require. So while Zolkin, Dietrich, and Six supervised work on company’s defenses, Santana took a moment to climb up onto one of the half-tracks and examine the area through his binos. To call the scene chaotic would have been an understatement. Ships of every possible description were circling the LZ, waiting for an opportunity to land. Then, when one of them fi?nally managed to do so, a navy beach master was sent to fi?nd out how many people that particular vessel could accommodate. An unfortunate necessity caused by the fact that most of the civilians weren’t equipped to communicate with the military. Once the ship’s capacity had been determined, the petty offi? cer would radio the information in, the correct number of stretcher parties were dispatched, and the loading process began.
According to the orders issued by Kobbi, the wounded were to be evacuated fi?rst. Then, once they were gone, enlisted bio bods would go next, followed by the Legion’s cyborgs, and the offi?cers. Immediately after each vessel lifted off, another yacht, lugger, or freighter would land, at which point the whole process began again. Or that was how everything was supposed to work.
But as Santana and thousands of others looked on, what had once been a thirty-passenger lifeboat took off, and suddenly lost power. It was three hundred feet off the ground by then and fell like a rock. There was a loud boom as it hit. Followed by a ball of fl?ame—and a towering column of black smoke. Fortunately, the boat crashed well outside of the main landing area, allowing the next vessel to settle in two minutes later. Meanwhile, out along the doughnut’s perimeter, work continued. Some sections were well fortifi?ed as enterprising offi?cers, and in some cases senior noncoms, sought to strengthen their various positions. Other areas were not prepared either because the troops lacked good leadership or they were too exhausted to do more. Countless campfi?res pointed gray fi? ngers up at the overcast sky, where hardworking recon balls zipped back and forth across the LZ, and stoic robots carried stretchers loaded with ammo from one location to another. All this made Santana thankful for the fact that he wasn’t a major, colonel, or, God forbid, a general, and therefore responsible for a larger slice of the insanity taking place around him. Santana was just about to leave his vantage point when a pair of Ramanthian fi?ghters roared overhead. The cavalry offi?cer tracked the aircraft as they circled the allied position, vectored in on the incoming rescue boats, and attacked two of them. One of the allied vessels exploded in midair, and rained fl?aming debris onto the troops below, while the other spiraled into the ground half a mile outside the perimeter. There was a fl?ash of light followed by a muted boom. But victory typically comes at a price, as the bugs learned, when half a dozen quads and twice that number of T-2s hooked up with each other via the Legion’s ITC system to create an umbrella of computer-controlled antiaircraft fi?re. Both fi?ghters were destroyed within a matter of seconds, and the skies remained clear after that. Santana shook his head sadly and went back to work. There was a lot to do, beginning with the creation of an evacuation list, and the need to get a hot meal into the bio bods. That’s what Santana and Zolkin were working on when Kelly appeared. Lupo had been incorporated into the landing zone’s defenses a quarter of a mile away, and the doctor had been forced to walk from there, which was why her com- bat boots were caked with mud. There weren’t any guards with her, nor were any required, given the nature of the situation. The naval offi?cer came to attention and delivered a sloppy salute. Santana returned it. There was a continual roar as the ships came and went, forcing the cavalry offi?cer to raise his voice. “Dr. Kelly. This is a surprise.”
“I came to tell you that Private Knifeplay and the rest of your wounded soldiers are still alive,” Kelly said. “Or were when we loaded them onto one of the ships.”
Santana remembered the lifeboat that had crashed immediately after takeoff and wondered if any of his legionnaires had been aboard it. “Thank you, Doctor. That was very thoughtful of you.”
There was a moment of silence as the redhead looked down and back up again. Her eyes were very blue. “You’re welcome. Having spent time with Alpha Company, and not being assigned elsewhere, I was hoping you would let me stay.”
Colonel Six and his men had been ordered to prepare a position for one of the heavy machine guns. When Santana looked in that direction, he saw Six looking back at him. It didn’t take a genius to fi?gure out that the clone had seen Kelly arrive and was waiting to see what would happen. Santana’s fi?rst reaction was to say, “No,” but when he turned back, the expression on Kelly’s face was so hopeful he couldn’t bring himself to turn her down. “I’m afraid there will be one more battle to fi?ght,” the legionnaire said soberly.
“And we’ll need your skills.”
A look of profound gratitude appeared in Kelly’s eyes as she said, “Thank you, sir,” and immediately made her way out toward the point where Six stood waiting. The two of them made an odd couple, or so it seemed to Santana, who knew the founder would have agreed with him. A sleek-looking yacht rumbled in from the east, and was forced to pause a few hundred feet south of Alpha Company’s position, as another ship rose out of the doughnut hole. The name Play Pretty was painted on the side of the ship’s hull. The boat’s elderly pilots had completed three trips by then—and were back for their fourth. The afternoon wore on. Night was a long black thing, punctuated by the roar of repellers, as the nearly nonstop fl?ow of ships continued. Kobbi stopped by to visit Alpha Company around 0200. He was accompanied by an adjutant, and two bodyguards, all of whom joined Santana, Zolkin, and Dietrich around one of three fi?res. Colonel Six was off somewhere, with Kelly most likely, although Santana didn’t really care anymore. Not so long as they did their jobs.
“There’s one helluva battle going on up in space,” the little general commented grimly, as a fl?ask of whiskey made the rounds. He’d been talking for hours, and his voice was hoarse. “Our navy is back, and they’re doing everything they can to keep the bugs off our backs. So we owe the swabbies big-time.”
All of the faces were lit from below as a breeze blew through and caused the fuel-fed fi?re to waver uncertainly.
“But here’s the rub,” Kobbi continued gloomily. “Every time one of those ships lifts off, we get weaker, and the bugs get stronger! According to my scouts, the chits have us surrounded. I fi?gure they will attack at dawn. So be ready to pull back at 0400. By that time, all the enlisted bio bods will be gone. That means it will be up to the remaining borgs and offi?cers to beat the bugs back. Then, once we get some sort of respite, we’ll pull all of the brain boxes and fall back on the doughnut hole. The last ship will be large enough to accommodate everyone. It isn’t the way I was planning to leave—but I’m looking forward to a shower and a beer.” That got the predictable chuckle, and fi?ve minutes later, the general was gone. There were more people to brief, and the clock was ticking.
The pullback went fairly smoothly, all things considered. And by the time a seemingly reluctant sun rose in the east, the allies were hunkered down inside a circle only half a mile across, which, though thinly populated, could still be defended thanks to the Legion’s battle-weary cyborgs. The quads were dug in at regular intervals all around the new perimeter, where their war forms would be abandoned when it came time to run. The T-2s, which were sprinkled in between the big behemoths, remained mobile and could shift positions if necessary. Farther out, forming a circle around the ring, were hundreds of crab mines.
That was the scene as a sickly-looking daylight crept in across the land, and what looked like ectoplasm rose to hover spiritlike over the well-churned mud as Santana heard Dietrich say, “Holy shit. . . . Look at that!”
The master sergeant wasn’t an offi?cer, but had refused to leave, claiming that real offi?cers wouldn’t know what to do without him. Six was there as well, as was Four-Four, and Dr. Kelly. T-2s, both armed and ready, were crouched to the left and right, with quads beyond. The scene that Dietrich wanted Santana to look at was hard to miss. During the hours of darkness thousands of Ramanthians had closed in on the LZ and stood ready to attack.
