Their Master's war

Six

"Disengaging on my mark!" "Mark!"

"Everyone stay calm."

There was a series of loud bangs as the drop craft disengaged from the conveyor. It nosed out of the lock and slid into space. Its human cargo, the nineteen troopers and five sappers plus Elmo, Rance, and the pilot, experienced a stomach-twisting lurch as they passed out of the Anah 5's internal gravity. They were falling. The men floated in their seats, pressing up against the lap bars. Their helmets were sealed. They were locked into their seats, their weapons racked beside them.

"Better enjoy the calm before the storm; we'll hit the atmosphere soon enough."

The troopers sat facing one another in two rows, backs to the outside of the craft. Beyond the armored shell, fifty-nine identical ships were falling from the cluster in three distinct waves. The free-fall was comparatively easy to get used to. It was smooth and even. Despite the obvious built-in uneasiness, free-fall did have a certain calming effect. The fear of what was com ing was inside each trooper with a dry-mouthed vengeance, but it was being challenged by a mounting excitement. They were fighting men going out to do what they did best.

"Everyone take it easy. One step at a time."

Hark was surprised at how well he was coping with his fear. He had imagined that it would have him paralyzed by this point. In fact, it was quite the reverse. He wanted to go. He wanted to be down on the ground and getting on with it. His mind kept saying it to him. Yeah! Go! Go! He could hardly stop himself from grasping for his MEW.

"Easy."

Rance's voice was in everyone's helmet. He soothed his troops and held them in check much in the way that a rider might gentle a skittish mount. Rance knew that his calming words were pure bluff. He was as scared as anyone, but he had said the words so many times that they were as good as real.

The pilot's voice cut in. "Atmosphere coming up!"

Unseen by the men-the only vision port in the craft was in the pilot's cabin-wings extended from the sides of the dropcraft's needle body, delta, membrane airfoils that gave the ship both lift and deceleration. They immediately glowed cherry-red; the wings were designed to recycle the released energy back to the ship's propulsion plant. The invasion fleet streaked through the upper atmosphere like silent gliding moths leaving trails of fire. Inside the craft, though, things were not quite as serene. The ship bounced and wallowed. It shook and buffeted. The cabin floor pushed up under the men's feet as the airfoils bit into the planet's thickening air. There were curses and mutterings all down the lines of men. Rance quickly stepped on this routine bitching.

"You can cut that out "for a start!"

The cabin was filled with noise. The air screamed by outside. The airfoils groaned and the structure of the ship protested as both were subjected to more and more stress. Then, without warning, the ship was blown to one side by a violent explosion. The first one was followed by three more in quick succession. Fear swamped excitement.

The pilot's voice came on again. "The first wave are taking a beating. There's six of them down already."

"Where the fuck is the covering fire? We're flying into the biggest goddamn guns on the planet, and we ain't got no covering fire!"

"Put a lid on that, Renchett!"

"Signal from the cluster, they're opening up." Each time the pilot cut into their communicators there was a burst of static and the almost unintelligible ship-to-ship cross talk.

Someone cursed. "Will you look at that!" "Look at what?"

"The whole damn sky's lit up! It's our barrage." The static in their helmets became deafening. Rance and the pilot were only just audible. "Hang on tight!"

"There's no more fire coming at us. Some of the first wave are safely on the ground."

The dropcraft continued to bounce, shake, and buffet, but there were no more explosions. Hark was suddenly aware that he was gripping the lap bar so tightly that his hands hurt. The excitement was back.

"Ground coming up."

"Hang on!"

"Here we go! Wait for it… nowV

The dropcraft hit ground with a bone-jarring jolt. Its wings feathered up. It plunged, bounced, and skidded over an uneven surface. For a moment, it seemed to be slewing sideways, about to roll over, then, at the last moment, it jerked to a stop. There was an instant of stunned silence before Rance started yelling in their ears again.

"Up and out, you bastards! Up and out! Loose those lap bars and go!"

Two ports on either side of the ship swung down. Violet light, punctuated by flashes of brilliant white, streamed in.

"I said let's go\"

Lap bars clanged up, and the men were on their feet, heading for the ports. Their boots clashed on the cabin floor. Hark grabbed his weapon and moved with the others. He was no longer thinking.

"Check equipment before you hit the outside."

It was a matter of rote. Helmet seal, energy packs, water bottle, minimed, supply case, trencher. All good. The port was in front of him. Other troopers were pressing behind him, and there was no chance of turning back. Rance slapped him on the shoulder, and he stumbled down the ramp. It was a violet world, a place of violet sky, purple sand, and jagged dark purple rocks. Hark stepped off the ramp and staggered. The sand was deep and incredibly fine. It behaved almost like a viscous liquid. He sank into it up to his knees. Other troopers had also bogged down.

"Cut boot gravity and jump!"

The planet's own gravity was considerably less than either the gravity in their parts of the ship or that generated by their boots. Hark jumped and found that he was immediately free of the clinging dust. A single stride could take him maybe three meters.

"Spread out! Get away from the ship! Move Out!"

Out of the cover provided by the ship, Hark saw the four domes that made up the nearest Yal battery. There was so much in this war that dwarfed him. The domes were a line of mathematically perfect Yal-made hills. Brilliant radiation flashed from the apex of each dome, shooting straight up. The sky above was a maelstrom of blinding color, a continuous explosion as the Yal shields fought off the stream of energy from the cluster. The air itself seemed to be vibrating. The glare of the majestically undulating raw energy and plasma field cast distinct shadows and eclipsed the light of the planet's two- suns. Even the longtimers were standing and staring.

Rance himself was given a moment's pause. It was one hell of a spectacle. The whole sky was suffused by an instant of iridescent blue. Some trace element in the atmosphere must have burned. At least the median had been right. The shields were so stretched to hold off the bombardment from space that they no longer extended to the ground. He quickly gathered himself. "Don't stand there gawking!"

Dyrkin's voice cut into their helmets. "Incoming! PBA from that ridge at oh-one-five."

"Everyone down!"

As the particle beam accelerator came to bear on them, broken beams of green light sliced through the area. A trooper simply blew apart. Hark didn't know who it was. Something hit him violently between the shoulder blades.

"Get down, you fucking idiot!"

For an instant, Hark thought that he had been hit. Then he realized that Helot was rolling off him.

"Dig in, you dumb bastard!"

Hark grabbed his trencher and twisted the grip, blowing the sand out from under his body. Dyrkin was on the communicator again.

"Confirm PBA on ridge."

"Helot, Hark, work your way over to those rocks!"

There was a spiny outcropping way over on their right. The space in between was crisscrossed by green flashes.

"Can we make it?"

"We can try."

Helot started crawling. Hark followed him with deep misgivings. Behind them, the dropcraft, which had been drawing fire, lifted off in a swirl of dust. The first half of the crawl was comparatively easy, the enemy fire well over their heads, then whatever was operating the particle beam cannon must have noticed their move. Pencil-thin beams blew up dust all around them.

"Dig down! Fast!"

Each trooper carved himself a shallow trench and lay there until the Yal gunner turned its attention somewhere else. Immediately the fire moved away, Helot was up on his feet.

"Run, boy!"

Hark thought that the longtimer had gone crazy, but he still jumped to his feet and followed his mad dash. As Helot ran, he let out a long bloodcurdling scream. Hark found that he was also screaming. Despite the terror that he would be blown to pieces by a particle beam at any moment, Hark found a reckless excitement in the way his blood pounded and his helmet was filled with the clamor of men in battle. Although the voices of his own twenty came through the loudest, there was a constant background of the shouts, orders, and screams of the other groups and the crackling interference from the blaze of energy in the sky. They came under fire again, but they were almost at the rocks. Both men dived and rolled into cover.

"Set to lasertrace-let's grease this sucker!" Helot snapped.

They both fired. Twin streams of colored pulses arrowed toward the source of the particle beams.

"I think we got him vecced. Switch to concussion."

They fired again. There was a massive explosion on the ridge. Helot let out a whoop. Dyrkin was in the phones.

"Confirm PBA out."

He was straightaway followed by Rance. "Move up. Over the ridge."

The troops advanced in an extended line. Fire burst above them, but while they were in the shadow of the ridge nothing seemed able to get a direct bearing on them. They could no longer see the domes, but the vio-. lent, angry halo above them was clearly visible. Before the drop, Rance had given them a simple briefing. All they had to do was get the sappers through to the base of the domes so they could place their explosives. He hadn't actually told the troopers that they were expendable, but the message was clear. On either side of them, other twenties were also moving up. They were a grim reminder that only one group had to get through to make the operation a success.

Rance halted them at the foot of the ridge. "There's no knowing what we're going to run into on the other side, but it don't make no difference, we're going anyway. We're going to go up fast. Don't bunch up, and go over the top low. Don't skyline yourselves. Okay?"

Eighteen troopers nodded.

"Let's go, then."

In the low gravity, the ridge was easy. They took it at a run. Near the top, the men dropped into a low crouch. They immediately came under fire again. The crest of the ridge flared and boiled. Hark was once again flat on his stomach, digging into the sand. Waed, who wasn't quite fast enough getting down, screamed and twisted backward. There was a gaping hole in his chest. Hark couldn't quite come to grips with the fact that death could be so sudden. There was something obscene about the way a man could be alive and running one moment and dead meat the next. It was one more underlining of how little they were worth.

"This is going to be a fucking mess."

The growl belonged to Dyrkin. From the top of the ridge, they could see all the way to the base of the domes. There was only maybe a kilometer to go, but the ground was dotted with fortified gunpits and trenches. There was an odd metallic sheen on some areas of sand. The longtimers knew that this indicated strung molywire. The ultrafine filaments were more than capable of slicing off an arm or a leg, and where there was wire there were usually also mines and jumpers.

"How come we don't get no air cover?"

"I guess they figured gunships would be too vulnerable."

"What the hell are we? Dog meat?" "If any plane got too close to that burning sky, it'd be fried."

"What about armor? Don't we even rate armor?" "This wasn't supposed to be a full-scale landing. They're calling it a surgical strike." "Surgical my ass."

Rance cut through the complaining. "Knock off the crap. We're moving on." "We'll be cut to pieces."

"Shut up, Dacker. We'll take the two nearest gunpits. Half of you go for the one on the left, the others take the right. Keep firing all the way; we'll make it."

There was still fire hitting the ridge, and the group hesitated. Rance was bellowing in their helmets.

"Move, goddamm it, or I'll burn you myself!"

Suddenly they were on their feet again and running. It was another mad, screaming dash, ducking, weaving, and zigzagging, weapons vibrating in their hands as they fired wildly. It was almost as if something was taking over their will and making them do things that were in direct opposition to all their natural instincts. One man went down, and then another, but they kept on going. They were close to the gunpit, and Hark was amazed that he was still on his feet. He could see the creatures that were manning the Yal PBA. The name "chibas" was repeated in his phones. The chibas were one of the Yal's favorite cannon fodder. Slightly shorter than a human, they were part organic and part robot. Their brains and squat bodies were tank-grown biomatter, but their arms and legs were spindly constructions of implanted metal. They were among the ugliest things that Hark had ever seen.

Two of the chibas were swinging around their tripod-mounted weapon, bringing it to bear on Hark and the men around him. For an instant, he thought that he was dead, then the first troopers were in the gunpit. Renchett was among them, going to work on the chibas with his knife, slashing at the soft, yellow-gray organic parts of their bodies through chinks in their somewhat minimal carapace armor. It seemed that a species that could grow-build its troops as it needed them paid little attention to protecting them on the battlefield. Renchett worked with a savage relish until his suit was slick with the transparent goop that fountained from their wounds.

"I hate chibas, they're an abomination."

He was carefully wiping his knife as he reported to Rance.

"We got the left gunpit secured." "Right gunpit also secure."

The gunpit provided a brief respite, an interlude wi no one shooting at them. Hark hunkered down an* leaned against the parapet wall. "What happens next?"

Rance wasn't slow in supplying the answer. "Anyon over there know how to fire a Yal PBA?"

Helot answered. "I've checked out on one of these."

"So stay with it and give us covering fire."

"A-firm."

"Volunteering your way out, Helot?" "Screw you, Renchett. I don't enjoy the shit the way you do. I'll grab at any chance to save my ass."

There were distant screams in their helmets. Another twenty must have walked into the grinder.

"Okay, let's move out. Keep that covering fire com-ing.

This time they ran in V formation, with the sappers finding what protection they could in the angle of the V, covering the ground with fast ten-meter leaps. They were flanked by fire from the two PBAs. Once again, Hark had the feeling that some external force had a grip on him-it was akin to the fighting madness that had overwhelmed the young men back on his planet. He was taking risks that he would not normally contemplate. By the time they had overrun two more gunpits, Hark was so pumped up that he almost stumbled into a foxhole containing two chibas. They had light-yield energy weapons fastened directly to the ends of their mechanical arms. Somehow he had the impression that they were surprised. Renchett was right-they were an abomination. Fortunately, they were also slow. Hark blasted by instinct before they could bring up their weapons. He noticed that the chibas wore no helmets. The word was that they could breath anything.

"Wirefield ahead!"

The charge halted as the men flattened rather than blunder into an expanse of deadly molecular wire. Blast fire roared over their head$.

"Alternate blast and concussion to plow that wire under."

The massed fire boiled the ground in front of them, and the dust swirled up into a purple storm. There were a dozen major explosions in fast succession, driving the dust even higher. Hark hugged the quaking ground. What had been the wirefield looked like the end of the world. The pale dust even blotted out the light of the blazing thunderhead above the domes.

"That's the mines."

"Stay down, there may be still be jumpers."

A jumper was a saucer-sized disk that, when triggered, jumped to a height of a meter and a half and then sprayed rotating fire through a full 360 degrees. Sure enough, there were flashes of swirling fire inside the dust. When they stopped, Rance ordered the troopers up again.

"Into the dust, it's perfect cover. Watch your step, though, there may still be coils of wire lying around. Take it slow and easy."

They moved cautiously into the dust cloud. They were walking almost blind. One of the recruits turned on his helmet light.

"Turn that damned thing off," Rance ordered. "You want to be a perfect target?"

The light went off. The men pressed forward. The dust was starting to settle. They were all covered with a fine purple film. They were about to get through the wirefield unscathed when somebody began screaming.

"My foot! My goddamn foot! It's gone. The wire got me!"

Again Rance was directly there.

"Calm down! Get a seal dressing on the bleeding and lie down, try and dig yourself in. The e-vac will pick you up. In the meantime, your suit will take care of the pain."

The screaming sank to a drugged whimper as the suit blanketed its wearer with secreted analgesics.

"Move on," Rance told the others. "He'll be okay. Watch your own feet."

The dust had drifted and settled and was no longer any use as cover. There was firing all around, but none of it was directed at them and the majority of it came from Alliance weapons, not those of the Yal. There was a bout of ragged cheering as the first human troops reached the base of the dome. A port in the dome opened, and a squad of chibas rushed out, firing the weapons that they had instead of hands. They were quickly burned down.

"Okay, hold it. We can stop right here. The sappers can move up to the dome. The rest of us will hold this position."

They were standing on the edge of a trench filled with dead chibas. They had been dead only for a matter of minutes, and already they were starting to decay. The yellow-gray flesh was liquefying away from the metal skeletons that had supported it, turning back into the oily protein goop whence it had come. Nobody was in any particular hurry to get into the trench, and fortunately that didn't seem necessary. The only firing still going on was the mopping up of scattered chiba positions. Hark couldn't believe that it had actually happened, that it was over. He felt sick and dizzy-he believed that he would never be able to face food again. His hands shook except when he clutched his MEW, and yet, if anyone had yelled "Run," he would have run with desperation.

"Take the weight off but stay alert," Rance ordered.

Renchett had his knife out. "You want us to go and mop up the stragglers?"

"You've had your share of butchery for the day."

Renchett shrugged and sheathed the knife. The sappers were stringing explosives. Rance looked at the huge bulk of the dome and refused to imagine what might be happening inside the monster. He'd been inside Yal installations a number of times, and they always made him feel bad. They were just too alien. The outside was quite enough. What culture would fashion this gigantic curve of what looked like semi-polished purple stone? They must know what was about to be done to them. How did Yal panic? Rance shook his head and looked away. Hark was staring back in the direction from which they had come. The poor bastard probably didn't believe what had happened to him. The ground around the domes was like something out of a nightmare. There was charred and fused sand; some areas still smoked, others glowed. There were bodies all over, scattered among blackened wreckage from the downed dropcraft. "Mother of Gods!"

Instinctively everyone ducked. Something was happening in the blazing sky. The halo of warring energy that was now directly above them had abruptly and radically altered. What had once been a glaring white had dimmed to a suffused, bloody red. Rance was one of the few around the dome who knew enough to suspect what might be happening. Was the Yal shield weakening? If his installation was going to be destroyed, it was a logical move for the commander of the battery to try to take as many of the enemy with him as he could. If he dropped his shields, the forces on the ground would be wiped out by their own orbiting guns. The real question was how long it would take him to shut down the shields.

The sappers were through with their work. Rance started waving everybody back. "Back to the assembly points! On the double! We're pulling out!"

He tongued open the long-range communicator. "Bring down the e-vacs as fast as you can."

A strange voice came over Rance's helmet.

"This is Lanza, topman of sappers. I'm staying here with a guard until close to detonation. I don't want any chibas coming out and dismantling the charges.

Sappers were crazy.

"Suit yourself. Don't stay too long."

The whole force was pulling back. The glare in the sky brightened, as if the Yal shields were recovering. Maybe there was time for them all to get out. The glare faded back to an angry red. It was absurd that their survival now depended on the strength of the enemy shields. The men were bunching at the prearranged as sembly points. They had the wounded with them. Rance took long leaping strides in order to catch up with them. There was the distant sound of ships coming through the atmosphere. The glow in the sky seemed to be lower than it had been a few minutes earlier. Rance was certain that the Yal screens were about to cave. He hated the idea that his death would be just another cruel joke in a war that was full of them. Where the hell were those e-vacs?

As if in answer, his phones crackled with static "E-vacs coming in. Watch out below."

The squat circular craft came down vertically with their landing legs extended. The e-vacs had a slab-sided functional ugliness that was a complete contrast to the streamlined winged elegance of the dropcraft that had brought them in. All they had to do was fall fast to a planet's surface and pick up the largest possible number of men. They were the combat workhorses, and the troopers loved them. It was only natural. Other craft got them into trouble; the e-vacs got them out.

"Yo, e-vacs! Get us the hell out of here!"

"What are those damned redballs doing?"

"Who knows with redballs?"

A flight of red spheres was following the e-vacs down. The troopers knew that the red spheres were on then-side, but that was about all. The Therem had never seen fit to explain them to the human troops. They were small, little more than two meters in diameter, but they were incredibly fast and maneuverable. They appeared on battlefields, but they seemed to have the capacity neither to inflict nor to sustain harm. At other times, they could be encountered prowling the interiors of the cluster ships. Everything else was speculation. It wasn't even clear if they were machines or beings or just globs of raw energy. They didn't bother the troopers, and most of the time the troopers didn't bother about them, except instinctively to dislike them.

The men at one assembly point had to scatter to avoid the power wash as their ship came too close to the mark. Lanza's voice cut through the noise from the ships.

"We're getting out. The charges are armed, and nothing can stop them."

Five e-vacs settled on the battlefield, each in its own cloud of dust. Wide ramps extended to the ground. The first two men up on each side dragged the others in. The wounded were passed hand over hand.

"Let's go, go, go!"

The ramps started rising before the last men were inside. The final ones stumbled forward, half falling through the ports. There was a lurching confusion of men reaching for any handhold as the e-vac tilted into the air. There were no seats in an e-vac, just lines of grab bars. Rance used his rank to swing up to the overhead crew blister. The darkened cabin was cramped even for the two-man crew, who were secured in contour frames, hunched over multiple control boards. The lights of the panels were reflected eerily in their faceplates. Like the dropcraft, the e-vacs weren't pressurized. The best that Rance could do was to crouch in the hatchway, bracing himself against the top of the steel ladder that led up from the main well of the ship.

"Have the charges blown yet?" he asked.

"Not yet, but the shield's sagging."

Rance craned to see the groundside screen. It was true. From the air, it was possible to see the battering waves of energy that were pouring in from space. The Yal shield had been reduced to a red halo with a definite concave dip at its center. The e-vac lurched, and Rance was almost pitched into the well. There was cursing from below as a number of men lost their handholds and fell into those around them. One of the crew glanced around.

"Sorry about that."

Rance glared into the well.

"Turn up the grav on your boots, they'll anchor you."

Rance looked back just in time to see the charges blow. Rings of small explosions rippled around the bases of the domes. At first, there was no perceivable result. Rance bit his lip. Were they going to have to go through the whole bloody process again? Abruptly, the Yal shield winked out, and in the next moment, the visible world erupted. A huge fireball gathered on the ground. Shock waves spread to the horizon. The fireball started to rise. It was as if a star had been lit on the surface of the planet.

"Damn!"

The crew shielded their eyes. Blinding white light poured through the single armored viewslit. The screen threatened to burn out. The fireball started to rise. The area below it glowed white, a vast sea of liquid rock. The fireball was gathering speed and expanding.

"Hold tight. Here comes the shock wave."

The ship felt like God had kicked it. It was like a living thing. The kick was followed by a spasm of monstrous shudders. They were falling.

"I hope she holds together."

The crew were punching buttons. There was almost a detachment about the way they worked. Panels lit, others went out.

"Here's where we find out."

There was a sickening lurch as the crew tried to power out of the deadfall. There were shouts from below.

"Smoke! Something's leaking smoke!"

The crew was concentrating oh coaxing the e-vac to gain altitude.

"Tell them it's nothing to worry about. I'd have worried if we hadn't burst a few seams."

The ship continued to spin and buffet, but they were making ground. There was the pressure of acceleration under their feet.

"The atmosphere is hosing out. We're riding the up-draft. It should take us halfway to the cluster."

In the well of the ship, Hark clung to a grab bar, his eyes closed, and prayed for it all to be over, ont way or another. He didn't really care. He couldn't take any more. The courage that he'd found earlier seemed to have deserted him. He didn't even care that he'd been whimpering out loud when they'd been falling and that the rest of his messdeck had probably heard him over the communicator. The man next to him turned his head and looked at Hark.

"Suit stopped pumping?"

Hark couldn't recognize him behind the faceplate of his helmet.

"I don't understand."

'They don't tell you, but you find out. It's the suits." Hark was at a loss. "Suits?"

"It's the suits that do it to us. None of us want to do what we do in combat. We don't want to take the risks. Once the suit smells your adrenaline and starts pumping itself, you don't have a chance. You're blind and crazy. You'll go anywhere and do anything they tell you."

"What does the suit do? What does it pump into us?"

"Who the hell knows. Some endorphin cocktail of fearblockers, ones that can be absorbed through the skin. That's why the trip back from combat can be really rough. The battle's over, the suit stops pumping, and you come down seeing the full forsaken horror of it. At least we get to get drunk when we get back. It helps."

"They get us every way, don't they?"

"You're learning."

Up in the crew bubble, Rance pursed his lips. He preferred that the recruits learn about the suits as late as possible. Doubtless Hark would tell all the others.