But what I did glean from her little monologue was that she was nervous. People who have something to protect can be manipulated by threatening the precious thing they hold so dear. In Turovs case, her downfall was her career. It had been put together on shaky ground, and I knew there were plenty of people who wanted to see her fall. If you were to ask me, Id say shed become a bit paranoid about it.

The opportunist in me moved quickly to capitalize on her state of mind. "Well sir, theres an easy way out of all your worries. Just send us the three lifters."

"You want me to risk more invaluable a.s.sets?" she demanded. "Fine. But youll get only one lifter, not three. And Ill only wait four hours for you to complete the evacuation. Tell Winslade that-I can hear him shivering nearby. After four hours, Im going to fire the big guns and obliterate the region!"

"Thank you, sir!" I said, but shed already closed the channel.

I gave Winslade a big grin. "She went for it."

"I heard. One lifter? Thats never going to be enough. Weve got a full cohort of exhausted troops and a cohort of heavy cavalry."

Blinking, I nodded. The sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been listening in. I had no idea how hed done it.

"Well sir," I said. "Ill give up my jump seat to a Solstice man if youll give up yours. Sure, itll be a squeeze, but if we shove a few units into the top section and stack them up in the officers quarters, well make out."

Winslade looked put out but resigned. "More likely, well lose half our men breaking out. That will solve all our weight problems."

I nodded. Id been thinking that too, but didnt want to say it out loud.

As we prepared for our exodus, I wondered about the bargain Id made with Turov. From her point of view, Id blackmailed her. That would probably cost me later on.

Part of my private motivation was to save machine lives as well as human. I didnt think they deserved ma.s.s extinction, and I still held out hope we could make friends with them at some point.

I hoped these frigging machines would appreciate the effort eventually, but I didnt think they ever would.

-21-.

It all went down fast and furious once the lifter gave us the go-code. The lifter pilot hadnt landed yet, mind you, he was letting his clumsy craft drift down toward the LZ, checking out every inch of ground for machines. Watching the operation unfold on the command screens, I could tell the crew wasnt keen on landing in the middle of a pile of giant hungry machines, any one of which was a quarter the size of the lifter itself. That would have been akin to ringing the dinner bell again, and I couldnt blame them for being worried. All that refined metal in one digestible package? Theyd be eaten alive-literally.

Winslade began quietly filtering troops out onto the valley floor. For about five minutes, we got away with it. By that time, two full units were out there, one of cavalry and one Solstice unit of infantry. I wasnt sure exactly what the infantry was supposed to do, but I hoped their weaponeers could put some hurt downrange with their belchers if the machines charged us.

For once, I wasnt in the front-line formation. My squad, along with the rest of Graves unit, was queued up to come out next. We were supposed to sneak out there quietly and hide in a fold of the land, out of sight from the machines-but we never got to that point.

The sneaking ended when somebody transmitted something. Wed all been told to silence our transmissions, of course. We were to run silent, keeping every signal muted. We werent even supposed to use our suit-to-suit intercoms. But somebody, out of the hundreds, had screwed up. It was bound to happen in a large nervous formation of troops. h.e.l.l, some of us couldnt remember to silence our tappers when we went to the movies.

The machines froze. All across the valley, theyd been scooting randomly over the walls between us and the badlands. They all stopped moving for about a second, then reversed themselves. My squad was next in line to come out of our particular hole at that point, and I was provided a front-row seat on the action.

"Thats it!" Graves shouted. "Calvary, forward! Well take up the left flank, right where that big one is bearing down on the infantry. I want each squad to pick a target and take it down. Move!"

We thundered out of the tunnels. Finding themselves underfoot, the Solstice infantry scattered, throwing themselves out of the way of our grinding rush. One down-stroke from my dragons legs would squash an unarmored trooper as flat as a flapjack.

We couldnt afford to p.u.s.s.y-foot around and make the infantry feel good about themselves this time. They were secondary, and everyone knew it.

My squad followed right behind me. We thundered up to the top of a small fold in the land, lining up on top of it. The formation was a strange one as we were operating under the a.s.sumption the enemy had no ballistic weaponry of their own. Instead of taking cover and choosing firing positions we knew were safe, wed opted for maximum viewing range. I felt exposed, and I hoped it wouldnt matter. All Graves cared about was providing every dragon with a clear line of sight to the approaching enemy.

It was uncanny to watch the machines decide as a single ma.s.s to charge our position. The machines didnt spin around-instead they sort of reshaped themselves into metal mounds that leaned in our direction rather than away from us. Like teardrops of mercury, they shunted and shivered their way down the walls of the canyon with new purpose. They came from every direction, and they looked determined.

Graves sudden move placed us in the middle of the action with startling speed. The other cavalry unit that had already been deployed took their time adjusting themselves. They took aim and let loose. They fired first, but they only beat us by about ten seconds.

My squad had been given leave to engage, so I did wait for the entire unit to line up next to us.

"Squad, Im marking our target. Use your computer-aided sights. Follow my lead-and dont miss!"

When the target reticle changed from red to green, I squeezed the triggers in my gauntlets. The air cracked, and I could feel the vibration of the big cannons recoil throughout my machine. Dragons unloaded their spinal cannons on every side of me moments later, and minor secondary shockwaves set my machine swaying. Being on two legs, dragons werent as stable as wheeled or tracked vehicles, but the gyros whined and motors fought to compensate automatically. My aim would have been spoiled if it wasnt for these computer-guided adjustments.

The opening sh.e.l.ls hammered the outer hull of my chosen target machine, punching through that first critical hole. The rest of my squad piled on, nailing the machine Id painted with plenty more explosive power. The machine was gutted and went into an odd spin for a few seconds before it went down.

More and more were coming, however. Wed waited too long, I realized. It was close to dark, and the lifter should have landed at high noon. The main herd of machines was coming back to feed, and the commotion of battle would surely bring more of them. They didnt seem to have much in the way of fear circuitry. The only time Id witnessed hesitation in one of them was when wed met up with the mama machine back near the river. Maybe they behaved differently when protecting young. Other than in that instance, the machines were always eager to feed on fresh metals.

Before the third unit of cavalry was in position to join the fight, our unit had taken out three machines. The other deployed unit had only nailed one. I knew that Graves had told his fellow centurions about focusing all their fire on a single spot on a single machine, but it looked like his peers hadnt taken the suggestion to heart. They were spamming all the machines with fire. Anyone who had a good shot took it. As a result, there were a number of machines approaching us that were damaged and smoking, but they were still in the fight.

I did note a new behavior among the damaged machines, the ones that were still approaching-they were spinning. Going around and around like wheels on a tram. They were becoming flatter, too. That was a puzzle, but there wasnt really any time to worry about it. We had our own problems.

Wed knocked out a number of the enemy, but we werent doing it fast enough. About ten of them were getting too close.

Thats when I heard a whistle and the Solstice infantry around me surged forward. Id pretty much ignored them up until now. They were helpless in my opinion-but I soon found out I was wrong.

I saw Centurion Belter. She was a dozen meters away, directing her troops on the front line personally. When one of the machines got within a hundred meters, she shouted to Graves.

"Well take that one!"

Graves dragon waved a gripper, indicating it was all hers. I noticed that the intended target had started spinning as well-what was that all about? Clearly, they were doing it on purpose. It took a long second, while a dozen light troops surged forward at Centurion Belters orders, for me to realize why they were spinning.

The behavior had to be intended to make it harder to group our sh.e.l.ls. I could tell it was working when we targeted our next machine. They were all spinning now, and I found we couldnt punch through the armor as easily. We tried-but failed to stop the machine in a single salvo. The tactic showed an alarming ability to adapt and reason. When they spun, our attacks were nowhere near as effective.

I ordered my squad to extend force-blades. The machine that was bearing down on us wasnt dying peacefully. I felt that it was our duty to stand on our chosen ridge of land and protect the infantry.

Centurion Belter had different ideas. I wanted to shout at her to bring her troops back behind my line-but I didnt. She outranked me, and if she wanted to watch her people die bravely, well, that was her own d.a.m.ned business.

When her troops got to the machine, they threw themselves on their backs, letting it lift its skirt and slide right over them. A bluish glow came from every man thus consumed.

Thats when I caught on. Theyd been issued grav-plasma grenades. Strange blue-glowing weapons, the grenades didnt work like normal fragmentation explosives. Instead, they gathered up loose surrounding material and then fired it outward with fantastic force. Even water could be turned into a weapon by transforming a puddle into a thousand needles that punched through everything nearby.

The men who went under the machine released their grenades inside the guts of the monster. The effects were dramatic. It stopped spinning, flew off-kilter and sagged. Whatever control mechanism inside it that kept it moving had died. Mindless, it flopped, shivered, and turned into a smoking wreck.

About half the troops whod been sent under those skirts managed to crawl back out again. I was impressed by Solstice bravery, having never seen them in action before.

Unfortunately, our efforts hadnt impressed one critical person: the commander of the lifter that was about to land in our midst. Wed done our best to form a circle around the LZ and keep it clear, but there had been breaches. In fact, one of the machines was right there, trying to eat a trio of dragons that it had managed to knock flat.

"Sir!" I shouted to Graves, who was pretty close to my position. "Weve got a breach behind us."

"Keep your eyes on your designated targets, McGill. The breach is someone elses problem."

"But sir, the lifter has changed course. I think hes going to land up on the canyon wall."

Graves looked and cursed. "That idiot! McGill, this is a priority directive. All of this fighting is for nothing if the machines take out that lifter. Well never get out of this valley alive-none of us."

"I got that, Centurion. What do you want me to do?"

"Run your squad up to the lifter. Keep the machines off it until our column can move to support. We cant all run up there now. Wed lose our front line, and the enemy would overwhelm us."

"Roger sir, on my way!"

My squad wheeled and charged uphill after me a moment later. My troops followed me without a single complaint. I figured that was probably because Carlos was already dead. No one had revived him and returned him to my squadron yet-and I couldnt blame them.

We thundered up the steep slope to a plateau where the lifter seemed to be coming down. Sure, the plateau wasnt full of machines at the moment, but once they detected that ma.s.sive structure of refined metals landing, I was sure theyd flock to the spot. Instead of choosing a safer landing spot, the pilot had ensured that we couldnt protect him.

When we reached the venting lifter and ran around the base of its ma.s.sive skids, the first of the machines arrived. It wasnt the biggest Id ever seen, but it was undamaged, and it was spinning.

The fight with this lone machine was brief, but violent. We blasted it all at once at point-blank range. The machine twirled away and crashed down in the valley below.

Making a quick decision I chose a spot near the aft of the lifter to make our stand. Id no sooner gotten there than I was surprised by a new development. The lifter crew contacted me directly.

"Cavalry squadron, that area is restricted."

The words rang in my helmet. It was a shock since we were supposed to be observing radio silence. Down in the mess of the valley, where a pitched battle was ongoing, I could understand such a breach. But up here, well, we didnt want any new company.

There were no more transmissions for a few seconds as I didnt want to reply and thus create a further breach of my orders. This didnt sit well with the lifter crew.

"This is lifter zero-niner. Are you deaf? Get away from my exhaust ports. If I need to run, I want-"

"Excuse me, sir," I interrupted. "This is a no-transmission zone. Youre endangering everyone in the region. Maintain radio silence. Veteran McGill, out."

He shut up after that, and we moved to another spot farther from his jets. Id just begun to hope that the machines were too busy with the mess in the valley to take notice when the next one showed up, humping over the frosty land like it was late for dinner-which, in a way, I supposed it was.

"On my mark, fire! Mark!"

We let loose on the machine and took it down. But it was already too late. A half-dozen more were scooting toward us out of the spikes and boulders.

"Vet," Sargon shouted nearby, "the lifter has put down her ramp. The infantry are boarding."

I took a second to look, and I saw he was right. Graves, Belter and a few other centurions were holding the line in the valley. The rest of the troops, both striding cavalry inside their dragons and the scrambling light troops, were flowing up to our position out of the tunnels. They were moving fast, but not quite in a panic. The lifter ramp had been deployed- the pilot had finally grown a set and committed. I had to give him that much.

Looking back at the approaching machines, I made a grim decision.

"Squad, ADVANCE!" I roared, making my own ears ring in my helmet. I wanted to make sure they heard me over the roar of battle. External speakers allowed me to send my voice booming around me.

Leading the way, I approached the nearest machine, leaving the shadow of the lifter behind. It had just begun to spin when my squad blew it apart.

"Advance!" I shouted again. I have to give my people credit, not one of them disobeyed or asked me if Id lost my ever-loving mind. They just followed me from one lonely pile of rocks to the next.

The enemy machines were rushing in piecemeal. They were focused on the lifter still, not us. That was not what I wanted, so I opened up my radio. I turned on every channel and broadcast to the entire cohort-h.e.l.l, I bet they couldve heard me up on the big ships above the permanent cloud cover if they were listening.

"Centurion Graves, were breaking radio-silence to lead the enemy machines away from the lifter. Please dont respond. This is Veteran James McGill, and Ill now serenade you with my best rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic."

With that, I began to sing. Now, Ill be the first to admit that Im no songbird. Anyone with the misfortune to attend the same church I did back on Earth could have told you that. But what I might lack in the area of musical prowess, I more than make up for in sheer volume.

It was an old song, an illegal song in public places on Earth since the Hegemony people felt it stirred up rebels in certain districts, but Id always liked it, and I could remember most of the words.

And so I sang-to the legions and to the machines-until the machines were on top of us. We killed two right off, but the next three reached us all at once-about the same time I hit that line about making men holy and letting us die to make men free-when we were knocked down and stomped flat.

Under that last machine, a copy of James McGill made his peace and fired his spinal cannon at suicidally close range.

The concussion killed me, but the machine died as well. My squad, my first command-we were all dead.

-22-.

It had been a long time since Id died and been revived. As such things go, this one was probably the best Id ever experienced. I returned to life with a gasp and a wheeze, but once I could breathe easily, I found myself to be in an oddly cheerful mood.

"Hes a good grow," Bio Specialist Anne Grant announced. She was the chief operator of our cohorts revival equipment. As part of Legion Varus and usually a.s.signed to Graves command, shed come along when the rest of us joined Winslades cavalry.

I knew Annes voice instantly. She was an angel to my addled mind. Shed presided over my birth a dozen times more than my own mother had. I considered the woman to be something of a G.o.dmother.

My eyes fluttered open. My vision was beyond blurred. Freshly-grown optical nerves were dazzled by light, which theyd never experienced before. My focusing muscles didnt know their jobs. I struggled to peer up into her face anyway, and I managed it at last. She had severely short dark hair and small features. Her eyes were careworn, but her face was pretty.

Smiling, I coughed, cleared my throat, and then remembered something. Once, on a different world, a different James McGill had asked this girl for a dinner date. Wed never had that date. Partly, it had been because all h.e.l.l had broken loose on Tech World after wed decided to get together. Unfortunately, thered also been a number of other females around whod objected, thus spoiling the mood.

Today, as far as I knew, no woman thought she owned me. Those that had once loved me had long since given up. Id managed not to get entangled with anyone new on this campaign, probably due to the fact that my promotion and new training had kept me too busy for simple pleasures-or even complicated ones.

But now, eyeing Anne with a clarity of vision that improved every second, I knew what I wanted to do.

"You know what, Anne?" I asked.

"What is it, James?"

"You look harried and rushed, but youre still beautiful to me."

Shed been fussing with IVs and straps, but she paused and stared at me for a second. "Really James? Now? Youre going to make a play for the first woman you see-now?"

"Uh...the battles over, right?"

"Yes. Youre back aboard Cyclops. Legion Varus and whats left of Solstice have all been recalled. But were redeploying again soon. Its been several days since you died-sorry we didnt get around to your file faster."

"Its okay, I understand. In fact-you know what? I think Ive experienced my best death yet. I feel better about things today. Im alive again, and my last body died well. It was probably the best job of dying Ive ever done."

She looked at me oddly and checked my stats again. Maybe she thought I was cracking up, but I didnt care. I really felt great.

Sitting up and stretching, I took a series of deep breaths.

"So, what about it?" I asked her.

"What about what?"

"You owe me a date. Remember?"

Her face clouded, but I kept grinning at her. Finally, she laughed. "You are incorrigible."

"Every man has to reach for the bra.s.s ring in his own way. At least, thats what my grandpa used to say."