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YOU'RE IT

Shirley Meier

It was raining on New Newf. Of course it usually was. Tall fern trees waved in the light breeze and the air was full of crashing, crunching noises as pogos browsed on the tree-tops. From a distance, one could imagine a day in old Earth's Late Jurassic period; brontosaurus herds grazing through primitive trees. Except these creatures had gargantuan metallic shells, their gentle curves glinting weakly in the gray light.

The trunk-like forelegs were used mostly to support the long neck and head; the shells rested on a snail-like back-pad. At a hundred tons on average, the beasts had reminded some early settler of a legendary Terran monster, "Ogopogo"; hence the name.

Sensors indicate two drone Enemy scouts approaching. Correction: manned scouts. The Bolo halted, turned, turned back, mimicking the motion of a pogo in its herd.

The LRS 1-8-12 was an old Mark XXIX, now obsolete. Allocation policy hadn't allowed for one of the new standard units, the vastly upgraded Mark XXX, to be deployed on a sleepy backwater planet which was basically six towns, a moderately steady yield of uranium ore, and otherwise, pole-to-pole swamp. Concordiat long-term projections had been that no one would likely notice it, let alone want it.

Now, six fallen garrisons and 20,000 lives later, it was clear Concordiat long-term projections had been wrong. A moderately steady yield of uranium, easily taken, had apparently been exactly what the rebel Xi-shang Empire wanted. The Bolo's hull was pitted and scarred, the duralloy surface showing swirls of green and purple where it had come close to melting, the result of an atomic warhead's near-strike. That had been part of the Xi-shang's first salvo, intended to soften up resistance before the personnel ships landed. The LRS's main turret's rotational tracking and its Hellbore's vertical angling mechanisms, both, had been jammed by the impact, the great gun's muzzle stuck beyond all the bolo's self-repair capabilities, at minus five degrees, forty-five degrees off median.

Hellbore inoperative, its monitoring signal circuits continued to read; it was programmed not to waste power-pack energy shooting if it couldn't aim. All other systems fully functional Ready to lock on targets.

A two-ton calf reared up on its backpad, its head weaving back and forth as it bellowed at the scout-ships streaking through the sky. The herd bull roared an alarm/challenge, drowning out his offspring, and the rest of the herd snapped into their shells, turning the swamp into a field of hundred-ton, metallic boulders. The LRS shut down all but one external sensor and waited.

The enemy scouts circled the herd, came low.

Necessary. My radar trace is identical to a pogo's. The pilots cannot rely on their equipment. They must use their more sensitive, built-in sensors to detect my presence. Eye-balling, humans called it.

The LRS came to life, its infinite repeaters tracking the scouts jittering over the herd. Two heavy coughs shook the ground. The two ships dematerialized into shrieking fireballs, shearing of the tops of the fern trees and plowing up two five hundred meter gouts of boiling mud.

Standing order: Disable and/or destroy enemy equipment through guerilla action, obeyed. As the pogo herd thundered away from the fires, the Bolo mingled with them, staying in the midst of their two hundred metal-laced shells, letting their pads erase all signs of duralloy treads. Gradually it made its way towards the front edge of the herd, to be clear of the radio interference caused by the massive creatures.

It replayed the last transmission from the garrison at Porto Basque again. That tape was worn with repetition.

"The Xi-shang rebels are attacking New Newf . . . for the mines . . . Additional information—" the transmission squeal. "1-8-12, activate standing orders, but with evasive action. Do not, repeat, do not be captured. Remain concealed until repaired." Then extraneous noise and unchained commands, end of transmission. Three months and twenty-two days ago.

Static crackled in the ionosphere as Xi-shang ore shuttles launched from the port. Then another burst of static came, as Xi-shang fighters scrambled into orbit to beat off a small flock of four-man ships from the nearby planet Tawa and its moon, Kwivit, where the Concordiat still held The LRS detected a flurry of chaff covering friendly forces, as they altered formation. It shut down under a tangle of Walking shrubs, drive-train half buried. Above the atmosphere the battle raged.

 

Xi-shang Mission Commander James Lung leaned back in his chair and listened to the reports pour in. His hands absently finished stripping down his side-arm. As an officer he could indulge himself with carrying a look-alike of 20th-century semi-automatic built by DWM. The cleaning cloth was grey with use.

His off-planet battle was won: whatever Concordiat orbital forces hadn't been destroyed were effectively stranded in space. A well-aimed strike had eliminated the planet's antiquated Bolo base, with everything and everyone in it; he'd made sure to hit during working hours. The Concordiat had its attention on a few larger opponents. Light-years away; that had made this occupation possible. The Emperor was confident enough—and pressed enough elsewhere himself—that he'd called all Xi-shang battleships away, leaving Lung with ground-to-orbit ships only. And the interstellar freights, of course; they were being loaded day and night.

Still, it had been a gamble, a somewhat desperate bid for desperately needed ore, and it was proving a harder nut to crack than the Emperor and War Council back home had expected. The problems were planetside. With the Emperor so sticky about taking every last building and bit of non-military equipment intact, the citizens of New Newf had soon figured out his threat of nuclear devastation was a hollow one, and he'd had to take each town street by street. Sabotage at the mines was rampant. "It's been three months, and I still don't have all of Porto Basque," he said to the screen as if it could hear him. "I'm losing men because they think a groundcar as cover will stop a high caliber round. They're just learning that tin-cans on window sills make dandy mortars."

And then there was the damned Bolo.

He sighed, clicked a magazine into the small handgun before putting it into his desk drawer. He wiped his hands and ran them tiredly over his face. He was a tall, spare man with ice-gray eyes surrounded in a nests of crow's-feet and a powdering of gray in his straight black hair.

At least he still had two working Kai-Sabres, eighty-ton clones of the Bolo Mark XXVIII, built after decades of very sophisticated technical espionage. That had started even before Xi-shang had revolted against what it called excessive taxation and insufficient support from the Concordiat, declared itself independent, and then declared itself an Empire, a generation ago. Kai-Sabre Cheng-Sze patrolled Novo Aklavik, and Kai-Sabre Temujin was in New St. John's, lust their presence enough to keep those towns relatively quiet.

He sighed again. The computer chimed at him. "What?"

"Lojtan Smith to see you, sir."

"Send him in." Lojtan By-The-Book Smith. On top of this latest problem, the Lojtan had lost most of his unit ordering them into the sewers—by the book. He made the same error every time, but his family was too close to the Emperor for any commander to do more than slap him on the wrist. He came in, polished as if he were reporting to the Emperor. His salute was razor perfect . . . and his commanding abilities matched. Perfect for the High Court; lousy in field conditions.

"I've read your report, Lojtan Smith."

"Sir!"

"You were in command of the Victorious when we invaded." It wasn't a question. The Emperor had "requested" it, personally. As a favor to an old friend.

"I had that honor, sir!"

"You reported the destruction of the Bob LRS 1-8-12, assigned to the enemy's New Newf garrison."

Smith swelled with a prideful jut of his chest. "I did, sir!"

"And you verified this before landing."

He deflated slightly, puzzled. "Of course, sir. The blast circle was entirely visible from low orbit as we initiated atmospheric flight."

"And was this, in your opinion, sufficient?"

"Sir? We destroyed the Bolo, sir."

"THEN ITS GHOST JUST BLEW OUR LAST TWO SCOUT SHIPS TO FRAGMENTS!" Lung's roar was enough to make Smith step back. The commander pushed himself away from his desk and rose, turning his back on the Lojtan's paling face. "Furthermore," he continued more quietly, "I've just had a confirming report that this 'destroyed' Bolo was responsible for damaging the oreshuttle Steadfast before she could lift."

"My observations were by the book, sir."

I guess you didn't see, or credit, the tape the report cited, clearly showing a Bolo's repeater burst at maximum distance, taking the nose assembly off Steadfast. Cretin. At least it hadn't used its Hellbore—meaning you at least damaged it.

But pogos throw radar traces just like Bolos, so it can hide almost indefinitely from any air power I can scrape together, and cause more of the same kind of trouble.

"By the book. Like your last command, Lojtan?"

Smith thrust his chin into the air. "My unit succeeded in rooting out the insurgents, sir."

"At the cost of eighty per cent of its equipment, and seventy per cent of its personnel, Lojtan. Are you aware of what our situation is here, regarding reinforcements?"

"Sir, surely the Empire will support our gains."

Lung sat down and pulled open his desk drawer. "You're assuming, Lojtan. Assuming wrongly, as a matter of fact. You know our support has decreased—since we've done such a fine job of taking this planet, His Majesty's pulled away all battleships to other theaters of operation. It's up to us to dig in, Lojtan, to consolidate our on-planet defenses enough to withstand a full Concordiat attack."

"I'm aware of that, sir." Smith's voice had started to take on an edge.

"We simply can't afford your kind of losses, Lojtan."

"And what do you suppose you're going to do about it?" With a faint sneer, the Lojtan added, "Sir."

"Let me tell you something about the big wide universe, Smith. Your daddy's pal the Emperor isn't always going to take care of you in it." Smith's jaw dropped—just the words were enough to get Lung into very deep trouble, if they ever got back home. He filed them away smugly. "I've considered your report and your record," Lung continued, "and I am going to do something that I should have done long ago."

"What, sir?"

He pulled out the Luger and fired. Smith only had a fraction of a second to register shock as the Commander's shot took him in the left eye and blew out the back of his head. The body fell back against the wall, smearing the spatters of red and gray down the cool green paint.

Lung placed the pistol back in the drawer as his guards ran in, automatics ready, his aide on their heels, sidearm drawn.

"At ease. Lojtan Smith has unfortunately fallen victim to a sniper, Hyotan."

She bolstered her weapon and straightened. "Yes, sir." Her eyes flickered across the unbroken window, showing the distant port. "I understand completely, sir."

His eyes swept across the guards, who had re-slung their weapons. Their eyes too had taken in the fact that the window was unbroken. Two good men, survivors of one of Lojtan Smith's moronic forays. He'd seen that they were on duty today. "I trust we understand, privates?"

"Sir! Yes, sir!" They bent to carry the body out.

As the door closed he continued. "Inform sub-Lojtan Simms of his promotion to full Lojtan."

"Sir."

"And send my condolences and apologies to Smith's family when you send back his effects."

"Sir."

"I'll be on the roof, thinking, while you send to get this mess cleared."

"Of course, sir."

One less problem to deal with.

 

On the roof, Lung paced in the rain. The problem with insurgents and "dumb insolence" in a captive population was one of firepower. The Kai-Sabres were like hammers, that he was using to swat mosquitoes; the only difference, of course, was that he might convince the mosquitoes to stop by showing them his hammers.

"Computer, has Kai-Sabre Sun Tzu been repaired?"

"No, commander. Kai-Sabre repair team is seriously under strength."

"Due to the sabotaging of the maintenance bay."

"Yes, commander. Projected repair date five weeks."

He sighed again. "Status on ground-to-air repairs?"

"Fleet technicians required for combat aircraft repairs, Commander."

We're getting spread too thin. And that damned Bolo, still alive . . . He had to bring in its smoking wreckage. At least its main gun 's knocked out. Or else it could take all three Kai-Sabres, probably. As it is . . .

He inwardly smacked himself on the head. Why didn't I think of it before?

He keyed his com. "Hyotan."

"Sir."

"Pull Kai-Sabre Cheng-Sze off the port and have it report to maintenance, then to me."

A Mark XXIX could take three Kai-Sabres; but one Kai-Sabre could certainly take one Mark XXIX minus Hellbore. Set a machine to catch a machine.

 

The water of the swamp rippled for a long moment, then was still again. Skaters walked over the surface, long spidery legs holding the plate-sized body clear of the water, each of the sixteen feet cased in a cup of surface tension. Kai-Sabre Cheng-Sze turned its sensors across the water to the waving sea of purple spear-grass.

I search. The Bolo was three hundred kilometers away when I intercepted the last transmission. The man whose mission is to repair it is nearer.

Its orders had been changed, as soon as it had reported the contents of the transmission between man and Bolo. Destroying the man was now priority. My sensors are keen. Yet no human heat signature. I will find him. If it were capable of frustration it would have been. Its treads stirred up the muck, sent ripples across the water, sending the skaters flying into the shelter of the reeds. There were only the plumes of methane bubbling their heat from the mud on the bottom. It churned its way along the edge of the swamp and up onto higher ground, began scanning in the trees growing there.

From below the water surface, the skaters' feet looked like silver ping-pong balls holding up rippling reflections. The Kai-Sabre's trends had churned the water brown. Sven Todd clung to the hollow reed he was breathing through, his other hand knotted in the roots of the spear-grass two feet down. He tried to stop the pounding of his heart. The water around him shook and the MA-50 dug into his back. Useless as a pop-gun against a Kai-Sabre.

Along his right side, wrapped along with his tool kit in waterproof duraplas, lay the hunk of metal that was the purpose of his mission. If not for his expertise, it would be more valuable than his life. The left traverse stabilizer: four kilos of replacement parts that the LRS needed to get its Hellbore online.

If I pull this off, we'll be able to blow the 'Shang off the ground for keeps. Even if Central Command did decide to pull forces away from its major campaigns, it took time to organize it all, time to move them in, especially to a backwater like New Newf. We've been on our own from the start.

It was an incredible stroke of luck that he was still alive to attempt this mission, which the Kai-Sabre's presence had now probably made impossible, in the first place. The first day I call in sick in a year, and my workplace gets turned into slag. And on a Friday, too . . . He tried not to think about the others.

Yet the mission still shouldn't have been possible. The 'Shang's plan, of course, had been to destroy all Bolo maintenance equipment and spare parts, as well as all the technicians, just in case they only winged Laura . . . Laura Secord, the LRS's full nick-name, was after an ancient war heroine. The 'Shang hadn't counted on a tech who was such a dedicated Dinachrome Brigade machine nerd, he kept an attic full of Bolo junk, and spent half his spare time molding duralloy toys in his basement.

So here I am. Laura just let me know over the com what part was trashed, three months to put it together, hey, no problem. He fought not to gasp. Only a thin stream of air could get through the reed, which might break if he clutched it too hard. His lungs strained for a full breath but he stayed where he was, breath burning in and out slowly, slowly. His right leg felt on fire and he tried not to think of the muck working its way into the wound. I cultivate a fever and find Laura, or else I buy it now and take New Newf with me. I'll take the first, thanks. Where is the Sabre? It could be heading for him, and he'd have no way to tell. If he showed himself it would just blow him away. It couldn't be sure exactly where he was, thank God, or it would have just boiled that section of swamp.

No, it was probably just waiting. It had to be. Just sitting there, sensors straining for some sign, a heat signature it could recognize as human. He lay still and breathed slowly, listening to the surf-roar in his ears.

The sediment was settling, the ripples on the water surface stilled again. The skaters came out. Was it just waiting for him to surface? Waiting for a clear shot? Another ripple, but not the heavy wash of the machine. One of the pseudo birds, an erkrok, skimming to land on the patch of open water. He forced calm.

They'd snuck out of Porto Basque easily enough. He'd had three people to support him, all Newf reservists: Major Marjo Williams, Lieutenant Me Too (Melvin) Taylor, and Captain George Varsilkov. All to get Lieutenant Sven Toad, Bolo Technician, through the midge-laden swamp in one piece, so he could get Laura into one piece.

It had been the first night that George had started complaining. He wasn't a Newf native. "Cave Cimex! Why in hell does every planet under a yellow sun develop flying bloodsuckers?" George slapped the side of his face and looked at the mess on his palm with distaste, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing. "They still have to bite you before they find out they can't use your protein."

"Well, we all know how poisonous you are," Marjo drawled, running a hand over her snort cut brown hair. "Even without the Latin lessons."

George glared at her. "I learned Latin before I learned to hate these bugs in basic."

"Oh? How many centuries ago was that?" Me Too asked innocently as he'd swung his pack down were they'd chosen to camp. George had frowned at him, then laughed.

Marjo had gotten them out into open country, and they'd trekked overland—overmuck, Sven thought—with short bursts of radio contact leading them toward rendezvous.

That was when the Kai-Sabre had zeroed in on their signal.

Marjo had had been on point, fifteen meters ahead of Me Too. That put her thirty meters ahead of Sven and forty-five ahead of George.

The Kai-Sabre's beam had burned George into a cinder that managed to walk three more steps before it fell and shattered into ashes.

At the sound of the heavy purr of the beam Marjo had dived one way into the bush and Sven the other.

Weighed down as he was he could run, but slow, too slow. . . . Then Marjo and Me Too had showed themselves, to draw it away from Sven as he lay in the mud, hoping it was enough to hide his heat. They knew they could only give me time. They knew. Marjo had disappeared in a gout of mud and blood that fountained thirty meters in the air. Me Too had kept running, but fired backwards over his shoulder. Even though the MA could, theoretically, blow a hole through a concrete bunker, it was a gnat's bite to the Kai-Sabre's lightest guns. As Sven half-ran, half-crawled towards the best hiding-place he could think of, this patch of water, the world seemed to blow up behind him. A heavy, blunt impact on the back of his leg as he'd taken a running dive into the water, hoping it was deep enough.

 

A sudden trickle of water blocked Sven's breathing tube and he fought to keep from choking. Swallow, don't breathe it in. Swallow, don't choke. He ignored the taste of mud and dead worms in his mouth. His heart leaped into a gallop and he struggled not to panic and thrash his way to the surface. Something nibbled him in the cheek, rubbery, and he clamped down on his need to flinch away. Thank God it didn't have teeth. He took a slow breath, tinged with the green sap odor of the reed. His calf was bleeding, drawing the leechoids and nibblers. He couldn't twitch, the ripples would give him away.

Maybe it's not even sure I'm around here, so it's gone away. Then he shook himself mentally. The Kai-Sabre's sensors were too good. Lambourgh built half decent knockoffs. Even if they aren't Bolos, they're tough. It was out there.

 

The LRS moved carefully along the river, stop, start. The feathery bluish fronds of the weeping trees brushed across its scarred hull.

Covert action required. Over the open radio link, passive reception only, the LRS was picking up nothing but static. The com had been open. Data gathered indicated that the repair team, had been destroyed, probability eight-five percent.

Data inconclusive. Proceeding to area of last transmission to confirm. The Bolo left the relative shelter of the riverbank and engaged amphibious mode to cross a bog. A lone Kai-Sabre without air support was the next valid target—but only with a working Hellbore. I am damaged. I must find the tech first and then I will grind the Enemy undertread.

 

Sven emerged slowly. It may not recognize just the top of my head and eyes as human. He blinked slowly to clear his eyes of muddy water. His hair, grown long enough to fall in his eyes over the last two months, trailed a straight brown lock down the side of his nose. "A brown man," one of his friends had called him. "Brown eyes, hair and skin, as if you were carved out of one piece of wood."

She was dead now. They were all dead, as far as he could tell.

A drift of smoke from smoldering vegetation wavered across his sight in the misty sunlight. The crater where Me Too had been running half a day ago was still smoking sporadically around the edges, though the bottom had filled with water. A faint film of brown coated the surface of the new, oval lake.

There was no sign of the Kai-Sabre that he could see, except the chewed up earth and the path of splintered trees off to the left. A trunk as thick as two of him was snapped off clean and crushed.

As his nose cleared the water, his ears ran clear and in the distance he could hear the thunderous growl of the Kai-Sabre.

He drew in his first full breath in what felt like hours. And coughed, struggling to cough quietly, as the smoke and the smell of wet char and sulphur caught the back of his throat. One thing he was glad of: it wasn't a battlefield where Bolos had gone through foot troops. He'd seen that once, as a young tech. What he remembered most was the smell. There had been so many people blown into such fine pieces that the smell was more of seared blood rather than cooked meat. He caught himself gagging as the smell from the crater brought that memory back strong.

Even if the Bolos haven't used diesels in centuries, they still manage to sound as if they do. He'd heard the sound on history tapes. Maybe it was built into the design as a fear tactic against ground troops.

He eased out of the water, spat and slapped a med-patch on his leg. Looks like most of the muscle just got sheared away. He drew in his breath as it finally, mercifully, went numb as the local anesthetic hit. Then he checked his toolkit, the plastic casing of the part, and the com which was still clipped to his belt before hauling the MA out of the mud and clearing the barrel. I might need it against nessies. An ancient flat photo flashed into his memory: the underside of an old tank, just as it was going over the foxhole the guy had been in.

"Yeah, and they managed to recover the camera from his body afterward," Sven muttered. The text had just mentioned that in passing. He had no intentions of letting a similar sight might be his last.

There was a suspicious fuzziness to his thinking and he was cold. Fever? No, probably shock, and the parasites in the mud. Gotta remember to keep checking the damned part. Mud-lice eat duraplas like it's going out of style. The mud-lice were almost transparent, ghostly little pin-head sized bugs. I hope they're giving the Xi-shang royal hell. We certainly planted enough packets of them in their machinery.

He limped out into a thicket of reddish bushes. The sound of the Kai-Sabre was fading northward and he put some distance between himself and the smoldering forest and, hopefully, the Kai-Sabre.

It was late when he stopped to rest, carefully placing his kit on the ground, wanting to drop it. Four damned kilos. And my tools, and the damn gun. My aching back. It was more awkward than heavy, sharp ridges digging into his back muscles as he walked. He sprayed lice-killer on the plastic, re-coated the fraying edges with another spray on. Running out of this stuff.

The sun was low enough that the nightshrieks were out hunting the bugs. He half-smiled, thinking of George as he slapped a four-inch bloodsucker. "Ave Imperator. . ." he muttered. George had been the history buff.

He was talking to himself a lot more now, fighting down the aches in his bones, the shivers that trembled through him. Fever. Another hour and the sun would be down. New Newf had no moons; out here it would be dark as the inside of an asshole.

His calf was burning as if it were being cauterized. Mud-lice ate med-patches too; it was peeling away in long strips of wrinkled grayish pseudo skin, leaving the wound open; a couple of leechoids clung to its edge. He rubbed a dab of salt from his kit on them and got them off. "Damn." He only had one med-patch left. George had been carrying more,

Sven pressed his last patch onto the wound carefully and hissed in relief as the pain faded to an ache.

The MA needed some strip-down before the action would work and he wondered a moment why he kept it, since he only had four rounds left. Hell, sometimes one round is useful.

The last fix he had on the LRS was due west. I need the med-set in that Bolo. Then fix her, and we'll fix those effing 'Shang good . . .

 

"Forty-five hundred thousand tons of partially refined ore, including this shuttle." James Lung's voice was quiet as he sat looking down at the computer screen. The feed was coming through the sensors of the Temujin as it patrolled, protecting the loading bay. For the moment it showed the latest shuttle being loaded. He looked up and through the window at the port. He could see the top third of the fifty meter high shuttle over the city buildings. A light rain pattered on the glass, smearing the image. Each shuttle was capable of hauling a hundred and fifty thousand tons into orbit where the megatonner waited. He turned back down to the computer screen. The loading of the shuttle was almost complete.

The occupation was not going well. The computer lists lay on his desk, hardcopy. Munitions stocks were dangerously low. Five squads were extant only because they had one member left alive. The infirmaries were almost at capacity, and most of the equipment was desperately in need of repair. "The problem is," he said, rubbing his chin, looking up at the newly repainted wall. "Any barbarian with a rock can disable a lot of high-tech equipment in seconds. . . ." He smiled ironically to himself. Perhaps not a rock, but chemical explosives and swamp insects let loose in the garages at the very least. "We cannot keep up this rate of attrition."

On screen, Newf slaves operated the loading equipment under watchful eyes and rifles; the work was slow but steady. His eye was caught by a group of children playing near where their parents were working; the only spot of laugher or noise. Life goes on and people learn to live with the new order of things.

Then something caught at the back of his mind. His attention swung back to the children who were tossing a ball between them. There was something wrong, something not quite normal . . . The picture swung as the Kai-Sabre tracked across the scene.

One of the children had missed a throw. The ball rolled between two of the guards and stopped near one of the landing struts of the ore-ship. The child who had thrown stood looking at it, then ran. So did the others.

"Dear God." Lung stared helplessly at the computer image of the blue and red striped ball lying in the dirt. Simultaneously, the flash blacked his screen, and, through the window, lit up the metallic side of the oreshuttle for a moment, bright against the grey sky.

Unbelieving, he watched: the nose of the ship was slightly off center, then more so, the angle growing steeper as it fell, ponderously slow, stately, as if through syrup instead of air. "God. The powerplant . . ." A reactor large enough to power a hundred and fifty thousand tons of rock into orbit, he calculated helplessly, hopelessly, would take half the city with it when it blew.

He sprang to his feet, ready to dive into the shadow of the desk, when the floor moved under his feet, as in an earthquake, knocking him to the floor. The shockwave of the ship hitting ground. Everything seemed to become very quiet; he felt the entire building sway, reverberating. He threw both arms over his eyes, and still saw the flash of the explosion, blood-red through his flesh. He stayed down, heard the shatter and hiss as the window blew in across the room, felt the whole building lurch again and the burn of heat. Then he couldn't hear anything . . . My eardrums, burst. Slivers of glass slashed into his hands as he crabbed under his desk, felt in his bones the ferroconcrete of floors and walls crack all around and above and below him, tearing. Oh, shi—

 

Sven ran. Everywhere he ran, the Kai-Sabre was there, everywhere he turned, playing with him like a cat. He fired, fired, fired, and the MA clicked empty. He flung it at the machine and ran. It didn't even bother shooting him. It would catch him, looming, crush him under its treads. Its growl sounded like a laugh. It had him, it was rolling over his leg, slowly, slowly . . .

He woke with a jerk, flailing against the belt he'd used to tie himself into the tree so he could sleep. He hung, panting, looking around wildly for the Sabre, sure it was there, convinced that it had him.

The scrubby trees around him hissed in the breeze that was blowing chill through his damp clothes and hair. Clicks and creaks and sounds he couldn't put a name to echoed in the dark, metallic pinging noises like a baby drive-train. Bugs, he thought, but went on shaking.

Shit, Sven, you're going nuts. A Sabre would just blow the whole tree away. Get a grip on yourself. It was out there, searching for him. At night it was as if its presence were spread through the dark all around him, everywhere. He laid his cheek down on the rough bark of the tree, closed his eyes, and shook.

 

Daylight. The Enemy is here. The human is close. The Cheng-Sze ground a nessie shell undertread. There were a number of them scattered about the sodden ground. West by northwest. For the human to rendezvous with the Enemy machine he must radio. This will allow me to fix on them. It is a stupid machine. It has no honor. I will kill it. For my honor. It moved into a pinkwood thicket, thick enough to hide a whole herd of pogos, and shut down, waiting. I have circled around. I am waiting. He will lead the Enemy machine to me and then I will take them both.

 

Sven slogged, hefting his pack, over a dryer patch of ground, though he slowed when the wound sent a stab of pain up his leg. He couldn't strain the med-patch, since he had no replacements. It was worn enough that the mud and blood-suckers had been at the wound again.

It seemed to him that the air had gotten foggier, thicker, hotter as he dragged it into his lungs. His clothes felt too tight; his leg was red and puffy up past his knee. There the skin was stretched, shiny red and purple like the skin of an over-ripe plum. He'd caught himself imagining what it would be like if he let the pressure out with his knife, giggling as he imagined his leg flopping and deflating like a punctured balloon. That had managed to scare him cold.

He swallowed another anti-bac tab down and hoped it would help. The tablet pac was empty; he crumpled it and shoved it into his kit. The dim, gray day was darkening again, light fog and overcast hiding the sun. Typical lovely day in New Newf. He had a couple more hours before it got too dark to see. The parts and tools on his back weighed more and more, as if the gravity were increasing on the whole planet. His arms and legs felt heavier as well.

Oh, God. Another night waiting for it to catch up to me. He shivered as he limped past a pocket tree, its basins of leaves full or partly full of rain. It's out there. He started at a looming shadow, hit the dirt, waiting to die, dragging at the useless MA. When nothing happened he cursed, realizing it was just a rock outcropping towering out of the rain that had caught his eye. Not a common sight on a swamp world. Get a grip, Sven. He re-slung the MA and kept going.

The last radio fix with the LRS had been much closer and he stretched his pace again. This was the highest, driest ground he'd seen in days; he could actually walk rather than wade through mud. The hillock ahead of him turned out to be a dead pogo, half devoured. That explained the nessie remains. A pack had cornered this old bull on the dry ground and taken it down, losing a few of their own in the process. A flock of skinheads hooted and fought over the rotting meat, wings flapping. Ugly things, hook-billed naked greenish heads with pink blotches over a bat-like body.

Since nessie shells were thinner and smaller than pogos', exposing more of the corpse, the scavengers had made more headway with them, ripping out shreds of gray-pink meat. He was just as glad that he'd never run across hunting nessies. Just a city boy. Never had to go out into the morass. They travelled in packs of ten to fifty members, fifteen to twenty tons of muscle each. Their long, narrow heads were mostly mouth, fringed with scales and tipped with a horn as long as his leg, a horn strong enough to puncture a pogo shell. Their shells were spiraled and carried on four clawed legs.

He covered his nose with his hand as he moved. Even though he'd been used to the smell in the swamp, this was something else again. Rotting seafood, iodine and melted slugs was all he could think of, making him gag. Thankfully the wind shifted. He stopped to take a swig from His canteen and gauged how much clean water he had left. God, I'm thirsty. He wanted to pour it over his head, drink it dry, drink it so it spilled cool out of the corners of his mouth, poured down onto his sweat-soaked shirt. He wanted to swim in clear, cold water, not this mucky beef-broth that had been in the back of the fridge for a month. He shook himself, staggered slightly, and shivered. God. How'd it get so hot.

He skirted around an empty nessie shell. It was one of the bigger ones, stretching over his head, maybe five meters. Hell of a thing to see a pack of these take on a pogo.

He glanced around, keyed the new frequency. "LRS, Laura, babe, respond please." As he did there was a momentary gleam of brightness in the stand of pinkwood. His throat went dry, his knees going to water as he realized what it was, his stomach knotting. The edge of flint-steel tread showing.

The Sabre.

He staggered back, one step, two, head bent as he listened. The nessie shell was just one more step back there. If he could . . .

"Responding. Location fix. Remain in the area—"

"Laura, the Sabre's here!" Sven dove into the shelter of the nessie shell.

The Cheng-Sze had begun scanning multiband as it picked up the man on its sensors, and had locked on the LRS's signal. The man was standing well within range. But he dived behind the shelter of the nessie shell and Cheng-Sze's laser shot merely holed the ground. It powered up, moving forward. If my laser just incapacitates him and I use my waldo arm to capture him, I will still have fulfilled my orders.

The man's heat signature was already fading in the damp air, but it led clearly back toward the dead pogo.

Sven ran. Oh shit. Oh shit. He leaped over a small log, his leg almost buckling under him. Behind him the Sabre growled, close, so close . . . He ducked low and scrambled through the pile of rock down-slope. Rock—it would hold his body heat nicely. No water here. High ground. No water to hide in. Shit, shit. The Sabre couldn't target him because the nessie shells messed up its sensors, or he'd have been pink mist in the air already. It could only track him, with heat.

The skinheads flapped into the air ahead of him. Nessie shells and . . . the pogo. Pogo shells did an even better number on sensors and radio waves . . . He scrambled around the huge mound of corpse, hit the dirt as the Sabre fired again. The light, buzz of the laser came almost simultaneously with the flare of fire off to his right. It was guessing, or it had just nailed a skinhead real good. He ran, hunched low, ignoring the pain in his leg, the weight pounding on his back. The pogo's my chance. Am I dreaming? Will I wake up? Please let me wake up. No, it's red. Run. Run, dammit.

Ahead, the monstrous carcass lay flaccid, the tension of living that would have held the neck close to the edge of the shell gone. The webbing of skin was gouged out, lying folded out on the ground like a peel of grayish pink melting wallpaper.

The Sabre was wheeling around, would have him in its sights in a moment—he dug his hands into the rotting wall of meat and climbed into it. The rifle and pack caught up under the lip of the shell; he yanked them free and crawled into the cavity opened up by putrefaction. I'll puke later, won't make any difference to this stink.

It was hot inside, with the warmth of decomposition. His hands sank into the mess up to the elbows, with a hiss of gas that made him stop, eyes watering. His legs sank down past his knees. He was coated in it, almost swimming in it. He braced a boot against the inside lip of the shell so he wouldn't slide, then lay still, cushioned in rotten pogo, trying not to breathe. I wish I had another reed, to the outside, to breathe through.

As far as he could see, the pogo's body had fallen away from the inside of the shell, and was slowly oozing out both ends. There was an occasional draft of cooler, cleaner air from where he'd crawled in, but he couldn't see out. He could hear the growl of the Sabre, muted through the shell, the thunder of his own blood, the buzz of fever in his ears. Maybe I am dreaming. This can't he real The liquefying flesh of the pogo around him trembled like jelly with the ground-grinding motion of the Sabre.

 

Commander Lung leaned back, winced as the back brace dug into his skin, and wiped the sweat off his upper lip.

The oreshuttle had landed right on top of the Temujin. Though a Kai-sabre was tough, surviving a nuclear explosion that had leveled a quarter of Porto Basque was a bit much to ask of it.

He tried to stretch, winced again since there was no one to see him and reached for a sip of water. He was still dehydrated. He remembered waking up in thick black, his head leaning against a metal edge of some kind. He'd woken up trying to tell the babbling voices on the com to shut up and leave him alone, the wound on his scalp already clotted dry. But he'd been imagining the voices. It had flung him back to an old battle where as a young corporal he'd been trapped in a disabled battle bridge with the air running out. But then he'd had the ability to communicate.

It had taken his men three days to find and cut him out of the rubble of the building. He drank deep, and shoved the thought of thin air tainted with plaster dust out of his head He'd been lucky. His desk had saved his hide, mostly, and he only had a mild touch of radiation poisoning.

He would heal. And I will control this stinking mud ball. He sipped again, savoring the cool water across his tongue. He had to report to the Emperor. He made the connection.

"Majesty." He leaned forward in his chair, very carefully, the closest he could come to a bow in the brace. "My apologies for such an insufficient obeisance. I have been injured."

The image of the Emperor flickered slightly, then firmed. His head nodded in acknowledgement, the gold trim on his cap of maintenance winking in the light. "Report, James."

Drawing a deep breath, Lung summed up, not attempting to hide the severity of the situation.

The Emperor thought for a long moment before responding. "My dear James, you realize that a great deal depends on you." The Emperor waved a hand before him to indicate his holomaps and battle plans. "We have our own agenda, my friend." His voice was cordial but his dark eyes were cold.

"I quite understand, Sire."

"Yet you yourself were injured in the attack on the oreshuttle."

"Unfortunately, yes, Sire. Steadfast cannot be repaired, though her metal is salvageable."

"I am not counting the salvaged metal of our own ship as a bonus, James."

Lung bowed again. "Of course, Emperor. There are three hundred thousand tons of ore and one hundred thousand tons of metal coming now."

The Emperor raised one elegantly shaped eyebrow. "Oh? And is this including our own?"

"No, Sire. This is also salvage. If we cannot get what we wish out of the mines, then I am taking it from the population itself."

"Good. However you get it. The cost of equipment and men is almost too high, James-my-friend."

"I understand, your Majesty." He shifted slightly in his chair, trying for a more comfortable position, resisted the urge to run a finger under the brace on his back, chasing that itch. That was nothing to show the Emperor. "Sire, is it possible that the liberation fleet could spare one battleship—"

"No." The Emperor leaned back from the screen. "You have all the men and equipment you are going to get at the moment, James."

"Of course, Sire." He wanted to grind his teeth, but kept his face impassive. One did not show the Emperor one's pique, either.

"Keep the metal coming for as long as you can, James. Consolidate our position there and I'm sure we'll be able to send you reinforcements soon."

"Yes, Majesty."

"Oh, and James . . ."

"Yes, Majesty?"

"Try to Keep the casualties by sniper down, will you?" The Emperor's face showed only lordly concern, but Tames bowed very low.

"I will do my utmost, Your Majesty."

The Emperor reached one manicured fingernail to touch the chime next to him and with the sound both signaled the end of the interview and terminated the call.

The Cheng-Sze was reporting success in destroying three New Newf insurgents as it tried to track the Bolo, relating that MA-50's were apparently still being produced, somewhere. The thing that brought out the sweat on Lung's forehead though was the glimpse it had caught of the man it was now pursuing; carrying a worn Bolo tool bag and a heavy pack. A Bolo Tech? Left alive? Trying to make contact with the machine? The Sabre hadn't yet found the disabled LRS. The locals questioned about the attack on the shuttle had been taking heart from the fact he hadn't caught the Bolo—all the locals were. "Damn that machine."

 

Sven shifted his position inside the pogo, slowly, afraid that if he moved too much he'd be buried in an avalanche of decomposing meat. He changed his bracing foot and as he did something popped under his shoulders and he sank a couple of centimeters, into the oily liquid of a scent gland. On top of the other stench the sweet musky odor of the scenting gland was almost a relief. He gagged anyway.

God, I'm scared.

 

The man disappeared. This was not possible. His trail led clearly through to the rocks, more patchily across the ground toward the dead pogo. Near the pogo his trail disappears. This is not possible. There was a heat trace there, downslope; it shot and a few leathery bits of wing drifted down. Another skinhead. With their wings they were approximately the size of a man. It ground forward, then back, chewing up the dirt with its treads. This is not logical. It picked up the fading trail. Perhaps the man had moved fast enough to follow his own back-trail.

 

Sven slid down to the shell opening and gently, slowly fingered aside a desiccated flap of skin. It was almost full dark. He could only tell that the Kai-Sabre was hunting down his back-trail from the distant growl. Now would be his best chance to get away from the pogo shell so he could signal Laura.

He slithered out and down the mound of meat between him and the Sabre, running as lightly as he could, leaving the tools and pack back in the Pogo. Not a mistake, he hoped; he wouldn't be gone long. Too damn heavy. The MA bounced on his back, light enough to take, its plastics impervious to mud-lice. Besides, only a fool would go out alone at night on New Newf without some kind of weapon.

He wiped his face and spat, scrapped a hand through his hair and threw the wet mess he clawed out of it back at the pogo. He was coated, head to foot, with decaying meat fluids and the thick, oily yellow musk from the burst gland.

Once he was off the high ground he slowed to a limp, breath heaving. God, get me out of here. The wind picked up and it was beginning to rain, which words wash away all heat sign.

He paused and leaned back against the trunk of a weeping tree, listening to the early evening sounds.

He could barely hear the bellows of a nessie hunting pack downwind of him, the continual patter of water on leaves. Water. He wiped the mouthpiece of his canteen and drank. Thank God for clean water. Funny, the wind must be dying down, though it doesn't feel like it. The nessies are closer. He fought down a shiver that wasn't from cold or fever. Getting damn paranoid. Everything in this world isn't after me. "Can't go too far from the dead pogo," he said Wearily to his canteen.

He peeled off his shirt and tried to wring and scrape some of the goo from it but the pogo musk wouldn't dissolve in the rainwater. He dragged it back on, hating the feel of it, knowing he needed the warmth. The nessies were getting very close.

"Laura, come in."

"Roger."

"Short contact. In pogo corpus. Watch out for the Sabre."

"Roger. Out."

The nessies were closer—too close for him to make it back to the pogo corpse. He'd have to wait until they went by, and hope that left him enough time to get back inside the shell before the Sabre showed. Damn. To be on the safe side he climbed the tree he was leaning against.

He was half-way up when the first of the pack heaved into sight. In the darkening swamp they were armored shadows, waving their long horned snouts as they scented the air. The frill of spines around their heads rattled as they moved. The air filled with their stink; "snake on steroids," Marjo had called it. They milled around the tree he was in, their many feet shaking the ground as much as any one pogo's, tearing great chunks of dirt with their front claws.

He looked down at his sleeve and wished he could kick himself. "Damn you, Sven." He was covered head to foot in pogo musk, and decomposition fluids. They were after him. The tree was rocking already, two nessies reared up against it, scraping, clattering their neck-spines as they stretched toward him. No, he didn't look or act like a pogo, so small, less than a mouthful for any one of them, but he for damn sure smelled like one, a very sick one.

He frantically shinnied the rest of the way up the tree until he was sure they couldn't reach him. Perching on a branch he peeled off his shirt and pants.

The Sabre's too close. If I start shooting them, it'll target on me. He only had four rounds left anyway.

He was high enough that the tree was bending under his weight, whipping back and forth slowly as the creatures pushed on it this way and that. Damn. I have to get them off me, somehow. He wrapped both legs around the whipping trunk. Below him he could see the shine of teeth clomping at the air under his boot, feel the breeze it made. Further down he thought he saw a beady yellow eye. The Sabre will already be coming to the radio fix; if I shoot, it won't make a difference. And four rounds might do something; nessies would attack one of their own if it were wounded, which would draw a number of them away into a fight.

He held his breath and squeezed off one shot into that eye. The nessie fell away from the tree, convulsing once, twice, before the others pulled it down. Most of them couldn't reach their wounded packmate and were circling, focusing on the enticing, enraging scent of wounded pogo. Three more shots and half the pack was occupied. He flung the empty, useless rifle after them.

As the tree he was in whipped wildly back and forth he scrubbed at his hair. On one swing he flung his shirt one direction, saw a few of the beasts follow it, flung his pants another direction. That was most of them but the tree he was in was going, its roots tearing out of the ground as the thrashing beasts below battered it over.

As it fell and hung up in the next tree he scrambled into that, then to the next. The one beyond that was too far to grab a solid enough branch. He looked back. The pack wasn't following him, yet.

He bounced on a springy branch, let the bounce fling him into the next close tree, slammed through branches, scraping the skin off his chest, falling until his flailing arms managed to grab a limb and swing up his legs. He clung, feeling the bark digging into his raw chest, stinging. I'm in a tree, in my underwear. This can't be a dream, it hurts too much. Scratched and bruised now, he was forcing his leg to work though it didn't feel as if it belonged to him anymore, but like a dead weight on his body, a puffy balloon that wouldn't bend. He heaved himself into the next tree.

Four trees later the pack was distant enough. The closest nessie to him snuffled and loped back to the pack, which was tearing his clothes to shreds. He waited a long minute, then risked dropping to the ground. He was shivering almost continuously in the cool rain. From the east came the snarl of the Kai-Sabre's engines, growing closer.

" 'tween the devil and the deep blue sea," He chuckled, a hysterical sound. "Laura, get your duralloy and flint-steel ass here." He fell, scrambled to his feet and headed back toward the dead pogo. "Home plate," he said through chattering teeth. "Blue plate special. Yum."

He was just climbing the higher ground when he heard the snuffling of the nessie pack, quieter, but closer. Damn, have they picked up my scent-trail? He started rubbing plants and mud on himself as he ran, anything to change his smell. The med-patch was pulling away from his calf but he didn't touch it in the hopes it would still help.

The growl of the Sabre was increasing fast as well. "Shit. It'll shoot me and they'll eat what's left." He was at the rocks, the huge corpse almost in sight. The Pocket tree let go one of its leaf clusters, letting a splash of collected rainwater hit the ground. The moisture on his face could have been tears, or rain, or just plant juices. "Me Too? George? Are you guys hanging around here? Planning a practical joke? No buckets of water over the doors?"

He was babbling. That's not the way an officer acts, even if I am a civilian in uniform. "Yes, sir." Half-crazy with fever. Then the idea came to him. He still had his knife, and the com. "Shit, Sven, you're nuts to try this. But what the hell. Fast—do it fast."

The Pocket tree next to the rocks bent nicely and was easy to pin in place, once he'd emptied the pockets of water, shaking it vigorously. The vines near made a dandy trigger. In the dark he couldn't tell exactly where the Sabre was, or the nessies. "Gotta hope. Gotta work. Laura, Laura, if you can't get here just about now, this has to work. Turra-Lurra-Laura, don't want to buy any farms yet." It was a hoarse whisper. He didn't even realize that he was talking to himself. It seemed as if someone else were standing by, talking as he stumbled in the dark. "Shut up and help me, will you?"

He crawled into the pogo and found the rest of the string of scent glands, trying to be careful not to nick them with the knife as he cut them out of the carcass, though one broke and splashed him. "Won't matter in a bit, won't matter." He laid the glands in the pocket-leaves of the tree and set his trigger. "Come from the east. Come from the east, you overrated, knocked-off 'Shang piece of scrap."

He retreated to the pogo and called Laura to give the Sabre a nice long fix on the radio source.

"Laura? Respond please. Laura Secord?"

"Tech, suggest radio silence. I have the fix, but so will the Sabre."

"Doesn't matter."

"I am close, Tech."

"Rog."

He sat in a hollow in the carcass, just under the front lip of the shell. No matter that he smelled like pogo on a dead pogo. "Front row tickets." He could just see over the edge of his "seat," the meat under him settling a bit.

 

Radio contact. West again. Close. A pack of nessies. The Cheng-Sze wheeled and set off, top speed. As it rounded the rocks it sensed something odd, braked. It turned to allow its sensors more range. The tree snapped forward and though the Sabre reacted, blowing the tree to shreds, the glands burst over its carapace and rained down on its hatch. It identified and ignored the liquid, moving up toward the dead pogo. That was when the nessies came out of the trees.

Inconsequential creatures. Where is my Enemy? There were shots. I will find the man. I will find the LRS.

Nothing on its sensors. Three nessies rammed it at once, driving their horns against its hull, tips striking sparks off the duralloy, or shattering to dust; no pogo shell was this hard. Two more leaped up on it clawing at the hatch, squirming over one another to attack. It blew them apart, but it could only deliver so many anti-personnel mines and laser bolts at once; more kept coming, in a mindless attack frenzy, like sharks. The liquid. Pogo scent. Clever. It backed, trying to shake them off, more and more piling on top of it, on top of the heaps of blackened flesh and shattered shells of their fellows. I must not allow them to stop me.

The laser-beam, unbroken, arced and whirled, carving the close ones to pieces, mirroring drunkenly off heaving shells. They began slashing at anything that moved. Two external sensors damaged, inoperative. It moved, cracking and smearing a nessie undertread.

The Kai-Sabre turned on its lights, the harsh white glare searing through a misty pink haze. It fired and fired, lasers and main cannon and anti-personnel mines. It spun and flung the creatures off, light and explosions wheeling out into the dark and fog with the thrashing bodies of the nessies, one with a link of duralloy still in its teeth.

They have a scent, and a fight. Their instincts are self-sacrificing, like army ants, or piranha, Sven thought, hunkering down under the edge of the shell, covering his head with his arms, wondering vaguely if the liquid falling on him was rain or nessie blood.

He crawled for back inside the pogo shell as the fight came closer. It was the only thing that would offer him some protection. Am I dreaming? I'm still in the dead pogo. I must be dreaming. He curled into a pit in the carcass and held on. His leg wouldn't bend.

The world seemed to rock, the inside of the shell ringing like a hundred ton bell. God. He clung to one of the internal ribs along the inside of the shell as it rang again, and again, explosion-flashes flaring even through the metal of the shell. Will I ever be able to hear again? The carcass sloshed, a wave of dead meat and fluid slamming him up against the inside of the shell.

I can't stay inside here. Laura has to come soon. I have to get to her. Sven scrambled back down through the ripping carcass to the opening, clutching the pack to his chest. Its seams were rotting, dropping bits of duraplas as they tore further and further, threatening to spill parts and tools all over-the decaying meat and ground. Hell, hell, where s Laura? The nessies aren't going to hold the Sabre forever. . . . The battle had moved off again, flashes bursting green through a curtain of leaves. He strained his eyes and ears in the dark. All he could hear was the raging fight, and his hiss and blatt of static in the com as the Sabre blew the nessies away, God . . . God . . .

Then, just for a second, in a flash of the Sabre's beams he caught a glimpse of a mountain moving, downslope. The noise of it was lost in the explosions. "Laura! Open your hatch!" He hoped his shout would get through the static or this was going to be one hell of a short repair mission. He slid down, dragging the clothpack with him. Holding it together, clutching it to his chest he staggered downhill, hit the dirt as another explosion flung him off his feet and jolted the dead pogo toward him. Then the blasts ceased. Shit. The fight's stopped. The bellows of nessies were fading to wounded moans and whimpers, like bleeding bassoons. The growl of the Kai-Sabre idling whispered over the muddy landscape. It didn't seem to be moving. The pogo's in between it and me; it can't sense anything through the shell. Then its engine revved, pitch rising.

"Oh God, dear God. LRS, Laura . . ." He was almost whimpering, falling against the Bolo's hull, trying to climb the ladder one handed, the other clutching the precious pack; while some part of him shrieked too heavy, drop it! Drop it and climb into safety before the laser carved him in half. . .

His fingers closed over the edge of the hatch as the Kai-Sabre blew the exposed forequarter of the pogo out of its way, knocking the shell tumbling downhill. He couldn't see anything, but felt the recoil as the LRS fired back, the repeaters below him almost shaking him off the hull; he dragged himself inside and as the hatch closed felt the heat of the beam scorch his naked legs as he half fell into the LRS's cabin.

 

The jouncing was making him sick. "More light, here, Laura," Sven muttered, clenching his teeth to keep his gorge down, fighting his hands so they didn't shake.

Was it fever or the hammering of the Sabre? He couldn't tell. There was no time. Fully armed, full powered, it was more than a match for a Hellbore-less old Bolo. No time to use the med-pack built into the couch—that would have to come later. If they made it. His fingers, greasy with slime, trembled with fatigue.

The LRS switched on another set of pin-lights inside the turret control; she jolted over something she couldn't compensate for, he bounced, smacked his head against the backpanel, lost the screw for the third time down into the narrow slot next to the backup motor mount. "Christ, I have no idea how it can be that a machine as big as you are still has to have so many tiny, inaccessible, knuckle-chewing—" He rattled against the sharp corners of the narrow space again as the terrain shifted.

"This is taking an unprecedented length of time, Tech Todd," the Bolo interrupted, barely audible through his earplugs.

A clang, a muffled thud and a stream of curses. "Laura!" Sven crawled out, a layer of grease now covering the layer of pogo-goo, holding his left hand in his right. "I usually have a team or four and a small waldo to position this particular part." His voice rose, almost hysterically. "I also usually have a steady floor. Repairs on the run are somewhat more difficult. In other words, Laura, go piss up a rope!"

"That order is impossible to obey, Tech. I do not have a urinary tract. I do not have a rope. Also, the gravitational properties of this world do not allow urination up. Suggest alternatives—"

"Just shut up!" That she could obey. The fever was singing in his ears, making the cabin shift and sway even more than the battering they were taking from the Kai-Sabre.

He didn't want to think what he smelled like. Luckily his nose wasn't registering it anymore. He staggered, caught himself on the edge of the open panel as the floor bucked. Sven crawled back in and picked up the screwjack he'd been using to try and manually lift the part into place. "Stup . . . damn . . . shit eating screws . . ."

"Tech Todd, may I remind you that the Kai-Sabre is one kilometer away."

That was the best distance the running fire-fight had given them, could give them. "YES! You may remind me. You just did . . . Dammit, I can't fix this without a little more stability . . . Laura, we're cooked if you don't smooth out, somehow."

"I am somewhat heated from the Kai-Sabre's main cannon."

"That's not . . ." He cut himself off. "Laura, sweetheart, find us a pogo herd . . ."

"They will be stampeding because the bombardment, Tech."

"WELL, CATCH UP TO THEM!"

"Enhancing power to engines, Tech."

"God-damned most lethal game of tag I've ever been in," he muttered, struggling to reach the screw he'd lost.

"Tech?"

"What?"

"What is 'tag'?" He managed to grab the screw. "What? Oh, a chase game by children, who try to avoid being touched by the one designated 'It.' In this case it's us, trying not to get shot to bits."

"Understood."

His following statements over the next ten minutes were not directed at the LRS so she ignored them. ". . . sumbitch . . . There. Laura, try the traverse now." With a squeal it shifted, halted, shifted again. "Hold it!" He dug down into the bottom of his bag, yelped as the LRS swerved and sent him sliding across the floor, his tools rolling to bang into his legs and the console across the cabin. "Hey! Owww."

"Main cannon burst from the Kai-Sabre. It is making almost eighty kilometers per hour."

'Well, you do ninety then!" His groping fingers found the can in the bottom of his bag. "Got it! You know, Laura, you can do almost anything in the universe with spray lubricant and duct tape? I hope the hell this is one of them!" He sprayed liberally; the mechanism continued to stick. "Damn."

'Tech Todd: suggest impact of one pound at thirty kilometers per hour on left rear corner of traverse stabilizer base shaft."

"Fine!" A precise whack from his fist, and the turret traverse mechanism responded, turning smoothly to the tracking command.

"This is tolerable, Tech Todd." Sven sucked on the cut on his left hand, swaying. "Yeah." He leaned over to pat the small cameo painted next to the manual controls, the portrait of a young, serene woman in Victorian garb, the picture surrounded by a lace frill. "Tolerable. Shit!" He staggered and sat down heavily, half-falling into the couch as the cabin trembled; his tools rattling into the corners.

"The Kai-Sabre is .5 kilometers away and closing."

"And I still have to find the glitch in your gun's vertical controls."

"Might I suggest you do that, Tech Todd."

"It was a rhetorical statement!" A few moments later Sven unclipped his tester from the plug-in patch. "It's not in the electronics. It's physically jammed."

"I have attempted to free it, Tech. I ceased when it appeared to be about to cause internal damage to the motors."

"Damn straight." The extra light he'd brought out of one of the supply packs swung wildly over his head, trying to tear itself loose from where he'd clipped it. He ignored the swaying, letting the couch gimbals take the shocks.

"We are entering a pogo herd of approximately fifty." The Bolo's motion smoothed out.

"Good. Because I can't get at it from the inside." "Outside is dangerous even for armored personnel, Tech." He ran his hands through his sticky, stiff hair. "I know. Open the top hatch." "I advise against this move, Tech." "Shut up and obey orders, Laura. No Hellbore, and we're screwed—haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Yes, Tech." The hatch un-dogged and slid open a crack, letting in a roar of sound that made Sven cover his ears despite his plugs. The pogos bellowed in terror and rage all around them as they plunged through a forest of Weeping trees. He was seemingly surrounded by a churning field of boulders, clashing sparks off each other. A spark drew an anti-personnel bolt from behind, near the rear of the herd, and a cow pogo squealed in pain, the high shriek as loud as the shot.

He pulled on the toolkit work gloves. "Keep the home-tires burning, Laura, I'll be right back in."

He climbed out into the dark and the rain, the deep wails of the herd battering at him as much as the jouncing of the hull. The darkness swam around him; he wasn't going to be much good for anything very soon, he knew. Hang on. He gritted his teeth. I'm going to finish this. Damn every 'Shang that ever lived.

He couldn't key his light yet, that would just draw the Sabre. He'd clipped the com into his ear so that Laura could warn him of drastic maneuvers, the alto voice a smooth murmur in the background undercutting the howling blast of bolts as the Kai-Sabre shot away pogos around them. Dirt and mud mixed with the rain pelting down on him and he ducked his head into his shoulders, unable to free a hand to protect his head. For a long moment he just clung to the hull like a bug on a barrel, getting the breath battered out of him; then began inching forward. The rain pounded down on his back and mud splashed up on the LRS's fender skirts, making the hull slippery. It was like riding a wet nessie. Fortunately this particular ride had handholds. Despite the wet, Laura's hull was hot. He sucked in his breath with a hiss as his skin met the searing duralloy. God knows how many rads I'm taking. Shit, shit, shit.

He looked up to see the looming stalks of pogo heads swaying above him, darker streaks of black against a cloudy sky. Maybe this is all a delirium. He was shaking so hard with cold he could hardly keep his hands clenched as Laura bounced over the rough terrain; his legs left the hull completely for a moment, his weight in midair, then slammed down again. If I fall off, I'm mincemeat. He'd never get up before pogo legs and pads crushed him.

Sheet lightning flickered above the clouds, even thunder drowned out by the din around him. Sven ducked flat again as the LRS slewed around a thick stand of fern-trees, and plowed through a small bog. The herd bull was attacking the Kai-Sabre, judging by its screams. Three massive shots and the night was suddenly full of gobbets of meat raining down out of the sky with the water. Sven gagged.

He groped for the ring-glitch with his gloved hands, found it. Blinking dirt out of his eyes, he strained to see how bad the damage was. He grunted, and risked tonguing his head-light on. In the puddle of yellow light slashed through with rain, he saw the duralloy deformed around the barrel, Hellbore stubbornly locked in the pinch.

"A bigger hammer," he muttered, more to himself than to the LRS.

As he let go one hand to grab the tools he needed, a heaving metallic shell banged against the bolo's side, jostling even its great weight. With a shriek, Sven flew up and forward, his one handhold twisted against his thigh as he slid and hung, for a long, long moment, thrown over the barrel of the Hellbore itself; his light bounced wildly down at the blurring tread spinning twenty meters below. If he fell, she'd never be able to stop in time. Great. Great. It's our own machine treads that are going to mash me. Great.

Gasping for breath, Sven slowly dragged himself back to safety. Another jolt smashed him against the front sensors on her hull. "Dammit!" The Kai-Sabre fired; a bull pogo flung its head back and roared in agony, falling towards them. Sven clicked off his light and tightened his grip, and the LRS dug in, powering ahead so the pogo's body slid off the rear deck, shoving them forward.

He jammed himself into the cranny where the Hellbore protruded from the turret and dug down with one hand into a sealed pouch for his bigger hammer.

Nobody could un-dent duralloy with mere human muscle. He leaned down, taking the shocks of the ride in his knees, dizzy. Only got one chance. He only had one set of the thumb-sized explosives and if they didn't work . . .

He shook his head and crouched down, praying he wouldn't fall or drop the charges. He clicked the light on for a second as he stuck them in place and armed them with a twist of his thumb. One chance. This is it. He scrambled back to the hatch.

The muffled thuds of the tiny charges were lost entirely in the pounding of the Kai-Sabre's repeaters, close, close, too close. Did it work? "Laura!" He looked up, in time to see the pogo beside blow apart with a scream of metal-laced shell and tearing flesh—and the Kai-Sabre looming behind it, lights glaring, framed by the flames in the hanging moss all around them. "Laura! Open the hatch!" He saw the tip of its main cannon, glowing red, locking on, then shifting minutely as it kept its lock. The hatch cracked open. He dived for it. Shit!

 

The LRS is .5 km north. Within range of my main cannon. My port track is damaged but I will destroy the Bolo. The Cheng-Sze fired and the Bolo took the burst on its carapace and upped its speed, gaining on the fleeing herd of pogos ahead. It is larger than I, but it is damaged. I will eliminate it before its Hellbore is repaired. My main cannon has destroyed its front sensor pod.

The pogos plunged around the Kai-Sabre, clanging against its hull, squealing. They blocked all possibility of pinpointing the Bolo. It shot. Shot again. There—no, another pogo. It is in this herd of creatures and if I must shoot them all to find it, I will. It had full power and even if it did not have infinite ammunition, it had plenty enough to exterminate this herd.

Close. A minute flash of light? Yes. There, Stupid beasts. The Bolo was slowing, allowing the herd to pull away from it, the human halfway into the top hatch. One pogo between it and them—with one shot, the Cheng-Sze blew it away. The bolo's turret swiveled as the human dropped down into the hatch but . . .

Its Hellbore is still five degrees below horizontal. The human has not succeeded. I have it.

Then the Hellbore smoothly angled up, locking on.

It is repai—

Dark and rain turned to blazing white, white as the heart of a lightning bolt, outlining the Kai-Sabre for a fraction of a second like a black speck on the surface of the sun. A second shot sent the Bolo recoiling back on its own locked tracks and then . . .

Where the Sabre had been was a smoldering mound, streams of metal hissing as they flowed and cooled in the rain. The air was thick with steam. All sounds faded, except the creak and ping of overheated duralloy, and the crackle of fires in vegetation dried and ignited in one moment.

"Tag," the LRS said on an external speaker. "You're it."

 

It was funny—how'd the Bolo's cabin lights get turned so high? Sven blinked, blinked again and realized that he wasn't in the LRS any longer. He saw warm white walls and a rose carpet as he turned his head: and the window. Nope, I'm not in Heaven, I'm still on New Newf. It was raining. Distantly he heard a nurse's beeper and the chug and click of medical monitors. The hospital.

The screen on the metal arm of the bed beeped at him. He looked up.

"Lieutenant Todd." It was Lieutenant-Commander Christopher Harding, de factor leader of the insurgents.

"Sir." Sven felt as if his brain had just been pulled through a sieve, and his tongue with it.

"The equipment just informed me that you'd wakened. I assumed you would want to know what happened."

"Uh, yes, sir."

"You know that the LRS destroyed the last Kai-Sabre the Xi-shang had?"

"I assumed so, sir." Actually he hadn't gotten around to thinking of that yet, but it made sense; eliminating the Kai-Sabres at all cost had been first priority. He leaned his head back on the pillow. One of the nurses came in and, after checking the monitors, laid a packet on the bed.

"You made it to the Bolo's couch, so you weren't as badly off as you might have been," Harding said. "The LRS didn't have the medical capability to deal with the amount of radiation you'd absorbed, though. Which is why you're here." Sven nodded, ran an experimental hand over his head, finding that his hair was a short fuzz. "You're well past the stage of losing hair, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir."

Harding's face sobered, "Your escort are up for the Starred Cross, Lieutenant, posthumously."

"Thank you," Sven said, feeling a star) of grief for them.

"And you will be awarded it as well. We'll have to see you pinned and get you to rivet one onto the hull of the LRS." Harding nodded at the package the nurse had brought. "Go on, stop pretending not to notice that, and open it. I'll make it more official, once we get things cleaned up here. We're back in control now, because of your actions. . . ." He paused as an aide handed him another report from offscreen. "Once the 'Shang knew all three of their Sabres were out of commission, they decided to quietly high-tail it. We caught them in the act. Their megatonner got away, but only a third full; and we captured a good seventy per cent of the personnel they had left. So we have a number of POWs to deal with until we can send them down to the Core Worlds."

Sven tore open the package, spilling a set of captain's bars and an antique Luger onto the bed. "Congratulations, Captain Todd. I picked up that sidearm from the 'Shang Mission Commander. Since you are a tech, I thought you would appreciate it."

'Thank you, sir," Sven said. "When can I get the Bolo garage back up and running, sir? I'm sure Laur . . . the LRS needs quite a bit of work."

Harding laughed. "As soon as you're on your feet." Sven smiled, a little uncertainly. "Laura'll wait for you, Captain. She'll wait for you."

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Framed