The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera (14 page)

Suicide.
Amelia thought glumly.
Leading the crew past this is totally out of the question. But we can’t stay here! And we can’t go back into the swamp. It will kill us, as surely as the mantis patrol will kill us. Sooner or later we’ll run out of ammunition and then . . .

Chief Schumann did not want to contemplate what would happen then. Poor Sergeant Ladd had been the first to fall. She felt a desperate need to make his death count for something.

Dear God, I am so tired,
Amelia thought, as her eyes closed.

An indeterminate amount of time passed, and she drifted. At once present, yet not present. Her consciousness swirling away into nothingness.

The ground suddenly rumbled and rocked beneath her. Amelia sat up groggily, her mind racing to catch up with the action taking place around her. How long had she drifted off? What was happening now? The rest of the crew were also getting to their feet, the hot rays of New America’s yellow-dwarf home star blinding them slightly as they looked towards the horizon, and the source of the trembling.

A great mushroom of fire and debris spouted high into the air in the distance. Directly in front of the huge mantis ship.

Amelia stared dumbly at the sight, and crawled forward trying to understand what was happening. Then, a finger of fire seemed to fly from the sun itself and arc downward, towards the alien craft. Its shields flickered and sparkled. A third strike from the sky left a massive divot in the turf near where the first shot had fallen. Soil and smoke drifted. Another mushroom rose to join the first, and together they began floating away in the breeze.

Amelia scrambled back and grabbed at the satellite uplink Private Li still husbanded. She unfurled its umbrella-like dish, tying quickly in to her suit’s communications computer. Then she aimed the dish a few degrees off the limb of the sun, in the direction from which the tongue of fire had come, and pressed the HAIL key.

Moments ticked by, and then a sharp, clean transmission broke through.

The crew huddled close, and all listened as Amelia identified herself. It was not the communications officer of the
Aegean
who answered, but a tactical officer from the
Tycho Brahe,
one of the new, swift Fleet destroyers, specifically designed for stealth.

The voice from the
Brahe
was quick and to the point: those few Fleet ships that were still left were playing a hit-and-run game with the mantes out beyond the third asteroid belt. Most of the mantis ships had been drawn away as a result. But mantis reinforcements were expected from out-system, and the
Tycho Brahe
had been detailed to return and aid the very few recovery teams that had already been dispatched. New America was officially being abandoned. Any civilians or Fleet personnel still left alive were being picked up prior to the
Brahe
leaving for Earth.

“We’ve got a big mother of a mantis craft sitting right in front of us,” Amelia said. “You’re shooting at it, but not causing any damage.”

“The governor’s private entourage was downed a few kilometers from where you are,” said the
Brahe’s
tactical officer. “We’re trying to keep that beast diverted while we execute a pickup, copy?”

“Copy,” Chief Schumann said, and considered. The same shields that had stopped her missiles in orbit were stopping the
Brahe’s
kinetic kill strikes as well. They might very well be able to keep the mantis ship occupied while the governor got picked up, but that wouldn’t mean a damned thing for Amelia’s crew if they couldn’t hope for a recovery as well. The only way they were getting off-planet now was if something—or someone—found a way to get through those shields and neutralize the big bastard where it sat.

Might as well wish for the moon,
Amelia thought bitterly.

But then, there didn’t seem to be any ground troops active around the mantis ship. All of its attention seemed to be on the
Brahe
. Amelia watched for a few minutes while the mantis ship cracked off another round, and then another, and then still another. Each time it did, the air around the craft shimmered just briefly. At which point a small period of clarity could be discerned. As if the milky shielded air around the alien ship resolved into . . . emptiness.

“It has to drop its shields in order to fire,” Chief Schumann deduced, letting a small smile curl up the corners of her mouth for the first time since the invasion of New America began.

“We didn’t receive that, over?” said
Brahe.

“Never mind,” Amelia said into the satellite gadget. “Just keep up your firing pattern. I think I might have discovered a way to help you.”

And to possibly help my crew, too,
she thought.

Chief Schumann looked from face to weary face. They were all tired and worn down to the nub. There was no exhilaration of battle in their eyes. Just exhaustion. However, they pulled their weapons to the ready and waited.

“What you got in mind, Chief?” said Powell.

It was the first time he’d ever said that word to Amelia. In the past it had always been
ma’am.

Amelia did not want to throw all their lives away. She did not feel brave or heroic in the slightest. But she had come this far, and she owed it to Ladd to make a final push. Then, and only then, would the crew get their long-awaited dust-off.

And if they didn’t make it . . . well, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

The group leader and his forces were searching the small streams that flowed from a low rise of packed soil that overlooked the wetlands. Beyond, far in the distance, a mantis drop-pod super-carrier had landed, and was presently engaged with a human ship that drifted somewhere in a very low orbit, just out of reach of the mantis guns. At that altitude, the human ship must have been expending tremendous energy to loiter over the drop-pod carrier’s present ground coordinates.

The group leader signaled to the super-carrier, announcing his renewed intent to find and destroy the survivors of the crashed picket ship. The commander of the drop-pod super-carrier replied that he had no way to assist. Having emptied all of his troops on a human settlement far to the west, he’d set down in his present position to await further instructions, when the bombardment from the elusive human ship began.

How the human ship was evading the super-carrier’s targeting sensors was not known. Suffice to say it was difficult to get a lock on the human vessel; at least a lock which would last long enough to launch missiles. The super-carrier commander was therefore engaging the human ship until such a time that mantis capital ships could return from the asteroids, and clear the sky once more.

The super-carrier commander was fairly certain that a refugee crew of humans—armed with only rifles—could not do him any harm. The group leader was instructed to conduct his search and take care of the humans. The super-carrier commander would relay news of the group leader’s success to their superiors, when it was all over. There would be potential for advancement in such a victory. Perhaps even the possibility of mating.

The group leader shuddered with anticipated ecstasy.

Mating was reserved for males of significant rank and ability only. Never in his wildest imagination had he dared to think of such a thing. But now?

The group leader encouraged his depleted force to redouble its efforts. The humans could not hide forever. They would be found eventually. Oh yes, they would be found.

Loam and fire flew into the air as the mantis shields swept away another blow from the
Tycho Brahe.
Amelia and her group were now just a few hundred meters from the low rise upon which the alien craft sat. Like a great elongated egg—mated to a dozen smaller elongated eggs—it perched there: a shimmering dome of energy rippling above it in the blue-green sky, and great, thick landing pylons balancing it on the turf.

A concussion wave from the
Brahe’s
latest shot knocked Amelia’s crew flat, yet the great egg remained motionless amongst the maelstrom.

“We can’t go much further,” Corporal Powell said at Chief Schumann’s ear. “We’re pinned down here. By our own artillery, for hell’s sake.”

“I know that,” Amelia said back, “but there has got to be a way of getting in closer. We just have to time it right. When the
Brahe
hits, and when the mantis ship drops its sheilds for a shot. The real trick is going to be getting in without them seeing us.”

Both of them began to scan around for any conceivable natural form of cover, when Powell’s eyes fell upon the group of aliens floating towards them. It was a much smaller group than the one they’d faced before. Could it be the same mantes? Or a different patrol altogether?

Though still a very long way off, it was clear the mantes had spotted the crew.

So, it had come down to this. Caught, not even in the act . . .

Suddenly, an idea leapt into Chief Schumann’s head. She turned her gaze from the onrushing mantes to the great egg on the hill, then back to the mantes. A realization hit her like a bolt of lighting. Then she was ripping the last bandolier of squad gun shells from Powell’s back, and before he could protest, she was up and running.

Powell yelped, trying to pull her down, but she was too quick. The crew screamed after her as she tore past them, and then they were up on their own feet chasing after her, howling like Zulus.

“No, no, NO!” Amelia puffed into her headset. “Stay behind and give me cover! The mantis patrol will follow
me!
It’s the ship they’ll be protecting!!”

Powell and the others slowed and stopped.

It was true.

The mantis aliens—riding their discs—had turned away from the crew and were now zooming straight as an arrow at the shrinking figure of their commanding officer. Powell and the rest of the platoon watched in amazement as every last mantis ignored them and pursued Chief Schumann.

“Awright, you heard the lady!” The big corporal snarled. “Up and ready!”

Each of the crew dropped to one knee and raised his or her weapon up to the shoulder, telescopic sights whining as they focused on the retreating images of the mantes.

Rifles cracked to life, sending bullets into the cluster of aliens that were right on Schumann’s heels. The creatures broke, trying to avoid the incoming fire, but still maintained their pursuit. Powell, using the last free round for his squad gun, adjusted the weapon’s trajectory and drew a bead on the lead mantis.

The group leader died, as did three of its kindred. The dream of mating—so wonderful, so fleeting—was terminated in a hail of anti-personnel shrapnel.

Amelia Schumann’s ears pounded loudly as her heart forced blood to her brain. Her legs pumped like pistons, muscles burning, but running on pure adrenaline, while her lungs hurt with each ragged breath. The grass and weeds flowed under her feet in a blur, yet the distance to the mantis mother craft shrank ever so slowly. She could hear the hideous squeals of the cyborg bugs as they died behind her, and the reports of the crew’s weapons as they fired. She almost fell as one of Powell’s shells decimated the head of the pack. But desperation drove her onward.

Thus far no one had even put so much as a scratch in the alien ship. The
Brahe’s
rail guns were hurling everything short of nukes, and they ran off the egg’s shields like rainwater. Dissolving into nothingness. The only way anyone was going to get to that thing was to go right up to it and shove a shell up its ass. And Amelia had a whole bandolier of shells.

The drop-pod super-carrier commander watched as one of the bipedal creatures—still some distance away—destroyed the tactical group leader who was leading his patrol to defend the ship. The group leader had been on the heels of the smaller biped that now rushed toward the commander’s home. The commander had not given these humans enough credit. They’d proven to have remarkable tenacity, even when faced with overwhelming numbers and technology.

The commander tried to make contact with one of the other mantis troops in the patrol group, and impose his will upon it. But the patrol was too single-minded in their focus now. The little human who ran was clearly all that mattered to them.

The little alien biped sped towards the commander’s armored battle fortress.

Deciding that caution was best, the commander temporarily took his attention away from the pesty human ship in low orbit, and re-concentrated his weapons systems on the planet’s surface around the ship. There were guns for anti-ground attack too. All he needed to do was drop the shield system long enough to squeaze off a few bursts, and the running human would be finished.

Not like a single little alien could do much to hurt the drop-pod super-carrier anyway. The little runner seemed almost cute, in a pathetic manner. The commander regretted that it would be too easy.

Amelia saw the guns emerge, and she leapt violently to her left as a burst fried the air above her head and smashed into the ground several meters behind. Blinded with fear, she ran onward, tears streaming from her eyes, and her breath coming in gasps. The alien craft was less than twenty meters away now. Just a few more meters was all she would need.