Up Against It - M. J. Locke [168]
But no—there they were now, rising above the eastern horizon: two tumbling human forms, snarled in a mesh made gossamer by the sun. Geoff was surprised they were still in orbit. He’d expected them to fly off for parts unknown. He ducked into the shadow of a rock and timed their orbit; it took a good ten minutes for them to reach zenith. Then a set of silver tethers soared up from over the outcropping and snared them.
Geoff crept forward to the crevasse and looked down at the ship. The biggest man, the one who had shot a hole in his bike, was reeling the tethered men in, using a hand-cranked wheel he must have jury-rigged from Joey Spud’s mining equipment. Amaya’s rocketbike lay on its side next to the ship’s ramp.
A suited figure crouched near the wreckage of the cavern entrance. They were setting charges. Big ones—enough to blow the whole mine! Sweat sprang out Geoff’s face and he found himself panting. No time to go back now and warn the others. They could blow the charges any minute. He had to stop them now.
A body was laid out in the cargo bay; he could see it from here. The one who had been setting the charges was standing guard with a large weapon. The third, slim man was nowhere to be seen.
They’re distracted, he thought. There won’t be a better moment.
Geoff returned to the maintenance pipe, plugged into his makeshift comm cable, and ordered the minerbots to come up. In a moment they began feeding the methane balloons and his tools up the chute. He helped them haul it all up. The minerbots scampered up over one another like mechanical ants, out the maintenance hole, and down onto the ground. The balloon squadron, as he thought of them, gathered the bladders and then joined the distress-call squadron. The twenty-four bots stood there in formation, awaiting orders.
Geoff programmed Balloon Squadron to cross behind the ridge, out of sight of the ship, and await his signal. Then he crawled back to a vantage point closest to the earthmover, followed by Distress-Call Squadron.
The earthmover was massive—much larger than the shuttle. They called them Planet Eaters for a reason. It looked vaguely like a giant mechanical lobster, with three arms that stretched high into the sky, and a big cab that rested on machineworks on treads.
One arm was a crane with a grappling hook. The second was a gigantic, bucky-steel rotary saw for cutting into hard rock, and at the end of the third arm was a bucket shaped like an enormous Venus flytrap, for digging up and compressing material. A fourth appendage, a catapult, sat atop the cab. The earthmover, Cronus, stood between him and the shuttle, near the storage tanks. The operator cab was high up on its central cabin.
Joey Spud had let Geoff operate Cronus once. It had been a terrifying experience—like driving a mountain range. Geoff prayed now that he could remember what to do.
The men seemed to be finishing with their charges at the mine entrance. Now or never, Agre. He gave the minerbots their signal.
Balloon Squadron went first. They spilled over the outcropping and their methane-filled balloons bobbed along behind them like hundreds of giant, wildly waving hands. The mercenaries looked up, saw them, and started firing. The maintenance bots were easy to hit—they weren’t very big or fast. Their balloons ignited as the explosive bullets struck. Fireballs erupted all around, and the bots’ casings turned to shrapnel. The mercenaries all dove for cover. Geoff reached the earthmover without being seen and began scaling it.
By the time he neared the cab he was in plain sight, and the fireball spectacle was over. Far below, the big-suited figure spotted him and pointed. The others started toward him, but had difficulty with the sudden momentum changes. He could tell they weren’t Upsiders. They flailed and bounded too high and collided with one another in their haste.
Geoff leaped easily up onto the landing outside the operator’s cabin. He ducked into the cab,