Unknown - The_Growing_589064

Tacoma nods as they pass a minivan whose windshield crawls with maggots. He waves a hand at it. “There’s a real morale booster for you. We need a burial detail out here before we bring troops through.”

Maggie pauses a moment, her face thoughtful in the rearview mirror, and Dakota knows that she is weighing resources. “All right,” she says finally. “Nothing fancy. Just a backhoe and a ditch. Get half a dozen volunteers and promise them . . .whatever bonus you can realistically promise them. We’re as short of perks as we are of time.”

Just ahead of them, a fox climbs out the broken window of a car that remains crumpled into the back bumper of a pickup. A scrap of blue cloth still clings to its muzzle as it hops down and disappears into the grass grown tall by the side of the road. Spring thaw has brought the scavengers out to feed. From the corner of her eye, she catches movement of something larger in the rippling stalks, and watches as the fox’s smaller wake veers wide to pass it by.

Something born on Ina Maka, then, physical. Not something purely of the spirit world.

Briefly the shape of Wa Uspewikakiyape floats across her mind, and with it a stab of grief that remains sharp, even though she has managed to hold it distant from her in the crisis of the coming battle. It is too soon for his return, even should he choose to be reborn again. And, she acknowledges to herself, one of his wisdom has no need to walk the earth another lifetime.

“Tanski? You with us?”

Tacoma’s brow knits in concern for her, and she reaches over to pat his arm. “Present and accounted for, thiblo. Just thinking.”

He grins, and she watches the snappy comeback fade before it reaches his tongue. More and more of the Base personnel have begun to exchange knowing glances when she and Kirsten enter a room together; it is, she supposes, something that goes with being a newlywed.

More or less. Formalizing their relationship is something she and Kirsten have not talked about yet, cannot talk about at least until they are past the coming battle. When she had married Tali, fresh out of graduate school, they had gone away to Greece for their honeymoon and had been spared the grins and the elbow jabs of friends and kin. Odd, that her life should have taken a turn for normal in this one small thing amid the wreckage of a world.

She says, “How far out you think we should meet them?”

“Far enough out to give us some maneuvering room between there and the Base.” He glances back at Maggie. “Colonel?”

“Fifteen miles. Twenty would be better. There’s a place up past the bridge where the land falls away. They’ll have to come along that stretch strung out on a narrow front. We can control their approach there easier than just about anywhere else.”

A shiver passes over Koda’s skin, despite the warmth of the sun. “I know the place you mean. Anything on wheels will have to keep to the highway there.”

“Their armor won’t, though.”

Koda frowns, an idea forming slowly as the convoy negotiates yet another narrow passage between lines of wrecked vehicles. “We can block them, if we have time,” she says. “Or at least slow them down. How many heavy dozers can we get working?”

“Two or three,” Tacoma answers. “What d’you have in—oh.”

“Exactly.” She grins at him.

“Care to share?” Maggie asks, her voice dry.

Tacoma says, “Tracked vehicles can climb just about anything that’s not vertical, but if we ram a pile of these wrecks into a defensive berm, we can stop the enemy’s wheeled transport cold wherever we want to.”

“Or funnel them where we want them,” Dakota adds.

Tacoma shoots her a glance warm with appreciation. ” And we can direct the tanks, too. Colonel?”

“Sounds good to me. You’re the dirt soldiers.”

Koda notices the plural, and it makes a small warm glow somewhere under her sternum. There is a familiarity to the acknowledgement, and a certainty. It fits her, the same way her scalpel fits the shape of her hand, or the tortoiseshell rattle that had been her grandfather’s last gift to her.

The lower west fork of the Cheyenne passes beneath them, the highway curving away from the bridge to pass along the spine of a ridge that falls sharply to the bank of a stream on one side. The water runs parallel to the road for perhaps a mile, with a broad meadow spread out between it and another rise to the south. Koda lays a hand on Tacoma’s arm. “Stop. Stop here.”

Tacoma waves to the Humvee gunner ahead of them, then pulls the Jeep over to the side of the road. Koda climbs out and goes to stand by the guardrail, shielding her eyes as she looks over the level space between Highway 90 and the lift of earth not quite a mile away. A line of trees marches along it, and it seems to Koda that something moves in the laddered shadows that spill down its slope, but she cannot be certain.

The Interstate here is almost clear of wrecks, an open stretch between Rapid City and the small towns linked to it by farm-to-market roads. The air above the tarmac seems to shimmer in the sun, and through the rippling heat Dakota catches the glare sun off the metal hides of military droids, the sudden glint of light striking the silver collars of androids marching in uniformed ranks, the tireless crunch of their boots on asphalt a constant grinding that blends with the whine of tanks and the ponderous crawl of big guns. Then time slips back into place, and the vision fades. The road runs empty through the spring fields, overgrown now with grass and self-seeded crops, sprinkled here and there with patches of bright yellow and blue, rose and lavender.

“Tanski?” Tacoma touches her arm. “You okay?”

“Here.” Dakota says. “The battle will be here.”

“It’s a good place for it,” Maggie says, thoughtfully. “We can block this road at two or three places to slow them down and control their options once they get here.”

“We need to prevent them from fanning out on the north side of the road,” Tacoma says. “Or spilling down over the stream.”

“We’ll mine the north side,” Koda answers. “Maybe dig some ditches. How wide do they need to be to stop the tanks, thiblo?”

“Maybe ten feet. If we can dig them that deep, with straight sides, they’ll have to go around.”

Maggie nods assent. “Get the backhoes out here the minute we get back. Bury the dead as quickly as you can, then start to work on those trenches.”

“Spike the bottoms,” Dakota says suddenly. “Cut enough brush to camouflage the digging until the enemy is too close to turn back. What have we got besides fuel that will burn?”

“Asphalt. Tar. We repaved the runways just a few months ago, and there were supplies left over.”

Tacoma grins. “Thank the gods for government waste. What d’you have in mind, tanksi? Fire the ditches?”

Koda grins in return. “Between the spikes and the fire, we can immobilize anything that tries to cross them. Then we can use shoulder fired anti-tank missiles to explode their fuel and ammo once they’re stuck.”

“I like it,” says Maggie. “What about the ones that get through?”

“Use the wrecks to funnel them back behind our lines. Surround them, cut them off, and destroy them.”

“A strategic retreat could draw them in,” Tacoma adds, his dark eyes far away on a battle not yet joined. “Half our armor could fall back maybe five miles toward the Base through the open country. Then the other half could come in behind.” He raises his hands and brings them together. “Squeeze ‘em like a python.”

“What about this open space here on our right?” Maggie gestures toward the meadow and the treeline in the distance.

“Spike the slope, too,” Koda answers. “Tacoma, could we dam up this stream and muddy the ground enough to mire their trucks if they try to leave the road?”