The Peace War (34 page)

"Mike. Listen." Wili's voice was tense, but the words were slurred, the cadence
irregular. He must be in deep connect. He sounded like one talking from a dream. "I'm
running at full power; we'll be out of power in seconds — but that is all we have."

Mike looked out at the helicopters; Wili was right about that. "But what can we do?" he
said.

"Our friends... going to distract her... no time to explain everything. Just do what I
say."

Mike stared into the darkness. He could imagine the dazed look in Wili's eyes, the
slack features. He had seen it often enough the last few evenings. The boy was managing
their own problems and coordinating the rest of the revolution, all at the same time.
Rosas had played symbiotic games, but this was beyond his imagination. There was only
one thing he could say. "Sure."

"You're going to take those two armored equipment carriers at... far side of the field.
Do you see them?"

Mike had, earlier. They were two hundred meters off. There were guards posted next to
them.

"When?"

"A minute. Kick loose the side of the wagon... now. When I say go... you jump, grab
Allison, and run for them. Ignore everything else you see and hear. Everything."

Mike hesitated. He could guess what Wili intended, but"Move. Move.
Move!"
Wili's
voice was abruptly urgent, angry — the dreamer frustrated. It was as unnerving as a
scream. Mike turned and crashed his heels into the specially weakened wall. It had been
intended as an emergency escape route. As the tacked nails gave way, Mike reflected that
this was certainly an emergency-but they would be getting out in full view of Peacer
guns.

Lu's general heard her order and turned to shout to his men. He was below his usual
element here, directing operations firsthand. Della had to remind him, "Don't point. Have
your people pick up others at the same time. We don't want to spook those two."

He nodded.

The rotors were winding down. Something like quiet should return to the field now,
she thought...

...and was wrong. "Sir!" It was a soldier in the field car. "We're losing armor to enemy
action."

Lu whipped around the brass before they could do more than swear. She hopped into
the car and looked at the display that glowed in front of the soldier. Her fingers danced
over the command board as she brought up views and interpretation. The man stared at
her for a horrified instant, then realized that she must be somebody very special.

Satellite photos showed eight silvery balls embedded in the hills north of them, eight
silvery balls gleaming in starlight. Now there were nine. Patrols in the hills reported the
same thing. One transmission ended in midsentence. Ten bobbles. The infiltration was
twenty-four hours ahead of the schedule Avery's precious satellites and intelligence
computers had predicted. The Tinkers must have dozens of manpack generators out there.
If they were like the one Wili Wachendon had carried, they were very short range. The
enemy must be sneaking right up on their targets.

Della looked across the detention area at the banana wagons. Remarkably timed, this
attack.

She slipped out of the car and walked back to the general and his staff. Cool. Cool.
They may hold off as long as me don't move on the wagons.

:Looks bad, General. They're way ahead of our estimates. Some of them are already
operating north of us." That much was true.

"My God. I've got to get back to command, lady. These interrogations will have to
wait."

Lu smiled crookedly. The other still didn't get the point. "You do that. Might as well
leave these people alone anyway." But the other was already walking away from her. He
waved acknowledgment and got into the field car.

To the north she heard tac air, scrambled up from the Livermore Valley. Something
flashed white, and far hills stood in momentary silhouette. That was one bobbler that
wouldn't get them this night.

Della looked over the civilian encampment as though pondering what to do next. She
was careful to give no special attention to the banana wagons. Apparently, they thought
their diversion successful — at least she remained unbobbled.

She walked back to her personal chopper, which had come in with the interrogation
teams. Lu's aircraft was smaller, only big enough for pilot, commander, and gunner. It
bristled with sensor equipment and rocket pods. The tail boom might be painted with
L.A. paisley, but these were her own people on this machine, veterans of the Mongolian
campaign. She pulled herself onto the command seat and gave the pilot an emphatic up-and-away sign. They were off the ground immediately.

Della ignored this efficiency; she was already trying to get her priority call through to
Avery. The little monochrome display in front of her pulsed red as her call stayed in the
queue. She could imagine the madhouse Livermore Central had become the last few
minutes.
But, damn you, Avery, this is not the time to forget I come first!

Red. Red. Red.
The call pattern disappeared, and the display was filled with a pale blob
that might have been someone's face. "Make it quick." It was Hamilton Avery's voice.
Other voices, some almost shouting, came from behind him.

She was ready. "No proof, but I know they've infiltrated right up to the Mission Pass
Gate. I want you to lay a thousand meter bobble just south of the CP-"

"No! We're still charging. If we start using it now, there won't be juice for rapid fire
when we really need it, when they get over the ridgeline."

"Don't you see? The rest is diversion. Whatever I've found here must be
important."

But the link was broken; the screen glowed a faint, uniform red. Damn Avery and his
caution! He was so afraid of Paul Hoehler, so certain the other would figure out a way to
get into Livermore Valley, that he was actually making it possible for the enemy to do so.

She looked past the instrument displays. They were about four hundred meters up.
Splashes of blue white light from the pole lamps lit the detention area; the camp looked
like some perfect model. There was little apparent motion, though the pilot's thermal
scanner showed that some of the armor was alive, awaiting orders. The civilian camp was
still and bluish white, little tents sitting by scarcely larger wagons. The darker clumps
around the fires were crowds of people.

Della swallowed. If Avery wouldn't bobble the camp...

She knew, without looking, what her ship carried. She had stun bombs, but if those
wagons were what she thought, they would be shielded. She touched her throat mike and
spoke to her gunner. "Fire mission. Rockets on the civilian wagons. No napalm." The
people around the campfires would survive. Most of them.

The gunner's "Roger" sounded in her ear. The air around the chopper glowed as if a
small sun had suddenly risen behind them, and a roar blotted out the rotor thumping.
Looking almost into the exhaust of the rocket stream dimmed all other lights to nothing.

Or almost nothing. For an instant, she glimpsed rockets coming up from below...

Then their barrage exploded. In the air. Not halfway to the target. The fireballs seemed to
splash
across some unseen surface. The chopper staggered as shrapnel ripped through it.
Someone screamed.

The aircraft tipped into an increasing bank that would soon turn them upside down.
Della didn't think, didn't really notice the pilot slumped against his controls. She grabbed
her copy of the stick, pulled, and jabbed at the throttle.
Ahead she saw another copter, on
a collision path with theirs.
Then the pilot fell back, the stick came free, and her aircraft
shot upward, escaping both ground and the mysterious other.

The gunner crawled up between them and looked at the pilot. "He's dead, ma'am."

Della listened, and also listened to the rotors. There was something ragged in their
rhythm. She had heard worse. "Okay. Tie him down." Then she ignored them and flew
the helicopter slowly around what had been the Mission Pass Gate.

The phantom missiles from below, the, mysterious helicopter — all were explained now.
Near the instant her gunner fired his rockets, someone had bobbled the Pass. She circled
that great dark sphere, a perfect reflection of her lights following her. The bobble was a
thousand meters across. But this hadn't been Avery relenting: Along with the civilian and
freighter encampment, the bobble also contained the Gate's command post. Far below,
Authority armor moved around the base, like ants suddenly cut off from the nest.

So. Perfect timing, once again. They had known she was going to attack, and known
precisely when. Tinker communication and intelligence must be the equal of the Peace's.
And whoever was down there had been important. The generator they carried must have
been one of the most powerful the Tinkers had. When they had seen the alternative was
death, they had opted out of the whole war.

She looked across at her chopper's reflection, seemingly a hundred meters off. The fact
that they had bobbled themselves instead of her aircraft was evidence that the Hoehler
technique — at least with small power sources — was not very good for moving targets.
Something to remember.

At least now, instead of a hundred new deaths on her soul, the enemy had burdened her
with just one, her pilot. And when this bobble burst-the minimum ten years from now or
fifty — the war would be history. A flick of the eye to them, and there would be no more
killing. She suddenly envied these losers very much.

She banked away and headed for Livermore Central.

"Now!" Wili's command came abruptly, just seconds after, Rosas had loosened the
false wall. Mike crashed his heels one last time into the wood. It gave way, bananas and
timber falling with it.

And suddenly there was light all around them. Not the blue-point lights the Authority
had strung around the campground, but an all-enveloping white glare, brighter than any
of the electrics. '

"Run now. Run!" Wili's voice was faint from within the compartment. The undersheriff
grabbed Allison and urged her across the field. Paul started to follow them, then turned
back at Wili's call.

An Authority tank swiveled on its treads, its turret turning even faster. Behind him an
unfamiliar voice shouted for him to stop. Mike and Allison only ran faster. And the tank
disappeared in a ten-meter-wide silver sphere.

They ran past civilians cowering in the nebulous glare, past troopers and Authority
equipment that one after another were bobbled before they could come into action.

Two hundred meters is along way to sprint. It is more than long enough to think, and
understand.

The glare all around them was only bright by comparison with night. This was simply
morning light, masked and diffused by fog. Wili had bobbled the campground through to
the next morning, or the morning after that — to some later time when the mass of the
Authority's forces would have moved away from the Gate they now thought blocked.
Now he was mopping up the Peacers that had been in the bobble. If they moved fast, they
could be gone before the Peace discovered what had happened.

When Mike and Allison reached the armored carriers, they were unguarded — except for a
pair of three-meter bobbles that gleamed on either side of them. Wili must have chosen
these just because their crews were standing outside. Mike clambered up over the treads
and paused, panting. He turned and pulled Allison onto the vehicle. "Wili wants us to
drive these to the wagons." He threw the open hatch and shrugged helplessly. "Can you
do it?"

"Sure." She caught the edge of the hatch and swung down into the darkness. "C'mon."

Mike followed awkwardly, feeling a little stupid at his question. Allison was from the
age of such machines, when everyone knew how to drive.

The smell of lubricants and diesel oil was faint perfume in the air. There was seating
for three. Allison was already in the forward position, her hands moving tentatively over
the controls. There were no windows and no displays — unless the pale-painted walls were
screens. Wait. The third crew position faced to the rear, into formidable racks of
electronic equipment. There were displays there.

"See here," said Allison. He turned and looked over her shoulder. She turned a handle,
firing up the crawler's turbine. The whine ascended the scale, till Mike felt it through the
metal walls and floor as much as through his ears.

Allison pointed. There was a display system on the panel in front of her. The letters
and digits were bar-formed, but legible. "That's fuel. It's not full. Should be able to go at
least fifty kilometers, though. These others, engine temperature, engine speed — as long as
you have autodriver set you'd best ignore them.

Hold tight." She grabbed the driving sticks and demonstrated how to control the
tracks. The vehicle slewed back and forth and around.

"How can you see out?"

Allison laughed. "A nineteenth-century solution. Bend down a little further." She
tapped the hull above her head. Now he saw the shallow depression that ringed the
driver's head, just above the level of her temples. "Three hundred and sixty degrees of
periscopes. The position can be adjusted to suit." She demonstrated.

"Okay. You say Wili wants both the crawlers over to the banana wagons? I'll bring the
other one." She slipped out of the driver's seat and disappeared through the hatch.

Mike stared at the controls. She had not turned off the engine. All he had to do was sit
down and
drive.
He slid into the seat and stuck his head through the ring of periscope
viewers. It was almost as if he had stood up through the hatch; he really could see all
around.

Straight ahead, Naismith stood by the wagons. The old man was tearing at the side
panels, sending his "precious bananas" cascading across the ground. To the left a puff of
vapor came from the other armored carrier, and Mike heard Allison start its engine.