Andromeda's Fall (Legion of the Damned)

by Dietz, William C.

  But the contest was far from one-sided, as became apparent when Farber took a direct hit from an RPG. The explosion blew the cyborg’s head off and killed Caskin as well. Both legionnaires fell, skidded across the duracrete, and wound up in a heap of bloody flesh and smoking metal. Suddenly, in a matter of seconds, the strength of McKee’s squad had been reduced by 25 percent. Noll had identified the Hudathan with the grenade launcher and uttered a roar of rage as he chased the alien down and shot him in the head.

  But McKee was only vaguely conscious of that as three Hudathans charged Eason and nearly knocked him over. But the T-1 managed to stay on his feet and used the fifty to club one of his adversaries. The Hudathan collapsed, but there were two more to deal with.

  One of the enemy troopers made a grab for McKee. She could feel the enormous strength in his hands and see the hatred in his eyes as she brought the AXE around. The weapon roared, the face shattered, and the Hudathan fell away.

  That gave McKee a moment in which to look around. The third alien was down and being stomped by Hower. Sergeant Petit and his team were running her way, and the door to the freight elevator was open. She pointed at it. “Donobi! Noll! Secure that lift.”

  Then, turning back to Petit, she waved the other noncom forward. Once all the members of the demolition team were on the platform, Eason, Noll, and Hower backed onto it, firing as they did so. In a matter of minutes the rest of Echo Company would arrive along with hundreds of Droi warriors. Their job would be to hold the top of the dam while the charges were set.

  Petit pushed the DOWN button, and McKee felt the lift jerk spasmodically as it started to descend. That gave her the opportunity to hit the harness release and jump down. The other bio bods did likewise, thereby increasing the number of boots on the ground and enhancing the team’s flexibility. Then it was time to report in. “Echo-Four to Echo-Nine. Over.”

  There was a burst of static followed by Avery’s voice. He sounded tense. “This is Nine. Go. Over.”

  “We’re in. Over.”

  “Excellent. Execute phase two. Over.”

  There was a loud clang as the platform came to a stop right in front of a dozen surprised Hudathans. The T-1s and the bio bods opened fire, and the aliens went down like tenpins. Larkin was the first person off the platform and went to work executing the wounded. A process he clearly enjoyed.

  It wasn’t right, and McKee knew she should order him to stop. The problem was that she didn’t have enough troops to deal with prisoners—and a wounded Hudathan still represented a significant threat. Not that it mattered because by the time she finished thinking about the problem, all of the enemy soldiers were dead.

  She felt a sense of revulsion for both Larkin and herself but was forced to put that emotion aside in order to deal with the next task, which was to place the explosives. Here, at least, she could relinquish leadership to Petit—while assuming her role as chief bodyguard. He acknowledged the moment with a nod. “Thanks, Sarge. Now keep the bastards off our backs while we go to work.”

  The dam’s interior was huge and had to be in order to accommodate the massive generators that sat like islands on an ocean of duracrete. But even they were dwarfed by a very high ceiling and empty spaces all around. That meant there was plenty of room for the T-1s to maneuver as they took up positions with their backs to the demolition team.

  The plan was to place the charges against the gently curved water-side wall and trigger all of them at once. And since they were self-adhesive, that would be a simple task. All they had to do was place a brick of E-8, push a timer-detonator into the highly malleable material, and move on. Except that the wall was more than a thousand feet long, and the team was supposed to attach sixty charges to it. A process likely to use up a lot of time. Time they didn’t have.

  Petit shouted, “That’s one!” but McKee knew there were fifty-nine more to go.

  “Here they come!” Hower shouted, and the Hudathans attacked.

  * * *

  Jivv had been running for a long time but wasn’t tired. Nor was it excited or jubilant as a human might have been toward the end of a long chase. It simply was as it followed a trail of broken foliage toward what sounded like a full-fledged battle. And that, his processor decided, would be good and bad. Good because the chaos associated with the conflict would allow him freedom of movement—and bad because it might impede his ability to find 2999.

  Targets appeared on Jivv’s sensors as the sound of fighting grew louder, and three people appeared up ahead. Two were Droi warriors and the third was a legionnaire with a bloodstained bandage on his left shoulder. He was being supported by the locals as they took him back out of harm’s way. Jivv came to a halt and held up a hand. “I’m looking for Corporal McKee . . . Can you tell me where she is?”

  “McKee’s inside the dam,” the legionnaire answered without giving the matter any thought. “With Sergeant Petit. Wait a minute . . . You’re dead! Captain Avery shot you!”

  “Yes, he did,” Jivv agreed, as it raised Aba’s rifle. The reports came in quick succession, and the Droi fell on the human.

  Jivv threw the rifle aside and knelt next to the dead legionnaire. Moments later, he was armed with the soldier’s assault weapon and two additional magazines. Then, having acquired the soldier’s helmet as well, the machine was off and running. Now it could hear whatever Avery said without using its own capabilities—part of which had suffered permanent damage. And it was clear that things weren’t going well. Not that it mattered to Jivv because its priorities lay elsewhere.

  The robot made a note to kill Avery if the opportunity presented itself, burst out of the jungle onto the access road, and followed a trail of dead bodies to the top of the dam. A major battle was taking place out in the middle of the span, where hundreds of Droi and a scattering of humans were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with an equal number of Hudathans. And given the disparity in size, the aliens were winning.

  But Jivv had no intention of getting involved in that mess because, according to the dead legionnaire, 2999 was somewhere inside the dam. The robot ran over to the elevator and pressed the DOWN button. There was no response. So Jivv opened a door marked STAIRS, and took them two at a time. The hunt was nearly over.

  * * *

  Weapons chattered, grenades exploded, and screams could be heard all around as Petit and his team finished placing the twenty-sixth charge. About fifty Hudathan troops had arrived on the scene. They were fully equipped, and McKee figured that they were part of the quick-reaction force that Avery had warned her about ten minutes earlier. The shovel heads couldn’t bomb the dam, not without risking the very catastrophe that the humans were trying to create, but they could drop more troops onto it and had.

  McKee, what remained of her squad, and a dozen Droi warriors had been able to hold the aliens off up until then, but as the fresh troops came at them, she knew it was over. All she could do was order her people to pull back and hope that some of them would survive. The first step was to tell Petit. McKee turned his way just in time to see the other noncom take a bullet in the head. It punched through his visor and drove a geyser of goo out through the back of his helmet. His body went limp and fell.

  She swore and chinned the mike switch. “Pull back! Pull back to the elevator!” A rocket hit Hower. The explosion sent pieces of the T-1 sailing through the air, and a chunk of metal took a Hudathan’s arm off.

  McKee and a small group of bio bods were backing toward the elevator at that point while the surviving T-1s guarded their flanks. And if it hadn’t been for their firepower, she knew the rest of them would be slaughtered within a matter of seconds. “Watch out!” Eason said. “They’re trying to circle around behind us!”

  McKee staggered as two or three projectiles flattened themselves against her body armor. The impact knocked her off her feet, and she fell. As she hit the floor, she could hear both of the fift
ies firing on full auto as the T-1s battled to push the Hudathans back. Then she saw Larkin appear over her. But rather than reach down to help, he was pointing an AXE at her.

  McKee realized that she was looking up at Jivv! It couldn’t be, but it was. The robot was wearing a helmet, but the visor was open to expose its smooth, almost-featureless face. Memories of her family and moments with Avery flashed through her mind as she waited for the first bullet to hit.

  A human might have said something at that point, but Jivv wasn’t human. It had orders to kill 2999 and pulled the trigger. Or tried to. But that was the moment when a 450-pound Hudathan swung the battle-ax which had been in his family for more than three hundred years. It was razor-sharp and generated a loud clink as it took Jivv’s head off.

  The Hudathan uttered a primal roar of exultation, which turned into a howl of anguish as McKee emptied her pistol into the alien’s groin, her theory being that his body armor would be weaker in that area. Both of the Hudathan’s hands went to his crotch as he fell and lay moaning on the floor.

  She scrambled to her feet, wondered what had happened to her AXE, and was pleased to see that the T-1s had been able to secure their line of retreat. But a phalanx of two dozen Hudathans was still advancing. “On me!” McKee shouted as she shoved a fresh magazine into the butt of her pistol. “We’re pulling out.”

  She saw Corporal Muncy. The demolitions expert was marching straight at the enemy with a pack clutched to her chest. McKee yelled, “No!” but it was too late.

  Muncy shouted, “Camerone!” and disappeared in a flash of light.

  McKee’s helmet dampened the sound of the explosion but the blast knocked all of the bio bods down. Once McKee was back on her feet, she saw a blackened section of floor surrounded by a spray of red and chunks of raw meat. Thanks to Muncy, they had a chance. “Back!” she shouted. “Into the elevator.”

  As they turned and ran toward the lift, McKee spotted a roundish something and realized she was looking at Jivv’s head. A short detour was required to retrieve it. Then, with the football-sized object clasped to her chest, she ran for the elevator and was the last person to board. It jerked into motion. “We have less than five minutes,” Yamada said grimly. “That’s when the charges will blow.”

  Would twenty-six charges be enough to do the job? McKee had doubts. But why place sixty if less than half that number would do? Still, effective or not, she didn’t want to be around when the big bang came. “Roger that,” she said. “I’ll race you to the jungle.”

  That got a couple of chuckles, and she wondered if she was channeling Hux again. The lift came to a stop, and they stepped out onto the top of the dam. The Hudathans had pushed Avery and his force back by then and controlled three-fourths of the surface road. McKee could see that Avery needed to disengage, had to disengage, but couldn’t. Not before the charges went off. “Hey, Larkin,” McKee said. “Catch.”

  Larkin raised his hands just in time to catch the head. “What the . . . ?”

  “Take good care of it,” she ordered. “And get everyone off the dam. That’s an order.”

  Then, having turned her back on him, she ran for the nearest AA battery. The gun tub was mounted on a twelve-foot-high steel column. A Hudathan-sized ladder led upwards, and as she began to climb, she knew the seconds were ticking away.

  A dead Hudathan was slumped against one side of the tub, and it took all of McKee’s strength to push his body out of the way. The battery consisted of four gang-mounted energy cannons all pointed at the sky. After stepping in behind a pair of curved shoulder rests, McKee tilted the barrels down to bear on the road, only to encounter a mechanical stop.

  A safety measure no doubt intended to prevent an excited gunner from firing on the top of the dam. McKee swore steadily as she searched for a solution. After some trial and error, a single pull on the correct lever removed the obstacle. Once the weapon came down, and the road appeared in the holo sight, it was a simple matter of stepping on a pedal. Blips of blue light shot out to converge on the Hudathan troops. There was no sound to speak of, just a steady whine, as dozens of enemy soldiers fell. “This is McKee,” she shouted into the mike. “I’m on the AA gun behind you . . . Pull back! The dam is about to blow.”

  Avery’s voice was remarkably calm. “Roger that. You heard the sergeant . . . Let’s go!”

  And with that, both the Droi and the few surviving humans turned and fled. McKee remained where she was for a few seconds in order to provide covering fire. Then she went for the ladder, slid to the pavement, and began to run.

  * * *

  War Commander Ona-Ka knew the water was coming and couldn’t stop it. The radio message from an officer on the dam had been confirmed by a ship in orbit. The dam had been destroyed, an estimated 10 trillion gallons of water was headed downstream, and would arrive in what? Four to five minutes? Yes, Ona-Ka thought as he climbed up onto the back of a tank, enough time to think, but not enough time in which to evacuate.

  His thoughts turned to his clan, his mate, and their children. They would grow up cursed by their father’s failure and all because of one mistake. The same mistake Horba-Sa had been punished for: underestimating the enemy.

  The humans had attempted to destroy the dam once before and failed. That, he realized, was the seed from which the overconfidence had grown. Ona-Ka turned his gaze to the city and knew the mind that had beaten him was up on the hill, waiting for the same wall of water that he was. Except that mind was about to enjoy the thrill of victory—while he suffered the ignominy of defeat.

  The ground shook, and the tank rattled ominously as a giant wave appeared west of the city. It was at least fifty feet tall and was carrying what looked like black dots. Trees perhaps? Two-ton boulders? There was no way to know as the flood hit the west side of the hill and water shot hundreds of feet into the air.

  As the deluge fell, the rest of the wildly churning water was forced to split in two. Approximately half of it followed the river channel down along the north side of the city, and the rest surged out onto the floodplain. That’s where twenty thousand Hudathan troops were, not to mention hundreds of vehicles and countless tons of supplies. All snatched up, tossed about like toys, and coming straight at him. The wave was tall enough to throw a shadow over Ona-Ka before it carried him away. The siege was over.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

  MARIE JOSEPH EUGENE SUE

  Mathilde

  Standard year 1841

  PLANET ORLO II

  A wedge of light spilled out of the bathroom and onto the floor. The room was silent except for the soft, almost-imperceptible rasp of Avery’s breathing. McKee took pleasure in the sound because it meant that he was alive. And so, for that matter, was she.

  More than a week had passed since the desperate spring from the AA gun to the jungle. No sooner had the forest closed in around her than the charges went off. The sound was muffled, barely noticeable, in fact, and McKee had been disappointed. All that effort, all of those lives, spent for nothing.

  Then came a shout. “Look!” someone said, and as she turned to look, puffs of smoke appeared over both elevator towers. A series of what sounded like rifle shots followed as the upriver side of the dam gave way and a wall-to-wall flood of water roared down the canyon toward Riversplit.

  McKee was dumbfounded at first, then her voice was added to all the rest, and Avery plucked her off her feet. He whirled her around, remembered that others were present, and put her down again. She wanted to kiss him but couldn’t. Not then, and not for more than a week, as they returned to Riversplit and the Legion. Because even though the Hudathan expeditionary force had been wiped out, there was still a lot to do.

  The Hudathan fleet pounded the surface of Orlo II for two days in an attempt to wreak revenge on the humans. So all the citizens of that world could do wa
s dig deep and wait. A strategy that ultimately proved to be correct when the Hudathan ships disappeared into space. And what else could they do? Having already committed all of their available troops and lost 90 percent of them, the Hudathans had nothing to gain by staying.

  McKee worried that the aliens would glass the planet as they left, but such was not the case. “They want Orlo II, and they plan to come back,” Avery predicted. And she figured he was right.

  Then all of the people who had taken part in blowing the dam were given forty-eight hours off by order of Colonel Rylund. McKee and Avery couldn’t spend time together openly, so they did so secretly. Because of all the destruction, quarters of any kind were hard to find and incredibly expensive. But by lying, bribing, and pulling various strings, Avery had been able to secure a one-bedroom apartment for two days.

  And now, as McKee lay on the bed next to him, she found herself betwixt and between. Avery was everything she had hoped for, but now what? The question had been plaguing her for days.

  She eased her way out of bed, felt cold wood under her feet, and tiptoed into the combination kitchen–living room. She was dressed in an olive drab T-shirt and panties. What Avery jokingly referred to as “. . . the uniform of the day.”

  It was daytime outside, but thanks to the blackout curtains, the room was dark. There wasn’t any hydropower, not without the dam, so what electricity there was came from hastily rigged solar panels that were popping up all around the city. That meant just one light in the living area. But one was enough, as McKee opened a shapeless B-3 bag and removed Jivv’s head.

  She had been looking forward to that moment for days but never been able to find the necessary time or privacy. After placing the head on a small desk, she removed a roll of tools and a pair of nanomesh gloves from the B-3 bag.

  The first step was to reawaken the robot, which she did by aiming a pen-sized laser at its visual receptors and triggering a series of blips. Nothing happened at first, so she tried again, and was rewarded with a couple of blinks. A tiny servo whirred as they came into focus. “Subject 2999.”