Armor World Page 21

  “You see?” Armel said. “Complete disaster. They should not have bothered with the smaller troops first. Perhaps they were testing us—or perhaps they didn’t want to commit their tanks until they realized they needed them. It hardly matters. We were driven from the field in disgrace.”

  “We didn’t stand a chance…” I finished, closing the vid file and pouring some more of his brandy into my glass.

  He nodded and put his glass on his desk. “My analysis is essentially the same. It is often this way when an armored enemy meets a force comprised of infantry. We need heavier weapons that can penetrate their vehicles from a distance.”

  “Can’t we just blow them up with mines—or use star-falls?”

  Armel wagged a finger at me. “If you watched closely, the star-falls were firing as the enemy approached. But hitting a fast-moving target with slow-firing artillery is never easy.”

  “What about the city? Can’t we take that down?”

  Armel waved his hand dismissively. “They’ve domed off the city where they make these abominations. Such odd creatures.”

  “Creatures? Don’t you mean machines?”

  I told him about the general theory my techs had that these beings were ruled by artificial minds, but they moved using biologically grown muscles.

  “Even more strange…” he said. “But where are their masters? That’s what I want to know. I’ve dealt with any number of machines, McGill. There’s always an intelligent creature behind them somewhere, pulling the strings.”

  “Maybe they killed their parent race of biotics,” I suggested.

  Armel looked thoughtful. “That is probably true. Seems odd, doesn’t it, that aliens clever enough to create intelligent machines would be dumb enough to allow them free reign? In any case, there must be a thinking being of some kind behind this rabble, a creature that’s directing these nightmares. They can’t have sprung upon the universe whole and ready to run amok. They’re not natural.”

  Thinking about it, I had to agree with him on that last idea. Something had made these strange constructs. Something that was smarter than they were.

  “Who would send these things here?” I asked.

  Armel scratched under his chin like a languid cat. “I do not know… but it’s likely that whoever created these monsters directed them to come and harass us.”

  “An enemy of Earth, then?” I asked.

  “Or at least an enemy of the Mogwa.”

  I thought about the possibilities, but the list of suspects seemed prohibitively long.

  “Well, if I get any more information, I’ll relay it. I assume we’re attacking again tomorrow?”

  “Yes… after a fashion. We have a new plan. You’ll learn about it in the morning. Go get a good night’s sleep.”

  I wondered what that meant, but he didn’t seem to want to tell me. Shrugging, I let the matter go.

  I figured I’d find out what my fate would be in the morning.

  -36-

  No one bothered to brief me about the new operation the next day. I thought that was rather strange, but at least they didn’t give my troops much time to worry about it.

  We were scrambled out of the mess hall at 0600 and hustled toward Red Deck—that was where they launched lifters and dropped drop-pods.

  I arrived on Red Deck fully kitted in heavy armor. Turov and Armel were both there, and Graves arrived moments later.

  Turov put up a hand to stop my unit and frowned at Graves.

  “Didn’t someone tell them how to dress for this? I said light tunics only.”

  Graves slid his eyes toward Armel. Graves didn’t look all that happy, but he was outranked by both of them, so he kept quiet.

  Armel made sad little sucking sounds with his mouth. “It was an oversight,” he said. “They will learn the details soon enough. Their small part is rather simple to play, after all…”

  “All right, whatever,” Turov said. “McGill, get your men out of that expensive gear. Everyone is going down in a light trooper suit—nothing else.”

  “What? Are you kidding? Can’t we at least take snap-rifles?”

  I was joking, but she seemed to honestly consider it. “Yes… I think that would be for the best. Strip down, take a snap-rifle and board the lifter.”

  She walked away, and Armel went with her. I was too confused to even stare at her butt. I thought about going after her and demanding an explanation, but it would have been noticed by everyone. Generally speaking, she wasn’t my girlfriend when we went on campaigns. It just didn’t work given the rank differences and all.

  I relayed the order to my baffled troops, and to more units as they came on down to board the lifter. Everyone was confused and annoyed.

  “This is bullshit,” Leeson said. “Mark my words, I’m smelling a gigantic French rat here.”

  Graves had a word with me after I’d stripped down to my skivvies. I felt naked going into battle like nothing but a spacer’s suit. It was airtight, but it provided no protection against anything more dangerous than a bee sting.

  “What are we supposed to do, sir?” I asked. “These aliens are tough. It’s not time to try and save on the equipment bill today.”

  “I hear you McGill. For what it’s worth, I didn’t come up with this cockamamie plan—but just it might work.”

  I blinked twice. “What might work? I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do!”

  “Land, scramble out the door and hide in the trees. If the enemy comes, engage and skirmish. You’ll do fine.”

  I watched as unit after unit boarded the lifter. There was one from each cohort. That was odd, as we usually traveled together as a cohesive force. The lifters were designed to hold a full cohort.

  “How are we supposed to coordinate…?” I began, but Graves cut me off.

  “Board, drop, land, fight,” he repeated quickly. “You’ll do fine.”

  Graves wasn’t a man who liked to listen to complaints. I sighed and grabbed a snap-rifle off a rack. Pigs were carrying our discarded gear away.

  I boarded the lifter and sat near another centurion from the 9th Cohort. She was kind of cute, and she eyed me with mild curiosity for a moment. But then she saw my nametag.

  “Wait… You’re Centurion McGill? Um… no thanks.”

  “What?”

  “You’re McGill, right?”

  “Yeah…” I said.

  “In that case, I’m not interested.”

  “Huh? Oh… no, no, I’m not hitting on you. I’m here to ask if you know why the hell we’re going on a hot-drop in our underpants.”

  She shrugged. “No clue. The enemy city is shielded. Maybe we can’t get through the shield with heavy gear.”

  I jutted out my jaw and nodded. It sounded logical—sort of—but it wasn’t. I’d been under one of the enemy force domes back on Earth. We’d walked through in heavy armor without a hitch then.

  When I opened my mouth to voice this objection, the ship lurched. We’d been dropped into free-fall. With my guts coming up into my mouth, I endured the next eight rough minutes.

  When a lifter enters a hostile atmosphere, the pilot takes his ship down at top speed. No one wanted to linger and make a target out of themselves. As a result, the noise was deafening and the cabin began to heat up. I was forced to seal my suit and wait it out.

  We landed with a crushing reverse thrust to slow us down, followed by a jarring thump. It was a good thing lifters were as tough as nails.

  “Nothing fired at us,” I told the centurion next to me.

  She looked relieved and started shouting at her troops. I did the same with mine.

  “Say, uh…” I said, checking her out a little. “I’ve been noticing you for a long time now. Let’s say we both survive the day. You got plans tonight?”

  She shook her head and slapped her hand over her nametag. “What’s my name?” she asked.

  “Uh…” I said, straining my brain. “Centurion Mills!” I shouted, half-guessing. There were only three fe
male centurions in my cohort, and my odds were pretty good.

  She nodded appreciatively. “Not bad… First name?”

  “Uh…” I was a total blank. But that never stopped a man like me. I squinted, trying to remember.

  “Come on,” she said, pointing over my shoulder. “The ramp is going down. We’re deploying in ninety seconds.”

  By this time, there were a few of her officers and mine watching and nudging one another. They were making bets—but I didn’t care.

  “Jennie?” I asked.

  “Oooo,” she said. “So close. It’s Sheryl.”

  “Dammit!”

  She turned and trotted away from me then, shouting for her unit to deploy. They rushed out into the open, and my unit was up next.

  Leeson caught up with me when we hit the ramp and fanned out.

  “Don’t tell me you were hitting on Mills!” he said.

  I ignored him.

  “Make for the trees!” I shouted, and we rushed out into the sunshine.

  It looked a lot like Earth, except for those dead-monkey things in the forest. Damn, there were a lot of those flapping monsters around.

  Leeson was huffing, but he managed to keep up with my long strides. I considered outrunning him, as he had shorter legs than I did, but I thought it would be bad for morale to have my unit watch me dodge my own adjunct.

  “Centurion Jennie Mills,” Leeson said, laughing. “I’m surprised it took you so long to take a shot at her. Every guy in the legion has to put his helmet in his lap when he thinks about her. She’s new, and she’s—”

  Whirling around, I grabbed up a big wad of his tunic.

  He looked up at me in comic surprise. He figured I was about to beat his ass—but that wasn’t what I was planning at all.

  “Are you telling me her name is Jennie?” I demanded.

  “That’s what I said…”

  I let go of him, and I walked under the trees laughing. That girl had got me good—but it didn’t seem fair.

  “Jesus…” Leeson muttered, straightening out his kit.

  Harris ran up next, looking everywhere at once. “Where are the bunkers, McGill?”

  I pointed downslope. There, in the distance, we could see the shimmering force dome.

  “Down there in the Peg city—if there were any Pegs left alive in it, which I doubt.”

  “Say what?” he asked, craning his neck. “What kind of a shit-show is this? We’re sitting ducks out here!”

  Right about then, we heard a roar. Turning back the way we’d come, we saw the lifter rise up on a plume of fire. It took off, full thrust, and shot over the horizon.

  “He’s hugging the treetops,” Leeson said with a long whistle, “heading due south, away from the city. You think he knows something we don’t know?”

  Harris raged. He took off his helmet and slammed it on the ground. “This is so fucked up! No armor, no heavy weapons—and we’re even closer to the city than we were last time. It’s obvious to me that those monsters are going to just roll right up here and take us all out. How can they not know that?”

  “Are you going to tell him?” Leeson asked. “Or do you want me to?”

  Harris glowered at both of us. “Tell me what?”

  About then, after she got each of her troops hidden behind the trunk of his own individual tree, Barton came up and crouched nearby.

  “Sir,” she said, “the men are placed. How long do we have to wait?”

  “Depends,” I said, “on how long it takes the freaks to notice us and mount another counterattack.”

  “That was…” Barton said, frowning, “about ten hours last time. I’d say we’ve got less than six at this distance.”

  “Agreed.”

  All this time, Harris was frowning at me and Leeson. “Sir, you were going to tell me…?”

  I plucked a grass stalk, put it in my mouth, and chewed on it.

  “Hey, that could be toxic you know,” Barton said.

  I smiled. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Leeson cackled then. He had an annoying laugh, and he let it out now. Full-force.

  Harris gave him an odd glance, then he turned to me slowly. I stared back.

  “Oh no…” he said. “You’re shitting me, right McGill? Tell me you’re shitting me!”

  “Wish I could.”

  Harris flopped down on his back and shaded his eyes with one hand. “Just wake me up when it’s over.”

  Barton looked around at the three of us. Leeson was grinning, Harris seemed depressed, but I was looking stoic—maybe a little bored.

  “What’s going on, sir?” she asked. “I don’t get this kind of op. Legion Varus officers… are they all crazy? We’ve got no chance out here on this hilltop.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “No chance at all—but that’s the plan. We’re the rabbits this time.”

  She looked startled. Being “the rabbit” was never a good thing in the legions. Usually, it meant you were cannon fodder used to bait the enemy.

  All of a sudden, she caught on and closed her eyes in defeat.

  “We’re bait,” she said. “They want those armored… things, to come out of their dome and swarm us. Then what? Will they drop a bomb on this hill? Wipe the place clean?”

  Leeson went into another bout of annoying laughter. “You got it, girl! Welcome to getting screwed over by the brass!”

  “Welcome to Varus, you mean,” Harris muttered. “Such bullshit…”

  Barton looked at me. Her eyes were big.

  “It’s true then? The tribunes… they’re going to wipe us?”

  “One unit from each cohort,” I told her. “No good weapons, no armor… you do the math. Where I come from, the answer isn’t good.”

  She gazed out toward the domed city.

  “So… are we going to just sit out here and wait to die?”

  Something about her statement bothered me. She was right, we’d all given up.

  Standing up, I threw back my shoulders.

  “Uh-oh,” Leeson said.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe not…”

  A plan—no, that was too big of a word for it—a thought was forming in my mind.

  -37-

  It was kind of a mixed blessing when the enemy showed up early. On one hand, it was always tough waiting for certain death. On the other, the day was kind of pleasant—up until the monsters arrived and ruined it with violence and battle.

  The enemy was led again by a wave of those bounding, armored, animal-like things. They seemed to move faster than the other creatures, so maybe that was why they tended to arrive first.

  There had to be a thousand of them. Like fools, my fellows began to fire snap-rifles at them as soon as they appeared. A few went down, but hundreds more turned, like a herd of buffalo, and charged toward the trees where we’d taken cover.

  “Aw, shit!” Leeson said, getting to his feet. “Fall back!”

  I frowned at him for a moment—but then I realized he was right. We couldn’t take these things on with our low numbers. And without a single primus to command us, the force as a whole was doomed to behave in a random and unorganized way.

  “Fall back!” I echoed, and our men withdrew into the cool gloom of the forest.

  “Isn’t this desertion, Centurion?” Barton asked. “I mean, I understand why we might do it, but—”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Our orders were to distract and engage. To keep the enemy’s attention. We can’t do that for longer than ten minutes if we go toe-to-toe with them.”

  “That’s the ticket,” Leeson said. “We’re skirmishing. Shoot and run!”

  So we ran. Sure, I was feeling a little guilty, so I contacted Centurion Jennie Mills. She answered, and I heard the sounds of battle in the background.

  “McGill? This had better be good!”

  “We’re falling back into the trees, Jennie. I thought I’d tell you. We have no overall commander.”

  She didn’t talk for a moment, but I could hear g
unfire in the background and an occasional roar as one of the monsters made it up the slope to the plunge into the trees and the Varus lines.

  “You’re running out?” she demanded.

  “No, I’m lasting longer. We’re supposed to keep the enemy busy as long as we can. That’s why we’re here. If we wipe in ten minutes—we failed.”

  “You’re right... Mills out.”

  Soon, many of the units were pulling back. We headed into a denser line of trees, into a zone where the elephant-sized creatures couldn’t follow us without shouldering their way between tree trunks.

  We went downhill, then up again. Pausing when we found more open ground, we crouched undercover.

  “Something’s on our tail, sir!” Harris shouted.

  He waved his platoon forward, and they knelt behind trees. The bush was moving behind us.

  “Hold your fire!” Barton called out.

  It was Centurion Mills with her surviving troops. They straggled up and fell to the ground around us, gasping for air.

  “Head count?” I asked her.

  “Fifty-seven…”

  Half of them were dead. We’d lost a dozen ourselves.

  I gazed out over the forest. It wasn’t quite like an earthly forest, it was denser, more like a jungle in a colder clime. Maybe that was due to the different atmosphere. I’d read the land was very fertile.

  Mills sat beside me.

  “What’s your plan?” she asked.

  “Plan? To last a few more hours. That’s about it—unless we get lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Yeah… Natasha!”

  It took a few minutes, but my best tech finally showed up. She was the best in my unit, the best in our cohort—and probably the best in Legion Varus.

  Her eyes darted to look at Jennie, then swept back to me. “What is it, Centurion?”

  That was an insolent way to address a superior, but I let it slide. Natasha had always had a thing for me. What I needed now was her brain, not her jealously and snappy attitude. But bringing that up now wouldn’t help anything.