Amleto Escalante couldn't believe it. Here the Shellheads went and bored these nice, big tunnels so they could shuttle infantry back and forth, and they didn't even bother to cover them with sensors!
Not that he had any intention of complaining.
His lead squad was a hundred meters ahead of him, probing cautiously. He could have wished for more spacious quarters-in fact, his skin crawled at the thought of wallowing around in here like a bunch of troglodytes-but if there wasn't enough room to use jump gear there was still enough for them to move two abreast. He only had sixty troopers left, but he had a sneaking suspicion Delta Company was deeper into the defenses than anyone else. Now if he only knew what he was doing. . . .
"Two branches, Lieutenant," Abbot reported. "One east, one west."
Escalante flipped a mental coin.
"We go east,' he muttered back.
Lantu's heart hammered as he approached the entrance. He carried only captured Theban equipment, and the Terrans had stopped beyond the scanner zone, but if they'd guessed wrong about his retinal prints . . .
He drew a deep breath as no automated weapon system tore him apart. As long as nothing fired, no alarm had been tripped-now it was up to him to keep it that way, and he removed his helmet with clumsy fingers.
A push of a button opened an armored panel, and he leaned forward, presenting his eyes and wincing as brilliant light flashed into them. He held his breath, staring into the light, then exhaled convulsively as the blinding illumination turned to muted green. He cleared his throat.
"Alpha-Zulu-Delta-Four-Niner-One," he recited carefully, and then his mouth twisted. "Great is the Prophet."
Something grated, and a vast portal yawned. He stepped through quickly, reaching for a blinking panel of lights on the tunnel wall, stabbing buttons viciously. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he grinned savagely as the entire panel went blank.
First Marshal Sekah muttered to himself as reports flooded in. The infidels were cutting still deeper, but their rate of advance was slowing. He cursed himself for not having seeded the outer rings with nuclear mines. The infidels were bunching up, and sacrificing a few thousand of his own troops would have been a paltry price for taking them out. He'd already tried air strikes, but their damned kinetic missile launchers had an impossible range. None of the nuclear strike aircraft from his other bases had lived to get close enough, and Saint-Just's own air fields were closed by heavy fire.
But even without nuclear weapons, he was grinding them down. It was only a matter of time, he thought, and tried not to think about the Satan-Khan's malign influence.
The first twenty Raiders crowded into the lead monorail car as Lantu clambered into its control chair. He'd been more than half afraid to summon the vehicles lest he trigger someone's suspicions, but they needed the speed. And the system was fully automated. With so much else to worry about, he doubted anyone had the spare attention to monitor it.
"Ready?" He looked back at MacRory, and Angus nodded sharply. The first admiral breathed a silent prayer to Whoever might really be listening, and five hundred Terran Marines-and two traitorous Thebans-went streaking into the heart of PDC Saint-Just at two hundred kilometers per hour.
"Oh, shit!"
Escalante hugged the wall in reflex action as the sudden roar of combat rolled down the tunnel. He punched an armored fist into the stone, then jerked back up and bounded forward. Sergeant Major Abbot grabbed for him, missed, and went streaking after him, cursing all wet-nosed officers who didn't have the sense Mithra gave a Rigelian.
"Sweet Terra!"
Sekah jerked as fresh alarms shrieked, and his eyes turned in horror to the illuminated schematic of Saint-Just's personnel tunnels. A crimson light glared-and it was inside the final defensive perimeter!
Escalante rounded a bend into a huge, brilliantly lit cavern just as his point finished off the last astonished Shellhead missile tech. He looked around him in disbelief, staring at the sequoia-sized trunks of capital missile launchers. Sweet Jesus-they were inside the main base!
"Sar'major Abbot!"
"Aye, sir!" Abbot appeared almost as if he'd been chasing him, and Escalante pointed across the cavern.
"Cover that tunnel! Mine it and drop it. Then I want blastpacks on that hatch over there-move it, Sar'major!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" Abbot barked. Mithra! Maybe this idiot knew what he was doing after all!
"Brigadier Ho is pinned down, sir."
Sharon Manning grimaced and tried to think. Ho's brigade was her point now, and he'd been shot to hell. She stared at her map display, scrolling through the terrain and thanking God Commander Trevayne had managed to get them such detailed maps. Now where-?
It had to be coming from that bunker complex. And that meant . . .
"Hook Fourth Brigade around to the north." A burst of rifle fire battered her zoot, and she curled around, automatically protecting the display board without even looking up. The cough of a flechette launcher from behind her silenced the fire, but she hardly noticed. "While the Fourth moves up," she went on without a break, "get Second Battalion of the Nineteenth out on their flank. Tell them to watch out for rocket fire from-"
She went on snapping orders, and tried not to think of how many of her people were already dead.
A company of Theban infantry pounded down the tunnel to Missile Bay Sixty-Four, unable to believe their orders. There was no way-no way-infidels could be inside Saint-Just! It had to be a mistake!
The captain at their head raced around a turn and sighed in relief as he saw the closed hatch. False alarm, he thought, waving for his troops to slow their headlong pace. If it weren't, that hatch-
Fifty kilos of high explosive turned the hatch into shrieking shrapnel and killed him where he stood.
Escalante started to wave his troopers forward, then stopped dead. Fuck! Maybe Sergeant Grogan had been right about what lieutenants used for brains! Here he was deep inside the enemy position, and he hadn't even bothered to tell anyone about it! But none of their coms would punch through this much rock, so . . .
His eye lit on Private Lutwell. Something big and nasty had wrecked the exoskeleton of her zoot's right arm, and the useless limb was clipped to her side while she managed her flechette launcher with an awkward left hand.
"Lutwell!"
"Sir?"
"Shag ass back down that tunnel. Tell 'em we're inside and that I'm advancing, sealing branch corridors with demo charges to cover my flanks."
"But, sir, I-"
"Don't fucking argue!" Escalante snarled "Do it, Trooper, or I'll have your guts for breakfast!"
Lutwell popped into the tunnel like a scalded rabbit, and Escalante swung back to his front. He paused for just an instant as he saw the grin on Abbot's face, and then his people were moving forward once more.