Armor (38 page)

“That’s right.”

“Then what are they doing here?”

She shrugged. “They’re here to see combat.”

“I don’t get it. If they don’t have to fight, why would they want to?”

“They don’t. Most of ‘em don’t. They just want to. . . well, see it. From the bunker.”

“Oh.”

She peered carefully at him. “Do you understand?”

“I think so.” And maybe he did. Or was beginning to.

“Felix, I know you think this is …”

“Who are they?” he asked bluntly.

She blinked. “Oh. Well, that bunch you saw just now are liaison officers.”

“Liaison officers. . . Observers?”

“Right. For. . . I don’t know, different branches of the services. Subcommittees, that sort of thing.”

He nodded. He looked at her. “And who are you?”

She blinked again. “I’m from Militar. Fleet Central.”

He nodded again.

“But I’m no Observer,” she added quickly. “I’m here because the bunker was partly my idea.”

“Your idea?”

“Well, it came out of our office, anyway. Operations

Analysis. It was my idea to have the ants checked after each stage of the battle.” She squared her shoulders. “Those of us from my office have jobs here. We …”

“Us? Who else?”

“You saw some of them outside. AlimColonel Khuddar, he works with….”

“That guy’s second-in-command. He’s senior on the command staff.”

“Right,” she replied happily, pleased he had remembered and totally unaware of his reaction.”

“He’s never seen combat? Like the rest of you?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied, thinking. “He’s dropped before, though, I believe. No, I’m sure he has.”

“What are you people doing here?” he asked in a calm controlled voice.

She looked surprised. “I told you. We. . . Oh, I see what you mean. This is Banshee, after all …”

“It is.”

“Well. . .” She looked very young suddenly. Childlike. Guilty? “You have to admit, though, this is the best chance most of us are ever gonna get to see combat. I mean, it’s perfect here.”

“Perfect?”

She looked impatient. “You know,” she insisted matter-of-factly, “safe.”

Felix stood atop the bunker wall facing due east. Below him was the killing ground, its smooth, Siliconite covered surface sparkling in the morning sunshine. The area looked to be every bit as large as Shoen had said it would be. It sloped gently down from the foot of the wall for several hundred meters before beginning a long gentle rise to the top of the ridge everything else had been blasted flat by the engineers. rounded mogullike humps just before the top of the distant ridge everything else had been blasted flat by the engineers.

To his right and south and likewise to his left and north it was the same story without the slope. The sand, flat and open, stretched directly away from the wall for half a kilometer.

Some cover did exist, however. Starting from about one hundred yards directly off the southeast corner of the fort, and stretching all the way to the ridge, was a typical Banshee maze.

Made of three to seven meter high ridges meandering randomly in any and all directions as well as the various wind carved gulleys and arroyos Separating them the maze had been considered too great an obstacle to blast away. Besides, Shoen had assured him, it was so cramped and narrow as to be useless to the ants. They liked to attack en masse, in waves. The widest of the gulleys could handle no more than two or three ants abreast.

Scanning the area one last time, Felix had to admit that everything seemed to have been considered. The fort, with its back to the western sea, seemed ideally situated.

He turned his attention toward the inside of the walls. The last of the orange p-suited engineers were stepping onto the Transit platform. Both halves were being employed in the same direction to save time. They had been on Banshee almost three hours now. Soon the ants, even those still remaining inside the Dorm, would be warm enough for a full-scale rush.

Felix shook his head in awe. Only three hours. And they had a fort! Even with the bunker itself having been dropped pre-built, it was an astonishing feat. He would have thought the wall alone would have required at least a day or two.

A gust of wind rose quickly and fluttered past them. But no dust. Thanks to the Siliconite, their vision would never be obscured by rolling clouds of sand. Maybe they really had thought of everything.

Dominguez appeared beside him on the wall. “Do you know what the hell’s going on?” he asked bluntly. “What do you mean?” Felix replied.

Dominguez hooked an armored thumb over his shoulder toward the warriors in the courtyard, all two hundred plus of them, forming up.

“We’re moving out, for chrissakes, Felix! Can you believe it?”

“Why?”

Dominguez shrugged, snorted angrily. “Ya got me, Man.

They go to all this trouble to build this goddamned miracle out in the middle of nowhere, then leave it before it does anybody any good.”

“Have you talked to Can. . . Colonel Shoen?”

“Shit!” snapped the sergeant disgustedly. “She’s too busy hanging out with her chums up there to fool with anything as puny as life and death.”

Felix followed the other man’s gaze to “up there,” the Command Platform. He could barely spot her warrior suit amidst several others of equal or higher rank. He was about to offer to talk to her himself when a Lieutenant bounded up beside them on the wall and gestured to Dominguez.

“You’re Dominguez, right? You and your squad are moving with my group. Get formed up.”

“Yessir,” Dominguez didn’t quite snarl. He dropped down to the courtyard to where the other warriors were already lined up for the leap by pairs over the forward wall. There was no gate. Only the ants would have required one anyway. The lieutenant eyed Felix a moment. “Who are you. Scout?”

“Felix.”

“Oh,” said the lieutenant. He watched Felix another few seconds, then bounded away without speaking.

Felix watched him go. Now what the hell. . .?

The command frequency chattered into life with the order to move out. The leaping began. Felix watched in silence as almost the entire complement of warriors exited the fort. In seconds, only he, the cannon crews, and the brass jamming the Command Platform were left. Felix glanced back toward the bunker itself. The liaison officer Observersor tourists, as he had privately labeled them were nowhere to be seen. He assumed they were waiting to see that it was, in fact, as safe around here as it was fun. Or perhaps they weren’t even grounded. Felix knew there was another Transit area inside the bunker itself. He had seen the sign for it.

He watched the two lines of the warriors working up the forward slope toward the ridge. The leading edge of the formation was already passing through the moguls and out of sight over the ridge. Within another few minutes, the entire troupe would have reached the Dorm itself, only a quarter of a kilometer or so past the ridge.

It was insane.

Shoen appeared on the wall beside him a few minutes later.

“You ready?” she asked.

He nodded. What else?

They hopped over the wall and started up the long slope to the ridge. The bootprints of the warriors ahead of them left only faint impressions in the Siliconite-coated sand. Felix stared idly at them as he trotted along, listening intently to Shoen’s chattering tone to hear the reason for everyone leaving the safety of the fort. But Shoen was concerned only with providing him with blow-by-blow details of power plays among the young officers of the Staff.

Suddenly, Felix realized they were the same thing. He stopped.

“Let me get this straight: We’re going out to the Dorm because your friend Ali wants to prove something to the CO?”

She looked at him. “Well, Ali is in charge of all the warriors. And how’s he going to be able to show what he can do with them inside the walls?”

Felix stared at her a moment, then resumed trotting without a sound. They were almost to the top of the ridge before she spoke again. Her voice was plaintive, defensive.

“Felix, you just don’t understand how tough it is for one of us to. . . .”

“Shoen!” sounded sharply on the command frequency.

“Hold up there for an extra hand.”

They stopped and turned to face the now distant walls. “I bet I can tell you who this is,” said Shoen, sounding pleased.

A second later it was unnecessary. With the first sight of the huge blue warrior suit larger by far than any other Felix had ever seen, and infinitely more impressive there was no doubt in his mind as to who it had to be: Nathan Kent. He began by bounding, with ease, over the forward wall as if shot out of a cannon. He was running as he struck the sand some thirty meters down the slope. A second later he had already begun climbing up the ridge toward them at an easy gentle lope and a speed Felix knew he could never hope to achieve.

He was awesome.

And beautiful, Felix thought, watching the blue suit hurtling toward him. The combination of state-of-the-art armor and athletic magnificence was a sight overshadowing everything else; the war, the ants, the man alone nothing else had to do with the vision of excellence but the vision itself. “Felix,” Forest had told him, “it wasn’t even close.”

Felix believed her.

Kent arrived. There was no indication that he was even short of breath. Shoen introduced them. They shook hands. Felix started to say something, decided against it. Not the time, he thought, turning and leading them the rest of the way.

Once over the ridge, the terrain became once more Banshee like. A smaller maze covered the last few hundred meters to the Dorm. In silence, Felix led them through it, following the tracks of the preceding warriors. He never once turned to look at the two following behind. He knew about Shoen, he thought. And he could almost feel the presence of Kent.

He would have to tell him about Forest, about that last time with her that was certain. But how to go about it? He had debated that with himself on and off from the first moment of meeting Kent in the drop bay. What to tell Kent about Forest . . . There was much to tell.

For one thing, Felix thought her to be the best armored fighter he had ever seen, himself included. And besides her skill, there was her bravery no less considerable. Her value as a companion was no doubt well-known to Kent already. And though Felix doubted Kent would find the topic boring, however often it was discussed, there was much more to say. Much, much more.

She was very proud of you, friend Kent. On top of that she respected you for what you really were inside. And something else. Friend Kent. Forest loved you.

Yes, she did. She loved you. The way it should be done and for always. Forever. To the very end. I know, for when she died saying so, it was in my arms.

My God! he thought suddenly, feeling the tears on his cheeks. I’m crying!

“How weird!” he blurted out loud, stopping short. The other two wanted to know what he meant, what was going on. They weren’t at all satisfied with his “Nothing.”

And as they resumed the trip, he could sense their uneasiness.

But he didn’t care about theirs. His was plenty for the moment.

What the hell was happening to him?

The maze parted at last, revealing the warriors deployed in the classic Fleet semicircle. Less than forty meters beyond their positions, the roof of the Dorm itself shone in the sun. Awfully close, Felix thought. Awfully damned close. Shoen raced past him to the knot of warriors around her friend Ali.

“Is that it?” asked a shy and gentle voice from over his shoulder.

He glanced at Kent briefly. “That’s it,” he replied. Kent was watching the Dorm. “I don’t see any ants,” he offered.

“Good.”

“Felix!” Shoen called, waving him toward the group. Two of the other five scouts were already there. “You’re being drafted,” she explained. She indicated the other scouts. “Ali, Colonel Khuddar, wants you three to make a scan around the far side of the Dorm.”

Felix nodded to the other scouts. “Right now?”

“Right now,” she replied. “Report on Command Prime Frequency.”

“Okay.” He started off with the others.

“See you later, Felix,” Kent called cheerfully.

Felix paused, regarded the huge blue suit. “See ya,” he managed.

They found nothing new on the scan. The Dorm was situated in the middle of a large depression on a relatively flat plain between several sections of maze. It looked to Felix as though it had recently been unearthed from a covering windstorm. He couldn’t see much more than the roof without approaching to the lip of the crater. One of the scouts suggested they do that very thing. Felix stared him into silence. It was plainly evident that neither of the other two scouts had seen Banshee, or ants, before. In fact, he soon discovered, none of the six scouts on the drop, besides him, had ever seen Banshee. None had ever worn scout suits before either. They were all from Militar, all green, and all thankful to Canada for getting them this chance to see “the real action.”

Felix groaned. He sent them back to the colonel after the brief sighting and went to find his own squad. He found them arranged at the southern end of the semicircular deployment, crouched behind a short bluff of a dune that made up the farthest extent of the ant’s unearthing efforts. Shoen wasn’t there. Curiously enough, Kent was.

So was Dominguez, looking fretful even through his faceplate.

“Too goddamned close, Felix,” he said at once.

“Hello again,” offered Kent in the same pleasant tone as before. Felix nodded to Kent, agreed with Dominguez. He regarded the overall deployment.

“What’s the idea, exactly?” Dominguez demanded. Felix shrugged. “They want to see if they can contain the first charge right here using our own crossfire.”

Dominguez stood up. “You’re joking!”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?” Kent wanted to know.

“What’s wrong???” Dominguez snapped angrily. Then, seeing it was Kent who had asked, he continued in a softer tone. “What’s wrong is that we’re too damned close to be just sitting here waiting for them.”

“We’ve got ‘em in our crossfire,” offered Kent hopefully.