"Smith, E E Doc - D'alembert 09 - Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

The late afternoon sun gleamed off some tall metal object a few kilometers away, over another set of hills. "There's something over there," Lady A said. "I think we should find out what it is." Without waiting for further discussion, she swung the copter in that direction and flew off to investigate.
In less than a minute the alien landing field came into view. The more-or-less rectangular array of ships stretched out for several kilometers across the otherwise deserted plain; it was a solemn sight, an example of the power this alien foe would bring to any fight with the Empire. "If we assume their bigger ships are still out in space," Fortier said, "this is a pretty impressive little navy."
"We also have to assume, for the moment, that this is only a small fraction of their total fleet, just enough to subdue a single planet effectively," Lady A added. "If their entire force is significantly larger than this, the Empire will be in serious trouble."
Fortier could only nod silently. While he wasn't privy to the information on the exact size of the Imperial Navy, he could make a rough estimate based on the number of naval stations scattered throughout the Empire and the number of ships normally assigned to those stations. If what they saw below them was truly representational of the alien fleet, the Empire would indeed have a fight on its hands.
"There's some buildings down there," Ivanov said, pointing to the two temporary structures, one large, one small, that stood apart near the southeast edge of the landing site near a low range of wooded hills.
Jules studied the larger building carefully. There was a steady stream of people in and out of it, and its very position this close to the ships indicated it could be of strategic importance. "I think we may have found our target," he said aloud.
"I agree," Lady A said. "A building on the edge of their landing field must have some military significance. Memorize the layout quickly; I want to get away from here before they start paying attention to us. When we're safely hidden on the ground we can discuss strategy."
She flew off again into a wooded area in the hills a few kilometers from both the slave camp and the landing field. Setting the copter down in a clearing with just barely enough room for straight vertical takeoff and landing, she proclaimed this spot as their temporary headquarters and started right off discussing their plan of attack.
"Our target has to be that larger building by the landing field," she said. "Even if it isn't their military headquarters there's bound to be important information about their ships and their manpower. Tatiana, how are you coming on their language?"
"Those instruction cards were an enormous help," the young woman replied. "My biggest worry was that the language would have a separate ideogram for each word or concept, like ancient Chinese and Japanese. That would take months of concentrated effort and plenty of samples to figure out. Fortunately, they seem to build words out of alphabet symbols. I've got most, if not all, the symbols identified; it's just a question of building up a vocabulary and a grammar. That's an accelerating process; the more material you give me to work with, the better I'll get."
"We may end up getting you a lot in a hurry," Lady A told her. "You'll have to work under pressure, possibly with a battle going on around you."
"I understand," Tatiana said grimly. "I'll do the best I can."
"What about the building itself?" Lady A asked next, looking directly at Jules.
The SOTE agent was all business. "It's a very simple structure, an inflated long tunnel with a hemispherical cross section, one door at each end and no windows. Far too simple, really; I'd rather work on something with a lot of edges and corners, a lot of places to hide. There's no way to sneak into that building; we'll have to go through one door or the other, and that makes us vulnerable. Unless the building is totally deserted, we'll have to make an assault on it and capture it, at least long enough to find the information we want and get safely away again."
Lady A nodded, "My assessment, too. But time is short and this is the best target we've found yet. We can't help but learn something of value here. Also, we were wondering how to get off-planet again once we'd picked up our information; this would solve that problem at the same time. If we learn enough to make it worth leaving Omicron, we've got a landing field full of ships to choose from."
The discussion about whether to penetrate this building continued for a little while, but it was mostly for completeness's sake; Jules, too, had come to the conclusion that this hut was a worthwhile target. The argument went pro and con for a few minutes to make sure no vital points had been overlooked, but once the decision had been made the discussion centered on the pivotal issue of how the raid would be accomplished.
"The fact is," Jules pointed out, "we don't know how many of the enemy are stationed inside the building at any given time."
"Nor how many are billeted in the nearby ships, ready to help their comrades in case of trouble," Fortier added. "And there's no way to find out short of launching our attack."
"There may be no way of learning those numbers," Lady A said, "but we can try to minimize them."
Jules nodded. "A diversion of some sort," he agreed. "It's the only way. If the aliens perceive a threat from some other direction, they'll move some of their people to counter it, leaving this building relatively unprotected. There'll probably be some defenders left back here, but it will maximize our chances of getting in safely."
The bigger the diversion, the better," Ivanov said.
"And as luck would have it," Jules said with a tight grin, "there's a diversion-in-the-making waiting for us just over the hill."
"The slave camp!" Tatiana exclaimed.
"Exactly. There's a few thousand humans kept there under guard, probably itching for the chance to break free. If we start enough of a ruckus over there, aliens will come running from the base camp to get things under control."
"Or they could just decide to wipe out the entire camp with a few well-placed bombardments," Lady A said. "That would erase our diversion along with a few thousand innocent lives."
"I didn't realize innocent lives meant that much to you," Jules said. "But I don't think they'll do that. They've gone to considerable trouble to round up their slaves and start building this city of theirs. I don't think they'd want to start over if they could help it. They'd at least make some effort to get things under control in the camp before going to the ultimate solution. If we work it right, that should be all the time we'll need."
"And in the meantime, a diversion in the slave camp would give you the opportunity to rescue Periwinkle, wouldn't it?" Lady A asked sarcastically.
"I won't deny it," Jules said. "Why, is that such a terrible thing?"
"Not if we're careful to keep in mind that rescuing Periwinkle is at best only a secondary consideration," Lady A replied. "The real mission will be in that headquarters building. Compared to that, Periwinkle is expendable."
***
Exact details of the mission were discussed and argued over for the next several hours. The sun had long since set before the team started putting their plan into operation.
They would split into two groups-one to create the diversion, the other to assault their real target. Tatiana, of course, would have to be part of the assault, since she was the only one who could tell them when they'd found what they wanted. Since the real fighting would be in the building, and since Tatiana needed to be protected at all costs, Lady A insisted that the two best people in the group should accompany the translator-namely Jules and herself. That left Fortier and Ivanov to create the diversion at the slave camp.
Their biggest problem would be coordination. It would do no good to have the diversion occur prematurely and have all the excitement be over by the time Jules and his party were in position to storm the building. Yet there was only one copter, and Fortier and Ivanov needed it to roust the slave camp. Jules, Tatiana and Lady A would have to trek overland to the landing field and then wait for the aliens to run out and defend the slave camp. Jules gave a conservative estimate of five hours for them to accomplish the trek; after that time, the other two men were to make their raid on the camp. It would still be dark then, and Jules's group could afford to wait around until the diversion started. Without radio communications between the two parties, this was the only way to handle the timing.
While Jules's party set off on their journey back to the landing site, Fortier and Ivanov had hours of time on their hands. They spent some of it fashioning the explosives they'd brought with them into crude bombs, then checked their guns and their equipment over several times. Finally, at the appointed hour, they took off in the copter back toward the slave camp.
The aliens had not bothered to light the area very much, as all the work was done in daylight and the slaves slept peacefully at night. The camp was hard to find in the dark, but the two men were aided by the light of Omicron's moon, which was in its final quarter phase. With Fortier at the controls, the copter and its small crew threw caution to the wind and swooped in low over the camp.
Ivanov played the role of bombardier, dropping their homemade explosive devices out the copter's hatch onto the ground below. The bombs hit empty patches of ground around the inflated barracks buildings, but the noise and the concussions they produced were more than satisfactory to start a panic.
Many of the people in the camp had lived through the alien bombardment of just a few days before; the horror of death raining from the skies was still fresh in their memories. At the first sounds and flashes from the exploding bombs, they sat up in their pallets, shaking with terror. As the blasts continued, wave upon wave, they panicked. Screaming in fright, they ran from the buildings. They'd seen what happened to people trapped in the rubble of falling masonry, and they wanted to be out under open skies to minimize the danger. Fear of what the aliens might do to them took second place to the emergency of the moment. Within seconds, the once quiet camp was filled with running, yelling people.
The alien response was only slightly slower. From a single building at one end of the compound, a troop of alien figures poured out like ants to defend a stepped-on nest. They had blaster-like weapons drawn, and were firing wildly into the air even before they knew what their target was, hoping that some random shot might disable their still unseen adversary.
Fortier dodged his craft in and out of the blaster fire as best he could. The copterbus was a big, lumbering vehicle, much slower to respond to controls than were the fast military copters Fortier was used to piloting; by the same token, it was heavier and more durably constructed. The aliens below were armed only with handheld blasters. A beam occasionally hit its mark but, unless some vital spot got hit, a few burns on the metal sides would not bring down the big copterbus.
Ironically, Fortier and Ivanov found themselves handicapped by their own success. They'd had their pick, at first, of places to drop their bombs, but as more and more of the captives were racing frantically around in the compound there were fewer places to safely explode a charge without hurting the very people they wanted to free. Such moral considerations probably wouldn't have stopped Ivanov if he'd been acting alone, but Fortier had made it clear to him before they started that he wanted to keep the loss of human life as low as possible. Aliens were expendable as far as he was concerned, but too many Omicronians had already died during this sad affair.
Fortunately, the sight of so many aliens pouring out of the end building gave the two men a new target to shoot for. Weaving his way through the searing beams that cut the night sky, Fortier flew the copterbus toward the enemy sanctuary. The aliens could see him coming, now, and took careful aim, but the thick commercial plating of the copter continued to serve them in good stead.
As they swooped in over the alien headquarters, Ivanov dropped a small series of bombs, each of which exploded with a satisfactory blast. Together, they brought the alien center to a state of collapse, and sent the creatures themselves into a panic nearly as complete as their captives'.
Fortier swung the craft around again and flew to the far side of the compound, where he brought the copter down to a quick landing. The vehicle had served its purpose for now; the longer it stayed in the air, the more it became a focal point for alien gunners. With so many people running around on the ground, it was actually safer to be down among them than to be a solitary target up in the air. With luck, the copter would survive to be an escape craft for them later; right now, they had more chaos to sow in the camp.
As soon as the copter had set down, even before the engines had shut off, Fortier and his comrade were out the doors, blasters in their hands and ready for trouble. It was their job to keep the confusion stirred up here at the camp long enough for their compatriots back at the landing field to accomplish their objective.
There was no doubt that they had created major confusion within the camp. People had started running around crazily during the initial panic; now that there were no more explosions, some of that panic was easing and the more level-headed of them were regaining their composure. The hostility they'd had to suppress against their alien taskmasters now came boiling to the surface with a white-hot rage. Groups formed spontaneously, charging at lone aliens with little regard for their own safety. The aliens fired into the crowd, both with blasters and with the eerie beams of the mysterious controlling ray. Nothing could stop the onslaught of the humans, though, and the overseers were quickly overwhelmed.
Then, from over the hill in the direction of the landing field, reinforcements arrived. Fortier greeted the sight with mixed emotions; it would make his task here both more difficult and more dangerous, but at the same time it showed he'd accomplished his main objective-to leave the aliens' main base as deserted as possible for his companions to attack. Now that the additional aliens were here, it was his job to keep them so busy they wouldn't have the chance to go back and help at the base.
He ran quickly back into the copter and, grabbing the last of the homemade bombs, used it as a grenade and threw it at one approaching cartload of alien soldiers. A few of the creatures saw the bomb coming and jumped off the back of the cart, but most of them were caught by the explosion that followed. Fortier smiled grimly and turned back to the scene in the slave camp.
The compound was brightly lit, now, with the flickering glow of the fires set off by the bombs. In the eerie red light the camp took on a sense of unreality, as though Hieronymus Bosch had decided to add one more scene to his view of Hell. People and strange alien creatures swarmed about, taking their toll on one another with any weapons that came to hand.
Fortier and Ivanov waded through the surging mass of humanity, firing with their blasters at any aliens they saw and killing more than a few. The compound became less crowded as more and more of the humans, seeing their chance, bolted for the hills and freedom. If the aliens wanted to reconquer their slaves, they'd have a devilishly hard time of it.
Fortier was running through the open yard when an alien suddenly appeared from around the corner of a building. The creature had its gun out, all set to fire. Fortier turned toward it and knew he would be too late. He raised his arm anyway to fire, just as the alien aimed at him.