Harris rushed to my side and took a knee, breathing hard. “What are we going to do, sir?”

  “We’re going to take down that tower. We’ll invading it from the base, if possible. Then we’ll fight our way up to the cockpit—or whatever drives this monster.”

  “I’m kind of sorry I asked, sir. Ready, sir.”

  I looked at Harris. He looked at me. We both had wide eyes, and our breathing was coming out in fast puffs. We knew we were probably going to die in the next few minutes.

  You get a feel for moments like this after a few hundred deaths.

  -48-

  The 88s sang above us, clearing out the enemy troops huddled around the siege tower. The Tau infantry was broken again, sent racing away back toward the dome. They ran for their lives, leaving hundreds behind who’d been turned to ash.

  That’s when I led the charge to meet the siege tower, which hadn’t stopped rolling closer. When we got to the back side of it, Kivi blew the hatch open, and I sent a few Clavers in first.

  That didn’t go so well. Only one man came back out, reeling, with his helmet gone and his face half-missing. The other two were just corpses.

  “Holy shit! Fire in the hole!” Harris shouted, tossing in a grenade. We ducked aside and the interior lit up with a blue flash.

  We rushed in afterward and met up with an unpleasant surprise—several flattened Rigelian bears. As they were wearing armor like mine, they weren’t dead. The shock had messed them up, though.

  “Get them while they’re stunned,” I ordered, offering no quarter.

  We grabbed their limbs and twisted, we ripped off helmets and fed them force-blades. Harris had one of the heavy shotguns developed for the purpose of killing men in such armor, and he pressed it against bellies and unloaded. It wasn’t pretty, but in the end, we got it done.

  Standing with our sides heaving from exertion, Harris and I exchanged worried glances.

  “If this whole tower is full of bears, McGill… that’s bad. That’s real bad.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Take the rest of the Clavers upstairs. Lead by tossing a grenade into every hatchway you force open. I’m calling Graves.”

  It took a few minutes, but at last, I got through.

  “McGill? You’d better be reporting that you’ve held your wall, soldier.”

  “We mostly have, sir. The Tau aren’t inside the walls yet.”

  “Good, good. I haven’t got time for congratulations—”

  “Hold on, Primus. I’ve got some bad news.” I told him then about bears running the tower—and he did a bit of swearing.

  “Are you sure about this, McGill?”

  I showed him my tapper feed. His cursing and carrying on got a little worse after that.

  “All right. Destroy that tower—kill everything in it. Then get back to your post at the base of the wall and hold out.”

  “Sir, we never got the reinforcements you promised us earlier. We can’t hold against another attack like this one. If they have more towers, more bears…”

  “Your reinforcement column was diverted to the west wall. Tau reached the top of it and swept it clear—I had no choice.”

  “Damn it, Primus. Can I remind you that we’ve got a hole in our wall? Whoever is holding the west must be an idiot.”

  “Maybe… or maybe your hole actually helped your efforts. The Tau were clearly not expecting an attack at the base of their tower. You surprised them, and you managed to get inside. I’m going to have to relay new tactical recommendations to the other fronts.”

  “You do that, sir. In the meantime, can you send me some more troops?”

  Graves hesitated. “The center is getting weak, McGill. If any of the walls are taken, we might not be able to hold. If the center goes, we’re all dead.”

  “I understand, Primus. It’s your call.”

  “All right… I’m sending you some special units… there. Done. You should have relief in about fifteen minutes or less.”

  Fifteen minutes? That was pretty fast to cover a muddy landscape, especially when you were marching uphill. I had to wonder who and what he had sent—but I didn’t bother to ask. After all, whatever it was, I would be grateful for the help.

  “One more thing before you go, Primus,” I said. “What do you make of the fact that troops from Rigel are in on this?”

  “It actually answers some questions we’ve been hashing out at headquarters. The Tau don’t have invasion ships—not that we know of, anyway. This entire attack is a surprise. Sure, they’re greedy bastards, but having a motive isn’t the same as having the military capability.”

  “Right… so you think they asked the bears for help? That they cut them in on the deal?”

  “They must have. They probably plan to split the loot with them. The Tau are providing the cannon fodder, while Rigel is providing the spacecraft and the heavy hardware. It’s a diabolical plot, and it might just win through.”

  “Any new orders, sir?” I asked.

  “No. Destroy the tower and hold the wall at all costs! Graves out.”

  He was gone again. I lowered my tapper and eyed the hatchway in the ceiling. It was kind of small for a man—but a bear could fit easily. Upstairs, there’d been quite a ruckus while I talked to Graves.

  “Harris?” I called. “You alive up there?”

  There was no answer. I frowned in concern. “Kivi? Get in here.”

  She popped her nose in the door from the outside and looked around warily. “No more bears?”

  “I’m not sure. Send some buzzers up there to look around.”

  While she deployed her drones, I gathered another assault team. This consisted of Sargon leading four wide-eyed Claver-Threes.

  “Sir?” Kivi said. “Um… there’s a lot of death above us.”

  She showed me some vids on her tapper. The tower was divided into floors, each of which was about six meters across. The floors seemed to get smaller as you went up. On the second floor, we saw more dead bears. On the third floor, however, the story changed.

  “We’ve got one dead bear on the third,” Kivi said. “That’s confirmed. Unfortunately, Harris and all his troops are dead there as well. The next hatch on the way up is closed and sealed. Worse, the whole machine is still moving—but slowly.”

  When we’d first attacked the siege tower, the forward motion had stopped. Now, whoever was driving it seemed determined. They planned to reach the wall, and I thought that over, showing the scene to Sargon. “They got wise and counterattacked Harris. He’s dead.”

  Sargon grinned. “Harris is going to be so pissed at you, Centurion.”

  “That’s just too damned bad. You’re going up to replace him. One grenade per level as you climb—and when you reach Harris and his dead team, report back to me.”

  Sucking in an unhappy breath, he nodded and moved toward the ladder. I yanked him back, and he frowned at my hand on his bicep.

  “Send the Clavers first,” I advised, nodding to the staring trio that surrounded us. Smiling at them, I raised my voice. “I always like to send my best men in first!”

  This was met with slack-jawed stares. I had no idea if they’d bought my lie or rejected it—I don’t think it mattered much either way.

  Sargon dutifully sent the Clavers in first. When they didn’t drop dead immediately, he followed. Soon, they were working on the hatch to the fourth floor.

  “It’s stuck, or locked—or something.”

  Cursing, I turned to Kivi. “Blow it open.”

  She smiled. “I’ve got something better.”

  She dug in her kit and pulled out a specialized buzzer. It was bigger, sleeker, and it had a tapered point on the nosecone. I watched as she deployed it. The freaky thing was soon drilling on the locked hatch. It squealed and made grinding noises as it dug into the metal.

  A small charge was deposited, and the hatchway popped open.

  Sargon tossed a grenade into the chamber beyond—but it bounced back out. The men dove for the exit, which was the other hatchway down to my level. Even the Clavers seemed wild with fear. Dumb or not, they knew what a plasma grenade was.

  In the end, none of them made it out alive. They were all blown apart and after a bit of crawling and moaning, they died.

  “Shit…” I said with feeling. “Kivi, have you got a floater on you?”

  She blinked in surprise. “A floater? I do… but it’s only small one. It can’t lift more than about fifty kilos.”

  “Overclock the actuator. One burst of thrust, that’s all I need.”

  She looked at me with big eyes. “You’re going up there alone, sir? That’s crazy.”

  “If we don’t get this done, we lose. Rig your floater and make it fast.”

  We watched as bear paws occasionally dipped into the chamber and tried to close the hatch again. We fired bolts into that hatch, making it spark and jump. Kivi’s buzzer had wrecked the latch, and the hatch wouldn’t seal, so they gave up eventually.

  “If I don’t miss my guess, the Rigelians will put one man right there on the other side of that hatch, watching for any kind of attack, he’ll be ready to block us.”

  “How do you know it’s just one bear?”

  “I don’t, but it makes sense. Someone has to be driving this thing and the turrets outside.”

  Right about then, a Claver walked in and made a valiant attempt to tell me something. “Sir… walkers coming.”

  “Walkers?”

  “Yes. Walking things. Outside. Many walkers.”

  Concerned, I brushed the diligent soldier away and looked outside.

  What I saw there made my blood run cold. A vast skirmish line of Tau troops had emerged, walking through the dome together. There had to be a hundred, maybe more. A few seconds later a second wave followed the first. It was a whole cohort of them, by the looks of things.

  Craning my neck, I looked up at the wall top. Our troops up there had pretty much been wiped out by the lightning gun turrets. I’d have expected to see enemy troops up there, but I didn’t.

  Apparently, the Tau we’d killed with the 88s and small arms fire had been the men they’d intended to send up through this tower to take the walls. The bears could have done it, I supposed, but there weren’t very many of them left, and they had to operate the turrets and the tower itself.

  “The bears are trying to do this on the cheap,” I said. “They’re using Tau as cannon fodder and hoping for minimal casualties on Rigel’s side. We’re going to have to change their expectations, pronto.”

  The Clavers who listened to this little speech stared at me without comment or comprehension.

  Turning away, I reached for Kivi. She was still fooling around with a disk and some power lines that looked like a tram’s jumper cables.

  “It’s got to work right now,” I told her.

  “I don’t know if it will work at all, Centurion. It’s not even fully charged.”

  “I don’t care. Hand it over.”

  She did so with obvious misgivings. I took the thing and put it on the floor. Stepping onto the small, flat disk, I immediately frowned in concern.

  “It’s pretty damned small,” I complained. “Not much bigger than a dinner plate.”

  “I told you, this is a crazy idea.”

  “Just power it up and let me—”

  Without warning, the disk pressed up against my boots. I almost did a flip, but then, whooping and hollering, I rode the thing up through the first hatch.

  It was a good thing I’d wasted a lot of time during my misspent youth riding anti-grav devices. Ever since the Tech World campaign, in fact, such alien gear had fascinated me.

  It was all a matter of leaning and balance. You couldn’t really drive it in an organized fashion. You had to do it all with your legs.

  Going through the first hatch was the worst part. The opening was kind of narrow to begin with, and I was rising at an angle. I almost caught the rim of the floater-disk and flipped over.

  Stabilizing myself with bent knees and some bad words, I managed to get it tilted in the direction of the second opening. Up there, everything looked kind of dark.

  At the last second, as I burst through the hole, I saw a single wide eye circled by thick hair. The bear dude seemed kind of stunned, if I read the expression correctly.

  He was game, however. He tackled me as I burst through and knocked me off my floater. The disk went sailing across the chamber, caroming off the walls and making an awful racket.

  The bear clung to my midsection, and he went to town with teeth, claws, and a powerful pistol. I want to attest that if I hadn’t been wearing my best armor, he’d have gutted me right then and there.

  But as it was, he couldn’t penetrate the spongy black stuff. Using leverage that sometimes comes with being bigger and heavier than your opponent, I straight-armed him and sent him flying ass-over-tea kettle down the hole in the floor. It was a good shot, if I do say so myself.

  A wild melee erupted downstairs. I heard Kivi screeching, and several excited Clavers grunting and scrabbling like dogs digging out a rat. They beat him and shot him and eventually pulled his helmet off. There was blood, noise and fur everywhere.

  Looking around, I saw the chamber I was in was empty. Instead of one hatch in the ceiling, however, there were two additional exits. Both of them were on opposite sides of the chamber, and I grinned when I saw them shift and move mechanically.

  I’d found the lowest row of turrets, and I’d apparently caught the bear operators unaware.

  -49-

  The next part of the operation was the most fun I’d had in a week’s time. I yanked open the hatch to my right and ripped a bear out of the compartment inside.

  He was shocked, he took a second to figure out what was happening. Then he jumped me, snarling. His headset was ripped and hanging. His eyes were raging, and his teeth were showing—but he was screwed.

  The problem for him was my armor. I was wearing the kind of impenetrable stuff we’d learned how to make from these same bears. Since he was just a tech, a softie rather than a combat specialist, he didn’t have armor of any kind on his hairy carcass.

  It still took me a solid thirty seconds of slamming fists and stabbing with my combat knife to finish him. These damned bears were always tough, fast and mean. Being an outright predator species, they had a natural advantage against humans. We were monkey-types, after all. We humans had adapted to killing, but we weren’t as dedicated to the art as were true apex hunters like these Rigellian bears.

  Standing and breathing hard, I called down to the lower levels of the tower for more Clavers and a few noncoms. I told them how to kill the bears in the turrets, and while they climbed up the ladders to help me I tried to get into the turret I dragged the bear out of.

  Stuffing myself into the tiny space proved hopeless. A two meter tall human just couldn’t fit into a space built for a one meter tall bear. I finally reached out a long arm and hooked Kivi around the waist as she sauntered by. She complained, but I scooped her up and stuffed her into the turret.

  “My ass doesn’t fit this chair!”

  “Too bad. Just sit with one cheek off to the side—yeah, like that.”

  She looked like a mom who’d climbed into a kiddie-car, but she could make the turret operate. It was simple enough to spin, and the big metal triggers—

  Ka-zap!

  A brilliant bolt shot out of the turret. It made us both squint and jump.

  “That was cool,” I said. “But instead of burning a line on our wall, how about you swivel that thing around and scorch the fresh load of Tau that are swarming up from the south?”

  Alarmed, Kivi spun the turret in jerks and stops to aim down and off to the south. Sure enough, the ground was crawling with Tau. They looked like lemmings, and they were all charging for the hole in the base of wall.

  “Fire!” I shouted.

  Kivi kind of squeaked, but she jerked the triggers again. A smoking hole two meters deep appeared. None of the enemy were hit, but they were diving away in alarm.

  “No, no,” I complained. “You have to turn the turret at the same time as you fire—draw a line across the enemy formation.”

  She tried it, and a dozen Tau were blasted to fragments.

  “Ha!” she shouted. “I got them!”

  “Keep going. Don’t stop.”

  By this time, the other turret had been emptied of its Rigellian gunner, and I installed another girl—a bio this time. She was spooked, but she soon caught on to the process.

  Unfortunately, the Tau were figuring things out, too. They swarmed the base of the siege tower, looking for a way in.

  “Uh-oh…” I said, and I rushed for the ladders to get down to the bottom of the siege tower. “Clavers, on me!”

  I led them down to the bottom of the tower. Reaching the lowest chamber, we fought dirty. We stood to either side of the doorway, and as the enemy rushed in, we snatched them, dragged them into the dark and murdered them.

  Soon the Tau stopped coming in the door. Instead, they lashed the opening with bolts from their own lightning guns. We stood well back and grimaced, squinting as the glaringly bright bolts flashed in now and then. When they struck metal, I could feel a shock come right through my armor. The Clavers felt it too, and they hooted in pain and despair.

  Above us, the turrets kept rotating and blasting Tau. This didn’t last long, however. The Tau weren’t serious soldiers, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out where the death was being dispensed from. The Tau troops managed to concentrate their fire and destroy the two turrets we’d commandeered. Kivi and the bio girl were both killed.

  “Damnation,” I breathed. “Looks like we’ve lost the south wall.”

  I reached for my tapper, planning to contact Graves. He had to be informed. We were pinned down in here, and I had no more than a handful of troops left. The few men I’d left behind in the trenches wouldn’t be able to hold back this latest wave of Tau infantry, of that much I was certain.

  Before I could touch my tapper and make the fateful call however, I saw something new happening outside on the scarred battlefield.