As McKee took her place with the other survivors, she knew, or thought she knew, where the technology had come from. Because there, with a rifle slung over one shoulder, was Howard Trask. The same rebel she had been introduced to deep inside the Big Green. “Corporal McKee!” he exclaimed. “We looked everywhere. I’m glad you survived.”
Then his expression darkened. “But what are you doing here? With the battalion?”
McKee was still in the process of deciding what to say when Avery jumped in. “She was a prisoner, on her way to a court-martial in Riversplit,” he said.
Trask raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”
“Captain Avery. McKee got lost, stumbled across the road, and was captured. Our CO, Lieutenant Colonel Spurlock, placed her under arrest. And had her flogged.”
“I see,” Trask said sympathetically. “I would release you if I could . . . But the Droi are in charge here. And whatever happens next will be up to them.”
“That true,” one of the natives said as it took a step forward. “McKee . . . I see you.”
McKee recognized Insa right away and felt the beginnings of hope. At least she knew the Droi, no matter how superficially. “And I see you, Insa.”
“You deliver Hudathan?”
“Yes, just as I said I would.”
“Too late. They here.”
“I’m sorry. The Legion will fight them.”
“The Legion is fighting them,” Trask put in. “And getting its ass kicked. Poe’s fleet was forced to withdraw. So the shovel heads are on the ground, and Rylund’s forces are trapped in Riversplit.”
“What about the rebels?” Avery wanted to know.
“We’re sitting this one out,” Trask replied. “What’s the old saying? My enemy’s enemy is my friend? Well, for the moment, the Hudathans are our friends.”
“The Hudathans don’t have any friends,” Avery said grimly. “They see each and every sentient race as a potential threat that must be eliminated.”
Trask shrugged. “I don’t make policy. My role is to help the Droi resist the loyalists and Ophelia’s thugs. And that means you.”
McKee frowned. “Where did you get the EMP bomb?”
Trask grinned. “We built it. The goal was to use it during the battle for Riversplit, but the tech heads had a hard time identifying the right frequency. But finally, after trying all of the possible frequencies on a captured T-1, they found it. So when I requested a bomb, it was ready to go.”
There was a hollow place where McKee’s stomach should have been. The cyborgs were still alive, trapped in their war forms, and would remain so until their power ran out. That’s when their life-support systems would shut down, and they would die. Her mind was racing, trying to find a way to save the ’borgs and what remained of Echo Company. McKee had an idea—but would Avery support it? She was about to find out. Her eyes locked with Insa’s. “You heard Trask . . . The rebels plan to sit this one out. Is that your view? What if the Hudathans win? They hate all sentients. That includes the Droi. So your best bet is to fight them now. Before it’s too late. We’ll help you.”
Trask laughed harshly. “Help them . . . With what? I see about twenty people here. Let’s say there are ten on the other side of the river. What difference will thirty soldiers make?”
“Look again,” McKee said steadfastly. “And you’ll see that we have seventeen T-1s.”
“Yes, but they’re useless.”
“No,” McKee said, “they aren’t. I can repair them.”
Avery directed a questioning look at her. “You can?”
The truth was that she was far from certain. But if she were to admit that, the moment would be lost. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I can.”
It was a seemingly outrageous claim but Avery knew that the T-1s had been manufactured by the Carletto family and that she had a degree in cybernetics. He nodded. “If Corporal McKee says she can repair the T-1s, then I believe her. And I agree with the proposal. With support from our T-1s, the Droi could have a significant impact on the war against the Hudathans.”
Trask shook his head but chose to remain silent. Insa hesitated but only for a moment. “McKee right. We fight.”
ABOARD THE BATTLE CRUISER GLORY OF HUDATHA,
OFF PLANET ORLO II
War Commander Tebu Ona-Ka stood in front of a huge portal and looked down on Orlo II. His job was to wipe the planet clean of sentient life so that his race could colonize it. Because their world was gradually dying—and the race would need new planets.
He was six and a half feet tall and weighed a little over three hundred pounds. That wasn’t much by Hudathan standards—and explained the nickname that had been bestowed upon him at the age of ten: the Runt. A sobriquet that followed him into the military and was still used behind his back. But never to his face because Ona-Ka had fought seventeen duels, all with the same outcome. He was alive, and his enemies weren’t.
Ona-Ka heard a polite cough and turned. Good manners dictated that one pause before entering a space occupied by another and give warning. To do otherwise was not only considered rude, but dangerous, since all Hudathans were armed. Ona-Ka saw that the first person to arrive was Vice Admiral Nola-Ba and waved him in. “Greetings, Admiral. Please have a seat.”
The command center was oval in shape, with twelve niches set into the bulkheads, one for each member of Ona-Ka’s staff. And as Nola-Ba sat down, other officers filed in and took their seats. Once they were settled, Ona-Ka spoke. “You are to be congratulated. The first phase of the battle has gone well. But there’s more work to do. Admiral Nola-Ba . . . Your report please.”
Nola-Ba had a broad, craggy face. The vestige of a dorsal fin ran front to back along the top of his skull, one of his funnel-shaped ears had been sliced off in combat, and his temperature-sensitive skin was gray. A blue jewel glowed at the point where two leather belts crossed his chest. His voice sounded like a rockcrusher in low gear. “As you know, the human fleet was forced to withdraw and leave a substantial number of troops on the ground. There’s no way to be certain of what the enemy will do next, but it is logical to assume that they will either return in force or pull back and reinforce worlds closer to Earth.”
Nola-Ba paused at that point and his space black eyes probed the faces around him. “If they return,” he continued, “there’s reason for concern. Especially if they are able to muster a force superior to our own. And there’s a secondary threat as well. In order to stay and fight, we will have to maintain a long supply chain that’s twice the length of theirs.
“But,” Nola-Ba added, “in spite of those challenges, there are ample reasons for us to stay and complete the task before us. I believe that Lance Commander Horba-Sa is ready with the most recent intelligence summary.”
Ona-Ka, who was still standing with his back to the portal, made eye contact with the officer in question. “Please proceed.”
Horba-Sa had a reputation as a plotter and a schemer. Talents that made him ideal for the position he held. His eyes glittered. Opportunities to show War Commander Ona-Ka how smart he was didn’t come along every day, and he planned to take full advantage of it. “As Admiral Nola-Ba suggested, we have some significant advantages, beginning with the nature of our adversaries. There are two races to contend with—the humans and the Droi.
“The humans who were brought in from off-world are equipped with weapons equivalent to ours but are relatively few in number and hold a single city. And since their fleet withdrew, they are vulnerable from the air.”
“What about the local humans?” Ona-Ka inquired.
“There are a couple million of them spread out across the surface of the planet,” Horba-Sa replied. “But they are in the midst of a civil war and therefore divided.”
Ona-Ka nodded. “Go on.”
“The Droi are more numerous,” Horba-Sa co
ntinued, “but relatively primitive and lack a centralized command structure. Because of that, I believe we can ignore them for the moment and concentrate on eliminating the off-worlders first.”
Commander Urlo-Ba was a tough, no-nonsense ground pounder with a reputation for getting things done. And having been a soldier for more than twenty years, he was no fool. He had been wounded in the throat years before, and his voice was permanently hoarse. “You say we should focus on the off-worlders. What do we know about them?”
Horba-Sa had a ready answer. “The Legion, as they call themselves, is comprised of murderers, thieves, and misfits. All sent here because they are considered to be expendable. We will crush them.”
Ona-Ka cleared his throat. “Lance Commander Horba-Sa is factually correct. But there’s someone I want you to meet. Once you have, I’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions.”
Horba-Sa didn’t like the possibility that he was going to lose face in front of so many senior officers. But there was nothing he could do about it as the door to the command center whispered open and a human appeared. He was unshaven, dressed in a tattered uniform, and had clearly been beaten. A guard gave him a shove. He stumbled, caught himself, and looked around. “What a fucking freak show . . . You should charge admission.”
The words were translated by a computer and played over the PA system. More than one officer rose in response to the insult, but Ona-Ka raised a hand. “Who are you?”
The legionnaire looked the Hudathan in the eye. “I’m Staff Sergeant Harvey Hill. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m in command here,” Ona-Ka replied mildly. “Tell me something, Staff Sergeant Hill . . . What will your comrades do when we attack Riversplit?”
Hill grinned. His skin was dark, and his teeth were extremely white. “They’ll rip your fucking heads off and piss down your throats.”
“Because they are loyal to Empress Ophelia?”
“Shit no. We like to shoot freaks. Especially big ones. They’re hard to miss.”
Ona-Ka nodded and looked at a guard. “Eject him from a lock.”
Having heard the translation, Hill took three running steps and dived through the air, his hands reaching for Ona-Ka’s throat. The Hudathan stepped to one side as two stunner bolts hit the human. There was a thump as his body landed on the floor. Guards came forward to drag it away.
Once they were gone, Ona-Ka’s eyes swept the room and came to rest on Horba-Sa. “Remember Sergeant Hill over the next few days. There are more where he came from. Dismissed.”
CHAPTER: 15
* * *
There’s nothing like a common enemy to create new alliances.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
A Dweller folk saying
Standard year circa 2300
PLANET ORLO II
A lot of things had changed. The prisoners had been freed, and since Spurlock was MIA, Avery had assumed command. And, because of the many casualties the Grays had suffered, there was no one with sufficient authority to object.
The bridge was beyond repair, so Avery ordered what remained of the battalion to rig ropes enabling the bio bods stranded on the south side of the river to join those on the north bank. After consolidating his troops, it was time for Avery to salvage what he could. One of the 8 X 8s had been just short of the bridge deck when the span blew. So it was necessary to winch the truck across the river. A tedious process made even more so when legionnaires were forced to lever a couple of small boulders out of the way.
Meanwhile, the rest of the legionnaires were in the river, trying to salvage what they could from the wrecked vehicles. It was a very difficult task that involved wading waist- or even chest-deep through cold water, risking injury from jagged pieces of metal, and staggering ashore with heavy boxes. It was backbreaking work that left the participants exhausted. But thanks to their efforts, cases of food, ammo, and medical supplies were piling up on the shore. All of which were doubly precious given the fact that the unit was on its own.
Meanwhile, McKee and a tech named Forelli were on the south side of the river fighting a tense battle to save seventeen lives. Because if they couldn’t get the T-1s up and running within the next nine hours and eleven minutes, the cyborgs would run out of emergency power, their life-support systems would shut down, and they would die. McKee tried not to think about that as she worked to find a solution.
They had chosen to work on Hower first. The T-1 stood frozen in place as McKee tried to reboot his distributed processing swarm (DPS). One of his inspection ports was open and she and Forelli were peering at a status display. It was unbearably hot, and McKee’s clothes were soaked with sweat as she stared at the tiny screen. The onboard computing system was self-healing, or it was supposed to be, but the pulse from the EMP bomb had fried something. But what? The readout listed all of the T-1’s critical components as REQUIRING MAINTENANCE. But McKee didn’t believe that because she had spent the last hour isolating the subprocessors and testing them. And all of the subs were in the green.
So what remained? “I think we’re dealing with a software glitch,” McKee said. “If we can find and isolate it, the DPS will heal itself.”
“Terrific,” Tech Sergeant Forelli replied doubtfully. “But how are we going to do that?” Forelli had a plain face, a sturdy build, and a reputation as an above-average poker player. She was a good if unimaginative tech.
McKee wiped the sheen of sweat off her brow with the back of a forearm. “I think the problem is hiding between two computing swarms. So I’m going to write new code for the interface. We’ll splice it in, and, voila, problem solved.”
Forelli stared at her. “Really? You can do that?”
McKee thought she might be able to do that. But Hower was listening, so it was important to be positive. “Sure . . . But I’ll need to borrow your cybergloves.”
Forelli removed a pair of field-programmable nanomesh gloves from her tool bag and handed them over. They were composed of nanomesh computing cores that could interpret microgestures as information and transmit it to any DPS. “You sure know a lot about T-1s for someone who never went to tech school.”
“I used to work at a Carletto Industries factory,” McKee said truthfully. “Okay . . . Let’s see how much I remember.”
The problem was that she hadn’t hacked any code since graduating from college. So it took some doing to bring the necessary knowledge up, funnel it through her fingers, and send it streaming into Hower’s DPS. The effort consumed more than ten minutes, and once she was done, McKee felt anything but confident as she gestured the last shapes into the hacked interface. Her eyes were fixed on the images rippling across the fabric in front of her. But rather than the result she hoped for, the words SYSTEM MALFUNCTION blinked on and off.
McKee swore softly and bit her lower lip. A glance at her chrono confirmed what she already knew. Time was melting away. “What now?” Forelli inquired.
“We try again,” McKee replied, as she took a swig from her canteen. “I made a mistake, but I’ll put it right. Then, once we have Hower up and running, we can transfer the same code onto the others.” It sounded good, but bullshit isn’t code. Still, all she could do was try, and keep trying, until she succeeded or Hower and the rest of them died.
So McKee tried again—and again. With each attempt, she inserted small changes that she hoped would do the job. But none of them worked.
Finally, with the sun going down and only two hours left to work with, McKee decided to take a shot at hacking the underlying protocol. Forelli held a flashlight as McKee went back to work. She was tired. Very tired. So much so that her mind seemed to be floating somewhere outside her body. But then, as she pushed ahead, the moment arrived when the code began to write itself. It was like music flowing from the fingertips of a pianist into her instrument.
But just because it felt good didn’t mean that it was. So whe
n McKee stopped twenty minutes later, she didn’t know what she had. Please, she thought to herself as she paused before the final finger flex. Please make it work.
Her finger moved, boot-up symbols rippled across the video fabric in front of her, and Forelli uttered a whoop of joy. “You did it!”
Something was taking place. That much was certain. But what? McKee held her breath as the loading sequence ended. There was a pause that seemed to last forever. Then Hower stirred, and as he did, the readouts for his various systems began to morph from red to yellow. “The power’s back on,” Hower rumbled. “And I can move again!” Servos whined as he lifted an arm by way of proof. “Thanks, McKee. I owe you.”
“Quick,” McKee said as she palmed the program to a couple of data cubes. She put one of them in a pocket and gave the other to Forelli. “Load this into all of the T-1s on the south side of the river. I’ll cross over and take care of the rest.”
McKee returned Forelli’s gloves, ran down to the river, and plunged in. The cold water was a shock, and rocks shifted under her boots. They gave unexpectedly, and would have dumped her into the current if it hadn’t been for the hand rope. It held her up as she floundered forward. “It was a software problem!” she shouted. “We hacked it.”
A beam of white light found McKee as Avery waded out to give her a hand. He helped her up onto the beach, and, together, they ran for the nearest T-1. “Hower is up and running,” she told Avery, “and Forelli is loading the new code into the T-1s on the south side. But there isn’t much time.”
Having arrived in front of a cyborg, she opened an access panel, fumbled the memory cube into place, and touched a button. Avery looked on as code scrolled, the war form came back to life, and McKee hit the eject button. After recovering the cube, it was on to the next T-1, and so forth, until all the cyborgs were fully restored.
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