Steel World (28 page)

“I’ll go out there,” I said, “grab that plasma weapon, and hose them down from behind. They don’t have a lot of defending troops left. If we can nail them when their attention is diverted, we’ll save a lot of our people.”

“James,” Carlos said, staring at the thick tubular weapon, “that thing looks heavy.”

I smiled at him. “That’s why I need a wingman to help me operate it.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

We bided our time. The incoming fire on the walls intensified suddenly, and I knew the attack had to be underway. The saurians returned fire sporadically, but for the most part they just hunkered down, clearly planning on nailing our troops when they got in close.

One of them finally noticed that the gates were open, and that we were there behind them, watching.

All my plans went out the window in that moment. I turned to the Nairb Prefect, who had lost interest in the battle and was riffling through contracts on his computer system. I’m pretty sure he was reading up on ours to screw us somehow later on.

“Prefect!” I called. “If you want to avoid the death of everyone in this room, including yours, set that translator to let us speak with the saurians.”

“Why would I wish to help you?”

“So you don’t die,” I said. “The saurians are coming in here, and there’s going to be a fight if you don’t—”

“Too dangerous! Not a violation, but a warning to the offending parties will be issued immediately if—”

“Yeah, I know. Just turn on the translator so I can talk to him.”

The Nairb hesitated, but then a saurian in armor loomed at the windows. He peered inside. The Nairb humped his body like a racing seal and managed to reset the device before the saurian forced his way in.

“Soldier!” I shouted, hearing the translator hiss and rasp. “No energy weapons, it’s Galactic Law!”

The trooper had a heavy beam unit aimed at my chest, but I’d made sure to stand directly in front of the massed Nairbs, who were now squawking behind me. I had no doubt they were bitterly complaining about my conduct.

The saurian lowered his gun, but he did not retreat as I’d hoped. Instead, he extended a hand-to-hand weapon from each of his metal-covered fore claws.

I’d heard about these weapons.
Scizores
, some called them. They were like artificial claws of hardened steel. They resembled the killing claws of the saurians’ distant ancestors, and had been used in the past and present to gut an enemy in close combat.

Without a word, he charged us. I’m sure he felt confident. He was stronger and larger than us, and wearing heavy armor.

Carlos and I dropped our snap-rifles. They wouldn’t be much use in this fight and a ricochet that killed a Nairb would only seal our doom. I pulled out my combat knife, as did Carlos.

Fighting an alien biped in hand-to-hand was a new experience for me. Up until now, everything had been about energy weapons or ballistic weapons. Now, it was all about strength, skill and tactics. Armor counted, too.

As there were two of us, the alien took the simplest course: he ignored Carlos and charged me. I guess it made some sense. I had been the one with the balls to talk to him via the translator. Perhaps that had angered or insulted him in some way.

I fought defensively. All around me, Nairbs humped away desperately. Desks were smashed and chopped as the saurian slashed with his two heavy claws. I knew I couldn’t cut through his armor easily, so I retreated, watching for an opening.

Carlos trailed behind the saurian and soon made his play. He lunged in and stabbed the saurian in the back.

Our combat knives aren’t formed from normal steel. They’re modified and hardened with advanced techniques. The blade didn’t just bounce and spark from the armor, it gouged it, leaving a scratch a half-inch deep.

Without missing a beat, the saurian tried to backhand Carlos. It swept back with one claw, slashing the air where he’d been a moment before. But Carlos must have suspected something like this. He’d darted in, struck, and danced back out of the way again. He wasn’t waiting around.

The saurian turned in his direction, perhaps frustrated he hadn’t made an easy kill.

I dashed in and stabbed, as Carlos had, going for his closest, uplifted fore claw.

His counterattack was even faster against me. He almost caught me, whirling back and cutting the air with two vicious strokes. Fortunately, his heavy armor seemed to be slowing him down. He couldn’t move as quickly as we could.

“This isn’t working, McGill,” Carlos complained.

“Maybe we can hit him low at the same time, taking his legs out from under him.”

“He’ll plant those blades in our spines if we try it. And he’s got a tail, too, don’t forget. That’s like third leg for balancing on these scaly bastards.”

The saurian was intent on me again, marching forward slowly, making powerful slashing motions. Equipment was destroyed as he went.

“Hold on,” I said. “Carlos, do you think you can get that translator flipped back to its default setting? I want the saurians to be able to talk to the Nairbs.”

“Maybe.”

“Do it. I’ll keep retreating.”

“Why?”

“Just trust me for once.”

“Why?”

“You
owe
me, that’s why!”

With a sound of exasperation, he went over and fooled with the settings on the translator. Around us, the Nairb’s sounded like a pack of angry, squawking seals.

I kept my distance, and was sure not to damage any equipment if I could help it. My plan was simple: all I had to do was get the saurian to screw up and damage some critical piece of hardware. With any luck, the Nairbs would order him to self-execute.

“I got it!” Carlos shouted. “All I had to do was turn it off and on again.”

“Fine, now—”

The alien finally caught me. I simply ran out of stuff to hide behind. Backing and retreating can only work for so long in a cluttered environment. My footing slipped, and one of his blades came flashing in to gut me.

I dropped my knife and latched onto his armored arm with both hands. It was like wrestling with a foot-thick snake. The lizard was
strong
.

The other arm was coming up, ready to kill me, but Carlos tackled him from behind.

The saurian almost went down but not quite. Using two thick legs and a tail, it held its feet. But the point of its free claw did stab downward—directly into the flesh of a particularly bulbous Nairb.

As I thought back on the scene later, I believe that the Nairb had been trying to get itself injured. Maybe it had had enough of this nonsense and had gotten the same idea I had—or maybe it was trying to save a file at its workstation and screwed up—I was never certain.

Whatever the case, blood like green-black paint spilled over the floor. The Nairb began keening, even though it was only a flesh wound in a single flipper.

The effect on the rest of them was immediate. They all began barking. I could tell the saurian understood them.

I don’t know what they told him, but it must have been pretty bad. He lifted up the claw that had damaged a Nairb’s flipper and thrust it into a slot in his neck armor. I’d never noticed it before, but it was obviously a weak point in his armor that he knew about and we didn’t.

Whatever the case, the saurian dropped dead at our feet.

Carlos and I stared. We couldn’t believe it.

“He did it,” Carlos said. “He really executed himself.”

“As it should be,” said the prefect. He was back at the translator and had switched it to allow us to speak. “Any honorable soldier of the Galactic would follow the Law to its final endpoint. I sense you humans are not fully civilized. You’re new to the empire and still half-wild. Do you at least have a sense of shame when faced by a true soldier?”

“Ha!” said Carlos. “He’s dead, and I’m not. I’m not impressed.”

I looked at him, and so did the prefect.

“Disgusting…” said the Nairb.

I saw something the alien couldn’t, however. The Nairb couldn’t read our facial expressions. Carlos’ eyes lingered on the fallen saurian, who we’d been struggling with so closely moments before. He
was
impressed. I could tell.

I could understand that. The dedication the act took…there was no revival system to back him up, nothing.

Oddly, I thought that the revival units had made us less willing to die in most situations. Sure, if we were being burned to death or something, we’d rather a quick death and a revival. But we didn’t relish the idea of giving our all for a concept. Repeated painful deaths quickly relieved a man of such lofty ideas.

Still, I could not help but stare at the dead saurian who’d fought so powerfully and well. Really, he would have beaten both of us, but for his rigid belief in the legal system.

I knew that saurians weren’t like us in many ways. Their lifespans burned shorter—and, I think, hotter—than ours did. People said they weren’t that smart, not even the smaller raptor types, like this one. But I’d been impressed by their capabilities. They’d had superior arms, and a relative handful of them had held us off at the spaceport for a long time today.

The time came quickly for us to make our next move. We watched the walls, and we saw the first flash of silvery metal from a snap-rifle.

The front line of charging light troops were just reaching the compound walls and entering the open gates. We could see, from our vantage point, what was waiting for them.

The saurian heavy guardsmen had hunkered down, no longer taking shots from the walls. They’d opted to focus their weapons from covered positions, encircling the open gateway. The light troops that stormed in leading the charge were burned to ash in seconds from concentrated firepower.

It had been hard to wait this long to act, very hard. But we’d both felt it was necessary. If we engaged the saurians before that point, they would know they were in a two-front firefight and would adjust their positions. Our biggest advantage—that of surprise—would be lost.

So we let them burn down the first squad that charged triumphantly into the breach. I wondered if those troops believed the enemy had all been killed or had retreated. Why else had the gates finally opened? But instead of an easy victory, they were ambushed and killed to the last man.

“
Now
, it has to be
now
,” I said, tapping at the wall. The door swept open. Even through my air-conditioned reflective suit, I could feel the heat of the two glaring stars overhead.

I grabbed up the heavy weapon the saurian had discarded. That was easier than going out to take a weapon from a fallen enemy, which had been our original plan. It also gave us time to figure out how to operate the captured weapon.

I ran with it, essentially balancing the tube on my right shoulder. I was the taller and the stronger man. Carlos followed. He was going to be my gunner.

I stepped out into the courtyard behind the ring of saurians, who were all staring ahead at the light troops trying to get into the gate. The first wave had gone down, but the next was aiming their snap-rifles around the walls and firing. This did nothing to the saurians, who burned away gloved human hands and snap-rifle barrels with eagerly probing beams of energy.

“They seem to be enjoying themselves,” Carlos said. “Let’s do this.”

I went to my knees, balancing the heavy tube. It felt like I had an I-beam on my shoulder.

Carlos swiveled to the right first, depressed the firing stud, and sent a blinding surge of energy into the saurians on that flank.

The effect was dramatic. Three of them were devoured within seconds. Their armor melted to slag, and their flesh merged with orange, bubbling steel.

“Sweep it!” I shouted. “They’re turning!”

“They aren’t going to fire,” Carlos said confidently.

I could not help but think that part of his confidence stemmed from the fact he stood behind me. I would shield him from the first blast at least.

But most of his reasoning came from the fact we’d propped open the terminal door behind us. The Nairbs were visible inside, directly behind our position. It didn’t take a genius lizard to realize that if he fired upon us, the odds were very high indeed he’d hit a neutral alien, and thus violate Galactic Law.

So Carlos swept the beam over another knot of enemy and annihilated them. An officer rose up from their ranks and shouted orders. From his gestures alone, we could see what he was planning.

“They’ll pull back a squad and hit us from the side,” Carlos said, “while the rest keep firing at the troops coming in the front gates.”

“I think your next target has marked himself,” I said.

Carlos swiveled the cannon. I grunted with the shifting weight, trying to keep it steady. He unleashed another beam, and I was impressed by his accuracy. The officer was swept off his feet and turned into a sparkling mass of slag within seconds.

Still, the damage had been done. The enemy was maneuvering in response to our attacks. They were moving to flank us.

“Turn, turn!” screamed Carlos. “They’re going left!”