Annihilation (Star Force Series) (28 page)

I knew I might weaken my ships for a later battle in space, where the fighters would be far more decisive, but I couldn’t take this mountain without help. Besides, if we didn’t use them when we needed them, they might as well be knocked out already.

I gritted my teeth and squinted as a squadron made another pass. This time, the machines were ready. Beams stabbed up into the murky sky to meet my fighters. Three were lost before they reached attack range. Three more were lost as they passed by and vanished into the sky again.

“Dammit!” I roared.

Twisted, flaming wreckage showered the island. Glowing flares of red light sprang up all over the island at the same time, showing where the fighters had made their strikes.

I quickly contacted Sarin. “Did you get those AA positions zeroed?”

“Yes sir,” she said, “the gunships are already bombarding them. Do you want another pass by the fighters?”

I took two hissing breaths before answering.

“Yes, one more pass,” I said at last. “Don’t send them until the gunships have suppressed all known AA sites. After that, have the gunships soften them up for ten full minutes, then I’ll order another ground assault.”

After I broke the connection with Sarin, I turned to Sloan. I wasn’t in a happy mood. “We’re about to lose more fighters,” I said.

“I heard.”

“Where are those troops the lobsters promised us?”

Major Sloan tapped at the roll-up screen we had spread over a rock between us. “We’ve got contacts here,” he said.

Four blue rectangles had appeared on the shoreline at the foot of the central mountain we were assaulting.

“They’re still on the beach?” I demanded.

“Not really sir, it’s still high tide. So…they’re underwater.”

“Those bastards. What did you call them, water-chickens? They’re worse than that. Chickens have no choice, they’re born cowards. No one expects a chicken to help you. I’m relying on these foot-draggers.”

I contacted the Crustacean High Command through Marvin. There were some gurgling sounds before the translation kicked in.

“You told us there would be no nuclear strikes,” complained the High Lobster, or whatever it was he called himself.

“Listen,” I said, “we’re having a tough time retaking your planet for you. I’m sorry if a few things are being broken on the battlefield, but you’re not helping out, and we have to do what we must.”

“False logic. Attempts to shift blame always fail to move us. Many nests have been destroyed, we’re monitoring you closely.”

I closed my eyes in frustration. “If you can see what we’re up against, you can see that we need help. You have four large troop formations offshore on the opposite side of the island. We’re going to hit them again from the air in a few minutes. If you want us to kick the machines off your homeworld, you’ll assault your front after the bombardment stops. If you don’t it will be the last assault Star Force makes on this world. We’ll pull out and leave you behind to face the machines on your own.”

Kwon had shown up to listen to this speech. He clapped his big hands together slowly, making loud popping noises. “Tell ‘em how it is, Colonel!”

“Sir,” Sloan whispered, “can we really afford to make that threat now?”

I ignored them both and listened closely for the Crustacean response. It took a few seconds, but they finally replied.

“Message understood,” they said. Then they broke the channel.

“What does that mean?” Kwon asked.

I looked at him sourly. “Quite possibly, it means we’re screwed,” I said. “Maybe they figure they’ll sit out another round and see how we do before they make their decision. Who knows?”

“I bet they’re milking us for one more attack,” Kwon said. “Before we dump them.”

I nodded, admitting he could be right. “There’s no way to tell. But I am certain the fighters are about thirty seconds out. Time to duck.”

The third screaming pass by the squadron wasn’t as devastating to either side as the last one was. The enemy AA was thin, but there were fewer fighters hitting them, too. We lost two more fighters, and the rest went back up to the safety of space. Above us, the mountain was a haze of smoke and bright flames.

The gunships sent down a steady drumbeat of railgun salvos. They streaked down, looking like white balls of lighting. When they hit, I could feel my steel boots shiver under my feet.

After the ten minutes had passed, we called the all-clear and began the ground assault. We’d been repelled before, but this time the enemy resistance was ragged. The Macro defenders that managed to aim down at us and fire were slow-moving and obviously damaged. They looked like bugs that had been accidentally stepped-on but were still struggling to fight.

An uphill battle is never fun. The enemy was hidden by the contours of the land, while our bodies were fully exposed. Often, we could only see the muzzle of the enemy weapons and their optical pickups staring down at us. They showered us with bullets, laser bolts and heavy ripping fire from their last operating gun nests.

It was a grim fight. Battles like this were worse for me than for the average marine, in my estimation. A trooper on the hill only had to worry about his own skin, his rifle, and what was in his sights. But I had to worry about all those things plus what was happening across the planet.

We took the next ridge, and the one after that. I took a chance to tip my visor out from behind cover long enough to see the last peak—the mountain’s crown. A splatter of fire greeted me, and I ducked back before they could blow my helmet off.

“All right,” I said, breathing hard. “Snake power up from the support units below. My suit is down to twenty-nine percent and some of us have to be about empty. We’ll keep pressing to the top after we take a breather.”

Kwon slumped his form down next to me. We both leaned against a rock and sipped the water the suit recycled to our lips in a slimy straw.

“My neck hurts,” Kwon complained, pushing a gauntlet at his shoulders pointlessly.

“You’re wearing about a foot of armor,” I said, “you can’t possibly feel that.”

“No, I can’t. But my hand wants to rub up there where my neck broke.”

“It will feel better in the morning.”

“I don’t know, second day after bones break—sometimes that’s the worst. Nanites start coming out of the bone. They always leave those tiny little holes, you know?”

I did know. It wasn’t good when they did that. The holes were pin-pricks, but somehow they caused pain. The nanites had to get out of the bone somehow, and they knew our bodies natural healing process would fill in those tiny holes with fresh bone cells soon enough. Still, knowing why they did it didn’t make it feel better. It wasn’t any marine’s favorite experience.

“We’ll take a break after we take the crown,” I promised.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “But that’s okay…I don’t want a break. I get bored.”

I clapped his back and then pulled my hand away quickly when I saw him wince. “Sloan? Major Sloan? Where are you?”

“I’m coordinating the transfer of the wounded to the rear lines, sir,” he said over my radio.

I made a face. “Get up here.”

It took a few minutes, and there were splattering moments of enemy fire that came showering down the mountain when he was exposed, but Sloan worked his way up the mountain to me. When he finally made it, he didn’t look happy.

“Take a good look around,” I told him. “This is what’s called the front line.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You should see more of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You ready for the final assault? In ten minutes, we go right over the top.”

I could see through his dusty visor an expression of grim determination. This man was the polar opposite of Kwon. He preferred to fight with his brain—preferably at a great distance. But he was game, and he didn’t object.

“Fourth Battalion is ready, Colonel,” he said.

“Don’t worry soldier. The machines are down to ten percent effectives and nearly broken, in my estimation.”

“I’m not worried, sir,” he said.

I knew he was lying, but I didn’t call him on it. It was all right to be afraid in combat. Just as long as you did your part, you were still a solid marine in my opinion.

The ten minutes passed quickly. We had just long enough to tap into a silver thread of nanites worming their way uphill with fresh power. We didn’t get a full charge—nothing like it. But we all had enough for one hard fight by the time we moved again.

I didn’t bother to tip the machines off with another bombardment this time, figuring it wasn’t really needed. There were limits to my count of fighters and the number of salvos my gunships could launch. I decided to save the firepower for another day. There were plenty of islands left, after all.

We ordered the attack, and when marines were streaming past us upslope, we joined the second wave. Kwon was in the lead, with Sloan and me in his bulky shadow.

It was going to be daylight soon, but for now, second night still shrouded Yale. We were thousands of feet up and surrounded by inky black seas. A yellowish moon loomed close to the northern horizon, providing some light. It was bigger than Earth’s moon, but looked just as barren. As far as I knew, it didn’t even have a name. The moon’s reflection on the inky black seas below us shimmered and cast a ghostly light over the battle scene.

The machines waited for us. When we reached the last open stretch of ground below their rocky peak, they finally scrabbled forward and blazed at us with everything they had left. Fortunately, it wasn’t much. I saw two marines on the front line go down, but they both bounced up again.

We returned fire and kept marching upward. My steel boots were grinding on loose stones.

“Everyone has permission to fly for the final assault. Don’t save your suit power any longer, men. This is it!”

I barely got the words out over tactical chat before dozens of figures leapt into the air. They’d been waiting to do this all along.

Flying isn’t always a good thing in combat. It’s cool, and it rattles biotic enemies, but it also makes you a target without cover. More significantly, these machines didn’t get flustered, they just kept fighting until you dismantled them completely.

What flying did do is move an army quickly, especially if the ground is rough. I followed my leaping horde of marines a few seconds later, seeing that Kwon was airborne. Even Sloan got into the spirit of it and came after us, roaring and firing his beamer almost continuously. If we’d had much more fighting to do, I would have admonished him to conserve his charge—but I knew we didn’t.

We reached the crown in a rush. There was surprisingly little there. The space was crowded with damaged machines. I grappled with the first one that grabbed me by the waist and pulled me down. The machine was a marine, equipped with pinchers, two bullet-dispensing carbines and a laser projector mounted on the head section. Unfortunately for the Macro, none of this gear was operating at full capacity. The pinchers squeezed, but the carbines rattled drily. They were either out of ammo or jammed, I couldn’t tell which.

The laser projector did work, however. It stitched a line across my armor at pointblank range. I couldn’t get my own projector into the fight, as it was pinned to my side by the pinchers. Instead, I grabbed the laser projector with a gauntlet and levered it away from my body.

The tube ground and whined as gears tried to force it back on target. My arms were vastly more powerful, however, and it was an uneven contest. I tried to crush the tube itself, but couldn’t manage to exert that much pressure with my gauntlets. My next move was to wrench the laser from side to side, heaving it back and forth. While I did this, the Macro fired a rippling series of laser bolts into the night sky over my head.

I finally managed to wedge my head and shoulder under the base of the projector, then used a free arm to lever it down. That did the trick. My shoulder served as fulcrum, and the machine’s construction couldn’t take the stresses exerted on it. There was a ripping sound, and the projector came off like a loose tooth. Cords and metal strips hung from the projector, which I tossed to the ground.

By that time, a team of marines had come to help. They pushed their lasers against the thorax and let loose. My visor darkened, and so did the optical pickups of the Macro.

The pinchers relaxed and I was back on my feet. I looked around and saw that the battle was about over. As I’d predicted, they didn’t have much fight left in them.

“I told you!” I shouted to Sloan when I found him gazing down over the far side of the cliff. “An easy win. I doubt they killed a single man. That’s what happens when you do it right, Major.”

“You might want to hold up on the celebration, sir,” he said, pointing down into the darkness.

I peered over the edge, hunkering down beside him. I quickly saw what he was talking about. The side of the far mountain was crawling with metallic shapes.

“What the hell?” I asked aloud.

“I think it’s their reinforcements,” Sloan said. “Smaller machines they must have called up from burrows that go back out to the sea.”

I studied the approaching troops. There must have been thousands of them.