"Sure," Judas muttered, grimacing behind his filter and goggles as Lathe led the way through the smoke.
He'd had always hated blindfold games, hated them with a passion. "What exactly are we doing?"
"We're going over the fence," Lathe said. "Hold up here."
"You know, you promised I'd be kept in the loop," Judas said as he stopped. "This hardly qualifies."
"Events are moving faster than expected," Spadafora said, coming up behind him and handing over one of the body shields. "If you'd rather, you can wait for us in the car."
Judas swallowed a curse. In full honesty he would like nothing better than to sit this one out. The Ryqril in there would be playing for keeps, and the flexarmor he was wearing wasn't guaranteed against anything but the first laser shot. Maybe not even that much.
But Galway needed someone on this end of the attack to pick up on any details they might miss from inside the tac center. "Thanks, but I'm going," he growled.
"Good," Lathe said. "You can start by hooking your shield over your back to keep your hands free." He demonstrated.
Judas had just gotten the shield in position when his tingler came to life: all blackcollars, stand ready; launch in five.
"What are we launching?" Judas asked as Mordecai grabbed his arm and pulled him down into a crouch.
"We're not using missiles, are we?"
"Of a sort," Lathe said. "We're tossing a few bodies over the fence."
In the distance, Judas heard a series of muffled thuds. "That didn't sound like bodies hitting the ground," he said apprehensively.
"Scud grenades," Spadafora identified the sounds. "Some of them must have landed on the mines."
Judas grimaced. "Are they all right?"
"As all right as the rest of them," Lathe said. "Turn your eyes away from the fence a moment."
Judas had barely complied when the inside of the cloud abruptly lit up with brilliant green light as a dozen or more lasers all fired at once.
And an instant later he was thrown to the ground as the whole cloud seemed to erupt in a single, violent explosion.
Even at the very center of the base, Galway felt the vibration of the multiple blasts. "Good God,"
Haberdae gasped as every sensor screen went solid white and then turned to static. "What the hell kind of explosives have they got?"
"It wasn't the quality," Galway said grimly. "It was the quantity."
"The what?"
"Don't you see?" Galway said, pointing to the fence sensor monitors. "Those weren't real people they tossed over the fence. They were more of those same sensor dummies they had riding their decoy hang gliders when they first arrived. Only this batch were loaded with explosives."
Taakh was snarling at the techs, who were in turn pounding frantically at their keyboards. "And they were lying right by the fence," Haberdae murmured, his voice suddenly graveyard quiet as he pointed to the grounds schematic. The entire fence line was flashing orange now, Galway saw. "Shaped charges designed to send a pressure wave through the ground when they blew," the prefect added. "Probably took out the whole minefield."
"And the whole fence sensor system, too," Galway said grimly. "Ready or not, here they come."
The hammering in Judas's ears faded away, leaving only a persistent ringing behind. Cautiously, he opened his eyes.
To find to his shock and dismay that the smoke screen was gone. On the far side of the fence, fifty meters away, he could see Khorstron's western entrance with its two flanking guard bunkers.
Both bunkers in full targeting view of them.
"Don't worry, they're probably still too blinded or dazed to shoot straight," Mordecai assured him, getting a grip on his upper arm. "Time to go."
"Right," Judas said, his explosion-dazed brain starting to put the pieces together. Obviously, the smoke screen was gone because the concussion of the multiple blasts had blown the smoke up and away.
Fortunately, the wrecked truck was apparently still churning out more of the fog. Even as they again moved toward the fence a fresh cloudbank began to flow in from the west.
Lathe was the first to reach the fence. "Up and over," he said, and started up.
Judas followed, the shield on his back bouncing awkwardly as he climbed. Half a minute later, with the fog thickening comfortingly around them, they were back on the ground and moving cautiously toward the building. "What now?" he asked, wincing as he walked past sections of torn ground where hedge mines had been.
Right on cue, his tingler signaled. Commence shutout.
"We start Phase Three," Lathe said. "Spadafora?"
"I'm on it," Spadafora said, dropping into a sniper's kneeling posture, his slingshot ready. Setting a small object into the weapon's pouch, he drew it back a few centimeters. "Ready."
Lathe nodded and reached under his sleeve. Lathe: ready, the message tingled against Judas's wrist.
In the near distance, Judas could now hear a crackle of small, oddly muffled explosions. "Primer caps being shot into the guard bunkers at the other three entrances," Lathe identified the sound. "The goal is to kill or otherwise incapacitate the Ryqril inside and keep others from replacing them."
Judas nodded. With the sensors in the fence gone and those on the building of limited range in the smoke screen, the warriors in the bunkers were about the only eyes Galway and Taakh had left. If Shaw could eliminate them, the blackcollars would have nearly free run of the Khorstron grounds.
The question was, what did he and Lathe intend to do with that freedom of movement?
He frowned, belatedly noting that Spadafora himself hadn't joined the slingshot barrage. "What about the bunkers on the western door?"
"Patience," Lathe said. "We have something special planned for them."
Judas shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't get any of this," he growled. "If we were going to blow the sensors on the fence anyway, why did we bother nuking the ones on that one particular fencepost? Just to give the Ryqril a little misdirection?"
"Partly," Lathe said. "For the past couple of days, ever since we assume they spotted the pellet barrage, they've probably been expecting a quiet infiltration from that one single direction and have been setting their plans accordingly." He gestured toward the building, rapidly growing less distinct as the smoke screen continued to roll in. "But more importantly, the fence sensors spot explosives and fast-burning fuels. We needed a gap we could use to send in some extra surprises."
"Such as?"
"Patience," Lathe said. "As soon as Shaw gives us the okay—"
Lathe: go.
"And here we go," Lathe said. Spadafora's slingshot snapped—
And somewhere in the direction of the western door the white smoke erupted in flame.
Judas caught his breath. Spadafora fired again; and as a second sheet of flame burst into existence, he realized the fires were situated at the bases of the two guard bunkers. "Surprises, you say," he managed.
"They're called burn pellets," Lathe told him. "Jellied aviation fuel inside a thin and highly flammable shell. Once the snipers had fried that fence post, they could lob over enough of them to make a pile against each of the bunkers' bases."
"And now if the gunners try sticking their lasers out the firing slits they'll get their faces burned off?"
Judas suggested.
"Something like that," Lathe said, digging again for his tingler. Lathe: flame on. "And whether they stick their noses out or not, it's going to be getting very hot in there."
Acknowledged, Judas's tingler signaled. All blackcollars, deploy around Point One.
"And you had all this set up two days ago?" Judas asked.
"First rule of magic, kiddo," Spadafora said. "When the magician says 'Watch very closely,' the trick's already been done."