Their Master's war

Thirteen

The Yal forces hit them well before the sun was due up. The first sign of attack was a glowing green energy cloud that rose at the head of the valley and then drifted slowly downriver. Its appearance threw the base into alarm and quite a degree of panic. When it sank to the ground, it would vaporize anything beneath it-and it was coming straight at the base. Some men ran to their battle stations, and others just ran. Still more merely stood and stored at the deadly cloud as if mesmerized by it. Inside the domes and the foxholes, men were struggling into their equipment. Anti-Air Defense was hastily readied. Noncoms bellowed and screamed at their twenties. A handful of recruits threw themselves flat, trying to dig down into the burned earth. Everyone who had a helmet on was deafened by a cacophony of cross-communication and the roaring static that was generated by the approaching cloud. A number of gunsaucers were burning fuel, warming up prior to lifting.

The AADs opened up, splitting the sky with violet streaks of fire. The dynes were also coming alive. Their eyes glowed as they powered up their weapon systems. The cloud was getting close. The dynes also started fir ing. Multiple energy flares flashed from their eyes and ripped into the cloud. It seemed to slow as every heavy weapon on the base poured fire into it. A ragged cheer from the men followed a series of explosions inside the cloud. It started to fragment. Portions of it sank down into jungle that was immediately consumed by blinding white light. Other parts touched down on the surface of the river and were transformed into roaring gushers of j superheated steam.

The outpouring of fire from the base wasn't, however, completely effective. A small green fireball from the heart of the cloud, probably the fragment that contained the motivator, plunged on, losing height but making directly for the base. It hit at the very edge of the perimeter, and the white fire blossomed upward. Men on the extreme margins of the blast staggered away screaming, their backpods melting and their bodies trailing clouds of smoke from their charred suits. Others were blown apart when the energy packs on their MEWs exploded. A squad of nohans were cooked inside their armor. First one and then two more gunsaucers blew up where they stood. One managed to get into the air before the fireball hit, but the shock wave caught it and flipped it over. It crashed into the jungle and started a fire of its own.

The white fire on the perimeter seemed to have been the signal for the chibas. They came in their thousands, wailing the nerve-jangling chorus of high electric trills that always accompanied their mass attacks. Their losses were horrendous. Without hesitation, the first wave plunged straight into the mines, the wire, and the fixed line autos. They were mown down in their hundreds. Some lost limbs to the wire and continued to drag themselves forward, firing as they went. When they finally failed, the ones behind charged straight over them. The chiba bodies were piled up so high in front of the buffer fields that they simply shorted out and collapsed. There was no instinct of self-preservation in the goop that passed as chibas' brains, just a relentless, almost mind-lass hostility that kept them coming and coming, breaking out through the fungus, pounding across the open pace beyond the perimeter with their strange mechanii il run and then hurling themselves into the defenses. I hey must have been massing under cover of the jungle all through the night. The longtimers couldn't believe that there hadn't been patrols sent out. Were the medians really that confident? Not that the longtimers, or uny of the other troopers, had much time to ponder tactics. To the last man, they had their hands full holding hack the onrushing lines of chibas. Even the cookhouse help and the walking wounded found themselves with weapons in their hands, formed into makeshift combat teams and pushed into foxholes. Their only hope of saving their lives was to keep up a withering stream of fire until their weapons threatened to melt.

The hot spot was where the energy fragment had burned a gaping hole in the set-piece defenses. The chibas had moved directly up to the still blazing fires. Briefly, they'd halted. Specialists had come forward, spraying the molten ground with liquid nitrogen until all fires had gone and it was black slag covered with a thick layer of frost. The defenders had picked off dozens of them, but the enemy seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of every variety of chiba.

"Where the hell did they get these numbers?"

"And how did they assemble them without us hearing them?"

"The bastards can be quiet as the grave when they want to be."

As the first horde of chibas came streaming through the gap, Rance had led his twenties in a fast flanking movement against them. It wasn't that he had any desire to be a hero, but he was in the right place and the break through had to be halted. If the chibas weren't stopped, they'd be all over the interior of the base, and everyone in it would be cut to pieces. He knew how deadly a chiba horde could be when it got in among a disorganized and uncoordinated enemy. His first objective was a system of shallow trenches on the right of the gap. There was no one in them, their original occupants having burned, but they had remained largely intact. They were an ideal position from which to direct fire at the chibas coming through the gap. There was one snag. Between his men and the trenches, there was an open expanse of bare ground that was being raked by a PBA that the chibas had brought in with them. He could make it to the trenches okay, but he'd certainly lose up to a third of his men in the process. That was hardly the object of the exercise. He looked wildly around for another solution. The big planet was setting and soon the sun would be coming up, but for the moment, it was getting darker. The irregular green flashes from the PBA and the multicolors of the scattered return fire seemed doubly bright. He spotted a crawler some distance behind them, maneuvering aimlessly. He prayed that his communicator could cut through all the conflicting noises.

"Crawler nine, crawler nine! I need your help to plug that hole in the perimeter."

After a short but agonizing pause, there was a voice in his helmet. "This is crawler nine, we hear you."

"This is Topman Rance. I have my twenties up ahead of you. I need you to give me cover across that open space."

"We have you on scope, Topman Rance. We're moving up."

The armored hulk grated toward them on its huge treads. Rance waved his men back.

"Fall in behind the crawler! Use it as cover."

The men didn't need urging more than once. Crouch ing low, they bunched up behind the big machine as it moved into the open space, dragging its bulk laboriously forward like some monster metal crustacean. One man wasn't fast enough. He was caught in the open by chiba lire. The top half of his body was smeared over the side of the crawler, while his legs and hips, quite untouched, fell back, still kicking. The crawler immediately came under fire from the PBA. Where the particle beams hit, spots on its high-density armor briefly glowed red, but it suffered no other damage. Its prow guns opened up, and the PBA was silenced. The chibas started to fall back, letreating through the gap. Rance's twenties were now level with the trenches.

"Quick! Move it! Get down in that trench system."

Some of the men were reluctant to leave the shelter of the crawler, but with Rance behind them they had no c hoice. Quickly, a hundred men were down on their bellies, worming their way along the trench system. The crawler commander's voice crackled over Rance's communicator.

"I'm going to pull back. If they bring up a punisher, I'm dead meat at this range."

"Thanks for the assist, crawler nine." "You're welcome."

Rance gripped his weapon and slid into the trench. If they brought up a punisher, everyone in the area would be dead meat, but presumably a piece of heavy armor was worth more than his men. Certainly his men were more replaceable.

"Look alive! Spread out along the trenches! The chibas will be pushing back again as soon as the crawler pulls out."

"Why the fuck can't it stay and give us covering fire?" "Shut up, Renchett."

The chibas were streaming back into the gap, but the fire from the trenches at least temporarily checked them.

A gunsaucer ran fast and low along the perimeter line, strafing the attackers, but then it flipped up as it ran into return fire from the ground. The dynes had also moved into action. Towering over the base, they were unable to do anything about the intense fighting around their feet. The risk of hitting their own men was too high. Instead, they pumped fire into the surrounding jungle in the hope of destroying any Yal reserves that were still waiting to move up. Although temporarily taken by surprise, the Therem forces were quickly responding. The perimeter was holding, and the chibas were taking terrible losses. Then the ground around the trenches beg^n to shake violently.

"Motherfuck, they're pushing a thumper at us!"

There were muffled screams in everyone's helmet as a section of trench collapsed and five men were buried alive. Rance was immediately yelling into his communicator.

"Don't panic! Breathe normally and dig yourselves out."

Three men struggled out of the loose dirt. Two didn't. They had either panicked themselves into shock or lost their masks in the cave-in and suffocated. The ground shook again. Another section collapsed, but this time no one was buried. The longtimers had their trenchers out, ready to dig if necessary.

"That thing's got to be stopped!"

Rance opened a command channel. "This is Topman Rance requesting an air strike."

"State your position, Topman Rance."

Rance's voice was calm and by the book. "I'm at the gap in the perimeter. I have the enemy contained, but they're using a thumper against me, and my trenches are collapsing."

"Your air strike is being ordered."

The ground vibrated for a full five seconds. The tremor was more intense than the previous one. The firing faltered as dozens of men were freeing themselves from the loose earth that was cascading down all along the complex of trenches. "Please make it fast."

A dozen or so chibas were through the gap and racing toward the trenches. They were cut down only a few meters from the first trench. Rance quickly scanned the sky. Where the hell was the air strike? Had the goddamn saucer jocks chickened out on him? A couple more tremors and the chibas would be in among them. Finally he spotted the aircraft. Two saucers were running fast from the other side of the base with sunguns blazing down at the ground. They swept over the twenty's position and out beyond the perimeter, then they turned and came back. They made two more passes before the command channel came alive.

"Rance, we've pinned your thumper."

There was the sound of engines in the background.

"Taking it out now."

The saucers halted in midair and started pouring fire directly at the ground. There was an explosion. The saucers peeled away.

"There you go, Rance. Don't say we never do anything for you ground monkeys."

"Many thanks."

The chibas withdrew as fast as they had come. It was as if a sudden loss-cutting decision had been made by the Yal generals. Some alien calculation of cost-effectiveness seemed to have indicated that the chibas would not be able to overrun the base and stay within some strange limit of acceptable losses. The engagement had simply been terminated. Looking at the piled heaps of dead chiba wreckage, though, it was hard to imagine what those limits could possibly be. There was an eerie unreality to the way the fighting abruptly stopped. It was intensified by the fact that the contact was broken off at the very moment that the sun first showed over the hills. As the light filtered into the valley, casting the first long shadows of dawn, the chibas fought a swift rearguard action and melted away into the jungle, leaving the fallen behind them. A terrible silence settled over the base as the firing stopped. Here and there a wounded man was screaming. The jungle animals appeared to sense that the fighting was over, and their dawn cries filled the thick, sluggish, smoke-filled air as if it were any normal day. The men on the ground stayed exactly where they were, expecting a trick. The gunsaucers silently pulled back and regrouped, hovering over the center of the base. A dyne took a pace forward and sprayed the jungle with a final sweep of fire, the dawn chorus faltered. The ports of a crawler clanged open, and its crew climbed wearily, down the cabin ladder. When they reached the ground, they simply dropped to the dirt and sat with their heads between their knees. The communicators were a level hum with just the faintest undertow of heavy breathing and muttered curses. One man straightened and clambered out of his foxhole. A second followed. A third took off his helmet. All over the base, men were standing up as the realization spread that the firefight was really over. There was little conversation. Men looked around at the whole picture, shaking their heads and grimly marveling that they had survived yet another one. They inspected the wreckage and the dead, and a few cautiously walked to the perimeter, toward the tangle of chibas^ 9 frames and the goop soaking into the scorched earth. Some even broke into their ration packs and started eating. All over there was the lethargy and depression that was left behind as the suits stopped their chemical massage.

The calm didn't last very long. The noncoms started yelling, pushing men into exhausted, round-shouldered ranks. They called the rolls and tallied the missing. The complaining had started. Bitching was the second stage of reaction.

"I gotta tell you all, I thought we were going to hear the fat lady singing back there."

"How the hell did they get so close to us without us knowing? That's what I want to know."

"We don't never get to know nothing, asswipe."

"I just want to sleep for a couple of days, that's all I want."

"Don't it bother you that the medians are screwing up?"

"Sure it bothers me, but what the hell do you want me to do about it?"

"The medians always screw up." "That's the whole story."

The earth shook slightly as all three dynes started to move forward. The conversation stopped dead. Crawler crews were reluctantly saddling up again. Sappers had begun to dismantle the temporary structures. Helot looked at Hark. His face was a mask of disbelief.

"We're going after them?"

"You got to be kidding."

The longtimers confronted Rance.

"Is that it? Are we going after them?"

The dynes had waded out into the river and were striding upstream. The gunsaucers were making a wide formation pass across the valley. The crawlers were pulling into line. Rance didn't have to nod.

"Those are the orders."

There was a storm of protest, but even the men doing the protesting knew that it was futile.

"At least you're among the lucky ones," Rance said. "You're all going to ride a crawler up the river."

Elmo's twenty was assigned to crawler 3-except that there was no sign of Elmo. They straggled toward the machine and swung themselves through the port, only to discover him waiting inside the passenger bay.

"What fucking hole were you hiding in?" Renchett snarled.

Elmo's face was as blank as his visor. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Renchett made a disgusted gesture. "Forget it. I ain't got the strength."

The amphibious crawlers slid down the bank and nosed into the water. The overhead compartment covers started to close. The last thing Hark saw before they closed completely was a dead, bloated lizard floating belly up in the shallows of the opposite bank. The covers sealed with a hiss. The lights came on. The compartment was pressurized. The troopers started taking off their helmets and masks. Rations and water were broken out, but a lot of the men just sat hunkered down, backs against the wall, too tired to eat.

Crawler 3 moved smoothly up the river. The majority of the troopers slept. It was an uneasy, uncomfortable sleep, cursed by dreams. Elmo just stared straight ahead in a semitrance, as if he didn't even have what it took to make nightmares anymore.

There was only one incident during the trip upriver. After seventy uneventful minutes, the craft lurched and there was a series of loud bangs. The troopers grabbed for their masks, helmets, and weapons. They had to be taking fire from the bank. A section of the hull was warm to the touch. The crawler's own guns opened up. Inside the passenger bay, the lights flickered. Everyone was crouching on the steel floor, ready for anything. There were two more series of shocks, and then the crawler heeled over in a sharp left-hand turn. Moments later, it did the same to the right. After it straightened out, the men braced for the next shock, but nothing happened. The crawler remained on an even keel, and the guns topped. Nothing else hit the craft, and the incident teemed to be over. Confirmation came from a voice in iheir helmets.

"Hope that didn't shake you up too much. We had a bit of nastiness from the bank, but we seem to have nailed it. We're proceeding on course."

Things had only just settled down when there was a new voice in their helmets.

"All ground troops will hear this."

"It's a forsaken officer."

"That's got to mean trouble."

"Our long-range scouts have discovered an enemy tunnel system that covers most of the upper parts of this valley and extends through the hills. This has to be the means by which they were able to mass so quickly last night before, attacking the task force. Accordingly, we have been given the responsibility of clearing and destroying these tunnels."

"What do you mean 'we,' asshole? You won't be in the goddamn tunnels."

"You will be issued with your individual orders as you disembark from the transport. It only remains for me to wish you luck with this mission."

The men were silent. What they had heard was close to a death warrant. The longtimers had encountered Yal tunnels before. T\mnel clearing always involved severe casualties.

"I hate tunnels.".

There was unashamed fear in the voice. It belonged to Tabor, who had been with the twenty for some forty days. Nobody seemed to have anything to add.

Something grated under the crawler's hull. It lurched as it reared up onto its treads and started to climb the riverbank. Finally it leveled off and stopped. The original voice was back in their helmets.

"You can all relax. As of now, there's no one shooting at us."

When the ports were opened, the first thing they saw as they came down the ramp was Rance. The topman was standing waiting for them.

"I don't want to hear any complaining. I'm no more pleased about it than you are."

The crawler had halted on a flat area of river beach. Beyond it, the side of the valley rose sharply. Sappers had already burned away a large section of jungle, revealing the mouth of a large, previously hidden tunnel that was driven horizontally straight into the hillside. Rance pointed to it.

"That's your one. Take a good look at it."

Take a good look because the odds are that you will die in there, he thought.

"Nothing happened when we opened it up, so we can probably assume that the first stretch is empty. It may well be gimmicked, though, so be exceedingly careful."

He glanced at Elmo, who was staring transfixed at the tunnel entrance.

"Are you netted into the schematic?"

Elmo didn't answer.

"Do you hear me, Overman Elmo?"

Elmo twitched and then looked at Rance. "What did you say?"

Rance's voice was acid. "I asked if you were netted into the schematic of the tunnel system."

"Yes… yes, I'm getting it in my visor."

"Then why don't you take your men into the tunnel."

"You're not coming in with us?"

Rance shook his head. "I'm coordinating this one."

Elmo took one more long look at the tunnel mouth, and he seemed to pull himself together. He faced the men.

"Okay, let's get moving. The sooner we get in, the sooner we get out." "Ifwegetout."

Elmo ignored the remark. Behind them, the crawler was up on its treads and easing back into the river. The thirteen men, all that were left of the twenty, started up the slope toward the tunnel. They halted again before actually going inside.

"Check your redscopes."

Each man turned on the heat vision option in his visor. Where the interior of the tunnel had been pitch-black, it was now a threatening red. There were no more excuses for delay.

"Okay, let's do it."

They moved cautiously into the darkness, as if they were treading on glass. The tension showed with every pace. Kemlo took the point, with Dyrkin right behind him. Elmo stayed well to the rear.

Dacker, who was seventh in line, craned up to look at the ceiling. "I never did like the idea of having a whole goddamn hill over my head."

"Cut out that talking."

They moved on in silence. Behind them, the sky was nothing more than a small disk of brightness beyond the tunnel mouth. The redness in Hark's visor created the illusion that he was walking through the intestines of a giant. The datashot hadn't included much information about anatomy, but he'd learned more than enough on the battlefield to feed the fantasy.

"Hold it back there," Dyrkin barked.

The thirteen halted. Dyrkin, walking point, was in effective command of the squad. It was the way everyone, with the possible exception of Elmo, wanted it. Dyrkin would take no chances. There was an opening in the left wall of the main corridor. It was the first one that they'd encountered, and for all they knew, it could be full of chibas just waiting to boil out all over tfrem. In these kinds of situations, chibas seemingly had infinite patience. Dyrkin waved his arm in a low sweep that everyone understood. The column moved away from the center of the corridor and pressed against the wall. Dyrkin had stopped a few meters before the opening. He spoke softly into his communicator.

"Elmo, any sign of this on the schematic?"

"No, there's nothing. This is supposed to be a straight corridor with no turns or intersections."

Elmo seemed content to let Dyrkin run the squad. Dyrkin waved up the next man in line, a recruit with the minimal name of Kov. He indicated that the man should get in front of him. The routine was simple. They edged their way along the wall with weapons at the ready. When they reached the entrance, Kov ducked briefly and adjusted the grav on his boots. When he'd straightened, they both took a deep breath that was audible in everyone's helmet. Kov made a grav jump straight across the opening. At the same time, Dyrkin spun around and fired from the corner. Immediately afterward, Kov fired from the opposite side. The concussion blasts were like hammer blows in the confined space. Although their helmets protected their ears, their bodies were kicked by the shocks. Their lungs felt as if they were suddenly being hugged by a huge constrictor. Dust cascaded down from the roof of the tunnel.

The firing stopped; Dyrkin stepped back from the opening, putting up his MEW and letting it rest against his shoulder.

"Ain't nothing in there."

The others moved up and peered into the opening. Dyrkin had been right. There was nothing in there except a pile of dark blue hexagonal cargo containers and a rack of gleaming new chiba frames, presumably waiting to have the sacs of intelligent goop fitted to them. Glowing scars of residual heat from the firing crisscrossed the walls. One of the containers had fallen and burst open. Its contents, a kind of gray packing fiber, had spilled out and were burning, giving off oily smoke.

"Don't touch any of that stuff. It's probably booby-trapped."

Two explosions came from somewhere else in the tunnel system. Some of the men ducked. More dirt fell from the tunnel ceiling. A meter-square section detached itself and crashed to the floor. Everyone froze. In tunnel clearing, the other hazard, apart from the enemy, was cave-in. This planet was so young and unstable that tunneling into it was a dubious business at the best of times. The constant low-level quakes meant that the best reinforced tunnel was prone to collapse even without a fire-fight inside it. The men waited tensely. There were no further rockfalls.

"Did anybody think that the Yal's best bet would be to wait until we were all inside and then blow the whole system?"

"I don't want to hear that talk." There was no authority in Elmo's voice. It was pure fear.

Dyrkin slung his weapon over his back. "You want that we should move on?"

The squad pressed on deep into the hill. There were sounds of firing and more explosions from other parts of the system, but nothing engaged them except a handful of miggies that dropped from the ceiling and were quickly dispatched. At regular intervals, wafts of scalding hot air washed down the tunnel. These only helped to accentuate the feeling that they were parasites in the bowels of some monstrous beast. Every step was racked with tension. Just because nothing had happened so far didn't mean it couldn't happen at any moment. The troopers, particularly the new recruits, flinched at every sound and movement. Already frayed nerves were being stretched to their limits. The prolonged stress involved in a search-and-destroy mission was bad enough in the open. In these claustrophobic tunnels, it was close to unbearable.

Dyrkin called another halt. Up ahead, there was what looked like a yellow glow in their redscoped visors. As far as they could see, the tunnel was opening out into a larger lighted space. The air had become very warm, so warm that it was starting to interfere with the function of the redscopes. The walls were now pulsing with a blood-red light, and the men were pouring sweat. The yellow glow seemed to be the source of it all. Nobody had any particular desire to be the first to find out exactly what it was. Finally, when Elmo offered no suggestions, let alone orders, Dyrkin beckoned to Hark and Renchett.

"Okay, let's go and see what we got here."

The three of them walked slowly forward, silhouetted against the yellow glow. Their weapons were held in front of them, away from their bodies, ready to fire at the widest possible sweep.

"When the tunnel opens out, keep on going. Hark, go to the left; Renchett, you go to the right. Look for cover and hit it. Best cut out your redscopes; that yellow light's going to blind us."

For a moment, the three men couldn't see, but then their eyes adjusted to regular light. Now that they weren't looking at heat, the yellow was little more than a suffused purple glow.

"That's plasma."

"It must be a main energy interface." Renchett halted. "Then it's got to be defended." "So let's go in and find out," Dyrkin said. "Do we have to?" Renchett said. "You got a better idea?" "No."

The spectacle that greeted them was little short of awesome. The tunnel had opened out into a wide, high-ceilinged, roughly circular cavern that seemed to be at least partly natural. The centerpiece was a tall translucent column that rose for the fiill height of the cavern and then vanished through the roof. A massive charge of plasma was pulsing up it. This was the source of the purple glow. In addition to the channeled plasma, white flares of secondary energy flickered on the outside of the power stack. The base of the column was a large containment sphere of dull black, extradense metal. It was supported by five heavy-duty grav pumpers. Without their aid, the sphere would simply have sunk into the ground and gone on sinking until it reached the center of the planet. The sphere had to be unbelievably massive. It contained what was, in effect, a miniature sun. It was banded by an intricate system of interconnected subducts. Below the sphere, the ducts ran out and away, across the floor in a sunburst that extended all the way to the walls of the cavern. These were also attended by outward ripples of dancing static. As Dyrkin had guessed, it was a major energy interface. "Mother! It's big!"

"This sucker could power a couple of firetowers." "Move it!"

There was no time to stand and stare. Renchett and Hark peeled off as they came out of the tunnel, just as Dyrkin had instructed. Hark spotted a pile of the hexagonal containers that seemed to be a standard item with the Yal. He ran for them, jumping the ducts as he went. When there were no more ducts, he dived and rolled. So far, there was no one shooting at them.

In position behind the containers, Hark tentatively called out to Dyrkin. "Nothing so far. You think this place is empty?"

The plasma was crackling in their helmets.

"Seems hard to believe they'd just leave it."

Renchett came in. "I don't like it."

Hark carefully studied the cavern. Other tunnels ran into it at regular intervals all around its circumference. The spaces in between them were taken up with racks of what, alien as it was, had to be control and monitoring equipment. A gantry, constructed from one molded piece of an ultrahard ceramic, ran around the containment sphere, some three meters above the ground. A broad ramp of the same material ran down from the gantry and into the mouth of the widest of the intersecting tunnels. Where the ramp and the gantry joined, there was a huge black chair. It appeared to have been contoured for some large, angular multilegged creature.

Renchett hissed in his helmet. "You know what that is? That contour chair?"

"What is it?"

"It's Yal. It was built for a Yal. There's been a Yal here."

There was almost reverence in his voice. Most humans never so much as came close to a Yal. To be where one might recently have been was sufficient to inspire awe.

Hawk whispered back to him. "You never told us you saw a Yal."

"I never did. Never saw a Therem either, for that matter. I heard plenty, though. Big black bastards, all legs and joints with a dark energy shimmer around them like they weren't completely in the same dimension as us."

"I heard the Therem were-"

"Knock that off." Dyrkin didn't seem to be as impressed as Renchett or Hark. "You sound like a couple of recruits."

"There's been a goddamn Yal in here."

Dyrkin ignored him. "I'm going to move forward. Stay put and cover me."

He ran alongside one of the floor ducts toward the center until he found shelter behind one of the gantry supports. Still nothing happened.

"I'm going to take a look into that wide tunnel."

"Is that a good idea?"

"Somebody's got to."

His suit had to be pumping.

"You want us to back you up?"

"Stay put. I'm just going to take a look. If anything happens, get the hell out of here."

"You can bet on that."

Dyrkin ran in a low crouch, keeping well under the cover of the ramp. Still nothing. He reached the mouth of the tunnel and flattened against the wall beside it. Slowly, he craned forward and peered up the tunnel.

"Not a damn thing. Just another tunnel."

"You think we should bring up the others?"

"Not yet. I want to check out a couple more of these."

"Okay."

Dyrkin moved from tunnel mouth to tunnel mouth. "The whole area seems deserted." "Let's call up the others."

"Yeah, screw it. We can't do nothing more on our own. Yo, Elmo, can you hear me?" "I can hear you."

"What we have here is a major energy interface, and it's secure as it's going to be. I got to warn you, though, it could be a trap. It don't feel right that a thing like this should be left unguarded."

"Maybe we should hold back here for a while."

"Why? If there're chibas waiting to jump us, they would have done it by now. If there is a trap, it won't be sprung until we've all moved up here."

"All the more reason to stay where we are."

"You chickenshit bastard, Elmo. You expect us to sit around here waiting for the axe to fall?"

"I don't have to listen to your shit."

"Move up, damn it!"

"I don't have to take orders from you."

It was at that moment that the chibas hit. They came out of one of the tunnels that Dyrkin hadn't examined. Hark and Renchett opened fire, giving him a chance to scramble into cover. Hark noticed that when he fired past the energy stack, the fire from his MEW was noticeably deflected, bending around the curve of the containment sphere. He had to aim accordingly. Dyrkin, who was now on the other, side of the cavern, also started blasting at the chibas. The three-way cross fire managed to keep the chibas at bay in the tunnel. Dyrkin was yelling into his communicator.

"Elmo! Move up, damn it! We're under attack!"

"What sort of numbers?"

"Fuck the numbers, just get up here and bail us out." "How many enemy are there?" "I don't know! We've got them bottled up in a tunnel, but we can't hold them too long." "I'm holding this position." "Damn you, Elmo."

There was a confusion of shouting in the communicators, then Helot was yelling. "Hold on, I'm coming!"

Helot, Kemlo, and two others came out of the tunnel mouth, immediately drawing fire from the chibas. They all scattered for cover. Kemlo wasn't fast enough. He was hit square in the back. Blood fountained. There was no way that he could only be wounded. The chibas were now pressing forward. A squad was crawling across the floor, using the power ducts and even their own dead as cover.

"Elmo! Bring the others up here!"

There was no answer.

Dyrkin rose from cover, sprayed the crawling chibas with a long blast of lasertrace, then ducked down again. Enemy return fire spattered all around his position.

"I'm out on a limb here… Hark? Ckn you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"Can you get back to the rest of the squad?"

Hark looked over his shoulder. He didn't fancy breaking cover and running the gauntlet of chiba fire back to the original tunnel, but it was no time to argue.

"I guess so. It'll be hairy, but I can try."

"Get back and convince Elmo to send up the rest of them. Make him get on the command channel. We need reinforcements here."

"Suppose he don't want to?"

"Just convince him."

Hark looked carefully around. There were no chibas near him. Crouching low, he left the cover of the hexagonal containers and sprinted. Sporadic fire flashed at his heels, but he reached the tunnel mouth unscathed. Elmo and the remaining troopers were waiting some distance down the tunnel, hugging the walls, weapons at the ready.

"Move the goddamn men up. Those guys in there are going to get creamed." Elmo shook his head. His voice was flat. "Nobody's moving anywhere. We're outnumbered. The only thing we can do is pull back."

"Dyrkin, Renchett, and Helot are in there. Kemlo's been killed already."

"They're expendable."

"You bastard."

Elmo tapped his weapon. "So are you, for that matter."

Hark slowly raised his MEW until it was pointed straight at the overman. "I'm not leaving my friends to die."

"So what are you going to do? Kill me?"

"If I have to. I want you to send in the rest of the twenty and then get on the command channel and call up reinforcements."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'm going to spread your guts all over this tunnel."

"You're not going to do anything to me, boy." There was a flurry of weapon fire from back in the cavern. Hark knew that time was running out. "Just do what I say."

"I'll tell you why you won't do anything to me. It's called imprinting. Apart from Rance, I was the first thing you saw after you came out of the datashot. I'm like your mother, boy. You can't do anything to me."

"I'm going to count to three." Hark took a deep breath. "One…"

He was very aware that everyone was watching. It was possible that Elmo was right. Maybe he couldn't kill a noncom. Maybe his programming wouldn't let him, or maybe he didn't have it in him.

"Two."

Elmo slowly turned away. He faced the others.

"I've heard enough of this crap. Start moving back down the tunnel."

Hark didn't bother to count three. He touched the firing stud and blasted Elmo. As the MEW bucked in his hands, there was a sense of complete unreality. The overman staggered forward and fell. His body was all but cut in half. The others were staring at him openmouthed. Hark rounded on them with a snarl.

"Get into that cavern and help the others. Dacker, you're in charge."

"Me?"

Hark knew that he was near the end of his rope. "Just do what I say, damn it!"

Dacker recognized the desperation in his tone. "Okay, okay." He waved the troopers ahead. "Let's get in there and see what we can do."

Hark waited until the others had moved up the tunnel, then he knelt down beside Elmo's body. He took off his helmet, placed it on the ground, and reached out for Elmo's, the noncom model with the command-channel link. He stopped; he didn't want to touch the dead man's helmet. He closed his eyes, fumbled for the facemask, and ripped it loose. He opened his eyes again and took a firm grip on the helmet. At first it resisted. He tugged harder and twisted. It slid off the head. There was blood coming from Elmo's mouth. The dead face looked tired and old. The spell was broken. Whatever hold Elmo might have had on him was gone. The overman was just another body. Hark placed the helmet on his own head, checked the twenty's position on the projected schematic, and opened the command channel.

"Twenty at coordinates 435-623-678, we have run into a large force of chibas around a main energy interface. We need reinforcements urgently."

"Relaying."

The brain voice was replaced in the helmet by that of Rance. "Elmo, what's going on?" "This isn't Elmo, this is Hark." "Where's Elmo?" "He's dead." "How bad is it?"

"It's bad. Half the squad is pinned down in the cavern that houses this big plasma unit, and the other half is trying to get them out. If we don't get help, we're going to be overrun."

"How did this situation come about?"

"Dyrkin went in ahead, and then the chibas hit. Elmo wanted to pull back. The twenty was split in two."

"And now Elmo's dead?"

"Right."

Hark was certain that Rance had guessed what had happened. The question was, What was he going to do? What happened to a trooper who killed a noncom? Rance gave no clue. The topman was all business.

"Try and hold on. Help's coming."

Hark ran back to the cavern entrance. There were chibas everywhere. The troopers had formed into two defensive positions which they were managing to hold despite the overwhelming odds. Dyrkin was no longer out on his own. Renchett was beside him. Between them, they were laying down a withering fire. Some-* where along the line, Renchett had lost his MEW, but he was doing just as well with a chiba handweapon.

"Rance is bringing reinforcements."

"About time."

At that moment, Tabor tried a shot at an advancing chiba, but he stuck his head out too far. Instantly, his helmet exploded and he died without a sound..

They had to hold for another seven minutes before Rance turned up with a reserve twenty. Three more men were killed in those final minutes. Then the fresh troops poured into the cabin, and the tables were turned. The chibas fell back under concerted fire. The survivors fought a brief rearguard action and then fled into the tunnels. The fresh twenty seemed inclined to go after the chibas, but Rance restrained them.

"The other groups will catch up with them."

The remnants of Elmo's twenty climbed out of their makeshift cover. They seemed dazed and uncertain, as if they could hardly believe that it was over. There were just six of them left. Dyrkin and Renchett, Hark, Helot and Kov, and a recruit called Tain. The men gathered around the base of the power stack.

"What do we do about this thing?"

"Are we supposed to blow it?"

Rance shook his head. "Not a chance. If we messed with this baby, it'd vaporize half the valley. We'll get sappers in here to shut it down slow and easy."

Hie looked around the group of survivors, spotted Hark, and beckoned to him. "I want to talk to you."

Hark walked over to where the topman was standing. He was too tired to be afraid. Whatever was going to happen would happen.

Rance pointed to his helmet. "Is that Elmo's?"

Hark nodded. "I didn't take it off after I used the command channel."

"Troopers aren't supposed to use command channels except in the most dire emergency."

Hark looked him straight in the face. "It seemed pretty dire at the time. We were losing the whole twenty."

"So Where's Elmo?"

"He's back down the tunnel."

"Let's go take a look."

Rance turned on his redscope and started down the tunnel. Hark followed. Without a word, Dyrkin and Renchett fell into step behind them. Rance glanced back,

"So the whole gang's coming, too?"

"Just want to see what happened to Elmo," Dyrkin said.

The overman was sprawled facedown where Hark had left him. Rance took his time inspecting the body. "Shot in the back."

Dyrkin shrugged. "It happens." His voice was studiedly neutral.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that those burns came from an MEW set on blast."

Renchett hefted his chiba weapon. "It's hard to tell for sure."

Rance glanced at Hark. "You have anything to add?" "Nothing. I found Elmo dead and used his helmet."

^ 44 And what were you doing back here if all the fighting was in the cavern?"

^ 44 I was looking for Elmo."

Dyrkin stepped in. ^ 44 I sent him back. To look for Elmo. We needed to get word through."

^ 44 So what was Elmo doing back here?"

"Who knows with Elmo? He'd gotten pretty strange."

Rance walked slowly around the body as if a different angle would give him some new insight.

"A rerun of the helmet conversations during the engagement might give us a clearer understanding of what went on."

Hark knew that he was dead. Even if the conversation between him and Elmo hadn't already been noted by the command brain, it would certainly come out on any rerun. He wondered if he simply ought to confess.

"It's a pity that we can't do that."

What was Rance talking about?

"The conversation couldn't be datastored. There was too much static from the interface."

"There was?"

"We'll just have to assume that Elmo died a hero, won't we?" He gave Hark a long, hard look. "We all want to be heroes, don't we?"