Tillie Matson stepped aboard Star Cross wearing an idiotic grin, a sheen of sweat, and—affixed to her comfortable jumpsuit—an official-looking badge that read "PHASE II TRANSPORT DIRECTOR."
She didn't feel much like a transport director with temporary responsibility for three hundred fifty-seven men, women, and children, not to mention a cargo hold full of live animals and viable botanical specimens in sealed containers. She felt like a giddy schoolgirl released for the biggest field trip any kid ever took. And underlying the excitement: What if something goes wrong? Something always goes wrong on a project this big, not just little stuff like Tommie Watkins getting his nose bloodied by Sarah Pilford, but really big stuff, and I'm the one on the hotseat. . . .
Tillie wasn't trained in Project Administration. She just happened to be good at organizing things, had a knack for solving problems and soothing tempers, and—coincidentally—was married to the Phase I Colony Director. She also held Phase II's only veterinary sciences degree.
So Tillie Matson had, by popular acclaim and logical choice, been chosen to lead this misfit band of farmers, educators, agricultural production specialists, wide-eyed kids, irritable nanny goats, sweating horses, balking cattle, and screaming chickens onto Star Cross for a two-week Hyper-L voyage.
She wished someone else had been elected mayor.
But she wasn't about to reveal how genuinely scared she was. So, with her idiotic grin, her sheen of nervous sweat, and her badge, Tillie stepped onto the transport's deckplates. A freckled young crewman in a crisp uniform grinned when he saw her. Tillie greeted him with her widest smile and firmest handshake.
"I'm Tillie Matson, thank you for meeting us like this."
"Kelly McTavish, ma'am, and welcome aboard the Star Cross. I'm the Passenger Steward." His smile was bright and genuine, same as his carroty hair. "If you have that passenger list, ma'am, I'll double check it against mine and we'll be set to board your people. Booker Howard, down in Cargo One, is ready to onload bio-specimens."
Tillie hid a smile, wondering if Booker Howard's experience with "bio-specimens" was up to irascible goat temperaments. Even crated, they could be a handful. She handed over the micro-crystal wafer with their personnel roster. Kelly McTavish scanned it, ran a compare, then nodded. "Very good, ma'am. And your transfer authorities for the bio-specimens are here, too. It's all in order. Welcome aboard, Dr. Matson. If I might suggest it . . . Allow me to handle onloading the passengers. You'd maybe better help Book with the animals?"
Tillie didn't bother to hide this smile. "I think so, yes. My brood mares are pretty broody just now, even with the tranks I gave them. They don't like to travel. Particularly not while they're in foal. I'd hate for them to injure themselves trying to get out of the crates. And the goats are even worse."
"That," Kelly McTavish gave her a broad grin and a wink, "is why I stick to handling people. All my passengers generally do is scream at me."
She laughed and used her com-link to let Itami Kobe, her second-in-command, know the drill; then made her way to Cargo One. They hadn't left space port yet, but she felt better already. Soon, she promised her lonely heart, soon you'll be back with Carl again and everything will be perfect.
Hal Abrams wasn't one to run from a fight.
Shucks, he'd been a combat engineer in Space Arm—and earned himself a few ribbon hangers, while he was at it—before tackling another whole career in ag mechanics. In some ways, he could stomach up-close-and-dirty combat almost easier than he could stomach hearing a pig scream when you butchered it. (At least when you stared a man in the eyes, knowing he would try to do you as fast as you'd try to do him, you knew the son would understand why he was dying.)
He'd been a good soldier, but Hal had never regretted signing on for the agricultural expedition to Matson's World. He'd finally stopped having dreams about skies black as the inside of Hell, thick with smoke and tons of earth blown skyward when the big Hellbores cut loose with a blaze like Satan's own breath. . . . Besides, it was fun tinkering with agricultural equipment, getting it to do things its designers had never imagined it would do.
So when Carl Matson first brought in the SWIFT dispatch from Sector, giving evacuation orders, Hal's gut response was, "Hell, no, Carl. This is our home. We put our sweat and souls into this dirt. If it ain't worth fightin' for, what the hell are we doin' out here, killin' ourselves to turn jungle into farmland?"
"You know I trust your judgment," Carl told him quietly.
Hal had never seen a look quite like that in the colony director's eyes. Wordlessly, Carl handed over the rest of the message. Hal scanned it; then read more slowly.
"Mama Bear . . ."
An unknown alien species had broken into Concordiat space.
"Sector Intel thinks these things may be running from attack by the Jyncji."
Hal glanced up sharply. "The Jyncji? Aren't those the spiny little bastards that use bacteriological warfare?"
Carl nodded. "Yeah. They xeno-form whatever they run across. Sector thinks the Jyncji have attacked worlds held by the Xykdap—whatever the hell they look like. Nobody knows yet. But Sector figures the Xykdap are looking for new homes, new supply bases, new sources of raw minerals . . ."
That would certainly explain the strength of the invasion force headed their way. Space Arm Intelligence estimated it mustered out at full battle-fleet strength. That would mean potentially thousands of heavy fighting machines, tens of thousands of infantry, plus fully mechanized scouts that had been encountered with fatal results in three places already.
Enemy'd come through Matson's like crap through a force-fed goose, no mistake about it.
Hal glanced up. The look in Carl's eyes scared him. Hal met the director's gaze steadily, allowing the younger man to see the worry in his eyes; then spat to one side. For long moments Hal just stood there, swallowing fire he had no choice but to swallow. Finally he said it. "We cain't fight that, Carl."
"Didn't figure we could. Not even with Digger."
Hal spat again. "Nope. Not even in his prime, which he ain't seen for a couple a centuries. Oh, he's still got a tactical nuke or two and his small-weapons systems are operational, although God knows when they were tested last. I got a certificate somewhere says when. Been a while. Digger's old, Carl. Government surplus still made me fill out forms like you wouldn't . . ."
He shook his head. It didn't matter that he'd managed to obtain an ancient, decaying Bolo out of surplus only because he was still a Reserve Marine officer and nominally the head of Matson's defense forces. Matson's was entitled to some form of military support and centuries-old Bolos were cheap—and could be reprogrammed to handle genetic engineering computations a helluva lot cheaper than plunking down the cash for specialized gengineering equipment usually sold to ag colonists.
So they had Digger and Digger had done every job they'd assigned him. But one Bolo Mark XX Model M—essentially a Mark XX brain in a Mark XIV chassis, minus the Hellbore—extensively modified to handle genetic cultivar computations and field trials, plus plowing, harvesting, and heavy construction, just wasn't any kind of match for a whole enemy fleet. Hal spat one last time.
"He might buy us time, but we'd still end up dead. Or worse. We gotta skedaddle, Carl, and git now. Sector send word to Phase II to hold up transhipping?"
The look in Carl's eyes worsened. "They said Phase II had already left. But they'll use SWIFT to make contact with the Star Cross. They should be able to drop out of FTL and turn around in time."
Hal nodded. "That's good. This ain't gonna be no place for women and kids and nanny goats."
Carl set his jaw muscles. Hal immediately wished he hadn't said that. More than just Carl's wife was aboard that Phase II ship. The future of everything and everyone they loved was on that transport. And all of it was headed right into the teeth of an alien invasion fleet. If anything went wrong . . .
"Well," Hal muttered, "I'd better get busy shutting everything down."
"Yes. That FTL transport Sector mentioned will be here tomorrow. It's carrying refugees from Scarsdale, too, so there won't be room to take much out."
Hal glanced sharply at his director. "Not even Digger?"
Carl glanced away. "I'm sorry. We'll . . . You saw the message. Sector said to fry his Action/Command center. We can't let him fall into enemy hands."
"Yeah, but that was an `if you can't remove the unit' order, not a hard-and-fast gotta do it order." He shut his lips. He knew as well as Carl that Sector had really meant, "Kill your Bolo, Hal." He cleared his throat. "Well, damn . . . First they farm him out as surplus junk, now they want me to go and . . ."
"I know."
Hal shrugged, trying to shunt attention away from his emotional outburst. Complaining about it wouldn't do any good, anyway. "You got other business. Just leave the equipment to me. I'll wreck what we can't take."
Carl nodded and left.
Hal watched him go. Then: Kill Digger?
Not if he had anything to say about it. Maybe Digger had to die; Hal hadn't forgotten that much about soldiering. But there was ways of carrying out an order, and then there was ways. By golly, the least they could do was let him die honorably in combat—and since Mark XX Model M "Moseby" units had been designed for slash-and-dash raids behind enemy lines, maybe Digger would give these invaders a rude surprise or two before they killed him. That's what Digger'd want, for sure. Hal waited until the Bolo returned from the fields that evening. Everything else was set. He'd wrecked what they hadn't crated; then he'd rigged explosive charges throughout the compound, setting things so the whole installation would go the minute any life form larger than a housecat was detected inside the main buildings. The bastards might occupy Matson's World, but they'd pay dear for it or Hal Abrams wasn't a Marine Engineer.
The last thing he told faithful old Digger, so antiquated he qualified for admission to the War Relics and Monuments Commission roster, was: "Digger, I want you to check out that new orchard in the back forty tonight. Stay out there for a couple of days, work on those cultivars we been gussying up. I'm leavin' it up to you, Digger, to take care of things. You just keep right on with your mission, Digger, same as I programmed you. Battle Reflex Alert inside colony perimeter. Understand?"
"Understood, Commander. I will continue the work for which I am programmed. I will develop new cultivars, plant and harvest test acreages, and protect the colony's crops and physical plant until such time as I am relieved from Battle Reflex Alert."
"That's good, Digger," Hal said, wishing he didn't feel quite so choked up. He wanted to say goodbye, but didn't have the heart to tell the faithful old machine he wouldn't be coming back. Better to let him die not realizing he'd been betrayed and abandoned by friends. "You'd best be getting on out to that orchard, Digger."
"Understood, Commander."
The hulking machine backed neatly on its ancient treads. It turned in the moonlight and trundled obediently across the fields, taking the access road it had built the previous year. Backhoes, plowshares, bulldozer blades, manipulator arms, reaper extensions, sampling baskets, and harvesting prunes festooned its moonlit hull, all but obscuring the ominous snouts of infinite repeaters which hadn't cycled in two hundred years.
Hal sighed.
That was about to change.
He just hoped Digger put up a good fight.