Telisa stepped onto the dais. Suddenly she felt light-headed.

"Wha-"

She lost her balance and collapsed.

Chapter 11.

Holtzclaw walked through the haphazard cl.u.s.ters of alien buildings behind his men. The surface of his battle suit maintained the broken red color of the rocks and walls around him. He was in constant communications with his surveillance team, the h.e.l.lraker operator, and his mission group.

His battle suit was simply a powered exoskeleton mated to a military grade skinsuit and a helmet. It increased his ma.s.s by about 50 percent, but that was not a problem moving across the hard, rocky landscape. Originally the battalion had an exoskeleton only for each officer, squad leader, and the heavy weapon operator, but almost all the men had them now. One of the few advantages of heavy attrition of the unit: the exoskeletons had survived more often than the men had.

"Any activity back at their ship?" he asked. Though he could see the ship in one of the panes of his personal view, he relied upon his men to sift through details and notice things he would miss while his attention was divided.

"Quiet. Something"s not right about it, though. This ship is nothing like I"ve ever seen."

"It must be some fancy science mission one-off," Holtzclaw said.

"Yes, sir. You got the fancy part right. It looks like it took some serious landing prep just to set it down. Some kind of surface construction to make a place to sit its fat a.s.s down planet-side."

Holtzclaw looked at the ship again. His man was right. The ship was radical. He couldn"t even see any ramps or means of ingress. The landing site had several pre-built spots to support the struts.

We must have missed some probe that arrived ahead of time to construct those landing pads. "Well, it"s about to be our fancy ship," he said.

Holtzclaw trailed the center of his advancing mission group. He had mobilized eight squads of five men each. A Guardian machine had been a.s.signed to each of the squads. Though the Guardians had been designed for perimeter security, they could be useful in a frontal a.s.sault.

The h.e.l.lrakers were set up and on high alert, but he preferred to capture everything intact. More supplies for him that way. If they encountered any resistance, he was ready to use up h.e.l.lraker rounds in exchange for whatever was on that big fat ship they had seen come down. There were probably literally years" worth of supplies and equipment on that vessel. And if it was a science expedition, it could be invaluable in trying to figure out what they hauled out of the tunnels.

The rest of his soldiers were taking off in the next few minutes to challenge any a.s.sets the strangers had left in orbit. As with the ground attack, their orders were to capture what they found rather than destroy it. Holtzclaw had put Silvarre in charge of their a.s.sault craft.

On the ground, his men were spread across a two-kilometer line north to south, moving to the east. Sensor probes moved in the same direction, two to the south and one to the north. Even though he expected all the action to take place topside today, he had a moment of pause thinking about the engineers he had left behind. They had sheltered underground to defend themselves against the monster. If it chose to strike now, it could be bad. But at least he had told them to remain vigilant. There were limited avenues of attack in the long tunnels.

"We have a robot here, headed away from us."

"Kill it," Holtzclaw said. "Neutralize all their machines. Take the scientists alive unless they resist with arms."

There was a pause.

"Got it. Target is down."

A minute later, squad three, farther to the south, got another one. And another. Holtzclaw discovered the machines were armed when the third one shot back. None of his men were injured, and they killed it easily.

They"re not prepared for this. They"re no match for us.

For another half hour they swept across the old city. They killed a fourth robot in the north; then Holtzclaw got a transmission. He caught a visual feed of the officer. A long, straight nose divided the heavily lined face above compressed lips. It was First Lieutenant Racca.

"We have a couple of robots holed up in a building," the officer said.

"Any people in there?"

"No, sir, not unless they"ve got stealth hardware. The probes are sure it"s just robots. There"s at least two of them sheltering in there," Racca said. "We could use a Guardian machine, but I thought, maybe this would be a good test for our h.e.l.lraker calibration?"

"Yes, good thinking," Holtzclaw agreed. The Guardian ammunition had also gotten pretty low, because those machines had been taking pot shots at the Konuan for weeks. His unit needed resupply or access to manufacturing resources they could use to produce more ammunition. Their a.s.sault ships had basic fabrication systems that could be used in a pinch, though they were slow and out of certain raw materials. The fabrication systems were meant to construct critical replacement parts for the ships in emergencies, not to supply a battalion with ammunition. Not even a heavily attritioned battalion like theirs.

Holtzclaw received a location pointer from Racca and pa.s.sed it on. He announced the target on the mission channel. The fire system verified all friendlies were clear of the target.

"Incoming," said the h.e.l.lraker operator.

Holtzclaw accessed a visual feed from one of the probes on the line. A small Konuan building sat in a clearing. Nothing moved, but his men were sure at least two of the machines were inside.

Three seconds later the dwelling blossomed into a gigantic cloud of red dust rising into the sky. The thunder came seconds later. Holtzclaw wasn"t sure if he could feel the tremor or if it was imagined.

"Direct hit," Holtzclaw heard.

Good to know everything is still in working order. "Resume the advance," he said. The squads started advancing again.

Holtzclaw"s link announced a communication channel opening from his task force newly arrived in orbit.

"Colonel Holtzclaw, this is the Typhoon."

"Report," he said.

"There"s another very large ship here, just like the first one," Silvarre said. "We"re closing in on it, but I have to tell it to you straight, sir, I doubt a ship of that size-"

Silvarre"s voice feed cut out.

"Silvarre? Major?"

There was no answer.

I doubt a ship of that size...what?

"Major Silvarre?"

I doubt a ship of that size isn"t armed.

Holtzclaw tried to get the Typhoon"s beacon. There was nothing. Which meant the ship had gone dark to avoid attack, or it had been destroyed. The other two ships, Scion and Griffin, were silent as well. His forces in s.p.a.ce were engaged.

"Step it up," Holtzclaw sent to his squad leaders. "We have trouble in orbit. I want that ship."

Chapter 12.

Magnus had turned the stealth machine off long before he approached the campsite where he had left Telisa and Cilreth. His nighttime journey had been hard on the nerves, but otherwise uneventful. If anything, the planet life seemed less active at night. It was possible the majority of species here were diurnal.

The first thing that worried him was a lack of scout machines around the camp. He moved through the last patches of native plant life carefully but didn"t encounter any sentries.

The tent was sealed up. To be expected for the middle of the night.

"Telisa? Cilreth?" he transmitted. For a second there was no reply.

"Magnus! I"m glad you"re back," Cilreth said. Magnus could tell something was wrong. Her voice held a worry. He strode up to the tent as she gave the mental signal for the tent to open.

"Magnus, we were attacked," she said aloud. "I"ve been trying to reach you and Shiny for half an hour."

Distressed but not panicked.

"Tell me."

"We took some scout robots to the ruins. We found this robot." Cilreth indicated a smooth blue machine with three legs sitting beside a stack of containers. "Some creature attacked us. It destroyed two scouts. Telisa and I were separated as we fought. It"s my fault, a glitch with the suit. I had to activate the stealth, but then it wasn"t configured to give me away by showing my link, and I was having a hard time staying alive and configuring it to let me talk to her. She told me to clear away, said she was going to kill it."

Magnus nodded. "Okay. Maybe she meant her alien weapon. She was worried about hitting you. Did you hear it fire?"

"No. But she was on the level below me." Cilreth sent him a location pointer as she spoke so he wouldn"t have to ask the obvious. The spot wasn"t far from the camp.

Oh no. And I have her stealth device. Magnus felt ashamed. She needed that artifact and he"d taken it from her. Now she could be dead.

"Magnus, it"s fast. And it attacks from above."

"Okay, stay calm, I"ll go get her; you get what we can back onto the ship. Prioritize the loading; we may be leaving some of this stuff behind. You should find a large group of scout machines waiting back at the Clacker that got cut off from us. Use them to move as much as you can, as fast as you can."

"Magnus? Are you okay?"

"I"ve figured out why we can"t talk with Shiny. It"s bad."

"It can"t be worse than abandoning my teammate to an alien monster."

"It"s not your fault. Don"t even start that or I"ll hit you. We just need to find her."

"Then go!"

"Yes. One minute. The people here are UED. Looks like a military unit, too. More than a hundred of them, I"d guess. They"re situated less than ten kilometers away."

"So close! Did they follow us in?"

"Their camp suggests they were here first. They had to have detected us come in. My guess is they"re jamming our links. Our current range is less than about forty meters."

"What can we do about them? Are they dangerous?"

"Maybe. I haven"t contacted them. Keep an eye out. They may be after the Clacker." Magnus found more weapon containers with his link. He spoke as he grabbed some grenades and a laser sidearm.

"Maybe we should talk to them," Cilreth said.

"What are you thinking? The enemy of my enemy?" Magnus asked.

"Sure."

Magnus shrugged. "They aren"t really our friends. They have their own agenda. Besides, we"re fugitives from the s.p.a.ce force, but we"re not really revolutionaries, are we?"

"I might change things if I felt I could," Cilreth said. "I think Telisa would. Though I don"t want to rock the boat just now, if the aliens really are a huge threat."

Magnus hurried off but continued talking through his link, knowing the jamming would cut their connection soon. Three scout robots near the camp scampered after him. "Earth and the other core worlds are all stirred up about it, but I think it was just a chance encounter that went bad. But the Earth Defiance has lost. The s.p.a.ce force all but mopped them up years ago."

"Propaganda? Maybe the war is still going on."

"Well, not from where I was sitting," Magnus pointed out. "But I suppose there could have been more of them out on the frontier than the force let me know about."

"Shiny knows what it"s like when an alien race comes for your home planet. We can"t let that happen to Earth. Or any core world. If the UED is still in action, we can"t join them now."

The aliens will always be out there. I hope that doesn"t mean we have to live with an oppressive government forever. "We can talk about it when we join back up with Telisa."

"Possible workarounds, countermeasures, antidotes to apply. Implementing solutions now," Shiny"s voice interrupted on a new channel. His voice was of obviously lower quality in the transmission.

Magnus halted just within range of Cilreth.

"Shiny. Take over the scout robots if you can contact them. Coordinate a defense with them. Telisa is missing. I"m going to find her," he rattled off.

"Cannot contact Telisa. Caution advised. There is..." Shiny broke up. "...Trilisk technology involved."

"Repeat," Magnus asked, but he lost the connection. Cla.s.sic. A warning so fragmented it is unusable other than to inspire fear.

"It"s a good sign he could reach us at all," Cilreth said. "If anyone can defeat the jamming, it has to be Shiny. Just find Telisa."

"I should not have separated from her," Magnus said, resuming his departure. He encountered a communications repeater service up ahead. "This repeater is ours?" he asked.

"Oh yes, sorry, I forgot about the breadcrumbs. We have them out all the way to the building. She"s still alive," Cilreth continued. "She has a lot of alien toys, remember? She"s just too naive. Shiny could be dangerous, too. Telisa is too young to have felt enough sting from betrayal or double-crossing to think of it seriously."

Magnus accessed the breadcrumb"s service and joined the chain. "Yes. But her youth brings a lot to the team. I like being around her." Of course, I love her. Why do I hesitate to say that in front of Cilreth?

"You like that young bod," Cilreth prodded.

"It"s more than that. She keeps us enthusiastic, injects optimism and energy. Being around young people reminds you of the hopeful side of things."

"Then maybe we need some more. Just three of us..."

"Yes. I"m working on that. But it"s on the back burner. After this expedition, we should at least double the size of our team. That would give each of us a new protege to teach. If you"re not in this area, we"ll head back to the ship. Most likely Shiny will have defeated the jamming before then, anyway."

"Okay. Be careful, Magnus. Bring her back."