Vanguard

by Jack Campbell

  “We’re putting these on the most critical parts of this site,” she told the others. “When these thermite bombs ignite, the thermite in them will burn at something over two thousand degrees centigrade, melting right through everything they’re on and everything under that.”

  “Can they put it out?” Obi asked.

  “Thermite? Yeah, if they’ve got the right stuff. There are special powders that can bind with the thermite,” Mele said. “Other than that? No. I watched thermite burn out in the shell of a spacecraft once. Full vacuum. It just kept going until the thermite had all oxidized.”

  Back inside the control room, Mele found Hedy carefully entering some commands. “Can you give me the right time for this? I’m going to power up the cannon so the power storage cells are at peak when the thermite melts into them. The explosion that sets off will destroy anything that the thermite hasn’t slagged.”

  “You engineers love doing this kind of thing, don’t you?” Mele asked, leaning down to look at the display in front of Hedy. “Your time is good.”

  “Thanks. Yeah. You know what they say, engineering is like science, only louder.” Hedy stood up. “We’re ready. It’s all on auto. I admit I’m nervous to be inside this site with those thermite bomb timers ticking and the cannon about to power up.”

  “Then let’s get out.” Directing the rest of the team to hoist the bound techs and carry them, Mele went last, making sure no one was left behind.

  She closed the blast doors as they passed each one, pausing only long enough to fire energy pulses from her rifle into the lock panels so that getting through the doors again would be a major chore for the techs and soldiers from Scatha.

  “What is the power plant going to do when that cannon starts drawing power big-time?” Hedy asked Mele. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “It’s okay. They’ll do one of two things,” Mele said. “Either call and ask what’s going on, or assume they didn’t get told about something and not worry.”

  “If they call, they won’t get any answer.”

  “As long as they spend another . . . half hour arguing about it before they send anyone, it won’t matter.”

  They were outside again. Scatha’s base remained silent, but the quiet now wore at Mele with the feeling that menace lurked unseen and soundless just out of sight. Things had gone too well. Something always went wrong, so what would it be and when?

  They dropped off the bound techs, still unconscious, about halfway between the antiorbital weapon site and the command and control bunker, Mele ensuring the two were placed inside a drain culvert to protect them from the mayhem that would soon erupt. Both were still out cold. She made sure the gags didn’t obstruct their ability to breathe through their noses.

  Obi turned a worried gaze on Mele. “I know we’re not hurting them, but what are the guys in charge here going to do to these two once they find out we’ve done so much damage?”

  “All we can do is what we can do,” Mele said, not surprised that once Obi had seen the techs as people she had lost any desire to kill them out of hand. “I’m sure not hauling them out of here with us.”

  At the command bunker, Grant was waiting just outside the front entrance, weapon ready as he scanned his surroundings. “Are we ready?”

  “You tell me,” Mele said.

  “All bombs planted. I just have to set the timer for the fuel-air explosive that will pop the top off this fixer-upper.”

  “Do it, and get everyone else out here. Obi, start leading them back to the tunnel entrance. You know where it is? Right. Listen up, everyone. Nobody relax yet. Stay in full-alert mode until we get inside that tunnel again and are riding the ’pede back to the WinG.”

  Mele waited with growing nervousness as the last members of the team left the bunker. As soon as Grant gave her an all clear she waved him off to join the others, then waited, cautiously watching for any sign of alarm. She checked the pad. Ten minutes until both malware bombs at remote sites and physical bombs at the bunker and big gun started going off.

  “I cut this a little too close,” she muttered, backing away from the bunker, then running to join the others through the deceptively peaceful quiet of the night.

  Almost everyone was inside the tunnel when Mele reached them. She waved the last two inside, lowering herself behind them but keeping her eyes on the bunker.

  Which was why she saw the ground vehicle pull up at the command bunker. Her lower body already inside the tunnel, Mele laid her upper body on the ground, watching. Three soldiers got out of the vehicle, moving with the slow, casual pace of people who expected no danger. Distant sounds of conversation came to her, too faint to make out but followed by unmistakable laughter.

  Five minutes left. If these soldiers from Scatha realized what had happened and acted quickly, they could still disarm some of the bombs.

  Chapter 12

  “Obi! Give me back the hunting rifle!” Mele lowered her pulse rifle to those fully in the tunnel and brought up the hunting weapon, loading a round and aiming hastily.

  The rifle bucked against her shoulder as she fired.

  If it had been an individual soldier, she might well have missed. But the tight group of three made a bigger target. The sound of the shot, soft as it was, caused the three Scatha soldiers to start to turn at the noise, which had been muffled enough by the silencer to not immediately sound like a slug thrower rifle going off.

  One of the soldiers fell backward abruptly.

  Shouts rang out as the other two soldiers went to ground.

  Less than three minutes. “Get everyone seated on the ’pede!” Mele ordered, aiming again.

  What would those soldiers do? The bunker was right behind them, where they would expect to find help. But why risk jumping up and running into it when they could call for help? There was a patrol out there, right?

  Mele’s pad alerted her that signals were being sent. Alerts from comms held by those two soldiers. But Ninja’s software was blocking the alerts.

  She fired again, aiming for the ground vehicle to be certain her shot would hit something and discourage the remaining two soldiers from rising.

  One minute. Some big bombs were about to go off, and she was still way too close.

  She aimed and fired again, ready to fall back, but didn’t leave enough time.

  Ninja’s device chirped a warning. “Damn! Stay down!” Mele yelled to her team, dropping her upper body again to lie prone herself.

  A titanic crash echoed across the plain. The heavy armor forming the top of the command bunker catapulted into the air from the force of the explosion inside the bunker. Mele caught a glimpse of the ground vehicle that had brought the soldiers to the bunker being flung aside as if slapped by a giant. The two soldiers outside the bunker probably died never knowing what had hit them.

  An even more powerful series of blasts erupted from the antiorbital weapon site as thermite reached the maximized power storage cells, and everything let loose at once inside the armored structure. Jagged openings were torn in the protective armor, showers of burning thermite being hurled outward. The massive top of the site sagged downward into the devastation beneath it as the glow of melting metal lit the night.

  Mele slid completely into the tunnel, shoving the plug of dirt and vegetation roughly back into place. The outside sounds of panic and destruction faded as the plug blocked and absorbed most of the noise. Anyone searching the field in daylight would spot the sagging place that marked the tunnel entrance, but every delay in Scatha’s soldiers finding the tunnel would be important. She expected that Scatha’s remaining soldiers would be busy for a little while with other matters, but no sense in making things easier for the enemy.

  The ’pede could go back the way they had come simply by being driven from the opposite end. Mele climbed onto the last position of the ’pede, trying to slow herself down and think. “Does ev
eryone have their weapon? Are all weapons on safe? Grant, Obi, is everyone accounted for?”

  A chorus of replies assured her that all was as well as could be expected with explosions still rocking Scatha’s base, the walls of the tunnel trembling around them in a very disquieting way. Mele thought at this point the new explosions must mark software-controlled equipment suffering destructive failure because of the malware bombs. When she got a chance, she would have to ask Riley about some of the locations those bombs had been sent to.

  “We’re not safe yet!” Mele called. “Get this thing moving! Maintain the best speed you can! The sooner we get back to WinG, the better!”

  “Is this what being a Marine is like?” Obi called back to Mele.

  “Part of it,” she said, watching tensely for any sign that Scatha’s soldiers had spotted the tunnel entrance behind them.

  “I like it.”

  “Then you might be crazy enough to be a Marine,” Mele said as the ’pede rolled rapidly through the tunnel. “Listen up everyone! This isn’t over! We’re still way too close to the hornets’ nest that we stirred up at Scatha’s camp. They’re mad as hell right now, and as soon as they figure out we’re responsible, they’re going to be looking very hard for us so they can get even!”

  As if timed to emphasize her warning, the tunnel reverberated again to a distant vibration as something else big blew up back at the Scatha base.

  “What was that?” someone asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mele said.

  “Maybe the power plant,” Hedy suggested. “There shouldn’t be anything left to blow that big at the antiorbital site.”

  “Could be,” Riley agreed, his voice echoing off the tunnel walls. “Several malware bombs were planted in the power plant’s operating software. The design wouldn’t allow a runaway nuclear reaction, but there could have been a need to dump energy fast that resulted in a regular explosion.”

  The conversation sounded weird, Mele thought. Hurtling along through the dark tunnel, the glow of the headlight barely visible ahead, and engineers discussing in academic terms what probably just blew up.

  “If the power plant blew,” Hedy added, “they’ll be able to keep basics running using solar, but their manufacturing is going to slow a lot. It’s going to hurt them.”

  “Good,” Mele said, worrying about something else. “Riley, did you get any malware bombs into the aerospace craft?”

  “I don’t know. I think one of them was hooked in, and I was able to get something into it, but that was only one.”

  Great. That left one aerospace craft as a potential problem.

  Mele gasped with relief as the tunnelpede raced up the slope to where the tunnel came to the surface on this end. They rolled completely out of the tunnel and toward where the dark bulk of the WinG still sat.

  The bulk of the foothills screening them from view from the Scatha camp didn’t block all of the sound coming from there. Mele heard a low murmur that at this distance was the mingled noise of hundreds of people shouting and yelling, mixed in with the roar of equipment and punctuated by occasional crashes and bangs that marked continuing explosions. A slight glow visible over the foothills drew everyone’s attention.

  “Do you think that’s the weapon site still melting down?” Hedy asked Riley.

  “Could be. Or the power plant. Most of the structure might have been liquefied by an emergency energy release.”

  “Move now, talk later!” Mele ordered. “Everyone into the WinG! Except you! Get the ’pede stored aboard as fast as you can!”

  She stood watching as the tunnelpede rolled up the cargo hatch, curling up to form its own, smaller coil next to the mining snake. As the cargo hatch swung closed, Mele shoved the ’pede guy toward the WinG’s personnel hatch while checking the ground for any equipment left behind or any person not yet aboard. Satisfied, she jumped into the WinG. “Get a head count!” she ordered Grant before racing to the cockpit.

  “Are we ready?” the pilot asked. Both pilots looked about as nervous as could be expected after having to sit out here waiting through a long period of silence that had been replaced by the cataclysmic noises as various equipment and buildings in Scatha’s camp blew up.

  “Still getting a head count,” she replied.

  Grant came far enough forward to call out. “Everyone accounted for! We’re all aboard!”

  “Let’s go,” she told the pilots. “Get us out of here as fast as you can. Stay hidden. One of their warbirds might still be operational.”

  The WinG’s engines powered up. The craft slid forward, rising slightly as the ground effect kicked in, moving faster and faster down to the beach and over the water, curving north to avoid detection as it kept accelerating past five hundred kilometers per hour. The pilots held the altitude down to two meters above the highest swells of the dark ocean passing beneath them.

  “Head toward Delta as soon as you think we’re outside Scatha’s detection range,” Mele told them.

  “We’re already altering course to do that.”

  An urgent tone sounded, a symbol appearing on the displays before each pilot. “That’s not good,” one commented.

  “We’ve got company,” the other pilot told Mele. “An aerospace craft. It’s coming from the direction of Scatha’s base.”

  “Who’s faster?” Mele asked.

  “He is. And he’s pushing it hard to get within weapons range of us.”

  “I imagine he’s pretty upset,” Mele said. “Can we get to Delta before he gets to us?”

  “Don’t know yet. He’s still accelerating. It depends what he tops out at.”

  “Give Delta a call. Tell them that we’re coming in hot with a Scatha warbird on our tail,” Mele said. “And get every bit of speed you can out of this skimmer.”

  “We’re already trying to go our fastest,” the second pilot informed her.

  “Sorry,” Mele apologized. “It’s hard to be a passenger. I did the same thing to fleet sailors.”

  “Now you’re treating me like a sailor? I’m a pilot, not a space squid! Making me angry isn’t going to make this skimmer go any faster.”

  “Sorry, bird driver.” Mele sat for a moment longer, gathering her thoughts, then went back to the passenger deck, where everyone looked at her. She took a deep breath before speaking. “The good news is, we’re heading back. The bad news is, Scatha got one warbird up. It’s chasing us. We’re trying to get to Delta before the warbird catches us.”

  “How bad is this?” Riley asked Mele.

  She shrugged. “If we get to Delta before the warbird gets to us, we’ll probably be fine. If the warbird gets to us before we get to Delta, it could be ugly.”

  “We got the job done,” Grant said.

  “Yeah,” Mele agreed. “We got the job done. Up to a point. Part of my job is getting you guys back. I’ll make that happen. I’m going to send an update so the government will know we hit Scatha hard, then if anyone needs me, I’ll be in the cockpit.”

  When she got back to the cockpit, the pilots were looking ahead with grim expressions.

  Mele checked their displays. “The warbird should be within range of Delta in half an hour.”

  “Yup,” one the pilots said.

  “But the warbird will be within range of us in twenty minutes.”

  “Yup,” the other pilot said.

  “Does this skimmer bird have any defenses?” Mele asked, hoping there might be some secret, hidden capability.

  “Speed, very low altitude, and our lightning reflexes,” the first pilot replied.

  “What do you think our odds are?”

  “Pretty damn poor.”

  “He’s going to engage with his missiles first, right?” Mele asked.

  “Yeah,” the pilot agreed. “Most likely missiles with full-spectrum active seekers with backup full-spectrum pas
sive seekers. Even a crate with a state-of-the-art countermeasures system would have trouble dealing with those. Our very low altitude won’t help. We can’t jink to avoid the missiles faster than they can correct and still hit us. Our only option is to go fast enough that he can’t get within range, and that’s not possible.”

  Mele frowned. “I had a gunny once who told me that when anyone says there’s only one option, it means there must be another that’s not occurring to them.”

  “A gunny?” the second pilot asked. “A Marine? That’s your source of wisdom and inspiration?”

  “If you knew gunnies, you wouldn’t be skeptical,” Mele said. “If— You said all we can do is speed up. Why couldn’t we slow down to evade his missiles?”

  Both pilots shook their heads. “We can’t decelerate fast enough to make a difference,” the first said.

  “Hold on,” the second pilot said. “What if we pancake?”

  “At this speed? It’d tear us apart.” The first pilot paused in thought. “We could skip. Bounce along the tops of swells. That would slow us a lot faster, much faster than that warbird and the missiles could manage, but not too fast for the bird to handle it.”

  “If we did it right.”

  “Well, yeah, if we did it wrong, the bird goes boom.”

  “If those missiles hit us, the bird goes boom,” Mele pointed out.

  The first pilot looked at his companion. “If we cut speed fast enough while the missiles are on final, they’ll be aiming at a point well ahead of where we are. They’ll try to compensate, but they’ll be on a downward trajectory and going very fast without much altitude left.”

  “They’d hit the water,” the second pilot said. “Somewhere ahead of us. Hopefully. Of course, then we’d be going a lot slower, with that warbird rocketing up our tail.”

  “Hmmm.” The first pilot studied the data on the pursuing warbird. “He’s coming on real fast. If we slow down as much as we’re planning on, he won’t be able to reengage us before he tears on past.”