“He’s too heavy, the cable won’t take the weight!” Kono retorted.
“You don’t know that cable rating,” Trace replied. “It’ll take it. Kid, move!”
The kid did move, somehow manoeuvring his underside laser cutter, then activating in a brilliant flash. The ramp separated from the rest of the platform in a shower of sparks that travelled only sideways, and hit the sphere flat, the tiny jolt of a twenty centimetre drop flattening the drone face-first upon the surface, his legs all splayed or crumpled.
“Kid!” shouted Kumar.
“We wind the cable up while we still can!” said Kono. “Once it’s up the gravity might drop, we can send it back for him!”
“Do it,” Trace agreed, and Kono hit the winch, the mechanism winding as steel protested, vibrated and twanged. “Kid, we’ll send it back for you when the gravity drops again! We don’t leave a man behind kid, don’t be scared!”
Because somehow, she just knew he would be. It was a revelation to her, that she no longer cared about the perils of mistaking the drone for a living, thinking being — he clearly was one, and on this trip, he’d become one of theirs, of Phoenix’s own. Of hers. And just as astonishingly, all of Command Squad appeared to feel the same.
The winch ground and strained, like some angler trying to land a truly enormous fish, as the platform lifted away from the kid’s nose, rising slowly and steadily higher. “It’s coming!” Kono said with relief. “The effects decrease fast the further it gets away, it’s accelerating!”
From the walls, the whining grew louder. With a crack, one of the kid’s back-mounted cannons tore and instantly pancaked to the ground, taking one of his legs with it. Unbalanced, the other cannon followed. Electrics flashed and arced, then a small explosion as ammunition crushed and detonated. On coms there came a desperate, electronic squeal, as the frightened AI tried at last to use the coms function he’d never in his short life managed to master. Like so many things.
“I’m sorry kid,” Trace said softly. “You did good. I’ll see you in the next place.” The remaining ammunition detonated, followed by the power core, and the explosion panned flat about the sphere’s surface, unable to rise even an inch of height.
“Fuck,” said Kumar with emotion, as the platform rose faster still. “Fucking brave little guy.”
“He did what he was programmed to do,” said Kono, without conviction.
“No,” Rolonde said quietly. “He did what he was ordered. Like we all do. There’s a difference.”
31
“We’re gonna have to move soon,” Dale told his ragtag group on the mini-plaza, as gas grenades arced over the rooftops, smacked and bounced off walls and pavements. He was hidden in a corner store by a sales counter and some tables that overlooked the plaza corner, where several vehicles made smouldering barricades, and craters smoked from the last explosive incoming rounds. Gas spewed from the canisters, but tavalai supplies had found them some gas masks that roughly fitted humans, and none of his team were affected so far. “They’re gonna put explosives in that mortar any time soon, and we can’t hold this position under artillery.”
The Rapid Response attackers weren’t any better equipped for this than his defenders were at warding them off. Amidst the narrow streets and mid-rise buildings of Gamesh underworld, their guided missiles lacked the agility to turn sharp corners and strike close targets, and those that tried generally took out the upper floors, but were unable to reach the ground. It had forced Reddy down from his sniper position, but thus far had only killed a kratik who’d been assigned to this flank, and wounded a pair of tavalai, who’d headed for the aid stations in the rear.
In fact, this little corner of the neighbourhood flank was defended almost entirely non-tavalai, comprised of tavalai-aligned species who had served in the Triumvirate War. Aside from himself, Reddy and Golev, there were a pair of kaal, two koromek, and one more tavalai — a kid who was related to one of Tooganam’s retirees, and said he was planning to join up, but wasn’t old enough. He insisted his elders knew he was here, but Dale reckoned if that was true, he’d be serving with them, and not over here where no one could tell on him. He wanted to tell the kid to buzz off to the rear, but was short-handed as it was, and if this flank folded, the droids would be splitting the neighbourhood’s flank and pushing straight for Jokono and Kadi in the rear, and the aid stations slowly filling with wounded.
“I see multiple units advancing through the buildings ahead,” Jokono told them, remaining focused on Dale’s position, as the tavalai commanders wouldn’t have listened to him anyway. “They’re avoiding the streets, coming through levels three-to-five. Some have heavy weapons, I see chain guns and grenade launchers.” Jokono’s recon bugs weren’t much use at killing droids, but they were plenty good for sitting unnoticed on walls and watching them clank by.
If Dale had had his heavy armour, he could have put missiles into those upper floors and brought ceilings down on the lot of them. Now, options were limited. “They’re gonna get numbers above us to put down cover fire, then come down both roads at the same time,” he growled, adjusting his exo-frame tension. If he’d let them, his hands would have shaken with sheer exhaustion — he’d been going at this all day in one form or another, and even Phoenix Company marines had physical limits. And ignored them. “Joker, tell their damn commander we’re about to lose this position, he’s not fucking listening to me.”
“Nor to me, I fear,” said Jokono. “But I’ll tell him. Your defensive position will not improve at the next intersection.”
“No, but at least we won’t be dead here.” His first commanding officer had drummed into him the simple lesson of marine mobility — if being here will kill you, go over there, then rinse and repeat. It only becomes ‘running away’ when you stop firing back. In the meantime, pursuing enemies could make mistakes.
A shot rang out overhead, then another. Several seconds later, a roar of heavy return fire, from the window of one of the buildings opposite, and a shower of masonry fragments on the road. “I got one,” came Reddy’s voice, breathing hard as he ran. “I’ve displaced, I’m moving down a level.”
Against the opposite wall, one of the big kaal exposed himself long enough to fire his huge Viz past Dale’s corner and into the window from where the return fire had come. Kaal did that bare-handed, without the exo-frames that puny humans and tavalai needed, absorbing the massive recoil with four thick arms. Then he stepped back to the cover of a roadfront shop before Dale could tell him to — Dale had been told their names, briefly, but ‘you kaal!’ worked well enough in combat.
More grenades sailed in over the rooftops, but landed further up the approach roads from the intersection, spewing thick smoke as they clattered and bounced. The smoke gathered fast, filling the road between buildings.
“Here they come,” said Dale, putting his back against the counter and aiming his Viz into the smoke, his glasses struggling to illuminate possible targets from tacnet’s limited sources. A fragmentation grenade exploded over the intersection, shrapnel rattling off the walls, and Dale pulled back behind the counter in anticipation of the grenade round that hit the entrance to his shopfront, as the droids newly moved into the building opposite put fire into likely hiding places.
The bang rattled his eardrums, unaccustomed to hearing such things in a firefight without his full armour helmet, but he levelled the Viz once more past the counter, and saw a dark shape moving in the smoke, and pulled the trigger. The recoil kicked him like a horse, and a droid in the smoke spun in pieces. Another returned fire, and he backed behind the counter as rounds blew holes in walls around him, and knocked over tables. And stopped, as Dale’s unit fired, the big kaal opposite leaning out once more to let fly on full-auto… and was abruptly hit by fire from the building, his great bulk sliding to the road, head lolling.
“Need more fire up the second road!” Dale commanded to whomever was supposed to be doing that, but there was a lot of fire coming from the building now, a
nd it was hitting windows and walls opposite, and keeping heads down. Dale heard the fast hydraulic rattle of sprinting footsteps, and blew the first droid through the door back into the street. The second opened fire about the corner with a roar of inbuilt arm cannon, as Dale dropped once more for cover, then flipped a grenade at the doorway. The droid dodged aside, ran about the corner for the second entrance, and was hit halfway there.
Dale backed away from the counter, blew chunks out of the doorframe to deter further droids, then ran up the adjoining stairs. The stairs opened onto a corridor between apartments, all linked together with adjoining doors in communal tavalai-style. He dodged into a doorway, rifle pointed at the ceiling so it would fit through the doors, and peered across the apartment living room to the building opposite… and saw muzzle flashes from the windows. Theoretically an AI-driven droid, immune to mistakes, should have seen him by now and changed targets, but as Phoenix marines had discovered, even hacksaws didn’t do that quite as well as trained humans. Dale aimed past the wall, out the window, and blew one firing droid back into its apartment, then displaced back out the door as return fire riddled the walls.
Shouts and calls for help filled his audio — someone else was hit on the road, he’d told them to stay off the street but the non-tavalai’s military experience wasn’t as extensive as most tavalai’s. Dale went through another apartment, past the mines rigged to detect a droid’s energy emissions, then down some far-too-narrow stairs, rifle held vertically about tight corners, and rattled down a stairway past a restaurant floor. There was heavy fire ripping down the street now, rounds ricocheting from walls, most of it one-way. Dale peered without exposing himself, and saw the tavalai kid was down and wounded behind the small truck parked in the road for cover, now shredded and ruined.
“Everyone pull back!” Dale yelled, and winced as the windows of the apartment he’d just been through blew out, the mines detonating as a droid pursuing him from the corner store showed a lack of due caution. “They’re moving through the buildings, we’ve lost defensive integrity! The mines will get some, but we won’t stop them!”
A grenade blew out a doorway up from him, as droids acquired new firing angles to shoot into possible cover. With smoke and debris filling the road, Dale ducked quickly out, laid down a roar of heavy fire while retreating, then sidestepped into the restaurant front. Return fire came from the wrong direction down the road, hitting the wall as he ducked back.
“They’re behind us!” he shouted. “They’ve taken our fallback point!” He couldn’t risk another look, or one would take his head off, and he backed into the restaurant, knowing it was just a matter of time until the droids pursuing through the rooms above found a way to get in behind him, anti-droid mines or not. “Everyone on the north side, cross the road and come south! We are retreating south!” And ducked low amidst tables and ceiling supports as he heard the incoming grenade before it hit the wall, and showered everything with shrapnel.
“Human!” came a familiar, translated voice. “I am at your rear, coming through now.” Then a familiar thump and whine of tavalai-powered exo-frames, as Dale sought better position behind a pillar. Then Tooganam was crashing in from the rear passage past the kitchen, and the adjoining vehicle lane, with several more tavalai close behind.
“How many are you?” Dale yelled above the increased racket of gunfire, now converging from both ends of the street. He checked his ammo, and found only six rounds left in this can.
“Just ten!” said Tooganam, lumbering to similar cover nearby. “Is your position recoverable?”
“No, some fucker left my flank exposed!” Dale moved crouched to a new support pillar, held his Viz sideways about it and hammered off the remaining rounds. “Both ends of the street are gone, I’ve got infiltrators above and behind, and troops stuck on the north side of the street!” He returned to previous cover, ejecting the spent canister and slamming in a new one.
“LT, we got them in our rear,” came Reddy’s voice, from the north of the street. A burst of fire on coms. “They’re really pushing here, I reckon this flank is the one they’re after!”
“Dale, I can get you another three squads,” said Tooganam. There were five people in a tavalai squad, Dale knew. Fifteen more? “Two heavy squads with Viz rifles, one light. Under your command, how would you use them?”
Fifteen plus Tooganam’s current ten were twenty-five more. Plus Dale’s current seven… he blinked on tacnet to check everyone save the kaal was still alive. Thirty-two, that changed things. “If they’re pushing hard here, they’re stripping their other flanks of numbers. How many do we think they have?”
“Rapid Response droids are expensive, and the agency is not well funded.” An explosion at the restaurant front shattered a sliding door and sent tables flying. Tooganam barely blinked. “This is a major push for them, it has already cost them much. You appear to have more than your share on this flank.”
And Tooganam was offering him the means to destroy them. “Droids are dangerous at range,” said Dale. “Close quarters, in buildings, we’re superior. You get me fifteen more and we’ll cross the road and get into their rear if they push past us.”
“Counter-attack?” Dale glanced at the old tavalai, and found him with what might have been a dry smirk on thick lips. “That sounds very human. Let’s do it, the reinforcements are on their way.”
Meaning that Tooganam had the authority to tell his superior to send them, whatever his superior’s natural instincts. Dale wondered why Tooganam was not taking command himself, and if he’d bothered to tell his superior that the human was in command here. Knowing Tooganam, probably not.
“There’s a truck down the alley,” said Dale, pointing at the wall to the right. “Past the kitchen, where you came in — take two guys, shove it out to get some cover. I want smoke grenades and fragmentation, left and right. Everyone else, fire suppression — if you can’t hit targets directly, fire short into the walls and give them ricochets and fragments, I want maximum confusion before we cross. And we’ve got a wounded tavalai kid ten meters to the left behind the truck, he might still be alive. Get in first, then recover him from the far side. Got it?”
Tooganam barked several commands and the tavalai, all following on open coms and translators, moved immediately for position. Dale steadied himself against a pillar, and took several deep breaths.
“Is this mission of yours at Kantovan Vault worth dying for?” Tooganam asked him.
Dale took a final last breath, readied his Viz, and thought of the deepynine threat, lurking near humanity’s throat with their allies the alo. “A thousand times,” he said.
“For the Talim, we say,” Tooganam growled. “It means the single tavalai soul.”
“We say ‘the nine-point-nine’,” said Dale. “The nine-point-nine billion dead of Earth.”
Tooganam looked at him approvingly. “You honour your ancestors. For the nine-point-nine.”
Dale smiled grimly. “For the Talim,” he said.
A report came on coms that Dale’s translator missed. “The truck’s ready,” said Tooganam. “We’re in position. You should be getting data-feed on your tacnet now.”
Dale blinked on the overlay, and his glasses showed the extra tavalai troops moving up behind. “Let’s go,” he said, and swung around to the left side of the restaurant, past shattered and smoking tables, to open an angle down the road to his right, as Tooganam and troops did the same opposite.
They opened fire across each other, as others followed from neighbouring streetfronts. Then the truck emerged from its alley to block Dale’s line of fire. He swung around the corner and fired the other way, as tavalai joined him, and others dashed across, creating a wall of fire up the road. Droids that did not take cover, disintegrated, and Dale ran across the road to take cover there, and open a new angle.
Tavalai ran past and into north-side buildings, from where they could penetrate and spread into the enemy’s rear and flanks. Grenades hit the walls ahead, then
ricochets, spraying shrapnel up the road, but Dale stayed put, targeting cover-point after cover-point, knowing he couldn’t allow this crossing to come under pressure until everyone was across. A glance sideways while changing ammo cans showed him Tooganam doing the same on the south side, standing with legs spread in typical tavalai stubbornness, leaning into his weapon’s recoil as an old-time sailor might lean into a gale. Dale had once despised tavalai for their lack of panic reflex, thinking it made them no better than unthinking machines, unable to feel or fear. But now he saw Tooganam, unflinching amidst fire, smoke and shrapnel, refusing more than partial cover because it was necessary, and the tavalai were a people for whom the necessary was everything, irrespective of cost, profit or doubt. And it was like a revelation.
With a sudden shriek up the road, several missiles made fast contrails through the sky and hit amidst Rapid Response rear positions with big explosions. Then some more, followed by a howl of shuttle thrusters, and the middle-distance baarp! of rapid-fire cannon, followed by the entire street ahead erupting beneath a torrent of high-velocity impacts.
“Lieutenant, that’s tavalai Fleet shuttles!” Jokono was shouting with unaccustomed joy. “Tooganam, your fleet is here!”
The engine howl grew louder, as droid fire reduced, and incoming aerial fire increased into neighbouring streets. Then a roar directly overhead, as a shuttle came in directly over the rear intersection, now free of droids, its jets breaking every window not already broken and sending a great hurricane of hot air up the road. Karasai jumped from the rear, with enough suit-thrust for a controlled landing without descent ropes, some of them firing rifles, others launching missiles, a great cascade of armoured, alien firepower that might previously have looked to Dale like a nightmare, but now looked more like salvation.
When Trace’s squad made the vault power regulator, sard defenders had already cut through the doors, and Corporal Rael’s squad were under fire. But the sard lacked the heavy weapons to trouble well-positioned marines, and Rael’s return fire had pulverised sard trying to assault through the single doorway. The remainder dispersed when the humans pushed forward, scattering as marines used their remaining missiles and grenades first, and rifles second, to maximise the sard’s perception of disadvantage.
Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3) Page 47