Sergeant O’Brian heard the sudden explosion of combat far behind him, but his attention was on other things. His squad squatted and crouched in firing positions along the shallow, razor-backed ridge, and he peered through his binoculars at the cave mouth across the ravine below him.

The nose of an aircar protruded from it, and his jaw tightened as he saw the pulser muzzles like tusks on either side of the front gear well. The sleek vehicle bore no markings that he could see, and the presence of those heavy weapons made it illegal even if it had once been properly registered. The problem was what he did about it. He was no cop, and with the horror of the NPA skimmer fresh in his mind, he was in no mood to act like one.

He grunted decisively and hit the button that flipped the binoculars up out of his way.

“Hawk-Three, Falcon-Three-Three,” he said into his com. “Are you ready to nail them if they bug out?”

“Affirmative, Falcon-Three-Three,” the pinnace’s commander replied. “But we’re not going to leave much in the way of evidence if we do.”

“Understood, Hawk-Three. We’ll try to keep them on the ground, but stay on your toes.”

“Will do, Falcon-Three-Three. Luck.”

“Thanks.” O’Brian shifted back to the squad net. “You see that overhang above the aircar, Stimson?”

“Yo, Sarge,” the plasma rifleman’s reply was laconic, almost bored-sounding, but O’Brian wasn’t fooled.

“I want that cave plugged with the aircar inside it. It may be evidence, so I don’t want it destroyed, either. Think you can drop the overhang on its nose?”

“Might be able to,” Stimson said thoughtfully, “but that’s mighty thick rock, an’ I wouldn’t care to bet money on doin’ it from up here. This baby of mine don’t have all that much penetration, and the angle’s bad from here. I prob’ly can if I get a little lower, though, Sarge.”

“Can you do that without being spotted?”

“He can work around the north end of the ridge, Sarge,” Hillyard suggested. “It tails off in some broken ground and boulders down that way.”

“Sounds good to me, Sarge,” Stimson agreed.

“Do it, Stimson.”

“On my way.”

O’Brian grunted in satisfaction, but his armor sensors were already picking up revving turbines, and there were other machinery noises, coming both from that cave and an equally large cave mouth just below it. There might be more aircars in there, or even ground vehicles.

“Hadley, you watch that lower cave,” he said. “If anything starts to move out of it, nail it, and the hell with evidence.”

“My pleasure, Sarge.”

“Sharon, when Stimson takes out the aircar, I want you to take the rest of your people in to cover that smaller cave to the left. Bill, you take Parker and Lovejoy to that one on the extreme right. Turner and Frankowski, you’re with me on the one in the middle. Hadley and Stimson will lie back to cover us. Everyone copy?”

A chorus of assents came back, and he made himself wait in patience while Stimson slithered cautiously into position. It seemed to be taking forever, though he knew the delay felt far longer than it was. The thunder of weapons from the south grew even louder, and he bit his lip as its intensity registered. There must be even more of the bastards than they’d thought. He tried not to remember what the Stilties had done to those poor damned NPA types, tried not to think about them doing it to his own people, and concentrated on the task in hand.