by Bob Blink
Seven hundred yards, the range finder had told them when they’d taken the reading earlier off the large rock next to where most of the incoming boats had been landing. It was a long shot, but one that shouldn’t be impossible given the winds were almost negligible and the targets would most likely climb out of the boat and stand still while they were greeted.
Rass much preferred missions where only one of them would be required to shoot. That left the other free to spot for the shooter, which was sometimes a necessary aide. At this distance it didn’t take much for a shot to be off target, and a spotter could pick that out and quickly position the sniper for a second shot. This time, however, he’d be on his own.
The lone boat had come to a stop very close to where they had expected, and Rass watched through his scope as the two men stepped off and onto the shore. As expected, they were met by several of the officials waiting on the shore. This was the time. He had already steadied his breathing into a slow regular pattern. Feeling the familiar calm descend on him, he let the pattern take control of his muscles. His technique was now a blend of the memories he’d been given from Jolan augmented by the weeks of practice from his training, plus the numerous shots he’d taken in the field the past few days. The scope had already been adjusted for the distance and a slight correction for wind based on the movement of a small flag the enemy had kindly placed on one of the tents near the river. The picture was steady in the scope and he unconsciously held his breathing and almost imperceptibly added pressure to his finger caressing the trigger. The heavy rifle fired, sending the 168 grain copper jacked bullet on its way. The rifle blast echoed through the low valley, the hills bouncing the sound back and forth. By the time the sound would reach those below, it would be impossible to determine the direction beyond a vague general impression. Rass heard Jeer fire almost immediately after himself.
He had already chambered a second round, and noting his target stumbling and falling, he quickly focused on one of the men standing close by. They’d react quickly now, so this shot had to be made before they had a chance. Confident now of the downrange conditions based on his first shot hitting home, he let the sights settle and fired his second shot. Jeer’s second shot came at almost the same time. Watching through the scope he noted that two men were already down, large pools of blood forming around them. Then he saw the two strikes, almost simultaneously, and two more men crumpled. The rest were scattering for cover, and additional shots would have been wasted and might have given away their position. Now it was time to wait and watch. They might be required to evade, but Rass doubted it. They were too far out and the enemy hadn’t yet figured out the incredible ranges at which they operated. Dark was three hours away. They would probably start the egress a few hours afterwards. Samm would want to know what they had learned.
* * * *
Jolan looked at the pictures of the planes that had been taken on the battlefield. Taken as the plane passed overhead and greatly enlarged by Gene after the photos came back, it was clearly more of a glider than a real airplane. There was no doubt where the design had come from. No one on Gaea would have been able to come up with that classic shape on their own. Not in so short a time frame. Here was a local copy of something that had been developed on Earth.
Jolan was still surprised that even this kind of plane had been possible. It was clearly powered, and from what he could see there were no exhausts for a motor, so that probably meant batteries. How could they pack enough batteries into the plane to get any altitude or distance? He was missing something. He would dearly love to get his chance to examine one. More importantly, they had to decide what to do about them. If the enemy could drop the poisonous gas whenever and wherever they wanted, Jolan’s side was in trouble.
“We need to find where they are coming from,” Jolan said unnecessarily.
“I realize that,” Wylan said. “Kavel already has redeployed his people concentrating them in areas on the Kimlelm side of the river where they might be located.”
“What can you tell us to help?’ Kavel asked from across the table. “What do we look for? Do you have any idea of the range of the planes?”
“I’d have said they were impossible, but it can’t be too great. They seem to be relying on battery power, and they aren’t very fast, which has to limit the distance. I’d guess they have a maximum range well less than a hundred miles, which would mean fifty miles each way. Since I doubt they have more than one facility, we can probably get a better idea if we mark on a map all of the known attacks and look where they might be coming from.”
“How can we bring them down? Small arms fire doesn’t seem to work.”
“They are going to be hard to hit, and I’ll bet there is a wizard on board with shields. Since they are high enough most mages can’t reach them with spells, we can’t do anything that way. Copper bullets would solve the shields probably, but it is a very unreliable means of bringing such a vehicle down. Frankly, at the moment I don’t know. Our best bet is taking them out on the ground. Finding where they have the planes will probably lead us to their supply of the damned gas as well.”
While Kavel went to get a map and the details of all reported sightings, Wylan and Jolan continued their review of events to date.
“We have taken out a number of their wizards and some of their military chain, but probably not enough to make a significant impact. What we have actually done is made them cautious. The wizards no longer reveal themselves, so it is harder to know whom to target. They are still sending troops over, but have chosen to fortify the two prime locations they have established. We can tell they are replacing the bridges they destroyed and once those are in place they will flood across into Seret. We know where to hit them, but with those planes, it is difficult and risky to bring troops in. They bomb them before they can get close enough.”
“What about the boats? Have we figured out where they are being stored?”
“No single place. They seem to have stock piled them in a variety of warehouse all along the river. Must have been busy the whole winter. We’ve identified a half dozen places, and are still looking, although that effort has been cut back now that we are looking for the planes. We don’t want to let them know we are aware of their hiding places until we are ready to strike. I want to hit all of the places the same night.”
“That’s probably wise. We also need to find their supply lines. Are they still bringing the things in, or not? If so, we must find ways to disrupt that effort.”
“Has your friend come up with anything we can use?” Wylan asked.
Gene had been busy and had a lot of ideas. Unfortunately, new devlopments took time, and too many at once would delay the release of all. He had chosen to concentrate on a couple of key ones, but so far nothing had been completed to the point where it was ready for the troops. He hoped to have a working version of the Claymore in a couple of weeks, but he refused to promise. Jolan could tell Gene had been frustrated by the state of the technology here.
Kavel returned while they were talking and the three men went to work trying to locate the most likely sites for the airfield. Jolan had already made a list of what supporting facilities would have to include, so the spies would know better what to look for. Jolan was certain the planes were kept inside when not being used and were most likely well away from where the Kimlelm locals might get a glimpse of them.
While they were plotting the sightings, Jolan tried to think of ways to protect the troops so they could attack against the threat of the planes. He also tried to think of a way the flying vehicles could be brought down.
Chapter 134
Shyar’s efforts with the cage were starting to yield results. Twice the lead wizard who watched her had come in and inspected the cage. She had walked around the outside, looking at the cage and testing it with her power senses, obviously checking the flows that needed to be present within the metal bars. She never came inside to see if the power could be accessed from within. Shyar wondered if the wizard wa
tching her was the one who had built the cage. If so, that explained her careless checking. She was a poor workman. Shyar wasn’t worried. She knew the checks were a formality rather than inspired by some suspicion she’d been up to something. After so many months they were convinced she was cowed and incapable of taking action. She was happy to help them continue to see her that way.
The truth of the matter was that she now had a region inside the cage where she could access a reasonable amount of power. That allowed her to work well away from the boundaries of her prison. Before she’d had to limit her time with the power, concerned they might notice the time she was spending near the bars. Now she could work from within, seemingly daydreaming or bemoaning her fate, while in fact she continued her efforts. Progress would also be swifter as she now had a greater draw of power available to her. It wouldn’t be too long before she would be sure whether it would be possible to escape the cage. Then she would have to plan what to do next.
Her contacts with the young girl in Angon were stronger as well. Her name was Tishe she had learned. That communication had been extremely difficult. The girl had sent a mental picture of the single word. Even that had taken several tries. They wouldn’t be exchanging much information that way. The girl was a young mage, but a very powerful one. Shyar suspected she was stronger than herself, which might explain why she could contact her and no one else. She could sense Jolan, but couldn’t actually contact him. The interaction didn’t extend to words, at least for now. She could send and receive images or feelings, but little else. Still, she’d been able to reassure the girl she was fine, and knew somehow the word would be passed on to Jolan.
The girl herself seemed changed of late. She was more introspective and sadder. Something had happened to change her. Shyar was certain it had to do with the war, but Tishe had given her no sign of what it might be.
Shyar knew the war had started again. From the telegrams she could overhear and from Cheurt’s reactions, she knew that there had been a major setback not too long ago. Cheurt had been intensely angry and frightening to his staff for the better part of a week. They had lost a sea battle, but she had been unable to learn the details. It must have been a significant setback.
More recently there had been successes for Ale’ald. Cheurt had been almost gleeful the day before when he received a telegram indicating their plan to gain a foothold in Seret was working. Seret had fought back more successfully than expected, but Ale’ald was winning. Shyar wished she understood the unstated aspects of the events. Much about the telegrams was vague, assuming the reader knew what the plan had been.
She’d put some of her idle time into thinking about the telegraph system. There had to be a way to cause failures in the system, if only locally. It would probably be best if she interrupted service on outgoing messages. Maybe she could cause a command or two to be delayed at a critical time, or even better, be missed completely. Their technique was sloppy and, because of Cheurt, they often failed to question anything coming from here. There was a chance she could remotely operate the system if she could get just a bit more power. If she could interrupt outside awareness of the system, she might be able to operate the keys from her cell, making it look like a message was coming in. With the outside world temporarily isolated from the local system, no one else would be aware of the message. If she could do that, she might be able to plant some false ideas. It would have to be handled with finesse or someone might eventually guess the source of the misleading information. First she had to get access to a bit more power. Then lots of things might become possible.
Chapter 135
Sergeant Wult slowly closed the long collapsible telescope with which he’d been viewing the landscape ahead of them. The scope was far better than anything he’d used before, even if it wasn’t as nice as the binoculars he’d had a chance to try when one of Wylan’s elite teams had worked with them a couple of weeks back. Remarkable new inventions kept appearing, but still they continued to lose this war. It seemed that whatever Angon had delivered to the troops in Seret, the wizards from Ale’ald were always one step ahead of them. Ale’ald had managed to put troops onto Seret’s shores, something that hadn’t happened in hundreds of years, and the accomplishment had been almost effortless. Now they held a large section of the riverfront, and were busy building bridges so they could move the whole of their army across as desired.
The past couple of weeks had been one skirmish after another with his own side usually coming up on the short side. Ale’ald kept pushing them back, gradually expanding the area they controlled. The problem was their inability to bring large forces to bear on the enemy. They easily outnumbered the invaders, but it wasn’t safe to gather too many troops in one spot. That usually meant the enemy would bring out one or more of their planes and drop the killing gas that worked far too effectively against large gatherings of men. The planes also told the enemy where they were and directed the attacks their way.
Still, they were learning. They had given up the red uniforms that had been a standard for the Seret military for centuries, and now wore ugly brown and green fatigues. The new uniforms allowed them to blend into the land, making it far easier to hide when the planes passed overhead. They had learned to use the trees and shadows for protection, and especially how to find a spot and remain still while the planes passed overhead. Motion was the enemy, and gave them away more than any other factor. Today the entire battalion, almost fifteen hundred men, had managed to successfully hide from the spotting plane that had flown over earlier. That was what he had been checking. There were no signs the enemy had been alerted to their presence, even though they were now well inside the perimeter that Ale’ald claimed as its own.
Other actions were being taken to provide protection. Each company now traveled with several mages, whose job had been expanded to provide protection against the airborne weapon. They could create shields that were reasonably effective if there were not too many men. He’d also seen a mage use some kind of fire spell against the gas when it had fallen into an area that was clear of men. The fire destroyed the gas that killed. One mage had even been agile enough to catch a falling canister of poison and wrap it into a shield as it fell. The gasses remained locked inside the shield until the mage was able to toss it far out into a nearby lake where it sank and was rendered ineffective. Sometimes the winds worked in one’s favor, and they’d learned to pay attention to the strength and direction when one of the planes was spotted.
Several men were now assigned the duty of keeping watch for the planes. They moved relatively slowly and could be seen in the distance as they crossed the river. Long before a plane could approach, they went into their hiding mode, hoping the plane would pass without discovering their presence.
Still, each restriction made effective combat more difficult. Today they were taking a bit of a risk. His was one of three companies that had been deployed into this area, the northern most of the two areas Ale’ald controlled. The enemy was regular in its patrols, and the past few weeks of observation had given Seret a better picture of how they operated. Today they hoped to surprise the Ale’ald patrol. It would be three companies against the enemy’s one, which gave him favorable odds. He hoped they could attack, each of the three groups coordinated by the small radios, eliminate the invaders, and disperse before the enemy could react. Once they were involved with the enemy, the planes seldom attacked for fear of killing the Ale’ald troops, but they would be at risk during the withdrawal.
“They are staying on their standard patrol route,” Sergeant Wult told his Lieutenant after he’d made his way down the hill from where he’d made his observations. “I don’t think we’ve been spotted.”
The Lieutenant nodded and briefly talked with his counterparts leading the other two forces. Everyone was in position, and they would execute the attack when the invader reached the turn in the small valley just below where Wult had been lying a few minutes before.
“Deploy your wizard hunters,” the Lieutenant
ordered, and pass the word. “We will attack on my signal. The others will support our lead.”
Wult nodded and headed off. They had one of the standard wizard hunter teams, a pair of men consisting of one mage who could hopefully interrupt the shields of the enemy wizard, and a sniper who would attempt to bring him down. While they didn’t have the long range specialists that Wylan had assembled, the men were equipped with the special coppered bullets, so even if the mage were unsuccessful, they still had a chance at a wizard, if one were spotted.
The Ale’ald officer that led the scouting patrol paid careful attention to the trees as his men made their way down the flat between the opposing hills. He doubted the enemy would have been able to move any kind of a force into place this far into the territory that Ale’ald controlled. The morning flights had indicated the area was clear of enemy soldiers, but this would be the kind of place they would choose. He hated these patrols, but with the new project starting back by the river, command was insistent about ensuring the area was secure.
The first shots came not from the trees the officer watched so carefully, but from the long winding gully that ran along the opposite edge of the flat on which his men moved. The small stream that wandered through the little valley had dug a furrow some five feet deep that meandered around the base of the hills. Sergeant Wult had hidden his men in the depression, and they now fired from relative safety at the enemy who stood exposed on the open land, outlined by the hill behind them.
The Ale’ald forces split, some making for the trees, but only made themselves targets as they vainly tried to make the safety of the forest before being cut down by rifle fire. Those that turned and tried to retrace their path back out of the little valley found their escape cut off by the second company, which opened fire on the fleeing troops when they came into range. Had the enemy tried to continue ahead, they would have found where the third company was hiding.
