Into the Maelstrom

by Loren L. Coleman

  Williams watched it happen. Brygan’s slow withdrawal back into himself, which they had worked so hard to reverse. But now trust was shattered, though Williams could only guess at what service to the empire had forced the break. Maybe those wounds could be healed and the trust restored, but obviously not now. Not today.

  And with a speedy return to Earth ordered, there wasn’t much time left.

  26

  * * *

  K atya Romilsky walked over and stood at the edge of a bluff above and far to the rear of the Sleeper. A bitter Siberian wind whistled up through the draw and over the ridge that also hid the Zephyr. The wind tugged at the ballistic cloth of her officer’s trench and ran chill fingers through her hair. Accompanied by the Mental and her elite squad of Vanguard, she had brought her command transport here for a better vantage point. She raised her field glasses and peered through them, observing the main battle below.

  At the head of a narrow defile, barely wide enough for two crawlers to travel apace with each other, the Sleeper looked larger and more frightening than ever. Its nerve-rending shriek sounded repeatedly through the shallow canyon, slicing through the roaring cacophony of the Union and Neo-Soviet combined assault. The maddened scream sounded more like a howl of frustration and rage than pain. And of hunger, so close to its goal.

  The creature tore at the ground and the steep, rocky face, widening a passage for itself. Chitin-armored legs chewed up ground, and its immense head slammed repeatedly into the rocky face, dislodging small slides that slowly worked at a greater opening. Two spiny ridges now separated from the alien’s back to become armored tentacles, sliding into the gap and anchoring themselves in protected crevices. They strained to pull its monstrous bulk through the gap.

  On both sides of the defile, the Union and Neo-Soviet forces fought to keep that from happening. The roaring reports of better than a hundred assault rifles raised a din that echoed through Gory Putorana’s labyrinth of canyons and draws, an artificial thunder occasionally answered by a natural rumble from the overcast, dark sky. The weapons fire faded for a time, as soldiers reloaded or worked themselves into what they hoped were more advantageous positions, but never ceased altogether. From the bellies of Neo-Soviet Avalanche carriers, Union Trojans, and Hydras, the supplies were brought forward and spent.

  Katya Romilsky tried estimating the weight of ordnance already wasted on the creature. A metric ton? Two? Stronger than ever, the colossal alien shrugged off most of it while continuing to work its way toward Chernaya Gora.

  Romilsky shifted the field glasses and let her gaze wander over the smoking wreckage of two Union Wendigos. They had managed a half kilometer before the Sleeper’s electromagnetic pulse defense ruined their circuitry and the flywheel generators blew apart. Four Typhoons, her last missile carriers, still burned farther back on the ridge, taken out by some kind of new ability the Sleeper had unleashed that day.

  “Not every effort has proven wasted,” the Mental reminded her as if reading her thoughts. He pointed a trembling finger at the black grass-covered hillside, which showed the scars of their one minor victory.

  Romilsky nodded. The Sleeper had first tried to go over the mountain, attempting to reach the draw and the opening to the no-longer-secret facility. Vanguard and Union infantry had slowed its advance, though Romilsky had been forced—ordered—to pull back her Chem Grunts.

  The Sleeper reacted favorably to the mutagen they sprayed. Instead of the rapid-generation mutations that invariably proved so lethal to any Terran-based life-form, the Sleeper had simply grown another armored ridge on its carapace that quickly separated into a second tentacle. And when casualties mounted too high—Union casualties, she noted, not Vanguard—they fell back and blew the mountainside with explosives. That had hurt the creature, though not nearly enough.

  “At least the charges convinced the Sleeper to abandon the mountainside route,” she said, though without much enthusiasm.

  The defile was the more difficult path, but better protected the Sleeper from the bulk of the two armies. The Seventy-first Assault Group dominated the lower canyon, striking at the creature’s flanks and rear quarter, with only moderate help from the Neo-Soviets’ Fifty-sixth Striker. A mere fifty meters of narrow passage separated the Sleeper’s head from the open draw leading up to the Chernaya Gora compound.

  Most of its remaining symbiots swarmed the ground ahead of it, currently out of her line of sight. Occasionally a new batch of such creatures would slip out from between the folds in the alien’s chitinous carapace, whether held in reserve or generated new, there was no way to tell. Major Howard had noted the complete disappearance of Feeder symbiots and suggested that they were being transformed back into offensive types.

  Whatever their origin, Romilsky held the waves of symbiots in check by advancing line after line of her quickly depleting Rad Troopers and mutants. Behind that the bulk of her Vanguard forces stood a nervous, final line of defense. Soon she would bring the Zephyr around to join them.

  It was the reverse of the assault plan she had devised the day before. This time her army stood in the creature’s path. A few token squads of Union troops joined them beyond the defile, just enough that Romilsky could be certain that Sainz would not pull back and abandon her people. That troublesome sergeant was back there, too. She frowned. He would be taken care of—the meddling oubluduk—it was already arranged. A stray bullet would claim him once the Sleeper broke through and the fighting was heaviest.

  She owed him that much.

  The Sleeper worked its long neck far enough into the narrow passage for the shoulderlike bulges in its forward carapace to come into direct contact with the rock. A brilliant, near-blinding flash washed off the facing, and several meters of rock ran molten. The same thing occurred roughly every half hour. She averted her eyes from the flash, then turned completely away from the battle as the dedicated link Sainz had given her buzzed for attention.

  “I still have no idea what that is,” she said testily over the link. Whatever allowed it to work through the rock was the same weapon that had destroyed her four Typhoons.

  “Well, I do.” Sainz’s voice sounded strained. “My CBR specialists confirmed it. It’s a low-yield nuclear pulse. Only it’s very clean, leaving behind little radioactive debris.”

  She nodded to herself. “Of course. Why waste its food reserves?”

  “If that thing burrows much farther into the defile—”

  “Da! I know, I know. It escapes into the draw, and Chernaya Gora falls.”

  Sainz let the thought hang there for a moment. “Worse, Katya Romilsky. Those rocky cliffs will shield it from Freedom’s missile barrage, providing we retake Tranquillity in time to task the weapons. We have an opportunity now, while it’s in the open and on the other side of the defile before it begins to tunnel into your underground complex. After that, I cannot guarantee we can kill it.”

  “Then we do it without the battle station.”

  Even through the strains of transmission, she could hear Sainz’s growing anger. “Are you watching the same battle I am? Our bullets do little more than annoy it. Grenades are slightly better, but again, we can’t work enough soldiers in close for concentrated damage. That thing is twelve percent larger than this time yesterday, Colonel. And its defenses are much more efficient.”

  She had thought it looked bigger. Still, “If you are arguing for a saturation barrage from Freedom, the answer is still nyet. And I have your word that Chernaya Gora is to be protected. Da?”

  “Yes, Romilsky. You have it.” He sound grudging. “Besides, I don’t have to worry about Chernaya Gora. If we can’t task Freedom within the next few hours, or find a way to buy time, the Sleeper will do the job for me.”

  “Now there I might be able to do something. I have ordered forward new forces.”

  Sainz sound alarmed. “You did not clear this with me. I have men down there.”

  “These are not mutants,” she assured him. He expected another fiasco such as
her ill-fated mertvaya sobaka attack of this morning. A good plan in theory, running the last of her rad-hounds forward and detonating them at the base of the Sleeper’s thick neck. Except three mutant handlers had harbored sentiments similar to Gregor Detchelov and turned their death dogs against Union squads. In the confusion others detonated their canine explosives early, and the remaining few did little more than wound the alien.

  Fortunately, only one of Sainz’s men had been injured, and not fatally. Had there been any deaths, the Union colonel likely would have pulled back and abandoned her. She wouldn’t have blamed him, though it still fueled her rage that she now relied on his efforts so heavily.

  “Not mutants,” she said again. “My Chem Grunts will take my directions exactly. And before you worry overmuch, all mutagen has been replaced with toxic wash. We know that can hurt it.” Or at least make it very angry, she recalled from the Vanguard report of first contact with the Sleeper. “You worry about your battle station. I will stand ready to buy you more time.” She switched off the link with a hard slap, then looked to the nearby Mental. “Right?”

  The frail man nodded carefully. “The toxic will hurt the Sleeper, Tovarish.”

  She raised the field glasses back to her brow, sweeping her gaze over the canyon floor until finding the Chem Grunt squad as they came in against the Sleeper. “I don’t want it hurt, I want it dead.”

  She let the glasses down, leaving them hanging from the strap around her neck. “Ironic, don’t you think? To save Chernaya Gora, I must rely on the very forces that came to destroy it. If the battle is to be salvaged, it will be on the honor of a Union officer, and the ability of Union forces to secure their moonbase.” She nodded down into the canyon. “We had better move into position. The Zephyr can get us to Chernaya Gora, where I will take up command at the final line of defense.”

  A soft “Nyet,” turned Romilsky around. The Mental was crouched down, knees pressed into his chest and arms wrapped about his legs. “I would prefer to remain here, far from that creature.”

  Now was no time to get overly squeamish or turn coward. Romilsky let a touch of steel creep into her voice. “I can leave you no protection. You would have to remain alone.”

  A shudder. His voice, when he spoke, was barely audible over the thunderous roll of weapons fire. “That is your prerogative, Comrade Romilsky.”

  As if she wouldn’t have to answer later for leaving so valuable an asset unprotected. And the Mental knew it, of course. Romilsky shook her head in frustration, then pointed out two of her guard squad.

  “You two, stay and protect the Mental,” she ordered. “Above all else, keep him away from any Union forces.” They nodded their understanding. Mentals were always protected to the final moment, but none could ever be allowed to be taken by the Union. She headed for the Zephyr, then paused for a final farewell. “I will see you after the battle.”

  “Yes,” the Mental said, suddenly much stronger in voice. “You will.”

  Climbing into the Zephyr, Katya Romilsky knew a moment of doubt concerning the Mental’s certainty that they would meet again on the other side of the battle. She dismissed it. No reason to believe that the Mental’s preternatural sight was in doubt. But the VTOL-augmented command crawler was barely in the air before she realized why it had bothered her. The Mental had not spoken the statement in comfort.

  He’d spoken in sorrow.

  * * *

  Corporal Phillipe Savoign marched the Ares assault suit in between barracks buildings and onto one of the parade grounds of Tranquillity Base. In contrast to the deadly terrain he had faced on the Solstice Plains, in this battle the Ares commanded the battlefield as it was meant to do. His augmented vision picked out enemy threats with ease, blinking through the various imaging systems and then visually locking weapons onto the target. A gentle touch to the trigger and the Neo-Soviet force suffered new losses. He stepped over the carnage of melted metal and burned corpses, grateful that the closed cockpit system protected him from the sickly charred scent.

  Thrusting his jaw forward to open his general channel, Savoign scanned the virtual landscape painted over his visor. “Rifle squad eliminated, parade grounds. Moving toward command center.”

  In his wake, a pair of Pegasus reconnaissance sleds skimmed the ground looking for stragglers or traps his augmented senses might have missed. Power-armor infantry moved up a half a klick behind them, and gliding over the lunar plains toward the edge of Tranquillity came the unguarded trio of Hydra transports they were all responsible for protecting. To either flank, set so their fire could overlap, other heavy assault suits walked, fronting for other Hydras. Five Ares spearheaded this portion of the move to retake Tranquillity, their ability to deal damage in a discriminating fashion making them more valuable than armored vehicles. The goal was to retake the base intact.

  A light patter against his armor and the slight tremor to his step warned him that he was taking assault-rifle fire even before his sensor-analysis package acknowledged that the hail of metal might actually be considered a threat. He pivoted around in the direction of a small red arrow at the corner of his vision. A warning bar highlighted the open doorway of a barracks where a pair of Vanguard infantrymen hammered away at him. One leaned out and launched a grenade, the explosive device clipping his lower arm and shattering the armor protecting his wrist joint.

  “Natural selection at its finest,” Savoign said to himself, raising the Ares’ right arm and tracking in his antipersonnel “enforcer.” The APE was enough to take care of a pair of infantry.

  “Say again, Ares Twelve?”

  He’d triggered his comm systems by moving his jaw, talking aloud. “Disregard,” Phillipe said, triggering off a full burst from the APE. The eleven-millimeter enforcer chewed a stream of high-explosive slugs through the wall of the barracks, drawing a line of destruction chest high across the door. Dust billowed into the air, and both Kalashnikovs fell silent. “I had to take care of some pests.”

  “Copy, Twelve.” The voice shifted over to general address. “Ares auxiliaries, General Hayes has moved against the eastern centers. Swing over for immediate support.”

  The Ares assault suit was an impressive piece of work, but it did very few things immediately. For covering large distances fast, they relied on specially adapted Trojan supply carriers. In extremely light gravity an experienced specialist might coax a bit of extra speed out of the suit, but this portion of Tranquillity Base was terrasimmed for three-fourths standard Earth gravity. Still, Savoign throttled up to his maximum speed at once and began to lengthen his stride to reach a blazing ten-klicks-per-hour speed. He moved off the parade grounds and onto the grass-covered soil transplanted from Earth.

  And suddenly he was pressed down into his cockpit, the form-fitting shockguard feeling as if it suddenly wanted to squeeze the breath from him. The Ares staggered, but fortunately Savoign had not yet fully lengthened his stride, so the gyro was able to keep the assault suit upright. On the virtual landscape projected over his visor from the outside lens clusters, he saw two trees topple over in a light stand of woods off to his left. He flicked his eyes to his sensor-package indicators, blinking through several status bars until finding the screen he wanted.

  “Gravity increase, two-point-five standard,” he transmitted, reading the change on his status indicators.

  “The Neo-Sovs are trying to use the gravity generators against us,” the coordinator’s voice said, obviously straining under the heavier gravity as well. “They may be trying to use it to cover their retreat or as a prelude to attack. Ares Twelve and Seven, you should have power relays coming up within range. Our technicians promise that by blowing those relays, gravity generators will shut down to shunt power to more critical systems.”

  Savoign found the station relay nearest him, a small metal shack nestled up against the back wall of an administration building. He’d replaced the Harbinger rail weapon on the shoulder mount with the Lucifer plasma cannon for this operation. Though shorter
-ranged, the Lucifer was still not a precision weapon, but against the well-armored relay building it would serve well. He focused in on the relay, the Ares’ targeting system reading off his vision and centering over the metal shack.

  Then Savoign backed the reticle off five meters and fired. Even through the Ares’ armor, he heard the high-pitched hum as the Lucifer quickly back-built energy. A magnetic tube stabbed out from the shoulder-riding cannon to be quickly filled by a compressed ball of plasma. It sailed out over the terraformed landscape, drawn down the tube which drifted off his mark by three meters. The field collapsed a second later and the superheated gas tore into the relay station and a good portion of the building wall beyond. Metal twisted and melted under the force, then began spitting electrical sparks. Bricks shattered and part of the admin building’s wall caved in.

  Not too bad, considering.

  “Ares Seven, target eliminated.” The announcement beat Phillipe’s similar call by two seconds.

  “Good work, Seven. Twelve. We have word from the general. The enemy is running.”

  Threat warnings flashed almost immediately, accompanied by the insistent drone of a cautionary alarm. The virtual imaging on his visor washed with red as multiple threats overlapped. Magnification dialed in automatically, recentering his screen to the lead Neo-Soviet crawler as it barreled in at him. A modified Typhoon, the first of five, running an arrowhead pattern of interference for what looked like a full column stretched out behind. Carefully drifting his gaze around, Savoign identified several Blizzard light-assault vehicles and what he thought might be a Zephyr, though even his Ares’ targeting software had difficulty at this range.

  “You might have mentioned that the enemy is running right for us!” Savoign said, thrusting his jaw forward to engage comms. “Ares auxiliary is moving to local coordination. Seven and Ten, pull in on my position. Two and Three, form square behind us. Protect the Pegasus vehicles and our power armor.”