"If they follow either Route Bravo or Route Charlie," she went on, while two additional threads came alive, "the terrain is a lot closer, which would let them use infantry and their lighter mechs to try to work around our flanks without exposing their heavy armor to our fire at such extended ranges. Right now, Lazarus is projecting a probability of seventy-five percent for Route Charlie."
The indicated route blinked on the display. Like the Alpha Route, it followed the line of a river valley which actually merged with Alpha about forty kilometers west of Landing. For the most part, the going was at least as good as for the Alpha Route, too, although there was one stretch that passed through a virtual gorge—a narrow, cliff-walled, twisting gut of a passage where the larger Melconian mechs would have no choice but to advance in single file.
"Bolos aren't subject to wishful thinking in enemy intention analyses," she replied. "If it were me, the maneuver opportunities would make it very tempting, too. On the other hand, I have to admit that I may not be quite as immune to wishful thinking as Lazarus is, and I'd certainly prefer for them to come that way."
Jeffords nodded, once again reflecting on how fortunate they were to have had Maneka Trevor in military command. Her insistence on mapping every possible approach route looked as if it was about to pay off in a huge way.
Purely on the basis of the surface topography, Route Charlie would have to be attractive to the Melconians. It threaded its way through a series of passes broad enough to give scope for tactical maneuvers and rough enough a single Bolo would find it extremely difficult to prevent light units and infantry from worming their way forward around its flanks. And while there were several places along it where a defensive force could make an effective stand, in every case except the gorge Jeffords had already noted, there were alternate approaches through flanking valleys. If Maneka had still commanded a pair of Bolos and had both of them on the ground, they could easily have blocked Route Charlie by operating in support of one another. As it was, Lazarus could engage an attacking column and bottle it up temporarily at any one of those natural defensive positions, but except for the gorge section, there was nowhere he could hold the entire force. And if he let them pin him in position, they would simply flow around him through one of the alternate approaches.
But unless they had access to the deep-scan radar mapping Maneka and Lazarus had carried out, there were aspects of Route Charlie which might just come as a nasty surprise to them.
"I have to admit," he said frankly, "that I was one of the people who thought you'd gone beyond thorough to paranoid, Maneka. But now I'm beginning to wonder if you weren't clairvoyant, instead."
"Hardly." Her mouth tightened and bitterness edged her voice. "If I'd been clairvoyant, Guthrie Chin and Mickey would both be alive and this assault transport would have been blown out of space on its way in. And even if they come down Charlie, we're still facing one hell of a force disadvantage."
"Agreed. But at least we can hurt them."
"That's probably true enough," Maneka conceded. "In the meantime, I've decided it's time to saddle up for Sidekick."
"Agreed," Jeffords said again, steadily, although a part of him wanted to protest angrily. Fourth Battalion was his most effective unit. If the Melconians got past Lazarus, he was going to need Atwater's men and women badly. But he didn't even consider voicing that concern because, bottom line, if the Melconians got past Lazarus with their forces anything like intact, Landing—and the entire colony—was doomed. So if sending Fourth Battalion out to support Lazarus improved the Bolo's chance of stopping the enemy short of Landing, there was no question of where Brigadier Peter Jeffords wanted those troops employed.
"I'll have them moving aboard Lazarus' pod within ten minutes," he assured his youthful commander's image.
"That way."
Corporal Ka-Sharan pointed out across the huge compartment. The blast doors had slammed into place, as he'd anticipated, but the compartment was so vast, and so crowded with industrial machinery, that the chunks between the doors were big enough for an entire company to maneuver through, far less his own four-man team. And before the doors closed, he'd had time for his suit's computers to read the schematic the Humans had so kindly posted on the bulkheads. He knew exactly which way to go to get to the command center, and on a platform this large and this heavily automated, any possible opposition would have to be located there.
"They're out of Bravo-Seven," someone said tersely, and Lauren nodded. The Dog Boys were moving faster than she'd hoped they could, and they'd burned their way through the first set of blast doors with what seemed absurd ease. A platoon from Captain Glenn Smyth-Mariano's company of vacuum-trained militia was on the way, but they were going to get here too late. At least Lauren had gotten most of her people off in the lifeboats, so if the Puppies did have a demolition charge and popped it off, they would kill only her and her command crew.
And, of course, fifteen percent of the colony's total industrial capacity.
"There are only four of the bastards," she heard herself say as she stared at the visual imagery from India Mike Three's internal sensors. "Only four!"
"Sure," Alfred Tschu agreed. "But that's four of them with armor and heavy weapons. And we've got zip as weapons." He stared at his displays for several moments, then shook his head. "Lauren, I think it's time to go, too," he said quietly.
"No! They've still got to cross all of Bravo-Six and Bravo-Four before they can get here!" she snapped, glaring at the images of the Melconian intruders.
"Which isn't going to take them very long," Tschu pointed out. "You know that as well as I do."
Lauren grunted, biting her lip hard. Unfortunately, Tschu was right. The sectors of the industrial module were mostly big open spaces, without a lot in the way of internal bulkheads. They had to be because of the nature of the processes which went on inside them. They were wrapped around the control room like the rings of an onion, but none of them was going to offer many barriers to the oncoming boarders. And whether the Puppies knew it or not, they'd picked the worst possible line of approach, from the humans' perspective. The evacuation route from the control center to the lifeboats ran right along the back side of Bravo-Four. If they just kept coming, they would cut the watch-crew off from escape before they ever reached the control center itself.
"Any more word from Smyth-Mariano, Hannah?" she demanded.
"No." The communications tech sounded decidedly shaky, and Lauren didn't blame her a bit.
"Well, contact him. Tell him what's happening. And tell him we've got maybe fifteen minutes before they cut us off from the lifeboats."
The last blast door before Thermopylae's command deck glowed briefly and almost instantaneously yellow-white, then yielded with an explosive concussion as the Melconian energy lance burned through it.
At least the ship's automated repair systems had managed to close up the hull breaches behind the invaders. The atmospheric pressure dropped noticeably, but it remained breathable, which was good, since none of Hawthorne's bridge personnel had been given time to get to their suit lockers before the entire ship went into lock down.
Something arced through the opening and hit a bulkhead with a metallic rattle.
Hawthorne recognized the grenade instantly.
"Down!" he barked, and flung himself flat behind the pedestal of his command couch an instant before a pair of sledgehammers seemed to impact simultaneously on either side of his head.
The concussion was deafening, and the flash which accompanied it blinded Lieutenant Lewis and Petty Officer Mallory. But as Hawthorne had hoped—prayed—the Dog Boys were trying to take the ship in operable condition, so they were relying on stun grenades. The cumulative effect of the Melconian flash-bangs was devastating, but God had decided to grant them at least a couple of small favors, and one of them was the "shin-breaker."