As we transferred to the front line, I felt the war between my two sides surfacing. Outside of boot camp, Batista had no assault training. Kazan had trained extensively from the beginning, the Corps never sure what they’d run into as we explored outside our own solar system.
Even so, I’d never used the training, until now and had Remy and Lizzy to worry about. I also had the Parredet to worry about, creatures who’d shorn their warring ways, and we’d brought that poison back to their world. I looked at Yinet and Gerret, regretting ever coming here.
They’d joined us on the shuttle ride, but were no more amazed by it than the rest of our technology. The pilot flew up a ravine, staying below the ridge to reach the advance team’s camp. Here our team would split up.
Lizzy stayed at Yinet’s side, since she was the best at communications. Yinet’s English had improved massively and her tribe had picked up many of the essential words the soldiers needed. But there were still moments that needed translations.
When we reached the clearing the shuttle team started setting up our command post. The rest of us were matched up with Parredet who would take us to the front lines. I worried about stealth, how quiet we could be, but our friends lived this life. The dropped us far enough from the forest edge to not be seen or heard.
Remy and I walked the last few meters, dropping into a crouch as we reached the ridge overlooking the mining camp. All the vids hadn’t done the operation justice.
They’d maintained the trees about the mountain face, but rubble and trash was strewn about the floor of the forest. This particularly angered the Parredet. These men didn’t respect any species. The bones of wildlife were strewn into the garbage piled at the forest’s edge.
Remy slipped back behind the rock we’d been spying from. “Filthy animals. I’m ashamed of being in the same species.”
“They’ve always been around.” I joined him, ignoring the rock pressing between my shoulder blades. “What did you see of any significance?”
Remy pulled his thoughts back to the assignment. “Their equipment is vulnerable. We can take it out easily enough, but we’ll need to get to their shuttle. I need a closer look.” He crawled back into the foliage, before standing up again. I was on his heels.
Under the shade of the trees, our escorts waited. Remy pointed where he wanted to go and they grabbed us up for the treetop tour. It had taken nearly a day for me to dare to open my eyes and watch, but now I couldn’t take my eyes off of the vantage point they gave us. I clung easily, aided by a harness the Parredet fashioned for us.
Our escorts carried us deeper into the forest to avoid detection. When we reached the other side of the valley, the Parredet cautiously dropped down to a ledge across from the miner’s shuttle. They dissolved back into the forest and let us do our surveillance work.
Remy wriggled between two boulders, giving him a perfect vantage point. His quietness made me uneasy. I was about to prod him when he slipped back out of the boulders.
I didn’t like the look on his face. “Well?”
“They’re virtually the same design as our shuttles, right down to the rivet placement.” He shook his head. “That confirms an inside job. Someone passed them the plans.”
I wanted to crawl out for a look myself, but we were taking a chance as it was. “Let’s get back to command. Schaeffer needs this info out on the next comm-link.”
Remy crawled behind me, back to where we’d been dropped. Our escorts showed up, taking us back to our command post. Remy didn’t speak at all, not until Schaeffer returned from his own reconnaissance. Campfires were out of the question, but we gathered around our food storage unit. He got his meal and quietly ate with Lizzy.
No one talked until we dropped our containers into recycling. Schaeffer leaned forward, setting his comm on the food box. “Let’s get this over with. The link will be open for only a few seconds in the morning, so I have to have this coded and ready to go.”
Each team leader reported in until it was our turn. Remy downloaded his surveillance vid, bringing up the mining equipment. “First, this will be the easy part. We can wreck it with just a few carefully placed explosives. Pop some charges along this shaft and it’ll never be repairable.” He ran his finger along the display, a line transmitted to everyone else’s coms.
It was as simple as he’d claimed, but it was more than dismantling their mining equipment. The men in their camp looked rough and were armed. That added to the challenge of capturing as many of these men as possible, and finding out who hired them.
From equipment, Remy went to the shuttle. A projection appeared on everyone’s screens and I could see why he’d been so quiet. “This is our largest threat.” Their shuttle was identical to ours, except for the weapons.
Remy zoomed in on the engine exhausts. “This would be the ideal spot to disable their ship from flight, but we need to take out the weaponry. I’m an engineer, but without a better look, I can’t tell you how to best destroy them. We need to take them out before we can bring in the second wave.”
“Our recon should have caught this.” Schaeffer tapped at the weapons mounted on the upper half of the craft, enlarging the image.
“Maybe, but we had to get up close to see the modification.” I interrupted before he turned to the recon leader. “They were under orders to keep back a distance. We were close enough to throw rocks and hit it.”
Schaeffer gave me a nod. “A wise choice. It does confirms what recon observed. There’s no one manning the shuttle. If they’re that lax on security, we should send a team to
