B. Larson - Extinction

I really wished, at that moment, that Chen or Jensen or at least one of their sensor arrays had survived the trip, but they had all been lost or destroyed along the way. We couldn’t see what they had in store for us, and thus were taken by surprise.

Thousands of them. They came on, guns chugging out steady streams of popping balls. We burned them, and they blasted us. The bowl wasn’t very large, and they were in close in less than a minute. The drill-tanks rotated their big weapons, spraying blinding heat into the advancing enemy like flamethrowers. Ranks of Worms turned into twisting, smoking bodies. Often, their magazines of explosive pellets were ignited, and the resulting explosion flattened everyone nearby.

We were killing them ten to one, but they still had the weight of numbers. Once in close, when it was down to knife-work, the Worm troops had the advantage. They were six times the weight of a man, stronger, and their jaws were deadly.

Kwon and I took up a stance in the center. The bowl-shape of the terrain helped us then. We had a free field of fire. Since the enemy were higher up than my marines, we could fire over our men and hit the Worm troops that were still pouring out of the holes around the rim.

“Mark your target!” roared Kwon. “Don’t burn one of my men in the back or I’ll burn a hole in yours!”

I sent the center tanks to the front-which was everywhere. “Pull back Bravo and Delta,” I shouted into my com-link. “I want a central reserve in case they break through our line completely. We’ll give fire support from the base of the ring itself.”

“Sir!” shouted Kwon, standing back-to-back with me. We both fired intermittently, steadily, out into the massed enemy ranks.

“What?”

“Sir, we have to get out of here.”

“We’re holding them.”

“But we don’t know what this thing is going to do,” Kwon pointed out.

I glanced over my shoulder and looked up at the big ring that loomed overhead. It was mottled and craggy. It seemed weathered and ancient, rather than freshly built. But who knew with the Worms? Nothing they made had straight lines and smooth surfaces.

“You think they wanted us to hug this thing?” I asked.

“They gave us one surprise,” said Kwon reasonably. “Why not two?”

“Yeah, why not?” I agreed.

Bravo and Delta companies had gathered in the center with surprising speed. No one wanted to be on the front lines, holding back the mass of charging Worms. There semed to be no end to them. The bodies were stacking up into steaming heaps. Some of the enemy troops were scrabbling over the bodies of their comrades or burrowing under to get to us.

“We’re going to break out! Everyone push back the same way we came in. We know the way out if we head in that direction.”

The men needed little encouragement. We marched southward, and the enemy lines folded away from us, falling back from our concentrated fire.

When I reached the rim of the bowl, I looked back and realized I couldn’t withdraw entirely. We’d made it to our destination. We had to tell the Macros about it. I got out the special unit, the one that was tied to the glittering trail of nanites that wound back all the way to the outside world. I wondered how many times the wire had been broken. I’d seen it snap just from a marine carelessly treading on it. The wire had naturally repaired itself, being made up of billions of nanites. Miles of nanites, spun along a hair-thin path to the world of sun and wind. Just thinking about it made me homesick for an open vista. I’d even welcome the red, fluttering glare of Helios right then.

I pressed the button I’d never pressed until then. The one that opened up a channel to the Macro command.

“ Identify, ” came the response, quickly and coolly.

I relaxed a little. I hadn’t known if the thing would really work until then. “This is Colonel Kyle Riggs. I’ve reached the goal point. The mission is complete.”

“ The mission is incomplete. ”

I stared down at the pitched battle around the ring. In two spots, our lines had fallen back. They had not yet buckled, but I could do the math. With each wave of Worms that poured out of the holes, we lost a number of men. At some point, we would lose too many and the enemy would break us. We’d dissolve into pockets of struggling, encircled, desperate survivors. If they had enough troops and enough time, we would be slaughtered. There would be no surrender. No retreat. Maybe this is what the enemy had planned all along. Maybe Kwon was right, and they did worship here at this ancient altar. That made us a dramatic blood-sacrifice.

“What do I have to do to complete the mission?” I shouted.

“ The nanite wire must touch the transport ring. ”

I stared at the shimmering strand of liquid silver that ran to my otherwise disconnected com-link. My eyes went back toward the ring which stood downslope.

“Standby. We’ll do that now.”

I grabbed Warrant Officer Sloan by the shoulder. He’d kept with me since the initial battle in the cavern. As he’d lost his tank, he’d joined my unit by default. I lifted a loop of the nanite strand and gave it to him.

“You want to end this whole nightmare, Sloan?”

“Damn straight, sir!”

“Here, run this down to the ring. Make sure it has a strong contact.”

He nodded, grabbed it and ran. Like kite-string, it ran out behind him. Shimmering and whipping, it reformed itself as he went, trying to keep its structure even as it was stretched further.

The Worms showed no sign of easing up. Kwon and I used the time to fire in support of the men who were now beaten back toward the base of the ring itself. I watched my men stiffen their resistance there. Having a structure at your back-any structure, and troops on your flanks helped keep spirits up. But still, we were retreating. Men left behind among the Worms thrashed and were torn apart.

“I don’t think they like us messing with their gods, sir,” said Kwon. “The Worms are pushing hard now.”

“I think they know what we’re doing,” I told him. “We only have to hold them for another minute or two. I want to see us make an orderly withdrawal toward the ring. Relay that to Roku.”

Kwon bent forward over his com-link, giving my instructions to the tank commander. I noticed the signal light was blinking on my hotline com-device. I picked it up.

“Riggs here,” I said.

“ One minute has passed. The mission is incomplete. ”

“Yes, one more minute,” I told them, setting down the handset again. Literal-minded bastards.

I watched as Warrant Officer Sloan reached the base of the ring. He took the wire and wrapped it around a jutting spur of the odd material. I thought to myself that if I had the time, I would go down there and investigate the structure carefully.

The signal light was blinking again. I picked it up.

“ Connection detected. ”

“Yes, it’s ready,” I said. “You can come through now.”

“ Sequence engaged. Portal opening imminent. Withdrawal recommended. ”

“Yeah, we’re pulling back to the ring now. We’ll meet your big boys as they come through.”

“ Portal opening imminent. Withdrawal recommended. ”

“Okay, I-” I stopped. My mouth hung open in my suit. I watched the battle for a frozen second. Six Worms reached a drill-tank. They bit the metal hull and fired streams of bursting rounds into it. The metal of the tank withered, but the head-like turret continued to swivel, burning them.

Thoughts burst in my mind like enemy explosive pellets. Macros always repeated themselves when a miscommunication had occurred, I realized. They had told me to withdraw. When I said I was pulling back to the ring, they told me to withdraw again. I wasn’t getting it. The only answer was they didn’t mean I was to retreat to the ring, they were telling me to retreat away from the ring.