Battlefield Earth (65 page)

     The flatbed rumbled and jarred through the soaking wet night. The ground drive of these things was supposed to keep them floating one to three feet off the ground. But when the ground varied eight to ten feet from level every few feet, the effect was far from floating. It was bone jarring.

The teleportation-type drive sought to automatically adjust itself to the sensed ground distance. It corrected and recorrected and the result was a whining, racing, dying, racing combination of rumbles and screeches that hurt the ears.

No wheeled vehicle could have traveled this “road” at all; so gullied and rock strewn a “highway” was fit only for wandering beasts, if that. The ore trucks that had traversed it for hundreds of years had worsened it rather than otherwise as they blew off the humus, the only thing that protected it from the gutting of the rain.

Jonnie was trying to get some sleep. He was dead tired. His left arm ached from constant use of the cane. His palm was calloused now but even it had rubbed raw. Four days of floundering through this forest, four days of constant sweating from the heat, four days of walking with a cane and four nights full of insects had taken their toll. If he wanted to fight a battle with any degree of success, he had better get some sleep.

The seat was, of course, huge. But it was not very cushioned. And when there weren’t bumps and jolts, there were stops. Like right now.

He opened his eyes to look through the windscreen. The rumps of elephants! Tails twitching in the headlights, bedewed with rain, they were strolling along, used to these trucks and owning the road for themselves. Psychlo trucks had no car horns but they had bullhorns and the Russian driver was using one now. He was telling those elephants to get off the road. He was repeating some word that sounded like “suk-in-sin” and Jonnie divined it did not mean “elephant.” He went back to sleep, bullhorn and all.

The next time he opened his eyes, a leopard was blocking the way. It had killed a mouse deer and was using the road for a dinner table. Jonnie took it that the leopard did not like its meals interrupted. The fangs and glaring green orbs of the eyes indicated it was ready to take on any number of trucks. The bullhorn was going again. Somewhere they had changed drivers and the Scot was at the controls. The leopard heard the Scot battle cry and leaped straight up and off the road and was gone. They passed over the dead mouse deer, once more on their way.

A flatbed could do eighty on the flat. It was straining now to get eight! No wonder it took days to get from the branch compound to the main minesite! Testimony that Psychlos didn’t do it any faster lay in the little round-domed roadside houses that occurred every few miles.

Jonnie had stopped at the first one they came to. It was ideal for ambush, and even though he didn’t think the Psychlos would leave anybody behind, one should know what lay ahead. But it was just a dome, big enough for four or five Psychlos to stretch out and rest or wait for a repair truck or have lunch. It was bare; a shelter that kept out wild animals and rain, nothing more.

There was no sign of the other flatbed and its crew so they were still following the convoy up ahead.

Toward morning Jonnie woke to find the truck stopped. The lights were on. The rain was still coming down. The driver was tapping Jonnie’s shoulder and pointing to the road ahead. Jonnie sat up.

Somebody had hacked some vines and made a sign on the road. It was an arrow. From the clean cuts it appeared to have been done with a claymore or a bayonet. Psychlos would have shot the vines in two. So it was their own people. They’d left them a sign.

It was pointing to a roadside rest hut.

There was a clatter of weapons in the back as his crew made ready in case they dismounted. Jonnie pulled the rain cape around him, checked his belt gun, and picked up a mine lamp and his cane.

The rain drizzled down his neck as he got out.

The only thing different about the mine hut was evidence of recent foot traffic in front of it and a door slightly ajar. Jonnie pushed it open with his cane. The smell of human blood hit him!

There was a scurry of something in there. Jonnie drew his belt gun. But it was only a large rat that came charging out.

The Scot was behind him with an assault rifle. Two Russians were coming up.

Jonnie flooded the mine-lamp light into the place. There was something lying against the far wall. He could not make it out for a moment and stepped forward to find he was walking in blood.

He turned the mine lamp fully on the object. He went closer. It was hard to tell what it was beyond a mangle of shredded flesh. Then he saw a piece of cloth. Part of a…kilt!

It was Allison.

The Scot and the Russians stood petrified.

A closer examination showed that every artery and major vein had been left unsevered. Careful Psychlo claws had ripped away the flesh around them, slice by slice. The whole body had been shredded in such a fashion.

It must have taken hours for him to die.

They had left the throat and jaws until last and much of them still remained. Interrogation, Psychlo-style!

There was something in the remains of the hand. A sharp-edged tool Psychlos often carried in their pockets to clean motor points. A major artery on the inside of the leg was parted.

Allison had effected his own death. He must have seized the tool from an unguarded pocket and finished himself.

Could they have rescued him? Not in this forest and on this road, Jonnie thought sadly. The Psychlos must have started his torture at the compound and finished it here when they feared he might be dying. And they would have learned nothing of any help for their own convoy.

Allison had not even known of their own expedition. Ah, but Allison possibly could have told them the numbers and disposition of bases the humans now had. And Allison had probably talked, for there are limits to human endurance.

No, the remaining teeth were chipped with grinding, the jaws seemed to be frozen shut. Possibly Allison had not talked.

But it didn’t matter whether he had talked or not. The convoy was doomed. It was doomed in the narrowed eyes of the Russians. It was doomed in the angry clench of the Scot’s fist on a claymore.

After a little, the Scot went out and got a tarp and laid it gently over the mess that had been Allison. The Scot said, “We’ll be back for ye, laddie. With blood on our blades, never fear!”

Jonnie walked back out into the rain. It came to him suddenly that the Brigantes now had a blood feud with Scotland.

The Psychlos? He was not too sure he wanted them alive now, and he had to make himself be very rational about it.

     In the midmorning twilight of the forest, they caught up with the other flatbed. It was the small beginning of the string of mishaps that were to dog them that day.

Running in the dark, the other flatbed had come to a river, one of the many that wandered through this forest on a more or less westerly course. Their own direction of travel had been to the east of south. The driver, possibly overly tired, had not slacked speed. These ground drives could run on water, if it were reasonably smooth, as the sensors under them could sense water as well as ground. A teleportation drive didn’t rest the weight of a vehicle on the surface but held it suspended. But the driver must have hit a bump on the bank and had an unlevel vehicle when he reached the water, and there it sat, nose submerged in the water, disabled.

The crew was sitting there now on the flying mine platform, back in under the trees. They had flown it and the mortar off and put themselves in a posture of defense. They were very happy to see Jonnie. Crocodiles were all over the river bank in front of them and a ring of the beasts were circling around the flying platform-nobody had dared shoot for fear of pulling the convoy back on them.

Jonnie made room for the second platform on his own flatbed and they flew theirs the short distance. The roar of the motors and the bellow and roar of the crocs were deafening, and Jonnie was afraid they might be close enough to the convoy tail to attract attention.

They left the half-submerged flatbed where it lay, and double-loaded with two platforms and two mortars, they crossed the river and continued their pursuit.

Shortly after, the road got better, due possibly to a change of soil. They picked up speed. They had had about a twelve- to fifteen-hour travel gap between the tail and themselves. But a convoy tends to be slower than a single vehicle, particularly in such rough terrain.

They were traveling so fast by early afternoon that they did not see that it was getting lighter ahead. Abruptly they burst out of the forest and onto a wide savannah.

Three miles ahead, there was the convoy tail!

With a prayer they had not been seen, they did a U-turn and got back in the trees.

Jonnie directed them eastward within the thin border of the forest over very rough going. Then they stopped.

The savannah before them was covered with grass and some shrub. Here and there cactus-like plants dotted the wide expanse.

Jonnie got up on the cab to get a better look. Aha! The defile of the ambush was just ahead of the convoy. The lead tank was entering it now. That ravine seemed to be a cut through the southern shoulder of a range of mountains.

Mountains! Up to the northeast, their crowns above the clouds, reared two peaks, enormously tall. Was that ice and snow?

There was something else strange. Then Jonnie had it. It wasn’t raining! There was cloud, it was very hot and humid, there was not much sun, but it wasn’t raining!

The Russians were buzzing, looking at the convoy. It was impressive. Over fifty vehicles, most of them flatbeds loaded to the last pound with ammunition, fuel, and breathe-gas, were crawling along like some enormous black snake. Three, no five, tanks! The one in the lead was a Basher “Bash Our Way to Glory.” A nearly impregnable armored vehicle. There was another tank in the middle and three tanks at the end. Now that their own motor was off, the roar of that convoy even at this distance was like thunder.

If the ambush were in place, the ball would open when that whole convoy was in the defile and the mortar up front closed the road in front of them.

Jonnie turned to the Russian officer he had brought. The man spoke hardly any English at all, but with signs and a little relief map drawn in the dirt, Jonnie got across what he wanted him to do. The southern side of the defile ended in a knoll. The right side of the defile was a steep hill, a cliff in

fact. If one of the flying platforms could just get behind that knoll and wait until all those vehicles were in the ravine, it could lob mortar shells into this end of the cliff and start an avalanche that would close the back door.

The Russian got it. He and his crew took off in the flying mine platform, flew along inside the border of the trees, and vanished.

Jonnie watched the convoy intently. It was struggling along into the ravine. This was a “set-piece battle,” the kind he’d read of in old man-books. When the whole convoy got into that defile, the ambush would avalanche the road closed in front of them, and the mortar he’d just sent would close the road behind them. They would have a soaring slope on their right and cliffs on their left. They wouldn’t be able to turn around. And one had only to fly over them and tell them to surrender and it would all be over, just like that. But set-piece battles seldom come off, as they were about to discover.

They waited for the convoy to enter fully. There was just a momentary glimpse of the platform they had sent in as it settled into position. Perfect. Now all they had to do was wait for the last tank to enter. The head of the convoy was now out of Jonnie’s sight. Nearly all the convoy was in the ravine.

Then BLAM! The ambush mortar let go. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

But the last three tanks were not yet in the gap.

Jonnie dove for the console of the flying platform. His four-man crew scrambled up to hold on.

The flying platform soared into the air, Jonnie’s fingers dancing on its rudimentary keyboard. He took it up

a thousand feet, south of the road and near the forest edge.

He could see the head of the convoy now. A roaring avalanche was falling across the road in front of the Basher tank. He could see some Russians in a reserve group back of the ambush point. He spotted three Russians along the crest to the convoy’s right, hundreds of feet above the vehicles.

The Basher sought to climb the roadblock. It s guns would not elevate high enough. It backed and then charged the dust- geysering rock pile. The tank’s nose lifted and it began to fire.

Blast after blast arced up from the tank. It must be firing explosive shells! They soared in a glowing curve up and dropped in the area where the ambush command post must be. But the mortar up there was still firing down.

The last three tanks in the convoy were backing up. There was no way this end could be sealed!

Jonnie took the flying platform halfway between the convoy tail and the woods. The end tanks were now turning around. Let loose on this savannah they would be very hard to handle even with planes. Yes, they were also Bashers. No, a plane couldn’t handle them.

At the head of the convoy the tank charged the rock barrier again, probably to elevate its gun muzzles. The tank in the center of the convoy was firing toward the ambush point but could not fire up the steep slope to the crest.

Jonnie yelled to the Scot. “Start felling trees across their road!”

The Scot got it and angled the mortar around. The Russians, holding on to the thin, tilting platform, began to drop mortar shells into the stubby barrel.

They landed a shell beside a giant tree near the road back into the forest and it began to topple.

Mortar blast after mortar blast flashed at the forest edge. Trees began to fall amid towering columns of dust. Jonnie was sighting the mortar in by tilting the platform.

The three tanks saw the road back closing in front of them. They knew they could not get through and into the forest. They started to fan out on the savannah. Their guns opened up trying to hit the flying platform.

Jonnie dodged their misused vehicle about. It had no armor. It was really just a flat plate. There was even hardly anything to hold on to.

Dunneldeen flashed down with the battle plane. He must have been up there thousands of feet and out of sight.

Gouts of flame and dirt began to pound around the three Basher tanks.

Suddenly, the convoy in the ravine began to close up. Evidently thinking it was moving again, the three tanks swerved and raced back to the convoy tail, mindful of their duty to protect it. They stubbed right onto the trail.

Then they too halted. They were trying to fire up at the ambush point. They could not elevate to reach the crest of the slope to their left.

The other flying platform opened up.

Blast mortar shells crashed into the cliff behind the last tank. The rocks and dirt flashed into the air. An avalanche roared down and closed the back door.

The lead Basher tried another charge at the rockslide blocking their forward progress. Just at the instant its nose reared up, a mortar struck under it.

The lead Basher flew up, rolled over in a back summersault, and lay upside-down in the road, helpless.

Jonnie drew a deep breath. He was just about to tell Dunneldeen to open up on a bullhorn and demand surrender and was reaching for his belt mine radio to do so, when their fortunes reversed.