“Make it five.”
“Yes, sir,” Broom answered.
The reply came quickly and confidently enough to make Rogero certain that Broom had deliberately overstated how long the task would take, just as General Drakon had warned he might do. “Let me know when you have it. Have the other code monkeys put together a burst transmission package containing the means to sweep the Syndicate ground systems for enigma quantum worms.”
“Yes, sir. We’re on it.”
Four minutes later, a new symbol appeared on Rogero’s comm display. “That’s your door, Colonel,” Broom advised cheerfully. “And here”—another symbol appeared—“is your link to the burst. Just tap it when you want to send through that door.”
“You are invaluable, Sergeant Broom,” Rogero said. “General Drakon asked me to remind you to not do anything unauthorized that will require him or me to have you shot. It would be a great loss to us.”
“It would be a great loss to me as well,” Broom said. “But it would be useful to have it spelled out clearly as to exactly what actions by me would result in execution and which would merely involve lesser punishments.”
“I think it’s better to leave that a bit vague,” Rogero said.
He paused, ordering his thoughts, then tapped the backdoor symbol. The symbol pulsed several times, then steadied as it established a firm link to the back door being used by the ground forces workers. “I am with the Midway ground forces preparing to land near you,” he said, deliberately avoiding identifying himself as an officer. Syndicate workers had learned the hard way not to trust executives or CEOs without solid evidence that they could be relied upon. “You have already seen that the aliens called enigmas have destroyed the mobile forces that escorted you to this star system. Our mobile forces will stop the enigma warships from destroying you, but there is also an alien base hidden deep beneath the surface of the planet you are on. Your forces are standing over the area where the base is located. We are landing to capture or destroy that base, but once the aliens have both of our forces on the surface they will try to destroy us all. If you want to live, your only chance is to use the software package I will be sending after this message. That package won’t harm your systems. It will sweep them for worms planted by the aliens. You can verify that is what it does, and that is all it does.”
Rogero inhaled deeply, then spoke with the best conviction he could. “We believe that the aliens use the worms they have planted in our systems to allow them to target individual workers and supervisors with pinpoint precision. If you don’t sweep your systems, you will die without any chance of survival as soon as the enigmas open fire using distance weapons. Share the sweep software with anyone who can be trusted, even executives. That will mean the initial enigma attack will take out the snakes and any supervisors whom you cannot trust. We want to save the people with you. This is your only chance to survive. Get the word around. Get the citizens with you under whatever cover exists. We will begin landing soon. It will look like a combat drop, but we will not drop close enough to fire on you and will not fire upon anyone who does not fire on us. For the people.”
He tapped the second symbol, watching as it flickered once to mark the transmission.
Rogero checked the time, then touched another control. “Get the remaining soldiers loaded for the first drop,” he ordered. “I will be boarding my shuttle now. We will drop as scheduled.”
One way or another, he had to get his troops on the ground, and give the troop transports a chance to run before the enigmas sprung whatever surprise they had in store.
He was about to board his shuttle when the backdoor symbol pulsed. “Why should we believe you?” The voice was so heavily disguised by software tricks that it was impossible to tell anything about the sender.
Rogero paused halfway through the hatch as he answered. “Because if Midway’s ground forces wanted you dead, Midway’s mobile forces could have dropped rocks on you when they went past this planet.”
“What does Midway want? What will they do to us?”
“Midway wants to destroy the alien base and keep the Syndicate from establishing a new base of its own. That’s all. You must have heard that Midway takes prisoners. But we don’t hold them. You want to go home, that’s fine with us. You want to stay and work with us, that’s fine. You want to go somewhere else, that’s fine, too.”
A long pause, while the time to drop approached and Rogero waited with growing impatience.
“We need proof,” the voice finally said.
“Fine,” Rogero said. “I told you that we’re not going to attack you. We’re landing a few kilometers from you, and will not fire on you. No prelanding bombardment, no suppression or covering fire from the shuttles. No weapons will be fired at you unless someone fires at us, and then we will target only the shooter. How’s that?”
“How can you guarantee that?” the voice demanded suspiciously.
“Because I have a say in what happens,” Rogero replied immediately, knowing that any hesitation in answering would look bad. “We have to start down now. Our transports need to have time to get clear of possible attacks by the enigmas. Expect the aliens to open fire on both your ground forces and ours as soon as they realize we are not attacking you.”
The link cut off. With an exasperated curse muttered under his breath, Rogero entered the shuttle already crowded with other soldiers and locked one armored fist onto a strap hanging from the overhead. He scanned the status of his unit one last time before giving the launch order. Every one of his soldiers had their systems scrubbed clean of enigma worms, but all were also running outer shells that portrayed infected systems but were isolated from the main systems. Hopefully, that ruse would lead the enigmas to believe that the soldiers’ armor was all still infected.
The time marker rolled down to zero. Time to go. His confirmation order went out to Leytenant Mack, all of the shuttle pilots, and every officer and soldier in his brigade. “Begin assault. No one is to fire on the Syndicate ground forces unless they fire on us, and then all return fire is to be aimed at any shooters and no one else. Be prepared to engage the entire Syndicate ground force if necessary, but only when you receive orders to do so. Do not forget that there are a lot of citizens down there among the ground forces, and the snakes with them will probably use those citizens as human shields if they can.”
The shuttle lurched as it detached from the troop transport, swung about, then dropped toward the planet below. On his display, Rogero could see dozens of shuttles that had come off both transports mimicking the movement of his own.
An assault drop against a known opponent was bad enough, usually with assorted forms of flak filling the atmosphere and aiming to rip open or tear apart the descending shuttles. But this time as the shuttles fell toward the planet there was only an eerie quiet. The newly landed Syndicate ground forces hadn’t been able to assemble any of their aerospace defenses yet, and the enigmas remained silent. Rogero had no doubt that they were watching, though. Watching, and waiting, for the two human forces to engage in the fratricidal warfare that they had seen humans perform many, many times.
But sometimes even humans could figure out how stupid that was.
And sometimes humans didn’t do what everyone expected them to do.
Rogero’s display showed five minutes left until the shuttles reached the surface. He triggered the comm circuit that covered the shuttles and the transports. “Assume hostile fire will commence the moment the shuttles lift. Initiate full countermeasures on lift. Transports, follow evasive orbiting maneuvers until you clear the planet. All units will drop false system shells at my command.”
The shuttles fell in a perfect pattern, unshaken by any defensive fire, but still braking hard at the last to minimize their time at slow speed near the surface. Rogero braced himself against the momentum, letting his armor support his body as the shuttle he was on decelerated fas
t enough to make him feel like his feet were going to punch right through the lower deck.
The ramp at the rear of the shuttle slammed down at the same moment the shuttle touched dirt. “Go!” Rogero roared, and as he charged out, all around thirty-five more shuttles were also disgorging soldiers.
He went to one knee, scanning his display. Soldiers were scattering away from the shuttles, some dropping to cover their comrades, and as Rogero watched every shuttle finished unloading and leapt skyward at the same moment.
Not a shot had come from the Syndicate ground forces positions, though that might be because Rogero had placed his own drop at extreme range for the Syndicate hand weapons.
“All units, drop false system shells,” he ordered, simultaneously activating a command that should ensure every individual soldier did exactly that.
He figured it would take the enigmas perhaps ten seconds to realize what had happened, as their precise information about what Rogero’s soldiers and shuttles were doing suddenly vanished.
At five seconds, he had reached the edge of a very large crater where the enigma bombardment had once pulverized the human presence on this world, and slid into cover among the upthrust, broken rocks, checking his soldiers to see that they were all following instructions to do the same. At the edge of his display he could see part of the Syndicate positions, scattered red symbols marking individual soldiers deployed to defend against his own landing.
At eight seconds, his display lit up with a host of threat symbols and warnings. Fortunately, unlike the Syndicate soldiers who had been massacred here before, Rogero’s soldiers did not have enigma worms hiding the incoming fire and providing homing information for it.
Rogero felt the ground shudder as enigma weapons plunged blindly into rock and dirt and exploded all around the area where his soldiers clung to whatever cover they had found. Above, enigma antiaerospace weapons were darting upward into a sky suddenly filled with flares, chaff, and smoke thrown out by the fleeing shuttles to confuse enemy seekers.
Five kilometers away, more enigma fire was ravaging the Syndicate positions. Rogero watched red symbols winking out, marking Syndicate soldiers killed, but saw that at least two-thirds of them were still alive. Some of the Syndicate workers had trusted him.
He wondered if the citizens were under cover, or exposed to the enigma barrage.
The first attack dwindled rapidly and then stopped. Rogero waited, controlling his breathing, his eyes locked on his display, where the sensors on every set of battle armor were linked into a net giving him as much information as possible.
If the enigmas were smart, and everything he knew about them argued that they were smart, then their next move was obvious.
“Everyone hold position,” Rogero ordered. “All personnel set active countermeasures on auto.”
The second wave of fire erupted from unseen launchers and swept across the area. The enigma weapons moved very fast, and this time they were using active seekers to spot the human soldiers. But the battle armor picked up those seeker signals and every soldier’s armor began tossing out chaff rounds as well, forming a cloud that covered the unit.
Rogero saw some of his soldiers get hit and breathed a curse. A lot more of the Syndicate symbols were vanishing, but apparently someone on that side had also finally ordered active countermeasures to be employed because the losses slowed abruptly. Unfortunately, the countermeasures also blocked Rogero’s view of not only the Syndicate positions but also the net linking his own soldiers.
The ground was shaking again, not in the spastic series of jolts that marked enigma weapons impacting nearby, but a prolonged and deep juddering that felt like the planet was tearing itself open.
Which, he realized, was exactly what was happening.
“—two kilometers . . . planet . . . again . . . two ki . . . north . . . drop z—”
The broken voice transmission from one of the transports, barely able to cut through the countermeasures, cut off completely. Rogero looked toward planetary north, not seeing anything in that direction, but his armor reported that the soil tremors were coming from there.
Whatever it was, it was big. He hoped the transports were already running for all they were worth.
Even through the dust and chaff Rogero saw to the north vast shapes suddenly hurling themselves skyward. Enigma warships. The aliens had launched another part of their ambush, opening some immense access just to the north of him, from which at least a dozen warships were heading into space as fast as they dared accelerate in atmosphere. They must have hollowed out some huge hangars down there. How big is this base that I’m supposed to capture?
Rogero hit the comm override which would boost his signal strength and use a special low-data-rate frequency which would punch through the chaff. “Everyone break north. All units except First Company advance toward expected very large access to the enemy base.”
He glanced at the little information still showing on his display, remembering where his units had been before the picture went to pieces. “First Company, take up position screening our flank against any attack from the direction of the Syndicate forces.” The Syndicate soldiers were probably still hunkered down against the chance of another incoming barrage, but if any snakes and supervisors had survived the enigma attacks they might order an assault. Or the Syndicate soldiers, confused, scared, and mostly leaderless, might panic and attack the only target they could see, which was Rogero’s force.
Shutting off the special circuit, Rogero scrambled away from his position, knowing that the enigmas had probably spotted his transmission. He zigzagged toward the north, then as a warning appeared on his display Rogero flattened himself to the ground.
He and nearby rocks bounced as something big hit and exploded where Rogero had transmitted from. He felt both relieved and annoyed. Did the aliens think he was amateurish enough to have stayed in that spot? It was nice to be underestimated, especially when it kept you from being killed, but also insulting.
The enigmas had shifted their focus and were concentrating their fire on the area where the Syndicate soldiers and citizens were located. They were probably still getting some data from infected systems over there. Maybe they also thought they should focus on the larger group, though most of the Syndicate presence was civilians who posed no threat to the enigmas.
Nearing the edge of the chaff field, Rogero saw his display begin updating rapidly as his armor systems reestablished links. His forces were all moving, the majority north toward where the enigma hatch was located. Most of First Company, still under the drifting chaff, could not be seen, but intermittent detections of some showed them sliding sideways into the blocking positions that Rogero had ordered.
The Syndicate troops couldn’t do the same, he knew. The Syndicate didn’t want workers thinking for themselves, so Syndicate ground forces were required to carry out detailed plans. With many supervisors dead and countermeasures blocking net links, Syndicate-trained soldiers would be without any explicit instructions on what to do. If they moved, it would be a mob movement.
But, Rogero knew, when under fire and not knowing what to do, the average soldier would stay under cover. Which meant he shouldn’t have to worry much about the Syndicate ground forces for a while.
“That is one BFH,” an awed voice cut across the command circuit.
Annoyed again, this time by the undisciplined message on a critical circuit, Rogero was preparing to chastise the offender when someone else answered. “Yeah. Biggest hole I ever saw.”
His display was updating again as information flowed in from the battle armor of the soldiers who had reached the near edge of the enigma hatch. Rogero stared in disbelief at the small section of arc that filled the upper part of his helmet’s display. He pulled back the scale. He pulled it back again.
Twenty kilometers across. The enigma hole was twenty kilometers from side to side.
Rogero ran past soldiers who were lying or kneeling in covered positions, ran until he reached the edge of the hole and could peer across it and partway down.
It felt like looking into space from a hatch on a spacecraft.
“Send a probe down it,” Rogero ordered one of his scouts, his message now able to go out through the unit net and therefore not broadcasting his position to the watching enigmas.
The scout pulled back an arm and hurled a probe out into the hole.
The probe, designed to be nearly invisible to defensive sensors, had barely begun to drop when an enigma weapon speared it and turned it into falling junk.
“Drop the next one instead of throwing it,” Rogero said. Maybe the enigmas had spotted the motion . . .
A scout extended an arm holding a probe, only to have the probe shot out of her grasp and two other enigma shots slam into her lower arm.
As a medic dashed to the wounded scout, she wriggled back from the edge. “That didn’t work, sir,” she got out between teeth tightly clamped against the pain.
“This time I want every scout to launch a probe simultaneously,” Rogero ordered.
The probes arched out over the hole. Rogero’s systems registered dozens of shots coming out of the hole, and every probe went dead.
“Sir, we try to go over that edge, they’ll take us apart,” the scout commander reported. “It must be too easy for them to spot movement against the edge of the opening or above it.”
“Try sending down gnats,” Rogero said.
“It’ll take a while for gnats to drop far,” the scout commander cautioned.
“I know. But they’re one of our stealthiest scout methods. Let’s see what they can do.” The gnats were the size of insects, with limited capability and range, but they were very hard to spot.
What they could do, Rogero quickly learned, was go silent when barely inside the hole as something knocked out every gnat.
It didn’t take any particular sensitivity to the mood of the soldiers around him to know that none of them wanted to follow the probes or the gnats down that hole. They might follow him, Rogero thought, if he led the way. But since he would clearly die within a second or two of doing so, they were unlikely to follow him far.