David Brin: The Uplift War

Fortunately, there were still a few chim technicians — mostly those who had helped Robert devise little microbes to plague enemy machinery — who could help her with this slapdash experiment.

Bind hemoglobin molecules to trace substances sought by certain vines. Hope the new combination still meets their approval. And pray the vines transfer it along fast enough.

A chim messenger arrived and whispered to Lieutenant McCue. She, in turn, approached Athaclena.

“The major is nearly ready,” the dark human woman told her. Casually, she added, “And our scouts say they detect aircraft heading this way.”

Athaclena nodded.

“We are finished here. Let us depart. The next few hours will tell.”

“There! We note a concentration, gathering, accumulation of the impudent enemy. The wolflings flee in a predictable direction. And now we may strike, pounce, swoop to conquer!”

Their special detectors made plain the quarry’s converging trails through the forest. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon spoke a command, and an elite brigade of Gubru soldiery stooped upon the little valley where their fleeing prey was trapped, at bay.

“Captives, hostages, new prisoners to question… these I want!”

The bait was invisible. Their lure consisted of little more than a barely traceable flow of complex molecules, coursing through the intricate, lacy network of jungle vegetation. In fact, Major Prathachulthorn had no way of knowing for certain that it was there at all. He felt awkward laying enfilade and ambush on the slopes overlooking a series of small ponds in an otherwise unoccupied forest vale.

And yet, there was something symmetrical, almost poetic about the situation. If this trick by some chance actually worked, there would be the joy of battle on this morn.

And if it did not, then he intended to have the satisfaction of throttling a certain slender alien neck, whatever the effects on his career and his life.

“Feng!” he snapped at one of his Marines. “Don’t scratch.” The Marine corporal quickly checked to make sure he had not rubbed off any of the monolayer coating that gave his skin a sickly greenish cast. The new material had been mixed quickly, in hopes of blocking the hemoglobin resonance the enemy were using to track Terrans under the forest canopy. Of course, their intelligence on that matter might be completely wrong. Prathachulthorn had only the word of chims, and that damned Tym -

“Major!” someone whispered. It was a neo-chimpanzee trooper, looking even more uncomfortable in green-tinted fur. He motioned quickly from midway up a tall tree. Prathachulthorn acknowledged and sent a hand gesture rippling in both directions.

Well, he thought, some of these local chims are turning into pretty fair irregulars, I’ll admit.

A series of sonic booms rocked the foliage on all sides, followed by the shriek of approaching aircraft. They swept up the narrow valley at treetop level, following the hilly terrain with computer-piloted precision. At just the right moment, Talon Soldiers and their accompanying drones spilled out of long troop carriers to fall serenely toward a certain jungle grove.

The trees there were unique in only one way, in their hunger for a certain trace chemical brought to them by far-reaching, far-trading vines. Only now those vines had delivered something else as well. Something drawn from Earthly veins.

“Wait,” Prathachulthorn whispered. “Wait for the big boys.”

Sure enough, soon they all felt the effects of approaching gravities, and on a major scale. Over the horizon appeared a Gubru battleship, cruising serenely several hundred meters above.

Here was a target well worth anything they had to sacrifice. Up until now, though, the problem had been how to know in advance where one would come. Flicker-swivvers were wonderful weapons, but not very portable. One had to set them up well in advance. And surprise was essential.

“Wait,” he murmured as the great vessel drew nearer. “Don’t spook “em.”

Down below, the Talon Soldiers were already chirping in dismay, for no enemy awaited them, not even any chim civilians to capture and send above for questioning. At any moment, one of the troopers would surely guess the truth. Still, Major Prathachulthorn urged, “Wait just a minute more, until—”

One of the chim gunners must have lost patience. Suddenly, lightning lanced upward from the heights on the opposite side of the valley. In an instant, three more streaks converged. Prathachulthorn ducked and covered his head.

Brilliance seemed to penetrate from behind, through his skull. Waves of déjà vu alternated with surges of nausea, and for a moment it felt as if a tide of anomalous gravity were trying to lift him from the forest loam. Then the concussion wave hit.

It was some time before anyone was able to look up again. When they did, they had to blink through clouds of drifting dust and grit, past toppled trees and scattered vines. A seared, flattened area told where the Gubru battle cruiser had hovered, only moments ago. A rain of red-hot debris still fell, setting off fires wherever the incandescent pieces landed.

Prathachulthorn grinned. He fired off a flare into the air — the signal to advance.

Several of the enemy’s grounded aircraft had been broken by the overpressure wave. Three, however, lifted off and made for the sites where the missiles had been fired, screaming for vengeance. But their pilots did not realize they were facing Terragens Marines now. It was amazing what a captured saber rifle could do in the right hands. Soon three more burning patches smoldered on the valley floor.

Down below grim-faced chims moved forward, and combat soon became much more personal, a bloody struggle fought with lasers and pellet guns, with crossbows and arbalests.

When it came down to hand-to-hand, Prathachulthorn knew that they had won.

I cannot leave all of the close-in stuff to these locals, he thought. That was how he came to join the chase through the forest, while the Gubru rear guard furiously tried to cover the survivors’ escape. And for as long as they lived thereafter, the chims who saw it talked about what they saw: a pale green figure in loin cloth and beard, swinging through the trees, meeting fully armed Talon Soldiers with knife and garrote. There seemed to be no stopping him, and indeed, nothing living withstood him.

It was a damaged battle drone, brought back into partial operation by self-repair circuitry — perhaps making a logical connection between the final collapse of the Gubru forces and this fearsome creature who seemed to take such joy in battle. Or maybe it was nothing more than a final burst of mechanical and electrical reflex.

He went as he would have wanted to, wearing a bitter grin, with his hands around a feathered throat, throttling one more hateful thing that did not belong in the world he thought ought to be.

So, she thought as the excited chim messenger gasped forth the joyous news of total victory. On any scale, this was the insurgents’ greatest coup.

In a sense, Garth herself became our greatest ally. Her injured but still subtly powerful web of life.

The Gubru had been lured by fragments of chim and human hemoglobin, carried to one site by the ubiquitous transfer vines. Frankly, Athaclena was surprised their makeshift plan had worked. Its success proved just how foolish had been the enemy’s overdependence on sophisticated hardware.

Now we must decide what to do next.

Lieutenant McCue looked up from the battle report the winded chim messenger had brought and met Athaclena’s eyes. The two women shared a moment’s silent communion. “I’d better get going,” Lydia said at last. “There’ll be reconsolidation to organize, captured equipment to disburse… and I am now in command.”