ridge. But my men were already in too close. We were going to have to do this the hard way.
I crawled into decent cover and got out my com-unit. First, I ordered a company to flank the enemy in either direction, out to the east and west. Then I relayed the news of the enemy tactics to the other teams. They had hours of running to do before they found their domes, but I wanted them to know what to expect and I wanted them to get the message while we could still transmit it.
Working up the hill, we were at close range quickly. They were only a hundred yards away uphill after we reached the base of the mounded earth. With heavy cover-fire, one squad held good firing positions while the second squad of each platoon bounded up to take a higher region of cover. The enemy fire weakened, and as we neared the top, it quit altogether. I watched my men run up the walls of the crater with apprehension. What would we find waiting on the far side?
I broke from cover myself and ran uphill, watching as the first of my men reached the crest. A pair of pinchers lunged and snatched up the fastest man, snipping him in half. Those gleaming, scissor-like blades cut through his suit and flesh just above the waist. A second man met the same fate, and then a third. After that, we took out the machines that had ambushed the first men and drove the rest back. My men crouched all along the ridge and advanced cautiously, blazing fire as they went.
Superior numbers and tactics won the day moments later. The companies I’d ordered to flank to the north and south were in position now, and they came up around either side of the enemy. They fired then at the exposed metallic ants that huddled against the inside rim of their crater. Due to the curvature of the crater, my men had a free field of fire. We annihilated them without further losses.
We turned our attention to the dome itself then. The surface swirled- I supposed that was a good word for it. The dome was milky, semi-opaque and shimmered occasionally as a stray beam from my troops lanced out and struck it. Major Radovich crawled up next to me. All around us, my marines were directing killing beams into any Macro worker which still thrashed. As soon as that was done, they dug in along the rim of the crater. They didn’t have to be told to dig in, not these boys. They were doing it before you could give the order.
They eyed me and I ignored them. I stared at the dome instead. I had yet to give the attack order, so they weren’t sure how long we were going to wait to make our next move. Major Radovich came close and looked at me. I could only see his eyes when I glanced at him. The rest was covered. We halted at the top of the crater rim. We were both lying in the mixture of dirt and twisted, smoking metal that crowned the rim of the crater, exposing only our faces to the dome in the center.
“Well?” he asked me finally.
“I’m thinking.”
“Sir,” he said, sliding close enough for our shoulders to touch, “we can’t just sit here.”
I adjusted the magnification on my goggles, eyeing every inch of that bubble-like shield.
I glanced at him. “What do you suggest, Major?”
“Let’s push. Let’s do it.”
“Just run out there the last thousand yards and try to slip into-whatever that is?”
“Yeah. What the hell else are we going to do?”
I heaved a sigh. “What, indeed,” I said. I hesitated for a few moments more, but he was right, the enemy weren’t doing anything, and we couldn’t stay here. If nothing else, they would probably launch a massive missile barrage at us. We had reached the first dome and threatened it. They would respond. I was sure of it.
But I was equally sure they had another trick or two left. Whenever this enemy sat quietly, it seemed to mean they had laid their trap and were patiently waiting for us to walk into it. I didn’t want to lose more men due to a wild attack. What was inside? What new horrors awaited us, should we even be able to enter?
I finally turned to Radovich. “Major, I want concentrated fire. Everyone is to fire a five-second cutting beam at the base of that dome. Then another five. Let’s try to focus everything we have on a single point and see if it gives.”
He stared at me for a second, then nodded. I could tell he didn’t approve. He and a lot of other men had come here to avenge some part of their lost lives on these machines. It looked like we had the Macros on the run, and he wanted to finish it personally.
It took a minute or two to get everyone organized, but soon we were firing in concert. I opened up with the others. It felt good to shoot at something. The light of the combined lasers was intense, too much even for our blacked-out goggles. I closed my eyes, and still the greenish-white light of hundreds of lasers firing at once crept in through my eyelids, painfully bright. Inside my head, my pupils constricted to pinpoints. I had an instant headache and purple splotches pulsed in my skull.
“Cease fire!” I shouted, not wanting anyone’s vision damaged. Neither did I want any of the lasers to overheat and shut down. Releasing enough heat, besides the problem of vision-scorching brilliance, was one of the biggest limitations of these new weapons. I suspected more than a few men could feel the prickle of nanites in their heads and on their burnt hands, as the microscopic robots worked to repair cellular damage from overexposure.
While my head pulsed, I squinted to see the dome. It was still there, but it wasn’t the same. It had changed color to a burnt orange where we had all hit it. I chewed my lip as I watched the circular area we’d beamed. It soon shifted back to a shimmering, opal-white.
“I don’t think we have enough firepower to burn our way through,” I said aloud.
Radovich grunted in agreement. “Are we going to assault the dome now, sir?”
I hesitated for a few more seconds. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. The enemy was clearly waiting for us. But they were probably working up a counterattack as well that would come if we didn’t move quickly. Sitting around wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I began to wonder if I should have ordered our men to split up into three battlegroups instead of six. Perhaps, due to overconfidence, I’d set us up to fail in six attacks instead of succeed in three. There was no fixing it now, however. If this battlegroup was destroyed, a new commander would fight with new knowledge of the enemy capabilities.
“Deploy the same companies that did the flanking. They took lighter losses than those that did the frontal assault on this ridge and should be at full strength. Have them move in on that dome from two angles. The rest of us will support with fire down the center from here.”
Radovich rolled onto his side and looked at me. “Permission to speak, sir.”
“Talk to me.”
“Sir, we should go in with at least half our strength. What’s our backup plan if those first two waves vanish into that dome? What if they get in, but get eaten?”
“Then I have eight companies left to figure out what to do next.”
“Sir, I know you have some infantry experience, but in standard tactics-”
“Listen, Major. I hear you, but we are not fighting a bunch of men with rifles. We have no idea what will happen when we assault this dome, but I suspect it won’t be anything good. And I don’t want their next surprise to hit my entire force.”
“How about half our force?”
“No.”
“Sir, what about the cruise missile brigade?”
“We’ve fired a thousand missiles at these domes, they are always shot down. The missiles are for a major concentration of unshielded targets. We haven’t gotten the chance to use them yet.”
“Sir, permission to lead the charge.”
He had more balls than most of my men. I looked at him and thought about it. “Denied,” I said. “I need you here with me, Major. Don’t worry. I’ll bet you a hundred Euros you’ll see all the combat you want today.”
He snorted, but didn’t take the bet. My orders went out, and two full companies of nanite-filled marines charged across the relatively smooth, featureless landscape toward the dome.
By the time the two forward assault teams were three-quarters of the way there, all hell broke loose.
31
A force of Macro workers had been gathering secretly in the trees behind us. These workers were equipped
