With the bio bod’s grisly remains still fl?apping around on her blood-spattered back, Shaley went looking for any Ramanthian she could fi?nd, killing each with the ruthless effi?ciency of an avenging angel. Most of the alien soldiers were already dead by that time. In fact, so many of them had been killed that their bodies lay in drifts, like the snow that was already beginning to cover them, as the raging T-2
ran out of ammo and stomped a wounded Ramanthian to death.
Sergeant Ramos had a zapper in hand as he went to intervene. None of the other legionnaires knew what he said to the cyborg, since it was off the push, but whatever it was worked because the noncom was able to lead Shaley away without having to zap her. Which was the only way a bio bod could bring an intransigent cyborg under control. Meanwhile, as bio bods dismounted to search the dead for anything that might be of interest to the intelligence people, they also collected anything that might be of use to the company in the future. Not the Ramanthian assault rifles, because they were awkward to fi?re, but energy grenades, which were better than CSB issue in certain situations, plus the highly prized grain bars that many of the bugs carried in their packs, and which tasted like honey. Their helmet lights bobbed and swayed as they probed the battlefi?eld for loot, adding yet another otherworldly element to an alreadysurreal scene. And that was the situation that Santana was presiding over as an additional light appeared and Millar emerged from the surrounding murk with a woman in tow. A knit cap covered her hair. She had a softly rounded face, a snub nose, and generous lips. The clothing the woman wore con- sisted of a mishmash of Hegemony-issue items that had been altered as necessary and layered to create the semblance of a winter uniform. That was overlaid by a combat vest at least one size too big for her, and the whole outfi?t was dusted with snow. But there was nothing amateurish about the Marine-Corps-issue carbine cradled in her arms or the look in her brown eyes. It was hard and calculating.
“This is Hoyt-11,791,” Millar announced. “She’s in command of the CVA company that the bugs were working so hard to eradicate.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Santana said as he jumped to the ground. “My name is Santana. I’m in command of Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st REC.”
“Thank you for coming to our rescue,” Seven-ninety-one said soberly. “We wouldn’t have been able to hold out much longer.” Her voice had a husky quality that Santana found attractive.
“At some point our forces tried to clear the area of wreckage by making a big pile,” Millar explained. “Having been ambushed as they passed through the battlefi?eld, the Hoyts crawled inside and fought back. It made a pretty good fort.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t arrive earlier,” Santana said. “How many of you are there?”
“Fifty-seven when the battle began,” the clone answered succinctly, “and thirty-one now.”
“I’m sorry,” Santana said sympathetically. “But you were right to put up a fi?ght. They would have slaughtered you otherwise. Where were you headed? And what were you supposed to do?”
“We have orders to join the 181st Labor Battalion,” Sevenninety-one answered. “As for what we’re supposed to do, well, no one told us that. We’re offi?ce administrators from Alpha-002. So it’s hard to imagine what they had in mind for us.”
Santana swore, then caught himself. “Sorry, ma’am, but sending offi?ce workers into a combat zone has got to be one of the stupidest things I ever heard of. Have you got any transportation?”
“No,” the woman replied. “Our truck was destroyed in the ambush.”
That was a problem because Santana knew the bio bods wouldn’t be able to keep up with the cyborgs and would be extremely vulnerable if left on their own.
“Some of them could ride in the quads,” Millar put in helpfully.
“I suppose,” the cavalry offi?cer allowed. “But what about the rest?”
“They could ride on top of the quads, and jump off if we take fi?re,” Millar answered.
The legionnaire eyed the Hoyt. Snowfl?akes caught in her eyelashes and forced her to blink. “You and your people would be exposed to both the weather and enemy fi?re up there,” Santana cautioned.
Seven-ninety-one shrugged. “We were exposed in the truck,” she said fatalistically. “And riding beats walking.”
“Okay,” Santana agreed. “Do you have any objections to taking orders from Lieutenant Millar here for the duration of your stay with us?”
The Hoyt looked at the hovering recon ball and back again. If the prospect of reporting to a cyborg bothered the woman, she gave no sign of it. “No, sir,” she said formally.
“That’s fi?ne with me.”
The cavalry offi?cer nodded. “All right, Lieutenant, take care of your people. Make sure they scrounge all the good stuff they can fi?nd. I have a feeling everything is going to be in short supply up ahead. Perhaps Seven-ninety-one would be good enough to help identify the dead. And let’s lay them out where the graves registration people will be able to fi?nd them. Dismissed.”
By the time the second platoon, and the newly designated third platoon pulled back into the relative security of the encampment that Amoyo and her people had prepared, a full-fl?edged blizzard was under way. Weather so cold it was necessary for sentries to work the actions on their weapons every two to three minutes or risk having them freeze up. But there was one good thing about the storm however. . . . And that was the fact it would be just as hard on the enemy. Because no matter how many battles the two sides fought— winter would always win.
13.
Tragedy is by no means the exclusive province of the lowly.
—Paguumi proverb
Author unknown
Standard year circa 120 B.C.
PLANET EARTH, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
It was raining as the Ramanthian task force swept in over Seattle. What had once been a discrete city was now part of the sprawling metroplex that began in the old nation-state of Canada, and ran all the way down to Baja, California. For reasons not entirely clear, the Seattle area had been especially hard to pacify. This meant it had been necessary to repeatedly punish the animals who lived there. A process that eventually turned what had been gleaming high-rises, fl?oating sea habs, and carefully manicured streetscapes into a cratered wasteland. The destruction was plain to see as the Queen watched the vid screen on the bulkhead before her. Though capable of in-system spacefl?ight, the Reaper was classifi?ed as a combat assault platform, and intended for use inside planetary atmospheres. As such the fl?ying fortress was heavily armed and, thanks to a spacious fl?ight deck, could launch and retrieve smaller vessels at the same time. As the airborne fortress approached the city from the south it was traveling at a scant twenty miles per hour, a fact that somehow made its presence over the city that much more ominous.
As the monarch looked down onto the surface, she saw an arrow-straight line of craters, each measuring exactly one hundred feet across, which had been etched into the planet’s surface by OTS (orbit-to-surface) cannons fi?ring from outside the exosphere. Thousand-foot-high skyscrapers had been cut down like trees. So what remained looked like a thicket of fi?re-blackened stumps, many of which were still smoking, because of fi?res that continued to burn below street level.
What resembled old lava fl?ows were actually rivers of previously molten metal and glass, which followed streets down to a large bay, where cold water transformed them into something resembling stone. Everything else was a sea of fi?re-blackened wreckage occasionally interrupted by islands of miraculously untouched buildings. As the Reaper began to slow, the royal spotted tiny pinpricks of light down below, followed by an occasional spurt of light-colored smoke. “What,” the monarch wanted to know, “are the animals doing?”