Extinction

-8-

They came just after midnight.

I’d long ago called for backup from the main camp, but they had never shown up. Barrera had promised me two companies of troops, most of his standing garrison. To replace them, he’d called in help from all over the islands, ordering units he considered to be our most loyal to return to the main camp.

Normally, we didn’t house the men in barracks. We’d become soft, in hindsight. Having a big tropical island and an unlimited budget, we’d set them up in communities here and there. I’d been thinking that news of the life-style would get us more recruits. But for direct, immediate defense, it was a losing strategy. I vowed to become more paranoid in the future. If I had a future.

Now, in the middle of the night, I had no idea if Barrera had been lying or he had already been taken out. All I knew was his two companies didn’t show and all communications with the main base were out. First, the satellite feed had cut off, and then the landline that ran along the jungle road went dead. I tried direct radio, but that was being jammed. Nothing but static. This did not surprise me, as the communications equipment had all been provided by the very people who now planned to take us down. I would have sent out some Hummers to the main base to scout and report, but I couldn’t afford anyone. I planned to sit on the factories and hold them at all costs.

The effort to build new, defensive beam towers was hours behind schedule. Several problems had arisen, engineering details I should have foreseen. For one thing, we didn’t have any Nano ships with hands to lift the weapon systems into place. We’d managed to get the motorized mount for one turret into place, but we hadn’t gotten the projector fastened onto it yet. I had about twenty nanotized marines, and that represented a lot of arm-strength, but lifting several tons onto the roof of a shed still wasn’t easy. We could have used a crane, but we’d depended on the Nano ships to do all that kind of work for us.

The first turret structure loomed up like a hump on the roof of good-old Unit Fourteen’s shed. Fourteen had managed to finish the first reactor, so I’d concentrated our construction efforts there first. Buried underneath a shimmering mass of nanites, the shed was unrecognizable. It looked more like a shiny, tin anthill than anything else.

“Sir, still nothing to report from my squad of scouts,” Kwon told me in a harsh whisper.

I swung my head around to see him. He was just a dim, hulking outline in the starlight. We had our lights off and our full suits on. I looked at him through two dark portholes. “No news is good news,” I said, “keep the scouts out there, keep them moving. They should expect contact at any moment.”

“Yes sir,” Kwon said, then he moved away. Soon, the night swallowed him up. For a big guy, he could move quietly when he needed to.

Everyone had left their heavy beam rifles and reactor-packs on the ground while we climbed over the shed roof. I’d given them orders to jump down and grab up their equipment the minute anything happened. For a few quiet minutes, we worked on setting up a chain-fall hoist to get the projector up into place. There was a lot of swearing and fingers bleeding inside our gloves.

Sweating in the humid night air, I heard a distant sound. I knew that sound all too well. It was the chatter of automatic weapons fire. They were out there, and getting closer. The men around me paused in their efforts. Most leapt down to the sandy ground and struggled with the straps of their reactor units. I stayed on the roof, trying to steady the vast weight of the projector unit. It swayed on the chains.

Everyone was quiet. We all hunkered down, listening. Straining my ears, I wondered if the next sound would be the crack of a sniper round or the thump of a mortar. I figured, at this point, I’d royally screwed up. I’d wasted our time. This turret was never going to work, even if we managed to put it together. It was untested. It might shoot my own men in the ass or light the place on fire—or, most likely, not function at all.

“Take cover everyone,” I said, pointlessly. My men had melted into the landscape.

We had less than a minute to wait. The night sky lit up with green flashes. My auto-shades flickered a notch or two darker instantly. I knew that quiet, blooming light. My men were returning fire. I could now tell where the fighting was. The air filled with green laser light, burning the atmosphere along the jungle road heading east. The silent flashes came from that direction. But who were they shooting at?

I move around the base of the turret in a crouch, scanning the trees nearest the compound. We had a wall of logs surrounding the place, which we’d lazily topped with barbed wire months ago. I regretted our lack of foresight. In everyone’s mind, we’d been fighting the Macros. What good were normal anti-personnel defenses against hundred-foot robots? The answer was: no good at all. So, we hadn’t bothered to build any.

I almost keyed my com-link, but urged myself to patience. The squad out there didn’t need me to demand answers in the middle of a firefight.

Then I thought of Kwon. Maybe he knew something, and he wasn’t out in the thick of it. I keyed his direct link.

“Kwon here,” he said.

“Hear anything from your patrol?” I asked.

“Enemy contacted, no casualties. That’s it. I think both sides are firing at shadows. They don’t want to talk right now.”

“I don’t blame them. Any reason not to keep working on my contraption?”

“Not that I know of, sir.”

“Let me know the second your scouts report in again,” I said. I stayed down, thinking for a few minutes. The forest around us was quiet. Not even the insects were buzzing much. I didn’t like it.

“Are we clear, sir?” whispered a corporal who sidled up to the shed.

“I don’t know,” I said. I looked down at my men. They were eyeing everything. I scanned the skies. No sign of choppers or parachutes. Not even a drunk, night-flying seagull. I really didn’t like it.

I crouched and cruised around the building, moving quickly and quietly between them. I didn’t see anything or anyone. I contacted Kwon.

“These guys are ghosts. They are either not here, or they are very good.”

“I think they are good, sir,” Kwon answered. “I just found something. Come to me.”

I trotted across and open area and thought I heard a clicking sound. Or had I imagined it? When I reached Kwon, he pointed back to where I’d been.

“They just took a shot at you. I saw the spark behind you.”

I looked back, and hugged the building more closely. “What did you want to show me?”

I pulled the nearest marine closer. The man was limp in his suit. I looked and saw most of his head was missing.

“Sniper,” said Kwon unnecessarily.

I made a low, grunting sound. I was angry, and I had an idea. I keyed my com-link. “Garrison troops, everyone who’s in my base, I’m disconnecting and using voice alone. Listen up.”

I turned off the transmitter on my com-link. I lifted the bottom of my suit’s hood to reveal my mouth. “I want everyone to aim at the tree line. Pick out a nice tall tree. When you see my beamer light up, open fire. Take out a tree or two each. Fire in every direction.”

No one asked any questions, but I could feel their eyes on me. Had the Colonel gone nuts again? What does he have against trees? I didn’t feel like explaining. If I was right, things would be clear enough.

I took aim and burned the top off a Caribbean pine. My auto-shades darkened in response, then darkened further as a dozen more beams leapt out into the quiet night with fantastic brilliance. There was a brief explosion of awakened birds, squawking and flapping. Flames loomed up from several of the trees, and burning debris dropped down to the forest floor.

After a few seconds, we stopped firing and everyone watched the fires and listened. Someone, out to the north, began wailing. The sound stopped quickly, but I was sure I’d heard it. I nodded my head.

“What the hell was that about, sir?” whispered Kwon in my headset.

“Come over here,” I ordered.

Kwon came at a run and crouched against the wall of Shed Fourteen. I talked to him in the dark, while we both watched the burning trees gutter and go out.

“I think they can hear us,” I told him. “We’re using their communications equipment. They aren’t jamming our suit radios, so they must be listening in.”

“Okay, we go voice from now on?”

“Except for brief messages to another team, like your squad out there.”

“Why the firing, sir?”

I tapped the portholes that covered my eyes. “I was hoping they didn’t have these. I figured they might be using night vision gear, and our beams hitting them without warning would blind them.”

“Ah…. Who, sir?”

I glanced down at Kwon. He wasn’t winning any mensa contests tonight. “Night snipers, Sergeant.”

“Oh, you mean that guy who screamed?”

“Exactly.”

“What do we do now, sir?”

I thought about it. I looked at the turret behind me. It had to work. It was our only chance, really. If we couldn’t get some superior tech on our side, we were outnumbered a million to one by the armies of Earth, nanites or no.

“This gun isn’t going to build itself. Get up here, Sergeant. I need your strong back again. The rest of you, I want one fireteam intermittently firing into the forest to keep them honest. The rest of you climb up here. We’re going to put this thing on its mount while we still have time.”