which way the others had gone. He turned and looked at Akkerman, but the Volodyan held two fingers up, then pointed to two different passageways, indicating that they should each examine one.
Not again, Dalton thought. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he called up the mission map and examined it calmly. Okay, a right and right. No problem. He took the first passage to the right, turned right again at the next corner, and found himself face-to-face with a blue-armored UN trooper just stepping off the elevator.
"Yikes!" Dalton yelled, casting caution, radio silence, and his pistol aside as he quickly threw himself forward.
The UN trooper seemed just as surprised to see Dalton as Dalton was to see him, but he managed to get off a burst that bit into the wall just behind where Dalton's head had been a moment before. Dalton hit the floor hard, landing awkwardly on his left side a meter or two away from his weapon. He looked over at the pistol, then back up at where the trooper had been, but the Terran had moved too, wedging himself against the north wall and positioning himself for a finishing shot.
The shot never came, as Akkerman, coming around the corner, fired four shots in rapid succession that first blew the UN trooper back, then collapsed his shields. The blue-armored soldier fell to the floor, and one of the oxygen minitanks strapped to his belt came loose and rolled toward Dalton's face, finally coming to a stop with an audible clink on his visor.
Akkerman bent over to pick it up and gravely handed it to Dalton. "To the victors," he said. "Behind you!" Dalton shouted.
Akkerman threw himself to one side just as a bronze laser probe floated in through the elevator shaft and opened fire. Two of the rounds smashed home and exploded in a blue-green arc, but Akkerman's shields held long enough to allow him to leap the other way and take cover around the corner. As the drone continued to fire at the commando, Dalton desperately crawled forward and reached out for the dead Terran's ACR.
Stretching his left arm as far as it would reach, he grasped the weapon and, rolling over on his back, fired the high energy rifle at the probe over his head. The probe's paltry shields disintegrated immediately before the power of the ACR, and it exploded in a ball of flame, sending a violent shower of metallic shards slicing through the hallway and down upon Dalton as well.
His shields flared briefly but had no difficulty keeping the shrapnel from piercing his armor. Defending against metal projectiles was the sort of thing energy shields were originally designed for, and Dalton made a mental note always to remember to keep his batteries charged. Still lying flat on his back, he closed his eyes and murmured a brief prayer of thanksgiving.
"Good thinking, man!" he heard Akkerman say, and he opened his eyes to see the Volodyan standing over him. The commando holstered his pistol and extended a hand to help him to his feet. Dalton staggered as pain shot through his left knee, but it was just a momentary twinge, and after taking a few tentative steps, he found he was able to walk normally.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm all right. I twisted my knee when I hit the deck."
Oh. Well, I think I know which way the others went."
"Great. We can't use our radar, right?"
"Right. That's how that gunship was able to hunt us down. We can't use our comm links, either. They're too easy to intercept. Line-of-sight tight beam laser like this is the only safe way to communicate."
Dalton grimaced, knowing that his ignorance and careless forgetfulness had almost gotten them all killed. "Don't worry, I won't forget again."
"No, you won't," Akkerman agreed. "But that doesn't matter now. Anyhow, follow me. I found a dead UN guard just around the corner while I was dodging that probe you killed. It's along our original route, so I'll bet our men came this way."
As they turned the next corner, though, they found that the corridor ended in a white plazbrick wall. Akkerman stopped abruptly, then slapped his leg in frustration.
"I should have known those maps were no good. But look: this is the hall, don't you think? Unless we got messed up again in that little rat's maze back there."
Dalton's eyes narrowed as he called the map up on his helmet display. This definitely seemed to be the correct path, and the dead guard surely indicated that the rest of the squad had been this way. He shut the map off and called up a 4x zoom filter on his visor.
Then he smiled. "We are going the right way, Akkerman. Look at this!"
There was a very thin gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling. Due to the white coloring of both and the dim lighting, the gap was hard to see, but it was there nonetheless. He tried to put his fingers in the crack and pry at it, but his armored gloves were too thick.
He turned to face his companion. "There's got to be some sort of triggering device around here somewhere. Take a look."
But after five minutes of fruitlessly prodding and pushing at every inch of the door as well as the nearby walls, they had to admit defeat.
Akkerman shrugged philosophically. "If we can't find our way to the warehouse and help secure it, we'll just have to try to tap into the Central Computer and shut the ion shield down. That's the prime objective anyway, and you don't need help for that. There's a ventilation system just back a bit the way we came. That panel you unlocked may or may not give us access to it, but we can at least have a look-see. Maybe we can find another way to get to the brain center."
"What do we do if we can't find another way there?"
"I don't know. Hide and hope, I guess. Or maybe we can get back to the shaft we came in through. But unless we find the way out on our own, taking down the shield is our only chance. With the shield up, there's no way our reinforcements can get in."
"Reinforcements?"
"Don't you worry about that. Just get the shield down, and everything will be okay. I promise. So let's check out that vent shaft, shall we?"
Dalton gave him a thumbs-up, but his thoughts were whirling like crazy. High command told us reinforcements can't get here unless the ion shield is down, he thought. But that doesn't make sense, unless we have some sort of energy-based heavy artillery that the shield would negate. But shelling the dome can't be what we're after, because if they wanted us to destroy the dome, they'd just have us blow the reactor in the first place.
He stared intently at the Volodyan's armored back as they retraced their path back to the elevator. Clearly, Akkerman knew something he didn't, but it was just as clear that the man had no intention of telling him. Well, that was okay. He had enough worries to concern himself with now without adding any more.
Chapter 13
Grimaldi Colony
14 November 2069
22:00 GMT
Colonel Josef von Hayek knew something was wrong even before the green laser flashed against his left shield. Squeezing off two bursts at his unseen assailant, he leaped off the platform he was standing on down to the plaz floor below.
A blue explosion engulfed him, and he was sent violently sprawling forward as
his shields ablated the force of the lasers.
"Dammit, Stahl, get that launcher up here now!" he screamed as he rolled over, hoping desperately that the grenadier was within the short beam's radius.
Two laser drones appeared in front of him, dangerous and eerie as they rose silently, but they headed away from him, toward the rest of the squad. There was a blast and a flare of light, and a grenade arced past the probes to explode harmlessly on the far wall. One drone darted to Josef's right and began firing, while the other continued to rise slowly, as if locking on to a better firing angle. Oh, no you don't, thought Josef, as he centered his sights on the second drone.
Before he could squeeze the trigger, a heavy chud-chud-chud filled his speakers and he saw tracer rounds slicing through the probes as the chaingunner worked his rapid-fire weapon back and forth across the room. Both probes were enveloped in flame and dropped toward the floor, exploding as they fell.
Way to go, Britt. Josef pumped his fist and rose warily to his feet, his ACR pointed carefully in front of him. Moments later, Godfrey, Stahl, and Mahoney leaped down from the platform to join him. He waited a moment, then looked up at the platform, expecting Akkerman and Starkiller to leap down as well.
Puzzled, he stepped between Godfrey and Stahl as he switched his comm mode to short-beam array.
"Where's our net boy?"
"I don't know, Colonel," Britt replied. "I 'it the deck when those probes started shooting, and Stahl was behind me.
Stahl spoke up. "I was the last one through. I think I may have bumped an access panel while I was trying to bring this bitch into play." He patted the big bronze-and-red grenade launcher.
"Damn! Next time stick to your laser. Those little probes move faster than grenades do." Josef pointed at Britt. "Jump back up there and see if you can get the door open. We've got to find Starkiller. Without him we're in deep trouble."
"Akkerman is with him," Stahl pointed out, as the one-sixth-G gravity helped Britt make the three-meter leap with ease. "He can't get too lost." Colonel von Hayek said nothing, only waited with growing unease until Britt returned.