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“If we take our skateboards all the way down,” Lieutenant Marquis said, “we might not be able to get out of here later.”

I shrugged. “That’s why I wanted the tubes,” I said. “But the enemy has forced my hand.”

I could tell by the look on her face, which was visible through her faceplate, she didn’t like this answer. She didn’t want to be left with no retreat. I didn’t have time to argue about it. These Centaurs had to have an army of some kind, and they were probably organizing below. I’d already given them too much time to get their act together.

We didn’t find any ladders. How were Centaurs supposed to use ladders? What we did find was not encouraging. There was as thin spiraling ledge in the tube along the walls. It was less than a foot wide. I thought about these hoofed, sure-footed people. They were goat-like, and weren’t mountain goats famous for running along impossible trails?

We set off, following the thin ledge downward. There was a thousand foot drop down into the tube, but with low gravity and our magnetic boots, I figured we could do it. We made it most of the way too, before the first laser shot came beaming up out of the darkness below us and burned the legs off my lead man. Screaming, he fell into the pit, bouncing and caroming off the walls.

My men crouched and readied their projectors. We still were equipped with the lighter beam units we’d had on Helios to operate in high gravity. This was a low-gravity fight, but I was glad for the lighter equipment. More bulk would have lost me more men in this situation.

“Careful when you return fire!” I shouted. “We don’t want any blue-on-blue! Only the lowest ten fire.”

They didn’t need any more encouragement. Lasers flashed and our visors darkened to save our eyes. Spots of heat and vapor exploded below us. I wasn’t sure if we’d gotten the sniper or not.

Another shot came up at us, and nailed the marine behind me. It came up and burned right through his suit, and right through his left hip joint. He didn’t have one of the battle suits. Most of my men didn’t. Lit on fire by the strike, he began to fall. I grabbed him, as did the next marine in line.

“Kwon!” I shouted, “assessment?”

“We’re pinned sir, and have no cover. We need to get out of this position.”

“Options?” I demanded. Both sides were firing now. I thought we’d gotten a few of them, but more shots kept coming up, and we were firing blind down the long, dark tube.

“We can shoot it out,” Kwon said, “Or retreat back up to the elevator cab.”

I didn’t like his options. “How far are we from the bottom?”

“A few hundred yards.”

“Let’s run down the walls, using our magnetic boots. Only those in battle suits should try it. Our boots won’t hold all the way down, when we lose our grip, we jump.”

“It’s too far down, sir.”

“This gravity isn’t Earth-normal—and neither are we. The jump is survivable.”

“You first,” Kwon said.

I chuckled. “All right,” I said. I stood up, cranked my magnetic boots to full, and took my first step down into the tube, firing as I went. “Don’t shoot me in the ass, men. Let’s go!”

Kwon shouted orders. My marines held their fire.

Charging down a vertical surface turned out to be a hard thing to do. I soon found it just didn’t work. My magnetics weren’t strong enough to hold me onto the side of the tube. Even running down was pretty impossible. Being conditioned by nanites, we were all much stronger than normal men, and the gravity was much lighter, but my weight was out of place. With the heavy pack on my back, I was top-heavy, and the top of me was too far from my boots. I was levered forward, breaking the magnetic hold and found myself falling face-first into enemy fire.

This wasn’t my best plan
, I thought as I went down, still firing into the darkness ahead.

-12-

I was saved by an elbow in the tube. We hadn’t been able to see it from below, but we did know the tube wasn’t a direct shot to the bottom. Curves appeared everywhere in Centaur architecture. They simply didn’t believe in straight lines.

Slapping at the walls with my gloves, I’d just managed to get myself reoriented so my feet were heading downward instead of my helmet when I hit an elbow-like curve at the bottom. I also landed on something cushy. It was my first Centaur kill in years.

I think I surprised them, jumping into space and free-falling down into their midst. My battle suit helped complete the effect, I think. I’m sure to them I looked like a killer machine in their midst.

They’d been sniping at us, taking turns firing up from this elbow, and then ducking out of sight while we fired back. One of them had popped out for his sniper shot just as I came down on his back with heavy, magnetic boots. I felt the spine snap—I was going pretty fast by the time I reached the bottom. Even with lighter gravity and therefore less acceleration as I fell, I was heavy enough and moving with enough velocity to crush the life out of the alien.

Still standing on the broken centaur’s back, I managed to get my projector around and burned the next shadowy sniper I saw before he figured out what was going on. There were two more, but they fled.

“Look out below!” shouted a voice. I recognized it as Kwon’s and I scrambled out of the way on all fours. Kwon could do to me what I’d done to the first Centaur.

Soon, it was raining marines. Some claimed it to be more fun than the skateboard ride through space, but I knew they were lying. We pressed the surviving Centaurs back, and by the time we’d come out of the tube at the bottom of the elevator shaft, they had run off. I got the feeling they were not regular troops. I figured they were probably militia or local guards of some kind. They didn’t operate as a cohesive unit.

Outside the shaft, we linked up with the rest of my unit as they dropped from above on their flying dishes. I sent out recon units and immediately learned the enemy was gathering in force nearby.

“Why haven’t they hit us, yet?” Kwon asked, coming to stand near.

“I don’t know, really,” I said. “I don’t like it either, but they are aliens. They aren’t responding quite the way humans would, but we can’t expect them to. Maybe we surprised them and they are out of position. Maybe they just don’t have a lot of troops.”

“This looks like a peaceful habitat,” Kwon said. His voice sounded wistful. “Most of it is farmland. There must be thousands of hectares of land here.”

 I knew Kwon had been a farmer in his past life, and we’d not seen green, growing things for a long time. I smiled at him faintly. Maybe the big man was homesick.

“Well, whatever the reason, they are giving us a breather,” I said. “Let’s use it.”

I gathered my forces into a line along a ridge that was topped by thick foliage. It didn’t look appetizing, being dark green and leathery with huge leaves that blew about in the breezes. I wondered what the source of the moving air could be, and if the leaves would taste like the giant spinach they resembled.

While my marines organized themselves and took up positions, I climbed into an oversized foxhole my men had dug for me and pulled the communications box into it. Kwon joined me after awhile and watched as I poked at the controls.

“Uh,” Kwon said after a time, “what’s the plan, Colonel?”

“We are appearing to invade this station, just as the Macros expect us to. They are watching, remember. I didn’t like our position on the outer skin. We were too exposed.”

“So, are we going to blow a hole in this balloon and kill it?”

I shook my head. I just couldn’t do it. They weren’t even fighting hard. How could I butcher millions to protect my own? There had to be a better way.

“I want to talk to them,” I said. “I figure they have Nano tech, and that means we should be able to use our own Nano tech to talk to theirs. It shouldn’t even be as hard as talking to the Macros was.”

“Maybe,” Kwon said with a big frown. He was obviously skeptical, but I didn’t take it personally.

I adjusted the communications box to scan for unencrypted transmissions. They were everywhere, showing that the Centaurs were indeed communicating via radio. I wasn’t getting a signal I could focus in on as the right one, however. I didn’t want to interrupt the equivalent of a cell phone call between civilians and try to make a deal with them.

Finally, after about ten minutes of scanning, one firm signal showed itself on the scanner. It sang for less than a minute, blotting out other transmissions.

“That sounds important,” said Lieutenant Marquis. She had edged her way into our position.

I glanced at her, and noted the way she stood quite close to Kwon. I thought Kwon might get lucky after all. She didn’t seem to like being out of his orbit.

“I’m going to try to talk to them on this frequency,” I told them.

When I had it set up, I keyed the microphone in my suit and announced myself. “This is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said, as if they should know who I was. “We have invaded your habitat, but we oppose the Macros. Please respond.”

Nothing came back for a while. Kwon waved to me. I could tell just looking at him it wasn’t good news.

“Talk to me,” I said.

“Large numbers of the enemy seem to be approaching,” he said. “Everyone on the ridge is reporting sightings.”

Great
, I thought. Had my signal served to trigger their attack? I started scanning again, but then a reply came in.

“Apologies of the Herd,” said the communications box. I had it set for automatic translation into English. I wasn’t overly pleased with the results. “The Herd Honor of our ancestors lies broken.”

“We wish to discuss peace,” I said. “Do not attack.”

“The challenge has been made. It must be answered. Herd Honor must be recaptured.”

That was all they said. I frowned at the communications box and tapped at the control screen.

“That didn’t sound good,” Lieutenant Marquis said.

“Sir,” Kwon said, lowering himself into a crouch. He had been communicating with his recon units. “They’re coming.”

I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I heaved a sigh. I opened a general channel. “Fire at any armed combatant that comes near the line,” I said.

Laser flashes burned the atmosphere almost immediately. I moved to the ridge on my belly and looked downslope. The land was dark with running Centaurs. There were thousands of them, all in a mass. They came on like a wave of furred flesh. Most didn’t even have laser packs, but those that did fired as they came. The rest had their horn-blades. When they got in close, I knew they would fight savagely with them, cutting open my men and their suits.

“Fire at will!” I shouted over the rising roar of their hooves. “Shoot anything that comes at you!”

Every marine on the line opened up. Many of the Centaurs staggered, blinded, burned or both. Smoke rose in a blue plume. We were cooking them as they came.

But thousands more charged behind the first. There was no attempt made to flank us, or to sneak up upon us. They came in a single, charging mass. I looked down at them, and was immediately reminded of a vast herd of animals sweeping over an African plain. They churned up the slope, leaping over the bodies of the fallen. All along the ridge we were taking casualties too as their beams lanced into us. Were they using their own people as a shield for their soldiers?

A moment later they hit our line, and it was chaos. Furred bodies, flashing horns and kicking hooves filled my vision. My men killed with their projectors and their knives, often with one in each hand. In turn, they were knocked down, gored and trampled. Piles of bodies blocked the charging herd in places and they had to go around. My line broke in a dozen spots, and the enemy sailed over my men’s heads with majestic leaps.

“We’ve been overrun!” I shouted. “Fall back in squads, maintain covering fire. Regroup at the tubes if they press us that far back.”

I couldn’t believe it, but we’d been swamped with Centaurs. The enemy was nothing if not brave. They cared little for tactics or their own lives. They just wanted to get to us, to shoot and gore us. They were wild, frenzied. We fought with desperation. I could tell we were many times more organized, but they outnumbered us by twenty to one. I felt like a Roman Centurion facing a raving horde of barbarians.

Two of them came at me at one point. I saw the rolling eyes, the flared nostrils. I let my projector dangle from the cord and slashed at one with my knife. His snout came apart, my nanotized strength and the unnatural sharpness of my blade putting me at an unfair advantage. The Centaur simply lowered his horn-blades and tried to thrust them into me. My battle suit stopped the blades. He had to be mad with pain and rage. Blood gouted everywhere. It was reddish, but darker than the blood of earth creatures. It was like blood that had been dried into a black-red jelly. I used my fist to smash him down to the ground, stopping his blind, furious attack.

The second one came for me then, and my left hand took hold of the horn blades. I lifted him up as if I lifted a rabbit by the ears. My suit surged with relentless power. His hooves kicked out at me, starring my helmet and giving me sore ribs. I gutted him with my knife, which was now free of the first one. I looked at my gloves where I’d grabbed those bladed horns. The blood leaking from them was a lighter red blood. He’d managed to open up my glove.