Mike shook his head. But John felt confident they could do it, and so with a final nod of assurance, he stepped passed the master chief and went around the back of the truck to peel back the awning that covered the flatbed. Mike steeled himself and walked over to the foot of the rail-mounted crane, launching himself into the long climb to the control cabin.

In the back of the first truck, John bent and grasped the first of the twenty-six crates. The satellite watching above inquired what was going on and he replied via his relay onboard the Dauntless with a story about loading last minute supplies. He had recalibrated his built-in weight sensors so that the information being sent back to the satellite would show the crates as weighing only fifty pounds each, more fitting to the report he had filed with the AI.

He bent and picked up the first of the hefty crates and placed it on top of the one behind it. Then he turned to the next one and put that on top of the first two. He continued doing this till he had a block three crates high, two crates wide and one crate deep. Six crates, good. Now he picked up one more and hefted it over his head. Flexing his vastly powerful arms and legs, he thrusted the half-ton box into the air and deposited it on top of the stack to make up the seven crates he would need to get this done in four goes.

The tall, shore-mounted crane above started as easily as it had that afternoon, thought Mike, its electro-diesel engines powering up under the master chief’s unskilled but quick-to-learn guidance. If a dockworker came along, he would have to decide how best to handle it. But his orders were clear. His utmost concern was the secrecy of the mission. Mike was authorized to use lethal force to protect that secrecy if necessary, and he was both willing and able to do it.

It would not be as tidy as he preferred, and the thought of silencing a dockworker, or worse a navy man, did not sit well with him. But the mission had been given to him with the utmost gravity, and if it came to it he would not hesitate. Ours is not to reason why, he thought, ours is just to do and die. With a wry smile, Mike set aside his concerns and watched John manipulating the crates far below. Those had seemed a shitload heavier earlier that night, he thought.