The Shadow and Night (108 page)

As he looked at the shore, his relief was short-lived. They were barely seconds away from the water's edge, and they were clearly going too fast. The beach was rough and boulder strewn, and the cliff face beyond it seemed horribly close. They had to decelerate.

Merral watched Philip maniacally flicking switches. He was struck by the fact that there was now water slopping around inside the hull and that his feet were already soaked.

The booster cut out.

At that precise moment, Philip tugged on a control panel lever. The nose of the sled rose up into the air and the rear end struck the water with an awesome, shuddering crash.

For a fearful instant, Merral, flung viciously against his safety belt, was aware of boiling white water below and pale blue sky above. From all around him came the awful noise of creaking and flexing metal. Just as he was sure they were going to tip over, the nose came down and cracked onto the water in a bone-jarring blow. A fountain of white spray gushed up all around.

The sled ploughed on.

They were slower now. Yet a glance at the shore ahead where the sands were glittering in the new sunlight showed they were still not slow enough. On the intimidating, charcoal black bulk of the ship he could make out details of the fins, ramp, and legs. Beneath the ship, creatures of both sorts were running around across the gleaming sand like animated black paper cutouts, their legs kicking up little sprays of sand as they ran. With a ghastly feeling in the pit of his stomach, Merral realized that there were far too many intruders. They had indeed badly miscalculated.

There was a screaming whine as the engines were thrown into reverse. Out of the corner of his eye, Merral glimpsed red lights flashing furiously on the control panel.

Philip was turning the sled now, swinging it toward the rear of the ship, tilting it like a racing yacht. Now they were aiming straight for where two of the ape-creatures, their odd shapes warped still further by vastly elongated shadows, were swinging the barreled gun toward them.

Sensations now came in so fast that Merral had barely time to assimilate them: rippled sands under the water, little waves breaking against the strand, spray in his face, intense black shadow under the ship, Philip suddenly flicking the gravity-modifying engine switch, the knife edge of fear in his stomach.

The sled struck the water again with a ferocious, deafening smack.

For a second it bounced up and then, lunging forward, thudded heavily onto the shore.

There were now new sensations: the scream of metal on sand and rock, the hissing spray of grit flying everywhere, the mountainous rear of the ship sliding above them like a vast black roof blocking out the sun, and the dull brown pebbly cliff racing toward them.

At the gun, black animal shapes were suddenly trying to throw themselves out of the way.

They struck the gun.

There was a prolonged grinding crash of metal upon metal. With an appalling soft, liquid thud, something large and black and as limp as a child's toy flew overhead, its outstretched limbs flailing against the sun.

The sled slewed and jolted crazily and then, with an insane ear-piercing screech, they came to a halt in a cloud of dust and sand.

For a brief, stunned instant there was a numbed silence.

Then, apparently from everywhere at once, furious shouts and cries erupted. Some—familiar and human—were from the sled as the men tried to leap free. Others—wild and animal—came from underneath the intruder ship.

Merral, partly dazed by the impact, fumbled for his belt release catch and clambered free, trying to orient himself. They had stopped just behind the intruder ship. As he stood unsteadily on the sand he could see, towering above him as high as a five-story building, the curved, blackened rear surface of the ship broken only by three inset thruster nozzles.

The foot of the cliff was less than ten meters to their right. As he realized how close they had come to hitting it, he heard a sudden, bellowed warning.

Something the size of a small man, brown and shining like wet wood, was racing toward him. On the edge of his vision, Merral saw another cockroach-beast coming from his left. Behind that was another. And another.

Merral raised his gun and, trying to steady his shaking hands, flicked off the safety switch. There was a gratifying hum from the stock as the electronics came to life. He sighted on the heaving chest of the cockroach-beast and fired. The gun hissed. Merral saw the hard central ridge of fused plates become momentarily illuminated with a red disc of light. There was a faint wisp of smoke. With a rattling and spluttering scream, the creature toppled over.

As Merral trained his gun on a new target, there were bellows, screeches, and yells all around him, and he was suddenly aware that he was in the midst of a bitter and chaotic hand-to-hand battle. All about him soldiers, ape-creatures, and cockroach-beasts were locked into a melee so intense that it was impossible to work out what was happening. Immediately to his left, a yelling man was kicking wildly at a cockroach-beast slashing at his legs with its bladed fingers. Barely thinking, Merral reversed his gun and swung the butt as hard as he could against the creature's plated head. There was a sharp and sickening crack, and the beast was flung backward onto the ground.

The soldier the beast had been attacking aimed his gun and fired repeatedly at it. There was a smell of blood, steam, and fear.

Another cockroach-beast, its carapace the color of old leaves, leapt ferociously at Merral, who dodged desperately to one side. Its pincer-like digits slid a handbreadth away from his face and clattered harmlessly on his armored jacket.

For a fraction of a second, Merral glimpsed dark eyes glaring at him and the moist, twitching slot of a mouth opening and shutting around yellowing, needlelike teeth.

Thrown off balance, his attacker tumbled to the ground beyond him. With a leap of surprising energy and speed, it sprung back upright and turned to face him, chattering angrily as it flexed its armored legs.

As Merral raised the gun, it jumped at his face. Instinctively, Merral jabbed with the barrel, striking the creature in the neck while it was in midair. The beast toppled back and hit the sand. As it tried to rise, Merral, aiming the gun by intuition, fired twice. With an uncontrollable rattling of limbs, the cockroach-beast fell back onto the bloodied sand.

Almost at his feet, a soldier, his helmet awry, was rolling on the ground, locked in a bitter embrace with a thrashing black ape-creature that almost dwarfed him and whose arms were clamped round his throat. A fellow soldier danced around the struggling pair, stabbing and slashing away with his bush knife at the hairy limbs whenever he could. Beyond him, another man, screaming in fear or anger—or both—was furiously hitting a further ape-creature in the face with the butt of his gun.

As Merral ran over to help, he saw two more ape-creatures running toward him with their elongated arms held high and their teeth bared. He turned, fired, and missed. He found the focus beam switch with wet fingers, slid it to the “wide” setting, and fired again and again. The shots seemed to have no effect and the creatures were almost upon him. Then, as suddenly as if it had been a machine, the leading ape-creature stopped dead in its tracks. Its jaws opened wide in a howl of pain and it began slapping its shoulder, from where Merral saw a trickle of smoke emerging. Suddenly a line of yellow flames flickered along the massive chest and leapt across to the wrist of the beating hand. With a series of pitiful screams, the creature turned and loped frantically toward the lake where it plunged its smoldering body into the waters. The other creature fled back under the hull of the ship.

Suddenly Merral was aware that the men around him were looking for new enemies. The attack was over. Around the sled were strewn the bodies of their attackers; perhaps seven cockroach-beasts and three ape-creatures, looking far less human in death than in life.

Frankie, his face streaked with blood and looking this way and that with a wild-eyed gaze, was gesturing frantically to a stack of metal struts and plates some way back against a pile of boulders near the cliff.

“Back! Over here!” he shouted, his voice hoarse. “Take cover!”

Slowly, their pale faces proclaiming their shock and horror, the men followed his gesture, picking up weapons and helmets as they went. Two were limping, one badly. A sobbing man was led away past Merral, clutching a hand shorn of fingers. An ape-creature writhed momentarily and then lay still.

Guns, chest armor, and surprise gained us this brief victory,
Merral thought, a part of his mind marveling at his ability to analyze under stress. A glance around suggested that all of his men lived, but that two at least were injured to the point that they could take no further part in the fighting.
Next time, it may be different.
As the thought came, he realized that the next time might be only seconds away.

Frankie, his trousers torn and dirtied by red smears, ran over to him. “Sir, better take cover with us. . . .” He looked ahead under the ship. “There's dozens more there!” he cried, his voice ringing with alarm.

Merral looked over to see more dark forms emerging off the ramp and gathering in the deep shadows under the hull. Instinctively, he ducked down behind the tilted sled, gesturing to Frankie to join him. As the lieutenant squatted next to him, Merral looked around, trying to take stock of the situation, noting that the remaining men were running or limping to take cover behind the equipment pile.

Frankie stared at Merral, his hands shaking. “I could never have imagined it, sir.” He swallowed and looked at Merral with astonished and troubled blue eyes. “Sorry, I'm kinda shaken up. I ended up sticking my gun barrel in the mouth of one of those ape things. I had to pull the trigger. . . .” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “Sir, can you imagine what happened?” he asked.

“Take it easy, Frankie,” Merral said, patting him on the arm, feeling faintly ridiculous as he did it. “You've a done a good job so far. Any ideas for the second half of the match?”

Frankie shook his head. “Sir, I'm afraid . . . well, I don't think we can go ahead with the plan—” He looked around. “We are down to twenty-seven, twenty-six men. There's another twenty or so of them and more coming. And that front leg's past them. What do we do, sir?”

There was such a pathetic note in his voice that Merral felt a spasm of pity for him. The exercises at Tanaris had been so simple. This was reality. A situation they were unprepared for, a location away from where they were supposed to be, and an enemy that was more horrible and more numerous than they had expected.

“Zak's team?” Merral asked. “Did you see what happened to them?”

“Zak's team? Oh yeah. I think I saw them land north of the ship, sir. They were being fired on too. And there was a bay there.”

“Let's hope they made it,” Merral said

Frankie glanced down, saw a smear of blood and black hair on the Lamb and Stars emblem on his armor jacket, and began to rub it clean with a finger.

“Sorry, sir. I guess I look a mess, eh?” Frankie's jaw began moving up and down as if he were chewing something. Then he seemed to snap back into reality. “Sir, there are too many for us to attack.”

Merral glanced back to the rest of the team, who were taking cover behind the equipment piles and enlarging depressions in the sand. “True, Frankie. Let's go for Game Plan B.”

“Game Plan B, sir? What's that? I don't remember that.”

“Easy, Frankie, easy,” Merral said, feeling that by trying to calm Frankie he was calming himself. “You get your men to take cover by those boulders. Dig down into the sand like they are doing now, but get them as deep as they can. And use that equipment for cover. If you can keep firing and hitting one or two of them, that will help. Slowly whittle them down until we get more people here.”

“Sir, is that okay?” Frankie asked, his eyes wild. “I mean we
are
supposed to take the ship. Orders.”

“I know, Frankie. But they aren't going to fly away with everybody outside. Keep everybody there. If they show signs of taking off, then you can risk everything and run and attack the legs.”

Frankie's eyelids flickered, then he swallowed, turned around, and began shouting instructions to the men to dig down and make defenses.

Merral looked ahead to the ship. Beyond the massive rear legs with their pipes and pistons, he glimpsed creatures running and hiding behind some of the piles of metal and camouflage sheets near the ramp. He turned his gaze to the lake, taking in the smoke still hanging over the water behind him. Where was the other sled?

Frankie nudged him. “Sir, should I call Perena and warn her?”

“Good idea. Hadn't thought of that. If there are more of those guns around the ship, she could be in trouble.” He looked around. “Tell her to come in from the east and land the men on the slope above the ship. But not to approach from the lake.”

“Yeah. Land on the cliff top . . . Makes sense. It'll give us some protection from an attack up there. Okay. I'll do it.”

“Good,” Merral answered, relieved that, in spite of being traumatized, his lieutenant showed signs of being able to think. “If these things get up top, we'll have a problem.”

“Yeah, sir. Right. We don't need another attack from there.”

As Frankie took out his diary and talked into it, Merral examined the ship further and wondered how he was supposed to make an entrance. The ramp itself was out of the question. It was almost a hundred meters away, and he could see dark forms edging out cautiously in front of it. It would take at least a hundred men to assault that entrance.

But was the ramp the only possible access point? Merral turned his attention to the complex lattices of discolored pistons, struts, and pipes that made up the rear legs. Stained by grease, they ran up some twenty or more meters from the great square feet and extended up inside the fuselage. On the back of the right leg was a narrow metal ladder that ran up from near the ground into fuselage wells where it was screened by some sort of hanging bay doors.