by Mack Maloney
These were the bad tidings the recon soldiers now had to bring back to Qez.
The recon troops had just completed their depressing survey of Holy Hell when their luck began to run out.
Just as they were getting ready to withdraw, an enemy robot aircraft suddenly appeared overhead. This thing was called a Stinger. It was just ten feet long, six feet at its widest, and shaped, of course, like a triangle. It carried no weapons of its own. However, it could send viz-scan information back to enemy gunners, who could then deliver deadly accurate X-beam fire to just about any point of the battlefield.
The recon soldiers knew well that being hit by an X beam would be an especially cruel way to die. Just how the Nakkz had come into possession of a ray gun so different from the Z beams used by just about everyone else in the Galaxy, no one seemed to know. It was a very strange weapon. An X-beam blast could be as murderously accurate as that of a Z beam — but getting hit with an X beam meant that about 80 percent of the victim’s atoms were instantly ripped apart from each other — leaving 20 percent of the human being intact, to die incredibly slowly and incredibly painfully. This and their other exotic weapons provided a good insight into the cruel minds of the Nakkz and their mysterious patrons.
The recon soldiers had seen many of their comrades die the horrible death of partial-atomic disassembly.
That the same fate awaited them was a frightening thought indeed.
They began their withdrawal in haste now, but it was already too late. A devastating X-beam barrage rained down upon the soldiers just a few seconds after the Stinger spotted them. One man was hit instantly, and slowly began to fade away.
The survivors quickly jettisoned all unnecessary gear and began an all-out retreat. They had no means of communicating with Qez; no way of telling anyone back there what they had discovered. It was imperative that they get away. But the robot craft would pursue them across the bloody mud of the Xomme for the next three hours.
Coordinating the long-range beam fire from Holy Hell, the Stinger was able to zero in on individual members of the recon unit, and allow the Nakkz gunners to pick them off one at a time.
The sun went down quickly, planetrise occurred, and two more of the recon soldiers died.
The robot plane’s pursuit became even more relentless with the darkness. Stripped of all but their basic uniforms, their blaster rifles, and their battle helmets, the recon men were running madly through the maze of trenches, stepping over or sometimes into partially disassembled bodies, the remains of fighting from as long as a year before. The two men who died during the night had each been isolated, trapped, and then slowly blasted to death. When the sun rose again, only two soldiers remained.
Noon came quickly — and that’s when the airborne robot stalker suddenly disappeared from the sky. But the respite lasted no more than a few seconds, as a heavily armored aerial scout car just as quickly materialized above the two brigade soldiers. Known as an XA-10 Bolt to the defenders, this machine could carry up to twenty enemy soldiers along with a huge gun in its belly. Its appearance signaled a change in tactics by the Nakkz. They had tired of toying with the survivors of the recon unit.
With them almost halfway across no-man’s-land, the Bolt had been sent out to deliver the final blow.
Its appearance was a matter of bad timing for the last two recon men. They were crossing a huge crater field, created by a previous bombardment so concentrated it had obliterated the trenchworks for a quarter mile around. The first soldier made it across in one piece — but the second man was not so lucky.
He was about halfway through the field when the Bolt showed up. Its big gun unleashed a mighty blast ray at him right away, in effect slicing him in two. As the bottom half of his body began to dissolve away, his upper half began writhing in agony in the mud. He began crying loudly for his comrade.
The Bolt went into a hover over the mortally wounded man. A dozen or so helmeted soldiers peered out from their portholes, enjoying the sight of the soldier in his death throes. A person wounded such as this could linger for hours, even days, in intense agony before finally succumbing. Yet watching the man die seemed to be a form of entertainment for the soldiers aboard the Bolt.
Their blood lust would not last too long, though. With the man screaming in sheer pain, another ray hit him square in the chest, finally killing him completely and blowing his subatomic remains into the unknown dimensions. It was difficult to tell what had happened at first. But then the thin trail of smoke coming from the far end of the massive bomb crater finally told the tale. The last recon soldier had killed his wounded comrade.
It was the last act of mercy for a friend.
Now the Bolt began moving again. There was one live body still out there that could be cut in two, and there would be no one around to save this man from a long, slow death.
The last recon soldier was quickly running for his life again. Zigzagging through the trenches, the Bolt was firing indiscriminately at him, most of the blasts landing either right in front of the hapless soldier or right on his heels. Finally the Bolt launched one of its incendiary artillery shells. It blew up a section of trenchworks just in front of the desperate trooper, in effect blocking off his means of escape. The soldier tried reversing course, only to find that another blast had sealed the trench in that direction as well. He tried a side route. Another blast, another dead end.
He was trapped. The Bolt came into a slow hover just above him. The soldier knew what fate awaited him. Even more painful was the knowledge that he had failed in his mission — and that his countrymen back in Qez would remain unaware of the colossal xarcus that would soon be coming their way.
He heard the gun on the Bolt lower in his direction. He considered just bowing his head and allowing the blast to come. If he closed his eyes very tightly and thought of his wife and his three young children, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
But then he realized he had something else to do first. He had to display the colors of his home planet. It was a grim if ancient tradition among the soldiers from his long-lost world. Whenever it seemed like the end was near, their flag would be displayed to show their enemy that they might be beaten but never vanquished. The soldier hastily reached into his pocket to retrieve the small flag he always kept there.
And that’s when a very strange thing happened: The very thought of showing his flag gave the recon soldier the impetus not to give up. Not just yet.
Maybe this gunfight isn’t over, he thought.
The Bolt was right above him now. He could see wide grins and steely eyes looking down at him. The aircraft’s pilot moved the Bolt a bit to his right, just so the huge nose gun would have a clear, unimpeded shot at him.
That’s when the recon soldier simply raised his blaster rifle and fired off one last burst from his power pack. It was a desperate, one-in-a-million shot — and it worked. His last dying beam had just enough energy to pierce the Bolt’s tiny generator core, obliterating it. A huge explosion went off over the soldier’s head, tearing his blaster rifle from his hands and the helmet off his head. He dove back down into the trench, flaming pieces of the craft raining down upon him. There was another explosion. The soldier looked up and saw the Bolt start to fall. It went right over his head and slammed into the ground not twenty feet away.
The recon soldier waited for several seconds before he dared to peek out over the trench. He did this just in time to see the Bolt explode one final time. This explosion was so powerful it caused a minor earthquake, which in turn led to some of the trench collapsing on top of him.
By the time the soldier dug his way out, the Bolt and its crew were little more than subatomic dust blowing in the wind.
He climbed out of the trench and stared at the debris for a moment.
How could he have been so lucky?
He had no idea — and he wasn’t about to stick around to find out. He whispered a short prayer of thanks and tapped his breast pocket three times.
Then he started running again, back to
ward Qez.
23
The east wall protecting the city of Qez was a thousand feet high.
It boasted six weapons towers along its two-mile length, with many gun stations pockmarking its upper tiers. The city within was big enough to fit about twenty thousand people. But these days, the number had swelled to nearly twice that figure as frightened citizens from the surrounding countryside had sought refuge behind the walls to escape the fighting.
No one could blame them; Qez was the last outpost on the tiny moon. But this increase in humanity had put additional strain on the low supply of food and power. Anxiety also was rampant throughout the city.
The citizens also had suffered through the long months of the relentless pounding coming from over the horizon. Now that the noise had stopped, the city was rife with rumors as to what the enemy was planning. The most oft-repeated rumor was that the Nakkz had built a war machine of frightening size and incredible power and soon would launch it against the city.
Little did the frightened population know just how close to the truth those stories were.
The last surviving member of the recon patrol was spotted just before sunset by a patrol of Qez’s Home Guard soldiers.
The man was nearly dead of exhaustion; he was dehydrated and suffering for some shrapnel wounds, too. But he insisted on being brought to the war room inside Qez, a place where the leaders of the five mercenary groups defending the city planned strategy with the commanding officers of the city’s Home Guard. The patrol leader checked with his superiors, and the man was immediately brought inside.
The soldier’s name was McKay. He found the mood grim inside the tiny command center deep in the city’s east wall. A total of six mercenary groups had been providing the city’s defense; most were from planets in nearby star systems. They were now sitting around a well-worn hovering table with the leaders of Qez itself. The priest also was on hand.
McKay told his story, from the dash across the Xomme, to spotting the gigantic xarcus through the storm, to the frightful withdrawal back to Qez, a trek that killed four of his comrades. With every mention of the monstrous weapon just over the horizon, he saw the spirits of those charged with defending Qez begin to waver.
“Sometimes there is much wisdom in determining when to give up the fight,” the leader of one mercenary group said. “If these reports are true, and there is an army inside that thing, then we will be outnumbered and outgunned…”
“We cannot possibly build a defense against such a weapon,” another merc leader said. “The Nakkz have nearly broken through our front right here on several occasions as well as many other places along the line. If they have the monster that this man describes, how can we possibly stop it?”
“But we have to try,” the commander of Qez’s Home Guard said; his name was Markus Poolinex. “We can’t give up. There are thousands of innocents inside these walls we must think about. You know what the enemy will do to them if they can, don’t you?”
A third merc leader spoke up: “I believe you’ll find a ‘hopeless cause’ clause in our contracts. That’s what this seems to be adding up to.”
“But we have to make a stand here,” the Home Guard commander insisted. “Even if it fails, at least we won’t go down in history as giving up without a fight.”
“But even if you were able to stop this gigantic thing,” a fourth merc said, “they’ll undoubtedly follow it up with a ground attack.”
The Home Guard commander questioned the recon soldier again as to how many soldiers he thought the rolling monster might hold. McKay gave a gloomy shrug. “According to our quadtrol readings, thirty thousand,” he said. “Maybe more.”
Another dead silence fell on the room.
“Thirty thousand troops?” one merc leader said with a groan. “That’s more than three times the strength of our forces combined. Even with the mercenaries and the militias, they still would have a twenty-thousand-man advantage.”
It was true. At that moment the entire defense force of Qez was fewer than ten thousand.
“But by giving up the fight, we are condemning our citizens to death,” the Home Guard officer said. “The Nakkz is well known for his brutality. Our surrender is not an option for them. For whatever reason, they are bent on destroying us. Wiping us out. By giving up the fight, we will only make it that much easier for them.”
“You must look at it from our point of view,” the first mercenary leader said. “It is our business to fight in return for payment. But to fight in what will surely be a losing proposition — well, let’s face facts: That will be bad for business.”
“This has been a queer enterprise from the start,” the second merc commander said. “You are a small city, on a very small moon, in a very isolated star system at the very end of the Galaxy. How this place got puffed in the first place, I will never know. But you have to ask yourself: What are you fighting for?”
Now the priest spoke up: “I hate to agree with these paid killers, but I must also question the wisdom of fighting here.”
The Home Guard commander was shocked.
“Father, how so?”
“Over on that dastardly planet called Guam, I heard tales of strange things happening all over the Fringe.
Awful things. I fear what we are facing here is just another…”
He recounted the stories he’d heard from the two arms merchants in Nails, plus others he’d heard during his brief stay in the weapons bazaar.
At the end of his report the priest finally broke down.
“Why is it our luck to bear witness to this?” he asked, sobbing. “Why are we here, to feel the first breeze of the apocalypse? If I had recognized these signs before this, I would have strongly urged that we give up this useless endeavor and flee this place immediately — with all the citizens in tow. For what awaits us out there I fear is beyond all means of defense, natural or supernatural.”
“You see,” the first merc leader said, “even the priest thinks we should go.”
The leader of Home Guard lowered his head and stared at the table. He knew what all this was leading up to.
“Even if we had enough transport for every person left on this moon, we do not have the time to evacuate them all,” he said softly. “The enemy will surely move now that his dastardly machine is completed. That thing is probably heading for us right now. The only rockets out of this place are the ones that you yourselves own. An evacuation is not an option.”
A long silence.
“We are fighting for our freedom, our way of life,” the Home Guard officer went on, though his words were barely audible. “Such things are still important — whether we are here, in this far-out place, or on Earth itself.”
“Valiant words,” one of the merc commanders said. “But they are the stuff more readily found in legends and myths. This is reality, man…”
This merc leader stood up. “I hereby ask to be released from my contract.”
Before the commander of the Home Guard could respond, four of the remaining mercenary commanders stood up and repeated the same phrase. The Home Guard officer sank lower into his seat. Without looking up, he gave them a weary wave of his hand, granting their wishes. The five men filed out of the room; with that gesture, more than five thousand paid defenders of Qez would be gone in less than an hour.
“Maybe all is lost,” the Home Guard commander said to himself. “Maybe civilized behavior will start its final collapse here, on this tiny moon, so far out on the Fringe, we can almost see the other side. Maybe this is how the Cosmos seeks to fool us — the puppets of Man. Maybe it begins here… when no good and decent men are left to fight for the most basic thing in any life.”
With that, the leader of the Home Guard looked up and was surprised to find that one mercenary leader was still sitting at the table.
It was McKay, the recon man, the representative of the Freedom Brigade.
“We will stay with you,” McKay told him.
The leader of Qez looked at
him strangely. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“But why?” he asked McKay. “You are our finest fighters by far. And we have been allies longer than time can remember. But you have every reason to walk out, just as the others have. This is a hopeless cause — I know it now. And I didn’t need to have them tell me that. Why then? Why do you choose to stay?”
McKay just shook his head.
“Truthfully, I don’t know,” he said, his voice breaking as well. “I guess that’s just the way we are…”
With the withdrawal of the five mercenary groups, the defense of Qez now fell to the city’s small Home Guard and the remaining members of the Freedom Brigade.
Counting various militias and armed civilians, this amounted to a force of just 5,251. Sending these troops into the trenches where most of the war’s fighting had taken place would have been foolish. Poulinex, the Home Guard commander, wisely decided that the last-ditch defense of Qez would be made from the walls of the city itself.
Qez was laid out in a rhomboidal shape; the widest wall faced the battlefield to the east. Even before the rocketships carrying the departing mercenaries had lifted off, the ramparts of this east wall were being reinforced by the remaining defenders. Every available Z gun, cannon, and blaster was brought forward and installed atop the very high walls. Extra gunports were burned through the solid parapets; any reserve ammunition mined from the city’s magazines was brought up as well. All noncombatants, close to twenty thousand people, were installed in the basements of buildings located as far away from the east wall as possible. The city’s meager food and water supplies were placed there with them.
Still, even as the preparation continued at a rapid pace, it became increasingly clear that when measured by what awaited them over the horizon, the defensive procedures would be little more than delaying tactics against the inevitable. There were at least thirty thousand enemy soldiers out there that the people in Qez knew about — plus the monstrous weapon.
The coming battle against such an overwhelming force might prove to be courageous, but the outcome seemed all but predetermined.
