“Then lead with one, and fire the second right in there at the end of the salvo.”
There was a moment of hesitation. I could hear the commander speaking in Russian to his men. “I think we can manage that, Colonel.”
“Well then do it!” I shouted. “The damned dome is turning white again. And be ready with a third round in case the first two don’t quite do the trick.”
“Sir, do we really want to unleash that many—”
“Yes, damn you, we do. Now fire. That’s an order.”
“Yes sir,” said the artillery commander. He didn’t sound upset. I suspected he’d been yelled at by his superior officers before.
The second bomb had the same effect the first one had. But the third one did the trick. There was no need for a fourth. I had been ready to fire up to half my supply of weapons to finish that dome from a distance. I had no doubt the Macros had prepared something down there for us, something particularly nasty. But we never got the chance to find out what it was.
I lowered my binoculars and smiled at the flaming, smoky hole we’d dug into the farmland. This region might still be blasted a century from now, but at least the machines wouldn’t be ruling it.
After our success on two of the three domes, our army rejoiced. There was a lot of unreleased tension bubbling in my men. They’d expected a grim, horrid surprise. In the end, when the second dome fell more easily than the first had, they were jubilant. I ordered a case of champagne to be sent to the Russian officer’s encampment. They sent back an invitation to join them.
I’d only met the Russian commander at briefings. I recalled his first name was Dmitri. This entire campaign had swept us up and given us no time for pleasantries. We’d had only days to prepare on the Falklands, and I didn’t really know most of the men I was marching with. Perhaps, I thought, I should get to know them. We could take the time now before pressing onward to assault the third and final dome.
Thoughtful, I walked across the crunching gravel of an old roadway. Evening fell over the land, and the stars began popping out in the skies. The lurid red glare of residual fires turned the sky a hazy orange. It would have been pretty, if I hadn’t known the light came from a million burning trees in the distance.
I considered apologizing for my harsh attitude when I met Dmitri, but then decided against it. I would be friendly, but not apologetic. My decisions, so far, had usually been the right ones.
I never made it to the Russian officer’s camp, however. It was the Alamo that stopped me, dead in my tracks.
Incoming contacts.
I turned on one heel and ran back toward my headquarters unit. I didn’t have my rifle or reactor with me. I’d let my guard down. We all had. I would have cursed, but I didn’t have time. I sped up, running with inhuman speed. But it wasn’t fast enough.
How many contacts? I asked my ship.
Over five hundred... six hundred. More every second.
Shit, I thought to the Alamo reflexively. Naturally, the ship didn’t respond. There was no need to.
-37-
First Sergeant Kwon met me at the door to my mobile headquarters unit, which amounted to little more than a fancy trailer with a lot of parabolic dishes on the roof.
“What’s wrong, sir?”
I pushed past him. “Sound a general alarm.”
Kwon obeyed wordlessly.
I laid both hands on the com system and keyed into the command channel. I relayed to all my commanders that a major attack was incoming, talking fast. I hoped I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt. All along, all of us had expected a large Macro counterattack. But they’d done practically nothing since their first failed charge. They’d let us take down two domes. Perhaps they’d been waiting for this moment.
How long before they reach us? I asked my ship.
Two minutes.
I blinked. How had they gotten so close? From what direction?
From every direction, replied the ship with aggravating calm. We are encircled. The circle is closing rapidly.
“This is it, men,” I shouted, thumbing my com system to the general channel so it hit every helmet in the camp. “The Macros are making their big counterattack. They are throwing everything they have at us. Prepare to fight in close quarters. Don’t bother to reunite with your units. Seek cover. Engage and destroy any enemy on sight.”
This time, there would be no nuking of the enemy at a safe distance. I’d always known that if they got in close to us, in sufficient numbers, we would be in trouble. It looked like this was that dreaded moment.
Alamo, why didn’t you detect them further out? I demanded. I felt betrayed by my own ship.
They appear not to be operating their shields.
What? You mean you can only detect them with their shields on?
The electromagnetic emanations from operating shield systems transmit an easily identifiable signal.
So, they are coming in silent and dark? They have no shields? I liked the sound of that. They would be much easier to destroy. Weapons systems like our tanks could do real damage with conventional shells.
Electromagnetic emanations are spiking. Readings indicate enemy shields are coming up now.
“Fire at anything you can see, now!” I roared over the broadcast channel. Every troop with a headset on heard my order. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then sporadic fire erupted. This quickly grew into a storm. The quiet night outside transformed into a din of explosions and stabbing beams of light. I suspected many of the troops were firing at shadows, but I figured it was worth it. If we could damage the Macros before they were on us, before their shields were up—maybe we had a chance.
Kwon and I helped each other strap on gear. We’d become lax, I chided myself. We’d trusted to our sensory systems. I, in particular, had been lulled by our victories.
“Dammit,” I growled.
Kwon kept adjusting straps and tugging at zippers without comment. We put our hoods on last.
Before we could get out of the command trailer, however, someone kicked it over. At least, that’s what it felt like. The floor heaved up and became the wall, then the ceiling, and then the wall again. I was falling around in a quick, sliding cycle. I crashed into furniture and fixtures and was dumped helplessly onto a pile of bodies. I felt the weight of my reactor unit crushing bones beneath me. Staffers gasped in shock. We rolled three and a half revolutions downhill, and by the time we stopped rolling everything in the trailer was broken and dark.
Most of the command staff were regulars. They had no nanites to harden their bodies or repair them after injury. All but one looked dead by the time we stopped rolling. Men and women with broken necks and soft, impaled bodies were strewn over the overturned furniture. I wanted to check them all for signs of life, but there simply wasn’t time. We had been overrun by the Macros and I had to get into the fight. Kwon kicked out a window and I fell out of the trailer after him.
A Macro—one of the big ones—stood over us. It was working its sixteen flashing belly-turrets, belching out gouts of energy a thousand times a second. We answered the fire with our two rifles. It took the turrets a second to seek and lock on us, and we burned those that tried before they could fire.
You could get into a rhythm with the machines, if you were good. The trick was to notice which turrets were seeking new targets. If they weren’t firing, that meant they were dangerous, because they might lock onto you next. Inside their tiny, independent minds, when they sought new targets, they always followed the same pattern. First they swiveled this way and that, sweeping the area. When they locked on something, they would splatter down fire until the target was classified as destroyed. Then they went back into seek mode again. If you put your beam on a seeking turret before it locked onto you, you could destroy it before it had time to lock and fire back. Then others would come and seek you, and you had to spot them and destroy them before they locked on. The system wasn’t perfect, however. If two or more turrets locked on you at once, you were toast.