by B. V. Larson
But things didn’t start off that way. They came at us riding in machines. Their strange vehicles resembled tubular sleds of ribbed, flexing metal-reminding me of the duct behind my electric Whirlpool drier back home. In the dark, all I saw at first was the brilliant flaring of the beam units the sleds had clustered at the nosecone. I realized instantly the beams were primarily for melting away the soil in front of the tunneling machine, but they could also be used as weapons. Then the full length of the rippling metal machines came into sight, flowing up out of the ground and charging at our hovertanks and the square of bricks behind them. The Worms themselves rode in these sleds, leaning out of openings in the flexing metal that allowed them to rear up in a pose making them resemble striking snakes. They looked around and worked rifle-like weapons of their own. They had no hands, but they had plenty of small legs and mandibles around their jaws. They used these appendages to operate their weapons, which were harnessed to their bodies. More and more tunneling sleds crested and burst out of Helios’ alien ground all around us. The Worms fired from their sleds reminding me of ancient charioteers.
Our men and hovertanks let rip with a massive barrage of laser-fire. My autoshade goggles blacked out completely at times, but I could still see the intense streaks of released energy. In flashes, I saw Worm sleds scar, blacken and finally explode as they were lanced with hundreds of beams. Worm troops rolled out of their burning sleds and slithered closer, only to be shot a dozen more times before their smoking bodies stilled.
“North flank!” I heard over the command channel. “North flank, they are breaking through!”
I had my light rifle out and trotted to the opposite side of my rocky outcropping. I was on the northwest side of the camp. A knot of marines who’d been stationed here grouped up with me. I halted, waving to half of them.
“You men hold here. Hug a separate boulder each. Don’t lose this high ground. If they take this outcropping, they will be able to fire down into our camp center. The other half of you follow me.”
One half scattered, the second group-seven men-crunched behind me. We reached the northern side and saw the problem immediately. On this flank the Worms had bored out of the ground closer in. They were between the hovertanks and our outer line of bricks. In many cases, they had come up right in the middle of the hovertanks and gutted them, getting in close with those nosecone beam-clusters. Our hovertanks had run right over the beams and been sliced open like horses running over blades. Three of the hovertanks were smoldering wrecks. The last one had halted and was encircled by Worm sleds.
“Focus fire on those sleds!” I shouted, kneeling and taking aim. “Let’s save that tanker.”
We fired with deadly accuracy. The men along the bricktops nearby saw our streaking beams cutting through the night from the enemy flank and joined in. After less than a minute, we had driven the surviving sleds back to their holes.
The battle was far from over, however. There was a lull, but it was measurable in seconds. Reports began coming in then.
“Infantry wave incoming!”
“Worms are boiling up out of those holes!”
I scanned the lumpy, desert-like landscape. Then I noticed the beam-fire of my own men. It was coming from inside our encampment. The troops around me looked nervous. I took a full second to think. If the Worms were inside our perimeter, did we rush to support the camp center or did we stay at our post in case another wave hit the outer walls? At that moment, I wished I was inside my command brick, seeing the whole battle, rather than running around out here on foot.
“Major Robinson?” I called, selecting his direct channel. “Are you at your post in the command module?”
“Yes sir,” came a harried sounding voice.
“Give me a quick report, what’s happening?” I asked.
“I think our underground nanite-net has slowed them down, sir. But some of the enemy have breached into the central compound. Men along the perimeter are reporting big waves of enemy troops coming out of the holes their machines dug for them.”
“Okay, keep coordinating the action until I get there.”
I never made it. Firing began all around me. What looked like a thousand Worm warriors came at us in a humping mass from every direction. We sprayed them with beams and they melted, slagged and caught fire. They kept coming, however, their numbers increasing. I finally had the opportunity to see the Worm warriors close-up and in action. I didn’t relish the experience.
Harnessed onto two sides of every Worm warrior were ballistic weapons. The Worms believed in guns. These short-barreled weapons required no heavy power-packs, however. They fired chattering bursts of pellets that exploded upon contact. The bullets weren’t like Earth weaponry. They were not high-velocity, solid lead projectiles. Instead, each projectile was hollow and lighter-more like paintball pellets full of nitroglycerin than bullets. Each of the pellets was covered in a chitinous, brown shell and had a liquid center. We suspected they were partly or entirely organic in nature. I supposed, as I watched them spray my men down around me, that the weapons made sense. They were light-weight and the pellets were light, too. Heavy bullets wouldn’t have much range on a high-gravity world like this. Besides, if you did most of your fighting in tunnels, range and accuracy weren’t important. What you wanted was overwhelming firepower at close range.
The pellets fired with popping sounds and each round cracked as it exploded on impact. It was like being shot by a thousand firecrackers in a steady stream. Our tough, nanite-impregnated suits and skins could take a surprising amount of punishment, but if a Worm got in close on a man and sprayed him with those twin fire hoses of explosive pellets, that man went down and his belly was quickly transformed into a smoking crater.
I ordered my squad-which had shrunken to a four-man fireteam-to pull back to a cluster of big rocks. We squatted in there, breathing hard and firing at anything that humped or squirmed past.
“Okay,” I said. “If they get in here, I’ll switch to my blade. Who else is good with a blade?”
They all looked at me. These were not the kind of marines, I realized in an instant, who would volunteer for things like anti-Worm knife-duty. Those men had probably already died.
I slapped the head of the nearest PFC. “You’re it. When they get in close, we kill them. The others keep firing, or we will be overwhelmed as they keep coming in.”
It didn’t take long to test my plan. Two Worms made it into our midst almost at the same time. They had been behind other Worms, who now twisted and writhed in their death throes. The PFC I’d tagged didn’t have any choice about following my orders, as the first Worm practically fell on him. It flipped over the top of our sheltering rocks and dropped in our midst. Screaming, the PFC had his blade out and slashed at it wildly, taking off an entire row of those churning little legs.
I let my rifle drop from my grasp, knowing it would dangle by the black cord that led to my power-pack. I snatched out my knife and the fine edge gleamed green, reflecting the laser fire that flared all around me as the others kept their suppressing fire up in every direction. Before I could even take a step toward the PFC and his thrashing Worm, the second one joined the party.
I lunged at the second one. It was about to take out one of our gunners, who was directing his fire out into the oncoming enemy waves. I plunged the slightly curved blade into the monster’s tail, getting its attention.
It doubled back on itself, hissing. An alien face came at me very quickly. I saw those multifaceted eyes and a maw yawned widely, full of dribbling spikes and sharp, horn-like ridges that probably served to ingest food. The maw was big enough to swallow my head, so I slashed at it defensively. It was a lucky strike. The thing’s face exploded. Yellowish, semi-opaque liquids gushed over my goggles, which I was very glad to be wearing. The Worm wasn’t out of the fight yet, however. Pinchers clamped onto my arms and tore holes in my suit at both shoulders. I brought my knife in low, where I hoped it kept its throat. More liquids splashed out of it.
>
I could feel those pinchers cut into my shoulders. Blood ran down my sides, pooling up in my boots. My right arm was pinned now-the monster had figured out which of my limbs was causing the damage. I strove with the Worm, and despite my nanite-enhanced muscles, its power was unstoppable. It was like wrestling with a thousand-pound python.
I felt myself going down, and a second later I was on my back. All I could see was Worm. It had markings on it, I saw then. Blue tattoos depicting strange, cursive symbols. For a disconnected second I wondered if the tattoos indicated its rank or identity. Was the alien atmosphere that now leaked into my suit causing my mind to wander?
I managed to switch the knife from my pinned right hand into my left. Tearing my left free for a moment, I reached up and slashed across both those big, jewel-like eyes. That did the trick. The thing let go of me and reared up. Blinded and mad with pain, its mandibles activated the triggers on both twin, short-barreled cannons and sprayed everywhere in a circle. Before we killed it, the thing managed to blast the leg off one of my men and accidentally killed the other Worm, who had by now pinned down the PFC I’d placed on knife-duty with me.
When we’d gotten control of the situation again, I crouched with my remaining marines. “Okay,” I puffed. “New plan. We are fighting our way down to the bricks.”
This seemed to brighten their moods. I was injured, but not badly. I and the PFC who still clutched his knife, but had lost his other hand to his Worm, both grabbed and lifted the worst injury, the man with a missing leg. The five of us charged then, firing as we went, running downslope toward the bricks.
The men on top of the bricks and the remaining hovertanks saw us and provided covering fire. A hundred Worms tried to get to us, to stop us, to pull us down. Only one of my men didn’t make it. The PFC with the knife. A Worm sprang out from behind one of those big, squatty toadstool growths and rode him down, guns chattering, pinchers flashing in the black night. A hundred beams took the Worm apart, but when we dragged the PFC’s body into the protective square, he was already dead.
Handing over my wounded to a corpsman, I brushed off his attempts to patch up my injuries and trotted to the command brick. I slumped into the airlock. It seemed to take forever to ding and allow me through. Part way through the process, sheeting antibiotic mists and beams of lavender radiation sprayed me. We couldn’t allow any form of contagion to enter the command module-I knew this intellectually and had approved the scripts myself, but it was still maddening to experience the delay.
At length, I dragged myself into the command post. Everyone threw me a quick salute and turned back to what they were doing, except for Robinson.
Robinson turned to Captain Sarin. “Get a corpsman in here, we have an officer in need of care.”
I waved a hand at him and leaned the other heavily on the computer table. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “I’ve just had the wind knocked out of me.”
They ignored my words and brought in the corpsman. I was surprised to see it was Sandra. She had taken the training, I’d known that. And it made sense that she was the closest certified noncombatant.
“Hi hon,” I said.
Sandra made an exasperated sound and went to work on me. It wasn’t the first time she’d performed emergency first aid on my sorry ass. I suspected it wouldn’t be the last. I tried to ignore her as she pulled my torso out of my suit and dabbed, probed and ripped lengths of tape. She whispered things to me, while she worked. Threats about what she would do if I ever got myself torn up like this again. These sorts of threats only made sense to Sandra.
“Give me the big picture, Robinson,” I said.
“We’re winning, sir.”
“Losses?”
“Five hovertanks were destroyed, but less than one hundred KIAs. The Worms surprised us, but they ran into our surprises as well. I think they meant to hit us from underneath simultaneously, timing it with the perimeter attacks. But our nanite-woven shielding under the base slowed them down and channeled their attacks into three breach points. We were able to burn them before they could get the interior assault underway.”
I nodded. “What about the big waves from outside?”
“Your position was hard hit. They did manage to take the rocky outcroppings, and the northern flank in general was overrun, but I pulled troops from the other walls where we’d repelled them and sent reinforcements to the breach points. We pretty much slaughtered them.”
“Enemy casualties?” I asked, wincing as Sandra jabbed me with something sharp. I heard a clicking sound, and realized it was as stapler. We didn’t bother with sutures these days, the nanites took care of the fine work. Rapidly stapling up a wound and wrapping it tightly to prevent blood loss worked best. The nanites would automatically push the staples out after awhile when they were no longer needed.
“The computer has done a recognition sweep with all the sensors. Over nine thousand Worms died, sir.”
I looked up at him, impressed. “We did slaughter them, then. You did well.”
“Yes sir,” Robinson said proudly. “Clearly, they miscalculated.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they were desperate. I believe they are smarter than they look. I don’t think they expected to win, but thought it was worth a try.”
“Sir?”
“I want you to recalibrate and redirect our sensors downward. I don’t care about the sky or the surface of this rock. I want to know what they are doing under our feet.”
Robinson paused and frowned. “You don’t think this is over, sir?”
I snorted. “If the Worms had landed in Central Park and smashed back our first assault, do you think we would quit?”
— 45-
The Worms hadn’t given up. They were hard at work underneath us, tunneling deeply.
“There’s something big, sir. Metallic,” Captain Sarin told me, flipping images on the screen. “It’s about a thousand feet down in a soil substrate. I think the ground there is softer, maybe easier to dig through.”
The big screen showed crawling, finger-like traces heading in our direction. They had converged and were aiming directly toward our position. I stared at them in growing concern. It was obvious where the tunnels had come from. Tracing backward from its current location led directly to the huge mountain.
“We’ll keep an eye on things, sir,” said Major Robinson. “At this rate, the Worms won’t be under us for hours.”
I continued to stare at the screen, not saying anything. I didn’t like this new, gathering assault.
Behind me, a small, strong hand plucked at the staples holding together my injuries. I knew it was Sandra, letting me know she wanted me to come to our quarters with her and take a break. She wanted me out of the command post and under her not-so-gentle care. But she wouldn’t speak, I knew that too. She had no official capacity here, and knew enough not to interrupt a command discussion.
I turned to her and tried to smile. I think I failed. She frowned back. She could tell immediately I wasn’t going to do what she wanted. “Sandra, thanks for the field-dressing. Excellent work as always. Could you return to your post in my office now?”
Sandra nodded, but gave me a small, pursed-mouth glare. She didn’t bother to help me pull up my suit and help me reseal it. She turned around without a word and left. The spring-loaded door prevented her from slamming it behind her. I watched her shapely form exit-somehow, when she was angry, she managed to look even hotter.
The command staff tried not to appear embarrassed as she left and I stared after her. The whole thing was unprofessional, but I hardly cared. Dying in a firefight with alien Worms on a newly discovered planet-all in the name of service to machine overlords-didn’t fit the norm, either. We made our own rules in my outfit. I pressed my own suit into place, activating the nanites via proximity so they linked up and sealed the fabric.
Once she was gone, I turned to my officers and tapped on the screen where the contact blinked. The tapping caused it to zoom in closer. There was no more detail to b
e seen, however. Only a wireframe cube drawn in warning yellow.
“What if this is one of their thermonuclear mines?” I asked, voicing the thought that had been on my mind the entire time.
“They haven’t hit us with anything big like that yet,” Robinson argued. “I figured maybe they don’t want to set off a big radiation mess right here so close to their stronghold.”
“Yeah, but maybe we just changed their plans for them. Maybe after we skunked their assault team, they’ve decided they will just have to live with a little radiation.”
Robinson sighed. “It could be, sir. I don’t like any of this. We’ve yet to gain the initiative on this mission. We’ve been reacting to enemy attacks since we entered the system.”
“Well, let’s change that. Send out hovertanks with sensor arrays hugging the dirt. I want to see everything that’s underground between us and this advancing force. Have the tanks stop, turning off every system except the sensors and then set them active. Ping away at the enemy. When the tanks detect something, they can relay the findings.”
Robinson didn’t follow my orders immediately. Instead, he stared at me in concern. “We’ve already lost a quarter of our hovertanks, sir, and they are the units that did the most damage in the last battle.”
“I don’t care. The enemy won’t find our tanks easy to sneak up on with their sensors active and directed downward. These Worms won’t come at us in the air or over the land. They will dig to us. That’s how they operate. If we can see them coming, we’ll have the advantage. We can move over the surface faster than they can maneuver underground.”