A gap opened slowly in the shuttle's hatch.
And below was a cluster of buildings within the city,
with only a few street lamps and lighting fixtures.
Without their marking it, the sky had darkened.
And the planet's night had come on.
"Remember to keep clear of the enemy's detection gear, and let our movement be found out as late as ever it may be. Our plan of battle is simple. In the shortest time there is, to break into the mecha store of the enemy's mecha force at their station." Zhao Chen pointed at that building, the largest of them and like a warehouse.
"But a mecha commonly has a code set upon it, and without a card and the identity particulars of one of their own people, there is no starting one," Senior Colonel Zhao Jie asked beside him, with some worry.
"That part you may leave to me," said Zhao Chen.
Senior Colonel Zhao Jie knit his brows and would have said something more.
But Song Chen beside him cut in. "In everything you take Zhao Chen's direction. Within your squad, every man obeys Zhao Chen's orders without condition. Do not make me say it a third time."
Hearing the Leader say it, Senior Colonel Zhao Jie could only put his words away.
"Come down within this area so far as you can, at the foot of that tall building in district A. Any difficulty?" Zhao Chen looked at the five of them.
"No difficulty," the five answered.
Though one among them swallowed all the same; for this was a hundred meters of open air.
"The operation begins." Zhao Chen's words were barely done when he was the first out of the cabin.
And thereupon the five of them jumped down after him.
And the soldiers in the cabin behind, watching these men spring out into the air, broke out in a cold sweat in spite of themselves.
With nothing but plain armored gear upon them, and no other apparatus to help them down, to jump like that; this… if it did not kill them it must cripple them.
For a drop of this kind in the ordinary way, even with a personal exoskeleton combat suit on, a man must still carry a single-use descent brake to be sure of coming down safe.
In the dark of the night,
Zhao Chen set his body in the air as he fell, and so could govern the way of his falling.
And came nearer the tall building by degrees.
And by now Zhao Chen's speed was very great; falling groundward at such a speed, even Zhao Chen would be hard put to it.
And just as it seemed Zhao Chen must strike the building.
Zhao Chen drew out that light-blade of his, and roused it with his spirit-strength.
The light-blade's edge shot out and drove straight into the body of the building.
For by what he had observed earlier, the outer faces of the buildings here are mostly made of some material like rock.
And the face they had chosen to come down by had no glass and nothing of that kind upon it, so that it would make no great difference.
And with that, Zhao Chen's speed of falling was suddenly cut down.
But the next instant Zhao Chen drew the light-blade back.
For if he went on braking himself by friction, the fire struck out of it would hardly fail to draw the enemy's notice.
And thereafter Zhao Chen used this means to slow himself three times over,
until at the last he came safely to a place some ten meters above the ground.
But he did not come down at once; rather he raised his head and looked at the sky.
And in the dark his eyes were as a fierce hawk's, and picked out the shapes of the other five at once.
Zhao Jie's descent went smoothly; he had taken his pattern from Zhao Chen's handling, and came down without trouble.
And the rest, for all their stumbling at it, had no great difficulty either.
But among them was one whose speed of falling was plainly too great.
It may be that he was too tense to rouse his light-blade steadily.
And at that speed, coming down upon the ground, setting aside whether it killed him or not, it would raise a very great noise.
Zhao Chen's gaze set hard.
He roused his own light-blade with a will, and the blade's body lengthened and lengthened.
Until at the last, in the instant of their passing, Zhao Chen lifted this soldier up outright.
And came down firmly upon the ground with him.
"The devil, but that is fine work!"
"That colonel, can it be he came out of the interstellar marines?"
"But I hear that he flies interstellar fighters, and is an ace pilot besides."
"Did you see it just now, how the body of that light-blade grew to some ten meters in an instant?"
Listening to the soldiers talking it over in the cabin,
Song Chen for his part kept his eyes fixed upon that figure down in the dark.
Zhao Chen,
who had said before that his rousing a light-blade of forty meters was purest chance.
He can hide himself indeed.
What manner of man are you.
And how do you come to be in a fleet of mine.
What purpose is it you have!
Once this is over I shall assuredly have it out of you!
Song Chen, the Star Alliance's Leader, had his eye upon Zhao Chen now.
"Let us go. Proceed by the plan as laid." Song Chen looked at his shuttle's pilot.
"Yes."
The shuttle's hatch closed, and she began flying slowly toward the far end of this city, where the interstellar communications tower stood,
which was the place of the first weight in this task of theirs.
…………
"Check your gear and your own condition," Zhao Chen said to the five of the squad.
"Number one, sound."
"Number two, sound."
"Number three… my foot has a touch of cramp. Give me a moment."
"Number four, ugh… let me… be sick a moment…"
"Number five, I… gulp… I am all right."
Number five was the man Zhao Chen had caught a moment ago; and but for Zhao Chen's catching him, he would likely have come down hard upon the ground.
"What is the matter with the lot of you? Weren't you every one of you aces of the interstellar marines before this?" Zhao Jie, seeing these men in such a state, found it rather shameful.
For he knew these five men's files too, and near enough without exception they had a glorious history of service in the interstellar marines.
"Enough. No talking. Rest where you stand for three minutes. And in three minutes make ready to move. Number one and number two, watch the ground about us," Zhao Chen said coldly.
"Yes."
Number one was Zhao Jie, and number two another man who had once been an elite leader of interstellar marines.
Three minutes.
By then he should near enough have come to the other place of the task.
Zhao Chen turned his eyes toward one quarter of this camp they stood in.
Within three hundred meters in that quarter.
Stood the store where this combat-mecha camp keeps its mecha at their berths.
And their task was to make for that place,
and at the same time to raise a commotion,
and draw the notice of this city's garrison and its patrols,
and so win a chance for Song Chen's end to take the communications tower.
For the communications tower is guarded at a higher grade, so that a plain assault would find it very hard to take.
It wants some heavy fire.
Song Chen had thought of this before, and had thought then of the mecha station, though he was not wholly sure of it.
And so had asked Zhao Chen's opinion.
There was nothing wrong with Song Chen's plan, but it wanted one man.
And Zhao Chen was naturally that man.
He had agreed to this plan of battle, and would take the carrying of it out upon himself.
"The three minutes' rest is up. We move now. Act by the plan of battle as laid." Zhao Chen looked at the five of the squad. "And remember, in the action to come. I shall not halt my step. If a man is hurt, if a man falls behind. I shall not see to him. Is that clear?"
"Clear!" said the five of the squad, their voices low but very firm.
"Make ready to move. Draw the enemy's notice, and take the enemy's mecha!"