"General Thrathptttt!" The runner was panting but he straightened and bowed to the commander of the combined Mreee N!T!Ch! assault force. "A group of human infantry has infiltrated to the gate area. They pushed off the forces on the ridge to the east. They are attempting to seize the gate."
General Thrathptttt spat a curse and looked at his map. The detail was poor, it had been found in one of the human stores in the small town they had taken, but it was clear what was happening. The humans had used their heavy forces as diversions and then sent in an infiltration force to seize the gate, cutting off his reinforcements. He'd left light forces on the ridge, banking on pickets to tell him if there was an attack from that direction. If there was, the forces near the gate should have been able to reinforce the ridge, easily. But the humans were tricky, worthy opponents. He was pleased.
"We can let the reinforcements handle it," one of his aides said. He had been updating the map and now put a marker on it for an unknown force at the gate.
"No," Thrathptttt said. He fingered his eyepatch in thought. It was a long time since the Mreee had faced worthy opponents and he remembered what had happened, then. But the humans were not as much to be feared as the Masters.
"Have runners sent to Mraown company and S!L!K! company. Have Mraown come over this ridge on them. Take the ridge and provide covering fire. Let the N!T!Ch! go up the road and recapture the gate."
"That will weaken our defenses along the road to Waaaarcrick," the aide protested.
"And the humans will drive through them, eventually," the general said, looking at the map and fingering his patch again. "Which will leave Mraown in position to catch them in the flank as they pass. We can push reinforcements from Flefffpt up the hill as well when they come through. Have Mraown and S!L!K! retake the gate area. The rest will be easy."
"Son of a bitch," Miller snarled. He didn't know if this was forces retreating from the mech attacks or units sent back to reinforce the gate. But he did know that they were bloody well screwed. The ridgeline to the west had just spotted itself with what were apparently Mreee and he could see a whole passel, company, maybe battalion, strength, of Nitch running up the road into the hollow.
"SEALs, form perimeter around the doc," Miller snapped. "Engage targets of opportunity. Keep fire off the doc."
That was pretty difficult, however. The Nitch had eight legs and two "arms" which they used to carry slightly larger versions of the "raygun" the Mreee had been armed with. They apparently had trouble moving among the trees—their feet spanned nearly three meters across—but they could skitter along the road, fast. And they were stable enough to fire at the same time. Which these were doing. They were still a couple of hundred yards away and most of the fire was going overhead, but it was still brutal.
And the Mreee on the ridgeline could pour fire into them, just as they and the 101st had poured it into the scattered bodies of Mreee and Nitch in the hollow. Admittedly, they seemed to have some trouble spotting the SEALs and their fire was pretty inaccurate. But as each SEAL fired, tracers from their weapons revealed their location. The fire had already taken out one of the suits and would soon start pounding the rest.
"Major, we need heavy fire-support here," Miller said on the battalion frequency. He had assumed the prone position and was now sending carefully aimed bursts into the Nitch charging up the road; he considered them the worst of the two threats.
"We're on it," the battalion commander replied. "This is why I said hold up."
Miller didn't bother to point out that if the major had started the assault earlier, the bomb would already be in the gate.
"Yes, sir," was all he said. "All the fire support you can provide would be appreciated."
"Alpha, Bravo, concentrate on the spiders," the major said on the battalion frequency, disdaining callsigns. "Charlie, engage the cats on the ridge. Maximum firepower; keep 'em off the SEALs."
"This must have been how Shughart felt," Russell muttered on the SEAL freq as Miller switched back.
"Target-rich environment," Ryan replied. "Nice to know somebody loves . . ."
"Seven down," Russell said.
"Loves us," Sanson finished.
For Sanson it was something on the order of a dream come true. Sure, he hadn't risen out of the waves to take out a sentry on the beach, but this was the next best thing. He'd never been some anime geek but the suits, he had to admit, were damned cool and the firepower they supported was just awesome. He was toting a .50 caliber Gatling like the doctor and the thing would just saw one of the spiders, much less the little cats, in two. On the other hand, it ate rounds like there was no tomorrow and he was down to just stroking the trigger, watching his waterfall counter get closer and closer to the bottom. And there just seemed to be more and more of the damned things. Which was cool, too, in its own way. Target-rich environment. Better than Mog. Much better than what the old guys talked about in Iraq and Ashkanistan.
He triggered another burst, just barely stroked the trigger, and ten more rounds poured out of the Gatling, tearing one spider in half, you could see the parts separate on the thermal imagery, and getting a piece of the one next to it. Probably got the one behind, too. But that was it. He hit the firing circuit again and was rewarded by having the barrels spin around and around making a cute ratcheting noise and a whine. Fuck.
"I'm out!" he shouted, pushing the weapon to the side and looking around. He had an M-4 in his pack but no way to access it without bailing out, which he was loathe to do. On the other hand, he was lying on top of a dead Nitch, he'd been using its thorax for cover, and there was a Nitch plasma gun sitting on the ground not too far away. He shinnied forward and picked it up, trying to examine it. But there was nothing to see under thermal imagery. He switched to night vision and saw that there were some levers and buttons on it. Nothing that looked like a pistol grip or a stock, though. He set it against his shoulder, awkwardly, he was really just holding it up with his left suit-hand, and pushed one of the buttons. Nothing. He pressed another. Nothing. Then he pressed the first one again.
There was a burst of light from the front of the weapon and a sapling about twenty feet away blew up, showering them in bits of stem and dirt.
"Hey!" he yelled. "The plasma guns work!" He took more careful aim this time and pressed the button again, the bolt of lightning tracking over the heads of the closing Nitch. He felt like a damned fool missing that big of a target from this close. He lowered the barrel, slightly, and fired again. This time two Nitch were turned into spider-goo and a couple behind them dropped to the ground, their legs writhing frantically on the ground.
"Awesome . . ." the SEAL whispered. He never even felt the bolt of plasma that dropped on him from the ridge above.
Miller looked over at where Sanson had been turned into a blazing pile of carbon and titanium and then back at the oncoming Nitch. Not so oncoming anymore, though. The fire of the SEALs, not to mention support from above, was having an effect. He had switched the 30mm to single shot and had been hammering out round after round. Each of the rounds blew a spider apart, okay, he admitted it was overkill, and between his fire and the fire of the other SEALs the phalanx that had been attacking them wasn't gaining any ground.
But they were still being slaughtered by the Mreee up on the ridge, that was what had gotten Sanson and Ryan, and if they didn't get taken out pretty soon they were done for.
Of course, if the doctor could ever get the box in the gate, they could do the Mogadishu mile and leave the clean-up to the National Guard. If.
"How's it coming, Doctor?" he said, calmly. Didn't want to spook the guy, not with that thing in his hands.
Weaver was lying behind the bulk of the dead Petty Officer Ryan's suit, using it for cover from the fire from above and the road. It was not so much that he was a coward, although anyone would be a bit anxious in this situation, but if one of the plasma rounds hit the ardune, it was going to detonate on Earth. Which would be bad.
He'd initially ended up on the side with the box down. After rolling over he'd fumbled the metal container open and pulled out the ardune. He fumbled it around to where he could see it through the armored glass in the chest of the suit and cursed under his breath. It was night; he couldn't see it. He shoved it up to where it was visible from his low-light circuit and cut to light enhancement. The symbols on the front still weren't visible; the vision just wasn't detailed enough.
"Miller," he said, as calmly as he could. "Does anyone have a flashlight?" He'd argued for some sort of a light on the suits, but the military didn't want them. Not white light, which was what he needed. The symbols were purple on violet; red light wouldn't help one damned bit.
"Shit," Miller muttered. He stopped firing for a moment and fumbled in a container, finally extracting something and arming it. He threw it to the side of the gate where it flashed into white heat.
"What the hell is that?" Bill asked. The late Ryan's suit left the box in shadow so he tilted it up to where there was light enough to see. It was damned near as bright as day.
"Thermite grenade," the SEAL said. "And I just lit our position so get a fucking move on."
"You're carrying thermite grenades?" Bill asked, starting to key the symbols. One, two, three . . .
"You never know when they're going to come in handy," the SEAL said. Plasma was falling all around their position now that the Mreee on the ridgeline could see them clearly. There was another cut-off scream as a SEAL suit was hit.
Four . . . Bill was struck in the side, the box knocked out of his hands, as a Nitch coming out of the gate caught him with one of its front legs. He grabbed the leg and with half hysterical strength, aided by the suit, ripped it off. As the Nitch, pouring some sort of goop out of the hole, stumbled downward, he struck upwards and punched it in the thorax. The blow was unthinking, a Wah-Lum ground fighting move backed by all the power of the suit. His arm sunk into the thing's thorax up to his elbow.
"They're coming through the gate!" Bill yelled, rolling to where the box had fallen. "Shit, shit, shit, shit!" He picked it up in one hand and pointed the .50 caliber at the gate, hosing rounds in the hope that he could hold off the forces on the other side.
"What?" Miller yelled.
"Besides the fact that we're surrounded and about to get overrun?" Bill laughed, hysterically. "I had the damned thing half keyed! I don't know if I can start over or what!" He fumbled the box around to where he could see it, again, but the light from the thermite grenade had been extinguished. "Aaaaagh! No light!"
"Stay cool!" Miller yelled. He turned around and started throwing things through the gate. One of them blew up before it went through and threw shrapnel all over Bill's suit.
"Don't hit the ardune!" Bill yelled, desperately. "I need light!"
One of the SEALs stood up with a plasma gun in his hand and started firing upwards. On the second shot he managed to nail the crown of a large oak that overhung the gate area. It had, miraculously, escaped fire to this point. But at the impact of the plasma round the crown burst into immediate flame. The SEAL was hit before he could even drop the weapon. The smoking legs of the mecha were thrown in two directions but they were all that was left of the suit.
"You got light," Miller rasped.
Bill thought, frantically, about his instructions. He hadn't asked what happened if the code entry was interrupted. Better to try finishing it. He hit the last symbol and was rewarded by a blinking light. He started pressing the counter.
"How long?" he yelled.
"Not very," Miller replied, looking around. There were only two SEALs still firing besides himself.
Bill pressed five increments on the counter, about seven seconds, thought about having to key the second code, and pressed five more. Then he keyed the code, took the box in both hands and threw it through the gate as hard as he could.
It entered the gate and he started to get up but it bounced back and landed behind him. Immediately following it was a centipede tank.
"Fuck!" Bill shouted. "IT'S LIVE, ARDUNE IS LIVE, CENTIPEDE!"
Miller turned around and pulled out his last thermite grenade. He had noticed that the centipedes seemed to have some sort of mouth or breathing organ on their front. It was heavily armored and turned down, impossible to hit with a round, but he wasn't planning on shooting it. He pulled the pin on the grenade, took two steps and shoved it up the opening as hard as he could, leaning the mecha into the face of the tank and pushing back, trying to keep it from extruding all the way out of the gate. His feet started sliding back as he counted.
"Three, two, one," he muttered, wondering what hell was like. Probably pretty similar to Leavenworth, but longer.
Bill got one hand on the box and turned around. The centipede more than half filled the gate opening but he took two steps and leapt onto it, directly between two of the hornlike plasma generators. Taking the box in both hands he threw it towards the gate again, as hard as he could.
Bill never was sure what he saw in that moment. For just a second he thought that stars appeared in the gate as it turned black and lights flashed in it. But they seemed to be moving lights, moving in some complex pattern that defied explanation. The image was there for only a moment but it seared itself on his soul. He knew, in his heart, that they were not just stars, not burning bits of gas, but souls, entities. Perhaps even fuzzy children's toys, waving a farewell salute. He felt, in that brief instant, that he truly knew what it meant to touch the face of God.
Then the world went white.
Miller saw the gate go black for a moment, then disappear, leaving the rest of the centipede, and Dr. Weaver's suit arms, either on the other side or in some nowhere place. And then he felt the thermite grenade pop.
The explosion was not a plasma explosion. More like a very large transformer blowing up. Very large. Miller felt himself picked up and thrown through the air. It was a vaguely peaceful feeling, much better than the desperate combat he had been involved in a moment earlier. Right up until he hit the burning oak tree.
"Dr. Weaver?"
Pain. All-enveloping pain. Lots of it.
Weaver got one eye opened and groaned, or tried to; it came out as a croak. He swore that if God made the pain go away he'd live a good life and never, ever, do anything even slightly risky again. Wah-Lum? Hah, no chance. Mountain biking? And risk road rash? He'd buy a house on one level, never climb stairs again, never run, just walk. Nothing that could cause so much as a scrape. Blunt knives in the house. Put rubber on all the corners. His nerves felt jangled. Please, God, just let the pain go away.
He got a look at the ceiling and it wasn't good. It looked like the inside of a tent. There was a groaning from nearby and then a hoarse shriek. He tried to move his fingers and was rewarded with a lance of pain again, bad enough that he nearly passed out.
"Dr. Weaver?" the voice said, again.
"Ow," was all he could get out.
"Are you in pain?"
"Owwwww!"
"I'll get a doctor."
He swiveled his one good eye around and saw that there was a line of beds, filled with casualties. It was a tent, a big one.
"Dr. Weaver?" a female voice said. "I'm going to give you some liquid Valium. We're running low on morphine; we've got more casualties than we're supposed to have for a field hospital this size. You're in no danger. You have some serious burns from an electrical fire and a broken arm. Other than that, you're in good shape compared to most of the rest of the injured. We're going to be moving you, soon, to another hospital. Just rest as well as you can."
"Uhhh," Bill said and then God answered his prayers and made the pain go away.
"Hey, Doc, you're not out of bed, yet?"
Weaver looked up from the mess of gruel that the hospital considered a nourishing meal to where Miller was being wheeled in the door by a candy striper. The chief had a big bandage over one eye, an arm and a leg in casts and a very nonpermissible cigar in his teeth. He'd managed to find a set of BDUs somewhere, though, and he had a new set of rank pinned on his collar, a yellow bar with a black check in it that Bill recognized, now, as the insignia of a warrant officer.
"Like a bad penny, you keep showing up," Bill said, grinning. He grinned a lot these days; the world hadn't come to an end.
Things were still bad. The gates, and the track three bosons that generated them, were well and truly gone. But the Titcher/Dreen had established large bridgeheads before that happened. They were using their surviving forces and the bridgeheads to begin colonization, continuing to create monsters that were a tough battle to destroy. But, slowly, they were being pushed back. Where the bridgeheads were observable from the distance, it was apparent that the Dreen, as they were being called now, built special-purpose structures to produce their fighting forces, some for dog-demons, some for thorn-throwers, others for the mosquito-missiles. As that became obvious, artillery was brought to bear from long range, saturating the air defenses until the structures that provided the missiles and centipede tanks, which were the only things that stopped air assaults, were destroyed. After that it was a matter of killing the monsters and their structures faster than they could be produced. It was working, slowly.
In the meantime, the "real" world had continued though. Units had had to be redeployed from Iraq and the nascent democracy in that country was having a hard time with ongoing guerilla activity. Terrorists had exploded a truck bomb in New York, killing nearly fifty people. But that was probably going to be some post-9/11 high-water mark; the Middle East had other problems.
Dreen pockets had broken out in several different, decidedly odd, places. They were all out of the way and most had not been noticed until they were well established and started spreading.
One was in the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon, near a center for Hamas and Hezbollah recruitment and training. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Syrians who actually owned the territory, immediately blamed it upon the United States and sent out proclamations that they would reduce the incursion in short order. The proclamations had been going out, steadily, for a week. There was no indication that they had had any real success. Indeed, news reports filtered from the U.S. government said that satellite imagery indicated at least a twenty-five percent spread.
Another was just north of the holy city of Qom in Iran. It had apparently started at the head of a valley which housed an experimental farm run by the Iranian Ruling Council, the fundamentalist religious council that ruled upon shariah law in Iran and was the actual government behind the scenes. An "unnamed U.S. spokesperson" had pointed out that the farm was one of several sites in Iran suspected of running a clandestine biological weapons program. The Iranians hotly denied the accusation and stated that it was a plot of the Great Satan and the forces of the Revolutionary Guard would quickly contain and destroy the infestation. Like the infestation in the Bekaa Valley, it was still spreading.
So was the one just south of Mecca, this one conveniently near the coast at another "experimental farm." The area was a Saudi military reservation and the Saudi National Guard had assaulted the infestation with Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Survivors from the group stated that upon entering the fungus area it had attacked the tanks, choking their systems.
The Saudi government had not charged the U.S. with planting the Dreen infestation on holy ground, but the mullahs throughout the world were more than happy to blame it on the Great Satan.
Qom was the holiest city in the Shia version of Islam and Mecca was the holiest city in Islam, period. Both the Iranian Ruling Council and the Mullah of Mecca had pronounced jihad against the alien invaders and mujaheddin from the Philippines to Algeria, not to mention various western countries, were being flown in by the Saudis and the Iranians to try to fight the infestations. The bulk of their fighters would have probably come from the Bekaa Valley, but they were all extremely busy. Or being converted to more monsters.
The fungus and growth structure of the Dreen had been, at this point, carefully studied by the U.S. government. It was determined that the fungus spread via a small wormlike creature that had been specially modified to convert terrestrial biology to Dreen. As it did so, terraforming the soil, eating plant and animal material, the "fungus" spread behind it. The fungus was anything but, an entity that not only gathered energy from a chlorophyll analogue but had an extensive vascular network for moving materials from one place to another. In addition, it could sprout structures that reproduced the megafauna that did the work of the Dreen. The fungus, left alone with some functional materials it could "eat," pure fertilizer would work, and sunlight, could spread and grow unchecked. It also was damned hard to keep contained if it had materials available, sprouting subgrowths that would attack any container it was placed in. It was considered a level four biological hazard. It was, however, responsive to burning, acid and certain powerful herbicides and did not grow well on soil that had not been preprepared for it by the worms.
One scientist had done an analysis and concluded that one human body could be converted into a dog-demon in two days. Or two humans in three days for a thorn-thrower, given the structures to make same.
Reports from the Bekaa Valley indicated that, the majority of their Katyusha rockets and a goodly part of their artillery rounds having been expended trying to break into the main areas, the Syrian, Hamas and Hezbollah forces were now attacking with rifles and flamethrowers and sustaining heavy casualties. The response by American military spokespeople was notably unsympathetic.
"You look good," Miller said. "Hey, honey, can I talk with my friend alone for a minute?" the chief added to the candy striper.
"Of course, Mr. Miller," the girl said, smiling. "I'll come back in about fifteen minutes, okay?"
"Works," Miller replied. He gestured at the turned-down TV where the latest news from Mecca, via Al Jazeera, was showing. "Bit of a bastard, ey?"
"Well, I know you didn't do it," Bill said with a chuckle. "And I know I didn't do it."
"And I happen to know that we didn't do it," Miller said, shaking his head. "Give us some credit, okay? Besides, I checked with the Teams and they'd know if anyone did. They did it to themselves. Okay, maybe with some help from the Israelis."
"Give," Bill said.
"All the outbreaks are at places where terrorists or terrorist sponsors have been working on bioweapons," the SEAL said, taking a puff on the cigar. "We don't know how they got the Dreen material there, but that's where all the outbreaks occurred."
"Any word on what we're going to do?" Bill asked.
"Well, the Teams are sitting back, watching the tube and laughing in their beer," Miller answered. "The Ayrabs can't fight for shit. There's a lot of cultural reasons for it, some of them pretty complex, but it's true. In a situation like this, they're the worst possible group to try to stop the Dreen. But they're pouring fighters in like water, just the sort of bastards that run around sniping at our troops, blowing up innocent Israeli civilians and flying jetliners into our skyscrapers. They've got lots and lots of mujaheddin, but no matter how many they throw at the Dreen, they're not going to push them back. The Dreen are the purest flypaper for those boys. Wait a year and there won't be enough mujaheddin left on earth to bury their dead. If they can find the bodies."
"Wait a year and the Dreen will be making those mountain-sized tanks that Dr. McBain saw on Ashholm's World."
"Oh, they won't wait a year," Miller admitted. "I figure, in a few months they'll all get back-channel messages that the U.S. is willing to help them out. The help will be a nuke. Several nukes, actually, the only way to be sure. They can take it or leave it. By then, they'll take it. The muj will be dialed down to a fraction of their former strength and maybe there will still be a few of the worms sitting around. The ragheads will also see, clearly, what the U.S. can do if it cares enough to send the very best. Nuclear weapons rising where the mullahs cannot ignore them. I suspect that they're going to have a slightly different view of the 'Great Satan' after we carefully drop nukes so they miss Mecca and Medina."
"Nukes can't get through," Bill said then shook his head. "Send in artillery, first, saturate the defenses, run them out of mosquito-missiles and then . . . boom."
"Yeah." Miller chuckled around the cigar. "Boom. I think they ought to drop one on Tikrit and Fallujah while they're about it, but nobody ever asks me. Hell, drop a ripple across the Bekaa Valley and I'd be happy. Let the Dreen have the whole thing, then pop it."
"Works for me," Bill said.
"But we have other things to do, Dr. Weaver," Miller said in a very formal tone. "I need influence."
"How much?" Bill asked. "I notice you're not in Leavenworth right now and you seem to have been promoted."
"Well, yeah," the SEAL said in a slightly embarrassed voice. "Submitted an honest report as to the actions in taking the gate. I'll admit there was a slightly awkward moment or two, but they would have looked silly court-martialing a wounded hero. It's pretty much been noted that I've got over twenty in and I can take a hint. As soon as I'm fit for duty they'll suggest that maybe I should retire and I'll take 'em up on it. What the hell, I've already saved the world, once; leave it to the young kids for the next time. But we've still got one thing we need to take care of."
"What?"
"Thrathptttt."
"Mr. President, what Warrant Officer Miller said makes sense," Bill said, carefully. "We need the information."
"I agree with that," the President replied. "But I'm not sure of the rest."
"General Thrathptttt, after the gate was closed, mousetrapped one of the National Guard Brigades," Bill pointed out. "I'm sure the secretary will agree on that?"
"Yes," the secretary of defense admitted, tightly. "He did."
"He then told it that he would surrender, on terms, or he could go down fighting," Bill noted. "He had the choice of killing a large number of our troops. He knew he was doomed, anyway. But he chose to let our soldiers live. I think we owe him for that. And we need the information; the Dreen are still out there, somewhere."
The President looked at Weaver over the video link for a long ten seconds and then nodded his head.
"Approved."
Miller and Weaver were standing when the guards brought General Thrathptttt into the interrogation room. Weaver was in civilian clothes and Miller in desert BDUs with a web belt and a holster holding an H&K USP .45 caliber pistol.
The sergeant with the two guards frowned and shook his head.
"You can't have a weapon in the same room with a prisoner," the sergeant said. "It's against regulations."
"Sergeant," Weaver answered before Miller could open his mouth. "Did you happen to see my orders?"
"Yes, sir," the sergeant said, carefully.
"My orders say that your regulations are superceded, understand?"
"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied.
"You can go."
"Sir," the sergeant said, again, with a pained look on his face. "This isn't about regulation. You're both injured and . . ."
"Sergeant," Miller said, chuckling. "The day I can't handle one three-foot-tall cat, even with one arm and one leg broken, I'll just have to turn in my trident. Clear?"
"Yes, sir," the sergeant sighed.
Thrathptttt had been seated in the chair in front of the table by the two guards and all three of them left. The chair was an adjustable swivel chair so the Mreee could sit at the table at something like normal height.
Bill and the SEAL had slightly less comfortable folding metal chairs into which they lowered themselves.
"General," Miller said, inclining his head.
"Chief Miller," the general replied. "Dr. Weaver. I am pleased to see that you both survived."
"Pleased enough to talk with us?" Weaver asked.
"No," the general replied. "I am not required to answer your questions."
"No, you're not," the SEAL answered. "Although, God knows, we've got a lot of them. We need to know about the Dreen. Where they are. If they have interstellar capacity. If they do, when they might show up. Anything at all that we can find out. And ain't none of you cats talking. We didn't capture but a handful of Nitch, what with nobody really wanting a ten-foot spider near them, and the ones that we did we can't communicate with. So we'd really like to ask you about the Dreen and we'd like you to answer those questions. But, you know what, General, I'm not going to ask you about any of that stuff."
"Good," the general said, straightening. "Can I leave, now?"
"No, because I am going ask you one thing, General," the SEAL said, leaning forward. "Why? When I saw you the first time I thought to myself: 'That is one hardcore motherfucker of a cat.' I don't respect many people, much less aliens, on first meeting. But I respected you. And I'm pretty good at first impressions. Pretty good. And I still say you're an honorable guy. The way you let those National Guard soldiers off proves it. Not only to me, but to the President. So I gotta ask, General, soldier to soldier: Why?"
The general looked at him for a long moment, as if he was going to spit or cough up a hairball and then he looked away. Silent. Bill was smart enough to hold his tongue. So was Miller for a while.
"You might be wondering, if I'm talking soldier to soldier, why I brought this pasty-faced academic with me. I brought him because he deserves an answer, too. He's a lousy shot and hasn't got the situational awareness of an ant, but we both stood our ground at the gate and he got his share of a bodyguard in Valhalla. He took the job and he closed the gates. I think he probably killed a great many of your people. If your world was on the other side of that gate, likely it's gone. At his hands. But he's here because he deserves the answer, too. For honor and for standing his ground."
"If my world is gone, so much the better," the general said, softly. There was a long silence and then he made a faint mew. "The reason we don't talk to you, Miller, is because we know the depths of dishonor. And we find it hard, impossible, to share them."
"Well, I'm black ops," Miller said, leaning back. "It ain't all fields of glory. One of our mottoes is: We do a lot of things we wish we didn't have to. So: Why?"
The general made another mew and looked away, silent for a moment, then he looked back.
"I was a young officer, what you would call a lieutenant, when the Masters came to our world.
"The banners of Tchraow flew from sea to sea, upon them the sun never set. We had bested the Raaown, we had conquered the Troool, an ancient and powerful land. The White Empress held sway over a vast empire. And then we were given word that in the unsettled lands a new power was arising. I was a young officer in charge of a small unit in the expedition that went out to pacify this new threat.
"We came upon Master forces far from their bases. The ones you call dog-demons and the thorn-throwers. Our sraaah riders fell upon them in a terrible charge and it was a complete defeat. The infantry stood their ground against the Masters for as long as they could but we had only cannon and poor rifles to try to hold them. They broke us. A regiment that had never been broken and they broke us like a twig.
"I was carried back on a stretcher, hundreds of your miles. It was upon the Plains of Shraaaan that I took this," he said, gesturing at his eye. "And other hurts. But I survived. All the resources of the Troool empire were gathered, host upon host. General Mreooorw, who had defeated the Raaown, was sent from Tchraow though he was old, old. You call me a general?" the cat said, looking at Miller. "That, that was a general. He had never lost a battle, but he lost one then. We met them on the Plains of Mraaa, a vast host, shining in the sun. Cannons ranked league upon league, in perfect positions, our infantry filled the valley and the hosts of sraaah riders were like the ocean's waves." He paused a moment, savoring the image.
"And they destroyed us. Of that vast host no more than one in ten survived. I was one of those unlucky enough to stumble away from that black field.
"Again and again we met them but we could never defeat the Masters. In time, we lost Troool to them and some of us, a fragment of the Tchraow who had been masters there, fled back to our homelands.
"Tchraow was far from Troool and we thought we might be safe. We sent out more forces, aiding other lands, I did my time in that duty, but always the Masters were undefeatable. They spread, land to land, sometimes slowly, sometimes in jumps. They created vast weapons of war, air-beings that blotted out the sun, giant Nitch-like creatures that burned the land as they came, every footstep a disaster, spitting fire from their mouths. Water did not stop them for they could fly through the air. Nor did distance.
"Finally, they sent the N!T!Ch! to us. The N!T!Ch! had been slaves long before our world was conquered and they managed to communicate with us. The Dreen held hundreds, possibly thousands, of worlds. They spread by the gates but also by biological systems that drift from solar system to solar system, looking for fecund planets. One such had found our planet and it would be fully colonized unless we submitted to the Masters. The Masters would let some of us live if we submitted tribute to them. Metals, many that we had never heard of before, certain types of gems and . . ." He paused and did spit, "'biological' materials for their expansion."
"Biological?" Bill asked. "Herd animals?"
"Those and the bodies of our people," the general said with a snarling yowl. "We were defeated. We knew we were. There was no choice. So we made that devil's bargain. We sent our best to slave in the Master's mines. We sent our litters to the Masters to be 'reprocessed.' Our herds, our bodies, whatever it took to keep us alive. And when they called for us to trick you? You think we paused? Do you think we cared? After giving of our own bodies? My litters . . ." The general paused and his face worked in anguish. "My children . . ."
"General," Miller said, after a pause. "We need one more service of you. You must ask your people to give us information. We need to know about the Dreen."
"The Dreen," the cat spat. "Better to call them that. We called them the T!Ch!R! because that was the name the N!T!Ch! used. We learned, soon, that it simply meant 'the Masters.' They had come to regard them, simply, as gods. I suppose we would in time as well. This," he said, holding up his arm, "this I lost to the Dreen. My eye, my arm, bits of my flesh, my children. My honor."
He hung his head again and rowled, a cry of anguish and anger that seemed to hang in the air even after he had finished, then set his features.
"I will give orders that my people will communicate with yours," he said, looking directly at Miller. "We have little time. There is no food upon this planet we can eat. The food your scientists gives us still lacks something. In short, we, probably the last of our species, are dying and there is no escape. We will aid you, but I want something of you, as well. I think you know what it is."
"I do," Miller replied. "I understand. If it had not been for Dr. Weaver, here, and about a hundred years of technological advancement, I'd have been in your position. I hope that I could have survived it and done what I had to as well as you. For my world and for my children."
"Tell Sraaan, he is my aide, that the code is 'Mraaa.' It was the last, the best, time of our people. He will know what to do." The general hung his head and then looked up at Miller. "May I have my choice, now?"
"Yes," Miller said, nodding. He drew the pistol and racked a round into the chamber. Then he dropped out the magazine and pocketed it. "I am glad that my first impression was not wrong. I wish that the universe was not so cruel. I would have liked to have stood side by side with you in battle. May we meet upon the shining fields, battle evil all day, feast all night and rise anew to do battle once more."
"That is not your local faith," the general said, interested.
"I am not a Christian," Miller said, laying the pistol on the table. Then he stood up and saluted the general. "See you in Valhalla, General Thrathptttt."
Weaver stood up as well and inclined his head, then the two of them went out the door. The guard on the door looked at them quizzically, then his eyes dropped to Miller's empty holster and he started to reach for his radio.
Miller lifted one hand and looked him in the eye.
"I'm here on Presidential orders, son," the SEAL said. "Don't force me to make you eat that radio." There was the sound of a pistol shot and he closed his eyes, his lips moving. All that Bill could catch was something about shining fields.