Battlefield Earth Part 73

The Russians were buzzing, looking at the convoy. It was impressive. Over fifty vehicles, most of them flatbeds loaded to the last pound with ammunition, fuel, and breathe-gas, were crawling along like some enormous black snake. Three, no five, tanks! The one in the lead was a Basher "Bash Our Way to Glory." A nearly impregnable armored vehicle. There was another tank in the middle and three tanks at the end. Now that their own motor was off, the roar of that convoy even at this distance was like thunder.

If the ambush were in place, the ball would open when that whole convoy was in the defile and the mortar up front closed the road in front of them.

Jonnie turned to the Russian officer he had brought. The man spoke hardly any English at all, but with signs and a little relief map drawn in the dirt, Jonnie got across what he wanted him to do. The southern side of the defile ended in a knoll. The right side of the defile was a steep hill, a cliff in fact. If one of the flying platforms could just get behind that knoll and wait until all those vehicles were in the ravine, it could lob mortar sh.e.l.ls into this end of the cliff and start an avalanche that would close the back door.

The Russian got it. He and his crew took off in the flying mine platform, flew along inside the border of the trees, and vanished.

Jonnie watched the convoy intently. It was struggling along into the ravine. This was a "set-piece battle," the kind he'd read of in old man-books. When the whole convoy got into that defile, the ambush would avalanche the road closed in front of them, and the mortar he'd just sent would close the road behind them. They would have a soaring slope on their right and cliffs on their left. They wouldn't be able to turn around. And one had only to fly over them and tell them to surrender and it would all be over, just like that. But set-piece battles seldom come off, as they were about to discover.

They waited for the convoy to enter fully. There was just a momentary glimpse of the platform they had sent in as it settled into position. Perfect. Now all they had to do was wait for the last tank to enter. The head of the convoy was now out of Jonnie's sight. Nearly all the convoy was in the ravine.

Then BLAM! The ambush mortar let go. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

But the last three tanks were not yet in the gap.

Jonnie dove for the console of the flying platform. His four-man crew scrambled up to hold on.

The flying platform soared into the air, Jonnie's fingers dancing on its rudimentary keyboard. He took it up a thousand feet, south of the road and near the forest edge.

He could see the head of the convoy now. A roaring avalanche was falling across the road in front of the Basher tank. He could see some Russians in a reserve group back of the ambush point. He spotted three Russians along the crest to the convoy's right, hundreds of feet above the vehicles.

The Basher sought to climb the roadblock. It s guns would not elevate high enough. It backed and then charged the dust- geysering rock pile. The tank's nose lifted and it began to fire.

Blast after blast arced up from the tank. It must be firing explosive sh.e.l.ls! They soared in a glowing curve up and dropped in the area where the ambush command post must be. But the mortar up there was still firing down.

The last three tanks in the convoy were backing up. There was no way this end could be sealed!

Jonnie took the flying platform halfway between the convoy tail and the woods. The end tanks were now turning around. Let loose on this savannah they would be very hard to handle even with planes. Yes, they were also Bashers. No, a plane couldn't handle them.

At the head of the convoy the tank charged the rock barrier again, probably to elevate its gun muzzles. The tank in the center of the convoy was firing toward the ambush point but could not fire up the steep slope to the crest.

Jonnie yelled to the Scot. "Start felling trees across their road!"

The Scot got it and angled the mortar around. The Russians, holding on to the thin, tilting platform, began to drop mortar sh.e.l.ls into the stubby barrel.

They landed a sh.e.l.l beside a giant tree near the road back into the forest and it began to topple.

Mortar blast after mortar blast flashed at the forest edge. Trees began to fall amid towering columns of dust. Jonnie was sighting the mortar in by tilting the platform.

The three tanks saw the road back closing in front of them. They knew they could not get through and into the forest. They started to fan out on the savannah. Their guns opened up trying to hit the flying platform.

Jonnie dodged their misused vehicle about. It had no armor. It was really just a flat plate. There was even hardly anything to hold on to.

Dunneldeen flashed down with the battle plane. He must have been up there thousands of feet and out of sight.

Gouts of flame and dirt began to pound around the three Basher tanks.

Suddenly, the convoy in the ravine began to close up. Evidently thinking it was moving again, the three tanks swerved and raced back to the convoy tail, mindful of their duty to protect it. They stubbed right onto the trail.

Then they too halted. They were trying to fire up at the ambush point. They could not elevate to reach the crest of the slope to their left.

The other flying platform opened up.

Blast mortar sh.e.l.ls crashed into the cliff behind the last tank. The rocks and dirt flashed into the air. An avalanche roared down and closed the back door.

The lead Basher tried another charge at the rockslide blocking their forward progress. Just at the instant its nose reared up, a mortar struck under it.

The lead Basher flew up, rolled over in a back summersault, and lay upside-down in the road, helpless.

Jonnie drew a deep breath. He was just about to tell Dunneldeen to open up on a bullhorn and demand surrender and was reaching for his belt mine radio to do so, when their fortunes reversed.

Chapter 6.

Debacle!

Cutting in through the chatter of Psychlos in the convoy, but clearly heard because of its high pitch, the piping voice of Bittie said, "There's n.o.body left here speaks Russian! Sir Jonnie! There's n.o.body to tell the Russians anything!"

"What's happened?" barked Jonnie.

"Sir Jonnie, the tank shots wiped out the command post here! Sir Robert and Colonel Ivan and the Coordinators are knocked out! I was under a tarpaulin pile. I would have told you sooner but"- a wail-'l couldn't find my radio!"

Then static and a babble of Psychlo voices on the same wavelength.

Jonnie swung the flying platform north of the ravine and behind it, using it for protection.

Below in the ravine the jammed convoy clogged the road. It couldn't turn. It couldn't escape. But neither could they fire into all that ammunition and fuel and breathe-gas without blowing the whole thing a mile high.

There were only a few shots being fired down by the Russian soldiers. Only three of them were on the crest.

The Psychlos must have thought the crest was not held.

There was a battery of commands on the mine radio.

Suddenly the Psychlos unloaded from their vehicles, grabbing blast rifles. They lined up along the bottom of the slope. Breathe-gas masks in place.

More Psychlo commands.

The line of huge bodies surged forward all along the slope bottom. It was four hundred yards or more, very steep yards, up to the crest. They were going to storm the crest!

But no real disaster yet. Dunneldeen was in place up in the sky. It was very obvious that all he had to do was wait for those Psychlos to get halfway up that slope and then set his guns on stun and knock them flat and unconscious.

Then Bittie's voice again. "The Russians don't understand! They're rushing up to the crest!"

Jonnie lifted the platform a little higher to see. Bittie himself seemed confused. There was nothing wrong with the Russians manning that long top of the ravine's left side. In fact, they'd better.

Yes, the reserve group of about thirty Russians were sprinting from in back of the crest, their a.s.sault rifles ready. The upcoming line of Psychlos was about a hundred yards up now and still had three hundred yards of very steep slope to climb.

In just a few moments now, when those Psychlos were far enough up from their trucks, Dunneldeen could make a pa.s.s with guns and stun them flat.

Bittie's voice, "These Russians are awful mad about Colonel Ivan! They think he's dead! They're not listening!"

Jonnie slammed the flying platform down behind the Russians and jumped off. He started toward the cliff. The Russians had reached it. Several were firing down at the Psychlos.

"Hold off!" Jonnie yelled at them. "That plane will knock them down!"

Not one Russian face turned in his direction. He looked wildly about for one of their officers. He saw one. But the man was yelling something down the slope at the Psychlos and firing a pistol at them.

The officer roared something at his men. They rose up- good lord! They were going to charge!

Before Dunneldeen could make his firing pa.s.s, the downslope was loaded with charging, shouting Russians. They were angry, beserk! They stopped, fired, ran, stopped, fired!

The slope was a roaring sheet of flame going both up and down!

Psychlos tried to stem this avalanche of ferocity. a.s.sault rifles were hammering and flaming.

Blast guns were roaring. Dunneldeen, unable to shoot without killing Russians, hung helplessly in despair. One pa.s.s and those Psychlos would be knocked into unconsciousness.

The Russians were in among the Psychlos, firing ceaselessly!

The remaining Psychlos tried to run back to their vehicles. The Russians were right on top of them!

Huge bodies went tumbling down the slope. Isolated groups tried to stand their ground. a.s.sault rifles racketed into solid sheets of sound. Then one last Psychlo almost made it to the cab of a truck. A Russian knelt, sighted, and cut him in two.

A cheer went up from the Russians. The slope went quiet. Jonnie surveyed the ruin.

Over a hundred Psychlo bodies. Three dead Russians.

Smoke drifting up from clothing that still burned.

Disaster! They had been there to capture Psychlos!

Jonnie went plunging down the slope. He found the Russian officer standing there, obviously intending to shoot any Psychlo that twitched.

"Find some alive!" Jonnie shouted at him. "Don't finish off the wounded. Find some alive!"

The Russian looked at him with battle-glazed eyes. Seeing it was Jonnie, he began to unwind a bit. He fished about for some English. "That show Psychlo! They kill colonel!"

Jonnie finally got it across that he wanted them to find any live ones. Neither the officers nor the rest of the Russians thought this very sensible. They did finally understand it. They went poking among the rec.u.mbent Psychlos to find any that were still breathing, a fact that could be determined by a flutter of a breathe-mask valve.

They finally located about four that were shot up but still alive. They couldn't move the thousand-pound bodies very much but they straightened them out.

MacKendrick put in an appearance, walking, half-sliding down the slope. He looked at the four and shook his head. "Maybe. I don't know much about Psychlo anatomy but I can stop that green blood oozing out."

One of them had a different tunic from the rest. An engineer? "Do all you can!" he told MacKendrick and hobbled up the slope toward the ambush point.

Bittie was beckoning to him from the top of a rock, then scrambled down and vanished behind it.

Jonnie came up and surveyed the scene. The command post they had chosen was a hollow in the rocks and it was a mess. The Basher tank had scored a hit just above it.

The gear was all smashed up. Their radio was in bits.

Bittie was kneeling beside Sir Robert, lifting his head. The old veteran's eyes were blinking. He was coming to.

They were stunned with concussion. Some blood was coming out of their ears and noses. Jonnie walked closer. Probably some broken fingers, lots of bruises. None of it serious.

With water from a canteen on a bandana, he went about the work of bringing them around. Robert the Fox, Colonel Ivan, two Coordinators, and a Scot radioman.

Jonnie clambered up on a rock and looked down the defile. The convoy was all there. Nothing had blown up so the Russians must have been using plain, not radioactive, slugs. But they hadn't been after the material. They'd been after live Psychlos.

Three Russians and Angus were getting the lead Basher tank open, a trick to do for it was upside-down, which sealed its hatches. Angus got a side port open with a torch. The Russians looked in. Jonnie cupped his hands. "Any alive in there?"

Angus saw him up there, looked into the tank and back up to Jonnie: Angus shook his head negatively. He called back, "Crushed and suffocated!"

Sir Robert had made his way up to Jonnie, very shaky and white of face.

Jonnie looked at him.

Sir Robert started to speak and Jonnie joined him in chorus.

"The best-planned raid in history!"

Chapter 7.

It took them three hard-working days to clean up the mess and occupy the Lake Victoria minesite.

The ore road had gone south to skirt the mountain ranges and turned back north to the minesite itself.

In full view when the overcast parted, to the northwest of the minesite, were the Mountains of the Moon. It was a long range that contained at least seven peaks up to sixteen thousand feet high. Right here on the equator, in all this heat and humidity, one didn't look for snow and ice, but there it was atop those peaks. There were even glaciers up there; now and then the towering tops were briefly visible, blazingly white.

At one time this range had been the border between two or three countries of ancient times. At the period of the Psychlo invasion or perhaps before, the pa.s.ses had been mined with nuclear tactical weapons. Needless to say, close as the mountains were to the minesite, the Psychlos never went there. There were several small tribes in the Mountains of the Moon, brown and black and even some whites remaining; they were often starved despite the teeming forests and savannahs full of game below them, and although they could come down now, long tradition kept them from approaching the minesite.

An ancient dam the man-maps said was the "Owens Falls Dam" provided power for the minesite, power so plentiful that the Psychlos just left all lights blazing.