David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"That's certainly the conclusion which would leap to the front of my own powerful brain," Abigail said, and Johnson grinned at her. But then his grin faded into a much more sober expression.

"The problem is, Ma'am, that according to passive scans of the area, there's nothing down there but a river and some trees. Not a helicopter, not an air car, not even a log cabin or an old pup tent."

"To quote Commander Lewis, 'Curiouser and curiouser,'" Abigail said. She gazed at the plot for several more seconds, then shook her head. "Sensor Tech Johnson, I think it's time we consulted with older and wiser heads."

"Johnson and Abigail are right, Skipper," Naomi Kaplan said flatly. "We've got ten aerial vehicles of some sort-analysis suggests at least six of them were private air cars-all landing at exactly the same spot, and then just disappearing. And a standard passive scan of the landing area shows absolutely nothing there now. Except, of course, that they have to be there, because they never took off again."

"I see." Terekhov leaned back, gazing at the holo map projected by the unit in the center of the briefing room table. "I suppose we could do an active scan," he said slowly. "But if there is anyone down there, and they pick it up, they'll know they've been spotted."

"Well, before we do that, Skipper, you might want to look at this." Kaplan gave him the smile of a successful sideshow conjurer, and the holo map disappeared. In its place was a detailed computer schematic of a single small portion of the total map, showing contour lines, streams, rocks, even individual trees, and Kaplan looked at it fondly.

"That, Skipper, is from one of Tadislaw's stealthed battlefield recon drones. They don't begin to have the raw computational power we do, and they sure as hell don't have our range, but they're specifically designed for taking close, unobtrusive looks. So when I decided I wanted more detail on the area, I got hold of Lieutenant Mann, and he and Sergeant Crites went out to the main airport in Karlovac to inspect the aircraft there. And somehow one of their drones accidentally got itself tractored to the skin of one of the regularly scheduled transports that cross through the area. And it fell off again right about… here ."

A bright, irregular line appeared on the map, which obediently zoomed in still closer on the roughly wedge-shaped area it contained, and Terekhov's eyes narrowed.

"This, Skipper," Kaplan said, her tone and manner now completely serious as she leaned forward, using a stylus as a pointer, "is the thermal signature of a carefully hidden access-one big enough for an air car or even one of the Kornatians' big freight helicopters, if you fold the rotors-to a large underground structure of some sort. And this," the stylus moved to the side, "is a ventilation system designed to disguise the waste heat. And this over here," the stylus moved again, "is what looks like a pretty well camouflaged observation post, placed high enough on this hill to command most of this entire end of the river valley all of this is tucked away in. And this right here," her voice sharpened and her eyes narrowed, "is a pattern of earth and leaves that were turned over fairly recently-probably within the last seventy to eighty hours-that happens to be big enough to cover the marks the landing skids of a good sized shuttle or a really big -counter-grav air lorry might have left. If that's what it is, it can't have been there for more than seventy-seven hours, unless whatever left them had better stealth capacity than anything of ours does, because that's how long ago we put Johnson's array up and tasked it to watch this area."

"And we couldn't pick any of this up with our own array?"

"Whoever put this in, did an excellent job," Kaplan said. "My best estimate is that the Defense Force's recon satellites wouldn't have seen this at all using their optical or heat sensors. There are power sources down there, but they're also extremely well shielded-so well that even Tadislaw's drone can't isolate point sources reliably. You can do that with enough dirt or cerama-crete. I don't think anything the KDF has could spot this without going active with radar mapping. We couldn't spot it from up here, using purely passive systems, partly because of the sheer depth of atmosphere, partly because of the dense tree cover and how good a job they did of hiding it when they put it in, and partly because for all the computational power we've got, our arrays simply aren't designed for detailed tactical work in this type of environment. The Marines' equipment is, and that's why Tadislaw's drone could spot what we couldn't."

"All right, that makes sense." Terekhov sat gazing at the holo for several more seconds, thinking hard, then nodded.

"This is on the planet, so it's clearly in Suka and Basaricek's jurisdiction. Both of them would be more than mildly irritated if we crashed the party without even mentioning it to them. On the other hand, none of their units have the same ability we do for getting in hard and fast. So it's time I brought them up to speed, but I think I need to talk to someone else first."

He punched a combination into the conference table com.

"Ground One, Kaczmarczyk speaking," a voice said.

"Tadislaw, it's the Captain."

"Good afternoon, Sir," Captain Kaczmarczyk said from his command post at the spaceport. "How can I help you this afternoon?"

"Commander Kaplan and I have just been discussing some equipment you lost earlier today."

"Ah! That equipment."

"Yes. I think we're going to want to go collect it this evening. Has Commander Kaplan shared her analysis of the data with you?"

"Yes, Sir. She uploaded it to me about a half-hour ago."

"Good. Who have you got down there who could go get your toy back?"

"Lieutenant Kelso's platoon has the duty this evening, Sir. She's got enough battle armor for two of her squads."

"I'll leave that to your judgment, Tadislaw. It's not my area of expertise. Just bear in mind that we don't have any idea what might be waiting underneath. I'd recommend against assuming there won't be any modern weapons down there, though."

"I think that's wise, Sir. Should I plan on local participation?"

"I think so. I'll speak to Colonel Basaricek. If she feels we should get the Defense Force involved, we'll be bringing General Suka on board, as well. I'd really prefer to keep it as closely held as possible, but I think good manners require that we have at least some of the locals along in the follow up wave. Unless I tell you differently, plan on going in first with our people. And work out the details for a covert insertion. I'd really like your people to be on the ground and kicking in the doors before whoever's down there has a clue you're coming."

"Yes, Sir. Gunny Urizar's down here with me. She and I'll sit down with Kelso and put together an ops plan for your approval. I should have something in an hour or two."

"I'll try to get back to you sooner than that with Basaricek's reaction to the news," Terekhov promised.

Barto Jezic looked around, just a bit uncomfortably, as he stepped into the spaceport hangar and saw the Manticoran Marines strapping into their equipment. It was a clear, breezy evening, a far cry from the rainy night when the police captain's SWAT teams had foiled the terrorist attack on the Macek Avenue Treasury compound, and he felt more than a little out of his depth.

"Excuse me, Captain," a voice said behind him in an oddly musical foreign accent.

He turned and saw a tall, female noncom. He wasn't familiar with Manticoran rank insignia, but she seemed to have an awful lot of chevrons stenciled on the upper arm of her coal-black powered armor. There was something particularly sleek and deadly looking about that armor, he thought, unable to suppress a pang of envy as he considered what his people could have done with it when Nordbrandt and her murderers began their attacks.