Judas stared at him ... and before he could think of anything to say the truck blew up into a cloud of heavy, dense, white smoke.
"Here we go," Lathe muttered as he started the car. "Filters."
"What is that?" Judas asked as he fumbled for his gas filter.
"It's your standard high-tech smoke screen," Spadafora said, his voice muffled by his own filter. "Shaw had a few left over from the war. Basically, it's a heavy chemical fog rich in suspended metallic particulates, which—well, there you go."
The Ryqril in the two guard bunkers flanking the gate had opened fire on the truck now, its outline barely visible through the fog rolling its leisurely way toward the tac center on a stiff westerly breeze.
With each laser shot, the entire cloud lit up like a brilliant green strobe light. "Not only does it scatter some of the laser light, thereby reducing its effectiveness," Spadafora went on, "but as an extra bonus, it bounces that light all around and right back into everyone's eyes."
"Makes it very hard to see unless your goggles include a special polarized layer," Lathe added as he settled his own goggles into place. "Which ours do, of course."
He'd barely finished when the laser barrage apparently hit a sensitive spot and the truck disintegrated into a burst of flame that lit up the billowing cloud even more brilliantly than the lasers had. "Phase One complete," Spadafora commented as a fresh surge of white smoke boiled upward like a volcanic plume and started falling leisurely over toward the tac center grounds.
"Phase Two begun," Lathe said, pointing across Judas's chest. A dozen vehicles had suddenly appeared from various areas around the southern and western sides of the center, bouncing wildly as they drove at high speed through the trees. "They're coming in on the east and north sides, too," the comsquare added.
All of them heading straight for the sensor fence, Judas saw, and the sonic trap Shaw had warned was built into the posts. "And what exactly is this supposed to accomplish?"
"Just watch," Spadafora advised, an edge of malicious amusement in his voice. "Watch, and learn."
Taakh snarled something, and the half-dozen Ryqril techs seated at the security monitor room's wraparound console bent feverishly to work. "What did he say?" Haberdae muttered.
"I don't know," Galway murmured back. In the year he'd spent with Taakh he'd managed to pick up a little bit of Ryqrili, but not nearly enough for a situation like this. And the conquerors had been very careful not to give any formal language instruction to their human slaves. "Best guess is that he wants them to analyze the smoke screen."
Haberdae grunted and fell silent. Shifting his attention away from the approaching smoke, Galway concentrated instead on the monitors showing the views to north and south.
One of the techs was giving a short speech now. Taakh listened in silence, then turned to the two humans. "It is a chenical cloud designed tae con'use sensors," he told them. "It also scatters sone o' the strength o' laser 'ire." He jabbed a finger at Galway. "Yae rill nake a note o' it."
Galway nodded. "As you command, Your Eminence."
The Ryq turned back to the monitors. The smoke had passed the fence, Galway saw, and was starting to roll around the building itself.
And there they were, right on cue: fifty cars appearing suddenly from streets and driveways and from beneath camo nets, all of them charging at full speed straight toward the Khorstron fence.
One of the techs had obviously seen them, too. He snapped something at Taakh, and the big khassq stepped to his side. "Are they 'ools tae think re rill 'e caught un're'ared?" he growled contemptu-ously.
"Maybe they're a diversion while the real infiltration team sneaks over the fence where they fried the sensors," Haberdae suggested. "Without sensors, you'll never spot them in this damn smoke."
"Somehow, I don't think sneaking is the plan," Galway said.
"I thought that's what blackcollars did best," Haberdae growled.
Galway nodded at the monitors. "Let's find out."
The smoke screen was filling the entire grounds now, and the techs had switched the displays from straight visual to the false-color images of sensor scans. Galway had never found such scans to be very clear, and even the best of the images were now being hampered further by snowlike flickers. The worst of them showed nothing but multicolored static. "Those must be the pictures coming from the sensors on the building," Haberdae said, gesturing toward the latter group.
"With the ones where you can actually see something coming from the sensors in the fence posts,"
Galway agreed, nodding. "Whatever they've got in that smoke, it's damn good."
Haberdae grunted. "I just hope they don't realize how blind we really are."
Around the perimeter, the cars were braking to a halt, stopping ten to fifteen meters back from the fence.
The doors swung open and blackcollars emerged into the smoke in groups of three, each group huddling close together as they hurried across the remaining distance. "What are they doing?" Haberdae demanded, starting to sound uneasy. "I thought they knew about the sonics in the fence posts."
"That's what Judas said," Galway agreed. The groups reached the fence, and in near-perfect unison the two end men in each set reached down to grab the feet of the man in the middle and hurl him up and over the fence.
Haberdae inhaled sharply. "What the hell—?"
"Relax," Galway said, pointing to the monitors as the flying blackcollars hit the ground and toppled over to lie flat and unmoving. "They're down. The sonic must have gotten them."
"The sonic and the mines," Haberdae corrected, pointing to the grounds schematic where five orange lights were flashing at various points just inside the fence. "I wonder whether that flexarmor is good enough to block scud grenade needles."
Across the room, one of the techs spat something. "So that is their 'lan," Taakh rumbled. "The in'iltrators carry large quantities o' ex'losi'es."
"You think they're trying to blast the fence?" Haberdae asked.
"They could have done that from the outside and stayed away from the sonic and mines," Galway reminded him. On the displays, the shadowy images of the blackcollars still outside were drifting away, heading back toward their cars.
"'Re'ect Galray is correct," Taakh agreed. "They think tae wait until the sur'i'ing in'iltrators are reco'ered, then use their ex'losi'es tae 'last down the doors."
"While meanwhile the blackcollars still outside drive the cars through the fence?" Haberdae suggested.
"I' that is their 'lan, they rill 'e disa'ointed," Taakh said with malicious satisfaction. "The 'ence is 'ar tae strong tae crash through."
"Meanwhile, we have the inside group to deal with," Haberdae reminded him.
"That rill not 'e a 'ro'len," Taakh assured him. He snapped an order, and on the edge of the building monitor displays, just barely visible through the smoke, Galway saw the tips of laser rifle muzzles emerge from the firing slits in the bunkers flanking the building's doors, tracking downward toward the figures still lying motionless on the ground. "I don't like this," Galway warned. "There's some catch here."
"The catch rill 'e 'or they," Taakh said. Gesturing imperiously to one of the techs, he snapped an order.
Lathe had maneuvered their car through a line of trees toward the southwestern part of the fence as the smoke screen spread out over the base, heading for the section where Shaw had said the radiationwrecked sensor post was located. The last thirty meters were done in near-total blindness as the fog settled down around the grounds. "Everyone out," the comsquare called as he shut off the engine.
"Spadafora, get the shields. Caine, come with me."