by Roland Green
"I would hardly wish to do that."
"Good," Bruegind said, as she started the engine. "Right now, the only magic we need is something to make us all smaller, so we can breathe in here long enough to reach our target."
Hellandros laughed. "There is a spell to do that, for some reason called 'item,' but I don't have it in my book."
However, magic did come in handy anyway. M'lenda purified several large jugs of water, replacing the metallic bitterness with a fruity tang, then the wizard chilled it down.
With a large glass of cold water inside her, Jazra felt ready to fight the Overseer with her bare hands and a belt of grenades. Briefly, she wondered if either of the human magic-workers had added something besides a fruity taste to the water.
The Primary Director had ceased to concern itself with anomalies in the destruction of the deathstrikes. It was more concerned with the extent to which Assault Group One seemed to be under continuous surveillance. Sniper fire and grenades were causing notable casualties among the Doomed, even without the group's attempting to penetrate the enemy perimeter.
Also, Group Three was encountering resistance as it attempted to withdraw to the Director's perimeter. This was happening in an area where no hostile presence had been detected for several days. The resistance was limited to light weapons, but again, casualties among the Doomed were becoming notable.
The Director ordered Group One to use gas against the snipers, with minimum exposure of any Doomed or construct. Group Three needed actual reinforcements.
The status board showed that the largest uncommitted force available was four firestorms, converted for flamethrowing. They were primarily a weapon aimed at the emotions of organic life forms, who had an unreasoning dread of fire. They were also an area weapon, dangerous to use too close to controlled territory or facilities.
However, if they were used against the enemy opposing the retreat of Group Three, they would be well clear of all major controlled facilities except Laboratory Six. That was where the Rael had apparently been working on methods to reverse assimilation, and restore the minds and loyalty of the Doomed. All usable intelligence had been extracted from it already, and if the flamethrowers destroyed it, that meant less risk of the Rael recapturing it, even temporarily.
Artificial intelligences have certain advantages over organic ones in battle. One is that a general's commands are in electronic, transmittable form the moment they are conceived.
The firestorms moved out from their shelter about the same
time as the Rael launched their attack.
• • •
Avenger moved out quickly, but then she and her accompanying carrier slowed down. There was little open space on their planned route, but much shelter from eyes and any other line of sight detection.
Their goal was the laboratory that had been the center of the Rael effort at reversing assimilation. Naturally it was linked to the assimilator, and the assimilator to the Primary Director. That meant only two links for the virus to pass through, and according to Chandis, assimilators were frequently less well-defended
against viruses than other Overseer creations.
"We don't know if it's a design fault or if assimilators aren't expected to be attacked," Chandis said, as Avenger turned a corner, fast and sharply enough that the reworked suspension still didn't keep everyone from sliding about. They would have slid farther if there'd been room to move
"What about lack of capacity?" Hellandros said, struggling out from under Elda and Chakfor. "These Directors are rather like brains, are they not? And a fundamental principle of magic is that a wizard's brain can encompass only so many spells at once.
"An assimilator might be in the same situation. After all, altering an entire human mind is something that only the most potent and least scrupulous wizards will attempt. Why should the task be less for an assimilator?
"Perhaps," Hellandros concluded, "an assimilator creating Doomed is like a wizard casting a potent spell. He lets himself be disturbed at his peril."
Chandis's assistant looked at Hellandros as if he had grown scales and fangs. Chandis only frowned. "I would rather not strike the assimilator when it actually has Doomed under creation. That can leave them as mindless as animals, for the rest of their lives."
That brought conversation to a halt, not that anybody much cared to continue shouting over the whine of the engine, and the rumble of the tracks. Ohlt pulled out two partial magazines and started combining them into a single full one, and everyone else who could find room to move started on something similar.
Jazra was one of those who had no room to move, but she could see the vision displays clearly. The carrier behind was keeping up well, but not so close that a single enemy attack could destroy both vehicles.
Meanwhile, someone had improvised a mounting for a heavy-duty blaster on the rim of the fighting compartment. Every time the sniper detected a sensor that wasn't on the authorized list, he would shoot it out, on the principle that it was probably the enemy's.
That, of course, was going to trace a highly visible trail across the arcology for the Primary Director to follow. It would also force the Director to rebuild much of its no-man's-land sensor network, to continue the fight.
Of course, if today's attack didn't succeed, the fighting would be over, and the Overseer would have the victory—costly by organic terms, cheap when all the casualties were constructs. The Rael were putting into the attack resources they could not possibly replace if it failed.
It might fail, and if so, Keegis would not want his people to commit suicide. He would order a retreat. Retreat through an area cleared of hostile sensors might succeed in preserving the survivors to fight another day.
Jazra sighed. She knew that all of this was really rationalization for not wanting to argue with a sniper. Zolaris might be equal to the task. She was not. One did not become a sniper unless one walked a long way apart from most folk, as Ohlt said of druids.
She shifted, trying to read the map display. She managed to find a position where she could read without pulling any muscles, or crowding anyone else against a bulkhead.
Any display small enough to fit into a tank had to oversimplify, but the situation looked as if it favored the Rael. Much of this came from the sudden appearance—or, maybe, reappearance—of a band of Rael survivors who had been camping under no-man's-land since the seizure of the main gates cut them off from their ship.
Their leader was Captain Kallae of the starship Mhaldos, and on the radio she sounded like a welcome addition, even without her dozen or so fighters. They were ready to go where they were ordered, and fight to the limits of their ammunition, which was quite a long way. They had been lucky enough to strip several emergency supply lockers, then avoid serious contact with Overseer forces. They were coming down on the rear of the right-flank assault group like a small, but fast-moving avalanche.
The most dangerous thing the Primary Director could do, Jazra decided, was turn the assault group around, and have it overwhelm Kallae's band before they could reach help—or help could reach them.
Jazra reached forward and tapped Bruegind on the shoulder. "Is there a safe way to cut a little to the right of our planned course? I'd like to hit a section of the assault group, but one that's already engaged with Kallae's people."
Bruegind didn't take her eyes off the display, but their reflection showed Jazra a mind working with computerlike speed and precision. A map of the arcology flashed onto the screen, then off it before Jazra could read even their present location.
Then Bruegind nodded and adjusted the steering. Again, everyone who wasn't belted in slid as far as they could. The whine of the engine rose another level, from annoyance to real
discomfort, even inside a helmet.
• • •
The Primary Director was only taking the appropriate precautions, as it created a partial duplicate of its memory for transfer to one of a number of emergency reserve modules. If time allowed, it could even t
ransfer an entire duplicate to the damaged, but repairable starship outside the arcology.
There were enough tools and robots to permit completing the repairs, and taking the ship to space. For this to be possible, Rael casualties would have to be so heavy that they could not pursue, or even search outside the arcology for a minimum of fifteen standard time units, plus or minus two.
Meanwhile, the delicate operation of creating the memory duplicate was absorbing a major portion of the Director's Primary Module capacity. The Secondary Module was tasked with the command of the battle, which required the transfer of a considerable body of data.
It was the bad luck of the Primary Director that Bruegind's change of course and increased speed brought Avenger into
range of Assault Group Three during this transfer.
• • •
Avenger burst into the open, and into the ranks of the retreating assault group almost at the same moment. Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for the Director's forces, Bruegind had her usual deft hand on the throttles and steering controls, while Gregis had one eye on the ID display, and one hand on the firing lever.
The moment electronics told the eye that there were no friendlies in sight, the hand moved. Avenger's weaponry blazed in as many directions as their number and location allowed, and Gregis also fired off both racks of the antipersonnel grenades, mounted along the hull, to discourage bomb-carrying Doomed.
On the displays inside, the outside world vanished in a blaze of flame and smoke. Most of the Doomed died too quickly to have screamed even if they had been capable of protesting against their demise. Spider drones let out hideous electronic screeches sometimes audible over the roar of Avenger's weaponry.
One curiously towerlike construct actually swiveled a small turret on top, and shot what Ohlt heard someone say was a laser at the deathstrike. But lasers were light, light had a hard fight getting through smoke and flying debris, and even though Avenger's armor could no longer reflect well, the laser did not deliver enough heat to pierce the tough metal.
The turret whirled, and while the side-mounted magnum was popping off single rounds at any construct still moving, the turret weaponry chopped the tower off at the base. The tower portion clanged to the floor and rolled out of sight, trailing smoke and sparks. The tracked carriage rumbled on, controls built into the tracks keeping the remnant on course until the power died.
The remnant had barely stopped when half a dozen Rael, some fully armored, some barely clothed at all, but all armed, dashed out of the smoke. Two of them leaped on the carriage to fire from the nearest local high ground. One went down. Gregis spun the turret again, and fired into the smoke off to the right.
Something exploded, thickening the smoke, but this did not keep the surviving Rael from charging off into it.
"I think we just met Kallae and her people," Jazra said. "Do we want to support them, or split up, or move on the laboratory as planned? Chandis, Ohlt, Hellandros?"
"Stick to the plan," Chandis said. "The more the Director is kept distracted, the easier to inject the virus."
"I'm with Chandis," Ohlt said. "That will also help Kallae. If the Director wants to help the assault group, it will have to send reinforcements within our range. At least, that's what I remember of the map."
From Jazra's grin, Ohlt couldn't tell whether she approved of his voting with her, or of his reasoning. Hellandros nodded.
"I can hardly use major spells like lightning without seeing where I'm sending them," the wizard said. "Someday, perhaps, I can devise a way of casting spells using Rael sensor technology, but that day is not here."
Avenger spun on her tracks and headed off to the left, as Jazra
signaled the carrier to follow.
• • •
There'd been more fighting, and there was more damage than Jazra liked to see in the laboratory area. The ceiling here was low and paneled, with only parts of the individual domes visible. Part of the ceiling had fallen outright, and much more had lost its paneling, with ductwork, wires, and structural members hanging down like vines.
Jazra briefly wondered if this would finally disorient the humans, but Ohlt's face might have been a slab of ceramic. He was not going to show unease to her or his people, and she already knew that if he truly felt lost he would ask for guidance. She only hoped she would be able to give it.
The real problem was not battle damage. Chandis said that the laboratory terminals should have survived fighting outside the walls. The real problem was the presence of four firestorm tanks, lined up in an open space more than forty yards wide where the corridor split. The tanks were clearly operational, all four of them had bulging fuel tanks on their rear hulls, and flame projectors in their turrets. Two of them towed wheeled trailers with more fuel pods and projectors on top of them.
They had no light troops with them, neither Doomed nor spider drones, but they had hull and turret-mounted blasters enough for deadly antipersonnel work. This would have made no difference against a heavy tank, but perched in the wreck of the ceiling behind the firestorms, Jazra saw five Rael. Only two of them were armored, and magnification showed them all to be filthy, lean, and lightly wounded.
Avenger had found more refugees, probably Kallae's rearguard. A firefight would doom them. The enemy tanks would turn the whole area into a furnace, unless Avenger destroyed every one of them without actually damaging them. This was unlikely; it was even more unlikely that the carrier and its infantry would be unscathed. Also, the wall of flame would certainly bar access to the laboratory for Chandis, and might reach in through the open door and the cracked wall, and ruin the remaining electronics.
A standoff, until Kallae's people are out of danger, or until they work light troops around our flanks and rear, Jazra thought. At least she had intended to think, but Hellandros was either using magic to eavesdrop on her or had remarkably acute hearing.
"If I can have an escort," the wizard said, "and Chandis and her friend can come with me, I will go back to the carrier. There I can form a wall of mist."
"What will that do?"
"Let Chandis and her friend—what is your name, by the way, in case I need to invoke it?"
"Lurin."
"Chandis and Lurin can slip into the laboratory behind the wall of mist. The firestorms will have to shoot with their heat-vision only, and risk hitting one another. Or move forward, and let us strike them without endangering the Rael.
"That should gain us time, which 1 believe is what we need most of all, and next after that the safety of those five Rael."
It occurred to Jazra that the mercenary soldier who had talked of war in the presence of a young would-be wizard named Hellandros might have done more for victory over the Overseer than many famous Rael commanders. She nodded.
"Then let's do it that way," she said, "and fast. Chandis, Lurin, you go in on your own, but we'll send a team after you as soon as we're deployed. Everybody else, either stay clear of the flame area or behind armor."
Gregis had somehow restored power to the belly hatch; it was already opening and Hellandros was sliding through. Chandis and Lurin were hard on his heels, and Elda and Brinus after them.
By the time Ohlt and M'lenda followed, Jazra could see gray wisps of fog curling across the open space. She waited, nerves taut, for the Director, or the local command of the firestorms, to grow suspicious and open fire, but nothing happened.
Her mouth was dry, and all of M'lenda's purified water was gone. She had to make do with the flat liquid from her water bottle.
• • •
Resource conservation was seldom a major tactical principle for Primary Directors with ample reserves. However, this Primary Director had realized that with the enemy so far forward, losing another battle might allow penetration of rear areas, and destruction of those reserves, or even damage to the gate.
A battle with only the firestorms engaged risked loss. It was time to withdraw Assault Group One, and commit the reserves of Doomed and spider dron
es, in a two-pronged attack on the flanks of the Rael assault. The firestorms could hold in front until the flank attacks struck, then penetrate the weakened Rael defensive perimeter and inflict fatal damage.
Many potential Doomed would be destroyed under these circumstances, but the final suppression of Rael resistance in the Kel-Rael arcology seemed probable.
The Director had just reached this conclusion, when it observed the growing cloud of mist between the firestorms and the enemy. This would not only affect observation, it was a gross anomaly.
Analysis of this anomaly began.
Jazra had done what a good captain should not; she had ignored her own orders. She was in the open, but standing just behind Avenger. Her desire for a view in all directions had outweighed all other considerations.
Unfortunately, Fedor Ohlt and Breena had moved to join her. All three of them might be flamed, or even crushed if Bruegind had to back the tank suddenly.
At least she had a secure link to the people remaining inside the tank—Gregis, Bruegind, and Chakfor. The hull telephone was easily linked to her suit radio, and she was able to keep the three informed about the escaping Rael.
They wasted no time marveling at the wall of mist. Instead, one of the Rael fired a spaceship line-thrower most of the way across the ceiling. Brinus Ha-Gelher scrambled up, secured the end, then worked his way back toward the Rael, hand over hand. As he went, he tied reinforcements into the line, so that it now had five anchor points and would let the Rael cross hand over hand. It was far to travel that way, but as long as the firestorms didn't scan overhead with their sensors. ...
The first Rael was on the way. Brinus Ha-Gelher perched on a bent structural member, with an ease Jazra could not have imagined in any member of a race without wings. Moreover, he had his blaster rifle tucked under one arm, muzzle pointed at the thinly armored top of the nearest firestorm.
Blue rays darted past Jazra. Where they struck the mist, ice particles formed, even ice chunks. As they clattered to the floor, the firestorms began to reappear.