Ben Bova - Test of Fire

“’We’ve intercepted all his patrols,” Jameson said calmly. “And I doubt if there are any nukes or airplanes left in the world.”

“It would only take one.”

With a slight shrug, Jameson answered, “We can be ready to move in two days. I think we can keep Douglas’s patrols from finding us for that long.”

“Two days?”

Nodding, “Check. The men have moved a lot harder and faster than they wanted to, just to get here. They need time to catch their breaths, get their weapons ready, and absorb your battle orders.”

That leaves me two days to deal with Kobol, Alec thought.

“On the other hand, if we all sit still here for more than two days,” Jameson added drily, “the different packs in this glorious conglomeration will start fighting each other. There’s not an overabundance of friendship down in that valley.”

Alec nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

It was fully night, after the evening meal, before Alec was able to get to Kobol. The older man was being held under virtual arrest in one of the caves that honey-combed the valley’s hillsides.

His quarters were a small cavern whose sloping wails and roof were laced with stalactites of a thousand different hues. The only entrance was a narrow passage, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through sideways. Alec had posted an armed guard at the outer end of the passage.

Kobol was sitting on an ancient, creaking bunk, his good leg folded under him and his head bent down as he intently wrote in rapid script on a paper he held in his lap. Alec saw that the bunk was covered with sheets of paper, all filled with his writing.

“Good evening,” Alec said.

Kobol hardly looked up. A slightly raised eyebrow was his only greeting. Then he returned to his writing. It was damp in the cave, Alec realized.

It probably makes his bad leg feel like hell, he thought.

Aloud he said, “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“Oh?” Still not looking up.

“I know where the fissionables are stored.”

The pen stopped in mid-stroke.

“I want you to head a special force to seize them before Douglas has a chance to destroy them.”

That straightened Kobol’s back. He pushed the paper off his lap and unfolded his long legs. Somehow it reminded Alec of a snake uncoiling. “You think he might sabotage them?” Kobol asked.

“It’s a possibility. He might even have them booby-trapped, or set to go off in a nuclear explosion that will take everything with it.”

Kobol frowned thoughtfully and ran a finger through his mustache.

Pulling the only chair in the enclosure next to the bunk, Alec straddled it and went on, “You know more about the fissionables than any of us. It’s a risky job, but a necessary one. Will you do it?”

Almost smiling, Kobol said, “If I do, I’ll only be in charge of a small suicide squad, while you’re leading the grand army. If I succeed, it’s under your command. If I fail, you get rid of an enemy.”

“If you fail,” Alec said, “we get rid of each other. And everyone else.”

“And the settlement dies for lack of fissionables.”

“Yes.”

“When I get back to the settlement I’ll still accuse you of treason.”

Alec let himself smile. “Won’t that be a bit difficult to prove, if you have the fissionables?”

“I’ll prove it.”

“Go ahead and try it, then.”

Kobol swayed back a little, and then seemed to tense, as if poised to strike. “If I accept this job and get the fissionables, do you promise me safe conduct back to the settlement?”

“You mean, will I have you shot after we win the battle?”

“That’s one way to phrase it.”

“You’ll be safe. We can settle our differences back at the settlement.”

“My safety for the fissionables,” Kobol mused.

“It’s a deal.”

Alec nodded. Neither man offered his hand. Alec rose from the chair and started toward the passageway entrance. Halfway there he paused and turned back to Kobol.

“I haven’t asked you for a similar guarantee — that you won’t try to kill me before we get back to the settlement.”

Kobol started to reply, but Alec went on, “I don’t need your promise. I wouldn’t trust it, anyway. Just keep this in mind. If you try to kill me, I’ll kill you. Even if you’re successful, there are a dozen men who’ll chop you into bite-sized pieces afterward. Just pray that I’m not killed in battle, Martin.”

He left Kobol sitting on the bunk, looking angry.

On the morning of the third day the attack began.

It had been a hectic two days, getting the men and equipment ready, keeping Douglas’s increasingly heavier patrols from penetrating to the valley, briefing Kobol and putting together his special unit of trucks and protective garments and equipment, keeping in touch with the satellite for constant updates on the weather.

It rained the night before the attack. The troops moved out of the valley and spread to their positions, arcing across nearly half of Douglas’s defensive perimeter. They moved swiftly despite the rain, most of them on horseback, but the shock wave all on trucks and jeeps. Each unit was completely mobile, no foot soldiers. The armored trucks mounted lasers, the jeeps bore machine guns and rocket launchers. The cavalry carried everything from automatic rifles to crossbows.

The rain’s keeping Douglas’ patrols down and screening our deployment, Alec told himself, then added, I hope.

He stood on the laser mount platform of an armored truck. The rain had slackened off to a fine drizzle, and the Sun was starting to edge above the eastern hills, breaking through the clouds, turning them pink and mauve. The ground was wet but not soaked, not impassibly muddy.

Alec wore a battle helmet, and could hear the crosstalk of a hundred different unit commanders by switching frequencies on the dial set into one of the earphones. They had chosen the frequencies carefully to be out of the range of Douglas’s antiquated radio equipment. Each sector commander checked in as the drizzle died away. Finally Alec asked Jameson, “Ron, how’s it look on your end?”

Jameson’s voice was crisp and calm in his earphones.

“Everything set here. All unit and sector commanders are ready and eager to go.”

Alec glanced at his wristwatch. Five-fifty. The attack was planned to start at six, when Douglas’s men would be starting their breakfasts, looking to their cook-fires rather than watching for an attack.

As he waited for the minute hand to crawl along, Alec’s mind filled with the images of all the things he had been through: the storms, the cold, the mud. And the nights with Angela, the warmth of the fire, the heat of their passion. And the towering gray old man who had driven him away.

With a shake of his head, he focused his thoughts on the reality before him. The morning was clearing rapidly, the clouds breaking up and scuttling away on a fresh, clean breeze. The Sun was bright and already starting to feel warm on his shoulders and neck.

“Minus ten seconds,” he muttered to himself.

Turning the dial on his earphone to the general frequency, Alec heard the chime tone that confirmed that the frequency was tuned in and open.

“All sector and unit commanders… commence attack. Now.”

The truck he was standing on lurched forward, then gained speed smoothly as it climbed toward the top of the hill it had been hiding behind. Trailing it, three other trucks and a pair of jeeps trundled along. The jeeps passed Alec’s truck, speeding toward the crest of the hill.

They reached the top and started downslope.

Putting the binoculars to his eyes, Alec could see the thin strand of fence wire winding across the rolling countryside, half a kilometer ahead. Two watchtowers were in view and a hill crowned with a firebase stood off on the horizon.