by Timothy Zahn
Something brushed her arm, and she looked down to see a delicate insect with a wingspan the size of her fist nibbling away at her sleeve. With a grimace, she shook it off, encouraging its departure with a flick of her fingers. For the battle Harli had sent someone back to Aerie to get the Cobras' official operation suits, ceremoniously presented to them on graduation from the academy and stored away ever since their arrival on Caelian. The outfits were more comfortable and far better suited for combat than anything else available, but the fact that they were partially made of organic fibers meant that the Cobras were going to have to put up with all the annoyances of Caelian ecology while they fought against the Trofts.
It was only minor comfort to know that the Trofts were also having to deal with the floating spores and organics and the wide range of fauna ready, eager, and willing to come in for dinner.
"Gunners, ready," Harli's distant voice came in Jin's enhanced hearing, just barely audible over Caelian's night noises. "Fire in three; audios down."
Taking a deep breath, Jin keyed off her audios . . . and two heartbeats later the forest exploded with a crashing volley of shotgun fire. A heartbeat later came a second volley, this one slightly more spread out than the first, and then a third, this one easily discernable as six separate shots.
And as the thunder faded away, the night returned to relative silence. "Broom?" Kemp murmured from behind her.
Jin leaned a little to the side, giving herself a view of the standing warship's forward starboard wing through the tree branches. The berries Tracker and his team had just fired up into the weapons cluster showed up clearly on her telescopics, the sticky husks dotting the lasers and missile tubes, the viscous juice slowly and reluctantly moving across the metal.
"Here they come," someone murmured. "I can hear them."
Jin notched up her audios . . . and even as she caught the feathery rush of batting wings a swarm of mothlike insects burst into view. They flew to the weapons cluster, jostling each other as they vied for the sweet roseberry juice, creating a wide, dense cloud of wings and bodies in front of the Trofts' cameras.
A laser flared through the swarm, the intensity of the light jolting through Jin's enhanced vision like a slap across the face. Another shot blazed out, vaporizing another handful of moths, and then two more shots snapped out in rapid succession. Peripherally, Jin could see that all the other weapons clusters on the two ships were also firing blindly now as they attempted to drive the insects away.
But the moths' brains were far too small to realize that their fellows were being slaughtered by the bucketful, and they wouldn't have cared even if they had realized it. As each shot opened a pathway through the cloud it was instantly filled as moths on the periphery crowded in toward the alluring smell of the berries.
With a few handfuls of berries, and help from the relentless Caelian ecology, the Trofts inside the ship were now blind.
Jin took a deep breath. "Get ready," she said. "It won't be long now."
* * *
"There!" Jody said, jabbing a finger at the warship wings as she handed Uy's night binoculars to Freylan. "You can see the fluffers clouding in."
"Yeah, I see them," Freylan confirmed, pressing the binoculars to his eyes. "They must have used roseberries--there's nothing else that drives those things that crazy."
"Way to go, Geoff," Jody murmured, wincing as the ships' lasers suddenly flashed to life, blazing through the swarming insects. If the Trofts were able to kill enough of the fluffers or just drive them away . . .
Freylan snorted. "Like that's going to do any good," he said contemptuously. He handed the binoculars back to Jody and reached to the table beside them for the flare pistol Uy had found in his emergency kit. "Let me know when."
Jody nodded, her throat tight as she watched the Troft lasers still trying to drive the fluffers away. Any minute now . . .
* * *
Twenty meters up his assigned tree, holding tightly to the branches, Paul watched the Trofts' useless light show as they tried to drive the moths away from their monitor cameras. Any minute now . . .
"Perimeter team: fire," Harli's voice drifted over the mad fluttering of insect wings.
And all around the area, the ground and trees came alive with Cobra antiarmor laser fire.
Paul was right in there with them, pressing his left leg close to the tree trunk as he targeted and blasted the four floodlights of the Troft perimeter nearest his position. He had finished knocking out the last of them when a flurry of return fire slammed into his tree, blowing splinters and chunks of charred wood across his sight.
Instantly, he swung his leg back behind the trunk and let go his grip, dropping below the hail of laser fire to the next set of handholds he'd prepared. Glancing around the trunk, he targeted three of the Troft soldiers who were firing at his tree and again swung his leg around into position. Three quick shots, and then he pulled the leg back and dropped again. This time he was in position and scouting his next target when the return fire began hammering at the spot he'd just vacated.
Again he peered around the tree, ignoring the splinters raining down as he took stock of the situation. The duck-shoot phase, as Harli had dubbed it, was unfortunately over. The remaining ground troops were abandoning their exposed positions behind the ring of shattered floodlights and were scurrying as fast as they could for the cover of the armored trucks. The trucks themselves were rolling forward, coming to their troops' support--
There was a brilliant triple flash, and one entire side of the tree just above Paul vaporized as one of the trucks fired a cluster shot into the wood. Grimacing, Paul dropped another three meters, then shoved himself sideways off his branches and leaped to the next tree over.
Just in time. The truck's commander had decided Paul's first tree was definitely serving as enemy cover and was methodically firing shot after shot into it with the clear intent of bringing it down.
From somewhere to Paul's left another shotgun blast thundered across the crackling of wood and the hissing of laser fire. Having blinded the warships, the gunners were now trying to do the same to the trucks by sending roseberries into their windshields.
Only this time the shotguns' blasts were followed by the multiple crackle of small but deadly explosions.
Paul winced. Jin and the Qasamans had warned them about the small, self-homing antipersonnel missiles the Trofts had used against riflemen in Sollas, but he'd hoped that this group of Trofts had assumed they would be facing only Cobras and had therefore not bothered to deploy that particular weapon. Unfortunately, it was clear now that they had, and he could only hope the gunners were following Harli's orders to get clear of their positions the second they fired.
He looked around the tree again, keying in his opticals and studying the ground soldiers carefully. Most were carrying the standard hand-and-a-half laser rifles, but crouched beside one of the trucks he could see a soldier holding something considerably bigger. Flicking a target lock onto the weapon, Paul curved his leg around the tree and fired.
And instantly dropped down again, this time all the way to the ground, as another pair of trucks fired a withering hail of laser fire at him. Still, even as the tree shattered above him, he was able to take some satisfaction in the distant sound of a muffled explosion. One antipersonnel missile launcher, apparently, eliminated.
Only now he had some serious problems of his own. Someone had tagged this tree as being the hiding place of the Cobra who'd taken out their missile-tube operator, and that someone seemed to be taking it personally. Even as Paul huddled down behind the trunk, trying to squeeze himself into the smallest possible target, he could hear and feel the tree being literally taken apart above him. And not just the tree--the rapid fire was flanking the trunk on both sides, preventing him from going either direction. If the Trofts kept this up, sooner or later they would get him.
"Broom!" a voice called urgently from above and to his right.
Paul looked up. One of the Caelian Cobras was cli
nging to a tree about ten meters away, looking across at him. "Back it up ten meters," the Cobra called, jerking his head that direction. Shifting his attention back toward the battle line, he lifted his left leg and began some rapid fire of his own.
Paul tensed, waiting for the inevitable burst of killing enemy fire. But even as the laser blasts against his own tree faltered and started to shift to this new target, the Cobra hunched up, pressed his right leg and hand against the tree trunk, and shoved himself violently backwards away from the tree. As he soared through the branches he spun halfway around, turning a full hundred eighty degrees just as he reached another tree four meters behind him. He struck it off-center, catching the trunk with his right hand and pivoting around that grip to swing around to safety behind it. He took a second to settle himself, then repeated the hunch-and-shove maneuver, ending up behind a tree three meters farther back. "Broom!" he snapped.
With a start, Paul realized that he was still behind his smashed tree, and that the Trofts had shifted their attack over to the tree where the other Cobra had been twenty seconds earlier. Staying low, he backed away from his own tree, retreating to the one ten meters back that he'd been directed to.
The other Cobra was already there, crouched behind the tree and some associated bushes, when Paul slipped around to safety on the other side. "Thanks," he murmured.
"No problem," the other said. "You okay?"
Quickly, Paul took inventory. His leg was throbbing with a couple of minor burns, and there were probably a dozen wood splinters digging through his clothing in various places. Nothing serious. "Okay enough to get back in the game," he told the other. "We might want to try a different neighborhood, though."
"There's an empty spot over there," the Cobra said grimly, pointing to their left. "I'm pretty sure Yates and Colchak are both down."
Paul grimaced. "Okay," he said. "I'll take point."
They had made it about five meters when once again Paul heard Harli's voice lift above the noise of battle. "Kangaroos--go!"
* * *
"Kangaroos--"
Even before Harli finished giving the order, Zoshak was off, sprinting along the hardened, leaf-free path Lorne and the Qasamans had painstakingly cleared during the hour before sundown.
Lorne watched him go, his hands feeling unnaturally sweaty as he shifted his attention back and forth between Zoshak and the other two Djinn standing ready at the far end of the path. He'd learned the maneuver well enough, at least according to them, and in fact had nailed their last five practice throws perfectly.
But that had been out in the Caelian forest, in the middle of the afternoon and far removed from any Trofts with lasers. If this jump turned out to be the one Lorne botched, he was going to come tumbling down into the middle of an armed camp.
But there was no time to worry about that now. Zoshak reached the other two Qasamans and leaped up and forward toward them. Siraj and Khatir caught his feet in their gloved hands and hurled him upward and forward through the few light branches still between him and the clear zone. He arched upward across the night sky, heading toward the drone hatchway that was even now folding down from the side of the ship.
And now it was Lorne's turn.
He took off down the path, watching his footing, watching the two waiting Qasamans, adjusting his stride, trying to remember everything he'd learned, trying to forget the armed Trofts he would be flying helplessly over. He reached the jump-off point and leaped, tucking himself and bending his knees as he flew toward them. The Qasamans caught his feet, and as they shoved him up he also shoved himself downward with the full strength of his leg servos.
And with a brief slapping of branches across his face he found himself soaring high over the clear zone.
Over the battlefield.
It was like nothing Lorne had ever seen before, and even the brief glimpse was enough to turn his stomach. The blazing sizzle of blue laser light was everywhere, brilliant eye-hurting flashes from the armored trucks' swivel guns, somewhat dimmer ones from the Cobras lurking among the trees. The sound of splintering wood and shattered rock filled the night air, punctuated by gunshots, small explosions, and the grunts and screams of the injured and dying. Scattered across the clear zone, briefly lit by every laser flash that shot past, were the unmoving bodies of dead Trofts.
Resolutely, he tore his eyes away from the carnage, shifting them back to the ship now rushing toward him. Ahead, Zoshak finished his own journey by slamming into the hullmetal just above the drone hatch, the combat suit servos in his outstretched arms and legs absorbing the impact. Smoothly, almost gracefully, he slid neatly down the hull and disappeared through the opening.
It was only then that Lorne realized to his horror that his own jump was going to be short.
He tensed, keying his opticals for a quick range check. But there was no mistake. Instead of hitting the opening, or even hitting the hull above it as Zoshak had just done, he was going to hit below the open hatch.
There was only one chance. Stretching his arms as far as he could above his head, he curled his fingers into hooks and locked the servos into place.
He made it, but just barely. His fingers caught the edge of the hatch, his legs swinging around to slam shins-first against the hull below.
For a second the vibration of the impact threatened to slide the hooked fingers loose and send him tumbling to the ground below. He tried to get his thumbs up underneath, but the metal was too thick for them to reach. In desperation, he pulled himself up and jammed the top of his head against the underside of the hatch, wedging his fingers tightly in place and finally stopping their drift toward the edge. He gave himself another second to dampen out the motion, then reset his grip and pulled himself up onto the hatch, catching a hint of reflected laser light from inside as he rolled onto his side and slid sideways through the opening. Bouncing off the drone that had been moving up toward the opening when it was so rudely interrupted, he tumbled onto the bay deck.
To find himself in the middle of yet another battle zone.
Fortunately, so far the battle was only going one direction. Crouched on the deck beside a tall rack of drones, Zoshak was firing a barrage from his glove lasers, shooting through the glass partition at the Troft techs scrambling madly to get off their couches and into cover behind the consoles. He'd already nailed one of the aliens, and as Lorne scrambled back to his feet another one twitched and toppled limply to the ground.
"No visor blackening here," Zoshak called, his voice grimly pleased as he continued to fire.
"No need for it inside," Lorne called back, eyeing the tiny slagged holes in the glass where the Djinni's lasers had punched through the barrier. "Watch your fire--I'm going to see if I can get us through it."
He was halfway to the barrier, wincing a little as Zoshak's fire shot past him on both sides, when the door at the far end of the monitor room swung open and a half-dozen armored Troft soldiers appeared, charging through the doorway in two-by-two formation. Their lasers swiveled around as they spotted the intruders beyond the glass--
"Cover!" Lorne shouted back over his shoulder. He leaped up into the air, his left leg swinging around in a quick arc as he raked the soldiers with laser fire.
The blast caught the first two across their faceplates, and as their shots sizzled through the barrier and burned past Lorne's head they jerked back and fell. But as Lorne finished his sweep and swung his leg back to trace another arc across the ones next in line he realized that he'd made a fatal mistake. This second, lower sweep of his laser was catching the Trofts across their chests instead of their faceplates, and with the small but significant attenuation created by the glass he was shooting through even his antiarmor laser wasn't quite powerful enough for quick-kill shots through the aliens' armor.
And as the aliens staggered back, their torso armor spraying out smoke and bits of metal and ceramic, their lasers were now tracking toward him.
Desperately, he tried to bring his laser around for another pass. But
the momentum was going the wrong way, and he was still flying through the air with no way to take cover. When those lasers finally lined up on him, he knew, he would be dead.
And then suddenly Zoshak was leaping across Lorne's line of sight, flying forward in a sideways arc like a Cobra executing the kind of wall jump Lorne had used to get off the rooftops back in Capitalia. The Djinni's feet hit the barrier with a resonating thud.
And to Lorne's astonishment, a jagged oval of glass popped out of the barrier and tumbled into the monitor room. "Take them!" Zoshak snapped, dropping flat on the deck out of Lorne's line of fire.
And with a section of the barrier out of the way, Lorne's laser was now capable of punching through the aliens' armor with a single shot.
The four remaining soldiers knew it, too. They were already on the move, giving up their chance to catch Lorne with a killing shot as they dove for cover behind the center console.
But Lorne's lasers weren't a Cobra's only weapons. Even as Lorne landed again on the deck, he raised his right hand, little finger pointed forward, and fired his arcthrower. With an ear-splitting thunderclap the lightning bolt flashed through the hole in the barrier and into the center console.
And with a thunderclap almost as loud as that of the arcthrower itself, the delicate electronics and control systems inside flash-vaporized, shattering the displays and blowing the cabinet apart.
The soldiers pressed against it never even had a chance. The blast slammed them backwards, staggering them once more out into the open.
They were once again trying to bring their weapons to bear when Lorne's antiarmor laser ended the battle for good.
"Well done," Zoshak said, jumping back to his feet.
"You, too," Lorne said, eyeing the hole in the glass. It was way too small to get through, which meant they were either going to have to see if their sonics could shatter it or else break through it with brute strength. Gingerly, he got a grip on one edge.
