The two reconnaissance drones, as soon as they lost touch with their controlling aircraft, instantly started to look for it and recognised that it was out of control. They then looked for where the survival aircraft was and started to fly towards it, because their sub-Al minds were programmed to look after the pilot. One suddenly exploded as four accelerated rounds hit it. The other dived and jigged and jived, like only a non living machine could do, escaping to be able to catch up with the tumbling survival craf t grabbing it with its waldos and powering its antigravity system to the maximum, carrying the smashed craf t and its severely wounded occupant back to Haast.
A few moments later, smart missiles, fired from Haast, raged into the last known positions of the downed attack drones. The explosions sent a shockwave rippling down the ravine and reached out across a piece of the dried grasslands, setting it on fire.
Bob sat in his pod, looking at the unfolding crisis. He quickly gave Nick orders: 'Let the Q loose! Secure or destroy those drone weapons. Pull the Mauls back in support. Position Haast so we give direct fire support.'
He could see Nick Warne directing the Tengu, so tapped the ship-wide comms. 'All crew: man external weapons. Sensors, go to active radar.'
Haast slowed down, waiting for the Qforces to get themselves into position. One of the landers, with its complement of eight Mace, took off from the lowest hangar of the carrier escorted by three Gunju. It held station a few kilometres ahead of Haast as other Gunju peeled away from escorting the Mauls to pair off and also move towards the ravine.
In the gun control pod, Uncle, with Mike Antipas beside him and Aaron Huriwaka behind, looked across the displays confirming that the large high-powered 150-millimetre rail guns, which had swung out of the sides of Haast, were at temperature. Mike instructed the units to go to full power as he felt Haast go into a tight turn, placing them head on to the open end of the ravine five kilometres up-range from it.
He knew that the remaining Aurora was also watching the tops of the ravine, and the Mauls the areas to either side.
Aaron softly said, 'Target.'
Uncle swung the sights onto the icon that Aaron had placed high on the southern wall of the ravine, firing a round from each barrel and a fraction of a second later the damaged drone, and what appeared to be ghosts around it, vaporised.
'Target.'
He switched to the other side of the ravine and fired again with the same result.
'Target.'
This time it was the mangled remains of a drone further up the ravine floor which met the same fate.
'Stand by, Tengu going in.'
Q Sergeant Major Daniel Falcon led the first wave of the assault in a heavily armoured Gunju, howling up the side of the ravine with five others in a staggered line behind him. He did not turn the Gunju into the ravine, but rolled it right over and down the side of the rock face, grinning from ear to ear with the sheer delight of a high-speed pass, flying as close to the cliff face as he could get.
The six Gunju streaked through the narrowing ravine and pulled up at the top, rolling over and roaring down the other side as their systems mapped the cave entrances and looked deeply into them, looking for the missing drone remains and predators. A few minutes later, as they pulled up again at the main entrance to the ravine, the lander with the Maces dived over the top of the cliffs and the armoured walkers dropped away to be piloted down into the caves. The Gunju returned slowly, as two more joined them and paired off with the Maces.
Daniel flew the compact little fighter up behind his old friend, John Harvey, who dropped the Mace down onto the cave floor with weapons extended, looking at the wreck of another drone. Messages started to flash between them.
'What's the bet it's had its remaining fuel and ammunition rigged to explode if I touch it, Dan?'
'Lousy bet, John. Don't touch. Lots of holes in this cave. How about you go splat splat and let's see what comes out to dance?'
John smiled and fired their slow, soft rounds up into each of the holes around the interior of the cave. The fifty-millimetre gel balls bounced and as they came in contact with a non organic surface, hardened and bounced again. Most bounced around using tiny, powerf ul energy systems to continue their fast bouncing until they mapped the interiors of the holes without finding anything. Those gel balls then exited, and rolled or bounced across to the Mace to be scooped up and reloaded into their magazines. A few kept moving further away into the hillsides, mapping the tunnels as the Mace watched their progress, feeling through its feet where they were.
Suddenly two of them stopped completely and John's sensors showed him that they had both detonated. Seconds later, they felt the thump of the explosions and a second after that a really big explosion high above them.
Both Q quickly moved their machines out into the centre of the ravine, scanning the rock walls for movement as one of the other Maces yelled, 'Contact!'
Dan and John saw the icons come up in their HUDs. John started jogging the machine around the bend to get a firing line on the enemy high on the cliff walls. Covering him, Daniel frowned, and without really thinking about it raced forwards on his antigravity and turbines to come up behind John quickly yelling, 'Jump! Grab hold! Ambush! Get out!'
John instinctively hit his antigravity controls as he pushed hard upwards with his legs, the powered armour racing upwards with Daniel in the Gunju moving beneath him, accelerating as hard as he could. John rolled and grasped the roll struts over Daniel's cockpit, wondering what his friend was doing, and looked back to see the enormous explosions racing out of all the caves, picking up the Tengu and their craf t and smashing them into the other explosions coming from the caves on the other side of the ravine.
John swore long and hard, seeing two of his friends almost make it out of the maelstrom before they were hit by rocks and smashed, the wreckage disappearing back down into the dust cloud. Seeing a piece of rock spinning up behind them, John wrenched them over just in time although it struck the Gunju a glancing blow.
Two squadrons of Gunju, with Mauls immediately behind them, came screaming down out of the sky in support. Daniel saw the flashes of predator-controlled linear rifles firing at a Maul which had both engines shot away from one side as it was close to the ground travelling at high speed. In an instant, it flicked over and exploded into the ground. One of the Gunju fired on the predators, while another predator, clutching a rail gun, popped up from the ground to engage it and its wingman and seconds later both machines tumbled to the ground in flames.
A cone of lasers flashed out from the distant Haast, ionising the air between them as a massive particle beam burst forth and superheated the first predators and their weapons, vaporising them.
John saw the second group of predators, now plainly visible, dragging their captured weapons, trying to line them up, and fired both his small linear rifles, pulverising all three of them. Daniel joined in the fire until the magazine of the weapon detonated, destroying it and shredding the predator remains further.
John felt the antigravity unit of his Mace being struck. He yelled out, 'Get us to ground! Fast! I am taking hits.'
Just as he said the words, the Gunju was also hit and the machine started to roll over. A Maul and two more Gunju howled overhead, firing at the top of the other side of the ravine but was ambushed and hit hard in the fuel tanks by another group of predators.
Alarms warned John of a fuel fire in his power pack, so he opened both hatches in the Mace and climbed out of it to cling to the top of the failing Gunju as Daniel wrestled with the failing aircraft. The Mace tumbled away a few seconds before Daniel fired the last of the thrust straight down, and they thumped onto the ground.
Both Tengu, without speaking, clambered off the damaged craft one to each side. They lifted the covers on the small forward rotaries, detaching them from their mounts before grasping the power packs and small magazines, hefting them onto their backs, and clipping them on.
Three other Gunju swept up behind them as the two Qran fr
om cover to cover until they reached the damaged Mace. John quickly checked it over but shook his head, so they both moved towards where the smoking ruins of the last predators to fire on them lay in a shallow hole behind a large rock. Seeing the remains of the last of the captured linear rifles, Daniel uploaded the images to the Q lander which was prowling above them.
They then ran towards the burni ng wreck of another Maul lying on its side. Two Gunju flew over the top of it, hovering above the flames and injecting high volumes of water into their jet exhausts and putting out the fires. John pulled open the gun pod canopy of the wreck and saw that the gunner was dead, her body full of jagged holes. He looked to the side, noting that the ammunition feed on one of the guns had taken a direct hit and that the rounds had cooked off into the pod. He walked away towards the nose of the machine where Daniel asked the fate of the pilot, shaking his head.
'Would someone please tell me what the fuck just happened? Drones should not suddenly lose power like that, nor missiles produce a hellish bigger bang than they should. And how the hell do predators get the information about how to operate our weapons, to say nothing of where to hit the vital systems of an Aurora, or a Maul and a Gunju? What is going on, people?'
There was total silence for a minute until the quiet respectful voice of Vishav Jyani spoke up. 'I believe I know, my commander, about the explosions.'
Bob knew that the lieutenant was a man who never voiced an opinion unless he knew what he was talking about. 'Go ahead, lieutenant,' Bob said.
Vish, sitting in the gunners' pod of Anneke Bester's Maul, orbiting high above the carnage, hoped that he was right as he said, 'Itis a layer of methane gas, sir. 'Itwas probably produced by the bison on command of the predator. They may have been able to manipulate the gas further by an inversion layer perhaps, or more likely their insects?'
Bob clenched his fists on his armrests, thinking about it. 'Yeah. OK, I get that, but what about the information those shits now have on us?'
The ACE Haast answered. 'I believe that it was given to them by Angelito, who was privy to such data and I also believe that he has not left this planet. The best place for him to hide would be in the ocean somewhere close. Actually, the more interesting question would be why. Why would he aid the enemy? Find out what he has to gain from that and we will find our answers.'
Bob shook his head. 'OK, we deal with that shit later. Right now we put out the fires and recover the downed pilots and craft. Navigation, bring Haast in over the top of the ravine to lif t the bigger rocks out of the way. Launch all the Chrysops for close defence.'
Letting out a long sigh, he tapped Sally Aydon's icon. 'Major. Casualties?'
'I have recovered five Soul Savers from Maul crew and ten from Tengu,' Sally said. 'I am initiating the transfers in mechanised chassis for Maul crews. Mr Jerobaum is touch and go. I shall wait another few hours to see how he responds to treatment before I make a decision to euthanase his body and upload him. What should I do with the Q?'
Bob nodded, knowing how much everyone hated the cold, metallic almost non-life of waking up in a chassis.
'Stand by,' he advised. 'Major Graham, we have ten Tengu souls transferred into our data core. Should we upload them into chassis or hold them until Rose Foxtrot returns?'
The Tengu major looked out of the screen at him, unblinking. She gave a sharp nod. 'Thank you for the consideration. We go to chassis, please.'
Bob felt the attitude of Haast change and saw the Chrysops
all patrolling within a kilometre of the carrier. He looked at the image of the Tengu, who was staring expectantly at him.
'My thanks for the work of your troops, major,' he said. Unexpectedly, she smiled. 'You are welcome, commander.
I do not think any of us expected such a response from the predators. We will not be so lightly fooled next time. I shall carry on with the recovery of all the craft and the bodies.'
He nodded, showing agreement, but in his mind he did not fully agree and the connection was severed.
'Major Aydon, Major Graham requests chassis for her people.'
'Very well. Please ensure that I get most of an intact predator, please. I do not mind how many pieces there are, I just want most of one. Oh, and make sure none of our personnel touch one. I would suggest disposable drones and sealed containers. Excuse me, please, I need to get back to our patients.'
He nodded and the screen cleared then he called Nick Warne. 'You hear that from Major Aydon?'
'No, but I would guess that she will be looking to get her hands on a dead predator? And that they should not be touched? Yeah, I can see from the expression on your face that I am right. On it.'
Nick had decided at the start of the entire deployment that things were not on the level and, as he deployed the semi-intelligent high contamination unit, one more piece of evidence to support his feelings slipped into place. He had seen the unit on the manifest when he first came onboard the brand-new Haast and he had wondered why they would need such an expensive and relatively rare piece of equipment. He brought up the systems control for the machine, told it what he wanted and where it should go to find enough predator parts, and activated it.
The eight-metre-long barrel-like machine slipped out of a hangar on the lowest deck of Haast and sedately moved around the battlefield gathering predator parts to itself.
Nick kept an eye on it as he directed the recovery actions below Haast with the aid of Mark de Ruyter and his salvage crews. They were lifting boulders and smashing rocks out of the way until they could get to the crushed Maces and Gunjus.
Finally, late into the night he was able to report to the commander.
'Right,' Nick began, 'we have the bodies and the wrecks onboard. Major Aydon says that those couple of crushed Tengu that were found inside one of the cave entrances have almost certainly been sampled as there had been tissue removed from their faces and an eye had been carefully removed as well. Seems that the predators wanted to know about their body make-up and chemistry as well, maybe.'
Bob climbed out of his pod, had a long stretch and walked over to the panoramic windshield, looking out into the night. He could see the heavy threatening clouds overhead.
'Yeah, that figures. Well, at least the brigadier and his crews were able to take over our sweep, so from here we head back out to sea, take on water, lick our wounds and go back in for another go at midnight local time. Let's just hope that the Tengu's rebuilding of their sensors works well so we can see those shits in the dark. You know that they now carry special nutrient packs so they will not have to sleep for the next three days and that Major Graham is going to have two-thirds of her people in the air from now on.'
Mark de Ruyter answered. 'Good! What is the use of having super-troops if we do not let them get on with the job. I have upped the outputs of the gardens as their nutrient packs will need more.'
Nick Warne called out from his pod. 'Results are in.' 'Which ones?' Mark asked.
'The medical research drone's; all a bit of a mystery to me. Have sent thm down to Sally Aydon. She can sort them with that beautif ti.l brain of hers. And because of that she will probably not be in our bed tonight.'
Bob and Mark exchanged a look and grinned.
Sally Aydon stood on one of the landing platforms at the base of Haast, looking out over the ocean and at the electrical storm moving away over the horizon. The stars were starting to show themselves through the cloud cover. She felt the wind's chill, so sealed up her ship suit. Looking behind her, she could see Sergeant Major Antipas and a few of his crew monitoring the water treatment unit which was on the sea surface a few hundred metres below them. She took in a deep breath then suddenly thought about it, exhaled, shuddered a little and gave out a short sharp laugh.
Mike Antipas looked across, and af ter hesitating, wondering if he should leave the major to her own thoughts, he walked across and quietly stood beside her, looking out over the ocean. Turning to him, Sally asked, 'How would you feel about living here on a permanent b
asis, Mister Antipas?'
The powerfully built man slowly turned and looked up at the medical officer and shrugged. 'Well, if I had to I would not say no, major. Sure beats the hell out of a lot of other places I have seen in the last sixty or seventy years.'
He looked at her evenly, leaving her space to reply or not. She straightened, saying, 'You are a good man, Michael Antipas, and a wise one as well. Thank you.'
She gave him a wry smile, nodded, and walked off, heading for the lif t, which surprised Mike a little, knowing how keen she was on her exercise.
Bob sat still in the orders room after Sally had briefed him, showing him her team's findings and then leaving to get a few hours' sleep. He thought long and hard about waking the senior members of the crew, who were off-duty, but decided that it would be best to allow them their rest and announce the findings and their ramifications at the daily briefing, only a few hours away.
He walked out of the orders room onto the bridge, which was quietly busy. The night shift was communicating with the twenty Gunju fighters out on the peninsula hunting the remaining predators, in coordination with another twenty from Berkut and also squadrons from the Thorn. He sat heavily in his command pod and had it seal its doors. He swore softly to himself and tapped the icons of the brigadier and Major Daisuke Suzuki on the Thorn.
A moment or so later both faces appeared on the screen with the brigadier seated and wearing a bathrobe and the remnants of hastily removed shaving foam still on his face.
'Well, you will not thank me for this. But we are here for a long, long time. Medical Major Aydon has just briefed me that we are all infected with tailored predator bacteria and viruses. I am sending you the information packages now.'
Onyx Javelin Page 34
