Jack McKinney RoboTech 14 Dark Powers

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He gave her a half smile. "Smart enough to come to you when I run into a
real problem."
The sensors and detectors indicated that they had made their landing
without being spotted. Sweeps by Rick, Jack, and Karen on hovercycles, and,
inevitably, a surveillance flight by Bela and Gnea on their flying horse, just
confirmed the fact.
Then it was Rem who got stubborn, as Rick assigned him, along with Gnea,
to guard the shuttle and man the commo-relay equipment, so that the recon team
would be sure of getting a direct link to Farrago if and when it was needed.
"This whole mission is pointless if we can't report back what we find
here," Rick fumed at him. "Now, I don't want any more arguments from anybody!"
Rem subsided, and the team began loading up with weapons and gear. Lron
casually weighted himself down with twice as much paraphernalia as any of the
others and didn't seem to feel the burden a bit. Something was making him most
untalkative, though.
As it was, Rick was more concerned with trying to get the right mix of
equipment and weapons distributed among his team. Lron had revealed that the
network of natural caverns and abandoned mines constituted a virtual
underground roadway, and that the unit could make most of the distance to its
objective that way.
That meant spare handheld spots, night-sight gear, and so forth. Rick
let Bela keep her Wolverine rifle, but assigned Kami to a much more powerful
but short-range Owens Mark IX mob gun, in case of close fighting down below.
Rick took a Wolverine for himself. Karen was assigned an elaborately scoped
sniper rifle, her marksmanship scores being the best of any of them.
Lron lugged the magazine-fed rocket launcher and an assortment of
ammunition; Jack was given a solid-projectile submachine gun that fired
explosive pellets. Rick made sure they were all wearing "bat-ears," in case
there was any subsurface fighting. The bat-ears amplified soft sounds, left
normal ones unchanged, but dampened loud ones-so the scouts wouldn't be
deafened in an underground firefight.
Bela didn't put up the expected argument about leaving Halidarre behind;
even she could see how impractical it would be to drag the horse through the
tight spots the team could expect to hit down below. She put aside most of her
Praxian weapons, taking only her long knife.
Lron led the way to a mine elevator that smelled of must and stale air.
He fiddled with a power connection that looked dead, and made the elevator's
motor hum with readiness. The group boarded, turning on helmet lights. Rem and
Gnea watched them descend into the darkness.
Veidt, Cabell, and the others were mystified by what they saw-or,
rather, didn't see. Long-range readings on the surface of Karbarra indicated
that there had been little or no battle damage on the planet below. Their main
city, Tracialle, was still shining and whole under its crystalline dome.
"This isn't logical," Veidt said. "The Karbarrans are fierce haters of
the Invid, and we assumed the fighting had been furious."
But instruments definitely indicated heavy Invid military activity
below, although there was no sign of combat. With some few exceptions, the
industrial and technical infrastructure seemed to be intact and functioning to
a modest degree, the buildings still standing for the most part, the social
systems operating normally.
"Perhaps this is all some ruse?" Sarna wondered, turning to her husband.
"Can it be that the Karbarrans went through all this to lure us into a
trap?-but no. Surely they could have diverted the ship here on one pretext or
another as soon as we staged our mutiny?"
"And it makes no sense for them to have risked their lives against the
Pursuer, or again in combat against the task force we surprised," Cabell
pointed out. "Then there's this business of the reconnaissance. Some piece of
the puzzle is still missing."
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They were interrupted by the ship's mismatched alarms again, and Lisa's
voice came over a PA speaker that resembled a cornucopia.
"Battle stations, battle stations! An enemy force has left hyperspace
for approach to Karbarra. They have detected us and are maneuvering for
attack. Skull Squadron and Wolff Pack, prepare for launch. All weapons
stations prepare to fife on my command!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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