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“What if we hook Harfang and Faucon to the station’s power system and use their reactors for the guns? Surely, Tyrell is equipped to accept external sources.” Delgado, who’d been pacing around the command post, stopped and looked at Movane.
She grimaced. “A possibility. There are several outlets near both ships. But there’s one minor problem. The guns are fed directly from the station’s reactor via specially laid large conduits. The conduits for external sources are smaller. They couldn’t take the level of throughput required. And before you ask, we don’t have stocks of the large conduits. Besides, my people aren’t capable of jury-rigging a connection from your ships to those power conduits.”
“Which leaves the ships themselves as our defensive platforms.”
First Sergeant Hak let out a soft grunt. “No crews.”
“Not to lift off, no. Unless we can convince the mercs at gunpoint it would be in their best interests if they obeyed every order.”
“I wouldn’t bet my pension on that.” Hak shook his head. “The pop guns on those sloops won’t make the same impression as our big boys, and grounded, they can’t deploy shields, which turns them into sitting targets. The sort that might just experience a catastrophic antimatter containment breach a few dozen meters from Tyrell.”
Delgado nodded. “Right. If the station is destroyed, we’ll have a heck of a time keeping tangos from raiding the ammunition bunker.”
Movane gave him a hard look. “Never mind the civilian lives that depend on you, Major.”
“I’m sorry, Chief Administrator, but keeping the tangos from seizing enough WMDs to murder millions is more important than the lives of everyone in here, ours included.”
“The needs of the many,” Testo said in a quiet, almost reverential tone.
“You’d sacrifice the lot of us?”
“If there’s no other choice.” He smacked his thighs with his open palms. “But we’re far from being there yet. One thing I’ve learned serving in SOCOM is we’re blessed with so many talented folks in our ranks that we never lack for innovative, workable ideas.”
“And high explosives specialists,” Hak grunted. “How about we booby trap the WMDs? If they go off on Keros, no harm done because it has no atmosphere. I’m sure HQ won’t mind if that keeps them from falling into enemy hands.”
“Then why,” Movane asked, “didn’t your superiors order you to destroy them the moment you arrived?”
Delgado shrugged. “No idea. They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“Because in our line of business, questions often go unanswered. It’s called need to know.” He glanced at Testo. “Recall Delta Troop. There’s no point in them sitting at guns we can’t power.”
“And put them aboard the sloops since they’re now our most experienced gunners?” Hak suggested. “Not that I suggest they engage, but so you have the option, should something unexpected present itself.”
“Actually...” Delgado tapped his chin with an extended index finger. “How about we booby trap the WMDs and pretend we’re the mercs who landed aboard the sloops? A second wave will know about the first and expect to see allies.”
“That’ll only work if the second wave isn’t from the same outfit. Otherwise, they’ll know we’re not mercs. I don’t give Tyrell an ion’s chance in a plasma salvo if that happens.”
Movane looked at Hak and Delgado in turn. “But we can use our prisoners as hostages, can’t we?”
The latter shook his head.
“No. Mercs, especially those from outfits operating in the Protectorate Zone, don’t do the hostage game. They’ll simply shoot Tyrell full of holes and let their former colleagues die with the rest of us. But if they can retrieve the ships without risking further casualties, they’ll try. In any case, Delta Troop will split in half and act as gunnery crew aboard the sloops and while they’re waiting for action, they can drain the computer cores of relevant intelligence. I’m sure HQ will be interested in finding out who they are and where they come from. The Admiral is big on retaliation strikes these days, pour encourager les autres, as they say. Who’s best employed booby-trapping the ammo bunker?”
“You mean the bunker itself or the warhead crates?” Hak asked. “Because if you want to give them a delayed surprise so we can lay doggo and watch them go boom in orbit, then I’d look at doing the crates. Charlie Troop has a few more explosives wizards than Bravo Troop. I’m assuming you’ll keep Rolf and his people patrolling Tyrell and quelling any uprisings.”
“Charlie Troop it is. Chief Administrator, we’ll need one of your shuttles to fly my people there.”
“Do you even know the exact location? The recon droid made sure no one here found out.”
A nod.
“Yes, we do. It’s a bit far for a hike in armored pressure suits. Approximately two dozen kilometers west of here, at the bottom of the canyon.”
Her eyes widened. “That close? And your superiors knew about it for over a year?”
“Yes. Just not exactly where until the recon droid found the hidden entrance. Now, about some transport?”
“I’ll arrange it. Do you need a pilot?”
“I have a few flying sergeants in the company — an improvement instituted by my commanding officer a while back, so we wouldn’t be dependent on outsiders. One of them will do. I’d rather not risk civilians seeing things they shouldn’t.”
“Very well. I’ll make sure one is prepared.” She turned around to pass on the necessary instructions.
“Another thing, Chief Administrator.”
“Yes?” Movane said over her shoulder.
“We used up most of our Fleet-issue explosives stores stopping the first wave and need unrestricted access to Tyrell’s holdings.”
“I’ll call up the chief artificer. He’ll show you our depot.”
**
“Cheerful spot, ain’t it, Sarge?” The shuttle’s pilot, Sergeant Xavier Vennat, whose normal call sign was One-Three-Charlie, kept his eyes glued to the controls as he slowly maneuvered the Assenari Mining craft.
Occupying the jump seat behind him and connected to the cockpit intercom so they could talk without using the radio, Command Sergeant Isaac Dyas grunted in reply. The depths of the canyon lived in perpetual twilight, but it was still easy to see that it was formed by flowing water hundreds of thousands of years ago, before the cataclysm that stripped Keros of its atmosphere. Perhaps the river had even been navigable.
“Just concentrate on flying this ancient crate, Xav. I don’t fancy a hike back to Tyrell, let alone a long climb out of this damned ditch.”
“Getting a touch of the cafard?” Vennat asked in an amused tone to show he was kidding.
“The stuff in that ammo depot is a fracking horror show, so I’m not overly enthusiastic about messing with it even if we’re in an airless environment and wearing combat-grade tin suits.” Dyas paused, then, “Not to mention more mercs could show up unannounced and be on top of us before we know it. So yeah, I’m feeling a wee bite of the old bug after being cooped up in that damned mining station, Xav. But not to worry.”
“I’m not.” Vennat stared at the primary display, which provided a real-time view of what was ahead. “We’re almost there. That faint hump to port, one kay from our current position — the entrance is beneath it. And there’s a nice convenient open space where we can land.”
They touched down a few minutes later, and Dyas realized the hump was an overhang, like so many others they’d seen along the way, a spot where the ancient river had undermined its banks. He aimed his handheld battlefield sensor at the dark space beneath the overhang, but as he expected, it picked up nothing of interest.
Since they’d flown suited up with the entire shuttle depressurized, getting Charlie Troop’s demolition experts and their improvised explosive devices offloaded took only a few moments. As planned, two scouts entered the darkness ahead of the team, sensors in hand, looking for threats as well as the hidden door.
The space appeared vaster and deeper than Dyas expected, with enough room for a sizable cargo shuttle which, he supposed, would have been the point of choosing this spot in an area where the planet’s crust was particularly rich in minerals that could stop orbital sensor scans from penetrating too deeply.
“Found what looks like a hole drilled by the recon droid’s laser,” one of the scouts announced as he reached a blank wall.
Dyas closed the remaining distance and examined the small, perfectly round opening. He reached inside with his hand.
“This must be part of the door. It opens up about twenty centimeters in.”
“Stands to reason, Sarge. The recon droid would have been looking at density readings as part of its programming. Hidden chambers, that sort of thing.”
“Then let’s find the door handle. It’ll be purely mechanical, perhaps not even locked.”
“Done,” the other scout said moments later. He waved them over to a spot three meters from the droid’s borehole. “My sensor sees a perfectly vertical hairline crack in the wall. Can’t make it out with my Mark One eyeballs, but it’s there.” A pause. “And it’s picking up a mechanism of sorts under a veneer of probably fake stone. Metal only, nothing that looks like a depleted power source or explosive.”
Dyas walked over and examined the spot indicated by the scout, then rapped it lightly. Nothing happened. He tapped it a little harder, and a thin pancake of stone flipped up, exposing a handle.
“That easy, eh?” The scout said.
“Whoever established this depot was counting on secrecy rather than fancy technology that might fail at the wrong moment. Besides, tech wasn’t quite as fancy as ours back then, especially in the realm of sensors.”
Dyas grabbed the handle and tested it by pulling up, then down, and then twisting each way. On his last try, it turned ninety degrees.
“Someone give me a rope. We’ll yank the door open from outside the cave just in case there’s a live claymore or any other nasty little surprise waiting for us.”
But nothing happened as the three meters by four meters door swung aside on hidden hinges. Moments later, Dyas’ point men cautiously entered.
“You gotta see this, Sarge.”