The Tau Ceti Agenda

backward, flipping over feet-down, and crashing through another yacht.

A few more seconds of the trash and thrash, and the AA boats were sinking, smoking, piles of wreckage that the EPA would have to clean up. But as far as she could tell, there hadn't been a single human being aboard any of the vehicles. They had all been AI-driven.

James, did Saw make it to ground?

Yes, Jawbone. The SARs have been detached for him. The AIC assured Delilah that the search and rescue (SAR) teams knew about Saw and were on their way.

Good. Now, where is the president?

One mile west, here. A blue dot in her DTM started blinking on and off.

Right. Delilah toggled the bot back to fighter mode and jetted in the direction of the mechanical spider, zigging and zagging through trees and the occasional golf resort condominium.

'Jawbone! Goddamn, girl, you were doing some serious trashing and thrashing down here.' Heehaw's voice broke through on the net, as his and several other FM-12s dropped from supersonic above her. The booms crashed against the cockpit, rattling Delilah's bones.

'Yeah, well, tell that to Saw.' She pitched up the fighter-mode plane and pushed forward on the HOTAS with her left hand and yanked along the vector to the presidential limo.

'Roger that.'

'I've got a vector on the limo. Who's on me?'

'Jaw, take the point. We're with you, Lieutenant Strong.'

'Heehaw, DTMs showing incoming on the limo's tail.' Delilah checked her QMs for better resolution on the incoming. They appeared to be airplanes. Very old airplanes.

'Roger that, Jawbone. I've got 'em in view,' Heehaw replied. 'Want to go fishing?'

'I call worm!' Jawbone quickly added.

She slapped the throttle forward and bounced the stick left then right as her mecha dipped below the tree line. The Florida pines stood well over thirty meters tall, giving the presidential limo some cover. She nosed down and rocketed between an opening in several of the trees, finding a driving lane from which to approach the limo. She was fairly sure that the SIFs and the modern armor of the marine mecha could withstand a fly-through of one of the trees at the velocity she was traveling, but Delilah really didn't want to test them. After all, she was only fairly sure. One of the trees ahead of her began to fall toward the limo, and she had to back off of the throttle even more, so as not to hit the tree's top as she vectored in on the attack planes.

'BIL, we've got company!' Alexander shouted. There were several red dots in his DTM careening toward them at a fairly hard clip. The visual sensors showed that they appeared to be ancient, propeller- driven biplanes from World War I. Three of the plastic planes zoomed through the pine trees, hot on BIL's tail on collision trajectories. BIL juked and jinked through the Florida pines, barely keeping the planes off his tail.

Four more of the planes dropped in on them and apparently had railguns, as trees in front of them were being chewed up. One thirty- meter-tall pine's trunk exploded from the cannon fire and started falling toward them. BIL managed to duck under the tree and spring upward through its falling branches, mostly unscathed. But then one of the planes got the angle on the armored garbage truck and peppered the front end of the vehicle with several rounds.

'BIL!' Dee cried out. The ringing of the railgun rounds against his forward hull scared her.

'I'm okay, Dee.'

Sir, I cannont evade these things forever.

Don't give up, BIL!

Yes, sir.

'Motorcade One, Motorcade One, bank hard right!' a female voice came over the com-net.

'Do it, BIL!' The president could see the blue dots in his mindview forming rapidly on the red ones. The marines were coming.

Through the visual sensors, Alexander could see one of the marine mecha fighters screaming through the pine trees, going to guns and splattering two of the amusement park airplanes. Then it turned nose-up and accelerated into a transfiguration, flipping over into bot mode, never missing a shot with its directed energy weapon.

Several of the planes took aim on that one marine, who was running and jumping and flipping and firing its weapons in a flash of maneuvers that left many of the enemy attackers in flaming pieces. Three more FM-12s flashed by firing guns at the things. With hindsight, Moore realized that the first marine had been bait to draw the enemy planes onto her, while the other marines formed up on them, taking them out.

At one point, the bot-mode mecha ran directly toward BIL at very high speeds. The bot-mode feet pounded the Florida sand, flinging dust in a rooster tail behind it. Then it leaped forward in a skyward roll over the limo so close that Moore could see the armored helmet of the pilot in the sensors and could read 'Lieutenant Delilah 'Jawbone' Strong' painted just under the canopy.

'That marine deserves a promotion,' the president said to himself.

Chapter 11

October 31, 2388 AD

Sol System

Oort Cloud

Saturday, 6:15 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

Separatist drop tanks poured in seemingly infinite supply from the north and both sides. Warboys pressed the Warlords forward, deeper and deeper into the line. The red dots in the colonel's DTM were thick in front of him, but