Cold Welcome

^{CHAPTER FORTY}

As one of the two designated liaisons for Mackensee’s landing force, Master Sergeant Pitt rode down to the surface of Slotter Key in the second shuttle. She felt some satisfaction in noting that, as usual, no plans had survived the first shots fired—neither side’s.

Ky had not expected any of this, from the shuttle crash on, and certainly not to be hunted by mercenaries. The Black Torch had been inserted as a covert force; they had no reserves in orbit and—as near as could be determined—only small units of local military on their side. They had not expected the arrival of a merc troopship—probably still didn’t know about it—or what was about to land right on top of them.

“Aircraft on the deck” came a voice in her headset. “Three big ones, one medium. Slotter Key military numbers. Are we sure those are Black Torch mercs?”

“Check their preferred band.”

“It’s them, all right. Same codes as last time we scalped ’em. And they have live scan. And auto-defense is hot.”

“Master Sergeant Pitt, inform our employer that we need the go button.”

Pitt switched to the channel the Rector had given her.

“Post Delta,” came a male voice.

“Requesting authorization code direct.”

“A moment.”

Then a woman’s voice. “This is the Rector. Operation is go.”

“Thank you,” Pitt said. She signaled to the com operator at the next desk. “You requested an open channel during action; will this suit?”

“Very well. Is this the Master Sergeant Ky knew?”

“Yes,” Pitt said.

“You’ve met MacRobert; he’ll take over if something flaps here. What’s it look like?”

“Active anti-air defense set up on the ground. Not a problem; we just launched at it and I don’t expect it to survive the next five minutes. We’re seven from landing. They very kindly cleared the snow off the runway for us.”

“Any sign of our side?”

“No, but we didn’t expect any. You’d told us they’d fled deep underground.”

“As best we know. They aren’t talking to us.”

“We’re dropping fast now,” Pitt said. Her helmet gave her a view out the front of her shuttle; the exhaust glow of the first dropped below her vision to a field now lit by fires on the ground.

“Tag One” came from the other com desk.

The shuttle tipped forward. Through her helmet display, Pitt saw a white bay streaked with dark water, watched the ground rise, red rock splatched with white. Level-out, and then the runway in front, the squawk of tires, the brief slither then hard deceleration.

“We’re down,” she said to the Rector. Ahead, the first shuttle took out both the small barracks on the surface, then its surface shimmered as it powered up the forward shield arc. Its rear ramp was down, troops in bulky winter gear moving down to cover the emergence of their heavier weaponry and vehicles. The first three drones, the small ones, went up fast into a pale-blue sky.

“Jumpers active,” the com officer said to the crew. “Somebody better do something soon or this is one expensive training exercise—”

“For which we’re being paid, Pete.”

Flurries of code went past Pitt’s eyes in the display. Drones were not her responsibility; someone else would get those readouts.

“Jumper one down,” came another voice. “Guess they want to play laser tag. And we tagged ’em. Pop up Spanker.”

A slightly larger drone lifted from behind the first shuttle. When it was a meter above the surface it went chameleon, and though it would be visible to some detectors, human eyes wouldn’t see anything but a vague blur as it moved along.

“Tag Two, take up position.” Pitt felt the shuttle quiver, and then the view changed as it zigzagged its way backward to the specified support point. Her view now was of the rise to the north of the runway. She heard the back ramp release, and knew the troops and equipment there would be unloading. An explosion bloomed from behind the nearest rise.

“Spanker One took out the battery,” someone said.

Pitt passed that information on to the Rector.

“What about the transports?” the Rector asked.

“Nobody’s fired on us from them,” Pitt said. “If they do—we’ll have to blow them.”

“Of course,” the Rector said. “Do it now, if you want.”

She did not sound like an old woman, Pitt thought. She did sound like a relative of Ky Vatta’s.

A standard hour later, they were ready to consider the door into the underground facility. How heavily was it defended? And what would they destroy that might be valuable later? A burst of small arms roused no response. The door itself sported a new lock but showed signs of having been damaged before by someone with a crowbar and axe. With the equipment they had, it was easy to drill out the lock and open the door.

Inside, they faced a small entry space and a ramp leading downward. Though daylight pouring in the door revealed light fixtures on the overhead, they were dark, and nothing recognizable as a switch was on any surface. Pitt, mindful that underground might not allow ready communication with the outside, told one of the communications teams to lay a cable. Two puppybots set off down the ramp, com-whisker tails wagging. They didn’t look much like real dogs, having various sensor gadgets stuck all over them, but the name was traditional; they even had individual names, real dog names: Fly and Peg.

Pitt stayed behind the first two teams, who themselves followed the puppybots, their dark-vision goggles on. Nothing, all the way down. When they reached a level that matched what Ky had told the Rector, the bulkheads and overhead were pocked with small-arms fire. Since there were no bodies, evidently the Torch had come in shooting but found no resistance. All the doors had their locks shot out. Pitt didn’t bother to inventory any of the rooms; she noticed in passing that the Torch had left the mess hall filthy, dirty pots piled on counters and dirty dishes left on the tables. Had their commander rushed them through a meal? Down the corridor to the left, there was an obvious communications center and an equally obvious powerplant control center. Beyond, a wall had been blown open, revealing other corridors and more ramps. So far the puppybots had found no trace of personnel except the mess they’d made.

The next section of blown-open wall led into a huge space, rather like a shuttle bay or aircraft hangar. It was empty, but footmarks showed on the gray floor, and at one end another wall had been blown open, revealing an empty passage leading off into the dark. Pitt paused there, testing her ability to communicate topside. That still worked.

“Set up a communications board here. We’ll test at intervals as we go—” That was the major. Then he held up his hand. “Wait—new data—relayed from that ISC fellow. Our friends report they’re still ahead of pursuit but they can hear it.”