“Wing, status report,” Mad Max Lead shouted into his comm. An explosion to his rear was the only answer. The other assault gun had ripped through the second Gyrfalcon, permitting one of the two plasma bolts that struck the fighter to reach a fuel bladder. There wasn’t much left of the blast wave from the exploding Gyrfalcon by the time it reached Mad Max Lead, but it was enough to further fatigue the wing root damaged by the fléchette burst and rip it off. Mad Max Lead barely had time to see treetops rushing up before he crashed into them.
“Mount up, now!” Sergeant Daly ordered. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“What way?” Corporal Nomonon asked as he hauled himself behind the lorry’s controls.
“In a direction they don’t expect us to go,” Daly answered. “North. Go fast, let’s get some space between us and anybody else who shows up here.” Both the Gyrfalcon flight that attacked them and the flight they saw a few minutes before it had come from the north. If the search was shifting from the north to the south, they should go where it had been rather than where it was. The crashed aircraft started a forest fire behind them.
Lieutenant Svetlanacek and the Fifth Independent Armored Cavalry Platoon were the first ground unit to reach the site of the brief air-ground battle. Several acres of trees and undergrowth were still burning, but because of the previous night’s rain, the undergrowth and canopy ignited slowly and the fire didn’t spread rapidly.
“Two and three, search for survivors from the aircraft. And watch out for the raiders! If they could take out two fighter planes, they might have set an ambush or some other surprise for us.” He didn’t think that was likely, though. According to what he’d heard over the command net, the raiders hadn’t initiated the fight; instead they tried to hide, and didn’t fire until they’d been fired on. Most likely, they simply fled after knocking out the two Gyrfalcons. He set his own armored car to make a circuit of the burn to try to pick up the tracks of the lorry.
Sevtlanacek had Corporal Mirko drive counterclockwise around the burned and burning area, checking the south and east first because that’s the direction the lorry had been headed in since he began following its tracks. It wasn’t until the second circuit, a hundred meters farther out from the burn than the first circuit, that he found tracks— two sets of tracks. One set went due north, the other west of north. Which was which? Had the raiders met up with another group?
Svetlanacek pursed his lips in grudging respect for the raider commander. Heading into what that commander had to know was the center of the search area was an audacious move. But then, that commander, whoever he was, must have guessed that the search was shifting south and east, leaving the search area uncovered. Except, which set of tracks belonged to the raiders? He couldn’t tell, they’d both been made by the same kind of tires. He ordered Mirko to make another circuit and he found the second set of tracks leading into the burn. He plotted both sets on his map, but neither exit matched the entrance of the tracks he knew weren’t made by the raiders.
By the time Svetlanacek found the northbound tire tracks, his other cars had retrieved the mangled and charred bodies of the Mad Max pilots. Svetlanacek radioed in his report and told Hometown he wanted to follow the tracks that went due north. Hometown approved his decision, but vehicles and people had been seen on the ground south and west of the Cabbage Patch, and the search and pursuit were concentrating there. Svetlanacek ordered his platoon to follow the lorry’s tracks. Hometown sent one flight of Gyrfalcons to search the area west of north of the burn.
Seven Kilometers Due West of the Puddle Jumper Cache When Sergeant Daly’s map showed they were due west of where they’d left the puddle jumpers, he told Nomonon to turn right and go as fast as he could. Nomonon went faster than Doc Natron would have wanted, but while the extra jouncing was uncomfortable for his patients, it didn’t cause them any additional injury so he didn’t raise an objection.
Twenty Kilometers Due East of the Cabbage Patch
“Only two hundred and seventy kilometers to go,” Daly said ironically when they reached the puddle jumpers. He ordered second section to load the puddle jumpers, then changed the scale on his map so he could examine a larger area. He knew the lorry was leaving tracks on the ground, tracks that could be followed by any ground forces following them. They needed a paved road. The map showed a road twenty kilometers northwest of them; he shrank the scale again and saw it was the same southwest-northeast road that ran past the Cabbage Patch, the road they’d first followed in the opposite direction after the raid. The road continued northeast for twenty-five kilometers beyond its closest point to their current position before turning to wend its way east through the foothills of a mountain range. It passed fifty kilometers north of where the AstroGhost waited for them. Daly thought for a moment. Maybe he could get the AstroGhost to meet them somewhere along that fifty kilometers, closer to the road—maybe even somewhere along the road itself. If he could find a place and time to contact the Admiral Nelson , that was. It was worth trying.
He showed Nomonon the map and asked, “How long do you think it’ll take to get there?”
Nomonon looked at the map and shrugged. “Half an hour?”
“Do it.”
Thirty Kilometers Northeast of the Cabbage Patch
They reached the New Granum Road without incident. Sergeant Daly looked to the right, no traffic was in sight. He did see a vehicle in the distance to the left, but it seemed to be going away rather than toward them.
“Turn left,” he ordered.
Corporal Nomonon looked at him. “Don’t you mean right? Left takes us back where we started.”
“Anybody following us on the ground will see where we turned onto the road. Let’s go far enough for the dirt on the tires to beat off, then turn around without leaving the road and head the way we want to go. Nobody following the way we turn onto the road will catch up to us.”
Nomonon grinned. “You’re pretty smart, boss.” He turned left. A kilometer and a half after they turned onto the New Granum road, Corporal Pitzel reported they were no longer leaving dirty tire tracks in their wake. Nomonon stopped slowly enough to not leave marks on the pavement, then backed and filled without leaving the roadway until they were pointed northeast. He moved out at speed.
A couple of kilometers beyond where they’d turned onto the road, Daly saw a vehicle approaching from ahead of them.
“Take off your helmet and gloves,” he told Nomonon.
“What?”
“That driver up ahead might not realize that he doesn’t see your body, but he’ll certainly notice if he doesn’t see a driver at all in this lorry.”
“Good idea.”
Daly reached across and controlled the steering so Nomonon could use both hands to remove his helmet and gloves.
The driver of the other lorry waved as they passed. Nomonon raised a hand in reply, but low enough it wasn’t obvious his hand wasn’t visibly attached to an arm. The other driver didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
When the Fifth Independent Armored Cavalry Platoon reached the New Granum Road, Lieutenant Svetlanacek stopped his driver from turning left onto the road.
“But, sir, that’s where the lorry we’re following went,” Corporal Mirko objected.
“I know,” Svetlanacek replied as he looked up and down the road. One lorry was in sight in each direction. The one to the right was farther away, he thought both of them were too close to be the lorry they’d been following. Could their quarry already be out of sight to the left? Moreover, as slick as the raider commander was, would he still head directly back to the scene of his raid? That didn’t make sense. But if the enemy commander had gone left as a misdirection and then turned back . . . Yes, that’s what Svetlanacek thought he would have done. Svetlanacek decided to err on the side of caution. He got on the radio and requested a fly-by up the New Granum Road to check the registration number on the lorry headed toward the Cabbage Patch, and to see if the road held any other vehicles between his
position and the Cabbage Patch. It took almost fifteen minutes for a flight to break off from its search pattern and fly up the road from the Cabbage Patch. The lorry Svetlanacek saw was the only one on the road. It took a couple more minutes for the flight to drop low and buzz the vehicle to record its registration number before an urgent command sent it heading back southwest.
The lorry’s registration number didn’t match that of the one they were following.
“That’s it!” Svetlanacek exclaimed, thumping the dashboard. “He’s slick, but he’s not as smart as we are, eh, Mirko?”
“Not nearly as smart, sir,” Corporal Mirko said, returning the grin. He turned right, to follow the other lorry, which had now vanished beyond a turn to the northeast. The other two armored cars fell in behind.
“How long do you think it’ll take to catch him?” the lieutenant asked. Mirko thought it over, then said, “The M-40 armored car has a higher top road-speed than the C-18 cargo lorry does, sir. We can do better than a hundred kph, he can’t.”
“What is his top road-speed?”
Mirko shook his head. “Empty, about ninety or so. I don’t know how much weight he’s carrying, but anything more than a driver and navigator will slow him down.”
“Then let’s hope he’s carrying a lot of troops—and casualties,” Svetlanacek said grimly.
“Don’t worry, sir. We’ll catch him.”
Corporal Mirko speeded up. So did the platoon’s other two armored cars.
The New Granum Road, Forty-Five Kilometers Northeast of the Cabbage Patch
“He’s gaining on us,” Corporal Nomonon said, looking at the rearview screen.
“I see it,” Sergeant Daly said, also looking at the rearview. He looked at his map, calculating how much longer it would be before they pulled off to head south to the waiting AstroGhost. He also calculated when the Admiral Nelson would be above the horizon so he could transmit a request for the AstroGhost to meet them along the way.
He didn’t like the results of his calculations—the chasing vehicles would catch up with them too soon after they left the road.
“Brigo,” he said into the command circuit, “are there any aircraft in sight?”
“Negative, Jak,” Sergeant Kare answered. “We haven’t seen any flyers since the flight that buzzed that southbound lorry.”
“Thanks,” Daly said absently, and went back to his map. There, seven kilometers ahead, the New Granum cut through a low hill instead of going over it. The topo lines showed the sides of the hill were steep, which was probably why the road cut through instead of climbing over it…They could pull off the road on the other side of the cut and lay an ambush on its top. If the vehicles had open bodies, the Marines could lay plunging fire into them and wipe out the infantry they had to be carrying before they could react to the ambush. If not they might not be able to kill them.
“Listen up,” Daly said into the all-hands circuit, and told the platoon what they were going to do. He made another time check and saw he’d be able to contact the Admiral Nelson while they were in their ambush position.
Lieutenant Rak Svetlanacek tensed as his armored car approached the cut hill. It was exactly the kind of place he’d set an ambush himself if he was being followed. The hill to the sides of the cut were steep—almost, but not quite too steep for his armored cars to climb. But the raiders had never stopped to fight. He didn’t know why they’d stopped the first time and abandoned their lorry only to return to it, but the only other time he knew they stopped was when they killed the Mad Max fighter. He was pretty sure they’d stopped then to hide from the Gyrfalcons. They might have stopped right before they turned toward the New Granum Road, but that could have been to communicate with their headquarters or to decide what to do next.
So it was unlikely the raiders stopped to set an ambush at the cut. Nonetheless:
“Mirko, top speed. I want to get through that cut as fast as possible.”
“Me too, sir. Me too.” Mirko accelerated as fast as the armored car would go. The trailing armored cars also maxed their speed.
Daly nodded to himself when he saw the approaching armored cars speed up; he’d probably do the same thing himself if their positions were reversed. He swore softly when he saw the cars were covered instead of open; he didn’t know if the fléchettes of the two assault guns could penetrate the armor. He waited until the lead car was almost through the cut, then gave the order over the all-hands circuit,
“Fire!”
On the ambush’s right flank, third squad let loose with its fléchette gun. Sergeant Kare, on the gun, fired in front of the vehicle, and let it run into the stream of armor-piercing darts. The darts dug divots out of the road’s surface, then chewed gouges in the hood and top of the armored car—but not deeply enough to penetrate the car’s top. Next to him, feeding the gun, Lance Corporal Ilon suddenly cheered when he saw the fléchettes grind a hole through the thinly armored rear of the car and shred its rear wheels. The armored car fishtailed wildly, out of control. Kare turned his attention to the second vehicle, which was already heavily damaged by the other fléchette gun. His fléchettes joined a mass of blaster bolts slamming into and through a growing hole in the rear of the armored car. It swerved violently and slowed, and the third armored car slammed into its rear, sending it spinning and bouncing off the walls of the cut before it screeched to a stop. After hitting the second armored car, the third flipped and rolled over several times until it settled, rocking, on its top. After a moment, hatches slammed open on the two cars and a few soldiers began scrambling out. The Marines poured blaster and fléchette fire into them. The cavalrymen were all killed or severely wounded before any of them had a chance to return fire.
* * *
Corporal Mirko worked the controls of his car, but the road was too narrow for him to regain control of the damaged vehicle in time. It slewed off the road to the right, then crashed into a tree. Lieutenant Svetlanacek’s head slammed forward and hit the navigator’s control panel. He was knocked out by the blow, but regained consciousness quickly. Mirko was dazed. At Svetlanacek’s command, he fumbled with the car’s controls, but couldn’t restart its motor.
Realizing the armored car wouldn’t start, Svetlanacek wrestled with his door and wrenched it open with difficulty. “Get out,” he snarled at Mirko. The corporal’s door opened more easily, but he was groggy enough that he fell to his knees when he stepped out. The lieutenant stumbled around to the back of the vehicle. He was so surprised to find the rear door still closed he didn’t immediately see the hole knocked through it by the fléchette gun and blasters. He gasped in near despair when he did. But he didn’t give in; he grabbed the handle and yanked the door open.
A horrendous sight greeted him—blood-and-gore-spattered bodies were piled at the front of the troop compartment! Were all the soldiers dead?
No! Someone moaned. Someone else twitched a foot. Svetlanacek didn’t notice Mirko scramble into the troop compartment with him until the corporal began helping him sort the bodies out. Three of the ten soldiers were dead and another was dying. Two were wounded, but would be ambulatory once their wounds were bandaged. The others were only dazed from the shock of the crash.
The platoon commander of the Fifth Independent Armored Cavalry Platoon now had a command of only eight men, including the wounded, his driver, and himself. He didn’t know how large the raiding party was, but he knew there had to be more of them than he had. The raiders were also far better armed than his men—he hadn’t known they had guns powerful enough to break through an armored car’s skin.
He grabbed Mirko and ran back to the cab. Inside, he tried the radio, but it didn’t work—he couldn’t report the ambush! After a moment’s thought, he climbed to the commander’s cupola and detached the fléchette gun mounted in it. He handed the gun down to Mirko, then hoisted the ammunition tank. The gun was awkward to carry, and the tank was heavy enough that it required two men to carry it, but they were going to need the firepower if any of the
m were to survive the encounter.
“This way,” Svetlanacek ordered when he dismounted. He gave the ammunition tank to two of the least injured men. He led the way into the trees—and stopped abruptly. Directly in front of him was the lorry the raiders had escaped in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The President’s Conference Room, Administrative Center, New Granum, Union of Margelan, Atlas
“This is a war council,” Jorge Lavager began. “Yesterday morning, as many of you know, troops from South Solanum, possibly with assistance from other nations, attempted to assassinate me while simultaneously launching an attack on the agricultural research facility at Spondu, commonly known as the Cabbage Patch.”
Lavager stood before his cabinet and other top advisors in the same clothes he had worn when he left the government buildings twenty-four hours before. Since then he had fought for his life, walked nearly twenty kilometers to safety, organized the demoralized troops at the Cabbage Patch, initiated a pursuit of the raiders, and not slept a wink. Now he was before his cabinet, looking a sorry sight in his rumpled, torn, sweat-stained clothing. But as he spoke it was as if he’d just gotten out of bed after a good night’s rest.
“General Ollius,” he gestured at the new Chief of Staff, “has dusted off and revised a battle plan the army staff prepared some time ago as a response to just this sort of overt aggressive act. A complete report of the events is in front of you. Mr. Goumeray.” He nodded at the Minister of Information.
“Gentlemen,” Goumeray, a short, balding, bespectacled man in his early sixties, began in his high-pitched voice, “when we are done here this report will be released to the citizens of the Union of Margelan. At the same time it will be released to the other nation-states of Atlas, as well as to the Confederation of Human Worlds at its headquarters on Earth. It is as factual and complete as we have been able to make it up to now. Please take a few moments to read through it, and then General Ollius will brief you on our response plan.”
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