Double Spiral War Trilogy by Warren Norwood

Author:Warren Norwood [Norwood, Warren]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Battlefield Press, Inc.
Published: 2013-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

19

“HOW LONG CAN WE TRANSMIT?” Mari asked.

“Even at full scramble it only takes the Ukes about ten minutes to home in on our signal, sir,” the pikean co-sergeant said, “so, General Porras has ordered us to limit all of our transmissions to a maximum of seven minutes.”

“Damn!” Mari shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes. “Not much time to get a whole lot said, is it? But I agree with General Porras.” There was no sense in giving their position away. “All right, Sergeant. If you’re sure Admiral Pajandcan is going to be on the other end, I want the full seven minutes.”

“That’s what they told us, General.”

“Then that’s what we’ll plan for. When do you expect the call to come in from Satterfield?”

“Sometime within the next couple of hours. It’s been pretty tough for us to coordinate with them, so we just sit open and wait most of the time.”

“Then I’ll wait here.” He looked around the damp cave with a little shudder. “You have anything hot to drink?”

The co-sergeant smiled. “There’s some instant tea in the pot, and some battle coffee back in the rear of the cave.”

“Ugh,” Mari said with a frown. “Never could stand battle coffee. Burns my stomach and gives me gas. I’ll take some of your tea.” He poured himself a mug of the tea, sweetened it with the thick, sweet syrup the pikeans always seemed to have for that purpose, and sunk into one of the inflatable chairs just outside the communications area.

As soon as the channel opened to Satterfield, his first priority was to tell Pajandcan that he would be leaving on the next freighter. Then he could give her the gist of his invasion idea. It would be easier if Porras were there to answer any questions Pajandcan might have, but Mari knew how critically important Porras’s attack on the Gresham starport was. If he and his pikean regulars destroyed the Uke ships as they planned, Sutton would be an even softer invasion target.

It had taken Mari twenty-three days to get from Spurgis to Porras’s new headquarters in the Halsey Mountains. One of the most important things he noted on the return trip had been that the Uke forces seemed thinner, both in the air, and on the ground than they had been on his trip over to Elias.

He and Porras hadn’t had much time to talk about that before Porras left, but they agreed that the Ukes appeared to be reverting to a defensive posture around all the major cities, leaving the smaller towns and the countryside alone except for irregular security patrols.

That new deployment pleased them both. It meant easier troop movement for them, and most critically, an opportunity to attack the Gresham starport near the north pole. Porras was convinced that the Ukes least expected an attack there, but he had been concerned about massing sufficient troops for such an attack without being observed.

As the withdrawl of the Ukes to an enclave defense had become more and more apparent, Porras had decided the risks were worthwhile, and had made his plans accordingly.

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