The conduit thankfully remained pitch dark as we ran down it. The entire way, my skin was tingling, afraid the Ruhar would detect us, and lob a few rockets or grenades down the conduit, either would wipe us out in the confined space. Or turn on whatever mechanism generated plasma and fed it into the conduit, that would fry us all to a crisp. Secretly, I was hoping that maybe the reactor had been damaged, that it wasn’t only temporarily offline, because damage would mean the plasma couldn’t be turned back on any time soon. There weren’t any camera in the conduit that I could see, having superheated plasma in the conduit when it was working probably meant cameras were not practical. There must be some sort of sensors along the way, to monitor the plasma, my hope was such sensors wouldn’t be able to detect our presence. Ruhar operated the Launcher and reactor machinery, sensors, including all the surveillance gear, I thought were hooked up to Fort Arrow somewhere, I did know that humans operated the security system for the Launcher complex and the base. With Fort Arrow having taken hits, I was hoping the Ruhar didn’t have access to the surveillance feeds, because if they did, they would detect us as soon as we came out of the conduit and entered the base area.
What I hadn’t counted on were the numerous pieces of equipment we had to stumble over. I had mentally pictured the conduit as a smooth empty tube, a round hole in the ground. It wasn’t. Amaro explained that the plasma was contained in a magnetic field, which required magnets spaced every couple meters. And the magnets required power cables, which required heat shielding. All of which caused running soldiers to trip, fall, and that made people behind to trip and fall. With there being room in the tube for only a single file line, people falling down didn’t only cause bashed knees and elbows, it made the entire column halt. What I was most afraid of was somebody’s rifle firing accidentally and alerting the Ruhar, so I ordered everyone to proceed forward at a brisk, but careful, walk, and that kept stumbling to a minimum. It was a long journey, we walked for miles underground in the claustrophobic darkness, with the view never changing except for Ruhar numbers along the wall. Fortunately, the air was cool, Amaro said it was probably the residual cold of the superconducting magnets of the main launch tube bleeding over into the plasma tube, which had been without plasma for days. Other than cursing when people fell or banged into the walls, the squad maintained discipline, minimal talking, and that in a whisper. Whether this was because they were admirably trained, or scared shitless like me, I didn't want to guess. I was terrified to the point that the flashlight was shaking in my hand, and I kept swinging it side to side to cover up how badly my hand trembled.
Walking miles underground in darkness gave me way too much time to think. Was I leading these people to a useless death because I couldn't think of anything better to do? Anything smarter? The fact was, I couldn't think of anything else to do. We were soldiers, we'd been attacked, we fight. Simple. If an officer had ordered me to do what I ordered these people to do, I would have followed without question. That didn’t mean it was the right, or best, thing to do. What I'd told Collins was true; if the Ruhar were taking the planet back, we may all be dead soon. Our only chance for mission success, for survival, was to tie up the Ruhar with ground combat, guerrilla tactics if it came to that, and buy time for the Kristang to regain control in space. If the Kristang didn't or couldn't come back, we were dead anyway, and we needed to strike a blow for humanity; give the hamsters some payback, and show the Kristang that humans could be useful, reliable allies, because that's what the people of Earth needed.
When we finally approached the power plant end of the conduit, I could see ahead of us where the conduit curved and branched out, I assumed to where the plasma was generated. Wherever that was, I didn’t want to go there. I called a halt, and ordered lights to be turned off, while Amaro and I looked at the schematic on her phone. I tried to mentally picture where the reactor was in relation to Fort Arrow; to the east, further up the mountain, and closer to the Launcher track. If we were near where the plasma conduit branched to connect with the reactor, we'd gone too far. Asking everyone to turn around in the narrow confines of the tunnel and march backwards a long way wasn't something I wanted to do. "Amaro, this conduit ends at the reactor, or near it?"
"No, the reactor feeds power to the plasma generator, the generator is the big round structure up the mountain, it looks like a water tower, or a petroleum storage tank? There's a tall white building right next to it. We must be close to that."
"Oh, yeah, all right," we were close to where I wanted to be, although I'd forgotten how high up the mountain we must be then. "I thought that was a water tank." The conduit had been climbing so gradually as we marched that I hadn't thought about it. The Launcher was many kilometers long and climbed up and through the mountain, from its base west of Fort Arrow to the open end of the launch tube to the east, far up the mountain and on the other side of the ridge. The mountain's bulk protected Fort Arrow, and the Launcher complex, from the sonic shock wave generated when cargo pods left the launch tube and hit the atmosphere. On our convoys, if we were going to be in the sonic footprint of a launch, we had to halt a hour ahead of time, secure our vehicles, and wear hearing protection under our helmets. It had only happened twice for me so far on convoy duty, and we'd been far enough away that the launch was merely a faint streak of light in the sky, still, I'd felt the ground rumbling from the hypersonic shock waves. All the buildings in and around the Launcher complex, including Fort Arrow, had noise-canceling systems installed in the walls and windows, and the base went on lockdown during a launch. A launch is something I'd been wanting to see, now I may have missed my chance.
Amaro and I squeezed past the column, and led the way back maybe a hundred yards to where we'd passed an access hatch. The hatches had wheels on the inside also, and this hatch had a small, thick window in the center. Sticking my eye to the window was useless, all I could see was the reflection of my eyeball, it was completely dark on the other side. If there were hamsters on the other side of the hatch, we were screwed. "Amaro, get a grenade ready."
She nodded grimly, and I slowly started turning the wheel. It didn't squeak, so I spun it as quickly as I could, and swung the heavy hatch open.
Into a dark corridor. An empty corridor, thirty meters long, the other end had a door, a regular, solid-looking rectangular door. I waved for Amaro to follow me, and the others to stay put, and walked quietly forward. The door had a keypad that was blank, no power, and a lever instead of a wheel. The level turned surprisingly easily, the door was surprisingly heavy. And beyond was the interior of some type of garage, with a tall, wide rollup door, and a Ruhar truck parked to the left. It was simply a truck, hadn't been converted into a hamvee. Probably it was used by the Ruhar who maintained the Launcher equipment. The garage was hot and humid, there was an air conditioner unit built into the ceiling that wasn't working. Amaro and I snuck around the truck, to where there was a regular door that led to an office area; two well-scuffed tables, a couple worn-out chairs, a workbench, tools, a trashcan with wrappers from hamster lunches. And dust. This place, I guessed, didn't get used a lot. We crept warily into the office and looked out the dingy windows.
It was a great view, in one way. We were high up the mountainside, with the Launcher complex, reactor, the town, Fort Arrow and the air field spread out below us. There was another door to the outside, in front of the big rollup door was a concrete pad that connected to the dirt access road beyond, and a roof and crane over the pad. The roof would give us cover from spying eyes above.
"Amaro, bring everyone here. And close that hatch, in case the power comes back on, and an open hatch sends out an alarm."
I stepped out under the roof. Fort Arrow was indeed spread out below me. What was left of it. When UNEF created Fort Arrow out of the existing hamster town, we'd knocked down buildings to create a perimeter, and installed a fence and minefield, so it was easy to see the outlines of the base. Where the DFAC used to be was a steaming crater, steaming instead of smoking, because th
e railgun impactor had damaged the rec building across the street, and the cracked swimming pool there had drained into the crater. Missiles had also hit barracks buildings, which didn't make any sense as the Ruhar must have known those buildings would be mostly empty in mid-afternoon, but the base administration buildings were mostly intact, except for damage from being hit by flying debris. Same with most other buildings within the fence line of Fort Arrow.
The airfield beyond to the north was a mess, the runways had been cratered so we couldn't fly off any Dumbos, and every hanger had taken a direct hit. Smashed Chickens and Buzzards were scattered around the airfield, I couldn't see that we'd managed to get a single bird in the air, with the exception of a pillar of smoke coming from the jungle that might have been a downed aircraft. It was a mess.
People filed out the door under the roof, I cautioned them to stay under the shadow of the roof, and not to wear sunglasses or anything else that reflected sunlight and could give away our position. Most people gasped when they saw the destruction, I heard several people say quietly that we were lucky we'd not been in the DFAC.
The DFAC. What Fort Arrow used as a dining facility had been used for a similar function by the hamsters before us, I estimated it could easily hold four hundred people. Four hundred, all dead. No way had anyone walked away from that steaming crater.
"What's the plan, Sergeant?" Pope asked.
My plan had been for us to infiltrate the town around Fort Arrow, and use cover of the hamster buildings there to harass the Ruhar forces; figuring they'd fight us house to house rather than blow up half their town to get us. We could tie them up for many hours, even days, giving the Kristang time to take back control upstairs. And as long as humans held part of the town, the Ruhar wouldn't risk operating the Launcher. The reason I'd brought so many Zingers along is we had no chance to hold out if the Ruhar could float in the sky above us and pick us off with precision strikes. Simply firing a single Zinger once in a while would force the Ruhar close air support to pull back and change their tactics. I know, because in Nigeria I'd seen that rebels, blindly firing unguided RPGs at our helicopters, made our air cover scurry for cover.
To the north, beyond the airfield, two pairs of Vultures were circling, one pair providing cover as the other pair fired missiles and strafed the jungle. Amaro pointed to the action, some humans must have survived and escaped the airfield to fight on. As we watched, a pair of Zingers burst out of the jungle and raced toward one of the Vultures; the first missile was hit with a particle beam and went off course, the second missed but exploded close enough that the Vulture staggered in the air, and wobbled off toward the airfield, trailing smoke.
"Binoculars," I ordered, holding my hand out to Pope. I stepped back into deeper shade and scanned the airfield. Several Dodos were being serviced on the tarmac, and a pair of Whales were unloading. Dodos were small dropship transports, while Whales were huge dropships, bigger even than the Dumbo aircraft I'd flown in. Whales could carry big cargo down from orbit, they had doors at the back end and a ramp like a cargo aircraft, one of the Whales at the airfield was unloading a Buzzard that had its wings folded.
"Shit, that's not good," I said quietly, not quietly enough.
"What?" Pope asked.
"If they're bringing in Buzzards already, they must be confident they'll be here for a while." How were we going to get down into the town without being seen? I hadn't considered that we would come out of the conduit so far up the mountain, we must have been five hundred feet above the town. Why hadn't I realized that-
"Incoming!" Someone behind me shouted. With a high-pitched roar of turbines, two dropships came over the ridge behind us, flew near the garage or whatever was the structure we sheltered in, and flared into hover mode to land at the airfield. It was a Dodo, escorted by a Vulture. We all squeezed against the rollup door, as far under the roof as we could. I watched as they landed, and as they settled down, one of the Whales took off in a cloud of dust, gained altitude, and flew close to us, climbing over the ridge behind us and gaining speed rapidly. I watched its belly slide across the sky as it passed us. Its big, fat, vulnerable belly.
"Huh." Just like that, I had an idea. "This is this flight path now. We're right under the flight path." Whenever I'd been at Fort Arrow, I'd seen aircraft approach from the east or west, sometimes the north, but never from the south, never coming in over the mountain. That had changed. "Our guys over there, in the jungle, they've got the Ruhar scared to fly in from that direction. Shit! They're flying right over us, they don't know we're here!"
With the binoculars, I looked down at the other Whale that was still unloading. Some cargo was coming down the rear ramp, from the number of troops climbing down the stairways on the ship's side and lined up on the tarmac, this Whale had mostly carried troops. A Whale, according to the info provided by the Kristang, could carry up to 600 passengers. Judging by the gear the troops on the tarmac were loaded down with, I figured a troop-carrier Whale couldn't hold the maximum number of people.
The Vultures above the jungle beyond the airfield were still firing an occasional missile at whoever was down there. If we could shoot down even one dropship from our position, the Ruhar would very likely halt operations at the airfield until they were confident they'd rooted out all human resistance in the area. That would delay their occupation schedule for the Launcher significantly. Maybe even force them to divert dropships and troops from other areas, and that would give our forces elsewhere on Paradise a break. Even if the Kristang didn't, or couldn't, come back to Paradise, surely they would eventually hear of UNEF's firm stand at the Launcher, and boosting the Kristang's opinion of humanity's combat usefulness had to help the people back home. Which was the whole point of the UN Expeditionary Force. Our forces had no possibility of actually defending Earth from the Ruhar, we needed the Kristang to do that for us. UNEF had gone to the stars in order to give the Kristang a reason to care whether Earth was conquered by the Ruhar or not. In a way, UNEF's mission was to SAVE THE WORLD.
Those all caps were intentional, by the way, it looks more dramatic that way. When you're facing the strong possibility of being trapped, forever, on an alien planet controlled by the enemy, having a dramatic rationale for your mission makes it feel better.
I handed the binoculars back to Pope. "Pope, you, and, uh, Wayne, can you get across the road and under those trees there? I need a spotter to see what's coming over the ridge behind us. Hold up fingers to give us a count with your right hand, with your left hand, uh, a fist means a Whale, holding your palm open face down is a Dodo, and palm open face up is a Vulture, got it?" I didn't want to waste Zingers on a Vulture, we needed to make a bigger impact than shooting down a two-seater gunship.
Pope looked right and left. "Yeah, we'll go down the road under tree cover on this side to where those trees are overhanging the road, cross there, and make our way back."
"Good, leave your Zingers and AT4s here. As soon as we fire Zingers, you run back here, we're going back into that conduit for a quick run to the next exit." The Ruhar would shortly turn the garage into a pile of rubble after we shot at their aircraft. "Everyone else, get your Zingers ready. Amaro, see if you can get this rollup door open, we'll need to make a quick exit." I shrugged off the strap to one of the Zingers I carried, flipped open the targeting panel, and pressed the first button to activate it. The weapon's seeker would stay active for several hours now.
Pope and Wayne set their missiles down, peeked out under the edge of the roof, and sprinted off under the trees. In a couple minutes, they were under a tree across the road from me, we were able to communicate by talking loudly, the hand signals had been for communication when enemy aircraft were flying loudly overhead. Almost as soon as Pope and Wayne got settled under the trees, we heard aircraft approaching. One Dodo and one Vulture.
I shook my head and gestured thumbs down with one hand. If no more tempting targets appeared soon, I'd settle for a Dodo, I had to worry about Ruhar troops driving along the ac
cess road and seeing us. Surely the Ruhar were going to recon the whole area.
Another aircraft approached from behind us. A single Vulture. Again I gave the thumbs down. Checking my people, I could see they were so keyed up that we needed to do something soon. "Check your safeties, people, nobody fires until I give the signal." I made people acknowledge my order one by one, looking each person in the eye. Myself, I tried to act calm, even bored, I stifled a fake yawn. "Damn, I wish they'd get here soon, I'm hungry." I complained, and that drew some nervous laughter.
The Whale at the airfield finished unloading, the Ruhar troops had marched off the tarmac into the jungle, and it lifted off. This Whale flew almost directly over us, I could read some of the marking on its belly and wings. As it approached, I made sure everyone saw my thumbs down. If we had to, I'd attack an empty ship on its return flight, that wasn't my preference.
Then I did get bored, a bit. After that Whale took off, maybe ten minutes went by with no flight activity in the area, other than the pair of Vultures over the jungle. They weren't strafing or firing missiles anymore, and we didn't see any more Zingers coming from the jungle either. With the lull in air traffic, I started to question not shooting at the Dodo or the empty Whale. Either would have accomplished our main objective of making the Ruhar shut down flight operations. Still, I wanted to hit the hamsters, hit them hard, make them pay for all the people who died at the Fort Arrow DFAC.
Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1) Page 18
