The wall-repair machine had been trapped outside the walls when the attack came. Donning had ordered the machine rolled away from the colony, avoiding the main body of the aliens, hoping that they might ignore it.
No such luck.
The machine was still moving, slowly, its upper structure now entirely engulfed in flame. As the aliens streamed past on either side, they would shoot it with their rifles, blue arcs of light that slowly were slicing the robotic vehicle to ribbons. Finally a missile slipped through their overloaded defenses and struck the machine, causing it to explode into a shower of metal and flaming parts.
More missiles slipped past, slamming into the walls, one damaging auto-turret six. There were fewer aliens this time, but they were more organized, more determined than they'd ever been before. They'd blown up three of the single-shot cannon before the weapon could be used, but when they'd tried to destroy a fourth one, it shattered into splinters, a cleverly made decoy constructed from a hollow log. He had to give them that. The aliens were smart and resourceful in their own suicidal way.
"Sir," said Peak, "off on the southern horizon."
At first Donning thought it was a hill, but he'd studied every inch of that horizon, and there was no hill in that direction. Then he saw it was moving. He zoomed in.
Donning watched his screens in amazement. The Bolo looked like it had already been through a war. Its hull was charred and pitted, and smoke poured from a closed aft gunport. Though it bore a family resemblance to Khan, it was even bigger, a lumbering mountain of metal that waded through the jungle like a child wading through a pool. It was much slower than Khan too, though whether that was due to its modifications, its age, or damage sustained along the way, he couldn't be sure.
A few patches of yellow paint could still be seen on its side, remnants of someone's absurd attempt to make it look more like a standard mining machine.
Broken bits of welded-on mining gear hung in tatters from its hull, including a huge derrick that lay folded back over the main turret, deprived now of its original Hellbore cannon. He'd had hopes for this machine, that it might be able to fight for them, or mine for them, but now, seeing it, he didn't think it would be able to do either.
"Sir," said Peak, "I'm picking up some low power transmissions on one of the civilian mining bands. I think they're coming from the Bolo."
"What do they say?"
"Nothing yet, sir. Just a carrier wave and garbled static, but it's getting stronger."
"Keep monitoring. We have to know their intentions. Under the circumstances, we can't just open the gates and let them in."
Lord Whitestar trotted through the jungle, hunched forward because of the heavy weapon strapped to his back. The air was sweet in his lungs, the foliage as splendid and lush as he ever remembered it, the sun like a jewel as it peeked through the canopy of trees. It felt good to run, good to carry the power of the Ones Above. He had clarity now.
He knew what he had to do.
There were chants for this, to give the warrior focus, to ease his fear, to give him the courage to make the final sacrifice for victory. He had learned those chants, practiced them since he was a hatchling, but now that it was time, he found he had no need of them. He was free of fear, his resolve as sharp as a knife blade, his determination complete.
Instead, in his mind he rehearsed what he must do. Already the diversionary attacks were under way. There would be confusion on the meadows, and his purpose would be to stay away from those attacks, to avoid enemy fire as much as possible. He carried no other weapon, not even a knife, that might attract enemy attention. A loose wrapping of rags helped to disguise the weapon. He had already chosen his spot on the wall, a place that still showed cracks and scars from their last attack, one positioned so that his warriors could do the most damage when they broke through.
Scarbeak had said the weapon would shield him, but he thought that was foolishness. He would simply not get shot. That would be the way to do it. He would sprint up to the wall, arm the weapon, press the face of it against one of those cracks, and press the activation stud.
Probably he would never even feel it. But if what Scarbeak had told him was true, the Fist would explode a column of fire directly into the wall. Almost certainly it would punch through. Ideally it would do terrible damage to the structures and people on the other side, and cause that whole part of the wall to collapse.
From there, his warriors would stream inside, killing every living thing that they saw: warriors, females, hatchlings. All would die, and the world would be cleansed of one more human-devil nest.
Ahead he could see fire, hear the cries of warriors echoing off the walls of the enemy, smell the glory of battle. And then he turned his head and saw something that shattered his resolve. Looming over the trees was an ogre, and it was coming his way. Suddenly, nothing was clear at all.
"Commander," said Peak, "I'm getting voice transmission from the Bolo."
"Put it on the speaker."
"Unit . . . Dinochro . . . colony . . ."
It was still too broken to understand.
"Can you filter that somehow?"
Peak looked very unhappy. Doubtless his console could clear up the message, but it was beyond his limited skills. "I'll do what I can."
"Meanwhile, let's see if we can talk to them. Patch me through."
He watched as Peak pushed something on his console. "Unidentified Bolo, this is Commander Donning of the Colonial Militia. We can't yet receive you, but we're trying to clear up your signal. We're currently under attack. You may want to withdraw until we can repel the aliens."
No response.
"Keep trying!" Donning ordered.
Tyrus listened to the hidden speaker in wonderment. He'd thought he might never hear a live human voice again.
"Dirk, when they can hear us, let me talk to them."
"Understood," Dirk said.
Tyrus took a moment to try and catch his breath. It was getting hard to talk, hard to even breathe. His whole existence was a dull ache, threaded with sharp pains. He had to focus, to stay alert long enough to save this colony.
"Where's the bomb?"
"Two thousand meters and closing," Dirk said. "I can obtain only an approximate position and I can't make a visual sighting. It may already be within blast radius of the fortifications."
Tyrus tried to make himself think. They had to stop that bomb. "Can you . . . shoot it?"
"There might be a secondary explosion, but I do not believe a direct hit would trigger the bomb."
"Do it."
"I don't have a visual identification of the target."
"Might be hidden. Camouflage."
"Commander, I have voice contact. Putting you on."
Somebody started to talk from the speaker.
"Shut up," he gasped. "Listen. There's a fusion bomb. Suicide weapon. Get to shelters."
Someone had left the mike open, and he heard someone shouting a rapid chain of orders before it was cut off.
"I see an unarmed alien, alone," Dirk said, "carrying a heavy object wrapped in rags."
"Moving directly towards the walls?" Tyrus asked.
"Yes."
"Get him," Tyrus ordered.
He heard a secondary battery fire.
Dirk jerked into faster motion, slamming him into the bulkhead and intense pain.
Whitestar dropped his pace, confused. This was not the same ogre as before. This one was bigger, but it was already wounded, some of its weapons seemingly missing or damaged. It lacked the single "mountain-killer" horn of the other machine. But an ogre was an ogre, and his blood told him to return to his original mission, to go destroy it.
He almost turned. Then he thought of the warriors who would die needlessly. The ogre would be dead, but the walls would still stand, and the other ogre might yet return.
Destroy the nest. That was what he must do.
He moved away from the ogre and doubled his pace. To his alarm, the ogre turned to follow. Had it detected his weapon? He must not be stopped.
Then he saw the mouth of one of the ogre's firebolts turn toward him, and knew there was no hope. He stopped, faced his attacker, closed his eyes, and awaited his death without fear.
A blinding light that came even through his closed eyelids, an indescribable noise, an energy that felt like invisible insects whizzing through his flesh, and a heat that made his fur smolder.
Then it was over, and nobody was more surprised than he was that he was still alive.
"I don't believe it," said the voice from the speaker. "Your Bolo just fired on a lone alien from maybe five hundred meters, and he's still standing."
"Dirk," Tyrus said, "malfunction?"
"My weapons are operating on reduced power, but he should have been vaporized with several gigawatts of energy to spare."
"Then what happened?" Tyrus demanded.
"My analysis indicates some sort of personal battle screen," Dirk said, "possibly deriving power inductively from my own weapon. I register that the alien has probably already sustained a fatal radiation overdose, but that may not stop him from completing his mission."
"Damn, damn, damn," the voice on the speaker said.
Tyrus groaned. "Keep firing, Dirk, keep firing!"
There was a cracking noise, and the lights went out for a moment. Tyrus knew that was not a good sign at all.
"The power buss to my weapons system has just failed."
"Stop him, Dirk. Any way you can."
"Yes, Commander," Dirk said.
Donning shouted into his mike, directing his snipers and fixed guns to fire on the lone figure now sprinting for their southwest wall, but their shots glanced away without effect. The noncombatants were already in their shelters, but unfortunately, those shelters began beneath the streets just a hundred yards inside that wall.
Donning knew, without a doubt, that those walls would not stop a fusion bomb set off close, and neither would the shelters just beyond the walls protect the colonists.
Right here, right now, this battle was either going to be won or lost.
"Keep firing everything we have at him!" shouted Donning.
As he watched, nothing seemed to work.
The alien kept moving, getting closer and closer.
The old Bolo still churned forward, its guns dead.
Perhaps, so were they all.
Whitestar forced himself toward the wall. Though the enemy's weapons bounced away harmlessly, he felt sick, injured inside in a way he couldn't describe or understand. No matter. He had only to survive a few more seconds under the miraculous protection of the Ones Above, and then it wouldn't matter. The ramparts were just ahead of him now—
Then someone rolled a wall in his way, blotted out the sun.
He barely stopped himself from tumbling into the churning tracks and giant spinning wheels.
He looked around, stunned. He was under the ogre!
He was blocked from the walls. It would be so easy now, to lift the weapon over his head, trigger it against the belly of the beast—
But that was not his mission.
He saw sunlight at the rear of the thing, like the opening of a tunnel, and he sprinted for it.
He would complete his task. Not even the ogre would stop him.
"Where is he?" Tyrus demanded.
"He's under our treads, Commander," Dirk said. "In the galley between tread four and five. He's trying to escape."
"Run him down."
"The bomb may be triggered."
"Will be . . . anyway. Do it. That's an order!"
Tyrus felt the passage turn around him as the Bolo spun in its own length.
Suddenly, the spot of light in front of Whitestar began to move, spinning away like a ghost.
He found himself in a hellish passage with moving walls of machinery, all ready to eat him alive. One misstep and he would have failed, smashed by the ogre.
He ran towards the light, was forced to double back, saw light the other way, but was forced back from there as well.
If he did not make it from under this beast, he would at least take the beast with him.
As he ran, he unstrapped the weapon from his back. The wall of the human nest was only a few meters away. If he only knew the direction, perhaps he could still trigger the weapon from here.
But he was confused after turning so many times, confused by the spinning ogre over his head. He hesitated, making sure the lights-of-function showed the correct color.
The weapon was ready.
His attention to the weapon cost him. He never saw the tread until it was on him like a set of giant metal teeth. It threw him down on the ground, crushing him up to the waist.
He ignored the pain, worked his free hand to find the firing stud.
"I have him pinned under my number five tread, Commander," Dirk said.
"Good job, good . . . job." Tyrus was very tired. Maybe he could finally sleep now. The colony had been saved.
"Good-bye, Commander," Dirk said.
The explosion shook the walls like a groundquake, even in the C&C, mounted as it was on shock absorbers.
Donning was tossed to the floor, but he quickly scrambled back to his chair, watching the screens. A moment before, the old Bolo had run right over the top of the alien.
He had cheered, thinking the alien had been crushed and the bomb hadn't exploded.
But he had been wrong. Now, on the screen, there was a sight that he would never forget: the blasted, 14,000-ton hull of the Bolo flipping high into the air, end over end, like a tossed coin.