No, it didn’t seem right. There was no way to justify what Kagan did, though, pounding the T to scrap, and destroying each life pod within seconds after launch. The admiral saw the capsules as bacteria, as the manifestation of a horrible disease, to which no mercy could be shown. That’s when North, with help from a loyalist naval officer, loaded the freighter with troops and tried to escape. They didn’t get far.
Kagan caught the ship shortly after it left the Triumph’s launch bay, scored dozens of direct hits on the lightly armored vessel, and ignored their pleas for help.
Damaged, and with no possibility of escape, the freighter had fallen toward Hudatha’s surface. It was a miracle that anyone had survived, but a naval officer, a woman named Borkna, knew her stuff and managed to pancake in.
The transport skidded for the better part of two miles before running into a small hill. Not just any hill, but a hill with what remained of a castle on top, and walls on which many lives had been spent. The kind the Hudathans had spent hundreds if not thousands of years fighting each other for. Now, with the hull snuggled up against old stone walls, and both covered with patches of green-black mold, not to mention islands of quickly melting slush, it was hard to tell one construct from the other. Given enough time, say a year or so, and the wreck would be invisible from the air. North was sweating by the time he made it to the top of the wreck and stood on a barely legible “C,”
which, along with a “T” and a six-digit number was part of the ship’s official ID number. Listed as missing? As unrecoverable? There was no way to know.
Corporal Gorwin was there waiting for him. She lifted one of her energy-cannon-equipped arms by way of a greeting. “Morning, sir.”
The words were cheerful enough, especially in light of the fact that the lower part of her body was missing, and, with no chance of repairs, she had volunteered to stay on the top of the ship as a semi-permanent sentry.
North nodded and worked to catch his breath. He was short and stocky. His uniform was filthy but so was everyone else’s. “So, Gorwin, any sign of the geeks?”
The cyborg nodded. “Yes, sir. I notified the control room by radio. Right after you left. Take a look toward the west.” Her voice was dull—empty of hope.
North pulled a small pair of binoculars out of his shirt pocket and brought them up to his eyes. What he saw made him suck air into his lungs. The Hudathans had attacked before, twentyseven times to be exact, but never like this. An army was on the march. There were thousands of the bastards. More than he and his handful of troops could possibly deal with.
The situation was reminiscent of the Legion’s most famous battle, that day in the spring of 1863 when Legion Captain Jean Danjou and a force of sixty-four men took on more than two thousand Mexican troops and fought them to a standstill. That was the good news. The bad news was that only three legionnaires had survived. Danjou was not among them. The name of village where the fight took place was Camerone.
Gorwin, who had similar thoughts herself, read the officer’s face. “Yes, sir. It looks a lot like Camerone.”
In spite of the fact that ChienChu had been living in cybernetic bodies for many years now—he had never controlled anything like a Trooper IF. Theoretically outmoded some fifty years before, T2s continued to roll off the assembly lines because they were sturdy, effective, and, when compared with a Trooper IFI and its animal analogs, cheap to produce and maintain. Part of their value stemmed from the proven ability to operate in just about any environment that one could imagine, which was what awaited the industrialist below.
DomaSa, who had no need of technology in order to survive, watched the process with obvious amusement. The transfer took place in one of the onboard equipment bays. The cybertechs injected some drugs into ChienChu’s artificial circulatory system, removed his brain box from his “normal” body, and “loaded” a Trooper IF.
ChienChu endured the brief moment of sensory deprivation, felt the new body react to his presence, and experienced something akin to a drug-induced rush as system after system came online. Though theoretically analogous to what he had experienced before, there was no real comparison. The war machine was faster, more powerful, and loaded with systems civilians had no need for. The industrialist’s left arm was an air-cooled .50 caliber machine gun, his right arm was a fast-recovery laser cannon, and he could run at speeds up to fifty miles per hour. He spoke, realized how loud the PA system was, and turned it down. “I’m ready for anything—even Hudatha.”
DomaSa looked him over. “That may be true, my friend—but the switch did nothing for your appearance.”
“Look who’s talking,” ChienChu replied. “Come on, let’s see if I can walk.”
The thousands of Hudathan troopers marched as if on parade, which essentially they were, crossing the Plain of Skulls toward the castle Glid, where the great KasaKa had ruled during feudal times, and the aliens now lived. An insult that must be expunged . . but not till Ikor IfanaKa was finished with them. Training was important, and, if properly husbanded, the humans coutd be stretched for another couple of weeks. Real combat, with real aliens, was hard to come by. That’s why they had been allowed to live for such a long time.
Besides, the Hudathan liked the look of his troopers, the banners that flew above their heads, the gleam of their weapons, the sound of the drums, the way the whistles shrilled the air, and the wind in his face. This was the way things had been, should be, would be if his people were free. IfanaKa sat on what amounted to a half-enclosed sedan chair, winced as pain stabbed his fully extended leg, and listened to his aide. The youngster had little
