Andromeda's Fall

by William C. Dietz

  CHAPTER: 16

  * * *

  Who dares, wins.

  MOTTO OF THE BRITISH SPECIAL AIR SERVICE (SAS)

  Formed standard year 1941

  PLANET ORLO II

  When McKee came to, she was coughing, spluttering, and hanging upside down. Larkin was peering at her from six inches away. “Okay,” he said. “Her eyes are open, and she’s breathing. Go ahead and put her down.”

  Once the bio bod had a grip on her, Eason let go of her ankles. There was an awkward moment when McKee nearly landed on her head. But disaster was averted at the last second, and she wound up lying on her back, staring up at the sky. She didn’t realize the helmet was still on her head until Larkin removed it. “What happened?”

  “You went diving, and Eason plucked you off the bottom,” Larkin explained. “We thought you were dead.”

  “The ship,” McKee said. “What happened to the ship?”

  “The shovel heads got tired of wasting ammo and went away,” Eason rumbled.

  “They could come back,” she said as she forced herself to sit up. “Where’s my AXE? We need to get out of here.”

  “You can tell she’s back to normal, she’s bossing everyone around,” Larkin observed.

  McKee felt a moment of embarrassment as Larkin helped her to her feet. Both he and Insa had survived the ordeal without drowning. She was too stupid to be in charge, and if a realistic alternative had been available, she would have asked that individual to assume command. But there wasn’t. So all she could do was accept the AXE that Insa handed her and climb onto Eason’s back. The group was under way two minutes later.

  Her mood was different now. She no longer saw the beauty around her—or allowed her thoughts to stray to Avery. The Hudathans had been a theoretical threat before, and they were real now. Very real.

  The first thing they had to do was get off the trade route lest the enemy send more drones along it or, worse yet, an ambush. So, based on directives from Insa, they traveled west until they came across what was little more than a game trail. It was safer, but narrow, and had a tendency to wander. The net effect was to cut the T-1s’ speed by half.

  It couldn’t be helped, however, and McKee felt safer on the little-used path with a canopy of green overhead. But as the day progressed, the protective vegetation began to thin. And at about 15:30 hours, they ran into the first sign of civilization. It consisted of row upon row of carefully planted trees, all carefully pruned, and spaced so that machines could roll down the corridors between them. As the cyborgs crossed the plantation, McKee knew that she and her charges were about to become a lot more vulnerable. Especially if the Hudathans and the rebels were gunning for them.

  But as the light began to fade, and they pushed north, she realized that most if not all of the local civilian population had fled in order to escape from the alien invaders. And for good reason. Homes had been burned, farm animals had been slaughtered, and anything that remotely resembled civilian infrastructure had been destroyed. That included transmission towers, grain silos, and even the most insignificant of bridges.

  And why not? The Hudathans didn’t want to conqueror humans and enslave them; their objective was to obliterate what they saw as dangerous pests.

  Insa’s knowledge of the countryside had been invaluable up until that point. But the Droi had never been to Riversplit and knew nothing about the local area. McKee wondered if it would have been wise to bring Trask or one of the surviving Grays along but quickly rejected the notion, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to trust them. So all she could do was proceed slowly, look for an opening, and seize it when it came.

  It was dark by the time the group crossed a small river, passed the bloated corpses of some quadrupeds, and approached a cluster of buildings. Judging from appearances, the house had been fired on from above and caught fire. And the attack had been fairly recent because wisps of smoke could still be seen drifting away from the charred ruins.

  Sheds had been destroyed as well, but the bullet-riddled barn was made of metal and remained standing. Having checked to make sure that the structure was empty, McKee ordered everyone inside. They needed to hole up for the night, and it was her hope that the residual warmth from the house fire would serve to cover their heat signatures.

  Of course, a barn could attract humans looking for a place to hide. And, since the civil war had been under way before the Hudathans arrived, such individuals could be armed. That made it necessary for the cyborgs to dig fighting positions inside the building where they couldn’t be seen. The plan was to fire through the walls if necessary.

  Once that effort was under way, she and Larkin slipped into the darkness. They could see, thanks to the night-vision technology built into their helmets, and McKee knew where she wanted to go. A hill was located approximately one mile north of the farm—and once on top, she hoped to get a good view of Riversplit off in the distance.

  Of course, that was the problem with hilltops. All sorts of people were likely to congregate there, and McKee knew they would have to be careful lest they blunder onto a group of rebels or loyalists.

  There was a high overcast, which meant no starlight, but McKee was grateful for anything that might interfere with the Hudathans’ ability to look down on them from above. After crossing a couple of fields and climbing over a fence, they came to the foot of the hill. It might have been forested at one time but wasn’t anymore, which offered a mixed blessing as they began to climb. The open slope meant people couldn’t lie in wait for them, but it also meant there wasn’t any cover should they need it, and she felt extremely vulnerable as she followed a footpath toward the summit.

  She was out of breath by the time they arrived at a point just short of the top. With weapons at the ready, they elbowed their way up to the crest of the hill. An enclosure made of carefully piled rocks marked the highest point. It was covered by a flat metal roof, and judging from the size of the doorway, the structure had been built by the Hudathans. An observation post perhaps, constructed during the days after they landed, and since abandoned. The most important thing was that McKee had what she had come for—and that was an unobstructed view of Riversplit from the south. And it was a spectacular sight.

  The city and the hill it stood on were under attack. Seen via night-vision technology, there were flashes of white light as bombs exploded, streaks of green as missiles rose to search out Hudathan aircraft, and occasional fireworks when they succeeded. McKee could hear what sounded like rolling thunder as both sides exchanged salvos of artillery fire.

  It was tempting to quarter the area with the binoculars Avery had given her, but she knew there was something else she should take care of first. She turned to Larkin. “Patrol the hilltop. Stop to listen every once in a while. And let me know before you shoot anything.”

  Larkin’s response was predictably contentious. “What if they’re ten feet away? And they’re about to shoot me? What then?”

  McKee was tempted to say, “Let them,” but knew it was her fault. Having chosen to bring Larkin, she had no one to blame except herself. “That would be the exception. If they’re ten feet away, kill them.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Larkin said self-righteously, and he was gone seconds later.

  Having been freed from the need to worry about who or what might crawl up her six, McKee went to work examining the terrain in front of her. Senior noncoms had presumably been trained for such tasks, but she hadn’t. So she had to develop her own system of observation.

  Rather than look at the big picture, and potentially miss the kind of detail she needed, she forced herself to ignore the distant battle and zoom in on the plain below. Then, working from left to right, she would look for a path into Riversplit.

  The level of detail captured by the night-vision binoculars was surprisingly good. And as McKee focused them on the flat area in front of her, she saw what could only be described as a wasteland. Given all of the burned-out structures, bomb craters, and row upon row of d
efensive earthworks, she could tell that a battle had been fought there.

  But the plain wasn’t uninhabited. Far from it. As McKee searched the area below, she could see Hudathan encampments, crude roads that had been cut through the debris, and the tracked vehicles that were using them. And it didn’t take a general to figure out that with their aircraft bombing the shit out of Riversplit, the aliens were taking advantage of the opportunity to resupply the front lines.

  And that was the problem. With so many Hudathans in the way, it would be very difficult to sneak through their lines without being discovered. Still, that was what the situation called for, so she plotted route after potential route but without success. There was always some sort of obstacle in the way.

  It was only after an hour’s study that McKee turned her attention to a more daring alternative. If she and her companions couldn’t sneak into Riversplit—what would happen if they charged in? The T-1s could run at speeds up to 50 mph on a hard surface. And the Hudathans had cleared a preexisting two-lane highway that led straight to the hill. A convoy of half-tracks was grinding its way north at the moment, but the southbound lane was practically empty, and that could represent the opportunity she was looking for.

  McKee estimated that the plain was roughly five miles wide. So if the T-1s were traveling at top speed, they could cross it in six minutes. Call it seven just to be safe. Was such a thing possible? If so, surprise would be the key. The shovel heads weren’t stupid. It seemed safe to assume that they were prepared for all sorts of eventualities. But a straight run in by three T-1s? She didn’t think so. Her thoughts were interrupted as Larkin chinned his mike on and off. “Yeah?” McKee inquired. “What’s up?”

  “A Hudathan patrol is climbing the north side of the hill.”

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  Had they been spotted? Or were the Hudathans on a routine sweep? “Roger that. I’m pulling back. Meet me on the trail.”

  The two of them couldn’t hope to take on six Hudathans and win. Nor did she want to reveal their presence. That would invite more enemy troops and kill any chance of making her newly conceived plan work.

  Larkin was waiting for her as she found the trail, and they made good time as they followed it down. She wanted to be back in the barn before the enemy soldiers arrived on top of the hill and took a look around. There was no way to be sure, of course, but she felt reasonably confident that they had escaped detection as they arrived on the flat area below. However, just to be sure that they weren’t seen entering the hideout, McKee took the extra precaution of circling the farm and creeping in from the south. “We’re coming in,” she said via the squad freq. “Over.”

  “Copy that,” Hower replied. “Over.”

  Ten minutes later, they were inside the barn, where Insa and the T-1s were waiting. An area at the center of the barn had been screened off to prevent light from leaking out. What illumination there was emanated from a couple of glow strips. McKee chewed on a fruit bar and washed it down with sips of water as she gave her report. Once the rest of them were up to speed, she presented her plan. Eason was the first to react. “I like it,” he rumbled. “By the time the shovel heads get organized, we’ll be gone.”

  “I don’t know,” Noll said doubtfully. “Five miles. That’s a long way to run with people shooting at you.”

  “Of course we get to shoot back,” Hower observed.

  “Damned straight,” Larkin added enthusiastically. “The freaks have it coming.”

  “What about you?” McKee inquired as she met Insa’s gaze. “What do you think?”

  “We kill,” Insa replied, and patted the black-market assault rifle he was so proud of. Feathers hung from the barrel, and chips of colorful glass were set into the wooden stock.

  “Okay,” McKee said, “it’s on. The best time to make the run is at night. And it’s too late to tackle the job tonight. So, we’ll wait one rotation. That’ll give us a chance to rest up and do some field maintenance.”

  “The longer we wait, the better chance they’ll have to discover us,” Noll said gloomily.

  “That’s true,” McKee allowed, knowing that the cyborg would never say something like that to a sergeant, much less an officer. “But it’s a chance that we’ll have to take. And there’s something we can do while we’re waiting. We have four box-style magazines for each T-1—all loaded with alternating ball and armor-piercing-incendiary-tracer. By reallocating the rounds, we can create two cans of armor-piercing-incendiary-tracer for each ’borg. That means every bullet will punch through metal and set fire to whatever may be inside.”

  “We’ll light ’em up!” Larkin said, his face aglow with anticipation.

  Given Noll’s attitude, Larkin’s response was all the more welcome—although she knew he wasn’t being political. The crazy bastard wanted a fight.

  “Nice,” Eason put in. “Our fifties will have some extra punch, and we’ll be able to see where our rounds are going.”

  “Okay,” McKee said. “There’s no time like the present. Let’s get started.”

  The T-1s’ “fingers” were far too big and clumsy to redistribute the ammo. So that work fell to the legionnaires and Insa. And the same thing applied to maintenance except that McKee chose to take care of both Eason and Hower, knowing that her tech skills were superior to Larkin’s.

  That meant there was a lot to do, and it wasn’t until 1000 hours in the morning that she gave herself permission to take a nap. Fifteen minutes later, Larkin touched her shoulder. “McKee . . . A drone is nosing around outside.”

  The news brought her to her feet in a hurry. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer. “Where is it?” she whispered.

  Larkin pointed toward the barn’s double doors. They were riddled with bullet holes. And as she looked that way, she could see shafts of sunlight appear and disappear as something moved back and forth outside. It was hovering about ten feet off the ground and a booming sound was heard as metal collided with metal. “It’s trying to push a door open,” Larkin whispered.

  They could destroy the machine. McKee knew that. But the results would be identical to those experienced the day before. Only this time the Hudathan ship would kill them. So all she could do was stand with the AXE at the ready and pray that the drone would move on. And finally, after what felt like an eternity, it did. Bit by bit, she allowed herself to breathe again as the sound generated by the machine’s repellers faded away.

  As the day wore on, it grew oppressively hot in the metal barn, and Larkin wanted to open the doors. McKee might have been tempted except for the fact that the drone was fresh in her mind. And if one could visit, why not a second? She said no, and Larkin grumbled for ten minutes before finally lapsing into silence.

  All of the necessary work was completed by midafternoon. And with nothing else to do, the human bio bods tried to nap. But it was so warm that sleep didn’t come easily, and when it finally did, McKee fell into what felt like a drugged stupor. So that when she awoke an hour later, she felt worse than before.

  The barn began to cool as the sun went down, and that made McKee and Larkin feel better. Insa, who had been sitting with his eyes closed for the last hour, opened them as the humans began to eat dinner. “Tea,” the Droi said, as if that explained everything. And seconds later, he was hard at work preparing the all-important substance.

  Once the meal was over, time seemed to slow even more. McKee was in the process of reassembling her AXE when Insa began to smear various pigments on his face. “What’s that for?” she inquired.

  “Death paint,” Insa said solemnly. “I kill or die.” That seemed to say it all and cast something of a pall over the room as the others made their own preparations.

  Twenty-four hundred hours. That was the time that McKee had chosen, and it was a struggle to appear calm as the final minutes ticked away. And she knew that was the way Avery would have looked had he been in charge.

  Then, after what seemed like an eternity, it was 23:4
5 and time for the bio bods to take their positions. “Listen up,” McKee said as she gave her final instructions. “Eason and I will take the point, followed by Noll and Insa. Hower and Larkin will bring up the rear. We’re going to circle around the west end of the hill and pick up the road that leads to the highway. Be sure to maintain the standard thirty-foot interval.

  “The ’borgs can fire on targets of opportunity. But remember it won’t be possible to reload while on the run, so aim carefully and use three-round bursts. Oh, and don’t shoot each other. We have enough problems.

  “The bio bods will focus their attention on soft targets,” McKee continued. “We’ll use our assault weapons, but don’t forget your grenades. Be careful, though . . . Were Insa or I to arm a grenade and fumble it away, the people behind us would pay the price.

  “And remember . . . Everything depends on speed. We can’t stop. If we do, it’s over. Questions? No? Let’s do this thing.”

  The cool night air felt good after the stuffiness of the barn. And McKee was happy to put the waiting behind her. Now, for better or for worse, she was going into action. And the internal presence that monitored everything she did was pleased to note that, while tense, she wasn’t afraid of anything but failure.

  So she gloried in the press of wind against her skin, the feel of Eason’s movements, and the craziness of what they were going to do. A look back over her shoulder confirmed that the others were where they should be. So she looked forward as Eason rounded the west side of the hill. As seen through her high-tech visor, the entire plain was giving off a green glow. The eerie light was stronger in some places than others, and wherever a campfire burned, tendrils of heat spiraled upwards. The whole thing was unintentionally beautiful.

  You don’t have time to admire the view, she admonished herself. Make the call while you can. The problem was that even if the T-1s and the bio bods managed to cross the plain safely—they would run into Rylund’s forces, who would immediately open fire on them. So it was critical to inform the command structure of what was about to happen. So McKee began with the regimental push and worked her way down through all the standard frequencies. Unfortunately, her calls were met with a roar of static. The Hudathans were jamming and doing a good job of it.