Stars Rain Down by Chris J. Randolph Read Free Book Online Page A

housed.
    The fact none of this shocked Jack revealed that his threshold for weird shit had jumped a few notches.
    A squad of jackrabbits came out to investigate the disappearance, and they sniffed around and chattered over the evidence for hours before returning to the city. A new choir of monks replaced the originals the very next day, but were now protected by pairs of bored looking jackrabbits who stood off to the side and kept watch.
    Back at the base camp, couriers arrived from the North carrying new orbital scans with improved detail. Most were focused on five hot spots arranged in a wide circle around the city’s center. Command assumed they were generators, and they were marked as high priority targets. There was no info about how the generators worked, but their destruction would deal a significant blow, and maybe cause a chain reaction that could take down the entire colony.
    Orders were orders. Jack didn’t know how well the disguises would hold up under scrutiny, so he planned the infiltration and bombing all in one fell swoop without a test run. If they were discovered, they wouldn’t get a second chance. Worse, they’d have the enemy actively searching for them, making any operations in the region significantly more difficult.
    On the day of the mission, all forty Bravos gathered at the edge of the wilderness and waited for nightfall. Only eight were going in, while the others secured their escape route, and waited to provide cover fire if things went bad.
    The infiltrators were broken into two teams. Jack lead the fire-support team, which included Charlie, Nikitin and Albright, armed with assault rifles and frag grenades, while Trash headed up the demolitions team, each carting around bricks of plastic explosive and detonators. They had enough to blow a dam from what Jack understood, and he hoped it was enough.
    Night fell and it was time. They painted their faces and arms matte black, put on their graphite robes and took off across the half-klick between the forest and the city. They made good use of cover, keeping hedge lines and storage containers between themselves and their goal. No sense being seen in the open if they could help it.
    Then they came to the great blue city itself, which sat on a bed of roots that held it above the ground. There were gaps between the roots creating natural crawlspaces, and Jack wondered what lived down below. He wondered that in a purely academic sort of way, not in any mood to find out, or even get close. The last thing he wanted was to meet the alien version of a rattlesnake.
    They made their way around the perimeter and then headed up one of the wide ramps that connected the inner city to the fields outside. The ramp was much bigger than Jack had originally thought. Logically, he knew how large it was after weeks of careful observation, but that didn’t prepare him for the staggering hugeness of it, looking less like machinery and more like a sloping hillside.
    Charlie gave him a nudge. “You ready for this?â€

Chapter 36:
Jack and the Beanstalk
    The climbing team stripped off their robes and left them folded up on the ground. The disguises wouldn’t matter, since a group of monks climbing the generator would be as suspicious as anything else. Fortunately, the generator complex was of little interest to the citizens of the blue city and there was no traffic nearby, flying or on foot. Their chances of being seen were small, and if they were lucky, that would be enough.
    Jack didn’t like trusting in luck.
    All four were former corpsmen with jumpsuits dyed darker colors. Each also wore the standard corps duty pack, which housed a climbing-harness with built in rappelling cable. The hooks allowed corpsmen to latch onto each other and form a human chain, great for climbing but also useful in strong winds and flood waters. A large part of Corps Basic Training was devoted to the harness’ effective use.
    Albright was the