“Will spread out from the start if they have any sense,” Shootstraight put in. “Would you follow one of our trails?”
“Not if I could help it,” Booly replied soberly, his mind flashing back to the canyon and the ambush Hardman had sprung on him.
“Exactly,” Shootstraight replied, taking the stick. “So here’s what I propose. A canyon opens into the valley like so. As the smelly ones approach I lead a group of warriors out into the valley. I spot them, fire a few shots, and retreat.”
“And they follow you up the canyon and straight into an ambush,” Booly said, admiring the Naa’s devious mind.
“An excellent idea,” Hardman said proudly, and slapped his son on the back.
Roller frowned. “Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know much about the Hudathans, but a human commander would send a patrol up the canyon while the rest of the battalion kept moving.”
Booly nodded. “Good point. So let’s give our friend time to detach whatever force he considers appropriate, blow the canyon behind them, and attack the force that remains. We have twelve borgs, and properly positioned, they should be able to eat the convoy alive.”
There was a moment of silence while the rest thought it over. Hardman was the first to speak.
“It is good, very good. We will split his force, isolate the patrol, and take him by surprise.”
Booly’s knees had started to hurt. He stood and looked each one of them in the eye. “All right. We have work to do. Let’s do it.”
The human vessels came out of hyperspace so fast and attacked with such all-out ferocity that three Hudathan warships were destroyed during the first five minutes of battle.
Woken from a deep sleep, War Commander Poseen-Ka was called to the command center, only to find his fleet fighting for its life. What he saw in the holo tank, and what his officers told him, were his worst fears come to life.
Suddenly, and with the insight that sometimes comes with unexpected danger, he realized that he had succumbed to the very same overconfidence that he had so often warned against. With the Emperor dead, and the successful landings on Algeron, he had lowered his guard. In doing so he had paved the way towards the possibility of defeat. These humans had the will to fight and were doing a superb job of it. And, with a fleet to engage, his ground forces would be left without air support.
Well, Poseen-Ka thought as he strapped himself into his command chair, such are the ways of war. The ground troops will have to fend for themselves while I deal with the human navy.
The Hudathan’s chair whirred as it tilted backwards into a semi-reclined position. He took information from the holo tank, compared it to computer-generated recommendations, and fought back.
The operations center hummed with carefully organized activity. The initial jubilation that had followed three kills in quick succession had disappeared, and a mood of quiet determination had taken its place.
Though distorted by their plastic pressure suits, the faces around Chien-Chu looked calm, as if they had looked death in the eye and come to terms with it.
This was the first battle Chien-Chu had been part of and he watched with interest, not just those around him in the operations center but himself as well, wondering how he’d react. Yes, he was frightened, a rather logical emotion, all things considered, but not to the extent that he’d feared. Not to the point of soiling his pants, gibbering like a fool, or trying to escape in a lifeboat. So that, plus the detachment of a noncombatant, allowed him to watch the battle with almost serene indifference.
The fact that they had caught the Hudathans by surprise was obvious, and a good thing too, considering the strength of their fleet. What had started as a fleet action had deteriorated into a number of separate brawls, some involving five or six vessels, others as few as two, all of them hard-fought.
His own ship, the Imperial, was slugging it out with a pair of cruisers, which though of lesser size, had enough combined strength to beat the battleship into submission.
Chien-Chu felt the entire hull shiver as a flight of missiles flashed outwards and, finding a momentary hole in a Hudathan force field, detonated on contact with the hull.
A nova blossomed and screens blanked as computers shut them down. Scattered cheers were heard but quickly disappeared as the second ship counterattacked with everything it had. Missiles raced outwards, were intercepted by other missiles, and blew up well short of their goal. Energy cannons spit coherent light, screens flared through all the colors of the rainbow, and fighters darted in and out looking for a point of weakness. The screens came up.
Chien-Chu saw one of the two-seaters stagger under the impact of an unseen projectile, tumble end over end, and blow up. He winced and looked away. It did little good. Death filled every screen.
He looked up to where Algeron filled most of a view port. Natasha was down there somewhere, living through god knows what, waiting for help to come. Well, it had, by god, it had.
A Hudathan ship shuddered as an internal explosion tried to rip it apart, went inactive, and drifted away. Chien-Chu cheered and others followed his example. Finally awoken from its self-induced stupor, the human race had responded and was taking its vengeance.
It was almost dark and the countryside was flooded with soft lavender light. Bare, and somewhat bleak during the day, the valley had been transformed into something beautiful. A rocky spire took on the semblance of sculpture, while a cliff was etched with light, and the skeleton of a dead bush became a plaything for the wind.
The spy-eyes came first, a dozen in all, drifting above the surface of the land like metallic seedpods, probing for signs of danger. Then came two computer-controlled robo-crawlers, both heavily armored, and capable of withstanding a major blast. If the Legion had laid mines up ahead, or prepared some sort of ambush, they would take the brunt of the attack.
The rest of the Hudathan vehicles followed one after another, preferring whatever dangers the trail might offer to the uncleared clutter of the valley’s floor. The trail, following the path of least resistance, was hugging the valley’s south side.
Baldwin swayed from side to side as the APC lurched over a rock. He was tired of standing in the hatch, of watching the miles roll by, of waiting for something to happen, but had no choice. The mission had been difficult to begin with, but the loss of air support made it downright dangerous. He wondered how the space battle was going and pushed the thought away. His attention belonged to the here and now.
As if to prove the truth of his assessment, there was movement up ahead. Riders mounted on what looked like woolly mammoths blundered out onto the trail, spotted the convoy, and loosed off a few shots. Then, figuring that discretion was the better part of valor, they returned the way they had come.
The spy-eyes sent belated warnings through the makeshift electronics that the Hudathans had grafted onto his standard-issue com gear, the robo-crawlers turned left and opened up with their machine guns, and Baldwin was thrown forward as his driver brought the APC to a sudden halt. Arrow Commander Tula-Ba asked the obvious question.
“Shall I send a dagger in pursuit, sir?”
Baldwin gave it some thought. Other units had reported attacks by the local sentients, some of which had done quite a bit of damage, but how serious could such a threat be? Memories came flooding back: Agua IV, the unending rain, and the indigs that never stopped coming—not until his career had been destroyed and his life ruined. The orders came of their own volition.
“Send two dags ... and no prisoners.”
“Yes, sir.”
Half the order was unnecessary from Tula-Ba’s point of view, since prisoners had no purpose and were therefore the exception rather than the rule.
Baldwin gave an order, the APC jerked into motion, and the column surged forward. It stopped at the point where ice-cold water emptied out of the canyon and made its way to the river that meandered back and forth across the valley. The sun had dropped to the horizon, and the canyon was dark, like the mouth of a mythical beast. Spy-
eyes entered the darkness and quickly disappeared. Two dags consisting of twelve troopers each separated from the main column and went after them.
Baldwin waited for five minutes, and was just about to move out, when twin explosions shook the ground. Pillars of dirt fountained into the air, a spy-eye wobbled into a cliff, and a tidal wave of rock sealed the canyon.
In the twinkling of an eye Baldwin’s force had been reduced by roughly 8 percent, for there was no doubt in his mind that the explosions were part of a carefully conceived plan, and the patrol would be wiped out. The muffled thump-thump-thump of a heavy machine gun served to verify his assumption. There were seconds in which to organize some sort of defense and he used them as best as he could.
“They will attack from the north! Turn towards the right! Keep moving but unload your troops!”
His orders were only half executed when Booly ordered his forces to attack. The quads went first, water cascading off armored backs as they rose from the river’s bottom, and unleashed a salvo of surface-to-surface missiles. The range was less than a mile, so nearly every weapon hit its mark, and the Hudathans lost nine vehicles in the first thirty seconds of battle. Flames shot up through open hatches, turrets spun through the air, and troopers danced in cocoons of fire.
Gunner was shouting as he lurched out of the river, fired his energy cannon, and charged the Hudathans.
“Here I am! Shoot me! Kill me! Blow me up! Come on, you chickenshit bastards, you can do it, you can ...”
The Hudathan missile launcher had been built to kill tanks. Three heat-seeking fire-and-forget missiles hit Gunner head-on, blew holes through his armor, and detonated inside his cargo bay. He felt a moment of warmth, followed by pain, followed by complete liberation. There was darkness, followed by light, and the family he had waited so long to see.
Baldwin saw the quad explode, heard himself scream, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” and felt the APC rock as the auto cannons fired in alternating sequence. He looked left and right. His armor was rolling now—what was left of it anyway—dodging boulders in the dark, and firing at anything warm.
Orange-red tracer drifted overhead. Explosions threw troopers into the air. Bolts of coherent energy sizzled back and forth. A quad stumbled, fell, and continued to fire. Flares went off, turned night to day, and fell from the sky with casual slowness. A Hudathan weapons carrier ran off a hidden ledge and pinwheeled across a sandbar.
Then a new threat appeared as man-shaped cyborgs rose from their various hiding places, extended their arms like sleepwalkers, and opened fire. Something hit the APC with a loud bang. It lurched but kept on going. Hot metal touched Baldwin’s cheek and blood trickled down his neck. All of the hatred, all of the resentment, bubbled up, and something akin to madness gripped him. The war cry was equal parts joy and pain.
Booty rode a cyborg named Rogers. Villain was off to his right, with Salazar to his left. They advanced together, like giants from a children’s story, stepping over boulders as if they weren’t even there. The cyborgs fired their missiles, machine guns, and energy cannons and rarely missed. Vehicles exploded, weapons were destroyed, and Hudathans died.
Booly saw that the quads had punched a number of holes through the Hudathan line, leaving clusters of troops and vehicles behind. More aliens had rushed forward and were plugging the gaps. Booly spoke into his mike.
“BK-One to BK-Force. Watch the gaps. They’re trying to plug them.”
Cyborgs and bio bods alike redirected their fire and the Hudathans took more casualties.
The APC ran up onto a ledge, left the ground, and flipped on its side. Baldwin was thrown clear. He scrambled to his feet and looked around. Flares bathed the battlefield with an eerie light, vehicles burned like so many bonfires, and tracer floated by as if reluctant to reach its destination. Panic rose and tried to overwhelm him. He forced it down.
The threat was obvious. Once the line was broken, his troops would rally around the nearest armor, and his command would be reduced to isolated clusters. Defeat would certainly follow. He gave the necessary orders and hoped they’d be followed.
“Hold the line! Plug the gaps! Don’t let them through!”
The Hudathan troopers were tough and they rushed to obey Baldwin’s orders. They had a plentiful supply of SLMs and used them to good effect.
Booly felt Rogers stumble as an SLM took a leg off. He tried to jump but didn’t quite make it. The Trooper II hit hard, sat up, and continued to fire. Shaken but not seriously hurt, Booly hit the harness release. A quick check via his night-vision goggles showed that the Hudathan troops had filled most of the gaps and were holding the line. It was now or never. The Naa weren’t much for radio procedure, so he let it slide.
“Okay, Hardman ... take them.”
The warriors rose up from the shelter of the riverbank and ran forward. Most had taken full advantage of the Legion’s arsenal and were festooned with a wild variety of weapons and ammunition. They were like shadows at first, flitting from boulder to boulder like spirits of the dead, firing when sure of their shots.
But it wasn’t long before the Hudathans spotted them, opened fire, and took their toll.
Sensing that speed would lessen the number of casualties that he took, Hardman ordered his forces to charge, and fired his assault rifle. Shapes rose to oppose him, flame stabbing at where he’d been, falling as his bullets cut them down. Then he was among them, their stench filling his nostrils, harvesting their lives one after the other.
The bullets came as an unpleasant surprise, entering through his back, exiting from his chest. It took the chieftain three seconds to die. It was more than enough time to fall forward and drive his knife through a Hudathan throat.
The Naa fought like demons, using skills honed through combat with the Legion, pushing the Hudathans back. The aliens held, and held some more, but a renewed assault by the surviving cyborgs made the critical difference. Salvaging what crew-served weapons they could, the Hudathans rallied around what was left of their armor.
Baldwin knew that defeat was certain as he backed away from the oncoming Trooper IIs and fired from the hip. He had seventy, maybe eighty troopers left, and it wasn’t enough. He could fight on for a while but there was very little point in doing so. He used the command frequency. His voice was heard by every Hudathan still alive.
“You have fought honorably and bravely, but there is no hope of victory, and more deaths would be pointless. The humans not only accept prisoners of war but have a long tradition of treating them well, and may even send you home. Cease firing and place your weapons on the ground. I repeat, cease firing and place your weapons on the ground.”
The troopers looked to their noncoms, received noncommittal gestures in reply, and did as they were told. The incoming fire continued.
Baldwin followed his own orders by placing his assault weapon on the ground. Then, switching from frequency to frequency in hopes of finding one that the Legion monitored, Baldwin declared his willingness to surrender. His fifth attempt met with success. An officer who identified himself as Major Booly agreed to a cease-fire, told Baldwin to meet him next to a burned-out quad, and ordered his troops to stop firing.
It took a moment to locate the quad. A flare went off and turned night to day. Baldwin thought it strange that the cyborg had a half-scorched bull’s-eye painted on its right flank. A man he assumed was the major had started towards the wreck in the company of two Trooper IIs. Baldwin did likewise. He was about halfway there when Tula-Ba removed the remote from his belt pouch, aimed it at the human’s back, and pressed a button.
Baldwin recognized the pain the moment that it began. Someone, Tula-Ba most likely, had activated his implant. They wanted him to die without dignity, to flop around on the ground like a just-landed fish, to scream for mercy. Well, they could frax themselves.
Baldwin did an about-face so that the Hudathans could see him, jerking slightly as his muscles spasmed, and pulled the sidearm from its holster. He was proud of the way the weapon came
up to his mouth, proud of the way he pulled the trigger, and proud of the way he died.
Baldwin slumped to the ground. There was total and absolute silence. Booly stepped behind Gunner’s burned-out hulk, unsure of what had happened, half expecting the Hudathans to open fire. They didn’t. Hesitantly at first, and then with growing confidence, they stood with palms outwards. Booly gave a sigh of relief, reminded Villain and Salazar to use their scanners, and waited for one of their officers to arrive. He wondered if any of them spoke standard.
Norwood gestured towards the lock and Poseen-Ka obeyed. He had little choice. A squad of marines surrounded him. Against all odds and logic the humans had prevailed.
It seemed impossible given the fact that they had initially allowed him to take hundreds of their worlds and kill millions of their citizens, yet it was true. Though vastly incompetent and mostly disorganized, the humans were talented soldiers. The apparent contradiction served to explain how they had forged their empire and why it had fallen apart. All things he would share with his superiors if he lived to do so.
The Hudathan stepped into the lock, waited for it to cycle closed, and stared at the bulkhead. There was an odd sensation in his abdomen and a distinct weakness in his knees. Poseen-Ka was afraid and, knowing that, wished that he was dead.
The lock opened, a marine poked him in the back, and he stepped out. It was the first time he’d been aboard a human battleship. Humans stopped, gaped in open amazement, and watched him pass. Poseen-Ka remembered how Norwood had performed under similar circumstances and made a conscious effort to imitate her poise. He kept his head up, his eyes straight ahead, and his steps even. In spite of the fact that she hated him, and would cheerfully put a bullet through his head, the Hudathan felt better knowing she was there. Only she could understand the pain of his loss, the disgrace of being alive, and the loneliness of captivity. He knew it was wrong to feel that way about an alien but understandable in one as obviously flawed as he was.
Legion Of The Damned - 01 - Legion of the Damned Page 38
