When Duty Calls

by William C. Dietz

  Amoyo swore as her T-2 jumped into the ice-cold river. The water had risen all the way up to her waist before the cyborg made it to the other side, where he splashed up onto the bank. The good news was that her mission had been accomplished, but now she was on the west side of the valley, and cut off from the rest of her platoon. Suddenly she understood why Captain Santana wanted Staff Sergeant Briggs to take the first squad out. And, as if to reinforce the lesson just learned, the company commander put Dietrich in charge of the rest of her platoon. His voice flooded the company push. “Alpha Six-Two will take command of the second squad, first platoon. Out.”

  Amoyo heard Master Sergeant Dietrich say, “This is Six-Two. Roger, that. Out.” That left her with no option but to wheel toward the enemy and thereby reinforce the company’s right flank.

  Santana saw the change on the ITC and grinned as the wall of black smoke gradually blew toward the south. “This is Alpha Six. Let’s hook the bastards! Out.” Everyone in the company knew what Santana meant, because the “buffalo horns” formation dated back to the Zulu War of 1879, and involved the use of flanking elements or “horns” to at least partially encircle the enemy, while the “chest” or main force came up the middle. In this case, the main force consisted of two badly outgunned quads. Had Bravo Company been present there would have been four quads and something like parity.

  Still, it wasn’t as if Santana had a choice, given the fact that the bugs weren’t likely to surrender. As the Ramanthians rolled into the smoke, the first and second platoons circled around them, turned inwards, and immediately came into contact with the enemy’s APCs. The troops weren’t all that dangerous, not so long as they remained sealed inside their durasteel boxes, but the vehicles they were riding in carried grenade launchers and machine guns. The automatic weapons chattered madly as the T-2s entered a hellish world of drifting smoke, blazing guns, and fiery explosions. A place where Santana, like the bio bods all around him, was reduced to little more than baggage as Deker went to work.

  The key to survival inside the war fog was speed and agility. Deker cut between two dimly seen APCs, firing both his fifty and energy cannon as he ran. The bullets failed to penetrate Ramanthian armor, but one of his energy bolts scored a direct hit on a track, which brought one machine to a halt.

  In the meantime, even though Santana was being thrown back and forth like a sack of potatoes, it was his job to monitor the ITC and make sure that the melee didn’t get out of hand. “Watch for friendlies,” the company commander cautioned. “We have enough opposition without shooting at each other. Out.”

  But the cautionary advice came too late for Private Steel-grip Cutright, who was decapitated by an energy bolt fired by Corporal Bin Han. So that, as Cutright’s T-2 continued to fight, his headless body flopped back and forth, spewing blood in every direction. Nor was Cutright the company’s only casualty. Because some of the enemy APCs had discharged their troops by then, and bio bod Kai Hayasaki and cyborg Bin Batain both lost their lives when a shoulder-launched missile struck them. Fortunately such incidents were rare thanks to all the smoke and the speed with which the T-2s could move.

  But speedy or not, the smaller war forms had been unable to so much as scratch the Gantha tanks as the Ramanthians opened fire. The first rounds fell short of the quads but threw columns of dirt high into the air, which meant that the Seebos riding inside the quadrupeds could hear what sounded like a hailstorm as rocks and soil rained down on the metal above their heads. It didn’t take a genius to know that the big war form was being targeted, and that wasn’t fair. Not to Lieutenant-620’s way of thinking. Because having survived the horrors of the crater—the officer felt that he and his men deserved something better than death in a metal box.

  Of course, both Lupo and Xiong had been killed before, and had no intention of dying again, at least not so soon. So they answered the Ramanthian attack with a salvo of four heat-seeking missiles, followed by a blinding fusillade of energy bolts as all eight of their combined cannons began to fire.

  One of the enemy tanks exploded as two missiles hit it. A second lost a track, and began to turn circles, but there was no stopping the third. And that was scary, because as high-explosive rounds continued to go off around the quads, they both knew it was just a matter of time before one or both of them took a direct hit.

  But only if they were stupid enough to attack the enemy head-on. Much had been written about the advantages and disadvantages inherent in the quad design, but there was one thing that no one could dispute, and that was the fact that the huge cyborgs could step sideways. Something tracked vehicles couldn’t do.

  So the quads began to move away from each other—thereby forcing the Ramanthian tank commander to choose between two targets. And, with each step they took, the quads could see more and more of the Gantha’s sloped flanks, where the machine’s reactive armor was slightly thinner. Then, when a sufficient amount of black metal was visible, the legionnaires loosed another salvo of missiles. The weapons hit, punched their way through the Ramanthian armor, and sent jets of hot plasma into the crew compartments. A powerful secondary explosion sent the Gantha’s turret soaring high into the air. It seemed to hang there for a moment, as if held aloft by an invisible hand, before falling on a burning APC.

  It was an important accomplishment. Because now, with the tanks out of the way, there was nothing to prevent the legionnaires from attacking the STO emplacement. But before Santana could give the necessary orders an all-too-familiar voice flooded his helmet. “This is Zulu Six. Hold where you are. I’m three minutes north of you and I’ll be there shortly. Out.”

  Santana turned toward the north and saw that a shuttle was coming in low and fast. Where had Quinlan been anyway? “This is Alpha Six,” Santana said. “Platoon leaders will reintegrate their forces, check for casualties, and rearm their T-2s. Lieutenant Seebo-620. I would be obliged if you and your men would establish a temporary perimeter around the company and provide security. Out.”

  There was a series of acknowledgments as the clones exited the quads, and the T-2s were ordered to close with the quadrupeds, so they could take on ammo from the larger war forms. Meanwhile, the shuttle had put down. Quinlan and his T-2 were the first to disembark. Bravo Company’s quads followed, along with two platoons of T-2s, and a technical support unit. “Sorry we’re late,” Quinlan said, as the two men came together. “Our shuttle developed engine trouble after we hit the atmosphere, and we were forced to put down so the swabbies could clear it. But we’re here now—and the mission remains the same.”

  Even though the T-2s were only three feet apart from each other, they weren’t privy to the conversation that was taking place on the command channel. “Roger that, sir,” Santana replied. “We can use the help. And we need to get under way quickly—before the enemy can reinforce their defenses.”

  “There’s no need to belabor the obvious,” Quinlan responded irritably. “Tell your people that the attack will commence in five minutes.”

  Santana nodded. “Sir, yes sir.”

  There was an awkward pause at that point, as if the battalion officer wanted to say something more, but wasn’t sure how to do so. Finally, having swiveled his body toward the bloody LZ where Alpha Company had put down, Quinlan spoke without looking back. “And Santana. . . .”

  “Sir?”

  “Well done.”

  Santana was surprised, but managed a nod. “Thank you, sir. I’ll pass that along.”

  “See that you do,” Quinlan said curtly as he turned back, and his normal persona reasserted itself. “Thirty seconds of that five minutes have elapsed. You’d better get cracking.”

  Meanwhile, ten miles to the south and high atop the dam where the Ramanthian STOs were sited, Force Commander Rundee Homar stood atop a huge gun mount as he peered through a pair of Y-shaped binoculars. Having twice failed to put a significant number of troops on ground, the animals had finally been able to land a company of grotesque cyborgs. And now, having been reinforced
by air, the abominations were preparing to attack the STO emplacement. Which, given the way they had defeated the tanks, was doomed. Or that’s how it seemed until a truly revolutionary idea blossomed in Homar’s brain. What if, rather than destroy the energy cannons and withdraw the way he was supposed to, the Ramanthian were to turn one of the weapons at his disposal on the troops in the valley? And thereby destroy all of the animals with a single bolt of energy? That would leave him and his troops with plenty of time to slaughter the prisoners and blow the dam prior to an orderly retreat!

  But there wasn’t much time, so he and his troops would have to work fast if they were to bring a cannon to bear on the valley. Homar lowered the binoculars, turned toward the battery behind him, and began to issue orders.

  With twice the number of T-2s and quads lumbering up the valley, Santana felt a renewed sense of optimism, as Quinlan led roughly half the battalion toward the heavily fortified dam. And, truth be told, it had been a relief to surrender overall command. Because even though he wasn’t especially proud of it, there was comfort in the knowledge that mistakes, if any, wouldn’t be his.

  In marked contrast to his behavior on Oron IV, Quinlan was leading from the front. Was that the result of his long-delayed promotion? Or a change of behavior that was somehow linked to his daughter’s death? There was no way to know as the portly colonel led his troops into battle.

  Bravo Company, which had been ordered to lead the way, was within range of the enemy guns by then and opened fire with a vengeance. The legionnaires could lay down another smoke screen, and zigzag back and forth, but there wasn’t much more they could do other than pray as shells exploded all about them. Bravo Company took the brunt of the fire, and it wasn’t long before what had been an orderly formation was reduced to a ragged group of survivors. One of the quads lost a leg, T-2s were tossed into the air like toys, and bio bods were ripped apart by flying shrapnel. It was a horrible sight and made all the worse by the fact that there was very little the legionnaires could do as the Ramanthians fired down on them.

  Meanwhile, Force Commander Homar was having problems of his own. The concept of using one of the STO cannons to destroy the animals with a single shot had been brilliant. But, having turned one of the thirty-foot-long monsters toward the north, his gunners were having trouble depressing the barrel far enough to target the oncoming aliens. The problem stemmed from safeties built into the software used to aim and fire the big weapons, and mechanical stops that were intended to prevent the very thing the Ramanthian officer was trying to do. The first issue had been resolved by switching the control mode from automatic to manual. And now, as Homar looked on, a technician was cutting his way through the last of three six-inch-thick metal tabs that kept the cannons from firing on the planet’s surface.

  But the humans were coming on fast, and Homar knew that if he and his gunners failed to fire the weapon soon, the animals would be too close to hit. So as the last piece of glowing metal hit the floor, the Ramanthian gun crew hurried to crank the long black tube down as far as it would go, and locked the barrel in place. The accumulators were fully charged, so all Homar had to do was shout, “Fire!” and a blue comet was born.

  For the duration of its short life the enormous energy bolt had mass. It was only a foot in diameter as it left the cannon’s barrel, but quickly expanded to twelve times that size, so that Santana could feel the heat as the flaming comet passed over his head. Then he heard a loud shriek, quickly followed by an enormous explosion, and a flash of light so intense the legionnaire might have been blinded had he been looking north.

  That was when an earthquake shook the ground under Deker’s feet. A shock wave hit the war form from behind and threw him facedown. Santana fell with him. The cyborg struggled to stand as echoes of the thunderous explosion bounced back and forth between the valley’s walls. It took a moment for Santana to process what had occurred, but once he had, the officer realized how lucky the battalion had been. Because rather than strike the legionnaires as intended, the enormous ball of energy had passed over them, and blown a huge divot out of the valley’s floor.

  But that wasn’t all . . . Either because they were as shocked as the legionnaires were, or the Ramanthian gunners had been blinded by the initial explosion, their guns had fallen silent! “This is Alpha Six,” Santana proclaimed. “Let’s go up and kill those bastards!”

  Though not the most precise order the legionnaire had ever given, it was among the most heartfelt, and other officers were quick to echo it—including Lieutenant Colonel Quinlan, who was among the first members of the battalion to close with the dam and start up the access road that led to the top. It was too narrow for the quads to follow and was interrupted by a number of switchbacks, each of which constituted a natural defensive point.

  Colonel Quinlan was followed by elements of Bravo Company and Alpha Company, with Santana in the lead. The battalion’s ranks were thinner now and the Seebos were hard-pressed to keep up with the fast-moving cyborgs. Santana took advantage of the situation by instructing the clones to seek out and protect the civilian POWs. It was an order he half expected Quinlan to countermand.

  But if the colonel heard the interchange, he gave no sign of it, as lead elements of the battalion arrived at the first switchback, where they were confronted by hundreds of Ramanthian regulars. At that point, what had been a largely long-distance duel carried out with high-tech weapons was transformed into a bloody hand-to-pincer brawl that would have been familiar to the legionnaires of the distant past.

  Neither side could use hand grenades, lest they kill their own soldiers, but assault rifles used at close quarters could punch through body armor. And some legionnaires, like Master Sergeant Dice Dietrich, carried backup weapons for such occasions. His weapon of choice was a shotgun that made distinctive boom, clack, boom sounds as it was fired into the crowd. Often accounting for two or three enemy soldiers with a single shot.

  But the battle was far from one-sided. All of Force Commander Homar’s officers and noncoms were equipped with power-assisted body armor that could literally rip a human apart. And it was one such trooper who managed to punch a fist through Private Ren Rosato’s chest plate, grab hold of some electronics, and jerk them out.

  Rosato’s brain was still alive, but his body was out of action, which made his bio bod very angry. His name was Private Horu Bora-Sa. And while the three-hundred-pound Hudathan had long carried his father’s battle-ax into action, he had never been given an opportunity to use it before. So, having freed himself from his harness as the T-2 fell, Bora-Sa drew the clan’s “Ka-killer,” and went to work. Light glinted off the two-hundred-year-old ax, and gore flew left and right, as the angry Hudathan shouted the ancient battle cry: “BLOOD!”

  The shout was echoed by Hudathans and Humans alike, along with cries of “CAMERONE!” which was the name of the famous battle in which Captain Jean Danjou and a force of sixty-two legionnaires had taken on thousands of Mexican regulars in 1863. Those cries, plus a renewed effort by the towering T-2s, was enough to push the bugs back as the cyborgs fought for a purchase on the steep blood-slicked road. “After them!” Quinlan was heard to shout, as the Ramanthians began to retreat. “Cut the bastards down!”

  “Hold!” Force Commander Homar ordered, having raised his sword over his head, and deployed his wings. Noncoms blew their whistles, and their troopers took to the air as well. It was a desperate move, because as a result of the long, slow evolutionary process, all but the young and very fit were limited to only short bursts of flight. But the effort was successful in that it momentarily neutralized the height advantage that the cyborgs had.

  Unfortunately for the Ramanthians, however, every fourth T-2 was equipped with a flamethrower in place of the standard energy cannon. Weapons that soon proved to be very effective against the airborne bugs. Wings burst into flames as they beat against the air, and insectoid troopers screamed as they cartwheeled to their deaths.

  Homar had accepted defeat by then, but was d
etermined to take a human with him, and flew straight at Colonel Quinlan. The Ramanthian was a good ten feet off the ground by that time—and so full of naturally produced stimulants that flying was easy.

  Quinlan’s cyborg could have blown the Ramanthian out of the air, but was engaged in pincer-to-pincer combat with an armored noncom, and couldn’t respond. There was a strange moment as the two adversaries locked eyes, the battalion commander raised his sidearm, and Homar swung his blade. Three bullets struck the Ramanthian’s face, blew the back of his head out, and sprayed the troopers behind him with gore. The sword fell, but the officer’s body continued to hang there for a moment, as his wings fanned the air. So Quinlan fired again. “That’s for Nancy, you butt-ugly bastard!”

  Homar’s body fell, a shout went up as the legionnaires surged forward, and the Trooper IIs began to run. The Ramanthians, none of whom could manage more than a fast shuffle, didn’t stand a chance. Even though Santana ordered his men to take prisoners, the legionnaires weren’t in the mood. Not after the slaughter in the LZ, the long march up the valley, and the attempt to eradicate them with the STO cannon. They fired until their weapons ran dry, reloaded on the run, and fired again. So that by the time the battalion gained the top of the dam and the gun emplacement was located there, a long trail of dead bodies lay behind them.

  Demolition charges had been set, and were about to be detonated, when Dietrich and Fareye arrived. Both of their T-2s were out of ammo by then, but the master sergeant had four shotgun shells left, and the Naa had his knife. Three Ramanthians went down in as many seconds and the dam, not to mention the valley below, was spared.