[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The sky roared.Mantis fighters overhead.Making a third sweep of the canyon.The marines in the shallows vanished in a blinding display of pinpoint antipersonnel rocketry.I flattened across Adanaho’s body.Long moments of silence followed.The Professor’s disc slowly smoldered, so close I could smell the cooking flesh.I turned my eyes back to Adanaho’s face.She stared up at me unblinking, her mouth half open but not drawing breath.I began to hurl obscenities at the cosmos.Towards any deity or deities that would listen.I damned the Professor.I damned the Queen Mother, and the mantes, and the marines, and the awful stupidity of precious lives cut short.I damned Earth.I damned the Fleet.I even damned Adanaho for being young and idealistic and coming to me as if I had some power over circumstances; enough to alter the course of history.Such idealism had gotten her killed, and all I could do was sit there, soaked and cold and clutching the captain’s lifeless hand in my own.A slow build of tortured sobs burst out of me as I lowered my forehead to Adanaho’s chest and shook with grief.For her.For my alien friend.For the fate of two species apparently committed to annihilation.After a few moments I heard the Queen Mother suddenly rise up, her wings unfolding and extending to maximum width.I opened my eyes and looked.Enough light was coming down into the Canyon now that I could see her clearly.She watched the sky.A loud, thunderous, mechanized whining to my rear me told me that the drop pods had finally come.Multiple buzzing sounds told me the shock troops—their armored discs studded with a variety of lethal weapons—were on top of us.Perhaps it was for the best.To end things in this manner.I wasn’t sure I wanted to live to see the mantis war machine slowly grind the planets of human space to powder.Instead of a quick termination, now there would be a long, drawn-out, dreadful fistfight as the Fleet contracted and toughened its defensive circle.World after world would be cleansed of humanity.Until at last Earth would fall under mantis crosshairs.The final stand.And then…humanity would join the handful of other extinct races in the mantis archives.A dead people, wiped from the face of the galaxy by a species determined to have the stars to itself.I kept my eyes closed and held the captain’s hand tight.The buzzing was loud now.They had to be just meters away.A sharp hissing cut through the mechanized sound.It was a shrill, painful sound, almost like fingernails on a chalkboard.I reflexively looked up to see the source, and saw the Queen Mother hovering over myself and Adanaho, her wings fluttering and beating the air ferociously.Her mouth was open as wide as possible and her tractor teeth were vibrating so quickly they were a blur.It must have taken an astounding effort for her manage the display, but it had gotten the attention of her subordinates.Several dozen mantis soldiers surrounded us, looking unsure of what to do.Those in the front rank were recoiling at the sight of the Queen Mother: a mantis without her carriage, unchained, feral, her insect eyes adamant.Her hiss slowly died in her throat, followed by a rapid series of clicks and clacks as she spoke to her people in their own language.I couldn’t be sure what she was saying, but their reaction was immediate.A path opened through the mass of soldiers allowing four other mantes to maneuver forward.I didn’t see weapons on their discs.In fact, their discs seemed like the Professor’s.Were these medics? I could only guess.Two of them converged on the remains of the Professor.The other two on the Queen Mother herself, who settled onto her small lower legs and began to instruct the lot of them, her forelimbs waving and pointing with the distinct authority of one bred to rule.None of them touched me.Nor the body of the captain.The troops moved back, then began to disperse.Securing the area, no doubt.I slowly sat up, tears and mucus down the front of my wet uniform, and glared at the Queen Mother.She sat on the sand, her wings folded tightly and her beak shut.She glared right back, her eyes alien but her posture erect and dignified.Eventually the medics returned with what appeared to be a small disc—a carriage without an owner.Though I guessed by size that it was only temporary, for the Queen Mother’s benefit.She looked at me for a long while, not saying anything, and me not saying anything to her.Then she slowly climbed aboard the disc and settled into the saddle.A series of squeaking and mechanical snapping sounds told me she was being re-integrated.She shuddered once and her mouth opened in irritation, then the disc rose off the ground.Hovering over to myself and the body of the captain, the Queen Mother announced, “Pick up your captain.There is a transport waiting for us.I have a truce to call!”Chapter 38Earth (the Moon), 2153 A.D.We didn’t take the entire mountain until the middle of the following day.At which point none of us had gotten any sleep, and Charlie Company had amassed sixty-three percent casualties.Positive devastation, for any line unit.At least according to Fleet doctrine.But lucky for us we were “reinforced” by a second “company” which had extracted from an imaginary nearby objective
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]