Donning could have had the new command and control center installed anywhere in the colony. It was self-contained, weatherproof, and could have communicated over an area many times larger than the colony. But he had chosen to have it set up just behind the southern ramparts, where it was still well protected, but close enough to the walls that he could easily climb up and visit the troops there. He knew that, as the siege dragged on, and a siege is what this was, the morale of the people manning the walls and defenses would be everything. So each morning he tried to make the circuit of those walls, to let everyone see him, to stop occasionally, ask people how they were doing, and offer a few words of encouragement.
The perimeter was too long to comfortably walk, and staying well behind the walls in a ground-car would have defeated the purpose, so he'd had a small electric scooter hauled up. Each morning found him on that scooter, zipping along the catwalks and weapons platforms built into its top and rear, making his rounds. It wasn't terribly dignified or impressive, but he somehow thought that the people serving under him appreciated the effort.
This morning, his first stop was at a sniper platform a few hundred meters counter-clockwise from the C&C. Manning the post this day was Private Vetta Rampling. Donning had been keeping an eye on her. She had no military experience, but she'd lived on frontier worlds most of her life. She knew how to handle a weapon, and wasn't afraid to use them with deadly intent. Given how many of his troops had started out as file clerks and machine operators, as afraid of their own weapons as the enemy, he wished he had a couple dozen more like her.
He rolled up and stepped off the scooter. "Good morning, Private."
She gave him a sloppy salute. Rampling wasn't much on military protocol, but that described a lot of the people under his command. Actually it wasn't that, so much as that she seemed distracted, concerned with something out beyond the wall.
"Problem, Private?" He stepped up and looked out the gun slit. He wasn't overly cautious, a shimmer field built into the opening made it almost impossible for an enemy sniper to target anyone behind the wall.
Things looked quiet outside. Below them, a remote-controlled construction machine was repairing wall damage from the last attack, a boom moving back and fourth spraying fast-hardening duracrete into the openings. Beyond that, a bit of low fog hung to the meadows, and the tree line seemed quiet.
"They're out there, Commander, getting ready to attack again."
Overactive imagination? But she seemed to be suggesting fact, and not just speculation. "Are your eyes better than mine, Private?"
"Maybe, but that's not it." She looked at him, as though wondering if he'd think her crazy. "I don't suppose you can smell them, can you, sir?"
He chuckled in spite himself. "I don't much want to smell them, Private."
"No, sir, really. I can smell them out there, smell their mood, I think. It could be part of how they communicate, or how they coordinate their attacks. And what I'm smelling today, I smelled before the last two attacks started. I think they're massing out there."
Donning considered for a moment. He'd read somewhere that women had much more sensitive noses than men. Maybe she was onto something. He touched his earpiece. "Peak."
"Yes, sir," the voice came back.
"Are you reading anything unusual on the perimeter?"
"I was just about to call you, sir. We've got a lot of movement beyond the tree line. Not as much as the last attack, but I think things could be heating up."
"I'm on my way." He put the headset on standby and climbed back on his scooter, turning it back towards the C&C. "Private, when you get a chance, see if any of the other women have been smelling what you've been smelling, and if you get any other insights into what's about to happen, you send them up to C&C immediately."
"Yes, sir!"
Despite his concern about the impending attack, Donning smiled as he rode back to the C&C. Every clue, every insight they got into the aliens, how they thought, how they operated, made them easier to fight. For the longest time it had been difficult for Donning to think beyond the next hour, the next day, the next attack. But now he could finally start to project beyond that.
The Concordiat wasn't trying to keep them here to cower behind their walls forever. They were keeping them here to mine, and that meant leaving the relative safety of the compound. Houchen had told him about the Bolo mining machine on its way from the Odinberg Colony. Even if it wasn't any use to them as a combat vehicle, they might be able to use it for its mining capabilities. Maybe they could be back in the mining business faster than anyone imagined.
Yet even as he was thinking these things, some part of his mind was reminding him that there was a fine line between competence and overconfidence.
Scarbeak had put on his finest robe before heading to the gathering. It was made of a soft fabric obtained by endlessly pounding the fibrous shells of a certain jungle nut and dyed purple and red using the condensed juice of fermented berries. At the bottom, it came almost to the tops of his feet and a hood could be raised to cover his head. A knotted rope around the middle of his chest secured the garment.
He liked the robe and wore it on those public occasions when he wished to be noticed. Whitestar used to make fun of it. The men of their clan normally wore little clothing. "It makes you look like an old woman," he would say. But Scarbeak just ignored him. He was old and entitled to his eccentricities.
Surely this day, as he entered the clearing, he was noticed, though there may have been other reasons. At the far edge stood Sharpwing and a group of his loyalist supporters, a low fog swimming around their ankles. They made small, derisive noises as Scarbeak walked up.
"Where," demanded Sharpwing, "is he, old man?"
"Is he afraid to come?" asked one Sharpwing supporter.
"Does he send you to fight for him?" laughed another.
"He will fight," said Scarbeak, tucking his hands inside his robe. "Wait, you will see." He assumed a waitful posture and proceeded to ignore the pack of noisy hatchlings that Sharpwing had brought with him.
Time passed. The sun was higher in the sky. Scarbeak enjoyed watching the fog thin, and finally disappear. Insects began to buzz about in search of food. It would be a good day, today, he thought.
Sharpwing and his followers were becoming visibly impatient. "Where is he?" demanded Sharpwing, stepping threateningly close to the old warrior. "When will he be here?"
Scarbeak made a little sound of amusement. "I do not believe that I said he would be here at all, only that he would fight."
"What do you mean?"
Scarbeak looked at the young warrior with as much disgust as he could show. "He has cheated you of the two things you claimed to want: his life, and the right to take the Fist of the Ones Above against the enemy. He has gone to lead our warriors through the walls and into the aliens' nest. He will strike against them with his last breath, and bring honor to his name and those who fight at his side."
Sharpwing looked confused.
"Don't you smell the fight in the air, young one? No, of course not, you smell only your own stink of combat, that of you and your friends. This is how an army could slip by you in the jungle and you would never know."
Sharpwing hissed in rage. "Did my sire send you to do this, to taunt me?"
"I came on my own, to delay you as long as I could, for you'll never catch him in time. By the time you arrive, the battle will be all but over, and the people will talk of it. 'It was glorious,' they will say. 'What courage Whitestar had at the end. But where was Sharpwing? Where were his followers? How did such a fine warrior sire such a coward?'"
Hissing, Sharpwing turned to leave in disgust.
"Wait," said Scarbeak. "Do not leave without your gift. It is something your father wanted you to have, but could never bear to give you himself."
Curious, Scarbeak hesitated, then turned back toward the old warrior. "Give it to me," he said.
Under his robe, Scarbeak's old knife, unused for years, felt good in his hand. He slid the long, curved blade from under the fabric with one smooth motion, and plunged it into Sharpwing's stomach. He used all his strength to pull up on the handle and twist, a motion that would slice into Sharpwing's entrails, ensuring a fatal wound.
Sharpwing looked down in horror at the wound, but somehow his hand found his own blade. He stabbed the blade deep into the old man's chest, using his superior strength to force it between the closely-spaced ribs, digging to find something vital.
A bloody cough dribbled down from Scarbeak's open mouth, his head drifted backwards, his eyes already turning milky. "My lord," he said, his voice a gurgle, "I do precede you into death."
"Can you hear me?"
Tyrus groaned and turned his head. It hurt too much for him not to be alive, though he wasn't sure how he'd survived.
"Tyrus. Commander. Can you hear me?"
Dirk. The voice had a name, and he remembered it. Dirk. The mining machine made from a Bolo.
It was hard to breathe. His chest hurt. He managed a wet, gurgling cough.
"I could not get you to the autodoc, but I was able to adjust my internal life support to increase the oxygen pressure considerably. If you can move, I suggest you be careful not to create a spark or flame."
"No moving. Don't worry. No moving."
"I need you, Commander. The inhibitions placed on my combat reflexes are too strong. I cannot fight without you."
He suddenly felt a little more alert. "Fight? Fight who? Fight where?"
"We are nearly to Rustenberg. I could proceed there directly and get you to medical care. However, among my functional sensors is a suite designed to detect radioactive materials. These produced a certain signature from the alien suicide bomb."
"You—you found another one?"
"Rapidly moving through the jungle towards the colony. Commander, from the transmissions I have monitored, this colony has resisted repeated attacks by the enemy, but the enemy has yet to employ such weapons here. The colonists have not been warned."
"They have a Bolo," he said. He studied the conduits and ducts on the ceiling of the passageway, memorizing every detail, and wondering if they would be the last thing he ever saw.
"The Bolo left for the Marikana, to repel a new attack. They have only their fixed defenses. And if I am interpreting my sensors correctly, this device is different than the one that was used at Odinberg, possibly much more powerful."
Tyrus coughed, feeling something wet on his lips. "You're asking me what to do."
"I cannot fight without you. I will not risk your life further without your direct order."
He closed his eyes. He remembered the words he had lasered onto metal back at the Odinberg Colony.
They will be avenged.
It had been an impulse, an afterthought. Perhaps they had been the wrong words. Perhaps the right words would have been, Never again.
He opened his eyes, tried to clear his mind. Then he said aloud to Dirk. "Target that bomb. Let's intercept it if we can."
"It will be a close thing," said Dirk.
"Did you open the rest of those gunports yet?"
"I have not tried. The overload could damage other systems. I have been waiting for the right moment."
"This would be it. Time to fight, Dirk. Do what you were born to do. Do what you have to do."
"Yes, Commander."
All around him, the gunport servos whirred, then howled, then screamed. The lights in the passage dimmed—or was it just his vision? Then a crack, like an old style cannon, and another, and another, and another.
"Six of eighteen ports have opened, Commander. The actuators on the rest have burned out, but I have limited secondary armaments at the ready."
Something about Dirk's voice sounded different to Tyrus, or was it just his imagination?
"I am fighting unit DRK, Mark XXIV of the Dinochrome Brigade. I proudly serve under Unit Commander Tyrus Ogden. We go to defend humanity against alien aggression."
"Sounds good to me," said Tyrus, ignoring the pain in his chest. "Let's do it."