Red flashing lights appeared at the entrance end of the facility—alarms would be going off. Rafe grinned at the images on the screen. Tiny dots of light were moving around, but increasingly hard to see against the glare of explosions, fire, and the steadily climbing temperature. Smoke obscured the visual bands now, but the infrared showed long blocks of white, one building after another. The only thing missing was sound, but he could imagine that. Right about now, the pipeline should—and there it was. He could see the shock wave; the communications masts went down, not onto the burning buildings but into the parking lot and entrance gates. He glanced back at the outer room, to see if anyone else was watching. Stella was there now, talking to the Rector. He turned back to the screens, now with his headset on, listening across the bands for any chatter about it.
About an hour later, what he heard made him yank loose his ansible cable and plug it in.
“What?”
The Rector, damn her, was right beside him; of course she noticed his sudden movement. “They’re moving. They’re moving now. I didn’t delay them; I kicked them loose. I have to get to Ky—”
“Do it, then.”
Again Ky woke to the familiar stench. She had gone to sleep easily that night, aware that the enemy might already have landed, but also that they had hundreds of kilometers of lead on them, with a lot of very thick doors in between. Yawning, she hooked up the cable.
“Ky! Get out now; they’re almost there!”
“Calm down—”
“No, seriously—they left early. I thought frying their data center would slow them down, but it didn’t.”
“You fried their—how?”
“Never mind how—you’ve got to get out. We thought there were just over a hundred; there’s two hundred, on four aircraft. They’ve already taken off from the Pingat Base and they’ll be there in just a few hours.”
“I told you we’d left days ago.”
“But you’re moving slowly—you can’t be more than a hundred kilometers ahead of them.”
“I knew you didn’t get all I said. We’re much farther away than that; more like six to seven hundred kilometers. With doors they probably can’t open between us and them, assuming they even realize there are doors.”
“But they were in the base every year for… years. They have to know every inch—”
“No. Didn’t you tell me it’s not the same troops? It’s those other mercs. They won’t know anything.”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Away from where they’re landing. I told you—” She stopped. “Maybe north. How’s the relief force coming?”
“Slower than I’d like. Stella just landed—uh—we’re in Portmentor; we’ll be flying again in a few hours, getting closer to you.”
“Not too close. Let the professionals handle it.”
“And what about you? Are you—oh. You’re a professional, too. Dammit, Ky, be careful.”
“I will be as careful as I can. And that means getting some sleep now, while I can.”
“Ah. Sorry; I should have realized—”
“Get some rest, Rafe. I’m going to.” She pulled the jack free and realized she was grinning. She’d surprised him again. She liked surprising him. Rafe was alive and well, the enemy had lost a data center, and somewhere in space Master Sergeant Pitt and a Mackensee landing force were on the way. Two days, Pitt had said. Even three wouldn’t kill them, she was sure. With any luck she had enough lead on the enemy that she’d merely have to deal with the boredom of riding a slow vehicle in a gray tunnel for several more days.
She let her implant put her to sleep.
CHAPTER FORTY
As one of the two designated liaisons for Mackensee’s landing force, Master Sergeant Pitt rode down to the surface of Slotter Key in the second shuttle. She felt some satisfaction in noting that, as usual, no plans had survived the first shots fired—neither side’s.
Ky had not expected any of this, from the shuttle crash on, and certainly not to be hunted by mercenaries. The Black Torch had been inserted as a covert force; they had no reserves in orbit and—as near as could be determined—only small units of local military on their side. They had not expected the arrival of a merc troopship—probably still didn’t know about it—or what was about to land right on top of them.
“Aircraft on the deck” came a voice in her headset. “Three big ones, one medium. Slotter Key military numbers. Are we sure those are Black Torch mercs?”
“Check their preferred band.”
“It’s them, all right. Same codes as last time we scalped ’em. And they have live scan. And auto-defense is hot.”
“Master Sergeant Pitt, inform our employer that we need the go button.”
Pitt switched to the channel the Rector had given her.
“Post Delta,” came a male voice.
“Requesting authorization code direct.”
“A moment.”
Then a woman’s voice. “This is the Rector. Operation is go.”
“Thank you,” Pitt said. She signaled to the com operator at the next desk. “You requested an open channel during action; will this suit?”
“Very well. Is this the Master Sergeant Ky knew?”
“Yes,” Pitt said.
“You’ve met MacRobert; he’ll take over if something flaps here. What’s it look like?”
“Active anti-air defense set up on the ground. Not a problem; we just launched at it and I don’t expect it to survive the next five minutes. We’re seven from landing. They very kindly cleared the snow off the runway for us.”
“Any sign of our side?”
“No, but we didn’t expect any. You’d told us they’d fled deep underground.”
“As best we know. They aren’t talking to us.”
“We’re dropping fast now,” Pitt said. Her helmet gave her a view out the front of her shuttle; the exhaust glow of the first dropped below her vision to a field now lit by fires on the ground.
“Tag One” came from the other com desk.
The shuttle tipped forward. Through her helmet display, Pitt saw a white bay streaked with dark water, watched the ground rise, red rock splatched with white. Level-out, and then the runway in front, the squawk of tires, the brief slither then hard deceleration.
“We’re down,” she said to the Rector. Ahead, the first shuttle took out both the small barracks on the surface, then its surface shimmered as it powered up the forward shield arc. Its rear ramp was down, troops in bulky winter gear moving down to cover the emergence of their heavier weaponry and vehicles. The first three drones, the small ones, went up fast into a pale-blue sky.
“Jumpers active,” the com officer said to the crew. “Somebody better do something soon or this is one expensive training exercise—”
“For which we’re being paid, Pete.”
Flurries of code went past Pitt’s eyes in the display. Drones were not her responsibility; someone else would get those readouts.
“Jumper one down,” came another voice. “Guess they want to play laser tag. And we tagged ’em. Pop up Spanker.”
A slightly larger drone lifted from behind the first shuttle. When it was a meter above the surface it went chameleon, and though it would be visible to some detectors, human eyes wouldn’t see anything but a vague blur as it moved along.
“Tag Two, take up position.” Pitt felt the shuttle quiver, and then the view changed as it zigzagged its way backward to the specified support point. Her view now was of the rise to the north of the runway. She heard the back ramp release, and knew the troops and equipment there would be unloading. An explosion bloomed from behind the nearest rise.