Thomer and Hollingsworth remained with me as I surveyed the grounds. Their underlings swapped in and out as they gave orders. After a few minutes, Hollingsworth went down to the garage for an inspection.
By now, I had armor of my own, brand-new equipment that Hollingsworth’s men snagged out of the armory. The armor was stiff, and none of my preferences had been programmed into it, but it was better than isolation. When I got the chance, assuming I lived to get the chance, I would calibrate the ocular controls in the visor to read my particular eye movements. I could live with the glitches, the armor came with a commandLink, and that meant I could communicate with the men unassisted.
We walked along the roof of one of the wings of the building—“snipers’ row.” Hollingsworth and Thomer knew the drill. You placed snipers where they would have a good view of anyone passing by, then you waited. Often, you had to sit patiently letting viable targets march past in exchange for a clean shot at the men at the top of the food chain. Shoot the peons in the front, and you warn the bastards in the back that they’re walking into a trap. Sniping is a game of patience.
Not that we were going to take anybody by surprise. There was only one way into the armory, and we marked that path by placing our transports along it. If they wanted us, the U.A. invaders would need to walk our gauntlet. I wondered what they would do once they entered it.
In the predawn hours of an otherwise calm summer night, we moved along the top of the building. Locked up in my combat armor, I did not worry about the breeze or rain. My bodysuit kept me cool and dry.
The grounds around the government center must have been beautiful at one time. I saw shattered concrete beds that must once have been a network of ponds. A border of waist-high grass grew around the complex. A soft breeze combed through the grass.
“They’re coming, General,” Hollingsworth called up from the garage. He must have had some kind of mobile radar set up.
“Do you have a count?” I looked out toward the horizon and saw only the wide, open expanse over the broken city. Off in the distance, the three remaining skyscrapers that Doctorow used for dormitories, glittered.
“Thirty ships coming in from the south,” Hollingsworth said.
I had been looking east, but I now turned south, the direction from which we had just come. There were hills to the south. Even as I watched, dots appeared in the horizon. They looked no more significant than the sparks in the darkness.
“We’ve got company, boys. Get to your stations. Dig in. Get comfortable,” I called over the interLink.
“Think they’ll attack soon?” Hollingsworth asked.
“Not a chance. Not with only thirty transports in place. They’ll want more than three thousand troops before they attack,” I said. I assumed that, like our transports, their transports carried one hundred men.
I told Hollingsworth about the fleet, but we were not about to educate the rank and file until this conflict was over. He knew the Earth Fleet now controlled the skies, and he knew about the last message we’d heard from Warshaw. I did not tell him about the size of the enemy fleet. He did not need to know that the Unified Authority had defeated our 450-ship armada with a mere eighty ships.
“They’ll probably land on the other side of town and build up their forces,” I said. I knew how these operations worked. They would set up a camp and make us wait while their transports ferried in soldiers and equipment.
But I was wrong.
The transports did not stop at the southern edge of town. They flew over the suburbs. By the time they reached the ruins of downtown, the glow from their shields filled the sky. They were not the same antiquated design as the birds we flew in on, they had graceful wings and tapered shields. At about a half mile from our lines, the transports slowed and landed, lighting down like flies.
“Looks like they know we’re here,” Thomer said. He’d been so silent, I’d forgotten he was there.
Of course they know we’re here, they use the same specking interLink frequencies we do. They’re listening in on us, I thought to myself.
And they might not have even needed their damn technological advantage to find us because Sarah Doctorow and her pals would not think twice about ratting us out. And then there were the leaks—Perry Fahey and his friends in Outer Bliss would happily tell them everything they knew.
“Switch off your safeties, boys, we’re going live,” I said over an open frequency. The invaders probably heard me, as well. From here on out, I would keep my conversations short and switch frequencies between calls. I could not stop them from listening, but I didn’t want to make things too easy for them.
I remained on the roof with the snipers, Hollingsworth joined the grenadiers in the wings, and Thomer went down to the underground garage. Between the troops we had manning the buildings and the Marines we positioned in the garage, we had nearly five thousand men. Based on the number of their transports, I estimated their strength at three thousand.
Time ticked away slowly, seconds seemed to stretch themselves into minutes. I wondered what they were doing. Were they off-loading equipment? Were they playing with us, making us wait, to consider our situation? I kept expecting more transports to arrive, but the skies remained clear.
“How’s it hanging, Harris?” The message came over the commandLink, on a frequency reserved for officers. The equipment in my visor identified the caller: General Theodore Mooreland.
“You’re in charge of this one, Ted? They must think I’m real dangerous to send in a veteran like you.” I called him Ted. Why not? We were both generals.
“Nice of you to drill my men,” he said.
“War games are one of my specialties,” I said.
“So, is she here?” Mooreland asked. That meant he was keeping the locals out of the fight. He would not have needed to ask me about Ava if he had talked to Doctorow.
“Please, tell me you did not come all this way just to impress Ava.”
Mooreland laughed. “No, Harris, I came for you.”
“I’m flattered, Ted, really I am. But, um, I’m spoken for.”
“Speck you, clone.”
“Ted, I just told you, I’m not interested.”
“We were going to give you twelve months to prepare, did you know that? We were going to give you a year to get your men ready, but you blew it. You shouldn’t have attacked our battleships. Did you really think we’d look the other way?”
I did not say anything.
The sun started to rise in the east. Pockets of yellow, gold, and white appeared over a horizon of rolling desolation. The ruins of the city looked like a desert in the first light of the morning. If Mooreland was in command, the intruders had to be Marines. They would be wearing combat armor. They would use tactics like ours.
“You’re an interesting man, Harris. I’d love to continue this chat, but my men came to fight,” Mooreland said. “Are you ready?”
“Sporting of you to ask,” I said. “We’re as ready as we’re going to get.” I tried to sound confident, but I knew Mooreland meant business. He was showing me the cat-bird courtesy of a commander who knows he owns the field. But how could he be so confident with only three thousand men? I wondered what I did not know.
“Well, good luck, Harris,” Mooreland said. He signed off.
I stood there on the roof of that enormous government complex, as insecure as an ancient ruler waiting for the Huns to pillage his city.
“Why haven’t they attacked yet?” Thomer’s question brought me out of my thoughts.
“Courtesy,” I said. “They were giving us a moment to say our prayers.”