With all the giants down, the smaller Shellycoats’ attack became disjointed, as if the will or intelligence had gone out of them. They skittered around at random. A counterattack would rescue the situation. Fenaday turned to find Shasti, only to see her race through a section of downed barrier wire into the forest, heading for where Gunnar’s body had been flung.
Fenaday was torn. The camp needed him, but Shasti was running heedlessly into the dark. He heard Telisan’s strong voice and decided the Denlenn would take care of the camp. No one else could cover Shasti. He raced after her, leaping over a body he couldn’t recognize. He spotted movement heading for her back and snap fired from long range. A Shellycoat flared and disintegrated. Shasti’s long legs ate up ground. He lost her in the rain for a few seconds. Then a power gun flared in the distance, and he ran to the spot.
Shasti knelt over the crushed corpse of Johan Gunnar, cradling him in her arms. Fenaday saw from his injuries that he must have been killed instantly. He stood by Shasti’s side, trying to look in all directions at once. They were too far from the camp site—alone. In the downpour, he could not tell a Shellycoat from foliage.
“Why, Johan?” she asked of the corpse. “Why die for me?” To Fenaday’s surprise she ran a gentle hand over the bloody face. It flicked into focus for him. Johan had always been special to Shasti. He’d even heard a rumor of a romance but had dismissed it.
“We’ve got to get back to the camp,” he yelled. “We’re dead out here.”
“Fool. I told you not to come,” she scolded the corpse. “You had a good job on Mars. You could have had a real life. This is stupid, Johan. ”
Fenaday’s skin crawled at her too reasonable tone. He looked down at her through the pouring rain. He could not see tears. Her face seemed as calm as always, but her eyes were bright and strained.
Behind them, he heard more firing and screams.
“Shasti, I realize he was something to you but we’ve got go.”
She didn’t react, only stroked Johan’s face as the rain poured down.
“The living before the dead,” he shouted at her.
He reached down, seizing her arm, hauling her back from the body. Shasti fell backward as he dragged her for a step. She convulsed with a scream of rage and blurred into movement. Fenaday doubled over as the barrel of her tri-auto slammed into his stomach and stayed there.
She stood, glaring. Death’s Angel, with her weapon leveled, white knuckled, at him. “Never,” she snarled, “never touch me like that. You go too far with me.”
Fenaday fought for breath. “Apparently, I went too far in relying on you.”
He straightened, backing away from the barrel. She leveled it at his face. He saw hate and death in her eyes, and a coldness spread through him. Her finger stayed tight on the trigger. “Our crew is fighting back there,” he said. “Dying. They need us. But you stay. You fight your private war with the universe right here. If any of us live, you can tell us how it went.”
He spun and ran back to the embattled campsite, wondering if he would feel the one that hit him. They say you don’t, Fenaday thought, but he no longer believed in even small mercies.
He came up on the campsite. Telisan and Duna were forming the survivors into a square, firing volleys in all directions. The robots became the ramparts behind which the spacers stood. Three of the HCRs stood shoulder to shoulder in the thick of the attack, fighting with palm blades and kicks against the man-sized Shellycoats. People raced toward the square, firing as they ran. Mourner and Yamata fled from the side of the burned out Farriq-Dar, Shellycoats in pursuit. Fenaday realized that Telisan could not see them from his position. He sprinted forward, firing the last shots in his laser. Shellycoats flashed and melted into fragments. He reached the doctors, covering them as they ran for the square.
The Shellycoats came straight on at the spacers, only to be mown down by disciplined fire. Finally, the last one fell; the wood of its substance burning. The spacers stayed in the square for some minutes as the rain tapered, making rushes to recover any wounded they saw, or to check bodies lying nearby. More spacers appeared, breaking out of cover, yelling out their names as they ran for the safety of the square. The explosion had not caught as many as Fenaday feared. Firing pits and bunkers protected most from the attack and the blast.
Fenaday felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to face Telisan. Smoke stained the Denlenn’s face and blood trickled from his hairline. “Thee lives. Good. When I could not find you, I feared my poor service ended. What of Shasti?”
Fenaday turned away. “She’ll show up. She always does.”
Telisan blinked, too startled to respond.
“Get that barrier wire restrung,” Fenaday shouted. “Mmok, position your robots on the perimeter to cover the wire crew. Connery, form a fire team to back them up. Rigg, pull two teams together. Collect all the wounded. Fury, Karass, grab what you need and check the shuttles. I need barrier power and shuttle guns.”
The camp came back together quickly. After reestablishing minimal security Fenaday grabbed Mmok’s arm. “Shasti’s out about a hundred meters that way. Send an HCR to bring her in.”
“What the—” Mmok began.
“Shut up and do what you’re told,” Fenaday snapped. For once Mmok had the good sense not to push further.
Cobalt returned in a few minutes with Shasti. She carried Gunnar’s body on her shoulders, wrapped in a poncho. Fenaday suddenly remembered another day, when she had carried him in over some dangerous miles on Morok. Now all he felt was a coldness and a distant relief that she still lived. The big man’s corpse joined nineteen others stretched out beside the overturned shuttle with its two corpses.
Telisan walked up to Fenaday. “I have the list,” he said. “Twenty dead: Gunnar, Dr. N’deba, Nusam and his gunner, nine from the Landing Force, six of Rigg’s people and an engineer. Fifteen seriously wounded, a quarter of the robots and Magenta were destroyed.”
“God,” said Fenaday, “God.” He turned away so Telisan could not see his face. I am supposed, thought Fenaday, to shrug it off. Tough privateer captain, that’s what I am supposed to be. Twenty dead. Twenty dead people. A mother’s pain, a father’s hopes, all gone. But gone to where? Where do you go to when the dark comes? Did a kindly god greet them? Or is it just the dark?
“Captain?” Telisan asked, concern in his voice.
“I’m all right,” he said, his voice thin and strained.
Fenaday drew a deep breath and turned to Mmok. “I remember Creda saying something about the things regenerating, about coming back from being killed. Put your crab robots in the middle of the Shellycoat debris. Order them to fire on any pieces of material that rise off the ground but shouldn’t lift under the ambient wind. Maybe they are easier to disrupt if they are shot early.”
“Hope you’re right,” grunted the older man. Mmok turned to subvocalize to the HCRs and stopped, clearly startled. The movement caught Fenaday’s eye. He looked in the same direction.
Verdigris, Vermilion and Cobalt stood behind them, looking down at the remains of their sister, Magenta. The wind stirred their monofilament hair. It was macabre, as if they were mourning.
Fenaday and Mmok walked over to the battle-damaged robots. The HCRs should have been on the perimeters, per their last order. Apparently their programs were more flexible than Fenaday realized. The HCRs looked up at their approach. Smoke stained the artificial faces and the hair they used for antenna and for cooling. They might resemble dolls, but the spacers owed their survival to them.
Mmok stared at them, as if having difficulty believing his eyes.
Fenaday called out to one of the nearby LEAFs. “Morgan.” The man, dirty and bandaged, but otherwise whole, hurried to him.
“Yes sir.”
“Magenta goes into the grave with everyone else,” Fenaday said. “Handle the body properly.”
Mmok snorted. “You’re a proper maudlin Irishman, Fenaday. It’s just a machine.”
“You he
ard me,” he said.
Before Morgan could do anything, Mmok turned to the HCRs. “Vermilion, retrieve Magenta then follow this human. Take his orders regarding disposal of the parts.”
Vermilion bent down to retrieve the identifiable parts of Magenta with apparent gentleness.
“What the hell,” said Mmok sardonically, “she ought to be carried by her own.”
Fenaday turned and nearly walked into Shasti. They stood eyeing each other for a few seconds. Her face betrayed nothing, remaining icy and remote. He nodded at her. She said nothing. He did not know when she’d arrived, but realized she was back in her accustomed place behind his left shoulder. It might be a tacit apology. Still, all he could remember was the look in her eyes and the whitening of her hand on the weapon’s pistol grip. His ribs still ached where she had slammed the barrel into him. The cold spot in his chest did not warm either.
Fenaday moved about the camp, resetting their defenses, checking on the wounded. Dawn broke. Its warmth brought relief from the night’s cold rain. Shasti and Fenaday traveled the camp in frozen silence. Seeing this, Duna and Telisan exchanged troubled looks.
*****
Far above the embattled camp site, the frigate Sidhe had watched the battle, helplessly. Perez heard the panic and confusion over the tactical net and cursed his inability to help. The fight was far too close to the camp for the starship to fire. Scanners could barely cut through the storm. Flaring weapons fire was all he could see of the battle. Then one of the shuttle’s engines gave off an infrared bloom. The bridge crew sat spellbound and watched as Farriq-Dar exploded. As the battle ended on their screens, casualty reports began coming. All three shuttles had been hit.
At the back of the starship’s spade-shaped bridge, one of ASATs standing security watch slipped out the pressure door. Sergeant Diron Naks quickly made his way to the quarters of Lt. Katrina Micetich. He buzzed insistently.
Micetich opened the door. “Diron, what are you doing here? I thought you had watch?”
“Let me in,” he hissed. “It happened. They were attacked.”
Micetich paled. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into her cabin. With so much of the crew off the ship, the remaining spacers had moved into unoccupied cabins for the rare pleasure of privacy. The two young people embraced fervently and kissed. They’d fallen in love on the outbound voyage. Both volunteered for the mission, but now, in love, they were reconsidering the risks of the voyage. While only the landing force stood at risk, they were content to sit it out in orbit.
“What happened?” she breathed when they pulled apart.
Naks described the disaster planetside.
“You know what this means,” he finished.
“Yes,” she said, “with the shuttles damaged, Fenaday is going to bring us down.”
“The fool,” growled Naks. “It’s probably a trap to get him to do just that, to bring us in range to be finished off. If we go down, we’ll be wiped out like all the rest. We’ve got to protect ourselves. This isn’t our fault. No one said anything about Enshar when they asked for volunteers. They tricked us.”
“Yes, darling, they did,” she agreed. “Get our people together. We’ve got to move now. We have to get Perez first. I’ll call him here as soon as you get back.”
He raced out the door, and the mutiny began.
Chapter Thirteen
On the planet, the landing force made flight preparations, shifting the wounded into the shuttles and drawing in their perimeter.
Fenaday returned to the Pooka to find an exhausted Telisan and Belwin Duna.
“Captain,” Duna began, “please forgive me. If I hadn’t argued against you...”
“Ancient history, Mr. Duna,” Fenaday replied. “I’m in charge, whatever happens is my responsibility.”
“So many dead and hurt,” Duna mourned.
“Telisan, what’s our situation?” Fenaday asked. Painful-looking flash burns marred Telisan’s leathery face and his usual optimism seemed absent. He stared hard-eyed at the battlefield. It was nothing new to Telisan, Fenaday thought.
“Twenty dead,” Telisan answered. “Fifteen badly wounded, two of those are critical. Almost everyone bears some small wound. Half our ammunition is gone, as well as a quarter of our robots. The big problem lies with the shuttles. Farriq is a total loss. Banshee took the worst hit, but she is flyable, as is Pooka, though both are holed by shrapnel. We couldn’t take them into the high atmosphere, much less space. I think if we can find a machine shop, we might repair Pooka. I suspect it will take a shipyard and some live shipwrights to repair Banshee. The pressure door is blown in, and I have no idea how to fix that.”
“We cannot even retreat to space,” Duna murmured, “and I have killed you all.”
“Belwin,” Telisan said gently, “you forget. We can bring the ship down.”
Fenaday nodded. “I didn’t want to if I could avoid it, but we have no choice now.”
Li walked over to them with some coffee. Steam rose out of plas-steel cups. Fenaday reached for a cup gratefully. “Good man.”
“Well,” Li said, “if you ain’t dead, you need coffee, and maybe even then.”
The gallows humor drew grins, save from Shasti, who sat a few feet off and declined the coffee with a shake of her head.
“Telisan,” Fenaday asked, “are you sure Banshee is airworthy?”
Telisan nodded wearily, his bright yellow eyes on the horizon. “The blast went mostly upwards. Banshee sat partly hull down behind that little rise of ground, so the debris hit her mid and upper hull. The thrusters, drive units, and controls run through the armored floor. It was simply bad luck that a large piece of Farriq hit both the pressure door and the turret. Otherwise, she would be in better shape than Pooka.”
“Damn Nusam,” Fenaday said.
“Are thee so immune from fear?” Telisan snapped.
Fenaday started to reply, but Telisan, his leathery face suddenly turning pale, stood up and bowed.
“Forgive me, please,” Telisan asked, “I forgot myself.”
“It’s all right,” Fenaday said, putting a hand on the tall alien’s shoulder.
“Okay,” Fenaday continued, “so far these things don’t seem to show any sign of regenerating. We don’t know if they do. We bugged out of the library too fast to see if that one came back. We know that when we killed the self-aware one last night, it had some effect. Maybe it was some sort of subcontroller.”
“Certainly the attack fell apart after it did,” Duna added.
“I don’t want to be here at nightfall to find out. We will pick a landing site and bring the Sidhe in. Then, it’s back to orbit and maybe just home. We appear to be overmatched.
“Meanwhile, Telisan, go get those burns attended to.”
The Denlenn looked as if he might protest; but Fenaday cut him off with a raised hand. “No argument, Mr. Telisan. I need reliable people around me.”
He regretted saying it instantly. He hadn’t aimed the comment at Shasti, but she could only think she was the target of it. Well, he decided, it might not be the worst thing.
“Mr. Duna,” Fenaday said, “stay close to Telisan, please. We will call the ship from Pooka.” He started off, half expecting he would be alone, but Shasti trailed alongside him. He searched for something to say, could not come up with anything and damned himself for it.
As they passed two of the Landing Force troops, Shasti stepped aside to speak to them for a second. They hurried off in the direction of Banshee. She caught up to Fenaday effortlessly, her long legs covering the ground quickly.
He looked over at her. In the morning light, her face seemed colorless, except for the lustrous jade green eyes. “Anything I should know?” he asked.
“It is going to occur to people,” she replied tonelessly, “that wherever Duna is, the things strike hardest. The monsters will clearly not stop with him, since no outworlders survived on Enshar; but we have many frightened people here. Someone may figure it increases their own odd
s of survival if the last Enshari on the planet is dead.”
“Very sensible,” he said. It sounded stilted even to him. She did not reply. It struck him with a sudden clarity. She looked and sounded the way she did when they met in the shuttle bay, years ago. His anger at her actions in the wood had ebbed, replaced by the memories of all the times she’d saved his life. Years wiped out, he thought, me and my damn mouth. Still, he could not bring himself to approach her. The familiarity they had shared was shattered, and he above all others knew how lethal Shasti could be when provoked. For now it seemed best to walk on the eggshells and let matters settle.
They reached Pooka. A weary Angelica Fury looked up from under a panel as they entered. She held a micro torch and battle patches of malleable ceramic. Fury was smart enough not to bother him with questions. He walked over to the communications console, passing one of Rigg’s people in the top turret. Susan Bernard, one arm in a sling and looking like death warmed over, set up the call to Sidhe without his asking.
“Fenaday to Perez.”
After a brief delay a response came back. The screen did not light up with an image. Fenaday assumed it was due to damage to the shuttle’s com system.
“This is Micetich on the bridge.”
“We’ve had a bad night down here, Micetich. I assume you received a situation report.”
“Affirmative.”
“We can’t come up, so we are going to bring Sidhe in for a water landing. Give me an ETA for a planetary landing at my location. If you can’t make it before nightfall, we will be relocating.”
“Please hold, ground base.”
“Micetich,” Fenaday snapped, “you’re supposed to have that figure at your fingertips at all times.”
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