From the absurdly primitive cockpit just behind him, Pehthrum’s voice inquired, “With your permission, Jesel sul-Perekmeres?”
Well, it was a respectful request, so—“Permission granted, Pehthrum.”
“It is more legend than data, but accounts dating from the Progenitors’ time strongly suggest that the Slaasriithi shaped their worlds in such a way that they were inimical to all varieties of our species. It seems that spores and other air- and water-borne microbes may, after a short exposure, begin to cause shortness of breath and general disability. So it is imperative that you wear your filter masks at all times.”
Jesel nodded. “And our stay must be brief. The longer we are planetside, the more likely that the Slaasriithi defenses will effectively contest our planetfall and that our orbital window might be compromised. So the faster we move, the more likely we will safely achieve the most important objective of our attack.”
Clone Gamma-Fourteen frowned. “And which is that?”
“To kill all the Aboriginals. Naturally.”
Chapter Forty-Four. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)
Caine tossed back another of the amphetamines, listened and glanced up at the light teal sky: a distant sound of thunder that he knew was not thunder. It was their attackers’ final descent. But how quickly would they detect the group and land? Both humans and Slaasriithi were already near their positions, so that was not an issue. However, what was more challenging and uncertain was when he should begin staging his pills. I have to get the timing just right, can’t afford to peak the effects before, or after, I need them.
Thnessfiirm jogged up to Riordan with the fast, rolling gait of her kind. “I have offloaded the autonomous munitions platform from the rotoflyer.”
“Excellent. Send the rotoflyer back to the Silver Tower. It will only help the enemy locate us if we keep it here. Any update from the pilot on how soon we might expect the supersonic defense drones to enter our airspace?”
Thnessfiirm’s upraised tendrils went over sideways like dead toy soldiers. “I am sorry, but no. There are only a few ground wire communication links, and the atmospheric defense drones are clustered in the more advanced facilities on the northern continent. When the rotoflyers left the Third Silver Tower to convey the munitions platform here, Prime Ratiocinator T’suu’shvah had still not sent her approval for the supersonic drones, much less their estimated time of arrival.”
A drooping equilateral triangle, hovering on one central and three corner fans, whined into view behind Thnessfiirm, trailing her like a lazy dog. Its upper surface was scored by a hexagon pattern, two sensor masts rising up from either side of the central rotor. “Where are the weapons?” Riordan asked, suddenly concerned that the Slaasriithi had misinterpreted his request for a combat platform: the local lack of personal firearms made this munitions dispenser their only option.
Thnessfiirm trailed three of her tendrils over one of the hexagons. “The weapons are stored in these bays.”
Caine stared at the platform’s three-meter sides. “They must be pretty small weapons.”
Thnessfiirm’s neck retracted slightly. “Do not presume that their size indicates insufficient power. In this environment”—she gestured to the patches of daylight coming through the loose forest canopy—“we cannot employ the larger platforms that carry longer-range weapons. The platform’s maneuverability and stealth characteristics are more important, if the system is to survive the first few minutes of engagement.”
If the bad guys have any airborne weapons or observation systems, that’s undoubtedly true. “What kind of weapons does this platform carry?”
“Mostly conventional high-explosive rockets with enhanced fragmentation. There are also several clusters of miniature antipersonnel heat-seeking rockets and a few surface-to-air missiles.” Apparently, the Slaasriithi were becoming increasingly adept at reading human facial expressions: in this case, Riordan’s surprise and dubiety. “They are extremely short-range surface-to-air missiles,” Thnessfiirm qualified.
“How short?”
“Only four hundred meters of active thrust, with small warheads but extremely rapid flight times. All the munitions are independently deployable.”
Riordan knew an insufficient translation when he heard one. “I am uncertain what you mean by ‘independently deployable.’ I presume they can be launched individually?”
“That too, but what I refer to is this.” Thnessfiirm clicked several new ringlike adornments on her toe-tendrils in rapid sequence. The lines delineating one of the hexagons suddenly became deep grooves, and that part of the platform’s — chassis? — dropped down to the ground: a six-sided tube akin to a single cell from a honeycomb. It swayed as it landed; prehensile actuators whipped out of its base, righted it, retracted until they became a short-legged stand for the object. “An excellent feature.” The way Thnessfiirm said it, Riordan had the distinct impression that she was immensely proud of this novel stabilizer but was unsure about its usefulness.
“An excellent feature,” Caine agreed. “If we use it properly, we should be able to minimize—”
The thunder, having diminished somewhat, began a swift crescendo.
“Cover!” Caine shouted. “Now!”
As arranged, the humans darted under cone trees and huddled into the midst of waiting groups of convectorae, thereby blending the two species’ thermal signatures. Smaller clusters of the Slaasriithi, those without any humans in them, moved toward the edges of other, scattered cone-tree canopies; slightly more exposed, they’d present more pronounced thermal silhouettes. Caine glanced at the sky again: Now sort us out, you bastards. If you can.
The thunder became an oncoming, rocket-propelled freight train, up-dopplering sharply. The Slaasriithi shied closer into their cover. The four humans who were carrying the pathetic survival rifles — Keith, Dora, Xue, and Salunke — glanced at Riordan. He shook his head, waved his hand from upriver to downriver—
Just as a TOCIO-manufactured armored shuttle roared overhead at an altitude of five hundred meters, following the trajectory Caine had indicated with his wave.
“How did you know it would be flying toward—?” Thnessfiirm began.
“No big trick.” Veriden checked that the action of her weapon cycled smoothly. “They clearly found our wreck, started river-following. And by the time we heard them, they were moving too fast to slow down and drop in on us here.”
“So what do they mean to do, then?”
“Sweep downriver,” Caine answered. “They’ll double back when they find that this area had the only large collection of biothermal signatures gathered in one place.”
“Should we not have spread out more?”
Riordan shook his head. “Wouldn’t have mattered. For us to be able to defend ourselves, we have to be relatively close together. And once you cluster up that way, there are too many bodies in one grid for them to mistake us for anything other than their target. They can’t be sure until they sweep the whole of the river, but once they have, they’ll be back.” He turned to Unsymaajh. “What did your subtaxae see? Did the craft drop anything off?”
“My convectorae saw nothing separate from the vehicle.”
“It couldn’t have, moving at that speed,” Keith murmured.
Riordan nodded. “Only milspec ROVs hardened for high-speed deployment could have survived getting dumped out at that velocity, and those systems are too big to miss. Okay; we’ve got thirty minutes, forty at most. Let’s get into positions.”