Rita released the spring-wound timing mechanism on her first grenade and hurled it, rapidly followed by two other canisters. By the time the first explosion erupted, gunfire peppered the air. Bayclock’s troops shot their weapons blindly into the night. Rita could hear the zing of bullets ricocheting off the ground. Another boom rolled over them with a flash of light as they turned and galloped back toward the microwave farm.
Only four of the canned explosives went off. Although the small bombs probably caused little damage, Rita could tell by the shouting and gunfire behind them that they had thoroughly stirred up Bayclock’s troops.
“Until we spotted your complex from Las Cruces pass, we didn’t know if we’d ever find you,” Todd Severyn said, squatting on the ground from sheer exhaustion. “It was pretty touch-and-go there for a while.”
Beside him, Heather Dixon agreed. She looked ready to drop. Spencer felt sorry for them, and yelled for someone to bring a full canteen of water.
Heather sat next to the fire, hugging her knees. Her face smudged with dirt, she stared mesmerized into the flames as Todd continued his tale. She looked lost, as though life had let her down once too often. It took an effort for Spencer not to stare at her. He wondered if she and Todd were somehow… involved. They sat apart, but after such a difficult journey, that wasn’t surprising.
Lately Spencer found himself thinking about being alone, wondering if he might ever find that girl with the sunburned nose.
He nodded at Todd’s description of the journey after Connor Brooks had killed their companions and stolen the satellites. The Wyoming man unballed his fist and rubbed his dusty jeans, as if to crush the memory of the disastrous trip.
Spencer felt sick to hear the loss of the smallsats. They had come so close! He tried to find some hope that the lost satellites might somehow find their way to the microwave farm. With the Seven Dwarfs still working overhead, it was a shame they couldn’t use the low-orbiting satellites as part of their high-tech defense against Bayclock.
But with the new set of satellites gone and the railgun apparently destroyed, not to mention the general’s troops massed in the foothills, he found it difficult to be optimistic. What did it matter anymore? Why were they fighting at all? Why the hell had Bayclock bothered to come here?
Spencer wondered if his group should just abandon the microwave farm before the army slaughtered them all. They could hide out in the mountains, send out guerrilla teams to harass the occupied area, until one day they managed to drive away the military barbarians. Fat chance! His one small consolation was that another ten smallsats remained safe at JPL.
Todd said, “So what’s the next step, Dr. Lockwood? You might as well put us to work helping you. No use moping around—not with the general here. Time to fight!”
“We already fired the first shot,” Spencer said, “but that seems to have put our railgun out of business and damaged the whole launcher facility. That was really our best chance.”
“Is there anything else you can fight with?” Todd asked.
“We had an extensive war council before the troops got here,” said Spencer. “Gilbert Hertoya had experience fielding high-risk weapons in the Persian Gulf, and we did just about everything he suggested. We’ve still got the ranchers and people from the town lying in ambush, and of course there’s always the catapult squad. Right now we’ve got a team tossing some home-made grenades into the general’s camp. But every one of these is a last-ditch effort, nothing that can cause any sustained damage. I don’t have any more rabbits to pull out of my hat.”
He hesitated, then dropped his voice. “I hope to God that everyone’s all right up at the launcher site.”
Heather continued to stare at the flames, but she spoke in a low, deep voice. “What about your microwave antennas? If they provide so much electricity, why can’t you fry people?”
Spencer had to pull himself out of Heather’s wide eyes before he answered. He glanced at Todd, but the oil man gave a tired smile, as if amused at Spencer’s preoccupation. “Uh, it takes too much power to harm anyone with microwaves—the atmosphere would break down long before the power levels got high enough to harm human beings.” He continued to think it through. “Relatively low powers can do nasty things to metals or electronics, but after the petroplague there’s not much of that stuff in use anymore.”
Heather said, “The general’s rifles are made of metal.”
Spencer opened his mouth to respond, but stopped as her words sank in. “You’ve got a point. I’ve been thinking about using microwaves to attack the wrong target!
“We’re beaming energy from space at relatively low power levels, about a hundred times less than the sunlight that strikes the Earth—that won’t hurt anyone if they stand in it all day long. Remember the cellular telephone scare? Cellular phones were monsters compared to this.”
He spoke faster as he started to get excited. “But Bayclock’s troops are carrying all kinds of metal. Guns, knives, bayonets—and that stuff heats up like crazy when exposed even to the microwave power levels we’re beaming down right now!”
Todd grinned. “It would give them one hell of a hot foot!”
Spencer chewed on his lip. “If we can boost the energy by a factor of four and irradiate his troops for twenty minutes, things might get hot enough even to set off explosives. At the very least the troops might drop their weapons and head for the hills!”
Todd looked down at his big hands and flexed them. “So what do we do?”
Spencer thought for a moment. As far as he could tell, it was sometime after midnight by now. He hadn’t heard the sentry warn of Bayclock’s approach, and that would give them at least an hour warning. Perhaps Gilbert’s pre-emptive railgun strike had set Bayclock back, or maybe the general had sent his vengeful troops up to take over the launcher facility instead.
Spencer said, “The Seven Dwarfs come overhead every day at noon, over eleven hours from now. If we can hold Bayclock off until then, I might be able to reprogram the solar satellites to irradiate his troops. It won’t be as destructive as the railgun, but it might be enough to keep them at bay.”
“Seven Dwarfs?” said Todd. “What are you talking about?” He looked to Heather. “What Dwarfs?”
“You’ve got computers here?” Heather sounded incredulous.
Spencer shrugged, looking at her and ignoring Todd’s question. “Mostly what we’ve scavenged from the workstations, a few big analog circuit boards that run on the batteries recharged every day at noon when the satellites fly over.”
Todd frowned. “I don’t know squat about satellites or computers… or dwarfs for that matter.”
Heather looked suddenly awake. “I’d like to stay here and help, if that’s what you need.”
“Sounds better than rolling over and playing dead,” said Todd. “If the soldiers are so riled up they can’t get here by noon, a blast of your microwaves might just push them over the edge to retreat.” He stood up, ready for action. “Count me in.”
Spencer squinted in the direction of the EM launcher. They would have to send Bobby Carron up in the balloon again early in the morning to get a birds-eye view of the battlefield before they planned their detailed strategy—if Bobby was all right.
Todd repeated himself. “Is there anything I could do? I can ride and I can shoot.”
“Help keep a lookout for a sneak attack. When Rita returns, we’ll decide how best to keep tabs on Bayclock’s troops.”