The ground pounder had already landed by the time Tal and Gehrain got there in the cargo transport. Tal set them down as close as she dared, behind a hillock, and it took them less than two ticks to run to the cargo hold, lower the tailgate, and drive out in the skimmer. No sooner had they swung around the hillock than they saw the bloom of light, followed by a streak arcing toward Blacksun.
“It’s already firing! Speed it up!” Tal shouted over the wind.
Gehrain pushed against the throttle to no avail. “I’m going as fast as I can!”
“Damn, damn, damn!” Tal reached out, but the Voloth were too far away. They needed to close the distance.
Gehrain went from cover to cover, never letting up on the throttle but always seeking to keep something between them and the ground pounder. Tal tamped down on the temptation to tell him to shek it and just go straight. He was doing the right thing; she needed to calm herself. But watching that ground pounder shell Blacksun was firing her rage like nothing had ever done before. Five ticks ago she’d still been conflicted about what she’d have to do, but not anymore.
Her senses brushed against alien minds.
“We’re there,” she called and focused hard, trying to find one of the weapons specialists. She felt a burst of concentration just as another mortar launched and latched on to that mind.
Betrayal! Spies, threat, they’re going to kill you, kill them first! Kill them! Kill them! Betrayal!
Gehrain pulled to a stop just past a large boulder and focused with her.
The ground pounder kept moving, but it was no longer firing. Tal dug deep and pushed out the rage and fear as hard as she could.
Kill them now! Before they can kill you!
The ground pounder took two more steps and stopped. Tal pulled back and extended her senses in a wider net.
“There are only two left,” she said. “One of them is my weapons specialist.” She prepared herself to break his mind.
Gehrain nodded, then stopped. “Wait—”
“One,” Tal finished. The mind she’d been in a moment ago was gone.
They looked at each other.
“Now what?” Gehrain asked.
“Take us in.” Tal wanted a closer look at this thing. And with only one Voloth left alive—either the pilot or the engineer—there wasn’t much it could do.
They pulled up near one of the gigantic legs and Tal hopped out, keeping close tabs on the remaining Voloth mind. Based on the feel, she thought it might be the engineer.
She leaned down, scooped up a stone from the ground, and tossed it toward the leg. The shield lit up, flashing into existence for half a piptick before vanishing again, and she felt a brush of wind past her ear.
“Damn. I think I almost put a rock through my skull.”
“Could you not do that again, please? Colonel Micah will have my head if I let you get hurt.”
Tal leaned down again, choosing a stick this time.
“Lancer Tal—”
“It’s just a stick. It won’t hurt me.”
“This is such a bad idea,” Gehrain grumbled.
Tal ignored him and slowly pushed the stick toward where she thought the shield was. Slowly, slowly…
A faint blue glow appeared around the tip of the stick, but nothing pushed back at her, and the rest of the shield stayed dark. She held her breath and pushed her stick forward at a glacial pace. The blue light traveled down its length, marking the exact boundary of the shield.
“Look at that,” she marveled.
“How is that possible?” Gehrain was next to her now, staring in fascination.
“Captain Serrado said the shield reacts to both kinetic and electromagnetic energy. So I was thinking, what if the kinetic energy is too low? This thing is designed to absorb huge impacts, like rail gun projectiles, and capture the energy for itself. I thought maybe if something moved slowly enough, the shield wouldn’t be able to respond. It wasn’t designed with such a low kinetic energy in mind. It’s not enough to power the shield, and it’s not enough to be a threat. Who could ever get close enough to a ground pounder to stand here and gradually push something through?”
“Nobody, unless it was already disabled.”
“Exactly. It’s a design flaw that nobody can take advantage of. No Gaians, that is. But we can.” Holding the stick with one hand, she pulled her disruptor from its holster with the other. “The night we destroyed the first ground pounder, Captain Serrado sketched out a schematic for us. If I remember correctly, that box right up there is the shield generator.”
“Be careful, Lancer Tal.”
She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly as she touched the tip of her disruptor barrel to the shield. Another faint blue glow appeared, but that was the only reaction. She pushed it through, angled it upward, and fired.
The box exploded in a shower of sparks, but the blue lines remained around her disruptor barrel and the stick.
“Shek. That wasn’t it.”
Gehrain lifted his wristcom and tapped it. “Captain Serrado, this is Gehrain.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, both of us. But could you tell us exactly what the shield generator looks like on a ground pounder? And where it’s located?”
“Where it’s—what in all the purple planets are you doing?”
“Breaking into a ground pounder.”
There was a short silence.
“It’s a rectangular box high up on the inside of one of the legs, just under the floor of the cabin. Gray, with one thick cable going in at the top and five smaller ones coming out at the bottom.”
“Got it,” Tal said. She’d been off a little; it was the box just above the one she’d destroyed. She fired again, the box exploded, and the blue lines vanished.
“Holy shekking Mother,” Gehrain said. “I think you did it.”
Tal moved her disruptor forward and back. Nothing. She waved the stick in the air. Nothing.
“Tell Captain Serrado thank you,” she said as she dropped the stick and walked forward, her mind focused on the engineer.
Get out. You have to get out, it’s not safe, it’s not safe, danger!
A hatch clanged open near one of the other legs and a female Voloth began climbing out. Tal waited until she cleared the hatch before shooting her and was already jogging over as the body hit the ground with a sodden thump. She holstered her disruptor, found the first rungs, and began to climb.
At the top of the leg she poked her head through the hatch and recoiled at the gore. The three dead Voloth had been hit so many times with weapons fire that the cabin walls were splattered with blood and brains. Wrinkling her nose, she pulled herself through.
Gehrain was right behind her. “Ugh,” he said, looking around. “We overdid it.”
“Tell that to the dead in Blacksun,” Tal said. “These shekkers got off six mortars before we could stop them.” She looked around at the dizzying array of controls covering all four walls.
“We can’t operate one of these,” Gehrain said.
“No. Damn, I was hoping it would be simpler.”
They looked at each other.
“We have to find another one,” they said at the same time.
Tal nodded. “If we can do a forced Sharing with the operators, we can put one of these in action.”
“And then we’ll have the weapons to shoot down those fighters when they come,” Gehrain finished.
“Or other ground pounders. This could save a lot of lives. We need to get the word out.” Tal lifted her wrist and punched in the all-call. “This is Lancer Tal with an emergency message.”