by B. V. Larson
“This whole thing seems under-manned,” I told Olsen. “There should be five times this many troops here.”
Olsen shrugged. She was totally disinterested in my opinions.
“That’s not our call to make,” she said. “Where’s your commander, Adjunct?”
I looked around but saw nothing of Graves. His name was on my list in my helmet display, but I didn’t see him in person. After a few calls that weren’t answered, I stared out through the breach behind me. Could he be out there somewhere? Beyond the ragged walls I saw nothing but dark rain and occasional musket-fire.
Then I rechecked my HUD. Graves’ name was now blinking red. He’d probably died in the mud outside the fort.
The full weight of the situation sank in, and I turned back to the Victrix centurion.
“Centurion Graves didn’t make it. Adjunct Leeson is senior—he’s in charge of my unit.”
“Aw, dammit,” Leeson said, coming up behind me. “You’re right.”
All the while this conversation went on, the Victrix guys behind Olsen kept looking at us like they smelled dog shit. They weren’t even helping with our wounded. This pissed me off.
“Sir,” I said to the Centurion. “There are over a thousand heavy troopers out there, encircling our position. They have giants at their backs. You have the rank, so you are in command of this fort. What are your orders?”
Olsen looked hard-eyed, but she also looked worried.
“Man this breach, Varus. You led them to us, the least you can do is stop them here.”
“We’ll do it!” Leeson shouted. “Toro, get your team to carry our wounded down into the mud pit over there. That used to be a bunker—dig it out. The able-bodied need to take up firing positions on the wall. McGill, you and Harris put your platoon in the breach itself.”
“Thanks for the opportunity to serve with distinction, sir,” I told him. “Really.”
He clapped me on the shoulder as he moved past me downslope. He walked into the middle of the fort to help with repairs.
“No need to thank me, McGill! You’ve earned this duty a thousand times over.”
-44-
The fort was a wreck. It’d been smashed and overrun not a day earlier. We’d expected a full-on rush by the enemy to our broken walls, but that wasn’t what we got. Not right off, at least.
Instead, they kept steady fire on our position, but they only encircled us and didn’t advance. The Victrix Centurion chewed her nails over this and kept pacing the battlements and cursing.
“What the hell are they doing out there?” Olsen demanded.
I knew she wasn’t talking to me specifically, but I took it upon myself to provide her with a logical answer.
“Sir,” I told her, “I’ve fought plenty of squids in my day. My bet is they want more reinforcements before they crush us.”
She shook her head. “It’s bad tactics. We’re shoring up these broken walls, patching up our wounded, setting mines and drones. Why wait?”
“Well, I’m no squid, but I’d say they don’t want to take further losses. That bunch out there looks pretty beaten up. They won through the line just hours ago, and now we’ve slipped in behind them. Maybe they’re playing it safe.”
“No,” she said, “that’s not it. They have millions to lose. They’re waiting for something else.”
She walked off before I could say any more.
Harris approached me after that, grinning.
“You’re not getting any tail from Olsen, McGill,” he said. “You might as well forget about that.”
“That wasn’t my intention, Vet,” I told him. “But if it was, let me assure you, I could do it.”
He chuckled and seemed bemused. He also didn’t argue, which led me to believe he might have accepted my boast at face-value.
We enjoyed nearly an hour of desperate fort-fixing before the other shoe finally dropped. At that point, a team of enemy weaponeers finally arrived, dragging heavy guns behind them. They were small, rounded-headed machines shaped like barrels. They floated on gravity-repelling units. I knew from the look of them they were star-falls—or something like that. Something built to operate where normal artillery on this battlefield was hindered.
“That’s how they broke these forts in the first place,” Leeson said when I showed him the guns being set up about a thousand meters off.
“We need to take them out,” I said.
“I’ll configure Toro’s rifle platoon by changing them over to sniper weapons. You hold here in the breach. I’ll warn that Victrix queen, too.”
Later, I saw him talking to Centurion Olsen, who immediately strode to my position and crawled up in the mud to the lip of our walls to have a look for herself.
“McGill,” she said, “are those weapons going to drop salvos right on our heads?”
“Yes sir, that’s my honest assessment.”
She nodded, her helmet optics cranking back to normal. She flipped onto her back in the mud and appeared to be thinking hard.
“That’s why they held off on attacking us,” she said. “Why lose troops? They can kill us all now without losses.”
I decided to exercise unusual restraint. I didn’t mention that I’d suggested just such a thing an hour ago, and she’d scoffed at it. That kind of talk had never made a superior officer happy, in my vast experience of such moments.
“That’s about the size of it,” I agreed. “Looks like they did the same thing to this fort earlier—same tactics.”
She looked at me, and some of the sneer was now gone, I could tell.
“This isn’t good,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Let me ask you, is there any chance that Victrix is sending more reinforcements to shore-up these walls?”
She shook her head. “Zero. What about Varus?”
“Same here. Looks like both legions figured it was the other guy’s problem to hold the center.”
“I wish Graves was here,” she said. “I know his reputation… What do you think we should do?”
“We only have two options. We have to attack or surrender. Just sitting here waiting for the end makes no sense.”
“Attack? They outnumber us at least five to one.”
“Yep. At least that. But you know, they only seem to have one squid ordering them around. At least, that’s all I’ve seen.”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “What will those genetic freaks do without a commander?”
“Even one kill can upset this enemy, sir,” I said. “And by upset, I mean like water on an anthill. They won’t know what to do without a squid to tell them, but I’m sure their reaction will be violent.”
“That’s why you wanted to kill their officer when you first saw him, right?”
“You heard about that?”
“I did—from Leeson. He thinks Graves should have approved it, but that he was hell-bent on reaching this position.”
“He’s always been a man to take his orders seriously.”
“I am too—but I know you can’t always achieve success the way the brass wants you to.”
I smiled. I was beginning to like the way Olsen’s mind worked. It was too bad she wasn’t going to be around much longer—none of us were.
“Can you kill that squid officer for me, McGill?” she asked suddenly.
My mouth worked for a second, then I closed it. I rubbed a mixture of sweat and rainwater from my face.
“Well… I could give it shot.”
“Okay. Do whatever you need to. Just kill him.”
Now, that was the kind of order I never heard from one of my superiors in Varus. Maybe, I thought, that was because Varus officers didn’t like to give such open-ended directives.
But I knew better. It was because Varus officers knew me too damned well to let me out of my cage without a leash.
Slowly, a smile that had begun lurking on my face transformed into a grin. An inkling of an idea had grown up and turned into a scheme.
“Y
ou got it, Centurion,” I assured her. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”
She watched me curiously as I stood up and walked away from her toward the bottom of the pit the fort encircled.
I walked kind of quickly, so she couldn’t change her mind or ask me what the frig I was going to do. I had big plans, and I didn’t want her to get cold feet before I could try them.
-45-
The first thing I did was go to Kivi. She was in the wounded bunker in the center of the pit.
There was mud everywhere—and other stuff that was worse than mud.
“Are you here to kill me?” she asked.
“Nope, no such luck.”
She put her head back in the mud again. “I’m ready for this to be over. Everything hurts and stinks. If they’re going to kill us, I want it to be now.”
“That’s enough defeatist talk from you, Specialist,” I said.
She frowned at me, and cocked her head, catching on. “You’ve got a plan, don’t you McGill?”
“I always have a plan.”
“And it’s a crazy one—right?”
“What other kind is there?”
She gave me a huffing laugh and groaned as she pulled herself up into a sitting position.
“I’m in. What do you need?”
“Some of that tech wizardry of yours. Plug me into the enemy command channel.”
She shrugged. “Won’t do you any good. They’re encrypted, just like we are.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t some kind of spying effort. I want to talk to them in the clear.”
She stared at me for a second. “That’s not allowed under our rules of engagement.”
“I’ve been given the authority to do so,” I said firmly. “From the highest source available.”
“Who?” she snorted. “Leeson?”
“Higher than that,” I said. “What’s the matter? I thought you said you were in.”
She sucked in a breath and let it go. “Sure, why not? I already followed you in an attack against Central and got myself nearly permed. Why not do it again?”
“That’s the kind of can-do attitude I like to hear, Specialist!”
She mumbled and cursed while she worked her equipment. Kivi wasn’t a naturally gifted tech, like Natasha, but she was pretty good at doing her job. Within a few minutes, she’d tapped into the enemy com-links and gotten me onto their radio network.
What I heard in my helmet sounded like a bunch of static, but I didn’t care. I spoke up like I owned the place.
“This is the commander of Earth forces, New York Sector,” I boomed into the transmitter. “I want to talk to the squid in command of this unit—uh—the Cephalopod Overlord, that is.”
There wasn’t any response for about a minute while I loudly and with great exaggeration of my status repeated my message in various forms.
At last, I got a response.
“This is Overseer Dribble,” said a voice.
The name made me smile. A half-dozen snappy jokes came to mind, but I managed to avoid saying anything insulting. All the squids seemed to have names that had something to do with one property of water or another. Maybe “Dribble” was a really cool name on their world.
“Overseer,” I said, “I wish to discuss surrender terms.”
“What is this? Who are you?”
“I’m Earth Officer James McGill. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”
The fact was, I’d become somewhat famous among squids. They believed I was some kind of important leader on Earth. That wasn’t true, of course, but they couldn’t imagine how else I’d managed to make so many crucial choices whenever Earth and I met up with their forces. In their world, small fry didn’t buck the system and do things on their own.
“The McGill?” Dribble asked. “Can you verify your reality?”
The translation was obviously imperfect, but I went with it anyway.
“I am the McGill,” I said. “The same man who’s killed a thousand cephalopods if I’ve killed a hundred.”
“What is the nature of your offer?”
“Servitude,” I said. “What else?”
“Personal servitude? To me?”
“Yep. I’ll put on an apron and clean your squid-box for you, if you like.”
“Your statements are jumbled and almost meaningless. I believe you are offering to submit to me personally. Is this correct?”
“It is. But in return, I want your forces to withdraw from this position.”
“Impossible! Unlike you, McGill, I do not operate with unbridled freedom. I have orders from my own Overlord. I cannot change them.”
That was pretty much what I’d thought, but I figured I might as well go for broke.
“Okay,” I said, “then how about this: you allow my troops to withdraw from this fortress, and I’ll surrender to you personally and serve your will.”
The squid made an odd, snuffling sound. The effect was kind of creepy, like he was turned on or something. I got the distinct feeling I’d made him shiver with greed.
Cephalopod culture wasn’t like ours, not exactly. They were a race of slavers. Everyone was a slave to the next squid up the line. They gained rank by having cool slaves. With me as his slave, I knew this squid felt sure he’d be promoted. Hell, he was probably mentally fitting me for a gold collar right about now, planning who he’d parade me in front of to show me off.
“All right,” he said in a lusty voice, “I accept your conditions. But, you must exit your fortress and march out here alone to my position. I’ll collar you, and only then will I allow your troops to withdraw.”
Kivi looked at me with a mixture of shock and horror. She was, of course, listening in to our little chat.
“Don’t do it, James!” she hissed at me. “Better to die on your feet right here.”
I grinned. Despite her misgivings, this was exactly what I’d planned on all along.
“I accept, Overseer Dribble. Give me your coordinates so that I can come to you and surrender.”
His transmissions, up until this point, were untraceable as we’d tapped into a network of surrounding forces instead of a single individual. The network was naturally protected and his location hidden.
I snapped my fingers at Kivi, who looked down and began to work her tapper.
Lord Dribble hesitated, but only for a second or two. Then he gave me the coordinates.
Now, you have to understand that underneath it all, I’m a man of my word. When I make a deal with human, bug or squid, I aim to keep it. So it was important in my mind that I march up to the breach where Harris and his troops were hunkered down.
Holding up a white flag, I stepped outside the fort into the open. The hail of gunfire had stopped, but the rain still fell in endless depressing sheets from above.
“I see you!” Dribble said excitedly. “You have the stature, the voice patterns match—I can’t believe my good fortune.”
“That’s right,” I said, “you are one lucky squid.”
Right at the end, I thought I could see him as well. He must have climbed up to a high point as he’d done before when I’d first spotted him.
That’s when Kivi’s buzzers all dashed in at once to nail him. They didn’t have much of a charge when they were set to self-destruct, but when twenty of them did it at the same time, it made a pretty big splash of fire.
Burbling sounds came out of my helmet speakers.
“Is that you, Dribbles?” I said. “Sorry, but I can’t quite make out what you’re saying.”
“You… lied.”
“Not at all, sir!” I boomed back at him in an offended tone. “The deal was that I would surrender to you, and I’m in the act of doing so right now. I negotiated for my troops safety—not yours!”
Old Dribble might have said something else, but it was lost in the sound of the rain. He was with us no more.
“Squids and squid-slaves, hear me,” I said on the open channel. “Since my master is no longer alive, I’m declaring
myself free again. Any objections?”
There were no other squids around to complain, but there were plenty of genetic freaks that he’d left behind.
All the while I’d been standing around with my little white flag in the open, they’d been staring at me, holding their fire as they’d been ordered. But in my opinion, from what I could see through the rain, they weren’t in a friendly mood.
As they began to grasp what had happened, they came to a chaotic but unanimous decision.
They rose up, roaring with incoherent rage, and they charged our walls.
-46-
This was the secondary effect of my plan that I’d hoped for, but I hadn’t been certain I would accomplish it. When deprived of their leadership, these altered-human slave-troops were somewhat unpredictable. I’d seen them go mad in other, less effective ways before.
Maybe they had the impression that I’d played their officer unfairly. But I will always, now and forever forward, disagree with that assertion. To my mind, my conscience was as clean and clear as cut glass. The squid overseer had made a deal in greedy haste, that’s all, and his mistake had cost him his life.
But the details of our former arrangement no longer mattered much. The enemy troops were attacking with the clear intent of wiping us out.
To me, it was they who were breaking the deal. We’d been guaranteed safe passage out of our predicament, not a howling mob-attack.
The biggest benefit of the situation was the fact they were so angry they weren’t using their star-fall cannons to destroy us the easy way. Their emotions had gotten away from them and no one on their side was running the show.
Usually, it was best not to fight while angry.
“Incoming!” I shouted and dived back into the breach.
Muskets cracked and explosive pellets showered my armor with shrapnel. Fortunately, I was wearing a breastplate and a body-sock of tough material underneath. The shrapnel felt like someone was hitting me in the ass with hammers, but they didn’t penetrate my protective layers.
Growling and pumping my legs in the mud, I was reduced to crawling before I made it to cover. Harris himself hauled me to my feet and shoved me behind the walls.