When All Seems Lost

by William C. Dietz

  Among those being herded into the room were General Bill Booly, his wife Maylo Chien-Chu, Colonel Kitty Kirby, Major Drik Seeba-Ka, Intelligence Chief Margaret Xanith, Ramanthian expert Yuro Osavi, diplomat Charles Vanderveen and a dozen more Nankool loyalists. All of whom looked grim and defiant. One individual was missing, however, and given his history, was a cause for concern. But even though Sergi Chien-Chu was still on the loose, Wilmot felt certain the marines would find the industrialist and bring him in.

  Fortunately, from Wilmot’s point of view, Triad Hiween Doma-Sa was off-planet. Because the Hudathan was not only a close ally of Nankool’s, but a head of state as well, he couldn’t be neutralized in the same fashion as the others could.

  So it was a special moment. One that Jakov had been looking forward to and was determined to enjoy. That was why the group had been brought before him. Not because there was any real need to do so—but to revel in his newly acquired power. “Good morning,” the vice president said, as the last of the prisoners was revealed.

  The greeting elicited snickers and even outright laughter from the sycophants, toadies, and other self-serving individuals who supported Jakov. All of them fell silent as the executive raised his hand. His eyes glittered as they roamed the room. “The Confederacy is at war, the president has been missing for months, and our citizens deserve strong leadership. With those factors in mind, and consistent with my responsibilities under the constitution, I will take over as interim Chief Executive as of 1300 hours this afternoon. The Senate has been notified to expect an announcement, as have the press, and I have every reason to expect a quick confirmation. Once that process has been completed my administration will take immediate steps to resolve the unfortunate conflict with the Ramanthians.”

  “The president is alive,” Booly said grimly, as his eyes roamed the faces in front of him. “And all of you know it. . . . You’re traitors, nothing more, and you’ll never get away with it.”

  “Really?” Jakov inquired sarcastically. “Rather than attack the legally constituted government, I suggest that you, your wife, and the cadre of scum you’ve been plotting with begin to think about how to defend yourselves against charges of criminal conspiracy and treason. Who knows?” the politician asked rhetorically. “Perhaps some of the criminals in the pit can offer you some advice. Especially the ones you sent there!”

  That elicited another round of jeers and laughter as the hoods were replaced for the long roundabout journey down to the pit. But as Booly waited for the cloth to come down over his eyes, he made a mental photograph of each face in front of him and sealed the images away. Because somehow, someday, they were going to pay.

  The normally raucous prison, also known as “the pit,” was extremely quiet. And for good reason. Because while the prisoners weren’t in the political loop, they were hypersensitive to even the smallest change in prison routine. So when all their normal guards were suddenly “reassigned,” and replaced by marines brought in from off-planet, they knew something important was afoot—something very important indeed. So when orders were shouted, gates clanged open, and a new contingent of hooded prisoners shuffled into the space between the clifflike cellblocks they paid attention. The females were separated out and led away as the men were freed from their restraints.

  Chains rattled as shackles were removed, and cuffs clanged as they were tossed into a cleaning bucket before the heavily armed guards backed out of the pit. That was when the newly inducted prison rats were free to remove their hoods and look around. There was a long moment of silence while both groups regarded the other followed by a loud comment from one of the lowest tiers. “Well, I’ll be damned,” a grizzled legionnaire commented loudly. “If it isn’t General Bill Booly. . . . Come to lead us on the march into hell!”

  What happened next left the newly appointed warden dumbfounded. Because rather than turn on the general, as she had been led to believe they would, the prisoners shouted a greeting instead. It consisted of a single word. A word so loud it made the windows in her office rattle as she looked down into the concrete canyon.

  “CAMERONE!”

  PLANET JERICHO, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE

  Stars glittered above, but down on the jungle floor it was as black as the inside of a combat boot, and the cyborgs were the only ones who could truly “see” the growing host of nymphs as they generated an almost deafening chittering noise, caused the foliage to rustle as if in response to a windstorm, and filled the air with the acrid scent of their urine. The resulting tension was sufficient to make even the most-combat-hardened veteran sweat.

  Like all the rest of the bio bods, Santana was wearing his helmet, which not only served to protect his head, but provided access to the ITC and served to amplify the ambient light. But there wasn’t much light to amplify, which meant the legionnaire saw little more than green streaks as the adolescent Ramanthians dashed back and forth outside the stone walls. The team had flares, of course, but their effectiveness was limited by the forest canopy, which meant the company would have to use jury-rigged spotlights once the fighting began.

  Which was why every single legionnaire was at his or her post as Major DeCosta made his rounds. And, except for the senior officer’s tendency to reinforce his orders with scriptural references, Santana had to admit that DeCosta had done a good job of preparing the company for combat. Each corner of the roughly rectangular space was protected by a well-entrenched RAV and a T-2. The rest of the cyborgs were evenly spaced along the perimeter, and interspersed with bio bods, who stood on improvised firing steps so they could fire over the walls. All of which should make for an impenetrable curtain of fire once the nymphs attacked.

  That was DeCosta’s plan, anyway, and it would have worked if the nymphs hadn’t found their way into the labyrinth of passageways below Team Zebra and boiled up out of the ground inside the defensive perimeter. The stairway had been blocked, but not well enough, as the madly chittering mob managed to force its way through the opening. Watkins, who hadn’t been given a place on the firing line, was the first to notice the incursion. “Watch out!” the civilian shouted, as the first bugs appeared. “They’re inside the wall!”

  But the warning generated a smaller response than the media specialist expected, because the aliens located outside of the enclosure chose that moment to attack as well, thereby forcing the defenders to respond to them at the same time. Flares shot upwards, collided with the canopy, and went off. Some of them remained there, trapped in the foliage, and others drifted down under tiny parachutes. Battle lights came on, and the fifties began to thump as what looked like a tidal wave of sharp beaks, chitinous bodies, and fluttering wings surged toward the walls. Each slug killed at least half a dozen Ramanthians as bolts of coherent energy plowed bloody furrows through the oncoming horde. The chatter of assault weapons and submachine guns was interspersed with the occasional crack of a grenade as hundreds of attackers fell.

  A legionnaire yelled, “Take that, you bastards!” as he emptied a clip into the mob and fumbled for another. But even as the oncoming wave faltered, the defenders were attacked from within. Sergeant Jan Obama screamed as two nymphs landed on her back. Body armor protected her from the first few bites, but a third found her throat and ripped it out. Blood sprayed the surrounding area as Private Dimitri Bozakov turned to spray both the dead legionnaire and the Ramanthians with steel-jacketed bullets.

  But before the troopers on the wall had time to fully engage the enemies behind them, another wave of nymphs surged out of the jungle and into the harsh light. DeCosta was busy. So that left Watkins, Santana, and Farnsworth to deal with the steady stream of Ramanthians that continued to pour up out of the passageways below. Not an easy task since a poorly aimed shot could kill one of the legionnaires beyond. “Put your backs to the walls and keep them contained!” Santana shouted, as he fired a burst from his CA-10. The tricentennials seemed to fly apart as the bullets shattered their exoskeletons and threw sheets of viscous goo in every direction.


  Watkins had armed himself with a pump-style shotgun that turned out to be an effective weapon for the situation at hand. Because every time the civilian pulled the trigger at least one bug exploded. Until the media specialist ran out of shells that is—and was forced to back away as he fumbled more into the receiver.

  Fortunately, Farnsworth was there to take up the slack with an ugly-looking submachine gun. Having come up through the ranks, the officer had seen just about everything during his years in the Legion and wasn’t about to be intimidated by a thousand baby bugs. He fired his weapon in carefully modulated three-round bursts, a pace calculated to keep the barrel cool and conserve ammunition. The Ramanthians chittered as they charged the veteran, driven by hunger, and a wild inarticulate hatred of everything not them.

  But the well-aimed bursts cut the attackers down, and continued to do so, until Santana managed to toss a couple of grenades into the stairwell. The platoon leader yelled, “Fire in the hole!” and went facedown, as twin explosions strobed the night. The blast decimated the bugs fighting their way up through the narrow passageway as Watkins began to fire his newly reloaded shotgun at the invaders still on the surface.

  Snyder had been detached to assist them by that time and Santana was quick to call upon the cyborg’s enormous strength. “Grab some rocks!” the officer ordered. “And toss them in the hole!” The rocks that Santana referred to had once been part of the structure itself, but the combined forces of heat and cold had loosened them over time, and caused one of the internal wing-walls to fail. So as the bio bods began to fire into the blood-splattered stairwell, Snyder threw blocks of stone into the opening, thereby crushing some of the nymphs and blocking others. It took more than five minutes of hard work, but once the exit was sealed, Santana felt satisfied that the bugs wouldn’t be able to break through. But just to make sure, the platoon leader ordered Watkins to guard the exit before heading for the wall and the battle beyond.

  A hellish sight greeted his eyes as Santana stepped up onto an ammo container and looked out onto the south side of the body-strewn clearing. As one flare burned out, and thereby allowed darkness to claim the outermost reaches of the killing field, another was launched. There was a soft pop as it went off and threw a garish glow over the scene below. The battle lamps added their own cold white glare to the nightmarish scene as still another wave of alien flesh swept in toward the walled compound. It wasn’t so easy to advance now that the Ramanthians had to climb up and over piles of their dead and wounded comrades. But each succeeding wave went a little farther— until they began to break only yards from the walls.

  And as Santana added his fire to all the rest, the officer wondered what drove the nymphs. Was it hunger? Yes, that much seemed clear, based on the evidence observed earlier. But the mindless, suicidal rush, seemed indicative of something else as well. It was as if the tricentennial bodies had grown faster than the minds they housed and were under the influence of some very primitive instincts. A wilding intended to sweep everything that could compete with them away—thereby creating conditions in which the survivors could flourish. It was a violent process that had no doubt devastated Hive during past birthings and clearly accounted for the Ramanthian desire to acquire more real estate. Later, within a month or two, Santana suspected that the locustlike behavior would end, thereby giving the adult bugs an opportunity to round up their feral progeny and install them in crèche-style facilities where they could be raised.

  But all such considerations were driven out of Santana’s mind as Corporal Diachi Sato screamed, and a nymph tore his throat out. “It came from above!” DeCosta shouted into his mike. “First platoon, maintain fire. . . . Second platoon, switch to air defense. . . . Execute!”

  Because the platoons had been integrated, the order made sense, as roughly half of Team Zebra’s considerable fire-power was directed upwards. And none too soon. Because as Santana released an empty clip and seated another one in the CA-10, at least a hundred tricentennials dropped onto the legionnaires from above! All Ramanthians had wings, the officer knew that, but rarely flew. Of course that applied to adults, and judging from the ominous whir, the nymphs were under no such constraints.

  Why the nymphs had waited to take to the air was a mystery, but one that the legionnaire had no time to contemplate as he shot an incoming bug and turned just in time to pull another off Darby’s back. The nymph struggled in an attempt to free itself, and snapped at Santana’s face, as the soldier threw the juvenile down. There was a horrible cracking sound, followed by a squeal of pain as the officer stomped the Ramanthian.

  “Well done,” DeCosta said matter-of-factly as he strolled past, pistol in hand. “Smite them down, for you are the hammer of God!”

  The senior officer paused at that point, raised his pistol, and shot the nymph that was trying to find a way into Nacky’s armored head.

  But Santana was back in the battle by that time and felt a wave of heat wash across the left side of his face as a T-2 named Prill fired the flamethrower that that been installed in place of his energy cannon. The weapon sent a flare of light across the compound, and the tongue of fire caught two bugs in midair. They screeched piteously as their wings caught fire but were soon put out of their misery by well-aimed bursts of fire from Farnsworth’s SMG.

  All of the T-2s were out of machine-gun ammo by that time. As were the RAVs, because even though more ammo was available, the bio bods didn’t have time to load it.

  That meant the cyborgs had to rely on their energy cannons and in some cases flamethrowers to defend the compound. But the jets of liquid fire, combined with accurate shooting on the part of the bio bods, proved to be an effective combination. So effective, that after twenty minutes of sustained fighting, the nymphs’ assault began to falter. Sensing victory, DeCosta was quick to follow up. “Send the Godless heathens to hell!” he shouted hoarsely. “Loose the Lord’s fury upon them! For thou art the angels of heaven sent to cleanse this polluted planet!”

  Though surprised to hear that they had been elevated to the status of angels, the criminals under DeCosta’s command understood what the officer wanted, and increased their rate of fire. Muzzle flashes stabbed the darkness, grenades sent gouts of jungle loam and body parts high into the air, and there was an occasional whir of wings as Santana patrolled the perimeter. The air was thick with the stench of nitrocellulose, ozone, and burned flesh. The combined odor caught in the back of the officer’s throat and caused him to gag as he paused to deal with a wounded nymph. The nameless tricentennial was pinned under the legionnaire’s helmet light, desperately trying to drag itself forward, when Santana pointed the CA-10 at the creature’s head. And it was then, in the fraction of a second between the order he sent to his index finger, and the recoil of the weapon, that something jumped the gap between them.

  Because while the hatchling wasn’t truly sentient yet, the potential was there, and in that brief moment prior to the nymph’s death Santana thought he had a glimpse into the Ramanthian’s soul. A place so unfathomable that the human knew he would never understand it. But then the nymph was dead, the moment was over, and what had been a hellish symphony of chittering bugs, madly whirring wings, and rattling machine guns began to die down until there was little more than an occasional rifle shot to punctuate the end of the bloody conflict. “They’re leaving,” one of the T-2s said out loud, as her sensors started to clear.

  “Thank God for that,” DeCosta put in gratefully. And no one chose to contradict him.

  Hot metal pinged, a breeze ruffled the jungle foliage, and it began to rain. The battle was over.

  Raindrops drummed against his alloy casing, and his jury-rigged propulsion system had a tendency to cut out every once in a while, but Oliver Batkin was happy for the first time in months. Partly due to his recent escape from Camp Enterprise, but mostly because his reports had been received, and a rescue party was on the ground!

  The good news had arrived a few days earlier when the same freighter that dropped Team Zebra in
to the atmosphere sent out a millisecond-long blip of code. It hit Batkin like a bolt out of the blue and elicited a whoop of joy so loud that it scared a flock of blue flits out of an adjacent tree.

  Now, having traveled day and night ever since, the cyborg had entered the area where the rescue party should be. An exciting prospect, but a dangerous one, given the fact that the legionnaires would be understandably paranoid and therefore likely to shoot anything that moved, including spherical cyborgs should one appear without warning.

  So Batkin ran a full-spectrum sweep as he weaved his way through the treetops and was eventually rewarded by a burst of scrambled conversation on a frequency often used by the Legion for short-range communications. That was sufficient to bring the spy ball to a temporary halt while he sought to make contact. “Jericho One to Team Zebra. Do you read me? Over.”

  There was a long pause, as if the legionnaires hadn’t heard him, or were busy deciding how to respond. Then, after about twenty seconds, there was a challenge. “This is Zebra Six. . . . We read you, Jericho One. Please authenticate.”

  So Batkin rattled off a nine-digit code, which was soon answered in kind, thereby satisfying both parties that security was intact. With that out of the way, the spy was able to make visual contact with the rescue team within a matter of minutes. And the much-contested battlefield was a sight to see. Due to the effects of sustained gunfire, energy weapons, and flamethrowers the partially blackened clearing was larger than it originally had been. And there, within the eye of what had obviously been a storm, was a walled enclosure. Which, judging from the way that waves of dead nymphs lapped up against it, had been extremely hard-pressed. Thanks largely to the fact that he didn’t smell or look like food, the spy ball had been able to avoid the roaming packs of tricentennials thus far, but it had seen what they could do to native species. And it wasn’t pretty.