Authors: Tanya Huff
“Thisss explainsss why they took ssso long to arrive.”
“And if you could share that explanation,” Jarret suggested pointedly.
Cri Sawyes’ pouch had deflated by half but was still a pale circle at his throat. “They were waiting for the ressst. Thisss,” he scanned the horizon, “hasss to be every male in the pressserve.”
“Drawn by our crash?”
“I don’t know. Doesss it really matter
why
they’re here?”
“No. I guess not.”
“Why were they thrumming?” Torin wanted to know. “The Silsviss we fought yesterday shrieked.”
“Thossse you fought yesssterday were having fun. Thisss lot, however, meansss busssinesss.”
As the thrumming started up again, Lieutenant Jarret’s eyes darkened and his lips moved silently. Counting or praying, Torin figured, and given the situation, the latter would probably be more useful. “Everyone’s in position, sir.”
“Good. Get Cri Sawyes a weapon.”
“Thank you.” He slapped his tail against the ground. “Although, ultimately I doubt it will make much difference.”
“Maybe not,” Jarret agreed, gaze locked on the surrounding Silsviss. “But it certainly can’t hurt.”
“W
hy are they just standing there?”
“I believe they’re making a point, sir.”
“A point?”
“That there’s more of them than there are of us.”
“Point taken.” Jarret flipped up his scanner and slid his helmet off so that his hair could move.
“Sir...”
“I know. Setting a bad example.” Sighing, he put it back on. “May I ask you a personal question, Staff?”
That was enough to move Torin’s gaze from the surrounding Silsviss to the lieutenant. At some point in their working relationship, usually while the shit was hitting the afterburners, junior officers always wanted to get to
know
their senior NCOs. She didn’t understand it, but she’d come to accept the inevitability. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Jarret had a better base to ask questions from than most. “You can
ask,
sir.”
“Are you afraid?”
And that moved her gaze back to the Silsviss again. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them; they couldn’t get a clear reading. Granted, they were attacking an entrenched position with primitive weapons, but the numbers...
“I’d be a fool if I wasn’t, sir.”
“And as you’re not...” He smiled. “Neither am I.”
“Glad to hear it.” More for something to do than because it had changed, she checked the tiny line of data running across the bottom of her scanner. “They’re well within range of the emmies, sir.”
“I know.” He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet and then back again. “But as Cri Sawyes insists it won’t scare them off, I’d just as soon keep the slaughter to a minimum. We still need the Silsviss to sign that treaty when this is all over.”
Whatever
this
is,
Torin added silently. She’d seen enough combat to know that there were a limited number of reasons why sentient species killed each other en masse; patterns always evolved. The pattern currently evolving was so blatant, so slap-in-the-face obvious that she couldn’t help think it was hiding something. Eyes narrowed, she stared out at the enemy. Unfortunately, an awareness that there were a thousand or more eyes staring back kept the analysis from progressing very far.
“Why aren’t they making any noise?”
Torin and Lieutenant Jarret turned together to watch Lieutenant Ghard crossing the compound.
“I don’t get it,” he continued as he reached them. “Why are they just standing there? It’s unnerving.”
“I think that’s the idea, sir. Is this your first ground combat?”
Ghard looked sheepish. “Is it that noticeable? I don’t mind admitting I’d feel better if I was just a little more mobile and about thirty thousand feet up.”
“Look at the bright side, sir. If you get shot down here, it’ll hurt a lot less when you hit the ground.”
After a startled moment, he found a smile. “Thank you, Staff Sergeant.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
“And thank you.” He turned toward the other lieutenant. “Firing from the infirmary windows will allow us to keep an eye on Captain Daniels.”
“Is she...?”
“No change.”
A sudden clatter from inside the building sheltering the civilians spun him around with enough force to drop his weapon strap off his shoulder. Torin caught it before it hit the ground.
“Thanks again, Staff. You know...” Both hands closed tightly around the grips. “...I’ll be fine once something starts. Why don’t we nail them with the emmy? Surely we’re in range.”
Excusing herself, Torin left for a walk around the perimeter as Lieutenant Jarret began explaining his first strike policy. Halfway along the south wall, she paused.
“Aylex.”
The di’Taykan glanced up from his position, looking guilty.
“Put your helmet on.”
“But, Staff, my hair...”
It was standing straight out, a pale pink aurora.
“Your hair won’t protect your head. Put the helmet on.”
“But...”
“Now. And keep it on,” she added, continuing around the compound.
A heat shimmer made the distant Silsviss seem vaguely unreal. Facing them, the waiting Marines looked like the toy soldiers she’d played with as a child. They looked confident in their abilities, certain they could do what was necessary. No one fidgeted, no one spoke. She’d built this platoon out of the best Sh’quo Company had to offer—this was where it showed.
At the north wall, she paused again and peered toward the highest of the hills. There was something... Swarming up the grain bags stair-stepped by the side of the eastem building, she crawled over the thick thatch and stretched out belly-down on the roof. In a perfect world she’d have been able to exploit the advantage of height with more than just one fireteam per building, but she didn’t think the thatch would safely hold more than four bodies.
Just hold me. That’s all I ask.
“Mashona, get over here.”
Binti exchanged a speaking glance with the rest of her team— she’d been waiting for the summons ever since the four of them had been sent up.
“What’s the word, Staff?”
“Mashona, can you see that group, there, on the high point?”
Binti squirmed into place on the northeast corner of the building, squinted, and shrugged. “Sure.”
“What’s the guy in the middle holding?”
“Looks like—wait a minute, he’s moving—like a staff with a skull on it.”
“Silsviss skull?”
“Could be.”
“Can you take him out?”
Raising her weapon, Binti squinted through the scope. “This is just a standard KC,” she murmured, adjusting her sights. “I don’t even have a sniper scope on this thing.”
“If you’d had the scope, I wouldn’t have asked if you could take him out. I’d have assumed you could.”
“Thank you for that...” She dug her elbows further into the thatch. “...vote of confidence, Staff. Yeah, I think I can hit him.” Maintaining the position of the gun, she flashed a dazzling white smile back over her shoulder. “Do you want me to try?”
“I’ll let you know in a minute.” Crawling back to the side of the building, Torin spit out a mouthful of chaff, and called for the lieutenant. She could have used her helmet mike, but since he was barely ten meters away, there didn’t seem to be much point.
“What is it, Staff?”
“Excuse me, sir, but I think we’ve pinpointed the pack leader.” She dropped her voice as he came closer. “Mashona says he’s hittable. What do you want to do?”
“How do you know he’s the leader?”
“Just a guess—he’s holding a staff with a skull on it.”
“Yesss.” Cri Sawyes came up behind Lieutenant Jarret and flipped his head back almost ninety degrees to look up at Torin. “That isss the leader. Although, how it wasss decided with ssso many...” His voice trailed off as he lost himself in silent speculation.
“What would happen if he were killed?”
“Under normal circumssstancesss, it would throw a
carreg
in the nessst...”
If they got out of this alive, Torin planned on asking just what the hell that meant.
“...but thessse are not normal circumssstancesss.” He shrugged. “At bessst, they’ll fight amongssst themssselvesss and forget usss. At worssst, we’ll have one lesss enemy and our action will be taken asss a challenge and will prod them to attack.”
Torin watched the lieutenant weighing the odds. She could almost read his mind.
One death now could save the platoon. But the longer they delayed attacking, the greater the chance the
Berganitan
would return and pull them out without a battle ever occurring at all. There was no point in provoking an attack and losing that chance. On the other hand, one death now could save the platoon.
She watched the thoughts chasing each other around on his face and knew which one he kept returning to. Had she been on the ground beside him, she might have said something to help him decide. She might have said,
One way or another, they’re going to attack and one death now could save the platoon.
But she wasn’t on the ground and she couldn’t very well shout advice to the commanding officer in front of his command. He was on his own.
“Do it,” he said, at last.
“Yes, sir.” Flipping over, Torin crawled back to the peak and repeated the order. “Head shot if you’re sure,” she added, “but if not, their hearts are pretty much dead center.” Scanner at maximum magnification, she waited.
Binti drew in a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
An instant later the Silsviss’ head exploded, spraying everyone within three or four meters with brain, bone, and blood. He stood there for a moment, headless, then slowly collapsed backward.
“She’s got him, sir.” And moving her mouth away from the mike. “What have you got in your clip?”
“Impact boomers, Staff Sergeant.”
“The 462s?”
“Yep.”
“That explains it.”
The skull-topped staff remained upright for a moment longer, the bone gleaming in the bright sunlight; then it too crashed to the ground. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay there long. The battle for possession was brief, but bloody.
“Did that guy just lose a leg?”
“I think so, Staff.”
There were two more bodies when the skull was raised again, but the vast majority of the Silsviss didn’t even seem to notice. The whole thing, from shot to recovery, took less than four minutes.
“Well, bugger that,” Torin muttered.
“I could take him out, too,” Binti offered, taking aim.
“Doesn’t seem like it would do any good,” Torin told her. “Watch the sun on your scope and scanner,” she said, crawling away in a cloud of dust rising up out of the crushed thatch. “It wouldn’t take much to set this stuff alight.”
“We may not have stopped anything, but at least we didn’t set anything off,” Jarret observed as she dropped off the wall at his feet.
“Sir!” Mysho’s voice caroled over the compound from the west building. “There’s something happening!”
One after another, sections of the line boomed from expanded throat pouches, ran about ten meters forward, stopped, and boomed again.
“You were saying, sir?”
For the first time it became obvious that the line of Silsviss was four or five bodies deep. Six deep on the more uneven ground.
“Do the ones in front look smaller to you?” Torin asked quietly.
Cri Sawyes nodded. “They’re probably the youngessst, the mossst rash. The mossst eager to show their courage.”
Boom. Run. Boom.
Eventually, all the layers of the entire circle had moved in.
* * *
“Enough of this,” Hollice muttered. “Shit or get off the pot!”
The booming stopped and the shrieking started as the inner ring of the circle charged forward.
“I think they heard you.” Juan swung the heavy gun around and slipped his finger over the trigger. “Now, try telling them to go fuk themselves.”
* * *
Down on the ground, Torin moved to the north wall.
“In the middle of the compound, Jarret drew in a deep breath. “Marines, ready!”
His helmet modified the volume and made sure that every other helmet got the message, but Torin was pleased that the mechanical assistance hadn’t been necessary. It took some new officers a while to realize that in combat the equipment backed up the verbal order and not the other way around.
“Mark your targets,” she said quietly, walking behind the line of kneeling Marines. “We haven’t got the ammo to waste on wild firing.”
The ring of shrieking Silsviss charged closer.
“Aim!”
And closer.
“Fire!”
Technology had made the KC essentially noiseless when fired. R&D had been thrilled but the people actually using the weapons had been less than happy. They’d compromised somewhere between a good old bang and ear protection.
Thirty-six of them going off at once made satisfactory noise.
Silsviss began to fall.
“Heavy gunners! Switch to grenades!”
Up on the roof, Juan snapped his upper receiver into a new position. “Fukking A.”
Clusters of Silsviss were blown into pieces.
The shrieking changed in pitch.
Leaving the fallen, the ring pulled back until it rejoined the rest of the circle.
“Cease firing!”
They were surrounded by the dead, but there didn’t seem to be many wounded. A ragged keening drew Torin’s attention to a Silsviss thrashing from side to side in a bloody froth. She turned to the lieutenant.
His eyes so dark they held almost no color, he nodded.
“Mashona!”
When Binti looked over the edge of the roof, Torin pointed.
A single shot.
The thrashing stopped.
“With any luck,” Lieutenant Jarret said as she reached his side, “that was enough to discourage them.”
Torin understood how he felt—it hadn’t been a fight, it had been a slaughter—but it didn’t feel over to her. “Sir, I’d like to check out the reaction of that command group.” When he nodded, she ran for the roof.
They were crouched down, drawing in the dirt, the skull keeping watch overhead. One of them looked up, pointed toward the buildings, then began to draw again.
Feeling a little sick, she realized what they were doing. What they’d done.