“But thermal imaging—”
“Cannot reliably distinguish insurgents from the normal workers, or from the dogs, or deer or other creatures which abound in those cursed bushes. We have but one choice: to strip away the forests.”
Astor-Smath finally spoke. “First Fist Graagkhruud is correct. This has been an observed principle of jungle warfare for centuries. Defoliation is a prudent step.”
Darzhee Kut could hardly believe his audio sensors. “Mr. Astor-Smath, it sounds as though you support the idea.”
“Support it? I recommended it, and actually commenced a more subtle campaign of it, weeks prior to your arrival here.”
“But your world’s biosphere—”
“—Has recovered from injuries far greater than this one. The defoliative agents being spread by your people are relatively safe, nonpersistent chemicals with which we have long experience.”
“You supplied the poisons?”
“We refer to them as ‘defoliative agents.’ And yes, we have provided them, free of charge. One of our affiliate megacorporations produces them in bulk.”
Graagkhruud’s head rose up. “In a month, maybe two, we will have cleared a radius of ten kilometers around all of our compounds that are surrounded by jungle, old plantations, or high brush. Then these insurgents will have to come into the open to fight us. And that will be the end of their rural insurgency. But until then—”
As if proving First Fist’s point, a rocket hissed up out of the sagging trees just beyond the ruined kempang and struck the ROV as it swooped low to begin its second spraying run. The wings cartwheeled away from either side of the smoky orange flash. The breathy boom of exploding fuel tanks rolled across the cleared ground, trembled and broke like a hoarse wave against the building beneath their feet.
By the time Darzhee Kut had reverse-scuttled so that his back was against the wall, and as far under the awning as he could go, the Hkh’Rkh were all involved in carefully choreographed chaos. Two of the troop had sprinted back down the ramp and took up covering positions at the entry to the building. The rest fanned out across the deck in the hunched crouch that was the Hkh’Rkh’s preferred combat movement posture. In that time, First Fist had patched into the compound command net and begun giving orders. “All bunkers to combat alert status. Response team one to the marshalling area. Ready reserves and response teams two and three to groupment point alpha. Off-duty reserves to this building in five minutes: combat gear only, no heavy weapons, double ammunition load, autoinjectors loaded with stimulant, ready to embark. Attack sleds one and two to the vertipad with current armament, weapons hot.” As he spoke, First Fist checked his weapon—a large-bore dustmix rifle with an underslung grenade/rocket launcher—adjusted his targeting goggles, and inspected First Voice’s entourage of huscarles cum bodyguards.
Two of the Hkh’Rkh had unpacked a large weapon from canisters they had been carrying on their backs. They expertly snapped a light, simple tube into a breech-and-tripod combination. Two others unclipped large cassettes from their belts, handed them to the loader, who mounted them on either side of the breech. A fifth tossed a complex electronic sighting and guidance device. The gunner caught it, snapped it into place on top of the breech, slightly offset to the left. He checked that the aperture at the rear of the breech was aimed directly behind them into a open walkway. “Rocket launcher assembled and ready, First Fist.”
Darzhee Kut quivered. Their disdain of us is wrong, but their opinion of themselves as warfighters is warranted. Oddly, the Hkh’Rkh seemed more calm, more temperate and organized now, than at any other time he had seen them. Perhaps a life lived in anticipation of war makes war the most comfortable state of being.
The troop-leader acknowledged a radio report, turned to Graagkhruud. “Response Team One is ready, First Fist.”
Graagkhruud turned to his superior. “First Voice?”
First Voice nodded. “Send them. On foot.”
“Foot, First Voice?”
“Foot. We have seen one rocket destroy one vehicle. More vehicles may bring more rockets.”
Astor-Smath drew his palmcom away from his mouth. “The ROV was hit because it was too low for us to cover with the PDF systems. Attack sleds at fifty meters altitude should be quite sa—”
“They go on foot. Hold the sleds in reserve. Send up two more ROVs.” First Voice pointed down at the clearing. “And let the response team’s Arat Kur associates send their scouting machines out in a broad forward arc.”
Following First Voice’s extended claw, Darzhee Kut saw—trailing behind the broad, armored loping backs of the Hkh’Rkh response team—two Arat Kur combat suits. Heavy, armor-segmented, and with enhanced, biofeedback-directed limbs, the hexapedal units advanced, using an insane, high speed serpentine. Around each of the suits buzzed or zipped almost a dozen ancillary vehicles, some no bigger than a pancake. A pair of wheeled units, each sporting quad rocket canisters, paralleled it. They were almost as big as the combat suit itself. As Response Team One passed the perimeter delineated by the outermost of the bunkers, the two new ROVs buzzed overhead, widely separated.
Darzhee heard the approaching missile before he saw it, mostly because it was not heading across his field of vision but was vectored straight at him—or rather, at the closest ROV. Launched at an almost perfectly horizontal angle from the western slope of Gunung Sawal, it flashed toward the ROV in a ruler-straight line.
One of the PDF blisters spun quickly, made a noise like gravel being force-fed into a turbojet, and the missile came apart, the warhead detonating a moment later.
Astor-Smath turned, pleased. “As I said, the PDF systems—”
—suddenly came alive all at once, spinning and shooting as if they had gone collectively insane. From slopes farther north, on the opposite side of the mountain from the mass driver, a veritable torrent of white and gray plumes arced in towards the compound. Some discorporated into fluttering debris, others exploded, a few spun corkscrewing up or down into the jungle. The base’s targeting arrays swept in tiny arcs, accessing, locking, engaging, accessing the next.
Graagkhruud kept his earpiece close with a single cupped appendage and gave First Voice a running report. “Most are free rockets, some are unarmed, a few are self-guiding. Launch rate is twenty per second. We’ve just about—”
Darzhee saw one of the missiles veer away from the compound, seeming to falter. He wondered if it too had been clipped, but then—as the final and most dense wave of rockets had the arrays twitching spasmodically, the missile suddenly cut back and came straight at them. His intestine squirmed. “I see—”
“Incoming!”
“It’s inside the umbrella—!”
“Reacquire—”
Darzhee was sure he was dead as the rocket bore straight in upon them. There was a jarring report, falling debris, the smell of cordite—and he was aware that he, and everyone else on the veranda was still alive and unhurt, except for one of First Voice’s personal guards. The large Hkh’Rkh staggered back a step, raising a suddenly clumsy claw to his chest. He had been transfixed by a thin spine of metal, evidently a grid-arm from a sensor array. The Hkh’Rkh looked down at it somberly—and fell over, blood torrenting out his mouth and the exit wound in his back. He had almost completely exsanguinated by the time the first of the other huscarles had reached his twitching body.
The group of them started at Graagkhruud’s sharp command, “Leave him. He is finished. Guard and attend to your suzerain. This is not over.”