by Mick Farren
Something new was happening. The nothings had started to dim. They were also changing color. From bright white, they faded to a diffused pearly pink that in turn darkened to a deep magenta. Thunder and lightning crashed and boomed inside the city. And then the nothings started to clear. It was like a hole appearing. A vast abyss of empty, clear-air reality was materializing in the nothings.
'This is it! Be ready.'
The voice from the PA spoke for the last time. 'Contact has been made.'
The lightning stopped, and the thunder ceased to roll. In moments it was clear that the abyss was not empty. It had a floor of plain red ocher, basic rock matter that stretched back as far as the eye could see, and on that floor an army was starting to move.
Barstow let out a low whistle. 'Goddamn it to hell, there are thousands of them, and they're coming right at us.'
Above the army there was a bloodred pseudosun that made the parting of the nothings resemble a grim satanic dawn.
Reave nodded. 'It's going to be a long day.'
Billy Oblivion's face twisted in a lopsided grin. 'Let's hope we see the end of it.'
Reave had expected the enemy to be all over them the moment the nothings opened. Instead, whatever combination of warlords that was in command of the army had made their men stand back, leaving maybe a thousand yards of dusty no-man's-land between attackers and defenders, putting them beyond the effective range of the majority of the city's weapons. It was a strange, almost formal move. The initial wave of attackers would have to advance into a hail of concentrated fire. If Reave had been running things, he would never have played it that way, but he guessed that there was no accounting for the insane. The warlords seemed more concerned with grand martial spectacle than with casualty figures. Neoprimitive impis were the first line of assault, a dark mass crested by a sea of waving powerspears, spread out over a broad front. They had no long-range weapons, and very soon they would move forward at that inhuman highspeed run. Possibly, Reave reflected, one of the warlords did not feel too assured of their savage loyalty and wanted to see their numbers thinned out a bit.
Men were coming down the tunnel from inside the city. Reave turned in alarm. His first reaction was that it was a fifth column attack, but it turned out to be nothing more than squads of militia moving over from the quadrants that would not be taking the brunt of the first attack. Reave doubted that the raiders who were already inside the city would make a move until that first shock wave of neoprimitives had dashed itself on the defenses. The neoprimitives were notorious for their very imprecise concepts of friend and foe.
The noise was the first thing to hit: the amplified crash of steel drums, the braying of horns, and the deep-throated, cooing war cry of the neoprimitives. The last grew into a great roar as the impis began to move forward, slowly at first but rapidly gathering speed. The two flanks spread out, curving forward at the extreme ends in the traditional buffalo horn formation, while the center, the head, was compressed into a solid unstoppable mass. All along the barricades on the rim platform, officers were shouting for their troops to hold their fire until the attackers were well within range.
The thousand yards was cut to five hundred, then four, and then three. A mortar shell burst in the air above the leading edge of the assault, and the battle was on. A particle cannon opened up, scything through the impis' front line. At 250 yards, the orders were given and firing began in earnest. A withering blanket of small-arms fire smashed into the howling press of neoprimitives, but they were barely slowed down. They continued to run like roaring maniacs, leaving their dead sprawled in the red dust. With the gap between the opposing forces narrowed to just two hundred yards, the impis received a little help. Three red biplanes rose from somewhere in the rear of the army and buzzed toward the platform fortifications. They made a wide, high turn, staying out of reach of the defenders' fire, and then made a low, fast strafing run, hitting the lines of defenders with cannon fire and small airlite rockets. The crew on the particle cannon struggled to elevate their weapon and managed to loose a burst at the last of the planes as it roared back the way it had come. They must have hit something. The plane did not go down, but it started trailing smoke. A ragged cheer went up from the barricades.
The celebration was short-lived, however. It took what was left of the impis just eight seconds to cover the last hundred yards. They hit the platform like breaking surf, and the defenders were engulfed in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The spears stabbed and stabbed. The neoprimitives were masters at such brutal, close-quarters combat. As more and more of them poured over the fortifications, the volunteers and the militia were increasingly forced to give ground.
The line broke in front of the tunnel, and a dozen or more of the attackers burst through before the gap could be plugged. It was Reave's first look at the enemy. The neoprimitives were tall, olive-skinned men with highspike hair, feathered kilts, and scarlet battle paint; their powerspears hummed loudly as they raced for the mouth of the tunnel. Reave leveled his pistols and screamed the order.
'Fire!'
The crash of weapons was like a psychic release for the DNA Cowboys. Whatever happened from then on, there would be no more waiting. Billy's multiplex alone took three of the neoprimitives in the first burst. Only two of the dozen actually made it to the tunnel's mouth. One of them was felled by a two-armed sweep of Renatta's lasers, while a second was brought down by a short x-pando burst from the Minstrel Boy's AK. As he fired, he noted that Renatta was exceedingly good with the wrist lasers and wondered where and in what circumstances she had learned the complicated art.
In the wake of the neoprimitives, the rest of the enemy army was moving forward. The most immediate threat was the squadron of lizard riders that was kicking up a dust cloud across the rock surface, charging hard down on the platforms. A particle cannon fired a long barrage, and a cluster of riders came down in a tangle of thrashing legs. By far the majority of the defenders, however, were still engaged with the neoprimitives, fighting for their lives. They had no time to bring their weapons to bear to slow the charge. Reave spotted running figures in among the high-tailed, high-stepping lizards, awkward angular things, too tall to be human. They had to be the green template monsters created by the one who called himself Max Zero.
He glanced back at the Minstrel Boy. 'They can't hold much longer. When those lizard soldiers hit, the front lines are going to be overrun.'
'So what do we do? Move up and reinforce? The idea doesn't thrill me.'
'Me, neither. I intend to try and get us out of this alive and one way is to do the minimum that won't get us shot as deserters.'
'So?'
'So when the lizards hit, we fall back to the second position. Be ready.'
'Just give the word, I'm always ready to retreat.'
A bomb went off somewhere inside the city.
'Nulites?' the Minstrel Boy wondered.
Reave shook his head. 'I doubt it. Not unless they're working for the enemy.'
Two militiamen in bronze armor fled from the fortifications with five neoprimitives in hot pursuit. A pair of powerspears were thrown as one, and the fancy armor offered no protection. One blade stood out a good twelve inches in front of the first man's chest, and the look of horror on his face as it continued to hum at pain vibration inside him was something that Reave did not think he would be able to forget for a long time.
The first lizard came over the barricades. Its rider wore black samurai-style armor and wielded a pair of long pistols similar to Reave's. He seemed to be in the throes of a suicidal frenzy, wheeling his mount from side to side and firing into the fighting pack around the fortifications. He shot four defenders before he was dragged from his saddle by their comrades to be hacked and beaten to death.
Reave gestured to his squad. 'Okay, fall back. Fall back to the second position.'
The squad needed no further urging. They ran back down the tunnel, away from the fighting. Barstow and another merc called Natch were the first out into th
e open, and they were immediately cut down by a burst of fire from a nearby walkway. The others stopped dead in their tracks.
The Minstrel Boy looked around anxiously. 'Now what?'
Reave edged up to the mouth of the tunnel and peered around the stonework. The wall beside him was spattered by more fire. He quickly pulled his head back. 'There's a bunch of fifth columnists. They've set up a fire point by the big support pillar over on the left.'
At that moment two lizard soldiers clattered into the other end of the tunnel. The Minstrel Boy dropped into a crouch, the AK chattering in his hand.
Reave gestured to the three remaining mercs. 'Shaef, Nosmo, Stazio, back him up!' He turned to Billy. 'Can you fix that fire point?'
Bill was already jacking a small cigar-sized smartbomb into the multiplex's launcher. 'If my aura holds.' The weird voices in his head had stopped once the shooting had begun.
Reave scowled. 'Don't get mystic on me.'
Two lizards were twitching on the floor of the tunnel. One of the riders had staggered to his feet, determined to keep coming on foot. He took only four paces before Nosmo blew his head off. No more lizards came into the tunnel. For the moment the militia seemed to be holding the line. Billy craned around the corner of the tunnel mouth, and it was once again blasted with fire. Holding the multiplex at arm's length, he loosed the missile. For Billy, a firefight was the easy part. There was a crump as the missile impacted. Flicking the multiplex to heat ray, he very cautiously stepped into the open. To his immense relief, nobody shot at him.
'Okay, the way's clear. Let's go!'
They sprinted for the cover of the big support pillar and took stock of the situation. The smoke of the explosion still lingered, and the broken bodies of a half dozen fifth columnists were scattered all around the base of the pillar. Reave looked at Billy as he turned one over with his foot. Half the man's face had been blown away.
'You really did a job on these guys.'
'What was I supposed to do, slap them on the wrist?'
There was no sign of any other enemy units, and they started moving toward their first fallback position. Other squads of militia were being moved up to the platforms. For the moment the first line seemed to be holding, although Reave did not want to think about the cost. A few officers gave them strange looks as Reave's squad retreated when everyone else was advancing, but once again a look of self-assurance stood them in good stead, and nobody stopped to question them. Their fallback point was up one level, in a sandbagged fire position set up on the steps of the city's central registry building. It afforded an elevated view of the access roads leading to the platform tunnels. Themoment the first line gave way, they would find themselves in the thick of the fighting.
When they arrived there, they found that the position was already manned by a team of skittish civilian volunteers under the command of a regular militia officer, who only just managed to stop his men from shooting Reave's squad as fifth columnists. The arrival of Reave and his people seemed to add to an already confused situation. The officer paced up and down, shaking his head, while his men looked ready to jump at their own shadows.
'I don't understand why you were sent back here. Half the brigade's been moved forward to the platforms.'
Reave just shrugged, relying totally on the military's God-given talent for fouling up.
'Hell, I don't know. I just follow orders, I don't cut them. All I know is that we were in the tunnels, up to our ass in fifth columnists and neoprimitives, and then a runner comes and tells us that we're to fall back to our second position. I wasn't about to complain. It's only a matter of time before the platforms are overrun.'
The officer decided to get a second opinion. The fire position had one of the Krystaleit militia's cumbersome communication sets. In the Damaged World, where no signal could penetrate the nothings and even stabilized reality was awash with energy fog, electronic communication was something of a dying art.
The officer looked at the volunteer operator. 'Are you getting anything on that?'
The operator shook his head. 'Not a damned thing. The whole net seems to be down.'
The officer cursed under his breath and faced Reave. 'I don't know what to tell you.'
There was a series of explosions out on the platforms, and the volunteers looked nervously at each other.
Reave checked the charges on his pistols. 'I figure that at any minute, the question of where we're supposed to be at is going to be pretty damned academic.'
Almost on cue, groups of figures started coming up the access road. First it was medics carrying stretchers and the walking wounded helping each other up the ramp, looking for a secure spot where they could get medical attention. Initially, the retreat was fairly dignified. Clearly, the defenders on the barricades were desperately buying time so the wounded could get out, butin a situation like that time had a nasty habit of running out all too quickly. In a matter of minutes large numbers of defenders were streaming out of the tunnels and back into the city. Some tried to fight an orderly rearguard action, falling back from one position of cover to another, firing back into the tunnels as they withdrew. Others, however, were simply fleeing for their lives in an unseemly rout, even abandoning their weapons in panic as they sought the apparent safety of the interior of the city.
A militiaman was caught in the periphery of a heat blast, and his armor blazed like a Roman candle. Amazingly, he was not killed outright but staggered forward for a few steps, screaming, with his armor streaming green and yellow flames. Reave's face was grim. The moment he had first seen that armor he had known it was no good. Whoever had issued the damn stuff deserved to be taken out and shot.
The first attackers came out of the tunnels, a howling knot of neoprimitives with blood up to their elbows, plus a handful of the green template monsters. It was Reave's first look at the things. Menlo had not exaggerated. They were ugly as sin. Long, purposeless, saberlike fangs extended down from their upper jaws, and the thick, horny claws at the ends of their fingers must have seriously impaired the use of their hands. They were more the product of some fevered nightmare fantasy than custom-tailored fighting machines. It appeared that the only weapons the monsters were capable of using were wide-bladed scimitars and rudimentary slug guns. They did not even move well. They were ungainly and uncoordinated, and they seemed too stupid to avoid exposing themselves as clear, easy targets. A platoon of militiamen formed ranks across the road and loosed volleys of bolts into the raiders emerging from the tunnels. There was even something weird about the way the template monsters died. When they were hit, they first spasmed crazily as though some elementary electrical nervous system was shorting out, and then they collapsed in on themselves like soft containers that suddenly had been drained of their contents.
While the only attackers were the neoprimitives and the green monsters, the platoon on the access road held its own. Then the mounted men started to come out of the tunnels. As Reave knew all too well, they were the real strength of Baptiste and the other warlords. With their speed, firepower, and mobility, they would be more than a match for anything Krystaleit could put up against them.
A squadron of lizard soldiers wheeled out of the tunnels and thundered down on the hapless militia platoon. The militiamen stood their ground to the last moment and even took out three of the riders with their final volley of bolts; then the lizards were in among them, and they were scattered and gone. That was all she wrote. A formation of lancers mounted on tall black horses galloped out of the tunnel but clattered off in another direction.
The Minstrel Boy was up beside Reave with an anxious look on his face. 'This post is going to be a major hot spot in a matter of minutes.'
'Don't I know it.'
Already the volunteers were exchanging fire with the lizard soldiers. For the moment the enemy advance had been halted at the foot of the ramp that led to the upper level. The fire post commanded a clear sweep of the ramp. Once again, though, it was only a matter of time. More and more enemy t
roops were pouring out of the tunnels, and very soon they would have sufficient strength to rush the ramp. They might not make it on the first try, but by the third or fourth the defenders would be all out of both resolve and ammunition. Either that or the attackers could bring up a particle cannon or some other heavy ordnance, and then it would be over very much fester.
Billy joined the conversation. 'So how do we get out of this mess?'
'All we can do is wait for a chance.'
'If we don't get a chance pretty soon, we won't get no chance at all. I can feel the fat lady getting ready to sing.'
A hail of fire ripped along the top of the sandbag emplacement, and everyone ducked. A volunteer who had overheard a good part of the DNA Cowboys' conversation looked at them in dumb horror. Reave had no time, however, to worry about morale.
'Goddamn it! They're bringing up something heavy.'
The line of lizards at the foot of the ramp had parted to allow passage for a team of foot soldiers hauling a squat metal cylinder on a wheeled mount.
'What the hell is that thing?'
The Minstrel Boy shook his head. 'I've never seen anythinglike it, but it looks like it's quite capable of trashing this little redoubt.'
Reave, in no way bothered that he was usurping the militia officer's authority, yelled to the force of volunteers.'Everybody concentrate fire on that cylinder thing. Make it as hard as possible for them to set it up.'
The enemy seemed to have other ideas. With the neoprimitives and green giants in the front, a grimly determined charge started up the ramp. It had no hope of success, but it drew fire away from the cylinder weapon. One of Billy's tiny smartbombs killed the gun crew plus two lizards and their riders, but it did not seem to harm the weapon, and others immediately moved in to replace the crew.
Reave turned on the militia officer. 'Maybe we should think about pulling out. There's no way we can stop them bringing that thing to bear.'
The officer glared at him. In the background there was the sound of firefights from all over the nearby parts of the city.