With that, Khan’s considerable remote piloting skills, the pod’s own defensive countermeasures, and supporting fire from the Bolo, he’d been able to set down on the landing strip of Rustenberg without a scratch.
The pod had paused only long enough to drop off Houchen and its load of arms and relief supplies before Khan sent the craft back to the relative safety of orbit. At the same time, it would provide a decoy while the other two Bolos landed in their assault pods.
Once on the ground, he found a situation as difficult as anything he could imagine.
There were no standing military forces on the planet, only a lightly armed militia of terrified colonists, most with little or no military experience. As he stood on the defensive ramparts of the colony with Militia Commander Donning, he observed that it is one thing to have someone trying to kill you when you’re trained and mentally prepared for the job. It is quite another when you’re a civilian cloaked in your typical civilian illusion of safety.
“I want you to know that your people did well here today, Donning. You got them organized and held your lines.”
Donning smiled grimly. “We did what we had to do, Colonel. It’s not like we had much choice. Now, when is the Concordiat going to get us off the rock? When do the rest of our reinforcements arrive?”
This, thought Houchen, is where it gets dicey. “Commander, I’ve received no word of any planned evacuation. The mining colonies here are seen as vital to Concordiat security, and our superiors don’t seem inclined to release our toe-hold here.”
“Duck,” said Khan’s voice in his command headset.
Houchen shoved Donning down behind the ramparts just as an explosion rocked the air beyond the wall. Though he didn’t see it, he knew that Khan’s secondary batteries had picked off the missile before it could strike the colony.
“Clear,” said Khan. It had become routine. The harassment missile attacks went on and on.
Houchen stood and brushed himself off. “We have two more Bolos in orbit, but as soon as they land we’re going to have to dispatch them to patrol other hot spots. You aren’t the only colony on the planet, and all of them are being at least harassed by the aliens. Another full-scale attack could come at any point, and at any time.”
Donning’s smile had faded, replaced by a glare of anger. “So, you’re saying we’re drafted because some bureaucrat twenty light-years away has decided this ball of jungle rot is somehow important?”
Houchen looked grimly out at the ocean of trees dotted with mountaintop islands, that stretched off to the horizon. “I don’t make those decisions, Donning, I’m just reporting what I’ve been told. I have my duty here, and so do you. I know that we can expect a greater show of military force here, in fact whatever it takes to keep the mining operations going, but I don’t know the time frame. Concordiat forces in this sector are stretched rather thin at the moment. For the moment these three Bolos, and your own resources, are all we’ve got.”
Donning was almost shaking, clearly from the weight that Houchen had suddenly put on his shoulders.
Houchen could imagine what Donning had been thinking, that they’d just hold the line until rescue, jump on a shuttle and head back to civilization. He could sympathize. He’d spent too many years in a headquarters office, and hadn’t been under fire himself since he was a young man. He had a much keener sense of his own mortality these days.
“I’m a civilian,” said Donning, “a volunteer. You can’t hold me.”
“As I said, I’m not doing anything, just passing down the word from above.” He looked out at the vast sea of trees. “From where I stand, you don’t have any place to go. We’ve got a few shuttles in orbit to extract the severely wounded, but I can’t even get them down at the moment without risking lives.”
Donning just frowned.
“Now, nobody can make you fight, much less command this outfit, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else better qualified to do the job. You rounded this crew up and organized this defense, and without what I saw today, you might have ended up like the Odinberg Colony.”
Houchen wasn’t even sure Donning was listening, but he went on anyway. “You could step down, go sit in your apartment, and wait for the place to be overrun, but somehow, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who would do that.”
Donning chewed the inside of his lip. Then he nodded, hard and firm, as if making a sudden decision. “I don’t have to like this, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Good,” Houchen said. “We’ll need you to keep your forces alert and ready. I’m sure command thought that three Bolos would have more than enough to handle the situation, but I have more colonies to defend than I have Bolos. That means that you can’t count on Khan to be here full time.”
“Wonderful,” Donning said, looking out at the jungle.
“I understand,” Houchen said. “But we might have to redeploy forces at any moment in response to a new attack, and that means you have to be prepared to defend yourselves until we get back.”
“I don’t understand. With all this firepower, why don’t you just go after the hairy bastards? Wipe them out before they can attack again.”
Houchen shook his head. “This isn’t the kind of war Bolos are designed to fight, Donning. As far as we can tell, these aliens have no supply lines to cut, no factories to disrupt, no bases to destroy, and they seem utterly immune to fear and intimidation.”
“True,” Donning said. “All too true.”
“Very little about this situation makes sense,” Houchen said, “and that bothers me more than what we’ve seen so far on the battlefield. These aliens shouldn’t be able to put together a muzzle-loader musket, much less a plasma cannon. From the looks of it, they don’t even make their own steel for their knives and swords. They were probably still using bronze before somebody started giving them weapons.”
“You’re kidding?” Donning asked, staring at him. “Who would give creatures like these monsters weapons?”
“No one knows yet,” Houchen said, “Moreover, there appear to be distinct subgroups of aliens. The group that attacked here and at the Odinberg Colony seems to be the same, but other colonies have reported aliens with completely different markings, completely different ways of fighting. All of them seem to have technology from the same source, and at about the same technical level, but there are differences in the types and distribution of individual weapons, as well as how they’re used.”
“You sound worried.”
“I just keep wondering, who gives a plasma cannon to people living in mud huts? What could they possibly have to trade? Or failing that, what do their mysterious benefactors really want?”
“To kill us,” Donning said. “Clearly.”
Houchen knew Donning was right.
* * *
Lord Whitestar was in an especially foul mood. He walked the trails of their encampment in darkness, headed nowhere and going there fast. Nightbats and glow wings fluttered out of his way as he crashed, much louder than necessary, though the brush.
His first-wife rebelled, his second eldest son wished to kill him, and as the Ones Above had warned, the devils had brought their metal ogres into the battle. Countless warriors had died, not just fodder, but highborn too, and precious weapons were lost or destroyed.
It was easy to assume that the Ones Above would always provide more weapons, but Whitestar could not bring himself to rely on it. He knew that the Ones Above came down from the sky only infrequently, hiding their weapons, only later telling his people, through their oracles, where the weapons could be found.
Around him, men huddled in groups, sharpening their weapons, telling tales of battle. He could smell them, the damp, earthy smell of satisfaction and contentment. Their losses this day had been huge, and yet the mood among his men was high. They had seen glorious battle this day, battle that they had lived all their lives only dreaming of. So, they died? Wasn’t that what they were born to do?
Whitestar hissed quietly in anger. No. They were not born to die, they were born to kill.
The rivers ran with the juices of his people, and still the devils lived, their nest still stood, their hatchlings still slept safe. This was insufferable. They had to be made to die, and the ogres stood in his way.
He turned right at the next branch in the trail, walked on a log that crossed a rapidly flowing stream, and reached the large burrow that was Scarbeak’s. The opening was curtained with several layers of fiber mats to keep in the light. Whitestar blinked and averted his eyes as he first stepped inside. Scarbeak worked using the magic torches that the Ones Above had provided him. Their light was pure and unflickering, white like daylight, and yet cool to the touch.