by B. V. Larson
“You got it.”
We jumped on one another without further preliminaries. I don’t know what it is about dying and coming back to life that makes a person horny, but it’s an undeniable truth of modern military life. We lived hard, we died fast, and we screwed like rabbits in-between.
Kivi was well-known for hook-ups. She was one of the worst offenders in the whole unit—outdone only by yours truly.
About eleven minutes later, we were just finishing up. A head popped into the doorway and heavy boots tramped down the ramp into the bunker’s interior.
As smoothly as I could, I sprang off Kivi and tried to pull my kit together. I was only half-successful. Straps dangled and crawled in the air, seeking one another like baby snakes.
“McGill?” Harris said, looking from me to Kivi then back again. “Shit, boy! Don’t you ever give it a rest?”
“I rest up whenever I’m dead, Vet,” I said.
He shook his head and let out a long sigh. “Well, I’ll wait upstairs then, Adjunct.”
I gave Kivi a final, soulful kiss and walked up the ramp after Harris.
“Do you know anything about the front?” I asked him.
“I know we got screwed-over properly out in the forest. That bomb killed a good number of the enemy, but it killed the last of our cohort, too. I only hope it was enough to slow them down.”
“Anything on comparative forces? Numbers?”
He shook his head. “Hell, it took me half an hour just to find this place. My tapper is giving me nothing. It won’t even map to this rally point like it’s supposed to.”
“It was the same for me.”
He eyed me sidelong. “But you managed to find yourself a bunkmate fast enough.”
I shrugged. “Well, I don’t like to brag, but—”
“Brag? Oh no, not you!”
We shared a rare moment of laughter. I was glad. He was my veteran, and I needed him to back me up in battle. If he was itching to plant a knife in my spine, this war was going to be that much harder. I felt glad to know he’d be watching my back instead of stabbing it.
That made me think for a bit. What had Harris in a better mood? He’d clearly let go of his anger about having died twice during our teleport missions. I could only come up with one good reason: this time, we’d both bought the farm. I figured maybe he didn’t mind dying so much if his rival suffered, too.
That line of reasoning seemed odd to me, but I felt it was true. Shrugging, I decided it didn’t matter. If he was happy again, well, so was I.
-39-
It took all night for the rest of the unit to show up. By the time the last of them came wandering down to our bunker, I was wishing they’d taken longer to find the place. By that time Kivi was looking good to me all over again.
The problem of sharing close quarters with the women you’re pursuing romantically soon reared its ugly head. Or in this case, her pretty head.
“James?” Della asked me.
“Huh?” I grunted, startled. I’d been staring at Kivi while she did aerobics and prepped her kit. “Oh, hi Della. Good to see you’re back.”
Her eyes slid from me, to Kivi, then back again. “How long was I gone?”
“It was about two days for all of us. It’s going to be dawn in a few hours. We’re reserving the bunker itself for folks who are fresh out of revival. Maybe you should get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” she said. “I heard you were the first one in the unit who caught a revive. Is that true?”
“Well, yeah. I guess it is.”
“Who was second?”
I tried not to squirm. “I don’t know—Harris, I think...”
“Not Kivi?”
“Oh… maybe… yes, come to think of it. Kivi did beat him back here by a few minutes.”
She nodded as if confirming a dark suspicion. For some reason, I found this annoying.
“I wanted to ask you something, too,” I said. “Back in the forest, I noticed Hoskins was missing. Then, a little while later—”
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I did it.”
That threw me off for a minute. As good at lying as I was, she was at least as good at admitting alarming truths.
“You murdered Hoskins? Dammit, girl. I told you I didn’t—”
“You misunderstand,” she said. “I didn’t kill him. I led him to where I thought he might be killed. That’s not the same thing at all.”
“Yes it damned-well is! But how’d you do it, anyway?”
She shrugged. “I noticed a slaver near our camp. He didn’t seem dangerous. He was merely scouting as I was. That gave me an idea.”
“That’s downright dirty. You flashed some skin and led poor Hoskins out into the woods, didn’t you? You led him right to that slaver.”
She seemed to be guilt-free. “It was easily done. Men of Earth are servants to their genitals, much more so than the men of my homeworld. Your people aren’t wary enough about such traps.”
I blew air loudly through my lips. “That’s low, Della. You did all that just to get a spot in my platoon? Well, maybe I should give you one now. Would that make you happy?”
She glanced at me, then at Kivi. “I’m not sure it would.”
I waved a hand in Kivi’s general direction. “Forget about her. She was just having a bit of fun. Now, let’s talk about what your problem is. Why are you so dead-set on getting into my platoon again?”
“I will tell you, if you confirm my transfer with Graves first.”
I thought about that. Damn, this girl was almost as good at getting what she wanted as I was. In the end, I decided to ask for her transfer. If I didn’t, she might cause more trouble. Besides that, I was curious as to her motivations.
“All right,” I said. “You’re in.”
“That was easy.”
“Yeah, well… Graves owes me.”
She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment.
“For blowing us all up?” she asked.
“That—and plenty of other things.”
“Okay. Then I’ll tell you my thoughts.”
Suddenly, her eyes dropped, and she looked shy.
“I think you and I should try to form a family unit—for Etta’s sake.”
That floored me. I’d have been willing to buy almost anything that came out of her mouth, but that one…
“Where’d you get this idea?” I demanded.
“The concept shouldn’t be new to you. Your mother mentions it constantly. She says such relationships are notably superior for offspring. Is she wrong?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. “No… I don’t think she is. But listen, what would the nature of this relationship be?”
“You mean, would this involve sex?”
“Uh… among other things, yes.”
She looked away again, shyly. “You don’t seem like the kind of man who could be satisfied with a single partner. That’s been the biggest barrier to our bond in the past.”
“What?” I demanded, outraged. “In my opinion, our problems start with how you flit in and out of my life at will, and the fact that you try to—often succeed at—killing me about once every damned year.”
She cocked her head and gazed up at me.
“Well then,” she said, “if I could amend my ways, do you think you could amend yours?”
That was a good question. I frowned for a bit before answering.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Instantly angry, she turned away to leave. She didn’t say anything, she just walked away. She was a silent rager. She didn’t give a man any speeches, she liked to leave you standing there like a fool.
“Hey,” I said, reaching after her and touching her arm. “Hold on. This is all kind of sudden. We’re in the middle of a war, for God’s sake. Besides, I’ve never even met Etta in person.”
“If you met her, do you think you could decide?”
“Yeah,” I said with a certa
inty I didn’t feel. “I think I could.”
She gave me a flickering smile. Then she lifted a finger, and my eyes followed it. She pointed at Kivi, who was giving Carlos a rubdown. They were both grinning.
“Your latest conquest has moved on.”
“I don’t care.”
She smiled more fully. “Good,” she said, and left me in a muddled pool of thoughts.
“McGill? Leeson? Toro? Get over here,” Graves called out to his officers a few minutes later.
“On my way, Centurion!” I said over command chat. I was still trying to sort out my feelings, and I wasn’t having much luck with it. I welcomed the distraction.
Following my tapper’s directions, I soon found a command bunker. Inside, Graves met with the rest of the officers in the cohort.
The space was cramped, with the centurions at the battle-planning table, and the adjuncts seated farther away.
“Here’s the basic plan,” Graves said. “We’ve been listening to the Primus and the various tribunes argue about it all day long. We’re going to meet the enemy head-on.”
Everyone listened closely, but there were a few groans at this opening statement. No one wanted to go toe-to-toe with the giants again so soon.
“That’s right,” he said, “we’re going to fight on open land. We thought about falling back to Central in the south or maybe even fighting in Albany. But neither city has been fully evacuated. Using nukes would cost us a lot of collateral damage.”
Millions would be permed. That’s what he was talking about. The seriousness of our mission began to sink in. My hand rose, almost before I realized I was raising it.
“A question already? What is it, McGill?”
“Sir, didn’t our bomb in the forest work? Didn’t it at least slow them down?”
“It was relatively ineffective. The initial blast took out several thousand of the enemy, but they have shields which dampen radiation and fallout. The dust that came down was disintegrated on those shields. The radiation didn’t spread. It was the same for other units that managed to penetrate their lines and set off their tactical charges.”
I frowned. It was hard to think of a lack of radioactive fallout on Earth as a “failure”, but that’s what he was saying.
“We’d hoped to create a deadly hot-zone that would halt or at least slow their advance. We failed to do so. They’re now pouring down from the mountains into the open land south of the Adirondacks and advancing on our position.”
“What’s the count of the enemy?” Leeson asked loudly.
“At least three million. That’s not counting the auxiliaries like their—”
He kept talking, but we’d started buzzing among ourselves.
“Quiet!” he boomed. “Are you guys through crying? Did anyone say defending Mother Earth from invaders was going to be easy? We’re going to stand here on this patch of dirt, and we’re going to stop this enemy. Right here. They go no farther.”
Adjunct Toro licked her lips, and she raised her hand reluctantly. “Sir? We’ve got less than a million men. How can we stop such superior numbers?”
“We’ve got better firepower,” Graves said calmly. “Sure, our nukes aren’t doing much, and with their overhead shielding there won’t be any airpower to help, but if we can hold out for a week, the Euro Block will bring in reinforcements.”
The meeting went on like that, but I didn’t listen much. All I could hear in my head was a single number: three million.
In my mind, we’d already lost.
-40-
When the battle loomed at last, it promised to be the biggest one I’d ever seen. Hell, with the possible exception of the Tech World Rebellion, it was bound to be the biggest land battle in human history.
Millions of enemy soldiers were on a collision course. Immense battles had happened before on Earth, but they hadn’t occurred in such a concentrated area. That was one thing that was different about this conflict, I guess. The gateway had brought the enemy from the stars and deposited them all into a relative pinpoint.
Back on their home planet, I could well imagine hundreds of thousands of troopers marching nonstop into that gateway for weeks. Moments later, each soldier had marched out onto Earth’s green fields on the other side. Through that single aperture, one planet had emptied itself onto another’s soil. Invasions using starships were old hat.
The fact they’d arrived at a single point necessarily concentrated them, but there was another thing that seemed to differ in this struggle from past wars. That was the nature of our enemy: they weren’t entirely human.
They were similar enough in DNA and appearance, but their minds weren’t like ours. It was as if we’d met up with an army of Cro-Magnons or some other primitive form of human. I was sure we’d have felt this sense of “otherness” about our ancient predecessors too.
Their heavy troopers, in particular, didn’t think like normal people. For one thing, they didn’t run from battle. Human wars normally ended when one side surrendered or when they simply ran away. These guys wouldn’t do that. They’d come on and on—attacking until the last soldier couldn’t lift a weapon.
Our plans, therefore, had taken this knowledge of the enemy into account. We’d set up bait for them, and we’d set up traps behind the bait.
“All right, McGill,” Graves’ voice droned in my ear. “Our heavy cohort is the killer. The light infantry is the bait. When the recruits bring in an enemy force, we’ll focus so much firepower on them they’ll melt. That’s where you come in.”
I nodded, only half-listening. I’d heard the plan for hours. I didn’t really need to be told how things were supposed to go. I was busy thinking of other elements we hadn’t discussed.
Graves stopped after a while. “Why are you staring into space?” he demanded.
“I’m not, sir,” I said. “I’m staring at the enemy. I’m picturing how they’re going to look when they march into this valley.”
Graves followed my gaze. “It’s simple enough,” he said. “Why can’t you just listen to my orders?”
“I already did that,” I told him, “but I don’t know if the enemy has your plans in mind.”
Grumbling, Graves walked away. “Just see that you hold this line. Kill every trooper you spot before they reach your trenches.”
I tossed him a salute and sat back down. Harris came over to sit beside me.
“This is bullshit,” he said with feeling. “We’re going to get mowed.”
“I’m okay with that,” I said.
“Oh really? You don’t mind dying? Is that what you’re telling me?”
I glanced at him, and I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s what I’m saying. What worries me are the people in the cities behind us. They’ve only got one life to live.”
Harris stood up, hawked and spat. “Don’t worry about them. They’ve been told to drop to their knees and surrender. The slavers will capture them if they do, but they’ll live.”
That made me frown. He left, moving up to the higher ground where I’d stationed him. I kept staring at the future battlefield. I didn’t like the idea of millions of our citizenry being enslaved.
I stood up and surveyed our defenses, which consisted of pillboxes made of puff-crete on top of berms of earth. It’s all we’d had time to build, besides rows of deep trenches full of troops.
Inside each pillbox was an 88, a type of light artillery piece designed to destroy large infantry formations. These guns looked squatty and had bulbous noses on the front projector. The tripod of legs had a distinctly insectile appearance. Alien-built, the 88s always reminded me of beetles with nozzles, but they were deadly at mid-range against soft targets.
Out in front of the main trenches were automated turrets. These had been set up by our techs at regular intervals. They were programmed to wait until the first of the enemy marched past them, at which point they would spring up and spray the advancing troops with fire at close range.
There were oth
er weapons, but there was very little in the way of heavy machinery. We didn’t have many battle tanks on Earth anymore, not like they did in the old days. Our legions had been developed to face planetary insurrections, and therefore they’d been built to travel light. We equipped to be transported off-world for service among the stars. Tanks were too heavy to transport to other star systems efficiently.
The closest thing we had to fighting machines was the dragon cavalry. Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen a unit of the marching machines all day long. I hoped they’d arrive before it was too late.
“What do you think our chances are?” Della asked me.
She’d moved up to my side as silently as a ghost, just like she always did.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You’ve fought the squids more than we have. What other tricks do they have up their sleeves?”
She shook her head. “They’ll have something, but I can’t be sure what it will be. The cephalopods only hunted us for slaves and sport, remember? This time will be different. This battle will be huge.”
I nodded slowly. “What about nanite weapons?” I asked her. “Your people were supposed to produce them to help us.”
“We did manufacture nanites. Trillions of them, and they’re helping your industry. How did you think Earth managed to loft a sizable fleet of ships in such short order?”
“You mean you Dust Worlders never produced nanites for battle? You produced them just for building stuff?”
“That’s right. It’s what Central demanded.”
I sighed. I’d dearly love to have an extra techno-surprise for this enemy, but it looked like we were the ones in for all the surprises.
Right before the battle started, it fell quiet. We were all lined up inside our trenches with Sargon tucked into his pillbox to my right, and me down in the dirt listening to my headset.
My HUD displayed warning graphics before I heard a warning of imminent action. That was the first clue I had that it was on. This was finally happening.
Like a thousand other officers, I scrambled to my feet and stood on top of a short ladder. Using my helmet with the optical zoom maxed, I surveyed the rolling land.
There wasn’t much to see. In the distance, a little haze hung to the North. Behind that was a carpet of trees then the edge of the mountains.
