I pick up speed rapidly, crossing small tributary streams with a shattering of surface ice and a splash of dark water. I am anxious to reach my duty station, as my presence there will allow John to send scouting parties to Eisenbrucke Station by ground transport. If, of course, someone can be found to go. I hope—rather desperately—there will be someone at Seta Point willing to risk it, since neither my commander nor I are free to go, ourselves. If not . . . I hold onto my hope, reminding myself that humanity can be a remarkably brave and selfless species, when the situation warrants it.
John consults a side viewscreen where I have displayed a map of the region, superimposing our position onto it. John nods to himself, then opens a radio frequency via controls on my command-chair console.
“Seta Point, do you copy?”
A burst of static is followed by a human voice, one which sounds very young. “This is Seta Point. Who is this?”
“Lieutenant Colonel John Weyman, Third Dinochrome Brigade.”
“Really?” This childlike squeal is followed by an excited shout. “Dad! Dad! It’s a Bolo commander!”
A faint smile touches my commander’s lips. A moment later, a deeper voice hails us, somewhat uncertainly. “This is Seta Point, Bill Hanson, speaking.”
“Lieutenant Colonel John Weyman, here,” my commander responds. “We’re inbound along the Whiteclaw River, ETA your location in three minutes. We’d hoped to set down closer to your settlement, but the weather wasn’t very cooperative. Our landing was a little more exciting than either of us would’ve preferred.”
A rusty chuckle emerges from the speaker. “We’re awfully grateful to that weather, Colonel Weyman. And most of us use more, ah, colorful words to describe it.” My commander shares the chuckle, then Bill Hanson says in a tone that betrays worry, “I don’t suppose you know what that godawful noise we heard a few minutes ago was? We thought the Tersae were attacking through the blizzard, after all. We sent out every man and woman who could scrape up a weapon to defend the edges of town. They picked me to man the radio, because I broke my leg, sliding on the ice.”
My commander grimaces. “Sorry to hear that, Mr. Hanson. And that noise was us, I’m afraid. We suffered a very bad landing. Ended up turret-side down at the bottom of the Whiteclaw. We had to fire the Hellbore to jar ourselves loose. You can call everybody back inside, get ’em out of this weather.”
“That’ll be mighty welcome news,” Hanson responds. “It’s a bad night to be outside. Anything we can do, once you get here?”
“If you’ve got a medico, I’d welcome their help. I banged up an arm on landing.”
“Roger that, and I’ll put a fresh pot of coffee on, Colonel.”
“I’ll look forward to it. We’ll see you in about two minutes. Weyman, out.”
Two point one seven minutes later, Seta Point appears in my sensors, a radar ghost at the top of a bluff overlooking the Whiteclaw. The site must have been chosen with flooding in mind. This has, however, left the town unpleasantly exposed to the vagaries of Thulian weather and leaves the settlement dangerously vulnerable to enemy artillery fire. On the positive side, the openness of the terrain will make it harder for enemy infantry to approach without exposing themselves to murderous fire from my guns.
By the time we arrive, climbing a well-constructed, wide road to the top of the bluff, my visible-light sensors have warmed enough to melt the ice sheathing their lenses, allowing me to see where I am going far more clearly. I am glad of this, for we discover an immense crowd waiting for us. The entire settlement has come streaming to the edge of town, suited up against the snow and heavy, gusting winds.
I halt at a safe distance, unwilling to come closer on the icy ground for fear of a skid. My running lights make my towering prow clearly visible despite the snow-filled darkness—uptilted faces gape at my ice-shrouded duralloy war hull and gun snouts. Through my thawing external sensors, I hear the concerted gasp which rises from more than a thousand throats.
Civilian awe at seeing an ordinary Bolo never ceases to amaze me, even after fifteen years of active service. I have speculated, sometimes, that there must be something of a religious, or at least superstitious, element to this reaction. Judging by my own experience, the human mind fears—in a primitive, subconscious fashion—that which is larger and more powerful than itself. Even when that something was fashioned by human hands and human ingenuity.
I find this very lonely.
My commander unhooks himself from the command chair and shrugs on cold weather gear stored in a bin at the back of my command compartment, moving gingerly and scowling at his swollen elbow. “Well,” he sighs philosophically, glancing into my forward camera, “let’s see what we can do, shall we? Maintain full Battle Reflex Alert and scout the whole perimeter of the settlement. Find out which areas of town are most vulnerable to attack. I’ll see if I can find anything useful from the colony’s stores to repair your sensor arrays, at least.”
“Understood, John.”
He climbs down and greets the welcoming committee, which elicits a wild cheer of welcome. The crowd moves toward a structure adequate to hold the entire population. It is time for John to initiate his council of war—and time for me to discover the exact shape and extent of the terrain I must defend. Satisfied that I have safely delivered my commander to our duty station, I carefully back up, turn, and tackle the next phase of my mission.
Chapter Thirteen
Wakiza trembled with cold as he huddled under the uncertain shelter of the trees, trying to keep the worst of the sleet from lashing him in the darkness. At fifteen summers, he was one of the youngest warriors of Hook-Beak Clan, a barely blooded hunter without a single raid against enemy clans to his credit.
Three times, he had watched in despair as the war parties were sent to destroy the human nest. And three times, those war parties had been driven back, failing to crush the hated creatures from the stars. When told that he would be assigned to the night watch for the fourth attempt, rather than the attack teams, he pleaded with the war leader for a better assignment, certain the end was near and afraid he might miss the final victory.
“Your time to die gloriously will come, Wakiza,” Chesmu told him sternly. “For now, obey orders and keep silent. That is my final word.”
Night watch.
Duty barely worthy of a newly hatched nestling.
Wakiza watched bitterly as more fortunate warriors crossed open ground unchallenged, entering the strange nest that lay—insanely—open to the winter sky. He watched with rising jealousy as the attack party blew holes through the defensive wall, all but unopposed by enemy fire. He felt useless—worse than useless—squatting here under a tree while the older warriors took all the glory for themselves. He had spent his entire fifteen summers aching to please the Ones Above, to show his creators that he was brave and swift and worthy, and now others were winning the battle he had so desperately longed to join—
The night split wide open with flame and noise.
A monstrous thing fell from the storm clouds, spitting death and venom.
Wakiza’s beak fell open in shock. It was bigger than the entire clan’s living cavern. Bigger than anything Wakiza had ever seen. Fire belched from it, lancing down through the sleet-filled darkness to ignite the weird, alien structures of the human nest. Flames roared high into the night skies, leaving Wakiza trembling on his belly against the frozen ground.
“It’s a metal ogre!” he whispered.
He had not truly understood, until now.
Their best missiles detonated against it without visible effect. The thing kept coming, dropping down from the clouds, shooting its weapons in a fiery rain of death. It was unbelievably ruthless, destroying virtually the whole human nest in its zeal to kill every member of Hook-Beak Clan’s attack parties. Not one of the warriors chosen to enter the enemy’s nest came out again.
Wakiza turned and fled into the night, duty-bound to carry home word of the ogre’s arrival. By the time he arrived at the living cavern, he was bleeding and dazed, slashed by thorny underbrush and several nasty tumbles down rocky gullies. He was shaking so hard, he could scarcely gasp out his message.
“The thing burned down everything outside the defended wall!” Wakiza chattered the words out through shudders that shook his thin, adolescent shoulders. The grizzled, aging war leader and the clan’s akule exchanged dark glances as Wakiza added, “Never have I seen such ruthlessness! Nothing our warriors threw at it even scratched the thing. Please, Honored Chesmu, give me the chance to carry out vengeance for our slain brothers!”