“Fuck!” Russell struck the energy rifle aside with his spear, swung it back into line and drove the point into the bastard’s torso. The Ka-Bar tip punched through the flexible chest armor and the tough hide beneath. He kept jabbing at the ET, driving the weapon deeper in with each thrust. He heard the Lamprey’s hissing squeal of pain right through the bubble helmet protecting its mouth and eyes.
If the Lamprey could make noise, it wasn’t done yet. Russell leaned forward until the spear head was all the way in, then braced himself against the side of the fighting hole and twist-pulled the weapon free, along with a mess of alien guts. The tango was still screeching, so he stabbed it again, aiming for the spot right below the helmet. The point skidded off bone and ended up lodged in something that might be the Lamprey’s spine. Even after all that, the damn alien was still twitching.
More troops arrived. Grampa rammed his own weapon into the back of the tango that Russell had lit on fire, just as it was reaching for a laser after putting itself out. A few moments later, there were four or five Marines surrounding the trashing aliens and driving their spears into them, over and over again, just the way their ancestors had done it to mammoths and cave lions and any critter they’d chosen for dinner or decided was something that needed putting down.
By the time they were done, the only recognizable bits were the Lampreys’ big pipe-mouths, still inside their protective bubble helmets. From the triumphant yells over at the other fighting holes, somebody had taken care of the rest of the ETs.
Sergeant Fuller caught up with them just as they were finished. Russell sucked some water through the feeding tube in his helmet and waited for orders while checking status carats. There were two yellows, one red and two black. Bruno and Jimenez. It occurred to him one of the black carats could just as easily been named Edison, but he was too pumped up to give much of a shit at the moment. A couple of guys were seeing to the wounded.
“Come on,” the squad sergeant said, sliding home another magazine. “That’s my last one, and three fifteen-mike-mikes. After that, I’m gonna have to use my e-tool like the rest of y’all. Come on, we’re in their rear now. Move!”
* * *
It was a basic Four-F maneuver. Find, Fix, Flank and Finish.
The last part was simple and quite literal butchery.
The Lampreys had all but exhausted their power supplies during their own robot attack the previous day. They spent their last charges when the fixing force engaged them, and by the time the flanking units rolled up their lines and reached their rear, the aliens had neither lasers nor force fields to protect them.
No surrender was demanded or offered. Most tried to run, trampling their own fellows in the process; the sight of men moving forward with naked steel in their hands had the same demoralizing effect as a bayonet charges had, back in the day. Fleeing only delayed the inevitable, however; the Lampreys ran into the flanking forces and were struck down. A few attempted to fight with their hands, digging tools or, in the officers’ case, some kind of ceremonial sword. Another Marine died and a handful more were wounded during the final melee, but it didn’t change the outcome. Every SPF soldier had been stabbed, bludgeoned or slashed to death.
Fromm walked into the enemy’s camp. Two lines of fighting holes surrounded the final bastion; that was where enemy’s remaining heavy lasers and Battle Bugs had made their last stand, and where Fromm’s troops had spent all their heavy ordnance taking them out. The Battle Nest’s Chief Centurion lay near the top of the hill; three spears were sticking out of it. There were thirty-odd Lampreys scattered around their commander, pools of thick blood spreading out under their still bodies; another twenty or so lay further out. The Nest had been well below their original strength before the fight started.
At five KIA and eleven WIA, Fromm’s losses were only good by comparison. His unit had been decimated in this fight alone. Charlie Company had been just as badly mauled during the Parthenon deployment, but only after weeks of combat, not a few days.
Gunny Freito would soon let him know just how bad their supply situation was, but he knew the short version: they were running on empty. There was no telling what else the Snowflakes had in store for them, and they would have to handle it with melee weapons.
They would try to scavenge what they could from the dead aliens. Their power packs weren’t compatible with the American equivalents, but they could be used to recharge theirs, with a bit of creativity and, unfortunately, a good deal of wastage. Every bit counted, though.
“You should have this, sir.”
First Sergeant Goldberg handed him one of the Lamprey swords. It was a single-edge, top-heavy hacking blade. Its hilt was long enough to wield it two-handed. He hefted it; noting it was heavier than it looked.
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
He knew just what he’d do with the weapon, if he ever got the chance.
Twelve
“Aren’t they awful? Aren’t they the worst?” the Hierophant all but cooed as all the screens and holotanks replayed the final moments of the battle, over and over.
“They are truly a pack of magnificent barbarians,” the Priestess agreed.
“The way they tore into those poor Lhan Arkh, the primal gusto they displayed as they speared them over and over, mimicking the human male sexual act, the sheer aggression involved… I have to say, Madame Secretary, you humans have provided us with a most gratifying spectacle.”
“Is it over, then?” Secretary Goftalu asked. She looked sick; most of the Americans in the delegation did, after watching the extermination of the Lamprey Combat Nest. Only General Gage and Heather had been able to watch the final massacre without betraying their feelings. The Marine officer had seen too much combat to care about the fate of their enemies, and she had engaged in hand to hand combat personally. The experience gave her a unique appreciation for what Charlie Company had just gone through.
Peter was alive, and he was preparing for whatever the aliens had planned next. They all knew the Snowflakes would come up with something. The wise, ancient race had turned out to be nothing more than a gang of monsters. For a culture that claimed to cherish diversity, the Tah-Leen seemed remarkably uniform in their sadism. Heather felt disgusted and disappointed. Hundreds of millennia of existence, and this was the result?
“Are you satisfied now?” Sec-State went on. “Satisfied with this pointless slaughter? With killing one in ten of our soldiers, who came here on a peaceful mission? Are we free to leave?”
“Well, your troops’ heroism does deserve a reward,” the Hierophant said. “They can rest easy for the remainder of the day, although they will find their night rather… eventful.”
“No spoilers, Great One,” the Priestess said. “You’ll ruin the surprise.”
“You are quite right, my Goddess. I apologize. But the answer to your question, Madam Secretary, is no. We are not done with you yet.”
The grinning alien turned to address the Lampreys.
“You, on the other hand, have failed. All you deserve is a tragic end.”
As he spoke, several doorways opened up in the spherical room, and over a hundred Tah-Leen poured through them. The Snowflakes wore a multitude of different bodies: in addition to humans and Lampreys, dozens of other species were represented, from Puppies to Vipers to creatures long extinct and plenty Heather didn’t recognize; the new arrivals outnumbered the Lampreys by a fair margin. The Tah-Leen spread out around the Lhan Arkh delegation, blocking all the exits.
The Syndics jumped to their feet as their guards drew their weapons.
“By attacking emissaries protected by the sign of truce, you declare war on the Lhan Arkh Congress and the Galactic Alliance,” Syndic First Class Boosha said.
“In Xanadu, your Congresses and Alliances are of no consequence,” the Priestess declared. “Your passing will allow us to celebrate our individuality, by letting us indulge in every pleasure that can be gained from ending your sad existence. Rest assured we will send your superiors
a detailed multisensory rendering of what do to you. It is bound to make an impression.”
The Spaceborne Popular Front soldiers opened fire: lasers and particle beams lashed out at the surrounding crowd. The Tah-Leen’s personal force fields remained unscathed even after every armed Lamprey in the chamber concentrated their fire on a single target.
Heather glanced at Agent In Charge Petroysan. The security officer watched the failure of her counterparts with grim expression, clearly aware her agents would be equally helpless if – when – the Lampreys turned on them.
“I see you have ordered your ships to attach the habitat,” the Hierophant said after the shooting had stopped, mostly because all the Lampreys had emptied their weapons. “If you expect them to rescue you, you are even more foolish than we thought.”
All the screens in both the human and Lamprey rooms switched to external views from the Habitat for Unique Diversity. The Lhan Arkh dreadnought and its escorts were going into battle stations; the tell-tale glow of force fields at full power was visible to the naked eye. The Syndics must have sounded the alarm – and the Tah-Leen must have allowed the signal to go through.
“They are about to fire on us,” the Hierophant said. “I am almost tempted to let them. Almost.”
A twisting bolt of darkness speared the Lamprey flagship. A graviton beam, but one of unimaginable size and power. The largest grav-cannon Heather knew of was a two-hundred-inch monstrosity the Wyrms mounted on their war-planetoids; it took as much energy to fire one of them as it did to power all the systems in a battleship division. The Habitat’s weapon dwarfed it by a fair margin.
The Lamprey vessel had two layers of force shielding and armor made of highly refractory composite materials. The impossible beam tore through them with ease, making the dreadnought stagger like a wounded beast. Secondary explosions soon followed, engulfing its rear half in flames. A few moments later, the proud warship broke apart.
Her imp’s clock timed the attack. Ten seconds from beginning to cataclysmic end. Ten seconds to turn one of the most advanced warships in the Lamprey inventory and its twelve thousand crewmembers into scattered wreckage.
The six surviving frigates of the escort fleet were given the chance to fight back, for all the good it did them. The light vessels raked the station with their twelve-inch guns and every missile they could launch. Dots of light seemed to appear from thin air when their salvos struck a force field that extended over a hundred and fifty kilometers around of the massive habitat. The light vessels’ barrage had as little effect on it as the Lampreys’ personal weapons had against the Tah-Leen themselves. The devastating grav-beam lashed out, and each time it struck, a frigate vanished like a moth touched by a blowtorch’s flame.
Only one blast at a time, the analytical part of her mind noted while she resisted the urge of scream. Maybe that was the only active weapon in the station. Knowing the enemy might have some limitations helped her maintain her composure.
“Your own escorts are preparing to fight, Madame Secretary,” the Hierophant told the American delegation leader. All the Lamprey ships had been reduced to fading specks of cooling gas. “I will allow you to contact them and tell them to stand down. It would be anticlimactic to slaughter your ships now, don’t you think?”
Secretary Goftalu did so, her features twisted in a mixture of terror and rage as she gave the orders.
The masters of Xanadu laughed as they advanced towards the Lamprey delegation. Heather didn’t need her imp’s xeno-psych app to know the Lhan Arkh were falling prey to panic and despair. Anyone would. Those who’d managed to reload their beamers kept shooting at their tormentors until hands, claws and tentacles dragged them down. Each Lamprey was soon tackled by several Tah-Leen. She turned her gaze away from the screen. No need polluting her soul with what was happening in the other room.
“You are free to stay and watch, of course,” the Priestess said. “We will be here all day. Or you can retire to your ship until we call for you.”
“Let’s go,” Sec-State said. The Americans walked out of the hall just as the first screams began.
“We will be distracted for several hours,” the Seeker of Knowledge told Heather through their private channel. “Tonight, some of us will play another game with your Marines while the rest of us use the Lhan Arkh to express ourselves. Tomorrow or whenever the Marines are used up, we will start on your civilian leaders and their staffs, including you. That is all the time you have remaining to fulfill your task and earn your life. Do you understand, Heather McClintock?”
“I understand,” she transmitted back.
Better than you know.
* * *
They were short of everything, but they still had enough MREs to last them a couple days. Russell had a feeling they’d be dead long before they ran out of chow.
As it turned out, spear work was hard. His arms were sore. Stabbing tangos to death used different muscles than lugging around gear and shooting an Iwo. The whole thing had been nasty, like stepping on a bug with your bare foot. Now that they were a couple klicks away from where they’d left the Lampreys to rot, the disgust had faded away, though. He was hungry enough to enjoy field rats, and it was their turn to take a break and have a meal and a smoke.
He tore open the wrapper and checked the contents, making a face when he read the label. They insisted in keeping what you got a surprise, so people didn’t eat the same favorite meal over and over. Remfie assholes.
“What’d you get, Gonzo?”
“Chicken a la fucking king. Twice in a row, man.”
“I got beef chili, and I’m sick of that shit. Trade ya?”
“Ran out of hot sauce last night. Got any?”
“Yeah.”
‘Then it’s a deal.”
They switched packets and Russell handed over a hot sauce dispenser. He didn’t mind; he always packed three or four of the little red or green squeeze-bottles, on the grounds that a shit sandwich with hot sauce beat a regular shit sandwich. He pulled the tab at the bottom of the container and waited for its contents to heat up, relishing the smell of warm food. He didn’t mind the Marines’ version of chicken a la king, but he’d improve the bland concoction with a few squirts of green sauce.
Grampa was already working on his MRE main course. Beef stew, from the smell of it. If he minded the lowly fare, it didn’t show, not the way he was scarfing it down.
Russell glanced at the rest of the meal. Pre-buttered cornbread. Nice. He munched on it while he kept looking. Six chocolate chip cookies for dessert; he saved a couple of those for later, because he’d gone through all his personal snacks after the fight with the dinos. He’d needed the sugar to help with all the stress. At least, that was his story. That, and the candy kept him from chain-smoking through his cigs; they didn’t issue those with MREs, the cheap bastards.
Once the meal was done, he lit up and savored the first long drag.
“You guys and your cancer sticks,” Grampa said, wrinkling his nose. Typical golden oldie.
“They don’t give you cancer anymore, Gramps. And this is a multivitamin pack. It’s good for you. All them nutrients go right into your bloodstream with every puff. Here, have some.” He blew some smoke Grampa’s way, and grinned when the old bastard flinched by reflex.
“They’d almost gotten rid of that shit back in the day. I can’t believe they brought it back.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy a smoke back when you were chasing insurgents in Fallujah or Normandy or whatever,” Gonzo told him.
“Both before my time. And I didn’t smoke back then. Good thing, too. Cigs were one of the first things we ran out of. No, I was chasing insurgents near the Juarez Soup Bowl, and later in Orlando. Nastiest firefight I ever got in was inside one of the D-world rides, ‘It’s A Small World.’ Fucking surreal, that was.”
“Worse than this shit?”
“No force fields. Just an old Interceptor vest without ballistic plates, ‘cause they didn’t have any to give us
. Try chasing a bunch of former gang bangers between all them animatronic figurines while lead is flying all over the place and you NVGs are on the fritz.”
“Yeah, that must have sucked.”
“Although getting chomped to death by animatronic dinosaurs is a close second. Sticking a bunch of Lampreys with spears barely rates after that.”
“Well, at least we won’t be dealing with any more Lampreys,” Gonzo said. Word had come down that the Snowflakes were doing something fucked up to the civilian Fang-Faces.
“You probably just done jinxed us,” Grampa replied.
* * *
Suckass was on watch when it happened.
Even with his helmet on, Howard could smell someone’s hot dinner somewhere back in the camp. His squad was due to be relieved in half an hour, and it couldn’t happen soon enough. He was starving. Starving, and pissed off. His beloved SAW had been left behind after they got rid of the Lampreys. Now all he had was his entrenching tool and his Ka-Bar. They’d lost their drones before the dinos attacked, so they needed extra picket lines around the camp, which meant more duty for everyone. All of which sucked ass.
“Got movement at three hundred meters,” PFC Barton called out. “Same direction the Lampreys were at.”
“The fuck?” Howard wondered while he scanned the area. Nothing was showing on thermal, and it was dark as shit out there. He switched to low-light, magnifying the fake stars’ illumination, and saw them.
Lampreys. Except there was something wrong with them.
“They ain’t moving right,” Barton noted as Howard passed the news along. Sergeant Weiner joined them a moment later with the only loaded gun left in the squad, and loaded with twenty rounds of 4mm and nothing else at that.
“Shit,” Weiner said.
Lampreys normally moved at a steady pace not too different from the way those T-Rexes had walked. The ones coming from the line of hills further out – from where they’d left the dead aliens stacked like cordwood, as a matter of fact – were sort of shambling forward, just like a bunch of…
Advance to Contact (Warp Marine Corps Book 3) Page 22
