Dire Steps (13 page)

“Yes.”

“The suspension is for an indefinite period. Very few ­people know what I'm going to tell you now; I've only received this information because it puts the entire station in jeopardy. I'm sharing it with you because of the Minister.”

Blocker now fought to keep a look of consternation off his face. “Go on.”

“Shortly after his wedding on Celestia, Chairman Mortas disappeared in the Step. No one seems to know where he was headed or who was with him, except that his new wife was not along for the ride.” Long associated with the machinations of the powerful, Blocker saw the same calculus running through his own head as had run through Rittle's. With Olech missing or dead, Reena Corlipso—­Reena Mortas—­was in an excellent position to assume his mantle. “The Step will remain suspended until search-­and-­rescue operations are terminated. Hopefully that will be soon, with Chairman Mortas found alive, but they could go on for days or even weeks.”

An image of the planetary systems closest to Quad Seven appeared in Blocker's mind. None of them close enough to bring assistance without the Step. “I appreciate your telling me this.”

“There's more. Numerous Sim commerce raiders inhabit this part of space, along with human marauders like Hemsley's friend McRaney. They're not a problem as long as we can summon immediate help, but without the Step this station has been left wide open. I don't need to tell you that the enemy wasn't happy to see this planet's Go-­Three supply fall into our hands. Once they detect the absence of Threshold signatures, they're going to figure out something is wrong.”

“There must be Force warships in the vicinity that could be diverted.”

“Yes and no. We're not the only place asking for protection, and some of those other places contain high-­ranking officers. Most of the ships within range are being directed to assume defensive patrolling around more important targets.”

“Like high-­level headquarters.” Blocker allowed himself to smile.

“Like high-­level headquarters. Zone Quest is creating a series of safe havens in space, and Command has allocated several cruisers to defend them. Our safe haven is many days' flight away, and so I've been instructed to evacuate the complex and take all of my ships there until the Step is available again. I think the Minister and your party should go with us.”

“And what about the veterans?”

“There's not enough room for them and, after their attack on my station, I'd be foolish to let them on board any of my vessels. They've been insisting this planet is theirs, so now we'll see if they mean it.”

“If you leave them behind with only the weapons they have, and the Sims do come, they're all dead.”

“I have my instructions, and I am not taking any of those ­people on my ships.”

Blocker's mind whirled for an instant, but he pushed it back into focus. With Ayliss still sick, he was in charge of their group and could easily get them to safety by accepting Rittle's offer. He'd been trying to summon a ship when the Step had been suspended, and Rittle's assessment of their vulnerability was accurate.

But if they did flee with Rittle's ­people, Hemsley's veterans would never forgive them. A healthy Ayliss would never agree to leave, and there was a chance that the Step suspension could be lifted shortly. If they abandoned the veterans and the Step was reopened without any Sims threatening the colony, Ayliss would never be able to return. Not liking the conclusion at all, Blocker spoke for his ward anyway.

“We won't be going with you. Please extend the Minister's thanks to the Zone Quest authority who directed you to make the offer.”

“I wasn't directed to do that. And you're a fool to stay.”

“I wasn't finished. I speak for the Minister when I say that if you leave under these circumstances . . . don't bother coming back.”

“We'll return as soon as the Step is functioning again, and we'll bring help.”

“You don't understand. Your presence here was authorized before this colony came into being. If you leave and come back, you'll have to negotiate a contract for mineral extraction with the planet's owners.”

“We're lifting off in one hour. I'd reconsider your decision if I were you.”

“The decision's made. We're staying.”

 

CHAPTER TEN

“M
ed-­Extractor inbound.” The warning sounded in helmets all over the jungle, and the troops in First and Third Platoons tightened up their joint perimeter. Mortas had moved First Platoon to the spot where one of Kitrick's squads had been torn up by a massive booby trap concealed inside a hollow tree. Three men had been killed and three others wounded, one badly enough to justify the use of the extractor.

For many miles around them, the engines of flying reconnaissance robots made a chug-­chug sound as they flew just above the treetops. Drone gunships made lazy circles in the dawn light, all of it a diversion for the vessel that would speed the most seriously wounded man to treatment. The commotion had driven off most of the jungle birds, but every now and then a group of Vree Vrees would howl in the distance.

“Rockets inbound.” Up at Broadleaf, the company ASSL had arranged for a bombardment of likely locations where the phantom Sim force of the night before could have gone to ground.

“Get ready with the tree cutters.” Mortas hugged the wet dirt of the jungle floor a mile away from the spot where the booby trap had gone off. Assuming the enemy knew the location well, Mortas had moved both platoons. Although the bulk of his unit was still intact, Kitrick was practically catatonic with grief over the cost of his disobedience.

“Suckered me. All this time in the zone, and I fell for it. CO told me not to, but I knew better,” he'd muttered to Mortas when the junior lieutenant had finally reached the small clearing blasted out of the jungle by the trap. His men had been caring for the wounded and the dead, but Kitrick seemed unaware anyone was near until Mortas knelt beside him. “Jan. Good to see you. Fuckin' Fractus, half my platoon lost, and I wasn't even
there
. They made me leave.
Made
me. And now look what I did.”

Vossel had given Kitrick a shot to calm him, and he was half-­asleep on the ground next to Mortas. Flipping his goggles to overhead imagery, Mortas detected the blinking marker of the Extractor drawing near. He'd placed the two-­platoon perimeter near a massive tree that could have been hundreds of years old, with exposed roots as tall as a man. Special explosives, dubbed tree cutters, had been emplaced all over the behemoth's base at Dak's suggestion.

“Done this before. Ya try to blow down a few small trees to make room for the Extractor, and none of them fall. So much other growth wrapped around 'em, holds 'em up. Ya need to take down a big one like this bastard here, it's like the main pole in a big tent. Everything around it comes down too.”

The readout in his goggles told Mortas that the diversionary rockets were about to impact. “Okay, cutters. Blow it.”

Warnings buzzed in all the helmets, and the sound dampeners clamped down hard. Mortas reached out and gently placed a flat hand on the back of Kitrick's helmet, worried he might look up at the wrong moment. Then he pressed his cheek into the wet humus, smelling the decay even over the stench given off by the stink pills. For miles around, dull booms cracked through the still air as the rockets impacted.

“Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!” yelled Dak, and then he detonated the charges on the tree.

A dull rumble vibrated the plates of Mortas's torso armor, and he was just thinking that he'd heard much louder explosions in other places when the main charges went off. To drop a tree that size required an enormous amount of force, directed at specific points, and the cumulative blast was like a hurricane wind. The ground seemed to leap under him, and Mortas cringed when the shock wave ripped across the jungle. Branches fell all around, and rotted trees collapsed as if melting. The vegetation for hundreds of yards was slapped and shot with flying debris, the greenery jumping and bouncing.

At last it was done, and Mortas looked up to a scene he barely recognized. The small clearing was covered in debris, from severed branches to a confetti-­like rain of leaves. Man-­sized clods of dark earth stood up, wrenched from the ground by the root systems of the trees that had been pulled down when the big one went.

As for that, a brilliant window of light had been cut in the jungle overhead. The giant tree had torn down the concealing foliage, and now men began moving in preparation for the Extractor. A pile of Third Platoon troops nearby dissolved and scrambled in different directions, revealing the wounded man whose body they'd been shielding with their own. Elsewhere, armored and helmeted forms in mud-­smeared camouflage grabbed up the detritus from the blast and dragged it out of the way.

Moments later, guided in by a homing beacon and its own sensors, the Extractor sailed out of the sky and through the hole in the foliage. It moved at incredible rates of speed, so one moment it was a dot in the sky and the next it was on the ground, a gust of wind following it. Three times the size of a coffin and shaped like a sailboat hull, it could operate in planetary atmosphere as well as in space. When medical shuttles couldn't reach a wounded man, the Extractor was the best answer.

Heat blasted off of its sides, and steam rose all around the vessel as its top lifted off automatically. Inside, a cushioned space shaped like a human was surrounded by gauges and medical instruments that could deliver medicine, stop bleeding, and perform a full-­body scan long before the stricken individual reached medical help.

Vossel and Third Platoon's medic gently lifted the wounded man from his stretcher and began strapping him into position. Other soldiers brought up his rucksack and weapon for evacuation, the backpack stripped of important items and the rifle too damaged to keep.

“Stand back,” Vossel ordered, and the nearby soldiers moved away while still watching with concern. The medic activated a switch inside the Extractor, and the lid slowly lowered and locked shut. The entire vessel began to tremble, and Mortas gave the warning that it was about to lift off.

“Extractor outbound.”

The box gave off a low hum and slowly levitated a yard off the ground. Turning in place, it pointed its prow toward the open space in the jungle.

“Rockets inbound.” The signal came at the last moment, as distant crumps sounded where the missiles were landing. The hovering vessel stopped vibrating, and launched into the sky as if shot from a bow.

“Casualty evacuated,” Mortas reported to Dassa. Anticipating the company commander's order, men all over the perimeter were preparing to move. They would have to carry the three bodies and assist the two other wounded men to the top of the ridge for shuttle evacuation.

“Good job. I've marked the route that we used, but stay alert. Sam's sneaking around out here, and we've had enough surprises. The company is forming a new perimeter at Broadleaf.”

T
he main building at Broadleaf looked like it had been stomped on by a giant, then set on fire. Its roof had fallen in, and what was left of its white walls were blackened. Smaller outlying buildings had been badly damaged by the rocket barrage intended to save their inhabitants, and all for naught. Mortas had seen reconnaissance imagery of the site, a multistructure military station with extensive antennae inside a double fence of antipersonnel wire. The antennae were either completely gone, blown down the side of the ridge, or lying twisted where they had once stood. Dassa had cut through the fence when he and Second Platoon had reached the summit early that morning, but that breach was nothing when compared to the enormous breaks on the northern side of the ridge. Entire sections of fencing were simply missing, and it was hard to tell if that work had been accomplished by the Sim attackers or human support fire.

Shuttles had been coming and going for some time, taking the dead from Broadleaf up to the
Dauntless
and bringing in technicians to inspect the damage. They also carried supplies for B Company, and so First Platoon was finally able to refill its canteens. Second Platoon and the Marine platoon from the Dauntless manned a perimeter against another sneak attack, allowing First and Third Platoons to conduct resupply.

Having savored his first drink of water in many desiccated hours, Mortas poured a green powder into one of his canteens before refilling it. It was a fruit-­flavored mix, loaded with vitamins and caffeine, and most of the Orphans considered it a necessity on long missions. An armed drone cruised over the clearing just then, a comforting sight after the events of the previous evening. The noise all over the clearing was an additional relief. The Sims on Verdur had run out of mortar ammunition years earlier, and the troops knew there was little chance that they would be able to lob anything up onto the heights. As a result, work parties swarmed all over the plateau.

Standing under the trees near the edge of the hilltop, Mortas overheard two soldiers who were breaking down crates of rations. One was from Third Platoon, and the other was a veteran machine gunner from Katinka's squad named Catalano.

“Hurry up and wait, same old stuff,” the soldier from Third Platoon remarked in a bored fashion. “Rush over there, then saunter over here. It's like that whole alien scare eight months ago, the one your el-­tee bumped into. One second the Force is on high alert, everybody getting scanned to make sure we're human, and then what? Not another word about it.”

Screwing the cover back on and shaking the container vigorously, Mortas saw Captain Dassa speaking with Lieutenant Kitrick off to the side. Both officers had shed their helmets and goggles, which was an infantry signal that a private conversation was taking place.

Catalano, sitting in the shade and clipping the bands on a ration case, replied to the Third Platoon man's observation. “You already know why those bad-­ass shape-­shifters haven't come into the war.”

“Don't even try that.”

“It's true. He said he did it himself.” Catalano glanced at Mortas. “That first alien musta been a scout of some kind. My lieutenant gave her some of that first-­class First Platoon lovin', and she telepathically told the others all about it. If those chickenshits at Glory Main hadn't killed her, we'd have a bunch of shape-­shifter allies right now—­war'd be over.”

Looking around, Mortas observed a curious gathering beneath a makeshift awning that had been rigged up on the remains of one of the fallen antennae. The camouflage fabric rippled over the heads of several seated soldiers, all muddy from the jungle, all working intently with handhelds. Captain Pappas, the battalion's intelligence officer, sat at their center with his own device, apparently directing the work. Fingers stabbed repeatedly at buttons while others ran across screens, and Mortas decided they were reviewing stored tapes of some kind.

“Pappas thinks he's come across some interesting footage from the past few months of satellite imagery.” Dassa's words startled Mortas, who turned to find the company commander standing next to him. “I gave him part of my command group and a ­couple of the more tech-­savvy troops to help him sort through it.”

Mortas nodded, his mind so full of questions from the last few hours that he didn't know which one to ask first. Remembering Dassa's just-­concluded conversation with his fellow platoon leader, he decided to start there.

“Wyn was really torn up about what happened. He knows he made a mistake.”

“We talked. Don't worry about him.”

“He feels guilty about being evacuated from Fractus just before things got rough. And he was really close to Noonan.” Captain Noonan had been B Company's aggressive commander before Dassa. He'd been killed, along with his entire command group, fighting a much larger number of Sims.

“Oh, that's not it. Wyn thinks he should have been given command of B Company after Fractus. He has a right to feel that way a little bit, considering how many open slots there were at the time. It doesn't help that I'm so much younger than he is, or that you and I are old buddies.”

“Did you tell him I broke your arm once?”

“Everybody knows that. Let's find a seat.” Mortas followed him to the side of what had once been a storage building, switching off his own radio as they walked. Sitting down, he lifted his helmet from his head and unstrapped the hard frame of his goggles.

“We've got some major developments to deal with, Jan. The Step has been indefinitely suspended, for reasons unknown. All over the war zone, Command is reshuffling the ships as best it can.” Dassa shrugged slightly. “Normal propulsion doesn't stack up to the distances out here at all, so without the Step everybody's pretty much stuck where they are. The
Dauntless
is staying with us, so we've got her firepower and, if necessary, we can be evacuated by shuttle.

“Right now I don't see a need for that. Cordvine is asking to have its personnel taken up to the ship, but I think that's because of what happened to Broadleaf. Whether they stay or go, part of the company is going to have to secure their station. Luckily, Almighty isn't interested in leaving, or working with us. So that makes things a little simpler.”

“We going after the Sims who did this, sir?”

Dassa's dark eyes drifted off toward the ruins of the main building, where ship technicians were sorting through the wreckage. “To the best of our ability, yes.”

“Sir?”

“We have a minor supply issue, Jan. Unbeknownst to me, a long time ago somebody developed a protocol for handling the infantry-­specific items for this mission. Just in case the cruiser assigned to support the infantry had to go somewhere in a hurry, they always transferred those supplies to Broadleaf. Makes sense, in a way, because Broadleaf was a Force station and they could just as easily send the drones to us as could a ship in orbit.”

Mortas felt an uneasy feeling creeping into his innards. “So all those infantry-­specific items were here when Broadleaf got hit.”

“Exactly. You must have attended one of those prep schools for gifted students.” They shared a smile. “Yes, everything the
Dauntless
sent down appears to have been destroyed in the attack. A lot of it can be made up from ship's stores, but there's one item that we can't do without—­those tiny batteries that go in our goggles. And as of right now, the only goggle batteries we have are the ones we're already carrying.”