Avery shrugged. “It will work or it won’t. All we can do is try. We’ll know how things went by this time tomorrow.”
McKee knew he wanted to say more but couldn’t. She looked him in the eye. “Watch your six, sir.”
Avery nodded. “You too, Sergeant. You too.”
* * *
Given what would be expected of them in the morning, Avery had allowed McKee’s squad to sleep uninterrupted. But doubts about her capacity to live up to her own expectations during the coming battle, and the knowledge that she might be dead in a few hours, prevented her from getting much rest. And Larkin’s snoring didn’t help either.
So when her wrist chrono began to beep, she was already awake. It was still dark and would be for hours yet. After stowing the sleep sack and brushing her teeth, she went out to make the rounds. Then, having assured herself that everyone was up, she forced herself to eat. It wasn’t easy because her stomach felt queasy, but she knew that her body was going to need fuel.
After eating what she could and mustering her squad, McKee waited for the order to move out. It was supposed to come at 0400. But that hour came and went with nothing except static on the radio. Finally, at 0417, Avery’s voice flooded her helmet. “Echo-Nine to Echo-Four. Over.”
McKee chinned the transmit switch. “This is Four . . . Over.”
“Our friends were running late,” Avery said matter-of-factly. “But they’re in position. You can move out. Over.”
The northerners had clearly been operating on what the humans privately referred to as “Droi time.” “Roger that,” McKee replied. “Moving out. Over.”
Colonel Rylund and his staff had done a masterful job of anticipating what the combined force would need in order to carry out their mission. And that included hundreds of glow sticks that had been loaded onto Kelly for the flight south—and subsequently distributed to the Droi scouts. Having activated the luminescent rods and stuck them down the back of their waistbands, selected warriors could lead the rest of the force forward in spite of the darkness. And given how critical their functions were, McKee and her people had their own contingent of scouts whose sole responsibility was to guide the legionnaires to their objective.
McKee’s job was to follow the bobbing lights, keep her squad closed up tight, and deliver the demolition team to the target. The task sounded simple. But she discovered that it was difficult to distinguish her scouts from the others, some of whom were slated to veer off in different directions. So she called the warriors back and issued each one of them an additional glow rod. That made the task of identifying them much easier as the battalion crept forward.
It took more than an hour to reach the first checkpoint, which was a quarter mile short of the dam. Then it was time to go to ground and wait until given the order to advance. McKee followed Wellington’s advice to “Piss when you can,” eyed her chrono, and wondered what Avery was doing.
* * *
Avery was at the very front of the formation, with Insa at his side. The dam had been built across a narrow gorge, and as the first blush of dawn appeared in the east, they could look down on it from a rocky promontory directly to the south. Two Hudathan sentries had been stationed there, and both had been killed by arrows launched from twenty feet away. That was how close the jungle-savvy Droi could come without being detected. But the sentries would be missed, so the clock was ticking as Avery studied the structure in front of him.
He’d seen it all before, of course, but only secondhand, via the electronic images that McKee had brought back from Riversplit. But his current angle was different, and he could see more detail. Thanks to the documentation provided by Rylund’s staff, Avery knew he was looking at an arch-gravity dam. Meaning a dam that curves upstream, thereby pushing most of the water against the walls of the canyon. It was a strategy calculated to compress and strengthen the dam.
A semicircular road sat atop the dam, and six Hudathan AA batteries were positioned along it. They hadn’t been present in the preinvasion satellite photos he’d seen, so it was clear that defenses had been improved in the wake of the first attack on the dam. Plenty of troops could be seen even at that early hour. After a quick head count, Avery concluded that there were at least 150 Hudathans on top of the bridge—and it seemed safe to assume that there were at least that many inside it. Airborne drones were visible as well, sniffing about like so many hound dogs, searching for a scent. Insa interrupted Avery’s train of thought by touching his arm. “Northern tribe ready.”
Avery tilted the glasses up to examine the area north of the dam. He could see rocky walls and the jungle beyond but nothing more. And that was the way it was supposed to be. The Droi were hidden and would remain that way until he gave the order for them to attack. But there was a problem he had to deal with first. The drones were not only armed but would continue to send video to the Hudathan HQ so long as they were operational, and the less information the shovel heads received, the better. “Echo-Nine to Echo-Six,” Avery said. “Execute.”
There were two clicks by way of a response. Half a minute later, a thermite grenade sailed out of the jungle, hit the access road, and took a single bounce before detonating inches off the pavement. Once it started to burn, the device generated a lot of heat. So much heat that every drone within half a mile of the grenade rushed to respond. Therefore, it was only a matter of seconds before fifteen or twenty of the machines were jostling each other for position as they sought to “see” what was taking place.
That was when a dozen shoulder-launched fire-and-forget rockets shot out of the jungle and struck their targets. The explosions came in such quick succession that they produced a prolonged roar of sound. Those drones not targeted directly were hit by shrapnel or caught in a neighboring blast. The result was a cloud of smoke and falling scrap metal.
“Tell the northerners to attack,” Avery said as he tilted the glasses upward.
Insa had a handheld radio, the twin of a unit sent to his opposite number via runner two days earlier. It was a critical link. And as Insa spoke into it, Avery was struck by the nonstop flow of words. It seemed that the Droi were quite voluble when speaking their own language rather than standard.
Having lost most of their drones, the Hudathans were lumbering toward the south end of the bridge ready to kill whatever they encountered. That changed as a boulder came tumbling down onto the north end of the bridge, took a lucky hop, and crushed an AA gun. Moments later, a phalanx of Droi warriors poured onto the road and spread out.
Without any troops attacking them from the south, the now-frustrated Hudathans turned back to meet what they perceived as the real menace. It was only a matter of minutes before both sides opened fire, and people began to die. The ridge heads were better armed, so the native troops appeared to wilt as a hail of projectiles cut them down.
The Droi started to retreat and, eager to punish them for their temerity, the Hudathans followed them into the jungle. But that, as the aliens were about to find out, was a mistake. Because more than a thousand indigs were waiting for them in the trees, and the fierce firefight could be heard clear on the other side of the gorge.
The northerners had done their part, and it was time for the humans to do theirs. That meant Avery had to send McKee into harm’s way. The very thing he least wanted to do. Avery forced himself to speak. “Echo-Nine to Echo-Four. Execute.”
* * *
McKee felt as if she’d been waiting forever. So when Avery gave the order, it came as a relief. “This is Echo-Four. We’re going in. Over.”
The next transmission went to her team. “You heard the man . . . It’s time to earn your pay. Follow me.” Had Sergeant Hux said that? Was she imitating him? Or had the Steel Bitch taken over? She grinned wolfishly as Eason crashed through the underbrush that separated them from the access road. Stealth was no longer possible, and speed was extremely important.
McKee was careful to keep her head down and eyed the HUD that was visible on the inside surface of her visor. She
had to make sure that all of her people were following along behind including Petit, Muncy, and Yamada, who were on foot. They had six Droi warriors to help carry the explosives—and that was crucial if they were to keep up.
It would have been nice to put the commandos on cyborgs. But with only seventeen T-1s to call on, Avery had been forced to make some difficult decisions, one of which was to have her squad clear the south end of the bridge rather than give Petit’s people a ride.
Suddenly, the road appeared through a thin screen of vegetation, Eason skidded down a steep bank, and it was all McKee could do to hang on. Then they were on heat-fused soil and turning left. A roadblock lay directly ahead, and Eason fired a grenade at it. There was a flash followed by a loud bang, and two Hudathans fell.
The remaining trooper stood his ground, however, and fired at the oncoming cyborg with a huge assault rifle. Bullets buzzed like bees as they passed McKee’s head, and a series of clangs signaled that Eason was taking hits. But the T-1 was firing the big Storm fifty by then—and even a 350-pound Hudathan couldn’t withstand a .50-caliber slug. At least six of the big rounds hit the alien, blew him in half, and kept on going.
By that time, Eason was stutter-stepping through the remains of the Hudathan drones. Then, when he had cleared that obstacle, it was time to confront the Hudathans who were boiling out of an elevator tower. Some were fully equipped, but others were only partially so, and had probably been asleep when the attack began.
McKee leaned back into the harness and let the AXE hang across her chest as she threw grenades at the newcomers. Eason was forced to slow down or risk running into an explosion.
But the contest was far from one-sided, as became apparent when Farber took a direct hit from an RPG. The explosion blew the cyborg’s head off and killed Caskin as well. Both legionnaires fell, skidded across the duracrete, and wound up in a heap of bloody flesh and smoking metal. Suddenly, in a matter of seconds, the strength of McKee’s squad had been reduced by 25 percent. Noll had identified the Hudathan with the grenade launcher and uttered a roar of rage as he chased the alien down and shot him in the head.
But McKee was only vaguely conscious of that as three Hudathans charged Eason and nearly knocked him over. But the T-1 managed to stay on his feet and used the fifty to club one of his adversaries. The Hudathan collapsed, but there were two more to deal with.
One of the enemy troopers made a grab for McKee. She could feel the enormous strength in his hands and see the hatred in his eyes as she brought the AXE around. The weapon roared, the face shattered, and the Hudathan fell away.
That gave McKee a moment in which to look around. The third alien was down and being stomped by Hower. Sergeant Petit and his team were running her way, and the door to the freight elevator was open. She pointed at it. “Donobi! Noll! Secure that lift.”
Then, turning back to Petit, she waved the other noncom forward. Once all the members of the demolition team were on the platform, Eason, Noll, and Hower backed onto it, firing as they did so. In a matter of minutes the rest of Echo Company would arrive along with hundreds of Droi warriors. Their job would be to hold the top of the dam while the charges were set.
Petit pushed the DOWN button, and McKee felt the lift jerk spasmodically as it started to descend. That gave her the opportunity to hit the harness release and jump down. The other bio bods did likewise, thereby increasing the number of boots on the ground and enhancing the team’s flexibility. Then it was time to report in. “Echo-Four to Echo-Nine. Over.”
There was a burst of static followed by Avery’s voice. He sounded tense. “This is Nine. Go. Over.”
“We’re in. Over.”
“Excellent. Execute phase two. Over.”
There was a loud clang as the platform came to a stop right in front of a dozen surprised Hudathans. The T-1s and the bio bods opened fire, and the aliens went down like tenpins. Larkin was the first person off the platform and went to work executing the wounded. A process he clearly enjoyed.
It wasn’t right, and McKee knew she should order him to stop. The problem was that she didn’t have enough troops to deal with prisoners—and a wounded Hudathan still represented a significant threat. Not that it mattered because by the time she finished thinking about the problem, all of the enemy soldiers were dead.
She felt a sense of revulsion for both Larkin and herself but was forced to put that emotion aside in order to deal with the next task, which was to place the explosives. Here, at least, she could relinquish leadership to Petit—while assuming her role as chief bodyguard. He acknowledged the moment with a nod. “Thanks, Sarge. Now keep the bastards off our backs while we go to work.”
The dam’s interior was huge and had to be in order to accommodate the massive generators that sat like islands on an ocean of duracrete. But even they were dwarfed by a very high ceiling and empty spaces all around. That meant there was plenty of room for the T-1s to maneuver as they took up positions with their backs to the demolition team.
The plan was to place the charges against the gently curved water-side wall and trigger all of them at once. And since they were self-adhesive, that would be a simple task. All they had to do was place a brick of E-8, push a timer-detonator into the highly malleable material, and move on. Except that the wall was more than a thousand feet long, and the team was supposed to attach sixty charges to it. A process likely to use up a lot of time. Time they didn’t have.
Petit shouted, “That’s one!” but McKee knew there were fifty-nine more to go.
“Here they come!” Hower shouted, and the Hudathans attacked.
* * *
Jivv had been running for a long time but wasn’t tired. Nor was it excited or jubilant as a human might have been toward the end of a long chase. It simply was as it followed a trail of broken foliage toward what sounded like a full-fledged battle. And that, his processor decided, would be good and bad. Good because the chaos associated with the conflict would allow him freedom of movement—and bad because it might impede his ability to find 2999.
Targets appeared on Jivv’s sensors as the sound of fighting grew louder, and three people appeared up ahead. Two were Droi warriors and the third was a legionnaire with a bloodstained bandage on his left shoulder. He was being supported by the locals as they took him back out of harm’s way. Jivv came to a halt and held up a hand. “I’m looking for Corporal McKee . . . Can you tell me where she is?”
“McKee’s inside the dam,” the legionnaire answered without giving the matter any thought. “With Sergeant Petit. Wait a minute . . . You’re dead! Captain Avery shot you!”
“Yes, he did,” Jivv agreed, as it raised Aba’s rifle. The reports came in quick succession, and the Droi fell on the human.
Jivv threw the rifle aside and knelt next to the dead legionnaire. Moments later, he was armed with the soldier’s assault weapon and two additional magazines. Then, having acquired the soldier’s helmet as well, the machine was off and running. Now it could hear whatever Avery said without using its own capabilities—part of which had suffered permanent damage. And it was clear that things weren’t going well. Not that it mattered to Jivv because its priorities lay elsewhere.
The robot made a note to kill Avery if the opportunity presented itself, burst out of the jungle onto the access road, and followed a trail of dead bodies to the top of the dam. A major battle was taking place out in the middle of the span, where hundreds of Droi and a scattering of humans were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with an equal number of Hudathans. And given the disparity in size, the aliens were winning.
But Jivv had no intention of getting involved in that mess because, according to the dead legionnaire, 2999 was somewhere inside the dam. The robot ran over to the elevator and pressed the DOWN button. There was no response. So Jivv opened a door marked STAIRS, and took them two at a time. The hunt was nearly over.
* * *
Weapons chattered, grenades exploded, and screams could be heard all around as Petit and his team finished pla
cing the twenty-sixth charge. About fifty Hudathan troops had arrived on the scene. They were fully equipped, and McKee figured that they were part of the quick-reaction force that Avery had warned her about ten minutes earlier. The shovel heads couldn’t bomb the dam, not without risking the very catastrophe that the humans were trying to create, but they could drop more troops onto it and had.
McKee, what remained of her squad, and a dozen Droi warriors had been able to hold the aliens off up until then, but as the fresh troops came at them, she knew it was over. All she could do was order her people to pull back and hope that some of them would survive. The first step was to tell Petit. McKee turned his way just in time to see the other noncom take a bullet in the head. It punched through his visor and drove a geyser of goo out through the back of his helmet. His body went limp and fell.
She swore and chinned the mike switch. “Pull back! Pull back to the elevator!” A rocket hit Hower. The explosion sent pieces of the T-1 sailing through the air, and a chunk of metal took a Hudathan’s arm off.
McKee and a small group of bio bods were backing toward the elevator at that point while the surviving T-1s guarded their flanks. And if it hadn’t been for their firepower, she knew the rest of them would be slaughtered within a matter of seconds. “Watch out!” Eason said. “They’re trying to circle around behind us!”
McKee staggered as two or three projectiles flattened themselves against her body armor. The impact knocked her off her feet, and she fell. As she hit the floor, she could hear both of the fifties firing on full auto as the T-1s battled to push the Hudathans back. Then she saw Larkin appear over her. But rather than reach down to help, he was pointing an AXE at her.
McKee realized that she was looking up at Jivv! It couldn’t be, but it was. The robot was wearing a helmet, but the visor was open to expose its smooth, almost-featureless face. Memories of her family and moments with Avery flashed through her mind as she waited for the first bullet to hit.
A human might have said something at that point, but Jivv wasn’t human. It had orders to kill 2999 and pulled the trigger. Or tried to. But that was the moment when a 450-pound Hudathan swung the battle-ax which had been in his family for more than three hundred years. It was razor-sharp and generated a loud clink as it took Jivv’s head off.
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