Chapter Ten
What matters is the action, the combat which places you on a different plane from the rest of the herd.
—Colonel Pierre Jeanpierre,
French Foreign Legion, 1958
A green light on the C3 terminal lit up, and Garcia smiled in satisfaction. The final program was in place; the three diversionary vehicles were committed.
“It’s set,” she told Trent.
Trent nodded acknowledgement. The engineering vans had stopped maneuvering. Now they were deployed in a loose defensive line, and their drilling lasers were programmed to fire on command. That, in combination with the explosives Rostov and Cunningham had planted, would keep the hannies busy for a while.
She frowned at the terminal video display, watching the images relayed from the middle vehicle. This remote-controlled battle was like a distant, unreal game, a dreamchipper’s fantasy. No, not even that … a dreamer’s visions seemed real enough while he was under.
Garcia wondered how the soldiers down on the perimeter were feeling. This would be all too real for them.
Her screen showed a native tank advancing slowly into the minefield with hannie soldiers fanned out around it. She tracked the hannie vehicle, calling up a set of crosshairs and centering them over the target. Something moved to one side of the scene; a small, oblong something that rose a meter off the ground and exploded in a glittering shower of metal fragments. A pair of hannies went down with blood welling from wounds in their chests and arms.
“Now!” she called. Her finger stabbed the remote firing control, and red light bathed the front of the tank. The last battle of Monkeyville had begun.
* * *
The bursting Galahad down in the minefield made Slick duck and turn. The flanking party had driven all thought of the main body out of his mind.
Down below, hannies were gibbering and running. The nearest tank glowed red under the intense light of the laser focused on it from one of the engineering vans. Although their lasers were not intended as combat weapons, they had the power to fell trees and fuse tunnel walls … and a few seconds was enough to superheat the target’s armor. The front chassis just above the main gun dripped and melted. An instant later something inside exploded, raining debris over the panicked native soldiers. Farther down the line, one of Rostov’s PX-90 charges went off directly under a lighter tank, ripping open the bottom of the AFV.
Slick jerked his attention back to the flanking party. They had heard the explosions too, but a spur of the hill blocked their line of sight. An officer or NCO was urging them on, pointing wildly at the top of the slope and screeching rapid-fire orders—or maybe invective—and physically pushing one laden soldier from behind. It looked so much like something Corporal Strauss might have done that Slick smiled.
But what to do about them? Slick considered calling for help, then rejected the thought. They think I’m a coward already.…
If he needed help handling a few lokes, they’d be sure of his cowardice. He had to act by himself. That was the only way to win back their respect.
As he rose from his hiding place and sprinted a zigzag course for the top of the hill, Slick was surprised at just how important winning their respect had become.
* * *
The command van lurched once as Legionnaire Hengist swerved to avoid an obstacle. Colin Fraser braced himself against the doorframe and peered over the driver’s shoulder at the monitor showing the vehicle’s path ahead. “Rev her up, Hengist,” he ordered. “Persson, pass the word. Show a few revs.”
The van shuddered once as the fans whined louder. Suspended on magnetic fields and driven by two powerful turbofans, the vehicle began to glide forward, gathering speed. Fraser braced himself against the motion and looked over the driver’s shoulder at the video display from the vehicle’s forward cameras. Ahead of them, Corporal Weston’s supply van was surging forward.
Fraser raised his voice over the noise of the fans. “The path forks off about a half a klick ahead, sergeant. Tell your drivers to be ready to turn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hengist swerved again, this time to avoid the smoking remains of a hannie self-propelled gun on the right side of the road. Bashar’s Sabertooth had literally opened the trail for the rest, cutting through the unprepared hannie outposts before they realized the legionnaires were even coming. With most of the enemy’s strength and attention focused on the diversionary force, Bravo Company’s breakout was running smoothly.
But they couldn’t stay on the main northwest road for very long. The jungle was too thick down in the lowlands to allow the Legion vehicles any freedom of movement, and the drones had shown another large hannie mechanized column farther down the road pressing hard to join the siege of Monkeyville. Bravo Company couldn’t afford to let itself be trapped between the reinforcements and the bulk of the native army, which wouldn’t stay distracted too much longer.…
One trail did break off from the main road, winding north into deeper jungle. They had to secure that fork in the road and hold it until Trent’s rearguard could be extracted. That would be the most dangerous part of the entire plan.
Persson pointed to the flashing map display between the driver and passenger seats in the cab. “Bashar’s up to the fork, Lieutenant!” he shouted. “He reports all clear.”
“Right,” Fraser replied. “Pass the word. Get the APCs off the road!”
Without waiting for a reply he turned back into the command center, staggering as the van sideslipped, then sinking gratefully into a chair next to Vandergraff. He took control of one of the drones and steered it northwest. Time to find out how long they’d have to get Trent out.…
* * *
Slick dropped to his belly and lay still, hardly breathing. The chameleon coating on his fatigues and armor faded from the grey-brown of the rocky slope to a mottled yellow-green as sensors embedded in the uniform read his surroundings and the suit’s miniature computer transmitted the appropriate electrical impulses through the climate-control mesh that triggered the color change. In the tall grass at the top of the hill, Slick would be nearly invisible.
Below him the ten hannie troopers were still climbing, but more slowly now. The exertion was probably starting to get to them, Slick thought. Hanuman’s natives were strong for their small size and tough, capable of surprising feats of endurance, but yomping that heavy gear up the steep hillside must surely have taken a toll by now.
The first local appeared less than five meters away. Ky was carrying a blunderbuss rocket launcher and several reloads. The weapon seemed impossibly large for the native, but after a few seconds rest the soldier was moving again, crossing the flat hilltop and scanning the battlefield below with a clumsy-looking optical imager. More troops followed … three more blunderbusses, a pair of HMGs, then two soldiers with ordinary native-issue rifles, belts of ammo draped over their shoulders and chests, and folded tripods slung across their backs. They joined the HMG gunners and started setting up the weapons in commanding positions overlooking the valley.
The officer and another soldier were last up. A shout from the first trooper made the leader hasten to kys side, where the two hannies jabbered together with frequent gesticulations. Slick thought he heard the native word that meant “devil”. He remained motionless, his mind racing. The natives were too spread out. So far they hadn’t offered a target he could take out all at once. There wasn’t much time.…
The first native was raising the blunderbuss and training it on the ridgeline below. Slick tensed, hesitated. Ky was aiming about where DuPont had been posted with his sniping laser. He had to act, despite the danger.
He rolled into a crouch and brought the FEK up, spraying caseless kinetic energy rounds into the soldier with the blunderbuss, and the officer. The trooper’s fingers tightened convulsively on the weapon’s trigger as ky fell, and a rocket roared from the tube. Officer and soldier collapsed in a bloody pile, and Slick swiveled his rifle toward the nearest of the machine-gun teams.
Needles slashed into the natives at 10,000 mps, flinging them backward as they tried to wrestle their weapon into line. The gunner sprawled against a rock in an untidy heap; kys loader balanced for a moment on the crest of the slope before tumbling out of sight. A blunderbuss roared and Slick felt the heat as the rocket passed inches from his head. He kept on firing, and three more hannies went down.
The FEK clicked and whirred, the hundred-round magazine empty. Rising to his feet, Slick cursed and shifted to his grenade launcher, firing a stream of 1cm projectiles into the second hannie machine-gun position. The gunner’s scream was cut short as one of the warheads struck soft flesh and exploded, tearing the soldier in half. Slick didn’t have time to react to the sight.
Something smashed across his back. The fatigues absorbed some of the blow, but it still knocked Slick to his knees, and the FEK spun out of his hands into the tall grass. The native swung kys rifle butt again, but Slick rolled with the blow and caught the weapon in both hands, pulling hard. The native, already off-balance, staggered and let go. An instant later ky was on him, long fingers extended to grope for Slick’s neck.
An explosion a few meters away showered them with dirt, and the native’s attention wavered. Slick drove his fist into the hannie’s stomach and the soldier rolled off him, hitting the ground hard. In a flash, his other hand closed around the knife in his boot-top. A quick upward stroke finished the hannie before ky could recover.
A second explosion made Slick stagger as he rose. He shook his head to clear it, realizing dimly that the blasts were from Legion rifle grenades, not hannie weapons. The hannies were all down, dead or dying.
“Cease firing! Cease firing!” he screamed into his radio. He flipped down his helmet display to try to get a fix on whoever was firing. “Rostov, this is Grant! I’m on the hill you’re firing at! Cease fire!”
The last explosion raised a shower of rock splinters from a nearby boulder. Slick’s map display went dark as a rock the size of his fist slammed into his helmet.
Then a different kind of darkness engulfed him.
* * *
“Damn!” Angela Garcia swore softly as the video image on her screen blacked out. “That’s two down.”
She shifted the pickup to receive from the number three van. The hannies had backed off from the minefield, but their tanks were concentrating heavy fire on the Legion APCs from the edge of the jungle. The Sandrays were well-armored by native standards, but they couldn’t stand up to the punishment of a head-to-head slugging match with main battle tanks. She fired the APC laser at the closest target, but the driver quickly dropped the tank into reverse and backed into the trees before the beam could do more than scorch the chassis armor. The hannies might be primitive, but they weren’t stupid. They’d learned how to deal with APCs.
And their troops were getting wary of the minefield now. The locals might not have the technology to produce mines with multiple warheads, but they’d grasped the concept quickly enough. There were reports of flanking parties trying to turn either flank of the defensive line. As they found the direct route blocked, they’d be pushing more troops to the sides.
“Corporal Pascali reports three casualties,” Tran was telling Trent. “One dead in her lance … another in Braxton’s. And one of Strauss’s men is wounded. Damn fool went off on his own without telling anyone and took friendly fire out on the flank. Rostov and Vrurrth are marking the pickup now.”
“All right. Pull back by teams to the next position.” Trent frowned. “Damn! I was hoping we’d hold ’em longer there.” He paused, then shook his head. “The hell with it. All right, get ’em moving!”
Garcia turned back to the terminal and started programming the retreat orders into the vehicle’s autopilot.
* * *
“Asjyai! Asjyai! The demons have broken out of the fort on the northwest side!”
“What?” Asjyai Zyzyiig whirled to face the panting messenger by the tent flap. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s true, Honored! Many of their floating demon-cars, and heretic soldiers with them!” The messenger flinched under Zyzyiig’s stare. “They destroyed our tanks and scattered the troops along the road! The demons are between us and the Regiment Fearmongers!”
Beside Zyzyiig, the Semti stirred. “I told you not to send so many to respond to that first report,” Shavvataaars said. “These legionnaires are more resourceful than you believed … or more ruthless. Expending part of their force in a false breakout called for considerable courage. The Terran demons rarely show such understanding of the needs of war. Their commander is one I would wish to Journey with.…”
“He won’t live long enough for your Journeys!” Zyzyiig snapped. The demons were getting away! He turned to the radio operator. “Order Fearmongers and our reserves to converge on them!”
“Honored … it will take an hour to launch the attack!” the messenger protested. “And the demons control another way out!”
“You will not catch them, Asjyai,” Shavvataaars said calmly. “Their vehicles are too fast for you.”
Furious, Zyzyiig rounded on the Semti. “This is your fault! You said we had them where we wanted them, that they could not escape!”
“I also said that patience was the greatest of all wisdom,” the Semti replied coldly. “Had you been less eager, you might have had sufficient forces assembled to meet this attack.”
Zyzyiig felt kys neck ruff rippling. Taking a deep breath, ky forced the anger back. “If we cannot stop the main force, we can at least crush this diversion. Order the Regiment Deathshead to press the attack!”
“Vengeance will gain you nothing,” Shavvataaars said. “You would do better to regroup in case these legionnaires do not remain in flight. They could still cause much damage, left unwatched.”
“You want me to call off this attack, too? I won’t do it.” Zyzyiig spat. “Ancient or not, you have interfered with my command once too often. You have your preparations to make to the north, Shavvataaars. I suggest you get to them, and leave the demons here to me!”
* * *
“Keep your head down, Garcia!” Sergeant Trent fired an FEK burst and glanced at the C3 technician. She was crouched behind a rock, her FEK held ready.
The last engineering van had fallen prey to hannie tank guns almost half an hour back, and the legionnaires were on their own now. The three recon lances, less four dead and two wounded, were holding a narrow perimeter around Trent’s original observation post. The natives were pressing their attack more fiercely than ever, flinging in troops and vehicles with careless disregard for casualties. Apparently they didn’t realize, or perhaps didn’t care, that this wasn’t the real breakout force. The monkeys seemed determined to destroy Trent’s force no matter what.
That was bad … very bad. The plan had counted on hannie pressure letting up as soon as they realized that Bravo Company was trying to escape. Maybe the diversion had worked too well.
“Tran! Give me the command channel!”
He nodded acknowledgement and passed him the handset. Now that it wasn’t being used as a remote control for vehicles, the portable C3 terminal was on his back again. Garcia lifted her FEK and fired as Trent started broadcasting.
“Alice One, Alice One, this is Guardian. Abort rescue! Repeat, abort rescue!” Trent swallowed once, fighting off despair. The rearguard had counted on him.…
“Guardian, Alice One,” Fraser’s static-crusted voice came back. “Negative! Rescue unit on the way. Hold out … three more minutes.”
“Damn it, L-T, they’ll be charging into the middle of half the Dryien army! The monkeys know how to knock out our APCs! Abort the op, for God’s sake!”
Corporal Bashar’s voice came on the line. “Not a chance, Sarge! Ain’t no primmie bastard can hit my baby. Anyway, you still owe me twenty sols from that poker game last week!”
Trent swore. “You can’t collect if you’re dead, Bashar! Call it off!”
“Shut up and let me rescue you, Sarge!” The line went dead.
Trent replaced the handset and peered cautiously around the rock. Thirty meters away a hannie tank was lumbering slowly forward across bare, rocky ground. Suddenly a grey-brown figure lunged out of the cover of a rockslide and leapt on top of the vehicle, poking his FEK into the open hatch. Corporal Strauss’s finger tightened on the grenade launcher trigger, sending a stream of small but powerful rifle grenades into the low-slung vehicle. Smoke and flame gouted from the hatch and the driver’s slit as Strauss jumped clear, hosing a squad of hannie infantry with autofire as he ran for cover.
Farther away another hannie tank fired once. Then the sleek shape of a Grendel missile skimmed over the ridge beyond the vehicle. It seemed to pause for an instant like a hound casting for a scent, then plunged downward into the tank.
The explosion hadn’t subsided when the Sabertooth topped the rise, fans revving at full speed. Legionnaire Karatsolis guided the plasma gun to bear on another target and fired. The Sabertooth pivoted on its fans, maintaining a steady barrage. Behind it, a Sandray appeared, its CEK chattering as it passed through a cluster of hannie troops.
“Recon lances! Let’s savkey! Go! Go! Go!” Trent realized he was shouting into the radio. So much for his image of unflappable calm.
The legionnaires were scrambling from their defensive positions, laying down their own covering fire to augment the heavier guns on the two vehicles. Trent watched as Legionnaire Rostov helped Grant, who had recovered enough to walk, into the back of the Sandray. The rest of the recon troopers quickly climbed aboard and the APC skittered sideways to make room for the Sabertooth. As it touched down, Trent was already urging Tran into motion. He sprinted across the open ground and reached the rear door while the ramp was still dropping.
Garcia was next. A hannie machine gun opened up, and slugs slammed into the legionnaire’s legs. She stumbled and fell.
Trent fired a three-round grenade burst at the machine-gun nest and leapt from cover. He barely paused to help Garcia up, half-carrying her. It looked like her uniform had stopped the bullets, but he knew the kinetic energy of those hits would still have been enough to hurt, maybe even cause a fracture. She gritted her teeth. “Thanks, Sarge,” she gasped as he pushed her into the back of the Sabertooth. Tran helped her up and stretched her out on one of the troop benches, rolling up the trouser leg to examine the injury. Trent slapped the ramp button and sank onto the other bench, exhausted.
With a roar, the Sabertooth lurched forward, the plasma gun still firing wildly.
Trent could hardly believe they’d managed to escape.