Hafner turned and gazed out the window. "Staying right with us, aren't they? I wonder how we'll be able to tell if—hey! He's dropping below us a bit."
Carmen shot a glance out her side. "This one, too." Could it have happened already? Without so much as a flash of light or crackle of radio static to mark the event? "Hang on," she told Hafner. "We're going to gamble."
Pulling back on the stick, she brought the flyer's nose up sharply, killing their forward momentum in a standard stall maneuver. If the aliens still had power, they would have no trouble staying with her … and with most of their speed gone, she would have no choice but to give up and abort the whole plan—
"They're still going down!" Hafner called, his fist slamming excitedly onto the edge of the control board. "They're gliding, too. We did it!"
Carmen's reply was a long exhalation of a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Pulling out of the stall, she sent them into a lazy starboard turn. Only when they were heading west did she risk starting the engines again. They caught at once, and as she started them back toward Olympus she flipped on the radio once more. "Attention, invaders," she said. "Your aircraft, which we ordered to back off, have been dealt with. If you value your lives you will leave Astra immediately." Switching off, she gave Hafner a tight smile. "If nothing else, that should confuse them."
But Hafner was still staring out the window. "Carmen, can you take us back toward where the aliens just went down? I'm not sure, but I think it's started."
It had indeed started.
Unnoticeably at first, of course. Aboard the huge M'zarch landing craft the only indication was a slight vibration, unexplained but not especially worrisome; the troops outside, their attention turned outward, never noticed as the skids melted silently into the ground. The giant ships sank down to rest on their bellies and continued further … and by the time the hull-breach alarms began their clanging, it was too late. The underside repulsers, already being eaten away, could not be fired.
For many aboard the ships it was too late in another sense as well. Trapped inside their attack-resistant rooms, their minds and reflexes slowed by shock, they found themselves inexorably crushed to death as ceilings were brought down by disintegrating walls and combat armor dissolved into the sandy ground like spun sugar in water. And since these were precisely the people who were considered too valuable to risk outside, the ground troops suddenly found themselves on their own, without senior officers, tacticians, or clan liaisons … or heavy weapon support, intersquad and long-range communications, or defensive sensor cover.
"We have destroyed your landing craft," the Human commander's flat voice came from the translator at the High Command's Chosen's elbow. "You will order your troops to abandon their weapons and surrender or they will likewise be destroyed."
The Chosen's fingers twitched with reaction. It was impossible—M'zarch armored landers couldn't be neutralized so quickly by anything short of nuclear weapons.
But neutralized they had been, and the troop carrier's own sensors had picked up no sign of a nuclear blast. Had the alien Spinneret technology included weaponry?
If so, it was more vital than ever that the M'zarch people gain control of this world.
The S'tarm Clan Liaison behind him might have been listening to his soul. "You must not let such technology exist outside M'zarch possession," he said.
The Chosen controlled his temper. "I am listening for suggestions as to strategy," he said, directing his words to all the clan liaisons and High Command officers on the bridge. "I have one-way communication with my ground troops; I can order them to attack and even direct their actions, though at low efficiency. But it is not reasonable to assume the Humans will not use their weapon against the troops if an attack is ordered."
"It is the purpose of troops to give their lives to advance M'zarch holdings—" someone began.
"It is not their use to be wasted for no purpose," the Chosen shot back. "Or do you believe their armor can withstand this weapon long enough to accomplish any practical objective?"
"You hold yet one landing craft in reserve," the Chief Tactician murmured, thinking aloud as tacticians were supposed to. "But without more information you cannot expect to add effective countermeasures to its equipment. It is also impossible to predict the weapon's range."
It took most of the clan liaisons a moment to catch the full implications of that.
"Impossible!" the S'tarm snorted. "Surely this ship is beyond danger, and if not, the warships certainly are. We still hold the threat of total annihilation over the Humans."
Again the Chosen held his tongue. If the S'tarm continued such stupid comments one of the Command officers would eventually challenge the fool and save him the trouble. One never made threats one was unwilling to carry out, and wanton destruction of such a prize as this would draw the perpetrator death for both himself and his entire clan.
"Threats of destruction against the planet are useless," the Chief Tactician said, dismissing the S'tarm's suggestion with a gesture that was just short enough of contempt to avoid drawing a challenge. "However, you may be able to realistically make such threats against their spacecraft."
The words were barely out of his mouth when the three-tone alert twitter rendered them moot. "Chosen," the Defense Officer called over the alarm, "we've picked up the shift mark of six vessels, on intercept vectors. By configuration … Rooshrike corvet-class warships."
The Chosen made an acknowledging sign, the sound of crumpling status loud in his soul. To have failed in such a task would topple him back to the low echelons from which he had so laborously risen … but to have failed and to have thrown away lives for nothing would be worse. His own two warships could easily handle six corvets, but that would be only the leading edge of the wave, and he had neither the ability nor the desire to challenge the entire Rooshrike military.
"Steersman," he called to the pilot, "raise us to geosync orbit. Speaker: inform the Humans my ground forces will surrender if they will then be permitted to leave the planet. Broadcast like instructions on the troops' local frequency. Then order my warships to stand ready to submit to the approaching Rooshrike force."
"You are surrendering?"
The Chosen turned back to face the S'tarm. "Yes," be ground out between clenched teeth. "You object?"
"Yes! The glory of the M'zarch people—"
It wasn't precisely a formal challenge, but the Chosen was fairly certain the S'tarm got the point sometime before he caromed off the far bulkhead, his chest already bruising from the blow. The Chosen waited, hands ready for combat, but the other—perhaps recognizing that zero-gee fighting was too far outside his experience—slunk off the bridge instead. At least, the Chosen thought, I won't have him under my eyelids for the return trip.
Of course, upon their return he would no longer be the Chosen either. Perhaps then the S'tarm would take vengeance.
It didn't matter that much. For the Chosen, life as he knew it was already over.
Chapter 14
It wasn't until nearly sundown the next day that the observers Meredith had stationed at the foot of Mt. Olympus reported the gravity beginning its high/low divergence;and the ocean was cutting almost dead center across the sun as the new cable was catapulted from the volcano's cone.
"First sunrise, now sunset," Hafner nodded as Andrews relayed the news to Meredith. "Must be designed to fire the cable into Astra's own orbit, more or less.