by Steve White
"Eric is ordering men down to the surface to face death while he himself waits in relative safety, Aelanni. It doesn't sit well with him. You should know that much of him by now. He needs to involve himself as closely as his position allows with those he's sending into battle."
"Oh, I know. I also know it's one of the reasons men follow him. I sometimes think he wishes he could plunge directly into the fighting himself!" She shook her head irritably, as if to shake away the thought. "But he knows better, of course," nodding for emphasis. She was about to say something else when the computer's voice spoke in tones of cybernetically calibrated urgency.
"Alert! Multiple antispacecraft missile launches fron previously unsuspected site."
"Shit!" Aelanni spoke in English. "How many of these secret missile stations can they have?" She and Varien turned to face the master holographic globe of Raehan. A new orange light was blinking infuriatingly in the far-northern latitudes, where missiles were now roaring up from beneath the tundra. She wondered fleetingly how many Raehaniv slave laborers had been exterminated to preserve that location's secrecy.
"Give me a targeting solution for that base," she told the computer. "And analyze those missiles' flight path." Korvaash tactics called for a missile site to announce its existence with a full salvo concentrated on one ship.
"Acknowledged," the computer replied. Then, without appreciable pause: "The missiles' target is Guadalcanal."
Varien turned his head sharply toward Aelanni. She did not return his look. She was staring straight ahead, mouth slightly open, gazing unblinkingly at nothing that was visible to anyone else in the control room.
* * *
DiFalco could hardly shake hands with Thompson—the powered armor's "hands" were mechanical clamps that could have crushed sheet steel, slaved to the opening and closing movements of the operator's hands. But he looked up and met the Marine's eyes through the viewplate.
"Give 'em hell, Joel," he said, wishing he could think of something more original.
"Aye aye, skipper," Thompson replied, through the external speaker. The other armored giants had filed aboard the shuttle, and the two of them were alone on the hold's deck, which would soon swing open and allow the shuttle to drop toward the planet far below. The transport had a series of such holds, each with its shuttle. The others held regular infantry, clad in non-powered articulated combat armor and limited to weapons that a man's unaided strength could carry.
"And now," Thompson continued, glancing at his HUD chronometer, "it's time for you headquarters types to clear the hold!"
"And get back to where we belong," DiFalco finished for him. He gave a jaunty salute as Thompson walked up the ramp, then turned toward the hatch on the far side of the hold.
All at once a deafening whoop-whoop-whoop sounded, and the the intercom awoke thunderously. "Red alert! Red alert! Incoming missiles!" Simultaneously, the hatch began to slide shut as the ship sealed itself off into airtight damage-containing compartments.
DiFalco sprinted for the hatch, getting about halfway there before realizing he couldn't possibly make it. Then, as the hatch clanged shut, a red light began to flash and a new recorded voice added itself to the din. "Stand by for decompression!" And, with a hissing sound, the air began to bleed out of the hold in preparation for releasing the shuttle.
Without conscious thought, DiFalco reversed direction and ran for the shuttle. Damn! The ramp had raised up into the hull, sealing it. And the air in the hold was getting thinner.
Let's see, he thought like an automaton, I'm wearing a Raehaniv-issue shipsuit, yes, that's right, get that hood out and up and over! But when this deck under me swings open I'll be spilled out into orbit, and the life support doesn't last long. I can't shout from inside this hood, even if it would do any good, which it wouldn't. Got to get into the shuttle's visual pickups, maybe they'll see me and . . .
The deck seemed to jump under his feet as Guadalcanal took a near-miss, and the ship's pain belled through the hull. DiFalco was thrown to the deck, head spinning. Just as things started to steady, the deck began to tilt—and he knew that wasn't his head, for he began to slide along the smooth expanse, and a little crack of star-filled blackness appeared, and grew . . . .
The clamps grasped his upper arm with superhuman strength. He found a split second for amazement that Thompson could manage such fine control of the servomechanisms as to not break his bones, as the Marine lifted him up, almost pulling the arm out of his socket, and deposited him on the partially lowered ramp.
"Inside," Thompson snapped unceremoniously, and as he was thrust into the shuttle DiFalco glanced down and saw the hatches that had been a deck yawn wide, with the blue curve of Raehan beyond. Then he was in and the ramp was up and sealed.
"Now can we release?" the pilot called out querulously.
"Go!" Thompson barked. The pilot slapped his control panel, cutting the power to the magnetic clamps that held the shuttle to the hold's overhead. With a dropping sensation that seemed to send DiFalco's stomach up into his throat, the shuttle fell into infinity.
As soon as the artificial gravity took hold, DiFalco stumbled forward and looked over the pilot's shoulder at the view-aft. Guadalcanal, showing her wounds, was rapidly dwindling in the screen. Then something seemed to flash in from the side, and the glare of the direct hit dazzled his eyes before the screen could automatically compensate.
He peeled back his hood and turned to Thompson. "The others . . . ?"
"All the shuttles got away," the Marine reported. "We were the last to leave—had a little delay," he added, all blandness.
DiFalco flushed. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: thanks for saving my bacon."
Powered armor couldn't reproduce a nothing-to-it shrug, but Thompson's face did it for him. "Several lifeboats also made it," he continued. "The captain of Guadalcanal knew the ship had had it after that near-miss. At least sixty percent of the crew must have survived."
"Thank God for that."
"Amen. And now . . ." Suddenly, Thompson's face took on an expression that defined the term "shit-eating grin," and he gestured toward the after bulkhead where the spare suit of powered combat armor was stored. "Having chosen to join us," he asked archly, "would the Colonel care to make himself useful?"
"I'm more the ornamental type," DiFalco grinned back. "But now that you mention it, I was getting tired of feeling like a midget in here with you grunts!"
* * *
Neither Varien nor anyone else in Liberator's control room felt like violating Aelanni's silent misery.
They had heard the report of Guadalcanal's death, and as the lifeboats had checked in she had overridden the comm officer to ask each of them if DiFalco was aboard. He was not, and no one had seen him during the evacuation. That the missile base that had claimed Guadalcanal was now a radioactive crater was clearly of no comfort to her at all.
Finally, Varien felt he must say something, however awkward. "There may be other lifeboats, you know. They may not have all made contact."
"Perhaps you're right," she sighed. Neither of them believed it for an instant, but it was a ritual in which each had to play out a role that included the pretense of belief. And now it was over.
Varien tried again. "No one in the lifeboats actually saw him killed or injured," he began, attempting briskness. Aelanni smiled her gratitude to him, but shook her head slowly. He shut up.
After a moment, she spoke. "Do you know what I was thinking while speaking to him for the last time?" She chuckled joylessly. "I was thinking that we'd never be separated again . . . ."
The communicator emitted a scream of static, over which a voice barely rose. "Assault shuttle G-4 calling Liberator! Come in please. And please establish visual contact."
They looked at each other. No. That static-distorted voice couldn't be . . . Without a word, Aelanni sprang to the console and switched on visual.
The image was a match for the voice signal, streaked and repeatedly disappearing altogether. But it unmistak
ably showed the open viewplate of a suit of powered combat armor. and the face . . . .
"Eric! What are you doing . . . ? And what is that . . . ?"
"No time, Aelanni! We're starting to enter atmosphere, and the ionization is already playing hell with this signal." A screech of static came as if on cue, to confirm it. "I was a little rushed when Guadalcanal was hit. This shuttle was my only way off. So now I'm headed down with Thompson. I'll be in touch as soon as possible. I love you. I'll . . ."
The static rose to a shriek, then died down to a low, steady roar, and the screen was all snow.
For a moment Aelanni was silent, emotions chasing each other across her face. Then she yelled at the screen.
"You did this on purpose!"
Then she collapsed into the chair, weeping with all the tears she had been holding since the first word of the attack on Guadalcanal and could now release. Varien stood behind her, massaging her shoulders and smiling a gentle smile.
Chapter Seventeen
Afterwards, it occurred to DiFalco that he should have thought of the fact that he was setting foot on Aelanni's world. But at the time, his only impressions as he came down the shuttle ramp in the smoke-dimmed early morning sun were of ravaged cityscape, the fighters swooping overhead as they expended their last missiles covering the landing and, above all, the sounds of battle.
A small group of Raehaniv in combat dress came out from behind wreckage, one of them carrying the transponding beacon that had guided them to this particular part of the landing zone. Another—the leader, if DiFalco remembered his wartime Raehaniv rank insignia—stepped forward.
"Major Thompson?" he asked with a heavy accent.
"Here," Thompson said, motioning forward one of his Raehaniv Marines to translate. "But this is Colonel DiFalco. He's the senior man here."
"It's your show, Major," DiFalco demurred. "I'm just a flyboy who's out of his element and knows his limitations." He turned to the Resistance type. "And you are . . . ?"
"Dorleann hle'Toral, commanding. We weren't expecting you to come here personally, Colonel DiFalco." He looked almost embarassingly impressed. "All my units are in position by now, although we had to fight our way here. As you know, the Korvaasha have tunnels running from the fortress to various locations in the surrounding areas of the city. As it turns out, they have more of them than we thought. They've been using them to mount flanking attacks on us as we advanced to this landing zone. But all we've encountered so far have been Implementers. They must be holding their Korvaash cyborgs of the warrior elite in reserve and expending their cannon fodder. At any rate, we've taken losses, but we beat off all the attacks."
Even in translation, Dorleann's pride in his people was evident—they had met their first trial by fire and not broken. DiFalco and Thompson looked at each other wordlessly, knowing that the Implementers were as new to actual battle as the Resistance, and that the real test was still to come.
"All right, Dorleann," DiFalco spoke diplomatically. "It sounds like your people could use a breather. As we advance toward the fortress, I suggest that Major Thompson's Marines take the flanks . . . ."
* * *
The immense doors slid open with a grinding clang and Gromorgh entered the vast chamber where a crowd of Implementers waited, flanked by Korvaash cyborgs.
"Is there some problem?" Gromorgh adjusted the voder's volume to fill this space. "I understand you have expressed reluctance to face armed opponents. Does terrorizing helpless civilians represent the limit of your capabilities?"
There was much furtive exchanging of glances among the Implementers, and finally a Senior Assault Leader shuffled forward.
"Director," he began, still cringing out of habit, "we've followed your commands, and launched all ordered attacks against our fellow inferior beings of the Resistance. But now these Marines have landed from orbit. The word is that their elite units have got powered combat armor straight out of the Fourth Global War!"
"What of it?" Gromorgh's translator produced its usual expressionless Raehaniv. Inwardly, he was astonished. These worms were so terrified that their normal cravenness was in abeyance, overshadowed by something they feared more than the neurolash.
"Director, we're willing to face the Resistance, as we've shown. But if you send us out there now we'll be slaughtered! Send them!" He pointed at the cyborgs who flanked Gromorgh, bulking even huger than normal Korvaasha, the chamber's dim light reflected from their dully gleaming metal surfaces.
Gromorgh made a small gesture, and one of the cyborgs snapped up an arm that ended in a short tube tipped by a now-clenched grasping mechanism. Faster than sight, with terrible force, the tube telescoped itself out to three times its at-rest length and punched through the Senior Assault Leader's chest.
The Implementer tried to scream, but his opened mouth produced only a gout of blood. The cyborg rotated the tube, a kind of wet crunching sound was heard, and then the tube was yanked out, clutching the Implementer's heart in its metallic grasp.
The cyborg held the heart on display for an instant, then flung it into the crowd of Implementers. It smacked one of them in the face before falling to the floor.
"Are there any further complaints or suggestions?" asked Gromorgh in the mechanical tones of his voder.
He waited until the chamber was clear—about five seconds—before turning and making his way to the elevator that took him down to the command center. The rest of the ruling council was there, observing the progress of the battle on a battery of screens.
"Well, Director," Lugnaath greeted him, "have you resolved the problem of your Implementers' insubordination?"
"I believe they are now sufficiently motivated, Third Level Embodiment. But, as we realized from the first, their usefulness has limits. I will continue to expend them, of course, but it may soon be necessary to commit the cyborg units in a frontal counterattack. As you can see"—he indicated the main city map, with its color-coded lights—"the feral inferior beings have by now found the termini of almost all our tunnels and are in the process of sealing them with explosives. Soon it will no longer be possible to launch surprise flanking attacks. It was the prospect of having to frontally assault the new elements that have arrived from orbit that discouraged the Implementers."
"Vermin!" Sugvaaz spoke venomously. "I have always felt that you rely far too heavily on them. But is a counterattack necessary at all? You have repeatedly assured us that this fortress is impregnable to ground assault."
"And so it is, Conservator," Gromorgh assured him, carefully not adding the defeatist thought that it could have been made even more impregnable by the simple expedient of setting—and making known—a nuclear device to obliterate the fortress and the city around it if an attack were to succeed. "We could simply sit here and crush any attempts to gain entry. But that would leave us in a stalemate with the inferior beings effectively controlling most of the city. The purpose of the counterattack is to smash their ground-assault capability, not merely stymie it. This is especially important in view of the fact that matters are not going well with the other three urban headquarters." He indicated readouts from around the globe. "Not unexpected, of course; this fortress is stronger than those by orders of magnitude, and all the cyborg shock units are here. So it is vital that we impress upon the inferior beings the futility of attacking us here, placing them back in their original dilemma of having to either destroy us—and their capital city—with nuclear weapons or try to wait us out before relief arrives from the rest of the Unity."
Sugvaaz was silent. "Very well, Director," Lugnaath said. "So ordered."
* * *
Naeriy stumbled again as she made her way through the wreckage-strewn streets. She cursed in the English that was so much more suited to the purpose than Raehaniv. The sun was getting higher, and sweat trickled down her inside the shipsuit. Still, she couldn't complain. It was a minor miracle that she had been able to ease her wounded fighter down to within a few meters of a vacant lot before the gravs had die
d and she'd fallen the rest of the way. The landing had shaken her up, but nothing was broken. Now she proceeded cautiously toward the sounds of battle.
Coming to the end of a block she peered around the corner of a building, then jerked her head back quickly. The men she had seen had a look about them that suggested a group of deserters rather than a patrol. But they were unquestionably Implementers; they hadn't discarded enough of their gear to disguise that fact. She slowly reached for her laser sidearm.
Suddenly her upper arms were grabbed from behind with brutal strength. "Hey! Over here!" her assailant shouted. "Look what I've found!"
The other Implementers—ex-Implementers?—trotted around the corner. "Well, well," one of them leered, watching Naeriy's futile struggles. "A flier—one of these new arrivals who've fucked everything up for us!" He turned to the others. "We can't stay around here too long, but there's no reason we can't take a short break for a little fun."
He stepped forward and ran a hand over Naeriy's shipsuit, lingering to squeeze a breast with vicious force. Her gasp of pain brought a smile to his face. "Let's see—how do you get one of these suits open? Well, there's one way." He drew a knife. Naeriy recognized a monomolecular-edged blade. "Of course, the suit isn't all this is gonna cut . . . ."
A crack! sounded, and the Implementer's head exploded in a pink-and gray mist that caused her eyes to blur. A wall down the street crumbled outward as the first of the towering suits of powered combat armor came crashing through it. The other Implementers started to bolt, but the Marine had switched his railgun to full-automatic now that he didn't have to carefully avoid hitting Naeriy, and he scythed them down, their bodies blossoming out in a shower of gore as the hypervelocity slugs tore through them. Naeriy's captor held onto her—hoping to use her as a hostage?—but she kicked backward sharply. As his grip faltered she wrenched her right arm free, grabbed her laser pistol, and thrust it up under his jaw before pressing the firing stud. For a moment the stench of cooked brains and evacuated bowels overcame her. The next thing she was aware of was the deep, concerned voice.