He looked at his watch, as the light airjeep let down into the street.
Oh-one-fifteen--two hours and a half since the mutiny at the
native-troops barracks had broken out. The Company reservation was
still ablaze with lights, and over the roof of the hospital and
dispensary and test-lab he could see the glare of the burning
barracks. There was more fire-glare to the south, in the direction of
the mine-equipment park and the mine-labor camp, and from that
direction the bulk of the firing was to be heard.
The driver, a young lieutenant, slid back the duraglass canopy for him
to climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himself
into his seat, and hit the controls.
They lifted up, the driver turning the nose of the airjeep in the
direction of the flames and explosions and magnesium-lights to the
south and tapping his booster-button gently. The vehicle shot forward
and came floating in over the scene of the fighting. The situation-map
at the improvised headquarters had shown a mixture of pink and white
pills in the mine-equipment park; something was going to have to be
done about the lag in correcting it, for the area was entirely in the
hands of loyal Company troops, and the mob of laborers and mutinous
soldiers had been pushed back into the temporary camp where the
workers had been gathered to await transportation to the Arctic. As he
had feared, the rioting workers, many of whom were trained to handle
contragravity equipment, had managed to lift up a number of
dump-trucks and power-shovels and bulldozers, intending to use them as
improvised air-tanks, but Jarman's combat-cars had gotten on the job
promptly and all of these had been shot down and were lying in
wreckage, mostly among the rows of parked mining-equipment.
* * * * *
From the labor-camp, a surprising volume of fire was being directed
against the attack which had already started from the retaken
equipment-park.
Hovering above the fighting, aloof from it, he saw six long
troop-carriers land and disgorge Kragan Rifles who had been released
by the liquidation of resistance at the native-troops barracks. A
little later, two air-tanks floated in, and then two more, going off
contragravity and lumbering forward on treads to fire their 90-mm.
rifles. At the same time, combat-cars swooped in, banging away with
their lighter auto-cannon and launching rockets. The titanium
prefab-huts, set up to house the laborers and intended to be taken
north with them for their stay on the polar desert, were simply wiped
away. Among the wreckage, resistance was being blown out like the
lights of a candelabrum.
He took up the hand-phone and called HQ.
"Von Schlichten; what's the wavelength of the officer in command at
the equipment-park?"
A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out.
"Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nice
going, major; how are your casualties?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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