by B. V. Larson
When we got to the lifters a line of bios were there, waiting. They had a data system, and they demanded our data disks before we boarded.
At the start of this campaign, each of us had been issued a silver disk about the size and weight of a half-credit piece. There was nothing unusual about that. What was strange was that the bios were asking for them now. I surrendered mine, and the pretty little bio put it into a slot on a data terminal. I wondered if I would get it back—but I didn’t.
“Say, Specialist,” I said. “What’s the deal? Why are we giving up our disks to you shipboard people? Aren’t we taking revival machines down to the surface with us?”
“I don’t know about what equipment you’ll be issued, Vet,” she said. “But I know we’re supposed to update everyone’s data before they get on the lifters.”
She proceeded to scan me then, which amounted to plugging into the data ports on my dragon, which connected in turn to my tapper. All down the line they were stopping troops and making these transfers. It took about a minute per man, and I thought it was little strange.
“A full body-scan? Our most up-to-date data? Who ordered this?”
The Specialist pointed upward, at the ceiling. “Gold Deck. The very top.”
Turov. It had to be her. But why?
Events moved quickly after that, and I didn’t have much more time to think about anything. We were hustled aboard the lifter, with me doing plenty of the hustling for my own squad. I shouted until my voice was hoarse, if only to be heard over the general din of metal clawed feet slamming against the metal deck.
Soon, we were harnessed up and set free. The lifter swooped and shifted under my feet sickeningly. The pilot knew this wasn’t a drill, and she was giving it the gas. We were in open space for only thirty seconds before we hit the turbulence of the upper atmosphere.
It’s always hard doing a fast-insertion onto a planet. You can’t help but wonder if you’re were riding in the unlucky lifter destined to catch some flak and blow up. But even so, it’s better than being locked into a pod and fired at the surface like a cannonball, which is what was happening to the infantry.
Legion Varus had an unusual number of splats that day. Heavy and light troops alike flashed down, looking like white-hot streaks in the sky—but some of their pods never opened after landing. Some punched into the hard ground like bullets, their braking jets malfunctioning. Other men had been crushed when the two halves of their capsules slammed together. Blood that boiled away and burned into a dark stain on the sides of the pods told that story. Still others screwed up, opening their emergency releases too early, too late, or even jamming them and suffocating when their minimal life support systems ran out of oxygen. Such was the lot of the infantry.
Our lifter full of dragons screamed out of the sky like a diving eagle. I was able to watch some exterior events remotely via my tapper. It was when I looked up, craning the viewpoint around to look behind us, that I noticed something unexpected. I contacted Natasha right off. She knew things enlisted people weren’t supposed to know, and I valued her opinion.
“Natasha,” I said, “I’m getting some strange imagery.”
“Relay the feed.”
I did so, and she watched with me for several quiet seconds. The engines of Minotaur and Cyclops, the big ships we’d left behind, were flaring blue. Streaks of white gas and light were Stretched out behind them for a dozen kilometers.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked her.
“Undeniably. The ships are pulling out. That’s a full burn, and although I can’t be sure—I’d guess they’re moving to high orbit.”
“Where they’ll engage their warp bubbles and run?”
“That’s a pretty good bet, James. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Turov gave the order. I guess you don’t have to worry about her being sweet on me anymore. If she is, she’s got a strange way of showing it.”
“I can’t believe she’s running out on us.”
“How many ships are out there, Natasha?” I asked. “Do you know? What’s coming?”
She hesitated. “I can’t be one hundred percent sure, because the techs on the bridge who’ve blabbed sometimes exaggerate.”
“Just tell me. How many?”
“Seven ships, Imperial configuration. All of them are headed our way.”
I let out a long breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Seven ships. That’s why Turov was pulling out. She wasn’t even going to fight them.
All of a sudden, the fact she’d dropped Legion Varus and Winslade’s auxiliary cohort on the titanium mine didn’t look like such a compliment. She was bailing out and leaving us behind to defend her prize alone.
It was clear to me now, as well, why the bio people had taken our data just before we dropped. We weren’t expected to survive being marooned out here. If we wiped, they wanted a good, clean copy they could use to revive us all at a safe distance.
The lifter touched down, landing with a bounce that made my teeth clack together, and I began unlimbering my dragon. My grippers worked like extended hands, and I felt a certain resolve growing in my heart.
We’d fight, and we’d die on Machine World, just like we were supposed to. But afterward, if by some miracle I wasn’t permed, I wouldn’t forget we’d been abandoned.
-43-
It turned out in the end that there were seven ships approaching Machine World. They were Imperial capital ships—the same design as Minotaur and Cyclops. That’s why Turov had pulled out. In a way, I couldn’t blame her for that part. She had two ships, two sets of sixteen broadsides. Even if she’d wanted to tangle with these interlopers, she would be facing seven to two odds. There was no path to victory for Earth when our ships were outnumbered so badly.
What I wasn’t happy about was being dumped on this iceball and left to the slaughter. Turov had chosen to leave a garrison and pull out. Legion Varus was going to have to face the enemy alone.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t have time to think about any of these unpleasant details when the lifter opened up and disgorged our dragons onto the steep slopes of Titan—which was what we’d named this mountain over the last week or so.
“All right, listen up,” Graves said in my ear as I rushed my people out into the snow. “We’ll start this by stealing a page from the squid playbook. We’re going to get everyone inside the mines. We’ll hide in there to keep the enemy guessing as to our full strength and composition. In the meantime, if they choose to bombard us, we’ll be reasonably safe.”
“Ha!” Carlos said after Graves dropped out of the channel. “The squid playbook—look how well it worked out for the squids!”
I had to admit, he had a point there. But I couldn’t openly agree with him on the chat channel, and besides, it was probably the best move we could make.
“Shut up in the ranks,” I said. “Dragons, form a wedge. We’ll stand guard at the entrance to the mine and cover the infantry as they get out of their drop-pods and try to get to safety.”
“What if they start dropping bombs on us?” Carlos demanded.
“Then we’ll run over the infantry stragglers to get into the mines. These dragon vehicles are more valuable than our flesh, remember that. You are expendable! But your vehicle isn’t.”
There was grumbling, but it was nothing they hadn’t heard before. No one in a real, fighting legion was uncertain about their lack of personal value to the Empire, or to Earth.
We stood outside in the hazy cold, watching troops struggling through the snow from every direction to the mouth of the mines. Thousands of them came in knots and bunches. No one ordered them to form ranks and columns to make an organized march of it—commanders didn’t know how long we had, and after the drop, the troops were scattered to hell and back anyway.
In my dragon, I kept one eye on the gray skies. It was pretty pointless to do so, of course. If the big invading ships rolled into orbit overhead, we probably wouldn’t see them from the ground in
the daylight. If the ships did park on top of us and fire their broadsides, we would only be treated to a few seconds of brilliant falling stars. After that, everything for kilometers around would vanish as the fusion shells landed.
But I still found myself gazing up at the sky, and the rest of my squad mates were doing the same.
A channel request beeped, and I opened it without looking to see who it was.
“McGill here, go ahead.”
“You think they’re up there?” asked Harris’ voice in my helmet. “They say seven Imperial drop-ships, same as ours. What in the fuck is that about? Who would have the balls to bring troops out here and try to kick us off this planet?”
That was the real question we all had swimming in our heads. Harris had finally voiced it. What the hell was going on? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sure, there were the squids and there were the pissed-off Nairbs. But how could either of them have brought in a force in response so quickly?
“I don’t know, Vet,” I said. “Could the squids have copied our designs?”
“I’d vote no on that theory. I’ve heard it before—Leeson seems convinced these ships are squid counterfeits, built to freak us out. But that just doesn’t seem right.”
“Agreed,” I said. “I don’t think it’s the squids. Copying another culture? No, that’s not their style. They’re too arrogant for that.”
“Then we’re in agreement. It has to be the Nairbs. They came to have a little show trial, then when that didn’t go the way they wanted, they called in back-up.”
I frowned inside my helmet and turned toward him. He was standing with his own squad about a hundred meters to the west. We were guarding both sides of this particular entrance to the mines. In between our two squads, a steady stream of infantry trotted over trampled snow, puffing with exertion.
He was looking back at me, but he was too far away for me to read his expression.
“Is that what you think?” I demanded over our radio link. “That my trial with the Nairbs triggered all this?”
“Well? Why shouldn’t I think that, McGill? It wouldn’t be the first time you screwed up and changed the fate of the human race, now would it?”
I heaved a sigh, and I almost closed the channel. Harris might have finally broken down enough to shake my hand and welcome me into the ranks of the Varus veteran society, but he still had a grudge going. I was the source of all evil in his eyes.
Looking up, I thought I saw something—something I hadn’t expected to see. “Harris, I think we’re going to have the answer to your question sooner rather than later.”
“Why’s that, McGill?”
“Because they’re dropping troops. Drop pods incoming—thousands of them. By God, they look like stones falling from the sky.”
Everyone was looking up, some of the troops paused to squint and point before running faster for the entrance.
I added Leeson to our channel. “I think we should hit them before they get their act together, sir,” I said.
“What?” demanded Harris. “Don’t hit them, fool! Adjunct Leeson, sir, these capsules must be more troops from Solstice, that’s all.”
“No Vet,” I said, “I have it on good authority our ships have pulled out. They’re fleeing the system even now. There’s no way Turov would have turned around to come back and drop another legion. Do I have permission, Adjunct?”
Leeson was inside the mines and couldn’t see the situation out on the slopes.
“Command your men and fight you dragons, McGill. I’ll bring the rest of the platoon out there in a few minutes. Leeson out.”
He dropped the channel, and I was left watching the first capsules as they struck ground.
“McGill!” Harris said to me privately. “Don’t you go off and do something stupid now, do you hear—?”
I cut him off. “Squad, limber up. We’re advancing downslope.”
My people had been lounging, but they perked up quickly when I gave the word. My squad was smaller now that I’d lost Della and the rest of Harris’ people, but I’d gained Sargon and every one of our dragons was in prime fighting condition.
“Work your battle computers,” I said. “Filter out the troops that are already on the ground from those dropping. Mark the new arrivals as hostile until we know the score.”
By the time I’d deployed downslope, Leeson came thundering out with another full platoon. Graves and even Winslade himself followed with more dragons.
Our questions concerning the nature of our new arrivals were answered almost immediately. Firefights broke out in a dozen places all around us. Our infantry were caught up in a dozen small gun battles with the invaders. They were definitely not friendly.
“Which squad has anti-air cannons on their backs?” Winslade demanded. A squad from another platoon reported that they did, and Winslade ordered them to shoot down every pod they could get a bead on. Almost immediately, small missiles created plumes of gas and flame. Missiles streaked up to meet the drop pods. A hundred of the pods were converted into fireballs before they reached the mountainside.
The troops who’d been trotting for the mine entrance at our backs now became a fleeing mob. Their only orders were to get under cover since they didn’t have any weaponry that could shoot down a falling drop-pod.
Our AA cannons missed as many drop pods as they hit, and they kept on coming down. Soon, enemy infantry were climbing out of the pods all around us. Some were kilometers off, others were right in our faces.
The troops—at first, I didn’t know what to make of them. They were physically larger than men. About two meters tall and bulky. They stood as dark humanoid hulks outlined against the snow. They had heavy projection weapons, and they wore armor. We faced a heavy cohort—but not a human one.
Then I saw the tails, and I knew.
“Saurians!” I shouted over the unit channel. “Sirs, they’re saurian troops! No juggers, just basic raptors.”
“We’ve figured that out, McGill,” Graves answered. “The enemy are saurians from Steel World. They’re not authorized to breathe on this planet. We’re going to correct the error.”
“What’s that mean?” Sargon asked.
“That means we’re supposed to kill all the lizards, you big moron,” Carlos said.
I winced when I heard that. Sargon wouldn’t do anything now in the midst of battle, but there was sure to be a fresh ass-whooping waiting for Carlos after this was over. Some people never learned.
“Squad, we haven’t got any AA,” I said. “We’re going to use our spinal cannons to blast any group of saurians that gets their act together and forms a cohesive force.”
It didn’t take long. After about three minutes of total confusion, our troops stopped streaming into the mine. The rest that were still out on the slopes had either been shot or were pinned in defensive positions by the enemy. The steady drumbeat of drop pods from above showed no signs of letting up.
We soon identified organized groups of saurians who had formed up, taken cover and now were laying fire down on our position. My team had gone with heavy armament as our mission this time out was supposed to be a defensive one, not a fast-moving recon effort. Our load-out choices paid dividends today as I ordered my squad to switch on their shields and fire their heavy guns at enemy concentrations.
Troops melted away under fragmentation shells. Rarely, a group of saurians charged in to close with us, but we repelled them with grenade fire at point-blank range.
As we fought, organized Varus infantry came out to help. Centurions led them, and soon, a full unit was supporting every squad of dragons.
The saurians soon figured out they weren’t going to take us out with an all-out wave assault. Surprise had helped them initially, and we’d lost a lot of men and dragons out on the slopes. But these gains were easily balanced by the carnage our dragons reaped against their unsupported attacks. It was a slaughter, and my squad only lost three machines while killing several hundred attacking troops.
Fi
nally, the saurians pulled back. The drop pods no longer came down directly on top of us. When new arrivals climbed out of their pods, they ran away, disappearing over the folds of the mountain.
When it grew dark, we retreated as well. We posted guards at the mine entrance, and my squad was relieved. We walked our creaking dragons into the caverns and got out of them, aching and complaining.
“You did well out there, team,” I said. “I didn’t see a single mistake. Well done, well fought.”
My troops beamed and clapped one another on the back.
One clap came down a little too hard on Carlos, however.
“What the fu—?” Carlos demanded. His voice was cut off by a pair of huge hands that encircled his windpipe and began squeezing.
Carlos looked at me plaintively. I looked at him and his assailant. Then I nodded to Sargon.
“Proceed, Specialist,” I said.
Sargon beat on the smaller man for a full minute. Carlos got in a few good licks—he always did. Sargon looked surprised when his genitals took a hard yanking for example—I could have told him to look out for that one. But in the end, Carlos was down on the ground, heaving, crawling and puking.
I sipped a hot cup of caf and pretended I hadn’t seen anything. Sometimes, the life of a Veteran-rank noncom had its little rewards.
-44-
By morning the next day, we were surrounded by around sixty thousand saurian troops. They were crawling all over the mountaintop. Some were above the mines, and some were below us, maneuvering along the ridges and escarpments, hugging stone and ice for cover. A siege had begun, and without support from space, we had no way of knowing what the enemy was up to. Our buzzers had managed to count the enemy troops, but that was all. The tiny spy drones were being caught and destroyed as fast as we could send them out.
After a sleepless night of barricading the mine entrances, the officers were busy filing our unit’s after-action reports with Winslade, and I’d been repairing our dragons. We kicked off our platoon’s morning briefing at ten a. m. sharp.
