THEIR MASTER

"Crawler nine, crawler nine! I need your help to plug that hole in the perimeter."

After a short but agonizing pause, there was a voice in his helmet. "This is crawler nine, we hear you."

"This is Topman Rance. I have my twenties up ahead of you. I need you to give me cover across that open space."

"We have you on scope, Topman Rance. We're moving up."

The armored hulk grated toward them on its huge treads. Rance waved his men back.

"Fall in behind the crawler! Use it as cover."

The men didn't need urging more than once. Crouching low, they bunched up behind the big machine as it moved into the open space, dragging its bulk laboriously forward like some monster metal crustacean. One man wasn't fast enough. He was caught in the open by chiba lire. The top half of his body was smeared over the side of the crawler, while his legs and hips, quite untouched, fell back, still kicking. The crawler immediately came under fire from the PBA. Where the particle beams hit, spots on its high-density armor briefly glowed red, but it suffered no other damage. Its prow guns opened up, and the PBA was silenced. The chibas started to fall back, letreating through the gap. Rance's twenties were now level with the trenches.

"Quick! Move it! Get down in that trench system."

Some of the men were reluctant to leave the shelter of the crawler, but with Rance behind them they had no c hoice. Quickly, a hundred men were down on their bellies, worming their way along the trench system. The crawler commander's voice crackled over Rance's communicator.

"I'm going to pull back. If they bring up a punisher, I'm dead meat at this range."

"Thanks for the assist, crawler nine." "You're welcome."

Rance gripped his weapon and slid into the trench. If they brought up a punisher, everyone in the area would be dead meat, but presumably a piece of heavy armor was worth more than his men. Certainly his men were more replaceable.

"Look alive! Spread out along the trenches! The chibas will be pushing back again as soon as the crawler pulls out."

"Why the fuck can't it stay and give us covering fire?" "Shut up, Renchett."

The chibas were streaming back into the gap, but the fire from the trenches at least temporarily checked them.

A gunsaucer ran fast and low along the perimeter line, strafing the attackers, but then it flipped up as it ran into return fire from the ground. The dynes had also moved into action. Towering over the base, they were unable to do anything about the intense fighting around their feet. The risk of hitting their own men was too high. Instead, they pumped fire into the surrounding jungle in the hope of destroying any Yal reserves that were still waiting to move up. Although temporarily taken by surprise, the Therem forces were quickly responding. The perimeter was holding, and the chibas were taking terrible losses. Then the ground around the trenches beg^n to shake violently.

"Motherfuck, they're pushing a thumper at us!"

There were muffled screams in everyone's helmet as a section of trench collapsed and five men were buried alive. Rance was immediately yelling into his communicator.

"Don't panic! Breathe normally and dig yourselves out."

Three men struggled out of the loose dirt. Two didn't. They had either panicked themselves into shock or lost their masks in the cave-in and suffocated. The ground shook again. Another section collapsed, but this time no one was buried. The longtimers had their trenchers out, ready to dig if necessary.

"That thing's got to be stopped!"

Rance opened a command cha

"State your position, Topman Rance."

Rance's voice was calm and by the book. "I'm at the gap in the perimeter. I have the enemy contained, but they're using a thumper against me, and my trenches are collapsing."

"Your air strike is being ordered."

The ground vibrated for a full five seconds. The tremor was more intense than the previous one. The firing faltered as dozens of men were freeing themselves from the loose earth that was cascading down all along the complex of trenches. "Please make it fast."

A dozen or so chibas were through the gap and racing toward the trenches. They were cut down only a few meters from the first trench. Rance quickly sca

"Rance, we've pi

There was the sound of engines in the background.

"Taking it out now."

The saucers halted in midair and started pouring fire directly at the ground. There was an explosion. The saucers peeled away.

"There you go, Rance. Don't say we never do anything for you ground monkeys."

"Many thanks."

The chibas withdrew as fast as they had come. It was as if a sudden loss-cutting decision had been made by the Yal generals. Some alien calculation of cost-effectiveness seemed to have indicated that the chibas would not be able to overrun the base and stay within some strange limit of acceptable losses. The engagement had simply been terminated. Looking at the piled heaps of dead chiba wreckage, though, it was hard to imagine what those limits could possibly be. There was an eerie unreality to the way the fighting abruptly stopped. It was intensified by the fact that the contact was broken off at the very moment that the sun first showed over the hills. As the light filtered into the valley, casting the first long shadows of dawn, the chibas fought a swift rearguard action and melted away into the jungle, leaving the fallen behind them. A terrible silence settled over the base as the firing stopped. Here and there a wounded man was screaming. The jungle animals appeared to sense that the fighting was over, and their dawn cries filled the thick, sluggish, smoke-filled air as if it were any normal day. The men on the ground stayed exactly where they were, expecting a trick. The gunsaucers silently pulled back and regrouped, hovering over the center of the base. A dyne took a pace forward and sprayed the jungle with a final sweep of fire, the dawn chorus faltered. The ports of a crawler clanged open, and its crew climbed wearily, down the cabin ladder. When they reached the ground, they simply dropped to the dirt and sat with their heads between their knees. The communicators were a level hum with just the faintest undertow of heavy breathing and muttered curses. One man straightened and clambered out of his foxhole. A second followed. A third took off his helmet. All over the base, men were standing up as the realization spread that the firefight was really over. There was little conversation. Men looked around at the whole picture, shaking their heads and grimly marveling that they had survived yet another one. They inspected the wreckage and the dead, and a few cautiously walked to the perimeter, toward the tangle of chibas9 frames and the goop soaking into the scorched earth. Some even broke into their ration packs and started eating. All over there was the lethargy and depression that was left behind as the suits stopped their chemical massage.

The calm didn't last very long. The noncoms started yelling, pushing men into exhausted, round-shouldered ranks. They called the rolls and tallied the missing. The complaining had started. Bitching was the second stage of reaction.

"I gotta tell you all, I thought we were going to hear the fat lady singing back there."

"How the hell did they get so close to us without us knowing? That's what I want to know."