The explosions woke Santana from a deep sleep. All three of the sleeping bags were equipped with rip-open closures. They came apart one after another as bursts of automatic fi?re were heard. Within seconds, both the offi?cer and his legionnaires were out of their sleep sacks, on their feet, and ready to fi?ght. “The hill!” someone shouted. “They’re coming up the hill!”
So Santana made his way over to the edge of the turnout, where Master Sergeant Dice Dietrich and others had taken cover behind the improvised barricade and were fi?ring downhill. “Keep it high!” the noncom roared. “Or you’ll answer to me!”
Santana saw why. Purdo and Fareye were only halfway up the incline. Ramanthian bullets kicked up spurts of snow all around the legionnaires, as they fought for purchase on the slippery slope, and lost their footing time after time. Darkness fell as the pistol fl?are burned out, but two even brighter lights appeared, as the quads sent 110,000-candlepower illumination rounds arcing over the valley below. The fl?ares glowed like miniature suns and swayed under small parachutes as they spiraled toward the ground.
“Run, goddamn it, run!” Staff Sergeant Briggs shouted from above, as Purdo managed to arrest the latest slide and start upwards again. But the bio bod hadn’t gone more than fi?ve feet before a slug hit him between the shoulder blades. The legionnaire’s body armor was suffi?cient to stop the projectile, but the force of the impact threw him forward. And that was when a burst of sustained machine-gun fi?re ate Purdo from below.
Santana swore as the heavy-caliber bullets followed the cavalryman’s legs up his waist and literally cut the bio bod in two. The good news was that Fareye had made it to the top of the slope by then, where Dietrich reached out to grab the Naa, and pulled him over the top of the barricade as bullets rattled on metal.
Amazingly, given the amount of fi?re they faced, approximately fi?fty Ramanthians were still on their feet and battling their way upwards. No longer constrained by the need to worry about their fellow legionnaires, the company opened fi?re with a vengeance. And with half a dozen T-2s standing almost shoulder to shoulder the sheer volume of outgoing fi?re was something to see. A lethal mixture of red tracer and bright blue energy bolts stuttered downslope, cut the advancing soldiers down, and washed the slope with their blood.
That was suffi?cient to produce a certain amount of satis- faction where the legionnaires were concerned. But Santana felt differently. Not only had one of his troopers been lost but the seemingly mindless ferocity of the attack worried him. What did it bode for the future? His people were good, very good, but would they march uphill into certain death? Would he? Maybe, but maybe not, which meant the chits would always have an advantage. At least some of the bugs wanted to die. And he, like those around him, wanted to live.
The regimental weather wizards were correct. The snow tapered off around 0400, the skies began to clear, and by 0730
the sun was out. But with no clouds to hold some heat down, the air grew even colder as the legionnaires struggled to boil water and ready themselves for the coming march. Santana battled the desire to reiterate all of the orders already given to Amoyo, took one last tour of the company, and was ready to depart when the fl?y-form appeared. Like both the T-2s and the quads, the streamlined aircraft was piloted by a living brain in a metal box. The cyborg was connected to both its fl?yable body and the outside world by a complicated system of computer- assisted electronics. Flyforms came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. This one, which was clearly intended for the sort of mission to which it had been assigned, was equipped with helicopter-style rotors and a two-person in- line cockpit. “Watch your six, sir,”
Amoyo said, as the aircraft landed on the road. “And have a hot shower for me!”
Santana waved as he ran for the fl?y-form, put his right boot into a recess intended for that purpose, and pushed himself up so that his shoulders were level with the cockpit. The backseat was empty, so Santana threw his AWOL bag in there, before taking a second step that allowed him to enter the front passenger seat. A few seconds later he was strapping himself in as the canopy slid closed and a female voice came over the intercom. “Welcome aboard, sir,” the cyborg said respectfully. “My name is Lieutenant Pauley. The estimated fl?ight time to Division HQ is one hour and twenty minutes. The surrounding peaks are too high for me to fl?y over—so we’re going to follow Route 1 out of the mountains. The bugs took a few potshots at me on the way in—so they’ll probably do the same thing on the way out. But don’t worry because I’m feeling lucky today! Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make your fl?ight more comfortable.”
And with that the fl?y-form took off.
Santana spent the fi?rst fi?ve minutes of the fl?ight looking for signs of ground fi?re and marveling over how beautiful the surrounding mountains were, but having logged only a few hours of sleep the night before, and having been freed from any sense of responsibility for what took place around him, it wasn’t long before Santana’s eyelids grew heavy and the drone of the engine lulled him to sleep. When the skids touched ground, the resulting jolt came as a surprise and served to wake the offi?cer up. “Welcome to Division HQ,” Pauley said over the intercom. “And watch that fi?rst step. It’s a lulu.”
The canopy slid back, and the rotors went whop, whop, whop as they began to slow. By the time Santana retrieved his AWOL bag, and lowered himself to the ground, a couple of techs had arrived. “It looks like you took three rounds,” one of the legionnaires observed cheerfully, as he stuck his forefi?nger into one of the .50-caliber- sized holes located just aft of the passenger compartment. “I’ll bet that got your attention!”
Santana smiled politely, and thought about how long his nap might have been, as a six-wheeled utility vehicle (UV) pulled up next to the chopper. A rather plain clone was at the wheel and barely acknowledged his passenger as Santana tossed his bag into the back and climbed in next to her. The UV jerked into motion, whirred loudly, and pursued a serpentine course out across a vast expanse of duracrete. Assault boats, shuttles, and fl?y-forms were lined up all around them. But way off in the distance, half-obscured by the yellow-gray ground-hugging smog, a row of spaceships could be seen. There was a muted roar as a navy transport rose on its repellers, swiveled into the wind, and began to gather speed. It was gone moments later, as the ship began to climb, and was soon lost in the blue-gray haze. Judging from what he could see, Santana got the feeling that the Ramanthian navy wasn’t considered to be much of a threat. Because while there were plenty of antiaircraft batteries, lots of aircraft were parked close together and would normally constitute a class-A target. The UV left the vast expanse of heat-fused tarmac a few minutes later and entered a complex maze of tents, infl?atable shelters, and makeshift shacks built out of anything that was handy. Unlike the orderly manner in which the Legion’s base on Adobe was laid out, it appeared as though Division HQ’s twisting-turning streets had been allowed to evolve naturally, which meant that a lot of time would be wasted as newcomers got lost. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to the way the various military units were grouped either. Rather than put a company of tanks next to a maintenance facility, which would make sense, Santana noticed that some bozo had assigned a battalion of Seebos to camp there instead! Which raised another question. Given that most of the fi?ghting was taking place hundreds of miles to the east— why were so many resources sitting around Division HQ?
There was no way to know, as the UV was forced to stop for a security check, before being allowed to approach what had once been the spaceport’s terminal building. It was one of the few structures General Akoto had spared so his forces could use it. But having driven the bugs out, the clones had taken over, and it soon became clear that a bunch of REMFs (rear-echelon motherfuckers) were in charge. Was that General-453’s fault? Or was the Confederacy to blame?
