“They’re poking at our defenses, checking our lines,” I said.

  “That’s what I see, sir,” Harris said. “They’re harassing Manfred’s unit next door, and everyone else down the line. They might pop up anywhere in real strength.”

  “Hmm… okay, we’ll hold tight and see if they retreat or come on full-strength.”

  The gunfire died down after a few minutes. The bears had surged, killed a few men and lost five times as many themselves. Then, they pulled back into their hole and disappeared.

  “You want to send Barton’s lights after them to scout? Or at least a buzzer?” Harris asked.

  I looked at him, but I shook my head. “No. That might be what they want. They’re checking out our responses, our readiness. Let’s just hope that our link in this chain isn’t the weakest one they find.”

  Things quieted for a bit, but we were on edge now. Everyone knew the enemy was coming back. They were going to hit us somewhere, and they were going to hit us hard.

  When the next attack finally came, it was almost an hour after we’d first spotted their digging machine. All of a sudden, there was lots of squawking on our radio headsets.

  “McGill! McGill? Are you there? Dammit, man!” It was Winslade, and he sounded kind of upset.

  “What’s happening, Primus? It’s all quiet here.”

  “Well, that’s dandy. It isn’t quiet a few kilometers up the road to the north. I’m sending support up there to help out.”

  “Uh…” I said, paging through the tactical maps. “Sir… that sounds too far off. Our cohort isn’t responsible for—”

  “Yes, yes, you idiot. I know that. We’re at the very edge of our territorial zone. But this dome is our responsibility to defend in its entirety. Up there, you’ll find a regiment of Mogwa marines. Just past that, Victrix has their troops deployed.”

  I thought that over for about a full second. “So… the enemy decided the Mogwa themselves were the weak link?”

  “Apparently so. Mogwa Command is panicking. They’re demanding we rush to their aid.”

  I thought that was funny, and I began to laugh, but old Winslade wasn’t in a jovial mood. “Listen to me. Every other unit in the cohort is rolling north to patch up this breach.”

  “Every other…?” I said, looking to the north. It did seem like there were some fireworks going off in the distance. Black smoke was rising, and flashes could be seen on the horizon.

  “That’s right. You’re marching north with the rest. Get going immediately. Manfred will fill in from one side and Singh from the other.”

  “That’s going to make a thin line even thinner, sir.”

  “Don’t I know it. I’m going to command the remainder personally. Primus Collins will command the relief force. Please don’t antagonize her unnecessarily.”

  My face fell, and my heart sank into my boots. Primus Collins had never liked me—she didn’t outright hate me, unlike some of the others—but she wasn’t my fan. I opened my mouth to protest, but Winslade was moving on.

  “You have your orders. Move out!”

  Grunting, I got to my feet and began to pinwheel my arms. My nap was over, and the pain was just beginning. We were on the march again.

  The unit walked out onto the road, and we began to trot northward. I ordered the troops in the rear of our stretched out column to run, while the ones in the middle jogged and the farther north boys walked. Soon, we were moving in a more coherent formation.

  As we passed by the boys in the trenches in Manfred’s zone, we heard hoots and catcalls. Nothing seemed to amuse a Varus man more than seeing a comrade get chosen for hazardous duty.

  Harris growled and snarled at every one of our tormenters, while I studiously ignored them. He never seemed to catch on to the idea that acting upset only garnered more teasing, especially when the other unit’s commander didn’t give a shit about your feelings.

  Manfred even hopped out of his trench and trotted after me. He fell into step and grinned up at me.

  “What are you smiling about?” I asked. “You boys having a circle-jerk party again?”

  “Even better,” he said, still grinning. “We’re cheering on comrades. I can only hope that you won’t hog all the glory up there and shame Victrix.”

  “Victrix? We’re marching to save some lame-ass Mogwa marines.”

  “Right, right. But you know full well those ingrates will fall apart after ten minutes of facing those bears. Then you’ll land on them, and Victrix will hit them in the other flank. You’ll meet in the middle and kiss, I wager, in an hour’s time.”

  I wondered if he could be right. The Mogwa Marines weren’t a joke force, but they didn’t have the experience or the self-sacrificing nature of human mercenary troops.

  “Well,” I said, “don’t you think you ought to run off and hide with Winslade and the rest?”

  “All right, all right. I can tell when I’m not amusing someone. Good luck, McGill.”

  He offered me a gauntlet to shake, and I took it. We often razzed each other and played mean tricks, but we were friends underneath.

  Harris hustled up to walk at my side after Manfred had faded away behind my fast-moving column.

  “That was it, huh?” he asked. “A few jokes and a handshake? Manfred is a real piece of work.”

  I shrugged, not caring what Harris thought. “He’s got his orders, and we’ve got ours. Move back to your platoon, Harris. You’ll take the middle position, behind Barton’s lights. Let’s make this look like we mean business.”

  The unit became more professional as we approached the newly-forming front lines. There were already several units there, hugging the back of a ridge. It was only about twenty meters tall, but anyone who’s been in battle can tell you any cover is welcome.

  Ahead of us, a food-processing plant lay in the middle of the battle zone. Maybe that was on purpose. It occurred to me that the bears might not be attacking a weak spot, but rather a strategic installation. All the farms in this area fed this plant, which produced food for the Mogwa in the big city off to the north. If they captured it or destroyed it, the siege would be brought closer to an unhappy conclusion.

  Primus Collins took personal command when there were four units assembled. “You took your sweet frigging time getting here,” she complained at us. “Normally, I’d wait for the last unit to get here, but we can’t do it. Intel says the Mogwa are losing the battle over at that big food plant. We’re going to have to go in there and save their asses.”

  I opened my mouth to ask a few questions, but she wasn’t in the mood.

  “Line up your troops, Centurions. We’re going over the top of this ridge of dirt in three minutes. I’ve marked your starting spots and your target waypoints on your tacticals. Get moving!”

  That was it. Her entire briefing, her planning session—that was the whole thing. This battle felt rushed, and it was. That could only mean one thing: the Mogwa marines were losing.

  Losing badly.

  -39-

  A few minutes later, Primus Collins ordered us to charge up and over our ridge. We rushed up the dirt slope, with rocks and strange-looking alien weeds crumbling under our boots. It occurred to me that every planet I’d ever been on seemed to have weeds—at least the habitable ones did. I guess weeds were a universal constant of the living universe.

  Our first waypoint was a pipeline that led from the big city down to the plant itself. The pipe was partially above ground and about two meters high—good cover for an advancing force. It was probably full of slime, or sludge, or whatever these Mogwa ate during a siege—but that didn’t much matter as long as it blocked a bolt from a power-rifle.

  I sent Barton’s lights in the lead, as usual. They fanned out and raced ahead. Next came Harris and his heavies. Last, behind me, were Gary and the specialists. Their kits were bulky and tended to slap them in the ass as they ran, making them the slowest of the lot. I didn’t give them a second glance.

  It was the situation ahead that had my unwavering attention. The battleground was obscured in smoke, but what I could see of it didn’t look good. I counted six drilling machines, long caterpillar-like things that had fired up out of the ground and beached themselves. The forward nose of these machines was spread open, and they’d clearly disgorged all their troops in a surprise attack.

  None of that was the disturbing part. What I didn’t like to see was the number of destroyed Mogwa vehicles strewn in front of these caterpillars. Dozens of drone tanks and dead marines in their walking machines were burning and broken. They’d probably massed and counterattacked against the bears when they first emerged—but they’d obviously been driven back.

  Now, the Mogwa were holed up inside the food plant. That building was a mass of pipes and silos. All of it was battleship-gray and unadorned. Mogwa architecture was generally like that—they were engineers, not artists.

  I couldn’t see the bears from where I was, because Collins had positioned us to approach the plant from the city-side—the safer side. That only made sense if we could get into the plant without taking fire—

  “Incoming!” shouted one of Barton’s recruits. “Look out!”

  Looking up and toward the plant, I saw spinning vapor trails. A flock of mini-missiles was descending on our location.

  No one needed to be told what to do. We raced for the pipe, diving for cover the moment the missiles reached us.

  They were smart little flying drones, really. Driven by propellant rather than propellers, they discharged a shower of bomblets that sought out flesh like swarms of angry wasps. The bomblets made hissing, burning sounds as they came. That sound was familiar, and it made every man on open ground feel his balls cinch up tight.

  Just as automatically, our countermeasures went off to protect us. The specialists in the rear of the formation had counter-missiles and jammers. Kivi’s own buzzers even turned suicidal, diving to intercept the missile-flock.

  Some of that worked. Maybe half the missiles didn’t reach us before they detonated—but that wasn’t good enough to save all of our sorry asses. Before the barrage died down, eleven troops were dead or incapacitated.

  “This sucks,” Gary informed me as we hugged the food pipe, breathing hard. “Is it always like this, McGill? We’re just targets out here. We haven’t even spotted the enemy.”

  “Don’t worry,” I bullshitted him. “Once we get in close on those bears, we’ll give them some payback.”

  This, of course, was an outright lie. The bears were at their most dangerous when you were in close with them. They had advanced armor like only Gary and myself did, and they were mean as hell when you finally got one in a clinch.

  None of that would raise morale, so I left it out. Slamming a gauntlet on his shoulder, I grinned into his freaked-out face. “Speaking of which, I’ve got your next tactical mission all lined up for you.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “Primus Collins wants our weaponeers to sight on that building—that’s right, the long low one off to the west. You’re supposed to melt it with combined belcher fire.”

  His breathing hadn’t slowed down from our run yet, and he looked a little sick. “Is that where the mini-missiles are coming from?”

  “I think so.”

  “But if we light them up, won’t they fire everything they have at us?”

  I clapped him on the shoulder again. “Nah, probably not. They’ll duck and cover. Bears are awful cowards on the battlefield. Not everyone knows that, but it’s true.”

  “Really?”

  I almost didn’t have the heart to bullshit the kid any further, but I could tell he needed some hopeful words. “That’s gospel. Now, get your weaponeers lined up. Don’t fire until you can do it all at once.”

  “Uh… where are your guys going, Centurion?”

  Apparently, he couldn’t help but notice that we were all crawling away from him and his weaponeers. Harris and his heavies were on their bellies like worms—and Barton’s lights, well hell, they were slipping under the food pipe itself in places.

  “Just follow orders, Gary. Have your boys aim and fire their belchers all at once!”

  Breathing hard and blinking fast, Gary directed his troops. The men shouldered their weapons, cranked their apertures down to make tight, narrow beams, then unloaded on the target all together.

  The building lit up white-hot inside of seconds. Around about the eleventh second, the response came from the enemy. They’d finally noticed us.

  A familiar hissing and burning sound began. The enemy had fired their mini-missiles back at us. From the size of this new incoming flock, it looked and sounded like they’d fired everything they had.

  “Other side of the pipe!” I roared at everyone. “Dive over it and take cover!”

  The weaponeers scattered, but they did so in slow-motion. They looked like lumbering two-legged turtles in their heavy armor and massive kits. Some dropped their belchers, but most held onto them by instinct.

  One man, a big boy taller than the rest, grabbed Gary by the scruff. He shoved him down on his face, then sat on him and aimed his own belcher upward into the missile swarm. Somehow, he’d managed to crank his weapon’s emitter wide open, from the tightest beam to the widest, and at the last possible instant he blazed upward into the oncoming swarm.

  The mini-missiles had targeted him instinctively. There he was, a big target, immobile and right in the dead center of ground zero.

  It was Sargon. It had to be. I knew in my heart he was as good as dead, but I dared to hope he would pull through somehow. Even if he didn’t, he’d made one hell of a valiant last stand. One we’d remember when he eventually caught a revive.

  The missile-swarm swooped for the kill and met his cone of fire. He held that trigger down, burning for a long time—too long. There was no way the internal coil wouldn’t be burnt out after this—but I understood. It was his only option.

  The missiles formed a point and they were burned away like a flock of sparrows flying right into a hot furnace. Flashing explosions blinded all of us who gaped at the scene from a safe distance. The flashes seemed to go on and on—but I’m sure the whole thing took less than ten seconds of real time.

  Finally, it was over. Men crawled and groaned in the dirt. Some of them were missing limbs and had scorched black holes in their armor. Others began to stand and shake themselves off.

  Miraculously, Sargon managed to heave himself onto his feet. He looked kind of stunned, but functional. Using one long arm, he reached down and lifted Gary, standing him up like a ragdoll.

  “There you are, Adjunct,” he said. “Orders?”

  Gary was open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Harris might have shouted at Sargon. Leeson might have thanked him. Gary did neither, he just kind of gawked. Then suddenly, he opened his faceplate and puked on the smoking ground.

  “Uh… Centurion?” Sargon asked, turning my way. “What next?”

  I looked downslope again. The bunker I’d ordered to be destroyed was indeed a smoking, flattened pile of puff-crete.

  “Good job, men. See to your wounded. We’ll ask Collins for our next objective.”

  I reported in, and I was immediately given fresh commands. I didn’t like them much. I liked them even less, in fact, than our last orders.

  -40-

  Primus Collins didn’t bother to answer my private requests for directives. Instead, she just overrode tactical chat and talked to me and all the other units at once.

  “Brave soldiers of Varus,” she said. “Our new mission is to infiltrate that factory in any way we can. Get inside, engage the enemy, and save the Mogwa before it’s too late. Reports from our allies indicate they’re being hunted down inside.”

  We grimaced and got to our feet. These new orders were far from ideal. Infantrymen like to work their way toward the enemy, moving from one scrap of cover to the next. The last thing any of us wanted to do was charge into an unknown building without scouting or planning.

  Worse, this huge building wasn’t going to be friendly inside. It was a tangle of unknown equipment. Some of it was bound to be dangerous. I knew aliens rarely had safety precautions built into their industrial sites the way humans preferred. They were as likely to lay bare wires carrying heavy voltage over the floor or along a wall as not. It seemed like aliens didn’t much care if incompetent workers lived or died.

  “All right,” I said, “you heard the lady. We’re going in hot and fast. Lights first. Keep your eyes peeled and your asses tight. Go for it!”

  Adjunct Barton needed no more encouragement. She took off at a run, and her startled light troopers followed her in a rush. There were only about two dozen of them still breathing, but they raced away along the pipes and fences, jumping over obstacles such as the hexagonal barrels we saw all over the plant.

  Scattered enemy fire came from the direction of the factory, but it wasn’t much. By knocking out that bunker with the mini-missile company in it, it looked like we’d gotten rid of much of the local resistance on our side of the factory.

  “Looks good,” I said. “Harris, you’re on deck.”

  “Are you kidding me, sir? Can’t we even let Barton get across that open area and into the plant first? Let the lights show us the way.”

  Normally, I’d have taken his advice. It wasn’t unreasonable—but it was against our orders. I shook my head and pointed after Barton.

  “Move out right now, or I’ll relieve you of command, Adjunct.”

  Grumbling, Harris bellowed at his heavies. They trotted after Barton. When they ran into fences, they cut through them with their force-blades rather than hopping over. The hexagonal barrels suffered a similar fate, being kicked over roughly by metal boots.

  I turned to Gary next. “You’re up. Move with me, we’re bringing up the rear again.”

  Gary was white-faced, but he was game. He nodded and followed me without complaining. He did spit and swallow a lot, though. Sure signs of a nervous man marching through alien dirt.

  As the most awkward gear to carry was on our backs, the specialists took the easy path. They hustled in the wake of the heavies who’d hacked their way in a straight line toward the biggest open gate that led into the factory.