until a truly revolutionary idea blossomed in Homar’s brain. What if, rather than destroy the energy cannons and withdraw the way he was supposed to, the Ramanthian were to turn one of the weapons at his disposal on the troops in the valley? And thereby destroy all of the animals with a single bolt of energy? That would leave him and his troops with plenty of time to slaughter the prisoners and blow the dam prior to an orderly retreat!
But there wasn’t much time, so he and his troops would have to work fast if they were to bring a cannon to bear on the valley. Homar lowered the binoculars, turned toward the battery behind him, and began to issue orders. With twice the number of T-2s and quads lumbering up the valley, Santana felt a renewed sense of optimism, as Quinlan led roughly half the battalion toward the heavily fortifi?ed dam. And, truth be told, it had been a relief to surrender overall command. Because even though he wasn’t especially proud of it, there was comfort in the knowledge that mistakes, if any, wouldn’t be his. In marked contrast to his behavior on Oron IV, Quinlan was leading from the front. Was that the result of his longdelayed promotion? Or a change of behavior that was somehow linked to his daughter’s death? There was no way to know as the portly colonel led his troops into battle. Bravo Company, which had been ordered to lead the way, was within range of the enemy guns by then and opened fi?re with a vengeance. The legionnaires could lay down another smoke screen, and zigzag back and forth, but there wasn’t much more they could do other than pray as shells exploded all about them. Bravo Company took the brunt of the fi?re, and it wasn’t long before what had been an orderly formation was reduced to a ragged group of survivors. One of the quads lost a leg, T-2s were tossed into the air like toys, and bio bods were ripped apart by fl? ying shrapnel. It was a horrible sight and made all the worse by the fact that there was very little the legionnaires could do as the Ramanthians fi?red down on them.
Meanwhile, Force Commander Homar was having problems of his own. The concept of using one of the STO cannons to destroy the animals with a single shot had been brilliant. But, having turned one of the thirty-foot-long monsters to- ward the north, his gunners were having trouble depressing the barrel far enough to target the oncoming aliens. The problem stemmed from safeties built into the software used to aim and fi?re the big weapons, and mechanical stops that were intended to prevent the very thing the Ramanthian offi?cer was trying to do. The fi?rst issue had been resolved by switching the control mode from automatic to manual. And now, as Homar looked on, a technician was cutting his way through the last of three six-inch-thick metal tabs that kept the cannons from fi?ring on the planet’s surface. But the humans were coming on fast, and Homar knew that if he and his gunners failed to fi?re the weapon soon, the animals would be too close to hit. So as the last piece of glowing metal hit the fl?oor, the Ramanthian gun crew hurried to crank the long black tube down as far as it would go, and locked the barrel in place. The accumulators were fully charged, so all Homar had to do was shout, “Fire!” and a blue comet was born.
For the duration of its short life the enormous energy bolt had mass. It was only a foot in diameter as it left the cannon’s barrel, but quickly expanded to twelve times that size, so that Santana could feel the heat as the fl?aming comet passed over his head. Then he heard a loud shriek, quickly followed by an enormous explosion, and a fl?ash of light so intense the legionnaire might have been blinded had he been looking north.
That was when an earthquake shook the ground under Deker’s feet. A shock wave hit the war form from behind and threw him facedown. Santana fell with him. The cyborg struggled to stand as echoes of the thunderous explosion bounced back and forth between the valley’s walls. It took a moment for Santana to process what had occurred, but once he had, the offi?cer realized how lucky the battalion had been. Because rather than strike the legionnaires as intended, the enormous ball of energy had passed over them, and blown a huge divot out of the valley’s fl?oor. But that wasn’t all . . . Either because they were as shocked as the legionnaires were, or the Ramanthian gunners had been blinded by the initial explosion, their guns had fallen silent! “This is Alpha Six,” Santana proclaimed. “Let’s go up and kill those bastards!”
Though not the most precise order the legionnaire had ever given, it was among the most heartfelt, and other offi?cers were quick to echo it—including Lieutenant Colonel Quinlan, who was among the fi?rst members of the battalion to close with the dam and start up the access road that led to the top. It was too narrow for the quads to follow and was interrupted by a number of switchbacks, each of which constituted a natural defensive point. Colonel Quinlan was followed by elements of Bravo Company and Alpha Company, with Santana in the lead. The battalion’s ranks were thinner now and the Seebos were hard-pressed to keep up with the fast-moving cyborgs. Santana took advantage of the situation by instructing the clones to seek out and protect the civilian POWs. It was an order he half expected Quinlan to countermand. But if the colonel heard the interchange, he gave no sign of it, as lead elements of the battalion arrived at the fi?rst switchback, where they were confronted by hundreds of Ramanthian regulars. At that point, what had been a largely long-distance duel carried out with high-tech weapons was transformed into a bloody hand-to-pincer brawl that would have been familiar to the legionnaires of the distant past. Neither side could use hand grenades, lest they kill their own soldiers, but assault rifl?es used at close quarters could punch through body armor. And some legionnaires, like Master Sergeant Dice Dietrich, carried backup weapons for such occasions. His weapon of choice was a shotgun that made distinctive boom, clack, boom sounds as it was fi?red into the crowd. Often accounting for two or three enemy soldiers with a single shot.
But the battle was far from one-sided. All of Force Commander Homar’s offi?cers and noncoms were equipped with power-assisted body armor that could literally rip a human apart. And it was one such trooper who managed to punch a fi?st through Private Ren Rosato’s chest plate, grab hold of some electronics, and jerk them out.
Rosato’s brain was still alive, but his body was out of action, which made his bio bod very angry. His name was Private Horu Bora-Sa. And while the three-hundred-pound Hudathan had long carried his father’s battle-ax into action, he had never been given an opportunity to use it before. So, having freed himself from his harness as the T-2 fell, BoraSa drew the clan’s “Ka-killer,” and went to work. Light glinted off the two-hundred-year-old ax, and gore fl?ew left and right, as the angry Hudathan shouted the ancient battle cry: “BLOOD!”
The shout was echoed by Hudathans and Humans alike, along with cries of “CAMERONE!” which was the name of the famous battle in which Captain Jean Danjou and a force of sixty-two legionnaires had taken on thousands of Mexican regulars in 1863. Those cries, plus a renewed effort by the towering T-2s, was enough to push the bugs back as the cyborgs fought for a purchase on the steep blood-slicked road. “After them!” Quinlan was heard to shout, as the Ramanthians began to retreat. “Cut the bastards down!”
“Hold!” Force Commander Homar ordered, having raised his sword over his head, and deployed his wings. Noncoms blew their whistles, and their troopers took to the air as well. It was a desperate move, because as a result of the long, slow evolutionary process, all but the young and very fi?t were limited to only short bursts of fl? ight. But the effort was successful in that it momentarily neutralized the height advantage that the cyborgs had.
Unfortunately for the Ramanthians, however, every fourth T-2 was equipped with a fl?amethrower in place of the standard energy cannon. Weapons that soon proved to be very effective against the airborne bugs. Wings burst into fl?ames as they beat against the air, and insectoid troopers screamed as they cartwheeled to their deaths.
Homar had accepted defeat by then, but was determined to take a human with him, and fl?ew straight at Colonel Quinlan. The Ramanthian was a good ten feet off the ground by that time—and so full of naturally produced stimulants that fl?ying was easy.
Quinlan’s cyborg could have blown the Ramanthian out of the air, but was engaged in pincer-to-pincer combat with an armored noncom, and couldn’t respond. There was a strange moment as the two adversaries locked eyes, the battalion commander raised his sidearm, and Homar swung his blade. Three bullets struck the Ramanthian’s face, blew the back of his head out, and sprayed the troopers behind him with gore. The sword fell, but the offi?
