Instinctively everyone ducked. Something was happening in the blazing sky. The halo of warring energy that was now directly above them had abruptly and radically altered. What had once been a glaring white had dimmed to a suffused, bloody red. Rance was one of the few around the dome who knew enough to suspect what might be happening. Was the Yal shield weakening? If his installation was going to be destroyed, it was a logical move for the commander of the battery to try to take as many of the enemy with him as he could. If he dropped his shields, the forces on the ground would be wiped out by their own orbiting guns. The real question was how long it would take him to shut down the shields.
The sappers were through with their work. Rance started waving everybody back. "Back to the assembly points! On the double! We're pulling out!"
He tongued open the long-range communicator. "Bring down the e-vacs as fast as you can."
A strange voice came over Rance's helmet.
"This is Lanza, topman of sappers. I'm staying here with a guard until close to detonation. I don't want any chibas coming out and dismantling the charges.
Sappers were crazy.
"Suit yourself. Don't stay too long."
The whole force was pulling back. The glare in the sky brightened, as if the Yal shields were recovering. Maybe there was time for them all to get out. The glare faded back to an angry red. It was absurd that their survival now depended on the strength of the enemy shields. The men were bunching at the prearranged as- sembly points. They had the wounded with them. Rance took long leaping strides in order to catch up with them. There was the distant sound of ships coming through the atmosphere. The glow in the sky seemed to be lower than it had been a few minutes earlier. Rance was certain that the Yal screens were about to cave. He hated the idea that his death would be just another cruel joke in a war that was full of them. Where the hell were those e-vacs?
As if in answer, his phones crackled with static "E-vacs coming in. Watch out below."
The squat circular craft came down vertically with their landing legs extended. The e-vacs had a slab-sided functional ugliness that was a complete contrast to the streamlined winged elegance of the dropcraft that had brought them in. All they had to do was fall fast to a planet's surface and pick up the largest possible number of men. They were the combat workhorses, and the troopers loved them. It was only natural. Other craft got them into trouble; the e-vacs got them out.
"Yo, e-vacs! Get us the hell out of here!"
"What are those damned redballs doing?"
"Who knows with redballs?"
A flight of red spheres was following the e-vacs down. The troopers knew that the red spheres were on then-side, but that was about all. The Therem had never seen fit to explain them to the human troops. They were small, little more than two meters in diameter, but they were incredibly fast and maneuverable. They appeared on battlefields, but they seemed to have the capacity neither to inflict nor to sustain harm. At other times, they could be encountered prowling the interiors of the cluster ships. Everything else was speculation. It wasn't even clear if they were machines or beings or just globs of raw energy. They didn't bother the troopers, and most of the time the troopers didn't bother about them, except instinctively to dislike them.
The men at one assembly point had to scatter to avoid the power wash as their ship came too close to the mark. Lanza's voice cut through the noise from the ships.
"We're getting out. The charges are armed, and nothing can stop them."
Five e-vacs settled on the battlefield, each in its own cloud of dust. Wide ramps extended to the ground. The first two men up on each side dragged the others in. The wounded were passed hand over hand.
"Let's go, go, go!"
The ramps started rising before the last men were inside. The final ones stumbled forward, half falling through the ports. There was a lurching confusion of men reaching for any handhold as the e-vac tilted into the air. There were no seats in an e-vac, just lines of grab bars. Rance used his rank to swing up to the overhead crew blister. The darkened cabin was cramped even for the two-man crew, who were secured in contour frames, hunched over multiple control boards. The lights of the panels were reflected eerily in their faceplates. Like the dropcraft, the e-vacs weren't pressurized. The best that Rance could do was to crouch in the hatchway, bracing himself against the top of the steel ladder that led up from the main well of the ship.
"Have the charges blown yet?" he asked.
"Not yet, but the shield's sagging."
Rance craned to see the groundside screen. It was true. From the air, it was possible to see the battering waves of energy that were pouring in from space. The Yal shield had been reduced to a red halo with a definite concave dip at its center. The e-vac lurched, and Rance was almost pitched into the well. There was cursing from below as a number of men lost their handholds and fell into those around them. One of the crew glanced around.
"Sorry about that."
Rance glared into the well.
"Turn up the grav on your boots, they'll anchor you."
Rance looked back just in time to see the charges blow. Rings of small explosions rippled around the bases of the domes. At first, there was no perceivable result. Rance bit his lip. Were they going to have to go through the whole bloody process again? Abruptly, the Yal shield winked out, and in the next moment, the visible world erupted. A huge fireball gathered on the ground. Shock waves spread to the horizon. The fireball started to rise. It was as if a star had been lit on the surface of the planet.
"Damn!"
The crew shielded their eyes. Blinding white light poured through the single armored viewslit. The screen threatened to burn out. The fireball started to rise. The area below it glowed white, a vast sea of liquid rock. The fireball was gathering speed and expanding.
"Hold tight. Here comes the shock wave."
The ship felt like God had kicked it. It was like a living thing. The kick was followed by a spasm of monstrous shudders. They were falling.
"I hope she holds together."
The crew were punching buttons. There was almost a detachment about the way they worked. Panels lit, others went out.
"Here's where we find out."
There was a sickening lurch as the crew tried to power out of the deadfall. There were shouts from below.
"Smoke! Something's leaking smoke!"
The crew was concentrating oh coaxing the e-vac to gain altitude.
"Tell them it's nothing to worry about. I'd have worried if we hadn't burst a few seams."
The ship continued to spin and buffet, but they were making ground. There was the pressure of acceleration under their feet.
"The atmosphere is hosing out. We're riding the up-draft. It should take us halfway to the cluster."
In the well of the ship, Hark clung to a grab bar, his eyes closed, and prayed for it all to be over, ont way or another. He didn't really care. He couldn't take any more. The courage that he'd found earlier seemed to have deserted him. He didn't even care that he'd been whimpering out loud when they'd been falling and that the rest of his messdeck had probably heard him over the communicator. The man next to him turned his head and looked at Hark.