Archer smiled, too, as she winked conspiratorially at them. “We need your help, guys. This is a special game, like my buddy there says. Stay secret, stay hidden, stay cool.” The extra maternal boost must have been enough, because the kids smiled back and nodded.
Juni hesitated, then herded the kids into the back again, leaving the soldiers looking at each other.
“Thanks, Johansen. Thanks, Archer,” Singh said.
“Nyet problema, Sarge.” Archer gave the inner door a puzzled look. “Why’d he bring them out here? Like he was trying to dump them on us.”
“He hasn’t got kids of his own,” Adowa said. “You can tell. And he’s really shook up by this. He didn’t say it like the old son of a bitch did, but he’s another one of those guys who think because they spent ten years in college they understand everything.”
Johansen nodded. “Only he’s realizing that he can’t understand this. The real world is always a shock, but this is a lot worse than those guys usually deal with, and all he can do is take care of the kids.”
“Well, I’d love to help,” Archer said, “but I got other things to do right now, and he doesn’t.”
“You can bet he realizes that, too, and isn’t too thrilled to know it.”
A few minutes later Burgos and Stein came back, Burgos shaking her head. “Just empty sheds out there. There’s hay in a small barn for the cow. Nothing we can use. That shed where they had their emergency gear was completely trashed. Nothing usable in it. Why the hell didn’t they have that stuff in here with them?”
Singh waved around. “Living quarters. You should know some of that survival gear isn’t allowed to be stowed in living areas. Flares and stuff, because of the hazard. How’s the back of this place look?”
“Solid wall. Maybe bad storms always come from that way. The sides of the building back from here have a couple of doors we need to seal off, but the only windows in those areas are slits high up. If we guard the front and sides of this room we’ll be okay, though the Izkop could dig through at other places in time.” She sat down, holding her rifle across her chest, her expression gloomy.
“The civs have been milking that cow,” Stein offered. “Feeding it hay, too.”
“The Izkop would have spotted that if there’s any around,” Singh said, then looked over as Goldera and Nassar returned. “What’d you see?”
Goldera swung his arm in a wide arc through the east, north, and west. “They’re out there, Sarge. I knew it. Lots of them. I could see groups of Izkop scattered all around in those directions. None of them seemed to be focused on here, but they were out there all over the place. Not real easy to see, either. I could only spot them when they moved. But it looked clear to the south.”
“Clear?” Singh questioned.
“Yeah, Sarge. Not an Izkop in sight that way. There’s decent cover and the terrain’s easy. We could move fast.”
Singh leaned back, frowning, then glanced at Johansen.
Johansen didn’t hesitate. “Too easy.” Like the landing zone had looked.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Singh said. “That good cover to the south could be hiding Izkop who aren’t moving. Still, they might be expecting us to be keeping to the rougher territory, and there was another research outpost northwest of here they might think we were aiming for.”
This time Johansen gestured toward the back of the house. “Those kids couldn’t move fast. If it was just us, maybe. But not with them.”
“Yeah, that pretty much settles it, doesn’t it?” Singh looked out of the closest window. “Even if it’s clear to the south, we can’t go without leaving the civs here to the Izkop.”
“It’s a chance,” Goldera insisted. “Maybe our only chance to live.”
Adowa gave him a hard look. “We’ve seen those kids. You should take a look, too. How you going to live knowing you left them to the Izkop?”
“That’s the thing,” Singh agreed. “We came here to protect the civs. It looks like these are the only civs left, so I figure we have to stay here and protect them.”
“But staying here won’t make any difference,” Goldera protested. “I wasn’t talking about leaving anybody, just us all making a run for it. I won’t leave any kids.”
“They couldn’t keep up.” Singh looked around. “So we hold here as long as we can, soldiers. Let’s get things set up for a siege. None of us were high enough in the food chain to know how close other ships are, or what time the Sara was supposed to send in her status pulse each day. Another ship might already be on the way, might get here in time to lift us all out, if we hold out long enough. Make sure those back doors are sealed and that there are no other ways in.”
When Ariana returned, her eyes reddened but her expression determined, they tallied up the food resources at the outpost. “With you here as well as the children,” she said, “we probably have about six days worth of food left. We’ve already been cut off for a while and we’re not set up for this population.”
“What about the cow?” Stein asked. “She’s pretty well-fed. Lot of meat on her. I can do the butchering.”
Ariana gave him a wan look. “The cow is… was… an experiment, to see how the Izkop would react to her. We were hoping… her milk has helped stretch our supplies.”
“I understand, ma’am,” Stein assured her. “A milk-cow isn’t like a beef animal. People get attached to them. But it looks like we’ll need that meat.”
“We wait six days,” Singh decided. “On the seventh day, if no relief ship has shown up, we kill the cow.” The sergeant stood up, stretching, much harder to see as darkness fell rapidly with the disappearance of the sun. “We’re all exhausted, too tired to keep talking tonight, but the Izkop are out there. We stand watches, two hours each, until sunrise. You handle the schedule, Johansen. Make sure the sentries know not to show themselves and not to show any lights, and to wake the rest of us if they hear anything even if it doesn’t sound dangerous.”
“Yes, sergeant.”
Johansen saw and heard nothing unusual during his portion of the watch that night. None of the others reported detecting activity, either. But at dawn Johansen was awakened by a string of curses recited in a monotonous tone by Singh. “What happened?”
“Take a look,” Singh offered, beckoning out the window he was kneeling beside with Burgos, who had the last watch. “Everybody else, get up now!”
Raising himself cautiously, Johansen felt a pit open inside him as he looked at what the dawn’s light had revealed. The area around the compound and for about five hundred meters beyond was empty, but outside that what seemed to be a solid mass of Izkop stood in apparently endless ranks, spears in their hands, gazing silently at the human building. Like the Izkop they had fought in the valley, these wore no armor, just odd pants which came only partway down the upper legs and partway up the abdomen.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Burgos said, her hands twisting on her rifle as she stared at the Izkop.
“Nobody heard anything,” Singh replied. “Or saw anything. These guys are very good at concealment, but we’re also too used to depending on the sensors in the armor to hear and see trouble.”
Ariana gazed out with a hopeless expression, Juni seemed puzzled as well as frightened, while Scorse glared hatred.
The other soldiers took positions at the windows, weapons ready. Most of them simply muttered despairing curses, but after Stein had gazed out for a while he looked troubled. “Sarge?” he questioned. “There’s a lot of them. I don’t think we got enough ammo.”
Adowa started laughing, then Johansen joined in, then Archer, Goldera, and Nassar. Even Singh laughed, and finally Stein added his hoots to the mix. Only Burgos sat silent, as well as all of the civilians, who were now watching the soldiers in amazement.