David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

“Get some weapons up here!”

—But, but, what’ll we use?—

“Those small lasers in Three B— that’s all we’ve got that we can move right away.”

—But won’t they just pick off anybody who comes close enough to use small lasers?—

Carl swore. She was right.

—I can send some big mechs from the north pole.—

“We’ll be toast by then!”

He whistled a search-and-contact command for Joao Quiverian and had a channel in seconds. “Quiverian! This is Osborn. You—”

The man’s voice was strained. —Those are not acting under my orders. Arcists they are, yes, but I cannot control them.—

“You expect us to believe that?”

—You must. It is the truth.—

Carl gritted his teeth. So the enemy was faceless. Anonymous. The people using those big lasers weren’t going to allow anyone else to take over the Nudge options, to try another orbit. With them it was all or nothing… and they would take all.

On the general comm, more screams as an invisible laser bolt struck a hillock and dissolved a deep pit into it. Carl saw a body roll away… someone hiding there.

He used command override on channel A. “Get those people off that slag mound by Launcher Two! All of you, take shelter down in the feeder tunnels.” A babble in reply. “And use ident codes if you want to be heard!”

He spoke a quick command in mech-talk and the noise cut off as the channel controller went over to formal mode. Now suit radios would not even work until the system passed on your code-ordering. For a moment there was only an eerie hiss. Then,—Jones, BQ code to Osaka and Osborn. Leading party of five down to shaft now.—

—Lomax, DF code, to command. Got a good view from a safe height. Everyone P-code your sitings to me. I’ll relay situation to Osborn.—

Carl nodded. A few good spacers who remembered their training were worth battalions.

—Jeffers, GH code to Osborn Got it I think.—

“Osborn, GH code. Got what?”

—Jeffers, GH. I’m tipping the launcher down. Got to turn it toward the south. You line it up, okay?—

Carl realized that the steady hammering of Launcher 6 had stopped some time ago. Now, as he watched, the assembly turned laboriously toward the distant low hills, its snout tipping downward. Carl got to his feet and swiftly moved behind the slowly swiveling launcher. The only way he could think to aim the thing was to eyeball it directly, sighting along the barrel.

Great. Real high-tech.

And the Arcists were undoubtedly watching them closely. Their objective must be this site. They had destroyed the easier targets while they were getting the range right. Launcher 6 was much harder to hit, buried in its trench. But now that it was slowly emerging…

He squatted down onto a patch of orange stain and closed one eye automatically, lining up the launcher barrel with the specks on the distant hill.

—Lomax, DF to Osborn. Got a tactical sketch of known enemy positions. Prepare to receive. They’re bunched up pretty close.—

Carl threw the picture over half his faceplate. Benchley’s rough drawing showed a main group and two wings— probably outlying spotters.

Not many of them. I count five. But they’ve got the best ground.

The Arcists were settled into a notch, taking advantage of the shelter. As he watched a bright blue flash winked— and he ducked automatically. Which was ridiculous; if he was in the full focus of the laser it would have blinded him instantly. Instead, they had aimed high. Only the fringing fields had struck him.

He checked Jeffers. Almost tipped enough…

He blinked to clear his vision; it didn’t help much. “Open her up!”

—I … I can’t just shoot that hillside with a full load! That’s a kilogram of iron at ten thousand KPS… it’d be like setting off a ten-kiloton bomb!—

Carl thought furiously. “Empty casings! They only mass a couple grams. Have you got any?”

—Uh. Yeah. I’d better go at low power, too,—Jeffers said.—Take a minute… lessee… one percent setting…—

Someone screamed. Another near miss. “We’ve got to return fire. Open her up!”

—Okay, okay.—To his relief, Carl heard the braaap braaap braaap resume. The sound was different. Lower, rougher.

—It’s not tuned for this! It’ll shake apart!—

Carl thumbed over to telescopic. All up and down the hillside, plumes of vapor spouted as pellets struck.

“A-Comm auto-override. Jeffers, left!”

—Yo.—

The small gouts of fog leaped high, several a second.

A blue flash from the hilltop, brighter this time. The enemy, too, was zeroing in. Carl turned and saw the ice not far behind him flare and suddenly explode into pearly mist.

“Higher!”

—Gotcha!—

A line of bursting fog walked tip the hillside, erratic but rising, steadily rising toward the specks who manned the big, cumbersome tube.

Two antagonists, each wrestling with weapons too big and powerful to be used deftly…like fighters flailing at each other with steel beams. The first to score a hit…

Carl wondered what would happen if the laser struck him fully. His suit would reflect some, and at this angle the beam was spread over a much larger area… still; he didn’t want to find out.

“Go right! And higher!”

The jittering gouts of fog leaped, swerved, steadied-and struck the milling specks.

Soundless destruction. Carl lay on the ice and watched the pellets pound endlessly into the targets— mere writhing dots and splintered, rolling parts of the laser— as the fog of the assault gathered, spread, and finally obscured the scene.

“Okay. You can… shut it down.”

—We get ’em?—

“Yeah. Yeah, we did.”

Carl felt no elation, no zest. It had all happened so fast, so abstractly. A bunch of dots moving on a hillside. Brilliant, sudden flashes of blue. Then the distant spurts as streaking casings struck ice, struck steel, struck yielding flesh and cracking bone. A science of strict geometry and easy death.

—Hey, we did it! That’ll teach the suckers!—The launcher fell silent. Jeffers leaped out of the trench, exuberant.

“So… so we did.”

He heard Virginia’s voice, and others, and with the returning babble running in his ears Carl walked slowly toward the hammered hillside, not wanting to see what was there but knowing he should. It was part of his job.

Suddenly his mind cleared and he remembered the rest of the poem, the lines that he had idly recalled only a few minutes before…a time that seemed months in the past, now.

Spacesuits were aggravating. They reminded Virginia of how out of shape she was— of the passage of years.

She struggled with the adjustment bands, loosening some and tightening others in all the wrong places. Flab! No wonder Saul’s been so…

Virginia clamped down on the thought. Anyway, she was sure their troubles had little to do with her recent lack of exercise.

Maybe nothing was meant to last, she thought. Perhaps everything good self-destructs in the end.

The image of a red world, new volcanoes bursting forth to greet the dawn…

For the first time since the abortive Arcist attack, Carl had given permission for her to come up and see him in person. Being indispensable had its drawbacks. With human guards and watch-mechs standing in layers around her lab to protect her, she had lately begun feeling like a queen ant, a slave to her own royalty.

Though a queen ant, at least, creates eggs…