A Fighting Chance Read online

  Santana frowned. “This is Nine. Was it due to an accident? Or enemy fire? Over.”

  “The latter . . . But the bugs weren’t involved. Over.”

  “I’ll come forward,” Santana replied. “Keep your eyes peeled. Over.”

  Charlie Company had come to a halt, and Rona-Sa was already on the scene when Santana and Joshi arrived. Puffs of dust rose as Santana’s boots hit the ground. Ponco glided in to receive him. “It was Atkins, sir. He was about a hundred yards in front of the tractor, and I was operating at treetop level. We were on the team push, and he was telling me about something he had found when the transmission was cut off in midsentence. That’s when I came down to investigate. He was dead by the time I arrived.”

  Santana nodded. “Show me.” Then, turning to Rona-Sa, he said, “Put the word out. The rest of the battalion will take a fifteen-minute break. Even-numbered platoons will remain on high alert.”

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  “Sergeant Joshi . . . Please keep your sensors on max and stay close.”

  With the T-2 bringing up the rear, Santana followed Ponco past the yellow tractor and into the bush. A trail of broken twigs and occasional boot prints led to a small, sun-dappled clearing. That was where Atkins lay, facedown in front of a tree, to which an oval wickerwork container was attached. As Santana approached the body, the cause of death was readily apparent. Bright blue feathers were attached to the six-inch-long dart that had penetrated the base of the soldier’s skull. “Poison?”

  “Probably,” Ponco agreed. “I doubt the tip is more than three inches long. But look at where it went in. Below the edge of his helmet but just above his armor. Either the killer was lucky or an extremely good shot.”

  “I’d put my money on the second possibility,” Santana said grimly. “I know there are indigs in the forest. Thousands of ’em. And you’d have to be a good shot to survive out here. What’s the thing on the tree?”

  “I can answer that,” Ryley answered, as he arrived on foot. “If you look closely, you’ll see a hand-carved spirit doll cradled inside. The sticks use them to mark territorial borders. Whenever we send teams out into the bush to gather raw materials, we have to pay the bastards off. This is what happens if you fail to do so. Our scientists turned the neurotoxin used for those darts into some very profitable products by the way.”

  “Thank God for that,” Santana said sarcastically. “Put the body in a cool pack and load it on a quad. We’ll hold a burial service tonight.”

  Santana kept the battalion moving, and the hours dragged by. The mood had changed. The forest felt oppressive. It was like a green hand that could close and squeeze the life out of them as the soldiers scanned the thick foliage above and kept their body armor zipped tight. They were scared, and that was a good thing so long as it didn’t get out of hand. “Creative paranoia,” was how Rona-Sa referred to it, and he should know, since Hudathans were hardwired for it. That was one of the primary reasons why his people had battled the Confederacy in the past.

  Eventually, the battalion came to a river that, unlike the many streams and creeks encountered thus far, was too deep for the bio bods to wade through. Plus, the water was moving quickly enough to cause eddies and splash the boulders that poked up here and there.

  Rather than take the time to fell trees and build a bridge, or construct a raft, Santana elected to ferry his troops across the barrier using quads, T-2s, and one-way trips on the tractors. Though time-consuming, the operation went fairly well.

  The problem was the fuel truck. It lacked the clearance required to cross the river on its own and was too large for the quads. Even if one of them had been empty, which wasn’t the case. They could leave the vehicle behind, but Santana wanted to keep the crawlers operational for as long as possible, and they required fuel. So what to do?

  Santana and a group of his officers were standing next to the river gazing at the truck when Captain Ryley offered a possible answer. The officer had to raise his voice in order to be heard over the roar of the river. “What we do,” he said in an obvious reference to Temo Pharmaceuticals, “is to strap bola logs to both sides of a vehicle and winch it over. Bola trees are strong but light. And they have thousands of air-filled cells inside their trunks.”

  “Okay, Captain. Make it happen. And the faster the better.”

  To his credit, Ryley was able to execute his plan in record time by ordering a T-2 to cut down a nearby bola tree with her energy cannon. The trunk was delimbed and sliced into sections the same way. Then, by using more cyborgs to drag the logs into place, Ryley was able to complete all of his preparations in half an hour.

  Because of the strong current, Santana insisted on attaching cables to both ends of the truck so that it wouldn’t be swept downstream, where it would slam up against the rocky riverbank. There was a scary moment when the fueler was about halfway across the river and a log appeared upstream. It was seemingly aimed at the truck. But a current jerked it sideways, and the troops cheered as the would-be battering ram slid past the back end of the tanker with only a foot to spare. That was when Santana exhaled and was surprised to learn that he’d been holding his breath.

  Twenty minutes later, the battalion was snaking its way between a series of widely spaced low-lying hills when Santana heard Ponco’s now-familiar voice. Despite the fact that it was computer-generated, Santana could hear the tension in it. “Zulu Seven to Zulu Nine. I’m five miles southwest of your position, and I can see a Ramanthian drone quartering the area ahead of me. Over.”

  Santana swore softly and opened his mike. “Roger that, Seven. You have a decoy aboard, right? Over.”

  “Affirmative. Over.”

  “Drop it a couple of miles south and turn it on. Over.”

  “Understood. Over.”

  The decoy was designed to put out a steady stream of bogus radio transmissions similar to what a battalion of troops could be expected to produce. Then, assuming the bugs went after the decoy rather than the battalion itself, Santana would have one or two days of grace during which to move the unit forward.

  But what if the strategy didn’t work? And the chits were able to locate the real target? That was Santana’s worst nightmare. Because an air attack on massed troops would produce dozens if not hundreds of casualties. Even with AA fire from the T-2 and quads. So Santana issued a new set of orders. “This is Zulu Nine. Alpha Nine will break north, Bravo Nine will break south, and Charlie Nine will hold position. Cyborgs will link up via the ITC and prepare to provide coordinated antiaircraft fire. The battalion will maintain radio silence until further notice. Over.”

  By breaking the battalion into three separate units and giving them time to prepare, Santana hoped to minimize casualties if the chits realized what was going on. Would his strategy work? Only time would tell.

  The drills paid off as Zarrella and Kimbo led their respective companies into the bush and began to set up defensive positions. Santana followed Bravo Company, being closest to it as the evolution began, and watched approvingly as Kimbo built his defenses around Sergeant Marlo Lopez and her considerable weaponry.

  There was a potential problem, however, and that was the screen of interlocking foliage directly overhead. It would help hide the quad from the air—but it would prevent her from firing her surface-to-air missiles as well since many of the branches were large enough to block the missiles, knock them off course, or cause them to detonate prematurely. The T-2s could use their energy cannons to create an opening, of course. Which to choose? Having given the matter some thought, Santana chose concealment over offensive capability and informed Zarrella and Ryley of his decision. That meant there was even more riding on the electronic decoy.

  Kimbo and his people were busy digging defensive fighting positions by then. The pits would offer Bravo Company some protection in the case of either an air or ground attack. Rather than stand around and watch, Santana jumped to the ground and made his way over to where a squad was hard at work. “Can someone lend me a s
hovel? I could use some exercise.” A corporal grinned, gave Santana an excavating tool, and went to work beside him.

  Dietrich tried to remember if he’d seen another officer do something similar, couldn’t, and dropped to the ground. That’s the problem with war, the noncom thought to himself. There’s too much digging.

  As the battalion dug in, Ponco weaved her way through the sun-splashed treetops, heading south as quickly as she could. The drone was still visible on her sensors though still too far away to see with a vid cam. And based on the precise nature of the aircraft’s movements—it appeared that a very methodical bug was piloting it. Ponco could imagine the Ramanthian, sitting in front of a console hundreds of miles away, guiding the airborne robot through a standard search grid.

  Her job was to trick the bastard. And to do that, the recon ball would need to use some finesse. That meant letting the chit discover the bogus battalion rather than simply plopping the decoy down and turning it on. Because if what “looked” like a battalion of troops suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the operator would know he was being scammed. So Ponco had to pull up sooner than she would have liked, spiral down to the ground, and drop the decoy onto the forest floor below.

  Then it was time to climb and wend her way back toward the battalion before activating the decoy. A steady tone indicated that the unit was operational. That was Ponco’s cue to pause, take cover in the foliage near the top of a tall tree, and wait to see what would happen.

  A good ten minutes passed before the silvery drone suddenly broke away from its back-and-forth search pattern to circle the decoy. The robot was visible, but just barely, on high magnification. Ponco would have smiled had she been able to do so. The Ramanthian pilot was excited by then and busy telling his superiors how smart he was. So would they bite? The next fifteen minutes would tell.

  Rather than continue to hover, Ponco searched for a spot to perch and found one where a sturdy limb split into two smaller branches. The drone was still circling—and that was a good sign. Because there was no reason for the scout plane to linger unless the Ramanthians were hooked. And it wasn’t long before two fighters appeared out of the south. They circled the area where the decoy was located and began their runs. They came in low, released canisters from under their wings, and accelerated away as the fuel bombs exploded.

  A raging red-orange firestorm rolled over the jungle like a wave hitting a beach. Those trees that weren’t incinerated soon began to burn. The flames spread via interlocking branches, and it wasn’t long before an enormous pall of smoke rose to throw a dark shadow over the land.

  Ponco’s first reaction was one of jubilation because the ruse had been successful. But that emotion was soon replaced by a growing sense of concern as thousands of birds rose from the foliage round the fire and flapped in every direction. Some were in flocks, others by themselves, all looking for safety.

  And that raised a very important question. If thousands of birds had been displaced by the fire, what about animals? Ponco knew that the battalion was supposed to maintain radio silence. But this was important. Very important. So she opened a link and was careful to keep her message brief. “This is Zulu Seven to all units. The bugs went for it, but the fuel bombs they dropped set the forest on fire. Thousands of panicked animals could be headed your way. Over.”

  Santana was still in the process of absorbing Ponco’s report when a swarm of small animals poured out of the undergrowth to the south of Bravo Company’s position and surged into the clearing. They made all sorts of noises and scurried in every direction. Some of the soldiers opened fire but stopped when Kimbo shouted at them. “Hold your fire! Save your ammo for the big boys. They’re on their way.”

  Kimbo was a local and knew what he was talking about. It was only a matter of seconds before the first velocipods burst out of the underbrush and rushed Bravo Company. The quad’s minigun roared as it sprayed thousands of rounds into the surrounding forest. Many of the charging reptiles were torn apart, along with bushes, trees, and the ground itself, as the hail of bullets struck. But there were hundreds of targets, and some of the fleet-footed velocipods managed to make it through the curtain of lead.

  The company’s preparations began to pay off as Kimbo hollered, “Fire!” and the troops on the south side of the defensive circle let loose with crew-served machine guns, grenade launchers, and assault rifles. Santana stood shoulder to shoulder with Dietrich and a burly platoon sergeant as he fired short well-aimed bursts from his carbine.

  Santana saw his bullets hit one of the yellow-eyed monsters and felt a stab of fear as it kept on coming. What was it Antov had said? Anything less than a .50-caliber bullet pisses them off? Something like that. Fortunately, lots of smaller-caliber bullets were effective. The velocipod stumbled and fell nose down. Forward momentum carried it all the way to the edge of Kimbo’s fighting position where he put another bullet into the beast’s head.

  Then the earth began to shake as one of the locals yelled, “Here come the crushers!”

  “Lopez will engage if necessary,” Kimbo shouted over the company push. “Everyone else will cease fire. Get down and stay down.”

  The order didn’t make sense. Not to Santana. And he was about to override Kimbo when lesser trees began to shatter and fall, fearsome screeches were heard, and the first triturator appeared. It was at least twenty feet tall and covered with overlapping sections of loose shell. The protective plates made a wild clattering sound as the behemoth lumbered north. Unlike the carnivorous velocipods, it was an herbivore and entirely focused on escaping to the north.

  Now Santana understood why Kimbo had given the orders he had and realized that an off-worlder like Zarrella might make the mistake of opening fire on the crushers. A cloud of dust rose as a herd of the gigantic beasts thundered through the clearing, and Santana made contact with Alpha and Charlie Companies.

  A second wave of animals, including a scattering of velocipods, followed. But Bravo Company was ready, and when the exodus finally came to an end, Santana was pleased to learn that with the exception of a fatality in Alpha Company and half a dozen minor injuries, the battalion had emerged unscathed. Not so the forest, however, which continued to burn. There had been casualties—and O-Chi 4 was one of them.

  8

  Life as a cyborg leaves a lot to be desired, but it sure beats the alternative.

  —Sergi Chien-Chu

  Former president of the Confederacy of Sentient Beings,

  Admiral, and Industrialist

  My Life

  Standard year 2840

  THE CITY OF HEFERI, THE PLANET SENSA II, THE RIM

  The first flush of dawn was barely visible in the east, so the air was still cool and relatively untainted by the stench of the city’s open sewers as Chancellor Ubatha shuffled up a ramp onto the building’s flat roof. A human lookout heard the sound and turned. The merc was wearing a sand-blasted helmet with a reflective visor and a one-of-a-kind uniform made out of secondhand body armor. There was no way to tell if the animal was male or female. All he could do was hope that he or she was competent.

  “Good morning, sir,” the guard said. Ubatha returned the greeting before making his way over to the spot where he liked to drink his morning Ta. The hot drink was one of the few pleasures he allowed himself.

  His vantage point gave Ubatha a commanding view of the surrounding buildings, none of which was more than four stories tall. The city was very old, having been constructed hundreds of thousands of years earlier by the mysterious Forerunner race, then abandoned for reasons unknown. It was cradled in a valley between two gigantic sand dunes. According to the locals, the wind-driven mountains were traveling from west to east at a rate of about one mile per year. It was a phenomenon that forced residents of Heferi to constantly move east and led to never-ending violence.

  Most of the residents made their livings as tomb raiders or by guarding tomb raiders or by stealing from tomb raiders. And the chaos meant that Heferi was a place where fugitives, even a
royal fugitive, could hide. Not forever, but long enough to find someone who could either repair the Warrior Queen’s broken body or provide her with a new one. And, after negative reports from more than a dozen highly qualified doctors, the second possibility was looking like the best one.

  That was why Ubatha had to leave the fortresslike compound and make the dangerous trip to the spaceport, where he was scheduled to pick up a human geneticist. Unfortunately, that would make it necessary to take at least three bodyguards with him—thereby reducing the number of individuals available to defend the Queen. Of course, those who remained behind would have the benefit of four extremely expensive gun balls to help defend the complex, along with computer-controlled weapons positioned to fire on the most likely points of attack. As Ubatha sucked the last few drops of Ta through a straw, he heard the pop, pop, pop of distant gunfire and knew the day had truly begun.

  It took the better part of an hour to ready what the animals referred to as “the gun truck.” It was a thirdhand all-terrain vehicle that had been brought to Sensa II for some long-forgotten purpose years earlier. Since that time, a larger engine had been installed, along with a stiffer suspension and armor thick enough to stop anything short of an antitank round. The roof turret could traverse 360 degrees and the twin fifties could be depressed far enough to kill anyone more than ten feet away. All of which made for a very formidable vehicle indeed.

  Even so, Chancellor Ubatha thought it wise to wear armor and carry a Negar III rifle himself. That was partly because the gun truck could attract trouble as well as deal with it, and there was always the chance that his mercs would turn on him. There hadn’t been any signs of that. But there hadn’t been any advance warning that a cabal including one of his mates was about to supplant the Queen either. The thought reminded him of the Egg Ubatha, and he felt a pang of regret. It had been a mistake to leave her on Hive. He prayed that she was safe but feared she wasn’t.