“No, of course not.”
“Let me rephrase that in simpler words. Are you abandoning your post because you’ve found something more exciting to do?”
“I’m more use on the front line.”
Now Iytal looked at him. He traversed his glare to take in Sriti before returning to Urdizine and subjecting him to the look Squadron Sergeant Major Vyborg used to give SOTLs who’d disappointed him. The one that shriveled your gonads into pips and set your limbs a-trembling.
“I’ve been watching those PHPA Panhandlers in our group.” Iytal spat on the ground. “And those Cora’s World drentheads, D’Anje in particular. He’s a piece of shit, but he’s more than just an asshole. He’s a professional soldier. An officer. Don’t embarrass yourself and the Legion by acting like a Militia wannabe. Do your goddamned job, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir. I’m a SOTL.”
“Then act like one. When I did my training, they taught us every role, every weapon, and they carried on reinforcing those lessons. Remember your training, SOTL Urdizine, because the people you’ve been tasked with leading have none.”
Urdizine saluted the old jack and hurried to the left side of the gate.
He’d barely regained his post when the trickle of refugees became a flood, interspersed with fighters. Santoza came through, dispatched by d’Anje to warn Urdizine that they were making a fighting withdrawal, and he should be ready to close the gate.
Next through was a hard core of the Rebellion’s fighters. Blasters slung uselessly over their backs, they stabbed futilely at a column of louse monsters.
Had they not heard Urdizine’s instruction to cut the hairs?
In horror, he watched as a mouth part extended over the head of a screaming woman, but her comrades were ready. Dropping their spears and swinging their blasters back into their hands, they concentrated fire on a single point at the base of the mouth part.
The creature wheezed like a leaky bellows. Its mouth was ruined and could no longer get suction on the woman whose head and shoulders were inside the mouth.
The mouth skin flapped feebly as the woman tore herself out of its grip, her hair singed and scalp burned from energy weapon splashes. But she was alive.
Another party of fighters came through, led by d’Anje. “Close the gate!” he screamed.
Urdizine could hear fighting continuing on the other side.
D’Anje glared at him. “We’ve done all we can. If the enemy gets through, they’ll slaughter us all.”
No one else had made it through since d’Anje. Urdizine couldn’t see any more survivors trying to make it back. The shrieks of battle had snuffed out, but the ground was rumbling with the noise of something approaching fast.
Urdizine hit the control to close the gate.
Powerful motors reverberated as the enormous doors slowly rolled inward from either side.
“Damn!” d’Anje wasn’t the last of the rearguard, after all. He could see people racing to make it through in time.
Then his heart sank when he realized they were Devil Men.
“Shoot them!” d’Anje shouted, but he was wasting his breath, because the defenders were already raining down bolts, spears, and stones upon the charging enemy.
The devils paid no heed to their losses. In fact…Urdizine realized they weren’t trying to make it through the gate at all. They had a different objective.
They were plunging onto their bellies at the gate’s center, heaping themselves over the backs of their fellows to form a mound of bodies.
“Hold your fire!” d’Anje shouted. “Save your charge.”
He was right. The devils were making a suicidal attempt to keep the gate open.
Urdizine thought back to the conversation about social insects. He’d seen fanatics martyr themselves. Brave, disciplined troops, too, who’d made the ultimate sacrifice to save their comrades.
This was different. The Devil Men didn’t care whether they lived or died.
It was difficult for him to see the universe through the multiple eyes of a hive organism. If that was indeed what they were facing, it could mean that everything from the zombies in the forests near Camp Faxian to the devils in this hex were all elements in one extended organism. These Devil Men weren’t dying any more than Urdizine’s toenails when he clipped them.
That’s all they were. Living toenails. Murderous ones who wanted to kill all forms of life not like them.
Not that different from the Cora’s World assholes, then.
The doors closed on the devil mound, their enormous momentum squeezing the flesh pile upward. At the mound’s base, bones cracked and popped as they were ripped from their sockets.
They might not care for their mortality, perhaps didn’t even understand the concept of individuality, but Urdizine did. He was appalled to see and hear beings that looked like people being relentlessly crushed by the vise of the closing doors into a giant flesh patty garnished with limbs, lifeless heads, and bone shards.
The Devil Men continued to clamber onto the pile, giving themselves freely to keep the crack open.
They succeeded.
The motors ceased their pounding, leaving a two-foot gap, the bottom half of which was filled by flesh that would compress no further.
Something huge thudded into one of the doors, heavy enough to rock it on its mountings. A crisp snapping noise came from the door’s housing, hidden inside the walls.
Ferals flew over the mound of death like living howitzer shells, landing in the mass of people milling below. They pushed deep into the crowds, delivering carnage and mayhem.
Dozens fell in the first attack, then came a lull.
Urdizine helped organize the defenders and instruct them on the best way to defeat the Ferals, but the defenders had enough experience by now to be able to handle themselves.
He was more worried about whatever the enemy had brought up to batter down the doors. It hadn’t yet repeated its shuddering impact. Instead, he heard powerful fists banging on the door. Was that a sign of frustration? If so, it seemed different from the Devil Men.
While the occasional Feral continued to fly in, Kayshen-Oeyl and Hrish-Ek organized parties to slash away at the fleshy obstacle preventing the gate from closing.
When he judged they’d removed most of the blockage, Urdizine hit the close control again.
Finally, the gate closed, squeezing out the last of the crushed devils like jumping on a tube of fresh toothpaste.
Urdizine was totally spent. He sank to his knees, trying to process the dreadful things he’d been forced to witness.
Sriti put her arm around his shoulders. “We’re safe now.”
He put a hand over hers and looked into golden eyes. “No,” he told her. “We aren’t safe. We’re not safe at all.”
“Of course we are not safe—” her eyes flashed with gilded fire, “—but we have survived this phase of the battle, and that should be enough. You think too much, Urdizine.”
“You know what, Sriti?” He tapped his deepest reserve of strength and returned to his feet, shooting her a wry smile. “I like smart women. Come with me. I think I’m going to need your power of persuasion.”
* * *
He jogged through the crowd, trying to gather the commanders and direct them to action.
They weren’t cooperating. Not even d’Anje, who sat on his haunches, temporarily exhausted into silence by the horrors he’d fought through.
Around 10,000 survivors gathered near the blood-drenched ground of the gate. To Urdizine, they looked like a beaten army.
Hrish-Ek was similarly uncommunicative, and Kayshen-Oeyl was no longer able to fool herself that being shot by a blaster bolt was something she could shrug off.
As for the Human leaders of 241, Tessa was being consoled by her comrades, her face swollen red and awash with tears. She’d had to leave her Human mate’s corpse on the far side of the gate to be consumed by the assembly of monsters there.
Everyone was crashing in men
tal and physical exhaustion, but Sriti was right. This was not a safe place. Killers were just outside that gate, and it was a mechanism they’d built themselves. All it would take was someone in the hive hierarchy who understood how to open the doors from the other side, and death would be upon them.
So he quickly gathered representatives of the main groups who still had fight in their bellies and gave them a message to convey to the throng.
Ten minutes later, Urdizine gave his speech. Elsewhere in the crowd, he could hear his words being repeated in all the main languages.
“We’ve made many sacrifices, and fought hard and well, yet we cannot rest. This place is neither safe nor defensible. The creatures we face are highly specialized. Those we’ve seen so far today are simple killers and consumers of scared captives. We must prepare ourselves for the possibility that we shall encounter other forms at any moment.
“I’ve seen a place about a day’s march from here, through the gate to the west, and then south. I don’t know what we’ll meet there, but I hope to find shelter and technology. Perhaps we shall find transportation, or at least communication to the outside galaxy.
“I know you’re hurt, grieving, in shock, but this is not the time to sit down. This is the time we honor the sacrifices of our dead by staying alive. I need you to get to your feet and march west, to our target. Once we’ve seized it, I promise, you may rest.
“To your feet, my friends. We march.”
It was a lie, of course. Urdizine had no way of knowing what they’d encounter at the building. Better to hate him later if need be than stay here and die.
Those who heard his speech seemed to agree. They got to their feet, hefted their packs onto their shoulders, and headed west. Those who were unsure, or who hadn’t heard, saw the others moving and followed.
Already, Urdizine was organizing a corps of runners to pass communications around the group, and to Sriti’s people when they hopefully joined them.
With thousands of people to organize, the lack of radio comms would be a problem.
He was soon surrounded by a halo of volunteers, non-Human for the most part. It wouldn’t be long before d’Anje would reassert his authority in some way, but the first Human to push through to his side wasn’t from Cora’s World. It was Iytal.
The old jack’s face slid into a toothy grin. He took his time to savor the moment before saying what was on his mind. “Told you so.”
“Hoorah!” Urdizine responded. “That you did.”
The old jack had been right on the money.
Urdizine had been away from the Legion too long. It was time to remember who he really was and act like it.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Five: Urdizine
Eight Days Later
At the morning command briefing, there was only more bad news, this time from the team working to convert the gas exchange plants to generate potable water. They still couldn’t find the source of the arsenic pollution.
Littoranes could tolerate it in small doses—the pigmentation in their snouts used compounds of the stuff—and could even bathe in it, which was a big deal to them. Knowing your amphibious comrades could express both aspects of their nature wasn’t much practical help to the rest of the survivors besieged in the terraforming factory.
Rationing had begun, both of food and water. The refugees had found plentiful stocks here, but the thousands of hungry mouths were making short work of them.
The only hope lay in discovering something new in this vast complex, which was large enough to be a self-contained town. A walled town, sheltered behind four sturdy walls that had probably been designed to protect against the harsh planetary environment, but were serving well against the flesh-eating monsters who’d trapped them here for the past eight days.
That hope was dying, though.
The enemy’s numbers had swollen again overnight. The watch teams estimated 2,000 surrounded them, and for the first time, they were besieged by a continuous line. The enemy made no move to attack, nor even to fire upon the defenders.
Urdizine didn’t think the inaction was due to a lack of imagination. Not this time. The enemy didn’t need to risk damaging the complex that was probably of great value to them, not when they could starve out the escaped captives.
One of the first things the survivors had done upon capturing the place was to send out an interstellar mayday. However, they only had lightspeed comms. The nearest Legion naval base was a refueling depot 10 light years away. Ten years for the mayday to reach them.
“We should’ve garrisoned this place and sent out strong reconnaissance forces to seek other assets, as I demanded at the time.” D’Anje was raging again. His tirades grew angrier every day. Annoyingly, the veck was right more often than not.
“This building has bewitched you, Urdizine, and you in turn have bewitched the people. We’ve allowed this place to become a trap.”
“No one’s stopping you from leaving,” Sriti said.
Urdizine admired the woman from 243. With just an arching of her eyebrow, she’d sent d’Anje into a fuming silence, reminding him that she carried the support of more Humans here than he did.
“Idiots,” d’Anje snapped. “The enemy has strengthened themselves with more than mere numbers.” He got to his feet. “Come. See for yourselves.”
Urdizine led the others, following d’Anje to the landing platform on the northwest corner of the complex that served as an observation post.
On principle, he didn’t like doing what d’Anje told him, but if they were to break out and search for other sources of food and transportation, they’d need to do that soon. Probably today.
When he saw the enemy’s deployment, his guts hurt from more than the scars left by Yergin’s exploding bike. The enemy now had crew-served heavy blasters, about 20 of them.
“You see the way they’ve positioned those guns?” the Cora’s World jerk said. “Every inch of ground is covered by at least two fire sectors. They’ve clustered the guns around the main entrances. Anyone charging out there will be vaporized. This is not a mindless deployment, it’s a textbook example of how to maximize firepower. Whoever’s in charge understands military concepts. I think we might still have a chance to break out if we use the facilities in this building, perhaps construct a portable armored shield, but it’ll be costly, and if we delay further, it may soon be impossible.”
Urdizine seethed with frustration. In another context, he would be considering making a last charge and at least taking some of the bastards with them to the Five Hells. But on this world?
The fallen of either side would simply be consumed by those disgusting, pulsating monsters. No one had seen how the enemy was born, but his assumption was that replacements would simply be regrown as required.
“If we decide to remain here and accept our inevitable deaths,” d’Anje said, “we should use the time remaining to learn some answers we can tell the galaxy. We’re inside a terraforming factory. Whose? Did those giant louse monsters build this? If not, then who?”
A flash high in the sky shone briefly brighter than the sun.
“To arms! To arms!”
The alarm was shouted across the facility.
“What is it?” Sriti wondered.
“Perhaps it’s the answer to Captain d’Anje’s question,” Kayshen-Oeyl suggested.
Streaks of fire blazed down through the sky.
“Is this an orbital bombardment?” the Littorane leader asked.
“No,” Urdizine and d’Anje replied simultaneously. “They’re dropships.” And they were headed for the terraforming complex.
* * *
Urdizine sensed the commotion among the Littoranes.
Then Iytal came panting up to the landing pad and made a beeline for Urdizine. The old soldier usually sat at the comms station—such as it was—regaling anyone who would listen with shaggy war stories. Now he was all business, and he was carrying a headset.
He waved it at Urdizine. “Look alive
, greenie. Difficult as it is to believe, when it comes to Legion forces on the ground, you’re top of the chain. There’s a Brigadier Lonsieu would like a word on the blower.”
Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, Urdizine took the comm headset and flicked the selector to share the conversation out of the built-in speakers.
“Sir, this is Sapper of the Legion Kosuda Urdizine of 27th Independent Field Squadron.”
“Brigadier Lonsieu. I’m in command of this operation to extract you. Tell me what I need to know.”
Urdizine conveyed a concise summary of their situation.
“Get ready to leave,” Lonsieu told him when he’d finished, “no heroics. Leave the fighting to my forces, but do be ready. This isn’t our first outing to this planet. Last time we got our asses handed to us, so this needs to be a quick in and out.”
“Roger.”
“And…” Lonsieu sucked in a breath. “One more thing. The mission is to extract you. You alone, Urdizine.”
“But…the others. You can’t—”
“Let me finish, SOTL.”
Urdizine clammed shut.
“I’ve no intention of leaving these refugees behind if I can help it. Theoretically, we have the room, air, and Delta-V to carry them, though that’s going to be a nightmare to make work. However, they aren’t mission critical. You’re to stay absolutely safe, and you’re to ascend to orbit in the first wave of shuttles. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Urdizine replied, not that he understood why the Legion would expend such effort just for him.
“Make sure you do. Lonsieu, out.”
He looked up and realized everyone was staring at him.
Urdizine didn’t blame them. Nearly all of them knew there’d been a failed attempt to extract him from the starport at Bresca-Brevae. During their time on this hexworld hell, they’d forgotten that unimportant footnote in his recent personal history.
They were remembering it now.
The one person here who didn’t know the story of the mutant in the starship hold was Sriti. Maybe that was why she wasn’t registering surprise. Instead, she was smiling at him. She was also arching her eyebrow the same way she’d done with that Cora’s World ass.
Hold the Line (Chimera Company Book 5) Page 15
