Intrepid

''Yes she did,'' Thorpe said, making a snap decision with no doubt that it was the one to make. ''Weapons, two targets. The Fronour farmhouse. Target with one eighteen-inch laser. Use the other eighteen-incher to hit the warmest part of that lake. Let's see if anyone is trying to hide in the bottom mud.''

''I have the target coordinates loaded, sir,'' Weapons said. Pushing off from his chair, she flew arrow-straight for her station. She snagged her station chair with one hand and made final adjustments to her firing solution with the other. ''We will lose our line of fire in five seconds.''

''Fire on the count of three,'' Thorpe ordered. His ''One, two, three'' was short, but it got the job done.

The lights dimmed as the pulse lasers drew all the power they could into two coherent beams of light and death. Thorpe's only regret was that he'd have to wait over an hour to find out if he'd finally gotten that spoiled brat.

17

Lasers from orbit are not supposed to be effective weapons against ground troops. Crowbars, rocks, all of those, according to The Book, are an effective way that an orbital force can contribute to issues that are in doubt on the surface below. Assuming, of course, that you can get rocks and crowbars to hit what you want when they're coming in at twenty-five thousand klicks per hour.

Kris doubted the smart staff weenie who so casually dismissed lasers from orbit had ever taken a good lasing.

Without warning, the main farmhouse, say ten klicks ahead of them, exploded. It just blew up in a hurricane of wind, light, and destruction, throwing flaming pieces of itself in all directions. Most of the outbuildings crumbled in the maelstrom.

The very air around Kris exploded as well. One of the supposed drawbacks of lasers from orbit was their tendency to heat up the air they passed through. This was supposed to cause the lasing beam to lose its tightly wound coherence.

Maybe it wasn't quite as coherent as when it left Thorpe's ship, but the house sure didn't notice the difference. And the air, oh the air around Kris. Some of it roared out from the beam's path. Other gusts were fighting their way in to fill the hole in the sky. And Kris's ears got battered by gusts both coming and going. Kris got off easy, she had her visor fully up. The woman beside her had only opened hers a crack. The visor crumbled and left her face streaming blood.

Kris thought the farmhouse was the only target until it began to rain: water, dead fish, mud, and really ugly-looking things with no fins.

''I think they put one shot into the lake. Didn't you say that they had two eighteen-inch pulse lasers?'' Sergeant Bruce asked.

''That's how the chief called it,'' Kris agreed.

''Well then, we know where both of them went. I hope the captain is real grateful to us for absorbing all the attention.''

''Kris,'' Nelly said, ''Thorpe's ship is below the horizon. We'll have eighty-five minutes before he comes back.''

''Let's put it to good use. On your feet, crew.''

''Can we shoot back next time, Your Highness?'' some wag asked.

''You show me a target in range, and it's all yours,'' Kris assured anyone still able to hear.

Kris spent her nap time designing a set of drifter nanos. Folks can hide but they have to breathe. Somewhere around here air was being sucked underground and blown back up again. Gently, so as not to leave anything visible from orbit. Kris figured she was closer and should have an easier time of it.

That was before someone zapped one farmhouse, its roaring fire now grabbing all the free oxygen available. Gentle drifting nanos would be sucked right into the flames.

This whole show was turning into a bloody lash-up.

Not for the first time since she'd jumped into Panda space, Kris schooled her face to command neutral, let a breath out in a soft sigh … and went looking for Plan B. Or G. Or maybe she was already down to Z.

There was one item on the map Nelly displayed on Kris's eyeball that intrigued the Navy lieutenant. The controlled burn had been started in three layers, each of them about twenty meters thick. Most of what was still burning was in the far line.

But one broom tree in the first line still showed up brightly on infrared. Why? Kris trotted for it, Sergeant Bruce and his squad not far behind.

The most noticeable thing about a broom tree was its trunk. Solid and round at the bottom, it looked like it would take three or four people holding hands to circle it. The trunk rose thirty to fifty meters straight up. At the top it was about as big around as it was at the bottom. Only there, a wild concoction of branches sprang out. It looked like someone had planted a bush on top of a stone column.

But it was the bottom of the tree that Kris now stared at.

There, a good half meter from the ground, the tree again branched out into a wild tangle of holes, dirt … and surprisingly thin roots.

There the fire was still hot. ''I guess that's how you kill a tree that's as hard as iron,'' Kris muttered.