Colony Down: Battlefield Mars Book 2 Page 13

  “We have to find you EVA’s,” Archard said. “In case of a breach.”

  “Sir, look!” Private Everett broke in, and pointed.

  A pair of troopers in full gear were jogging up the street toward the market.

  “It must Corporal Arnold and Private Niven,” Private Pasco said. “They were in the area.”

  “I’ll handle this,” Archard said, and stood in the doorway, blocking entry. “Gentlemen,” he called out.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Peering through the tinted window, Katla saw the pair separate, as if they anticipated trouble.

  “Captain Rahn, sir,” Corporal Arnold said. “Major Howard sent us to fetch you and these others back to the Security Center.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t accommodate the major,” Archard said.

  “He was quite specific, sir,” Corporal Arnold said. “We’re not to take no for an answer.”

  “No,” Archard said.

  Private Everett and Private Pasco took flanking positions on either side of him.

  “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” the corporal said.

  “That’s up to you,” Archard said.

  “Sir, what is this about?” Corporal Arnold said. “How can you disobey a direct order?”

  “Haven’t you seen the Martians?”

  “Of course. Which is why we have to hurry. Please, sir.”

  Katla could tell Archard was reluctant to force the issue. The next moment, the matter was taken out of his hands by a low thrumming sound the likes of which she had never heard before. A sound that penetrated her body, somehow, and caused every bone in her skeleton to vibrate like the tines on a turning fork.

  Behula, snapping awake, screamed.

  Piotr cried out.

  The thrum lasted a good fifteen seconds, then faded.

  “What in creation was that?” Private Everett said.

  “It rattled me good.”

  Corporal Arnold was tapping the side of his helmet. “I’ve lost contact with the major.”

  In the sudden silence, another strange sound fell on their ears. This time, it was a scritching and scratching, as if a thousand cats were running their claws over stone.

  “The Martians!” the corporal cried.

  Katla saw them, too.

  A living tide of eyes and limbs and grippers streamed from the adjacent rooftops.

  CHAPTER 26

  Captain Archard Rahn’s worst dread had come to pass. He’d hoped to whisk Katla and Trisna Sahir to U.N.I.C. and fit them with EVA suits before the attack began.

  Raising his ICW, Archard yelled, “Everett! Pasco! On me! Arnold, Niven, protect the women!”

  The Kentuckian and the Spaniard were quick to comply. Archard barely had time to bark, “Back to back, in a circle.”

  Then the creatures were on them.

  Flipping the ICW’s selector to full auto, Archard brought down the first rank of scuttling crustoids. He heard the others fire, saw creatures falling right and left. There were so many that for a harrowing half-a-minute, he was sure he and the rest would be buried in an avalanche of horrors. But their circle held, and scores of the things lay thrashing and kicking when those behind slowed.

  “Incendiaries!” Archard bellowed, and let fly.

  A blast of chemical fire engulfed a dozen creatures, frying them in their carapaces. Their eyes melted, their eye stalks oozed like wax.

  All around, Martians died in flames, expanding the space between the troopers and their adversaries.

  “Frags!” Archard roared, and flicked his selector. “Range, twenty-five meters.” He was cutting it close. The kill radius was fifteen. That gave them a safety margin of ten, but sometimes fragments were propelled further than fifteen.

  The microchips that controlled their ICW’s functions performed flawlessly. A series of explosions, one after the other, went off exactly twenty-five meters out. Creatures were obliterated. Huge numbers of others were wounded and crippled.

  Archard was mildly surprised to see the inhuman phalanx brought to a stop. There weren’t as many as he had thought. Then again, the roofs could only hold limited numbers. “Semi-auto!” he shouted, and began dropping Martians as fast as he could aim and squeeze the trigger.

  In well-trained synchrony, he and the rest of the troopers unleashed a hailstorm, overlaying their fields of fire for maximum effect. In less time than Archard would have thought possible, every Martian in the street was either dead or dying.

  “Cease fire!” Archard bawled. In the quiet that ensued, his ears rang. His helmet had dampened the noise of the blasts and the autofire, but not entirely. He heard Private Pasco whoop.

  A sound from far off prompted Archard to boost the volume. The night came alive with a cacophony of death; explosions, screams, shots, shrieks and wails and pleas for help. The Martians were attacking all over.

  “Reload,” Archard said, in case any of the others had neglected to do so in the excitement. He ejected his magazine and slapped in another. “Katla! Trisna!” he said through his external mic. “We have to go. Now.”

  The women cautiously emerged from the market, Katla holding Piotr’s hand, Trisna cradling her daughter.

  “Where to?” Katla said.

  “U.N.I.C. headquarters,” Archard said. “Their armaments are our only chance of staying alive.” He faced the troopers. “Everett, Pasco, you’re with us. Corporal Arnold, Private Niven, do as you want. I won’t order you to defy your major.”

  The corporal seemed stunned by the onslaught. He gazed out over the carnage as a sheet of flame erupted from a building blocks away. “Do you see that? Do you hear that? Why didn’t they warn us something like this could happen?”

  “Major! Major!” Private Niven tried his commlink. “Do you copy? Over.”

  “Good luck, you two,” Archard said. “The rest of you, move to the middle of the street.” He signaled, and Private Everett took point. Pasco would automatically bring up the rear, placing the women and children between them.

  “Wait, sir,” Corporal Arnold said, turning. “We’ll go with you.”

  “We will?” Private Niven said.

  “We’re cut off from command,” Corporal Arnold said. “On our own. With the colony under attack by a horde of those things, I say we stick with the captain. Otherwise, how long will we last?”

  Niven raised his faceplate to the sheet of flame in the distance, and to another that had flared to the south. He shook his head. “I’m with you, Arnie. We’ll stay with these guys. We’re U.N.I.C. Booyah!”

  Arnold, Everett, and Pasco all echoed him in unison with a “Booyah!” of their own.

  “In that case,” Archard said, “Arnold and Niven, you’re flankers. Arnold right, Niven left. Don’t let anything reach the women or the kids.”

  “Yes, sir,” both responded.

  Twenty meters out, Private Everett was like a cougar on the prowl, swinging from side to side, his ICW wedged to his shoulder.

  Archard pegged his sensors at max. His helmet display, while not as sophisticated as that in the RAM 3000, showed no heat signatures in the windows of the buildings, nor any hint of movement on the rooftops. But from all over the colony, the cries of colonists being attacked rose intermittently, punctuated by occasional autofire and twice by grenade blasts. Not long after that he heard the unmistakable boom of a tank cannon.

  Archard switched to the U.N.I.C. command frequency. Major Howard was bellowing orders. A tank had been dispatched with Privates Heinlein and Bova, and the major was telling Sergeant Kline to bring a second tank to the Administrative Center and pick him up.

  Then Howard said, “Lieutenant Burroughs, are you suited up yet?”

  “Almost ready, sir,” was her reply.

  “You should have engaged the enemy five minutes ago.”

  “It takes longer to prep a RAM when you’re doing it yourself,” Burroughs said, adding almost as an afterthought, “sir.”

  “It should h
ave already been prepped, Lieutenant,” Major Howard snapped. “I don’t accept excuses. I only accept results.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That battle suit is our best hope of protecting this colony,” Howard said. “If that damn Rahn hadn’t gone off on his own, I’d have him gear up in the suit he brought from New Meridian. Between the two of you, we’d contain these Martians.”

  Archard had his doubts. The RAM 3000’s were the most lethal killing machines ever made, yes, but the Martians had a near-insurmountable advantage in sheer numbers.

  Archard clicked his mic. “This is Captain Rahn. We are en route to the Security Center. Once we get there, I will outfit the second RAM and coordinate with Lieutenant Burroughs.”

  “Well, well, well,” Major Howard said sarcastically. “Trying to make amends for your insubordination?”

  “I won’t have a second colony go down around me,” Archard said. Not if he could help it.

  “ETA to SC?” Lieutenant Burroughs asked.

  Archard consulted his readout. “Eight minutes. We’re on foot and there are Martians everywhere.”

  “Who is this ‘we’ you keep referring to?” Major Howard said.

  Archard rattled off the names of the four troopers. “We’re escorting Dr. Katla Dkany, Trisna Sahir and her daughter, and the Zabinski boy.”

  “Five soldiers to safeguard four civilians?” Major Howard said. “That’s what I call a reckless waste of manpower. But very well. Corporal Arnold, do you read me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Arnold joined in.

  “When you arrive at headquarters, I want you and Niven to man the third tank and hustle to the other dome.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “And Captain Rahn?”

  “Sir?” Archard said.

  “For the time being, I will let things ride. The crisis takes precedence. But once this is over, once we’ve repelled these things and resorted order, I intend to bring you up on charges.

  Are we clear?”

  Lieutenant Burroughs cut in with, “Captain Rahn? I’ve fired up the RAM, and I’m running a last systems check. Any advice you can give me? You’ve fought these creatures. I haven’t.”

  “Airborne is your best bet,” Archard instructed her. “Keep your distance and use your arsenal as needed. Don’t engage the blue ones hand-to-hand if you can help it. They can rip right through your suit.”

  “The devil you say,” Burroughs said. “These babies are supposed to be impenetrable.”

  “Tell that the Martians,” Archard said. “And watch out for the Flyers. If there are enough of them, then can bring you down.”

  “Wait. Some of the Martians can fly? Why hasn’t anyone told us all of this?”

  “Ask your major,” Archard said.

  “Enough chatter,” Major Howard said. “Lieutenant, get your ass out there. Rahn, get yours to headquarters and suit up to help her. And pray our hardware saves the day.”

  Amen to that, Archard thought.

  Levlin Winslow clung to the side of a building in his new form and tingled with expectation. The gathering would commence any moment

  All around were other Gryghr. Nilista was at his side, her consciousness entwined with his. She was excited, too.

  Winslow was trying to only think of himself as Kralun the Martian but old mental habits were hard to break. I am Kralun. I am Kralun. I am Kralun, he said over and over to drum it into himself.

  “The call will come soon,” Nilista said. “Merge in the Unity.”

  Concentrating, Winslow experienced his awareness slipping into the communal stream. A confusing jumble of images and sights tumbled through him. He was one with the host, and almost lost in it. When the eye stalks of those nearest him turned, his turned his, too. Some sort of synchronous movement on a subliminal level, he figured.

  Winslow focused, and the stream became clearer. He was aware of his distinct sentience and yet simultaneously aware of being merged with the others. It was unsettling.

  I am Kralun, he thought. I can do this.

  “You can do this,” Nilista assured him.

  Winslow wished the two of them could go off alone and bind again.

  “Be ready. The call is upon us.”

  Winslow was going to ask what form the call would take when it happened. He and every other Martian stiffened as their carapaces, indeed, their entire bodies, were permeated by a vibratory sensation that heightened their senses to their utmost. It was like jumping into an ice-cold lake or being jolted by a bolt of lightning.

  As one, the Gryghr flowed down the wall to the street. Winslow was aware of moving yet not aware that he was consciously doing so. He was the Unity and the Unity was him.

  Ahead loomed a building. Inside were people, human beings such as he had been. For a moment, he had the illusion that he could see them through the walls. But no. He was seeing blue images of the people inside, much like the military’s infrared devices displayed red heat signatures. He didn’t understand why these were blue, though.

  “The water,” Nilista said.

  Human bodies, Winslow suddenly remembered, were composed mostly of water. Sixty-five percent, on average, he seemed to recall.

  “We call your former kind Blue Worlders, do we not?”

  Nilista said.

  And here Winslow had thought it was because the Earth appeared blue to the Martians through their telescopes. But the Martians could actually ‘see’ the water in a human body. That it appeared blue and not red baffled him, since most of the water was in the human bloodstream.

  “Be ready to gather even though we are well back,” Nilista said.

  Winslow figured she meant they were in the middle of the swarm, and those in front would make first contact.

  A window was smashed to pieces, and the Gryghr poured inside. The people weren’t armed. There were only five of them. A man raised a chair to strike a blow, and was immediately buried in Gryghr. The others fled, screaming hysterically.

  Winslow wasn’t able to gather a head but he saw it done, saw several Martians hold a struggling woman down while another took hold of her head with its grippers and tore her head off. Instantly, that particular Martian made for the nearest tunnel, about half a block away. The Martians who had been holding the woman down proceeded to rip off her arms and legs and placed them on either side of her torso.

  Winslow felt a pulse of pleasure ripple through the Unity. A new head would result in a new conversion, as the Martians had done with him. And a new conversion was always cause to rejoice. An ignorant, benighted sentient from off-world would soon know the exquisite joy and fullness of the Unity.

  With the humans in the building disposed of, the swarm was on the move again. Flowing back out into the street, the Gryghr headed for a towering structure further down.

  Winslow recognized it as the Broadcast Center, the hub of the colony’s audio and visual network. Disable them, and the Martians would severely cripple the humans’ ability to resist.

  Suddenly, the Gryghr in front of him slowed. The ground under him rumbled slightly, and he felt an agitation in the communal consciousness. He raised his eye stalks as high as they would extend, and was spiked by fear.

  A tank had come out of a side street and swung to confront them, placing itself between the swarm and the Broadcast Center.

  Winslow tried to project a warning into the Unity, to let the Gryghr know that the vehicle they faced was designed for one purpose and one purpose only: destruction. But his thought was lost amid the many.

  The Gryghr at the front of the swarm raised their grippers and rushed the tank---and were incinerated in their tracks.

  Winslow saw a blue image rise up into the turret on top of the tank and again tried to warn the Martians.

  The loud hum of a MASER filled the night, and the foremost ranks of Gryghr broke into violent convulsions, their legs and forelimbs and eye stalks thrashing spasmodically. The convulsions didn’t last long.

  The remaining Gryghr scattered.<
br />
  Winslow joined a prong that veered to a two-story building. They scrambled to the roof, and only then did he realize Nilista wasn’t with him. She had gone the other way, to a building across the street. He could feel her but not as strongly. “Nilista,” he said.

  “I am here, bindmate.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We stay where we are. A Hryghr is coming.”

  The tank was slowly advancing. A wounded Gryghr tried to scramble out of its way, only to be riddled by twin machineguns.

  A stir of resentment rippled through the Unity. Until his transformation, it had never occurred to Winslow that the Martians might have the same---or similar---emotions as humans. He’d regarded them as cold-blooded monstrosities, incapable of feeling.

  The tank stopped and the soldier manning the MASER trained it on the roofs to one side and then the other.

  Winslow and every other Gryghr on the roof with him dropped low, except for their eye stalks. Peering over the rim, he glimpsed gouts of fire throughout the colony, and a building that had partially collapsed. The gathering wasn’t going as smoothly as the Martians hoped. By the sound and sight of things, the colonists were resisting to their utmost.

  Stupid Blue Worlders, Winslow thought, and inwardly laughed at the irony. Here he was, a former Blue Worlder, criticizing those who had yet to undergo the change. They wouldn’t fight back if they had any inkling of the gift the Martians wanted to bestow. It would never occur to them that the Martians might have their best interests at heart. It had never occurred to him. Who would have imagined the Martians held the secret to life eternal, or close to it?

  A stir among the Gryghr heralded the arrival of a Hryghr.

  Winslow edged to the roof’s rim and saw the gigantic blue warrior bearing down the street directly toward the tank. That was the thing about Hryghr: They threw themselves into combat with a primal joy.

  The tank had stopped and the turret gunner was yelling to the driver.

  The Hryghr moved faster.

  CHAPTER 27

  Archard and his party covered two blocks without incident. From all quarters rose scattered screams and death wails, while furtive movements in the shadows, and skittering sounds from all over, never ceased.