“It’s still concentrating on Janus itself,” he said. “If it takes the Hub there’s still a chance for the people in the Rim. We’ve got five more ships on the way right now. Give them a chance too. If they could get in close and saturate Spartacus’s defenses, there’s a chance they could take Detroit apart piece by piece from the outside in, without risking the whole structure, until the system stops running. It’s maybe fifty-fifty, but while there’s a chance at all we have to take it. If you’re worried about the two ships out there, tell them to move back. There’s nothing they can do now until the rest get there anyhow.”
Belford looked unhappy but said nothing. Nash thought over Schroder’s arguments, nodded curtly and spoke to the officer seated in front of the bank of communications equipment that took up one wall of the room.
“Order Commander Stalley to take his ships back out to fifty miles and rendezvous with Miller’s squadron there. Then get me an update on when Miller thinks he’ll arrive.”
The officer operated a key and spoke into a permanently open channel to ISA Headquarters.
“Relay orders to Watchdog to move Watchdog One and Watchdog Three out to Position Blue, effective immediately. Watchdog to rendezvous with Z Squadron at Position Blue. Inform Z Squadron Leader of revision to plan. Confirmations required.”
The officer cut the screen and brought up a display of the latest predictions from the computers at Mission Control. He keyed in a sequence of commands to update the computers on the revised situation. A few seconds later some of the numbers changed.
“Z Squadron arrival time at Position Blue estimated at three hours, twenty-seven minutes from now, allowing for course change,” he reported.
Nash looked up at the clock above the door and resumed pacing back and forth from one end of the silent room to the other.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When Dyer came out of the elevator at the top of the Downtown spoke, he noted with some degree of satisfaction that the flow of evacuees through that area of the Hub was being handled swiftly and the arrival concourse was filled mainly with battle-ready units assembling to move out. The direct route through the Hub to 17D promised to be congested so he steered west to take the longer but probably quicker roundabout way, through the circular thoroughfare that interconnected the terminal concourses of the spokes. Moving fast in long, shallow bounds, he passed through the terminal areas of the Rocky Valley and Berlin spokes and soon found himself ascending the steadily steepening corridor toward 17D.
The leader of a detachment of marines waved him to a halt as he reached the bulkhead door at the top of the stairs that formed the end of the corridor.
“Don’t tell me,” the soldier said. “You’re another one of the reconnaissance unit that got split up in the Hub, right? The others have gone on ahead.” Dyer frowned his noncomprehension, but the soldier went on. “The woman with the ranger went through on her own about ten minutes ago. The others are only just in front of you. You’ll need to seal up. It’s zeroed the other side of the lock.” Two other marines were already starting to open the nearer of the double doors. Half guessing what must have happened, Dyer merely nodded, secured his visor and turned on the system in his suit.
“Radio check,” he muttered impatiently.
“Loud and clear.” The marine’s voice came through inside his helmet.
“What’s the fastest way to the M & S Unit?” Dyer asked as he stepped into the lock.
“M & S?” The soldier sounded surprised. “The others didn’t tell me they were going there. The fastest way is to make a sharp right as soon as you get through the lock. There’s a big vent duct with the maintenance hatch blown off. Go through the duct and follow it up and through to where it’s busted. It comes out right over a catwalk inside the M & S. Should gain you a coupla minutes. The normal way through’s a bit of a mess.”
“Thanks.”
“Try and hurry them up in there too. We’re getting reports that things are happening again. You’ll be on the outside there. Could get rough.”
“I will.”
Dyer came out of the lock and into the twilight metal wilderness that was 17D. He used his lamp to locate the hatch into the duct and hauled himself in with a smooth pull of his arms. The duct rose vertically for about fifteen feet and then curved around and over to lead outward toward the periphery of the Hub. A hazy rectangle ahead of him marked where the duct was fractured. It enlarged slowly as he approached. He stopped himself where the jagged edges of metal stuck out into empty space and moved his head forward to peer into the gloom. The space immediately below him was in total darkness but on the far side there was an enormous blown-out window framing a sinister shadowy silhouette of Detroit. Then the sound of somebody talking came through on his radio. The voice was Chris’s.
“I can’t see her anywhere. It’s too dark. I can’t see anything.”
“Are you certain she only got one Gremlin that works?” Laura’s voice came in, sounding worried.
“Absolutely.” This time it was Ron. “We only had two. We stripped the warhead out of one of them because we were gonna try flying it to figure out the control codes. It’ll fly but it’s harmless.”
Dyer strained his eyes in an effort to locate them, but without any directional clues to guide him he didn’t even know which way to look. He was about to announce his presence when another voice sounded on the frequency. It was harsh and authoritative.
“Who’s there? You people who are talking, identify yourselves and make yourselves visible.”
At that instant a stream of flame erupted from a point immediately below the edge of the window and vanished into space. A moment later a blaze of light lit up part of the black bulk of the Spindle that roofed the scene outside.
“What in hell’s going on?” another unfamiliar voice shouted.
Then Chris again: “Oh Christ, she’s here! She’s done it!”
“Somebody’s trying to take out the Decoupler!” the challenging voice barked. “We’ve got crazy people in there! Solinsky, hit the lights.”
An array of arc lamps came on at once and flooded the scene below with light. There were six figures in spacesuits on a wreckage-strewn catwalk that ran along the side of the wall that the duct protruded from, about fifteen feet below where Dyer was crouching. He immediately identified the three grouped together slightly to his right as Laura, Chris and Ron. Two more, clad in the lightweight suits that many soldiers preferred for combat dress, were standing to his left with their rifles trained toward the twisted remains of a platform on the far side of the work bay below, at the base of where the window had been. A third soldier was standing between the two groups beside a portable communications pack and switch panel, that he had obviously been watching. He was gesturing angrily in the direction in which the other two were aiming. His voice came through on Dyer’s radio.
“You out there over the airlocks. You are being covered. Don’t make any sudden moves. Leave the sighter and stand up slowly with your hands raised.”
It was Kim. She was lying between two heaps of buckled metal and looking back at the catwalk but without making any response. Either she wasn’t taking any notice or her radio was switched off.
“You’ve got three seconds,” the voice of the first soldier warned. “Then we shoot. One!”
“Don’t!” It was Chris. “Mat Solinsky, is that you? That’s Kim Sinclair out there. She’s sick. She hasn’t got any more shots.”
“She can’t do any harm now!” Laura shouted desperately as the postures of the two riflemen tensed. The third soldier was turning to look first at Chris, then at the other soldiers and back again.
“Chris! What the hell are you doing here? That’s Kim . . . Kim from the University? Is she crazy? Hey guys, she’s okay! I know these people!”
A tremor came suddenly from somewhere and the floor shook beneath their feet. After a second or two it passed. Kim was still lying motionless and staring back into the unwavering rifles from across the chas
m of the work-bay. Then, almost contemptuously, she turned calmly onto her stomach and raised the sighter to her shoulder.
“She’s got another one!” a voice yelled. “Shoot!”
“No!” The soldier whom Chris had addressed as Solinsky launched himself from the guardrail and catapulted into the other two just as one of them fired. Muttered curses and profanities came over the radio. From the window a second Gremlin leaped away. The figure that had fired at Kim wrenched himself away and clubbed Solinsky back against the rail with the butt of his weapon. Then he began reversing the gun to bring it into a firing position. At the same time the other was recovering his balance and wheeling to aim at Kim. Dyer had no time to wonder whether or not Uncomme methods worked against opponents on lightweight ISA suits as he hurled himself down from the mouth of the duct, at the same time curling his right leg up tight beneath his body like a compressed spring.
The edge of his boot arrowed into its target between the hip and the rib cage just above the belt. A sound that began as a shout of pain and surprise cut off abruptly as an agonized gasp sounded in his ears. The soldier’s body crashed into the guardrail and doubled over, but Dyer was already pivoting on his other leg to meet the figure that had beaten off Solinsky. He was six feet at least and looked solid. His rifle was already coming up fast to fire from the hip. Dyer registered the foot set slightly ahead of the other, leg almost straight—perfect target for going in low under the line of fire with a side-kick that would tear every tendon at the back of the knee. In the same thousandth of a second the computer in his head rejected it.
As his body feinted a move to the right, his leg swept a circle behind him to prepare for an abrupt change of direction. As the muzzle of the rifle came around to meet him, he drew his body up into a curve and drove in sideways to scrape the barrel with the front of his belt, turning simultaneously to draw the soldier’s arm forward with his own right arm while his left shot over the other’s shoulder to become a rigid bar across his visor. With his head encircled by Dyer’s arm, the soldier was bent double backward across the knee driving up into the small of his back. The chest panel of his suit was pulled high to uncover his middle; Dyer’s right arm stretched high into the air, fist clenched, and then jackknifed into a pile driver tipped by a rock-hard elbow encased in taut spacesuit that plunged into the exposed solar plexus.
It had taken not more than three seconds. Dyer had delivered two blows and two figures were lying draped across the wreckage and out of action. He unfolded the first soldier from the rail and sat him down in a heap to recover while Chris helped Solinsky to his feet and Ron took off toward Kim, who had collapsed on the platform below the window. Dyer’s mental replay of the data that his senses had been recording told him that the second Gremlin hadn’t exploded. Before he could wonder further about it, Laura was beside him and peering into his visor.
“Ray, it’s you! You show up in the strangest places. Where on Earth did you learn that stuff? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ll tell you all about it some other time.” He glanced at Solinsky, who was leaning against the rail and massaging a shoulder through his suit.
“How’s it feel?”
“I’ll live . . . bit bruised, that’s all. And, ah . . . thanks.”
“How’s Kim?” Dyer asked.
“She’s out,” Ron’s voice told him from the far side of the bay. “I’m not sure if I oughta move her. Wanna come over here and take a look?”
The soldier who was slumped with his back to the rail moved an arm to clutch feebly at his side.
“Ohh . . . Jesus!” The words came fragmented through the laboring noises of paralyzed lungs fighting for breath. “What . . . happened . . . ? I’ve been hit.”
“You’ll be okay,” Dyer said. “Just take it easy. Your pal’s out but he isn’t hurt. Sorry, but there wasn’t time to argue. We’ll explain it all later.”
With an audible wince, Solinsky vaulted the rail and sent himself along in a low, flat trajectory to land beside Ron, who was kneeling next to Kim. Dyer and Laura paused long enough to exchange well-what-do-you-know? looks and then followed. Chris stayed on the catwalk to keep an eye on the still unconscious soldier and his groaning companion.
Kim was pale behind her visor and showed no signs of life or movement. There was no break anywhere in her suit, however, which meant that at least she hadn’t been hit by the shot. The worst fears having been allayed, Ron eased her onto her side, plugged his view-pad into a test socket on her backpack and rapped in a stream of code. A set of curves appeared on the screen.
“Her life-support’s cycling,” he announced in a relieved voice. “It’s faint and shaky, but at least she’s breathing.”
“Don’t anybody move!” A new voice made them all look up at once. About half a dozen soldiers were pouring out of the doors and onto the catwalk. “We’re looking for a woman by the name of Sinclair. Orders are to bring her in. Is she here?”
“She’s here,” Dyer replied. “She won’t be any trouble now. Ron, go back and explain what’s happened. We’ll bring Kim.” Ron nodded once and headed back to where Chris and the soldiers were standing. Dyer and Solinsky began lifting Kim gently off the floor—all four pounds of her, complete with suit, while Laura collected the Gremlin sighter and its case.
“Better make it fast,” the same voice went on. “Spartacus is attacking the Hub from all directions right now. Northport’s just been hit bad. We’re gonna have to get outa here.”
But it was too late. Even as the speaker finished, another soldier shouted a warning and the others launched a barrage of infantry rockets and automatic fire at the space above where Dyer, Solinsky and Laura were still standing with Kim. Something exploded over their heads and sent a hail of debris into the surrounding walls.
“Get down off the ledge!” Dyer yelled. “We’re sitting ducks up here. Get down by the locks.” Holding Kim between them, he and Solinsky dived from the platform down into the bay in front of the doors of the airlocks that admitted the bugs. Laura was right behind them. Attacking space drones, possibly attracted by the light, were swooping in above them firing shells and flame at the opposite wall. Dyer had confused impressions of figures backing through the doors from the catwalk and firing as they retreated . . . somebody heaving a body up off the floor and hauling it away . . . explosions, bullets . . . a dismembered body spraying jets of red as it cartwheeled away . . . And then something large nosed into the opening above and drenched the catwalk in a sea of flame.
Miraculously, the attackers hadn’t directed their attention down into the bay below the window yet. That situation would last for seconds at the most. Dyer looked around desperately and saw the open inner door to one of the bug airlocks at the same instant as Solinsky did. Solinsky hurled himself through with Kim’s inert body hooked in one arm while Dyer scooped Laura off her feet and followed in the same bound. The door slammed shut behind them moments before the first inquisitive drone began turning its scanner lenses downward.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Linsay reached the Hub to find the whole command structure disintegrating into panic. Northport had been devastated only minutes before and along with it the Hub Operations Room and its full complement of staff. Whole companies without officers or orders were streaming back into the core of the Hub while Spartacus assaulted the outside with swarms of drones and a new type of giant flamethrower that perched like a stinging wasp to clear the outermost compartments of the structure by injecting its nozzle through holes blown in the surface. Meanwhile a separate invasion force was being landed from the catcher ship into the ruin of Northport and simultaneously a new attempt had begun to move north out of the Spindle. The situation was hopeless—an encirclement in three dimensions.
But Linsay had forgotten the meaning of the word; his moment in history had arrived.
Within minutes he had assembled a working staff group and gotten them organized to go back and reverse the flow of men scrambling to get away down the spo
kes. He was everywhere at once, directing the emplacement of wire-guided missile racks, reforming scattered units and distributing them for defense in depth, ordering revised fire plans and pulling fresh teams forward to plug gaps. Behind Northport he threw together lines of infantry equipped with bazookas who fell back alternately behind mutually supporting massed rocket barrages until the waves pouring from the catcher ship were exhausted. All around the Hub he ordered a general fallback to an inner perimeter sphere after the outer layers had been mined with wire and laser-triggered booby traps; Spartacus’s losses mounted and its advance slowed. His mood percolated swiftly down through the chain of command he had established and a renewed determination took hold of the defenders of the Hub.
By the time the new lines had stabilized themselves, Spartacus was in possession of all of the Hub above latitude sixty degrees north as well as the inner ends of the Downtown, Paris and Vine County spokes and virtually the whole of the outside Hub. Linsay established an “inner defense box” around the inner regions of south Hub, where he at once called his improvised retinue of chiefs-of-staff and proceeded to set in motion the plan that had begun forming in his head even before he had left the Command Room in Downtown.
“The Water Recycling Plant and the Cab Depot Area are to be fortified for defense at all costs,” he told them. “I want every drive motor and steering motor that still works brought here. Strip ’em out of the bugs, buses, minishuttles and anything else that moves . . . get ’em from spares allocations . . . I don’t care where they come from but get ’em here. I want one of the one-hundred-thousand-gallon tanks and one of the ten-thousand-gallon tanks from the plant drained and ripped out. Get every ounce of explosive here that can be spared, two-inch rockets and Gremlins. And sandbags . . . lots of sandbags. Clean out the dump and bring whatever isn’t in bags loose in whatever’ll carry it. If you have to, tell the people down at the Rim to shovel it outa the shield and send it up the tubes. Okay, let’s move it.”
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