Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay: this is desperate ground.
On dispersive ground, therefore, fight not. On facile ground, halt not. On contentious ground, attack not.
On open ground, do not try to block the enemy’s way. On ground of intersecting highways, join hands with your allies.
On serious ground, gather in plunder. On difficult ground, keep steadily on the march.
On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem. On desperate ground, fight.
SUN TZU
The Art of War
Standard year circa 500 B.C.
PLANET ALGERON
McKee heard a second explosion, hoped that one of her men had thrown a grenade, and made a grab for her AXE. As she stood, she saw Shinn’s fifty lying on the ground a couple of feet away. A large-caliber weapon could make a big difference. So she dropped the AXE and took the Storm. It was heavy and awkward to carry. “Come on!” McKee shouted. “Let’s kick some ass.”
Hagen was right behind McKee as she lumbered toward the hole, and a couple of Royce’s engineers brought up the rear. Every legionnaire could fight, and they were armed with semiauto shotguns. Perfect for the sort of close-in work taking place on the other side of the wall.
McKee pushed the big machine gun through the hole and followed on hands and knees. Then she was through but unable to stand as bullets smacked into the wall above her. Sykes’s head was sitting next to his right leg. “Put me back together, Sarge!”
McKee looked left, saw that Larkin and Kyle had taken cover behind a ledge, and felt a sense of relief. They were alive! Now to keep them that way. She placed the fifty across the inside surface of her arms and attempted to elbow her way forward. But the weapon weighed more than eighty pounds, and she hadn’t made much progress when Larkin spotted her. He crawled over. “A present! And just what I wanted. Let’s trade.”
So Larkin gave McKee his AXE and took the fifty. “There are at least ten of them,” he said, “maybe more. They tried to rush us, but we beat ’em back. Kyle’s okay for a newbie.”
That was high praise from Larkin, and as the engineers arrived, McKee gave orders. “You, take the left flank and keep the bastards away from the machine gun.” Then, having turned to the second soldier, “You take the right side. Same job. Okay?”
Both engineers nodded and low crawled away. Meanwhile, Larkin had taken the Storm fifty over to the ledge. Having placed the barrel on a rest comprised of his own chest protector, he could traverse back and forth. And just in time.
McKee heard a chorus of bloodcurdling war cries as half a dozen warriors charged what they believed to be two slick skins. Then Larkin began to fire three-round bursts. The big slugs tore two of the Naa apart, but the rest were fast, and halfway to their goal, when Kyle and McKee opened up. More attackers fell, as one of the engineers yelled, “Grenade!” There was barely enough time to go facedown before it went off. The explosion threw shrapnel in every direction. A chunk of the ceiling fell, shattered as it hit the floor, and sent rocks flying.
McKee looked up to discover that another wave of attackers had crossed the open area and were only ten feet away. A shotgun went off as she stood and was immediately bowled over by a ferocious-looking Naa. The warrior growled something in his own language, and strong fingers sought her throat. His expression turned to one of surprise as McKee’s combat knife went hilt deep into his side. She felt something warm dribble on her as the blade scraped along a rib. McKee knew she’d been lucky to avoid bone as she pushed her attacker off and rolled to her feet. The AXE lay two feet away. As the Naa made a futile attempt to pull the knife out, she put two bullets into his head.
It took an act of will to put what she’d been through aside and look around. There wasn’t much to see other than a haze of gun smoke, a scattering of dead bodies, and the burned-out wreckage of the RAV in the distance. She tried to speak, made a croaking sound, and tried again. “Larkin, move the fifty up to the RAV and use it for cover. Kyle, get to work on Sykes. And my thanks to our intrepid engineers! If you gentlemen would join Corporal Larkin at the barricade, I would be grateful.”
By the time all of the cyborgs had been taken apart, passed through the wall, and put back together again, a good deal more than the allotted time had passed. But no mention was made of it as the group spent what they considered to be a “night” in the cavern where the battle had taken place. The construction droids had buried all the bodies by then, and as McKee ate her dinner, she did the best she could to ignore the graves.
Having eaten, McKee was so tired that not even the presence of dead bodies could keep her awake once she put her head down. Sleep took her within a matter of seconds and kept her for nine hours. So when she awoke, it was to discover that everyone except for Hagen, Clay, and Sykes had left. And they were under orders to let her sleep.
McKee didn’t like receiving special treatment, so that made her grumpy. But as the four of them got under way, she had to admit that it felt good to be fully rested for once.
It took three hours to catch up with the main party. By that time the expedition had covered twenty-three of the thirty-plus-mile length of the tunnel and sent hundreds of geological samples back to Colonel Bodry.
Meanwhile, by all accounts, the tunneling machines were making excellent progress and had already drilled a hole six miles into the mountain’s belly. So there was every reason to feel optimistic as the behemoths continued on their way. Thankfully there were no further contacts with the Naa, the tunnel was no worse than it had been, and they were able to reach the passageway’s southern terminus just one standard day after the battle by the wall.
That was the good news. The bad news was that the moment they left the tunnel, the party would be in enemy territory. But, according to Hasbro, there was nothing to worry about. “Colonel Bodry is going to drop a force-protection unit in to secure the south end of the tunnel,” the engineer said when McKee raised the issue. “That means you and your people will be able to take a break.”
So as McKee, Sykes, Larkin, and Jaggi followed a zigzag path past an ancient totem and toward a splash of bright sunlight, they were expecting to run into some fellow legionnaires. But as they left the tunnel, it was to find something horrible waiting for them. Three soldiers had been impaled on six-foot-long stakes—the ends of which protruded from their chests. Thirteen additional bodies lay fanned out in front of them. They were almost entirely hidden by a mass of squirming birds, all battling for choice bits of human flesh.
McKee fired a shot. It echoed between stony walls and sent the vulturelike scavengers lumbering into the air. Some of them were so full they could barely fly. McKee’s stomach heaved at the sight of what they left behind. “This is Eight . . . As far as I can tell, all the members of the force-protection team are KIA. I suggest that the rest of my squad come forward while the others remain in the tunnel. We will take a look around and report. Over.”
Hasbro was incredulous. “Wiped out? All of them?”
“That’s affirmative. Sixteen in all. Over.”
“Damn it.”
“Roger that. I suggest that you send a RAV out to look for mines. Over.”
Once Larkin and the rest of them exited the tunnel, McKee gave her orders. “Our job is to check the immediate area and secure it. If the brass sends more reinforcements, they’ll need a place to put down. So let’s make sure we can establish and defend a safe landing zone. Larkin, Kyle, Jaggi, and Shinn will go right. Everyone else will go left. We will remain in visual contact at all times. And you heard what I said about mines. Be very careful where you step.”
The entrance to the tunnel was at the end of a V-shaped ravine. So McKee’s first instinct was to watch the slope above and to the left of her for any signs of an ambush. There were none.
There were signs of a hellish battle, however, including a pile of rocks where, judging from the debris that lay all about, the legionnaires had taken cover in a futile attempt to hold the attackers off. There were other defensive works as well, including a badly-shot-up truck and a crude OP. McKee figured that some of the legionnaires had been killed while falling back in between attacks. Then, once all of them were down, the bodies had been dragged to the tunnel mouth and put on display. Others, those who had been impaled, had probably been taken alive and soon come to regret it.
Hundreds of overlapping hoofprints suggested a large force of Naa who had been able to overwhelm the ground pounders in spite of their more advanced weaponry. But why? McKee wondered. Why had the force-protection team been left to die? Surely reinforcements could have been sent. If not from Fort Camerone, then from space. One thing was for sure, however. No officer or noncom in his or her right mind would have chosen to fight in a ravine with high ground on three sides. How many legionnaires had been killed by snipers? A third? Quite possibly.
But the person in charge of the detachment wasn’t free to choose, or so McKee theorized. He or she had orders to defend the tunnel and the team inside it. So they stayed, fought, and died. A lump formed in the back of McKee’s throat and refused her attempts to swallow it. Legio Patria Nostra.
Both her team and the one led by Larkin were at the entrance to the ravine by then. McKee ordered the squad to pull up, fumbled for a pair of binos, and brought them up to her eyes. A flat plain stretched out in front of her with nothing to draw the eye except for the low mesa about a mile away. It sat like an island in an ocean of scattered boulders, low-lying scrub, and wind-scoured sand. Patches of snow were visible where the sun’s rays couldn’t reach them, and there, way off to the southwest, a glint of light winked at her. It was gone seconds later. A scout then . . . Eyeing her through a telescope or a pair of Legion-issue glasses and waiting to see what the slick skins would do.
Satisfied that she’d seen all she could see without leading a patrol out into the wasteland, McKee sent for all the surviving RAVs. Once they arrived, she placed the robots in what she hoped would be defensible positions—although there was no way to protect them from the snipers who might take the high ground. But at least the machines would warn of any attack and act to slow the Naa down.
The construction droids were busy digging a mass grave by the time she returned to the tunnel. Hasbro and Royce were standing upwind of the burial party and the nose-clogging stench associated with the rotting bodies. McKee’s boots produced two puffs of dust as they hit the ground. “I got through to Fort Camerone,” Hasbro said bleakly. “They promised to send a company-sized team to secure the area. I suggested a battalion, and they told me to forget it. While we were in the tunnel, a force of ten thousand Naa warriors crossed Lowback Pass in a snowstorm and pushed into Chief Lifetaker’s territory. Colonel Bodry went in with a brigade of troops. They’re battling it out now.”
That explained a lot. With a major battle being fought to the northeast, there had been a shortage of everything, including reinforcements for the legionnaires stationed at the south end of the tunnel. Was that the result of poor leadership? Bad luck? Or both? Not that it made any difference. Dead was dead. There was one bright spot, however, or the possibility of one, and McKee gave voice to it. “A big battle could explain why there weren’t any Naa here to attack us.”
Hasbro nodded. “Good point. So we can hole up and wait.”
“Sir, yes, sir. However, if they’re going to pull us out, that’s one thing. But if they want to secure the area, this is the wrong place to put troops. They could suffer the same fate the force-protection team did.”
Hasbro heaved a sigh. “I shouldn’t ask, because if I do, you’ll propose some crazy scheme like taking your T-1s apart and passing the pieces through a hole.”
McKee grinned. “We’re here, aren’t we?”
“Okay, what’s on your mind?”
“There’s a small mesa about one mile south of the entrance to this ravine. It has sheer cliffs on this side. If the others are equally high, the top would make a good spot for an FOB. Mine the approaches if any, put some artillery on top, and you could protect the tunnel from anything less than a major assault.”
“Don’t tell me,” Hasbro said, “let me guess. You want to go out and circle the mesa.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hasbro was silent for a moment. “Okay, but on one condition. Leave half of your squad here in case the Naa return. And record what you see. If it looks promising, we’ll send the video to HQ.”
“Roger that, sir. In the meantime, if the Naa show up, I suggest that you withdraw to the tunnel. We should be able to hold that indefinitely.”
Hasbro grinned. “Yes, General . . . Right away, ma’am.”
McKee made a face. “Sorry, sir. I’ll shut up.”
“I’ve heard that promise before, but it never comes true,” Hasbro observed tartly. “Be careful out there. We want you back.”
It was dark by then, and given the nature of the photo recon, McKee had to wait for dawn. That gave her plenty of time to get ready. She even managed to take a nap. Then the brief night was over, and it was time to go.
Given the nature of the mission, McKee wanted to take Larkin with her. If the shit hit the fan, he’d know what to do without being told. And he was eager to go. “It’ll be like old times,” he said. “Where you screw up, and I save your ass.”
“You say the sweetest things,” McKee replied. “Thanks a lot.”
“Anytime,” Larkin said, as he climbed up onto Jaggi’s back. “Let’s do this thing.”
McKee knew the scouting mission would be risky. Once they left the ravine, they would be on their own. The simple truth was that Hasbro lacked the resources required to rescue them if they got into trouble.
But she put that concern aside to focus on the pure joy of the moment. With not an officer in sight, and only three other beings to worry about, it was time to enjoy a special treat. And that was to let the cyborgs run full speed across the mostly open plain. The sky was clear, the sun was rising, and the mesa was bathed in pink light. McKee gloried in the press of wind against her face, the feeling of power that went with riding a war machine, and the kinesthetic feedback involved. She was alive and wonderfully so.
They were traveling at fifty miles per hour, so it didn’t take long to reach the base of the mesa. Having activated her helmet cam, McKee decided to circle the formation in a clockwise direction and gave the necessary orders. But what if it was a good deal larger than she thought it was? They’d have to turn back if the plateau was too big and would be difficult to defend.
The sides looked good, though. They were sheer for the most part and far too steep for a dooth to climb unassisted. And given the advantage of height, a force stationed on top of the mesa would be able to hold it against anything short of a battalion-strength infantry attack. Especially if they had sufficient artillery and airpower. There were some weak points, of course—but no gaps that couldn’t be reinforced with mines and earthworks.
In order to capture the scene with her helmet cam, McKee had to keep her head turned toward the mesa. So it was Sykes who spotted the enemy first. “This is Eight-Four. I have what could be two, maybe three, hostiles located to the southeast of us. They are closing fast. Estimated time of contact ten minutes from now. Over.”
McKee said, “This is Eight. Roger that. Stand by. Over.”
They had arrived at the southern end of the mesa by that time and were about to make the necessary turn. Should she abort? And make a run for the tunnel? Or keep going?
McKee allowed herself a glance to the southeast, saw the dust plumes, and knew the warriors were pushing their dooths hard. Too hard. Because no animal can compete with a machine. That was the deciding factor. “This is Eight . . . Continue to monitor the enemy and keep me informed. We’re going to complete our mission. Over.”
McKee heard a series of clicks as she turned back to the mesa. Because all of the transmissions had been over the squad-level push, Hasbro couldn’t hear them. Should she report in? No, McKee saw no reason to do so, not yet anyway. If she told Hasbro, all he could do was worry.
The south end of the mesa was lower than what McKee had seen so far. But, as they completed the turn to the north, McKee saw the sides begin to rise again. “This is Four,” Sykes said. “The Naa have fallen back a bit. Over.”
“This is Eight-One,” Larkin interjected. “At least half a dozen riders are closing on us from the northwest. Estimated time of contact six from now. Over.”
McKee swore under her breath. She was facing a difficult decision: Fight or run. Could the four of them take on something like ten Naa and win? Probably. But the outcome was far from certain—especially given the likelihood that the enemy had weapons taken off the dead legionnaires.
So maybe they should run. But where to? The riders approaching from the northwest were positioned to cut them off from the tunnel—and if they went in the other direction, they would have to confront more Naa. And what if they had a rocket launcher? The memory of Tanner’s death in Doothdown was still fresh in her mind.
All of those thoughts and more flashed through McKee’s brain as the seconds ticked away. In desperation, she turned back to the mesa and searched its flanks for a route to the top. Except that it was more than an academic exercise now. It was a matter of life and death.
As her eyes scanned irregularities in the cliff, looking for the right opportunity, she thought no, no, and maybe. The “maybe” was a place where a minor landslide had created a ramp that led to the plateau above. Once there, the legionnaires would have the advantage and stand a better chance of keeping the Naa at bay.
But was the ramp too steep? If it was, and the war forms weren’t able to complete the climb, they would become vulnerable when forced to turn and make the trip down. Still, something was better than nothing. Or so it seemed to McKee. “This is Eight . . . Head for the slide area. We’ll run up it, turn, and grease the bastards. Over.”
It all sounded so certain, so sure, without any possibility of something’s going wrong. Never mind the fact that a T-1 could slip and fall—or that a rocket could strike a bio bod between the shoulder blades. But, as was so often the case, Larkin had no such doubts. He uttered a long, drawn-out war cry, held his AXE over his head, and yelled, “Charge!”
It was the kind of foolhardy exuberance that annoyed McKee except in situations like this one. Then she admired Larkin for the quality of his careless bravery and his wild fighting spirit.
So having been inspired by Larkin’s example, McKee waved her own weapon, shouted defiance at the sky, and felt the cold wind tear at her clothing as Sykes ran. He was the closest and going to arrive first. The slide area was too narrow to zigzag across, so he went straight at it in hopes of building enough momentum to carry him at least halfway up.
The distant pop, pop, pop of rifle fire signaled the enemy’s attempt to stop them. The Naa could see the danger and were trying to prevent the legionnaires from reaching the mesa. But they were firing from moving platforms at moving targets. And as far as McKee could tell, none of their bullets came close.
Servos whined as Sykes’s legs rose and fell with the regularity of pistons. Every fiber of McKee’s body was willing the cyborg up the slope but, other than lean forward to help the cyborg maintain his balance, there was nothing she could do to help. He stumbled, caught himself, and continued to climb.
McKee heard Larkin swear over the push and turned to look over her shoulder. Sykes’s efforts had sent a number of rocks tumbling downwards, one of which had apparently come very close to the bio bod behind her. To her credit, Shinn had taken a different approach to climbing the hill. Having passed her fifty to Larkin, she was using her “hands” as well as feet. That gave her more traction and explained how she had been able to get so close.
The Naa hadn’t given up, however. And now, having dismounted, they were firing from standing positions. Bullets kicked up geysers of dirt all around as Sykes neared the top, and McKee heard a telltale ping as a mostly spent slug flattened itself on armor.
Then they were up and over as Shinn neared the end of her climb as well. “Aim for the dooths,” McKee said coldly, as Sykes turned to fire. “Make the bastards walk.”
Though generally fired in two- or three-round bursts, the Storm fifties were capable of firing one shot at a time, and quite accurately in the right hands. Especially if those hands were guided by perfect vision and an onboard computer. So when Sykes pulled the trigger, the first slug flew straight and true. A dooth jerked, stumbled, and keeled over. That caught the Naa by surprise, but they wasted no time swinging up into their saddles and kicking their animals into motion.
But since the war party was about fifteen hundred yards out, they couldn’t outrun the slugs that followed them. The next bullet struck a dooth in the spine just forward of its rear haunches. It pancaked in and slid for what might have been six feet before finally coming to a stop. A third animal fell seconds later.
“The warriors,” McKee said. “Switch to the warriors.” The cyborgs obeyed and dropped two Naa before the others could vault up onto the surviving beasts. They rode double as the dooths thundered out of range. It was a murderous process, but it had to be done. The sun was setting in the west—and the Naa would return under the cover of darkness. That made it crucial to improve the odds in any way that she could.
“Okay,” she said, “cease fire. We’ll have to spend the night. Larkin, Shinn, take a look around. See if you can find something we can defend. There aren’t enough of us to keep them off the plateau. I’ll check in with Major Hasbro.”
Larkin and Shinn took off, and as the light continued to fade, McKee used her helmet cam to pan the top of the mesa. Once that activity was complete, she chinned her mike. They were overdue, and the response was immediate. Hasbro had clearly been waiting for a report. “We heard shots. What’s your status? Over.”
McKee delivered her report in the flat unemotional style favored by professional soldiers everywhere, and concluded by saying, “So it looks like we’re going to be stuck here for the next couple of hours. We’ll see what the situation looks like at sunup. In the meantime, I’m going to send some recon footage your way. Based on what I’ve seen so far, the mesa still looks like a good site. Over.”
“Roger that. Watch your six. Over.”
McKee used a series of voice commands to label the feed and send it. The range was less than two miles, so there was no need for a relay. A confirmation arrived quickly. TRANSMISSION RECEIVED.
As the sun dipped below the western horizon, and hundreds of stars dusted the sky, something howled out on the plain. The long hours of darkness had begun.
• • •
In a move reminiscent of ancient warriors like Hannibal, the southerners had accomplished the impossible by marching thousands of warriors over Lowback Pass in the midst of a snowstorm. How many had frozen to death? No one was keeping count. Although Bodry felt sure that the bodies of frozen warriors would be found for hundreds of years to come.
Having cleared the pass, the invaders spilled into a narrow valley. Within minutes, they were confronted by northerners who had been warned by the Legion. Now the warriors from the south were stuck with the Towers of Algeron at their backs, Chief Lifetaker’s army on their right flank, and a brigade of humans on their left flank. The latter were situated on the western slopes of a formerly peaceful valley. And that’s where Bodry was, high on a ridge, where he had an excellent view of the battlefield below.
Unlike the other combatants, the Legion had flares, which they used to light up the area in front of them. Two shot up in quick succession, popped, and drifted downwards. They threw an eerie blue light over a killing ground littered with dead dooths, Naa corpses, and the detritus of war. As Bodry scanned the scene with his binoculars, he had a brief glimpse of a field gun that was missing a wheel, trenches that had been dug to prevent the invaders from breaking out, and the wreckage of a fly-form brought down by a rocket. Then, as a blanket of darkness fell over the scene, patrol attacked patrol. Bodry saw pinpricks of light and heard the rhythmic blam, blam, blam of rifle fire followed by a dull boom of a grenade going off. People were dying. But very few of them were legionnaires.
Though nominally aligned with the northerners, the truth was that the Legion was present for the purpose of protecting the tunnel off to the west. And that, Bodry felt sure, was why the southerners had attacked. They knew the tunnel could be used to invade their territory and hoped to capture or destroy it. What they didn’t realize was that the whole purpose of the tunnel was to facilitate a war between the north and south. Bodry grinned wolfishly as a battery of northern catapults launched fireballs into the sky. They fell like meteorites and exploded behind the southern lines, but it was impossible to gauge how much damage was done. The plan, his plan, was working.
“Excuse me, sir,” an aide said. “Chief Lifetaker has arrived. The security people are bringing him up from the valley.”
“Thank you, and Lieutenant . . .”
“Sir?”
“Is Sergeant Kumar on duty?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Tell the sergeant to search Lifetaker very thoroughly. He won’t like what I’m going to tell him—and he was given that name for a reason.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her.”
The OP Bodry had chosen as his temporary HQ had been constructed by robots using the ruins of an old watchtower as a source of materials. It consisted of a chest-high stone wall topped by a rectangular opening through which people could observe the battlefield below. As Bodry peered through the open window, his back was turned to a blackout curtain that separated the so-called porch from the brightly lit com room. That was where half a dozen staffers were doing what staffers always do—which was to solve logistical problems, listen to field officers demand more of everything, and drink gallons of caf.
Rather than receive Lifetaker in the extremely busy com center, where he might pick up nuggets of intelligence, Bodry thought it better to meet with him on the porch. With that in mind, he had called for some Naa-appropriate refreshments. They arrived only moments before Lifetaker did. “I see you,” Bodry said, even though it was so dark the Naa’s features were hard to make out.
“And I see you,” Lifetaker replied gravely.
“Please, have some refreshments.”
“No, thank you,” Lifetaker responded. “I ate just before I came.”
Was that true? Bodry wondered. Or a fiction designed to cover up Lifetaker’s lack of trust? Politically motivated poisonings weren’t unheard of among the Naa. So Lifetaker had a reason to be cautious. “We are winning,” Lifetaker said, by way of an opening gambit.
“Yes, you are,” Bodry replied, careful to avoid the use of “we.”
“But the enemy is strong.”
“True,” Bodry agreed. “Amazingly so, given what they had to survive in order to get here.”
“The real battle will begin soon.”
“That makes sense,” Bodry agreed.
“We are allies,” Lifetaker added.
“Of course,” Bodry said. “That’s why we sent thousands of troops here.”
“But your troops don’t fight.”
That wasn’t true in the technical sense. The Legion had fought and suffered casualties. Dozens of them. But only when attacked. And that was the issue Lifetaker had in mind. “We find ourselves in a difficult position,” Bodry temporized. “If we are too active, all of the Naa will hate and fear us. Even those we help. Your people have a saying: ‘He who gives too much can never be trusted.’”
The use of a Naa folk saying was a clever strategy and one that Bodry had planned in advance. There was a momentary pause while Lifetaker considered the comment. A no-nonsense response followed. “We have another saying as well. ‘The ally who fights with his knife in a sheath cuts no one.’ I was at the tunnel when Oneeye’s war party arrived there. I saw what your thunderbolts can do. That is all we ask. There is no need for your warriors to suffer additional casualties. Bring the thunderbolts down on the invaders and end this battle now!”
Bodry was surprised. He’d expected Lifetaker to ask for air support. But an orbital bombardment would have the same effect. Either one would decimate the southerners and bring the conflict to a momentary close. The only problem was that he didn’t want to end the slaughter. “I’m sorry,” Bodry said, with all the sincerity he could muster. “Such things are complicated and require ideal conditions. I’ll let you know if such an attack becomes feasible.”
That was bullshit. And judging from the expression on the Naa’s dimly seen face, he knew it. “Since you are a student of our culture, I have another saying for you,” Lifetaker said, and delivered a short but seemingly heartfelt statement in his native language.
“Which means?”
“Fuck you.”
And with that, Lifetaker reached out to rip the blackout curtain down. As it fell, the chieftain went with it, making Bodry and the staff officers in the com room visible to Longsee Sureshot and his fellow snipers. They were hidden on the opposite ridge and had been watching the OP for days.
The range was more than twenty-five hundred yards or 1.4 miles. A long shot indeed. But the snipers had Legion-issue .50-caliber sniper rifles that were equipped with 10X telescopic sights. More than that, their weapons were already aimed at the right spot, and suddenly, they were presented with a bevy of backlit targets. Their orders were to kill everyone, and they did their best.
The first bullet, fired by Sureshot himself, blew half of Bodry’s face off. The officer’s body was still falling as Sergeant Kumar died quickly, followed by a supply officer.
Lifetaker couldn’t hear the reports as he elbowed his way under a second blackout curtain and entered the relative safety of the night. There was a scream, though, which was quickly silenced by a follow-up shot, as Lifetaker scuttled into the ruins. It took all of his strength to heave the flat stone out of the way. That exposed a steep flight of stairs. Once at the bottom of the escape route, Lifetaker would exit through a carefully camouflaged trapdoor. The slick skins would have their slaughter. But they, liars that they were, would pay a heavy price for it.
• • •
The trouble was that Surestep Axethrow wasn’t any good at leading people, and knew it. But Longknife, Fastload, and Singsong were dead. All killed by the slick skins. So as the oldest surviving warrior, he was in charge of the survivors and honor-bound to lead them up onto the mesa.
The group was gathered around a tiny fire, the purpose of which was to boil water so that each warrior could have a mug of hot tea before going off to face death. It was also the moment when a leader like Longknife would explain his plan. But Axethrow didn’t have a plan. Not a clear one, anyway. So all he could do was tell them the obvious. Firelight danced in their eyes as Axethrow spoke.
“The slick skins will be expecting us. So we must be extremely quiet. That will allow us to get close. But the machines are much more powerful than we are—so we can’t fight them in the usual way. Strongarm, how many slick-skin bombs do we have?”
“Six.”
“That should be enough. Once we get close enough we will arm the bombs and throw them at the machines.”
“What if the machines are separated?” Metalworker wanted to know.
It was a good question and a possibility Axethrow hadn’t considered. “We will divide ourselves into two teams,” he said. “Each team will have three bombs. That way we can split up if we need to.”
“There are two machines,” Wordbender said. “But there are two slick skins as well. What about them?”
Axethrow struggled to accommodate the new variable. “That is what I planned to speak of next,” he lied. “Once the machines have been destroyed, each team will go after a slick skin.
“There,” he said, in hopes of forestalling further discussion. “We have a plan. Let’s drink our tea. Then we’ll kill some aliens.”
Was that the way Longknife would say it? Yes, he believed that it was.
After they had finished their tea and checked their weapons, Axethrow ordered each warrior to jump up and down. And when Wordbender produced a rattling sound, he was forced to remove a pair of dice from his tea mug and store them in a pocket.
Then, with the other five warriors strung out behind him, Axethrow led the band toward the mesa. Thanks to excellent night vision and an ample amount of starlight, they could see. All of them were barefoot and made very little noise as they flowed around boulders, cut across a dry streambed, and crossed a patch of crusty snow.
Fifteen minutes later, they were in position below the mesa. But not at the foot of the slide. Axethrow might not be a born leader, but even he knew that the slick skins could and probably would be waiting at the top of the natural ramp.
No, there was another way. A cliff that offered plenty of handholds and footholds. The sort of thing cubs climb to entertain themselves. Axethrow went first, just as Longknife would have, and made the ascent without difficulty.
Once the rest of them had completed the climb, it was time to lead the group south toward the landslide. The theory was that the aliens would feel a need to guard it. And that, as it turned out, was a very good theory indeed. Because it wasn’t long before Axethrow saw the glow of a campfire. It had been screened in such a way that people out on the desert floor wouldn’t be able to see it. But the war party was close, very close, and the blaze was impossible to miss.
Axethrow felt the first stirrings of hope as he waved the other warriors forward. Maybe, just maybe, he was a leader after all. And the closer they got, the more likely that possibility seemed. One of the machines was visible. It stood about ten feet from the fire and was clearly on watch.
Axethrow pointed to Metalmaker, Wordbender, and Strongarm, then he pointed to the war machine. The message was clear. Each warrior would throw a grenade at the monster. But where was the other T-1?
The answer, as it turned out, was a hundred feet away. Sykes, McKee, and Larkin all opened fire at once. And the warriors never had a chance. Axethrow felt a slug pluck him off his feet and throw him down. The stars were so bright. Something hurt. And he was sorry. So very, very sorry. Axethrow’s eyes closed, and as they did, the grenade rolled free. There was a flash of light, a loud boom and shrapnel flew in every direction. Metal clanged on metal, but the T-1 standing next to the fire didn’t respond.
• • •
Servos whirred and boots crunched on gravel as the legionnaires came forward. Larkin was carrying Jaggi’s brain box. “Load him,” McKee instructed. “I think his war form took some hits, but hopefully it’s okay.”
“He’s gonna be real hard to get along with if it isn’t,” Larkin said.
“We’re in need of some bait,” McKee replied. “And he drew the short stick.”
Larkin inserted the box, turned a handle, and closed the compartment. Five seconds passed, and McKee was beginning to worry when a servo whirred, and Jaggi turned to look at her. “Now I have dents,” he said resentfully.
“They make you look tougher,” McKee replied. “All right, time to report in. Stand by.”
McKee chinned her mike, announced herself, and was talking to Hasbro a few seconds later. Having delivered her sitrep, she found the engineer to be unexpectedly cheerful. “Well done,” he said. “And I have some good news. A company-strength security force is on the way with orders to secure this end of the tunnel. Plus, after eyeballing your footage, the brass decided to put the FOB on the mesa. So stay where you are. The transports should put down in thirty minutes or so. Over.”
“That’s outstanding,” McKee said. “What about your team? Over?”
“We’ll join you as soon as the security people are on the ground,” Hasbro replied. “I’ll leave the RAVs here to block the entrance. Over.”
“Roger that, over.”
McKee’s people were tired, and help was on the way. So rather than order them to dig graves, she worked with Larkin to lay the bodies out in a row. The droids would take care of them later. At that point, they weren’t enemies anymore. And as McKee looked at them, she knew they were sons, husbands, and fathers. All trying to protect what was rightfully theirs. Killing them had been necessary to protect her people—but the effort to set Naa on Naa wasn’t right. It made her feel ashamed. McKee’s thoughts were interrupted as Larkin spoke. “It looks like we have company.”
As McKee looked to the northwest, she heard the drone of aircraft engines and saw three dots approaching. Over the next few minutes they morphed into tubby transports. The lead aircraft circled the area once before landing not far from McKee. A cloud of dust billowed up and began to settle as the engines spooled down. Motors whined, a ramp was lowered to the ground, and a legionnaire made his way down onto the mesa. He was wearing a helmet but removed it as McKee approached. The left half of the man’s head had been shaved—while the hair on the right side of his head remained. A strange look to be sure but one that was explained by the bandage affixed to his scalp.
That was when McKee saw the bars, recognized the face, and felt a profound sense of shock. “Good morning, Sergeant,” Captain Heacox said coldly. “I believe it’s customary to salute superior officers. I suggest that you do so.”