is taking place. That, and the presence of an extremely powerful magnetic pulse with each energy release, suggests the acceleration of small amounts of matter to near-c velocities. The resultant high-speed plasma impacts the target with kinetic and thermal effects similar to those of a large-scale thermonuclear detonation.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Ricia Anderson said.
“So how are they hitting targets just coming over their horizon?” Ramsey asked. “That’s a deflection of better than ninety degrees off the vertical.”
He was watching one of the video feeds from the surface—a shot from a camera mounted on Dragonfly One’s grounded lander module. Marines crouched in the twilight, firing toward the vast black shadow of the mountain called An-Kur … and Krakatoa. The mountain had not fired again since the destruction of the second Dragonfly, but time enough had passed for the thing to recharge, if the time delay between the first and second shots was any indication.
“High relativistic masses would be extremely difficult to deflect by more than a few degrees as they emerged from the mountain’s throat,” Cassius replied. “The plasma bolt would, therefore, be easily directed only at targets within, I estimate, ten to twelve degrees of the vertical, but could not be aimed at targets approaching from the horizon. However, by the time the initial projectile mass approached relativistic velocities, and while it was still within the mountain’s central bore, it would have been reduced to an extremely hot, possibly fusing plasma. The magnetic field generating the bolt’s velocity could be used to bleed off a small amount of that plasma near the mountain’s crater and direct it at any target within line-of-sight.”
“So they can throw the equivalent of a thermonuke at targets in orbit,” Ramsey said, “or split off a tactical nuke’s worth for close-in point defense. Slick.”
“But that kind of mass acceleration would require incredible energy,” General King protested. “Where are they getting their power? Damn it, the Frogs are supposed to be primitives!”
Ramsey wished that King would get off that particular soapbox. The An were what they were, and complaining about their abilities—or their technological inconsistencies—was not going to help.
“Analyses of the subsurface structures beneath the mountain suggest deep thermal sources,” Cassius replied. Within their minds, the command center AI unfolded a schematic of the tunnels and shafts inside and beneath An-Kur Mountain, as suggested by Emissary gravitometric scans and orbital reconnaissance. A pair of shafts, slender on the computer noumenal display but probably each measuring several tens of meters across, plunged from the extinct volcano’s throat deep, deep into Ishtar’s crust.
“An energy pump facilitating heat exchange with the planet’s deep crust via those twin vertical shafts would be essentially self-contained and self-sufficient,” Cassius continued. “Such a system could have been put in place thousands of years ago and remained functional without refueling or other technical intervention from outside, especially if the ancient An possessed sophisticated robotic systems for maintenance and repair.”
“Which also means they don’t have an antimatter production facility down there,” Ramsey pointed out. “That’s one piece of good news, at least.” A serious concern of the mission planning staff had been that the Ahannu might be able to spit chunks of antimatter at the approaching Earth transports. Not that blobs of plasma accelerated to near-c velocities were all that much better from the target’s point of view …
“What kind of range does a thing like that have?” Admiral Hartman demanded.
“Unknown, and I am unable to extrapolate from the given data,” Cassius said. “We know only that the Emissary was destroyed by a single shot while in orbit around Ishtar, at an altitude of approximately 312 kilometers.”
“Krakatoa is still over the horizon from us,” Ricia put in. “We won’t have line-of-sight for another … four hours, twelve minutes.”
“Then they have that long to take that thing out,” King said, his voice grim. “And God help us all if they fail!”
“They won’t fail,” Ramsey said. “Failure is not in the Marine lexicon.”
“A brave sentiment, Colonel,” King said. “I just wish I could be as certain of it as you. Admiral Hartman? Perhaps you’d best pass the word to have Regulus and Algol extend their range from us and from one another. We don’t want to be caught bunched together up here like shooting range targets.”
“It’s our men and women on the ground right now that I’m worried about,” Ramsey said. “If Krakatoa can divert some of the energy from a shot aimed straight up to cook targets nearby, what’s to stop the An from frying the ARLT?”
“Maybe they can’t shoot at their own slope,” Ricia said. “That would be, I don’t know, like shooting themselves in the foot? It might have a minimum range as well as a maximum. Threats any closer would be dealt with some other way.”
“Right,” Ramsey said. “I’ll buy that. So now the question is, what other defenses does Krakatoa have?”
“I imagine our people will be finding out pretty soon now,” Ricia said. “And Goddess help them when they do.”
ARLT Section Dragon Three
Objective Krakatoa, Ishtar
1642 hours ST
“C’mon, son!” Valdez said gently but firmly. Stooping, she slapped the back of his armored shoulder, urging him up and forward. “You can’t help him now!”
Garroway had dropped Pressley’s severed arm moments before, but he continued to lie in a shallow depression in the rock a meter away from the Marine’s blood-drenched lower torso. Pressley’s helmet lay nearby, the man’s black-irised eyes and gaping mouth clearly visible behind the blood-smeared visor.
“Garroway!” Valdez rasped. “Snap to, Marine!”
“A-Aye aye,” he managed to say.
“Hit your backbone,” she told him. “Do it!”
Backbone was Corps slang for the nanoneurotransmitters within his implanted technics that adjusted certain key chemical, muscular, and mental responses. They didn’t exactly banish fear at a thought-click, but they could help a Marine on the verge of going into shock to pull out of it, to focus on the task at hand, to keep from getting sick or simply having his legs fail beneath him.
Garroway nodded inside his helmet and focused on the mental code that activated the appropriate NNTs. He felt an inner rush, a kind of emotional flutter in his gut, and then he drew a sharp, deep breath. He could still feel the horror of Pressley’s death, but it was cocooned somehow, more distant, less immediate. He felt the strength coming back into his legs and belly, felt the shaking stop. “Thanks, Gunny,” he told Valdez.
“Keep moving, Marine,” she told him. “We have a mountain to take.”
She moved off without looking back. He picked up his weapon and followed.
ARLT Command Section, Dragon
One
Objective Krakatoa, Ishtar
1642 hours ST
Captain Warhurst remained harnessed inside Lander One, though he was almost completely unaware of his surroundings. As CO of the ARLT, he was expected to stay safe and give orders, coordinating the attack from the presumed security of the armored LM. The training invested in modern military officers was simply too expensive, too valuable, to allow them to lead from the front; indeed, they’d not done so for two centuries or more.
Warhurst listened to the rattle of small arms fire off the lander module’s hull and wondered who they were kidding with that kind of blatant rationalization. The LM was a definite target—a