by Bobby Adair
I find myself beside Brice, pointing my rifle over the top of a small survey car parked directly above the airlock chamber in the ground below. When the Trogs come out, they’ll be walking up the stairs with their backs to us.
Brice points at the dust in the stairwell as he nudges me with his elbow. “Watch the light reflecting on that gray shit. When it changes color, they’ll be coming.”
Good warning system, I think.
A moment later, the hue reflected from the dust particles switches from green to white.
Brice warns everyone.
“All four are exiting the airlock,” Blair confirms over my comm.
Thirteen of us are arrayed to fire. Half behind, half from their right flank.
They don’t need my rifle, and they don’t need my full attention. The Trogs won’t last two seconds after Brice gives the word to fire. I kill my outbound comm to the platoon so my voice won’t distract them. “Blair, any word on other survivors?”
“We have three at airlock twelve,” she tells me. “Maybe five or so in a tunnel coming from one of the Trog’s gun pits.”
“You’re not sure on the count?” I ask.
“No cameras that way,” says Tarlow, making sure we all know it’s not his fault. “The airlock they came through was in the gun pit the Trogs constructed in the center of the colony. We caught a glimpse of them by sheer luck from a camera down a passageway they crossed in front of.”
“Where are they headed?”
“I’m leading them with the lights.” Tarlow is proud of the solution. “I’m darkening the halls they should avoid, and lighting the ones I want them to take.”
“Are they?” I ask. “Following?”
“They’re wary,” answers Blair, “but they’re taking direction, so far.”
A Trog is looking out of the stairwell thirty feet in front of my position, scanning for human forms, looking for movement, just like any good soldier would.
Another Trog comes up beside him.
They’re not in a hurry.
One points a finger at something it deems significant.
“Everyone wait,” Brice declares. “This will be easy if we snap the trap at the right time.”
“Where’s the nearest airlock to us,” I ask Blair, “if we go over the surface?”
“Far,” answers Tarlow. “At least a hundred meters and there’s no straight-line path.”
Straight line? What the hell does that matter? Nobody can walk a straight line out there. “Landmarks along the way?” I ask. “Buildings, communication dishes, anything?
“Yes, a building in your way,” answers Tarlow. “I need to call up the surface map to provide you the shape.”
Ugh.
The first two Trogs are on the ground ten paces from the stairs, waiting, looking for danger. Two take the final steps to the surface in unison and crouch.
They’re hunting, a behavior I’ve not seen from them yet. At least not from their low-level grunts.
One of the two Trogs behind turns to scan the area around the stairwell, the area where I’m hiding with Brice.
“Trogs don’t usually do that,” Brice tells me to confirm my observations. “The way they fight, in massive formations and frontal charges, they’re not used to having to worry about flanking attacks.”
I barely nod. I don’t want to give away our position.
The boldest one, the leader, moves forward. He has one of their single-shot rifles. The other three are carrying disruptors.
They’re all well away from the stairwell, moving cautiously toward a pathway past the bus-size digger.
“Fire!” Brice orders.
A glowing gridwork of railgun slugs tears through the dingy slurry, leaving trails devoid of dust particles, and etching bright lines on my retinas. Many of the trails bend as they encounter the Trog’s defensive fields. Most of the shots from behind burn straight through their backs, some punching holes, others fragmenting inside and shredding flesh in chunks huge enough to tear away arms and legs.
They look like marionettes, disintegrating and jerking, directionless and gory as the micro-g tugs gently to pull them down.
I guess instantly they’re all dead, but they don’t fall.
“Cease fire,” orders Brice.
A Trog spasms.
Three more rounds rip through its back. It stops moving.
The bodies drift in clouds of dust that swirl with their passing.
Blood sprays from suit tears, mingling with the gray, turning it red.
A string of intestine swirls out of a Trog’s shredded torso, hosing its digestive liquids into the evaporating vacuum.
“They’re all coming.” Blair is disappointed but not alarmed.
All?
“The ghost Trog?” I ask. “And his squad.”
“The ones from the cafeteria, too,” she answers. “They’re not wasting any time.”
I convey the information to Brice.
“Everybody, hold your positions.” He points to several soldiers. “Move those bodies out of sight. Do it quick.”
Four grunts jump up, hustling like real-live soldiers.
Over the comm, I ask, “Blair, how close?”
“They’ll be outside the airlock in twenty seconds.”
The bodies are easy to move in the low g, easy to hide. The haze of blood, and the red-stained dust, isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be readily seen by any wary Trog coming up the airlock stairs.
I nudge Brice. “What do you think?”
“We need to be ready just in case, but this won’t work twice,” he tells me. “Telepathy and all. If those downstairs are coming this way, it’s because they know something happened up here. It’s exactly why ambush doesn’t work on Trogs.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “It’s been working all day.”
“Trogs have all got the bug in their heads.”
“I thought they were naturally telepathic?” I realize immediately I’m repeating crap I learned from MSS newsfeeds.
Damn! How much of the shit I’ve always accepted as true comes from them?
I know lots of things. I don’t tend to remember where I learned each bit of information. That’s going to be a problem.
“Next time you have a chance to look inside one’s skull,” says Brice—because in war, that’s the kind of thing that could come up any day—”look for the spaghetti bug. Just like the pictures of the ones you see back on earth. A Trog brain looks like a human one. Their skull bones are exactly like ours, only thicker, more bulbous. I always wondered about that, the similarities. Makes sense, I guess. Now that we know Grays are running the Trog show, too.”
That’s all interesting stuff, but it’s not what I’m asking. “What do you mean about the ambushes working and not working?”
“These Trogs have some kind of militaristic culture,” says Brice. “At least it looks that way to me, but hey, I’ve only seen their armies. It skews my perceptions. Know what I mean?”
I do. I nod.
“I think they’ve warred with each other in the past, maybe they still do,” he muses. “Who knows? The universe is a big place. The thing that won’t work if they’re all telepathic, is ambush. They’d never walk into one when fighting other Trogs because they’d always sense the Trogs hiding to shoot them in the back. Now, coming to fight us, ambush isn’t a tactic they know exists, so they walk right into the traps when we set them.”
“But,” I add, because I know that’s what’s coming next.
“But,” he continues, “not all of these Trogs died instantly when we shot them. However Trogs do it, one of them let his buddies downstairs in on our secret. Maybe not the details, but enough to let the others know if they come charging up here, we’ll fuck ‘em up.
I’m trying to reconcile this with the behavior of the Trogs in that line I killed when Blair and I were following those nine through the dust storm earlier. I wonder, did the instant death simply end communication? No SOS went out?
“If other Trogs are close enough,” Brice deduces, “the ones up here on the surface will be closing in to kill us while we’re waiting to spring an ambush that will never happen.”
“We can’t stay,” I realize. It’s the logical conclusion.
Blair chimes in. “Kane, you need to know, you’ve got about twenty Trogs down in the tunnel outside the airlock, waiting for you to come out. They’re setting an ambush.”
I look at Brice. “For stupid cavemen, they sure do learn quick.”
Chapter 19
“Blair,” I ask, “are all of the Trogs on sublevel one in the hall waiting to ambush us when we come out of the airlock?”
“All we know of,” she replies, clearly wondering what I’m getting at.
“That’s not the answer I want.” I’m slipping into the realm of unrealistic expectations. I know half the cameras in the complex don’t function. “Kick Tarlow in the nuts if you have to. I need a one-hundred-percent accurate answer.”
“I will, but—”
“No buts. No time,” I tell her. “Tarlow, are you on the line? Get me that answer. You’ve got sixty seconds, maybe less.”
Tarlow squeaks a response through a throat clenched in fright.
I’m tempted to add another threat but I know I’m asking for a degree of certainty he probably can’t provide. Still, he needs to try.
“What’s up?” asks Brice. “What do you have in mind?”
“All the Trogs on sub one are waiting inside to attack us.” I glance at the soldiers around us. “As long as they stay there, all of the other airlocks are open. All of sublevel one is safe.”
Blair reaches the same conclusion, and immediately sees the pitfall. “With no lucky run-in with Tarlow, they’ll be lost once they’re inside. With the limited number of monitors we have down here, we can’t use the hallway lights to lead them.”
I comm to Brice. “You still have the network access code?” I’m working the next steps in the problem.
He nods. “The Brice-meister doesn’t delete important information.”
Brice-meister?
Sometimes he’s a very odd man. I tell him, “Share it with Sergeant Kendrick and the others.” Switching back to Blair, I tell her, “I don’t know yet how many of these eleven will be able to set up their d-pads to communicate on the base network—some of them, no doubt. As soon as they’re on, provide them with surface and sublevel maps. Blair, you and Tarlow need to guide them to the nearest airlock and then disperse them on sub one so they can reach all the inner airlocks quickly and intercept survivors who make it through. Make sure they stay away from the Trogs outside the airlock below. Rally them all down on sublevel three where your team is holed up.”
Blair huffs.
I realize I’ve dumped too many imperatives on her and offended her sense of in-charge-liness.
“They won’t fit in here,” insists Tarlow.
“If you’re talking,” I tell him, “it better be because you’re done with your survey of sub one. Is sub one clear?”
No answer.
“Blair,” I catch myself before I proceed. I need to ask, or she and I are going to descend into another useless argument. “I don’t know how to deal with Tarlow’s concern about the size of his hidey-hole. Is this something you can resolve?” Jesus, the seconds on that long request feel wasted.
“I’ll take care of things down here?” she declares. “What’s your plan up there?”
Looking at Brice, hoping he agrees to stick with me, I say, “I’m staying in the hangar outside the airlock. As long as we’re present here keeping the attention of the Trogs below, they’ll continue to wait. Sub one will stay clear.” That’s a logical leap based on a guess and a handful of static dependencies changing with each passing second.
“Keeping their attention?” Brice laughs grimly.
“You in?” I ask him.
“Somebody once told me I was fucking good at this shit.” His quick nod follows. He’s in. No doubt.
“Find us some volunteers to stay,” I tell him.
“Volunteers?” he asks.
“Gotta be.” I look at him with the seriousness of the degrading situation clearly visible on my face. Hundreds of Trogs will be closing in on us through the slurry of dust and rock outside. The situation could be deadly for those who remain.
At least the ones who make their way down to hook up with Blair will have a chance. They can fight in the tunnels if Blair can find a competent tactician hidden inside her dunghill of self-importance. Or they can surrender and ride a slave ship back to Troglandia—or whatever the hell the Trogs call their home planet—to spend the rest of their natural lives studding out generations of serfs for the Grays there.
Better than dying, I guess.
Well, not if it were me. I’ll die before I kneel again.
Brice is talking to the troops. Passing out the info. Finding the volunteers.
“Tarlow.” I have no more patience and no more time. “Give me that answer.
“Clear,” he tells me.
“You’ll bet your life on it?” That’s what I’ll be doing, and what I’ll be asking my grunts to do.
He gulps audibly. “I can’t say more Trogs won’t come and—”
“I’m not asking you to predict the future,” I hiss. “My people need to reach your location safely. Make your shitty surveillance system do its job and make this happen.”
“I think you’ve got his attention,” says Blair. “You do what you need to do. We’ll do our part.”
“Good luck,” I tell her. It comes out harsh, but it’s sincere.
“Good luck to you, too, Kane.” She starts to say something else, pauses, and fumbles through a few starts. Nothing else comes over the comm.
“Don’t you worry about us,” I tell them, as I glance at Brice. Three soldiers are with him. The rest are heading toward the far end of the hangar. “People coming your way.”
Chapter 20
Do-nothing time starts in earnest.
The twenty-two Trogs inside the airlock stay where they are, waiting us out. Of course, if Brice is right, and he likely is, they have another plan in the works.
On our side, eight of our soldiers made for the next closest airlock, leaving three with us. Brice directed the grunts to take up positions watching from the hangar’s corners. One corner goes unguarded, leaving us to play the odds.
All told, we have a handful of C4 charges between us. Brice plants them where he believes they’ll kill the most Trogs when the attack comes.
We wait.
And wait.
Blair stays in contact.
With all the Trogs on sub one tied down, things settle down in the station’s subterranean levels. Survivors of the bombardment trickle in through unguarded airlocks.
I listen at quarter-volume while Blair organizes and directs them safely down to sublevel three.
Both sides in our asteroid battle are moving their pieces around the board, preparing.
Becoming bored with the wait, yet feeling some optimism at our progress, I say to Brice, “If this keeps up for another—I don’t know, twenty or thirty minutes—we can bail out of this hangar, find a nearby airlock and head downstairs. We might avoid a fight for now.”
“No.”
No? That’s it? One syllable.
“Why do you say that?”
He takes his eyes off our surroundings and settles them on me long enough for me to understand that my question was stupid.
“Seriously, why?” I peer into the dusty shadows, looking for movement as I start imagining every puff of cloud is a Trog materializing out of the dark.
“Because The Brice is right,” he tells me. “I’m in constant contact with our lookouts. Nobody’s in here but us.”
I point to the corner of the building where I know no guard is watching. I know with the debris in the air as thick as it is outside, no one on any corner of the hangar can see down to another corner. “We’re vulnerable, from that di
rection.”
Brice shakes his head. “You’re thinking like a human.”
“How’s that?”
“Bugs in their heads,” He taps the side of his helmet. “Deadly if you forget it.”
“Help me with the logic here.”
“It’s telepathy,” says Brice, “like we talked about. Same reason ambush doesn’t work. Sneaky stealth is pointless. You can’t surprise an enemy you can’t hide from. Battlefield tactics are a waste of time. You can’t outmaneuver an enemy who reads your plans right out of your own mind. There’s no chess aspect to their war. For them, it comes down to a simple thing—one-on-one, warrior domination.”
I don’t admit it, but it makes perfect sense.
“I think they’ve got a big macho culture about it,” says Brice, “which is why they prefer the disruptor blades over the railguns. Maybe it’s an honor thing, a way to prove themselves.”
“They don’t fight us one-on-one,” I argue.
“War is still war,” he counters. “They need to win, just like we do. Slaughtering your enemies and filling mass graves with their bodies is the best way to do that. Probably the Grays have crammed whatever passes for media in their culture with loads of bullshit about what kind of gnarly little monsters we are. The same as our media tells us about them. It’s easy for soldiers to massacre vile beasts. If the Trog grunts believed we were thinking, feeling beings just like them, but prettier, they’d probably feel obligated to fight us one-on-one according to whatever passes for honor among them.”
“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” I observe.
“War is a lot about waiting,” he says. “Lots of time to ruminate.”
“Do you suppose they’re like us—thinking, feeling, with families?”
Brice answers with a shrug, and adds, “War is a like a fire. You light it with some hate, and once your loved ones start dying, emotion fans the flame. It grows until everybody wants to slaughter the monsters killing their friends. Doesn’t matter what the enemy looks like, whether they’re loving fathers or devoted daughters, priests or artists, saints or sinners, they are all monsters.”
“But?” I ask, looking for some hope in what seems to be the story of all humankind, a story with no room for a happy ending.
