But at that very moment,
a gap opened slowly in this shuttle's belly, wide enough exactly for one man to go in by.
Song Chen looked about him, turned himself over two or three times and made one spring, nimble for all the world as a hare broken loose.
And without god or ghost knowing of it,[1] came inside this shuttle.
Song Chen stood in the cabin, and could smell blood.
For in the compartment lay several corpses whose blood was not yet dry.
Each with one wound upon him only, and near enough every one of them a killing stroke.
Song Chen looked toward the cockpit,
where there was a figure.
"By the plan, the true coordinates have been sent out," Zhao Chen said, turning his head to look at Song Chen beside him.
Song Chen sat down in the seat next to Zhao Chen.
"Are you truly no more than an interstellar fighter pilot?"
Such was Song Chen's question.
The corner of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted slightly, and he said calmly, "At such a time, is a question of that sort of any weight?"
Song Chen threw him a glance and pressed it no further.
For what had passed to this point was the part of Song Chen's plan that Zhao Chen had altered.
To use a handheld terminal to send word and tell the Alliance's survivors something carried in itself the risk of being found out.
So Zhao Chen had simply made a feint to the east and struck at the west.
To the eye it was a handheld terminal used to reach the Alliance's survivors.
But in fact that was no more than a show put up.
The true plan being that Zhao Chen, in that time, should quietly waylay one of the enemy's shuttles, and then use the communications channel inside that shuttle to send out one message under cipher.
Though by this, the number of the Alliance's survivors who might receive the message would likely be cut down by no little.
Yet for the sake of keeping the task hidden, it was the safest way there was.
"So as to gather more of them in, I have set assembly points at three places upon this planet's surface." A task panel had at this moment sprung up before Zhao Chen.
The matter of the task panel was simple enough.
That at certain coordinates outside a certain valley a communications channel suspected of being the enemy's had been found, and every shuttle in the neighborhood was to go there at once and investigate!
It was the very place where Song Chen had left the handheld terminal a while ago.
"Then do we go straight there now?" Song Chen, without marking it himself, had begun asking Zhao Chen's opinion.
"There is no hurry yet. If we quit the formation in haste now, it will rather raise the enemy's suspicions. Let us carry out this task first, and look for our chance after." And Zhao Chen, keeping to what the enemy's orders required, flew the shuttle toward those coordinates.
Above the coordinates, a number of shuttles hung already.
And soldiers had come down besides, and found nothing whatever save one handheld terminal.
Whereupon the order from above was altered: to take this place for the center, and widen the search outward all about it.
Zhao Chen received a bearing to search along, which as it happened lay toward one of his three assembly points.
"Let us go. And next we are to carry out our second stage," Zhao Chen said, and flew the shuttle on at an easy pace.
Not long after, the shuttle hung hovering above a thick wood.
And because the wood held a great deal of green growth, there was no seeing clearly whether anyone was below or not.
And at this a soldier of the enemy's forces, in uniform, sprang down from the shuttle and came to earth among the trees.
This soldier looked about him.
"Come out."
So he said.
And still there was no stir anywhere about.
Whereupon this soldier took off his own helmet, and showed the true face beneath it[2] as Song Chen's.
And with that, sounds came from all about.
And thereupon survivor after survivor of the Alliance's soldiers came into Song Chen's view.
"It is the Leader!"
"This is splendid. The Leader is safe."
Song Chen ran his eye about him, and saw a man he knew, one of the bridge's commanders.
"Leader!" This man too came forward of his own accord, and saluted Song Chen in high feeling.
"Senior Colonel Luo. Presently the shuttle will hang above one of the trees. You must hide yourselves so far as you are able, and get into the shuttle quickly. Is that understood," Song Chen warned him.
"Yes!" said Senior Colonel Luo and the Alliance soldiers about him with one voice.
For they understood now that this shuttle was in truth their own.
And soon these men had come aboard the shuttle.
Zhao Chen turned his head and glanced at them.
Some thirteen or fifteen of them,[3] near enough.
Which made a shuttle that had been roomy enough grow somewhat crowded.
By good fortune this shuttle can take thirty at her full load; and with a little crowding, forty should be no difficulty.
"Senior Colonel Luo, do you take the count of every man here and of the weapons and gear they carry. And let these people of yours be formed for the time being into one fighting squad," said Song Chen.
"Yes!" Senior Colonel Luo set about it at once.
"Reporting, Leader. Fifteen men gathered this time; and apart from one man whose left arm is broken to splinters, who can only be quieted with the medical serum and cannot be healed. The rest are not hindered in fighting. As to weapons. They are chiefly light weapons, light-blades and laser pistols, with some high-explosive grenades besides."
Hearing this, Song Chen knit his brows slightly.
No heavy weapons.
And heavy weapons would be the thing they most wanted next.
But there were two further parties yet to take up.
He must hope that those might have some heavy weapons upon them.
Though the likelihood of it was small; they were survivors merely, and how should such men be carrying heavy weapons?
A dozen minutes and more later.
The shuttle looked more crowded still, and near enough no one was seated now; they all of them stood.
And the gangway would barely let one man squeeze along it.
"Three fighting squads, and thirty-eight of us in all. And though they all have weapons, they are all light ones." Song Chen knit his brows.
He raised a hand and called up the object of the task to come.
A communications station within one of this planet's cities.
And in that city are near a thousand ground-combat soldiers, and some armored ground units besides.
To look at the figures alone,
to hold the communications station, and then to send the message, and then to draw off afterward,
was very difficult indeed.
The more so as the enemy's T3-grade warship hung overhead, and once that fellow came up, one shot of hers was no more than a few minutes' work.
"Leader. You cannot stay upon this planet. I would propose that we carry out this task, and that you hide first in some safe place. And wait for the Alliance's relief, which will come when it has our word!" Senior Colonel Luo proposed.
The leaders of the other two squads agreed with him, one after another.
"Is it that you would have me save my own skin and live on in shame?" Song Chen looked at them coldly.
And with that these men all of them fell silent.
Song Chen looked at the drawings of this planet.
And above all at the drawings of this city.
And without his marking it, a plan rose in his mind…
But the risk of this plan was too great.
A plan whose risk was great…
Which set Song Chen thinking, in spite of himself, of Zhao Chen at the shuttle's controls.
"Zhao Chen, I have a plan…"
Song Chen went and sat down at Zhao Chen's side.
And under the astonished eyes of the three squad leaders behind him, fell to discussing a plan of battle with this man who was only a colonel!