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 offi?cer had seen just about everything during his years in the Legion and wasn’t about to be intimidated by a thousand baby bugs. He fi?red 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 fi?ghting their way up through the narrow passageway as Watkins began to fi?re 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 offi?cer 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 fi?re 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 fi?ve minutes of hard work, but once the exit was sealed, Santana felt satisfi?ed 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 fl?are burned out, and thereby allowed darkness to claim the outermost reaches of the killing fi?eld, 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 fl?esh 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 fi?re to all the rest, the offi?cer 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 infl?uence 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 fl?ourish. 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 fi?re. . . . 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 offi?cer knew that, but rarely fl?ew. 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 offi?cer 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 offi?cer paused at that point, raised his pistol, and shot the nymph that was trying to fi?nd 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 fi?red the fl?amethrower that that been installed in place of his energy cannon. The weapon sent a fl?are of light across the compound, and the tongue of fi?re caught two bugs in midair. They screeched piteously as their wings caught fi?re but were soon put out of their misery by wellaimed bursts of fi?re 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 fl?amethrowers to defend the compound. But the jets of liquid fi?re, 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 fi?ghting, 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 offi?cer wanted, and increased their rate of fi?re. Muzzle fl?ashes 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 fl?esh. The combined odor caught in the back of the offi?cer’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 fi?nger, 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 rifl?e shot to punctuate the end of the bloody confl?ict. “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 ruffl?ed the jungle foliage, and it began to rain. The battle was over. Raindrops drummed against his alloy casing, and his juryrigged propulsion system had a tendency to cut out every once in a while, but Oliver Batkin was happy for the fi?rst 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 into 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 fl?ock of blue fl?its 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 suffi?cient 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 battlefi?eld was a sight to see. Due to the effects of sustained gunfi?re, energy weapons, and fl?amethrowers 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.
All of the legionnaires who weren’t standing sentry duty around the clearing looked upwards as the cyborg swept in to hover at the center of an excited crowd. There were cheers from the troops, but rather than the warm welcome the cyborg expected to receive, the offi?cer who came forward to meet him was cold and matter-of-fact. The way he always was where cyborgs were concerned.
“So,” DeCosta began, “what can you tell me about President Nankool? Is he alive?”
Though taken aback by the way the bio bod had addressed him, Batkin managed to maintain his composure.
“And you are?”
“DeCosta,” the offi?cer answered impatiently. “Major DeCosta. I’m in command here.”
“And my name is Batkin,” the agent replied calmly.
“Welcome to Jericho. I’m glad you’re here. The answer to your question is yes. President Nankool is alive. Or was when I escaped from Camp Enterprise.”
The next few minutes were spent bringing DeCosta and his offi?cers up to speed regarding Nankool, the POWs generally, and the camp itself. “I have pictures of everything,” Batkin fi?nished proudly. “Plus detailed information regarding defenses, Ramanthian troop strength, and daily work routines.”
“That’s wonderful!” Santana commented enthusiastically. “What you managed to accomplish is nothing short of amazing.”
“Yes. . . . Well done,” DeCosta added tepidly. “Tonight we will go over that material in detail. In the meantime, we have a schedule to keep. . . . So, if Captain Santana, and Lieutenant Farnsworth would be so kind as to pull the pickets in, we’ll get under way. And, if you would be willing to serve as scout, then so much the better. There’s nothing like a bird’s-eye view of the terrain ahead to keep one out of trouble.”
Santana waited until the other offi?cers were out of earshot before addressing the cyborg. “I’m sorry about the reception. Believe me. . . . We are extremely happy to see you! And, should I be fortunate enough to survive this mission, I will do everything in my power to ensure that you are recognized for what you accomplished here.”
Batkin would have shrugged had he been able to. “That isn’t necessary. . . . But thank you.”
“Can I ask a question?” Santana wanted to know.
“About one of the prisoners?”
“Of course,” the spy responded cautiously. “Remembering that I had contact with only a small number of the POWs.”
“Yes, I understand,” Santana agreed. “The person I have in mind is female, about the same age I am, and blond. Her name is Christine Vanderveen—and she’s a diplomat.
She was a member of Nankool’s staff when the Gladiator was captured. So, if the president survived, then she might have as well.”
Santana felt a sense of dread as the cyborg reviewed the faces and the names of the POWs with whom he was familiar. The answer, when it fi?nally came, was more than a little disappointing. “I met a blond,” the cyborg allowed.
“But her last name was Trevane, and she was a naval offi?cer rather than a diplomat. A lieutenant if I remember correctly. I’m sorry.”
Santana nodded mutely and turned away. Only years of military discipline, plus a strong will, were suffi?cient to keep what the offi?cer felt inside as he took his place on Snyder’s back and the march began. As the column made its way out of the body-strewn clearing and topped the rise beyond, they passed three graves. Obvious now, but soon to be lost, as had thousands of others over the years. Santana offered the legionnaires a salute as he passed, wondered where Vanderveen was buried, and gave thanks for the face shield that hid his tears.
14.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton to Bishop Mandell CreightonStandard year 1887
PLANET HIVE, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
The Queen was dying. She knew it, her courtiers knew it, and all but the most ignorant of Ramanthian citizens knew it. Because, ironically enough, death was the price each tricentennial queen had to pay for the creation of so many new lives. It was a bittersweet process that systematically destroyed their much-abused bodies and a reality the current monarch had accepted years earlier. Not only accepted, but planned for, by doing everything possible to prepare her successor for the throne.
And now, being only weeks away from the day when the last egg would be ceremoniously laid, the Queen was still in the process of imparting all of the knowledge gained during an active lifetime to the female generally known as “the chosen,” a seemingly low-ranking servant who had been brought in from off-planet and integrated into the royal staff many months earlier. A position that provided the chosen with an intimate knowledge of the way the royal household worked and gave her access to the lies, plots, and counterplots that continuously swirled around the Queen. Something that was going to come as a shock to individuals who had been rude to the chosen.
“So,” the monarch said solicitously, as she looked down at her successor. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, Highness,” the chosen replied humbly. And she was ready. Unlike her fi?ve billion newborn cousins, the Queen-to-be had come into the world twenty years earlier the same way most Ramanthians did. Then, having been selected at the age of fi?ve, she and six other candidates had been raised to fi?ll a position only one of them could actually hold.
“Good,” the monarch said soberly. “Give me your opinion of Chief Chancellor Itnor Ubatha.”
The younger female looked up. Her eyes were like obsidian. “He’s very proactive,” the chosen observed thoughtfully. “Which is good. But he’s extremely ambitious as well, and would turn the monarch into little more than a megaphone through which to speak, if allowed to do so.”
“I can see that I chose well,” the Queen replied contentedly. “So, knowing Ubatha as you do, make use of him but be careful. Because when a tool works, and works well, there is a natural tendency to reach for it fi?rst regardless of the circumstances. And that is Ubatha’s strategy. So identify other advisors, place them in powerful positions, and thereby balance him out. Am I clear?”
“You are, Majesty,
” the younger female replied as her eyes returned to the fl?oor.
“Then enter the cloister and continue to learn.”
The chosen bent a knee, backed away, and shuffl?ed over to a corner where a curtained enclosure allowed her to observe all that took place without revealing her identity. It was a tradition that went back thousands of years and signaled the upcoming transition.
Meanwhile, in a waiting room normally reserved for those of lesser rank, Ubatha shuffl?ed back and forth across the chamber while deep in thought. Because while any royal audience was stressful, he knew this one would be even more so, due to the fact that the chosen would be present. There was no way to know which of the seven eligible females had been selected, but the Chancellor hoped that the Queen had chosen well. Not only for his wellbeing but that of the Ramanthian people as well. Because even though the war was going well, it would take a strong pincer to guide the empire through the next few years. The Ramanthian’s contemplations were interrupted as a midlevel functionary entered the room. “Chancellor Ubatha? The Queen will receive you now.”
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