by J. N. Chaney
He tried it out. Sitting, his head was just at the top of the hole. When he pulled the plug over, he was essentially invisible.
Perfect.
No one knew why being dug in helped to remain undiscovered. Either the Centaurs’ vaunted technology couldn’t see underground, or they never considered an enemy hiding in a spiderhole. Rev thought it was probably the latter. His own combat suit had ground-penetrating sonar, and the Centaurs were light-years ahead of humans.
Rev removed his two Yellowjackets, sticking them into the dirt wall of his hole, ready to grab if needed. He checked his comms suite, making sure he was off broadcast and giving it a nanopulse. His circuitry was good. The team was still on emissions silence, but warning the rest of the regiment took priority. If he had to get the message out, he’d go live and broadcast it. Finally, he connected his four Optisights and pulled the plug over his head.
He was good to go. All he had now was the waiting.
“Hey, how about some Utopia Sisters?”
An instant later, “Red Herring” tickled his auditory nerves as he settled in.
In the war holovids, the Marines or soldiers always knew what was going on, their helmet displays veritable fonts of battlefield intel. In real life—not that Rev had lots of experience—things were different. Rev was one of almost ten thousand Marines on the planet. Forty meters or so to his left was Tomiko, and another forty meters or so farther was the gunny.
But he’d never felt so alone. From his spiderhole, he couldn’t even see the city—all he could see were the specks of Drop Marines descending. Soon, if everything was going to plan, the landing craft would appear, with the heavier Marine infantry and mech, to be followed later by the tanks and arty.
But as a long-ago twentieth-century philosopher named Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” The Centaurs were punching. Was the ongoing fight in any semblance of the plan?
Rev had a strong desire to get out of the spider hole, maybe climb a tree to get a better view down into the plains. But even with his augmented vision, at fifty-seven klicks from the outer reaches of the city, he wasn’t going to be able to discern much of what was happening.
He shifted his weight, wishing he’d dug the hole a little wider. He couldn’t turn around in it, and was stuck in one position.
“Like a rat, not a spider,” he grumbled.
Rev switched to the next Optisight. He’d deployed four of them, one in each direction, giving him a full 360 degree of view. This one was to his left, on the planetary west. He wished he could see Tomiko, but she was higher than him and in her own spider hole, and that didn’t even take into account the vegetation between them.
If a Centaur came up on her, Rev wanted to be able to come to her support. But then again, if a Centaur hit her hard, he’d know it.
“Still nothing?”
His AI has started to refer to itself as “I” ever since Rev upped the PQ. He was a little uncomfortable with that, but it probably wouldn’t have offered music if it was still at zero. At the moment, “Never Again” was playing softly, almost as an afterthought, and it was calming.
Rev felt a little guilty at that. He was supposed to be on the alert. But his AI could filter the noise better than his auditory cortex, so he could cut himself a little slack with that. He switched to the next Optisight, the one pointing to the north. There were models of Optisights that could give a 360 view, and others that could rotate, but Raiders and Recon Marines went with the basic, unpowered models. The smaller their signature, as with all their equipment, the better.
The forest was still. Not even the birds or the fuzzy fliers puffballs broke the stillness. It was as if the critters knew that the fate of the planet hung in the balance. Animals always know. There in White Horse, and at the other two objectives—if the three battles could be won, then the remaining Centaurs could be tracked down and destroyed.
Ten thousand Marines for seven or eight hundred Centaurs, Rev told himself, shaking his head. Lucky there’s no more than that. If Intel is right.
No one knew why the Centaurs rarely deployed in significant numbers. Not that they had to. They were formidable enemies. But if they’d landed with, say, a couple thousand of their soldiers, it would take the entire Union Marine Corps to try and dislodge them.
Of course, if there were a couple thousand of them on the planet, the COH might just order the planet destroyed . . . and the Perseus Union secretariat would probably agree, despite whatever Union citizens might still be alive.
Rev scanned the skies above the city. The first wave of landing craft should be entering the atmosphere any minute now, if the Drop Marines had done their job. If the Centaurs were not stronger than expected. If the Centaur Navy wasn’t blasting Union ships out of space. If, if, if . . .
With a sigh, Rev shifted to the next Optisight and froze. A Centaur was not more than twenty meters from his spider hole.
“No, shit,” Rev hissed, pulling one of his Yellowjackets out of the wall of his hole, his heart trying to pound out of his chest.
The thing was huge, maybe four meters tall. And still, if it weren’t for Rev seeing with his own eyes, he would swear it wasn’t there. It was totally silent. A minute and a half ago, there was nothing there. Now, all four tons of it was squatting almost close enough to touch.
How the hell did that thing get there without me noticing?
“Distance.”
Damn! Rev forced the Yellowjacket back into the dirt of the wall. His missile would be useless. It wouldn’t arm in that short of a distance.
A stray thought hit him. “Is it possible to bypass the arming distance on the Yellowjacket?”
A surge of excitement swept through him.
“Let’s do it,” he subvocalized as he pulled the missile back out.
“What? I mean now. Can I do it here?”
“You stupid ass. Of course, I meant if we could do it right here, not at some facility back at Nguyen.”
His AI said nothing.
The Yellowjacket went back into the wall, and Rev looked through the Optisight again. The paladin hadn’t moved, and Rev weighed his options. He was the last Marine in their line, and the Centaur was on the other side of him. As surreptitiously as the Centaur had approached, Rev didn’t think anyone else knew it was there.
With a sigh, Rev knew he had only one choice. Duty demanded it.
“Open comms.”
At least his AI didn’t try and argue.
Rev knew he wasn’t going to have much time, so he uploaded the Centaur’s position, blinked an image file, and said, “We’ve got a Centaur Paladin. It’s got visuals over the plains and on up to the city. At the moment, it’s stationary.”
He took one last look at the Centaur. Too close for the Yellowjacket, and too close for him to attempt to get away.
No. I’m sending out this message, but I’m not going down without a fight.
“I want you to tell me as soon as I’m far enough away to use the Yellowjacket.”
He knew he had a one-in-a-zillion chance to run away twenty meters, turn, and engage the Centaur before it nailed him, but that was more of a chance than just giving up. This time he took both Yellowjackets out from where he jammed them into the dirt. He twisted the best he could, trying to bring his legs up, ready to bolt.
His comms were ready. Nothing had been sent yet, but all it took was a simple command.
“Sorry Mom, sorry Max,” then “Send it.”
His legs started to project him forward when his AI’s words stopped him dead.
“What do you mean?”
essage. The area is blanketed with a jamming device.>
“No!”
Rev had expected the worst, but in reality, this was worse than that. He hadn’t even got the message out.
He quickly looked through the Optisight, expecting to see the Centaur coming at him. But it hadn’t moved.
“Why isn’t it engaging me?”
Rev was sweating, and he felt faint. He hadn’t expected to be alive at the moment, but somehow, instead of feeling relief, he was angry. He felt cheated. The Centaur was still sitting there, and he didn’t even rate a reaction from the bastard.
“What now?” he muttered.
Rev hadn’t been asking his AI the question, but the thing was right. There wasn’t a text-book answer for that. He had to decide what to do.
The easy thing would be to just hunker down. It hadn’t detected him yet, which was a miracle in and of itself, and if he stayed quiet, he might make it out of this alive. And when it moved off, he could get out of the hole and tell the lieutenant.
The thought had an allure, and that made Rev feel guilty. But as much as he wracked his brain, he couldn’t think of anything better.
Maybe when it moved, he could wait until it was farther away, then light it up with a Yellowjacket. Even if it didn’t work, Tomiko would have to hear that and could get the word out—that is, if she wasn’t being jammed as well.
At the moment, however, the Centaur was not moving. In fact, as Rev watched, strut-like spikes extruded from the sides of the chassis and drove into the ground.
What the hell is it doing?
Once they were seated, the Centaur’s pedestal raised, and then it opened up to deploy its main weapon.
For a moment, Rev thought the thing had decided to take him out, but the heavy beamer was oriented north, out into the plains. The beamer was the kind that the Marines called Berthas, used for armor and—
“Holy shit!”
Everything came together in an instant. It wasn’t coincidence that the Centaur just happened to stop right beside him. The lieutenant had deployed the team along the ridgeline because it gave them extensive lines of sight over the plain below, all the way to the city. The cannon it was deploying was not just for armor and hardened targets. It was an anti-aircraft weapon, one with more than enough power to knock down landing craft at this distance, landing craft that would be descending at any moment now.
Rev had to act, but how? His M-49 could take out a Centaur’s drone-eyes, but it was useless against the Centaur itself. His Yellowjackets were too close to deploy, his MM-901 mines needed the bastard to roll over them, his—
Before he even knew what he was doing, Rev popped out his holster and removed two of his MG-3 Phoenixes. He jerked his feet up, getting them on his makeshift seat, and with a shout, burst out of his spider hole. He hit the ground running, taking three strides before launching himself up at the Centaur, trying to vault onto it. A split second after his feet left the ground, a powerful wave blasted just under him. The top of the wave just nicked Rev’s feet and sent him tumbling.
He smashed neck-first onto the top of the Centaur, almost bouncing off the far side as a second blast spread out. He flung out an arm to grab the pedestal, losing one of his Phoenixes in the process, but he held on. One more blast reached out, pulverizing the rocks on the uphill side into gravel and the trees around them into sawdust.
Rev still had the one Phoenix. He twisted the fuze, then slapped it on the chameleon pad at the base of the pedestal as the Centaur lurched into motion. He turned to jump off when common sense stopped him. He was still alive, so maybe the Centaur didn’t have a way to reach him. But he’d seen first-hand how effective the paladin’s “shredder” anti-personnel defenses were. The moment he jumped, he’d be a dead man.
The Phoenix flared, the pre-charge setting off the main event. A second later, a tiny sun erupted on the surface of the Centaur. The glare almost blinded Rev, and he could feel the heat through his combat suit. Rev skirted around the pedestal, hanging on to it like a baby monkey on its mother, and using it to shield him from the 20,000-degree heat.
The beam cannon, now fully deployed, fired, making the air crack with ionization. Rev hoped that was an attempt to shake him off, not to fire upon the landing craft. Two more shredder blasts destroyed more trees as the Centaur began to crab backward.
The glare from the Phoenix changed in intensity, and Rev risked a glance around the pedestal. The grenade had burned its way into the Centaur, smoke pouring from the entrance hole. Despite the situation, Rev had to be impressed. How could something so small, barely three hundred grams, do so much damage?
Two of the Centaur’s legs clanked together, and the thing lurched. It started to turn around, but in a jerking motion.
“Get the hell off of that thing!” Tomiko yelled out as she bounded down the pulverized rocks, waving her arms at him.
“Get back!” Rev shouted as the Centaur continued to lurch under him, afraid it would let out another anti-personnel blast.
“It’s going to blow!” Tomiko shouted, closing in the distance.
Oh, shit!
She was right. When a Centaur was killed, it blew up, and in spectacular fashion.
“Why didn’t you warn me,” he asked his AI, then he jumped off just as Tomiko reached him.
He grabbed her by the arm, dragged her to his spider hole, and bodily threw her in. Then he dove on top of her.
It was a tight fit. If she’d been any bigger, he’d have been stuck with his ass hanging out of the hole. As it was, he was barely able to draw in his legs when the world above them turned into a maelstrom, the pressure slamming Rev farther down and popping his ears. All of the air disappeared, leaving him unable to breathe.
Panic set in as he gasped for air that wasn’t there. Beneath him, Tomiko squirmed and fought to push against him. After too long—an eternity—the air came rushing back, and Rev squirmed back out of the hole. The area around was a wasteland. Nothing was left standing for forty or fifty meters, and beyond that, trees were afire.
“By the Mother,” Rev said in shock.
There was no sign of the Centaur.
Tomiko stuck her head out of the hole and looked around with a bewildered look on her face.
“Holy shit.”
“You colossal dumbass. You almost got yourself killed, Miko.”
“Somebody had to make sure you didn’t get yourself waxed,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, about that. Thanks.”
“It’s what we do, right?”
She pulled herself out of the hole, then looked down at Rev’s feet. “What the hell happened to your sabaton?”
“What?”
Rev looked down, and to his surprise, the bottom of his left sabaton, the boot part of this combat suit, was gone. He could see the bottom of his foot. Not the sabaton, but his naked foot. The skin looked somewhat scorched, and he could see a few torn strands of his spider web, but it was whole.
And as if it only now realized what had happened, the pain rushed in, almost immediately followed by drugs his AI was activating.
“Well, hell,” he said, poking at the ruined sabaton. “I guess that sucker almost got me.”
He turned to Tomiko and asked, “Think they’ll make me pay for that?”
23
“You’re one lucky bastard,” Kel said, putting away her scanner.
Corporal Dean-Ballester was the team's demolitions specialist, but she’d also been trained in first aid. With the platoon’s one corpsman floating from team to team, each team had at least one such trained Marine.
Rev’s AI and medi-nanos could do a lot for him, but not everything. The corporal sprayed down his aching foot, then placed a patch of Nuskin over it. Immediately, a cool wave lessened the pain.
&
nbsp; “I don’t see much of anything serious. Give it a week, and I think you’ll be good as new. But hell, Rev, just a couple of centimeters closer, and you’d be looking at some serious regen time.”
Or a half-second later, and my momma’s eldest would be worm food.
During the fight, it really hadn’t sunk in. But now, as Tomiko and the gunny swabbed down the rubble, taking samples, it hit him. His brush with death couldn’t have been much closer.
Rev stretched out his leg, wiggling his toes. The foot seemed to work, at least. His sabaton, however, was toast. Most of the bottom was gone.
“What am I supposed to do with that? You got anything in your kit to give me a boot?”
“I’m not a mechanic,” Kel said. “You’re just going to have to manage until we get out of here.”
She helped him up, and he gingerly put a little weight on the foot. It felt weird more than painful, but the corporal was right. There was nothing to be done about it.
“How is he?” the lieutenant asked as he approached.
“He’ll live. But we need to get him back when we can.”
The lieutenant looked over the plain below to White Horse, where the fight was still ongoing. “That’s not going to happen for a while.”
Which was true, Rev knew. And he understood that. At the moment, the team was safe, while over in White Horse, Marines were locked in combat.
“Well, if you’ve done what you can, get back to your position, Corporal. We’ve still got our mission.”
“I’d put you on twenty-four hours bedrest, but you know . . .” the corporal said, slapping Rev on the shoulder. “Just don’t take on any more fucking tin-asses single-handedly.”
“Will do.”
“That was really something,” the lieutenant said as the corporal headed back. “Taking on a tin-ass by yourself and surviving. You know how rare that is?”
He was excited, Rev could tell, his eyes bright, his breathing quick. Like Rev, this was his first combat.
“Kinda rare, I’m guessing.”