“You’re afraid of heights,” said Lucas.
“Yeah, so what? Don’t worry about it, it’s my problem.”
“Okay, forget it. Stay here with Verne. You’ve done more than enough.”
Martingale stared at him. “Like hell,” he said. He swallowed hard and leaped into the shaft. For a second, he hung there precariously and didn’t move, his eyes tightly shut. “Oh, Christ, I wish I hadn’t done that! Jesus. Jesus.”
“Open your eyes, Martingale!” shouted Lucas. “It’ll be all right, just don’t look down. Watch the cable. You hear me? Watch the cable!”
Martingale opened his eyes and began to lower himself hand over hand.
“You’re doing fine,” said Lucas. “Just keep it up. Watch the cable. Don’t look down.”
“Not for all the tea in China, Jack!”
“I’m right behind you,” Lucas said. He jumped and grabbed the cable. Heights didn’t bother him since he had taken the plunge off the wall of Zenda Castle into the moat during his last mission. He looked down and saw that Martingale was making steady progress. Land had almost reached the bottom of the shaft. But Drakov had a very large head start.
As the jets on the floater-pak carried him down toward the mouth of the volcano, Forrester heard the whoop-whoop of an alarm reverberating through the air. So much for a surprise attack, he thought. There was nothing for it now but to come in fast and hit them hard.
He unclipped the auto-pulser from its fastening on his flight harness and held it ready in front of him. Just then someone shot past him with his floater-pak jets on full, leveled out in a fully stretched-out position to offer minimum wind resistance.
“Bryant!” shouted Forrester over the com-circuit, but with the wind from the speed of his descent, Bryant might not have heard him. And if he had, he would not have listened in anycase. Forrester knew exactly what the fool was doing. He was going in first, ahead of-Forrester, in an effort to draw fire away from his commander.
Several more commandos hurtled by Forrester in the same position and he cursed them, then stretched out himself and kicked the jets in, plunging into the mouth of the volcano.
Laser beams and pulser blasts came up at them like flak as the commandos fanned out upon entering the volcano, so as not to give a concentrated group as a target. Sullivan was in a flat dive, heading directly toward the submarine, firing his auto-pulser. Plasma blasts screamed past him and Forrester saw his floater-pak on fire. As the jets cut out, Sullivan fell, still firing his weapon as he hurtled to his death.
Bryant flew down in a fast arc toward the catwalks high on the left side of the base, where groups of men stood firing their weapons. He came in high through a barrage of pulser blasts, then abruptly angled down, still going flat out, making it difficult for the gunners to lead him. As he swooped past the catwalks, he fanned them with his auto-pulser and they burst into white-hot flame as they were enveloped in plasma. Men screamed as they were cooked to a crisp and the steel sagged, as if it were taffy, finally melting through. The entire structure collapsed to the roofs of the buildings below. Bryant kicked in his pilot jets at the last possible moment before he would smash head-first into a rock wall jutting out into the crater. He missed it by scant inches.
“Damn cowboy,” Forrester swore. He changed his own course and flew down low, feeling the heat of plasma blasts erupting around him. He angled up beneath the cable span bridges. Several other commandos followed him, providing covering fire. On the bridges, gunners tried to track them as they came in. One blast narrowly missed Forrester and hit Wendy Chan. There was nothing left of her.
As he came up beneath the bridges, Forrester cut loose at their cable supports while the others concentrated their fire on the gunners. Some of the commandos were using lasers, sweeping concentrated beams of coherent light across the spans. Several of Drakov’s men were killed instantly, others had their legs amputated and they fell over the side, screaming as they plunged down into the lake below.
One of the bridges collapsed with a roar as the supports parted, sending men tumbling into the water. The entire commando attack force was now inside the crater and they separated in all directions, swooping around like angry mosquitoes, firing at anything that moved. The heaviest concentration of defenders was around the submarine, trying to protect it, but already its hull was blackened from pulser blasts and there had been at least one direct hit on the rear of the sub. The aft section had been ruptured by a grenade set on minimal intensity. But as each commando flew down to strafe it, a heavy barrage of laser and pulser fire filled the air above and there were many casualties.
Somewhere down there, Forrester knew, were Delaney, Cross and Priest. If they were still alive. A lot of his people were getting hit. He didn’t want to lose any more.
“Set down!” he shouted over the corn-circuit. “Set down! Red Squad, secure the buildings on the side opposite the docks! Blue Squad, take the high ground on the same side and trap them between you, hammer and anvil! Green Squad, take the rocks on the far side past the main buildings! Gold Squad, follow me down to the rock cover near the docks!”
Finn took his disruptor and sprayed a blast of neutrons at the roof of the elevator, opening up a hole for them to jump through. He went first, followed by Andre, then Land, then Martingale and Lucas. Finn went out first into the hall, firing his disruptor as he ran. There wasn’t much resistance. Most of Drakov’s people were outside, engaging the attack force. The few men they encountered opened up on them, but against the disruptors, even auto-pulsers made poor weapons. The plasma blasts disintegrated as they ran into the neutron spray and in moments, Drakov’s people were retreating.
“You were right,” Finn told Martingale. “It’s a lovely little sidearm, this warp gun.”
“Drakov’s got too much of a lead on us,” said Lucas. “Come on, let’s make a run for the tender.”
They sprinted through the building, firing as they ran, taking a chance that they wouldn’t catch any fire from the corridors and chambers to their sides. They made it to the building entrance and kept right on going, running full tilt toward the docks. The Valkyrie was in flames. Several buildings on the opposite side of the lake were burning, sending up clouds of smoke. They heard men screaming as they burned, caught between the flames and the commandos. One cable span bridge had been utterly destroyed, the other dangled by a single support over the lake like a broken toy. Black smoke was coming from the Nautilus.
A plasma blast struck the ground before them as they ran, bursting into a cloud of flame. Martingale was caught in the wash. He caught fire as he ran through it, screaming, moving on like a flaming juggernaut.
Finn tackled him and started rolling him over and over in the sand, heaping sand upon him and trying to snuff out the flames. Lucas, Andre and Ned Land ran on. A laser beam lanced across their path. Andre was able to react quickly enough to leap over it and roll, coming up running, but Land was caught by it and cut in half. He fell to the ground in two parts, screaming horribly and writhing. There was nothing anyone could do. Lucas swore, pointed his disruptor at him and fired. The screams ceased.
They were dressed like Drakov’s men and the commandos had no way of telling who they were at a distance. They were being fired upon by their own people. Andre was pinned down, having scrambled for cover behind a large outcropping of rocks near the lake. Only her constant firing of her disruptor kept the plasma blasts from cooking her. Lucas fell down beside her and saw where a group of Drakov’s men had set up a firing base in one of the storage buildings near the tender, protecting the submarine. As they watched, several men came out on the deck of the Nautilus, casting her loose from the tender.
“He’s getting away!” said Andre.
/> Two of the men on deck were killed. Lucas fired his disruptor at the others and they were briefly shrouded in blue mist, then they disintegrated. But the sub had already started to drift loose from the tender.
“No,” said Lucas, gritting his teeth. “No, God damn it, no!”