Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [51]
“Your charge must have neutralized the ship’s batteries,” the consul said approvingly. “Or else we would all be dead by now.”
“What about that city? Do you think they’d be shooting at us if they could?” Jackson asked.
“No doubt. The Eluoi worlds typically have at least one PDB.”
“What’s a PDB?”
“I’m sorry: planetary defense battery. It is an installation in a single tower, several kilometers high typically, and can fire an EMP weapon or a plasma ray that can strike a target in space. They are lethal even to large ships, not to mention a small shuttle like this.”
“Good thing you got us below the horizon, then,” Jackson acknowledged.
Char-Kane nodded, though her eyes never left the viewscreen in front of her. “Yes. We are safe for the time being.”
“Okay, what now, then?”
“We need to find a place to land.” Char-Kane flipped some switches, and more view screens flashed pictures. Magnification of the view underneath the shuttle seemed to indicate trees and more trees. They were still dropping fast, but the woman seemed to be in control of the shuttle; they were making some lateral movement, easing along far above the forest, still under control.
“Do you see a clearing, anything that looks like it could be a landing zone?” asked Jackson, growing tenser by the second.
“No. And we are running out of fuel quickly. They were apparently planning a direct descent toward the city that we saw; the Eluoi did not load a lot of fuel onto this shuttle.”
“Keep looking,” Jackson encouraged, but she shook her head.
“We are going to have to land at once,” she said. “In ten minutes we will be out of fuel, and that would be fatal.”
“Take her down, then,” the lieutenant said. “And hold on!”
The canopy of greenery became more detailed so that they could see individual trees, some of them very tall, most of them merging together in a leafy blanket. The shuttle descended slowly, right into the tops of the trees. Branches splintered around them, and the little vehicle lurched sideways. There followed a loud crash.
And then silence.
“No fires!” Jackson barked. “We’re getting away from the crash site—pronto!”
Director Parker, who had removed his cigar lighter and was about to touch it to a pile of tinder he had gathered painstakingly, looked ready to object. Something in the lieutenant’s eye changed his mind, and he shrugged and put the silver rectangle back into his pocket.
Already the SEALS had removed their gear and as much other equipment as they could salvage from the shuttle. The little rocket craft had come to rest between two massive trees, and though it was canted at an angle, the hatch had been able to descend to the ground. They had all gotten out quickly.
“Do you think they’ll come looking for us?” Dr. Sulati asked.
“Someone will; you can count on that,” Jackson replied.
“What do we take with us, LT?” asked G-Man. He was inspecting his rail gun and already had slung two pouches of the heavy copper shells and counterblast charges from his shoulders. On his back was a double-up set of capacitors to fire the ammunition he was carrying for the big weapon. The load was huge, but it was ammunition, the one thing the SEALS would never leave behind.
Jackson had been thinking about that. He already had consulted a meter and confirmed that the Batuunian air was breathable, very comparable to Earth’s. “We leave the pressure suits, the air bottles. Bury them nearby. Bring all the weapons and ammo we can lift. Give the civilians all the rations and water they can carry. But do it fast.”
Doctor Sulati’s scream shot through the crash site. The lieutenant spun around to see her stumbling back from a black vine and caught her just before she fell. At the same time, he realized that the vine was moving, whipping itself around into an S shape at the end of which was a very ugly reptilian head.
Ruiz