A Fighting Chance (26 page)

Did that mean the bugs believed
all
of the Confederacy troops were retreating toward Baynor’s Bay? He couldn’t be sure. But as Santana lay belly down at the edge of the forest and looked toward the geothermal power plant, there was reason to hope. Because there had been no further contact with the enemy or its auxiliaries subsequent to Ponco’s nearly fatal encounter with the Ramanthian missile. Having carried out a reconnaissance during the hours of darkness, the recon ball was hovering inches off the ground to the officer’s left.

As Santana peered through a pair of binoculars, he saw a stretch of open ground, X-shaped monster barriers similar to those he’d seen in Baynor’s Bay, and weapons blisters between them. Farther back a windowless, one-story building hugged the ground. There was a landing pad on the roof. That was flanked by three vertical stacks, all leaking what might have been steam into the cool morning air. The only other feature worth noting was a com mast that poked straight up from the south side of the installation.

That was what Santana could see from the edge of the forest. But he knew that in keeping with both the power plant’s function and the Ramanthian preference for living underground, most of the facility would be below the surface. And that, he figured, was where most of the troops were housed.

The general impression was that of a well-fortified installation but one the battalion would have been able to take had the entire force been present. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. “So,” Santana said, as he panned the glasses from left to right. “There’s no way to take this thing head-on. Not given the force at our disposal.”

“No, sir,” Ponco agreed. “I circled the entire facility last night and concluded that we would need the quads to beat their defenses down.”

Santana knew he had allowed himself to engage in wishful thinking where the installation was concerned. He had hoped that the geo tap’s defenses were only partially completed. Or maybe they were poorly built. But no such luck. The Ramanthians had done their work well. So what to do? Quitting wasn’t an option. Not with so much at stake.

Think,
Santana told himself.
Every fortress has a weakness. All you have to do is find it.
But there weren’t any weaknesses. None Santana could see anyway. So he and Ponco were forced to withdraw without formulating a plan.

After being undermined by a rain-swollen stream many years earlier, a giant Ba-Na tree had fallen over and left a deep hole where its root ball had been. By stretching a camo net over the depression, the company had been able to create a serviceable hiding place. The key was to keep both their electronic and physical activity to a minimum.

Even so, Santana knew the Ramanthians could be depended on to send patrols out into the surrounding area on a regular basis. And that meant the company couldn’t stay where it was for more than a day. The second platoon was on duty, and the first was trying to get some sleep as Santana held the net for Ponco. “I’d like to see the video you shot last night,” Santana said. “Maybe I’ll see something we can use.” Ponco might have harbored doubts about that, but if so, she kept them to herself.

So as Santana sat on a rock with a cup of hot caf in his hand, Ponco projected a three-dimensional image into the air in front of him. It had been shot at night, so everything had a greenish hue. He was intrigued at first, but after the first couple of minutes the footage became very boring. Santana forced himself to pay attention as the recon ball skirted the perimeter of the Ramanthian base. And what he saw served to make him even more depressed. Because in addition to the defenses he’d seen firsthand, it soon became clear that the free-fire zone in front of the weapons blisters was mined, razor wire had been put in place to protect the approaches to the gun positions, and slit trenches zigzagged from one bunker to the next.

But then, just as Santana was about to give up in disgust, something caught his eye. “Roll that last twenty seconds again.” Ponco responded, and Santana watched the recon-ball view of the jungle floor slide past as the cyborg skimmed across bare dirt. Then the view changed as the forest closed in around the camera again.

“The bugs cleared a fifty-foot-wide swath of forest that leads east,” Ponco explained, as the video stopped. “It’s my guess that they dug a trench and buried the power conduit in order to protect it from both animals and air attacks.”

“Of course they did,” Santana said, as his mind began to race. “They would have to. And that could be the opportunity we’ve been looking for. What’s to stop us from digging down into the ground and cutting that conduit?”

Ryley had been listening in. “My guess is that they positioned sensors all along the length of the conduit, sir. We start digging, and they come a-running.”

“Right,” Santana said, as he continued to think about the problem. “But what if we pretend to attack the base at the same time? That might bottle them up. And, or, reduce the number of troops they can send to stop us. Plus, we’d be waiting for them when they arrived.”

“It’s an intriguing idea,” Ponco replied carefully. “But it has a lot of moving parts.”

“So does an automatic weapon,” Santana said grimly. “And, in the right hands, it will kill you.”

It had been a long day. The waiting was the worst part. Because the company’s hiding place was so close to the G-tap that it wasn’t a question of
if
they would be discovered but
when
. And if that occurred prior to nightfall, Santana’s plan would go up in smoke. Worse yet, he and his troops would have to run, the STS cannon would remain functional, and an entire battle group would be at risk.

But, thanks to strict radio discipline and some good luck, they made it through the day undetected. So as darkness fell and the platoons parted company, they still had the element of surprise on their side. Santana and the first platoon followed Ponco into the jungle. Ryley led the rest of the company west. It took half an hour for Santana and his troops to make their way to the point where the fifty-foot-wide scar cut through the forest.

The location was about a mile east of the power plant. The Ramanthians were methodical creatures, so Santana figured the power conduit was buried at the center of the pathway. Once a security screen was established, a pair of T-2s began to dig. They were equipped with the only sets of shovel hands that the company had brought with it. But they were making excellent progress. Santana glanced at his watch. The time had come to send a scrambled message to Ryley. And the result was spectacular as two missiles struck the power station’s com mast, and it collapsed. Predictably enough, the bugs fired back.

Meanwhile, Santana was standing a few feet away from the steadily deepening hole, battling the urge to issue unnecessary orders. Speed, that was the most important thing, and the cyborgs were already digging as fast as they could. “This is Alpha One-Three,” Ponco said over the radio. “There are three airborne targets inbound. They’re too small to be aircraft.”

“Track ’em and kill ’em,” Santana said, as a scraping sound was heard and Private Sam Voby’s shovel hand came into contact with concrete. “Over.”

The T-2 was up to his shoulders in the hole by then—which meant that the containment was about six feet down. The other cyborg said, “Bingo,” as she ran into concrete as well. They were close.
Very
close. But could they crack the tunnel open quickly enough?

Based on the data provided by her sensors, Ponco figured that the incoming targets were flying robots. Which made sense because while the Ramanthian command structure opposed the use of cyborgs, they had some very effective attack drones in their inventory. So Ponco, a T-2, and a couple of bio bods were waiting for the enemy machines as headlights appeared and three cylindrical robots came sailing down the path. They were equipped with argrav units, nose cannons, and a variety of sensors. The lead unit managed to get off two blobs of coherent energy before it ran into a hail of bullets and exploded.

Having been warned, the second and third machines took evasive action. Ponco went after one of them, saw an opening, and took it. A flash of light strobed both sides of the forest as the robot exploded.

Meanwhile, the surviving drone was driving in toward the hole in the ground and the T-2s working there. It was clearly determined to sacrifice itself if necessary. But the T-2 assigned to assist Ponco fired its fifty and blew the machine out of the air. Santana was so focused on the effort to access the cable vault that he was only dimly aware of the red-hot bits of metal and plastic that fell on him.

Light flared as Private Hopson made use of his energy cannon to slice into the concrete containment. The weapon wasn’t designed for that purpose and quickly began to overheat. But not before it cut through into a hollow interior. That was when another cyborg took over.

Santana felt a rising sense of excitement. Rather than simply dropping the conduit into a trench and pouring concrete over it, the Ramanthians had constructed a relatively spacious tunnel. That meant his troops could not only cut the conduit whenever they chose, but follow it back to the geo tap, and attack the plant itself! And that was important. Because while the bugs might repair the cable before the Confed ships arrived, they wouldn’t be able to replace the G-tap itself. “Hurry!” Santana said, conscious of the fact that the order was unnecessary. “Cut a hole large enough for a T-2 to drop through. We’re going in.”

Temo was in the cell-like room that had been assigned to her, lying on the pallet she had created for herself and staring at the ceiling when Sub Commander Hutlar Remwyr threw the curtain aside and entered without warning. He didn’t like having a human living in his power plant but had been forced to tolerate Temo’s presence because Commander Dammo had ordered him to do so. The result had been a sort of chilly civility between the two of them.

But now Remwyr put all pretences aside as Temo turned in his direction. “Get up,” he ordered. “Animals are attacking. Why?”

All of the Ramanthians had looked alike to Temo until she’d been forced to live with them. And as the renegade came to her feet, she found herself looking at what she knew to be an especially short officer whose left leg had been replaced by a prosthesis. Because of Remwyr’s reference to “animals,” she thought a group of velocipods were attacking the base at first. Then she realized that the officer meant humans. “Because they want to get in?” she inquired innocently.

Though short and stocky, Remwyr was tough. His right pincer stabbed forward, hit Temo in the stomach, and caused her to double over. Then his good knee came up to strike her chin. She dropped like a rock. “I know they want to enter the base, filth ... You told me that they had been defeated. And were retreating toward the west. Now they’re attacking. How is that possible?”

Temo had lurched to her feet by that time. Something warm was dribbling down her chin. When she wiped it, her wrist came away red. “My report was correct,” she insisted. “And you know that. Your planes attacked the retreating column
twice
. So it looks like they tricked you. Part of the battalion continued this way. And they got past my scouts. Or killed them. But so what? The force they sent is bound to be small and lightly armed. So they won’t be able to force their way in.”

“Wrong, animal,” Remwyr responded. “They already have.”

Temo was genuinely surprised. “
Really?
How?”

“One group pretended to attack us while a second dug their way down to the tunnel east of here. Now they’re inside and headed this way.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Temo said admiringly. “Somebody has a brain.”

“Get your soldiers,” Remwyr said. “Follow Section Leader Sotim. You will stop them.”

“Or?”
Temo said defiantly.

“Or I will kill you.”

Temo sighed. “That’s what I like about you Sub Commander Remwyr. You have a way with words.”

It was dark inside the tunnel. But the combination of the work lights thrown forward by the lead T-2s, and the less powerful spots projected by the helmets the bio bods wore, was sufficient to illuminate the next thirty feet or so. The passageway was so narrow that only two cyborgs could advance, with no more than a few inches between their massive shoulders. Santana and the rest of the troops followed.

The power conduit ran down the center of the tunnel. It was about the same diameter as a man’s thigh and had an oily appearance. The cable was shielded but caused Santana’s radio to crackle and pop. Shiny tracks ran to either side of the conduit. That suggested that the bugs could send some sort of vehicle up the line to carry out repairs on the conduit.

Rather than cut the cable, which would alert the forces on Headstone to the fact that something was wrong, Santana had elected to follow it back. The bugs weren’t going to like that. So he knew it was only a matter of time before the enemy attempted to block him and wasn’t surprised when a bright light appeared up ahead. “This is Alpha Four-Four,” Corporal Pryde said. “A vehicle is coming our way. It’s picking up speed. Over.”