Satellite photos showed eight silvery balls embedded in the hills north of them, eight silvery balls gleaming in starlight. Now there were nine. Patrols in the hills reported the same thing. One transmission ended in midsentence. Ten bobbles. The infiltration was twenty-four hours ahead of the schedule Avery's precious satellites and intelligence com- puters had predicted. The Tinkers must have dozens of manpack generators out there. If they were like the one Wili Wachendon had carried, they were very short range. The enemy must be sneaking right up on their targets.
Della looked across the detention area at the banana wagons. Remarkably timed, this attack.
She slipped out of the car and walked back to the general and his staff. Cool. Cool. They may hold off as long as me don't move on the wagons.
:Looks bad, General. They're way ahead of our estimates. Some of them are already operating north of us." That much was true.
"My God. I've got to get back to command, lady. These interrogations will have to wait."
Lu smiled crookedly. The other still didn't get the point. "You do that. Might as well leave these people alone anyway." But the other was already walking away from her. He waved acknowledgment and got into the field car.
To the north she heard tac air, scrambled up from the Livermore Valley. Something flashed white, and far hills stood in momentary silhouette. That was one bobbler that wouldn't get them this night.
Della looked over the civilian encampment as though pondering what to do next. She was careful to give no special attention to the banana wagons. Apparently, they thought their diversion successful-at least she remained unbobbled.
She walked back to her personal chopper, which had come in with the interrogation teams. Lu's aircraft was smaller, only big enough for pilot, commander, and gunner. It bristled with sensor equipment and rocket pods. The tail boom might be painted with L.A. paisley, but these were her own people on this machine, veterans of the Mongolian campaign. She pulled herself onto the command seat and gave the pilot an emphatic up-and-away sign. They were off the ground immediately.
Della ignored this efficiency; she was already trying to get her priority call through to Avery. The little monochrome display in front of her pulsed red as her call stayed in the queue. She could imagine the madhouse Livermore Central had become the last few minutes. But, damn you, Avery, this is not the time to forget I come first!
Red. Red. Red. The call pattern disappeared, and the display was filled with a pale blob that might have been someone's face. "Make it quick." It was Hamilton Avery's voice. Other voices, some almost shouting, came from behind him.
She was ready. "No proof, but I know they've infiltrated right up to the Mission Pass Gate. I want you to lay a thousand meter bobble just south of the CP-"
"No! We're still charging. If we start using it now, there won't be juice for rapid fire when we really need it, when they get over the ridgeline."
"Don't you see? The rest is diversion. Whatever I've found here must be important."
But the link was broken; the screen glowed a faint, uniform red. Damn Avery and his caution! He was so afraid of Paul Hoehler, so certain the other would figure out a way to get into Livermore Valley, that he was actually making it possible for the enemy to do so.
She looked past the instrument displays. They were about four hundred meters up. Splashes of blue white light from the pole lamps lit the detention area; the camp looked like some perfect model. There was little apparent motion, though the pilot's thermal scanner showed that some of the armor was alive, awaiting orders. The civilian camp was still and bluish white, little tents sitting by scarcely larger wagons. The darker clumps around the fires were crowds of people.
Della swallowed. If Avery wouldn't bobble the camp...
She knew, without looking, what her ship carried. She had stun bombs, but if those wagons were what she thought, they would be shielded. She touched her throat mike and spoke to her gunner. "Fire mission. Rockets on the civilian wagons. No napalm." The people around the campfires would survive. Most of them.
The gunner's "Roger" sounded in her ear. The air around the chopper glowed as if a small sun had suddenly risen behind them, and a roar blotted out the rotor thupping. Looking almost into the exhaust of the rocket stream dimmed all other lights to nothing.
Or almost nothing. For an instant, she glimpsed rockets coming up from below....
Then their barrage exploded. In the air. Not halfway to the target. The fireballs seemed to splash across some unseen surface. The chopper staggered as shrapnel ripped through it. Someone screamed.
The aircraft tipped into an increasing bank that would soon turn them upside down. Della didn't think, didn't really notice the pilot slumped against his controls. She grabbed her copy of the stick, pulled, and jabbed at the throttle. Ahead she saw another copter, on a collision path with theirs. Then the pilot fell back, the stick came free, and her aircraft shot upward, escaping both ground and the mysterious other.
The gunner crawled up between them and looked at the pilot. "He's dead, ma'am."
Della listened, and also listened to the rotors. There was something ragged in their rhythm. She had heard worse. "Okay. Tie him down." Then she ignored them and flew the helicopter slowly around what had been the Mission Pass Gate.
The phantom missiles from below, the, mysterious helicopter - all were explained now. Near the instant her gunner fired his rockets, someone had bobbled the Pass. She circled that great dark sphere, a perfect reflection of her lights following her. The bobble was a thousand meters across. But this hadn't been Avery relenting: Along with the civilian and freighter encampment, the bobble also contained the Gate's command post. Far below, Authority armor moved around the base, like ants suddenly cut off from the nest.
So. Perfect timing, once again. They had known she was going to attack, and known precisely when. Tinker communication and intelligence must be the equal of the Peace's. And whoever was down there had been important. The generator they carried must have been one of the most powerful the Tinkers had. When they had seen the alternative was death, they had opted out of the whole war.
She looked across at her chopper's reflection, seemingly a hundred meters off. The fact that they had bobbled themselves instead of her aircraft was evidence that the Hoehler technique - at least with small power sources - was not very good for moving targets. Something to remember.
At least now, instead of a hundred new deaths on her soul, the enemy had burdened her with just one, her pilot. And when this bobble burst-the minimum ten years from now or fifty - the war would be history. A flick of the eye to them, and there would be no more killing. She suddenly envied these losers very much.
She banked away and headed for Livermore Central.
THIRTY-FIVE
"Now!" Wili's command came abruptly, just seconds after, Rosas had loosened the false wall. Mike crashed his heels one last time into the wood. It gave way, bananas and timber falling with it.
And suddenly there was light all around them. Not the blue-point lights the Authority had strung around the campground, but an all-enveloping white glare, brighter than any of the electrics. '
"Run now. Run!" Wili's voice was faint from within the compartment. The undersheriff grabbed Allison and urged her across the field. Paul started to follow them, then turned back at Wili's call.
An Authority tank swiveled on its treads, its turret turning even faster. Behind him an unfamiliar voice shouted for him to stop. Mike and Allison only ran faster. And the tank disappeared in a ten-meter-wide silver sphere.