Star Corps

by Ian Douglas

  She sighed. “Anything the leaders might use to mark them as leaders,” she said. “I don’t know…a badge, a medallion, special markings on their armor, anything to make the boss Ahannu stand out from the rest.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” he said. “The ones I’ve seen have come in all different kinds of armor, different weapons. It’s more like fighting a mob than an army.” He pointed at a partially charred body twice the size of the others lying nearby…one of the big Ahannu the Marines had begun calling trolls. “Even their soldiers are different from one another, you know, in size and color and stuff. Maybe those big guys are the leaders?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Those appear to be specially bred mutations, a warrior class, if you will. They’re not very smart. How about some sort of baton or staff?”

  “Ain’t seen nothing like that,” Womicki said, joining them. He pointed to a pile of weapons and standards lying on the ground nearby. “Unless you mean those battle flags some of them carry.”

  “No,” Hanson said. “Those appear to be clan insignia of some sort, but the ones who carry them aren’t leaders. The thing is, we think the Ahannu passed on a lot of social conventions to our ancestors back in ancient Sumeria besides agriculture and hygiene…things like kingship and caste systems and the idea that someone has to be on top. If that’s so, we’d expect to see some emblem of rank among them, some way they could recognize one another and know who was in charge.”

  “Well, some of them do have fancier body armor,” Garroway said. He pointed at another Ahannu body. “And some don’t have any armor at all.”

  “Hell, I thought the Frogs weren’t supposed to have any sex,” Garvey said, amused. He poked at a tentacular, bulb-headed member between the legs of the Ahannu corpse with the muzzle of his rifle. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, they have sex,” Hanson said. “Our first contact with them here at the mission was just with drones, and we thought they were hermaphrodites. But there are males and females too.”

  “No balls,” Womicki observed.

  “Internal gonads. Apparently, they’re like some species of fish on Earth, and change sex when they need to, either because there aren’t enough of the opposite sex available at the moment, or maybe it’s part of a regular cyclical life-change.” She shook her head. “There’s so damned much we don’t understand about them.”

  “Maybe the sex differences are what you’re looking for,” Vinita suggested. “You know, the males are the leaders? Or the females?”

  “No. We haven’t been able to correlate sex with their social ordering yet,” Hanson said. “Although it is possible there are other sexes or somatypes we haven’t seen yet.”

  Garroway noticed something and stooped, awkward in his armor. Reaching out cautiously, he touched the head of the Ahannu corpse, turning it to the side.

  The head was long and narrow, gray-green in color and very lightly scaled, with a bony ridge across the top of the skull that extended over the nasal opening all the way to the lipless mouth. There were no external ears, though a bone-ringed opening behind the jaw showed where the hearing organs were located. The golden eyes, each the size and shape of a pear, dominated the upper face, with jagged, horizontal slits for pupils.

  This one had taken a death wound to the right side of its skull. A ragged gash opened the head from the deeply cleft chin almost to the skull crest, revealing white bone, yellowish blood and tissue, and a stringy mess of red-purple jelly slowly oozing from the wound onto the pavement.

  “Look at this,” Garroway said. “Is that blood? Brains?”

  “No,” Hanson said, immediately interested. She knelt beside the body, looking closely. “Their blood is yellow-orange. See that yellow liquid? I don’t know what that is.” She pulled a vial from a jumpsuit pocket and began collecting some of the purple jelly.

  “Careful, ma’am,” Dunne said. “We don’t know about their chemistry yet, and you don’t have gloves.”

  “Ahannu body chemistry is pretty much compatible with ours, Marine,” she said. “If this stuff didn’t poison him, then it shouldn’t poison me.”

  “You can’t be sure of that, ma’am,” Womicki pointed out. “Some toxins will poison one species and not another. These creatures aren’t even mammals.”

  “I think it’s safe enough,” Hanson said. Still, she used care in securing the sample, wiping the vial carefully on a rag when Dunne offered one to her. “This stuff is organic, but it’s not part of normal Ahannu biochemistry, as far as we know. Damn, I wish I had access to the net! This is important! I think—”

  A sharp crack sounded across the courtyard and something struck the front of Building 10 across the street, striking sparks bright against the shadows.

  Garroway lunged forward, knocking Hanson off her knees and flat on the pavement, covering her with his armored body. Another crack sounded, closer this time.

  “The east pyramid!” Womicki yelled, raising his laser rifle to his shoulder. “It’s coming from the top of the pyramid!”

  The other Marines brought their weapons to bear, triggering a barrage at the presumed sniper’s nest. The white-stone pyramid—Garroway remembered it was called the Pyramid of the Eye—glowered down into the Legation compound from the eastern edge of the city, offering a magnificent view of the goings-on within.

  “Now hear this, now hear this!” came over Garroway’s armor radio receiver. “Battle stations, battle stations! We are under attack!”

  And then the first crude rockets began arrowing into the compound.

  22

  26 JUNE 2148

  Marine Bivouac

  Legation Compound

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1642 hours ALT

  Garroway rolled off Hanson, snatching up his rifle and taking aim at the pyramid to the east. Linking his helmet display to the LR-2120’s optics and damping the input down to infrared, he could see movement in the small peaked hut high atop the building’s truncated tip. He magnified the image and caught a glimpse of a face, a human face, strangely painted in the yellows and greens of the heat-sensitive sight, leaning into a bulky gauss rifle as the sniper took careful aim. It looked like he was drawing a bead directly on Garroway’s faceplate.

  But Garroway was faster by a fraction of a second, his thought-click triggering the laser and loosing a five-megajoule pulse. The enemy soldier’s head exploded in a burst of brilliant yellow and green, and the figure toppled backward into the purple and blue shadows of the building.

  Something hissed into the courtyard, trailing a streamer of white smoke, struck the side of a building, and exploded with a sharp bang. Bits of metal pinged off Garroway’s armor. “This way, lady!” he yelled, grabbing Hanson’s arm above her elbow and bodily dragging her across the pavement.

  “Let go! Let go!” she yelled. “I can move by myself!”

  Pivoting, he propelled her forward, sending her flying into the open doorway of Building 10. Another rocket exploded behind him, picking him up and catapulting him sideways into the street.

  His armor absorbed the punishment and he lurched to his feet, laser at the ready. Where the hell was that fire coming from?

  Over the wall. Rocket contrails were arching high above the northern wall as projectiles came raining down on the Legation compound. He jumped into the open doorway himself as part of the roof crumbled in a savage blast, showering onto the street in an avalanche of debris, water, and smoke.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. The woman nodded. Her eyes were wide and there was a bloody scratch on her cheek, but she appeared unhurt. “Good. Stay here, stay down!”

  He ran into the street again, where other Marines were gathering, moving in a running surge of armored shapes toward the northern wall.

  At first he thought they were going to go out through the high, arched gate on that side and find the rocket launchers, but a Marine with a massive handgun waved them toward a flight of stone steps leading up the inside of the wall. “To the pa
rapets!” he yelled, using his suit speakers to boom the command out across the courtyard. “Repel the assault!”

  Garroway pounded up the steps and took his place alongside a half dozen other Marines already there. The Legation compound wall was broad and heavy, four meters tall, five meters wide at the base, and nearly four wide at the top, the faces slightly concave to render them quakeproof, with a meter-high crenellated parapet along both the inner and the outer sides. Crouching behind the low outer barricade, he peered down into the northern quarter of the city.

  Marine Wasps were already zeroing in on the launcher positions, smashing them with deadly accurate missile and Gatling laser fire. There was no need for ground troops to go beyond the walls.

  But the streets were filled with Ahannu god-warriors and their Janissary slaves, a vast throng of figures crowding toward the northern wall and gate beneath a small forest of black and red mon banners. He didn’t need a target lock; he rested his 2120 on the crumbling stone parapet and began triggering the weapon, cycling in quick, sharp, three-pulse bursts, sweeping the front ranks of attackers as they thundered down the streets leading toward the gate.

  Those front ranks wavered as the laser fire from the wall before them grew heavier in volume, more concentrated. Ahannu god-warriors crumbled, staggered, or burst into flame beneath that deadly caress of coherent light. A pair of Marine plasma gunners joined the line, and the brilliant blue-white sparks of energy tore gaping, fire-laced holes in the charging masses.

  The ranks behind began slowing as they were forced to scramble over the high-piled bodies of their comrades. Many crouched behind those grisly barricades in the streets, firing up at the Marine defenders with gauss weapons or rising briefly to hurl spears or rocks.

  A handful of human Ishtarans rushed the wall carrying four-meter poles with notches chopped along their lengths—makeshift scaling ladders. Laser bolts snapped and hissed through the crowd, setting ladders and warriors alike aflame and scattering survivors in shrieking retreat. Two ladders slammed up against the northern slope of the wall and as quickly toppled again as the defenders at the top shoved them back with rifle butts.

  Garroway paused, surprised. The shakiness, the nightmare fear he’d felt earlier, was gone, replaced by a steady, almost preternatural calm. At first he wondered if the NNTs he’d popped were helping to steady him, but decided that it was simply training kicking in. Hell, it didn’t matter—training or nanoneurotransmitters. He was a Marine rifleman, crouched shoulder-to-shoulder with other Marine riflemen, doing what he’d been trained to do.

  Join the Marines! he thought with an edge of hysteria as he recalled the old Marine-recruiting joke. Travel to exotic places! Meet fascinating people! Kill them! Kill them all!

  Another rush, more humans with ladders accompanied by a surging gray-green mob of Ahannu god-warriors, many holding makeshift shields above their heads to ward off the deadly bolts from above. The shields, made of wood, hide, and sometimes sheets of thin metal, only extended the life expectancy of the attackers by a few precious seconds; shields exploded into flying splinters or caught fire, but the attackers beneath them kept coming. Many Marines switched to RPG smart rounds, detonating them beneath the shields with bloody effect.

  Garroway saw the Marine who’d led them onto the parapets off to his right, recognizing him by the massive pistol—a Colt 15mm Puller firing explosive rounds—in one gauntleted hand. The guy was standing in full view behind the parapet, coolly snapping off rounds at the attackers at the base of the wall. When more Marines clambered up the steps, he turned his back on the fighting long enough to direct them to weak points on the wall, then returned to the fighting with a businesslike demeanor that was positively inspiring.

  A warning tone sounded in Garroway’s helmet, accompanied by a flashing yellow light. His laser’s power supply was being overtaxed. His backpack power unit needed to be recharged.

  There wasn’t anything to be done about that now, though. He thought-clicked an override command and kept firing, trying to fire more slowly, more deliberately, and making certain that each shot counted.

  Another rocket streaked in, slamming into the middle of the wall twenty meters to Garroway’s left with a roar, flinging two Marines into the street. Both landed on the pavement in front of the surging tide of Ahannu, one lying motionless, the other trying to stand, obviously hurt.

  Without orders, the defensive fire from the wall shifted to cover the two stranded Marines, burning down warrior after warrior as they ran across the broad promenade that surrounded the outside of the Legation compound. That open stretch, perhaps ten meters wide, became a bloody killing zone as more and more Ahannu tried to reach the two wounded Marines.

  Garroway’s HDO was flashing red at him now. He had only a few dozen shots left before his power pack went completely dead. He switched to RPG fire from his M-12 arpeg-popper, giving his power pack a chance to recycle. Other Marines were making the same decision, apparently, as guided 20mm RPGs streaked overhead, exploding among the attackers in stark, blood-splattering detonations. Laser and plasma gunfire burned broad swatches of death through the enemy warriors, while Marine snipers armed with high-energy gauss rifles marked down every Ahannu carrying a firearm they could see. A pair of Wasps joined the battle, circling low overhead, blazing away with Gatling lasers, until the enemy ranks broke and tumbled back in wild disorder.

  To his left Garroway spotted a couple of ropes uncoiling as they were tossed over the parapet and into the street at the base of the wall. An instant later two Marines appeared, the two of them rappelling down the face of the wall as the laser fire from overhead increased in intensity to a savage crescendo. They reached the stranded, injured Marines in seconds. One scooped up the unconscious Marine in his arms while the other helped the wounded one along in a one-arm carry. The enemy, seeing their prize on the point of escaping, surged forward again, venting war cries that grated eerily on the nerves like the shrill wail of steam whistles. Again the barrage of laser and plasma-gun fire from the ramparts cut them down, sending the survivors tumbling backward in headlong retreat.

  More Marines were dropping down the ropes over the wall now, surrounding the rescue effort, helping the wounded personnel back toward the northern gate. The gates swung open, spilling more Marines into the kill zone to cover the retreat of their comrades.

  All of this played itself out on the periphery of Garroway’s awareness. His entire universe had narrowed down to his HDO’s target picture. With the mass charge broken now and his backpack power coming back online, he’d reverted to a sniper’s role, using the magnified image on his helmet display to pick out individual Ishtarans armed with weapons more effective than spears and cutting them down. If enough of the enemy’s gauss gunners died, maybe the rest would get the idea that it was extremely unhealthy to carry those things anywhere within range of a U.S. Marine.

  More minutes passed before he realized that there were no targets left he could see, and that the fire from the wall was beginning to dwindle away.

  The Marine he’d seen earlier, the one with the 15mm Puller, held up a gloved hand. “Cease fire, Marines! Hold your fire!”

  An eerie stillness descended over the north wall then, broken only by the crackle of flames in the kill zone, the rush of a freshening wind, and the whimperings and isolated cries of wounded Ishtarans. The Marine with the pistol reached up, unfastened the catches on his helmet, and pulled it off.

  Garroway recognized him, now—the close-cropped, sandy hair, the sweat-streaked features. It was Colonel Ramsey.

  He’d suspected that it might be Captain Warhurst. The idea of a regimental CO taking part in a firefight was startling, well outside the perimeter of approved doctrine in modern combat. Colonels were supposed to lead from the safety of a command center. Hell, he hadn’t even realized the Old Man was on the ground yet. TAV-S Dragonflies were still shuttling between New Sumer and orbit, bringing down the rest of the MIEU; he’d expected the command constellation to stay on b
oard the Derna until the last possible moment.

  The discovery filled Garroway with an inexplicable but undeniable surge of pride, esprit, and camaraderie, and with the feeling that he would follow Colonel Ramsey anywhere.

  Damn, they were going to beat the Frogs, starship or no starship!

  “Good work, Marines,” Ramsey called out, his voice booming out across the compound. “Everyone on the north wall, sound off by threes!”

  “One!”

  “Two!”

  “Three!”

  “One!…”

  Each Marine in turn called off a number. Garroway was a “three.”

  “Okay!” Ramsey bellowed. “Ones, stay on the wall! We’ll get recharges up to you that need them. Twos, you’re ready reserve! The rest of you, fall in down below in the courtyard. We’re going to get this walking cluster-fuck organized!”

  Garroway grinned behind his helmet visor. Pretty slick…and straight out of boot camp. With a working net, an AI would have sorted the Marines out, perhaps keeping those with the most fully charged power packs on the walls while directing the rest to other duties. Without the net, they would have to rely on older, more traditional techniques—like the handwritten paper pass the civilian woman had carried earlier.

  Heart pounding, he fell into line and filed down the stone steps into the courtyard, following the colonel.

  Beneath the Pyramid of the Eye

  Shumur-Unu

  First Period of Early Light

  Tu-Kur-La slipped again into the comfortable embrace of the living, sentient sea. The Abzu-il flowed softly over his skin, penetrating his ears and nostrils, seeping in through the spaces between and beneath his scales, and as key connections were made within his brain, new vistas of sight and sound and sensation unfolded within his mind.

  He sensed the presence of at least two sixties of other Keepers of Memory and of the souls and awareness of the kingal, Gal-Irim-Let, of Usum-Gal, and of other elders of the An-Kin, the Council of the Gods. As more and more minds entered the far-flung organic web of the Abzu, awareness expanded, the sense of self dwindled, and Tu-Kur-La again approached the single-minded unity of consciousness of the Zu-Din, the Godmind.