"Kap?" Sinklar called. "Move in. Blow the wall — and take your time. Bit by bit. Secure your sally and let us know what's happening."
"Got you, Sink." Kap's voice called. "They're placing the charges now. Hang on."
Minutes dragged by as Sinklar stared at the screen, seeing Kap's three Sections waiting by the bore as the mining machine exited and turned away on its clumsy tracks.
"Shooting!" Kap called. From the monitor, there was no evidence of the blast, but Kap's people began moving in a Group at a time. They went cautiously, wary of any possible traps.
"First?" A sergeant's voice came through the system.
"Here," Kap returned.
"We're inside. Uh, looks deserted. Kind of a funny odor in the air."
"Fan out, see what you can find. Be careful. Don't bunch up," Kap ordered.
Minutes passed with Groups checking in. More and more of Kap's units entered the tunnel.
"Everything's quiet," the sergeant reported. "Not a peep out of the phones except for the drilling to the south of us."
"Yeah," Kap agreed. "That's rig twelve."
More silence.
"We've got a barricade here." A pause. "Looks like some kind of containers piled up. I'm not picking up any IR readings. If there's anything alive, it's stone cold."
"Stand by, I'll pull in some support. Hold on." Kap's voice sounded tired. They all sounded tired.
Sinklar watched through gritty eyes as more of Kap's people trotted into the square hole drilled into the mountain. No resistance? Not a shot fired? Why? Sink's heart began to pound, sweat breaking out on his brow.
"Kap?" Sinklar accessed comm. "Hold on. I smell a trap here. They won't let us have it that easy. Your people are ready for cave-in? Maybe the Seddi planted antipersonnel mines before they pulled out? Have you considered every eventuality?"
Kap checked with his Groups; they all reported being strung out throughout the caverns. No one seemed exposed.
"We're all right Sink." Kap sounded slightly uneasy. "Sergeant? Fire a grenade into that barrier and duck."
Sinklar waited, gaze darting from the holo to the screen that monitored the sally. Seconds passed.
"Rotted Gods, no!" a hysterical voice called. Someone eise screamed. More screams overloaded the system.
"Kap! Status report! Kap!" Sinklar bellowed into the cornm. His eyes were welded on the tunnel entrance as a searing fountain of flame erupted, scattering the waiting troops like dolls. The fireball rolled up into the sky, rounded and menacing.
"Kap! Kap!" Sinklar hollered.
"Rotted Gods, Sink," Kap called hoarsely. "Think it burned my lungs out! Half my face is fried."
"How many this time?" Sinklar asked.
"Sent in five Groups, Sink," Kap replied, stunned. "Don't know what that stuff was, but it sure burned. They've all gotta be crisped in there. Thank the Blessed
Gods you caught on in time. I'd a had the whole command inside!"
"Yeah," Sinklar whispered to himself, a hollowness under his heart. He took off the mike, eyes unseeing as the gout of fire continued to pour from the tunnel.
Meter by blood-soaked meter, the Seddi had said.
"If you just weren't down there, Mac." He bit off the rest, turning, pacing along the deck, head bowed.
Ily Takka looked down at the continental masses of Rega. Home, at last. She chewed her lip, knowing the stakes now at hand. Here she faced her own battlefield. Sinklar might be a master of troops and tactical combat, but here her cunning and skills were unsurpassed. Treachery, bribery, and threats, the tools of power,awaited her master's touch.
"Subspace," the commander called out. "Personal to you, Minister, from Orbital Command on Targa. Rysta says she was asked by Sinklar Fist to forward this for ID. A report is attached. "
Arta Fera's eyes gleamed where she lay bound to a narrow cot. Through the entire transit, Fera had watched, missing no smallest detail. Reticent, talking only when spoken to, or for the barest necessities of her survival.
Ily took the transmission and played it, curious at Sinklar's request. As the dialogue repeated, she tensed. Impossible! No, indeed, it was!
Ily scanned the request for ID. This was the voice of the Seddi commander inside Makarta?
"This time, Staffa, I have you!" Her black eyes shimmered as her lips curled in gleeful triumph.
An Initiate stared into space, hands pressing geophones to a sheer-cut wall of rock. He nodded suddenly, pulling his phones from the cold rock and scrambling back through the freshly cut tunnel to the waiting party who crouched in the halo of headlamps. The air remained hot from the cutting of the tunnel and had gone sour from lack of ventilation.
"Five degrees left and seven down," the Seddi listener said. "We're close. They just started up again. They're getting as regular as clockwork. They stick to an average thirty minute work period, then they shut down to listen for us."
"How far?" a gray-haired man with one eye asked from the rear of the knot of Seddi warriors.
"I'd make it less than a meter."
They waited, hearing the grinding, feeling the vibrations through the rock as the heavy mining machine chewed its way forward.
"Poor bastards," someone whispered in the dark. "Poor us," another gritted.
"It's all in the dance of the quanta." Minutes dragged.
"All right," the Initiate with the phones called. "They're past the sally. Let's drill it."
They lifted a hand-held unit and powered the laser bit into the wall, pulling it back every ten centimeters to check the depth.
"One point one five," the driller remarked, his umber robes stained and smeared. He inserted the bit again and leaned into it. "Hold it, feels like we're through." He pulled the heavy unit out to peek into the hole. "Light."
The Initiate nodded, telescoping a thin periscope into the hole. "Nobody there but the…. Wait a minute. Must be a Group back there. What are-" He jerked back. "Run! Get out of here!"
They didn't have time to react as the wall exploded. Those nearest the blast were pulped immediately. The contorted bodies of the others were slammed into the opposite wall in a rain of rock and dust.
Ears ringing, stunned, the one-eyed man stumbled to the rear, finding the black box. He tried to pick it up with one hand but failed. He blinked tears from his eye and stared, noticing for the first time how many fingers he was missing, how his lacerated hand streamed blood.
A blaster bolt whipped by his head as he pitched forward, clawing at the box with his good hand. He curled over the box, hugging it fetally, aware of armored troops leaping over him as he found the button and pushed.
Numb and dying, he barely felt the concussion as the
roof fragmented, tons of angular blasted rock falling in the darkness. Somewhere a Regan screamed.
Staffa sipped at a cold cup of stassa as he studied the worn map that lay spread over the wooden table. The conference room had been turned into war ops. By the hour, Staffa and Kaylla monitored the progress of their slow defeat.
"Another party gone." Staffa marked the map with a stylus. "At least we saved the mining machine. Sinklar's people seem to be keeping to small tunnels. Less chance of fire trap that way. More chance of mines exploding under their feet. "
Kaylla rubbed red eyes. "I don't like allowing them inside. I don't like working so close to our caverns. I don't like our people dying like that."
Staffa blinked, fighting back sleep. How long had it been? "Our only chance is to hurt them, make them bleed. Our only bargaining leverage is based on the number of casualties we can inflict."
"I know. I just wish it didn't have to be." She filled her lungs and exhaled wearily. "We do have our backs to the wall." She made a smacking noise with her mouth. "Listen. Get some sleep. You need it. You haven't been off your feet since they hit us with orbital."