All of the faces were lit from below as a breeze blew through and caused the fuel-fed fi?re to waver uncertainly.
“But here’s the rub,” Kobbi continued gloomily. “Every time one of those ships lifts off, we get weaker, and the bugs get stronger! According to my scouts, the chits have us surrounded. I fi?gure they will attack at dawn. So be ready to pull back at 0400. By that time, all the enlisted bio bods will be gone. That means it will be up to the remaining borgs and offi?cers to beat the bugs back. Then, once we get some sort of respite, we’ll pull all of the brain boxes and fall back on the doughnut hole. The last ship will be large enough to accommodate everyone. It isn’t the way I was planning to leave—but I’m looking forward to a shower and a beer.” That got the predictable chuckle, and fi?ve minutes later, the general was gone. There were more people to brief, and the clock was ticking.
The pullback went fairly smoothly, all things considered. And by the time a seemingly reluctant sun rose in the east, the allies were hunkered down inside a circle only half a mile across, which, though thinly populated, could still be defended thanks to the Legion’s battle-weary cyborgs. The quads were dug in at regular intervals all around the new perimeter, where their war forms would be abandoned when it came time to run. The T-2s, which were sprinkled in between the big behemoths, remained mobile and could shift positions if necessary. Farther out, forming a circle around the ring, were hundreds of crab mines.
That was the scene as a sickly-looking daylight crept in across the land, and what looked like ectoplasm rose to hover spiritlike over the well-churned mud as Santana heard Dietrich say, “Holy shit. . . . Look at that!”
The master sergeant wasn’t an offi?cer, but had refused to leave, claiming that real offi?cers wouldn’t know what to do without him. Six was there as well, as was Four-Four, and Dr. Kelly. T-2s, both armed and ready, were crouched to the left and right, with quads beyond. The scene that Dietrich wanted Santana to look at was hard to miss. During the hours of darkness thousands of Ramanthians had closed in on the LZ and stood ready to attack. They stood shoulder to shoulder, fi?fty deep, in a formation that had lined the far edge of the ditch.
There was a sudden fl?urry of activity as more enemy soldiers came forward through lanes left for that purpose, pushed crudely made footbridges up until they stood on end, and allowed them to fall across the moat. That was the signal for fl?ares to soar high into the air, for bugles to sound, and for noncoms to blow their whistles. Santana expected the soldiers to pour across the bridges at that point, and was surprised when they didn’t. As the defenders watched in horror, hundreds of clone civilians were forced to cross the ditch instead—men, women, and free-breeder children who had been captured during the early stages of the Ramanthian invasion and held in remote POW camps until now. Some of them tripped, a few fell into the moat, but most made it across. And that was when the mines went off. Boom!
Boom! Boom! The overlapping explosions circled the LZ, sent columns of bloodied dirt up into the air, and cleared a path for the troops that poured in from behind. But some of the civilians were still on their feet, still stumbling forward, as Colonel Six gave the necessary order. “They’re going to die no matter what you do! Fire!”
Now it was the enemy’s turn to die, as the entire perimeter erupted in fl?ame, and both the civilians and the bugs went down like wheat before a thresher. The outer edge of the new, smaller LZ looked like a ring of fi?re, as both the quads and the T-2s sent blue death stuttering out to slag the half-frozen ground. The offi?cers were fi?ring as well, machine guns for the most part, which sent red tracers out to probe the places where enemy soldiers might hide. And as each rank of Ramanthians fell, their bodies were added to the steadily growing circle of death that was defi?ned by the ditch. That was the scene that Maylo Chien-Chu saw from the air, as the Xinglong circled the embattled landing zone, and fi?red on the Ramanthians. That support, when combined with the fi?re being put out by those on the ground, created the sort of respite that Kobbi had been counting on. “This is it!” the feisty little general shouted over the command channel. “Pull those brain boxes. . . . T-2s fi?rst. . . . And get them ready to load. The last ship is about to land.”
That triggered a mad scramble to jerk each T-2’s box, and carry them two at a time to the edge of the so-called doughnut hole, where the Xinglong settled into a vapor cloud of her own making. The belly ramp was already in the process of deploying when the big skids touched down. Santana had Deker’s box in one hand, and Valario’s in the other, as he pounded up the ramp to the point where a very pretty woman stood waiting. The legionnaire was amazed to see that it was General Booly’s wife who was waiting to receive the boxes, but there was no opportunity to do anything more than nod as he turned to make another trip.
Ten minutes later, all the T-2s were aboard, and it was time to bring the quad boxes in, as some of the offi?cers fi?red heavy machine guns and the Ramanthians fi?red back. Santana ran to where Lupo was dug in, ordered the quad to disengage, and fl?ipped a protective cover out of the way. With that accomplished, all he had to do was grab the T-shaped red handle and give it a full turn to the right. Then, still holding on to the same handle, the offi?cer was able to pull the cyborg’s biological support module out into the open. Lupo tried to say “Thanks,” but no longer had the means to speak, and felt the world fade as sedatives were pumped into his disembodied brain.
With the box clutched to his chest Santana began the long run back. A bullet plucked at his right sleeve, and others kicked up geysers of mud all around him, as he dodged back and forth. “They know what we’re up to!” Kobbi advised over the push. “Pull back! Pull back! It’s time to haul ass!”
Santana caught up with Zolkin, who along with Kelly, was supporting Four-Four. The Seebo had taken a bullet in the thigh and was bleeding badly. Other heavily laden offi?cers streamed toward the ship as well even as the Xinglong’s energy cannons sent bolts of iridescent blue energy fanning out over their heads. One of the offi?cers threw up her hands and fell facedown when a burst of bullets hit her from behind. The brain box she had been carrying fell, landed in the mud, and was quickly scooped up as one of the surviving bio bods grabbed it.
Metal clanged under combat boots, and the stench of ozone permeated the air, as the offi?cers charged up the ramp and into the freighter. Kobbi was there to count them off.
“Twenty-two, twenty-three, where the hell is Colonel Six?” the general demanded.
On hearing that, Kelly turned and made a run for the ramp, only to be tackled by Santana. Both of them crashed to the deck as servos began to whine, and Orlo-Ka brought the ramp up. Kelly fought her way clear of Santana and ran over to a bank of screens, where the loadmaster could monitor everything that took place outside his ship. That was when she saw the waves of Ramanthian troopers, and heard the distant chug, chug, chug of a .50-caliber machine gun as Six harvested a few more lives. Then he was gone, swarmed under by an angry mob, as thousands of Ramanthian bullets hammered against the ship’s hull.
There was a noticeable jerk as the Xinglong lifted off and wobbled into the air. One of the bugs was hanging on to a skid, but Brisco shook him loose, and continued to climb. The bug deployed his wings, and was planning to glide in, when hundreds of bullets fi?red by his comrades ripped his body apart.
Meanwhile, high above the body-strewn LZ, the freighter continued to gain altitude. Most of the passengers were seated by then, if not very comfortably, in fold-down seats. Kelly continued to sob, even as she knelt in a pool of Four-Four’s blood, and fought to save a man who looked like Six but was actually someone else. Zolkin was there, trying to help the doctor fi?nd the big bleeder, and eventually clamp it off. Santana sat slumped in a web-style seat. His eyes were open but unseeing. A battle had been lost, but the war would continue, and the Legion would be in the thick of it. And, all things considered, that was the only thing he needed to know.