by Chris Walley
The effect, he realized in a snatched moment of reflection, was a paradox. I know a great deal of what’s going on in this battle, but I feel utterly distanced from it. Only the episodic percussive blasts rumbling through the floor reminded him that beyond the Circle, a war raged in which men and women died.
For the first two hours or so, there was hope of a victory. One incoming ship was destroyed in midair by a missile, but the remaining five landed successfully, essentially forming a frame around Tahuma. Two touched down to the southwest only to soon be blown apart by a sustained artillery barrage. To the southeast, a single ship released some Krallen but was then badly damaged and from then on seemed to pose only a limited threat.
To the north, the situation was much grimmer. The two large landers, one to the northeast, the other to the northwest, began releasing a substantial contingent of Krallen and military hardware and throwing up huge amounts of dust and rock. Spotter drones—soon shot down—revealed that machines were creating excavations with mud and stone ramparts to protect and hide the enemy forces. From these two zones, columns of Krallen and cannon insects and other things emerged and began moving slowly south. Betafor considered it likely that the two columns would try to arc through the front lines, join up, and punch south to the summit and Tahuma-B.
For an hour there were only missile and artillery engagements, with a limited number of Assembly casualties. There had been little direct contact between the troops and the Krallen, or “K-boys” as the code went. The swords remained untested.
Merral soon began to be cautiously optimistic. The attacks seemed contained, and casualties so far had been light. He began consulting whether, by using the limited airpower available, he might start to advance against at least one of the three Dominion landing sites. There was no evidence of baziliarchs, slitherwings, or any new weaponry. It seemed possible that the Dominion attack had been fatally wounded.
However, around three thirty, Betafor alerted Merral to a surge of signaling, and as he consulted with DC, the screens were filled with densely packed Krallen ranks racing southward.
“K-boys alert!” DC called out, almost standing up in her seat. “All northern sectors. Mass attack. Artillery: target arc, 15 east to 20 west. Spiders. Chief, suggest air support now.”
“Approved.” Merral caught the eye of the air liaison woman. “Get them in.”
DC was flicking switches. “Minefields on live. Soldiers: Remember to feed back working sword settings.”
Merral glanced over to see Anya with the Krallen team. She was staring at the screens, and he followed her gaze. They showed a succession of images of gray forms bounding across the rocky surface with their flawless discipline. In among them were large, six-legged forms with angled tubes on their back from which pulses of smoke issued. Cannon insects firing!
Someone began reporting incoming rounds when on the screen the line disintegrated into silent bloomings of flame and flying fragments of lead gray machine and brown rock. Then as the dust and mud cloud dispersed and the sound of the blasts rumbled underfoot, Merral saw what he feared he would: the Krallen lines reforming and racing on.
In seconds, they struck the outer perimeter lines. There were no walls with mirror ice here, and the Krallen scrabbled up the berm and leaped into the lines of soldiers.
DC seemed to be bouncing up and down with frustration. “K-boy attack! Feed me back those sword readings. We need sword readings!”
Indeed we do. Merral saw one man topple over, his face a mass of blood. A severed arm tumbled in front of the camera. Soldiers reeled back. The troops were beginning to panic.
The swords aren’t working.
“Setting 4,” someone shouted.
“Range 4B,” someone else cried.
“Range 4B-point-1 is working!”
DC called out, “Soldiers: range 4B-point-1. Hit firm and true.”
A camera showed a soldier adjusting a blade handle. A gray, doglike form leaped at him and he struggled back and swung the blade in desperation. The blade cut in and silver fluid jetted out.
“4B-point-1 is confirmed! Cut them down!”
More explosions flashed across the screens. We are taking damage.
“Chief, our skimmers coming in. Instructions, please?”
“The cannon insects—take them out.”
Five minutes later, perhaps half of the two dozen cannon insects were destroyed.
But so were both of the skimmers.
As the afternoon wore on, the cautious optimism in the Circle ebbed away.
There were successes. Rocket-armed drones destroyed two Dominion vehicles with men in them. Something like a tank was eliminated by a missile. Nothing further emerged from the damaged ship at the southeast landing site. The Krallen in general made slow progress, and when they reached the mirror ice sections at the foot of the main slope, they were slowed still further. Yet the frictionless walls proved only a temporary obstacle; the Krallen would keep attacking at a single point until the bodies of the fallen had made a ramp high enough for their colleagues to climb up.
There were also failures. The calibrated swords worked, but, as Anya identified first, the Krallen now had new strategies. Gone was the mad rush to destruction that they had seen at Tezekal or Ynysmant. Instead, they would identify the end of some defensive line or some other point of weakness, and there a pack would overwhelm the exposed man or woman, back off, and then attack again elsewhere. This nibbling away had the effect of slowly but surely eroding the defenses. The remaining cannon insects kept up a steady fire, which damaged fortifications, soldiers, and morale. Eventually, as the sun began to sink, the lines of Assembly soldiers began to be pulled back.
As Betafor had suggested they would, the two Krallen columns met and began a determined single push south. On the map Merral saw their advance began to have a sinister arrowhead look. This incursion began to force troops away to the sides. No attempt was made to attack the forces to the southeast and southwest of Tahuma, and while this helped the evacuation of the wounded, it made it all too easy for nervous troops to edge out of the impact zone. As the light went, Merral saw more and more evidence that some troops were “accidentally” redeploying away from the thrusting arrowhead of the Krallen incursion.
Suddenly Merral came to a decision. He leaned back to where his aide sat.
“Sergeant, I want to see what’s really happening. Fancy some exercise?”
“Do I get to kill some Krallen?”
“Yes.”
He caught a smile. Lloyd is frustrated by watching a war at a distance.
Merral turned to DC. “DC, you are running the show. If you need me, call me; but I’m going down there. I want to see it for myself. And maybe stiffen the front line a bit.”
DC wiped the sweat off her pale face. “Good idea. I’ll tell the officers what you’re up to.”
Merral pulled his helmet on and set up the link to DC. Then after a final check with the Circle teams, he climbed the stairs out of the bunker. Lloyd, so laden down with weapons that he made a clanking noise, followed him.
Outside the massive door to the outside world, Merral stopped. He peered over the edge of the earthworks and surveyed the scene. To the west, the sun was setting in a bonfire of purple and gold, while to the east the stars were coming out. To the north, the eye could make out the softly gleaming line of Krallen as if a silver tide were flowing around the edge of the slope. On the rugged slope below, he could see the lines of the trenches and the soldiers within. Beyond, fires were burning, staining the sky with smoke.
With the sight came all the horrendous noises of war: the sporadic explosions, the whine of bullets, the howling of the Krallen, and the yells and the screams of the wounded.
Merral felt almost ashamed at having been so isolated. How sanitized the Circle is!
He looked around again. Somehow we need to hold these lines, or something close to them, for another six hours.
He turned to Lloyd. “Ready?”
“Absolutely.” Merral saw him slide his safety catch off.
“Then let’s go.”
For an hour, Merral and Lloyd walked the lines as night fell and the temperature dropped. Where they felt it would do the most good, they joined the soldiers at the trench edge and Merral cut and hewed at the Krallen struggling up the mirror ice walls while Lloyd used both his blade and his double-barreled gun. Wherever they fought, the enemy fell back and the soldiers were encouraged. More than once, Merral picked up the words “D’Avanos is here!” and heard cheers.
Merral talked with medical orderlies and captains and chatted briefly with some of the soldiers, trying to both console those who had lost comrades and encourage those whose courage seemed to be faltering.
So much grief, misery, and fear; how I hate battles!
Trying to stay above the emotions that surged around, Merral then walked up to the higher ground, where the sniper teams were mounting night sights on their weapons and trying not to shiver. Merral learned that they had taken down some Krallen but were saving their ammunition for bigger targets. Among the women he found a sense of disappointment that there had not been more suitable targets.
“If you see anyone in armor like this,” Merral said, “check to be sure it’s not me, then fire.”
A few minutes later, up at a vantage point, Merral stopped, massaged a tired shoulder, and inspected the scene before him.
“Okay, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. Very well. Good to kill some Krallen. That’s what my job’s about.” Merral heard an edge to his words and knew he alluded to Gerry’s death.
“I know what you mean.” Then, a moment later, Merral asked, “But what do you make of this?” He gestured to the scene of conflict before them.
“An odd one, sir,” his aide commented, rubbing at what Merral was fairly sure was a blistered right hand.
“Go on.”
“It’s not like Tezekal or Ynysmant, sir. It’s static. You remember there; it was wave after wave of attacks. Here, it’s more a steady pushing.”
“We are still being edged back.”
“But only slowly. And we’ve seen few men, sir.”
Merral stared into the darkness. “Yes. My comment about Lezaroth wasn’t a joke. I think he’s out there. Just watching us.”
“I’d say so too. Ain’t seen any slitherwings, either.”
“True. It’s a different strategy.” But the delay suits us.
“You know what I reckon, sir? It’s in the handbook.”
“Ah, the ever useful Bodyguard’s Handbook. Go on.”
“I reckon they’re trying to trick us. You notice they haven’t given us a moment’s chance to relax?”
“True.”
An explosion erupted nearby, and the ground shook.
“They’ll wait till we are tired, or off guard, and then hit us hard. That’s my take on it.”
Merral considered it. “A very sensible thought, Lloyd. I think you may be right.” But when?
Merral looked up into the night sky, and his eye soon found what he was looking for. Low in the sky, something like a thin daub of red paint glowed in the darkness. Something about it, either real or imagined, seemed to chill his blood.
“There!” Merral extended a gloved finger and blocked it out. But unless it is destroyed, the Blade will soon be very much larger. It will dominate all, and our resistance will collapse.
He caught Lloyd’s frown. Nothing else matters except that the Blade is destroyed. Compared to that, this is really a sideshow.
He heard new cries and yells from below, a ragged volley of shots, and the sound of blades striking into metal.
Merral watched as a local Krallen surge was driven back. But each time we drive them back, we never fully retake the lost ground. Lloyd’s prediction is probably right: we will see a relentless pressuring and then a sudden assault.
“Okay, Sergeant, let’s go back to the Circle. Let’s see what DC and Betafor have to say.”
At the Circle, things were much as they had been. DC was sitting in her chair eating a sandwich, operating the screens and buttons with one hand.
“That quiet, eh?” Merral said, trying to smile.
DC wiped her mouth and smiled back. “Chief, I took five minutes to freshen up, change my T-shirt, and get some food.”
“I’ll waive the court-martial. What’s happening?”
She shrugged. “Same old stuff. You guys look like you’ve had some action.” Merral saw that his and Lloyd’s armor were stained with mud and silver Krallen fluid and was inclined to agree.
Merral described what they had seen. “I have the very strongest feeling that something is brewing. But what? I have no idea.” He looked at Betafor. “Do you?
“A battlefield is always complex, Commander. Always full of strange signals. But I detect no . . . evidence of an impending attack.” Behind her, he saw Lloyd and noted his face bore an unmistakable look of skepticism.
Merral, aware that everyone in the Circle was watching, raised his voice. “Everyone: I want you to look out for oddities. We think we face a trap!”
Over the next hour little of significance happened. There was the steady press of Krallen against the perimeter of the defenses, and the line was penetrated briefly at several points. But that was all.
In the end, Merral grew so uneasy that around half past eight he ordered a pair of drones with night vision to overfly the site. He was waiting for the first images when he heard a quiet, hesitant voice behind him. “Commander . . . if I could have a moment . . .”
He turned to see a petite, auburn-haired woman who held a diary in her hand. “What is it?”
“Sir, I’m from the artillery team. I’m a glaciologist. Or was. But here I look at the seismic . . .”
“To help us check where the shells are landing.” That much I do know.
“The thing is, sir, there have been some odd signals. On the seismic.”
“What sort of odd?”
“Like small, gentle explosions, only . . . only when you trace the signals there’s nothing at the epicenter.”
“No crater?”
“None. And when you play back the imagery to the time of apparent impact, no explosions.”
“So you have what? Ghost explosions?”
She puckered up her face. “Sir, in my glacier studies, I worked on deep events. The cracking at the base of the ice. And I plugged these odd signals into my programs.”
“And?”
“The signals make sense if you assume they have a focus at around fifty meters’ depth.” She held out the diary and Merral took it and overlaid the data on a main screen. Two red stars appeared on the map of the battleground.
“You see the trend, sir.”
He saw that if you joined up the points, you had a line that—if both ends were extended—linked the northeastern landing site and command bunker.
“I do, indeed.” He checked the times. As he expected, the more recent explosion was the nearer. “Any other signals?”
“There’s a lot of continuous background noise.”
“Your guess?”
“I think, sir . . .” Her face showed caution. “I think . . . they may be tunneling toward us. Most of the time they do it without very much noise, but sometimes they have a roof fall or use explosives. That’s the bigger events.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot! Now, as fast as you can, get me an estimated time of arrival underneath us.”
“Certainly, sir.”
As she left, Merral strode over to the Allenix. “Betafor, is it possible that the Dominion forces could be trying to tunnel toward us?”
“It is . . . possible. They possess sophisticated mining machines.”
Of course, they would have to. Their worlds are so hostile at the surface.
“Just machines?”
“Operated by things like Krallen.”
Five minutes later, the glaciologist was coming back, a look of urgency on her face. “Checked the readings. Be
st estimate: two and a half hours.”
He looked at a clock. “Eleven,” he said aloud and caught the flicker of dismay on Lloyd’s face. He and I know we need another half hour. I could use Vero now. Where is he and what is he doing?
Merral took Lloyd aside. “Sergeant, if you were the enemy, how would you run things?”
Lloyd scratched his nose. “We’re gonna hear or feel this burrowing thing when it gets nearer. So . . . they’ll attack to mask it. Perhaps half past ten?”
“I agree.” Merral paused. “I think we need to be ready to evacuate here and get the key personnel over the bridge to the core center.”
“Sir, what about having a welcome ready for them here? Hundred kilos of that new hi-blast explosive ought to be a nice welcome.”
“Good idea. Get it arranged.”
He saw Lloyd was staring beyond him at Betafor. “And, sir,” he whispered, “I reckon she knew. Didn’t warn us.”
Merral glanced at the Allenix. “Perhaps.”
Merral consulted with the team leaders, and plans were drawn up for a phased evacuation and the transfer of the key personnel to the core center. It was felt that the sharp focus of the attack meant that, with covering fire, those not needed at the core center ought to be able to flee to the southwest. Merral ordered the team leaders to have evacuation drills ready.
For the next ninety minutes, the ceaseless assaults of the Krallen continued. In concrete terms they achieved little other than the gaining of a few tens of meters of trench and the deaths of a few score soldiers. Yet Merral knew they had gained a less obvious but important benefit in the wearing down and tiring of his troops.
As the battles raged outside, the teams in the Circle were divided into those few who, should the decision to evacuate be made, would move over to the core center and the larger number who would try to leave the mountain to the southwest. Ominous gray canisters with yellow symbols were stacked around the sides of the Circle. Seismic monitors were set up and linked, and on a screen a shadowy cross section of the hill showed a long horizontal red line beginning to curve upward toward the summit.