But this message would never be sent. Not that it would have made much difference; there was no one on the other end to reply, anyway.
The communications vehicle exploded into trillions of little pieces, courtesy of the six blaster rings installed on the nose of the flying machine. It had come out of nowhere, the comm truck no doubt its first intended target. It was moving so quickly that just as soon as it departed to the north, it was coming at them again from the south. It was frightening, strange. The flying machine made no noise, not until it went by you. Then the screech was enough to crack open a skull.
This time, its nose opened up about five miles out. Six blind-ing red beams shot out in a quick flash. Three headed straight for the lead truck in the convoy; three did a deflecting maneuver and veered toward the last truck in the column. Each triplet of beams hit its target, utterly obliterating them and blocking the access road irreparably in the process.
The column was now trapped.
Their superiors had told the convoy commanders that if the flying machine appeared overhead, they should order their troops to shoot at it. This decree was not based on any evidence that ground fire could actually stop the aircraft. It was more along the idea of giving the troops something to do before they got blasted into salt.
After the machine completed its second pass, it disappeared off to the north yet again. It was gone just long enough for the column's commanders to order their HVVs to the ground and for the troops within to dismount and prepare for action.
These troops were mostly drivers and gun operators. They were not real terrain combat troops. Yet each was armed with a blaster rifle and a ray gun as a side arm.
The mystery aircraft appeared once again and, as ordered, the troops began firing at it with their blaster rifles. There were about, two hundred soldiers in the column. Many now used their landed HVVs as cover. The combination of two hundred blaster rifle beams going up at once made for a spectacular sight. The morning sky was suddenly filled with wild green streaks everywhere.
But it was all for naught. The pilot of the flying machine simply twisted and turned his way through the columns of lethal rays, using what appeared to be a minimum of effort and not losing even a foot of altitude. The six beams erupted from its nose again. Once more, three landed on vehicles at the head of the column, three landed to its rear. Massive explosions resulted as the aircraft again left behind another bone-jarring screech and departed, this time off to the west. From all indications, its pilot was intent on destroying the convoy from its farthest points inward, and there was nothing anybody on the ground could do about it.
But icing the column was only part of the plan.
The convoy had been arrayed in such a way that most of the towed Master Blaster units were placed in the middle. The HVVs carrying security troops as well as the combat engineers were located at the head and the rear of the column. It was these troops that were now getting pounded into the hard ground as the mysterious aerial machine continued crisscrossing the sky, flying at tremendous speeds, its frightening nose weapon picking off two or three vehicles at a time.
Most of the attention then was drawn to either end of the smoking parade of vehicles. In the middle, where the Master Blasters now lay stalled, the artillery soldiers were firing in vain every time the flying machine reappeared. One cluster of troops had just ceased a barrage when they turned around to realize a small army of enemy soldiers had suddenly landed in their midst. The enemy soldiers delivered a fusillade of blaster fire right into the crowded group of BMK soldiers. Dozens were killed, many more were wounded. In the confusion, more enemy troops appeared and started painting one of the Master Blasters with low-energy beams from their electron torches.
Once the weapon was completely enveloped by the bluish rays, there was a flash, and the huge tubed array blinked out. Stolen, just like that. This happened again and again, more than a half dozen times. The column's soldiers were helpless in trying to stop the raiders from stealing their huge weaponry. The enemy's quick dispersal of massive firepower in a confined area essentially walled off the weapon and its surroundings long enough for the raiders to swipe it by pushing it, end first, through an expanded Twenty 'n Six field. Once the huge gun was gone, the raiders would simply disappear through the field as well. Then it would close up, just like it was never there at all.
The attack on the convoy lasted not ten minutes. Eight Master Blasters were stolen; the rest had been destroyed by the passing flying machine, which never ceased its devastating strafing runs of the battle area. Even after all of the raiders had safely blinked out and the rest of the big weapons were destroyed, the aircraft continued to pummel the convoy until nothing was left. Only then did it leave the area for good.
Just a few dozen BMK soldiers survived the attack. Most were in shock. Many were wounded. There were no officers, no means of communication, and no way to get out of Wishbone Pass except to walk. Those that were able began doing just that, intent on reaching what they believed to be the nearest friendly position: the advance observation posts up on Fire Rock Ridge.
They finally woke Deaux around nine o'clock.
He immediately threw a fit, kicking the bed clothes off his hovering bunk and threatening to kill the two officers who had roused him by poking his feet with their gun butts.
But waking him had been necessary, the officers pleaded. There were some significant developments he just had to know about. The secret enemy camp had been found. It was in a valley out West that presented a perfect piece of terrain over which the BMK could attack.
Deaux's eyes brightened sleepily at this good news. Then came the bad: The convoy carrying the BMK's full complement of Master Blasters on the planet had been attacked and the weapons stolen or destroyed. There had also been trouble contacting the advance scouts who had spotted the enemy encampment in the first place. All of Attack Force Delta was awaiting Deaux's next command.
The first thing Deaux did was panic. To his way of thinking, the loss of the Master Blasters suddenly meant that he would not have enough troops to vanquish the enemy. That only raw manpower could make up for die deficit of not having any of the powerful multitubed weapons on hand. In a way, he was right. Though he still had almost a half million men on Planet America under arms, many were tied up occupying the empty cities the BMK had so dubiously conquered. Moving all of them west would take days.
What Deaux should have done was simply order half of the Master Blasters on Planet France to be transferred to America with all due haste, and then wait for the BMK troops already in the region of the enemy camp to converge and then attack.
But Deaux decided on another command instead.
His communique left BMK HQ shortly afterward. It was foolishly dispatched via a standard communication string with no encryption, no effort at all to make it scrambled. It was directed back at Moon 39.
The message was blunt: The BMK needed warm bodies who could fire a blaster rifle. Deaux was ordering that everyone left on Moon 39—techs, base security troops, space dock workers— be issued a weapon and shipped to Planet America immediately. This collection of primarily logistics troops would constitute yet another army of about seventy-five thousand men. But it would also leave Moon 39 virtually deserted. No matter, Deaux wanted the soldiers sent down anyway.
But there was another problem: All the available troop shuttles were either on America or Planet France. There was no way to transport these rear-area troops. "Deploy six of the moon's dozen space cruisers," the people back on Moon 39 were told. Each could hold about twelve thousand troops. Though it would be a tight squeeze for some of them, the voyage in would take less than an hour.