Ahead of us, the twin tunnels rose from the waters of Lake Norris like a double-barreled shotgun. Mars drove the Jackal right up to the tunnel for northbound traffic, then came to a stop.
I climbed out. To my left was Lake Norris, an endless stretch of sparkling water. A bright sun hung high into the sky. Like Olympus Kri, Terraneau would have a radiant final day. Perhaps the tachyons caused clear weather; perhaps they needed clear weather to perform their work of death. All I knew was that the sky was clear, and a chilled, crisp breeze blew off Lake Norris. The wind cooled one side of my face, and the heat from the fires warmed the other. The breeze put a crease in the column of greasy black smoke that rose from the flames. Heat ripples hovered over the wreckage, and the flames looked especially orange.
I climbed back into the Jackal and powered up the radar-scope. Mars, a sailor and engineer who had never seen ground fighting, asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s radar,” I said.
On the scope, swarms of dots appeared. Some represented the burning barriers, some were in the air.
I looked back at Freeman, and said, “The home team’s coming in at six o’clock.” The militia would not need to drive across town to get to us; as long as they had pilots, they could fly here in transports. I’d left a small fleet of transports behind when I evacuated Fort Sebastian.
Transports were big and bulky, but unarmed. Had we left fighters behind, Tomcats or Harriers, they could have fired rockets at us from the air. They could, of course, ferry tanks and troops in those transports, but they would not be able to attack from the air.
Freeman pushed his way out of the Jackal, bringing with him his rifle and gear. He surveyed the three-lane entrance of the tunnel. The way his mind worked, he instantly spotted tactical advantages that most men would miss. He was clever and cunning; and though he had come to save lives, he would kill without mercy. With Doctorow in charge, the only lives that could be saved on Terraneau belonged to me and Mars and the Corps of Engineers.
The first transports appeared above the barriers. They flew so slowly they looked like they would fall, hovering like bees as they passed over the fiery obstacle course. Mars watched them and chuckled, then asked, “Where do they think they’re going to land?”
The only road leading to the front of the tunnels was blocked; and the tunnels rose out of the lake. There was no place to land behind them.
A transport passed over our heads, circled us in the air, then returned the way that it had come. Several more transports followed. I counted eight, but there might have been more. Each of those transports could carry one hundred troops, but they could also carry a tank or a combination of men and machinery.
I walked up beside Freeman as he geared up, attaching grenades to his armor and checking the clip in his rifle. “How long do you think we have?” I asked. “How long before the planet burns?”
Freeman shrugged his shoulders and continued loading bullets and grenades.
“Care to guess?” I asked.
“Maybe ten minutes, maybe ten hours,” he said. Freeman was an agent of action who left prophecies and predictions to the likes of Arthur Breeze and William Sweetwater.
“I don’t suppose you brought Sweetwater with you,” I said.
“They’re in a U.A. computer. The only way to talk to them is to have a capital ship nearby.”
“But you had them with you when I met you on Olympus Kri …” I stopped myself in midsentence. Another piece suddenly fitted into the puzzle. “Their self-broadcasting spy ships …they had a cloaked ship orbiting Olympus Kri.”
Freeman, of course, did not comment. Instead, he said, “We need to get into the tunnel. We can’t get pinned down out here.” As I left him, he was carrying equipment into the tunnel and preparing for a fight.
The differences between men. Freeman stood silent and subdued, all of his attention focused on the road as he waited for the militia to attack. I found Mars gabbing with a knot of about thirty engineers. They were in the tunnel, but no more than fifty feet from the entrance.
“Where are the rest of your men?” I asked. When I left Terraneau, Mars had one thousand engineers in his corps.
“In there, waiting for us.” Mars pointed down the tunnel as he spoke.
“Do you have men guarding both tunnels?” I asked.
Mars shook his head. “We flooded the southbound tube.”
I nodded, and said, “You better tuck your men in; the fighting is about to begin.”
“What about the aliens?” he asked.
“One battle at a time,” I said. “Freeman and I will slow the militia while you and your men dig in. After that, we’ll work on the blast doors.”
“Hear that, guys. It’s time,” Mars said. He sounded so damn cheerful that I thought he must have misunderstood me. His engineers scattered. Two of them climbed into a freight truck that was parked along one wall of the tunnel. As they started up the engine, Mars and a few of his engineers hopped into a Jackal.
The big truck headed out the tunnel, then cut a wide U-turn and squealed to a stop. It was so large it blocked out most of the sunlight. It also completely clogged two of the three lanes leading in from the city.
The engineers hopped out of the truck unscathed.
Moments later, huge metal doors pivoted out from the shadows along the walls and shut out the rest of the sunlight. The doors were perfectly fitted for the entrance. They were tall and thick, and they slid along rails, making no more noise than a bicycle riding on a flat paved road until they connected together with an earsplitting clang.
With the doors shut, the tunnel went as dark a closet. Just a narrow seam of daylight shone in around the edges of the doors. I turned and looked into the darkness. Far away, a Jackal moved slowly through the darkness, its racks of lights casting a blinding glare. And then the tunnel lights came on, shining down on the spider’s web of scaffolding that ran along the walls.
When I did not see him immediately, I worried that we might have sealed Freeman outside the tunnel, but my worries proved unfounded. I spotted him working under the scaffolding, probably setting charges or some other defense.
One of the Jackals rolled up beside me, and Nobles hopped out. I said to him, “That flimsy door isn’t going to keep anyone out,” though I thought it might protect us from the pressure shift of a falling atmosphere.
“It’s just supposed to slow them down,” Mars said.
I kept my eyes on Freeman, watching him walk around the piping. He moved slowly, deliberately. I could not tell what he was doing.
The first grenade exploded. The force of the explosion did not destroy the iron door, but the sound of the blast echoed inside the tunnel.
One of the engineers came to me, and shouted, “Your armor is in the back of the Jackal.”
“No shit,” I said. They’d brought me armor, I was touched.
A rocket struck the door, nearly blasting it off its rails. The deafening sound was followed by the sharp
“It’s in the turret,” the man said.
I nodded and jogged to the back of the Jackal. The militia would break through in another moment. I needed armor and firepower. When I opened the door of the turret, I saw that Mars had used the space to stow a lot more than a set of armor and a handful of weapons. Two figures lay huddled on the floor, tied up and gagged.
I stared in at Ava, and she stared back at me. Her hands were bound behind her back, and someone had taped her mouth. Seeing me, she struggled and shifted her weight, mumbling incoherently all the while.
“Ava,” I said. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
She mumbled something, twisting and turning and struggling to get free. I might have untied her, but I did not have time. The next rocket knocked one of the huge metal doors out of its tracks. With a deafening yawn, it fell, kicking up a blast of air that smelled of dust, oil, sulfur, and iron.
The man lying beside Ava screamed and struggled. There was no mistaking the look of terror in his eyes. In Ava’s green eyes, I saw nothing but fury. As I grabbed my rucksack, Ava began babbling all the louder. She
