Chapter fourteen Second Landing

Lisa's eyes narrowed when we came up the ramp, and gave our guest the once over as she clicked up it. Rebecca was a quick stepper and pulled even with me, Rouk trailing behind. “You must be the scientist Rouk was on about; Rebecca, Yah? I'm Lisa Cappello.” She thrust out her hand like she was pushing a door open. Rebecca took it loosely, with a slight smile, flicking her green eyes at me for a second, then back to Lisa.

“That's me.” Rebecca put a hand out and rubbed my shoulder. “Quite the man, your Tomas. So you're all heroes out to save the planet? I can't wait to hear about y'all's adventures. Rouk can be so drah, sometimes.”

She sidled an inch closer to me during this introduction. Lisa's eyes darkened.

Rouk coughed a little. “Reb's one of the last MS's matriculated by Alabama University before it completely shut down. A child prodigy, in fact. Vector/mass computations and gravitational orbits and influences are her bailiwick, turns out. I remembered she set up in the old art colony here, which was partially self sustaining.”

I raised an eyebrow at Rebecca. She didn't look like any kind of child to me, but then again that would have been some twenty years ago. “And you came here?”

“Well, they did at least have their own water 'n a small hydro-generator plant. Real small though. Heah bouts, they always did dam up anything that flowed or promised to. Ah was running asteroid simulations at the U of A, But...” her shoulders curled up in a shrug that again sort of continued down her front.

I coughed. “We cleared out a storage compartment near the navigation deck for you. A little small, but thought you might want to be near the Kreeb's command deck. Um, also it'll be away from the loading doors when we, eh, make our bid for supplies later. Best we can do, unless you want to stay on this level.”

The lady gave me a big smile. “Thayt will be just fiahn for the time bein.”.

Lisa stepped between us. “I'll get ya settled in. This way.” She beckoned towards the ramp, to the deck above and stomped off with out a second glance at her charge. Rebecca winked at me and followed. The deck's rear was crowded with our make-do insurgents. Most were checking their arms and keeping one eye on John, who, somewhat above deck level, was astride the skeleton seat of his new contraption. He tightened a hand, and the dual multi-barrels on it whirled in a blur and whined loudly. Twisting at the grips caused the seat to swivel, and with more whining, took him around, up, and down, like a kid on a park ride. He reached forward and did something with its display panel. The bank of gray metallic tubes attached to both sides cantilevered up and changed angle slightly. A green laser light beamed out striking the inside of the bay door. Then another one and another until there were four total. They lit on separate areas of the door. He fiddled with the panel a little more. I couldn't detect any change in the light or the weapon by eye. He dismounted and began decanting the cases of ammo into hoppers attached to it. He waved to one group on the deck. “Go'wan and set up the skirt plates.”

The crew began lifting large sheets off a stack near the door, and porting them to the front, began to assemble a sort of low wall. One plate end slotted into another and they built a four foot high barricade across what would be the loading ramp area of the cargo bay, when it opened out.

He waved at me. “Wasn't gonna do that, but since they probably guess we're commin', it might be a good idea. They was replacement materials for th' meteor shielding. Tough stuff. Had th' bugs put it together, then spray the insides of th' bay with some kinda goop they got that outta keep small rounds from bouncing all over th' place. Dunno what it is or what they use it for, but tested it, and it works fer what I want it for. Said they can dissolve it off later. Can't do much about frag, so the plan is wipe the area right fast, and deploy out at speed.”

“And if everything's okay, and we don't need all this?” I opined.

John nodded. “Thought of that. The plates come down quick, I got a tarp t' throw over the Adagio here.” He patted the weapon's frame.

“Uh...”

“We can jump the barricade too, or crouch behind it. From th' outside, it might look like a loading gate, anyway. A couple portable field mortars can lob out some smoke, too. We got no mobile infantry, just us sloggers, so we will likely need the Adagio's support, comes to it. Might want to have the bugs sit the ass-end down at say a fifty degree angle from the machinery ya wanna load, if possible.”

I stared bug eyes at the men assembled here. “These guys all signed on for this kind of trouble?”

John shrugged. “Lotta loose dogs here. Say about platoon size. We figure about three squads,one an assault section, me and a few others fer a make-do artillery section, all that, with me as gunny/sarge and Henry as the second lewie, or commander. It's all a bit make do. About fifty guys altogether. 'Sides which, these guys are all about getting back, not off. They know the equipment pick-up could make or break the settlement, basically.” John's look pierced me. “Me too, come to that. I'll be staying on with th' colony, when we gets back.”

“I need Henry for all this. I'm no strategist or any kind of military guy.”

“Henry's okay. Just can't get up for a while. Bugs set a view plate in his room, and a comm to the bridge. Just have Clacks do like he says, come to the landing. You keep yer yap shut and stay out of ops, oncet it looks like trouble.”

Henry. I'd forgot to check back on him. No, not true. There hadn't been time, once we'd arrived. Still, I felt guilty about it. I'd intended to talk this whole thing out with him, but things happened to fast. I'd not allowed time for rethinking changes, such as had happened at the armory. Foolishly, I hadn't spent time contingency planing for an invasion of Reese Corp either. I'd left it all to Henry and John.

“What'd You guys come up with, plan wise, if things go south? With Henry recovering, I might need to know what to expect.”

John snorted. “Now you wanna know the Op? Okay, to sum up, it's a raid, obviously. Put down close as likely to the equipment, if we can. Use th' ship as a shield, and suppress enemy fire with the Adagio. Set smoke, and use our dogs for cover and support, while the machine handlers load whatever we can grab. I had the boys pull a lot of ammo up fer the Adagio. Can run, oh, m'ebbe five minutes continuous on the minis, got four reloads for the tubes.”

I couldn't puzzle out how this was good or bad. “Is that a lot?”

John laughed. “Yeah, that's pretty good, usually. Enough to do a sweep of a defensive installation and provide intermittent support fer, about 30 minute or more, depending. Won't win a war, but...” he shrugged. “Why I had the flitter make an extra trip. Couldn't clean out th' armory, but we sequestered what ever we could. Ain't like we have access to one any time we like, or at all, usually. Comes to a fire fight at Corp, we know we ain't gonna get everything we come for, but figured on nabbing what we can, and anything loose we could use fer trade elsewhere. Not great, but otherwise, we'd have to take th' camp. Sweep it, then load what we want.”

“Is that...even possible?”

John shrugged. “Doubtful. We don't have the recon, or personnel to plan anything like that. Don't know what they have, for defense. Might be more of a village thing, 'cept we already know they've got some air support. I can handle some O' that, and the smoke'll keep visuals off. Its hot smoke, so even if they got infrared, we've got fair cover. If their air's got full military kit, we pack up and go. Can't handle it. If they just got typical civilian security, We could tear 'em a new one. 'Member, we expected this to be a pick up, not a fire fight.”

My head swam. God, let them not have put two and two together.

The communicator Clacks had supplied me with crackled, and Clacks' voice-box scratched over it. “To be lifting now?”