The mob was an easy target; a case of chemical bombs flung high over the cluster of running, armored men spilled its contents across them all. Explosions of bone-dry dust suddenly reacting to liquid water and alcohol, the sticky splash of rapidly gelling beer, the stark confusion of running men and panicked radio calls served to dissolve the last remnants of any unit cohesion the UN troops might have had.
1715 HOURS GMT
UN Positions
Cydonia Prime
1430 hours MMT
Somebody collided with Dutetre from behind, knocking him down. Growling a harsh, Gallic curse, he rolled over and started to rise. Something caught his eye.
He was only just beginning to realize that the projectiles launched from the cargo shuttle were not doing that much damage when they struck. The explosions were spectacular, certainly, but the shrapnel traveled so slowly it bounced off combat armor without effect. The liquid inside, for all its steaming and bubbling, didn’t seem to be doing anything except make a mess of the men’s suits…and blind the ones who got the stuff on their helmet visors. A few meters away, he saw one of the cans lying empty on the sand.
He picked it up. The top had blown off, but the rest of the can was nearly intact. Dutetre’s English was poor, but he could puzzle out the words, scraping at the thin metal with his glove to rub the ice off.
Stony.
Brook.
Beer.
Mon Dieu! Bière?
Angrily, Dutetre looked up suddenly at the cargo shuttle hovering above the base. Bastards! They’ve been dropping cans of beer!
Reaching down, he snatched up an FA rifle dropped on the sand, took aim at the hovering lander, and squeezed the trigger. Set on full automatic, the weapon sent a long stream of high-velocity penetrators snapping toward the target.
1716 HOURS GMT
Cydonia Two aboard MSL
Harper’s Bizarre
20 meters above UN Positions
South of Cydonia Prime
1431 hours MMT
Knox felt the heavy thuds of rounds striking the lobber, and twice something struck sparks from the support struts to either side of the Bizarre’s front porch. He ducked back, throwing out one arm to shove Ostrowsky back as well. Until now, only occasional rounds had come their way, either because the UN troops didn’t want the lobber to crash on top of them, or because they’d been too demoralized by the beer run to even think of shooting back.
They were shooting back now, though. Several of the troops down there were holding their ground and blazing away. They looked mad, Knox thought, as though they’d just learned the nature of the joke played on them by the Marines.
The lobber’s fuel tanks were heavily wrapped in foil insulation, and more padding—plastic sheeting, blankets, even mattresses—had been tied over the lower tankage assembly to provide some added protection from bullets, but judging from the hollow thunk of some of those impacts, and the way a thick white mist was starting to spill from behind the padding, at least a few rounds were drilling clean through.
“We got problems, people!” Elliott called. “I’m losing fuel damned fast!”
“We’re taking rounds in the storage tanks, Captain,” Knox called back. “You’d better get us clear!”
“Hell, I’m going to be lucky if we set down in one piece!”
The shuttle was faltering now, its plasma jet already giving out. “One more?” Knox asked Ostrowsky.
“Hell, yeah!” Together, they picked up one of the two remaining ice chests, opened and latched the top, and tipped it off the front porch in a glorious, spinning avalanche of brews. The lobber was falling quickly now, rotating clockwise as it fell. Elliott was apparently trying to guide them past the main hab and the other pressurized base facilities, but Bizarre had suddenly developed all of the aerodynamic proficiency of a very large rock.
“If you can, people,” Elliott told them, “try to jump clear before we hit!”
Together, Knox and Ostrowsky started unbuckling their safety harnesses. Elliott’s warning was a good one. If they jumped, they might hit soft sand and manage a roll. Stay aboard, and they could be caught between the deck as it slammed up at their feet, and the upper part of the shuttle as it slammed down from above.
He didn’t need to ask about Elliott. She was obviously still trying to coax a bit more thrust from the dying engine and wasn’t going to abandon her charge. “Ready?” he asked Ostrowsky, and he saw her answering nod. He made sure the ATAR was securely fastened to his armor, took Ostrowsky’s gloved hand, and waited a couple of seconds as they spun closer to the ground.
They were still four or five meters up when they jumped.
1716 HOURS GMT
Garroway
Cydonia Prime
1431 hours MMT
Garroway was running toward the main hab when Caswell shouted, “Hey! The bastards nailed the lobber!”