Hunter thought they never saw what hit them, instantly blowing the group and its equipment apart, scattering bits of people and materials all over, and setting the netting and a good portion of the ground litter on fire. Lori fired the HiE lazer at a small vehicle, and it flipped up and over, and erupted in flame, too. Satisfied, she turned north, and streaked to a similar hill a half a kilometer away. As she rushed it, a missile, then another and a third rose to meet her.
“Eagle One, evade,” she said, unnecessarily, as the air car, in a series of quick, darting moves, swung left, up, back left, and right again, and slowed as they approached the hill, and fired an energy sphere at the top. Lori darted left, as tracers flew at them, keeping the front of her air car facing the summit, and fired repeatedly at whatever she thought was non-natural. A small gray thing exploded, a vehicle of some sort, and the tracers stopped. They circled on around, but the entire top of the hill now burned, just as the other one did, and nothing moved there, no one fired at them anymore. An ammo carrier, or something, blew up with a big, yellow flash, and white smoke puffed upward.
“I think a few are running away, downhill,” Hunter said.
“Let ‘em go, we got bigger problems.” She pointed to the screen.
Eagle One displayed the tactical situation, showing a broad arrow of orange below them, heading toward the river, and another back south on the ground. Both would cross the river at the bends, closest to the lighter. Neither was very far away.
“Can we intercept them at the river?” Hunter said, leaning forward, studying the screen.
“Not both of them.” Lori let out her breath, trying to decide what to do. Getting her people away was probably first priority, but she couldn’t take them all in Eagle One. Maybe the rest of the air cars could help. Attacking highly mobile ground troops was not one of the strengths of the air cars, even with air superiority they enjoyed. But maybe not for long. Eagle One warned of additional aircraft on approach, keeping the other air cars busy. “We’ll go after the north bunch first,” she said, flying off that way.
Racing east, she swung around for a strafing run down the river, and saw the futility of that. The waters boiled with soldiers, hurrying across an obviously shallow ford. She fired at it, saw the water and steam erupt, to little effect, other than bringing a swarm of small missiles, or something up and after them, which she had to race away from. She returned from the southwest, firing energy spheres into the banks at both sides of the river, tumbling trees into it, which seemed to help, until the missiles rose up again.
“Forget it, more are getting across, we’ll never stop them at this rate. We got to get the guys out,” Hunter said.
“Yeah,” Lori said, disgusted, and flew back to the lighter. She saw on approach, the guns both dug out, though one could not fire more than ten degrees toward the ground, was nearly useless.
She climbed out, hurried to the lighter, yelling, “We got to abandon this position, we’re about to be overrun...”
“Perhaps not,” Sialia, the Anawoka said, “Help arrives.” It pointed to a screen with a tattered feathered arm.
A number of blue dots coalesced into a small wing, and Lori looked up and toward the northeast, and saw air cars streaming smoke, heard the multiple sonic booms, and wondered if they’d decelerate in time. Watching, she saw they did, five assorted air cars, one bigboy, three illi-illi, and another Kobi. No human. They circled the smokey clearing, and all landed. People rushed at her, asking the situation, all armed, the three bigboys overwhelmingly, armored vests, heavy helmets, and each carrying several weapons. Lori pointed to the woodline, explained the situation quickly, said they had to defend the fallen lighter, and the air car, keep them from falling into native hands. She said they needed continual aerial surveillance, and expected a ground attack, one seemed quite imminent. As she spoke, small pops sounded, and bullets cracked over head.
“We’ll help,” a bigboy said, and he and two compatriots immediately conferred, and spread out, pointing to the line of a defensive perimeter. The three illi-illi ran along behind them, dropping small rectangular boxes at eight locations. Sialia said, “The illi-illi say ‘fire in the hole.’ What is meant by that?” As Lori answered, it deployed two more cambots, one that stopped nearby, facing her.
“Standby,” Lori said, and each of the boxes exploded downward and outward, leaving depressed foxholes in the otherwise level ground. The shell craters weren’t where they wanted them, were useless for defensive sites. The small force deployed, seven in all, in a rough arc just past the lighter, over and past the fallen air car, and anchored in the tree line behind them on both ends. The bigboys snapped open shields of some sort, that shimmered, and faded away, mimicking the brown grass and vegetation flattened on the soil. Two of the illi-illi guarded both sides of their air car, the other spaced itself between bigboys in the middle of the line.
“Never, would I have thought to see illi-illi and bigboys fighting side by side,” she said to Hunter, who only grunted.
The one Kobi pilot seemed lost, lightly armed, no personal armor, and Lori motioned it to remain near the lighter. It climbed up onto the slanted top, laying a large rifle over the edge.
Fires now intensified around them, smoke obscuring the tree line intermittently, blowing right to left, then back the other way. The point of the oxbow burned hot, separating the oncoming forces, at least. The overhead screen showed a growing number of bandits gathering at two points in the woods on their side of the river, southwest and northwest, with the fire blazing in between. More fires burned in the woods, and especially to the north, where the wind seemed to be pushing it toward them.
From their position in the field, Lori and her small group could see none of the opposed forces, they hidden by the ground sloping down toward the river. An occasional head would poke up and fire a shot or two at them, and the lighter or one of the others would answer. From time to time, one of the six air cars on patrol would swoop down, and fire into the woods, but Lori thought the effects were minimal, but at least distracting.
Lori stood near the lighter, trying to get some messages out and back through the Anawoka, when Hunter came over, after talking to some of Morales’ people.
“Lori, you got to get out of here, now, before it gets worse. Take the air car, and go. Just go, at least overhead.”
She shook her head, noticing the cambot facing her. “No, I’m not going. You can, maybe you should, for the baby...”
“You’re the one, or both of us...”
“No.”
“Lori, why?”
“Because my people are here, and I’m staying with them.”
The words, translated by the Anawoka, went out over the interconnection. They went to King Angara, and his military advisors. They went to the Koyaanisqatsi, and then to the whole fleet above. They went to several air cars racing toward the site. Those air cars, at the near edge of maximum safe speed, several dropping down into atmosphere from suborbital trajectories, added velocity, as alarms sounded, and ablative material began to boil away.
King Angara said to his staff. “Such courage in a female. Incredible. Now, get them the information they seek. And get my air force involved, immediately. Tell them we are coming. Give them the ID codes.”
“Then I’m staying with you. Where do you want me?” Hunter said.
“Near Eagle One. Stay next to it, we’ll defend the lighter.”
A stream of tracers began from the woodline, to be instantly countered by the .50 caliber on the lighter, which stopped it. Lori turned, and Eagle One said in her earphones, “Lori move away, to the left, now.”
She hurried that way, and a rocket smoked by, so close she felt the heat of its exhaust. The .50 MG fired into the launch place, kicking up lots of dust, and so did Eagle One, setting a small fire.
“What are they waiting for?”
“More artillery, I’d guess,” Lori said, now behind the corner of the lighter, and looking inside at the screens. “Maybe they got mor
tars. Shit.” She asked the Anawoka to bring one of the cambots lower, closer to the trees, to better see what was going on.
The Anawoka relayed the message from Cerskogo, with the location of the military base’s HQ. She told Sialia to send another cambot overhead to that area, and relayed the numbers to Eagle One, asking it to verify the coordinates. While that was going on, the Anawoka said, “Cerskogo, and three other principalities declare war on Vorkyta. They claim violation of treaty agreements of non-aggression with alien visitors, and actions contrary to the interests of the planet Magadana. Their aircraft are on route.”
“ETA?” Lori said, surprised.
“Thirty five minutes, perhaps longer.”
Shit, it could all be over by then, she thought, but said, “Good.” Then she added, “Man, I gotta pee.” She went behind the lighter for the scant protection from the sniping, and squatted there. Hunter joined her, relieving himself, and probably guarding her, too.
As they returned, another air car zoomed in, and another, both Pokoniry, and Lori sent them to patrol over the treeline, where they drew scattered fire, then nothing. Still, they circled overhead, watching.
They went to Eagle One in a crouch, looked at the location of the Vorkyta HQ. Eagle One said, “The place is six point two-five kilometers in a western direction,” and displayed a grid with the place highlighted. The cambot showed an aerial view. Hunter said, “It looks pretty well underground.” Only a small entryway, well fortified, that seemed to lead into a low hill, with a parking area on the far side of a roadway, appeared. The lot was full of ground vehicles, many military, others not. “What do we have that can take that out?”
“Us nothing.” Except the nukes. “But the bigboys have plenty. Eagle One, relay these coordinates to the bigboy ship, the Mandara, see if they are in a position to shell it. Let me know when they answer.”
Another bigboy air car dropped in, with six people inside. They scattered along the line, deploying their shields, talking back and forth. Two more illi-illi cars arrived, and their pilots spilled out, heavily armed, and took up positions where Hunter sent them, toward the northern line, where the bandits massed most closely.
With eight air cars now on the ground, not counting Eagle One, and 15 fighters, plus the lighter, Lori wondered if the growing alien strength would dissuade the natives from more combat. Or maybe make them even a more tempting target? She fretted, watching and waiting, something Morales, sitting in the lighter holding his head and watching the screens, most now back online, reminded her is the usual case in a military situation.
Eagle One called her, saying, “The Mandara reports they can support on a moment’s notice. They ask confirmation of the coordinates, and that it is a military target.”
“Verify coordinates,” Lori said, and checked them against the numbers Morales’s crew had independently prepared. They matched identically. “Confirmed on both accounts. Tell bigboys to stand by.” Separately to Hunter, she said, “Maybe we won’t need them.”
She’d no more than gotten the words out of her mouth, then the Anawoka said “Incoming artillery, small shells,” and they all heard low “Whump, thump,...whump,” of something firing not far off, from just inside the trees, or on the edge of the clearing.
“Mortars!” Morales said, rousting himself, and jumping to a control console in the lighter. He told it, “High arc defense 6N, initiate, now.”
The laser guns, seemingly useless against ground targets, given the lighter’s tilt, swung upward, and began firing, a quad of dark barrels, firing together, or separately, minute jerks in between, almost a blur. An auxiliary fuel cell clicked on, spewing vapor out the side of the lighter into the trampled grass. Overhead, small explosions appeared, and immediately, sharp heavy bits of metal began raining on their positions, hard, but not fatal.
The air cars on patrol began firing into the woods, when a loud cheering roar occurred, and with a loud blast of arms, a wave of alien soldiers rose up from two places in the trees and began rushing toward them.
“Shit,” Lori said, ducking at the withering wave of whizzing white tracers and bullets crashing past, many hitting the lighter and Eagle One, and bouncing and dancing away in crazy arcs, or spinning into the dirt at their feet. To the Anawoka, seemingly sitting placidly at its station in the lighter even though a spent tracer now lay glowing red at its feet, she said, “Confirm fire mission to the bigboys. Shoot now.”
As if waiting for that request, the response came immediately, “Roger...stand by, impact in four point three minutes.”
Wonder if we’ll last that long.
On the screen, Lori saw the waves of soldiers rushing at them from two directions, maybe a hundred or more in each group, firing continuously, and falling by the dozen. Her detachment fired lasers from the ground and the air, and the lighter sprayed the southern assault with the .50. She saw Hunter, crouched behind the scant protection of Eagle One, firing the FN to the left. But the worst threat came from the north, the assault there already just meters from the downed air car, the attackers throwing grenades at the illi-illi, who caught them with one leg and tossed them back while firing with their others.
The clearing in the woods became a bedlam of noise, smoke, streaming tracers, lancing lasers, flying dirt, brown dust, while white smoke drifted back from the burning forest nearby.
Soon, the first wave of attackers were under the .50s, and the lighter’s lasers kept firing skyward, against incoming mortar rounds. Two bandits rose up on the far side of Eagle One, somehow, she drew her pistol, yelling, “Hunter, on the right!” and started firing at them. One took aim at her with something, she fired, it flinched backward, doubled over, and fell to the side. Hunter machine-gunned the other with the FN, ducking as other things pinged off Eagle One. Lori fired again and again at bandits that seemed to appear suddenly in front of them, some shooting back at her, she felt smacks against her chest, but they all dropped or ducked as she fired. She lost count of how many she fired, wondered how many shells were left in the pistol, she crouched against the corner of the lighter, watching Hunter, as he fired away, now concentrating on movements to the west front. She knew there was hot action to the north.
This is getting bad, she thought, looking back at the screens in the lighter, and slipping a fresh magazine into her pistol. Morales, Sally, and the other four members of his crew fired from ports in the side and front of the lighter. And it got worse.
The Anawoka pointed to the screen with a tattered wing, and Lori saw a second wave, as numerous as the first, rush out of the trees, silently, running hard, not firing, just racing in at them.
“Get all the air cars in here to strafe the second wave, now,” she said to the Anawoka, relaying the information to Eagle One, as well.
She stood up, to see the new attack, and Eagle One said in her radio, “Lorelei, move left, now.” She stepped away, and something white and hot zipped past to the right of her face. “Move, move,” Eagle One said again as it slid toward her, and she darted to the left, and down, while things cracked by her ear, and another tracer ripped by. The cambot to her side caught the event, to it, and others watching horrified since it looked like the tracers passed right through her, and she dropped from them. But she moved away, and ducked behind the lighter, and it, and Eagle One, poured HiE lazer fire at the source of the incoming rounds.
The Kobi on the roof of the lighter suddenly screamed, pointing to the left, and ducked down. “Enemy is here, many soldiers,” it screamed, and dozens seemed to materialize just to the left front of the lighter. But they did so right into the field of fire of the lasers and the .50 caliber gun, both of which erupted in sheets of flame and noise. The Kobi, too rose, peered over the top of the lighter, then stood and began firing into the charging enemy.
More attackers rushed forward on Lori’s side of the lighter. With the cambot behind her, she stretched out her arm, and fired at three rushing at her. From the cambot’s angle, it looked like she sent energy bolts racing away in smal
l explosions, which immediately felled the three. Eagle One added to the barrage, and so did the Kobi, firing now to its right front.
Eagle One said, “Hunter get down, close to the earth.” Hunter ducked, began firing into the gap in the lines where a bigboy used to be, now wasn’t. Eagle One rose ten meters, and began sweeping the second wave with the HiE lazer, and its energy weapon. It seemed to flick in a quick arc, then back again, the speed probably too fast to kill, but not so quick as to do no damage to exposed alien flesh. High screams erupted along the line, it slowed as the attackers faltered, staggering, some falling, some running in circles, others turning to run for the river, a terrible carnage, just a few stopping to crouch and shoot at Eagle One. Bullets hit and ricocheted off the air car, which still fired, slower now, in short bursts, further scattering the dwindling attackers.
The Anawoka tugged at Lori’s sleeve with its beak, she didn’t hear it calling her. It pointed out past the air car, to the northern front, and she saw it nearly overrun, the illi-illi and the bigboys crouched closely together around their air cars, well back from the downed air car, their original position lost, and fighting hand to hand with oncoming natives, while the second wave raced at them, a scant twenty meters beyond.
“Eagle One, swing right, attack the northern...” she started to say, when holy hell descended from the sky. A seeming solid wall of tracers poured against the second wave, as a blistering blast of sound erupted, and Lori saw the second lighter had arrived, twin .50's at a maximum rate of fire, two quad lasers going, both sweeping the line, which crumpled and disintegrated in the blowing dust and debris. More bright flashes against the sky showed the other air cars had returned, and were firing into the melee, too. Again, survivors, for the most part, broke and ran, heading for the tree line, or some lying on the ground with their four feet in the air.
“Is that position,” she yelled at the Anawoka over the incessant din of the battle, “a sign of surrender?”
T-47 Book II (Saxon Saga 6) Page 61