“That appears to be a negative… no. Damn. He’s putting on speed.”
“Command, this is Balac One. I’ve been spotted.”
“Stay with him, Balac One,” Griffin ordered. Thoughts passed through his head in a rush. There was a slim chance that the unidentified VTOL belonged to Balfour-Douglas—coming back from a supply run, maybe, or responding to a medical emergency—and that this was a false alarm. “Hail him and request identification.”
Even as he gave the order, he admitted to himself that he didn’t believe in the VTOL’s innocence. But learning that Anastasia Kerensky had possession of an offshore oil rig still wouldn’t give him an answer to the main question—where in hell were the Steel Wolves hiding their DropShips?
He raised his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Jones, on the command circuit. “Owain.”
“Sir?”
“Send a message to the CO back at Fort Barrett: ‘Possible enemy base sighted. Recommend you put all local forces on high alert.’ Put my name and codes on it; you know the drill.”
“Yes, sir.”
There. That was covered. Griffin went back to waiting and listening. The sweat that ran down his back and shoulders was not all from sitting in a ’Mech’s cockpit in the noonday heat.
The radio crackled. “Command, this is Balac One. The Wolf is not responding to hails.”
“Keep on him, Balac One. Balac Two, do you still have both units on visual?”
“That’s affirmative,” came the distant, tinny voice of the pilot of the second Balac. “The Wolf is still on course for the oil rig—no, wait, he’s turning.”
“Command, this is Balac One—the Wolf’s doubling back on me. Permission to engage?”
“Permission granted, Balac One.” Balacs mounted a single heavy machine gun and a pair of Advanced Tactical Missile three-packs. The armament loadout wasn’t meant for prolonged engagements—Balacs were cavalry, not artillery, meant to strike hard and get out fast—but this encounter wasn’t likely to be prolonged. “Balac Two, can you see what’s going on?”
“Affirmative, sir. Balac One is firing—it’s a clean miss—the Wolf is holding fire and maintaining course and speed toward Balac One—Balac One’s firing again. The Wolf’s hit!—but he’s still coming, he’s letting go with all his missiles at once, and Balac One’s been hit… Balac One is down… Permission to close the distance and engage, sir?”
Balac Two sounded hungry for action, wanting it badly—the pilot of Balac One had probably been a friend. Griffin knew how he felt. The knowledge wasn’t going to help.
“Permission denied, Balac Two—they have to know by now that we’re on to them. Turn around and get back here as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir. Balac Two returning t—” The voice transmission ended in a burst of earsplitting cacophony.
“Balac Two?” Griffin tried the circuit again. “Balac Two?”
Nothing came through in response except the painful noise of fried or jammed comms. Resigned, already knowing in his heart what would happen, he tried first the command circuit—“Owain? Lieutenant Jones?”—and the general circuit, without success. “Damn.”
At least everybody can see me, he thought, and raised the Koshi’s massive arm in the visual signal for the column to halt. Then, moving stiffly—it had been a long tense morning and the day wasn’t over yet—he unstrapped from the cockpit’s command seat, stashed the neurohelmet, and made his way out and down the exit ladder to the sandy ground outside.
The stiff breeze chilled him at the same time as it blew white sand against his sweat-slicked arms and torso, coating him with a fine layer of grit. Lieutenant Jones was already waiting for him with water—over a gallon of it, in a collapsible plastic jug. Griffin poured half of the tepid water over his head, neck, and arms, and began drinking the rest in long, thirsty swallows.
Jones said, “The bastards jammed us. Sir.”
“I know,” Griffin said, between pulls at the water jug. “At least it eliminates any doubt that these are the Wolves we’re dealing with.”
“Orders?”
“Keep the troops on alert, make ready to head back to Fort Barrett on my word. We don’t have what it takes to winkle Anastasia Kerensky out of an offshore hideout, but they do. And keep trying the comms; whatever trick the Wolves played isn’t going to last forever.”
After that, there was nothing to do for a while except drink more of the water and wait for Balac Two to make its appearance. Griffin knew that the column couldn’t remain halted indefinitely. At some point—and this was what the Regiment paid people like him for—he would have to make the call, decide that Balac Two had joined Balac One in the deep water off the Oilfields Coast, and march back north leaving what remained of the Balacs and their pilots behind.
Thinking about it later—but not much later—Griffin realized that Balac Two had made good time on the return flight. He’d barely begun to consider the various worst-case scenarios before the VTOL came screaming down into a cloud-of-dust landing on the dirt road ahead of the recon column.
The Balac’s cockpit opened and the pilot climbed out. General Griffin and Lieutenant Jones hurried to join him.
“Sir!” The pilot was panting—as much from nerves, Griffin judged, as from exertion. “Some sort of jamming burst—I couldn’t get through—”
“We know, son,” Griffin said. “All our comms are down hard as well. Any pursuit?”
“No, sir. I don’t think the Wolf spotted me.”
“Or he had other things on his mind.” Griffin frowned. If I were Anastasia Kerensky, he thought, and I’d just figured out that my secret base wasn’t so secret any more, what would I do? Put that way, it was easy. “She’s going to move up the schedule for the main attack.”
Lieutenant Jones was nodding. “It makes sense. But move it up to when?”
Griffin drew his breath to answer, but was stopped by an outcry from among the troops. He turned his head and saw one of the sergeants—Gordon, that was it, a big man, head and shoulders taller than most of his fellows—shouting and pointing out to sea.
Very quietly, at his shoulder, he heard Lieutenant Jones say, “Damn.”
Out on the seaward horizon, the water was boiling. White froth churned the surface of the water so furiously that the naked eye could see the tumult from the shore, and great billowing clouds of steam ascended toward heaven. Then, slowly, rising up like Leviathan out of the deeps, came a great silver shape, shouldering the water aside and lifting itself upward as it pulled free of the ocean’s grip …a DropShip.
And another, and another, and another, coming up from the water like bubbles and dwindling into the upper air.
And Griffin knew—because he would have done the same, if he had the Steel Wolves and their DropShips and, for a few hours only, the element of surprise—where it was that Anastasia Kerensky was going. “Owain.”
“Sir.” His aide-de-camp looked stunned. They all did; Griffin suspected that his own expression at the moment wasn’t much more reassuring. It couldn’t be helped; they had to act now and stop shaking later.
“Come with me. We’re going to have to abandon the Koshi until a tech can come out here from Fort Barrett with the start-up codes. I’m going on ahead in the Balac.”
“Sir?”
“We’re going to have to strip Fort Barrett naked, Lieutenant, and get a relief force ready to move out as soon as possible. Anastasia Kerensky isn’t going to mess around with landing on the salt flats this time. She’s going to be heading straight for the main DropPort—and with our comms down, nobody in Tara is going to know that she’s coming.”
31
New Barracks
Tara
Northwind
February 3134; local winter