Tommy crawled up behind an outcropping of concrete, steel, and other rubble surrounding a giant guy cable. The cable was a stranded material that looked like a cross between steel and some composite and was more than seventy centimeters in diameter and several kilometers long, stretching from one planetoid to the other. There were other smaller cables running from the ground up to the wall of the octagon.
One of the smaller cables led up into the sky above him and fixed to the southernmost side of the outer octagon of the teleporter that spanned the space between the six o'clock and the nine o'clock planetoids. Tommy increased the magnification of his sensors on the cable and followed it up to where it met the construct. There were no entrances on that side that he could see.
His QMs pinged around him and generated a three-dimensional map in his head of the environment, showing no red groundpounders. For the time being, they were alone and in the clear, more than a kilometer from the center of the fighting. None of the unit had fired a shot yet, and Tommy wasn't sure if he was glad of that or not.
'Got anything, Suez?' Private First Class Danny Bates took a knee beside him. As he dropped his armored knee crunched and shattered a rock beneath him. The dull gray camo of his e-suit blended into the background so well that Tommy had to enhance his vision with the QMs and IRs just to see him.
'We're clean, as best I can tell. Don't see a way in yet, though.' Suez turned his armored head toward the private and smiled. 'We might just have to blast our way in, Private.'
'Would you look at that.' PFC Bates whistled. 'What the hell kind of cable is that? Look how long that sucker is. It goes damned near out of sight.'
'Yeah, it's a BFC,' Tommy replied nonchalantly.
'A BFC?'
'Big Fucking Cable. There's a wiki on it. Look it up, Private.' Tommy could see the expression on Bates' face. The PFC was obviously having his AIC check it out.
'No shit,' Bates mumbled and laughed.
'Pagoolas, take your team!' Gunny's voice buzzed the net again.
Tommy looked back over his shoulder to see Corporal Pagoolas and Private First Class Felicity Kent belly-slide about a hundred meters to their east and slightly up the ridge of the crater, closer to the ten-story-high wall of the octagon. A glint in the sky caught his eye. A small craft crested over another crater rim to the east of them by four or five kilometers and dropped out of sight. Then another one ripped across the deck right after it, firing DEG blasts. The blue-green blast from the pursuing mecha was followed by orange cannon tracers from another plane that must have been the second one's wingman. Tommy zoomed in on the fight and watched as a small detachment of marine FM-12s zigged and zagged over the top of the meteor crater and the facility wall, chasing enemy Stingers. The fighters stormed over the crest of the ridge out of sight, and there was a fireball eruption that followed.
Then, several low-flying glints caught his eye a little farther south. They were too big and slow for mecha. Tommy watched a little closer and then got a good sensor zoom on one of them. It was the Seppy version of the Starhawk—the Lorda troop lifter. The lifters dropped quickly over the nearest edge of the crater and then vanished out of sight, undetected by any other mecha.
'Gunny, we're clean over here, and there's no way into this thing that I can find,' Suez explained. 'There is some some enemy air traffic farther to the east.'
'Roger that, Suez. You and Bates start making your way along the wall of that thing toward Pagoolas.'
'Affirmative.' Tommy rose, pulling his HVAR to his right shoulder, and he grinned at Bates, who was still staring at the BFC. 'You heard the lady, Danny. Let's get moving.'
'Major, the teams are all leapfrogging along the wall, moving eastward,' Gunnery Seargent Tamara McCandless informed her boss. Tamara stood back against the facility wall, looking south at the battle that was raging a kilometer or so away on the other side of the impact crater. The line had pretty much stopped any movement forward or backward and was reaching a point of stalemate.
'Good thing we got through when we did, hey Gunny?' Major Roberts replied with a glance southward himself.
'Yes sir. I guess so,' she said. 'Sergeant Nicks is easternmost, sir. She is probably a good three kilometers ahead of us by now, and we still have no good idea of how to get into this thing. Lance Corporal Suez reported that there is air traffic farther up , and Sergeant Nicks has verified that. Maybe there is something on up worth blowing up.'
'Keep moving us east, Gunny. Send the next team twice the distance this time.'
'Yes, Major. Suez, you're up again! Double the gap.'
'Let's go, Danny.' Lance Corporal Suez slapped the PFC on the shoulder. Tommy stood and bounced his jumpboots against the ground, which was mostly metal and concrete now. The bounce tossed him a good fifty meters. At the apex of his bounce, he could see over the ridgeline of the nearest crater and he noticed several other vehicles flying in and out. His trajectory dropped, and he bounced again. After a few minutes of bouncing, he and PFC Bates had leapfrogged Sergeant Nicks' team by more than two kilometers and were quickly approaching the rim of the crater.
'Suez, look!' PFC Bates pointed an armored finger at the edge of the crater where it met up against the ten- story wall of the teleport facility. Below the ridgeline were several hangar doors and Seppy fighters, and support equipment flew in and out.
'Like following honeybees to a hive.' Suez smiled. 'Gunny, we've got an entry portal up here. Looks like hangars.'
'Roger that, Suez. Sit tight, we're on our way.'
