“Maybe the clone clean-up army is due to arrive next.”
Rob chuckled. “You want to put some money on that?”
“No way.”
After another half hour of cautious movement through the moldering forest, they had moved as far west as they could go before risking open ground. The fallen trees had also brought them to within six hundred meters of the force field protecting the alien town. They sent a trio of sneekbots on ahead, but stayed under cover of the sopping wood as the invisible sun finally fell below the horizon.
“Another difference,” Rob said.
“What?”
“There’s no color on anything they build, no finish or decoration. All the external material is raw.”
“They’re color blind as well.”
“And immune to esthetics?”
“Okay, then. You tell me.”
“I don’t know why, I’m just pointing it out. Their culture has no art.”
“Have you seen the crap flooding the unisphere these days?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget this is a military invasion base. It’s bound to be functional.”
“Could be. What do you make of the setup?”
Morton switched his attention back to the alien activities below him. The angle just allowed him a narrow view along the front of the refinery station. Machinery and tightly packed pipes produced a metal precipice fifty meters high. It was lined with wide orifices that were pumping out torrents of liquid. He counted sixteen of the big jets squirting bilious foaming water out into the lake shallows.
“I guess we know what resource they were after when they came here,” Rob said. “The lake itself.”
“What the hell is that stuff?” Morton wondered. Lights on the top of the refinery station cast a bright illumination across the shallows. The aliens had done a lot of work along the shoreline. Long concrete ramps now extended out into the water, reaching almost to the force field, a kilometer and a half away. In between them, the lake had been divided up into a number of pens by heavy netting. Morton realized there were a lot more ripples in the pens than there were out beyond the force field. Yet there couldn’t be any breeze inside the shielding. He zoomed in for a clearer look at whatever was stirring the water.
The pens were filled with some kind of living creatures. A lot of living creatures. It was their writhing forms thrashing about just below the surface that was causing all the disturbance.
“They’re bioforming the planet,” he said. “That’s what this station is, that’s why they wanted the lake. Jesus.”
“You might be right,” Rob said. “They’ve certainly got big-scale expansion plans. Access sneekbot three-oh-six.”
When 306’s sensor feed flipped up into Morton’s virtual vision he saw the little machine had crept right up to the force field. The first reading was the strength of the field. They didn’t have anything that could penetrate, it was even strong enough to withstand the tactical nukes they’d brought. He concentrated on the excavation that the aliens were making a hundred meters inside the boundary, clawing out a deep bunker that they were lining with concrete and metal. A tower of machinery was being assembled in the center. The Doc had been right: technological solutions did refine machines down to identical functions. Morton recognized some of the sections without having to reference his e-butler. The aliens were building a force field generator.
“Track right,” Rob said.
He swiveled 306’s antenna buds: six hundred meters away, another generator bunker was being dug out.
“Those generators are a lot more powerful than the ones they’re using now,” Rob said. “At this rate it’s only going to take a couple of days to finish them. After that, they’ll be truly impregnable, and we’ll be truly screwed.”
“Only the town has a force field so far,” Morton said. “We can play hell with everything else they’re doing.”
“Whose chain are you trying to jerk here? This is where it’s at, right here in town. We’ve got to hit that monster station. Don’t screw around; use the nukes.”
Morton risked raising his head slightly, looking directly at the force field and the town it enclosed. The vast chunk of alien machinery along the waterfront could have been a light-year away for all the chance he had of reaching it. “Fuck it, there’s no way in!”
“Maybe we could get in from the water side? Force fields don’t function so good in water, the denser the material the less effective they are.”
“Could do. Water’s not that dense, though. We’d have to scout around, test the field integrity on the lake bed.”
“These suits can handle a dive.”
“Yeah, but will the dump-webs work underwater?”
“I’m not sure, we could—Uh oh, what have we here?”
One of the sneekbots had registered movement several hundred meters deeper in the dead forest. It clambered up on top of a moldy log, looking along a line of stumps. A human shape crawled across the little open lane from one decaying canopy to the next.
“So Mellanie was right,” Rob said. “Not just a great ass, huh?”
“No,” Morton said absently. Two more humans were sneaking after the first. From what he could make out they were dressed in some kind of dark ski suits. They didn’t register on infrared. Somebody knew how to rig the thermal fibers, he acknowledged. “This can’t be good for us, they’re going to strike something.”
“Relax, man, our stealth is good.”
“Theirs isn’t.” His virtual hand touched the Cat’s icon. “We’ve found whatever’s left of the locals. Access our sneekbots.”
“I see them, Morty. Looks like they’ve developed a purpose in life.”
“It’s a damn stupid one,” the Doc said. “If they start shooting at the aliens they’re just going to get themselves killed.”
“They look like they know what they’re doing to me,” Rob said. “Let’s see where they’re going.” Five sneekbots set off through the forest, keeping parallel to the three humans. They soon overtook them, and began scanning ahead.
“Part of our mission is to rescue and assist any surviving humans,” the Doc said.
“I think that referred to noncombatants,” Rob told him.
“That’s what these idiots are, they just think they’re fighters.”
“They fooled me.”
“The Doc might be right,” the Cat said. “These bumpkins aren’t helping us by causing a fuss. You should stop them, Morton.”
Why me? he thought. Any other time, it might have been flattering.
“Uh oh,” Rob said. “We might be running out of time.” The sneekbots were picking up standard Prime electromagnetic emissions. Four armored aliens were patrolling the foothills along the top of the dead forest.
Morton pulled a detailed map out of his grid, and studied it. “If I was going to ambush them I’d do it there,” he said, and indicated a small, deep ravine that cut clean through the foothills to spill into the Trine’ba just east of the town. The aliens would have to cross it somewhere. “They’ll be out of sight from the town, and shielded. Perfect spot.”
“Yeah,” Rob said. “Not bad for a bunch of amateurs.”
“Get over there and talk to them,” the Doc said. “They should at least know we’re here.”
“If you ask me, these guys know what they’re doing,” Rob said. “I don’t think this is their first turkey shoot.”
“You’re making a mistake if you let them do this.”
“Doc’s right,” the Cat said. “Go break up the fight, boys.”
Morton knew she was right. Cat’s Claws couldn’t afford anyone interfering in their mission, no matter how well intended. “We’ll try.”
Rob carried on grumbling, but he followed Morton back through the thick layer of mildew-steeped needles, keeping under the lacy roof of decomposing bark. Even as they began, Morton knew they were cutting it close. The alien patrol was making good time out in the open, and
the ambush team was almost in position.
“We’ll swing around your way,” the Cat said. “Just in case you screw up. I’m bored with dropping these sensors, anyway.”
“Fuck you,” the Doc said. “We can’t see anything past Blackwater Crag yet. We need to expand the network.”
“You’re becoming a bad pain-in-the-ass barracks-room lawyer. I don’t like that. You do what you do, and let me do what I know needs to be done.”
“This is not about you, bitch.”
“Temper temper.”
“Hey, heads up, people,” Rob exclaimed. “We have something interesting here.” The sneekbots were reporting some kind of electromagnetic interference inside the ravine. It wasn’t the kind of jamming effect that would cut the aliens off abruptly from the town, but a more subtle distortion, reducing their bandwidth and disrupting the remaining content. “Somebody knows what they’re doing.”
The ambush party spread out along the edge of the ravine. They unstrapped long, bulky cylinders from their backs, and aimed them down into the black gash in the landscape. Morton’s e-butler started running comparisons with known weapons types.
“Son of a bitch,” he said when it finally gave him an approximate match.
“They’re Prime guns.”
“Wonder where they got them from?” Parker said in amusement. “They are big beauts, aren’t they?”
“It’s what you do with them that counts,” the Cat retorted.
Morton was seriously considering walking a sneekbot up to one of the ambushers, and trying to talk with them that way. He didn’t because he was worried they’d simply shoot the little bot, which would blow everyone’s cover.
The aliens began their descent into the ravine. It was a steep V-shaped cleft leading down to a torrent of white water racing along a bed of gray-white stone. Lichen-covered boulders stuck up out of the soil on either side, forcing the aliens to take a slow zigzag path as they picked their way to the bottom. One of the sneekbots perched on the edge above them relayed the image as they sank below direct line of sight with the town.
The jamming increased dramatically just before the aliens reached the stream. The aliens stopped, bringing their weapons up, and began to spread out. Two ducked down beside some boulders, their infrared signature fading away as their suit’s skin turned black. Both were very difficult to see, even for the sneekbot’s sensors.
“Stop them,” the Doc pleaded. “Morton!”
A beam weapon fired down into the ravine, catching one of the more visible aliens. Its force field sizzled a bright violet, haloing its shape against the rock and foaming water. Another beam weapon stabbed out, punching the radiant force field. Steam began to hiss upward from the surrounding grass as little flames licked around the base of the suit’s shielding. It took a couple of seconds before the force field finally collapsed from the twin energy spikes impaling it. The alien’s armor suit exploded in a dazzling plasma mushroom as its energy cells and ammunition were vaporized.
Light flooded along the ravine, bringing a clarity that even daylight never managed. The two aliens that had gone for cover amid the crumbling boulders started to fire up at the ambush party.
“Shit, they’re losing it,” Morton yelled. He stood up and started to run hard. The suit’s electromuscles carried him easily, amplifying his every leap to send him flying effortlessly over the fallen trees.
“Fuck it!” Rob cried. He jumped after Morton, his pounding suit legs splintering the rotten trees apart as if they were polystyrene.
“I can see the fire from here,” Cat called. “You must be visible to half the aliens at Blackwater Crag.”
Morton winced. Up ahead of him, the ravine was a sharp crack of flickering pyrotechnics against the black foothill. With or without jammed communications, it would act like a beacon to any flyers. His suit deployed the hyper-rifle from its right forearm sheath.
A hefty plume of soil and flame shot up from the edge of the ravine where one of the ambushers was lying. Morton saw a human shape pinwheel through the air, backlit by the raw energy raging inside the ravine.
“Four flyers heading your way,” Parker called.
Morton saw the orange symbols creep into his virtual vision.
“Can you close it down?” The Cat shouted.
“Not a chance,” Morton said. “One of them’s dead, the other two are still shooting.”
“Stop them!” Parker demanded. “How difficult can it be?”
“We’re coming,” the Doc said. “Parker, with me.”
“Oh, Christ.”
One final eight-meter hurdle jump over a horizontal tree and Morton landed on the rim of the ravine, his boots thudding into spongy soil up to the ankles. He was already pointing his hyper-rifle. A simple circular targeting graphic materialized in the center of his virtual vision. The sneekbots were triangulating coordinates for him. An alien armor suit slid smoothly into the orange circle, which immediately flashed green. Morton fired.
The hyper-rifle was designed with one purpose: to puncture the force field projected by alien armor. Even so, Morton was slightly surprised when the small atom laser’s half-second burst drilled clean through the suit, sending the alien flying backward three meters through the air to splash into the stream. Water closed over the dark shape, hissing briefly as the heat produced a small cloud of steam. How about that, the military got something right.
Rob was crouching beside him—presenting a smaller target silhouette. He fired his hyper-rifle. Morton found the last alien and shot it. The ravine was abruptly plunged into darkness again. Just a few serpent shapes of grass embers glowed where the alien patrol had made their stand. The damp night air was extinguishing them quickly.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice challenged.
“The cavalry,” Rob told him. “Your lucky day, huh.”
“Flyer overhead,” the Doc said. His voice was strangely calm. “You’re going to need covering fire, Morton.”
“No!” Cat warned. “Don’t!”
Morton’s telemetry display showed him the Doc launching an HVvixen. The slim missile accelerated at fifteen gees, its plasma exhaust piercing the air behind it like a runaway solar flare. It slammed into the flyer’s force field, flash-releasing its remaining energy. The flyer detonated into an incandescent spherical shock wave that billowed out at supersonic velocity to envelop its three partners. They exploded in furious twisting gouts of sapphire vapor.
“Gotcha, you bastards,” the Doc crooned.
“You retard motherfucker,” the Cat screamed. “You’ve just killed us all.”
“Only these bodies, Cat,” the Doc said lightly. “Your essence will have continuity.”
The dazzling lightstorm began to drain out of the night sky, dissipating into a thousand sparkling contrails that sank slowly toward the ground. Morton’s suit sensors picked out the three armored humans standing in the middle of the scintillation blizzard.
“Nice shot, man,” Parker said admiringly.
“Run,” Morton whispered. “Run now. Get out of there!”
One figure was already moving. The Cat: using her armor suit boost function to its maximum, accelerating her helter-skelter sprint to over sixty kilometers an hour. She was heading up the slope toward the roof of writhing cloud.
“Four more,” Parker said. “Make that six.”
“You mean ten,” the Doc said. “Morton, Rob, get the civilians out of here.”
“Yeah,” Parker said. “Protect and serve.”
The one surviving ambusher was walking unsteadily toward Morton.
“What was that? What is happening?”
“They’re not going to make it,” Rob said.
Five HVvixens shrieked into the night.
Morton jumped toward the survivor as vivid white light silently washed across them. “Get down. Get into the ravine.” He didn’t give the man any opportunity to argue. His suit arms closed around him, picking him up effortlessly. They both tumbled over the edge. Behind
them, the devil’s own fireworks display filled the sky with carnage.
“Bad guys falling,” Parker reported, laughing gleefully.
“They found us,” the Doc reported. “More incoming. Shit. Eighteen. Four of them are big. New flyer type for your catalogue, Morton.” His suit’s sensors were relaying a stream of information. The data faltered as several beam weapons locked on to him. “You guys had better go for deep cover. Make this relevant, Morton. I’m counting on you.” He fired another HVvixen. It never got ten meters from his suit’s force field before the deluge of energy from the alien beam weapons ruptured it.
Parker’s screaming was loud in Morton’s ears as he was hurled through the air by the explosion. Telemetry showed him the man’s suit start to falter from the punishing overload.
“Get down to the bottom of the ravine,” Rob was saying. “We’ll be safe there.”
Morton hauled the ambusher along at his side as the two of them hurried down the last few meters of the slope to the rampaging water. He switched to active sensors, confident no one would ever notice. The stream was deep, at least a couple of meters. As far as his radar could see downstream the flow was free from any obstruction.
“Over here,” Parker called. He was broadcasting on every frequency his armor suit was capable of transmitting on. “Here I am, you bastards, come and get me.” Seven of the large alien flyers were approaching him, their weapons lashing out. “Eat this shit, and die.”
Morton plunged into the stream, taking the survivor with him. He expanded his suit’s force field to envelop both of them.
Parker triggered the two tactical nukes he was carrying.
A stratum of violent white light streaked over the top of the ravine, obliterating every color as its thick nimbus irradiated the ground. The churning water of the stream began to steam. Then the air shook, agitating the boulders. Small stones began to bounce down the slopes to splash into the water.
Morton and Rob were already well on their way downstream, tumbling around and around in the swirling rapids. It was a fast and chaotic ride, with the pair of them grinding through shallows and banging into the sides only to ricochet back into the main current again. Morton kept hold of the ambush survivor, struggling to keep the man above the foaming surface the whole time they jolted about.
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 151