"Excuse me, Sergeant; do you have an extra SD card I can have?"
"Have, sir?"
"That's right."
The sergeant searched his pockets and eventually removed a small plastic box. He removed a single tiny card from the many in the container and plugged it into his PDA to check that it was empty. He then removed it and handed it to the major. "It's just a terabyte sir, sorry."
"More than enough, thanks."
Dave returned to the computer. He didn't need access to the intranet to transfer data. Besides, not being connected meant Indra would not see it, thus the information would not fall into Wilmington's hands.
He inserted the chip into the port, then placed his left hand on the sensor pad. In a matter of seconds, he had copied his recollections of the inside of the classified section of the Demeter, his encounter with the E'meset and all the sick and lobotomized individuals he was shown in the cave. He transferred a copy of all the data and images he and Kathy had obtained from the clinic onto the chip. Then he removed it, and put it into his pocket.
Chapter 20
Khe Sanh
Kathy had decided to avoid the direct route back, so they had skirted wide to the west. The longer route required they march all night. Le'ha had taken little rest, little water, and no food.
Dawn did not really come that next morning. The sky brightened a little as the red star rose and rain began to fall. The wind picked up as the day wore on. Kathy had noticed that every few kilometers Le'ha would stop and look back. Kathy would always look back as well, wondering what she was seeing. It became annoying, so Kathy sped up to walk beside her.
"Le'ha, why are you constantly looking behind us? Do you think we're being followed?"
"We are not. But I thought perhaps…you see his journey was not finished, I thought he would follow."
"You mean Dave? Le'ha, Dave is dead, killed with a hand grenade."
"Not Dave the man, Dave the spirit. He died with work yet undone. And he died without the expression of love. His spirit will aid us with…the mission, and he will not depart until the matter is decided one way or the other. He will see either war, or he will see peace. He will want to see those he loved know of his love and feel that love returned. Without this, he will never pass on to onellametsa, the forest of great joy. I will show him my love, Kathee. Will you show him your love?"
Le'ha did not wait for an answer. She turned and with great strides moved off.
Kathy followed slowly after her, her head down, lost in thought with her wet hair clinging to her face. Show him my…I don't know what I'd show him, I just don't know.
The voice in the back of her skull popped up again. Damn, even with the man dead you can't admit that you were falling in love with him?
Look, Kathy replied. I had feelings, but I don't know what they meant, I've never been in love, how would I know what it feels like? My dog died when I was a kid. I kinda feel like that right now. But it was just a damn dog.
Ya loved that dog, though, didn't ya?
I guess. But come on, you can't compare the love of a pet to being in love with a fellow human being.
I'm just pointing out the lie you told yourself. You have been in love.
That is such Bravo Sierra! And hey…I never left anyone behind!
You left me Kathy, and it hurts.
Who are you?
The voice was gone.
Who are you?
After several moments with nothing but the sound of the rain on the leaves she screamed with her voice amplifier rather high, "Screw you!"
Everyone turned to look, but Kathy ignored them and kept walking.
About an hour later, Kathy again approached Le'ha. "Listen, I'm calling a halt. You are going to rest and eat something. I can't afford to lose you to hunger and fatigue."
"I am not tired."
"Fine! I'm tired. While I rest, you eat!" Kathy was angry, but not with Le'ha.
SUBs needed no rest, everyone knew that, even Le'ha. Nonetheless, they all stopped and Le'ha got out some food and water.
As Kathy watched Le'ha prepare a quick meal, she considered her own words. "I'm tired." The words echoed in her head. In fact, she was tired. She was mentally exhausted. She would have loved to sleep or at least go into stasis for a few hours.
Kathy and Zolna kept a watch one hundred and eighty degrees apart. But Kathy was watching Le'ha as she finished her meal and stood. She produced her large hunting knife and advanced on an odd-looking plant. It was sort of a short thick palm tree with a blue fern for leaves on the top, and from this fern rose several long stems with bright red tips. She sliced the soft, fleshy trunk open vertically. She then stuck her hand into the trunk, and thick white sap ran out. When she pulled her hand out, Le'ha was gripping a round, white object the size of a baseball. She ate half of it and laid the other half on a rock.
"What's this?" Kathy asked.
"For Dave, half of the heart of the sweet tree."
"Spirits don't eat," Kathy observed sarcastically.
"No, but they gather to themselves the life power of all things. Dave's spirit will take the power from this bit of fruit, and he will know what this sign means."
"Sign? What sign?"
"Among my people when a male and female are halo vat of each other, one will leave half the fruit of this…the Condress tree, for the other. If it is eaten, then the one accepts the affection of the other."
"You mean you're offering Dave your affection?"
"I offer myself to Dave's spirit that he may know the depth of my sudamine."
"Your what?"
"My sudamine, you say love."
"Among my people, we have a saying: until death do us part."
"That is sad, Kathee; death is not an end of love. Ask this of yourself…now he is dead, do you love him less?"
A sound over her shoulder drew both Kathy's and Le'ha's attention. Zolna had thrown himself down prone with his weapon at the ready.
"Ma'am, I have bipedal movement to my direct front." Zolna whispered just loud enough for a SUB's ears to hear.
Kathy and Le'ha fell to the ground just as Zolna had. No one moved. It was an enemy patrol passing through the foliage within four meters of them.
Kathy glanced back at Le'ha, but what startled her was what she saw in the clearing where they had stopped. Sitting dead center of the rock was the half dome of the bright white fruit Le'ha had left out for Dave's spirit. It was far too obvious that it had been placed there. Should a merc see it, there would be trouble.
The mercs were passing near them now, and they were alert. Kathy felt sure the fruit would give them away. All that had to happen was for one of the mercs to glance this way. Just then, a very large insect, the size of a dachshund, swooped down from the forest canopy, grabbed the fruit, and took off with it. The thing flew right over the heads of the mercs. Several of them saw the winged and monstrous-looking bug. Two of them were so badly startled by the enormous, ten-legged flying creature, they opened fire on it in full auto. Sixty rounds split the air around the thing, but not one bullet hit it.
A man who must have been an NCO or an officer ran back and started screaming at these two, "You two assholes just gave our position away. That's a fine of a thousand each. And if we lose any men or equipment as a result, that will come out of your share, too!"
The column never stopped walking, and was soon past. After allowing several minutes for the mercenaries to move farther away, the three rose out of the mud, and with all haste moved on toward New Roanoke.
Kathy glanced up at Le'ha as they hustled off into the forest, "Sorry about your little gift for Dave's spirit."
"You saw, but you did not see. The Vee ka was the spirit of Dave. He came with speed to accept my gift, and to prevent the Ukse from finding us." Le'ha smiled and tears came to her eyes. "I have done for you, Dave," she spoke into the air. "You know now of my sudamine. Now, Kathee…it is your time to express your love."
In the distance, more automatic weap
ons fire was heard. Kathy quickly turned to Le'ha, "Well, perhaps not just this very minute."
○O○
Chuck had designed and supervised the construction of the barricades along the three major arteries that lead into the CDF's final redoubt. He had followed Matt Strum's model from the defense of JILL. In the smaller connecting halls and passages between the three larger corridors, they had built barriers by collapsing ceilings, pulling walls down, dragging furniture out of offices, and they constructed and laced booby traps everywhere, effectively closing off the smaller avenues of approach. Should the enemy try to get through one of these areas, sensors would alert the CDF and a reaction force could be quickly dispatched.
During this period of construction, Wilmington's mercs had not left them unmolested. There had been a series of small probing attacks. Each had cost the CDF injuries but no KIA. On the other hand, the CDF felt sure it had killed at least fifteen mercs and wounded twice that number. For the last hour, the situation had been quiet. Why were they waiting? Chuck wondered.
Chuck was happy with the state of the defenses. He would have liked to have had more heavy weapons, but he felt sure he could make do. It was the math that worried him. Wilmington had some three thousand paid killers in his employ. The CDF's strength was just over fifteen hundred. Among them were two hundred forty-six SUBs, two hundred fifty-one, if all of Kathy’s people got back.
History had shown that those defending were always in the better position. Of course, battles like Tuvalu in Oceania, Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, the Alamo on the Moon, and the original in Texas, were sobering reminders that such desperate defenses seldom ended well for the defenders. In each case, the story was the same, the defenders were outnumbered, they received no relief, and no, or little, resupply. It sounded all too familiar.
On the Moon, Matt Strum called his defensive sector 'The Alamo'. Chuck decided to call this place 'Khe Sanh'—a nod to the troops who desperately defended that firebase during the Vietnam War in 1968.
At 15:00, the first coordinated attacks began. The enemy hit them at all three barricades simultaneously. The corridors were fourteen meters wide and four tall. Anything capable of providing the enemy any cover or concealment had been removed. Adjoining doors and hallways had been sealed and blocked off. The corridors for three hundred meters were nothing but kill zones.
The attacks began with smoke bombs. The Bios donned their respirators and activated the IR viewer in them. The SUBs just switched to IR. The enemy could be seen advancing behind crudely made shields.
The CDF initiated their defense with heavy weapons fire, engaging the enemy at three hundred meters. The central corridor ran almost five hundred meters before encountering the first adjoining corridor on the right.
The enemy's shields reacted like cardboard when the big .50 caliber armor piercing rounds slammed into them. In the IR receivers, the warm blood could be seen spreading on the floor and splattering on the walls and ceiling.
CDF snipers were dropping mercenaries with every round fired.
The attack was over in a minute and forty seconds as the mercs lost their desire to continue this frontal attack. Fortunately, a frontal attack was the only option that Chuck had left them.
The assault had no more ended when sensors started sounding at every barricade they had constructed between the main corridors.
"Every barricade? How is that possible?" Chuck asked the lieutenant manning the monitoring station. Chuck then called up the reaction force and detailed additional personnel to recon the other locations.
It didn't take long at all for the word to come back. The little Mark two eleven Kilo Whiskey maintenance robots were doing their job. They had detected damage to the facility and were sweeping down like a title wave to repair and clear the blockage for ease of transportation. They would soon be descending on the three main barricades.
As the robots moved in on the obstructions, the IED booby traps hidden there automatically triggered and several of the little robots were destroyed. This was why the mercs had waited. To let the bots die, clearing the obstacles.
Clearly, these bots were not sentient, as were those on JILL.
Chuck watched the monitor as one by one the obstructions were attacked and cleared by the bots who were oblivious to the traps. Soon, all the obstacles would be cleared, turning their defense into a sieve for the mercs to attack through. "This is not good." Chuck spoke out loud.
The commander of the reaction force called in, "Khe Sanh, Khe Sanh, this is savoy niner six actual, Over."
"This is Khe Sanh, go niner six."
"I am looking at many hundreds of those little Kilo Whiskey robots hard at work, and doing a damned fine job, as well. There are too many to engage. Request instructions, over."
"Stand by, savoy niner six."
Chuck spoke directly to the general over the dedicated intercom, which was not connected to Indra.
"Sir, we can't leave the teams out there, it's like a spider's web of halls, passages, and interconnected rooms. I suggest we pull our people back, or they will get encircled and cut to ribbons."
"Do it, Herr Hauptmann," the general agreed. "And Hauptmann…ensure everyone has a respirator."
"Sir?"
"Just in case. I will not make this a die in place defense if there is another alternative."
○O○
Dave had waited for over an hour for word from the XO. LTC Fisher did not return himself, but a guard knocked on the door and entered the room. "Hey `dare, Major, I'm Corporal Lumpkin. I'm your security." The soldier closed the door, locked it, and stood before it at port arms. He was a very large man with an ill-fitting, dirty, and rather rumpled CDF uniform.
Dave took a seat and looked out the window at the blowing rain for a minute. "Where you from, Lumpkin?"
"Jersey."
"I see. How long you been in the military?"
"Oh…'bout eight years. What’s it to ya?"
"That long? Wow. The XO send you?"
"Who?"
"Lieutenant Colonel Fisher."
"Yeah."
"He told me I was deep inside the CDF zone and surrounded by CDF soldiers. What made him think I needed a guard?"
"Hey…I jus' follow my orders."
Dave nodded, rose, and walked casually over to stand near him. He glanced down at the weapon and noted it was locked and loaded, the selector switch on semi. He also noted a large blood stain on the man's back. "So, Lumpkin, does your wound hurt?"
"What wound?"
"The one at your left kidney." With these words, Dave snatched the rifle from the big man's hands and tossed it across the room. The man came back with a bruising right cross, connecting with the left side of Dave's jaw. Dave smiled at him, grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the floor.
"Corporal, you're busted," Dave then bounced the man's head off the metal wall, rendering him unconscious. Dave then picked up the rifle. He stripped the man's shirt off and, tearing it apart, used it to bind the merc's hands, feet, and gag him.
Just then, he heard gun fire erupt from someplace not too far away. It was 15:00 hours. He unlocked the door and entered the supply room. There were four armed soldiers standing by the hole in the floor that accessed the tunnels below. They were all looking toward the door that led out into rest of CDF section of New Roanoke.
"Sergeant, there's a merc tied up in there, watch him. And keep your eyes on that hole!" Dave shouted, then exited the room. He continued forward toward the sound of the guns. A minute and forty seconds later, the guns fell silent.
Entering the operations area, Dave noticed Chuck and several other men looking over the shoulder of a computer operator at his console.
As Dave walked up, he heard Chuck speaking into an intercom. “I suggest we pull our people back, or they will get encircled and cut to ribbons."
"Do it, Herr Hauptmann." It was the general replying. "And Hauptmann…ensure everyone has a respirator."
"Sir?"
"Just in cas
e,” Dave heard the general reply. “I will not make this a die in place defense if there is another alternative."
Before Dave could get his attention, Chuck blitzed out of the room. Dave went over to the monitor where he saw the little maintenance robots hard at work.
"Excuse me, sir, aren't you Major Dave Mitchel?" a sergeant asked.
"Yeah, that's me."
"Sir, we heard you were dead, killed by the Indigs."
"Every word of it true, as you can see."
Chuck returned and headed back for the monitor. He didn't even recognize Dave until he spoke.
"Pull our people back from where?" Dave asked.
Chuck jumped back with a start. "Dave! Damn, man, we all thought you were dead!"
"So, I take it. I'll tell you all about it over dinner. Pull our people back from where?"
Chuck explained the situation; the bots were dismantling their defenses and would soon be done. Then they expected an attack en masse by the mercs.
"Dave, I just spoke face to face with the general. He has a plan. He proposes to evacuate everyone into the old underground water pipe system and booby trap the ammo dump. When the mercs find it…boom. Problem is, it might blow the wall out of the structure and flood a significant portion of the city with the poisonous atmosphere."
"Is this place equipped with the expanding foam sealant like the base on the Moon?" Dave asked.
"I guess, I don't know."
Dave turned around and shouted toward the other staff officers in the room, "Hey, is this place equipped with EFS?"
"Yes, sir," a young captain responded.
"I have a better plan." Dave turned to Chuck. "Get me a two-and-a-half kilo shape charge, and a motion-activated detonator."
The Vampires of Antyllus Page 28
