Fortunately, there were no more than a dozen options. Foss also assumed that there would be a certain number of similarities between Imperial weapons controls and those of the Tahn.
The final device, dubbed by Foss a "fiendish thingie," consisted of one control box, anodized the same color as the electronic boxes found in the wreckage, dangling cables, and a separate power source. They fit into two backpacks and weighed about twenty-five kilos each.
Sutton managed to find in some storehouse two sets of the phototropic Mantis-issue camouflage uniforms that semifit Alex and Sten. A combat car was given a radar-absorbing anodizing and fitted with a sensor-reflecting overhead cover. Neither of them would work perfectly, but Sten was working from Alex's original supposition—that the Tahn wouldn't be looking that hard in his direction. He hoped.
Sh'aarl't insisted that the Claggett make the insertion—she had found the target, and even if she wasn't going to mount the attack, it was still her eggsac. Sten couldn't tell whether her ruffed hair meant that she was angry, convinced that her CO was mad, or worried.
She brought the Claggett in-atmosphere on the far side of the satellite, then contour flew until the tacship's sensors began picking up the signals from the Tahn depot. Again, she assumed the superiority of the Imperial sensors.
Sten and Alex unloaded and broke the combat car out of the slung cargo capsule below the Claggett. Their pickup point would be the same, two planetary days away.
Sh'aarl't waved a mournful mandible, the lock hissed closed, and the Claggett hissed away.
Sten and Alex boarded the car and, very slowly, floated, barely a meter above the ground, in the general direction of the arms depot. Their course was not plotted as a direct line but zigged toward the valley. If the unknown object that was their combat car was picked up by the Tahn, possibly a route that didn't point directly at the valley could be disarming.
Both men were lightly armed—if the drakh came down, their only plan would be to throw down a base of fire and then go to ground.
They had miniwillyguns and four bester grenades. Sten and Alex both carried kukris—the curved fighting knife they had learned to use and admire while serving with the Gurkhas—and Sten had his own tiny knife buried in the sheath under the skin of his forearm.
Sten landed the combat car when they were about ten kilometers away from the valley and waited for darkness. Through the twilight, he could see the mountain ring surrounding the valley. The view through binocs suggested that the valley might be an old volcanic crater. Certainly the mountain walls around it were very steeply sloped. That was all to the good—maybe no one would expect visitors from that direction.
At full dark, Sten crept the car forward, grounding it finally at the base of the walls. They pulled on hoods fitted with light-enhancing goggles, shouldered their packs, and started up.
The climb was a hard scramble, but they didn't need to rope up. The biggest problem was the loose shale underfoot. A slip not only would send them broadsliding back down but probably would set off alarm devices. Their pre-plotted course led them up toward one of the laser blasts near the canyon mouth.
It seemed as if Kilgour's tactical thinking was correct—no one would be looking for some stupid foot soldiers to try an insertion.
The first alarm was wholly primitive—a simple beam break set about a meter above the ground.
Whatever smaller creatures inhabited the world could pass under the beam and not disturb any guard's somnolence.
Sten and Alex became smaller creatures and did the same.
The second line of defense might have taken a bit longer to circumvent, consisting of a series of small hemispherical sensors intended, most likely, to pick up an intruder of a certain physical type—it could be preset to go off when it picked up something moving of a certain size, a certain body temperature, or even by light ground disturbances set off by body weight. Kilgour was ready to subvert that sensor with a standard-issue Mantis bluebox, the so-called Invisible Thug transmitter. That proved to be unnecessary—the system wasn't even turned on. But just to make sure it wouldn't be turned on after they passed, Sten slid his knife out of his arm, slit the sensor's metalloid housing open, and stirred its electronic guts vigorously.
So far, the mission was very standard—a recruit halfway through basic Guard training could have infiltrated the site.
Next should have been a contact alarm set of wires. It was, and was carefully stepped through by the two men.
They shut the power down on their see-in-the-dark hoods, lay on their stomachs inside that wire, and started looking for the sentry. Ahead of them was the cliff rim, and bulking above it the laser gun, and beside it two mobile vans that would house the crew.
Sten scanned the area with his binocs set for light amplification, passive mode. If someone else was using a scope, the binocs would pick it up first. Negative. He switched to active mode.
He found the guard. He was sitting on the steps of one of the vans, his projectile gun leaning against the van walls. His attention seemed to be focused on the ground between his boots.
Sten could imagine Alex mentally purring "No puh-roblem." They turned their hoods back on and slid forward the laser.
Kilgour found the fire-control center input leads to the laser and, after making sure they weren't alarm-rigged, disconnected them. They sorted through the octopus of leads on their own bluebox. Luck was in session—one of Foss's leads fit perfectly.
The new lead was fed down the gun and under its base plate. Bluebox and backup power sources were then bonded to the base plate. Alex loosened the lock on the bluebox's one external readout, and it glowed dimly. If everyone was right, they were go, and the petard was hissing.
Sten and Alex became part of the night again and slithered downslope to the combat car. Sten knew this would not work—nothing that sneaky ever performed vaguely up to expectations.
The next stage, after and if they were picked up by the Claggett, might be interesting.
The Clagget's command deck was armpit to elbow, since both Sten and Alex had insisted on witnessing the results, if any, of their great ploy.
Sh'aarl't had brought her tacship in-atmosphere at a distance carefully calculated to be just within the range of the Tahn satellite's sensors, then dived for the ground.
That, they hoped, would put the antiaircraft systems on full alert.
Then Sh'aarl't launched two remote pilot vehicles that had been modified to give sensor returns matching the tacship. Sh'aarl't and her weapons officer each wore control helmets—Sh'aarl't's looked more like a figure-eight safety mask that sat just above her eyes—and sent the RPVs streaking for the valley.
Four kilometers distance... Sh'aarl't murmured, "They have us"... three kilometers... and the fire-control system ordered all tracking weapons to open fire.
One of those tracking weapons, of course, was the laser that Sten and Alex had boogered. It swung, not away from the valley but toward its center. Its bell depressed, unnoticed, toward the valley's floor. The RPVs were two kilometers away from the valley when the cliff walls exploded into flame and violet light, as did a seventy-five-meter-high by 200-kilometer-square stack of ship-to-ship missile containers. The fireball rolled across the flatland, and two other dumps went up.
The fire-control system wasn't concerned with what was happening inside the valley. It continued firing. One RPV was hit by two laser blasts and three missiles. It vanished, and Sh'aarl't, back in the Claggett, swore and pulled her control helmet off.