When Eagles Dare

by Doug Dandridge

  They didn’t have enough sensors to cover the entire plateau and every possible path the Humans might take, but if they took the shortest route, they’d have to come up these paths. Once a sensor alerted them, they would have the Humans. Possibly even at the top, right here, but more likely as they were making their way down the cliffs.

  “Now what?” the pilot asked after he’d dropped the last sensor package onto the rocks beside one of the paths.

  Right or left? the commander thought, looking both ways. The ridgeline ran for a couple miles to the west, the left side, and more than a hundred to the east, the right side. He thought the right was the most promising, but as the pilot had said, they hadn’t had time to get here. They were most likely going to take several days to reach this region, and that was if they were pushing it.

  “Right. But first, go back in sixty miles so we can do a proper sweep across the area.” That should do it, he thought, looking at the Tri-V map he had up on the dash before him. Most of that land was flat and featureless, but there were some possibilities for cover. Those he would check out most thoroughly.

  * * *

  “How the hell did this get here?” Sandra asked, stopping and looking up at the mesa towering hundreds of yards above her.

  The rest of the line had stopped. They’d been walking through the valley for a half an hour, looking at the weird shapes carved by the wind from the sandstone. The red sandstone showed signs of ancient marine life, indicating that this had once been a sea bottom that had somehow, through the plate tectonics of this strange world, risen up almost eight miles above the sea in which it had formed.

  “Maybe you should read some geology,” Ivan suggested, walking a few more yards, then stopping when he realized the rest weren’t following.

  Jonah had studied geology for a short time, and this plateau was something he’d never imagined. Now this specific formation? They hadn’t seen it from a distance, since the area was in a bowl. The sandstone formations had probably once been at the level of the surrounding terrain. Somehow, these rocks had weathered the wind much better than those around it. Strange-looking spires rose to the height of the surrounding plateau, and in the center was a mesa rift with dozens of small canyons.

  The geologist Jonah might have been couldn’t figure this place out. The mercenary leader could. That mesa meant shelter, and with night falling fast, it looked like just the place to hole up in the dark.

  “Everyone, fan out in teams of two,” he ordered, pointing to Ivan, indicating the scout would accompany him. “Look for shelter, and look out for anything that might be using that shelter.”

  Acknowledgements came back over the comm. Most everyone was breathing hard, their tanks low on oxygen. They would have to fill up, and soon, or people would start dropping.

  The wind had been picking up as the sun descended. The heat of the lowlands was rising and blowing from the cliffs. The air might be thin, but it could move fast. Though not packing the same mass as the air at sea level, it could still move things, and now it was whistling through the holes and arches of the sandstone mesa, making an eerie sound.

  The muted crack of a shot rang out, faint in the thin air, followed by two more.

  “What the hell was that about?” Jonah asked over the comm.

  “I think I’ve found us a place to stay, sir,” the voice of Basil Paudel came back in his cultured British accent. “There was an occupant who took exception to my being here. I made him vacate the cave, and this world.”

  And I damn sure hope no one was near enough to hear the shots, Jonah thought. Unfortunately they had to find shelter, and things tended to occupy any shelter around; he couldn’t expect his people to kill a predator hand to hand. It might be possible, but unlikely.

  “We’ll be right there,” Jonah said, waving for Ivan to come along.

  Most of the team was already at the spot when Jonah arrived. A small hole in the cliff, at most five feet high by three wide, was ahead. One of the team was visible as he crawled through.

  “Let me in there,” Jonah said, putting a hand on Grewal’s shoulder and pulling the man back. It was like trying to pull on a bronze statue, and only after the Sikh looked back to see who it was did he move.

  The colonel ducked down to go through the entrance. It widened after a couple of yards, letting into a moderately-sized cavern. Someone had already activated a light, and the cavern walls were illuminated to either side. The cavern was about ten yards in width and faded into darkness in the rear.

  “Are we sure there’s nothing back there?”

  “I’m sure, sir,” Paudel said, coming out of the darkness like a ghost. “Only the one predator, and he was a big one.”

  The Gurkha gestured to a body to the right side of the cave. It appeared to mass over a thousand pounds, and the one paw visible had large claws composed of the ice compound the denizens of the plateau used as bone. The fur was starting to steam in the heat the invaders’ bodies were putting off.

  “Okay, I guess we’ll spend the night here. I want a watch on the entrance through the night.” There was no telling if this creature had been alone, and the last thing he wanted was for an enraged mate to come into the cavern and attack the sleeping occupants.

  The air compressor was set up and started chugging away to fill an oxygen cylinder, while most of the team changed out what they’d been using. A thermal blanket went over the entrance, sealing in the heat and preventing their signature from leaking out into the night. It still might be possible to pick up a signature from close by, but it was the best they could do, and they needed the warmth.

  The team took seats on the cold floor and wolfed down their rations. It was a process that took some practice, raising their breathing masks and pushing the food from the self-heating cans into their mouths. After a bit the masks went back on, until they’d swallowed and were ready to repeat the process. A few swigs from canteens were interspersed with the food, until everyone had taken in the calories they’d expended during the day.

  Most of the team was asleep in minutes, curled up on the floor in their heavy clothing. All were on their third cylinders of oxygen, enough to get them through the night, while the compressor chugged away and filled the other bottles connected to a set of branching lines. The two chosen for guard sat looking at the entrance, weapons in their laps. In an hour they’d wake the next shift, and so it would go through the night, everyone getting nine hours if they wanted.

  Jonah was one of the few who couldn’t force himself to sleep. He was as tired as the rest, and probably more so than most. Surviving a crash and walking for miles through this environment was enough to exhaust just about anyone, no matter what shape they were in. But he had too much on his mind to let his body rest.

  Someone knew we were coming, he thought, visualizing the scene of the enemy ship coming in behind them. Not just that we were coming, but when and from what direction. So, who would have sold us out? Our employers?

  That was always a possibility. But why? If they wanted this world for themselves, sabotaging the efforts of the people they’d sent in to take out the competition didn’t make sense. And what were they going to do about the Ravagers, who’d be rolling in here in about twelve days? Or would they? If some organization was looking to take his company out, they might just order the Ravagers not to come, voiding the contract.

  Who has it out for us bad enough to try and kill us? There were probably plenty of people who wanted his company dead. Most wouldn’t have the means to pull this off. And of those who did, what connection did they have with the people who were extracting the chemical compound from the flora in the canyonlands? No connection he could think of, which didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

  So now they had more than one mission to perform. First, to take out the compound, with or without the help of the Ravagers. A daunting task for a light platoon such as they were. Then, to gather the intelligence needed to pin the sneak attack on someone. Which meant they couldn’t just go in
and destroy everything. They had to capture some databanks. Or, better yet, some of the people in charge. Just grabbing some people from the security detachment or the work group wouldn’t help.

  This isn’t solving anything, he thought, turning over onto his side and shutting his eyes. First things first. First, they had to get to the cliff, then he could worry about getting down that drop. Those were the first two priorities, in order, and nothing else mattered at the moment. Having planned out their next steps to his own satisfaction, he let himself drift off to sleep. He’d have the last shift, so he could look forward to an uninterrupted night. Rank had its privileges, after all, and the next night he’d take one of the middle-of-the-night shifts to even it out. With that last thought, darkness enclosed him.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Four

  Looking down from the edge, Jonah didn’t like what he was seeing. Or, more to the point, what he wasn’t seeing, as much as what was visible. Below, maybe a couple of miles, were the wisps of the high clouds. Below that was a veritable sea of thick clouds. They were dark and filled with rain ready to fall or already falling. Lightning flared across the cloud tops. It was a beautiful sight—or it would have been, if it wasn’t so frightening.

  Further in, it was clear, the sun glinting off the huge river. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get there without going through the crap below.

  “It’s bad enough having to climb down there,” Sandra complained, making sure her rifle was strapped tight to her back, “but through a storm?”

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Charley said, clapping her on the shoulder, “it’s only a ten mile or so drop. And it won’t hurt any worse than falling a couple hundred yards.”

  “Thanks,” the sniper replied, rolling her eyes at the officer as everyone laughed.

  “Well, I guess it’s me first,” Charley said with a smile.

  “Just don’t drop,” Jonah said, as always concerned about his friend. Charley was fearless on a climb, and sometimes that caused him problems. Nothing disastrous, yet, but it could happen at any time. And this bitch of a climb looked to be a good candidate for a fatal one.

  “Just none of you novices come falling down on top of me,” the Gurkha said with a short laugh. “I can guarantee I won’t have time to grab your asses.”

  None of them were really novices. Mountaineering was one of the specialties of the company, along with jungle, forest, and night operations. All had trained on Earth, in the Andes, the Alps, and even the Himalayas. Every single one had come in mountain-qualified before they were hired, then had been hit with training that made everything they’d been through seem like nursery school.

  But nothing like this, Jonah thought as he watched his best friend grab onto the carbon nanotube weave rope and walk back over the edge.

  The rope was the best Earth tech could come up with, and since most alien races tended to use higher tech to go up and down mountains, most wouldn’t bother with ropes, which made this Human invention the best on the market. It wouldn’t break, and the weave prevented the individual carbon nanotube strands from slicing through things like metal or flesh. It was also the lightest out there, two hundred yards weighing only a couple of pounds in Earth’s gravity field. Everyone had a roll in their equipment. It still wasn’t enough to lower them all the way to the bottom, and Jonah certainly didn’t want to leave a rope trail, so they were going to do this another way.

  Like everyone else, Charley had gloves that had locking grippers between thumb and forefingers, and the mitts were locked to the sleeves of his undergarment. It was as foolproof as anything humanity had ever made, but foolproof didn’t mean something couldn’t go wrong.

  Jonah was aware of the people crowding the cliff edge, looking down. He hadn’t lost anyone on the plateau since the crash, a feat to be proud of, considering what they’d faced. Still, to his mind, losing those in the crash—even though he couldn’t have done anything about it—was too many.

  “Only the next two should be up here,” he said in his best command voice. “The rest of you spread out and keep us covered from the sides and behind. One grenade could take you all out.”

  There was some laughter at the last statement. All of them had been through some kind of basic training or other, and that was something drill instructors had been shouting at trainees for centuries. Which didn’t make it any less true in this time and place.

  Charley was rappelling down the cliff, expertly kicking out a couple of yards, allowing himself to drop ten yards or so, then clamping onto the rope. His feet hit the cliff for a couple of seconds, then pushed off again. Eighteen evolutions and he was at the bottom of the rope, with only ten yards still dangling below him.

  The expert climber then set a small step into the rock, using a nanoglue that adhered to the rock face. He tested it with his weight, still holding on tight to the rope. Satisfied that it would hold, he attached his second rope to it and started down the next hundred and ninety yards.

  “Next,” Jonah said, looking over at Sandra.

  The sniper nodded, then gripped the rope and started rappelling down. The woman didn’t like climbing, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t good at it. She had a lot of guts, and if it meant staying on the team, she’d put her ass out in the air. Soon she was down, not as quickly as Charley, but fast enough. She stood on the step and attached the rope and step she’d carried down with her to a slide, then released it so it would fall down to Charley. The lead climber waved up and attached the rope to another step, then started down again.

  “Next climber,” Jonah called out. And so it went, until everyone but himself was off the cliff. So far they’d been lucky, and their searchers hadn’t come by and spotted them. That could change at any moment. Jonah had no intention of being up here when they did, though being caught on the cliff face would be worse. They had to get down, though. If they stayed up on the plateau, they would die. That was a sure thing.

  Finally, after watching his twenty-one mercs go down, it was his turn. He figured they’d been working at it for just over an hour, and Charley would be a little more than a mile down. People would be getting tired, but he wasn’t about to call a break until everyone was far enough down that the wispy clouds would give them some cover from above. So another hour, another mile, for everyone. They should have enough oxygen for the rest of the day, though everyone was working their bodies to the extreme.

  Now it was his turn, and he had a bigger job than anyone except Charley. Some might have said it was more difficult. He rappelled down to the first step, made sure he was attached by a safety harness, ensured that the rope was now attached to the step, then activated the signal that told the first attachment point to let go. The nanoglue released, the microscopic robots releasing their grip from the rock. The rope fell until it was beyond Jonah, but still attached to the anchor.

  “Got it,” called Joey Many Bears over the comm.

  Jonah released the rope from his end and let it fall. Now it was up to the others to hurry it down to Charley so he could use it for the rest of the climb. This was the one bottleneck to the operation, but it was unavoidable. They had a lot of other equipment they needed on the climb and down at the bottom, and they couldn’t afford the weight of more climbing equipment.

  “Ready,” Charley said over the comm. “I’m moving down to the first stop of the next stage.”

  Jonah looked down and saw that Many Bears was on his way down to his next stop.

  Here goes, Jonah thought, preparing for the next step, which would be much more difficult than the last, involving as it did a step. Jonah could feel the sweat running down his skin. Partially that was because of the exertion of the climb and the insulating quality of his clothing. And partially, he had to admit, it had something to do with anxiety. A fall from this high was a long way, and he might be screaming his lungs out for fifteen or twenty minutes on the way down. Not that it was any different from falling off any other cliff, no matter the height.

  At least we h
ave the emergency chutes, he thought, putting a hand on the small pack strapped to his front. It was a very light parachute of ultrathin plastic, capable of lowering him at a reasonable speed. At this altitude it wouldn’t slow him at all, and it might shred from the air pressure when he contacted denser air at a high terminal velocity.

  Jonah went down the rope. He set his feet on the next step and again made sure his safety harness was attached to the platform. After connecting the rope above to the step, he disengaged its nanoglue, watching carefully as it fell. This time it was a bit more dangerous. The step weighed less than a pound, but falling two hundred yards would still pack quite a bit of kinetic energy. Not enough to knock him off of the step he was harnessed to, but maybe enough to knock him out cold if it hit his head.

  “Look out below,” he warned Many Bears. He was also at risk of being hit.

  The step fell, tumbling through the air. He pulled on the rope just enough to change the course of the step, and it fell clear of his body.

  “Got it,” Many Bears said. “I’m sending it down.”

  As soon as the young man had sent it on its way, he started down again. The person on the next step was also on their way down. There was a stop in the process of a couple of minutes when someone wasn’t with the choreography, but soon they were all moving again.

  Jonah breathed a sigh of relief as he penetrated the thin mist of the upper cloud layer. It would provide some visual cover, though anyone scanning with infrared would still pick him up. Still, even the illusion of cover was enough to allow him to relax a bit.

  At the fourth step, disaster almost struck. He pulled on the rope to change the trajectory of the step, which tumbled through the air, then changed back as a gust of wind hit it. Jonah barely got his arm up in time to deflect it away from his head. It still knocked him against his harness, and he sucked in a breath as he once again thought about the fall.