Armor (39 page)

No one replied.

“Well,” insisted Kent, “don’t we?”

Felix nodded reluctantly. “We do.”

“But what’ve they got us in?” added Dominguez sourly.

He regarded Felix. “This whole deal gives me the creeps.”

He gestured behind them. “No other cover either, see?”

Felix looked behind them. It was open for some fifty meters to their rear. The closest obstacle was the edge of the maze, a smooth sheer wall five meters high. Not too high for powered legs to clear, of course. And there was a gap there, he noticed. It was wide enough for a couple of warriors to use at one time. Still, all that open space to get there made it….

“Maybe we ought to pull back a bit.”

“I’m for that,” said the Sergeant.

“But Canada told us to stay here,” protested Kent.

“And I meant it,” said Shoen, appearing from down the long line of warriors. “What’s this talk about pulling back?” “We’re too damn close, Colonel,” said Dominguez firmly.

“Too close for what?” She waved toward the Dorm.

“Dorm’s don’t have any artillery.”

“How do you know?” Felix asked.

She looked at him. “You ever heard of them having it?”

She looked at Dominguez. “Have you?”

“No,” they conceded in unison.

“Then there’s no reason to expect any.” She paused, sat down in the sand. “Colonel Khuddar knows what he’s doing.”

Felix snorted. “False, Colonel. For one thing, he’s never done this before. And for another. . .” He looked at her. “Your Ali is just a bit too eager for me.”

She met his gaze. “Maybe he hasn’t had much actual on-the-spot experience….”

“Any, you mean.”

She ignored him. “But he’s had the full benefit of all Fleet research on Dorms.”

Felix laughed bitterly. “Fleet research thought these things were supply dumps the first time they dropped me. We stepped from the ship straight into six marching rows.” It was quiet for several seconds while they digested that.

Then, “When was that?” Shoen asked.

“The Knuckle,” Felix replied in a dead voice.

There was a sudden movement beside him. He turned to find Kent’s massive blue helmet looming over him.

“You. . . You were at the Knuckle, Felix?” he asked, his voice an almost inaudible whisper.

Damn, Felix thought. Damn! Not this way.

“Yes. . .” Not Kent. Nathan. “Yes, Nathan. I was there.”

He lifted a gloved hand to rest on the great shoulder. . . . And the first explosion went off. Several more erupted immediately afterwards, a staccato barrage of noise and flying sand. Dominguez’s order for all to hit the sand and stay flat was lost in the rolling thunder of the concussions and the bone chilling screams of surrounding warriors.

In seconds, it was over, as abruptly as it had begun. Recall chimes sounded immediately afterward, filling the heavy silence.

“That’s it!” shouted Dominguez to one and all. “Let’s hit it home! C’mon!”

Felix, half buried by the cascading sands, dragged himself out and up to his feet. Around him everyone was fleeing wildly toward the maze. Everyone who could. A dozen steps away, a warrior’s suit arched stiffly before suddenly bursting outward. He shuddered and turned away.

Kent was there, standing still as a statue and looking over the rise. Felix turned to follow his gaze and froze himself. A solid wall of ants was boiling up and over and down toward them.

“Let’s move it,” he shouted. He grasped Kent’s armored shoulder and tried to shake it. It was like trying to budge the bunker itself. “Come on,” he all but screamed, standing with his faceplate before the other man’s. Still, Kent wouldn’t move.

Felix glanced over his shoulder; the ants were almost there. “Goddammit!” he raged at the blue suit. “Move!!” And he slapped his hand against the side of Kent’s helmet. Apparently without thinking, Kent hit him back, a backhand to his chest. Felix somersaulted backward into the sand.

When he shook himself alert once more, Kent was gone.

He looked up. The ants were not.

“Dammit!” he groaned and started running, just beyond the outstretched reach of the first of many, many claws. Ahead of him, he saw the blue suit reach the first wall of the maze and vault over it. Five meters over it. Awesome, he thought again.

But then all thoughts were lost to his flight. The ants had almost cut off his retreat. He bore down hard, slamming his boots into the soft footing and accelerating at ultimate intensity. He crossed the last few meters to the maze in seconds, mere steps ahead of the closing mass. He darted through the gap in the first ridge blindly, clipping an edge of the wall in his haste, sending him tumbling off balance. Still careening, he slammed into the next wall. “Idiot!” he grumbled furiously to himself.

And then he was up and running again, no less blindly. For the ants were through the gap almost as quickly and piling up against one another in their attempts to follow him down the gulley. He kept on, not bothering after that one glance over his shoulder to check their progress. He followed that gulley until it came to a dead end and leaped over the obstruction. He followed another gulley awhile, leapt again, leapt some more. Ran. . . .

At last he reached the killing area where he could achieve full speed. Ahead of him, the last of the others were already clearing the walls of the fort into safety. Behind and above him, the ants were boiling into sight over the top of the ridge and down the long smooth runway to the bunker. Felix ran like hell to beat them to it.

Twenty last steps away, he noticed one of the gunners pointing a cannon just over his head at the ants he knew were just behind him. The gunner looked too damned itchy. . . .

He pointed a shaking finger at the figure above him. “Hold your fucking fire!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

The gunner’s hands jerked, as if stung, from the triggering keys.

Felix took two more steps and launched himself for the top of the wall. Too hard, he realized in the air. “Dammit!” he cursed as he glided ungracefully past his target and crashed onto the smooth hard surface of the inner courtyard.

Two large warrior’s hands hauled him roughly to his feet.

Dominguez.

“You in a hurry?” asked the sergeant dryly.

Felix laughed shortly. “You still here?”

Dominguez shrugged. “It’s a living.”

“Fire!!” blared out on Command Frequency. “Fire all cannon!!”

They looked at one another, then bounced back up onto the wall. Most everyone else was already there. Felix had to wedge himself in between warriors to see. He almost wished, a few seconds later, that he hadn’t. He had seen slaughters before primarily at the Knuckle, but often since. Nothing had prepared him for this sight.

The cannon were cutting the ants in half. From one end of the killing area to the next, ants were being literally cut in two by the huge beams of coherent light. It happened too quickly for them to hide even if such would occur to them.

It happened too quickly for them to regroup or dodge and dart or, ultimately, threaten the fort in any way. The three cannon on the forward wall arced back and forth against the front ranks of the teeming horde with breathtaking efficiency. Piles of dead and twitching ants began to grow, to jam up the ones racing up from the rear. Because of the blockage in front, the gunners began directing their fire farther back into the ranks. Secondary piles began to form.

Thousands of ants, enough to cover the entire killing area, the entire runway of it, had stormed over the ridge towards them. Two or three thousand at least, Felix estimated. Perhaps as many as five. In a very few moments, all were dead. All. They never had a chance.

Never cared about one, he thought, watching the last few on the fringes of the mass being obliterated. Even the last stragglers had been intent on but one thing: attacking.

“Incredible,” said a young warrior beside him. He turned to Felix. “I had no idea it was like this,” he added.

Felix smiled coldly. It isn’t like this, he wanted to say. At least it’s never been before. And what. . . What if it really isn’t now?

“Hold your fire!” sounded at last.

The cannon stopped, the people crowded even more tightly along the wall to see. There was a pause, and then a long ragged cheer erupted from the ranks. Felix found himself standing next to Dominguez once more. The sergeant hooked a thumb toward the mass of dead.

“How about that?” he asked.

Felix shrugged. “You really think it’s all going to go like this?”

Dominguez nodded, understanding. “But there it is,” he offered.

“Yeah,” Felix replied. “There it is.”

Ten minutes later the second wave appeared over the ridge. The order to fire was delayed until, once more, the runway was covered with their rush.

Then the same thing happened. Once more, in moments, it was over.

A five-minute delay occurred before the third wave. It, too, went as before.

The ants waited a full fifteen minutes before the fourth wave appeared. It did them no good. Again, thousands died.

Quickly, easily, distantly.

When it was all over, the warriors stood staring at the mass of corpses and pieces of corpses before them. They shook their heads in amazement. How stupid the ants were, they said, to be willing to let so many be wiped out.

Felix listened, but heard no one remark on what it meant that the ants were willing to let so many die. To them it was merely stupidity. To Felix, it was. . . something else. Something alien. While it made the others laugh, it made him. . . what?

He realized, after a moment, that it frightened him. Terrified him, in fact, in a way that nothing before had.

“They just don’t care,” he mumbled to himself. No one else heard. No one would have paid any attention, he knew, if he had.

So ended the third hour of the drop.

Shoen’s squad formed on the southeastern corner beneath the cannon platform. It had been forty-five minutes since the last wave. She was afraid to wait any longer. The number of ants still seen to be twitching in the piles was rapidly shrinking.

“We want the ones still alive if we can find them,” she admonished the team. “Or just recently dead.”

They nodded. With Felix in the lead, the five of them went over the wall.

They were lucky. The first pile they reached had ants still jerking spastically. Felix and Dominguez stood watch while Shoen directed Ling and Morleone where and what to cut.

“Damn!” gasped Dominguez, staring at the carnage before their eyes.

Felix agreed. “Damn.”

When they headed back, Felix saw that Shoen’s face looked pale behind her faceplate.

Good for you, he thought.

The fifth hour began with the rotation of several groups back into the bunker for rest. All the scouts were in the first group.

They were going out again, Felix was told, as soon as they returned. Felix eagerly accepted the opportunity, finding to his surprise that he had been looking forward to a shower all along.

Later, he sat dripping in the head, smoking and watching himself in the mirror. You sure got used to this in a hurry, he thought.

He found the mess with little trouble. He sat on a bench and sipped a mug of hot tea given him by an enthusiastic galley tech. At the next table several young warriors discussed their first ever sight of ants. Some were beginning to feel a delayed reaction of nausea at the experience. Two said they wouldn’t look the second time it happened. One said he felt sorry for all those poor ants. “I think I would have mutinied if I’d been one of ‘em,” he offered. Felix left.

He wandered the passageways until he found the main hall. It was the largest room he had found by far. In it, several techs were aligning hundreds of seats and benches. On the far wall, a huge blank screen hung before the rows of empty seats. One of the techs explained that the Old Man was planning to address everyone later.

Felix picked a seat at random and sat down to smoke and think. He stared at the screen. He thought some more. He finished a cigarette and lit another. He thought. What was wrong with him?

His mind told him this was wrong. This was a lie. And his guts, his instincts, told him the same thing there was a frailty here not yet seen.

But he couldn’t get excited about it. He couldn’t get. . . scared enough.

His thoughts drifted to Kent. He hadn’t seen him on the wall watching the slaughter. Embarrassed, he figured. A lot was expected from “everybody’s hero,” but that didn’t include a perfectly normal reaction to a perfectly abnormal dose of horror. He thought back to the easy tones he had heard from the man and of the handsome face he had met earlier in the drop bay. All of it fitted with what Forest had told him.

“No Engine in that guy,” he muttered to himself unconsciously. “Too gentle. Too nice.”

Again he thought of Forest and of how to best explain to

Kent what had happened and what it had meant. What she had meant. If he could just show him how much she had. . . .

“Dammit!” he gasped suddenly. He was crying again! What the devil was going on here? Come to think of it, what had been going on. . . .

Because it had been happening for a while now. Ever since

. . when? Michalk, of course. Ever since Michalk.

He had screamed when he had seen what they did to Michalk. Twice, he had screamed. Twice. Not in fear or pain either. But in surprise and, face it, the anguish of loss. He had liked Michalk, even in the short time he knew him. But how?

And what had that bit in the ship been about, anyway? Refusing to fight as if. . .as if he had a choice. As if he had somewhere else to go and something else to do. As if he were a real live person again.

Since being at the bunker, too, he had acted strangely. He had laughed with Dominguez. He had cried with the memory of Forest. How? How was he able?

He shook his head. He lit another cigarette. He had thought all such feelings long gone, long beyond his reach. But here he’d been, feeling like mad. Laughter and tears and. . .

And more. He had to admit it. There was more. The memory was returning. Of Her. Lately, he had caught himself, . . well, not exactly thinking about Her directly. Nothing so deliberate. Nothing so daring. But he had seen Her a couple of times. She had appeared, without conscious effort, full-blown and clear before his aching brain. All at once. She had been there. Maybe. . . Angel.