“Good thinking, Base. Stalkers, rendezvous at Sierra One.” The team had buried caches of battery packs, spare parts, water, and medical supplies in various places in the desert for their withdrawal; if they were not used within three days, explosive charges would destroy the evidence.

‘Taurus copies.”

“Nike copies.”

“Pollux copies.” Patrick had just turned to start jumping out of the base when he heard Paul cut in, “Wait, Stalkers. I found something.”

“What do you got, Pollux?”

Paul McLanahan was too stunned to take cover—he was standing out in the open in front of three shabby-looking tin service buildings. Just before he was going to jet away, the big overhead doors to each building opened—and two MAZ-543 transporter-erector-launchers carrying an SS-12 Scaleboard nuclear rocket started to roll out. “Stalkers, I’m staring at six huge rockets coming out of those service buildings. I think they’re the same SS-12s you guys have been setting on fire. Should I—?”

And then he stopped—because all six of the huge vehicles stopped, and the SS-12 missiles started to rise up off the truck bed, and large steel legs began to extend to the ground to steady the vehicle. Warning lights began to blink, and soldiers and ground crew members that had been running around before now started to take cover.

“Hey, guys, I think the Libyans are going to launch these puppies,” Paul said.

“Oh, crap,” Patrick murmured. “Base, ETA on the FlightHawks?”

“Less than ninety seconds, Castor.”

Patrick had no idea how long it took to launch an SS-12, but he assumed that once it was elevated into launch position, it would take just a few moments. “Stalkers, converge on Pollux. Let’s take those SS-12s out before they can launch!”

“I can take them!” Paul shouted. “You can’t make it here in time! Continue the evacuation!”

“Stalkers, converge on Pollux now!” Patrick repeated. At the same time, he jet-jumped to the east in Paul’s direction. “Base, have the Hammer meet us at Tango Ten exfil point.”

“Roger,” Wendy replied. “FlightHawks are sixty seconds out. Hammer’s ETA to Tango Ten is two-zero minutes.”

Paul’s electrical defensive weapon went off as several Libyan soldiers approached. He felt heavy-caliber bullets pounding into him from many directions, all on full automatic and some with very heavy rates of fire—a Minigun or antiaircraft gun aimed at him. Seconds later, he got a low- power warning. The Tin Man battle armor was not designed to sustain a heavy attack, and heavy-caliber automatic-weapons fire drained power quickly. Paul had only seconds to get away.

A loud siren sounded. Paul turned toward the SS-12 rocket just to the right of him just as restraining clamps that held the rocket to the launch rail released and the rocket started to eject some gases from its nozzles. It looked like it was going to launch at any moment.