The general yanked the bridle on his black gelding. The horse reared up, but Bayclock wrested control back. “Sergeant Morris, round up my security guard. Anyone who isn’t injured is to bring the highest-ranking officers to me, ASAP! Their orders remain unchanged—deserters will be shot. We will fall back and regroup until we learn more about the surprise defenses the scientists have set up for us.”
“Yes, sir.” Sergeant Morris turned her horse and stopped. “General, look!”
Bayclock muttered an oath. In the distance a fire blazed at the base of the electromagnetic launcher. It looked as though a bomb had devoured the entire facility, and fingers of flame licked the sky.
“Halt, who goes there!”
After the long, relaxing ride to the microwave facility, Spencer’s first thought was that someone must be playing a joke. Upon seeing the glint of two rifle barrels, his second thought was to answer as quickly as he could. “It’s Spencer—don’t shoot!”
“Rita Fellenstein,” said Rita beside him, just as quickly.
The gun barrel wavered, then dropped as a twangy voice said, “Yeah, it’s Spence. Darn—I thought we’d get to shoot our first live ones.”
Spencer kept his hands up, still unsure of what was going on. “Uh, can you tell me—” And then it hit him. “My God, Bayclock is here already!”
The voice in the darkness turned grim. “Things are going crazy back at the EM launch site. You’d better hurry into the microwave trailer for a report, pronto.”
Spencer didn’t reply. He kicked his mount with his heels, urging the horse to a gallop. Rita charged along beside him, her Australian hat flopping back against her neck.
When they reached the blockhouses, Spencer listened without a word as he was brought up to date. The technician at the telegraph unit spread her hands. “Romero managed to keep us updated in real time, up until the railgun fired.”
“Are you sure the railgun blew up?”
The tech shrugged. “Who knows? That’s what it looked like.”
Rita leaned forward. “What about Bobby?”
“I don’t know. We can’t see the balloon, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could be down to refuel.”
Spencer clenched his jaw, furious with himself. If only he had waited another hour at the launcher before returning! He tried to calm down; he needed to think clearly. Except for Rita, his closest advisors had been at the ill-fated railgun site.
“So what do we do?” said Rita. “Have we lost our long-range strike capability?”
“That pretty much goes without saying,” said the technician.
“Then we’re up a creek,” said Rita. “Bayclock’s boys can be here in three hours if they want!”
“If that’s the case,” said Spencer, “there’s nothing more we can do.” Come on, he thought. What happened to the whiz kid? The going got tough, and now he’s supposed to deliver.
Rita turned toward the blockhouse door with a determined look on her face. “I’ll take a couple of ranchhands and scout out Bayclock’s position. We can take along some of those citrus-oil explosives and lob the army a couple of nasty presents. Psych warfare. If we leave now, we can get there and back before dawn. We’ll stop by the launch site to check things out on the way, and send somebody back if the telegraph isn’t up when we get there.”
Spencer felt as if he had been hit over the head with a bagful of Higg’s bosons. He shook his head. “I don’t know—”
“I wasn’t asking permission, Spence,” said Rita. “Why don’t you just go do something you do best—like double the output power from those microwave satellites? Keep yourself busy and out of the way.”
Half an hour later, Spencer stood grim-faced as Rita swung a long leg over her horse. Her saddlebags were packed with explosives, pyrotechnics, and ammunition. Two ranchhands accompanied her, both grinning nervously as she leaned over to spit a tiny wad of chewing tobacco before setting out.
“See you in a couple of hours.” She leaned over and pecked Spencer on the cheek. “If you get a hold of Bobby, tell him I’m on my way.”
“He’ll be happy to know that.” Spencer slapped her horse on the flank. “Get going—you’ve got a job to do.”
“Make sure the catapult operators are ready for the morning light,” Rita called. “They might look like they’re over the hill, but they know what they’re doing. Just ask Romero.”
Spencer watched as Rita and her two companions rode off into the darkness. He stared until they faded from sight. He sighed, then turned back to the microwave trailer when he heard a voice calling him.
“Quick! We captured two people coming in from the west.”
A chill ran down Spencer’s back. Oh great, he thought. Nobody around here has any military savvy, and we’ve just captured our first prisoners of war?
He jogged down the dusty path, nearly stumbling over ruts in the darkness. On the old road to the microwave farm, Spencer met a guard walking behind two people—both quite tall, a man and a woman, their hands behind their backs. Even in the starlight Spencer could see the man wore a cowboy hat, and the woman tied her long hair in a pony tail. They didn’t look like what he expected of Bayclock’s troops.
The guard said, “Hey, Spencer, come see what we’ve got here.”
The prisoner’s voice had a strong cowboy twang. “Are you Dr. Lockwood? Am I glad to see you!”
“I bet you are. Who are you?”
The cowboy pushed himself forward, ahead of the guard. “I talked to you on the shortwave. I’m Todd Severyn. From the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena.”
Chapter 71
Rita Fellenstein stood in the stirrups, craning her neck to spot the glow of Bayclock’s campfires. For once she was thankful for the petroplague, since the general had no access to infrared goggles or other high-tech nighttime defenses. At least she didn’t think so.
Even better, his troops were not familiar with the landscape.
Rita intended to use her advantage to the max.
The two ranch hands started to whisper, but Rita put out a hand for silence. So far, she had spotted no roving patrols, but she didn’t put it past Bayclock to send out random point squads.
Still without word from the damaged railgun site, Rita rode with the ranch hands and looped south, coming in from behind the camp. Bobby Carron had told her about the “check six” nomenclature of fighter pilots to guard their rear at all times, but he thought the general might not apply that on the ground.
She really liked Bobby. It was good to finally have a guy stand up and spar with her instead of awkwardly shuffling his feet like the ranch hands did. But Bobby had nothing to do with her raid now. She pushed thoughts of him out of her mind.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rita caught a glimpse of a man on horseback in the encampment; beyond, she saw the glow of several fires masked by low dirt berms dug by the weary soldiers.
Rita patted her saddle and withdrew three cans of Bobby’s citrus-based explosive. She secured her rifle at the back of the saddle and whispered back at the other ranch hands. “Don’t get too close or stay too long. We just want to goose ‘em. Ka-boom!” Rita flicked the reins and clucked. “Let’s go!”
Their mounts stormed toward Bayclock’s encampment. Rita bent low on her horse. With the heels of her boots, she urged her horse to a gallop.
Bayclock’s troops had bivouacked in a circular cluster a hundred yards across. Rita and the others split off, riding around the camp. Her breath quickened as horse hooves made a thumping sound in the desert night.
The troops lay on the ground, using their packs as pillows; three men tended the fires. Someone in the camp struggled to his feet. His silhouette looked wildly around as he started shouting.