Seeing what was left of the soldier collapse back to the ground, I felt that strange, soothing tingle. Some hidden corner of my brain automatically took over, shutting out the panic. “I think I can get a grenade in there,” I called over to Shannon.
“No grenades!” Shannon shouted.
“I can get it in the hole,” I said.
“I said no, goddamn it!” Shannon said. “You hear me, Marine?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I did not answer as I released the grenade I was pulling from my belt. At that moment, lying in the soil with bolts and bullets streaking over my head, I wondered if Sergeant Shannon might not be the real enemy. Rolling over on to my stomach, I held my gun in front of my face and squeezed off three shots. The men in the cave responded with a hailstorm of laser fire.
If anybody had asked me to guess who would break up the stalemate, I would have said “Shannon.” But he was in a worse predicament than I. He was pinned down under heavy gunfire directly in front of the cave.
It took Vince Lee to turn the battle around. Suddenly pushing off the ground in a cloud of dust, he sprinted toward the mouth of the cave and leaped forward, squeezing rapid shots from his particle-beam rifle. Firing blindly, he managed to hit three of the Mogats guarding the cave. Using my heat-vision lenses, I watched them fall.
Lee landed face-first and slid into a cloud of dust just in time to dodge the return fire. I do not know if Lee and Shannon coordinated their attack on a private frequency; but as the Mogats concentrated their fire on Lee, Shannon rose on one knee, aimed, and fired.
Undoubtedly using heat vision for a clearer view, Shannon did not fire blindly. Each shot hit its mark, and the last of the Mogats fell dead. I expected more shooters to come, but the mouth of the cave remained empty.
“Cover me,” Lee called, over the interLink. Keeping his rifle trained on the cave, Lee stooped into a crouch and cautiously walked toward the foot of the cliffs. He pressed his back against the obsidian wall, then inched his way toward the cave. He came within arm’s reach of the opening and paused. “See anything?” he asked Shannon over an open channel.
“All clear,” Shannon replied.
“Great work, Lee,” Shannon said. “Okay, everybody, stay put. Captain McKay is sending a technician to check for traps.” Shannon and I joined Lee just outside the mouth of the cave, but we did not enter it. Shannon took a single step into the fissure. He patted a clump of obsidian with one hand. Glancing back at us to make certain that no one was too close, he fired into the wall.
“Sergeant?” I said, rushing over to see what happened.
“It’s nothing, Harris,” Shannon said. “I’m just testing a theory.”
An AT hovered toward us, hanging low over the valley and landing in our zone. The kettle opened, and a Navy lieutenant came down the ramp wheeling a bell-shaped case behind him. The engineer wore a breathing suit. It was not stiff like our combat armor, but it protected him from the environment. Shannon met the lieutenant at the bottom of the ramp. I followed.
“What’s that?” I asked Shannon.
“That, Corporal Harris, is our eyes,” Shannon answered. “Right now we have the enemy trapped in these caves. We’re going to send in a recon drone to make sure our positions do not get reversed.”
“A recon drone,” I repeated. “That makes sense.”
The case looked like it had been made to hold a tuba. It was three feet tall and wide on the bottom. The metal wheels under the case clattered as they rolled down the ramp.
“Are you the one that requested a drone?” the lieutenant asked. “What’s the situation?”
“There are hostiles in those caves, sir,” Shannon began.
“I know that, Sergeant,” the lieutenant interrupted. This was no fighting man. He was a technician, the lowest form of engineer—but he was also an officer, and he had all of the attitude that came with wearing a silver bar on his shoulder.
“The enemy had several men guarding this entrance, sir,” Shannon said. “My men were able to neutralize the threat. We want to send your drone to look for traps and locate enemy positions before going in, sir.”
“Playing it safe, Sergeant?” the lieutenant quipped in a voice that oozed sarcasm.
“Yes, sir,” Shannon responded.
“I didn’t know you Leathernecks were so squeamish,” the man mused. “I suppose I can help.” He opened his case.
“What an asshole,” I said over the interLink.
“Steady, Harris,” Shannon answered in a whisper. “He’s not just an asshole, he is an officer asshole…a second lieutenant. They’re the buck privates of the commissioned class; and they always have chips on their shoulders. Besides, we need this particular asshole.”
“Heeere’s Scooter,” the tech said to himself as he opened the bottom of the case. Scooter, a chrome disc on four wheels that looked like a slightly oversized ashtray, scurried out of the case. This demented officer treated the robot like a pet, not equipment. He’d painted the name “Scooter” across its front in bright red letters, and he stroked its lid gently before standing up.
“I do not believe I have seen that model of recon drone before, sir,” Shannon said in a respectful voice that would certainly curry favor.
“It’s a prototype. I built it myself,” the man said. I could not see his face clearly through his breathing mask, but the lieutenant’s voice perked up. “Let’s have a look in that cave, shall we.”
The lieutenant pressed a button on the outside of the case, and a four-inch video monitor flipped out of its lid. When he turned on the monitor, I was amazed by the panoramic scope of Scooter’s vision. The silvery top of the robot was a giant fish-eye lens, offering a 180-degree view. Looking at that screen, I saw the case from which Scooter had emerged, the cliffs, and everything in between. The camera caught everything, and the monitor displayed it in stretched, but accurate, detail. This engineer was both a dork and a brilliant engineer.
“Impressive little specker,” I said over the interLink for only Shannon to hear.
“Stow it, Harris,” he replied.
Issuing the command “Scooter, enter cave” into a small microphone, the tech sent the drone on its way.
“Audio commands only?” Shannon asked.
“I programmed Scooter myself. He uses onboard sonar to find the best paths. He has dedicated self-preservation circuits. The only thing a human controller can do is slow him down.”
Judging by what I saw on the monitor, Scooter used the same basic night-for-day vision technology we used in our visors. He was a stealth drone with no lights or weapons.
Skirting around rocks and holes, Scooter sped toward the cave like a giant, silvery beetle. The men in our platoon stopped and watched as it scampered by. When it reached the lip of the cave, it paused. For a moment I thought the little tin can might actually be scared.
“It’s taking a sonic reading,” the lieutenant said, as if reading my thoughts.
“Damn,” Shannon said, with respect.
Pulling a small stylus from his case, the lieutenant said, “Sergeant, take this. If you want a closer look at something on the monitor, tap it with the stylus. That will send a message to Scooter.”
The monitor turned dark as Scooter hurried into the cave. The little robot had a good eye for stealth. It traveled in cracks and crevices along the side of the wall, well concealed from enemy eyes.
That was good for Scooter, but not so helpful for Shannon. Even with enhanced night-for-day photography, Scooter was not showing us what we needed. It was showing us the safest path for creatures that were less than four inches tall. Also, Scooter moved too quickly. A squad patrolling such terrain might creep along at one or two miles per hour, but Scooter covered it at a steady fifteen miles per hour. Images flew across the monitor. Five minutes into its patrol, Scooter stopped and ran another sonar scan.