CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Linsay reached the Hub to find the whole command structure disintegrating into panic. Northport had been devastated only minutes before and along with it the Hub Operations Room and its full complement of staff. Whole companies without officers or orders were streaming back into the core of the Hub while Spartacus assaulted the outside with swarms of drones and a new type of giant flamethrower that perched like a stinging wasp to clear the outermost compartments of the structure by injecting its nozzle through holes blown in the surface. Meanwhile a separate invasion force was being landed from the catcher ship into the ruin of Northport and simultaneously a new attempt had begun to move north out of the Spindle. The situation was hopeless—an encirclement in three dimensions.

But Linsay had forgotten the meaning of the word; his moment in history had arrived.

Within minutes he had assembled a working staff group and gotten them organized to go back and reverse the flow of men scrambling to get away down the spokes. He was everywhere at once, directing the emplacement of wire-guided missile racks, reforming scattered units and distributing them for defense in depth, ordering revised fire plans and pulling fresh teams forward to plug gaps. Behind Northport he threw together lines of infantry equipped with bazookas who fell back alternately behind mutually supporting massed rocket barrages until the waves pouring from the catcher ship were exhausted. All around the Hub he ordered a general fallback to an inner perimeter sphere after the outer layers had been mined with wire and laser-triggered booby traps; Spartacus’s losses mounted and its advance slowed. His mood percolated swiftly down through the chain of command he had established and a renewed determination took hold of the defenders of the Hub.

By the time the new lines had stabilized themselves, Spartacus was in possession of all of the Hub above latitude sixty degrees north as well as the inner ends of the Downtown, Paris and Vine County spokes and virtually the whole of the outside Hub. Linsay established an “inner defense box” around the inner regions of south Hub, where he at once called his improvised retinue of chiefs-of-staff and proceeded to set in motion the plan that had begun forming in his head even before he had left the Command Room in Downtown.

“The Water Recycling Plant and the Cab Depot Area are to be fortified for defense at all costs,” he told them. “I want every drive motor and steering motor that still works brought here. Strip ‘em out of the bugs, buses, mini-shuttles and anything else that moves...get ‘em from spares allocations...I don’t care where they come from but get ‘em here. I want one of the one-hundred-thousand-gallon tanks and one of the ten-thousand-gallon tanks from the plant drained and ripped out. Get every ounce of explosive here that can be spared, two-inch rockets and Gremlins. And sandbags...lots of sandbags. Clean out the dump and bring whatever isn’t in bags loose in whatever’ll carry it. If you have to, tell the people down at the Rim to shovel it outta the shield and send it up the tubes. Okay, let’s move it.”

Everybody around him jumped into action at once; there was no time for questions. Then he called for a connection to Krantz.

“What’s happening at the north end?” Krantz asked.

“It’s in and we lost some of the Hub there, but we’re holding,” Linsay told him. “It took a lot of losses and it’s pulled what it’s got left off attacking and put them on foraging.” Krantz looked puzzled. Linsay explained, “It’s tearing apart whole sections of what’s left at Northport and loading it all into the hippo it’s got parked there. Looks like it’s cannibalizing the place to keep itself supplied with raw material. Must be feeling the pinch since the moonrock stopped arriving. What’s the score down there?”

“We’re worried about the missiles it used on Northport,” Krantz said, looking true to his words. “If it’s making more, it might decide to fire the next batch at the Rim. We’re preparing defensive positions around the bases of the spokes in case it comes down that way and we’re putting everybody who isn’t needed there into shelters or capsules. We’ve started depressurizing the Rim because of the risk of explosive decompression.”

“What’s the latest on Z Squadron?” Linsay asked.

“Due in just over two hours. Why?”

“I’m gonna need a diversionary missile strike. I’ll fix H-hour for the assault at two hours, ten minutes from now,”

“Assault?” Krantz was incredulous. “Have you gone mad? You’ve only got three of the spokes left. Your only way out is through the Rim and the only way to the Rim is by the spokes. Get out, for God’s sake, while you’ve still got the chance.”

“I don’t need the spokes,” Linsay said. “I’m not going to the Rim. I’m going to Detroit.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’ve already tried and look what happened. And that was while you still had all of the Hub. You’ll never even get into the Spindle now.”

“I don’t need the Spindle either,” Linsay replied. “We’re going in the way MacArthur did at Inch’on—Korea, 1950...all out for total surprise with a” landing way behind the enemy lines. What’s the use of hanging onto the Rim when it might get blown out from under your ass any minute? There’s only one way to solve this now.”

“If Janus stays in one piece,” Krantz retorted. “Did you set the girl?”

“What girl?”

“Kim Sinclair.”

“What about her?”

Krantz gave a despairing groan.

“She went up to the Hub on an insane solo mission to jam the Decoupler with a Gremlin. Nobody here knew about it. Ray and some others went after her but I had a squad sent in to grab her in case the others were too slow in getting there. Operations were handling it before...before they were overwhelmed. We think she managed to fire one but we don’t know what happened after that. That must have been something like an hour and a half ago. You mean you don’t know anything about it?”

Linsay shook his head.

“I’ve been kinda busy up here. Where was she heading?”

“According to my information. Sector 17D. We’re sure we saw a Gremlin fired from somewhere around there too...a couple of minutes before Northport got hit.”

“Who went there besides Ray and Kim?” Linsay asked. Krantz told him.

“Just a second.” Linsay turned away to consult one of his officers. When he turned back to face the screen his expression had suddenly become grim.

“Sector 17D was hit pretty bad,” he said. “We’ve had to pull right back out of that area. We don’t have anybody there at all. If they were there when you say they were there, it looks like bad news. Nobody who didn’t get out could still be alive in there, and they weren’t listed among the ones who got out. Sorry, Mel, it doesn’t look too good.”

“I see.” Krantz cut off the connection and stared blankly at the screen. Behind him Danny Cordelle had paused in his task of organizing the Rim defenses to listen. He clicked his tongue and shook his head dubiously.

“Never believe bad news till it’s lookin’ ya in the face,” he advised philosophically. “Y’ never can tell...”