'As will those of Battalion C,' echoed Piet Anders.
Vauban suppressed a sly smile and said, 'Hopefully that will not be necessary. There have been some… unexpected developments in the last few hours and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid has a plan that may buy us some more time. The enemy artillery, especially that on the promontory, is killing us. To have any chance of survival we must knock it out, and that will not be easy. Mikhail?'
Leonid stood and checked the gold box again to make sure that the vox-scrambler was functioning properly before handing out data-slates to the senior officers of the Jourans. Leonid and Vauban watched as each man scanned the contents of the slate, their expressions changing from weariness to sudden hope.
'Is it really true?' asked Major Anders.
'It is, Piet,' confirmed Leonid. 'I have seen them.'
'An entire company?' breathed Kristan. 'How?'
Vauban raised his hand, halting further questions and said, 'The files you are holding in your hands are to be considered the most sacred thing in your possession, gentlemen. Follow the orders within them. Do so with care and resolution, and tell no one outside this room what we are about. Be ready to move on this plan the instant I give the order, for if you are not, then we truly are lost.'
Morgan Kristan scanned further down the slate and grunted as he saw a familiar name.
'Is there a problem, Major Kristan?' asked Leonid.
'There may be,' nodded Kristan. 'Any plan that involves - relies even - on Hawke, scares me to the soles of my boots.'
'Do not concern yourself with Hawke's involvement in this,' soothed Vauban. 'I have faith in him, and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid will handle that part of the plan.'
Piet Anders lifted his eyes from his slate and asked, 'And who will lead us?'
'I will,' replied Vauban.
The ruins of listening post Sigma IV had long ceased smouldering as Goran Delau squatted by its entrance, his servo-arm sifting through the wreckage.
He and ten soldiers clad in red overalls had searched the mountains these last few days without finding another living soul and Delau was beginning to believe that Honsou had sent them on a fool's errand. A body without a face lay beside the buckled doorway, its bones gleaming through the torn fabric of its uniform and Delau kicked it aside as he ducked inside the listening post, remembering the battle they had fought to take this place, the roar of assault cannon fire and the storm of shells as it tore through them.
Inside, all was darkness, but Delau's enhanced vision easily pierced the gloom. Shattered equipment and blackened metal lay strewn about, the walls peppered with grenade fragments. A body lay against one wall, the little flesh that remained on its skeleton was scorched and black. This body's face was blown away, and Delau remembered the two shots Honsou had fired to kill these men.
Where then was the body of the third?
As he scanned the deserted listening post, he saw the open footlocker and the discarded items that lay strewn about it. He fell to his knees, examining them all in turn. All were useless trinkets and, to a man trapped on the mountain, worthless.
So, one soldier had somehow survived and salvaged everything of value from the bunker.
Where had he gone?
Delau marched from the listening post and examined the dusty ground outside. The corpse on the ground had no rifle and Delau guessed that the survivor had taken it before moving on.
Delau sniffed the air and knelt beside the decaying corpse, noting a patch of discoloured rock beside its feet. Without needing to taste it, he knew it was blood and, from its patterning, that it had not come from the corpse's wound.
So Forrix was correct. There was someone still alive on the mountains. A resourceful man as well, if Delau's reasoning was correct.
Scanning the surrounding environment, he knew there was only one way a man determined to strike back at the Iron Warriors would have gone: north-west across the knifeback ridge to a position of observation.
Swiftly he gathered the indentured soldiery to him and set off up the mountainside.
Goran Delau grinned within his helmet at the thought of facing this worthy foe.
Hawke scrambled across a jagged outcrop of rock, breathing heavily as he traversed the steep slopes of the mountain. He had travelled three kilometres across exceptionally difficult terrain and had another two kilometres to go before nightfall, but he was determined to make it.
Despite the weary exhaustion filling his limbs, he was filled with real purpose. He pulled himself onto a relatively flat slab of rock and took a moment to get his breath back. He checked his location on the direction finder, knowing where he had been ordered to go, but not knowing exactly what he would find when he got there. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid himself had given him his mission on the vox earlier that day and Hawke had assured him that he would not let them down.
'You cannot,' Leonid had said, 'all our hopes rest upon you.'
Hawke had felt that was kind of melodramatic, but hadn't said so. He was too pleased by the fact that he was being trusted with something so important.
'Well, Hawke,' he chuckled to himself, 'It's a commission for you when you get back home.'
He mopped his brow with his sleeve and unwrapped one of his last ration packs, chewing on the remains of a high-energy bar. Hawke groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. He was amazed at how good he felt, despite not having taken any detox pills for over two weeks. He had become lean and his muscles, especially in his legs, had become well-defined. He smiled as he realised he was in better shape than he had been for years. His spreading midriff was gone and his lungs felt clearer than ever.
True, his food and water supplies were all but exhausted, but Lieutenant Colonel Leonid had assured him that they were working on that even now. He wolfed down the last of the food bar and tossed the wrapping aside as he squinted into the afternoon sun.
'Well, you ain't gonna get there just by standing here, Hawke,' he said, climbing further along the rockface.
Hawke set off again through the afternoon's heat.
Vauban and Leonid stood watching the rainbow flares of energy rippling above their heads, as enemy shell impacts slammed into the invisible energy field that protected the areas within the curtain wall.
Observers in the blockhouse on the northern slopes scanned the shield for breaches, as some shells were slipping through where coverage was incomplete, and detonating within the citadel's supposed safe areas. The warning they could give was probably too short to do any real good, but it was better than nothing and, once again, Vauban felt his anger mount towards Arch Magos Amaethon.
When the shells had first breached the shield he had spent an infuriating hour waiting to be hooked up with the Machine Temple on the holo-link. He knew he would be wasting his time attempting to see the arch magos in person.
'Why is the shield not holding?' he had demanded.
'It is… arduous work to maintain such a… a prodigious energy barrier,' explained the arch magos in stuttering, halting speech. 'To maintain all other systems at peak efficiency as well as the shield… requires great strength.'
'Then let the other systems go to hell,' raged Vauban. 'If you allow the shield to falter, then very soon there will be no other systems to maintain!'
'That cannot be,' snapped Amaethon as he shut off the link, and no matter how desperately Vauban petitioned the arch magos, he would not re-establish it.
Perhaps Naicin was right, perhaps it would be better for them all if Amaethon were to be got rid of. Indeed, Naicin had contacted him personally not long after his brief conversation with Amaethon and had insinuated that such an event might not be too hard to contrive.