by Jake Elwood
"Dammit," Ron said, "the buggers are learning." He made an urgent gesture with his arm, and a pale glow appeared as the control panels lit up on a couple of bulky machines on tripods. "They can't learn not to panic, though. Everybody got a target?"
A couple of colonists murmured assent.
"Fire when ready."
Ariadne had no weapons. There was no military outpost, and there were no animals to hunt. The local police force had carried stunners. There were, however, some industrial lasers used for cutting rock to level the crater floor or cut brick for construction. Some talented engineers among the colonists had removed several lasers from their bulky mounts and attached tripods and portable power packs. They fell far short of military lasers, but they packed a remarkable punch.
The first laser fired. The air had enough dust to make the beam visible, a crimson flash that lashed past the nose of the alien ship. The second laser fired an instant later, and Nicholson saw the point of impact in the ground a dozen meters from the line of enemy foot soldiers. He quickly realized these were ranging shots. There was no easy way to aim the bulky lasers in the dark.
The first laser tracked to the right and traced a red line across the hull of the enemy ship. The second laser burned a ragged line through the grass and sliced an alien in half.
Pandemonium erupted among the foot soldiers. They fled in every direction, and Nicholson saw a flash of light, followed momentarily by a thunderclap of sound. Soil erupted into the air, and he thought he saw a chunk of an enemy soldier tumbling to the ground near the bonfire.
The ship jerked away and rose, momentarily evading the laser. More red light flashed from the far side of the bowl of grass as the other group of colonists opened fire. They put several shots into the troops on the ground, then switched their fire to the rising ship.
The rest of the ground troops fled into darkness. With no more visible targets on the ground, all three lasers focused on the alien ship. Points of red appeared on the hull, then vanished as the ship jerked and twisted. Someone on the alien ship finally thought to turn off the spotlight, but Nicholson could still see a red glow where something on the ship burned. Higher and higher it rose, until he was sure it must be out of range. Laser beams would go practically forever in the vacuum of space, but they dissipated quickly in atmosphere.
Just when he thought the ship would escape, it started to fall. Faster and faster it plunged, until it slammed into the ground halfway between the pumping station and the end of the road.
A cheer went up from the colonists. A flash of light came from the middle of the bowl as another alien stumbled into a booby-trap. The sound of the explosion echoed around them, and the colonists cheered again.
"They always come up with good plans," Ron said. "Better each time, in fact. But they have no discipline. Next time we'll-"
A voice cried out, a wordless scream of alarm. Nicholson felt heat, and he threw himself flat, dragging Ron down with him. The trees around him erupted into flame, and someone else screamed, a ragged shriek of agony.
Nicholson heard a staccato clicking sound, like metal hitting wood, and he rose to his knees with his rifle in his hands. A shape came at him through the flames, a nightmare spider made of steel, and he sprayed it with blast shots. Sparks erupted from the steel casing that protected the creature's limbs, but several shots got through and slammed into the body behind. The thing flew back, thrashing, and Nicholson turned as more aliens swarmed out of the darkness. He fired until the magazine was empty, and reloaded without thinking, letting his training take over.
Flickers of light on either side told him two other rifles were firing. I must have lost someone. He was much too busy to pursue the thought. A pair of aliens converged on him, and he fired at the one on the left. He wounded it, saw the front limbs dig spasmodically into the dirt, and swung the rifle to the right. This alien was practically on top of him, and he blasted away, screaming as he fired.
A steel-clad limb swept the barrel of the rifle sideways, then slammed into Nicholson's chest. He felt a burst of pain and fell backward. It reared over him, a couple of steel spikes lifted high, and then Ron lunged in from the side, burying the blade of a spear in the creature's side.
Nicholson wasted a moment staring up in disbelief. Did I really just see someone use a spear on an alien? What next? Bows and arrows? Then he sat up, wincing as pain lashed through his chest, tucked the stock of the rifle under his arm, and opened fire.
The alien reached for Ron, but the spear had been designed with some care. The shaft was quite long, long enough that Ron was out of reach of those terrible arms. An arm slashed sideways, shattering the spear, and the creature lunged at the colonist. By that time, though, Nicholson was pouring shot after shot into the creature's unprotected body. It fell, one steel leg thrashed sideways and knocked Nicholson sprawling, and he saw his last shot plow into the dirt a handspan from Ron's foot.
A moment later, the alien on the left, the one Nicholson had injured but not killed, rose up behind Ron. Ron was smiling triumphantly at Nicholson, oblivious. His eyes widened when Nicholson took aim on the center of his chest. Ron was blocking Nicholson's shot, and both of them flinched at the sudden crack of a blast gun firing.
It was Gillett, putting four careful rounds into the creature's torso. She turned to scan the rest of the ambush site, and Nicholson let himself sag. A flashing red light on his rifle told him it was empty, and he changed magazines automatically. The pain in his chest was spreading, until even his fingers hurt as he slid the fresh magazine home. The attack seemed to be over, so he laid his rifle on the ground, stretched out beside it, folded his hands over his chest, and stared up at the sky.
The light of the burning trees around him drowned out the stars. He could see one of the moons, and he gazed up at it, enjoying the quiet tranquility of the image. He was having more and more trouble seeing it, though. Was the fire spreading? He turned his head, and found he couldn't see the flames, either. That's odd. He tried to say Gillett's name, but he couldn’t figure out if his lips were moving or not.
Everything was dark now, and he was cold. It puzzled him, and he tried to look around. Moving his head seemed like an impossible effort, though, so he shrugged to himself and let the darkness carry him away.
CHAPTER 12 - NICHOLSON
Nicholson sat at a picnic table, eating a plate of scrambled eggs. His chest ached. He had a hole in his armor, a shallow puncture wound in his chest, and a furrow carved into one rib. He also had a bruise that extended from his neck to his navel and from one armpit to the other, but he wasn't going to complain. He knew how lucky he was.
The alien counter-attack had been a disaster. Hudson was dead, along with half the colonists. The team on the far side of the bowl had been wiped out.
The morning sun put a bar of light on the west wall of the crater, and it crept downward as he ate. It was early morning, not that Nicholson's internal clock had adjusted. Stress, pain, and endless demands on his time had kept him awake for … he'd lost track of how many hours.
Gillett dropped onto the bench beside him. She had her own plate of eggs, and a mango. She cut a fat slice of the fruit, set it on his plate, and said, "How are you feeling, Sir?"
He lifted his left arm experimentally and grunted as a band of pain tightened around his chest. "Good enough under the circumstances. I'll have trouble using my rifle, though."
She nodded, then took a bite of mango. "Oh, this is good."
Nicholson had to agree. Navy personnel didn't get a lot of fresh food. "I've never really eaten like this before." He waved a hand around him. "Outside."
Gillett closed her eyes for a moment, and he had the distinct impression it was to hide the fact she was rolling them. "I've been on picnics before. It's not like this on Earth, though." She paused to take another bite of mango. "There's no ants. No chance of rain. No mosquitoes, no flies." She held up a slice of mango. "No wasps, attracted by the sugar."
Nicholson shuddered. Picnics on Ea
rth sounded horrible.
The picnic site was on a high ridge with a view across a mix of forest and orchards for several kilometers in every direction. Scattered all around them was an improvised city, home to more than a thousand refugees. There were no shelters as such. On a planet without rain, animals, or insects other than bees, it wasn't needed. The nights could be chilly, and those without blankets would bundle up in coats and extra shirts to sleep.
An irrigation station provided fresh water and a place to plug in the dozen or so electric vehicles the colonists had collected. It wasn't ideal, but they'd been able to survive for weeks.
They were by no means the only survivors on the planet. The need to forage for food meant that only small groups could be sustained. No one knew how many other groups cowered and scavenged along the length of the crater.
The only buildings in sight belonged to a small farm at the base of the ridge. The farm's owners had decided to stay put when the aliens arrived. They had continued to care for their hundreds of laying hens, and had fed a steadily growing stream of refugees fleeing the city.
Harlequin, apparently, was largely intact. The Hive had killed hundreds of people at least, but they hadn't tried too hard to annihilate the fleeing citizens. They apparently hadn't seen the colonists as a threat. Now they knew better, and killed every human they could find.
A debate raged among the survivors over whether resistance was a good idea. Nicholson had found himself in the middle of a bitter argument the night before. People like Ron insisted fighting back was their only chance. Tanya, the young woman who had ridden beside him in the Rover, had died in the battle at the pumping station. Ron was making her a martyr, insisting they had to fight on in her memory.
The Live and Let Live group, as they called themselves, insisted that Ron and his followers were going to get everyone killed. The aliens, once content to ignore the humans infesting the countryside, were now exterminating every refugee camp they could find.
"They were going to kill us anyway!" Ron had shouted. "Believe me, they would have gotten around to it."
The debate had gone on and on, but ultimately it didn't matter. There was no stopping the resistance, and it was too late anyway. The aliens already saw the scattered colonists as a threat.
In the middle of the camp a speaker played soft music, interrupted periodically by a woman with messages of hope and defiance. None of the colonists in the camp knew the woman, but they said she had to be hiding in the city. The colony had broadcasting equipment designed for sending radio messages to the science station on Dryad. It had long since been repurposed for public radio broadcasts.
No one knew the fate of the Dryad team.
"Have you met the mad scientist?" Gillett said.
Nicholson lifted an eyebrow. "Mad scientist?"
Gillett grinned. "Her name's Goldfarb. She's brilliant, but -" Gillett tapped her temple -"a little out there, if you know what I mean."
"I work with you, don't I?"
She made a face at him. "She worked in mining on Dryad. They deal with incredible heat problems there. Her job was making better heat shields for the mining equipment and habitats."
Nicholson said, "I see."
Gillett shook her head. "No you don't." Her arms started to move as she spoke. Nicholson had never seen her so animated. "The alien weapons are heat-based. Anti-laser mesh doesn't work, because it's too much heat and it's not focused."
"What are you saying?"
She looked at him like he was an obtuse child. "Right now she's trying to make body armor that would protect a person against a heat ray like they used on us last night." She shivered ever so slightly at the memory. "It won't work. You'd have to completely encase the person in metal, and you'd need a place to put the cooling vanes."
"I still don't see-"
"Ships, Sir!" Her hands flew up like excited birds erupting from the grass. "She can design heat shields for ships. Really good shields, better than anything we've got. Shields that could make their ship-to-ship weapons useless."
Nicholson stared at her, thinking about the ramifications.
"I think she might be the most important person on the planet," Gillett said. "We need to protect her. She needs to be on the first ship back to Earth when the Gate opens."
Nicholson ate his eggs in a thoughtful silence. "Mad scientist, eh?"
"You must be talking about Goldfarb," said a familiar voice.
Ron came over to the table, plopped himself down across from Nicholson and Gillett, and reached for the last slice of mango. "May I?"
"Help yourself."
He took a bite, chewed for a moment, then said, "We have a plan."
Nicholson felt his stomach tighten in a mix of dread and excitement. "Okay …"
"A new arrival came in yesterday. I just met him. He was in Harlequin four days ago."
Nicholson's eyebrows rose. "He's been in the city all this time?"
"Yeah. Hiding out in an attic until his food ran out. Turns out he was only a block over from Garibaldi Plaza."
Gillett leaned forward, her eyes alight. "What did he see?"
"He says they're building something. We knew that. But he says they finished a couple of days before he left." Ron shrugged. "He says the level of activity dropped way off. Says he never would have made it out of the city, otherwise."
"So, what is it?" Gillett said impatiently. "What did they build?"
Ron shook his head. "He says it looks like a tower. Sort of. It's all lumpy and weird-looking, like their ships. But it stands about three stories high, and there are cables all over the ground. It looks like they've got six or seven power boxes hooked up to the thing."
"Wait," Nicholson said. "Power boxes?"
"Oh, right. You don't know about those." Ron paused for a moment, thinking. "We call them power boxes. They're about this big." He gestured in the air, outlining a rounded shape almost two meters high. "They've always got big cables coming out of them. We think the aliens use them for a power source."
Nicholson said, "Well, the tower sounds like a nice big target. I wonder what it is."
Ron shrugged. "Does it matter? They've gone to a lot of trouble to build it. If it's important to them, I want to smash it."
Nicholson grinned. "Can't argue with that logic."
"There's a lot of bugs in the city," Ron said. 'Bugs' was what the colonists called the alien ground troops. "Too many for a ground assault. Except we know they panic when things get too hot for them." He rested his elbows on the table. "That's where you come in."
"Okay …"
"They're ready for an infantry attack," said Ron. "They can handle industrial lasers and hand weapons. But they aren't ready for an attack from the sky. They're not ready for the kinds of weapons you've got on that corvette." He made a fist, and his eyes glittered with a fierce hunger. "We'll put the fear of God into them when your ship comes in and puts a couple of dozen rail gun rounds into that tower. We'll put two hundred troops in the streets, and we'll cut them to pieces while they're running around in a panic."
For a moment he was wild-eyed, like a lunatic or a holy crusader. Then his fist lowered, and he gave Nicholson a sheepish grin. "Anyway, that's the plan. We know the city. We'll coordinate the ground attack. We'll lead your people, and fight alongside them. We'll time it so we're close to Garibaldi Plaza when your ship comes in." He lifted his hands and waggled his fingers, miming an explosion. "Total chaos! For them, at least." He grinned. "What do you think?"
Nicholson pondered. Taking civilians into a battle would be irresponsible and stupid. Poorly armed civilians, at that. The alien counter-attack the night before had shown how vulnerable the resistance fighters were.
On the other hand, the locals knew the city. Nicholson would be a fool not to bring at least a guide. And then there was the matter of numbers. How many more personnel could the Achilles spare? Maybe another half dozen at the most. Probably fewer, to be honest.
The colonists could muster hundreds.
They'll be slaughtered. I can't let that happen.
On the other hand … This is a war for all of humanity. The Hive is trying to exterminate these people. This could be their chance to fight back when the odds are in their favor. The aliens will be in disarray. Maybe it's better if they fight today, when they have a chance of victory, instead of some other day, when the Hive launches a surprise attack. On that day, they'll have no chance at all.
He looked at Ron. "It's not my decision," he said, "a fact for which I'm deeply grateful. I'll pass your recommendation along to my captain."
Ron raised an eyebrow. "He'll ask for your recommendation, though."
Nicholson nodded reluctantly.
"And what will you tell him?"
"Her," Nicholson corrected absently. "The captain is a 'her'."
"What will you tell her?" Ron said patiently.
Nicholson looked him in the eye. "I have no idea."
That was Frank Sinatra, with My Way. All my life, I did it my way. Next time I'm doing it Frank's way.
This is Sharon Crowfoot, and you're listening to Radio Free Naxos, the little colony that took a licking and kept on kicking. The Navy has arrived, and it's about time, too. No doubt they'll offer to evacuate us all to Earth. I don't know about you, but I'll be leaving when they load the mangled remains of my carcass into a body bag and load it onto a ship. Naxos is my home, and I'll be staying. On that theme, here's Mystic O'Reilly with her classic ballad, Home is Where the Heart Is.
CHAPTER 13 - HAMMETT
I sure hope I know what I'm doing.
It wasn't the first time in a long career as an officer that Hammett had entertained that particular thought, and he suppressed it with the ease of long practice. This was what people meant when they talked about the burden of command: sitting on the bridge of a ship with inadequate resources, far too little information, and brutally high stakes, with the sure and certain knowledge that no matter what he did, good people would die this day.