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His colleagues saw the inner struggle mirrored in his expression and
misinterpreted its origin to his benefit.
He considered feigning mental collapse, seeking sur-cease in an inveigled
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disgrace. But that would not preserve his brother, nor prevent his sister from
being trained to follow after. There was simply no way to extend his soli-tude
to those he loved. He would have to find another way.
As attack preparations around him intensified, he redi-rected himself to the
problem with ferocious application.
It wasn't until the day before the fleet was to phase out of Underspace that he
remembered the kindly Lepar, Itepu. Remembered his compassion and understanding.
His had been a simpler view of the cosmos, basic and uncompli-cated. In such
simplifications were certain virtues. He pondered those memories, trying to
recall everything he and the Lepar had discussed during his half-forgotten
jour-ney from Eirrosad to Omaphil.
When the word came for all soldiers to don field armor and equipment, he was
much eased in mind. He knew now what he was going to have to do. If it ended in
death, then at least he would be spared the future tribulation of thinking.
Those under his immediate command relaxed when they saw their Unifer stride
purposefully into the landing shut-tle. Clearly the depth and extent of his
hermetic contem-plation during the voyage out from Cossuut had amply prepared
him for the forthcoming conflict. It boosted their morale accordingly.
"Look at him." The recent graduate nudged his com-panion as they watched Ranji
board the command sled. "Utterly self-possessed. He's ready."
"I hear he's always like that." The young woman tracked the Unifer's progress
admiringly. "You heard the story of how he handled himself on Eirrosad?"
The man was checking the charge level on his stinger. "Never panicked, kept his
head when everybody else was losing theirs. I'm glad we're in his group."
"By the Purpose," said a much shorter Ashregan from nearby, "I'm just glad he is
on our shuttle!"
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They examined each other's armor locks and visors, ex-changed and rechecked
weapons. Once the shuttle touched down on the Ulaluablian surface they would be
thrust out-side and into a combat situation, where such checks would have to be
performed, if at all, under arduous and possibly lethal conditions. Better to
make certain seals were tight and weapons powered up now.
It must have been something to see: a dozen immense starships suddenly and
simultaneously materializing from Underspace just above the cloud layer of
Ulaluable's blue-green globe. There was nothing present to witness the sight,
however, except the alert sensors of the automatic! orbiting planetary-defense
system, which responded anon.
As ships dropped shuttles in the fashion of fecund invertebrates, on-board
weaponry had some success in deal-ing with the cluster of orbiting
hellaciousness. One ship | was destroyed by a self-guiding orbital mine, both
erupt-ing in a flaming plume of metal, gas, and organic com-ponents. Seared
vacuum momentarily blinded every instrument in the vicinity. Five other vessels
were badly damaged by high-power, mirror-aligned particle beams.
The rest unloaded their deadly cargo with admirable speed and dispatch.
Metaloceramic crescents dove into the clouds and made their way to the waiting
surface, where their con-tents spread out and sought cover with slick alacrity.
Not every shuttle made it to ground. Some were oblit-erated by surface-based
weapons. Others ran afoul of scrambling high-speed aircraft. But by the time the
sur-viving starships retired to the protective astrophysical anonymity of
Underspace, the greater portion of the battlegroup had successfully disembarked
and dispersed. Now if Ulaluable's defenders chose to use heavy weapons on the
invaders they would be putting at risk sensitive por-tions of the very world
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they were supposed to be protect-ing.
Ordinarily destruction or damage to half an attacking force's ships would be
sufficient to bring an invasion to a halt, but not this time. There was too much
at stake for the Amplitur to recall their ground forces, which after all had
made it down largely intact. The components of the engagement had shifted
surfaceward. Time to see what the Ashregan-led battlegroup could do.
Ranji's shuttle landed hard in a grassy glade surrounded by extremely thin, tall
trees, rattling both soldiers and equipment. The attenuated woods provided some
cover from patrolling aircraft, as did the soot-colored clouds from which a
light rain was falling. As troops rushed to disembark, the shuttle's crew stayed
at the equipment which projected half a dozen ghost shuttles overhead, their
purpose being to bemuse and distract enemy sensors.
Ranji commanded slightly less than a thousand regular and modified Ashregan
soldiers riding skids and floaters. They deployed themselves with gratifying
speed, erecting camouflage and establishing a perimeter while engineers
excavated a hole deep enough to conceal the shuttle. Maintained and defended by
its own crew, it would serve as a field base, a point of reference, and, if need
be, a means of final retreat.
Their target was the control station of the principal power-distribution grid
for the entire northern third of the planetary landmass. Like any other
unavoidably unsightly industrial complex on a Wais world, it had been sited as
far as practicable from the nearest population center.
An intricate network of dams in the nearby mountains stored water for irrigation
and hydropower. It would have been a simple matter to target them for
destruction by land-based missiles, but that would require their replace-ment by [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]