CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The Cab Depot was located not far in from the surface of the Hub and on the south side, facing Detroit. It was, in effect, a miniature marshaling yard where surplus cabs were collected and subsequently redispersed around Janus via the spokes as fluctuations in traffic patterns demanded. At least, that was what it had been designed for. Hours after Linsay’s arrival at the Hub, it had become the scene of preparation for what must have been the most bizarre military operation ever conceived in history.

The end section of the Depot comprised a long, narrow bay in which a number of sections of cab tracks ran side by side for a distance in a direction parallel to the axis of the Spindle. Thus, had the intervening outer structure of the Hub not been in the way, they would be pointing straight out at Detroit. The tracks had been cleared of cabs and on them now stood three rafts, supported on skids constructed from hastily thrown together pieces of structural lattice-works and tubing.

The first raft carried the smaller of the two water tanks taken from the adjacent Recirculation Plant. The tank had been packed with high explosives and carried at its tail end a crudely welded framework to which were attached five small solid-propellant motors, steering jets and a rudimentary remote-control box. It was, in effect, a rocket-propelled bomb.

Immediately behind it on the same tracks was an open frame, similarly equipped with rockets and loaded high with plastic-wrapped bales of powdered moonrock packed around layers of explosive charges.

Behind that was the larger cylinder, twenty feet in diameter by fifty long. Scores of two-inch rocket tubes were being fitted to fire forward from the dense framework of tubing that projected from its front end. A battery of motors was arrayed across another frame at its tail, and inside the rough access ports that had been, cut along it at intervals engineers were busily attaching lugs and brackets to secure a web of internal nylon ropework and netting.

Linsay’s plan was as simple and direct as it was audacious. First, assuming that Z Squadron arrived on schedule, a barrage of missiles would be fired by the ISA ships at anything moving outside Janus to distract Spartacus’s defenses and keep them occupied, at least for the fifteen to twenty seconds that Linsay estimated he needed. Then the whole section of the Hub that lay between the Cab Depot and the outside would be blown away by means of charges planted by volunteers who had infiltrated forward. This would create a clear launch run from the Depot to Detroit. The three outlandish craft of Linsay’s invasion fleet would then be fired in rapid succession.

The bomb would impact first and blow a gap through the outer skin into Detroit. The second vessel would follow into the gap seconds behind and explode inside to create a smoke screen. The smoke screen would be formed by the exploding mass of finely powdered rock dispersing in Detroit’s zero gravity to form a cloud that would be opaque at all wavelengths used by Spartacus’s sensors. Thus, for a few vital minutes at least, Spartacus would be blind in that region of Detroit.

The assault wave, comprising two hundred troops and their equipment, would go inside the large tank under the added protection of a layer of sandbags secured behind the metal walls. The rocket barrage from the front of the tank would be fired as a single salvo seconds before impact to neutralize anything of Spartacus that might be left functioning after the bomb and the dust screen, and to stir up the screen further. After the rockets had been fired, the framework that had supported them would collapse when the tank impacted and, together with the retro-motor fitted to fire forward, should absorb most of the momentum of the estimated impact velocity of fifty miles per hour. The harnesses and nets inside the tank were for extra shock absorption to enable the assault troops to come out in a fighting condition.

Linsay himself would be the first man out. After that, it would be straight through to the fusion plant without stopping, regardless of losses until they either got there or all died in the attempt—“If you’re hit, keep going,” he had told them. “If you can’t keep going, get outta the goddam way! Once we come out of the tank in Detroit, there won’t be any way back.”

A naval captain staring out over the activity around the rafts shook his head wonderingly then turned to the major directing a welding team.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” he declared. “In fact it’s so crazy, it might just damn well work!”

At the far end of the Depot, Linsay was exhorting a sweating crew of engineers to move faster in fitting bug main drive to the back of the large tank when a worried-looking sergeant bustled through from the communications post that had been set up alongside the tracks.

“Message from the Command Room, sir. Spartacus has started landing drones on the outside of the Rim.”

Linsay bunched his lips and drew a long breath.

“They’ll just have to take care of it themselves now,” he said. “We need everybody we’ve got up here...and more.” He turned back toward the engineer team. “Come on, come on! Get that fuel line connected. What are you people waiting for—a pay raise? If that motor doesn’t fire on schedule you won’t be in any position to spend what you’re already getting. Move!”

The Command Room was sealed off by the surrounding mass of Downtown from the falling pressure outside in the Rim, but everybody had donned suits as a precaution. Only a skeleton staff was left after everybody else had departed either to the shelters or to join Cordelle’s defense lines around the spokes.

Krantz sat at the dais and took in the reports of growing numbers of drones and other contrivances arriving on the outer surface of the Rim. The pressure was now down to such a level that even a major fracture of the Rim would no longer have catastrophic consequences, although considerable damage could still be expected. Krantz was not so worried by the machines on the roof, therefore, as by those on the outer surface of the tread—below ground level, right where most of the people were. Anything could happen, he told himself repeatedly.

And then the reports started coming through of cutting commencing at points beneath Downtown, Berlin and Paris. At the same time the machines were moving around toward the place where they had detected the greatest concentrations of mass, Krantz studied the data beamed in from the telescopic views picked up by the distant ISA ships and smiled to himself as the thought that had been lurking at the back of his mind began to take shape.

“Give them a few more minutes,” he said in response to a request for instructions from one of the screens on his console.

He had found sitting here while others fought and died to be more of a strain than he had bargained for. But although at times his emotions had almost taken control, he had managed, he felt, to maintain an acceptable degree of coordination and order in the face of impossible circumstances. Now at last he could do something positive to contribute directly to slowing down that accursed machine until Linsay was ready and the Z Squadron arrived. He touched in a command to activate a channel to the controller in the emergency backup station some floors below.

“Confirm status on dispersal firing circuit,” he said.

“Ready and standing by,” came the reply. Krantz nodded and studied again the figures coming in from the image analyzers aboard the ISA ships.

“Disperse the shield,” Krantz instructed.

“Request confirmation to disperse the shield.”

“Confirmed.”

Thousands of explosive bolts detonated simultaneously all around the outside of the Rim to disintegrate the aluminum shell that retained the four-foot-thick moonrock layer of the cosmic-ray shield. The entire tread of the Rim turned into a cloud of metal shell-sections and dust expanding out into space like a gigantic smoke ring and carrying with it a complete division of Spartacus’s army.

Krantz smiled grimly to himself at the image brought to him on the screen. Now he too had drawn blood from the monster. He felt composed. He could live even with the knowledge of Omega. Or die, if that was the way it was to be. But without having been granted even the dignity of making a token gesture of striking back...that would have been too much.