Counterattack

by Scott H Washburn

  “Sir? Sir?” said Stavely. “I think the rest are pulling back.”

  Andrew looked out and indeed some of the remaining tripods seemed to be retreating.

  “Looks as though you’ve broken their back, old boy,” said Major Bridges.

  “Yes, yes, I think you’re right!”

  * * * * *

  Cycle 597, 845.2, Holdfast 32-4

  “Qetjnegartis, we must retreat! This fight is lost!”

  Qetjnegartis listened to the message from Tanbradjus and then looked with growing dismay at the tactical display in the command center. Everything was happening so fast. The attack of the prey-creatures had been more relentless and devastating than anything it had encountered before. It had been expecting a slow and methodical attack such as it had faced at the first holdfast. A step by step assault with time to react. But this! The large projectile throwers, the heavy flying machines, the explosion which breached the wall, and then the onslaught of the lighter flying machines, the huge vehicles and the smaller ones. All one right after the other with no pause.

  They had less than thirty fighting machines left, and while they had disabled two of the large prey-creature machines, they were still firing their weapons and were supported by nearly two hundred of the smaller vehicles. At the same time, thousands of the foot-warriors, many carrying explosives, were roaming inside the holdfast’s walls. Some were attempting to blow open some of the small access doors, clearly trying to get inside. How long before they succeeded?

  “Qetjnegartis, I am ordering the fighting machines here with me to retreat,” said Tanbradjus. “If I do not, we will all be destroyed.”

  Qetjnegartis’s tendril stiffened on the interface rods. Was this a deliberate challenge to its authority? It doubted that Tanbradjus would be able disobey a direct order if given one, but this was still a breach of protocol.

  Perhaps the circumstances warrant it.

  Yes, there was no doubt the battle was lost. Further resistance would only mean needless losses, which they could not afford. Losing the holdfast was a severe setback, but losing it and all the defenders would be immeasurably worse.

  “Very well, all units will retreat to sector 3-28-243. We will reassemble and then head west.”

  “At once, Commander,” said Tanbradjus. “A wise decision.”

  The communications link was broken. Qetjnegartis looked to the other two clan members in the control chamber. “Go to the hanger at once. Rendezvous with the others. I must set the reactor to melt down.”

  “But Commander, that can only be done manually. You may be trapped here. Let one of us do it.”

  “You have your orders. Carry them out.”

  “Yes, Commander.” The two transferred into travel chairs and moved out. As Qetjnegartis was about to do the same, a message arrived from Davnitargus.

  “Commander, I will bring the remains of my battlegroup to the hanger exit to cover your retreat.”

  “No, I may be delayed. You shall retreat with the others. I will join you later.”

  “But, Commander…”

  “Obey me, Davnitagus!”

  There was short delay, and then the bud responded. “I obey, Commander.”

  Qetjnegartis transferred into a travel chair and headed for the reactor chamber.

  * * * * *

  August, 1912, the Martian Fortress

  Captain Frank Dolfen led his men across the flat central area of the Martian fortress, looking for some way to get in. Off to the south there was still a hell of a fight going on and he could not help but think that if that fight was lost, all the people on foot were going to have a hell of a time getting out of here again. Coming down those ropes had been quick and pretty easy. Going back up them would not be.

  That wasn’t his concern at the moment, however. His job was to find some way inside the enemy fortress. He spotted other groups of men clustered around some of the lumps and bumps he’d seen earlier. Sometimes an explosion would erupt from one of them. Were they blasting their way inside? He couldn’t tell. Colonel Schumacher had split up the squadrons to cover more ground, and to Dolfen it almost seemed like he considered this some sort of contest. Who could get in first and start capturing great stuff?

  They came across a few wrecked tripods but the Martians who had piloted them were either dead or gone. They also found some of the spider-machines, still very much alive. One killed two of his men before they took it down with massed rifle fire. Several others were frozen in place and they just slung bombs on them and blew them up. He guessed they were supposed to capture those, too, but he’d seen the frozen ones come back to life before and he wasn’t about to take chances with them.

  Becca was still with them and still unharmed.

  They reached the center of the big flat plain and Frank tried to decide where to go next. Further north there were still a few of the heat ray towers functioning on the walls and he didn’t want to tangle with them. Best leave those things to the tanks.

  “Sir! Over there!” Lynnbrooke grabbed his arm and pointed. About a hundred yards away, a tripod seemed to be climbing out of the ground.

  “Down! Everyone take cover!”

  The men hit the dirt and brought up their weapons. But the tripod was facing away from them and rapidly moved off to the north. A few shots from distant guns burst around it, but it kept moving. Dolfen quickly looked around to make sure there weren’t any others coming out of different holes. There weren’t, but he saw that twenty or thirty tripods a half-mile to the south were also moving quickly away from where the battle had been going on. Steam tanks appeared to be in pursuit. Had they won?

  “Another one!” hissed Lynnbrooke. A second tripod appeared in the same spot as the first. It too moved rapidly away.

  “Looks like we’ve found a way in,” said Dolfen. “On your feet! Let’s check it out!” They advanced warily, and as they got closer, they discovered a ramp leading down into the earth. It was a big ramp, obviously designed for the Martian tripods. At the bottom there was a huge metal door, but it was wide open.

  “Somebody forgot to lock up when they left,” said Lynnbrooke.

  “Well let’s get down there before they remember! Send out a few runners. Find the colonel and tell anyone they meet to come over here.” There were bands of troops all over the place and it shouldn’t take long to find reinforcements. The rest of them moved to where the top of the ramp merged with the plain and then started down, weapons ready. They had a few of the stovepipe launchers in addition to a machine gun and their bombs, but they really didn’t want to take on anything tougher than a drone if they could avoid it.

  They reached the bottom and found themselves on the edge of a huge underground space. It was dimly lit, but they could see rows of tripods standing near the far wall. All the men tensed and crouched down, but Dolfen looked at them closely through his binoculars.

  “I think they’re empty. Like those once we saw near Little Rock. Spares, I guess.”

  “If they’re not, sir,” said a trooper, “an’ we go out there, we’re cooked for sure.”

  “If they have Martians in them, they’d be outside fighting. Now come on.”

  “What about the doors, sir?” asked Lynnbrooke. “Wouldn’t want to get trapped down here.”

  Dolfen looked over his men. “Sergeant… uh, Wilkerson, stay here with your squad and see if you can find something to jam the doors with. Blow ‘em up if you have to, but keep them open.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Leaving the squad behind, the rest of them, about a hundred men, started across the open space. As their eyes adjusted from the bright sunshine outside, they could see well enough. Near the parked tripods, there were a number of smaller three-legged machines. Bigger and differently shaped than the spider-machines, they were as silent and inert as the bigger ones. Nonetheless, none wanted to linger in the vicinity and they were nearly jogging by the time they reached a set of smaller doors on the far side.

  The doors led to a corridor
which went off in both directions. Dolfen looked one way and then the other; they were empty. The corridors curved slightly so he couldn’t see very far. But the one to the right was sloping slightly down, while the left-hand one sloped upward. Part of him really wanted to go back up, but something told him the things they were probably looking for were farther down. Some faint noises made him look back the way they had come and he saw more troops coming down the ramp. Good, they weren’t on their own anymore. Making up his mind, he went down the corridor to the right.

  The corridor was about twenty feet wide and twenty feet high. But the walls curved inward toward the top making it a sort of flat-bottomed tube. There were doors at intervals set into the walls, but they were all sealed and he didn’t want to waste time trying to blow his way into them. Clearly this place was going to take a lot of time to explore, but he wanted to try and find the main parts of it as quickly as possible.

  Down they went and then they found an intersection with one ramp going to the right but more steeply downward, and another to the left leading upward. After a little thought, he took the one leading down. It went down about thirty feet, he guessed, and then got broader. A set of heavy doors were standing open and he sent some men ahead, while he followed more slowly with the rest.

  Now they came upon some sections where there were windows in the sides of the corridor. Looking through, there were rooms filled with what looked like machinery and perhaps laboratory equipment. He remembered a photo in a newspaper of Thomas Edison’s lab and it was kind of like that - only different.

  “Looks like we’re finding the stuff the generals want, Captain,” said Lynnbrooke.

  “Yeah, looks like. But I have no idea…”

  “Captain!” One of the men he’d sent ahead was running back, he looked… upset.

  “Trouble?”

  “Uh, no, sir, no Martians, anyway. But… but we found something…”

  “What?”

  “Uh… people, sir, but they’re… they’re…” The man swallowed and turned away.

  Suddenly Frank knew exactly what they’d found. He’d heard rumors… He gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to see this, but he had to. But Becca was back there and she didn’t have to see this. She was tough as nails, he knew, but she still didn’t have to see it. He turned to Lynnbrooke and said loudly: “Lieutenant, I’m concerned about our rear. Take a squad back to that intersection and stay there.” And then more softly: “And take Miss Harding with you. Don’t take no for an answer, you understand?”

  “Uh, yes, sir.” He moved toward the rear. He thought he heard Becca say something, but he couldn’t catch it and she didn’t speak again. When he glanced back, he saw her going with Lynnbrooke and the others. Good.

  He led the way forward, further down the corridor. There were more chambers with the windows, Big ones. And inside…

  “Oh, God…”

  * * * * *

  August, 1912, inside the Martian Fortress

  Becca Harding looked back several times, but all she saw was the tail end of the group of troopers heading the other way, and they were soon lost to sight around the curve of the corridor. She had a good idea of what was back that way. Holding cages. Holding cages for the people the Martians used as food. Sam Jones, the soldier who had been rescued from the Gallup fortress, had spoken of them - shrieked about them, actually. They eat us! She didn’t want Frank coddling her, but somehow this time she had no real desire to fight him over it. She followed Lieutenant Lynnbrooke.

  They went back to the intersection and waited. She’d seen more soldiers following them down the ramp into the fortress. They ought to see some of them soon. Had they won? It had looked like it. They were inside the enemy’s stronghold and the few remaining ones they’d seen outside were all running away. They’d done it! Captured one of the fortresses, liberated some of the land. For the first time all day she started to relax…

  “I hear something, sir,” said one of the men. They all paused and listened. At first she couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing, but then she heard something else. A clicking sound. Metal on stone maybe. Not leather boots, surely. But where was it coming from? Four corridors went off in different directions and the sound was echoing off every wall. She raised her rifle. One of the men had a stovepipe launcher and he made sure it was ready. The lieutenant had his pistol out.

  The sound was definitely coming closer. Becca turned this way and that, but she saw nothing. The lieutenant sent a man down the way they had just come - the only direction the noise couldn’t be coming from - to tell Frank what was happening and to get some more men.

  Suddenly the sound was clearer and coming from the ramp leading up. They spun to face that way, just as a machine came into view. It was a medium-sized tripod machine, not a spider and not one of the big ones; it was like one of the parked ones they’d seen earlier. The top was open and she glimpsed part of a Martian inside.

  She fired her rifle, but the bullet bounced off the metal skin. Two others fired as well, but with no more effect than her shot. The stovepipe man was raising his weapon when flame burst from the machine. A small heat ray blasted out and swept across the group.

  “Look out!” cried Lynnbrooke. He flung her down to the floor and shielded her with his body. A half-dozen screams filled her ears. She landed heavily and Lynnbrooke was on top of her for a moment before he rolled away, his clothes burning.

  She twisted around, expecting the next blast to kill her. But the machine had already turned away and was heading down another corridor. She’d dropped her rifle, but then she saw the stovepipe launcher lying on the floor. The man who had carried was lying dead beside it, his head a smoldering mess.

  She leapt to her feet, scooped up the stovepipe and pointed it at the retreating Martian. She’d insisted that the troopers show her how it worked and with an odd calmness and clarity, as though she had all the time in the world, she placed the tube on her shoulder, aimed, and pressed the firing button.

  There was a loud whoosh and the rocket sprang from the tube and hit the machine, blowing off one of its legs. The thing crashed to the floor and skidded along for a few yards. The grey shape of the Martian tumbled out and rolled up against the wall and laid there.

  There were shouts and the sound of feet pounding up the ramp, but she didn’t turn to look. Instead, she picked up her rifle and walked toward the Martian.

  * * * * *

  Cycle 597, 845.2, Holdfast 32-4

  Qetjnegartis had been surprised and horrified to encounter the prey-creatures inside the holdfast. So soon? They were inside already? It was on its way to the reactor room when it ran right into a group of them. The travel chairs had all been fitted with the same sort of heat rays as the drones carried, but it had never expected to need it. But it had and it fired at the prey and thought it had brought down them all. But then something had struck the travel chair and now it was lying on the floor, stunned.

  It heard a noise approaching from behind and pulled itself around to see one of the prey-creatures approaching with a weapon. Qetjnegartis was unarmed. There wasn’t a thing it could do to defend itself.

  The creatures halted a few quel away and aimed its weapon.

  Well, the disaster is now complete. The clan had been dealt a devastating blow. There were scarcely a hundred adults left on the planet and only the three holdfasts. It would take several years to rebuild their strength to even what it was a few days ago. Would they be given those years? It seemed doubtful. The prey-creatures grew ever stronger, ever more resourceful. And they will have this entire holdfast to study. It would not be able to melt down the reactor and the place would remain intact.

  There were still many other clans on the target world and most were in far better shape. Eventual victory might still be possible, but the Bajantus Clan would play little if any part in it. Command would fall to Tanbradjus, and it had serious doubts about its wisdom. It was wiser than me on the question of defending this place. Perhaps things would wo
rk out.

  The wait for death seemed interminably. What was this creature delaying for?

  * * * * *

  August, 1912, inside the Martian Fortress

  “Becca!”

  She heard Frank’s voice from behind her, but she didn’t take her eyes off the hideous creature lying before her. Her rifle was pointed straight at it and all she had to do was squeeze the trigger.

  “Becca, they want us to take prisoners. This one’s helpless.”

  Still she didn’t turn. The hate in her was a boiling acid, searing her soul. These awful things had come here, killed her parents, her grandmother, her friend Pepe, destroyed the farm, her whole world, killed countless others, and would kill her and Frank if they weren’t stopped. Why should she spare any of them?

  “Becca, you’ve already killed one of them face to face like this. That’s more than most people. And if you kill it, this one will just be another dead Martian. We’ve gotten plenty of those in the last few weeks. A live one might help the scientists learn better ways to kill the others. Don’t do it, Becca.”

  Her hand tightened on the stock of the rifle.

  “I want to kill it, too, Becca, believe me. After all I’ve seen, I want to kill them all. But if we can learn anything from this one, we should. And frankly, girl, after the scientists get their hands on it, this one might wish you’d killed it.”

  That got through the wall of hate in her brain. Yes, shooting it now was just a quick death. But life for this thing as a laboratory animal. Poked and prodded and given electric shocks just to see how it reacted. That would be punishment for its crimes that went on and on and on. So no, not mercy, not mercy at all.