New York Times bestselling author David Weber is frequently compared to C. S. Forester, the creator of Horatio Hornblower, and is one of the most acclaimed authors of military science fiction alive—although he has also written everything from space opera to epic fantasy. He is best known as the author of the long-running series of novels and stories detailing the exploits of Honor Harrington, perhaps the most popular military SF series of all time, consisting of eleven novels, including On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, Field of Dishonor, In Enemy Hands, Ashes of Victory, and others, and the Honor Harrington stories recently collected in Worlds of Weber: Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington and Other Stories. In addition, he has allowed other authors to write in the Honor Harrington universe, including S. M. Stirling, Eric Flint, David Drake, Jane Lindskold, and Timothy Zahn. Weber has also written the War God epic fantasy series, consisting of Oath of Swords, The War God’s Own, and Wind Rider’s Oath, the four-volume Dahak series, the four-volume Starfire series (with Steve White), the four-volume Empire of Man series (with John Ringo), and the two-volume Assiti Shards series (with Eric Flint), as well as stand-alone novels such as Path of the Fury, The Apocalypse Troll, The Excalibur Alternative, Old Soldiers, and In Fury Born. His most recent books include the three-volume Safehold series that started in 2007 with Off Armageddon Reef, the two-volume Multiverse series (with Linda Evans), the Honor Harrington collection, Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington, the new Safehold novel, By Heresies Distressed, and Storm from the Shadows. David Weber lives in Greenville, South Carolina.
In the complex and suspenseful novella that follows, he shows us a battered and bloodied Earth brought almost to its knees by a ruthless and overwhelming alien invasion, except for some scattered and isolated warriors who aren’t comfortable on their knees and undertake the defense of the human race—and, in the process, learn that they have some unexpected resources to call upon in the fight.
* * * *
Out of the Dark
I
The attention signal whistled on Fleet Commander Thikair’s communicator.
He would always remember how prosaic and...normal it had sounded, but at that moment, as he looked up from yet another ream of deadly dull paperwork, when he still didn’t know, he felt an undeniable sense of relief for the distraction. Then he pressed the acceptance key, and that sense of relief vanished when he recognized his flagship’s commander’s face...and his worried expression.
“What is it, Ahzmer?” he asked, wasting no time on formal greetings.
“Sir, I’m afraid the scout ships have just reported a rather...disturbing discovery,” Ship Commander Ahzmer replied.
“Yes?” Thikair’s ears cocked inquisitively as Ahzmer paused.
“Sir, they’re picking up some fairly sophisticated transmissions.”
“Transmissions?” For a moment or two, it didn’t really register, but then Thikair’s eyes narrowed and his pelt bristled. “How sophisticated?” he demanded much more sharply.
“Very, I’m afraid, sir,” Ahzmer said unhappily. “We’re picking up digital and analog with some impressive bandwidth. It’s at least Level Three activity, sir. Possibly even—” Ahzmer’s ears flattened. “—Level Two.”
Thikair’s ears went even flatter than the ship commander’s, and he felt the tips of his canines creeping into sight. He shouldn’t have let his expression give so much away, but he and Ahzmer had known one another for decades, and it was obvious the other’s thoughts had already paralleled his own.
The fleet had reemerged into normal-space two days ago, after eight standard years, subjective, of cryogenic sleep. The flight had lasted some sixteen standard years, by the rest of the galaxy’s clocks, since the best velocity modifier even in hyper allowed a speed of no more than five or six times that of light in normal-space terms. The capital ships and transports were still a week of normal-space travel short of the objective, sliding in out of the endless dark like huge, sleek hasthar, claws and fangs still hidden, though ready. But he’d sent the much lighter scout ships, whose lower tonnages made their normal-space drives more efficient, ahead to take a closer look at their target. Now he found himself wishing he hadn’t.
Stop that, he told himself sternly. Your ignorance wouldn’t have lasted much longer, anyway. And you’d still have to decide what to do. At least this way you have some time to start thinking about it!
His mind started to work again, and he sat back, one six-fingered hand reaching down to groom his tail while he thought.
The problem was that the Hegemony Council’s authorization for this operation was based on the survey team’s report that the objective’s intelligent species had achieved only a Level Six civilization. The other two systems on Thikair’s list were both classified as Level Five civilizations, although one had crept close to the boundary between Level Five and Level Four. It had been hard to get the Council to sign off on those two. Indeed, the need to argue the Shongari’s case so strenuously before the Council was the reason the mission had been delayed long enough to telescope into a three-system operation. But this system’s “colonization” had been authorized almost as an afterthought, the sort of mission any of the Hegemony’s members might have mounted. They’d certainly never agreed to the conquest of a Level Three, far less a Level Two! In fact, anything that had attained Level Two came under protectorate status until it attained Level One and became eligible for Hegemony membership in its own right or (as at least half of them managed) destroyed itself first.
Cowards, Thikair thought resentfully. Dirt-grubbers. Weed-eaters!
The Shongari were the only carnivorous species to have attained hyper-capability. Almost 40 percent of the Hegemony’s other member races were grass-eaters, who regarded the Shongari’s dietary habits as barbarous, revolting, even horrendous. And even most of the Hegemony’s omnivores were...uncomfortable around Thikair’s people.
Their own precious Constitution had forced them to admit the Shongari when the Empire reached the stars, but they’d never been happy about it. In fact, Thikair had read several learned monographs arguing that his people’s existence was simply one of those incredible flukes that (unfortunately, in the obvious opinion of the authors of those monographs) had to happen occasionally. What they ought to have done, if they’d had the common decency to follow the example of other species with similarly violent, psychopathically aggressive dispositions, was blow themselves back into the Stone Age as soon as they discovered atomic fission.
Unhappily for those racist bigots, Thikair’s people hadn’t. Which didn’t prevent the Council from regarding them with scant favor. Or from attempting to deny them their legitimate prerogatives.
It’s not as if we were the only species to seek colonies. There’s the Barthon, and the Kreptu, just for starters. And what about the Liatu? They’re grass-eaters, but they’ve got over fifty colony systems!
Thikair made himself stop grooming his tail and inhale deeply. Dredging up old resentments wouldn’t solve this problem, and if he was going to be completely fair (which he really didn’t want to be, especially in the Liatu’s case), the fact that they’d been roaming the galaxy for the better part of sixty-two thousand standard years as compared to the Shongari’s nine hundred might help to explain at least some of the imbalance.
Besides, that imbalance is going to change, he reminded himself grimly.
There was a reason the Empire had established no less than eleven colonies even before Thikair had departed, and why the Shongari Council representatives had adamantly defended their right to establish those colonies even under the Hegemony’s ridiculous restrictions.
No one could deny any race the colonization of any planet with no native sapient species. Unfortunately, there weren’t all that many habitable worlds, and they tended to be located bothersomely far apart, even for hyper-capable civilizations. Worse, a depressing number of them already had native sapients living on them. Under the Hegemony Constitution, colonizing those worlds required Council approval, which wasn’t as easy to come by as it would have been in a more reasonable universe.
Thikair was well aware that many of the Hegemony’s other member races believed the Shongari’s “perverted” warlike nature (and even more “perverted” honor codes) explained their readiness to expand through conquest. And, to be honest, they had a point. But the real reason, which was never discussed outside the Empire’s inner councils, was that an existing infrastructure, however crude, made the development of a colony faster and easier. And, even more important, the...acquisition of less advanced but trainable species provided useful increases in the Empire’s labor force. A labor force that—thanks to the Constitution’s namby-pamby emphasis on members’ internal autonomy—could be kept properly in its place on any planet belonging to the Empire.
And a labor force that was building the sinews of war the Empire would require on the day it told the rest of the Hegemony what it could do with all of its demeaning restrictions.
None of which did much about his current problem.
“You say it’s possibly a Level Two,” he said. “Why do you think that?”
“Given all the EM activity and the sophistication of so many of the signals, the locals are obviously at least Level Three, sir.” Ahzmer didn’t seem to be getting any happier, Thikair observed. “In fact, preliminary analysis suggests they’ve already developed fission power—possibly even fusion. But while there are at least some fission power sources on the planet, there seem to be very few of them. In fact, most of their power generation seems to come from burning hydrocarbons! Why would any civilization that was really Level Two do anything that stupid?”
The fleet commander’s ears flattened in a frown. Like the ship commander, he found it difficult to conceive of any species stupid enough to continue consuming irreplaceable resources in hydrocarbon-based power generation if it no longer had to. Ahzmer simply didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, because if this genuinely was a Level Two civilization, it would be forever off-limits for colonization.
“Excuse me, Sir,” Ahzmer said, made bold by his own worries, “but what are we going to do?”
“I can’t answer that question just yet, Ship Commander,” Thikair replied a bit more formally than usual when it was just the two of them. “But I can tell you what we’re not going to do, and that’s let these reports panic us into any sort of premature conclusions or reactions. We’ve spent eight years, subjective, to get here, and three months reviving our personnel from cryo. We’re not going to simply cross this system off our list and move on to the next one until we’ve thoroughly considered what we’ve learned about it and evaluated all of our options. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. In the meantime, however, we have to assume we may well be facing surveillance systems considerably in advance of anything we’d anticipated. Under the circumstances, I want the fleet taken to a covert stance. Full-scale emissions control and soft recon mode, Ship Commander.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll pass the order immediately.”
* * * *
II
Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky climbed out of the MRAP, stretched, collected his personal weapon, and nodded to the driver.
“Go find yourself some coffee. I don’t really expect this to take very long, but you know how good I am at predicting things like that.”
“Gotcha, Top,” the corporal behind the wheel agreed with a grin. He stepped on the gas and the MRAP (officially the Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicle) moved away, headed for the mess tent at the far end of the position, while Buchevsky started hiking toward the sandbagged command bunker perched on top of the sharp-edged ridge.
The morning air was thin and cold, but less than two weeks from the end of his current deployment, Buchevsky was used to that. It wasn’t exactly as if it was the first time he’d been here, either. And while many of Bravo Company’s Marines considered it the armpit of the universe, Buchevsky had seen substantially worse during the seventeen years since he’d taken a deceitfully honest-faced recruiter at his word.
“Oh, the places you’ll go—the things you’ll see!” the recruiter in question had told him enthusiastically. And Stephen Buchevsky had indeed been places and seen things since. Along the way, he’d been wounded in action no less than six times, and, at age thirty-five, his marriage had just finished coming rather messily unglued, mostly over the issue of lengthy, repeat deployments. He walked with a slight limp the therapists hadn’t been able to completely eradicate, the ache in his right hand was a faithful predictor of rain or snow, and the scar that curved up his left temple was clearly visible through his buzz-cut hair, especially against his dark skin. But while he sometimes entertained fantasies about looking up the recruiter who’d gotten him to sign on the dotted line, he’d always reupped.
Which probably says something unhealthy about my personality, he reflected as he paused to gaze down at the narrow twisting road far below.
On his first trip to sunny Afghanistan, he’d spent his time at Camp Rhine down near Kandahar. That was when he’d acquired the limp, too. For the next deployment, he’d been located up near Ghanzi, helping to keep an eye on the A01 highway from Kandahar to Kabul. That had been less...interesting than his time in Kandahar Province, although he’d still managed to take a rocket splinter in the ass, which had been good for another gold star on the purple heart ribbon (and unmerciful “humor” from his so-called friends). But then the Poles had taken over in Ghanzi, and so, for his third Afghanistan deployment, he and the rest of First Battalion, Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, had been sent back to Kandahar, where things had been heating up again. They’d stayed there, too...until they’d gotten new orders, at least. The situation in Paktika Province—the one the Poles had turned down in favor of Ghanzi because Paktika was so much more lively—had also worsened, and Buchevsky and Bravo Company had been tasked as backup for the battalion of the Army’s 508th Parachute Infantry in the area while the Army tried to pry loose some of its own people for the job.
Despite all of the emphasis on “jointness,” it hadn’t made for the smoothest relationship imaginable. The fact that everyone recognized it as a stopgap and Bravo as only temporary visitors (they’d been due to deploy back to the States in less than three months when they got the call) didn’t help, either. They’d arrived without the logistic support which would normally have accompanied them, and despite the commonality of so much of their equipment, that had still put an additional strain on the 508th’s supply services. But the Army types had been glad enough to see them and they’d done their best to make the “jarheads” welcome.
The fact that the Vermont-sized province shared six hundred miles of border with Pakistan, coupled with the political changes in Pakistan and an upsurge in opium production under the Taliban’s auspices (odd how the fundamentalists’ one-time bitter opposition to the trade had vanished now that they needed cash to support their operations), had prevented Company B from feeling bored. Infiltration and stepped-up attacks on the still shaky Afghan Army units in the province hadn’t helped, although all things considered, Buchevsky preferred Paktika to his 2004 deployment to Iraq. Or his most recent trip to Kandahar, for that matter.
Now he looked down through the thin mountain air at the twisting trail Second Platoon was here to keep a close eye on. All the fancy recon assets in the world couldn’t provide the kind of constant presence and eyes-on surveillance needed to interdict traffic through a place like this. It was probably easier than the job Buchevsky’s father had faced trying to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail—at least his people could see a lot farther!—but that wasn’t saying very much, all things taken together. And he didn’t recall his dad’s mentioning anything about lunatic martyrs out to blow people up in job lots for the glory of God.
He gave himself a shake. He had a lot on his plate organizing the Company’s rotation home, and he turned back toward the command bunker to inform Gunnery Sergeant Wilson that his platoon’s Army relief would begin arriving within forty-eight hours. It was time to get the turnover organized and Second Platoon back to its FOB to participate in all the endless paperwork and equipment checks involved in any company movement.
Not that Buchevsky expected anyone to complain about this move.
* * * *
The gathering in Star of Empires conference room consisted of Thikair’s three squadron commanders, his ground force commander, and Base Commander Shairez. Despite the fact that Shairez was technically junior to Ground Force Commander Thairys, she was the expedition’s senior base commander, and as such, she, too, reported directly to Thikair.
Rumors about the scout ships’ findings had spread, of course. It would have required divine intervention to prevent that! Still, if it turned out there was no landing after all, it would scarcely matter, would it?
“What is your interpretation of the scout ships’ data, Base Commander?” Thikair asked Shairez without bothering to call the meeting formally to order. Most of them seemed surprised by his disregard for protocol, and Shairez didn’t look especially pleased to be the first person called upon. But she could scarcely have been surprised by the question itself; the reason she was the expedition’s senior base commander was her expertise in dealing with other sapient species, after all.
“I’ve considered the data, including that from the stealthed orbital platforms, carefully, Fleet Commander,” she replied. “I’m afraid my analysis confirms Ship Commander Ahzmer’s original fears. I would definitely rate the local civilization at Level Two.”
Unhappy at being called upon or not, she hadn’t flinched, Thikair thought approvingly.
“Expand upon that, please,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Shairez tapped the virtual clawpad of her personal computer and her eyes unfocused slightly as she gazed at the memos projected directly upon her retinas.
“First, sir, this species has developed nuclear power. Of course, their technology is extremely primitive, and it would appear they’re only beginning to experiment with fusion, but there are significant indications that their general tech level is much more capable than we would ever anticipate out of anyone with such limited nuclear capacity. Apparently, for some reason known only to themselves, these people—I use the term loosely, of course— have chosen to cling to hydrocarbon-fueled power generation well past the point at which they could have replaced it with nuclear generation.”
“That’s absurd!” Squadron Commander Jainfar objected. The crusty old space dog was Thikair’s senior squadron commander and as bluntly uncompromising as one of his dreadnoughts’ main batteries. Now he grimaced as Thikair glanced at him, one ear cocked interrogatively.
“Apologies, Base Commander,” the squadron commander half growled. “I don’t doubt your data. I just find it impossible to believe any species that stupid could figure out how to use fire in the first place!”
“It is unique in our experience, Squadron Commander,” Shairez acknowledged. “And according to the master data banks, it’s also unique in the experience of every other member of the Hegemony. Nonetheless, they do possess virtually all of the other attributes of a Level Two culture.”
She raised one hand, ticking off points on her claws as she continued.
“They have planetwide telecommunications. Although they’ve done little to truly exploit space, they have numerous communications and navigational satellites. Their military aircraft are capable of trans-sonic flight regimes, they make abundant use of advanced—well, advanced for any pre-Hegemony culture—composites, and we’ve observed experiments with early-generation directed energy weapons, as well. Their technological capabilities are not distributed uniformly about their planet, but they’re spreading rapidly. I would be very surprised—assuming they survive—if they haven’t evolved an effectively unified planetary government within the next two or three generations. Indeed, they might manage it even sooner, if their ridiculous rate of technological advancement is any guide!”
The silence around the conference table was profound. Thikair let it linger for several moments, then leaned back in his chair.
“How would you account for the discrepancy between what we’re now observing and the initial survey report?”
“Sir, I can’t account for it,” she said frankly. “I’ve doublechecked and triplechecked the original report. There’s no question that it was accurate at the time it was made, yet now we find this. Somehow, this species has made the jump from animal transport, wind power, and crude firearms to this level more than three times as rapidly as any other species. And please note that I said ‘any other species.’ The one I had in mind were the Ugartu.”
The fleet commander saw more than one grimace at that. The Ugartu had never attained Hegemony membership ... since they’d turned their home star system into a radioactive junkyard first. The Council of the time had breathed a quiet but very, very profound sigh of relief when it happened, too, given that the Ugartu had been advancing technologically at twice the galactic norm. Which meant these people . . .
“Is it possible the initial survey team broke procedure, sir?” Ship Commander Ahzmer asked, his expression troubled. Thikair glanced at him, and his flagship’s commander flicked both ears. “I’m just wondering if the surveyors might inadvertently have made direct contact with the locals? Accidentally given them a leg up?”
“Possible, but unlikely, Ship Commander,” Ground Force Commander Thairys said. “I wish I didn’t have to say that, since I find this insanely rapid advancement just as disturbing as you do. Unfortunately, the original survey was conducted by the Barthonii.”
Several of Thikair’s officers looked as if they’d just smelled something unpleasant. Actually, from the perspective of any self-respecting carnivore, the Barthonii smelled simply delicious, but the timid plant-eaters were one of the Shongari’s most severe critics. And they were also heavily represented in the Hegemony’s survey forces, despite their inherent timidity, because of their fanatic support for the Council regulations limiting contact with inferior races.
“I’m afraid I agree with the Ground Force Commander,” Shairez said.
“And it wouldn’t matter if that were what had happened,” Thikair pointed out. “The Constitution doesn’t care where a species’ technology came from. What matters is the level it’s attained, however it got there”
“And the way the Council will react to it,” Jainfar said sourly, and ears moved in agreement all around the table.
“I’m afraid Squadron Commander Jainfar has a point, sir.” Thairys sighed heavily. “It was hard enough getting approval for our other objectives, and they’re far less advanced than these people have turned out to be. Or I hope to Dainthar’s Hounds they still are, at any rate!”
More ears waved agreement, Thikair’s among them. However aberrant, this species’ development clearly put it well outside the parameters of the Council’s authorization. However . . .
“I’m well aware of just how severely our discoveries have altered the circumstances envisioned by our mission orders,” he said. “On the other hand, there are a few additional points I believe bear consideration.”
Most of them looked at him with obvious surprise, but Thairys’ tail curled up over the back of his chair and his ears flattened in speculation.
“First, one of the points I noticed when I reviewed the first draft of Base Commander Shairez’s report was that these people not only have remarkably few nuclear power stations, but for a species of their level, they also have remarkably few nuclear weapons. Only their major political powers seem to have them in any quantity, and even they have very limited numbers, compared to their non-nuclear capabilities. Of course, they are omnivores, but the numbers of weapons are still strikingly low. Lower even than for many weed-eaters at a comparable level. That becomes particularly apparent given the fact that there are fairly extensive military operations under way over much of the planet. In particular, several more advanced nation-states are conducting operations against adversaries who obviously don’t even approach their own capabilities. Yet even though those advanced—I’m speaking relatively, of course—nation-states have nuclear arsenals and their opponents, who do not, would be incapable of retaliation, they’ve chosen not to employ them. Not only that, but they must have at least some ability to produce bio-weapons, yet we’ve seen no evidence of their use. For that matter, we haven’t even poison gas or neurotoxins!”
He let that settle in, then leaned forward once more to rest his folded hands on the conference table.
“This would appear to be a highly peculiar species in several respects,” he said quietly. “Their failure to utilize the most effective weapons available to them, however, suggests that they’re almost as lacking in...military pragmatism as many of the Hegemony’s weed-eaters. That being the case, I find myself of the opinion that they might well make a suitable...client species, after all.”
The silence in the conference room was absolute as the rest of Thikair’s listeners began to realize what Thairys had already guessed.
“I realize,” the Fleet Commander continued, “that to proceed with this operation would violate the spirit of the Council’s authorization. However, after careful review, I’ve discovered that it contains no specific reference to the attained level of the local sapients. In other words, the letter of the authorizing writ wouldn’t preclude our continuing. No doubt someone like the Barthonii or Liatu still might choose to make a formal stink afterwards, but consider the possible advantages.”
“Advantages, sir?” Ahzmer asked, and Thikair’s eyes gleamed.
“Oh, yes, Ship Commander,” he said softly. “This species may be bizarre in many ways, and they obviously don’t understand the realities of war, but clearly something about them has supported a phenomenal rate of advancement. I realize their actual capabilities would require a rather more ... vigorous initial strike than we’d anticipated. And even with heavier pre-landing preparation, our casualties might well be somewhat higher than projected, but, fortunately, we have ample redundancy for dealing even with this sort of target, thanks to our follow-on objectives in Syk and Jormau. We have ample capability to conquer any planet-bound civilization, even if it has attained Level Two, and, to be honest, I think it would be very much worthwhile to concentrate on this system even if it means writing off the seizure of one—or even both—of the others.”
One or two of them looked as if they wanted to protest, but he flattened his ears, his voice even softer.
“I realize how that may sound, but think about this. Suppose we were able to integrate these people—these ‘humans’—into our labor force. Put them to work on our research projects. Suppose we were able to leverage their talent for that sort of thing to quietly push our own tech level to something significantly in advance of the rest of the Hegemony? How do you think that would ultimately affect the Emperor’s plans and schedule?”
The silence was just as complete, but it was totally different now, and he smiled thinly.
“It’s been three centuries—over five hundred of these people’s years— since the Hegemony’s first contact with them. If the Hegemony operates to its usual schedule, it will be at least two more centuries—almost four hundred local years—before any non-Shongari observation team reaches this system again...and that will be counting from the point at which we return to announce our success. If we delay that return for a few decades, even as much as a century or so, it’s unlikely anyone would be particularly surprised, given that they expect us to be gathering in three entire star systems.” He snorted harshly. “In fact, it would probably amuse the weed-eaters to think we’d found the operation more difficult than anticipated! But if we chose instead to spend that time subjugating these “humans” and then educating their young to Hegemony standards, who knows what sort of R & D they might accomplish before that happens?”
“The prospect is exciting, sir,” Thairys said slowly. “Yet I fear it rests upon speculations whose accuracy can’t be tested without proceeding. If it should happen that they prove less accurate than hoped for, we would have, as you say, violated the spirit of the Council’s authorizing writ for little return. Personally, I believe you may well be correct and that the possibility should clearly be investigated. Yet if the result is less successful than we might wish, would we not risk exposing the Empire to retaliation from other members of the Hegemony?”
“A valid point,” Thikair acknowledged. “First, however, the Emperor would be able to insist—truthfully—that the decision was mine, not his, and that he never authorized anything of the sort. I believe it’s most probable the Hegemony Judiciary would settle for penalizing me, as an individual, rather than recommending retaliation against the Empire generally. Of course, it’s possible some of you, as my senior officers, might suffer, as well. On the other hand, I believe the risk would be well worth taking and would ultimately redound to the honor of our clans.
“There is, however, always another possibility. The Council won’t expect a Level Three or Level Two civilization any more than we did. If it turns out after a local century or so that these ‘humans’ aren’t working out, the simplest solution may well be to simply exterminate them and destroy enough of their cities and installations to conceal the level of technology they’d actually attained before our arrival. It would, of course, be dreadfully unfortunate if one of our carefully focused and limited bio-weapons somehow mutated into something which swept the entire surface of the planet with a lethal plague, but, as we all know,” he bared his canines in a smile, “accidents sometimes happen.”
* * * *
It was unfortunate international restrictions on the treatment of POWs didn’t also apply to what could be done to someone’s own personnel, Stephen Buchevsky reflected as he failed—again—to find a comfortable way to sit in the mil-spec “seat” in the big C-17 Globemaster’s Spartan belly. If he’d been a jihadi, he’d have spilled his guts within an hour if they strapped him into one of these!
Actually, he supposed a lot of the problem stemmed from his six feet and four inches of height and the fact that he was built more like an offensive lineman than like a basketball player. Nothing short of a first-class commercial seat was really going to fit someone his size, and expecting the U.S. military to fly an E-9 commercial first-class would have been about as realistic as his expecting to be drafted as a presidential nominee. Or perhaps even a bit less realistic. And, if he wanted to be honest, he should also admit that what he disliked even more was the absence of windows. There was something about spending hours sealed in an alloy tube while it vibrated its noisy way through the sky that made him feel not just enclosed, but trapped.
Well, Stevie, he told himself, if you’re that unhappy, you could always ask the pilot to let you off to swim the rest of the way!
The thought made him chuckle, and he checked his watch. Kandahar to Aviano, Italy, was roughly three thousand miles, which exceeded the C-17’s normal range by a couple of hundred miles. Fortunately—although that might not be exactly the right word for it—he’d caught a rare flight returning to the States almost empty. The Air Force needed the big bird badly somewhere, so they wanted it home in the shortest possible time, and with additional fuel and a payload of only thirty or forty people, it could make the entire Kandahar-to-Aviano leg without refueling. Which meant he could look forward to a six-hour flight, assuming they didn’t hit any unfavorable winds.
He would have preferred to make the trip with the rest of his people, but he’d ended up dealing with the final paperwork for the return of the Company’s equipment. Just another of those happy little chores that fell the way of its senior noncom. On the other hand, and despite the less-than-luxurious accommodations aboard his aerial chariot, his total transit time would be considerably shorter, thanks to this flight’s fortuitous availability. And one thing he’d learned to do during his years of service was to sleep anywhere, anytime.
Even here, he thought, squirming into what he could convince himself was a marginally more comfortable position and closing his eyes. Even here.
* * * *
The sudden, violent turn to starboard yanked Buchevsky up out of his doze, and he started to shove himself upright in his uncomfortable seat as the turn became even steeper. The redoubled, rumbling whine from the big transport’s engines told him the pilot had increased power radically as well, and every one of his instincts told him he wouldn’t like the reason for all of that if he’d known what it was.
Which didn’t keep him from wanting to know anyway. In fact— “Listen up, everybody!” A harsh, strain-flattened voice rasped over the aircraft’s intercom. “We’ve got a little problem, and we’re diverting from Aviano, ‘cause Aviano isn’t there anymore.”
Buchevsky’s eyes widened. Surely whoever it was on the other end of the intercom had to be joking, his mind tried to insist. But he knew better. There was too much stark shock—and fear—in that voice.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” the pilot continued. “We’ve lost our long-ranged comms, but we’re getting reports on the civilian bands about low-yield nukes going off all over the goddamned place. From what we’re picking up, someone’s kicking the shit out of Italy, Austria, Spain, and every NATO base in the entire Med, and—”
The voice broke off for a moment, and Buchevsky heard the harsh sound of an explosively cleared throat. Then—
“And we’ve got an unconfirmed report that Washington is gone, people. Just fucking gone.”
Something kicked Buchevsky in the belly. Not Washington. Washington couldn’t be gone. Not with Trish and the girls—
“I don’t have a goddammed clue who’s doing this, or why,” the pilot said, “but we need someplace to set down, fast. We’re about eighty miles north-northwest of Podgorica, in Montenegro, so I’m diverting inland. Let’s hope to hell I can find someplace to put this bird down in one piece...and that nobody on the ground thinks we had anything to do with this shit!”
* * * *
Thikair stood on Star of Empires flag bridge, studying the gigantic images of the planet below. Glowing icons indicated cities and major military bases his kinetic bombardment had removed from existence. There were a lot of them—more than he’d really counted on—and he clasped his hands behind him and concentrated on radiating total satisfaction.
And you damned well ought to be satisfied, Thikair. Taking down an entire Level Two civilization in less than two local days has to be some sort of galactic record!
Which, another little voice reminded him, was because doing anything of the sort directly violated the Hegemony Constitution.
He managed not to grimace, but it wasn’t easy. When this brilliant brainstorm had occurred to him, he hadn’t fully digested just how big and thoroughly inhabited this planet, this...“Earth” of the “humans,” truly was. He wondered now if he hadn’t let himself fully digest it because he’d known that if he had, he would have changed his mind.
Oh stop it! So there were more of them on the damned planet, and you killed—what? Two billion of them, wasn’t it? There’re plenty more where they came from—they breed like damned garshu, after all! And you told Ahzmer and the others you’re willing to kill off the entire species if it doesn’t work out. So fretting about a little extra breakage along the way is pretty pointless, wouldn’t you say?
Of course it was. In fact, he admitted, his biggest concern was how many major engineering works these humans had created. There was no question that he could exterminate them if he had to, but he was beginning to question whether it would be possible to eliminate the physical evidence of the level their culture had attained after all.
Well, we’ll just have to keep it from coming to that, won’t we?
“Pass the word to Ground Commander Thairys,” he told Ship Commander Ahzmer quietly, never taking his eyes from those glowing icons. “I want his troops on the ground as quickly as possible. And make sure they have all the fire support they need.”
* * * *
Steven Buchevsky stood by the road and wondered—again—just where the hell they were.
Their pilot hadn’t managed to find any friendly airfields, after all. He’d done his best, but all but out of fuel, with his communications out, the GPS network down, and kiloton-range explosions dotting the face of Europe, his options had been limited. He’d managed to find a stretch of two-lane road that would almost do, and he’d set the big plane down with his last few gallons of fuel.
The C-17 had been designed for rough-field landings, although its designers hadn’t had anything quite that rough in mind. Still, it would have worked if the road hadn’t crossed a culvert he hadn’t been able to see from the air. He’d lost both main gear when it collapsed under the plane’s 140-ton weight. Worse, he hadn’t lost the gear simultaneously, and the aircraft had gone totally out of control. When it stopped careening across the rough, mountainous valley, the entire forward fuselage had become crushed and tangled wreckage.
Neither pilot had survived, and the only other two officers aboard were among the six passengers who’d been killed, which left Buchevsky the ranking member of their small group. Two more passengers were brutally injured, and he’d gotten them out of the wreckage and into the best shelter he could contrive, but they didn’t have anything resembling a doctor.
Neither did they have much in the way of equipment. Buchevsky had his personal weapons, as did six of the others, but that was it, and none of them had very much ammunition. Not surprisingly, he supposed, since they weren’t supposed to have any on board. Fortunately (in this case, at least) it was extraordinarily difficult to separate troops returning from a combat zone from at least some ammo.
There were also at least some first-aid supplies—enough to set the broken arms three of the passengers suffered and make at least a token attempt at patching up the worst injured—but that was about it, and he really, really wished he could at least talk to somebody higher up the command hierarchy than he was. Unfortunately, he was it.
Which, he thought mordantly, at least it gives me something to keep me busy.
And it also gave him something besides Washington to worry about. He’d argued with Trish when his ex decided to take Shania and Yvonne to live with her mother, but that had been because of the crime rate and cost of living in D.C. He’d never, ever, worried about—
He pushed that thought aside, again, fleeing almost gratefully back to the contemplation of the clusterfuck he had to deal with somehow.
Gunnery Sergeant Calvin Meyers was their group’s second-ranking member, which made him Buchevsky’s XO ... to the obvious disgruntlement of Sergeant Francisco Ramirez, the senior Army noncom. But if Ramirez resented the fact that they’d just become a Marine-run show, he was keeping his mouth shut. Probably because he recognized what an unmitigated pain in the ass Buchevsky’s job had just become.
They had a limited quantity of food, courtesy of the aircraft’s overwater survival package, but none of them had any idea of their exact position, no one spoke Serbian (assuming they were in Serbia), they had no maps, they were totally out of communication, and the last they’d heard, the entire planet seemed to be succumbing to spontaneous insanity.
Aside from that, it ought to be a piece of cake, he reflected sardonically. Of course—
“I think you’d better listen to this, Top,” a voice said, and Buchevsky turned toward the speaker.
“Listen to what, Gunny?”
“We’re getting something really weird on the radio, Top.”
Buchevsky’s eyes narrowed. He’d never actually met Meyers before this flight, but the compact, strongly built, slow-talking Marine from the Appalachian coal fields had struck him as a solid, unflappable sort. At the moment, however, Meyers was pasty-pale, and his hands shook as he extended the emergency radio they’d recovered from the wrecked fuselage.
Meyers turned the volume back up, and Buchevsky’s eyes narrowed even further. The voice coming from the radio sounded...mechanical. Artificial. It carried absolutely no emotions or tonal emphasis.
That was the first thing that struck him. Then he jerked back half a step, as if he’d just been punched, as what the voice was saying registered.
“—am Fleet Commander Thikair of the Shongari Empire, and I am addressing your entire planet on all frequencies. Your world lies helpless before us. Our kinetic energy weapons have destroyed your major national capitals, your military bases, your warships. We can, and will, conduct additional kinetic strikes wherever necessary. You will submit and become productive and obedient subjects of the Empire, or you will be destroyed, as your governments and military forces have already been destroyed.”
Buchevsky stared at the radio, his mind cowering back from the black, bottomless pit that yawned suddenly where his family once had been. Trish....Despite the divorce, shed still been an almost physical part of him. And Shania...Yvonne....Shannie was only six, for God’s sake! Yvonne was even younger. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t!
The mechanical-sounding English ceased. There was a brief surge of something that sounded like Chinese, and then it switched to Spanish.
“It’s saying the same thing it just said in English,” Sergeant Ramirez said flatly, and Buchevsky shook himself. He closed his eyes tightly, squeezing them against the tears he would not—could not—shed. That dreadful abyss loomed inside him, trying to suck him under, and part of him wanted nothing else in the world but to let the undertow take him. But he couldn’t. He had responsibilities. The job.
“Do you believe this shit, Top?” Meyers said hoarsely.
“I don’t know,” Buchevsky admitted. His own voice came out sounding broken and rusty, and he cleared his throat harshly. “I don’t know,” he managed in a more normal-sounding tone. “Or, at least, I know I don’t want to believe it, Gunny.”
“Me neither,” another voice said. This one was a soprano, and it belonged to Staff Sergeant Michelle Truman, the Air Force’s senior surviving representative. Buchevsky raised an eyebrow at her, grateful for the additional distraction from the pain trying to tear the heart right out of him, and the auburn-haired staff sergeant grimaced.
“I don’t want to believe it,” she said, “but think about it. We already knew somebody’s seemed to’ve been blowing the shit out of just about everybody. And who the hell had that many nukes?” She shook her head. “I’m no expert on kinetic weapons, but I’ve read a little science fiction, and I’d say an orbital kinetic strike would probably look just like a nuke to the naked eye. So, yeah, probably if this bastard is telling the truth, nukes are exactly what any survivors would’ve been reporting.”
“Oh, shit,” Meyers muttered, then looked back at Buchevsky. He didn’t say another word, but he didn’t have to, and Buchevsky drew a deep breath.
“I don’t know, Gunny,” he said again. “I just don’t know.”
* * * *
He still didn’t know—not really—the next morning, but one thing they couldn’t do was simply huddle here. They’d seen no sign of any traffic along the road the C-17 had destroyed. Roads normally went somewhere, though, so if they followed this one long enough, “somewhere” was where they’d eventually wind up—hopefully before they ran out of food. And at least his decision trees had been rather brutally simplified when the last two badly injured passengers died during the night.
He tried hard not to feel grateful for that, but he was guiltily aware that it would have been dishonest, even if he’d managed to succeed.
Come on. You’re not grateful they’re dead, Stevie, he told himself grimly. You’re just grateful they won’t be slowing the rest of you down. There’s a difference.
He even knew it was true...which didn’t make him feel any better. And neither did the fact that he’d put his wife’s and daughters’ faces into a small mental box and locked them away, buried the pain deep enough to let him deal with his responsibilities to the living. Someday, he knew, he would have to reopen that box. Endure the pain, admit the loss. But not now. Not yet. For now he could tell himself others depended upon him, that he had to put aside his own pain while he dealt with their needs, and he wondered if that made him a coward.
“Ready to move out, Top,” Meyers’s voice said behind him, and he looked over his shoulder.
“All right,” he said out loud, trying hard to radiate the confidence he was far from feeling. “In that case, I guess we should be going.”
Now if I only had some damned idea where we’re going.
* * * *
Platoon Commander Yirku stood in the open hatch of his command ground effect vehicle as his armored platoon sped down the long, broad roadway that stabbed straight through the mountains. The bridges that crossed the main roadbed at intervals, especially as the platoon approached what were (or had been) towns or cities, forced his column to squeeze in on itself, but overall, Yirku was delighted. His tanks’ grav-cushions couldn’t care less what surface lay under them, but that didn’t protect their crews from seasickness if they had to move rapidly across rough ground, and he’d studied the survey reports with care. He’d rather glumly anticipated operating across wilderness terrain that might be crossed here and there by “roads” which were little more than random animal tracks.
Despite his relief at avoiding that unpleasantness, Yirku admitted (very privately) that he found these “humans’“ infrastructure...unsettling. There was so much of it, especially in areas that had belonged to nations, like this “United States.” And, crude though its construction might appear, most of it was well laid out. The fact that they’d managed to construct so much of it, so well suited to their current technology level’s requirements, was sobering, too, and—
Platoon Leader Yirku’s thoughts broke off abruptly as he emerged from under the latest bridge and the fifteen-pound round from the M-136 light anti-armor weapon struck the side of his vehicle’s turret at a velocity of 360 feet per second. Its HEAT warhead produced a hyper-velocity gas jet that carved through the GEV’s light armor like an incandescent dagger, and the resultant internal explosion disemboweled the tank effortlessly.
Ten more rockets stabbed down into the embankment-enclosed cut of Interstate 81 almost simultaneously, and eight of them found their targets, exploding like thunderbolts. Each of them killed another GEV, and the humans who’d launched them had deliberately concentrated on the front and back edges of the platoon’s neat road column. Despite their grav-cushions, the four survivors of Yirku’s platoon were temporarily trapped behind the blazing, exploding carcasses of their fellows. They were still there when the next quartet of rockets came sizzling in.
The ambushers—a scratch-built pickup team of Tennessee National Guardsmen, all of them veterans of deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan— were on the move, filtering back into the trees almost before the final Shongari tank had exploded.
* * * *
Company Commander Kirtha’s column of transports rumbled along in a hanging cloud of dust, which made him grateful his GEV command vehicle was hermetically sealed. Now if only he’d been assigned to one of the major bases on the continent called “America,” or at least the western fringes of this one!
It wouldn’t be so bad if they were all grav-cushion, he told himself, watching the wheeled vehicles through the smothering fog of dust. But GEVs were expensive, and the counter-grav generators used up precious internal volume not even troop carriers could afford to give away. Imperial wheeled vehicles had excellent off-road capability, but even a miserable so-called road like this one allowed them to move much more efficiently.
And at least we’re out in the middle of nice, flat ground as far as the eye can see, Kirtha reminded himself. He didn’t like the rumors about ambushes on isolated detachments. That wasn’t supposed to happen, especially from someone as effortlessly and utterly defeated as these “humans” had been. And even if it did happen, it wasn’t supposed to be effective. And the ones responsible for it were supposed to be destroyed.
Which, if the rumors were accurate, wasn’t happening the way it was supposed to. Some of the attackers were being spotted and destroyed, but with Hegemony technology, all of them should have been wiped out, and they weren’t being. Still, there were no convenient mountainsides or thick belts of forest to hide attackers out here in the midst of these endless, flat fields of grain, and—
Captain Pieter Stefanovich Ushakov of the Ukrainian Army watched through his binoculars with pitiless satisfaction as the entire alien convoy and its escort of tanks disappeared in a fiery wave of destruction two kilometers long. The scores of 120 mm mortar rounds buried in the road as his own version of the “improvised explosive devices,” which had given the Americans such grief in Iraq, had proved quite successful, he thought coldly.
Now, he thought, to see exactly how these weasels respond.
He was fully aware of the risks in remaining in the vicinity, but he needed some understanding of the aliens’ capabilities and doctrine, and the only way to get that was to see what they did. He was confident he’d piled enough earth on top of his position to conceal any thermal signature, and he was completely unarmed, with no ferrous metal on his person, which would hopefully defeat any magnetic detectors. So unless they used some sort of deep-scan radar, he ought to be relatively safe from detection.
And even if it turned out he wasn’t, his entire family had been in Kiev when the kinetic strikes hit.
* * * *
Colonel Nicolae Basescu sat in the commander’s hatch of his T-72M1, his mind wrapped around a curiously empty, singing silence, and waited.
The first prototype of his tank—the export model of the Russian T-72A—had been completed in 1970, four years before Basescu’s own birth, and it had become sadly outclassed by more modern, more deadly designs. It was still superior to the Romanian Army’s home-built TR-85s, based on the even more venerable T-55, but that wasn’t saying much compared with designs like the Russians’ T-80s andT-90s, or the Americans’ M1A2.
And it’s certainly not saying much compared with aliens who can actually travel between the stars, Basescu thought.
Unfortunately, it was all he had. Now if he only knew what he was supposed to be doing with the seven tanks of his scraped-up command.
Stop that, he told himself sternly. You’re an officer of the Romanian Army. You know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.
He gazed through the opening a few minutes’ work with an ax had created. His tanks were as carefully concealed as he could manage inside the industrial buildings across the frontage road from the hundred-meter-wide Mureş River. The two lanes of the E-81 highway crossed the river on a double-span cantilever bridge, flanked on the east by a rail bridge, two kilometers southwest of Alba judeţ, the capital of Alba judeţ. The city of eighty thousand—the city where Michael the Brave had achieved the first union of the three great provinces of Romania in 1599—was two-thirds empty, and Basescu didn’t like to think about what those fleeing civilians were going to do when they started running out of whatever supplies they’d managed to snatch up in their flight. But he didn’t blame them for running. Not when their city was barely 270 kilometers northwest of where Bucharest had been four and a half days ago.
He wished he dared to use his radios, but the broadcasts from the alien commander suggested that any transmissions would be unwise. Fortunately, at least some of the land lines were still up. He doubted they would be for much longer, but enough remained for him to know about the alien column speeding up the highway toward him...and Alba iulia.
* * * *
Company Commander Barmit punched up his navigation systems, but they were being cantankerous again, and he muttered a quiet yet heartfelt curse as he jabbed at the control panel a second time.
As far as he was concerned, the town ahead of him was scarcely large enough to merit the attention of two entire companies of infantry, even if Base Commander Shairez’s pre-bombardment analysis had identified it as some sort of administrative subcenter. Its proximity to what had been a national capital suggested to Barmit’s superiors that it had probably been sufficiently important to prove useful as a headquarters for the local occupation forces. Personally, Barmit suspected the reverse was more likely true. An administrative center this close to something the size of that other city— “Bucharest,” or something equally outlandish—was more likely to be lost in the capital’s shadow than functioning as any sort of important secondary brain.
Too bad Ground Force Commander Thairys didn’t ask for my opinion, he thought dryly, still jabbing at the recalcitrant display.
The imagery finally came up and stabilized, and his ears flicked in a grimace as it confirmed his memory. He keyed his com.
“All right,” he said. “We’re coming up on another river, and our objective’s just beyond that. We’ll take the bridge in a standard road column, but let’s not take chances. Red Section, you spread left. White section, we’ll spread right.”
Acknowledgments came back, and he reconfigured the display from navigation to tactical.
* * * *
Colonel Basescu twitched upright as the alien vehicles came into sight. He focused his binoculars, snapping the approaching vehicles into much sharper clarity, and a part of him was almost disappointed by how unremarkable they appeared. How...mundane.
Most of them were some sort of wheeled transport vehicles, with a boxy sort of look that made him think of armored personnel carriers. There were around thirty of those, and it was obvious they were being escorted by five other vehicles.
He shifted his attention to those escorts and stiffened as he realized just how un-mundane they were. They sped along, sleek-looking and dark, hovering perhaps a meter or two above the ground, and some sort of long, slender gunbarrels projected from their boxy-looking turrets.
The approaching formation slowed as the things that were probably APCs began forming into a column of twos under the watchful eye of the things that were probably tanks, and he lowered the binoculars and picked up the handset for the field telephone he’d had strung between the tanks once they’d maneuvered into their hides.
“Mihai,” he told his second section commander, “we’ll take the tanks. Radu, I want you and Matthius to concentrate on the transports. Don’t fire until Mihai and I do—then try to jam them up on the bridge.”
* * * *
Barmit felt his ears relaxing in satisfaction as the wheeled vehicles settled into column and his GEVs headed across the river, watching its flanks. The drop from the roadbed to the surface of the water had provided the usual “stomach left behind” sensation, but once they were actually out over the water, its motion became glassy-smooth as he led White Section’s other two GEVs between the small islands in the center of the river, idling along to keep pace with the transports.
* * * *
They may have magic tanks, but they don’t have very good doctrine, do they? a corner of Basescu’s brain reflected. They hadn’t so much as bothered to send any scouts across, or even to leave one of their tanks on the far bank in an overwatch position. Not that he intended to complain.
The tank turret slewed slowly to the right as his gunner tracked his chosen target, but Basescu was watching the wheeled vehicles. The entire bridge was barely 150 meters long, and he wanted all of them actually onto it, if he could arrange it.
* * * *
Company Commander Barmit sighed as his GEV approached the far bank. Climbing up out of the riverbed again was going to be rather less pleasant, and he slowed deliberately, prolonging the smoothness as he watched the transports heading across the bridge.
Kind of the “humans” to build us all these nice highways, he reflected, thinking about this region’s heavily forested mountains. It would be a real pain to—
* * * *
“Fire!” Nicolae Basescu barked, and Company Commander Barmit’s ruminations were terminated abruptly by the arrival of a nineteen-kilogram 3BK29 HEAT round capable of penetrating three hundred millimeters of armor at a range of two kilometers.
* * * *
Basescu felt a stab of exhilaration as the tank bucked, the outer wall of its concealing building disappeared in the fierce muzzle blast of its 2A46 120 mm main gun, and his target exploded. Three of the other four escort tanks were first-round kills, as well, crashing into the river in eruptions of fire, white spray, and smoke, and the stub of the semi-combustible cartridge case ejected from the gun. The automatic loader’s carousel picked up the next round, feeding the separate projectile and cartridge into the breech, and his carefully briefed commanders were engaging targets without any additional orders from him.
The surviving alien tank swerved crazily sideways, turret swiveling madly, and then Basescu winced as it fired.
He didn’t know what it was armed with, but it wasn’t like any cannon he’d, ever seen. A bar of solid light spat from the end of its “gun,” and the building concealing his number three tank exploded. But even as the alien tank fired, two more 120 mm rounds slammed into it almost simultaneously.
It died as spectacularly as its fellows had, and Radu and Matthias hadn’t exactly been sitting on their hands. They’d done exactly what he wanted, nailing both the leading and rearmost of the wheeled transports only after they were well out onto the bridge. The others were trapped there, sitting ducks, unable to maneuver, and his surviving tanks walked their fire steadily along their column.
At least some of the aliens managed to bail out of their vehicles, but it was less than three hundred meters to the far side of the river and the coaxial 7.62 mm machine guns and the heavier 12.7 mm cupola-mounted weapons at the tank commanders’ stations were waiting for them. At such short range, it was a massacre.
* * * *
“Cease fire!” Basescu barked. “Fall back!”
His crews responded almost instantly, and the tanks’ powerful V-12 engines snorted black smoke as the T-72s backed out of their hiding places and sped down the highway at sixty kilometers per hour. What the aliens had already accomplished with their “kinetic weapons” suggested that staying in one place would be a very bad idea, and Basescu had picked out his next fighting position before he ever settled into this one. It would take them barely fifteen minutes to reach it, and only another fifteen to twenty minutes to maneuver the tanks back into hiding.
* * * *
Precisely seventeen minutes later, incandescent streaks of light came sizzling out of the cloudless heavens to eliminate every one of Nicolae Basescu’s tanks—and half the city of Alba iulia—in a blast of fury that shook the Carpathian Mountains.
* * * *
Stephen Buchevsky felt his body trying to ooze out even flatter as the grinding, tooth-rattling vibration grew louder on the far side of the ridgeline. The AKM he’d acquired to replace the his M-16 still felt awkward, but it was a solidly built weapon, with all the rugged reliability of its AK-47 ancestry, ammunition for it was readily available... and it felt unspeakably comforting at that particular moment.
His attention remained fixed on the “sound” of the alien recon drone, but a corner of his mind went wandering back over the last three weeks.
The C-17’s pilot had gotten farther east than Buchevsky had thought. They hadn’t known they were in Romania, not Serbia, for a day or two—not until they came across the remains of a couple of platoons of Romanian infantry which had been caught in column on a road. Their uniforms and insignia had identified their nationality, and most of them had been killed by what looked like standard bullet wounds. But there’d also been a handful of craters with oddly glassy interiors from obviously heavier weapons.
The Romanians’ disaster had, however, represented unlooked-for good fortune for Buchevsky’s ill-assorted command. There’d been plenty of personal weapons to salvage, as well as hand grenades, more man-portable antitank weapons and SAMs—the SA-14 “Gremlin” variant—than they could possibly carry, even canteens and some rations. Buchevsky had hated to give up his M-16, but although Romania had joined NATO, it still used mainly Soviet bloc equipment. There wouldn’t be any 5.56 mm ammunition floating around Romania, but 7.62 mm was abundantly available.
That was the good news. The bad news was that there’d clearly been a major exodus from most of the towns and cities following the aliens’ ruthless bombardment. They’d spotted several large groups—hundreds of people, in some cases. Most of them had been accompanied by at least some armed men, and they hadn’t been inclined to take chances. Probably most of them were already aware of how ugly it was going to get when their particular group of civilians’ supplies started running out, and whatever else they might have been thinking, none of them had been happy to see thirty-three strangers in desert-camo.
Foreign desert-camo.
A few warning shots had been fired, one of which had nicked PFC Lyman Curry, and Buchevsky had taken the hint. Still, he had to at least find someplace where his own people could establish a modicum of security while they went about the day-to-day business of surviving.
Which was what he’d been hunting for today, moving through the thickly wooded mountains, staying well upslope from the roads running through the valleys despite the harder going. Some of his people, including Sergeant Ramirez, had been inclined to bitch about that at first. Buchevsky didn’t really mind if they complained about it as long as they did it, however, and even the strongest objections had disappeared quickly when they realized just how important overhead concealment was.
From the behavior of the odd, dark-colored flying objects, Buchevsky figured they were something like the U.S. military’s Predators—small unmanned aircraft used for reconnaissance. What he didn’t know was whether or not they were armed. Nor did he have any idea whether or not their salvaged shoulder-fired SAMs would work against them, and he had no pressing desire to explore either possibility unless it was absolutely a matter of life or death.
Fortunately, although the odd-looking vehicles were quick and agile, they weren’t the least bit stealthily. Whatever propelled them produced a heavy, persistent, tooth-grating vibration. That wasn’t really the right word for it, and he knew it, but he couldn’t come up with another one for a sensation that was felt, not heard. And whatever it was, it was detectable from beyond visual range.
He’d discussed it with Staff Sergeant Truman and PO/3 Jasmine Sherman, their sole Navy noncom. Truman was an electronics specialist, and Sherman wore the guided missile and electronic wave rating mark of a missile technician. Between them, they formed what Buchevsky thought of as his “brain trust,” but neither woman had a clue what the aliens used for propulsion. What they did agree on was that humans were probably more sensitive to the “vibration” it produced than the aliens were, since it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense to produce a reconnaissance platform they knew people could hear before it could see them.
Buchevsky wasn’t going to bet the farm on the belief that his people could ”hear” the drones before the drones could see them, however. Which was why he’d waved his entire group to ground when the telltale vibration came burring through his fillings from the ridgeline to his immediate north. Now if only—
That was when he heard the firing and the screams.
It shouldn’t have mattered. His responsibility was to his own people. To keeping them alive until he got them home...assuming there was any “home” for them. But when he heard the shouts, when he heard the screams—when he recognized the shrieks of children—he found himself back on his feet. He turned his head, saw Calvin Meyers watching him, and then he swung his hand in a wide arc and pointed to the right.
A dozen of his people stayed right where they were—not out of cowardice, but because they were too confused and surprised by his sudden change of plans to realize what he was doing—and he didn’t blame them. Even as he started forward, he knew it was insane. Less than half his people had any actual combat experience, and five of them had been tankers, not infantry. No wonder they didn’t understand what he was doing!
Meyer understood, though, and so had Ramirez—even if he was an Army puke—and Lance Corporal Gutierrez, and Corporal Alice Macomb, and half a dozen others, and they followed him in a crouching run.
* * * *
Squad Commander Rayzhar bared his canines as his troopers advanced up the valley. He’d been on this accursed planet for less than seven local days, and already he’d come to hate its inhabitants as he’d never hated before in his life. They had no sense of decency, no sense of honor! They’d been defeated, Dainthar take them! The Shongari had proved they were the mightier, yet instead of submitting and acknowledging their inferiority, they persisted in their insane attacks!
Rayzhar had lost two litter-brothers in the ambush of Company Commander Barmit’s column. Litter-brothers who’d been shot down like weed-eaters for the pot, as if they’d, been the inferiors. That was something Rayzhar had no intention of forgetting—or forgiving—until he’d collected enough “humans’“ souls to serve both of them in Dainthar’s realm.
He really had no business making this attack, but the recon drone slaved to his command transport had shown him this ragged band cowering in the mountainside cul-de-sac. There were no more than fifty or sixty of them, but a half dozen wore the same uniforms as the humans who’d massacred his litter-brothers. That was enough for him. Besides, HQ would never see the take from the drone—he’d make sure of that—and he expected no questions when he reported that he’d taken fire from the humans and simply responded to it.
He looked up from the holographic display board linked to the drone and barked an order at Gersa, the commander of his second squad.
“Swing right! Get around their flank!”
Gersa acknowledged, and Rayzhar bared his canines again—this time in satisfaction—as two of the renegade human warriors were cut down. A mortar round from one of the transports exploded farther up the cul-de-sac, among the humans cowering in the trees, and a savage sense of pleasure filled him.
* * * *
Buchevsky found himself on the ridgeline, looking down into a scene straight out of Hell. More than fifty civilians, over half of them children, were hunkered down under the fragile cover of evergreens and hardwoods while a handful of Romanian soldiers tried frantically to protect them from at least twenty-five or thirty of the aliens. There were also three wheeled vehicles on the road below, and one of them mounted a turret with some sort of mortarlike support weapon. Even as Buchevsky watched, it fired and an eye-tearing burst of brilliance erupted near the top of the cul-de-sac. He heard the shrieks of seared, dying children, and below the surface of his racing thoughts, he realized what had really happened. Why he’d changed his plans completely, put all the people he was responsible for at risk.
Civilians. Children. They were what he was supposed to protect, and deep at the heart of him was the bleeding wound of his own daughters, the children he would never see again. The Shongari had taken his girls from him, and he would rip out their throats with his bare teeth before he let them take any more.
“Gunny, get the vehicles!” he snapped, his curt voice showing no sign of his own self-recognition.
“On it, Top!” Meyer acknowledged, and waved to Gutierrez and Robert Szu, one of their Army privates. Gutierrez and Szu—like Meyer—carried RBR-M60s, Romanian single-shot anti-armor weapons derived from the U.S. M72. The Romanian version had a theoretical range of over a thousand meters, and the power to take out most older main battle tanks, and Meyer, Gutierrez, and Szu went skittering through the woods toward the road with them.
Buchevsky left that in Meyer’s competent hands as he reached out and grabbed Corporal Macomb by the shoulder. She carried one of the salvaged SAM launchers, and Buchevsky jabbed a nod of his head at the drone hovering overhead.
“Take that damned thing out,” he said flatly.
“Right, Top.” Macomb’s voice was grim, her expression frightened, but her hands were steady as she lifted the SAM’s tube to her shoulder.
“The rest of you, with me!” Buchevsky barked. It wasn’t much in the way of detailed instructions, but four of the eight people still with him were Marines, and three of the others were Army riflemen.
Besides, the tactical situation was brutally simple.
* * * *
Rayzhar saw another uniformed human die. Then he snarled in fury as one of his own troopers screamed, rose on his toes, and went down in a spray of blood. The Shongari weren’t accustomed to facing enemies whose weapons could penetrate their body armor, and Rayzhar felt a chill spike of fear even through his rage. But he wasn’t about to let it stop him, and there were only three armed humans left. Only three, and then—
* * * *
Buchevsky heard the explosions as the alien vehicles vomited flame and smoke. At almost the same instant, the SA-14 streaked into the air, and two things became clear: One, whatever held the drones up radiated enough heat signature for the Gremlin to see it. Two, whatever the drones were made of, it wasn’t tough enough to survive the one-kilo warhead’s impact.
He laid the sights of his AKM on the weird, slender, doglike alien whose waving hands suggested he was in command and squeezed the trigger.
* * * *
A four-round burst of 7.62 mm punched through the back of Rayzhar’s body armor. The rounds kept right on going until they punched out his breastplate in a spray of red, as well, and the squad commander heard someone’s gurgling scream. He realized vaguely that it was his own, and then he crashed facedown into the dirt of an alien planet.
He wasn’t alone. There were only nine riflemen up on his flank, but they had perfect fields of fire, and every single one of them had heard Fleet Commander Thikair’s broadcast. They knew why Rayzhar and his troopers had come to their world, what had happened to their cities and homes. There was no mercy in them, and their fire was deadly accurate.
The Shongari recoiled in shock as more of them died or collapsed in agony—shock that became terror as they realized their vehicles had just been destroyed behind them, as well. They had no idea how many attackers they faced, but they recognized defeat when they saw it, and they turned toward the new attack, raising their weapons over their heads in surrender, flattening their ears in token of submission.
* * * *
Stephen Buchevsky saw the aliens turning toward his people, raising their weapons to charge up the ridge, and behind his granite eyes he saw the children they had just killed and maimed...and his daughters.
“Kill them!” he rasped.
* * * *
“I want an explanation.” Fleet Commander Thikair glowered around the conference table. None of his senior officers needed to ask what it was he wanted explained, and more than one set of eyes slid sideways to Ground
Force Commander Thairys. His casualties were over six times his most pessimistic pre-landing estimates...and climbing.
“I have no excuse, Fleet Commander.”
Thairys flattened his ears in submission to Thikair’s authority, and there was silence for a second or two.
But then Base Commander Shairez raised one diffident hand.
“If I may, Fleet Commander?”
“If you have any explanation, Base Commander, I would be delighted to hear it,” Thikair said, turning his attention to her.
“I doubt that there is any single explanation, sir.” Her ears were half-lowered in respect, although not so flat to her head as Thairys’, and her tone was calm. “Instead, I think we’re looking at a combination of factors.”
“Which are?” Thikair leaned back, his immediate ire somewhat damped by her demeanor.
“The first, sir, is simply that this is the first Level Two culture we’ve ever attempted to subdue. While their weaponry is inferior to our own, it’s far less relatively inferior than anything we’ve ever encountered. Their armored vehicles, for example, while much slower, clumsier, shorter-legged, and tactically cumbersome than ours, are actually better protected and mount weapons capable of destroying our heaviest units. Even their infantry have weapons with that capability, and that’s skewed Ground Force Commander Thairys’ original calculations badly.”
Thikair bared one canine in frustration, but she had a point. The Shongari’s last serious war had been fought centuries ago, against fellow Shongari, before they’d ever left their home world. Since then, their military had found itself engaging mostly primitives armed with hand weapons or only the crudest of firearms...exactly as they were supposed to have encountered here.
“A second factor,” Shairez continued, “may be that our initial bombardment was too successful. We so thoroughly disrupted their communications net and command structures that there may be no way for individual units to be ordered to stand down.”
“ ‘Stand down’?” Squadron Commander Jainfar repeated incredulously. “They’re defeated, Base Commander! I don’t care how stupid they are, or how disrupted their communications may be, they have to know that!”
“Perhaps so, Squadron Commander.” Shairez faced the old space-dog squarely. “Unfortunately, as yet we know very little about this species’ psychology. We do know there’s something significantly different about them, given their incredible rate of advancement, but that’s really all we know. It could be that they simply don’t care that we’ve defeated them.”
Jainfar started to say something else, then visibly restrained himself. It was obvious he couldn’t imagine any intelligent species thinking in such a bizarre fashion, but Shairez was the expedition’s expert on non-Shongari sapients.
“Even if that’s true, Base Commander,” Thikair’s tone was closer to normal, “it doesn’t change our problem.” He looked at Thairys. “What sort of loss rates are we looking at, assuming these “humans” behavior doesn’t change?”
“Potentially disastrous ones,” Thairys acknowledged. “We’ve already written off eleven percent of our armored vehicles. We never expected to need many GEVs against the opposition we anticipated, which means we have nowhere near the vehicles and crews it looks like we’re going to need. We’ve actually lost a higher absolute number of transports, but we had many times as many of those to begin with. Infantry losses are another matter, and I’m not at all sure present casualty rates are sustainable. And I must point out that we have barely eight local days of experience. It’s entirely possible for projections based on what we’ve seen so far to be almost as badly flawed as our initial estimates.”
The ground force commander clearly didn’t like adding that caveat. Which was fair enough. Thikair didn’t much like hearing it.
“I believe the Ground Force Commander may be unduly pessimistic, sir.” All eyes switched to Shairez once more, and the base commander flipped her ears in a shrug. “My own analysis suggests that we’re looking at two basic types of incident, both of which appear to be the work of relatively small units acting independently of any higher command or coordination. On one hand, we have units making use of the humans’ heavy weapons and using what I suspect is their standard doctrine. An example of this would be the destruction of Company Commander Barmit’s entire command a few days ago. On the other, we have what seem to be primarily infantry forces equipped with their light weapons or using what appear to be improvised explosives and weapons.
“In the case of the former, they’ve frequently inflicted severe losses— again, as in Barmit’s case. In fact, more often than not, they’ve inflicted grossly disproportionate casualties. However, in those instances, our space-to-surface interdiction systems are normally able to locate and destroy them. In short, humans who attack us in that fashion seldom survive to attack a second time, and they already have few heavy weapons left.
“In the case of the latter, however, the attackers have proved far more elusive. Our reconnaissance systems are biased toward locating heavier, more technologically advanced weapons. We look for electronic emissions, thermal signatures such as operating vehicle power plants generate, and things of that nature. We’re far less well equipped to pick out individual humans or small groups of humans. As a consequence, we’re able to intercept and destroy a far smaller percentage of such attackers.
“The good news is that although their infantry-portable weapons are far more powerful than we ever anticipated, they’re still far less dangerous than their heavy armored vehicles or artillery. This means, among other things, that they can engage only smaller forces of our warriors with any real prospect of success.”
“I believe that’s substantially accurate,” Thairys said after a moment. “One of the implications, however, is that in order to deter attacks by these infantry forces, we would find ourselves obliged to operate using larger forces of our own. But we have a strictly limited supply of personnel, so the larger our individual forces become, the fewer we can deploy at any given moment. In order to deter attack, we would be forced to severely reduce the coverage of the entire planet which we can hope to maintain.”
“I take your point, Thairys,” Thikair said after a moment, and bared all his upper canines in a wintry smile. “I must confess that a planet begins to look significantly larger when one begins to consider the need to actually picket its entire surface out of the resources of a single colonization fleet!”
He’d considered saying something a bit stronger, but that was as close as he cared to come to admitting that he might have bitten off more than his fleet could chew.
“For the present,” he went on, “we’ll continue operations essentially as planned, but with a geographic shift of emphasis. Thairys, I want you to revise your deployment stance. For the moment, we’ll concentrate on the areas that were more heavily developed and technologically advanced. That’s where we’re most likely to encounter significant threats, so let’s start by establishing fully secured enclaves from which we can operate in greater strength as we spread out to consolidate.”
“Yes, sir,” Thairys acknowledged. “That may take some time, however. In particular, we have infantry forces deployed for the purpose of hunting down and destroying known groups of human attackers. They’re operating in widely separated locations, and pulling them out to combine elsewhere is going to stretch our troop lift capacity.”
“Would they be necessary to meet the objectives I just described?”
“No, sir. Some additional infantry will be needed, but we can land additional troops directly from space. And, in addition, we need more actual combat experience against these roving attack groups. We need to refine our tactics, and not even our combat veterans have actually faced this level of threat in the past. I’d really prefer to keep at least some of our own infantry out in the hinterland, where we can continue to blood more junior officers in a lower threat-level environment.”
“As long as you’re capable of carrying out the concentrations I’ve just directed, I have no objection,” Thikair told him.
And as long as we’re able to somehow get a tourniquet on this steady flow of casualties, the Fleet Commander added to himself.
* * * *
An insect scuttled across the back of Stephen Buchevsky’s sweaty neck. He ignored it, keeping his eyes on the aliens as they set about bivouacking.
The insect on his neck went elsewhere, and he checked the RDG-5 hand grenade. He wouldn’t have dared to use a radio even if he’d had it, but the grenade’s detonation would work just fine as an attack signal.
He really would have preferred leaving this patrol alone, but he couldn’t. He had no idea what they were doing in the area, and it really didn’t matter. Whatever else they might do, every Shongari unit appeared to be on its own permanent seek-and-destroy mission, and he couldn’t allow that when the civilians he and his people had become responsible for were in this patrol’s way.
His reaction to the Shongari attack on the Romanian civilians had landed him with yet another mission—one he would vastly have preferred to avoid. Or that was what he told himself, anyway. The rest of his people—with the possible exception of Ramirez—seemed to cherish none of the reservations he himself felt. In fact, he often thought the only reason he felt them was because he was in command. It was his job to feel them. But however it had happened, he and his marooned Americans had become the protectors of a slowly but steadily growing band of Romanians.
Fortunately, one of the Romanians in question—Elizabeth Cantacuzčne—had been a university teacher. Her English was heavily accented, but her grammar (and, Buchevsky suspected, her vocabulary) was considerably better than his, and just acquiring a local translator had been worth almost all of the headaches that had come with it.
By now, he had just under sixty armed men and women under his command. His Americans formed the core of his force, but their numbers were almost equaled by a handful of Romanian soldiers and the much larger number of civilians who were in the process of receiving a crash course in military survival from him, Gunny Meyers, and Sergeant Alexander Jonescu of the Romanian Army. He’d organized them into four roughly equal sized “squads,” one commanded by Myers, one by Ramirez, one by Jonescu, and one by Alice Macomb. Michelle Truman was senior to Macomb, but she and Sherman were still too valuable as his “brain trust” for him to “waste her” in a shooter’s slot. Besides, she was learning Romanian from Cantacuzčne.
Fortunately, Sergeant Jonescu already spoke English, and Buchevsky had managed to get at least one Romanian English-speaker into each of his squads. It was clumsy, but it worked, and they’d spent hours drilling on hand signals that required no spoken language. And at least the parameters of their situation were painfully clear to everyone.
Evade. Hide. Do whatever it took to keep the civilians—now close to two hundred of them—safe. Stay on the move. Avoid roads and towns. Look out constantly for any source of food. It turned out that Calvin Meyers was an accomplished deer hunter, and he and two like-minded souls who had been members of the Romanian forestry service were contributing significantly to keeping their people fed. Still, summer was sliding into fall, and all too soon cold and starvation would become deadly threats.
But for that to happen, first we have to survive the summer; don’t we? he thought harshly. Which means these bastards have to be stopped before they figure out the civilians are here to be killed. And we’ve got to do it without their getting a message back to base.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. But he didn’t see any choice, either, and with Cantacuzčne’s assistance, he’d interrogated every single person who’d seen the Shongari in action, hunting information on their tactics and doctrine.
It was obvious they were sudden death on large bodies of troops or units equipped with heavy weapons. Some of that was probably because crewmen inside tanks couldn’t “hear” approaching recon drones the way infantry in the open could, he thought. And Truman and Sherman suspected that the Shongari’s sensors were designed to detect mechanized forces, or at least units with heavy emissions signatures, which was one reason he’d gotten rid of all his radios.
It also appeared that the infantry patrols had less sensor coverage than those floating tanks or their road convoys. And in the handful of additional brushes he’d had with their infantry, it had become evident that the invaders weren’t in any sort of free-flow communications net that extended beyond their immediate unit. If they had been, he felt sure, by now one of the patrols they’d attacked would have managed to call in one of their kinetic strikes.
Which is why we’ve got to hit them, fast, make sure we take out their vehicles with the first strike...and that nobody packing a personal radio lives long enough to use it.
It looked like they were beginning to settle down. Obviously, they had no idea Buchevsky or his people were out here, which suited him just fine.
Go ahead, he thought grimly. Get comfortable. Drop off. I’ve got your sleeping pill right here. In about another five—
“Excuse me, Sergeant, but is this really wise?”
Stephen Buchevsky twitched as if someone had just applied a high-voltage charge, and his head whipped around toward the whispered question.
The question that had just been asked in his very ear in almost unaccented English ... by a voice he’d never heard in his life.
* * * *
“Now suppose you just tell me who you are and where the hell you came from?” Buchevsky demanded ten minutes later.
He stood facing a complete stranger, two hundred meters from the Shongari bivouac, and he wished the light were better. Not that he was even tempted to strike a match.
The stranger was above average height for a Romanian, although well short of Buchevsky’s towering inches. He had a sharp-prowed nose, large, deep-set green eyes, and dark hair. That was about all Buchevsky could tell, aside from the fact that his smile seemed faintly amused.
“Excuse me,” the other man said. “I had no desire to...startle you, Sergeant. However, I knew something which you do not. There is a second patrol little more than a kilometer away in that direction.”
He pointed back up the narrow road along which the Shongari had approached, and an icy finger stroked suddenly down Buchevsky’s spine.
“How do you know that?”
“My men and I have been watching them,” the stranger said. “And it is a formation we have seen before—one they have adopted in the last week or so. I believe they are experimenting with new tactics, sending out pairs of infantry teams in support of one another.”
“Damn. I was hoping they’d take longer to think of that,” Buchevsky muttered. “Looks like they may be smarter than I’d assumed from their original tactics.”
“I do not know how intelligent they may be, Sergeant. But I do suspect that if you were to attack this patrol, the other one would probably call up heavy support quickly.”
“That’s exactly what they’d do,” Buchevsky agreed, then frowned. “Not that I’m not grateful for the warning, or anything,” he said, “but you still haven’t told me who you are, where you came from, or how you got here.”
“Surely”—this time the amusement in the Romanian’s voice was unmistakable—”that would be a more reasonable question for me to be asking of an American Marine here in the heart of Wallachia?”
Buchevsky’s jaw clenched, but the other man chuckled and shook his head.
“Forgive me, Sergeant. I have been told I have a questionable sense of humor. My name is Basarab, Mircea Basarab. And where I have come from is up near Lake Vidaru, fifty or sixty kilometers north of here. My men and I have been doing much the same as what I suspect you have— attempting to protect my people from these ‘Shongari’ butchers.” He grimaced. “Protecting civilians from invaders is, alas, something of a national tradition in these parts.”
“I see...,” Buchevsky said slowly, and white teeth glinted at him in the dimness.
“I believe you do, Sergeant. And, yes, I also believe the villages my men and I have taken under our protection could absorb these civilians you have been protecting. They are typical mountain villages, largely self-sufficient, with few ‘modern amenities.’ They grow their own food, and feeding this many additional mouths will strain their resources severely. I doubt anyone will grow fat over the winter! But they will do their best, and the additional hands will be welcome as they prepare for the snows. And from what I have seen of you and your band, you would be a most welcome addition to their defenses.”
Buchevsky cocked his head, straining to see the other’s expression. It was all coming at him far too quickly. He knew he ought to be standing back, considering this stranger’s offer coolly and rationally. Yet what he actually felt was a wave of unspeakable relief as the men, women, and children—always the children—for whom he’d become responsible were offered a reprieve from starvation and frostbite.
“And how would we get there with these puppies sitting in our lap?” he asked.
“Obviously, Sergeant, we must first remove them from ‘our lap.’ Since my men are already in position to deal with the second patrol, and yours are already in position to deal with this patrol, I would suggest we both get back to work. I presume you intended to use that grenade to signal the start of your own attack?”
Buchevsky nodded, and Basarab shrugged.
“I see no reason why you should change your plans in that regard. Allow me fifteen minutes—no, perhaps twenty would be better—to return to my own men and tell them to listen for your attack. After that,” those white teeth glittered again, and this time, Buchevsky knew, that smile was cold and cruel, “feel free to announce your presence to these vermin. Loudly.”
* * * *
X
Platoon Commander Dirak didn’t like this one bit, but orders were orders.
He moved slowly at the center of his second squad, ears up and straining for the slightest sound as they followed his first squad along the narrow trail. Unfortunately, his people had been civilized for a thousand standard years. Much of the acuity of sound and scent that had once marked the margin between death and survival had slipped away, and he felt more than half-blind in this heavily shadowed, massive forest.
There were no forests like this on his home world any longer—not with this towering, primeval canopy, with tree trunks that could be half as broad at the base as a Shongari’s height—yet the woodland around him was surprisingly free of brush and undergrowth. According to the expedition’s botanists, that was only to be expected in a mature forest where so little direct sunlight reached the ground. No doubt they knew what they were talking about, but it still seemed...wrong to Dirak. And, perversely, he liked the saplings and underbrush that did grow along the verge of this narrow trail even less. They probably confirmed the botanists’ theories, since at least some sun did get through where the line of the trail broke the canopy, but they left him feeling cramped and shut in.
Actually, a lot of his anxiety was probably due to the fact that he’d been expressly ordered to leave his assigned recon and communications relay drone well behind his point, anchored to the wheeled transports snorting laboriously along the same trail far behind him. Analysis of what had happened to the last three patrols sent into this area suggested that the “humans” had somehow managed to destroy the drones before they ever engaged the infantry those drones were supporting with surveillance and secure communications to base. No one had any idea how the primitives— only, of course, they weren’t really primitives, were they?—were able to detect and target drones so effectively, but HQ had decided to try a more stealthy approach...and chosen Dirak to carry out the experiment.
Oh, how the gods must have smiled upon me, he reflected morosely. I understand the need to gain experience against these...creatures if we’re going to modify doctrine. But why did I get chosen to poke my head into the hasthar’s den? It wasn’t like—
He heard an explosion behind him and wheeled around. He couldn’t see through the overhead canopy, but he didn’t need to see it to know that the explosion had been his RC drone. How had they even seen it through these damnable leaves and branches!
The question was still ripping through his brain when he heard more explosions—this time on the ground...where his two reserve squads were following along in their APCs.
He didn’t have time to realize what those explosions were before the assault rifles hidden behind trees and under drifts of leaves all along the southern flank of the trail opened fire.
Unfortunately for Platoon Commander Dirak, the men and women behind those assault rifles had figured out how to recognize a Shongari infantry formation’s commanding officer.
* * * *
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Buchevsky bellowed, and the bark and clatter of automatic weapons fire faded abruptly.
He held his own position, AKM still ready, while he surveyed the tumbled Shongari bodies sprawled along the trail. One or two were still writhing, although it didn’t look like they would be for long.
“Good,” a voice said behind him with fierce, obvious satisfaction, and he looked over his shoulder. Mircea Basarab stood in the dense forest shadows, looking out over the ambushed patrol. “Well done, my Stephen.”
“Maybe so, but we’d better be moving,” Buchevsky replied, safeing his weapon and rising from his firing position.
His own expression, he knew, was more anxious than Basarab’s. This was the third hard contact with the Shongari in the six days since he’d placed his people under Basarab’s command, and from what Basarab had said, they were getting close to the enclave he’d established in the mountains around Lake Vidaru. Which meant they really needed to shake this persistent—if inept—pursuit.
“I think we have a short while,” Basarab disagreed, glancing farther down the trail to the columns of smoke rising from what had been armored vehicles until Jonescu’s squad and half of Basarab’s original men dealt with them. “It seems unlikely they got a message out this time, either.”
“Maybe not,” Buchevsky conceded. “But their superiors have to know where they are. When they don’t check in on schedule, someone’s going to come looking for them. Again.”
He might have sounded as if he were disagreeing, but he wasn’t, really. First, because Basarab was probably correct. But secondly, because over the course of the last week or so, he’d come to realize Mircea Basarab was one of the best officers he’d ever served under. Which, he reflected, was high praise for any foreign officer from any Marine...and didn’t keep the Romanian from being one of the scariest men Buchevsky had ever met.
A lot of people might not have realized that. In better light, Basarab’s face had a bony, foxlike handsomeness, and his smile was frequently warm. But there were dark, still places behind those green eyes. Still places that were no stranger to all too many people from the post-Ceauşescu Balkans. Dark places Buchevsky recognized because he’d met so many other scary men in his life...and because there was now a dark, still place labeled “Washington, D.C.” inside him, as well.
Yet whatever lay in Basarab’s past, the man was almost frighteningly competent, and he radiated a sort of effortless charisma Buchevsky had seldom encountered. The sort of charisma that could win the loyalty of even a Stephen Buchevsky, and even on such relatively short acquaintance.
“Your point is well taken, my Stephen,” Basarab said now, smiling almost as if he’d read Buchevsky’s mind and reaching up to place one hand on the towering American’s shoulder. Like the almost possessive way he said “my Stephen,” it could have been patronizing. It wasn’t.
“However,” he continued, his smile fading, “I believe it may be time to send these vermin elsewhere.”
“Sounds great to me.” A trace of skepticism edged Buchevsky’s voice, and Basarab chuckled. It was not a particularly pleasant sound.
“I believe we can accomplish it,” he said, and whistled shrilly.
Moments later, Take Bratianu, a dark-haired, broad-shouldered Romanian, blended out of the forest.
Buchevsky was picking up Romanian quickly, thanks to Elizabeth Cantacuzčne, but the exchange that followed was far too rapid for his still rudimentary grasp of the language to sort out. It lasted for a few minutes, then Bratianu nodded, and Basarab turned back to Buchevsky.
“Take speaks no English, I fear,” he said.
That was obvious, Buchevsky thought dryly. On the other hand, Bratianu didn’t need to speak English to communicate the fact that he was one seriously bad-assed individual. None of Basarab’s men did.
There were only about twenty of them, but they moved like ghosts. Buchevsky was no slouch, yet he knew when he was outclassed at pooping and snooping in the shrubbery. These men were far better at it than he’d ever been, and in addition to rifles, pistols, and hand grenades, they were liberally festooned with a ferocious assortment of knives, hatchets, and machetes. Indeed, Buchevsky suspected they would have preferred using cold steel instead of any namby-pamby assault rifles.
Now, as Bratianu and his fellows moved along the trail, knives flashed, and the handful of Shongari wounded stopped writhing.
Buchevsky had no problem with that. Indeed, his eyes were bleakly satisfied. But when some of the Romanians began stripping the alien bodies while others began cutting down several stout young saplings growing along the edge of the trail, he frowned and glanced at Basarab. The Romanian only shook his head.
“Wait,” he said, and Buchevsky turned back to the others.
They worked briskly, wielding their hatchets and machetes with practiced efficiency as they cut the saplings into roughly ten-foot lengths, then shaped points at either end. In a surprisingly short period, they had over a dozen of them, and Buchevsky’s eyes widened in shock as they calmly picked up the dead Shongairi and impaled them.
Blood and other body fluids oozed down the crude, rough-barked stakes, but he said nothing as the stakes’ other ends were sunk into the soft woodland soil. The dead aliens hung there, lining the trail like insects mounted on pins, grotesque in the shadows, and he felt Basarab’s eyes.
“Are you shocked, my Stephen?” the Romanian asked quietly.
“I. . .” Buchevsky inhaled deeply. “Yes, I guess I am. Some,” he admitted. He turned to face the other man. “I think maybe because it’s a little too close to some of the things I’ve seen jihadies do.”
“Indeed?” Basarab’s eyes were cold. “I suppose I should not be surprised by that. We learned the tradition from the Turks ourselves, long ago. But at least these were already dead when they were staked.”
“Would it have made a difference?” Buchevsky asked, and Basarab’s nostrils flared. But then the other man gave himself a little shake.
“Once?” He shrugged. “No. As I say, the practice has long roots in this area. One of Romania’s most famous sons, after all, was known as ‘Vlad the Impaler,’ was he not?” He smiled thinly. “For that matter, I did not, as you Americans say, have a happy childhood, and there was a time when I inflicted cruelty on all those about me. When I enjoyed it. In those days, no doubt, I would have preferred them alive.”
He shook his head, and his expression saddened as he gazed at the impaled alien bodies.
“I fear it took far too many years for me to realize that all the cruelty in the universe cannot avenge a broken childhood or appease an orphaned young man’s rage, my Stephen,” he said. “There was a doctor once, a man I met in Austria, who explained that to me. To my shame, I did not really wish to hear what he was saying, but it was true. And the years it took me to realize that demanded too high a price from those for whom I cared, and who cared for me.” He looked at the bodies for a moment longer, then shook himself. “But this, my friend, has nothing to do with the darkness inside me.”
“No?” Buchevsky raised an eyebrow.
“No. It is obvious to me that these vermin will persist in pursuing us. So, we will give them something to fix their attention upon—something to make any creature, even one of these, hot with hate—and then we will give them someone besides your civilians to pursue. Take and most of my men will head south, leaving a trail so obvious that even these—” He twitched his head at the slaughtered patrol. “—could scarcely miss it. He will lead them aside until they are dozens of kilometers away. Then he will slip away and return to us.”
“Without their being able to follow him?”
“Do not be so skeptical, my friend!” Basarab chuckled and squeezed Buchevsky’s shoulder. “I did not pick these men at random! There are no more skilled woodsmen in all of Romania. Have no fear that they will lead our enemies to us.”
“I hope you’re right,” Buchevsky said, looking back at the impaled bodies and thinking about how he would have reacted in the aliens’ place. “I hope you’re right.”
* * * *
Fleet Commander Thikair pressed the admittance stud, then tipped back in his chair as Shairez stepped through the door into his personal quarters. It closed silently behind her, and he waved at a chair.
“Be seated, Base Commander,” he said, deliberately more formal because of the irregularity of meeting with her here.
“Thank you, Fleet Commander.”
He watched her settle into the chair. She carried herself with almost her usual self-confidence, he thought, yet there was something about the set of her ears. And about her eyes.
She’s changed, he thought. Aged. He snorted mentally. Well, we’ve all done that, haven’t we? But there’s more to it in her case. More than there was yesterday, for that matter.
“What, precisely, did you wish to see me about, Base Commander?” he asked after a moment. And why, he did not ask aloud, did you wish to see me about it in private?
“I have almost completed my initial psychological profile of these humans, sir.” She met his gaze unflinchingly. “I’m afraid our initial hopes for this planet were...rather badly misplaced.”
Thikair sat very still. It was a testimony to her inner strength that she’d spoken so levelly, he thought. Particularly given that they had been not “our initial hopes,” but his initial hopes.
He drew a deep breath, feeling his ears fold back against his skull, and closed his eyes while he considered the price of those hopes. In just three local months, this one, miserable planet had cost the expedition 56 percent of its GEVs, 23 percent of its transports and APCs, and 26 percent of its infantry.
Of course, he reflected grimly, it had cost the humans even more. Yet no matter what he did, the insane creatures refused to submit.
“How badly misplaced?” he asked without opening his eyes.
“The problem, sir,” she replied a bit obliquely, “is that we’ve never before encountered a species like this one. Their psychology is...unlike anything in our previous experience.”
“That much I’d already surmised,” Thikair said with poison-dry humor. “Should I conclude you now have a better grasp of how it differs?”
“Yes, sir.” She drew a deep breath. “First, you must understand that there are huge local variations in their psychologies. That’s inevitable, of course, given that unlike us or any other member race of the Hegemony, they retain so many bewilderingly different cultural and societal templates. There are, however, certain common strands. And one of those, Fleet Commander, is that, essentially, they have no submission mechanism as we understand the term.”
“I beg your pardon?” Thikair’s eyes popped open at the preposterous statement, and she sighed.
“There are a few races of the Hegemony that perhaps approach the humans’ psychology, sir, but I can think of no more than two or three. All of them, like the humans, are omnivores, but none come close to this species’...level of perversity. Frankly, any Shongari psychologist would pronounce all humans insane, sir. Unlike weed-eaters or the majority of omnivores, they have a streak of very Shongari-like ferocity, yet their sense of self is almost invariably far greater than their sense of the pack.”
She was obviously groping for a way to describe something outside any understood racial psychology, Thikair thought.
“Almost all weed-eaters have a very strong herd instinct,” she said. “While they may, under some circumstances, fight ferociously, their first, overwhelming instinct is to avoid conflict, and their basic psychology subordinates the individual’s good, even his very survival, to the good of the ‘herd.’ Most of them now define that ‘herd’ in terms of entire planetary populations or star nations, but it remains the platform from which all of their decisions and policies proceed.
“Most of the Hegemony’s omnivores share that orientation to a greater or a lesser degree, although a handful approach our own psychological stance, which emphasizes not the herd but the pack. Our species evolved as hunters, not prey, with a social structure and psychology oriented around that primary function. Unlike weed-eaters and most omnivores, Shongari’s pride in our personal accomplishments, the proof of our ability, all relate to the ancient, primal importance of the individual hunter’s prowess as the definer of his status within the pack.
“Yet the pack is still greater than the individual. Our sense of self-worth, of accomplishment, is validated only within the context of the pack. And the submission of the weaker to the stronger comes from that same context. It is bred into our very genes to submit to the pack leader, to the individual whose strength dominates all about him. Of course our people, and especially our males, have always challenged our leaders, as well, for that was how the ancient pack ensured that its leadership remained strong. But once a leader has reaffirmed his dominance, his strength, even the challenger submits once more. Our entire philosophy, our honor code, our societal expectations, all proceed from that fundamental starting point.”
“Of course,” Thikair said, just a bit impatiently. “How else could a society such as ours is survive?”
“That’s my point, sir. A society such as ours could not survive among humans. Their instinct to submit is enormously weaker than our own, and it is far superseded by the individual’s drive to defeat threats to his primary loyalty group—which is neither the pack nor the herd.”
“What?” Thikair blinked at her, and she grimaced.
“A human’s primary loyalty is to his family grouping, sir. Not to the herd, of which the family forms only a small part. And not to the pack, where the emphasis is on strength and value to the pack. There are exceptions, but that orientation forms the bedrock of human motivation. You might think of them almost as ... as a herd composed of individual packs of predators. Humans are capable of extending that sense of loyalty beyond the family grouping—to organizations, to communities, to nation-states or philosophies—but the fundamental motivating mechanism of the individual family is as hardwired into them as submission to the stronger is hardwired into us. Sir, my research indicates that a very large percentage of humans will attack any foe, regardless of its strength or power, in defense of their mates or young. And they will do it with no regard whatsoever for the implications to the rest of their pack or herd.”
Thikair looked at her, trying to wrap his mind around the bizarre psychology she was trying to explain. Intellectually, he could grasp it, at least imperfectly; emotionally, it made no sense to him at all.
“Sir,” she continued, “I’ve administered all the standard psychological exams. As you directed, I’ve also experimented to determine how applicable our existing direct neural education techniques are to humans, and I can report that they work quite well. But my opinion, based on the admittedly imperfect psychological profile I’ve been able to construct, suggests to me that it would be the height of folly to use humans as a client race.
“They will never understand the natural submission of the weaker to the stronger. Instead, they will work unceasingly to become the stronger, and not for the purpose of assuming leadership of the pack. Some of them, yes, will react very like Shongari might. Others may even approach weed-eater behavior patterns. But most will see the function of strength as the protection of their primary loyalty group. They will focus their energy on destroying any and all threats to it, even when attempting to destroy the threat in itself risks destruction of the group, and they will never forget or forgive a threat to that which they protect. We might be able to enforce temporary obedience, and it’s possible we could actually convince many of them to accept us as their natural masters. But we will never convince all of them of that, and so, eventually, we will find our ‘clients’ turning upon us with all the inventiveness and ferocity we’ve observed out of them here, but with all our own technological capabilities ... as a starting point.”
* * * *
“It would appear,” Thikair told his senior officers, “that my approach to this planet was not the most brilliant accomplishment of my career.”
They looked back at him, most still obviously bemused by Shairez’s report. None of them, he reflected, had reacted to it any better than he had.
“Obviously,” he continued, “it’s necessary to reevaluate our policy—my policy—in light of the Base Commander’s discoveries. And, frankly, in light of our already severe operational losses.
“Our efforts to date to compel the humans to submit have killed over half the original planetary population and cost us massive losses of our own. Ground Force Commander Thairys’s current estimate is that if we continue operations for one local year, we will have lost three-quarters of his personnel. In that same time period, we will have killed half the remaining humans. Clearly, even if Ground Base Commander Shairez’s model is in error, we cannot sustain losses at that level. Nor would we dare risk providing such a...recalcitrant species with access to modern technology after killing three-quarters of them first.”
There was silence in the conference room as he surveyed their faces.
“The time has come to cut our losses,” he said flatly. “I am not prepared to give up this planet, not after the price we’ve already paid for it. But at the same time, I have concluded that humans are too dangerous. Indeed, faced with what we’ve discovered here, I believe many of the Hegemony’s other races would share that conclusion!
“I’ve already instructed Base Commander Shairez to implement our backup strategy and develop a targeted bio-weapon. This constitutes a significant shift in her priorities, and it will be necessary to establish proper facilities for her work and to provide her with appropriate test subjects.
“I had considered moving her and her research staff to one of the existing ground bases. Unfortunately, the intensity of the operations required to establish those bases means the human populations in their vicinities have become rather...sparse. I have therefore decided to establish a new base facility in a rural area of the planet, where we haven’t conducted such intense operations and reasonable numbers of test subjects will be readily available to her. Ground Force Commander Thairys will be responsible for providing security to the base during its construction...and with securing test subjects for her once construction is complete.”
* * * *
“So, my Stephen. What do you make of this?”
Buchevsky finished his salad and took a long swallow of beer. His grand-mama had always urged him to eat his vegetables, yet he was still a bit bemused by how sinfully luxurious fresh salad tasted after weeks of scrounging whatever he and his people could.
Which, unfortunately, wasn’t what Basarab was asking him about.
“I really don’t know, Mircea,” he said with a frown. “We haven’t been doing anything differently. Not that I know of, at any rate.”
“Nor that I know of,” Basarab agreed thoughtfully, gazing down at the handwritten note on the table.
The days were noticeably cooler outside the log-walled cabin, and autumn color was creeping across the mountainsides above the Arges River and the enormous blue gem of Lake Vidaru. The lake lay less than seventy kilometers north of the ruins of Pitesti, the capital of the Arges judeţ, or county, but it was in the heart of a wilderness preserve, and the cabin had been built by the forestry service, rather than as part of any of the three villages Basarab had organized into his own little kingdom.
Despite Lake Vidaru’s relative proximity to Pitesti, few of the kinetic strike’s survivors had headed up into its vicinity. Buchevsky supposed the mountains and heavy forest had been too forbidding to appeal to urban dwellers. There were almost no roads into the area, and Basarab’s villages were like isolated throwbacks to another age. In fact, they reminded Buchevsky rather strongly of the village in the musical Brigadoon.
Which isn’t a bad thing, he reflected. There sits Lake Vidaru, with its hydroelectric generators, and these people didn’t even have electricity! Which means they aren’t radiating any emissions the Shongari are likely to pick up on.
Over the last couple of months, he, his Americans, and their Romanians had been welcomed by the villagers and—as Basarab had warned— been put to work preparing for the onset of winter. One reason his lunch salad had tasted so good was because he wouldn’t be having salads much longer. It wasn’t as if there’d be fresh produce coming in from California.
“There must be some reason for it, my Stephen,” Basarab said now. “And I fear it is not one either of us would like.”
“Mircea, I haven’t liked a single goddammed thing those bastards have done from day one.”
Basarab arched one eyebrow, and Buchevsky was a little surprised himself by the jagged edge of hatred that had roughened his voice. It took him unawares, sometimes, that hate. When the memory of Trish and the girls came looming up out of the depths once again, fangs bared, to remind him of the loss and the pain and anguish.
Isn’t it one hell of a note when the best thing I can think of is that the people I loved probably died without knowing a thing about it?
“They have not endeared themselves to me, either,” Basarab said after a moment. “Indeed, it has been...difficult to remember that we dare not take the fight to them.”
Buchevsky nodded in understanding. Basarab had made it clear from the beginning that avoiding contact with the enemy, lying low, was the best way to protect the civilians for whom they were responsible, and he was right. Yet that didn’t change his basic personality’s natural orientation—like Buchevsky’s own—toward taking the offensive. Toward seeking out and destroying the enemy, not hiding from him.
But that would have come under the heading of Bad Ideas. Basarab’s runners had made contact with several other small enclaves across southern Romania and northern Bulgaria, and by now, those enclaves were as concerned with defending themselves against other humans as against Shongari. After the initial bombardments and confused combat of the first couple of weeks, the invaders had apparently decided to pull back from the Balkans’ unfriendly terrain and settle for occupying more open areas of the planet. It was hard to be certain of that, with the collapse of the planetary communications net, but it seemed reasonable. As his brain trust of Truman and Sherman had pointed out, troop lift would almost certainly be limited for any interstellar expedition, so it would make sense to avoid stretching it any further than necessary by going up into the hills after dirt-poor, hardscrabble mountain villages.
Human refugees were an entirely different threat, and one Buchevsky was happy they hadn’t had to deal with...yet. Starvation, exposure, and disease had probably killed at least half the civilians who’d fled their homes, and those who remained were becoming increasingly desperate as winter approached. Some of the other enclaves had already been forced to fight, often ruthlessly, against their own kind to preserve the resources their own people needed to survive.
In many ways, it was the fact that the aliens’ actions had forced humans to kill each other in the name of simple survival that fueled Stephen Buchevsky’s deepest rage.
“Nothing would make me happier than to go kick their scrawny asses,” he said now, in response to Basarab’s comment. “But unless they poke their snouts into our area—”
He shrugged, and Basarab nodded. Then he chuckled softly.
“What?” Buchevsky raised an eyebrow at him.
“It is just that we are so much alike, you and I.” Basarab shook his head. “Deny it as you will, my Stephen, but there is Slav inside you!”
“Inside me?” Buchevsky laughed, looking down at the back of one very black hand. “Hey, I already told you! If any of my ancestors were ever in Europe, they got there from Africa, not the steppes!”
“Ah!” Basarab waved a finger under his nose. “So you’ve said, but I know better! What, ‘Buchevsky’? This is an African name?”
“Nope, probably just somebody who owned one of my great-great-granddaddies or -grandmamas.”
“Nonsense! Slavs in nineteenth-century America were too poor to own anyone! No, no. Trust me—it is in the blood. Somewhere in your ancestry there is—how do you Americans say it?—a Slav in the straw pile!”
Buchevsky laughed again. He was actually learning to do that again— sometimes, at least—and he and Basarab had had this conversation before. But then the Romanian’s expression sobered, and he reached across the table to lay one hand on Buchevsky’s forearm.
“Whatever you may have been born, my Stephen,” he said quietly, “you are a Slav now. A Wallachian. You have earned that.”
Buchevsky waved dismissively, but he couldn’t deny the warmth he felt inside. He knew Basarab meant every word of it, just as he knew he’d earned his place as the Romanian’s second-in-command through the training and discipline he’d brought the villagers. Basarab had somehow managed to stockpile impressive quantities of small arms and infantry support weapons, but however fearsome Take Bratianu and the rest of Basarab’s original group might have been as individuals, it was obvious none of them had really understood how to train civilians. Steven Buchevsky, on the other hand, had spent years turning pampered American civilians into U.S. Marines. Compared with that, training tough, mountain-hardened Romanian villagers was a piece of cake.
I just hope none of them are ever going to need that training, he reflected, his mood turning grim once again.
Which brought him back to the subject of this conversation.
“I don’t like it, Mircea,” he said. “There’s no reason for them to put a base way up here in the frigging mountains. Not unless something’s happened that you and I don’t know about.”
“Agreed, agreed.” Basarab nodded, playing with the written note again, then shrugged. “Sooner or later, unless they simply intend to kill all of us, there must be some form of accommodation.”
His sour expression showed his opinion of his own analysis, but he continued unflinchingly.
“The people of this land have survived conquest before. No doubt they can do it again, and if these Shongari had intended simple butchery rather than conquest, then they would have begun by destroying all our cities and towns from space. But I will not subject my people to them without holding out for the very best terms we can obtain. And if they prove me in error—if they demonstrate that they are, indeed, prepared to settle for butchery rather than conquest—they will pay a higher price than they can possibly imagine before they rule these mountains.”
He sat for a moment in cold, dangerous silence. Then he shook himself.
“Well, there seems little point in speculating when we have no firsthand information. So I suppose we must take a closer look at this new base, see what it may be they have in mind.” He tapped the note. “According to this, they had almost finished it before Iliescu noticed it was there. So perhaps it would be best if Take and I go examine it in person.”
Buchevsky opened his mouth to protest, but then he closed it again. He’d discovered that he was always uncomfortable when Basarab went wandering around the mountains out from under his own eye. And a part of him resented the fact that Basarab hadn’t even considered inviting him along on this little jaunt. But the truth, however little he wanted to admit it, was that he would probably have been more of a hindrance than a help.
Basarab and Take Bratianu both seemed to be able to see like cats and move like drifting leaves. He couldn’t even come close to matching them when it came to sneaking through the woods at night, and he knew it. . .however little he liked admitting that there was anything someone could do better than he could.
“We will go tonight,” Basarab decided. “And while I am away, you will keep an eye on things for me, my African Slav, yes?”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Buchevsky agreed.
* * * *
XIII
Regiment Commander Harah didn’t like trees.
He hadn’t always felt that way. In fact, he’d actually liked trees until the Empire invaded this never-to-be-sufficiently-damned planet. Now he vastly preferred long, flat, empty spaces—preferably of bare, pounded earth where not even a garish or one of the human “rabbits” could have hidden. Any other sort of terrain seemed to spontaneously spawn humans ... all of whom appeared to have guns.
He hadn’t needed Base Commander Shairez to tell him humans were all lunatics! It was nice to have confirmation, of course, and he was simply delighted that the Base Commander’s conclusions had led Fleet Commander Thikair to change his plans. Once every last accursed human had been expunged from it, this planet would probably be a perfectly nice place to live.
He grimaced at his own thoughts as he sat gazing at the holographic plot in his GEV command vehicle.
Actually, Harah, part of you admires these creatures, doesn’t it? he thought. After all, we’ve killed thousands of them for every Shongari we’ve lost, and they still have the guts—the absolutely insane, utterly irrational, mind-numbingly stupid guts—to come right at us. If they only had half as much brains, they would’ve acknowledged our superiority and submitted months ago. But, no! They couldn’t do that, could they?
He growled, remembering the 35 percent of his original regiment he’d lost subduing what had once been the city of Cincinnati. Division Commander Tesuk had gone in with three regiments; he’d come out with less than one, and they’d still ended up taking out over half the city from orbit. Particularly in the nation the humans had called the “United States,” there’d seemed to be more guns than there were people!
At least the experience had taught the expedition’s senior officers to settle for occupying open terrain, where surveillance could be maintained effectively, and simply calling in kinetic strikes on anything resembling organized resistance in more constricted terrain.
Despite that, no one relished the thought of acquiring Shairez’s test subjects anyplace where there’d been sustained contact with the humans. First, because there weren’t many humans left in places like that, and the ones who hadn’t already been killed had become fiendishly clever at hiding. Just finding them would have been hard enough even without the second consideration...which was that those same survivors were also uncommonly good at ambushing anyone who went looking for them.
Of course, there weren’t many places where there’d been no combat, given humans’ insane stubbornness. Still, the mountainous portions of the area the humans called “the Balkans” had seen far less than most, mainly because the population was so sparse and the terrain was so accursedly bad, HQ had decided to let the humans there stew in their own juices rather than invest the effort to go in after them.
And, he reflected moodily, the other reason HQ made that little decision was the fact that we kept getting our asses kicked every time we did send someone in on the ground, didn’t we?
In fairness, they’d taken the worst of their losses in the first few weeks, before they’d really begun to appreciate just what a losing proposition it was to go after humans on ground of their own choosing.
That’s what the gods made fire support for, Harah thought grimly.
Well, he reminded himself as his GEVs and transports approached their jumpoff positions, at least the satellites have told us exactly where these humans are. And they’ve been left alone, too. Their herd hasn’t been culled yet. And not only should they be fat, happy, and stupid compared with the miserable jermahk we’ve been trying to dig out of the woodwork back home, but we’ve learned a lot over the last few months.
His lips wrinkled back from his canines in a hunter’s grin.
* * * *
Stephen Buchevsky swore with silent, bitter venom.
The sun was barely above the eastern horizon, shining into his eyes as he studied the Shongari through the binoculars and wondered what the hell they were after. After staying clear of the mountains for so long, what could have inspired them to come straight at the villages this way?
And why the hell do they have to be doing it when Mircea is away? a corner of his mind demanded.
It was at least fortunate the listening posts had detected the approaching drones so early, given how close behind them the aliens had been this time. There’d been time—barely—to crank up the old-fashioned, hand-powered warning sirens. And at least the terrain was too heavily forested for any sort of airborne ops. If the Shongari wanted them, they’d have to come in on the ground.
Which was exactly what they seemed to have in mind. A large number of APCs and a handful of tanks were assembling on the low ground at the southern end of the lake, about a kilometer below the Gheorghiu-Dej Dam, while a smaller force of tanks came in across the lake itself, followed by a dozen big orbital shuttles, and he didn’t like that one bit.
The villages were scattered along the rugged flanks of a mountain spine running east-to-west on the lake’s southeastern shore. The ridgeline towered to over 3,200 feet in places, with the villages tucked away in dense tree cover above the 1,800-foot level. He’d thought they were well concealed, but the Shongari clearly knew where they were and obviously intended to squeeze them between the force coming in over the lake and the second force, moving along the deep valley between their ridge and the one to its south.
That much was clear enough. Among the many things that weren’t clear was how well the aliens’ sensors could track humans moving through rough terrain under heavy tree cover. He hoped the answer to that question was “not very,” but he couldn’t rely on that.
“Start them moving,” he told Elizabeth Cantacuzčne. “These people are headed straight for the villages. I think we’d better be somewhere else when they get here.”
“Yes, Stephen.” The teacher sounded far calmer than Buchevsky felt as she nodded, then disappeared to pass his instructions to the waiting runners. Within moments, he knew, the orders would have gone out and their people would be falling back to the position he’d allowed Ramirez to christen “Bastogne.”
It was an Army dance the first time around., he thought, and it came out pretty well that time. I guess it’s time to see how well the Green Machine makes out.
* * * *
Regiment Commander Harah swore as the icons on his plot shifted.
It appears we weren’t close enough behind the drones after all, he thought grumpily.
HQ had been forced to factor the humans’ bizarre ability to sense drones from beyond visual range into its thinking, and the operations plan had made what ought to have been ample allowance for it. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been, and he was already losing sensor resolution as they went scurrying through those accursed trees.
“They’re moving along the ridge,” he said over the regimental net. “They’re headed west—toward those higher peaks. Second Battalion, swing farther up the lake, try to come in on their flank. First Battalion, get moving up that valley now.”
* * * *
Buchevsky muttered another curse as the drones’ unpleasant vibration kept pace with him. Clearly, the damn things could track through tree cover better than he’d hoped. On the other hand, they seemed to be coming in close, low above the treetops, and if they were—
* * * *
“Dainthar seize them!”
A quartet of dirty fireballs trickled down the sky, and four of Harah’s drones went off the air simultaneously.
Damn it! What in the name of Dainthar’s Third Hell are villagers up in these damned mountains doing with SAMs?
* * * *
Buchevsky bared his teeth in a panting, running grin as Macomb’s air-defense teams took out the nearest drones. He still felt vibrations from other drones, farther away, but if the bastards kept them high enough to avoid the Gremlins, it might make their sensor resolution crappier, too.
* * * *
Harah tried to master his anger, but he was sick unto death of how these damned humans insisted on screwing up even the simplest operation. There weren’t supposed to be any SAMs or heavy weapons up here. That was the entire reason they’d come looking for Base Commander Shairez’s specimens here. Only the humans still refused to cooperate!
He considered reporting to headquarters. Equipment losses on this accursed invasion were already astronomical, and he doubted HQ would thank him if he lost still more of it chasing after what were supposed to be unarmed villagers cowering in their mountain hideouts. But they had to secure specimens somewhere, and he had these humans more or less in his sights.
“We’re not going to be able to bring the drones in as close as planned,” he told his battalion commanders. “It’s up to our scouts. Tell them to keep their damn eyes open.”
Fresh acknowledgments came in, and he watched his own forces’ icons closing in on the abruptly amorphous shaded area representing the drones’ best guess of the humans’ location.
We may not be able to see them clearly, he thought angrily, but even if we can’t, there aren’t that many places they can go, now, are there?
* * * *
Buchevsky was profoundly grateful for the way hard work had toughened the lowland refugees. They were managing to keep up with the villagers, which they never would have been able to do without it. Several smaller children were beginning to flag, anyway, of course, and his heart ached at the ruthless demands being placed on them. But the bigger kids were managing to keep up with the adults, and there were enough grown-ups to take turns carrying the littlest ones.
The unhealed wound where Shania and Yvonne had been cried out for him to scoop up one of those tiny human beings, carry someone’s child to the safety he’d been unable to offer his own children.
But that wasn’t his job, and he turned his attention to what was.
He slid to a halt on the narrow trail, breathing heavily, watching the last few villagers stream past. The perimeter guards came next, and then the scouts who’d been on listening watch. One of them was Robert Szu.
“It’s...it’s pretty much like...you and Mircea figured it...Top,” the private panted. He paused for a moment, gathering his breath, then nodded sharply. “They’re coming up the firebreak roads on both sides of the ridgeline. I figure their points are halfway up by now.”
“Good.” Buchevsky said.
* * * *
“Farkalash!”
Regiment Commander Harah’s driver looked back over his shoulder at the horrendous oath until Harah’s bared-canines snarl turned him hastily back around to his controls. The regiment commander only wished he could dispose of the Dainthar-damned humans as easily!
I shouldn’t have sent the vehicles in that close, he told himself through a boil of bloodred fury. I should’ve dismounted the infantry farther out. Of course it was as obvious to the humans as it was to me that there were only a handful of routes vehicles could use!
He growled at himself, but he knew why he’d made the error. The humans were moving faster than he’d estimated they could, and he’d wanted to use his vehicles’ speed advantage. Which was why the humans had destroyed six more GEVs and eleven wheeled APCs...not to mention over a hundred troopers who’d been aboard the troop carriers.
And there’s no telling how many more little surprises they may’ve planted along any openings wide enough for vehicles.
“Dismount the infantry,” he said flatly over the command net. “Scout formation. The vehicles are not to advance until the engineers have checked the trails for more explosives.”
* * * *
Buchevsky grimaced sourly. From the smoke billowing up through the treetops, he’d gotten at least several of their vehicles. Unfortunately, he couldn’t know how many.
However many, they’re going to take the hint and come in on foot from here...unless they’re complete and utter idiots. And somehow, I don’t think they are. Damn it.
Well, at least he’d slowed them up. That was going to buy the civilians a little breathing space. Now it was time to buy them a little more.
* * * *
Harah’s ears flattened, but at least it wasn’t a surprise this time. The small arms fire rattling out of the trees had become inevitable the moment he ordered his own infantry to go in on foot.
* * * *
Automatic weapons fire barked and snarled, and Buchevsky wished they hadn’t been forced to deep-six their radios. His people knew the terrain intimately, knew the best defensive positions, but the Shongari had heavier support weapons and their communications were vastly better than his. And, adding insult to injury, some of their infantry were using captured human rocket and grenade launchers to thicken their firepower.
The situation’s bitter irony wasn’t lost upon him. This time, his forces were on the short end of the “asymmetrical warfare” stick, and it sucked. On the other hand, he’d had painful personal experience of just how effective guerrillas could be in this sort of terrain.
* * * *
There was more satisfaction to accompany the frustration in Harah’s growl as he looked at the plot’s latest update.
The advance had been slower than he’d ever contemplated, and morning had become afternoon, but the humans appeared to be running out of SAMs at last. That meant he could get his drones in close enough to we see what the hell was happening, and his momentum was building.
Which was a damned good thing, since he’d already lost over 20 percent of his troops.
Well, maybe I have, but I’ve cost them, too, he thought harshly. Real-time estimates of enemy losses were notoriously unreliable, but even by his most pessimistic estimates, the humans had lost over forty fighters so far.
That was the good news. The bad news was that they appeared to be remarkably well equipped with infantry weapons, and their commander was fighting as smart as any human Harah had ever heard of. His forces were hugely outnumbered and outgunned, but he was hitting back hard—in fact, Harah’s casualties, despite his GEVs and his mortars, were at least six or seven times the humans’. The other side was intimately familiar with the terrain and taking ruthless advantage of it, and his infantry had run into enough more concealed explosives to make anyone cautious.
Whatever we’ve run our snouts into, he reflected, those aren’t just a bunch of villagers. Somebody’s spent a lot of time reconnoitering these damn mountains. They’re fighting from positions that were preselected for their fields of fire. And those explosives...Someone picked the spots for them pretty damned carefully, too. Whoever it was knew what he was doing, and he must’ve spent months preparing his positions.
Despite himself, he felt a flicker of respect for his human opponent. Not that it was going to make any difference in the end. The take from his drones was still far less detailed than he could wish, but it was clear the fleeing villagers were running into what amounted to a cul-de-sac.
* * * *
Buchevsky felt the beginnings of despair.
He’d started the morning with 100 “regulars” and another 150 “militia” from the villages. He knew everyone tended to overestimate his own losses in a fight like this, especially in this sort of terrain, but he’d be surprised if he hadn’t lost at least a quarter of his people by now.
That was bad enough, but there was worse coming.
The Bastogne position had never been intended to stand off a full-bore Shongari assault. It had really been designed as a place of retreat in the face of attack by human adversaries after the villages’ winter supplies. That meant Bastogne, despite its name, was more of a fortified warehouse than some sort of final redoubt. He’d made its defenses as tough as he could, yet he’d never contemplated trying to hold it against hundreds of Shongari infantry, supported by tanks and mortars.
Stop kicking yourself an inner voice growled. There was never any point trying to build a position you could’ve held against that kind of assault. So what if you’d held them off for a while? They’d only call in one of their damned kinetic strikes in the end, anyway.
He knew that was true, but what was also true was that the only paths of retreat were so steep as to be almost impassable. Bastogne was supposed to hold against any likely human attack, and without its stockpiled supplies, the chance that their civilians could have survived the approaching winter had been minimal, at best. So he and Mircea had staked everything on making the position tough enough to stand...and now it was a trap too many of their people couldn’t get out of.
He looked out through the smoky forest, watching the westering sun paint the smoke the color of blood, and knew his people were out of places to run. They were on the final perimeter, now, and it took every ounce of discipline he’d learned in his life to fight down his despair.
I’m sorry, Mircea, he thought grimly. I fucked up. Now we’re all screwed. I’m just as glad you didn’t make it back in time, after all.
His jaw muscles tightened, and he reached out and grabbed Maria Averescu, one of his runners.
“I need you to find Gunny Meyers,” he said in the Romanian he’d finally begun to master.
“He’s dead, Top,” she replied harshly, and his belly clenched. “Sergeant Ramirez?”
“Him, too, I think. I know he took a hit here.” Averescu thumped the center of her own chest.
“Then find Sergeant Jonescu. Tell him—” Buchevsky drew a deep breath. “Tell him I want him and his people to get as many kids out as they can. Tell him the rest of us will buy him as much time as we can. Got that?”
“Yes, Top!” Averescu’s grimy face was pale, but she nodded hard.
“Good. Now go!”
He released her shoulder. She shot off through the smoke, and he headed for the perimeter command post.
* * * *
The Shongari scouts realized the humans’ retreat had slowed still further. Painful experience made them wary of changes, and they felt their way cautiously forward.
They were right to be cautious.
* * * *
Bastogne had been built around a deep cavern that offered protected, easily camouflaged storage for winter foodstuffs and fodder for the villages’ animals. Concealment was not its only defense, however.
* * * *
Buchevsky bared his teeth savagely as he heard the explosions. He still wished he’d had better mines to work with—he’d have given his left arm for a couple of crates of claymores—but the Romanian anti-personnel mines Basarab had managed to scrounge up were one hell of a lot better than nothing. The mine belt wasn’t so deep as he would have liked, but the Shongari obviously hadn’t realized what they were walking into, and he listened with bloodthirsty satisfaction to their shrieks.
I may not stop them, but I can damned well make them pay cash. And maybe—just maybe—Jonescu will get some of the kids out, after all.
He didn’t let himself think about the struggle to survive those kids would face over the coming winter with no roof, no food. He couldn’t.
“Runner!”
“Yes, Top!”
“Find Corporal Gutierrez,” Buchevsky told the young man. “Tell him it’s time to dance.”
* * * *
The Shongari halted along the edge of the minefield cowered close against the ground as the pair of 120 mm mortars Basarab had scrounged up along with the mines started dropping their lethal fire on them. Even now, few of them had actually encountered human artillery, and the 35-pound HE bombs were a devastating experience.
* * * *
Regiment Commander Harah winced as the communications net was flooded by sudden reports of heavy fire. Even after the unpleasant surprise of the infantry-portable SAMs, he hadn’t anticipated this.
His lead infantry companies’ already heavy loss rates soared, and he snarled over the net at his own support weapons commander.
“Find those damned mortars and get fire on them—now”
* * * *
Harah’s infantry recoiled as rifle fire added to the carnage of mortar bombs and minefields. But they were survivors who’d learned their lessons in a hard school, and their junior officers started probing forward, looking for openings.
Three heavy mortars, mounted on unarmored transports, had managed to struggle up the narrow trail behind them and tried to locate human mortars. But the dense tree cover and rugged terrain made it impossible to get a solid radar track on the incoming fire. Finally, unable to actually find the mortar pits, they began blind suppressive fire.
The Shongari mortars were more powerful, and white-hot flashes began to walk across the area behind Buchevsky’s forward positions, and he heard screams rising from behind him, as well.
But the Shongari had problems of their own. Their vehicle-mounted weapons were confined to the trail while the humans’ were deeply dug-in, and Buchevsky and Ignacio Gutierrez had pre-plotted just about every possible firing position along that trail. As soon as they opened fire, Gutierrez knew where they had to be, and both of his mortars retargeted immediately. They fired more rapidly than the heavier Shongari weapons, and their bombs fell around the Shongari vehicles in a savage exchange that could not—and didn’t—last long.
Ignacio Gutierrez died, along with one entire crew. The second mortar, though, remained in action...which was more than could be said for the vehicles they’d engaged.
* * * *
Harah snarled.
He had over a dozen more mortar vehicles ... all of them miles behind the point of contact, at the far end of the choked, tortuous trails along which his infantry had pursued the humans. He could bring them up—in time—just as he could call in a kinetic strike and put an end to this entire business in minutes. But the longer he delayed, the more casualties that single remaining human mortar would inflict. And if he called in the kinetic strike, he’d kill the test subjects he’d come to capture, along with their defenders...which would make the entire operation, and all the casualties he’d already suffered, meaningless.
That wasn’t going to happen. If this bunch of primitives was so incredibly stupid, so lost to all rationality and basic decency, that they wanted to die fighting, then he would damned well oblige them.
He looked up through a break in the tree cover. The light was fading quickly, and Shongari didn’t like fighting in the dark. But there was still time. They could still break through before darkness fell if—
* * * *
Stephen Buchevsky sensed it coming. He couldn’t have explained how, but he knew. He could actually feel the Shongari gathering themselves, steeling themselves, and he knew.
“They’re coming!” he shouted, and heard his warning relayed along the horseshoe-shaped defensive line in either direction from his CP.
He set aside his own rifle and settled into position behind the KPV heavy machine gun. There were three tripod-mounted PKMS 7.62 mm medium machine guns dug in around Bastogne’s final perimeter, but even Mircea Basarab’s scrounging talents had limits. He’d managed to come up with only one heavy machine gun, and it was a bulky, awkward thing—six and a half feet long, intended as a vehicle-mounted weapon, on an improvised infantry mounting.
The Shongari started forward behind a hurricane of rifle fire and grenades. The minefield slowed them, disordered them, but they kept coming. They were too close for the single remaining mortar to engage, and the medium machine guns opened up.
Shongari screamed, tumbled aside, disappeared in sprays of blood and tissue, but then a pair of wheeled armored personnel carriers edged up the trail behind them. How they’d gotten here was more than Buchevsky could guess, but their turret-mounted light energy weapons quested back and forth, seeking targets. Then a quasi-solid bolt of lightning slammed across the chaos and the blood and terror and one of the machine guns was silenced forever.
But Stephen Buchevsky knew where that lightning bolt had come from, and the Russian Army had developed the KPV around the 14.5 mm round of its final World War II antitank rifle. The PKMS’ 185-grain bullet developed three thousand foot-pounds of muzzle energy; the KPV’s bullet weighed almost a thousand grains...and developed twenty-four thousand foot-pounds of muzzle energy.
He laid his sights on the vehicle that had fired and sent six hundred rounds per minute shrieking into it.
The APC staggered as the steel-cored, armor-piercing, incendiary bullets slammed into it at better than 3,200 feet per second. Armor intended to resist small arms fire never had a chance against that torrent of destruction, and the vehicle vomited smoke and flame.
Its companion turned toward the source of its destruction, and Alice Macomb stood up in a rifle pit. She exposed herself recklessly with an RBR-M60, and its three-and-a-half-pound rocket smashed into the APC ...just before a six-round burst killed her where she stood.
Buchevsky swung the KBV’s flaming muzzle, sweeping his fire along the Shongari line, pouring his hate, his desperate need to protect the children behind him, into his enemies.
He was still firing when the Shongari grenade silenced his machine gun forever.
* * * *
He woke slowly, floating up from the depths like someone else’s ghost. He woke to darkness, to pain, and to a swirling tide race of dizziness, confusion, and fractured memory.
He blinked, slowly, blindly, trying to understand. He’d been wounded more times than he liked to think about, but it had never been like this. The pain had never run everywhere under his skin, as if it were racing about on the power of his own heartbeat. And yet, even though he knew he had never suffered such pain in his life, it was curiously...distant. A part of him, yes, but walled off by the dizziness. Held one imagined half step away.
“You are awake, my Stephen.”
It was a statement, he realized, not a question. Almost as if the voice behind it were trying to reassure him of that.
He turned his head, and it was as if it belonged to someone else. It seemed to take him forever, but at last Mircea Basarab’s face swam into his field of vision.
He blinked again, trying to focus, but he couldn’t. He lay in a cave somewhere, looking out into a mountain night, and there was something wrong with his eyes. Everything seemed oddly out of phase, and the night kept flashing, as if it were alive with heat lightning.
“Mircea.”
He didn’t recognize his own voice. It was faint, thready.
“Yes,” Basarab agreed. “I know you may not believe it at this moment, but you will recover.”
“Take...your word...for it.”
“Very wise of you.”
Buchevsky didn’t have to be able to focus his eyes to see Basarab’s fleeting smile, and he felt his own mouth twitch in reply. But then a new and different sort of pain ripped through him.
“I...fucked up.” He swallowed painfully. “Sorry... so sorry. The kids. . .”
His eyes burned as a tear forced itself from under his lids, and he felt Basarab grip his right hand. The Romanian raised it, pressed it against his own chest, and his face came closer as he leaned over Buchevsky.
“No, my Stephen,” he said slowly. “It was not you who failed; it was I. This is my fault, my friend.”
“No.” Buchevsky shook his head weakly. “No. Couldn’t have...stopped it even if...you’d been here.”
“You think not?” It was Basarab’s turn to shake his head. “You think wrongly. These creatures—these Shongari—would never have touched my people if I had remembered. Had I not spent so long trying to be someone I am not. Trying to forget. You shame me, my Stephen. You, who fell in my place, doing my duty, paying in blood for my failure.”
Buchevsky frowned, his swirling brain trying to make some sort of sense out of Basarab’s words. He couldn’t...which probably shouldn’t have been too surprising, he decided, given how horrendously bad he felt.
“How many—?” he asked.
“Only a very few, I fear,” Basarab said quietly. “Your Gunny Meyers is here, although he was more badly wounded even than you. I am not surprised the vermin left both of you for dead. And Jasmine and Private Lopez. The others were...gone before Take and I could return.”
Buchevsky’s stomach clenched as Basarab confirmed what he’d already known.
“And...the villagers?”
“Sergeant Jonescu got perhaps a dozen children to safety,” Basarab said. “He and most of his men died holding the trail while the children and their mothers fled. The others—”
He shrugged, looking away, then looked back at Buchevsky.
“They are not here, Stephen. For whatever reason, the vermin have taken them, and having seen this new base of theirs, I do not think either of us would like that reason.”
“God.” Buchevsky closed his eyes again. “Sorry. My fault,” he said once more.
“Do not repeat that foolishness again, or you will make me angry,” Basarab said sternly. “And do not abandon hope for them. They are my people. I swore to protect them, and I do not let my word be proved false.”
Buchevsky’s world was spinning away again, yet he opened his eyes, looked up in disbelief. His vision cleared, if only for a moment, and as he saw Mircea Basarab’s face, he felt the disbelief flow out of him.
It was still preposterous, of course. He knew that. Only, somehow, as he looked up into that granite expression, it didn’t matter what he knew. All that mattered was what he felt...and as he fell back into the bottomless darkness, a tiny little sliver of awareness felt almost sorry for the Shongari.
* * * *
Private Kumayr felt his head beginning to nod forward and stiffened his spine, snapping back erect in his chair. His damnably comfortable chair, which wasn’t exactly what someone needed to keep him awake and alert in the middle of the night.
He shook himself and decided he’d better find something to do if he didn’t want one of the officers to come along and rip his head off for dozing on duty. Something that looked industrious and conscientious.
His ears twitched in amusement, and he punched up a standard diagnostic of the perimeter security systems. Not that he expected to find any problems. The entire base was brand new, and all of its systems had passed their final checks with flying colors less than three local days ago. Still, it would look good on the log sheets.
He hummed softly as the computers looked over one another’s shoulders, reporting back to him. He paid particular attention to the systems in the laboratory area. Now that they had test subjects, the labs would be getting a serious workout, after all. When that happened—
His humming stopped, and his ears pricked as a red icon appeared on his display. That couldn’t be right...could it?
He keyed another, more tightly focused diagnostic program, and his pricked ears flattened as more icons began to blink. He stared at them, then slammed his hand down on the transmit key.
“Perimeter One!” he snapped. “Perimeter One, Central. Report status!”
There was no response, and something with hundreds of small icy feet started to scuttle up and down his spine.
“Perimeter Two!” he barked, trying another circuit. “Perimeter Two— report status!”
Still no response, and that was impossible. There were fifty troopers in each of those positions—one of them had to have heard him!
“All perimeter stations!” He heard the desperation in his voice, tried to squeeze it back out again while he held down the all-units key. “All perimeter stations, this is a red alert!”
Still there was nothing, and he stabbed more controls, bringing up the monitors. They came alive...and he froze.
Not possible, a small, still voice said in the back of his brain as he stared at the images of carnage. At the troopers with their throats ripped out, at the Shongari blood soaking into the thirsty soil of an alien world, at heads turned backwards on snapped necks and dismembered body parts scattered like some lunatic’s bloody handiwork.
Not possible, not without at least one alarm sounding. Not— He heard a tiny sound, and his right hand flashed toward his side arm. But even as he touched it, the door of his control room flew open and darkness crashed over him.
* * * *
“What?”
Fleet Commander Thikair looked at Ship Commander Ahzmer in astonishment so deep, it was sheer incomprehension.
“I’m...I’m sorry, sir.” The flagship’s CO sounded like someone trapped in an amazingly bad dream, Thikair thought distantly. “The report just came in. I’m...afraid it’s confirmed, sir.”
“All of them?” Thikair shook himself. “Everyone assigned to the base— even Shairez?”
“All of them,” Ahzmer confirmed heavily. “And all the test subjects have disappeared.”
“Dainthar;” Thikair half whispered. He stared at the ship commander, then shook himself again, harder.
“How did they do it?”
“Sir, I don’t know. No one knows. For that matter, it doesn’t...well, it doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen the humans do before.”
“What are you talking about?” Thikair’s voice was harder, impatient. He knew much of his irritation was the product of his own shock, but that didn’t change the fact that what Ahzmer had just said made no sense.
“It doesn’t look like whoever it was used weapons at all, Fleet Commander.” Ahzmer didn’t sound as if he expected Thikair to believe him, but the ship commander went on doggedly. “It’s more like some sort of wild beasts got through every security system without sounding a single alarm. Not one, sir. But there are no bullet wounds, no knife wounds, no sign of any kind of weapon. Our people were just...torn apart.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Thikair protested.
“No, sir, it doesn’t. But it’s what happened.”
The two of them stared at one another; then Thikair drew a deep breath.
“Senior officers conference, two hours,” he said flatly.
* * * *
“The ground patrols have confirmed it, Fleet Commander,” Ground Force Commander Thairys said heavily. “There are no Shongari survivors. None. And—” He inhaled heavily, someone about to say something he really didn’t want to. “—there’s no evidence that a single one of our troopers so much as fired a shot in his own defense. It’s as if they all just...sat there, waiting for someone—or something—to tear them apart.”
“Calm down, Thairys.” Thikair put both sternness and sympathy into his tone. “We’re going to have enough panicky rumors when the troops hear about this. Let’s not begin believing in night terrors before the rumor mill even gets started!”
Thairys looked at him for a moment, then managed a chuckle that was only slightly hollow.
“You’re right, of course, sir. It’s just that....Well, it’s just that I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’ve checked the database. As nearly as I can tell, no one in the entire Hegemony has ever seen anything like this.”
“It’s a big galaxy,” Thikair pointed out. “And even the Hegemony’s explored only a very small portion of it. I don’t know what happened down there, either, but trust me—there’s a rational explanation. We just have to figure out what it is.”
“With all due respect, Fleet Commander,” Squadron Commander Jainfar said quietly, “how do we go about doing that?”
Thikair looked at him, and the squadron commander flicked his ears.
“I’ve personally reviewed the sensor recordings, sir. Until Private Kumayr began trying to contact the perimeter strong points, there was absolutely no indication of any problem. Whatever happened, it apparently managed to kill every single member of the garrison—except for Kumayr—without being detected by any heat, motion, or audio sensor. The fact of the matter is, sir, that we have no data, no information at all. Just an entire base full of dead personnel. And with no evidence, how do we figure out what happened, far less who was responsible for it?”
“One thing I think we can assume, sir.” Base Commander Barak was down on the planetary surface, attending the conference electronically, and Thikair nodded permission to speak to his comm image.
“As I say, I think we can assume one thing,” Barak continued. “Surely if it was the humans—if humans were capable of this sort of thing—they wouldn’t have waited until we’d killed more than half of them before we found out about it! For that matter, why here? Why Shairez’s base, and not mine, or Base Commander Fursa’s? Unless we want to assume the humans somehow figured out what Shairez was going to be developing, why employ some sort of ‘secret weapon’ for the first time against a brand-new base where nowhere near as much of the local population has been killed?”
“With all due respect, Base Commander,” Thairys said, “if it wasn’t the humans, then who do you suggest it might have been?”
“That I don’t know, sir,” Barak said respectfully. “I’m simply suggesting that, logically, if humans could do this in the first place, they’d already have done it...and on a considerably larger scale.”
“Are you suggesting that some other member of the Hegemony might be responsible?” Thikair asked slowly.
“I think that’s remotely possible...but only remotely, sir.” Barak shrugged. “Again, I have no idea who—or what—it actually was. But I don’t really see how any other member of the Hegemony could have penetrated our security so seamlessly. Our technology is as good as anyone else’s. Probably even better, in purely military applications.”
“Wonderful.” Jainfar grimaced. “So all any of us have been able to contribute so far is that we don’t have a clue who did it, or how, or even why! Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t the humans...whom we’ve all now agreed don’t have the capability to do it in the first place!”
“I think we’ve wandered about as far afield speculatively as we profitably can,” Thikair said firmly. “I see no point in our helping one another panic from the depths of our current ignorance.”
His subordinates all looked at him, most at least a little sheepishly, and he bared his canines in a frosty smile.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m as...anxious about this as anyone else. But let’s look at it. So far, we’ve lost one base and its personnel. All right, we’ve been hurt—badly. But whatever happened, it obviously took Shairez’s entire base completely by surprise, and we know the sensor net didn’t pick anything up. So, I think, the first thing to do is to put all our bases and personnel on maximum alert. Second, we emphasize that whoever was responsible may have some form of advanced stealth technology. Since we apparently can’t rely on our sensors to detect it, we’re going to have to rely on our own physical senses. I want all of our units to establish real-time, free-flow communications nets. All checkpoints will be manned, not left to the automatics, and all detachments will check in regularly with their central HQs. Even if we can’t detect these people—whoever they are—on their way in, we can at least be certain we know when they’ve arrived. And I don’t care how good their ‘stealth technology’ is. If we know they’re there, we have enough troopers, enough guns, and enough heavy weapons on that planet to kill anything.”
* * * *
“Yes, Thairys?” Thikair said.
The ground force commander had lingered as the other senior officers filed out. Now he looked at the fleet commander, his ears half-folded and his eyes somber. “There were two small points I...chose not to mention in front of the others, sir,” he said quietly.
“Oh?” Thikair managed to keep his voice level, despite the sudden cold tingle dancing down his nerves.
“Yes, sir. First, I’m afraid the preliminary medical exams indicate Base Commander Shairez was killed several hours after the rest of her personnel. And there are indications that she was...interrogated before her neck was broken.”
“I see.” Thikair looked at his subordinate for a moment, then cleared his throat. “And the second point?”
“And the second point is that two of the base’s neural education units are missing, sir. Whoever attacked Shairez’s facility must have taken them with him. And if he knows how to operate them . . .”
The ground force commander’s voice trailed off. There was, after all, no need for him to complete the sentence, since each of the education units contained the basic knowledge platform of the entire Hegemony.
* * * *
“I almost wish something else would happen,” Base Commander Fursa said. He and Base Commander Barak were conferring via communicator, and Barak frowned at him.
“I want to figure out what’s going on as badly as you do, Fursa. And I suppose for us to do that, ‘something else’ is going to have to happen. But while you’re wishing, just remember, you’re the next closest major base.”
“I know.” Fursa grimaced. “That’s my point. We’re feeling just a bit exposed out here. I’m inclined to suspect that the anticipation is at least as bad as beating off an actual attack would be.”
Barak grunted. His own base sat in the middle of a place that had once been called “Kansas,” which put an entire ocean between him and whatever had happened to Shairez. Fursa’s base, on the other hand, was located just outside the ruins of the human city of Moscow.
Still, almost two local weeks had passed. That was a lot of time, when no one in the entire expedition had been able to come up with a workable explanation for what had happened. A lot of time for nerves to tighten, for the ‘anticipation’ Fursa had just mentioned to work on all of them.
And a lot of time for whoever had attacked Shairez’s base to move his operations somewhere else entirely.
“You may have a point,” he said finally, “but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. In fact, if I had my way”—his voice lowered—”I’d already be cutting my losses. This planet’s been nothing but one enormous pain in the ass. I say take all our people off and level the place.”
The base commanders’ gazes met, and Barak saw the agreement hidden in Fursa’s eyes. Any one of Fleet Commander Thikair’s dreadnoughts was capable of sterilizing any planet. Of course, actually doing that would raise more than a few eyebrows among the Hegemony’s member races. The sort of scrutiny it would draw down upon the Empire might well have disastrous consequences. But even so . . .
“Somehow, I don’t think that particular solution’s going to be very high on the Fleet Commander’s list,” Fursa said carefully.
“No, and it probably shouldn’t be,” Barak agreed. “But I’m willing to bet it’s running through the back of his mind already, and you know it.”
* * * *
“Time check,” Brigade Commander Caranth announced. “Check in.”
“Perimeter One, secure.”
“Perimeter Two, secure.”
“Perimeter Three, secure.”
“Perimeter Four, secure.”
The acknowledgments came in steadily, and Caranth’s ears twitched in satisfaction with each of them...until the sequence paused.
The brigade commander didn’t worry for a moment, but then he stiffened in his chair.
“Perimeter Five, report,” he said.
Only silence answered.
“Perimeter Five!” he snapped...and that was when the firing began.
Caranth lunged upright and raced to the command bunker’s armored observation slit while his staff started going berserk behind him. He stared out into the night, his body rigid in disbelief as the stroboscopic fury of muzzle flashes ripped the darkness apart. He couldn’t see anything but the flickering lightning of automatic weapons...and neither could his sensors. Yet he had infantry out there shooting at something, and as he watched, one of his heavy weapons posts opened fire, as well.
“We’re under attack!” someone screamed over the net. “Perimeter Three— we’re under attack! They’re coming through the—”
The voice chopped off, and then, horribly, Caranth heard other voices yelling in alarm, screaming in panic, chopping off in mid-syllable. It was as if some invisible, unstoppable whirlwind was sweeping through his perimeter, and strain his eyes though he might, he couldn’t even see it!
The voices began to dwindle, fading in a diminuendo that was even more terrifying than the gunfire, the explosion of artillery rounds landing on something no one could see. The firing died. The last scream bubbled into silence, and Caranth felt his heart trying to freeze in his chest.
The only sound was his staff, trying desperately to contact even one of the perimeter security points.
There was no answer, only silence. And then—
“What’s that?” someone blurted, and Caranth turned to see something flowing from the overhead louvers of the bunker’s ventilation system. There was no time even to begin to recognize what it was before the darkness crashed down on him like a hammer.
* * * *
Fleet Commander Thikair felt a thousand years old as he sat in the silence of his stateroom, cursing the day he’d ever had his brilliant idea about using this planet and its eternally damned humans for the Empire’s benefit.
It seemed so simple, he thought almost numbly. Like such a reasonable risk. But then it all went so horribly wrong, from the moment our troopers landed. And now this.
Base Commander Fursa’s entire command was gone, wiped out in a single night. And in the space of less than eight hours, two infantry brigades and an entire armored regiment had been just as utterly destroyed.
And they still had absolutely no idea how it had happened.
They’d received a single report, from a platoon commander, claiming that he was under attack by humans. Humans who completely ignored the assault rifles firing into them. Humans who registered on no thermal sensor, no motion sensor. Humans who could not be there.
Maybe it isn’t possible. Or maybe it’s just one more lunacy about this entire insane planet. But whatever it is, it’s enough. It’s more than enough.
He punched a button on his communicator.
“Yes, Fleet Commander?” Ahzmer’s voice responded quietly.
“Bring them up,” Thikair said with a terrible, flat emphasis. “I want every single trooper off that planet within twelve hours. And then we’ll let Jainfar’s dreadnoughts use the Dainthar-cursed place for target practice.’’
* * * *
It wasn’t quite that simple, of course.
Organizing the emergency withdrawal of an entire planetary assault force was even more complicated than landing it had been. But at least the required troop lift had been rather drastically reduced, Thikair reflected bitterly. Over half his entire ground force had been wiped out. However small his absolute losses might have been compared with those of the humans, it was still a staggering defeat for the Empire, and it was all his responsibility.
He would already have killed himself, except that no honorable suicide could possibly expunge the stain he’d brought to the honor of his entire clan. No, that would require the atonement of formal execution...and even that might not prove enough.
But before I go home to face His Majesty, there’s one last thing I need to do.
“Are we ready, Ahzmer?”
“We are according to my readouts,” the ship commander replied. But there was something peculiar about his tone, and Thikair looked at him.
“Meaning what?” he asked impatiently.
“Meaning that according to my readouts, all shuttles have returned and docked, but neither Stellar Dawn nor Imperial Sword have confirmed recovery of their small craft. All the other transports have checked in, but they haven’t yet.”
“What?”
Thikair’s one-word question quivered with sudden, ice-cold fury. It was as if all his anxiety, all his fear, guilt, and shame suddenly had someone else to focus upon, and he showed all of his canines in a ferocious snarl.
“Get their commanders on the comm now,” he snapped. “Find out what in Dainthar’s Second Hell they think they’re doing! And then get me Jainfar!”
“At once, sir! I—”
Ahzmer’s voice chopped off, and Thikair’s eyes narrowed.
“Ahzmer?” he said.
“Sir, the plot. . .”
Thikair turned to the master display, and it was his turn to freeze.
Six of the expedition’s seven dreadnoughts were heading steadily away from the planet.
“What are they—?” he began, then gasped as two of the dreadnoughts suddenly opened fire. Not on the planet, but on their own escorts!
Nothing in the galaxy could stand up to the energy-range fire of a dreadnought. Certainly no mere scout ship, destroyer, or cruiser could.
It took less than forty-five seconds for every one of Thikair’s screening warships to die, and three-quarters of his transport ships went with them.
“Get Jainfar!” he shouted at Ahzmer. “Find out what—”
“Sir, there’s no response from Squadron Commander Jainfar’s ship!” Ahzmer’s communications officer blurted. “There’s no response from any of the other dreadnoughts!”
“What?” Thikair stared at him in disbelief, and then alarms began to warble. First one, then another, and another.
He whipped back around to the master control screen, and ice smoked through his veins as crimson lights glared on the readiness boards. Engineering went down, then the Combat Information Center. Master Fire Control went offline, and so did Tracking, Missile Defense, and Astrogation.
And then the flag bridge itself lost power. Main lighting failed, plunging it into darkness, and Thikair heard someone gobbling a prayer as the emergency lighting clicked on.
“Sir?”
Ahzmer’s voice was fragile, and Thikair looked at him. But he couldn’t find his own voice. He could only stand there, paralyzed, unable to cope with the impossible events.
And then the command deck’s armored doors slid open, and Thikair’s eyes went wide as a human walked through them.
Every officer on that bridge was armed, and Thikair’s hearing cringed as a dozen sidearms opened fire at once. Scores of bullets slammed into the human intruder...with absolutely no effect.
No, that wasn’t quite correct, some numb corner of Thikair’s brain insisted. The bullets went straight through him, whining and ricocheting off the bulkheads behind him, but he didn’t even seem to notice. There were no wounds, no sprays of blood. It was as if his body were made of smoke, offering no resistance, suffering no damage.
He only stood there, looking at them, and then, suddenly, there were more humans. Four of them. Only four...but it was enough.
Thikair’s mind gibbered, too overwhelmed even to truly panic as the four newcomers seemed to blur. It was as if they were half-transformed into vapor that poured itself through the command deck’s air with impossible speed. They flowed across the bridge, enveloping his officers, and he heard screams. Screams of raw panic that rose in pitch as the Shongari behind them saw the smoke flowing in their direction...and died in hideous, gurgling silence as it engulfed them.
And then Thikair was the only Shongari still standing.
His body insisted that he had to collapse, but somehow his knees refused to unlock. Collapsing would have required him to move...and something reached out from the first human’s green eyes and forbade that.
The green-eyed human walked out into the body-strewn command and stopped, facing Thikair, his hands clasped behind him.
“You have much for which to answer, Fleet Commander Thikair,” he said quietly, softly ... in perfect Shongari.
Thikair only stared at him, unable—not allowed—even to speak, and the human smiled. There was something terrifying about that smile...and something wrong, as well. The teeth, Thikair realized. The ridiculous little human canines had lengthened, sharpened, and in that moment Thikair understood exactly how thousands upon thousands of years of prey animals had looked upon his own people’s smiles.
“You call yourselves ‘predators.’“ The human’s upper lip curled. “Trust me, Fleet Commander—your people know nothing about predators. But they will.”
Something whimpered in Thikair’s throat, and the green eyes glowed with a terrifying internal fire.
“I had forgotten,” the human said. “I had turned away from my own past. Even when you came to my world, even when you murdered billions of humans, I had forgotten. But now, thanks to you, Fleet Commander, I remember. I remember the obligations of honor. I remember a Prince of Wallachia’s responsibilities. And I remember—oh, how I remember—the taste of vengeance. And that is what I find most impossible to forgive, Fleet Commander Thikair. I spent five hundred years learning to forget that taste, and you’ve filled my mouth with it again.”
Thikair would have sold his soul to look away from those blazing emerald eyes, but even that was denied him.
“For an entire century, I hid even from myself, hid under my murdered brother’s name, but now, Fleet Commander, I take back my own name. I am Vlad Drakula—Vlad, Son of the Dragon, Prince of Wallachia—and you have dared to shed the blood of those under my protection.”
The paralysis left Thikair’s voice—released, he was certain, by the human-shaped monster in front of him—and he swallowed hard.
“Wh—What do you—?” he managed to get out, but then his freed voice failed him, and Vlad smiled cruelly.
“I couldn’t have acted when you first came even if I’d been prepared— willing—to go back to what once I was,” he said. “There was only myself and my handful of closest followers. We would have been far too few. But then you showed me I truly had no choice. When you established your base to build the weapon to destroy every living human, you made my options very simple. I could not permit that—I would not. And so I had no alternative but to create more of my own kind. To create an army—not large, as armies go, but an army still—to deal with you.
“I was more cautious than in my...impetuous youth. The vampires I chose to make this time were better men and women than I was when I was yet breathing. I pray for my own sake that they will balance the hunger you’ve awakened in me once again, but do not expect them to feel any kindness where you and your kind are concerned.
“They are all much younger than I, new come to their abilities, not yet strong enough to endure the touch of the sun. But, like me, they are no longer breathing. Like me, they could ride the exterior of your shuttles when you were kind enough to return them to your transports...and your dreadnoughts. And like me, they have used your neural educators, learned how to control your vessels, how to use your technology.
“I will leave your neural educators here on Earth to give every single breathing human a complete Hegemony-level education. And, as you may have noticed, we were very careful not to destroy your industrial ships. What do you think a planet of humans will be able to accomplish over the next few centuries, even after all you’ve done to them, from that starting point? Do you think your Hegemony Council will be pleased?”
Thikair swallowed again, choking on a thick bolus of fear, and the human cocked his head to one side.
“I doubt the Council will be very happy with you, Fleet Commander, but I promise you their anger will have no effect upon your Empire. After all, each of these dreadnoughts can sterilize a planet, can it not? And which of your imperial worlds will dream, even for a moment, that one of your own capital ships might pose any threat to it at all?”
“No,” Thikair managed to whimper, his eyes darting to the plot where the green icons of his other dreadnoughts continued to move away from the planet. “No, please . . .”
“How many human fathers and mothers would have said exactly the same thing to you as their children died before them?” the human replied coldly, and Thikair sobbed.
The human watched him mercilessly, but then he looked away. The deadly green glow left his eyes, and they seemed to soften as they gazed up at the taller human beside him.
“Keep me as human as you can, my Stephen,” he said softly in English. “Remind me of why I tried so hard to forget.”
The dark-skinned human looked back down at him and nodded, and then the green eyes moved back to Thikair.
“I believe you have unfinished business with this one, my Stephen,” he said, and it was the bigger, taller, darker, and infinitely less terrifying human’s turn to smile.
“Yes, I do,” his deep voice rumbled, and Thikair squealed like a small trapped animal as the powerful, dark hands reached for him.
“This is for my daughters,” Stephen Buchevsky said.