Chapter Seventeen

"STOPTHEM. Now!" bellowed Admiral Bendo. He used his controller to activate half a world of lasartillery. The fierce antiship beams found too few of the falling invaders.

"We can't track them, Admiral," came the dis-tressing report. "They're blocking the fine-sight-ing radars. Most of them will land. They've concentrated on a point fifteen klicks southwest of the Pit's main entrance."

"They can set up mining operations there and drill through until they get into the southern corridors," Bendo said, after a moment's

thought. "That's the shallowest point in the base. How'd they know that?"

"Who sold us out, you mean," said Barse. She looked at Norlin. The young sublieutenant had the same thought running through his mind. Mutiny and treason were cousins. Even worse, the aliens might have captured some of the ships trying to flee and interrogated the crews. Norlin had been told at the academy of drugs that made anyone babble endlessly. The only defenses against them were ignorance and death. Bendo swung around in his chair and preempted the base's main computer. Norlin blinked when he saw how powerful the com-puter was and how much of its capacity Bendo's tactical problem took. Several minutes later, the admiral released the machine for other uses.

He had aged a dozen years in the span of those minutes of computing. "It's not good. We can shut off the section, but it's like cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Those are mostly storage rooms."

"We can live off..." Barse's voice trailed off when she understood the aliens' strategy.

"It's a war of attrition now," said Norlin, com-ing to the same conclusion his engineer had. "They cut off our supplies and wait for us to starve. They're in no hurry."

"We need a fleet to bombard them from space," said Bendo. "Without it, we're helpless to strike decisively."

"The fleet's run off with its tail between its legs," said Barse. "So turn the lasartillery on the spot. You can use the fighting mirrors on the moon."

"It's not that simple," said Norlin, under-standing how the Pit's designers protected it. No one wanted the planetary weapons turned against the home base. The fighting mirrors would never—quite—be in position for a direct hit on the buried base. "What provisions were made for ground defense?"

"Not much," admitted the admiral. "Space-borne invasion is impossible. Emperor Arian's best genhanced strategists agree on that point."

"Too bad they're not here to check their theories against reality," said Barse, a sour ex-pression on her face. "We're not going to sit here and let them starve us to death. Give me a lase-rifle and I'll hunt them down like the pigs they are."

Her fervor brought a short laugh to Bendo's lips. "We'd have them by the short hairs if we had a thousand more like you, Lieutenant. There are a few CAVs."

Norlin tried to remember what he had heard about planet-based military operations. A com-plete attack vehicle carried cyclic-fire laser can-non, some small nuke capability, and enough lanxide armor to withstand anything short of direct nuke hits and the lasartillery used by the base for its defense. He couldn't remember much else about its performance characteris-tics. He had focused on space systems, not ground-grippers' war toys.

"Check out the specs, Cap'n," said Barse. Bendo had brought up the efficiency data for the CAV at the engineer's request. Norlin looked over her shoulder.

"It doesn't look much different from the cruiser controls."

"They were designed by the same research team. The controls are similar and the com-puters are identical in many systems. The life support is different, but not by much. The ar-mament is lighter and the variety of missiles is limited."

"How many CAVs do you have, and how many crews are trained to use them?" asked Norlin.

"Fifty vehicles, half that for officers able to roll them out and into battle."

"Let me try, Admiral," said Norlin. "It looks enough like the Preceptor for me to give the aliens hell, at least for a while."

"We can keep their fleet at bay. All you'd have to deal with are their ground forces. We don't know what they've brought down. This is a new stage of the conflict for us."

"This is a snap to run, Cap'n. You can do it with your eyes closed. Let's go burn a few aliens and then I can get back to my ship."

Norlin's light purple eyes locked on the admi-ral's. "It will be my ship if we get through this?"

"The Preceptor? Why not? You're a better com-mander than half my fleet captains."

"It's a damned shame a lowly sublieutenant has to command a line vessel," cut in Barse. "He ought to be at least as exalted as any of his crew."

Bendo scowled, then tapped a button and studied the vidscreen for a moment. "All right, Commander Norlin. Get your crew into a CAV and blow the hell out of them. Then you can get back to your cruiser."

"What's the battle plan, Admiral?" Norlin's head spun. He felt as giddy as he had when he'd found himself so unexpectedly in command of the Lyman IV station.

"Get the CAV out of storage, find the enemy, destroy."

"That's it?" Barse snorted and shook her head. She let the cat trot off and find a secure perch atop a console. "Get the others down here. We'll put together a plan. How much different can this be for Sarov?

CAVs instead of cruisers. Two dimensions instead of three. He can do it. He's a fine tactical officer." Norlin barely noticed Bendo nod in agree-ment. He drifted toward a computer and began putting his own problems into its electronic maw. Tapping into the full battle knowledge of the base helped; remembering the way Pavel Pensky approached tactical problems aided him even more. The genhanced officer had been more insane than sane, but the flashes of genius had given Norlin tremendous insight into tac-tics.

The layout of the Pit bothered Norlin. Getting to the alien land force would be easy. However, if the aliens penetrated into the storage area, they could race along, drill back to the surface, and cut off any hope of human retreat.

"We can't match them in the tunnels if they break through. They'll have armor and superior support. Admiral, how many soldiers can be stationed there?"

"Five hundred. No more. All they have are sidearms and laserifles. There aren't any heav-ier weapons inside the Pit."

Again Norlin saw the influence of the gen-hanced planners. The underground base need not repel invaders. That meant they had no rea-son for heavier equipment.

"We have to stop them from penetrating. How much armored shielding is there above those rooms?" The admiral shook his head. "I can't find those blueprints. We've sustained some com-puter damage from quakes. I've asked. The best anyone recalls is a klick of solid rock and as much as three meters of lanxide laminate."

The rock might melt away in seconds with the proper laser drilling equipment. The lanxide ce-ramic neither cracked nor melted easily. The aliens would have to sublimate it—and Norlin wasn't sure if this could be done with portable laser drills.

"They'll blast," he said suddenly. "They'll nuke the area, then return and come inside."

"That's dangerous for them," said Barse. She turned when Miza and Sarov entered. "Where's Liottey?"

"He's trying to get reassigned to something less dangerous," said Sarov.

"He wants to be a sanitation engineer and spend his hours watching what flushes through pipes," Miza said. "He'd be great at it. All he has to do is match up what's in his head."

"There he is," said Norlin as Liottey joined them. "Look this over. Tell me what you think." He brought his crew into a tight circle at the console and began working out his battle plan. Sarov made revisions, which Norlin accepted. Miza scoffed at it all; he ignored her. Barse gave a list of material needed. He passed this along to the admiral. Gowan Liottey almost wept as he pleaded to be let out of the mission. Norlin considered having the man shot. Only the need for a decontamination officer on the CAV deterred him.

"I've got the program ready." Norlin pulled the ceramic block circuit from the computer and tossed it to the admiral. "Have this pro-grammed into the other CAVs. We'll need as much coordination as possible with the initial attack. Then it's going to get messy and no plan is likely to succeed. We just shoot at anything moving that doesn't look like another CAV."

"You're in charge, Commander. Good luck." Bendo thrust out his frail hand. Norlin hesi-tated, unsure of himself. Then he shook it. The admiral's grip was surprisingly strong.

Norlin stepped back and saluted. Curious feel-ings of exhilaration and dread mixed in him. He was in command of Empire Service ground forces entering a major battle. Responsibility weighed heavily on him, but a more elemental worry turned him hollow inside. He would never survive this battle. Fifty poorly piloted CAVs against an unknown alien force had to be considered a suicide mission.

"Forty-two CAVs are assembled on level

three," said the admiral. "Get into the field as quickly as you can, Commander." The three crew members who hadn't heard his promotion earlier looked startled. Sarov and Miza accepted it. Liottey tried to protest. Barse shut him up with an elbow to the ribs.

"Come along, Gowan," she said as he gasped for breath. "I'll show you what you have to do. And heaven help you if you make even a teensy mistake."

Norlin checked a last time to be certain the other CAV battle computers carried his attack plan. Only forty-two functional, manned vehi-cles. This mission became increasingly suicidal and less likely to succeed. He could only die try-ing to repel the aliens. His death might stop them from raping and plundering other human worlds.

He walked onto the glasphalt staging area where the CAVs huddled like huge ceramic bugs. The hull design and composition turned away radiated energy throughout the spectrum in dangerous frequencies and protected against acids, poison gases, and many types of shaped-charge projectiles. The stubby laser snout showed four cylinders; once rotating, each shared a quarter of the prodigious total energy output. Small lumps hid the missile launchers.

"No nukes," said Sarov. "I checked. They never allowed any storage within the Pit."

"We're going out naked, then," Norlin said. "That doesn't change the battle plan. Let's see what the interior is like."

"Yeah, we should be able to pick our own cof-fin," Chikako Miza said. Norlin dropped through the hatch and crawled forward. The cockpit proved more spa-cious than he had anticipated. The computer controls were a simpler version of his command chair on the Preceptor. He donned the heads-up display helmet and looked around. The helmet gave a full exterior view while physically pro-tecting ears and eyes. Tilting his head in differ-ent directions showed the sensor readouts and equipment status.

"Everyone at their stations?" he said, using the throat mike. He adjusted the tiny button earphones and settled into the overstuffed couch, letting its arms reach up and cradle him. Using the heads-up display and his fingers, he controlled the entire CAV.

Acknowledgments flashed across his display. He switched to the intervehicle comlink and got the small defense force moving. Norlin held down his nerves. Curiously, as much as he knew he would never return from the battle, he wanted to get started.

The force rolled up three levels and onto the glasphalt runway he had used to land the shut-tle earlier. The staunch ship had been reduced to a molten puddle during an alien raying. Nor-lin swallowed hard and sent a crackle of static over his throat mike when he saw a truck with the front section blown off. He hesitated com-menting on it.

Barse said, "That's one date I won't have to

keep. Hell of a way to keep from seeing me, though."

Her cynicism settled his nerves, and he con-centrated on learning the layout as the CAV whined toward the kilometers-distant site where the aliens worked to establish their beachhead. Norlin had less than a minute to study the CAV. Sarov shouted, "Incoming!" The vehicle lurched as a coutermeasures mis-sile, blasted from its tube.

"Destroyed," confirmed Miza. "Proper radio static burst of primary and secondary detona-tions received."

"Any chance of a retaliatory barrage against their launchers?" he asked Sarov.

"We don't have enough firepower for that, Captain—or is it Commander?"

"Captain is fine. This hunk of junk isn't the Preceptor, but it's close enough and I'm still in charge."

"It leaks," complained Liottey. "We'll never withstand a gas attack. I know they'll try to gas H

US.

"Close the damned seals," snapped Barse. "Do your job and we'll all live to brag about this." Norlin ignored them. He studied the advance of the other CAVs. Two had been disabled when they neglected to counter the alien missiles. Forty against untold numbers of incalculable strength. He needed more information.

"Miza, can you patch through to the Precep-tor? Comlink and tap into the ship's sensors. See if you can't get a picture of the ground and the

alien troop placement." He had to keep telling himself this was the same as space warfare, ex-cept for the dimensional limitation. Norlin swore because he had neglected to get the recon earlier. The pix from the Preceptor relay showed him the gross features but nothing in the detail he wanted.

"Sorry, Captain," said Miza, anticipating his next request. "All the survey satellites have been destroyed. The Death Fleet scouts are good at what they do."

"We know enough to get started." He tapped in instructions that were microbursted to the other CAVs over continuously changing frequen-cies. Even with their broad communications-spectrum static, the aliens couldn't block all the orders.

The CAVs rolled into attack formation. Pier Norlin's fingers twitched in anticipation as he paused above the button that would issue the command.

His finger stabbed down decisively. Forty cy-clic laser cannons began firing and the vehicles advanced into hell.

they never saw where the missiles came from. One instant Norlin was shouting for them to charge and firing the heavy cycle lasers on the CAVs' turret. The next instant the ground turned to jelly under the heavy tracks.

The sudden disorientation as the barrage melted the rock under the CAV and hammered it with one shock after another caught Norlin by surprise. His space training enabled him to re-cover quickly.

"Just like orbiting over an unexpected mas-con, isn't it, Cap'n?" called Barse. "We got prob-lems, though. The right track is jammed. A bit of rock oozed in, then hardened."

"Work on it. What about air supply? I taste something bitter, metallic."

"Burning metal odor from outside," reported Liottey. "I can't seem to filter it. The entire vehi-cle is a sieve, I tell you. We have to turn back."

"Shut up, Liottey, and do your job. The filters have to work better than this. If not, I'll use your skin for a filter. Sarov, what can we do to make life miserable for them?"

"We're doing it. The other CAVs penetrated nicely. We're the only one sitting in the middle of a molten lake. Permission to use the laser as an antimissile defense."

"Granted." Norlin craned his neck to get as complete a look at the readouts as possible be-fore trying to get moving. He strained forward

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and watched the exterior terrain turn to putty and flow downward. It took several seconds for him to realize the sensors filtered the brilliant flashes of the incoming missiles that continued to detonate directly over his head. In space he seldom asked for a direct visual because the dis-tances were so great and the computer kept ade-quate data flowing to him.

He looked up and saw dozens of starburst pat-terns in the sky. Sarov effectively shot down the deadly torrential rain, but the heat generated formed a bubble over the CAV hot enough to cause exposed rock to burn and fuse.

"We can't stay here long. No wonder the air-filters are leaking." He glanced at an exterior ther-mocouple reading and saw it registered well over sixteen hundred degrees—enough to melt iron.

"Track cleared. I had to lose a few gears to do it, but you can run us up the side of a mountain now," reported Barse.

Norlin engaged the gears and had the com-puter search for the best path out of the smok-ing hole. The CAV found solid ground, shook like a wet dog, and growled. After these maneuvers, it shot forward, leaving behind the downpour of missiles.

"Any nukes used?" he asked Miza.

"None I've found. We don't have any, and they're not using them. No good reason, as far as I can see. They can wipe us all out with a few well-placed megatons."

Norlin roared to the top of a small rise. From this vantage point he got a clear view of the battleneld. His force had been decimated in the ad-vance. Four CAVs were burned-out hulks, their crews dead long before the vehicle around them quit working. Ten others were damaged to the point of immobility. Norlin got them firing in directions to maximize their potential. He and the crews inside those damaged CAVs knew they were easy prey and wouldn't last long—unless the aliens were kept busy by the fighting ma-chines still operational.

Norlin worked quickly to add new details to his overall plan. Miza microbursted the orders for him as he magnified his view of the alien battle tanks.

"They're giant black metal beetles," he heard Liottey say. "Just like the ones on Penum the scout pilot saw."

"Got any insecticide aboard?" asked Norlin. "We can use it on them."

"The poison gas tanks are only half full," re-plied Liottey.

"We have some? What?"

"Type K persistent. Instantly fatal to all oxy-gen breathers, works on filter elements and clogs them, has some acid content for pitting metal."

"Canisters or rockets for a delivery system?"

"Small rockets."

"Sarov, get them launched. I want a cloud sprayed across the valley where the aliens have established their base. We have to keep them from drilling into the base."

"Done. Liottey, help me for a minute."

Norlin waited impatiently for the rockets to

soar into the air, then arch down into the valley. The alien lasers picked out the rockets easily. As they snuffed out each one, however, it created a heavier-than-air cloud of deadly fumes that de-scended quickly.

"Damage report," he ordered.

"Not too good, Captain," said Miza. "They might have been taken by surprise, but it didn't hurt them. There wasn't even much increase in com between units."

"I wish we could listen in and understand what they're saying. The computer doesn't give me any idea what their most likely response will be."

He continued to feed information into the tiny tactical computer and rearrange his own attack to give the maximum in damage to the enemy. As more units failed or were destroyed, Norlin's tactics changed. He worked to preserve the re-maining CAVs, even at the expense of lesser damage meted out tp the enemy.

"We're getting company, Captain," said Miza. "Two of the beetles are moving in the valley. Swinging around. Picking up sensor radiation. They're locking on to us."

Norlin's display flashed red to signal impend-ing attack an instant after his com officer's warning. He let the CAV main computer evade. He wanted to concentrate on the enemy mode of assault. They didn't attempt anything tricky. Both fighting machines came directly upslope, their small but deadly radiation cannon firing as they came.

He ordered the CAV to remain partially

shielded by the hill to minimize damage. Al-though the vehicle carried shielding adequate for the crew to endure a distant nuclear explo-sion, such concentrated radiation from the aliens would ionize them within a few minutes.

"Tia, run full analysis on the tanks. Figure out how they're able to recharge and keep firing with a mobile unit."

"This hunk of tin doesn't have equipment like that, Cap'n. I'm lucky to be able to run a tiny RRU

outside—it's only got four robots and they are primitive. Let's finish off the buggers and get back to the Preceptor where we belong."

He heard the others mumble their agreement. He worked even harder to make that wish come true. His fingers flew over the computer keys, seeking weakness in the alien battle plan. He didn't find it. If the aliens maintained position in orbit, they could beam the surface and pro-tect their base indefinitely.

"Get the admiral. Find out the status of the Death Fleet. We might need heavy lasartillery ground support to keep them occupied while we get rid of the vermin here."

"No need, Captain. The Death Fleet is with-drawing. Only a few dozen support vessels are still in orbit."

"They're breaking off battle?"

"They're leaving. Reports are coming in from sensors throughout the system that the fleet is shifting. The admiral counts this as a victory."

"It's not," said Norlin. "Tell him they think they can maintain this base and keep pressure on without the fleet." He worked over the facts

and tried to see them as the aliens might. Norlin didn't like his conclusions. The enemy saw the power of the Sutton on-planet batteries. They had lost ships in orbit but managed to land a significant ground force. The planet's space power had been crushed. The aliens thought they had nothing to fear from above. Sit, drill, take the storage rooms, wait—and win.

"We've got to stop them before they reach the Pit," he said. "They're sure they can win and don't need to take further casualties in their space fleet."

"Cutting their losses here and running?" asked Sarov.

"They're taking their losses, not running. They think they're going to win Sutton," Norlin ex-plained.

"Crazy way to win. You don't pull out your strongest chance of winning unless..." Sarov's voice trailed off as he realized what the aliens thought of the CAV attack.

"We've got to convince them they're wrong."

"Here's our chance, Captain. Beetle directly ahead!"

Norlin heeded Miza's warning and took con-trol away from the CAV's computer. He swung around, protecting the side with the damaged track and taking a string of kinetic weapons against the armored turret. The aliens tried to disable the laser cannon but not destroy the CAV.

"They want us for specimens," he told the crew. "They aren't going to destroy the vehicle, they're going to disable it and take us to their labs."

Norlin knew the emotional appeal would have little effect in other circumstances. Miza's cyni-cism surrounded her like an impenetrable shield. Liottey was too frightened to care. Barse simply did her job and needed no pumping up. Sarov fought for the cool, logical pleasure of it. This time it worked. They pulled together with fire and determina-tion.

The laser cannon swung on target, and a full thirty seconds of beam splashed against the first metallic beetle. Just as a red glow started on the side, Sarov fired the missiles. Each one found the hot spot and burrowed a little deeper.

But it was Miza who suggested that they ram. Norlin did. He turned the CAV around and shot up the incline at full speed. The front of the CAV crashed into the alien tank with enough power to lift it into the air.

For a second, both machines hung suspended belly-to-belly. Sarov fired another missile and broke the stalemate imposed by gravity. The CAV twisted around and crashed onto its tracks. The alien tank landed on its turret and slid back down the hill, unable to right itself or stop its downward plunge. Halfway to the bottom, an-other CAV used its lasers to rip open the belly. The rush of hot gases from the inside told of the alien crew's death.

"Organic molecules released," came Miza's re-port. "They're soiled, oiled, and boiled." Norlin paid her no attention. The second

enemy beetle had circled the hill and attacked from the side. Their radiation weapon threat-ened to cook them in the CAV. Norlin jerked the vehicle from side to side but the enemy followed relentlessly.

"Get him off us. Disable his cannon," shouted Norlin. Sarov tried. The lasers hit with deadly accuracy. Missiles crashed into the side of the other tank. Even a small rocket laden with poi-son gas veiled the metallic beetle.

Nothing stopped it. The machine kept com-ing, the radiation weapon firing.

"We're losing control, Cap'n. The radiation is taking out my solid-state controllers. Even the radiation-protected GaAs picochips are cooked. I don't want to think what's going on inside me." Norlin knew the frightening answer to that from the danger warnings on his gamma counters. Their corpses would glow blue for a million years if he didn't stop the other tank. He forgot about the battle raging to stop the alien drilling operation and concentrated only on saving his own life. The hillside gave a moment's respite, but the seismic pickups told the story. The alien tank circled and would come directly at them in a few seconds. When it appeared, Sarov hit it with a full laser blast. The rotating laser tubes clanked and moaned as thermal expansion caused them to bang against their mounts. Each tube carried only a quarter of the full load; all were overheating.

"The lasers aren't working," Sarov said. "And I'm out of missiles. We're going to have to run."

"Track is acting up. We can't get full speed no matter what I do. I can't figure out what the hell's wrong, either. This isn't any fit way to travel, Cap'n."

The alien beetle had been dented and huge gouges were ripped from the exterior where the lasers had struggled against the tough metal. But the tank had taken the best the CAV offered and still came on.