The Battle for Eden

by Mark E Burgess

  They didn’t have long to wait. Within minutes little Jessie spoke over the com links, sounding very grown up. “Crabs approaching, on the road and also east of it. Looks like three separate groups, each with a vehicle. The aliens don’t show up real well on I.R., but their machines do. I think it’s two floaters and a ground transport. The floaters are coming overland, not on the road.”

  “How many soldiers?” Tyrus replied over his wrist link.

  “Not sure. Ten or twelve, maybe more.”

  “Simon, are you getting this?”

  “Yeah, Tyrus. It sounds like a Knacker squad, with a couple of extras, officers maybe.”

  “Well, they mean business this time. Be ready to hit them hard. Masks tight, everyone!”

  A night attack gave the aliens an advantage; they had good infrared technology, and humans emitted more heat than Crabs. It was believed that Knackers also had inherently better night vision than humans did. But once again Tyrus had anticipated just such a contingency. He spoke softy into the com link, “Jess, tell me when they get about one hundred meters from the wall.”

  “On it, uncle,” she replied. “They’re approaching steadily. Maybe two hundred meters out now. I can hear the transport on the road.” Indeed, the faint murmur of an engine now came to Tyrus’s ears across the still night air. “One hundred fifty meters; they’re getting close. The floaters are a little farther away, but they’re moving to catch up with the land vehicle. Looks like one is approaching east of the driveway, and the other is swinging to come in on the west side, with the ground car in the middle.”

  Tyrus said, “Ready on the slingshot, boys. Light some cocktails. I’ll brighten things up in a moment. When you can see ’em, fire away.”

  Jessie’s voice cut in, “One hundred meters out, and closing.”

  “Here we go,” said Tyrus, and he hit a button on his control panel. Banks of lights mounted around the outside of the fence wall flared into brilliance, bathing the landscape beyond in stark relief. What met the humans’ eyes was almost surreal.

  Several powered vehicles loomed in the near distance, surrounded by what seemed to be scores of scuttling creatures. Simon was reminded of a scene that he had witnessed years earlier, in a rundown barracks on a little backwater world. The place had been infested with vermin, and when he had flicked on the light switch, the floor had been covered with multi-legged critters scattering this way and that, trying to find cover. It had given him the creeps, and here it was all over again, only this time the creatures were larger than he was. And they carried weapons.

  In reality there were maybe fifteen Knackers, heavily armed, and three transport vehicles. When the lights hit them, the forward aliens raised weapons and multiple thunks sounded. A second later a flurry of glass spheres cascaded over the wall and into the front yard of the house. The delicate tinkling sound as they shattered on the ground belied their danger. “Neuro-gas!” Tyrus shouted into his wrist com. “Fire the slingshot! Fire all weapons!”

  On his command, multiple energy weapons lanced across the wall and played across the oncoming ranks of the aliens, along with the pop, pop of a conventional gun, likely Jessie’s sidearm. At the same time a flaming object shot out of an upper story window. It arced gracefully toward the advancing troops and fell on the ground in front of them, bursting into a small fireball. “Aim higher!” Tyrus commanded, and within seconds another bottle flew outward from the house. This one hit a floater head on, instantly covering the vehicle’s front half in liquid flames. Some of the fuel spilled over onto a soldier crawling alongside the machine. The unfortunate Crab lit up like so much flammable paper, flailing and spinning spastically as the flames engulfed it. Its comrades quickly backed away as it careened off into the night, eventually collapsing in a glowing mass in the distance. The two soldiers aboard the burning vehicle abandoned their ride, jumping off and leaving it floating in place.

  The plasma beams from the humans’ weapons, the same ones stolen from the Crab scouts, were also wreaking havoc. Several hit their targets, and the aliens began losing pieces of themselves as limbs were amputated and cauterized by the hot blades of the beams. One Knacker took a shot directly to its head, just under the eyes. It dropped instantly, twitching, and didn’t move again.

  The deadly effectiveness of the initial human attack apparently caused a change of plan on the part of the aliens. Abandoning their non-violent assault strategy, the soldiers and vehicles opened up with their own barrage of energy gun fire, and they rushed toward the wall, seeking the relative safety of its cover. Glowing plasma bolts slammed into the house, some hitting the windows wherein human defenders crouched. Chunks of wood and stone flew from the structure, and the humans had to duck as hot stabs of energy probed the slits between the protective shutters.

  As the attackers charged forward, the soldiers on foot outran the vehicles, leaving their protection behind in a scramble for the wall. Another Molotov cocktail exploded in their midst, touching two Knackers with flame. They frantically waved burning limbs but managed to keep moving forward. Suddenly a staccato roar reverberated through the night as Simon let loose with his heavy rifle. His aim was true, and a lead Crab exploded in a mass of disconnected body parts, its right half mutilated. It hit the ground still trying to run, but its left legs spun its body in a tight circle as the limbless right side dragged the ground.

  Already he was tracking another target, and a second Knacker went down under his fire before the remaining attackers on foot reached the wall and ducked out of sight. The two vehicles still under power continued their approach, firing both hand-held and mounted plasma cannons at the defenders. The house was taking a beating, with glowing holes and gouges ripped out of its solid walls. An upper story window frame was blown open, leaving a ragged crater where the shutter had been.

  Following a planned script, the family concentrated their firepower on the floater, leaving the ground transport free to approach the gate. The combined energy beams, along with Simon’s weapon, smashed into the oncoming craft. Despite the aliens’ desperate attempts to return fire, the defenders were able to sweep the floating vehicle free of its crew before it reached the wall. The two Crab soldiers dropped off the transport, one in multiple pieces, as the onslaught chopped them apart. The unpiloted craft eventually drifted to a halt, just meters outside the yard.

  The remaining vehicle continued to approach the gate, firing its plasma cannon, and the heavy metal barrier proved no match for the Knackers’ firepower. The gate blew off its hinges, and the ground transport lunged forward toward the inviting gap in the defenses. Tyrus tracked the vehicle closely from his vantage point. Just as it approached the wall, he stabbed a button and the ground gave way beneath the aliens. The transport lurched and paused for a split second, its tracks churning in place, and then it dropped out of sight, seemingly swallowed by the earth. Two seconds later Tyrus hit a second switch. A deafening explosion threw dirt and debris skyward from the pit, as the final stage of the trap was sprung. The blast shattered a few windows in the house, and knocked nearby Crabs backward, leaving them stunned and in momentary view of the humans on the second floor. The defenders opened fire, but the aliens recovered quickly and scrambled back under cover of the wall.

  From there, the Knackers began peeking up at intervals along the barrier, firing their weapons and ducking down again as the humans tried to pick them off with return fire. Neither side was able to aim effectively with such brief engagements, so no real damage was being done. It amounted to a stalemate.

  That only lasted a few minutes before the Crabs decided to take the battle to the defenders. From behind the wall came multiple soft detonations resembling the thunks of gas canister guns, but this time there was no gentle puff of released toxin on impact. Instead a series of detonations rocked the yard; the aliens were lobbing grenades! A few of the weapons impacted against the house, and Tyrus felt the foundations shake beneath him. If it weren’t for the over-engineered construction of his home, the explos
ions might have brought the entire front of the structure crumbling down. As it was, the assault breached the wall of the building in two places, leaving openings large enough for a human to scramble through, but too small to allow entry by a Crab.

  Tyrus was worried that more such hits could accomplish serious damage, but the attackers were apparently using the grenades to soften up the defenders, not as a siege weapon. After a few more detonations, the remaining Crabs swarmed up and over the wall in a coordinated push. Each warrior appeared at the top of the barrier carrying multiple energy guns, which they used to lay down suppressing fire at the defenders. Bright beams crossed paths through the air as the two forces stepped up their barrage. The crackle of plasma discharges and the stink of ozone filled the yard. Soon the loud reports of traditional firearms joined in as the brothers, having finished with lobbing cocktails, grabbed their guns and began shooting.

  Simon kept close watch on the wall while firing brief bursts from his automatic rifle. When the aliens came over the top, he was ready with his Service pistol. As the first Knackers began descending the inside of the wall, he aimed and fired a single energy bolt from the handgun. The hot touch of the plasma instantly ignited the fuel in the ditch at the wall’s base. A gout of yellow and red flame erupted skyward, and it leapt down the length of the wall, spanning fifty meters in a matter of seconds. The yard was lit in flickering amber as a sheet of fire materialized in front of the surprised attackers. Two of the aliens were engulfed immediately, and the remaining Crabs backpedaled furiously to avoid certain death.

  As the unlucky pair of Knackers added their fuel to the inferno, the survivors disappeared once again behind the stone barrier. For a moment all was still, as the humans, lacking targets, ceased fire. The only sounds were the roaring of the flames and the crackle of roasting Crab meat. Then the remaining five aliens rushed through the open gate, firing everything they had. Their multiple limbs allowed the warriors to wield several plasma guns and launch grenades simultaneously. Explosions rocked the house once more, and a piece of wall broke loose from the upper story, falling with a crash to the ground below. A few neuro-gas spheres also discharged their yellow vapors into the smoky air.

  The human defenders were forced to seek cover as lances of hot plasma sought their locations. Their defensive fire waned briefly, giving the aliens time to spread out into the yard. The Crabs’ speed and mobility made them difficult targets. This was especially true when the humans were forced to fire quickly from cover, with no time to track the enemy.

  Tyrus cursed as an energy blast came through his window and struck the opposite wall, igniting a fire in the wood there. His was the room that had lost part of the window frame and shutter, so he had less protection from enemy rounds. At that moment he heard another muffled explosion from outside, and it sounded like it had come from behind the house! He realized that one of the land mines has been triggered, and expletives flew from his mouth as he barked through his mask into the com, “Simon! We’re being hit from the rear! Get to a window now, and light the firewall!”

  “On it,” came the brief reply.

  Simon rushed out of his room carrying his rifle in his right hand and the plasma pistol in his left. He swooped through the doorway and crossed the hall, darting into a rear bedroom and across the floor as fast as he could run. He left the room lights off to avoid painting himself as an obvious target. Once at the window, he fumbled with the latch and slid the clear pane aside. Carefully he eased the shutters open. His breath was loud in the gas mask as he peeked out into the night.

  At first he could make out nothing in the pitch black. As his eyes strained to adjust, he began to see the dim pale stripe of the rock wall where it ran from left to right across the yard. A faint scrabbling sound came to his ears. There, off to the left, he thought he caught a flicker of dark motion against the lighter gray of the rock. Carefully he raised his pistol, setting his rifle aside and using both hands to steady the gun. Holding his breath, he aimed at what he hoped was the base of the wall, and squeezed off a plasma round.

  His shot was on target, and the brief flash of the energy beam flared into a gout of flame that lit up the darkness. Mimicking the front fire trench, the burning pillar expanded rapidly left and right to engulf the entire length of the wall. As the scene was lit, Simon saw with grim satisfaction the two Knackers caught in the inferno, twisting and flopping as they beat in vain at the hungry flames consuming them. Within moments their movements weakened and they collapsed, their limbs curling under them like dried insects.

  He tore his gaze from the twin pyres and glanced around the yard. Just beyond the wall hovered an unoccupied floater. Damn it, they should have suspected this. There had been four perimeter breaches on the monitor. This group must have separated early from the others, and moved around back without being detected. What if there were more than just these two soldiers? He risked sticking his head out between the shutters, and as he looked left and right, he caught the limbs of a Knacker disappearing around the east side of the building.

  “Crabs in back!” he hissed into his wrist com as he pulled back inside. “At least two dead, and another one or more coming around the east side. Watch yourselves up front!”

  He left the window and ran back the way he had come. Upon arriving at his front station, he found that indeed, two additional soldiers had joined the front five, and all seven were firing multiple weapons at the house. He saw that the aliens were occupied with fire from the other defenders, leaving his window momentarily ignored. He used that to his advantage, squeezing off a few dozen rapid-fire rounds from his rifle. The alien he targeted was driven to the ground by the impact of the heavy armor-piercing bullets, and when it went down, it stayed there. A second later Simon had to duck behind cover as multiple lances of plasma slammed into his window shutters. A blast of superheated air washed over him as he huddled on the floor to one side. That had been close!

  “Tyrus,” he called through the com.

  “I’m here,” came the answer.

  “Time for Sarah’s contribution,” Simon said.

  “Definitely. Sarah, are you ready?”

  “Any time, papa,” she chimed in.

  “Then do it,” Tyrus commanded. “Everyone, cease fire!”

  The hail of bullets and energy lances stopped raining down from the house, and the aliens, after a moment’s continued barrage, also tapered off their attack, possibly in confusion over whether the defenders had been defeated. In the midst of that brief lull came the sharp crack of a distant firearm, once, twice, three times, in rapid succession. Then a rumbling sound like low thunder grew out of the west, punctuated at intervals by what sounded like the beep of a floater horn. The Knackers turned toward the stone wall, their weapons silent as the humans in the house were momentarily forgotten. One or two of the aliens raised sensor devices, scanning back and forth as they tried to divine the origin of the sounds.

  In a few moments they had their answer, as a score of Dire Bucks burst through the front gate, heads forward and eyes wide. The blare of a horn behind them spurred them on at a breakneck pace, and once past the confines of the gate they dispersed at a full run. In the process they ran headlong into the waiting Knackers.

  The Crabs themselves were fairly large creatures, but much of their diameter was comprised of legs. The Dire Bucks out-massed them, and there were over twenty of the stampeding herbivores in the herd. The impact as the two groups collided was audible, and Knackers and Dire Bucks alike went down in a melee of flying bodies and limbs.

  Energy bolts flew out of the crowded yard as the aliens fired off shots at the oncoming beasts. Some found their mark, and Dire Bucks went down in flaming heaps. But the sheer number of them made it impossible to stop their charge, and the Crabs were literally overrun. Simon saw aliens trampled until their exoskeletons were smashed and split open. A few Crabs reverted to their instincts, grappling and biting the herbivores with their large fangs. Knacker venom was highly toxic, and no known antid
ote yet existed. The bitten animals bleated in pain and fell within mere seconds.

  One Dire Buck saw its way blocked, and stopped just short of a Knacker. As the alien tried to level its weapon for a kill shot, the herbivore reared up, jumping in the air, and kicked forward with both rear feet, landing a direct strike to the face of the Crab. The alien’s head imploded, its eyes driven back into its skull, and it dropped like someone had shot it with a plasma rifle.

  Tyrus quickly counted three aliens down, but that left three alive and scuttling toward the gate in retreat. He triggered the last buttons on his control panel, and small explosions whuffed as charges detonated at the bases of two trees. The family had planted Indigo Oaks around the front yard when they had first built the house. These were native to Eden, and resembled Old Earth oak trees in their general shape and branching. As their name suggested, the leaves shone a pleasing and unusual shade of dark blue, and the saplings grew extremely fast. The trees in the McKinleys’ front yard now approached fifteen meters in height, with considerable weight in their thick trunks and branches.

  The two trees with charges set on them grew near the rock wall, just to the east side of the gate. Tyrus had learned about explosives while in the military, and he had used shaped charges that would cut the trunks in a specific direction. The detonation blew out a deep wedge from the wood, similar to the cuts created by old time lumberjacks using primitive axes or saws. One could direct the fall of a tree via precise placement of the wedge cut.

  In this case, the trees were intended to drop across the front yard toward the west, blocking egress through the gate and crushing anything that chanced to lie beneath them. The charges worked perfectly, and bits of wood and dust flew outward from the bases of the oaks an instant before they began to topple. The trees leaned slowly at first, almost elegantly, as if they were bowing in reverence. Their rate of fall increased as they deviated further from vertical, and by the time they hit ground, the speed of impact was many meters per second. Two of the fleeing Knackers darted sideways from under the fall zone, but one was too slow. The brittle sound the creature made as the oak smashed down upon it resembled that of a nutshell cracking under a boot heel.