Orion

CHAPTER 37

“Visors down.”

I reached for my helmet in response to Adena’s order and slid the transparent visor down until its lock clicked in place against the neck ring of my armor.

The clouds were breaking up and patches of blue were spreading across the sky. The snow glittered under the wintry sun, a featureless expanse that rolled out as far as the eye could see. Not a tree or a rock broke the ocean of white.

I stood up, peering out from behind the laser ca

At first I could see nothing out there. Then, gradually, I began to make out the tiny specks of moving forms trudging slowly, inexorably, across the snow, heading at us.

“They’ve got bears in the vanguard,” Adena’s flat, emotionless voice called out to us. “And smaller game scouting ahead — wolves, it looks like.”

I strained my eyes to make sense of what she was saying. Gradually I realized that the forces marching toward us were mostly animals, rather than the humanoid brutes. Gray wolves were at their front, with silver-furred foxes slinking among them. Farther back I could see the lumbering shapes of great bears, some of them white, most of them ci

Eagles, hawks, and smaller birds filled the sky. Smaller animals — raccoons, badgers, wolverines — became visible against the glistening snow. It was as if the whole planet’s fauna had united to attack us.

Now, as they approached to point-blank range, I could see the humanoids behind them. Gray-ski

“Hold steady,” Adena told us, in an expectant whisper. “Pick your targets. Leave the animals to the ca

I crouched behind the transparent plastic shield that curved across the front of the ca

I looked up from the panel and stared at the advancing army of beasts, fascinated. How could Ahriman’s people control them? As I watched, the animals seemed to hesitate for the span of a heartbeat, and then they broke into a ru

“Fire!” Adena snapped, and the cave was suddenly filled with the hum and crackle of blazing energy weapons.

A hideous roar arose from the icy field outside, and I looked up to see the gleaming virgin snow turned into a sea of flame as the heavy laser ca

The soldiers were firing their individual weapons through the clouds of smoke and flame. What they were aiming at, I could not see. But a few of them pointed their guns upward, against the falcons and other birds that were swooping down toward the cave’s mouth. An eagle smashed into one of the helmeted troopers, knocking him off his feet and killing itself with the impact.

I could see snarling wolves dashing across the snow toward us, leaping across the smoldering arc of blackened snow and burning animal flesh that the ca

Suddenly a bear loomed right at the mouth of the cave, frighteningly huge, snarling and slavering, towering over us on its hind legs. It smashed a heavy clawed paw into one of the troopers, ripping the soldier in half and sending him sprawling bloodily against the cave wall. Four troopers blasted at it with their laser rifles, burning its guts open and nearly severing its head from its body. But the giant beast lumbered into the cave, screaming with pain and rage, striking blindly, bowling people over as it staggered forward on sheer inertia.

Without even thinking of what I was doing, I leaped out from behind the ca

There was no time for congratulations. I snatched up the rifle from the fallen trooper and saw from her shoulder insignia that it was Rena. Her helmet visor was spattered with blood, her broken body plainly lifeless.

“They’re infiltrating along the wall of the cliff!” Adena shouted to me.

I shouldered my way past the visored troops who were still firing into the advancing army of animals and stepped halfway out of the protecting mouth of the cave. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Adena doing the same thing on the other side of the entrance.

A dozen yards in front of me, a sleek gray wolf was edging its way along the face of the cliff, pressing its flank against the rock wall so that we could not see it from inside the cave or detect it with our sensors. Behind it, in single file, I could see a mountainous gray-white bear and more wolves.

The wolf stopped when it saw me. For an instant we looked into each other’s eyes. I saw an intelligence there, and a burning red hatred that shocked me. The beast snarled and leaped for my throat. I squeezed the trigger of the rifle and burned it from jaw to crotch. It was dead when it hit me, and I staggered back a step under its impact but did not fall. The bear roared up onto its hind legs and came at me. I shot it through its fanged mouth; I could see the red beam of the laser emerge out of the roof of its skull. As it fell ponderously at my feet, I blazed away at the rest of the beasts. Wolves, foxes, badgers — whatever they were they scattered in all directions and ran away.

For just an instant I stood there, breathing heavily, feeling exultant. Then I spun around and saw that Adena was doing an even better job on her side of the cave entrance. Several dead beasts littered the ground around her, and she was picking off the others as they fled from her.

The area directly in front of the cave’s mouth was a sickening carnage of charred bodies and glazed ice. The snow had been boiled instantly by the laser’s power and then refrozen in the frigid air.

I suddenly realized that the battle had stopped. The only sound I could hear was the soft sighing of the wind. The clouds had blown away, leaving a crystalline blue sky marred only by the wafting black smoke from the smoldering bodies of the beasts.

“Get back inside the cave,” Adena’s voice commanded in my earphones. I could not see her face through the visor, but she sounded as if she was smiling at me.

I trudged inside and lifted my visor. The others were either clustered around Rena’s dead body or checking the ca

“Is that it?” I asked Adena. “Is it over?”

She shook her head. “That was merely the first attack. They’re regrouping. They’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“But… it’s a slaughter,” I said. “We’ve killed hundreds of them.”

“We haven’t killed anything but animals,” Adena countered. “The brutes are fighting a war of attrition against us. They send in the animals to make us use up our power. Then, when our guns are out of energy, they make their real attack.”