Free Stories 2011

by Patrick Lundrigan, Larry Correia, Travis S. Taylor, Sharon Lee

  For a long moment the two aliens simply gazed back at him. Werle keyed his opticals to infrared, hoping to get a reading on the Trofts’ faces. But the helmets’ faceplates were blocking too much heat for him to get anything.

  Their beaks were working, though. Clearly, they were having a private conversation.

  On sudden impulse, Werle put target locks on the two faceplates. With an armored vehicle at their backs he very much hoped they could keep this nonviolent. But it never paid to have enemies behind you and in front of you.

  “You may go,” the first alien said. “Do not leave your property. We will be observing all that is done in this area.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just bet you will.” Matavuli jabbed a finger at Werle. “You two—get on the rider. You can clean up back at the op center. And you’d damn well better have that stickler-weed cleared out by dinner time.”

  #

  Rut-riders were designed to carry six people. When two of the passengers were armored aliens, Werle quickly discovered, the vehicle felt considerably more crowded than usual.

  No one spoke during the ride back to the cluster of buildings at the center of Matavuli’s operation. Another Troft vehicle, smaller and less heavily armored than the one they’d seen on the road, was waiting at the main house. Still without saying a word, the two alien soldiers got inside and headed back down the long drive.

  “Come on,” Matavuli said gruffly, and led the way across to the combination stock barn, feed storage, equipment shed, and vehicle garage that served as the ranch’s operations center.

  Waiting silently inside the cleaning room were Matavuli’s wife Carol and two men Werle recognized as the ranch’s senior hands. He’d seen both seniors on various occasions, but couldn’t recall either of their names. “Okay, let’s have it,” Matavuli said, stalking over to his wife and planting himself beside her. “What the hell is going on?”

  “All we know is that Aventine’s been invaded by Trofts,” de Portola said.

  “Yeah, we got that part,” Matavuli said sourly. “Which Trofts? What demesne?”

  “And why?” Carol added.

  “We don’t know,” de Portola said. “That was all we got before Ishikuma was cut off.”

  “Do you still have working communications?” Werle added. “We need to find out what’s going on in town.”

  Carol shook her head. “The comms are still working—at least there’s a carrier signal—but we can’t get anyone in town to answer.”

  “But it’s pretty obvious the invaders think there are still Cobras running loose,” Matavuli added. “So how are you going to get rid of them?”

  Werle felt his eyebrows creep up his forehead. “Us?”

  “You’re our soldiers, aren’t you?” Matavuli countered. “Or at least, the closest thing we’ve got. Aren’t you supposed to be trained for this stuff?”

  “We are,” de Portola said calmly. “But before we can make any move we need more intel. How many Trofts are in Archway, what kind of weapons they have, how they’re positioned. That sort of thing.”

  “And if we’re all supposed to stay on our own land—well, your land, anyway—I don’t know how we’re going to get to town without being grabbed,” Werle said.

  “Well, we can probably help you with that.” Matavuli gestured to the two men. “Hayes and Grundy. They’ll get you whatever they can about the situation in Archway, hopefully by tonight.”

  Werle looked at the two men, keying on his infrareds as he did so. “It could be dangerous,” he warned. “You two really willing to stick your necks out for us?”

  “For you personally, no,” Hayes said bluntly. “But like you said, this is Mr. Matavuli’s land, which means it’s our land, too. Our land, our town, our province.”

  “And our people,” Grundy added. “And if a bunch of chicken-beaked aliens think they can walk in and take it over, they’re badly mistaken.”

  “Satisfied?” Matavuli asked.

  The infrared signatures had shown no indication of duplicity. Hayes and Grundy were honestly willing to help.

  Whether they actually could do anything useful, of course, was an entirely different question. “Satisfied,” he confirmed.

  “Good.” Matavuli gestured at the ranch hands. “You two get going. And you two,” he added, pointing at the two Cobras, “are going to get into proper farm clothing and go clear out some stickler-weed.”

  “Just in case the Trofts follow up on this?” de Portola asked.

  “Of course,” Matavuli said. “Why else?”

  #

  Werle never did find out how Hayes and Grundy pulled off their communications magic trick. Apparently, there were still a few information conduits the Trofts hadn’t yet closed down.

  However they worked it, by evening they had everything the two Cobras needed.

  “They’ve fenced off six-block sections of Main and Chicalla Streets and Third Avenue,” Hayes reported as the six of them sat around the table in the Matavulis’ oversized dining room. “They’re using some kind of mesh, with a tighter weave than the chain-link jobs we use around our fields. They’re the same five meters tall as ours, though, so I guess they know something about spine leopards. The fences are anchored to the building fronts along the streets, so those buildings are kind of a part of that same zone. Outside of those areas—”

  “Get this,” Grundy cut in. “Outside those three streets they’ve dumped four transports worth of spine leopards into the city.”

  “You’re kidding,” Matavuli said, frowning. “The province is up to its chin in the things, and they’re importing them?”

  “The province is, but Archway isn’t,” Werle said grimly as he caught on. “Is the city’s perimeter fence still in place?”

  “Mostly,” Hayes said. “There were a few places where pieces got knocked down, mostly where some nupe-head in a car tried to outrun the invasion. The Trofts have patched the holes with more of their own mesh, though, so it’s all buttoned up again.”

  “Which means everything outside those three streets is now a kill zone,” Matavuli growled. “Yeah, I see now. Damn them.”

  “Let me guess,” de Portola said. “For a pledge of cooperation or undying loyalty they’ll let you come into the safe zone. Otherwise, you sit in your house until you run out of supplies and starve to death.”

  “Or else come out and get eaten,” Hayes said. “Exactly.” His lip twisted. “Except that instead of a loyalty pledge, they want people to give up the Cobras.”

  Werle stared at him, his blood suddenly running cold. “And?”

  “Oh, they’re not doing it,” Grundy said hastily. “Least, that’s what our guy said. I mean, you’re our friends. Right?”

  “At least until the food starts running out,” Matavuli said. “What are the Cobras doing in the middle of all this?”

  Hayes and Grundy exchanged apprehensive looks. “They’re not really…” Grundy began, then stopped.

  “They’re doing nothing,” Hayes said. “They can’t. According to our guy, word came in from Capitalia about an hour after the Trofts landed that everyone’s supposed to stay calm and not put up any resistance.”

  “Even the Cobras?” de Portola asked.

  Hayes made a face. “Especially the Cobras.”

  Werle looked across the table at de Portola. “I didn’t get any orders like that,” he said.

  “Neither did I,” de Portola agreed. “Too bad I tossed both our comms out the window.”

  “Wait a second,” Hayes said cautiously. “You’re not thinking…?”

  “Of course we’re thinking,” de Portola said. “This is what our weapons and nanocomputer programming were designed for, remember?”

  “But you’re just two men,” Grundy objected. “I mean, really—it’s just two of you. Our guy didn’t think any other Cobras got out before the Trofts landed.”

  “Fine, so there’s just two of us,” Werle said. “How many are we supposed to have before we get off our butts and d
o something?”

  Matavuli stirred. “You’re wrong anyway, Grundy” he said. “It’s not just two of them.” He looked over at his wife. “Like Hayes said this morning, this land belongs to all of us.”

  Werle focused on Carol, wondering if she was going to object. But she simply nodded. “Agreed,” she said, her voice as deadly calm as her husband’s. “What’s our first move?”

  “First thing is to come up with a plan,” Werle said, trying to think.

  De Portola stirred. “I may have something,” he said slowly. “But we’ll need to get closer to Archway. Do you think the other farmers and ranchers will be willing to risk helping us get across their land?”

  “I don’t have to think,” Matavuli said. “While you two were pulling weeds I was talking to the other ranchers. I can get you to Archway or anywhere else you need to go. So what’s this plan?”

  De Portola visibly braced himself. “Okay,” he said. “Here it is…”

  #

  They set out the next morning before dawn in one of the ranch’s rut-riders: Werle, de Portola, and Matavuli, who had insisted on personally taking them on the first leg of their trip.

  That first leg ended sooner than Werle had expected. And in a very different place.

  “You’re joking,” de Portola said, eyeing the narrow culvert stretching out past the border fence and disappearing beneath a low hill.

  “Hey, be thankful we’re not using it for irrigation right now,” Matavuli growled. “If we were, you’d be swimming upstream against water that would probably still have chunks of mountain ice floating in it. You sure you’ve got the route?”

  “Culvert to the Ortez ranch; overland to the south border, then over the fences to the Busenitz spread,” de Portola said. “Two more after that, and we’ll be at the northern drainage field—”

  “Which should be pretty dry right now,” Werle added.

  “—and within spitting distance of the city,” de Portola concluded.

  “And remember to change clothes whenever necessary,” Matavuli said. “And make sure you check for drones before you jump the fences. You blow another one out of the sky like you did yesterday, and they won’t just send a couple of cars around to take a look.”

  “We’ll be careful,” de Portola promised.

  “Starting right now,” Werle said, keying on his telescopics and giving the sky a quick but thorough look. Drones might be a handy tool for an occupation force, but between their infrared signatures and the glow of their grav lifts they were pretty easy to spot. “Looks clear.”

  “Agreed,” de Portola confirmed.

  “Right,” Werle said. “Thanks, Matavuli. You should hear from us by late tonight.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Matavuli said gruffly. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Werle looked at de Portola and gestured toward the culvert. “Your plan. You get to go first.”

  The culvert wasn’t nearly as narrow or claustrophobic as it had looked, even for men wearing four layers of heavy clothing. They emerged beside a small dam blocking the edge of Minuet Creek as it flowed down from the mountains another twenty kilometers to the north. A brisk half-kilometer walk took them to a cluster of oaklings and the rut-rider Ortez had left for them. They rode the vehicle the rest of the way to the eastern edge of the ranch, then turned south as if they were out on an ordinary perimeter fence inspection.

  Once, de Portola spotted a drone drifting past high overhead, and they stopped and made a big show of pulling some weeds that were crowding against a section of fence. Then, resuming their ride, they continued on their inspection tour. When the drone was again out of sight they turned away from the fence and headed to an equipment shed near the ranch’s southern border. Parking the vehicle inside, they again checked for drones, then leaped over the fence, crossed the road, and leaped over the next fence onto Busenitz land.

  Jeri, Kalen Busenitz’s granddaughter, was waiting in another rut-rider, and as soon as Werle and de Portola had stripped off another layer of clothing the three of them set off. The next ranch in line was the Eisenhart’s, with Hank pulling up to them on a vehicle that looked nearly as old and beat-up as he did. As was the case with Hank himself, the rut-rider’s looks were deceiving, and they were deposited quickly and efficiently at the edge of the Starks’ land, where yet another vehicle had been left for them. Once again, they ended up pausing for some weeding and fence repair under the gaze of a high-flying drone, continuing only after it and a follow-up drone were once again out of view.

  By the time the sun was fully above the horizon, they were down to their final layer of clothing and had made it to the edge of the Swenson property, only two hundred meters of drainage field away from the northern edge of Archway.

  “There,” de Portola murmured, nodding toward the five-meter-tall protective fence encircling the city as he handed a section of crossbar down to Werle. “That off-color piece just this side of the river inlet grating. That must be one of the replacement patches Hayes told us about.”

  “I see it,” Werle confirmed as he set the crossbar down beside the others. He notched up his telescopics, wondering briefly how much of this part of the plan Matavuli had passed on to Thom Swenson. Still, Swenson had left the fencing material on the rut-rider as the Cobras had asked. Even if Matavuli hadn’t given him all the details, Swenson was smart enough to have figured most of it out on his own. “Any sign of patrols? Never mind,” he interrupted himself, spotting another of the armored trucks they’d seen the previous day as it lumbered into view around a bend in the city fence. “Here’s one now.”

  “I wonder if he’s going to stick to the roads,” de Portola said as the truck continued in their general direction.

  “Certainly has to stay there long enough to cross the bridge,” Werle pointed out. “Makes for a nice pinch point.”

  “If we can trust them to always come from that direction,” de Portola warned. “If they’re also doing clockwise circles we could have a problem.”

  “True,” Werle conceded. “Still, we have all day to watch how they do things.”

  “Right.” De Portola straightened up, arching his back as if stretching tired muscles. “Don’t see any drones up there.”

  “Which makes sense,” Werle pointed out. “Why waste drones on a city where you already have two warships and lots of soldiers on the ground? Especially when there are another hundred thousand square kilometers to keep an eye on.”

  “Even more if they’re in charge of all of Willaway, too,” de Portola agreed. “Somehow, I can’t see an invasion force tasking even one of those ships to sit on a town as small as Mayring. I wish we knew how many drones total they have.”

  “And if they’ve kept any spares,” Werle said. “Maybe we’ll find out tonight.”

  “Maybe.” De Portola gave one final stretch and then lifted another roll of fencing, pretending to struggle with the weight as if he was a normal man who didn’t have the added strength of Cobra servos. “One more?”

  “One more,” Werle agreed, taking the roll and doing a little staggering of his own. “Let me put it down, and then we’ll set up the postholer.”

  They worked straight on until midday, when Swenson came by to bring them lunch and look over their progress.

  “Nice,” he said, as he examined the six meters of extra fencing they’d put together in a flexible framework and left propped up against the main fence. “If this warfare thing doesn’t work out, I can probably find you a job. That’s not going to be too heavy, is it?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Werle assured him. “The fencing is reasonably light, and using crossbeams instead of fenceposts for the uprights let us cut down even more on the weight.”

  “The big question was whether the Troft patrols would wonder what we were doing and come over for a closer look,” de Portola said as he lifted up the corner of his sandwich and peered at the contents. “But I don’t think they even noticed.”

  “They’re probably more interested
in people trying to break out of Archway than people trying to break in,” Swenson said, stepping over to the two-meter-wide section of the main fence the two Cobras had also modified. “So these extra uprights are supposed to hold this section together so that you can take it out without unraveling the rest of the fence?”

  “Exactly,” Werle said. “And these post holes here—”

  “Yes, I see how that’ll work,” Swenson said. “Looks good. The bigger question is whether the spine leopards will play ball.”

  “The theory’s perfectly sound,” Werle said, biting into his sandwich without bothering to inspect it first. It turned out to be roast lamb, a Swenson specialty. “We know that spine leopards can sense when there’s open territory nearby, and that governs their movement and breeding patterns. The only reason they aren’t standing three deep against your fences is that they’ve also learned that doing that won’t get them into the territory and will also probably get them shot.”

  “But this particular collection aren’t locals,” de Portola pointed out. “More importantly, the Trofts have landed at least three more transports today, and if they were all full it’ll be getting pretty crowded in there. If and when they spot unoccupied territory and are able to get to it, we should get a full-bore gold rush.”

  “Which unfortunately could be a serious problem for you,” Werle warned. “It may be awhile before we can get back in there and clean them out again.”

  Swenson grunted. “Don’t worry about us. We built the house to stand up against the worst of the winter storms. A few spine leopards aren’t going to bother it any. We also spent most of the morning stringing chain-link along the walkway between the house and the op center, so that’s covered, too.”

  “What about food?” Werle asked.

  “We’ve got six weeks’ worth of supplies,” Swenson said. “After that, I guess we’ll find out how roast spine leopard tastes.” He twitched a smile. “At the very least this should clear out the rabbit and mole problems we’ve been having in the vegetable fields. When are you planning to make your move? Midnight?”