The holo image appeared in the air beside the major. One of the names under pod two was deJahn.
At least Meralez was in pod two with him. Not that she’d ever been other than polite to him, but even that helped.
“Any questions, Techs?” Delles barely paused before adding, “Dismissed. Operation begins at zero nine hundred local tomorrow.”
DeJahn stood.
Meralez walked by him, as if she would not speak to him.
He nodded, deciding against smiling.
“I saw that. With Vielho. You’re not so cold. Not like people think.” She flashed a quick smile, almost secretive, before her face turned just tech-pleasant.
Cold? He kept to himself, but he wasn’t cold, was he?
X.
Then it was his turn. He extended his hand to the sensor.
Entry granted.
He slipped into the dimness. Captain DiLayne was OpsCon again. That figured. Delles would
take the main pod. Pod two was smaller, with only four sensie-seats. DeJahn took the second seat, and watched as Meralez stopped beside the third. He smiled at her through the dimness, but only for a moment. She only nodded.
He eased the mesh linkcap into place, then settled himself.
The good news was that his targets weren’t people, but the bad news was that he was riding herd on reptilian bioexplosives almost as deadly as ultra-ex. He’d need careful timing for the disengagement.
The five plots displayed thesnators, all arrayed around Lumut, each less than three thousand yards from the target. Each had been sent in with a biogator weeks or months before, little more than a programmed bioblastula with accelerated growth patterning. That kind of planning was something deJahn didn’t want to think about.
He didn’t need any more urging. The first group of snators left wakes, so energetic was their water entry. The odor of decaying meat permeated that link.
No smell through the sensie-links? DeJahn snorted to himself, even as he blocked the decay odor and the snators slowed, their snouts turning from side to side, as if puzzled by the change, but they kept swimming downstream.
The second attack group had begun to slide through the marsh and reeds toward the nodecaster on the low hillock to the south. The last three hundred yards was across what amounted to mowed lawn, and deJahn would have to sacrifice one of the snators to take out the sonic electric gating to the lawn—it might have been a cricket field or pitch, whatever they called it.
Group three had a curving path through the public gardens, exposed most of the way. That worried deJahn. Gatorlike creatures in the gardens would certainly attract some attention, but then, if need be, he could push them into a run, and snators could make speed.
Four and five had near-direct water routes, with only the last few hundred yards exposed, but five had to cross a side road, supposedly with low traffic.
He flicked from image to image, flickering from snator to snator so fast that twice the integrator blanked. The snators’ binocular vision was clear, and there wasn’t much color. He wanted to get a better and quicker personal sense of locale matched with the plot map, but he forced himself to slow down.
He did have another thirty standard minutes, and the snators were fast.
Group five was running ahead, but deJahn didn’t see that it mattered. Better ahead and clear than on sched and facing opposition.
Group three was already on target, less than sixty yards below the nodecaster concealed in an artificial rock cliff slightly north of the center of the gardens.
One of the local patrollers was also there, and she had a stun-rifle out, leveling it at the lead snator. DeJahn dropped the third snator into limited free hunt, because its reactions and impulses were far faster than his through the links.
Her shot went wide. She did not get a second shot.
Someone else did, with a biodetonator.
Electrofire slammed back through the links, and deJahn shuddered, even as he accelerated two of the gators toward the base of the cliff, seeking whatever access points there might be. Neither of the two lagging snators could locate the attacker, even as one registered projectiles screaming past it.
Giving up on locating the attacker, deJahn pressed the laggards after the leaders, strengthening the lure of decaying meat.
A second snator went up, this time with its own bioex, leaving flame in deJahn’s eyes. He shook off the pain feedback and checked the closure. The three remaining were close enough. He triggered them, holding the link for the barest moment to make sure the command had gone true, before disengaging.
Even so, the shock rocked him, because some of the snators’ death agony washed back over him.
Automatics of some soil popped up from the sides of the cricket field right alter deJahn
detonated and disengaged from the sacrificial snator. Two of the remaining snators were shredded by the autofire, but three others sprinted through the hail of composite to the other side and the base of the nodecaster, surrounded by three yards of impermite. Impermite was weak stuff compared to NorAm bioex.
DeJahn triggered and disengaged.
Pointed iron picks began to chip away at his skull.
Group four scuttled and splashed through the tanks of a low-tech wetworks to reach the back side of another low hill. A dozen Seasies in dull green uniforms appeared.
DeJahn sent the lead gator toward them, using it—with an early detonation—to clear the way for the others.
Another trigger and disengage.
Now… large and ancient cannon were blowing holes in his skull. How it felt, anyway.
He struggled to focus on the link to group one. Still short of target.
Five… where was five?
Trying to cross the road, and two local patrollers were laying down a fire curtain.
That cost him two snators, but the patrollers and their vehicles went up with the bioex. He just hoped the two remaining snators had enough bioex for the nodecaster as he put them on free search-and-destroy.
Group one.
Just as he linked, he could feel the biofield constrictor sweep across the snators of group one.
