Blink: Interdiction (Book 4)

10

After mulling over the suggested incursion points provided by the colonial marines, Darien had eventually settled on one – a smear of darkness in the shadow of a small caldera, not far from one of Gartole's sub-stations. The complex around the dam was a forest of dark, tree-like buildings constructed of heat dispersing alloys, spider-webbed together with precarious gangways that hung over the lava canals.

The range of craggy hills collected vast quantities of flowing lava from the bubbling southern ranges, and Ravine's inhabitants had learned to bend the hot flows to their will, channelling the flows through massively reinforced canals, sending streams of energy rich, boiling lava across the region to power the settlements. For all its faults, Darien had to admit that the Gartole Dam was a triumph of human engineering that no other human colony could boast.

With the sub-stations spilling out away from it, the dam looked like a great dark curtain, rearing up hundreds of feet against the crags, holding back a vast lake of magma, its northern face glinting with lights and periodically scorched with the controlled flows that it unleashed out into the world.

It was all grimly familiar to him.

The heat of the volcanic region was stunning, even by Ravine's formidable standards, to the point where Darien had requisitioned a full compliment of the military grade hydration pills for his squad before setting out. He popped one of the tiny blue globes into his mouth and swallowed it as he surveyed their scenery through his mag-scope, carbine hanging form its strap against his combat vest.

Armed guards were clearly in evidence now. He could see figures dotted on observation towers or lounging on gantries, the dark silhouettes of rifles visible in the boiling twilight – so far so good when tallied against what intelligence Merlynn's soldiers had been able to provide. His stomach still turned at the prospect of actually finding their target in a complex as large as the dam, though. There was a lot of ground to cover.

"Uther," he said, lowering the mag-scope. "You got a trace on the shipments?"

"Yeah." Uther glanced down at the tracker he held in one hand. "According to this the goods themselves are concentrated in the loading bays on the dam's east side." He looked up, squinting at the massive structure. "But that's just the crates. We don't know where the offloaded gear ended up."

"We need to get eyes on the interior," Amber interjected, moving up alongside him. "If we just Blink in with a best guess we could blow this thing before it starts."

Niamh nodded. "She's right."

"Then we hit one of the observation posts," Darien replied without having to even stop and think. He knew Gartole – knew its security systems well enough. From what he'd seen, not much had changed since his time there. "The sub-stations all have local security nets that are wired into a central hub in the main dam." He looked at Uther, then Amber. "We just need to get control of one, then someone can bust the local security protocols and hack into the main feed."

Uther grinned. "That's simpler than I was expecting."

"I didn't say it would be easy."

"Meaning what."

Darien sighed heavily. "Ravine's systems are not what you're used to. They're ... let's be charitable and call them 'old-fashioned', okay?" He saw Amber wrinkle her nose at the prospect of hacking into an archaic system. He didn't doubt that between them the two techs could do it, but this was nothing like the normal curve of human civilisation. Ravine lagged well behind that curve – still using computer systems, authentications and protocols from its original colonisation, the kind of thing his squad-mates had never seen before.