There was no wild fauna on Lalande 2 with the exception of a few hardy rats that had adapted to the high G and were frankly terrifying. Rats shouldn’t have that much muscle. That meant that the Citadel’s defenders could surround it with motion detectors and motion-triggered anti-personnel mines, as well as much larger anti-armour mines. The anti-armour mines wouldn’t bother us but they would be a problem for the mechs.
They had EM, heat and sound sensors as well as security lenses, but if we triggered them we deserved to fail. The problem was always going to be the motion sensors. There was only one way to trick them and that was to move very, very slowly. This meant that a journey of just over a mile was going to take us the better part of twenty-eight hours of crawling over cold stone, hence the inevitability of wetting myself. This would take incredible co-ordination and discipline, as we wouldn’t even be able to see each other. We also needed to map the anti-armour mines for the mechs. Our initial movement was around the edges of the cavern so we could start from the whanau ’s entry point.
It was long, it was cold and it was boring. The highlights of the crawl were exo-armour or drone patrols passing overhead. They always made it easier to piss yourself. I was on downers to deal with the constant tension. As soon as we got close I’d have to counteract the downers with stims. I only hoped that nothing happened before then, as the downers would affect combat performance until I stimmed myself. All we had to look forward to on this miserable crawl were cold rations and the thrill of occasionally bumping into each other.
I had a lot of time to think about the insanity of what we were doing, thinking thoughts that would fuck me up. Not the sort of thoughts I would normally think while operational. I was worried I would set off the motion detectors if I got the shakes. The Citadel grew larger and larger in my vision as we inched closer. The closer I got, the more I could see the weapons, the men, the machines, and the more I realised the futility of what we were trying to do.
Rolleston had done a good job on me. I wondered how Rannu was holding up. I had betrayed these people once. I wasn’t going to do it again. It was my responsibility to them that kept me moving. That was how I dealt with it. Kept me crawling over the smooth stone between the mines and sensors. Concealment wasn’t required, as they had achieved near-total area denial. Or so they thought. Fortunately they hadn’t reckoned on anything as stupid as what we were planning.
I also knew that what the whanau were going to do had to count for something. I wondered how they could operate with the near total certainty of death.
Dinas Emrys, yesterday
‘They’ll know we hacked them,’ Cat said. This was good. This was her job — to come up with as many objections as possible so we could overcome them.
‘We need to make it look like something else and we need to knock out all visual surveillance in the lower boardroom,’ Annis said. As she did she expanded the part of the arcology that showed us the lower boardroom. It looked a long way from our point of entry.
‘Sabotage,’ I suggested.
‘Assassination attempt,’ Merle suggested.
‘We don’t even know if any of their command will be there,’ Cat pointed out.
‘Sabotage then. I think we should take any opportunity to fuck with their machine that we get,’ I said.
‘And take any opportunities for assassination that present themselves,’ Merle added. I had to agree.
‘Not at the expense of getting the data,’ Annis said, looking at Cat.
I glanced at Pagan. Even in his Druidic icon he looked subdued. I wondered who was running the Ungentlemanly side of the operation now.
Cat nodded. ‘Agreed. The info is our priority.’
‘Even though we’ve got no way to get it out?’ Merle asked.
‘Information always helps,’ Mudge pointed out.
‘And currently we know next to nothing,’ Annis added.
‘Okay, this is all pretty fucking slim,’ Cat said.
‘We’ve been out on hairier,’ I said. Rannu was nodding in agreement.
‘Okay. Let’s set up a full action plan and begin prep,’ Cat replied. There were smiles from all but the New Zealand contingent and Pagan.
‘There’s one other thing. We need to do this fast. We’ve got next to no solid intel but it can’t take them much longer to prep for the attack on Earth,’ Pagan told us.
Cat gave this some consideration.
‘All right. If we’re doing this then we are ready to go at 0500 tomorrow, understood? That means if we need more gear from Merle’s caches we get it today,’ she said.
Now we started to whinge. We were squaddies, that’s what we’re supposed to do. We whinged and then we went and got on with it.
We were close now after more than an Earth day of crawling. Our internal heating systems were running low to mask our heat signatures. I was cold and I ached. I’d had no sleep. Counteracting tiredness with amphetamines, which made me jittery, and then confusing my mind with downers to counteract the tension.
Twenty-five hours in, things had stopped making sense, which was good. This meant I could deal with the imminence of possible death. I could hear the soldiers talking now and smell their food. Soon we’d be trying to kill each other. Shame when we had so much in common. Pity we couldn’t just go after the leaders, on both sides.
At least Rannu and Pagan had had something to do. They had plotted a line of anti-armour mines from the mechs’ point of entry to the Citadel. The plan was for Rannu and Pagan to rendezvous just before the attack and use the palm interfaces on their smartlinks to swap information. Pagan would also be using his smartlink and internal targeting systems to passively plot firing solutions for the mechs. Most crucially they needed solutions plotted for the point-defence systems. Pagan was also looking at the main vehicle entrance on this side of the arcology and using his guncam to record details.
When he had all the information he required he sent it as a packet on a UV tight beam link to a transponder we’d set up at a prearranged location. That receiver was hard-wired via a cable run through a small hole drilled in solid rock to the whanau ’s position. Using tight beam communication meant that the Black Squadrons would have to have something interposed between the receiver and us. Also they had no reason to be scanning UV frequencies.
I checked the time displays on my IVD. One showed the actual time. The other was a countdown. I looked up at the large entrance to the vehicle bay. All that was between the entrance and us were three lines of trenches and then the terraced trenches above the door.
New Utu Pa, yesterday
‘I want two fireteams,’ Cat told us. We were in one of the smaller caves. Soloso and Big Henry were just inside the entrance discouraging people from paying attention to us. ‘Fireteam Alpha is me, Merle and Morag. Fireteam Bravo is Jakob running it, Mudge, Rannu and Pagan.’
I would have liked to turn over command to Rannu but I’d done that once and I couldn’t afford to be seen as a weak link again, as I suspected that Cat would actually drop me from the mission. I didn’t want to work with Pagan. I couldn’t trust him. Actually that wasn’t true. I knew he’d do his job, but I didn’t want to trust him.
‘Looks like we’ve got all the fuck-ups,’ Mudge said.
‘Shut up, Mudge,’ I told him.
‘Right, Rannu and I are going to start the killing before zero point. We’re going after officers, NCOs, heavy-weapon crews, but we’re going to be doing it quietly,’ Merle said. He seemed happier with Cat in command.
‘Then we move on my go and we are fucking quick or dead. Everyone understand?’ Cat told us.