by Roland Green
"I thought we were supposed to move out the moment the alarm sounded," Fedor Ohlt said.
Keegis looked hard at the human. "Magic doesn't make you a captain, Ohlt." Then his face warmed a trifle, and he said, "The rest of your battles nearly do, though."
An explosion that sounded like several grenades or a rocket rumbled in the distance, but closer than before. "Avenger is our heaviest firepower. We need to throw it in only when we know where it will do the most good. Start running around now, and you're as likely to be surprised, as to surprise the enemy.
"We lose surprise, we lose everything. The children go unavenged. We're fighting against odds of four to one. You're worth having in that kind of a fight, you and your folk. Just don't make simple mistakes and miss the victory party."
Ohlt did his best imitation of the Rael salute. With a shorter, thicker arm, he wasn't as graceful, but he hoped that respect (lowed from every movement.
Keegis saw that too. He returned the salute, then leaped back (in the cycle and rolled off.
Chakfor started the engine. Jazra climbed onto the rear deck of the tank, and gripped the remote-controlled anti-air blaster.
"This is Slussa, at position twenty-seven. We have a positive identification of four deathstrikes. Bearing one-four-zero from me, distance one-two-zero—"
The Rael scout's last words were lost in the howl of a rocket approaching her position. Then a roar that seemed to drive into Ohlt's ears like red-hot needles, and the silence of static.
"Systems check," Bruegind said. It was amazing how quiet she had become now that the battle was seriously underway. Or maybe it was not amazing, when Ohlt remembered that Jazra and Zolaris were the same way. Their calm seemed to spread, like a gas that soothed rather than killed.
Another little lesson in how to be a captain.
"Weapons," Gregis said.
"Loader." That was Chakfor. The weapons loaded automatically, but some of the loaders looked battered and improvised. Strong in proportion to his height, the dwarf could heave drums and magazines around with the best of them.
"Spotter." That was M'lenda, who also carried a Rael medikit. Until someone was hurt, she was mostly an extra pair of eyes.
"Observation and security." That was Elda Ha-Gelher. She and Brinus were sitting in the rear on a narrow bench. Cramped between them was Hellandros.
He could not cast spells from within the tank. When it was time for magic to go to war, the wizard and the Ha-Gelhers would slip out through the belly hatch and join the Rael infantry escort. Their job, besides protecting Hellandros while he worked magic, was to keep the Doomed from making suicidal attacks on the tank. The tank, in turn, dealt with any infantry-killing weapons.
It made sense, if you weren't in the middle of it.
"Hellandros?" Ohlt asked. His voice would not quaver.
"Oh, pardon," the wizard grunted. "Special weapons."
Everyone laughed, but it made sense. The Director probably had never heard of magic, except as part of the history of races the Overseer had exterminated. It couldn't do anything about
Hellandros's spells, short of killing him, even if it knew.
Magic here would be an anomaly. The Director investigated anomalies, usually in force. The fewer such investigations of Hellandros, the better. A sound like batter sizzling in a pan blasted Ohlt's ears. He remembered to turn on his radio's scrambler, but only caught the end of the message. He recognized Keegis's voice, though.
He also recognized the grin on Bruegind's face as she turned, and said, "Time to roll, people."
The Primary Director's tactical assessment of the situation was that Group Two had penetrated the enemy's outer defensive perimeter. Properly detected, their strength would be known, and would draw the enemy's most effective counterattack.
This would leave the other two groups with much less opposition. They could afford to slow their rate of advance, and avoid unnecessary equipment loss from the rest of the enemy's perimeter. This would also leave them free to reinforce Group Two if it needed such assistance.
The probability of that was evaluated as less than six percent. The maximum heavy weapons strength of the enemy had to be equivalent to less than one deathstrike. Some potential for one, possibly two damaging attacks, but no more.
The Primary Director could feel the equivalent of amusement. It decided to amuse itself by calculating how much damage those one or two attacks could do, throwing in different sets of variables.
An organic general would have been going fishing, confident that with all orders given personally or authorized to be given by subordinates, the battle plan would be executed without requiring much further attention.
Jazra jacked her helmet's display into the tank's computer. She could see on her goggles a reduced version of what Bruegind and Gregis were seeing. What she saw was too strong an enemy for one tank to face without magical assistance, and also too strong for Hellandros to go out and cast spells safely.
But the Ha-Gelhers were already sliding the belly hatch open. Bruegind slowed the tank to a crawl.
"Remember: go flat, and don't move until the infantry picks you up," Gregis called down. He spoke without taking his eyes from the targeting computer's sight. Hulmot had equipped the tank so that the gunner could, by flexing a single lever through a quadrant, fire any or all of the weapons with one hand.
Elda was first out, of course. Hellandros was second, his face pale—or was that only the weird twilight inside the tank? Then Brinus was gone.
Only moments later, magic missile strikes bloomed on the flanks of two buildings just beyond the enemy column. Jazra slapped her seat arms in admiration.
Magic missiles were about as powerful as blaster strikes, with limited effects on anything except the Doomed and spider drones, but they were attention-getters. Sensors all over the enemy force—an assault group, if it had four deathstrikes— would be noting the effects, and some would overload. Few or no sensors would detect three humans scuttling for cover, or the Rael infantry opening ranks to receive them.
Just for good measure, two more missile sprays burst at ground level, between the deathstrike and the enemy column. That would draw hostile attention this way, but not allow sensors—especially infrared—to target anything.
Hellandros had his usual array of pouches for the material components of spells, making him so bulky that he had barely squeezed through the hatch. Jazra was not even going to guess what surprises he had ready for the battle.
In moments, the leading deathstrike had detected Avenger. In moments more its turret spun, and its magnum cranked up to fire a ranging burst. The rounds gouged a deep trench in a
nearby wall, and sprayed Avenger with fragments.
Gregis's hand was already tightening on the firing handle to reply, when Hellandros struck.
Going by the descriptions she'd heard, jazra thought Hellandros was using cold again, but this time it seemed to be in the form of a laserlike ray—pale blue—cutting through the smoke and fumes, but generating cold rather than heat.
One ray struck the weapons tube of the leading enemy deathstrike. It struck just as the tank tried to fire a second burst. The rotary barrels, suddenly cooled, fractured. The weapons tube burst apart like a rotten apple thrown against a wall. The blast carried back into the turret, apparently igniting ready-use blaster charges. Gouts of flame spewed from the stub of the tube, from blown-off hatches, from around the turret ring. The whole turret lifted visibly.
The deathstrike was one of the latest models, with massive internal compartmentation and damage control. The loss of its weaponry and turret did not destroy it, but it was out of the fight.
So was the second deathstrike. Its sensors had apparently recorded an attack from the air. The anti-air blaster let fly at the roof of the nearest three buildings. But Hellandros's cold ray bad already chilled down the ceramics and metal of the feed mechanism and barrel.
Heat fought cold. Metal and ceramics caught between them fractured. Again bl
aster charges ignited, and the pod blew apart. The fragments scoured the exterior of the deathstrike, and mowed down a number of Doomed and one spider drone close to it, ready to follow up its weapons' work.
The fragments also crippled all the exterior fittings for the targeting sensors. When the deathstrike's turret swung and its heavy blaster let fly, a five-shot burst that might have crippled Avenger only ripped open the bottom of a nearby dome.
Gregis's reply was more accurate, consisting of ten heavy-striking magnum rounds. Jazra expected something spectacular, remembering the door.
She had not expected to see the enemy's near side hull armor, and part of the track simply vaporized. Any sensors, fittings, Doomed, or spider drones for a wide radius around the deathstrike might as well have been hit with a flamethrower. Metal that had turned to plasma sprayed over them.
Then fuel and ammunition joined in an even deadlier explosion. For a moment, the target completely vanished. When it reappeared, the turret was gone, and the hull and what was left of the tracks were tilted on their side.
The whine of Avenger's engine filled the compartment and even penetrated Jazra's helmet. Bruegind had opened the throttles, and the tank was rolling forward.
"What are you doing?" Jazra shouted.
"Hi-diddle-diddle, right up their middle," Bruegind yelled back.
"You sound like Elda," Ohlt called.
"From what I've heard about her, I take that as a compliment," the lieutenant replied. "Seriously, those deathstrikes are likely to be in the middle of the group. Where they were, we've got an opening. If we get into it, with our extra firepower, we can hit them in both directions. Farewell, assault group."
As long as it wasn't "Farewell, companions," too, Jazra didn't mind. Or perhaps even if it was. Keegis had said that if only one Rael was alive at the end of the fight, and the Primary Director was gone, it would still be a victory.
At least Keegis was the sort of officer who, when he said that, let you know he would not be that one last Rael.
Avenger rolled forward to justify her name.
• • •
Ohlt understood more clearly now why Hellandros refused to try casting spells from inside the tank. Apart from the risk of damaging it, using your own senses was a lost cause inside Avenger.
The vision devices let one see heat or magnify objects at will, but a fighter couldn't turn his head to see more clearly something he'd glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. The hearing devices kept you from being deafened by nearby explosions, but might not pick up the soft footfalls of someone stealing up on the tank like a thief. The air-filtering devices kept out poisonous gases and merely bad smells, but trapped you in a bath of your own sweat and fear-odor.
At least the bottom hatch was there, if your stomach, bowels, or bladder could endure no more.
It also struck Ohlt that it was easy to forget what you were doing, when a target vanished from the glass screen. In a battle against a living opponent, such a vanishing would have meant men and women dying as horribly as the children in the nursery, men and women whose families would mourn them as Breena mourned her babes.
The Rael might have been lucky, to have more or less given up war among themselves before they could build weapons like the deathstrikes. Otherwise they might have wiped themselves out, without any help from the Overseer.
Something to think about, when one remembered that the knowledge of the Rael technology was bound to reach beyond the far side of Paradise Lake within a few years. Within a few more, people might be wondering how to build their own blasters or grenade launchers.
Within fewer centuries than it was pleasant to contemplate, deathstrikes would be rolling out of dwarven caves and human workshops. Ohlt would have prayed, if he thought any god would listen. He was far from his world's gods, and anything powerful enough to span the stars would hardly listen to his prayers.
While Ohlt mused, Avenger rampaged through the Director's assault group. Once in the middle of the enemy ranks, Bruegind turned the bow one way and had Gregis turn the turret the other. That let both magnum cannon fire at once. The tank nearly shook itself apart from the recoil, the noise made even shouting useless, and the heat reminded Ohlt of a Midvoni steam bath.
When the last of the heavy-striking magnum rounds were gone, so were the remaining deathstrikes. Not to mention half the spider drones and a couple of firestorms, one of which had exploded so violently that it was probably carrying flamethrower fuel.
The Doomed mostly took cover. Whether their assimilation had left them with a rudimentary sense of self-preservation, or whether they had simply received no orders to attack, few of them stayed in the open to become victims of Avenger's advance.
This was a blessing for both sides. When the infantry followed Avenger, they were able to use stunners freely, knocking out the mostly Rael Doomed, and piling their senseless forms out of harm's way. Hellandros helped with more low-powered spells, to cover the attacking infantry and confuse the Doomed.
When Avenger's crew finally "unbuttoned" (as Bruegind called it), Ohlt thought he would faint at the first taste of fresh air. Then he thought he would suffocate from all the smoke and fumes clouding that "fresh" air.
He had barely stopped coughing when Captain Keegis rode up on his cycle, a Rael lieutenant riding behind him.
"This is Lieutenant Chandis," he said, as if everyone should know everything else about her from the name. Seeing blank looks even from Jazra, he went on.
"She has the virus ready, in workable form."
"The what?" Ohlt asked. From his recently gained knowledge, a virus was something that caused diseases. Like the things Gregis told M'lenda the steam distillers would kill. Who in the enemy's ranks could a disease affect, except the Doomed that they were now trying to save?
"The computer virus," Chandis said, taking over the explanation. Ohlt listened, and with only a little help from Jazra and Gregis, he understood.
A computer virus was a command that, if entered into the Primary Director, would destroy it, like a fever burning out a man's brain. The problem with sending the command to the virus was that there was no link between the Rael defenders' computers and the Primary Director.
This might change. The Primary Director had undefended links to several areas in its own sector. If the Rael counterattacked quickly enough, Chandis might reach a console (that meant one of those metal desks with lights and screens all over it) in one of these areas, and inject the virus. Then the Primary Director would "crash." Ohlt had the image of a giant metal box falling off a cliff, and smashing at the bottom in a shower of sparks. The battle for Kel-Rael would be won.
"But we need to move fast, before it can pull the other assault groups to defend its own area," Chandis concluded. "It would help if Avenger went on attacking while I injected the virus, to divert constructs, and overload the Director's—"
"Chandis, you're a computer expert, not a tactician," Keegis interrupted. "I'll give the orders."
"She makes sense," Elda said. "Right now, I'd take orders from a Gyotsi if they made sense. Are we going to do it, people, or aren't we?"
Ohlt thought he might have been consulted, too, but Elda was right. Doing what needed to be done now was more important than doing it on orders from the right person.
Sometimes, being unpredictable made you as dangerous as being skilled.
"Very well," Keegis said. "We're going to find a way to let some of the infantry ride, but Chandis and Hellandros had better he inside Avenger. We have surprise on our side for now, but it won't last forever."
The Primary Director had its full attention turned to Assault (Sroup Two before the group's destruction was completed. However, this belated attention could not prevent that destruction.
The loss of the deathstrikes was serious, but not disastrous. Their loss had taken long enough to allow for defensive measures. Group One was ordered to remain poised on the Rael perimeter, to drive through if a Rael counterattack generated weak spots. There had t
o be some; the Rael could hardly have destroyed four deathstrikes without stripping most of their strength from elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Group Three would fall back to reform the Director's own defenses. At worst, matters would return to their previous condition. At best, Group Three would ambush the remaining Rael forces and leave the entire arcology under the Overseer's control.
The only anomaly was the destruction of the four death-strikes. The first two had been eliminated with no record of any weapons use sufficient to produce the degree of destruction involved. Any order-of-magnitude increases in the power of Rael weapons would have certainly been in the Director's memory, and were, therefore, impossible.
That was another argument for letting the Rael spend themselves on the Director's defenses. It would force them to reveal any new weapons technology they had developed.
SEVENTEEN
Avenger had been crowded before. Now she was packed like a transport shuttle.
The older model assault tanks were designed for a crew of five Rael. Avenger held that many now: Jazra, Bruegind, Gregis, Chandis, and Chandis's assistant and bodyguard. She also held four humans, a half-elf, and a dwarf.
Hellandros would have preferred to be on foot, or riding in Avenger's infantry carrier. The carrier was a captured firestorm, stripped of its heavy weapons, and converted into an armored carrier for a dozen or so tightly-packed Rael infantry.
"We'll be traveling too fast to need spells," Bruegind said.
"Against the Overseer's weapons, that means you will be traveling—oh, as fast as light," Hellandros replied. "I was also thinking of lightning spells."
"I thought you needed a thunderstorm for those?" Jazra asked.
"It helps to be able to focus abundant atmospheric electricity," Hellandros said. "But you generate abundant artificial electricity. I could easily draw from any charged—cable, is it?"
"Can you really call lightning?" Chandis asked. She seemed so intent on launching her virus that the idea of real magic had been slow to make an impression on her.
"With some luck, yes."
"That could help, cutting connections in the Director's net, but could you not start shooting off lightning bolts, until the virus is home? Otherwise you might cut off its path to the Director."