by B. V. Larson
“Kivi,” he said, “are you fit for duty?”
She looked at him with big eyes. “It’s just a sprain,” she said quickly. “I’ll man my foxhole well enough, and I’ll be able to march in the morning.”
He nodded slowly. “Good. I’ll count you as one more effective for now.”
Next, he came to me. He eyed my bloody cheek speculatively. “McGill? Are you fit to serve?”
“Fit as a fiddle, Centurion,” my words were slightly slurred by the searing pain of my injury, but I managed to be convincing enough. “I’m just taking a break. You want to admire my new scar?”
He climbed into my foxhole next to me and put his satchel on the bottom. His hand rested on it, never letting go.
“No, I don’t want to admire your scar,” he said. “Give me your analysis of this situation.”
I gave him the quick version of what had happened and our theories concerning the enemy capacity to stealth. He watched the forest just like we did, with constant wariness.
At last, he stood up and sighed. “We’ll have to move to a new position.”
“Why, sir?” I asked.
“Because they’ve zeroed us. They’ll be back with reinforcements.”
“That’s probably true…” I said. “But if it is, moving won’t help. These slavers are master trackers. They have noses like bloodhounds. They’ll just run us down someplace else.”
“What do you suggest then, Adjunct?”
“Why, isn’t that obvious?” I asked. “We should call for help and hunker down right here until it comes. We’ll kill every freak that wanders into range. If we’re still alive by morning, maybe Central will see fit to send a lifter out to pick us up.”
Graves sighed. “Your plan sucks,” he said. “But it’s probably the best one we have. I’ll report our situation to Central. You man this post. Don’t retreat—that’s an order.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Centurion.”
About an hour and a half later, the enemy came again. This time they didn’t send just trackers, and the new troops weren’t bothering with their stealth gear.
A great number of litter-mates struggled up the rise toward our ridge. Each square marched behind a rippling tracker. They proceeded with what seemed like stoic calm.
I knew that was an illusion. The litter-mates always started battle like a dance, with slow, precise movements. They didn’t go ape until you’d killed a few of them.
Deciding I’d watched for long enough, I grabbed hold of Sargon’s belcher. It was like a plasma carbine, but it was much bigger and fired a single powerful bolt rather than a spray of lighter death.
I’d been a weaponeer for years before I’d become an officer. Balancing the long weapon carefully, I sighted on the center man in a full squad of nine litter-mates.
His head vanished in a blast of heat and radiation. With a howl, the rest of the group broke and charged up the hill toward us. Two more carefully aimed blasts put down some of them, but even with supporting small-arms fire from my platoon, we couldn’t stop the last few from reaching our lines.
Kivi was one of the unlucky ones. She was ripped out of her hole and hacked to death by a huge littermate who howled furiously until he was shot down by what had to be a hundred rounds or more.
“Break the next square!” I ordered. “Everyone concentrate your fire on a single group until they’re all down. Then, we’ll go to the next. Don’t forget to mark the slavers and take them out too.”
Up and down the ridge, squares of heavy troopers were battling other entrenched platoons. Flashes of light and noise filled the night. In each firefight, the combat went our way until the enemy got close.
At point-blank, they fired their muskets, blowing fist-sized holes into us smaller humans. Ripping us out of our holes, they hacked away limbs and beat men’s bodies against nearby trees in heated fury. In every case, the berserkers had to be shot dozens of times before they fell.
The whole fight was surreal. I’d always found these heavy troopers to be a terrifying enemy. They were human—but they weren’t. Genetically altered, they were like Neanderthals to us. Their mentality and vitality was quite different from our own.
After what had to be half an hour of continuous struggle, the battle finally ended. The air was thick with smoke and the cries of the wounded. Here and there, an officer walked among his troops with a bio behind, choosing who lived and who died.
Carlos came to me and tapped my shoulder.
“It’s time,” he said.
I wanted to say: “time for what?” but I knew better.
Heaving myself up with a grunt, I walked among my own wounded. The worst of them I sent to the revival machines. Some begged to be sent, others begged me to give them a chance.
Like most junior officers, I probably let too many live. In the end, I only put down a few.
Graves came along sometime later. He carried that satchel with him still. I glanced at it questioningly, but he didn’t explain anything.
“Why’s Kivi still breathing?” he asked me.
“Because she’s the only tech I’ve got left. Her buzzers are crawling through the brush a kilometer out, sending back valuable reports.”
Graves shook his head. “You’re soft,” he said. “A recycle would be merciful and more effective. But, she’s your responsibility. You can carry her yourself if we have to move out in a hurry.”
“I will, dammit!” I called after him as he left.
He dismissively waved back at me without even looking.
Kivi crawled to my foxhole and sagged down into it with me. There was sweat running down her face, and her ankle was twisted worse than before.
“I had to run on it,” she explained. “Only a dozen steps—but it’s broken now.”
I didn’t even look at her. I just stared out into the forest. “You think they’ll come again?”
“If another of their units finds us, then yes, they will,” she said. “Why didn’t you put me down?”
“You begging for it?”
“No.”
“Okay, then. Don’t make a fool out of me. When they come again, warn me then fight to the death.”
She nodded and sucked in trembling breaths.
Finally, just before dawn, Kivi woke me up. She slapped at my cheek, where my wound stung like fire.
I came awake with a growling intake of air and coughed.
“There’s something out there. Something big,” she said.
“They’re all big.”
She nodded and stared out into the forest.
Smoldering trees gave off wisps of smoke. The battle scene stank sharply with a dozen interlaced odors. The pitch-black land was turning gray as the sun came up. I tried my night vision then switched it off again.
“There,” she said, looking at her tapper. “Downslope, at four o’clock.”
I climbed up and placed my belcher on top of a dead hulk that had once been an armored heavy trooper. All around me, in the other holes, men were stirring. There were only about a dozen survivors in my platoon. None of us wanted to fight again, but we were still game.
“I see them,” I said. “They don’t seem to know we’re here.”
A column was marching by. They were heavy troopers, a fresh company of them. There had to be ten squads or more with nine monsters apiece.
Carefully sliding back down into the hole again, Kivi and I exchanged glances.
“Text the platoon,” I whispered. “Tell them to hold their fire and play dead.”
She did, and we waited.
The next few minutes were some of the hardest I’d ever endured. Knowing that death stalked nearby was somehow worse than fighting for my life. It was the anticipation of it. We were waiting for the unknown.
After about five minutes, the column seemed to be gone. I heaved a breath.
“McGill!” Kivi said. “Look at this!”
She’d been retrieving several of her buzzers as they crawled back to her with fresh vid
s. She showed me her tapper. On her dirty forearm I saw a half-dozen companies marching by in different spots in the forest.
“We’re in the middle of them!” she almost sobbed.
“But they don’t seem to know we’re here.”
“Yes, it must be a different formation, moving south. They’re heading down to meet the hog troops in the open, maybe.”
“It doesn’t matter what they’re doing, they’re all over us.”
She looked at me in fear and pain. “What are you going to do, James?” she asked.
I could tell right off she was worried I was going to do something crazy. The thought had occurred to me. Why not just pop off a few shots into the next company that came near? We’d ambush them and take out a lot of unsuspecting troops.
Sure, we’d be slaughtered after that. Someone would order all the nearby companies to converge on our little bivouac, and they’d wipe us out. But if we started it, we might take more with us than if we just waited around until another company stumbled onto us.
“I’m going to find Graves and report,” I said.
“Don’t leave me here in this hole!”
“Kivi, dammit,” I said. “If you die, you die. I’ll see you next time around.”
She blinked back what might have been tears, but then she bit her lip and nodded.
Moving in a crouch, I searched until I found Graves up the hill and off a ways.
“McGill?” he asked, eyeing me critically. “Why are you away from your post?”
“I didn’t want to broadcast this in the clear,” I said. Then I showed him what Kivi had seen with her buzzers.
He watched for several seconds in silence. Finally, he sighed and struggled to his feet. He opened up his satchel methodically. It seemed to have an awful lot of locks on it.
I watched in confusion. “What are your orders, sir?” I asked.
“Help me with this.”
I stood up, looking around. I thought I could see a metallic flicker from armor and blades down near the bottom of the hill. The sun was coming up now, filtering through the trees. That worried me, because if I could see them, they must be able to see me.
“Sir, we should stay low,” I said.
“The time for that is over, McGill. We’re right where we’re supposed to be.”
From the satchel, he drew out a parabolic dish. It was a satellite uplink. I’d seen them plenty of times in the past.
I watched in concern as he hooked it up and flipped on the power.
“Sir,” I said, “the enemy is sure to detect this transmission.”
“I know that. Shut up and turn that amp on.”
I did as he ordered. Sweating now and peering downslope at the enemy, I almost didn’t notice when he brought the next object out of the satchel.
Staring in shock, I couldn’t believe it.
“A bomb, sir?” I demanded. “That’s the same type of casing you had me carry from Central.”
“Exactly,” he said as he looped wire around his wrist. “I only wish the payload was as big. This is only a fusion firecracker.”
My jaw sagged.
“What was all this about?” I demanded. “Wait… no, don’t tell me! Varus was sent out here to die, is that it? This was the frigging plan all along?”
“What are you griping about?” Graves asked. “Really, McGill, you need to get a clue. Why else would the brass send us this deep into enemy territory alone? I thought our mission was obvious. We’re here for one reason and one reason only—to help finish the job you botched yourself the first time.”
Before I could even say: “This is bullshit, Centurion!” He thumbed the top of the bomb casing.
There wasn’t a timer on it—nothing. We were all blown to hell and back in that instant.
The mushroom cloud carrying my atoms went up in the sky and hit the force domes above, spreading out. The particles were as fine as grit, and they carried the remains of me, Kivi, and thousands of enemy troops all mixed together.
-38-
When I came back to life, I was still pissed off.
“He’s a good grow, get him off the table,” said a female voice. She had to be the bio presiding over my rebirth.
I felt arms gripping mine, and I was hauled to my feet. Standing there swaying, my eyes full of snot, or whatever it was, my mind sought to grasp the situation fully.
“This is bullshit,” I mumbled.
“Adjunct, you’re assigned to rally point ten. Your platoon will join you there shortly. We’re just getting started on them. Move out.”
An orderly tried to push my arms into the sleeves of a uniform. That was a mistake. I caught his groping hand and broke one of his fingers. It snapped like a dry twig.
“What the hell! You crazy bastard! I’m calling this a bad grow!”
“Shut up or I’ll kill you,” I told him. I sounded like a mean drunk at closing time, but I didn’t care.
All I could think about was the fight in the forest. We’d been bomb-carriers, nothing more. We’d been expected to drive as deeply into the enemy lines as we could and die hard. That didn’t sit right with me.
“Doesn’t matter if he’s a bad grow,” the bio in charge said. She sounded bored. “He’s good enough to hold a weapon. No regrows—no matter what.”
The orderly gave me a wide berth after that. Staggering away from the revival machine, I realized it was at the bottom of a hastily constructed bunker. A dirt-encrusted ramp formed the only exit. It was laced with puff-crete webbing for strength, but it was pretty primitive. I walked up the ramp and stumbled out into the open.
Cold air. That did me good. It was night—but it shouldn’t be, because I’d died at dawn. How long had I been in limbo?
Tugging at the straps and tabs, I coaxed my uniform into cinching up and adhering to my body. I was soon suited-up but unarmed.
I tried to use the mapping function on my tapper, but it wasn’t working. Just then, a squad marched by. I could tell by the Crossed Swords emblem on their shoulders they were Victrix pukes.
“Hey Victrix,” I called to their veteran. “I’m fresh off the table. Where can I get a weapon?”
“Head to your rally point, Varus,” he said. “They’ll outfit you there.”
He didn’t say this disrespectfully. In fact, most of the inter-legion rivalry seemed to have died down now that the independent legions were fighting on Earth along a united front. The only group we all still held in contempt were the hogs. Anyone else was respectable—even Varus.
A few hundred steps of wandering around allowed me to find the nearest rally point. A big Roman numeral IV flapped on a pennant. Moving at a shambling trot, I followed the line for several kilometers more until I reached rally point ten.
Fortunately, the terrain was reasonably flat. It was abandoned farmland, just north of Albany. Here and there I spotted farming drones, still tending to soil that was empty and barren.
A low fog hugged the ground, making it difficult to see how big our formation was, but I got the feeling that there were many thousands of troops on the field with me. When I walked into rally point ten, I was surprised to discover it didn’t contain just my unit or my cohort. The whole damned legion was being revived and sent here, where they were busy trying to sort themselves out.
After a full hour of bumping into people, I scored a heavy kit including a breastplate and plasma-bolt rifle.
We were part of a heavy cohort, and that meant we’d be marching in the second rank behind the light units. Looking at the size of the field, I found myself wishing I was still part of an auxiliary cohort of cavalry. A dragon would be nice to ride in today.
Just like the bio had said, I was the first one in my platoon to reach my destination. Soon the next member showed up. It was Kivi, and she looked upset.
“What happened?” she asked me. “How did we all die? One second, I was sighting on a column of enemy troops, and the next I was waking up on a gurney.”
“Uh…” I said, unwilling
to admit the truth. “I think the enemy dropped a big shell on us. They took us all out at once, as far as I can tell.”
“Yeah…” she said, rubbing her face. “That makes some sense. Such a waste. What’s the plan now?”
“I’m not sure, really. We’re the first people out of the oven. We’ve got a bunker, at least.”
I showed her our unit’s meager shelter.
“This is for the whole unit?” she complained. “The floor is dirt, and it’s not big enough. We’ll never fit in here.”
“We’ll sleep in shifts—if we have time to sleep at all before we take the field.”
She stopped complaining and looked at me. There was a funny glint in her eye.
“What?” I asked. “What are you thinking about?”
“I wanted to thank you for not killing me,” she said after a pause. “I was scared. That’s stupid, I know. Still, it was nice gesture.”
Shrugging, I wasn’t sure what to say. “All we were doing was sitting in a hole. You could still hold a rifle. There was no reason to retire you.”
“Maybe not, but I know Graves would have done it.”
I nodded. We both knew she was right.
She stepped closer to me, and she smiled.
“Where are the rest of the troops?” she asked. “Are we really the first ones out?”
“As far as I can tell. The commanding officer is revived first then the specialists. You’re senior, except for Sargon. I guess they put the tech at the top of the list. I’m surprised Harris isn’t here yet, though.”
She looked around the chamber. Outside, we could hear the constant din of shouting, tramping feet and the grinding of heavy machinery.
“Do you think we have enough time?” she asked in a husky whisper. “I mean… before the next revival finds this hole in the ground?”
I stared at her for a second. I’m slow on the uptake sometimes, but I was finally catching on.
“Sure we do,” I said, grinning. “But… hey, you can’t tell Lisa or Della, okay?”
“No problem. Don’t tell Carlos.”
“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.
