Andromeda's Fall (Legion of the Damned)

by Dietz, William C.

  “Copy that,” Hower replied. “Over.”

  Ten minutes later, they were inside the barn, where Insa and the T-1s were waiting. An area at the center of the barn had been screened off to prevent light from leaking out. What illumination there was emanated from a couple of glow strips. McKee chewed on a fruit bar and washed it down with sips of water as she gave her report. Once the rest of them were up to speed, she presented her plan. Eason was the first to react. “I like it,” he rumbled. “By the time the shovel heads get organized, we’ll be gone.”

  “I don’t know,” Noll said doubtfully. “Five miles. That’s a long way to run with people shooting at you.”

  “Of course we get to shoot back,” Hower observed.

  “Damned straight,” Larkin added enthusiastically. “The freaks have it coming.”

  “What about you?” McKee inquired as she met Insa’s gaze. “What do you think?”

  “We kill,” Insa replied, and patted the black-market assault rifle he was so proud of. Feathers hung from the barrel, and chips of colorful glass were set into the wooden stock.

  “Okay,” McKee said, “it’s on. The best time to make the run is at night. And it’s too late to tackle the job tonight. So, we’ll wait one rotation. That’ll give us a chance to rest up and do some field maintenance.”

  “The longer we wait, the better chance they’ll have to discover us,” Noll said gloomily.

  “That’s true,” McKee allowed, knowing that the cyborg would never say something like that to a sergeant, much less an officer. “But it’s a chance that we’ll have to take. And there’s something we can do while we’re waiting. We have four box-style magazines for each T-1—all loaded with alternating ball and armor-piercing-incendiary-tracer. By reallocating the rounds, we can create two cans of armor-piercing-incendiary-tracer for each ’borg. That means every bullet will punch through metal and set fire to whatever may be inside.”

  “We’ll light ’em up!” Larkin said, his face aglow with anticipation.

  Given Noll’s attitude, Larkin’s response was all the more welcome—although she knew he wasn’t being political. The crazy bastard wanted a fight.

  “Nice,” Eason put in. “Our fifties will have some extra punch, and we’ll be able to see where our rounds are going.”

  “Okay,” McKee said. “There’s no time like the present. Let’s get started.”

  The T-1s’ “fingers” were far too big and clumsy to redistribute the ammo. So that work fell to the legionnaires and Insa. And the same thing applied to maintenance except that McKee chose to take care of both Eason and Hower, knowing that her tech skills were superior to Larkin’s.

  That meant there was a lot to do, and it wasn’t until 1000 hours in the morning that she gave herself permission to take a nap. Fifteen minutes later, Larkin touched her shoulder. “McKee . . . A drone is nosing around outside.”

  The news brought her to her feet in a hurry. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer. “Where is it?” she whispered.

  Larkin pointed toward the barn’s double doors. They were riddled with bullet holes. And as she looked that way, she could see shafts of sunlight appear and disappear as something moved back and forth outside. It was hovering about ten feet off the ground and a booming sound was heard as metal collided with metal. “It’s trying to push a door open,” Larkin whispered.

  They could destroy the machine. McKee knew that. But the results would be identical to those experienced the day before. Only this time the Hudathan ship would kill them. So all she could do was stand with the AXE at the ready and pray that the drone would move on. And finally, after what felt like an eternity, it did. Bit by bit, she allowed herself to breathe again as the sound generated by the machine’s repellers faded away.

  As the day wore on, it grew oppressively hot in the metal barn, and Larkin wanted to open the doors. McKee might have been tempted except for the fact that the drone was fresh in her mind. And if one could visit, why not a second? She said no, and Larkin grumbled for ten minutes before finally lapsing into silence.

  All of the necessary work was completed by midafternoon. And with nothing else to do, the human bio bods tried to nap. But it was so warm that sleep didn’t come easily, and when it finally did, McKee fell into what felt like a drugged stupor. So that when she awoke an hour later, she felt worse than before.

  The barn began to cool as the sun went down, and that made McKee and Larkin feel better. Insa, who had been sitting with his eyes closed for the last hour, opened them as the humans began to eat dinner. “Tea,” the Droi said, as if that explained everything. And seconds later, he was hard at work preparing the all-important substance.

  Once the meal was over, time seemed to slow even more. McKee was in the process of reassembling her AXE when Insa began to smear various pigments on his face. “What’s that for?” she inquired.

  “Death paint,” Insa said solemnly. “I kill or die.” That seemed to say it all and cast something of a pall over the room as the others made their own preparations.

  Twenty-four hundred hours. That was the time that McKee had chosen, and it was a struggle to appear calm as the final minutes ticked away. And she knew that was the way Avery would have looked had he been in charge.

  Then, after what seemed like an eternity, it was 23:45 and time for the bio bods to take their positions. “Listen up,” McKee said as she gave her final instructions. “Eason and I will take the point, followed by Noll and Insa. Hower and Larkin will bring up the rear. We’re going to circle around the west end of the hill and pick up the road that leads to the highway. Be sure to maintain the standard thirty-foot interval.

  “The ’borgs can fire on targets of opportunity. But remember it won’t be possible to reload while on the run, so aim carefully and use three-round bursts. Oh, and don’t shoot each other. We have enough problems.

  “The bio bods will focus their attention on soft targets,” McKee continued. “We’ll use our assault weapons, but don’t forget your grenades. Be careful, though . . . Were Insa or I to arm a grenade and fumble it away, the people behind us would pay the price.

  “And remember . . . Everything depends on speed. We can’t stop. If we do, it’s over. Questions? No? Let’s do this thing.”

  The cool night air felt good after the stuffiness of the barn. And McKee was happy to put the waiting behind her. Now, for better or for worse, she was going into action. And the internal presence that monitored everything she did was pleased to note that, while tense, she wasn’t afraid of anything but failure.

  So she gloried in the press of wind against her skin, the feel of Eason’s movements, and the craziness of what they were going to do. A look back over her shoulder confirmed that the others were where they should be. So she looked forward as Eason rounded the west side of the hill. As seen through her high-tech visor, the entire plain was giving off a green glow. The eerie light was stronger in some places than others, and wherever a campfire burned, tendrils of heat spiraled upwards. The whole thing was unintentionally beautiful.

  You don’t have time to admire the view, she admonished herself. Make the call while you can. The problem was that even if the T-1s and the bio bods managed to cross the plain safely—they would run into Rylund’s forces, who would immediately open fire on them. So it was critical to inform the command structure of what was about to happen. So McKee began with the regimental push and worked her way down through all the standard frequencies. Unfortunately, her calls were met with a roar of static. The Hudathans were jamming and doing a good job of it.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as Eason said, “There’s the road!” and began to pick up even more speed. This, McKee thought to herself, is what cavalry was invented for. And when she heard herself yell “Charge!” it came as a complete surprise.

  As the three cyborgs and their riders ran straight at thousands of
Hudathans, time seemed to slow, and McKee became hyperaware. She knew the press of wind against her body, the acrid smell of ozone, and the rhythmic thud, thud, thud of Eason’s fifty. The roadblock was lightly guarded, and the Hudathans stationed there never had a chance. Huge though they were, the shovel heads were no match for .50-caliber armor-piercing slugs. They got off a few shots but went down like wheat to a harvester.

  And as Eason cleared the entry point, McKee fired her AXE. By leaning back and letting the harness support her weight, she could use both hands to hold the weapon, and there were plenty of targets. McKee fired a long burst as they passed a column of two dozen troopers. The 4.7mm rounds didn’t pack anything like the punch that Eason’s fifty did, but that didn’t matter. A wounded Hudathan would require medical attention and sap the unit’s morale. Both of which were good things from McKee’s point of view.

  As she ejected an empty magazine from her assault weapon and seated another, she saw the back end of a tracked transport up ahead. And when Eason veered left to pass it, two more appeared. The first two were open in back and filled with what she assumed to be supplies. “I’ve got ’em,” McKee said as she let the AXE hang across her chest. “Save your ammo.”

  The grenades were in ready bags hanging to the left and right of her position. In order to avoid the possibility of a mistake, McKee kept the frags on the left and the thermite grenades on the right. Thanks to Eason’s height, it was a simple matter to arm one of the bombs and toss it into the back of the first crawler they jogged past. There was a flash as it detonated, and she knew it would burn at a temperature of four thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Hot enough to burn through five-sixteenths inches of durasteel in twenty seconds. So if there was something flammable in the vehicle, it was going to catch fire. And in this case, it appeared that the transport was loaded with ammo. When it exploded, a gout of fire shot a hundred feet into the air and lit up the entire area.

  McKee thought about the T-1s coming along behind her and hoped that they were okay as she readied another grenade. Eason had passed the second track by then, which meant she would have to be content with dropping the bomb into the third machine. But as they drew closer, she saw that the cargo compartment was covered by a tightly stretched tarp and knew the device would roll off.

  So rather than allow the weapon to explode in her hands, McKee threw it as far as she could. It landed next to the road, where it did little more than melt dirt and light up the night. A lesson learned.

  Larkin uttered a whoop of joy as one of his grenades landed in the second crawler and triggered a secondary explosion. A quick glance confirmed that Noll and Insa still occupied the two slot.

  “Soft targets coming up,” Eason said, and as McKee looked forward over the cyborg’s massive shoulder, she saw that he was correct. A column of troops was up ahead. And, thanks to the efforts of some quick-thinking noncom or officer, they were turning toward the oncoming threat. A few of them fired. But the effort came too late as Eason triggered the grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of his machine gun. The HE round blew a bloody hole through the Hudathan line, and McKee fired her AXE as they passed through the gap. One of the troopers charged the T-1 and was only feet away when she shot him in the face. He stumbled away, and Insa finished the job as Noll rushed past.

  “Uh-oh,” Eason said. “There’s oncoming traffic up ahead. Hang on.”

  McKee saw that they were coming up on a self-propelled rocket launcher, and a southbound transport was blocking the left lane. Eason could veer left or right and chose left. The cyborg fired into the vehicle’s windshield as he crossed in front of the oncoming track. The machine swerved into oncoming traffic and crashed into the rocket launcher. That brought both vehicles to a halt and blocked the road.

  Having rounded the back end of the stalled transport, Eason made his way back onto an open stretch of highway. That gave McKee an opportunity to try again. “All Legion forces . . . All Legion forces. This is Corporal McKee with three T-1s inbound from the south. We are traveling at 50 mph—ETA four minutes. Do not fire on us. Confirm. Over.” She put the same message out over all of the possible frequencies with the same result: Nothing but static.

  “Roadblock,” Eason said laconically. “Hang on to your panties. We’re going over it.”

  Though initially caught by surprise, the Hudathans were beginning to get organized. Some enterprising individual had parked two half-tracks to block the road. Troops were positioned behind them, and McKee saw muzzle flashes as the distance closed. The slugs made pinging sounds as they hit Eason’s armor, something tugged at her shoulder, and a tracer whipped through her peripheral vision.

  Then they were suddenly airborne as Eason leaped into the air and sailed over the point where the two vehicles met. The cyborg landed hard, and the jolt would have thrown McKee clear if it hadn’t been for her harness. As it was, half a dozen grenades flew up out of the ready bags and disappeared into the darkness as the T-1’s momentum carried him forward.

  McKee looked back in time to see Noll clear the roadblock as well. A flash and the explosion that followed proved that Insa was mastering the use of hand grenades. Then it was time to turn her eyes to the north and try another call. “All Legion forces . . . All Legion forces. This is Corporal McKee with three T-1s inbound from the south. ETA two minutes. Does anyone copy? Over.”

  There was no response on the battalion push, but when she tried the company-level freq, she got static followed by a partial transmission. “This is Delta-Six,” garbled. “. . . One helluva fireworks show. Have you now. Outgoing artillery thirty from now. Over.”

  The sound of the friendly voice made McKee’s heart leap. They were close. So close. And it sounded like Delta-Six was calling for an artillery mission. That would effectively slam the door behind them if they could get close enough. But now they were almost upon the Hudathan front line. The point where the aliens were fighting the Legion toe-to-toe. That meant thousands of troops, all of whom were on high alert by that time.

  The road had given way to a maze of craters, trenches, and bunkers, which forced Eason to slow down as the Hudathans opened fire. But because the T-1s had crossed the plain so quickly, most of the enemy’s crew-operated weapons were pointed north instead of south. That meant most of the stuff coming McKee’s way consisted of small-arms fire. But it was bad enough, and she could hear the pinging sounds as bullets flattened themselves against Eason’s armor.

  The cyborg could shoot back, however, and did. His armor-piercing slugs swept the area ahead and dumped dozens of Hudathan troopers on the ground, as he jumped a dead body. But as Eason came up out of a crater and prepared to make the final run across no-man’s-land, his luck ran out. Something big slammed into his chest and holed his armor. The impact was off center, and that saved McKee’s life because instead of falling back on top of her the cyborg landed on his side. Eason’s voice filled her helmet as McKee hit the quick-release button on her harness. “Looks like this is the end of the line, McKee . . . Run like hell.”

  “Bullshit,” McKee said as she knelt next to the cyborg and opened a panel at the back of his metal head. “I’m going to jerk your brain box. Stand by to catch some Z’s.”

  “Don’t do it,” Eason said. “It’s heavy and . . .”

  McKee didn’t listen to the rest of it as she opened the curved door, took hold of the red T-shaped handle, and gave it a full turn to the right. Then using the same handle, she pulled Eason’s Bio-Support Module (BSM) out of its bay. As she did so, McKee knew that sedatives were being pumped into the cyborg’s brain.

  The BSM was about the size of a .50-caliber ammo box and weighed nearly twenty pounds. It was going to be impossible to carry it and fight. So all McKee could do was cradle the container in her arms and head north. Bullets kicked up puffs of dirt all around her as a wave of Hudathans charged straight at her. Then they wavered as if in response to a strong breeze, and broke
twenty feet away. She could see the four-hundred-pound monsters being snatched off their feet as the slugs hit them.

  “Don’t worry, McKee,” Larkin said as Hower passed her. “We’ve got the point, and Noll has your six. Ain’t that right, Noll?”

  The last had an edge to it, as if Larkin was concerned that the cyborg might abandon her and was advising against it. Either Noll got the message or didn’t need the message; because when McKee glanced over her shoulder, the T-1 was walking backwards, firing toward the south.

  McKee turned back, tripped, and fell down. Then, as she got to her feet, a Hudathan rose in front of her. The trooper had been playing dead and, as Hower passed, had seen his chance. Like many Hudathan officers he carried a clan sword, which was raised over his head. As the blade began to fall, McKee raised the brain box and heard a loud clang as metal struck metal. The blow was so powerful that she felt the jolt all the way down through her arms and nearly lost the BSM.

  Her first thought was for Eason. But the box was made out of heavy-gauge steel and designed to take a beating. However, McKee knew that the enemy officer would beat her down if she stood her ground so she dropped the box and fell backwards.

  It seemed to take forever to grab the AXE and bring the weapon up into firing position. The Hudathan was towering over her by then, and the blade was coming down. She jerked the trigger and saw the first bullets hit the alien’s crotch. The assault rifle’s natural tendency to rise took over at that point, and a steady stream of 4.7mm rounds stitched a line of holes that ran from his pelvis to his breastbone. The sword fell from nerveless fingers, and McKee had to roll out of the way to escape the falling body.

  Then it was time to retrieve the brain box, clutch it to her chest, and run toward the point where Hower and Larkin were doing their bloody work. McKee heard a burst of static followed by the same voice that had spoken to her before. “. . . Six. Keep coming. Arty on the way. Over.”