Chapter Two

Hope no longer existed. Still, no one thought of surrender.

—Corporal Louis Maine,
Report on the Battle of Camerone,
French Foreign Legion, 1863

“Pull back!” Hauser shouted. “Pull back now, Suartana! Regroup at the corridor head!” He cut power to the wristpiece commlink function. “Now, damn it!”

Neubeck had promised men to stiffen his meager defense force, but he had been lying all along. There never had been any reinforcements. The major had no right to expect Hauser to sacrifice his entire command to carry out impossible orders.…

And he wasn’t about to listen to any more screaming casualties on Neubeck’s behalf.

Suartana hesitated a moment, staring deep into Hauser’s eyes. Then the big sersan gave a single curt nod. “Ujo! Yahia!” he called. “Maintain fire but keep your heads down! The rest of you fall back!”

It didn’t take much encouragement to get the troops moving toward the door at the far end of the chamber. The two soldiers the sersan had singled out kept firing, covering the retreat. The others were leaping for the safety of the corridor that led to the docking bay. The Ubrenfars picked off several men as they broke cover.

Hauser checked the charge of his laser pistol and rolled to the edge of the debris they’d taken shelter behind, ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg. He clenched his teeth, determined not to give in to fear, to hold here until all his men were safe. Leveling the CAR-22, he squeezed off a shot.

Suartana pulled him back. The sersan crouched beside him, clutching the captured rocket launcher. “Get clear, Tuan!” he said. “I’ll hold the bastards … for as long as I can.” He fired as if to emphasize the words, and an explosion erupted in the doorway, smashing into the mass of Ubrenfars still pouring into the warehouse.

Hauser hesitated, unwilling to abandon the Indomay, but knowing there was little enough he could do to help him, either. Finally, he nodded tightly. “I’m … I’m sorry, Suartana.…”

“Go, Tuan! Go!”

Ignoring his wounded leg, Hauser pushed off, leaping toward the rear doors. Suartana’s rocket attack had forced the Ubrenfars to keep their heads down, and the trio of shots fired in his direction all went wide.

As he used his good leg to absorb the shock of the jump against the wall beside the door, Serdadu Yahia joined him, his FEK trailing behind him as he leapt with the receiver empty. The soldier slapped the pressure plate to open the doors just as an Ubrenfar rapid-pulse laser punched a half dozen neat holes through his lower torso. Hauser shoved the body away in horror and dived through the doors. A hundred meters further on, the five surviving men from his shattered command were clustered around the airlock that led into the docking bay.

He looked back into the warehouse. Despite Suartana’s rocket fire, more Ubrenfars were pouring into the chamber now that the volume of defensive fire had slackened. Some of the assault troops were already breaking off to bound toward the corridor that led off toward the Fire Direction Center. That would be their principal objective, of course. Control of the linnax railguns would ensure control of any ship traffic trying to move to or from orbit.…

And Neubeck’s men were up there, cut off now. Hauser swallowed, realizing for the first time the wider implications of what he had done by ordering the retreat. More than just his own little command had been riding on what happened here, but he had focused entirely on his own men instead of seeing the wider picture. But it was too late now. He didn’t have enough men to counterattack successfully even if he could have found it in himself to give the orders for what was sure to be a suicide attack.

Hauser swiveled his head in response to another explosion. Suartana was maintaining his lonely defense, but now the sersan had only two more rockets. After that, there would be nothing left to hold back the enemy tide.…

* * *

“That’s the last of them, Tuan. All charges in place and ready to detonate.”

Erich Neubeck accepted the detonator from the Indomay sersan and verified the program entered into its chip memory. One coded sequence to arm the mechanism, then a single touch of the activator stud would be enough to trigger all the charges in a set sequence.

He nodded, satisfied, and clipped the device to the belt of his vacuum suit. At least they had carried out their mission. There wouldn’t be much left of the Fire Direction Center once the explosives were set off. It wasn’t only the controls that had been mined. Soldiers in vacuum suits had also used the access shaft that led from the FDC alongside the number one railgun and out to the surface of Telok to plant charges that would disable the linnax system itself. Even if the Ubrenfars managed to jury-rig a new control system, at least this gun would be unusable … more if the other sabotage teams had carried out their jobs.

The difficult job was finally done. All that remained now was to find a way out.…

A muffled explosion rumbled in the corridor outside the airtight door. Neubeck leapt across the room, shouting to the other soldiers to join him. Stoph and his men hadn’t been out there for very long, and it sounded like they’d run into resistance already.

Damn Hauser for letting the invaders through!

He hit the control button and the door slid open, letting in a tumult of combat sounds. A laser beam crackled past the door, and somewhere down the corridor there were hoarse shouts and an inhuman cry that must have been a wounded Ubrenfar.

Neubeck hesitated before plunging out into the corridor, and in that moment he heard Stoph’s voice calling out. “Retreat! Retreat back to Fire Control! We can’t do anything else here!”

The major gestured to a pair of Indomays armed with RG-12 grenade launchers. The men dived through the door to take up positions on either side of the corridor. One of them fired a rocket-propelled projectile, aiming high, and it leapt from the barrel with a whoosh of burning propellants.

Soldiers hurried up the corridor, taking full advantage of the light gravity to cover the distance quickly. One stopped at the door and turned to fire his FEK back down the passage, but it only chattered uselessly on an empty magazine. The Indomay cursed luridly and ejected the clip as he rolled into the Fire Direction Center. Then he threw the weapon violently against the far wall as he realized he was out of ammunition.

A trio of men landed together, awkwardly, two Indomays with slung rifles supporting Stoph between them. The oberleutnant was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, and one arm dangled uselessly. Pale and wild-eyed, Stoph stumbled through the door. Neubeck caught him and guided him to one of the control chairs.

“It’s … no good, sir,” the Uro gasped. “They were already in the corridor. Too many … too well armored. I couldn’t break through … couldn’t …”

“Easy, Stoph,” Neubeck said quietly. “You did everything you could.”

The oberleutnant coughed. “Trapped up here … no way to get back to the docking bay now.…”

“Tuan!” an Indomay shouted. “That’s the last of them! What do we do now?”

“Lay down a heavy barrage of grenades and then get those two inside. Seal the doors. That’s all we can do, for now.”

An Indomay kopral in Sky Guard full-dress uniform pointed to the entrance to the maintenance shaft beside the wall screen on the other side of the room. “Some of you could still get away, Tuan,” the soldier said. “The ones in suits. Out the access shaft to the surface, then across to the docking bay. It’s only about two hundred meters.…”

Neubeck bit his lip. He had ten men, including himself, who could use that escape route, twenty-five more who could not. It galled him to even think about abandoning them to their fate, but the alternative was to stand in place and die a useless death.

At least he could send the rest of the troops with vacc suits out. A few might survive this deathtrap that way.…

Stoph grabbed his arm. “Take the ones you can, sir,” he said, coughing again. “I can stay in charge here … until the scalies come.” He looked significantly at the detonator hanging from Neubeck’s belt.

Neubeck hesitated. It didn’t make sense to throw his own life away with the rest, but honor was important to a Uro, particularly a Uro Sky Guard officer. He didn’t want to be seen to abandon his proper place, to run away from death. That could dishonor the proud name of the Neubecks von Lembah Terang.

“Please, sir,” Stoph insisted. “Please … let me do this.…”

Reluctantly, Neubeck nodded. This time the honor belonged to Wilhelm Stoph.

* * *

“Throw me a rifle!” Hauser shouted. It was too late to do anything about the Ubrenfars heading for the Fire Direction Center, but he was damned if he would abandon Suartana to his fate.

A green light flashed above the airlock doors as the mechanism cycled, and the massive doors rumbled open. One of the Indomays looked from the airlock to Hauser and back again. Then he grabbed an FEK from one of the others and bounded back up the corridor, leaving the other four men to pass through the heavy doors.

The soldier thrust his extra rifle into Hauser’s hands and crouched beside him at the doorway. Turning to look over his shoulder, Hauser shouted instructions. “Get to the Surapat!” he ordered. “Warn them the Ubrenfars could break through any time!”

One of the Indomays acknowledged the order with a wave of his rifle. The doors ground together, shutting with a clang that had the ring of grim finality.

“Suartana!” Hauser shouted, turning back to search the chamber for the massive figure of the sersan. “Here, man! Get back here now!”

The big man gave no outward sign of having heard the call. He lifted the rocket launcher to his shoulder again, bracing his body against a cargomod. The rocket streaked straight into the smoke and debris from his earlier shots. Then he turned and jumped, covering the distance in one easy bound. Hauser and the Indomay serdadu beside him laid down a heavy covering fire, but despite that the other soldier in the rearguard, Ujo, went down as he sprinted for the safety of the corridor.

As the sersan scrambled through the doors, Hauser hit the pressure plate above his shoulder to close them. They’d hold no longer against Ubrenfar weapons than the ones that had led into the warehouse, but at least the defenders would have a few moments of comparative safety.

If they could wreck the airlock controls on this side, the Ubrenfars would be stalled until they could bring up something heavier than rockets. Those doors were proof against almost any portable weapon.…

Hauser pointed to a small sphere dangling from the belt of the Indomay trooper. “You’ve got a grenade,” he said. “I want it rigged on the control panel there. Before we cycle through. We’ll pull the pin before we go and let it wreck the panel before the scalies try to follow us.”

“Yes, Tuan,” the soldier acknowledged crisply. He crossed to the panel, unhooking the grenade. Despite the horror of the fight, the man still had some spirit left.

Knowing how close to the edge he was himself, Hauser wondered how much more the Indomay could take. He watched the man return to the airlock and begin to rig the makeshift demolition charge. He and Suartana fell back slowly, keeping their eyes and weapons trained on the warehouse doors.

Behind them, Hauser heard the doors grinding open. At almost the same instant the warehouse doors burst open in a roar of smoke and searing flame.

“Pull the pin! Let’s go!” Hauser snapped.

The soldier at the panel started to respond, but his reply turned into a throaty gurgle as a laser beam slashed out of the smoke cloud and caught him in the back of the neck. He sagged slowly to the floor.

Suartana fired his last rocket with an Indomay curse, then flung the launcher aside. Diving past the dead serdadu, Hauser grasped the pin on the grenade and yanked it out. He was grinning as he turned back for the airlock door.…

And a searing heat scorched his side. He smelled burning flesh and realized it was his own. Hauser gasped, staggered, feeling dizzy with pain and a sudden, overwhelming fatigue.

Huge hands closed over his shoulders, pulling him through the airlock door. The door seemed to take forever to slide shut. As it slowly cut off his view up the corridor, Hauser saw Suartana’s last rocket detonate just as a pair of Ubrenfars trotted out of the smoke.

Before he passed out, Hauser heard their inhuman cries, but they were drowned out by the memory of his own men screaming as they died.

His last thought, before blackness claimed him, was the hope that he would never have to wake up and face that memory again.

* * *

Oberleutnant Wilhelm Stoph shifted in the control chair and winced at the searing pain that lanced through his chest and arm. The makeshift Sky Guard unit hadn’t included any medics, and the only first aid kit anyone had carried was near the end of the corridor now, overrun together with its dead owner by the Ubrenfar assault. He couldn’t find relief in painkillers … but Stoph knew he wouldn’t have to fight the pain much longer.

The access hatch to the maintenance shaft was open, and the troops wearing pressure suits were starting through. The major hung back until the last, his face hard to see inside the plashield helmet, but his body language making his reluctance to abandon the other defenders plain. Stoph held up the detonator with his good hand, and the helmet inclined in an exaggerated nod. Then Neubeck straightened to attention and snapped off a salute before turning to follow the others through. A pair of unsuited Indomays sealed the hatch behind him.

Outside the other door, something clanged loudly against the wall, and every eye inside the Fire Direction Center focused on the entrance.

“Get set, men,” Stoph said quietly. He gestured to one of them. “You … give me a hand.”

The soldier helped him across the room to a better position, shielded from the door by a bank of sensor monitors.

“Thanks,” he told the Indomay. As the soldier started to move away, he gripped the man’s sleeve. “No,” he said. “Stay here. If I’m hit, make sure you set off the charges.”

The man nodded and unslung his rifle, checking the magazine. Neubeck had urged the defenders to draw the Ubrenfars into a fight at the end, so that there might be a concentration of them in the FDC when the explosives went off. It was only a gesture at this point, but all they had left now was gestures. Dignity. Honor. Stoph would take as many of the enemy with him now that his time had come.

He checked the detonator again, then entered the code sequence to arm it into the keypad. A red light glowed above the activator stud.

They waited.

He didn’t know if seconds were passing, or minutes … or even hours. It seemed like an eternity of tension and pain and fear.

More clanging sounds echoed through the door. Stoph summoned his strength to speak. “They’re going to blow the door,” he said, his voice a dry croak that somehow still sounded loud in the still room. “Get set …”

The door burst inward in a shower of arcing debris. Thick smoke obscured everything, but he could hear the heavy-booted feet of the attackers as they poured into the room.

“Fire! Fire! Pour it on!” His shouted order trailed off into a spasmodic cough, but the Indomays obeyed. FEKs whined, their gauss fields hurtling high-velocity slivers of metal into the smoke on full auto fire. The alien cries he had heard out in the corridor before broke out again, louder this time, a cacophony of wailing and hooting that might have been pain or anger or sheer blood lust.

But the attackers wore combat armor, and the heavy firing produced comparatively few casualties. Saurian shapes broke from the swirling smoke, their combat lasers pulsing as they sought out targets. A panel nearby exploded from a direct hit, and the men behind it were down. Another Indomay rolled out from behind a stanchion near the door, firing as he scrambled for better cover, but an Ubrenfar cut him in half with rapid-pulse shots from its laser rifle.

A massive shape vaulted over the panel Stoph was crouching behind. The Indomay who had helped him twisted to one side and tried to fire, but the attacker was too fast. The man’s head disappeared in a red haze as the Ubrenfar found its mark.

Stoph stared up at the alien for what seemed an endless moment. The Ubrenfar shifted its aim to cover him.

With a last smile of triumph, Stoph jabbed the detonator stud.…

And his world disappeared in fire and smoke and thunder.

* * *

“Keep together, men,” Neubeck said into the microphone of his suit commlink. “It’s not much further.”

Behind him the nine suited figures moved slowly, awkward in the narrow confines of the access shaft. It was necessary for the soldiers to make use of handholds spaced along the wall to pull themselves toward the surface. The temptation to leap against the weak gravity was offset by an awareness of how easy it would be to tear a suit or break a faceplate on an unexpected projection. Galling as their slow pace was, it was the safest course. Since passing through a safety hatch near the bottom of the tube they had been in a vacuum, where any mistake could be instantly fatal.

He reached the top of the shaft. Looping one arm over a handhold, Neubeck worked the hatch controls to open it up. Blue-green light reflected from Laut Besar blazed bright overhead as Neubeck scrambled out of the tube and bent over to help the next man up.

Somewhere behind them, there was a distant rumble.

“Move it! Move it! Get clear!” he shouted over the commlink. The soldiers hastened to obey as the rippling explosions at the far end of the shaft spread and intensified.

All but one of them made it out before the shock wave erupted from down below. Fragments of the airlock hatch hurtled like bullets straight up the shaft, and one of them tore a two-centimeter hole through the unlucky man’s stomach. The body twitched for a moment, then fell back, drifting very slowly down the deep access shaft.

Another man lost, along with everyone in the FDC. Neubeck swallowed sour bile and bit back a curse. “Come on, men. The docking bay is that way … just beyond those rocks over that way. Let’s move out.”

As they started forward in ground-eating bounds, Neubeck thought again of Leutnant Hauser. If the man hadn’t run from the warehouse fighting, they might have saved most of Neubeck’s unlucky command instead of this pitiful handful of survivors.

He hoped the Ubrenfars hadn’t killed Hauser during the Leutnant’s retreat. Neubeck wanted to confront the man himself someday … so that Hauser would know in full measure the price of his cowardice.