“The attack has already begun,” Dirk said.
Tyrus blinked in surprise. “Excuse me? How would you know that?”
“While I am unable to transmit a signal that they can receive, I am detecting strategic communications between three Bolos, including one at the northern colony.”
“Bolos? Bolos like you? I mean, like you before your conversion.”
“Not exactly. I am Mark XXIV, they are Mark XXV. I am unfamiliar with the designation. It seems to have been introduced after I was put into mothballs and placed on standby.”
So, the Concordiat had sent help, even if it was too late for the Odinberg Colony. “They should be okay there then, with a Bolo on station?”
“I believe there is still a danger, especially if they are unaware of the possibility of suicide bomb attacks such as destroyed our hangar. That weapon was one of the smallest such weapons that can be constructed. It is only logical that the enemy may possess bigger ones.”
“Big enough to destroy an entire colony, Bolo or no Bolo?”
“Quite possibly.”
“How long until we reach Rustenberg?”
“At this speed, five hours and fifty minutes.”
Tyrus felt something wet on his chest. He looked down and saw that the left shoulder strap had opened a cut there, a raw stinging mess that slowly oozed blood into his shirt. “Go faster,” he said to Dirk.
* * *
One of the “gifts” the drop pod had delivered was a full-fledged modular fire control system for the colony’s defenses. The self-contained control center had stations for himself and two other officers, plus room for observers. No longer did Donning have to watch from the ramparts and shout his orders into a wristcom. He could watch any part of the defenses through multiple screens around his command chair, call up status displays on any of the fixed weapons systems, track the status of each and every mine, and even monitor the Bolo’s sensory systems.
An integrated communication system allowed orders to be issued through headsets to his troops, either individually or en masse. A lot of the center’s capabilities were either irrelevant to their situation (they were in no apparent danger of attack from space, or other than missiles, from the air), or simply beyond their limited technical skills to employ, but the equipment had immensely improved their ability to defend themselves.
During their first attack, Donning had barely felt in control, and unaware of what was happening outside his direct line of view. Now he was instantly aware of any trouble spot and able to issue detailed orders to hundreds of troops with a single voice command.
As Donning rushed into the command control center, he found Lieutenant Peak manning one of the stations. He was a young electronics expert who had served a three-year stint in combat training. The other seat was empty, probably for lack of a trained officer, but given their limited use of the equipment, the second station really wasn’t needed anyway.
Donning sat down in the command chair and ordered up a strategic overview. The five main screens showed the different defense positions around the colony. The Bolo had moved a kilometer or so away from the colony to the north, to give it a clearer field of fire.
Since the last attack Donning had had his people plant new, reprogrammed mines. Now they were equipped with time delay fuses that kept all the mines in a given area from being triggered at once. A supposedly “clear” area of the field could now suddenly spring to life, killing masses of unsuspecting aliens. Already, hundreds of alien bodies were scattered throughout the minefield, and the edges of the jungle seemed to be moving, alive as the massive aliens ran into the opening, beaklike mouths open.
He checked to make sure that all families and noncombatants were headed into the new underground shelters that they had built. Building those shelters and the defensive fortifications had been top priority since the destruction of the Odinberg Colony. No matter what level weapon those ugly bastards threw at this colony, most of the civilians were going to survive if he had anything to say about it.
He tried to take it all in at once. Clearly this attack was much more fierce than the last, but the colony was better prepared, better armed, and had a Bolo guarding them. For the moment at least, things in the command center felt in control. But Donning knew that wouldn’t last.
“Peak, keep an eye out for trouble spots. I’m going to take some time to study the enemy, see if I can learn anything we can use against them.”
“Got it,” Peak said.
The aliens had also modified their tactics since the last attack. Rather than just storming the walls, the aliens moved in smaller, more dispersed groups that were a less tempting target for the Bolo’s big guns. Rather than directly attacking, groups would move out of the trees, transverse the perimeter to draw fire, then fade back into the jungle.
Small missiles swarmed in almost constantly, seemingly more to occupy the Bolo’s guns than to do any real damage. Most of the missiles seemed to be coming from just within the jungle, but one nearby hilltop had been the source of several shots. As Donning watched, Khan’s main gun transversed and locked on the hill. A blinding beam of energy lanced out, and the hilltop instantly vaporized into an expanding ball of flame and debris.
Donning heard the Bolo commander laugh through the comm link. “That may not have been strategically effective, but it sure felt good to unlimber the Hellbore for a change. This place is cramping Khan’s style.”
“Looked good from here as well,” Donning said.
Another new development was that single aliens would break from groups, sprint towards the colony, and set satchel charges against the base of the fortifications. Each charge took a bite out of the big wall. While each one did little damage, if they could plant enough of these in one area, that might eventually create a breach. Donning instructed his subordinates on the wall to monitor this situation closely and position their best snipers to protect vulnerable areas.
Donning zoomed one of the cameras in on a particular alien and set it to automatically track the creature. The alien was huge, muscular, covered with white on black fir in patterns that reminded him of a panda or orca from Old Earth. Though they were generally humanoid, there were just enough avian characteristics to suggest that they really had evolved from predatory flightless birds. They had powerful, talon-equipped feet, hard ridges around their mouths that might have been beaks or bills, and large, round eyes mounted on the sides of their heads.
Donning started to notice a pattern in how it moved. They were fast sprinters, and strong, but their peak activity seemed to come in bursts, almost as though their metabolism had trouble sustaining their full energy output.
He noticed another significant thing. The weapons not only didn’t seem to be designed by the aliens, they didn’t seem to be designed for them. Sites and eyepieces seemed shaped for users with eyes on the front of their heads, not the sides, and the grips and controls poorly fit the natives’ hands, which, perhaps because they were evolved from wings, not paws, were long and strangely jointed.
Peak waved at one of the big screens. “What kind of weapon is that?” he asked, indicating three aliens leading one attack wave.
“That’s new,” Donning said, looking closer. The metal cylinder was big enough that three of the aliens were required to carry it on their huge shoulders.
He hesitated. The safest thing to do would be to focus fire on the unknown weapon, but if he did, they wouldn’t know its capabilities. One of the unknowns could get past them at a weaker moment and turn the battle, unless they learned to defend against it. In the end, he decided to let the battle run its course. If his people took the three out, so be it, but if they did get to fire, he’d be watching.
In fact, as Donning watched, a rifle shot took down one of the three. As he fell, a half dozen more aliens suddenly converged to take his place, actually getting into a shoving contest over who would take the honor. Then, a moment later, another alien appeared and took the dead one’s place, not after a fight, but what seemed somehow like a servile surrender.
Donning nodded to himself. So, the enemy did have some sort of ranking or caste system. That meant that despite the seeming chaos out there, there might be officers that could be targeted, some kind of command and control structure that could be disrupted.
“There are more of them,” said Peak. He pointed to where another trio was lugging their cylinder out of the jungle, and another one on the far side of the compound.