by Джеффри Лорд
Second, the base itself was weakly garrisoned. The Red Flames preferred to rely on its isolation to protect it. The garrison consisted of picked Security troops, but only about four hundred of them. They were also dispersed all over a facility that covered several square miles. A heavily armed mobile force landing from the air should have no trouble crushing the garrison.
Third, the dragon pens were uniquely vulnerable. All the thousands of dragons lived in caves on either side of a deep canyon near the laboratories. They could move about freely on the bottom of the canyon, but they could reach the surface only through a few narrow tunnels.
At the head of the canyon stood a high dam. It lowered the river until the entrances to the caves in the canyon walls were above water. It also provided electric power for the whole base.
Behind the dam lay a deep lake, several miles long and hundreds of feet deep. If the dam were blown, the waters of the lake would go roaring down the canyon, submerging the lower entrances to the dragons’ caves. If at the same time the upper entrances were blown in, all the dragons penned in the caves would be trapped. Long before the river went down or the tunnels were dug free, they would suffocate, to the last dragon.
The demolition would need a large quantity of high explosives, and it would have to be precisely placed by skilled men. But both were available, both could be carried to the breeding base, and the job could be done. If it was done, the dragons of the Red Flames would not trouble Englor again.
So planning for the raid began, and the arguments began soon afterward. For example, the assault transports were highly secret. It was imperative that they be fully rigged for demolition, so that if one of them crashed or couldn’t take off, it would not fall into Red Flame hands. But the assault transports were also large. Enough demolition charges to thoroughly destroy one would weigh a good deal. The weight would cut into its payload for the raid. Where was the balance point between payload and precautions, if there was one?
The planners argued over large questions, small questions, and questions that Richard Blade found it hard to believe grown men could take seriously. At times it seemed that the arguments would go on until the assault transports were all obsolete and all the dragons were dead of old age.
Eventually a plan emerged. Nine assault transports would carry deep into Russland a force of six hundred men, divided into three Groups.
The Battle Group would land at the laboratories and the breeding pens. Most of the men would be riding lightweight motorcycles, so that they could move faster and carry more ammunition. They would be supported by a number of light armored vehicles with guns and rockets. Their mission was to wipe out the garrison, capture or kill the whole staff of the base, carry off everything that could be carried off, and destroy everything else.
The Demolition Group would land at the entrance to the tunnels and around the dam. The tunnel entrances would be blown in first. Then explosives would be lowered down the inner face of the dam and detonated. The pressure of the water would do the rest.
Finally, a small Blocking Group would hold the road and railroad that led out of the base to the nearest enemy garrison. They would be able to do most of the job by blowing up two bridges across small canyons.
Two of the assault transports converted into flying tankers would accompany the nine troop carriers. They would refuel in the air a strike of twelve attack planes launched from an Imperial carrier well out to sea. The attack planes would attack the nearest enemy airbase, making it unusable. Then they would fly air cover over the dragon base while the ground troops did their work.
The attack planes would not have the range to return to their carrier after that. So their pilots would bail out at low altitude, to land among the Battle Group and be picked up by its mobile troops. They would fly out in the assault transports along with the rest of the surviving raiders.
As many as half the raiders might become casualties. All the vehicles would also be left behind, carefully booby-trapped, to lighten the transports for the flight out. But in return for three hundred men and two hundred vehicles, the ability of the Red Flames of Russland to wage genetic warfare would be destroyed for many years.
No one seemed to doubt that this was a fair trade.
No one seemed to doubt either that Lieutenant Colonel Richard Blade should be in command of the raiding force. By Imperial Special Order he was given the acting rank of full colonel. After that he settled down to the grueling routine of training his handpicked six hundred for their great day.
He hardly had a moment to spare for Rilla during that time. He did observe that she seemed both happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because the dragon base to her meant the corruption and perversion of the great discoveries she’d made in genetics. Now it was about to be destroyed. Sad, because in that destruction would die many who had been her friends and colleagues for years, and she could not be totally indifferent to their fate. Blade thought it was perhaps just as well that he and Rilla were not seeing much of each other now. It was certainly good that she was not going on the raid herself.
Blade did have time to consider one amusing fact about his position. He’d been quite certain that Englor would offer him no opportunity to rise swiftly in rank and status. Yet here he was, risen from recruit to full colonel in only a few months, given one of the choicest assignments possible for an officer of his rank.
Perhaps this was not quite so great a rise as one from slave to prince. But no man could say that Blade had not risen, and many in Englor were saying he would rise farther still if he lived long enough.
Chapter 23
Six hundred soldiers have to learn only so much in order to carry out even the most complicated operation. Even training for fifteen hours a day, six days a week, comes to an end sooner or later. Then there’s nothing left to do but load the men aboard whatever is taking them to battle.
The night before Strike Force Blade took off, R took Blade out to dinner. It was a hasty dinner-too hasty, for the food and the wine both deserved a leisurely appreciation that neither man could afford to give them. Like the rest of the Strike Force, Blade had forty-eight hours’ leave, and from the restaurant he would be joining Rilla. R obviously knew this, but was so much a gentleman about Blade’s personal affairs that it was impossible to tell if he approved or disapproved. That was one more quality that R shared with J.
The dinner lasted long enough for R to become more talkative than usual. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the frustration at having to leave the rest of the fight against the dragons to younger men who would go where he no longer could. Whatever was working inside him, R said a great deal, almost certainly much more than he’d intended.
Blade did not remember much of it. He had an excellent memory, but he could also forget things when it seemed wise. One thing he didn’t forget, and he knew afterward that he couldn’t have forgotten it if he’d wanted to.
«You know something, Richard?» said R. «I had a son.»
That was a surprise to Blade. He sensed that R was not expecting any reply, just continued attention.
«Yes, I had a son. He was an Independent, like you, like me. He went off to Rodzmania on an assignment, like you. Only he didn’t come back. That was ten years ago. If he’d lived, he would have been about your age, I think.»
R reached inside his coat with a hand that trembled slightly and drew out a small flat leather case. Blade looked down. It was his own face that stared back at him from the picture in the case-his own face, a few years younger.
«I see,» he said, and nodded. Perhaps there were more profound words, but none of them came to mind now. There was still some wine in Blade’s glass. He picked it up and sipped.
One thought did pop into his mind. Should he take the chance to ask what R really knew about the man called Colonel Richard Blade? Might R now let slip what he knew about Blade’s origins-if he knew anything at all?
Then the thought sank back out of Blade’s mind. The answer to that question was the
same as always. R might reveal some of his own past, some of his own motives. He would never reveal any of his professional secrets. He would never reveal whether or not he knew that Richard Blade had come to Englor from another Dimension.
Blade sighed, picked up the wine bottle, and poured until both his glass and R’s were full again.
With Strike Force Blade aboard, the assault transports flew south to a base in West Africa. They flew across the continent to another base on the east coast. They flew those two legs of their journey at high altitude, to save fuel.
They flew north from the coastal base in darkness, keeping low. At seven hundred miles an hour they raced across the dark sea toward the secret island base off the southern coast of Russland. Once a circle of ships appeared on the radar, then dropped astern. The Imperial carrier and her escorts were on station, ready to launch the attack planes on schedule.
The island came out of the night at them. The transports shifted from horizontal to vertical flight and sank down through a thousand feet of air to safe landings on the rocky top of the island. The fuel was waiting for them in great flexible bladders, towed submerged across the sea by Imperial submarines and anchored to the rocks offshore. Pumps whined in the darkness, fuel lines stiffened, gauges registered the hundreds and thousands of gallons pouring into the tanks. One by one each transport reported «Full Up.» One by one they lifted into the darkness with an ear-cracking howl of jets and orange flares of exhaust. As Blade watched, the jet flares reminded him strangely of the flaming breath of the dragons.
Then his own transport rose to join the others. They burned navigation lights until the formation was complete. Then they shifted power back from vertical lift to horizontal thrust and headed toward the coast of Russland. A few minutes later the two tankers made rendezvous and swung into place at the rear of the formation. Now there were eleven of the metal giants on their way to Russland.
The coast passed below as the eastern sky began to pale. As the sky showed pink, the transports began to climb slowly. They kept a thousand feet above the ground as it rose into the rugged tableland that made up the heart of South Russland.
The land below showed few colors even as daylight spread across it. Browns and tans, grays, and an occasional flash of red or black that came and went so fast it was hard to believe it had ever been there. Small ranges of jagged peaks, like giant boulders set on end. Dry canyons and some with faint silver trickles of water in the bottom. Scarred and fissured cliffs plunging down five hundred feet. No vegetation, no sign of human life. A harsh, ugly, unnatural landscape, one that seemed to Blade an entirely appropriate setting for the dragons. They also were harsh, ugly, and unnatural.
An isolated mountain loomed on the horizon-an immense, rugged volcanic cone, its upper slopes snow covered. The troop carriers swung to the west of the mountain, the tankers to the east, heading for their fueling rendezvous with the carrier strike. Blade looked at the clock. The attack planes should be only a few minutes from their target now.
The volcanic mountain sank below the horizon again. Now the nine troop carriers split into two groups on diverging courses. The dragon base was still out of sight, ten minutes away. The transports would pass around it to the east and the west, swinging well clear of its antiaircraft defenses, then come in from the north.
The maneuver was carried out with professional smoothness, in complete radio silence. One minute Blade looked out the cockpit windows and saw eight transports in a line stretching off to the east. The next minute he saw only four. Seven minutes to go. He checked his weapons, then, wished the pilots good luck and climbed down to the cargo deck.
The men were already mounted up and ready, forty on motorcycles, the rest in the vehicles of the Command Section-two armored cars, a jeep, and a radio truck. Blade passed quickly along the deck. Some of the cycle troops had already released their tie-downs. They weren’t supposed to do that until the transport went on vertical flight. But if being able to save a few seconds in getting out after touchdown made them feel better-The cargo deck was a dark, windowless metal tube. Blade had to follow the last stages of the approach to the target over the intercom. At five minutes the pilot reported the base in sight. At four minutes he reported that the two transports carrying the Demolition Group were going to vertical flight. No sign of enemy resistance yet.
Silence for two more minutes, as the three remaining transports of the western group swung around to the north of the base. Blade would have liked to hear something, but the pilot was a busy man.
Two minutes, and now Blade needed no words over the intercom to know what was happening. The note of the engines changed as the transport went to vertical flight. The floor began to roll and pitch gently, like the deck of a ship in a storm, as the transport started settling toward the ground, its two hundred tons balanced on the thrust of its lifters.
A new burst of sound came from aft, a hissing like a million snakes and a ripping noise like immense bedsheets being torn in half. The tail gunner was salvoing the pods of air-to-ground rockets, laying down a wall of explosions and flying metal and smoke between the transports and waiting enemy gunners. Blade scrambled into the front seat of his command jeep and tapped the driver on the shoulder. The man released the tie-downs and went through the correct motions for starting the engine, but Blade couldn’t hear or feel a thing. The roar and vibration all around were too intense.
Suddenly there was a solid thunk from below as the landing gear hit the ground. Instantly the roar of the engines began to die as the pilots cut their throttles. Silence did not come. As the plane’s engines faded, the motorcycles and vehicles began to roar and growl and belch smoke, and the tail gunner opened up with his twin 30mm cannon. Light poured in as the rear door swung open and down to the ground, forming a ramp. The first of the cycle troops were off the mark so fast they hit the end of the ramp before it hit the ground. They sailed off into the air, landing with thuds and squeals of tires. Somehow none of them were spilled into the path of their comrades. Four at a time, the rest of the cyclists thundered out after the first ones. For a moment Blade had the feeling of being caught up in a film about motorcycle gangs instead of a military operation. Then the deck ahead was clear. Without waiting for orders Blade’s driver sent the jeep hurtling forward. It rolled down the deck, bounced wildly as it came off the ramp onto the ground, straightened out, and raced away from the transport.
Overhead the tail gunner was still firing random bursts.
As he ceased fire, Blade stood up in the jeep and looked around him. To the right and left the other transports were safely landed and pouring out their troops. Half a mile ahead lay the railroad yards, where organic raw material and food were brought in to build and feed the dragons and the matured dragons were taken out. Blade saw a train of the high-roofed dragon-carrying cars directly in his path. At the head, the locomotive was enveloped in the thick smoke of burning diesel fuel. Some of the cyclists were already working their way along the cars. Blade saw the flash of grenade and rocket explosions, doors flying off, and dying or wounded dragons lurching out to meet more grenades.
One dragon fell directly in the path of a cyclist who was moving too fast to stop. Man and machine flew high in the air, turning end over end. Blade’s jeep bumped and rattled across the tracks of the railroad yard, leaving behind a rising pillar of smoke from the smashed and burning motorcycle.
The heavier armored cars and radio truck crossed the tracks faster and caught up with the jeep on the other side of the yard. The four vehicles rolled forward side by side.
A quick scan from left to right showed Blade four enemy-gun positions, none of them firing, all of them giving off thick clouds of smoke. In the nearest one the two guns pointed blackened and twisted barrels at the empty sky, while dismounted cyclists checked through the tents of the gunners to make sure that all the dead stayed that way. The rocket salvos had done good work.
The objective of Blade’s Command Section was the base radio station. It was a substa
ntial building, with two tall radio towers that would make good observation posts. Blade would set up his command post there. He didn’t expect the strike force to need that much commanding, but it was always a good idea for the commanding officer to find a place where he could easily be found if necessary.
The jeep’s radio remained silent as the Command Section rolled toward the station. No news was good news, in this case. Standard Operating Procedure for the raid called for radio silence from all units during the first fifteen minutes, unless something happened that called for a major change of plans.
They rolled past a long row of cylindrical concrete towers, like immense grain elevators. Those were the culture vats where the dragons were brought to viable size in tanks of nutrient fluid. From the top of one of them a machine gun sent bullets to kick up dust across the path of the Command Section. The turrets on the armored cars swiveled around, and two streams of tracer converged on the offending gun. The puffs of dust stopped abruptly. One of the cars swung out of line and fired a rocket at the base of the tower. It shivered, leaned almost elegantly to one side, shedding large slabs of concrete, then toppled in an explosion of dust. It cracked open as it fell, spewing out ruptured steel vats and piping, half-formed dragons, and a small lake of nutrient fluid. Blade ordered the car back in line. The culture vats were assigned to the demolition men of Company B. There was no point in wasting on them rockets that might be needed elsewhere.
The armored cars took the lead as the Command Section approached the radio station, with the radio truck behind them and the jeep in the rear. Three sections of motorcyclists moved into position on each flank to help clear the radio station and then form a headquarters reserve.
