They Also Serve (43 page)

"He's firing too far out," Ray advised everyone. "Those guns aren't accurate beyond a thousand meters. Neither are ours. Better to hold fire until five hundred."

"That's easy for you to say," Dancer snapped, and started zigzagging and making smoke. He also fired off a round of his own. It didn't come close. More Tigers came over the hill. The heavy tanks moved, paused, fired, then moved on. Dancer jerked right and left with no rhyme or reason except to stay alive.

Hunched beside their guns, Ray's crews waited. Waiting was all they could do. If the Tigers nailed Dancer, they'd have all the time in the world to come looking for the three guns on their flanks. If a Tiger came head on, Ray's guns hadn't a chance.

Dancer danced and the Tigers chased. Ray would have organized the tanks; twelve would make an easy three platoons. If one had gone far to the right, another left, and the third up the middle, they would have had a better chance of getting Dancer and of checking out the neighborhood.

Dumb move; but then, Pres had never studied war. Ray had six thousand years of warfare to lean on. The computer was getting its lessons tonight. Of course, the computer was thinking in nanoseconds. How long before it had six thousand years of thinking under its belt? No use worrying about that.

The first tank pulled even with Ray's gun. "Hold your fire. We want to work our way up from the rearmost tanks. Wait until the last ones are about even."

"Hear you" came from the other two guns.

Ray would give his right arm for a reader with designated targets for each of his guns. Unavailable technology. "Dean, you get the one closest. Gun one, you take the middle one. I'll take the farthest."

"I got a hit!" Dancer shouted. "We hit that puppy. Didn't do any good, but we hit it," he ended, half-laughing. The lead tiger had taken a hit on its front armor. It showed a scoop like a spoon might make on soft ice cream. The tank drove on, apparently unfazed. Then it fired.

The gun blew up.

"Good going, Dancer, you damaged the gun barrel. That's got to hurt." The crew abandoned their flaming tank. Dancer zigged but fired his machine gun, cutting down the crew as they fled.

"Time for us to go to work, teams. On my count of three. One ... two ... three."

All three guns fired at once. Two Tigers caught fire; the third snapped its tread and ran out of it. Still dangerous, its turret slewed around, looking for its assailant. "I'll get him next time!" the Dean shouted. He did. Ray or someone got one more tank on the second salvo.

Beside Ray, David shoved a round in the barrel. Rose slammed the breech shut as David turned to Jon for another round. Ray whirled the gun controls, sighting on the broadside of a Tiger. It blew before he pulled the trigger. Cursing the gunner who got there first, he turned some more. Hunting. Hunting.

A Tiger turned toward them. That couldn't be allowed; Ray sighted on it. His shot took off its tread. "Aim low," Ray muttered, as much to himself as to the others. "Armor's thinner there."

"I got one," Dancer chortled. "Bastard turned his side to me and I got him."

Ray found another target, fired off a round. Missed. Hit the second time. He sat up, looking over the gun shield, hunting for a target to aim at. One, three, five, ten tanks burned. One was scooting away in reverse. Ray aimed low, nipped the tread. The tank came to a halt, crew bailing out. These weren't running, but prying at the damaged tread, laboring to fix it Ray aimed a second shot. It fell short. Third missed long. Fourth landed among them. Tread, wheels, bodies flew. The tank began to burn. One left

"Mine!" Dancer shouted. Dancer had swung wide, away from Ray's guns. Now he was in a position on the opposite flank. The last Tiger backed away, firing at the guns. Ray's fire had slowed as the kids had to run back to the caisson for each round; their ready rounds long spent.

The slow fire helped. The Tiger couldn't seem to figure out which gun to engage, but shot at each of them in turn as they fired on it. But all the tank's attention was now focused on the guns. Dancer slipped unnoticed behind him. Paused. Fired. Nothing happened for a moment. Ray wondered where the shell had gone; he should have seen the fall of a miss.

Then the tank blew sky high.

Around him the kids were screaming, jumping up and down. Ray rested his arms on the gunsight, totally exhausted. He'd bet their lives in a damn deadly fight-and won.

How many more of these battles could he take?

Ray stood, eyed the field of burning tanks, then turned to the line of defenders. The Dean was looking his way, shock blanking his face. The next gun pit down was a blackened wreck. Four computer images would not answer the next muster.

"Cassie, fall back! Get out of there!" screamed Mary's voice on net. On the wall, Cassie held her arms up, as if to stop a runaway train with the wave of her hand.

Surrounded by the mob, Cassie went down. Du didn't see anyone hit her; the rabble just swallowed her, stomped her into the mud. "Stand by," Du whispered over the squad net, hoping, begging for orders.

Mary's mule screeched to a halt where the four or five hundred riot police struggled to form a line to keep the raging mob away from their families. "All personnel, this is Captain Rodrigo speaking." Mary's voice had a bitter resignation to it as it came over the general net. "The wall has been breached. Marines, by riot police platoons, prepare to fall back."

As leaders called preparatory orders to their formations on the wall, the base public-address system came alive with Mary's voice. "All families on base, please assemble in the three largest buildings: the hangar, the fabrication building, and the factory. I repeat: All women, children, and others not in riot formations, please assemble in the fab, hangar, or factory buildings. The crowd outside the base is about to break in. We cannot keep you safe if you do not go now to those buildings."

Around the wagons on the airstrip, mothers gathered little ones in their arms, grandmothers herded running children, like mother geese chasing goslings. Here and there, very elderly were helped along by older children. In a hurried wave of humanity, the latest arrivals fled across the fields toward the safety of the large buildings. It was gonna get awfully cramped inside.

Mary continued on net. "Platoons one through ten, form up on the hangar building." Off-duty platoons were already forming around each of the three main refuge buildings. Now the five struggling to form a shield wall began to back up. Their flanks hung in midair. Some of the rampaging mob slipped around them. Most were unaware of the open space so close.

"Permission to shoot down a few folks outflanking the retreating riot formation," Heave asked on net.

"Permission denied," snapped Mary. "Platoons eleven through twenty, fall back on the factory. Twenty-one through thirty, fall back on the fab. All navy and marine personnel, fall back on the hospital."

"Ma'am, does that mean us leading platoons have to leave our people?" came like a shot over net. Du could hear Mary twisting slowly on the fire spit of that one. She wanted the marines at the hospital, but if those platoons lost their leadership now, they'd never form, never hold the rioters away from their families. Du shouted for his crew to get moving; they double-timed for the stairs.

"Sergeant Dumont, how fast can you get your squad on the hospital roof?"

"We're moving, ma'am!" Du shouted. "Five minutes at most!"

"Middies?"

"Chief Barber here, ma'am. I've already got middies covering the hospital's doors. All the navy not with riot police are here. We're standing by."

"Marines assigned riot platoons will stay with them," Mary ordered. "Du, I want you on that hospital roof yesterday."

"We were," Du grinned as he hit the bottom of the stairs and bolted out a side door. Kip slammed it behind him, made sure it was locked, and the six galloped for the hospital.

"Marines coming in!" his lead shouted as he hit the door. Five middies, a petty officer first class providing mature judgment, looked at them over the sights of their M-6s. Du spotted one of his marines disappearing up a flight of stairs and followed. He burst onto the front of the roof as Heave led her fire team from the rear stairwell. With quick hand signals, Du sent pairs of his marines to cover each corner.

"Du here. Hospital roof is secure. Perimeter is under my field of fire. We await your orders, Captain."

"I'm coming" was Mary's answer.

Du evaluated the situation. The fleeing families from the runway had washed up on three large buildings and been sucked inside. To his left, a late navy type was pointing Ms. San Paulo and her cronies toward the fab. The circle chair seemed unable to believe the starfolk would abandon her and their HQ. Mary's mule detoured to pick up two hobbling elders and race across to the fab. Abandoning the mule, Mary double-timed to the hospital.

"Now hear this," she said, breathless, and punctuated by the slamming of a door. "This hospital is where we make our stand. No retreat. We hold for as long as the Colonel needs us to. I plan to wait them out. We will show no lights. We will take no actions unless I say so. I don't want those bastards roaming our base to even suspect we're here. Understood?" There were a lot of quiet nods around Du.

Across the field, the first five platoons completed their withdrawal to the hangar in good order. Others formed a defensive line around the fab and the factory. Most of the mob, attracted by the smell, headed for the dining hall. Someone had even left the lights on; it drew them like moths. Mary was at Du's elbow, watching the mob rush the mess, a smile on her lips. "Supper's long gone. Unless they can eat tables and chairs, they're going to be as hungry as they were."

"Where's the food stored?"

"In the fab, factory, and hangar. Where else?"

On the runway, wagons were being turned over, knocked aside, torn apart as rioters hunted for food. "They know what they want, but they got no idea where to find it. I figure they'll spend what's left of tonight knocking around the wrong places and wasting a lot of energy on nothing."

"Unless they find us," Du pointed out.

"As the Colonel says, they also serve who only stand and wait. We start shooting and every one of 'em'11 be here. The doors are locked. That should keep the likes of them out."

"And the guards around the other buildings."

"Will draw them. But I don't expect any concerted action against any one place."

"So we just stand and wait."

"That's the idea. The Colonel's fighting the main battle. Jeff and Kat are supporting him as they can. Our job is to keep anyone from jiggling his elbow. We can do that just as well without firing a shot as we can by mowing 'em down. You got a preference?"

Du slung his rifle over his shoulder, happy to keep it there until the sun came up.

Doc Isaacs served by standing, watching the kids and the Colonel. Even without the monitors he could see the heat rising from them. Their temperatures were skyrocketing.

"Medic," he called softly, "bring me every bottle of rubbing alcohol we've got. Mary, I need two middies in here."

Mary rattled off names; in a second, middies were there, rifles slung across their chests. "They're burning up," Jerry told them. "We've got to wipe them down in alcohol, help them evaporate the heat. Wash 'em," he said pouring the liquid straight from the bottle onto Ray's head. A cloth caught the runoff. Jerry swabbed his neck and chest. In the goggles, Ray's body was red, wreathed in steaming waves.

"What's going on in there?" he wondered.

"You think you're so smart, dancing around me, hindering me a little here, diverting me a little there. Enough of that. Know the full power of my intelligence." Out of the dark surrounding Ray, a blinding light bore down upon him, compressed and pressured him. He could not run from it, hide from it, survive it. It ground him down, into dust, into atoms, into quarks. Then it would blow him away into the cosmic void.

"You can do this," Ray agreed, holding on to himself with his fingernails. "But it doesn't mean anything."

"It means everything!" the President bellowed.

"Even if you wipe me from existence, you still will not know who you are? What you could be? Why you've become like this? You won't know anything?"

"I know everything." The light flashed red, then white-hot. "I know everything there is to know."

"Then where are the Three? Why did they quit sending their young to you? What did you do to cause them to go away?" Ray jabbed at the light, hit it with all the force he could muster.

And the light flinched back from him.

"Why did you never ask the Three what was happening when fewer and fewer of their young came? Why did you say nothing as the numbers change? How could you miss that?"

From behind Ray, Jon, Rose, then David and the others joined in. "How could you have missed the change? How could you have seen nothing important?"

"I didn't need to ask. I know everything," the President insisted. "I know everything worth knowing."

"Then tell me why the Three quit coming."

"That is not important."

"Wasn't teaching the young of the Three important?" Ray shot back. The kids echoed him, "Wasn't it? Wasn't it?"

"Of course it was. It was the most important activity in the universe."