by B. V. Larson
“Captain? Did our lead pilot make it?”
“No sir. That slide down the hill killed a number of good men.”
“All right,” I said, “Roku, you are in command of the remaining hovertanks. You are now second in command of this expedition.”
“Ah, yes Colonel,” said Roku, surprised.
He shouldn’t be, I thought, he was next in rank. There were two other captains in the infantry, and they may or may not be senior, but I wanted one of my pilots in the lead if I didn’t manage to dig my way out of the next hole I fell into. Knowing the chain of command was critical in a place like this, where deaths could alter the face of things at any moment.
“Captain, can you get your tanks down here with us safely?”
“With time, sir,” he said. “We we can drill down in a spiral to your level and come out nearby, safely.”
Kwon waved to me, pointing out toward the floor of the cavern. My vision had adjusted somewhat. The coral-like growths occasionally puffed smoke. The enemy was hiding out there, like crawling snipers in a forest. They were moving around on the open floor of the cavern to flank us. If they kept moving, they would soon have a clear shot at my men, with no cover between us and the incoming fire.
“Explain your current situation, Captain,” I said. As I spoke, sniper fire spanged off a nearby dead marine’s reactor unit. I wasn’t surprised, the Worms tended to shoot dead bodies. They didn’t seem to be able to tell the difference between a live man and a dead one. I ducked down to avoid further fire, and Kwon knelt beside me.
“I’ve backed the tanks down the tunnels about a hundred yards,” said Roku in the calm voice of a man who sat confidently in his tank. “The last cave-in was caused by the combined weight of the two forward drill-tanks. If we drilled down and around-”
“Forget that, Captain,” I said, cutting him off. “That will take an hour or more. We’ve been exposed to the enemy. They are already on the move, and more of them will gather every minute. Soon, they will probably hit you from behind up in that tunnel and assault us frontally in this ditch we’ve dug for ourselves down here. Somewhere in the middle of this cavern is our target. I need your tanks and men down here pronto, to help us finish this thing.”
“Sir? How do I do that, sir?” he asked.
“You’ll figure a way, Roku. I can’t micromanage what I can’t see.”
“What if I can’t do it, sir?”
“Then I’ll be calling you Lieutenant from now on,” I said. “I’ll get my marines out of your path and take some cover in that coral forest looking mess on the cavern floor. We’ll give the snipers something to think about while you get your asses down here. You have ten minutes. Riggs out.”
I thought I heard him mutter something about Riggs’ Pigs before he disconnected. I smiled, and slapped Kwon with my good arm.
“Thanks for pulling me out of there. I’m not sure I could have done the same for you.”
“But you would have tried,” Kwon said.
I nodded and crawled to the top of the trench line. Dirt popped twice around me, the snipers were getting testy. I ducked back down. “Let’s get some suppression fire on those marked sniper positions. We’ve got about fifty men down here. I’ll take the first half down to the forest. You cover me.”
Kwon nodded. He turned toward the men we could see hunkering up in the tunnel mouth. As yet, none of them had moved. Whatever Captain Roku had in mind, I hoped he would get a move on.
“Listen up!” Kwon boomed up at them, dialing up his external directional speakers to an ear-splitting level. “Suppress those frigging snipers, NOW!”
“Well done,” I said, gathering up a platoon’s worth of marines. Their officer and the company’s second sergeant had been buried along with a number of others. I went from man to man, tapping every other one and jerking my thumb. Soon, I had a pack of them following me.
My left arm burned and tingled now. I knew from too much experience that it would start working again soon. The nanites were almost magical, but they had a terrible bedside manner. They never cared much about the patient. Sometimes, they might build the nerve endings last, or cut them during the healing process. Other times, a marine might suffer in agony for a long while before an injury was healed. As part of their symbiotic relationship, they were capable of cutting nerve-damaged areas to prevent pain from becoming overwhelming and causing a marine to thus become ineffective, but it didn’t always happen that way. When they were healing a man, they repaired whatever was the most expedient portion of flesh first. Every man hoped they did the nerves last, but it was a matter of luck, really.
I took my team down to the site of the wrecked drill-tank first. I stepped on something hard that was buried under the tank. I reached down and smeared away a mass of dirt. I found the sensor array that Jensen had dragged down the tunnel with him. I eyed the cracked screen. I hissed in anger. He had dialed down the range to the minimum.
Moving around the base of the tank in a crouch, I found Corporal Jensen next. He’d been right up there with the tank, and it wasn’t surprising he’d gone down with it. Half his head was missing. Lucky bastard, I thought. Now, I wouldn’t get the chance to ream him for having disobeyed orders and leading us into this mess. If he hadn’t been so worried about another giant Worm, he might not have taken those last few steps out into open space.
When we were gathered in the shelter of the wrecked tank, I realized we were never going to make it to the corral forest on foot. It was more than a hundred yards of open ground away, and the enemy fire was increasing by the minute, cover or no. Overhead, lasers flashed into the forest and Worm rifles puffed back. Sometimes a Worm thrashed in the coral-looking stuff, flipping and burning. Sometimes one of my marines pitched back, screaming. But they had us pretty well pinned down.
“Captain Roku!” I shouted into my command channel. “What do you have for me?”
“We’ve got a plan, sir.”
“Talk to me.”
“We’ll roll each tank out of the tunnel with a rope-a nanite rope-attached to it. With our marines and another tank holding onto it, we should keep the momentum down to a slow roll. I should have the first tank down there in another few minutes.”
I nodded to myself. He wasn’t going to get down here within ten minutes. In fact, it sounded like it would be closer to half an hour. But I doubted he could do any better. “Okay, do it. But what is the state of this tank down here? Is your pilot alive in there?”
“Yes sir, he’s injured, compound leg fracture. But you don’t really need your legs as a tanker.”
“Good point. Name?”
“Warrant Officer Sloan, sir.”
I opened a private channel with Sloan. “Can you run your machine, Sloan?”
“Yes sir, but the enemy are out of range at the moment-”
“I don’t want you to shoot. I want you to throw out your flanges. I want you to head right toward the forest and let us get behind you. Take us right into the forest.”
“I’m on it, sir.”
Within a minute, Sloan managed to glide his tank forward. I watched it transform, puffing up around the forward section like a cobra puffing up its hood. The tank listed noticeably to the right. I could tell his gravity-repellors on that side were shot, but he could still drive it. I ran behind the tank, and my troops followed me. This maneuver we’d practiced hundreds of times back home. First employed by the Germans in World War II, this tactical maneuver provided moving cover for infantry on an open battlefield. We hugged the spread shields of the slowly rolling tank, using the cover from enemy fire to the front. When we reached the enemy lines, we would spread out and mop up. As long as the enemy didn’t have any heavy weaponry of their own, or outflank us, we should be able to take them out.
The first fifty yards went well. It was about then, I think, that the Worms realized what we were doing. They stopped firing at the tank, which was immune to their small arms. They began to dig instead.
“Watch for Worm
s,” I said. “They might dig under our feet.”
The big gun on the tank spoke then, flaring up with a tremendous glow of heat. Swathes of coral-like growth blackened and curled. Worms caught by the fantastic heat and power of the big, short-range cannon exploded into vapor and twisted remains. It was as if we’d applied a blow torch to a squirming nest of maggots.
When we were very near the coral forest line, we learned what the enemy had been up to. They’d dug tunnels in the earth in our path, right below the surface. When our tank glided over one of them, it collapsed and the right side of the vehicle sank down with a sudden, sickening lurch. The brainbox was inexperienced in actual combat. The stabilizers whined, overloaded. Like a panicked animal, the tank thrashed and overcompensated, trying to lift itself upward. As it was already weak on the right side, applying more thrust caused the entire tank to heel over onto its side. The big gun, still firing, exploded upon contact with the surface.
“That’s our cue, boys! Scatter and advance!” I screamed.
I led by example, charging toward the corral forest past the burning wreckage of the drill-tank. Feet pounded behind me, but I didn’t bother to look to see who followed and who didn’t. A few men were sucked under by greedy Worms, who squirmed in the soft soil beneath us.
I drew out my hand-beamer, and burned anything that looked remotely dangerous. I let my rifle dangle, as my injured arm wasn’t ready to handle it yet. My goggles flared and darkened in strobing, confusing pulses, dark-light-dark, as men fired around me. The goggles prevented blindness, but the effect was still disconcerting upon the mind.
The moment I reached the corral forest, I threw myself on my belly. I landed painfully on my damaged arm, which didn’t quite cooperate and flopped down ahead and under my body. I sucked in a breath and let it out as a hiss, suppressing a scream.
Still hissing, I squirmed on my belly, like one of the Worm troops. When I had reached a decently covered spot, I chinned my com-link and called for Kwon to advance with his squad as soon as he was able. We needed a position staked out in the forest before the enemy could surround us.
“Push ‘em back, men,” I told those that joined me in our burning crystalline forest. “Everyone get under cover and burn everything that squirms.”
I looked back at the ground between the wrecked tank and the forest line. I counted six dead marines and I mentally added Warrant Officer Sloan to the list. But then the tanker came crawling over and tapped my leg.
I grunted in surprise. “How the hell did you get out of there, Sloan?”
“These tanks can practically run themselves you know, sir.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking back at the burning tank. I knew all about scripts for Nano machines. Obviously, Sloan had given the vehicle its instructions, then slipped out the back and followed his own tank on foot with the rest of us. I thought about reprimanding him for abandoning his post, but really, it had turned out to be pretty good thinking on his part.
— 54-
There were about twenty of us holed up in a circle of ground we’d taken in the forest. I worked toward an area with lot of scattered stones on the ground. This was the first spot I’d found rocks of any kind down here in Worm land. I realized this must be natural, real Helios earth, not the compressed sawdust and worm-shit we’d dug through to get here. In this spot, the enemy would have a tougher time undermining us.
It seemed to take a very long time for Kwon’s group to press the attack. I realized, looking back, that they had their hands full. The tanks were rolling down one at a time. The nanite ‘ropes’ worked well. The tanks could glide over the rough terrain, but the downward angle was too great for them to negotiate without overbalancing in this heavy-gravity environment. I thought to myself I should have designed them lower to the ground, for more stability.
We held back the Worms with our superior firepower, but they were growing in numbers with each passing minute. It was only a matter of time until they brought in a super-worm with cannons to wipe us out, or overran us with sheer numbers.
Finally, after what seemed far longer than was reasonable, Roku had his tanks down out of the tunnel and onto the floor of the big cavern. He had the tanks extend their flanges and rolled them toward our position. Large groups of marines followed every tank, hugging the back of the machines for cover.
The Worms, seeing they were about to be outgunned, decided to go for it. They charged us from every angle, and some dug underneath, collapsing the soil under our bellies. My hand-beamer radiated heat right through my glove. Twisting, heaping bodies flopped everywhere, out numbering the strange, tree-like growths themselves. Finally, my beamer quit. My powerpack was still good, so I figured it must have been the lens. I reached for my rifle, but saw I’d lost it somewhere along the way. The thick, black cable ran down to a frayed end.
I ditched my powerpack it and drew out my knife, because about then, they were getting in close. I still had the power unit built into my suit. It was enough to run the air conditioners and the rebreather.
The man on my right suddenly sprayed blood. A fountain of it shot straight up. It was as if he’d discovered an oil gusher-a red one. He struggled, but without screaming. Maybe his throat was missing, I couldn’t tell.
The Worm that had bit him surfaced then. The whole scene reminded me of a shark attack on a swimmer that I’d seen on a documentary back home. The Worm had come up underneath the marine, finding a spot where it could break through the stones we lay on. It had taken out a big chunk of his belly.
The Worm humped up out of its hole, glistening, and tried to finish the job. I crawled over to it and worked my knife. The weapon was astoundingly sharp. The Worm’s flesh tore apart like wrapping paper. The next six slashes hacked off its head. The Worm choked out brown liquids from its maw. I wasn’t sure if it was coughing blood, salivating excitedly or spitting at us out of spite. The three of us struggled, with gruesome results, until the Worm stopped thrashing and spraying.
I turned my attention back to the battle, but saw no new targets. The enemy were in retreat. All around me, men rolled onto their backs and gasped for air. Marines shouted for medics, but we’d only had one, and he was dead. We had to take care of one another now. I took it upon myself to help the guy who lay dying beside me.
After I’d unclamped the dead Worm’s jaws from his guts, the marine ripped off his hood. He looked at me. I saw he wasn’t bothering to hold his breath. He was past caring about the poisonous atmosphere of Helios.
I let him do it. If he wanted a fresh breath before he died, who was I to deny it?
“What’s that air taste like, private?” I asked.
“Burnt pizza,” he said in a raspy voice. “And you know what else, Colonel?”
“What?”
“It’s really hot. Even down here, under all this dirt, in this gloomy hole, it’s still hot. That just seems wrong, sir.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll get you a squeeze bottle of water.”
I rummaged in my belly-pack, and found a bottle. But by the time I’d turned back to hand it to him, his eyes had glazed. I cursed and commandeered his weapon. I went back to firing at the retreating Worms. They were soon out of range and invisible in the strange forest.
I counted noses. I had nine effectives left. Several minutes later, Kwon rolled up behind a row of tanks.
“What’s your rush?” I asked bitterly.
“Sorry sir,” said Kwon. “You did a great job keeping the snipers off us while we brought the tanks down.”
“We kept the enemy busy all right,” I said. My tone dripped with sarcasm, but Kwon didn’t seem to catch it.
We loaded the wounded into the tanks and formed up behind them. We set off marching through the crystalline forest, breaking every frond of pink crap we saw as we went. The men had passed around the rumor that this forest was the enemy’s food-supply. They were intent on wrecking as much of it as they could. Maybe they were right, but I doubted it. Who knew? I thought about stopping the
m, but somehow I’d lost some of my compassion for our enemy as well.
I put two tanks on point and had my troops hustle up behind them. We didn’t drive straight for the central point, but rather spiraled in, hoping to avoid traps. We stuck to ground that looked the most solid, but that was a tough call, too. From our vantage, in the middle of a thousand crackling pieces of alien vegetation, it all looked about the same.
Up ahead, I didn’t really see anything special about the area that we were targeting. Could this be it? I dared to hope. Maybe the Macros had just wanted us to get this far, into the heart of the enemy. I wondered if they had just chosen the midpoint of the Worm mound and sent us here, figuring that if we made it this far, we must have done the enemy a lot of damage.
Kwon was having similar thoughts. “What are we doing here, sir?”
“I don’t know. It looks different than the rest of this termite mound. Maybe this spot is some kind of shrine?”
Kwon snapped his fingers. I wasn’t sure how he managed to do it through his gloves. He pointed at me. “Yeah. That’s it. This is some kind of shrine. We are in a big, Worm sacred-place. A graveyard for heroes.”
“I thought their graveyard was outside,” I said.
“I bet they worship their gods here.”
“Could be,” I said.
“Maybe this explains why the Macros had us come here,” said Kwon. “Maybe this is some kind of holy place for them.”
Or maybe the Macros had no idea what’s down here, I thought. Maybe the machines just wanted us to drive our way to the center of this hellish mound, because it was big and in their way. I kept these thoughts to myself, however. It wouldn’t do my men any good to hear them. Troops needed a specific goal to keep them going.
We pressed the Worm defenders back, meeting only skirmishers. But we could tell they were building up for something big, gathering their strength. I came to appreciate that most of the Worms that had once lived in this vast place had to be dead. We’d seen millions of bodies buried outside, but only met thousands in the heart of the place. I wondered how many Worms could live in a place like this, a vast nest, if it were fully populated.