Harry had a meal of fabricated food and water. He didn’t comment on how it wasn’t as good as the Marines’ food package. He settled in his chair and decided to rest. He wanted to be fresh for when they reached the valley and started dealing out death and destruction.
Nick would wake him up when he needed, and the dropping of long guns was
automated. He didn’t have to do anything except wait for an alert.
The wild flight of the giant bee didn’t do anything. He had learned to sleep
in flight from prop planes carrying troops to combat zones. The comparison
was like riding in a high performance and smooth moving Lamborghini to a city bus.
“Hey, Harry,” said Nick. “It’s time to wake up and get to work.”
“Not now, Mom,” said Harry. “I haven’t seen the end of this episode.”
“We’re almost to the drop zone,” said Nick. “I need you to wake up.”
“I’m on deck,” said Harry. “Let me hit the head, and we’ll see what we can do about the rest of this.”
“We’re close to the opening time,” said Nick. “And we have been laying guns behind us like a chicken lays eggs.”
“Are any of them still active?,” said Harry. He went into the small space set aside to do his personal business.
“Yes,” said Nick. “They are creating a line of bombardment for miles. They haven’t shot any of the space dwellers down, but they have caused several to veer off course.”
“I guess that’s as good as we’re going to get,” said Harry as he took care of himself and got some fresh clothes out of the clothing catalogue. “How do they know which way to open the gate to let the sun out?”
“A computer determines the coordinates of where the target should be, and then opens a wormhole between the nearest star to the target for five seconds,” said Nick. “I had heard it’s only good inside a solar system. I don’t know of anyone trying beyond that.”
“And contractors don’t use that?,” said Harry.
“Most contractors fight in an urban environment with civilians around,” said Nick. “The use of something like MSS-1238 is not really good for a fight like that. A miss could burn down a city block by accident. Smaller weapons are more useful under those conditions.”
“So if there was a civilian population here, I would be restricted on how I wanted to use the big guns instead of just dropping them everywhere,” said Harry. “Okay, I savvy that.”
“Some of the bigger weapons can’t be accessed by normal contractors,” said Nick. “Your luck in planting that first hive to kill the enemy here is what gained you the points for the catalogues. There are things in them that you shouldn’t use unless you don’t care about yourself anymore.”
“Like Will Munny said,” began Harry. “I have always been lucky killing. Visual on the gate area.”
The screen split to give him a view of the ground and keep some of the sky around him. So far he wasn’t shooting anything in the air yet. Maybe the long guns he was using was doing that for him. He was glad that he had finally found something that could cut through a star whale’s armor. One shot of solar flame tended to do the trick for some reason.
Maybe it was the radiation on top of the heat.
All he had to do was drop down, kill the xenos opening the gate, and blow up the mark. Then he could get back to his outpost and think about what his future could be.
If he was smart, he would use the gate to get back home before he ran out of xenos to kill. This planet would allow him to farm points for as long as the equipment kept expanding and there were xenos around to get shot.
But he doubted that he should go home.
This was his element. Killing the enemy was as natural as breathing and as automated as a self-driving car. He didn’t have anything on Earth he enjoyed more than this.
“Is that traffic up the valley?,” he asked as he watched the screens.
“It looks like it,” said Nick. “I don’t think the guns can shoot down into this
depression. We might have to do this the hard way.”
“I would be surprised if we didn’t,” said Harry. “Beetle Gun? You ready back there?”
The beetle made a sound to acknowledge the question.
“All right,” said Harry. “I’m going to drop you off so you can help clear the valley of monsters. I’ll fly ahead to give you some cover fire. That way, they’ll be trapped between us. Get ready from mark. Mark.”
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Harry opened the bay doors and let the beetle drop to the ground. The cannon on its back unfolded and started taking aim down the valley. Energy ripped up the trail as the beetle advanced.
Harry had his bee fly down to the other end of the valley. Xenos poured toward where the gate should open. He didn’t know if any had already made the sign. He didn’t care. He had to cut them off from the projected gate point.
He unlocked the weapons and let them go to work as he concentrated on position. He doubted his human reflexes were a match for the xenos, but he was ready to command the flying machine to dodge when needed.
Stopping the flow of enemies to the Earth would be a huge win if he could do it.
The beetle gun paced down from its end of the valley. It fired blasts into the horde, sending boiling blood and body parts into the air. It paused at the edge of cover and worked its cannon back and forth.
Harry continued his assault from above until flying xenos arrived to try to take him out. He backed off, letting the weapons work for him. He didn’t need one of those things to reach his vehicle and start chewing on the armor. He didn’t know how long it would take them to crash him and he didn’t want to find out.
“We have more incoming,” said Nick. “Where are they coming from?”
“I don’t think that matters,” said Harry. He dropped one of the fabricators for a big gun at the mouth of the valley. “Let’s see if we can buy time for our cannon to go to work.”
He fired beams of light and missiles into the mob as they tried to press on. He
frowned at their unwillingness to run. Human soldiers would have sought cover by now but not these monsters.
That all ended when the sun gun fired its first shot. It wiped the horde out in a spray of solar fire. The bee lifted upwards to avoid the flame ripping the armored shell off. The long gun fell silent, but tracked something out there in the distance.
“All right,” said Harry. “Mission successful. I think we won this round.”
“There are still fragments of the enemy out there,” said Nick. “I see the mana on the scanners.”
“Do you want to go after them?,” said Harry. “We can head back to the outpost and see how we can grow it into a systemic threat. Nothing would be able to fly in here after we’re done.”
“I think we should try to kill them so they don’t pose a threat, but I don’t have a problem letting them go so we can kill them later,” said Nick. “They won’t be able to use this valley as long as the long gun and the beetle are covering things.”
“We should put down some bees,” said Harry. “That will give cover for the beetle and the gun. Otherwise, anyone sneaky enough can come up here and do damage just by dropping the mountain on them.”
“I see your point,” said Nick. “And the other guns nearby might need some looking after also.”
“Exactly,” said Harry. “And it keeps the xenos from using this valley for their gate which is what we wanted in the first place.”
“The gate is still opening, Harry,” said Nick. “We can go back and not continue to fight.”
“I don’t mind the fighting,” said Harry. “We just need to figure out a way to stop the xenos from trying to use this world for transit. Once we do that, we can worry about the rest of the war.”
“The fact that you have created a theory of how their gates target our planets is almost enough for you to retire from actual fighting,” said Nick. “No one else even thought of anything like that.”
“Marques should get all the credit,” said Harry. “Let’s go down to the gate and send a message to everyone. We can at least do that.”
“We can call through the gate,” said Nick. “The message time would be faster than light thanks to the mechanics.”
“We still have one problem,” said Harry as he landed the bee next to the forming gate. “We don’t if there is anyone smarter behind all this, or are we faced with a zombie apocalypse.”
“It would be nice if we did have our hands on the brains behind this if there are any,” said Nick. “Maybe we can track their command and control like they are trying to do to us.”
The gate snapped into existence as Harry got out of the bee and walked toward it. He needed to make his phone call, then he could erase the sign and close the gate.
Robotic bees flew out of the gate on jets. They took up a defensive position before noticing Harry with his hands up. They gave handshakes to the big bee, and the beetle with the gun. They flew around looking for the enemy.
Box, John, Cat and Guy came through the gate next. They formed out in a square, weapons at the ready.
“Did you bring the kids too?,” asked Harry. “I thought I told you guys to let me
handle this.”
“Bubba said you were farming points,” said Box. “I wanted to see what I could do.”
“That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard which you three don’t have,” said Harry. “I was getting ready to call you, and now this. It’s almost like you don’t trust me.”
“You don’t have your pinkie toes any more,” said John. “Someone has to look out for you.”
“I can’t believe this,” said Harry. He glared at the bees. “You guys were supposed to stop them from doing stuff like this. I don’t see this is as following orders.”
The bees looked in other directions.
“All right, we can hash this out at my bee hive,” said Harry. “Get on board so we can go. I’ll shut the gate off to keep the xenos from using it.”
“Hold on,” said Box. “I have an idea.”
He went back through the gate. He came back a few minutes later.
“All right,” he said. “Shut it down.”
“Let’s go,” said Harry. “I don’t know how safe the air is to breathe, but once onboard we can take stock.”
The group piled into the aircraft, the bees latching on to the back. The beetle backed away from the giant bug as it lifted off. It held station instead of moving for the bay.
“I think it wants to stay here,” said Nick. “I don’t know how much it can do on its own.”
Harry dropped the bee down and walked down the steps. He looked at the beetle.
“You don’t want to head back with us?,” asked Harry.
The beetle stepped back.
“If I leave you out here alone, you’ll be wrecked,” said Harry. “All right. I got tons of points. Would you like some more beetles and bees to help out?”
The beetle kind of nodded with its whole body.
“Let’s see what we can do,” said Harry. He produced three or four hives and threw them at various places in the valley. Bees would start appearing as fast the hives could make them. He produced three fabricators for beetle guns and hid them behind rocks so nothing had a clear shot at them.
“Good luck, bro,” said Harry. He boarded the giant bee and took off.