Orders were passed, and the pick of the Raehaniv Resistance began to converge on the area where the Marines' assault shuttles were to land. As they began to thread their way cautiously through the urban maze, they saw the last of the attacking fighters take a direct hit and spin down like a flaming cartwheel into a distant row of buildings. Dorleann reminded himself that modern Raehaniv did not believe in omens.
Aelanni checked the latest figures and turned back to the communicator screen.
"All the surviving fighters—over eighty percent of the total—are circling in position to cover the landings in all four cities," she told DiFalco. Behind him, she could see one of
Guadalcanal
's shuttle holds, and an assault shuttle in the last stages of loading.
"Good," he nodded. "Go ahead and activate the pre-recorded order: 'Land the landing force.' " He grinned boyishly. "Thompson taught me that one. Speaking of Thompson, I'd better go if I'm going to see him off."
Even at this moment, their gazes lingered on each other. Their reunion had taken place in the midst of frantic post-battle cleanup complicated by the whirl of meetings with the Free Raehaniv—all of which had been predictable, but that hadn't lessened their frustration. Their time alone together had been so limited that each of them could remember every stolen hour with the vividness of a dream interrupted by too-early awakening.
It didn't matter, Aelanni told herself. Whatever happened, they'd never be separated again.
"Right," she finally said. "Signing off." She cut the connection, and turned to face Varien.
"Anything new?"
"No," he said slowly. "No more unsuspected missile-launching stations in the hinterlands, it seems. Although they always seem to have just one more in reserve." He frowned in annoyance. The gradual one-at-a-time unveiling of the secret launching sites was not a tactic humans would have used, which made it unpredictable. "Is Eric returning to this ship soon?"
"Yes, as soon as the last of the assault shuttles is away." She frowned. "I can't see why he felt he had to go to
Guadalcanal
and personally supervise the final readying of the assault force. Thompson is quite capable . . ."
"Eric is ordering men down to the surface to face death while he himself waits in relative safety, Aelanni. It doesn't sit well with him. You should know that much of him by now. He needs to involve himself as closely as his position allows with those he's sending into battle."
"Oh, I know. I also know it's one of the reasons men follow him. I sometimes think he wishes he could plunge directly into the fighting himself!" She shook her head irritably, as if to shake away the thought. "But he knows better, of course," nodding for emphasis. She was about to say something else when the computer's voice spoke in tones of cybernetically calibrated urgency.
"Alert! Multiple antispacecraft missile launches fron previously unsuspected site."
"Shit!" Aelanni spoke in English. "How many of these secret missile stations can they have?" She and Varien turned to face the master holographic globe of Raehan. A new orange light was blinking infuriatingly in the far-northern latitudes, where missiles were now roaring up from beneath the tundra. She wondered fleetingly how many Raehaniv slave laborers had been exterminated to preserve that location's secrecy.
"Give me a targeting solution for that base," she told the computer. "And analyze those missiles' flight path." Korvaash tactics called for a missile site to announce its existence with a full salvo concentrated on one ship.
"Acknowledged," the computer replied. Then, without appreciable pause: "The missiles' target is
Guadalcanal
."
Varien turned his head sharply toward Aelanni. She did not return his look. She was staring straight ahead, mouth slightly open, gazing unblinkingly at nothing that was visible to anyone else in the control room.
DiFalco could hardly shake hands with Thompson—the powered armor's "hands" were mechanical clamps that could have crushed sheet steel, slaved to the opening and closing movements of the operator's hands. But he looked up and met the Marine's eyes through the viewplate.
"Give 'em hell, Joel," he said, wishing he could think of something more original.
"Aye aye, skipper," Thompson replied, through the external speaker. The other armored giants had filed aboard the shuttle, and the two of them were alone on the hold's deck, which would soon swing open and allow the shuttle to drop toward the planet far below. The transport had a series of such holds, each with its shuttle. The others held regular infantry, clad in non-powered articulated combat armor and limited to weapons that a man's unaided strength could carry.
"And now," Thompson continued, glancing at his HUD chronometer, "it's time for you headquarters types to clear the hold!"
"And get back to where we belong," DiFalco finished for him. He gave a jaunty salute as Thompson walked up the ramp, then turned toward the hatch on the far side of the hold.
All at once a deafening
whoop-whoop-whoop
sounded, and the the intercom awoke thunderously. "Red alert! Red alert! Incoming missiles!" Simultaneously, the hatch began to slide shut as the ship sealed itself off into airtight damage-containing compartments.
DiFalco sprinted for the hatch, getting about halfway there before realizing he couldn't possibly make it. Then, as the hatch clanged shut, a red light began to flash and a new recorded voice added itself to the din. "Stand by for decompression!" And, with a hissing sound, the air began to bleed out of the hold in preparation for releasing the shuttle.
Without conscious thought, DiFalco reversed direction and ran for the shuttle. Damn! The ramp had raised up into the hull, sealing it. And the air in the hold was getting thinner.
Let's see
, he thought like an automaton,
I'm wearing a Raehaniv-issue shipsuit, yes, that's right, get that hood out and up and over! But when this deck under me swings open I'll be spilled out into orbit, and the life support doesn't last long. I can't shout from inside this hood, even if it would do any good, which it wouldn't. Got to get into the shuttle's visual pickups, maybe they'll see me and . . .
The deck seemed to jump under his feet as
Guadalcanal
took a near-miss, and the ship's pain belled through the hull. DiFalco was thrown to the deck, head spinning. Just as things started to steady, the deck began to tilt—and he knew that wasn't his head, for he began to slide along the smooth expanse, and a little crack of star-filled blackness appeared, and grew . . . .
The clamps grasped his upper arm with superhuman strength. He found a split second for amazement that Thompson could manage such fine control of the servomechanisms as to not break his bones, as the Marine lifted him up, almost pulling the arm out of his socket, and deposited him on the partially lowered ramp.
"Inside," Thompson snapped unceremoniously, and as he was thrust into the shuttle DiFalco glanced down and saw the hatches that had been a deck yawn wide, with the blue curve of Raehan beyond. Then he was in and the ramp was up and sealed.
"
Now
can we release?" the pilot called out querulously.
"Go!" Thompson barked. The pilot slapped his control panel, cutting the power to the magnetic clamps that held the shuttle to the hold's overhead. With a dropping sensation that seemed to send DiFalco's stomach up into his throat, the shuttle fell into infinity.
As soon as the artificial gravity took hold, DiFalco stumbled forward and looked over the pilot's shoulder at the view-aft.
Guadalcanal
, showing her wounds, was rapidly dwindling in the screen. Then something seemed to flash in from the side, and the glare of the direct hit dazzled his eyes before the screen could automatically compensate.
He peeled back his hood and turned to Thompson. "The others . . . ?"
"All the shuttles got away," the Marine reported. "We were the last to leave—had a little delay," he added, all blandness.
DiFalco flushed. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: thanks for saving my bacon."
Powered armor couldn't reproduce a nothing-to-it shrug, but Thompson's face did it for him. "Several lifeboats also made it," he continued. "The captain of
Guadalcanal
knew the ship had had it after that near-miss. At least sixty percent of the crew must have survived."
"Thank God for that."
"Amen. And now . . ." Suddenly, Thompson's face took on an expression that defined the term "shit-eating grin," and he gestured toward the after bulkhead where the spare suit of powered combat armor was stored. "Having chosen to join us," he asked archly, "would the Colonel care to make himself useful?"
"I'm more the ornamental type," DiFalco grinned back. "But now that you mention it, I
was
getting tired of feeling like a midget in here with you grunts!"
Neither Varien nor anyone else in
Liberator
's control room felt like violating Aelanni's silent misery.
They had heard the report of
Guadalcanal
's death, and as the lifeboats had checked in she had overridden the comm officer to ask each of them if DiFalco was aboard. He was not, and no one had seen him during the evacuation. That the missile base that had claimed
Guadalcanal
was now a radioactive crater was clearly of no comfort to her at all.
Finally, Varien felt he must say something, however awkward. "There may be other lifeboats, you know. They may not have all made contact."
"Perhaps you're right," she sighed. Neither of them believed it for an instant, but it was a ritual in which each had to play out a role that included the pretense of belief. And now it was over.
Varien tried again. "No one in the lifeboats actually saw him killed or injured," he began, attempting briskness. Aelanni smiled her gratitude to him, but shook her head slowly. He shut up.
After a moment, she spoke. "Do you know what I was thinking while speaking to him for the last time?" She chuckled joylessly. "I was thinking that we'd never be separated again . . . ."
The communicator emitted a scream of static, over which a voice barely rose. "Assault shuttle G-4 calling
Liberator
! Come in please. And please establish visual contact."
They looked at each other. No. That static-distorted voice
couldn't
be . . . Without a word, Aelanni sprang to the console and switched on visual.
The image was a match for the voice signal, streaked and repeatedly disappearing altogether. But it unmistakably showed the open viewplate of a suit of powered combat armor. and the face . . . .
"
Eric!
What are you doing . . . ? And what is that . . . ?"
"No time, Aelanni! We're starting to enter atmosphere, and the ionization is already playing hell with this signal." A screech of static came as if on cue, to confirm it. "I was a little rushed when
Guadalcanal
was hit. This shuttle was my only way off. So now I'm headed down with Thompson. I'll be in touch as soon as possible. I love you. I'll . . ."
The static rose to a shriek, then died down to a low, steady roar, and the screen was all snow.
For a moment Aelanni was silent, emotions chasing each other across her face. Then she yelled at the screen.
"
You did this on purpose!
"
Then she collapsed into the chair, weeping with all the tears she had been holding since the first word of the attack on
Guadalcanal
and could now release. Varien stood behind her, massaging her shoulders and smiling a gentle smile.
Afterwards, it occurred to DiFalco that he should have thought of the fact that he was setting foot on Aelanni's world. But at the time, his only impressions as he came down the shuttle ramp in the smoke-dimmed early morning sun were of ravaged cityscape, the fighters swooping overhead as they expended their last missiles covering the landing and, above all, the sounds of battle.
A small group of Raehaniv in combat dress came out from behind wreckage, one of them carrying the transponding beacon that had guided them to this particular part of the landing zone. Another—the leader, if DiFalco remembered his wartime Raehaniv rank insignia—stepped forward.
"Major Thompson?" he asked with a heavy accent.
"Here," Thompson said, motioning forward one of his Raehaniv Marines to translate. "But this is Colonel DiFalco. He's the senior man here."
"It's your show, Major," DiFalco demurred. "I'm just a flyboy who's out of his element and knows his limitations." He turned to the Resistance type. "And you are . . . ?"
"Dorleann hle'Toral, commanding. We weren't expecting you to come here personally, Colonel DiFalco." He looked almost embarassingly impressed. "All my units are in position by now, although we had to fight our way here. As you know, the Korvaasha have tunnels running from the fortress to various locations in the surrounding areas of the city. As it turns out, they have more of them than we thought. They've been using them to mount flanking attacks on us as we advanced to this landing zone. But all we've encountered so far have been Implementers. They must be holding their Korvaash cyborgs of the warrior elite in reserve and expending their cannon fodder. At any rate, we've taken losses, but we beat off all the attacks."
Even in translation, Dorleann's pride in his people was evident—they had met their first trial by fire and not broken. DiFalco and Thompson looked at each other wordlessly, knowing that the Implementers were as new to actual battle as the Resistance, and that the real test was still to come.
"All right, Dorleann," DiFalco spoke diplomatically. "It sounds like your people could use a breather. As we advance toward the fortress, I suggest that Major Thompson's Marines take the flanks . . . ."
The immense doors slid open with a grinding clang and Gromorgh entered the vast chamber where a crowd of Implementers waited, flanked by Korvaash cyborgs.
"Is there some problem?" Gromorgh adjusted the voder's volume to fill this space. "I understand you have expressed reluctance to face armed opponents. Does terrorizing helpless civilians represent the limit of your capabilities?"