contact with her. And as the Queen reached out to touch her adopted children, she sang to them in a language as old as the fi?rst nest, and fi?lled the air with the chemicals that they needed and wanted.
It was the most amazing thing Fobor had ever seen, and he said as much. “Yes,” Ubatha agreed thoughtfully, as the royal worked her magic. “We are truly blessed.”
The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyze the enemy’s organized communications.
3
PLANET GAMMA-014, THE CLONE HEGEMONY
The town of Strat’s Deep was located at the foot of the Hebron mountain range, right on top of a large deposit of nickel, about forty miles north of Tow-Tok Pass. There were a number of ways to reach the settlement, but given the fact that the Ramanthians were patrolling both the sky and the roads, Colonel Six and his men chose to approach the mining community via an old foot trail. Having arrived on a broad machine-carved ledge high above the town, the offi?cer ordered his troops to take cover in an abandoned mine shaft, and scanned Strat’s Deep through his binoculars. The town consisted of forty identical homes, all of which were bunched together on the west side of the railroad track that had been built to haul iridium away. Though no expert on the subject, Six knew iridium was a by-product of nickel and that there were two ways to extract the element from the planet’s crust. The fi?rst approach was called open-cut mining, which wasn’t practical given the steep terrain, and the fact that the ore was deep underground. For that reason a series of side-by-side shafts had been driven deep into the mountainside where the newly mined material was loaded onto the low-profi?le tunnel trucks that were used to bring the ore down to the processing plant. And, judging from what Six could see through his binoculars, the mine was still in operation. Was that because Ramanthians had occupied the town and were forcing the humans to work? Or because the locals hadn’t received instructions to shut the operation down? The latter was certainly possible given all the confusion.
The answer soon became apparent as the offi?cer heard a loud thrumming sound and ducked as a Ramanthian shuttle passed overhead. The transport completed one circuit of the settlement before putting down at the center of the shabby town square. Six was still recovering from the shock associated with the aircraft’s sudden appearance when a squad of Ramanthians emerged from the administration building and herded a group of humans toward the shuttle. Meanwhile, what might have been boxes of rations or ammo were being unloaded and placed on the ground. Once that task was completed, the prisoners were forced to board the alien ship, which lifted off a few moments later. Six was hidden in a cluster of boulders by the time the shuttle passed overhead and departed for the south.
The offi?cer waited for a full fi?ve minutes to make sure that the aircraft wouldn’t circle back before leaving his hiding place and crossing the ledge. Two heavily armed Seebos were on guard just inside the entrance to the mine and nodded to their CO as he entered. The rest of the company was camped about a hundred feet back and well out of sight. Lieutenant Seebo-790,444, better known to the troops as Four-Four, looked up from the pot he was tending. The junior offi?cer looked much as Six had twenty years earlier. “Pull up a rock, sir. Your tea will be ready in a minute.”
It felt good to sit down, and as Six held his hands out to collect some of the fuel tab’s excess heat, he knew the chill in the air was nothing compared to what winter would bring.
“So,” the younger offi?cer ventured. “How does it look?”
“The town is crawling with bugs,” Six answered gloomily.
“It’s my guess that they were dropped in during the early hours of the invasion.”
“So you were right,” Lieutenant-44 mused, as he poured steaming-hot water into a metal mug. “They’re after the iridium.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Colonel Six observed as he accepted his share of the tea. “I can’t think of any other reason to attack this slush ball.”
Four-Four took a tentative sip from his mug, found the brew to his liking, and cupped the container with both hands. His breath fogged the air. “So what’s the plan?”
“We’ll wait for nightfall, go down into the valley, and kill every chit we fi?nd,” Six replied coldly. The junior offi? cer raised an eyebrow. “And then?”
“And then we’ll cut the tracks, blow the processing plant, and seal the mine. Winter’s coming, so it will be a good six months before the Ramanthians can reopen the facility. Assuming we don’t kick their assess off the planet before then.”
Lieutenant-44 was silent for a moment as if considering what his superior had said. “What about the workers?” he inquired seriously. “There could be reprisals.”
Colonel Six remembered the townspeople who had been loaded onto the Ramanthian shuttle for transportation to who knows where. “Yes,” he answered soberly. “Based on reports from inside the Confederacy, reprisals are extremely likely. Those who can fi?ght will be asked to join us. Those who can’t will create places to hide in old mine shafts like this one. And the locals know where they are.”
Four-Four wasn’t sure how people would survive something like that but was careful to keep his thoughts to himself. The clones spent the afternoon catching up on sleep, cooking a communal meal, and maintaining their gear. Once the sun had set, the guerrilla fi?ghters followed their commanding offi?cer out of the mine shaft and down a weather-eroded access road toward the dimly lit town below. Thanks to the night-vision goggles they wore, everything had a greenish glow, but the soldiers were used to that, and quickly split into platoons. The fi?rst platoon, under Colonel Six, made its way toward the administration building. Meanwhile the second platoon, under Lieutenant-44, was headed for the processing plant.
Having had the town under observation all afternoon, the Seebos had a pretty good idea where most of the Ramanthians were, but there were other problems to cope with. Not the least of which was the necessity to eliminate all resistance without giving the bugs a chance to call in reinforcements. Fortunately, the clones had the
