“If you fail,” Alec said, “we get rid of each other. And everyone else.”
“And the settlement dies for lack of fissionables.”
“Yes.”
“When I get back to the settlement I’ll still accuse you of treason.”
Alec let himself smile. “Won’t that be a bit difficult to prove, if you have the fissionables?”
“I’ll prove it.”
“Go ahead and try it, then.”
Kobol swayed back a little, and then seemed to tense, as if poised to strike. “If I accept this job and get the fissionables, do you promise me safe conduct back to the settlement?”
“You mean, will I have you shot after we win the battle?”
“That’s one way to phrase it.”
“You’ll be safe. We can settle our differences back at the settlement.”
“My safety for the fissionables,” Kobol mused. “It’s a deal.”
Alec nodded. Neither man offered his hand. Alec rose from the chair and started toward the passageway entrance. Halfway there he paused and turned back to Kobol.
“I haven’t asked you for a similar guarantee—that you won’t try to kill me before we get back to the settlement.”
Kobol started to reply, but Alec went on, “I don’t need your promise. I wouldn’t trust it, anyway. Just keep this in mind. If you try to kill me, I’ll kill you. Even if you’re successful, there are a dozen men who’ll chop you into bite-sized pieces afterward. Just pray that I’m not killed in battle, Martin.”
He left Kobol sitting on the bunk, looking angry.
On the morning of the third day the attack began.
It had been a hectic two days, getting the men and equipment ready, keeping Douglas’s increasingly heavier patrols from penetrating to the valley, briefing Kobol and putting together his special unit of trucks and protective garments and equipment, keeping in touch with the satellite for constant updates on the weather.
It rained the night before the attack. The troops moved out of the valley and spread to their positions, arcing across nearly half of Douglas’s defensive perimeter. They moved swiftly despite the rain, most of them on horseback, but the shock wave all on trucks and jeeps. Each unit was completely mobile, no foot soldiers. The armored trucks mounted lasers, the jeeps bore machine guns and rocket launchers. The cavalry carried everything from automatic rifles to crossbows.
The rain’s keeping Douglas’ patrols down and screening our deployment, Alec told himself, then added, I hope.
He stood on the laser mount platform of an armored truck. The rain had slackened off to a fine drizzle, and the Sun was starting to edge above the eastern hills, breaking through the clouds, turning them pink and mauve. The ground was wet but not soaked, not impassibly muddy.
Alec wore a battle helmet, and could hear the crosstalk of a hundred different unit commanders by switching frequencies on the dial set into one of the earphones. They had chosen the frequencies carefully to be out of the range of Douglas’s antiquated radio equipment. Each sector commander checked in as the drizzle died away. Finally Alec asked Jameson, “Ron, how’s it look on your end?”
Jameson’s voice was crisp and calm in his earphones. “Everything set here. All unit and sector commanders are ready and eager to go.”
Alec glanced at his wristwatch. Five-fifty. The attack was planned to start at six, when Douglas’s men would be starting their breakfasts, looking to their cookfires rather than watching for an attack.
As he waited for the minute hand to crawl along, Alec’s mind filled with the images of all the things he had been through: the storms, the cold, the mud. And the nights with Angela, the warmth of the fire, the heat of their passion. And the towering gray old man who had driven him away.
With a shake of his head, he focused his thoughts on the reality before him. The morning was clearing rapidly, the clouds breaking up and scuttling away on a fresh, clean breeze. The Sun was bright and already starting to feel warm on his shoulders and neck.
“Minus ten seconds,” he muttered to himself.
Turning the dial on his earphone to the general frequency, Alec heard the chime tone that confirmed that the frequency was tuned in and open.
“All sector and unit commanders... commence attack. Now.”
The truck he was standing on lurched forward, then gained speed smoothly as it climbed toward the top of the hill it had been hiding behind. Trailing it, three other trucks and a pair of jeeps trundled along. The jeeps passed Alec’s truck, speeding toward the crest of the hill.
They reached the top and started downslope. Putting the binoculars to his eyes, Alec could see the thin strand of fence wire winding across the rolling countryside, half a kilometer ahead. Two watchtowers were in view and a hill crowned with a firebase stood off on the horizon.
They’ve seen us now, he knew, watching the figures atop one of the watchtowers moving rapidly and gesticulating. Are they surprised? Or have they been waiting for us? Are they as scared as I am? And Alec realized that his heart was racing; he could feel it pounding in his throat, hear it in his ears, amplified by the ‘phones clamped to the sides of his head.
They sped toward the fence and off to his right Alec could see a band of cavalry troops riding hard to keep pace with them. The jeeps were up ahead. Flickers of fire danced at the tops of the watchtowers but Alec could hear nothing except the rush of the wind as his truck tore forward.
The lead jeep fired a missile at the nearest watchtower and Alec followed its smoky exhaust as it passed within a few meters of the tower’s top, then arced into the empty ground inside the fence and exploded.
“We’re in range of the fence!” shouted the gunner, sitting strapped into the plastic jumpseat that jutted out to one side of the massive laser mount.
Alec turned to him. “Burn it down.”
The laser’s special power generator hummed into life and then its vibration was drowned out by the high-pitched whine of the laser itself. The beam was invisible, but where it touched the fence the wire mesh flashed into incandescence and charred and curled like the wick of a candle.
The jeeps swerved toward the opening and the laser gunner swung his attention to the watchtowers. The nearest one was still firing when the energy beam touched it. The tower top burst into flame.
And then they were inside the fence, racing across the bumpy countryside. The wind tore at Alec’s face. The jeeps were both intact and pulling even further ahead of them, swinging left to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the firebase’s artillery. Glancing toward the rear, Alec saw the cavalry squad pouring through the gap in the fence. The watchtower was burned and silent.
