Free Alien Landscapes 2 by Kevin J. Anderson Page A

the Enemy was nearly eradicated as well.
    War often required sacrifices, and many soldiers died. But a victory would pay the bloody cost ten times over. They had never gone so far.
    The thrill of seeing the Enemy nearly exterminated gave Barto all the enthusiasm he needed, even without an adrenaline rush augmented by injectors in his armor. With a shared glance behind opaque visors, he and Arviq both had the same thought, and ran forward with their four remaining companions. They couldn’t stop now.
    Then large gun emplacements popped out of the ground, more massive than anything he had ever seen before. Barto reeled in unaccustomed confusion—the Enemy had never exhibited technology like this! Automated fire rained down on them, super powerful laser-lances far more devastating than any of the hand-held rifles.
    Soldiers screamed. The blasts were like belts of incinerating flame, vaporizing armor and leaving not even bones for the bloodhounds to retrieve. The firepower pummeled anyone who came close, whether friend or Enemy. They had no chance, no chance at all.
    An explosion ripped out a deep crater ten meters from them. Someone screamed, but Barto had no voice. The automated superlasers continued to track across the ground, pinpointing armor, crushing any movement. Barto watched the beams sweep closer, vaporizing everything in the vicinity. His four remaining squad members died in a puff of blood-smoke and molten armor plate.
    On impulse he grabbed Arviq and shoved him hard toward the fresh crater. Together, the two dove into the raw trench just as the splash of disintegration passed over them. The voices in his helmet turned to a rainstorm of incomprehensible static.
    Within moments the battle stopped. Everyone else was dead.
    All of the laser fire and explosions ceased. All the Enemy, all of the squad, every living thing had been annihilated.
    Without saying a word, Arviq hauled himself to his hands and knees and reached over to shake Barto, who also recovered his balance. The two of them sat panting for a moment, stunned but still determined. Neither of them—in fact, no one they knew—had ever been so far behind Enemy lines.
    They rose up slowly and carefully into the crackling silence, afraid of other targeted automated systems. Clods of dry dirt fell from their armor. Dust and crackling ash roiled through the air . . . but nothing else moved.
    “We won?” Barto asked. “Is the war over?”
    “I hope not.” Arviq turned to him, his mouth a grim line beneath the opaque visor of the helmet. “The war will never be over. But we may have won this battle.”
    Barto raised his helmet over the rim of the blasted crater. No weapons responded to the motion. The battlefield remained eerily quiet with only the faint sound of coughing fires and settling dust.
    “Must be the Enemy encampment,” Arviq said with a grunt. “Increased defenses—maybe even HQ.” He grinned. “Success!”
    But Barto wasn’t so sure. Moving with tense caution, he climbed away from the crater. “No, not HQ. The defenses killed as many of them as us. ID transponders useless.”
    Arviq joined him, sole survivors on the sprawling battlefield. Barto could see where the huge gun emplacements had raised up. Adjusting his visor filters, he spotted different infrared signatures, metallic traces, solid structures and hollow passages beneath the scarred ground.
    Amazed, Barto crept forward. “We’ve discovered something. We’re required to investigate.”
    “No, back to HQ,” Arviq said. “We must report. Our squad was wiped out.”
    But Barto shook him off. He stood determined, looking ahead across the scabbed landscape. “Not until we have hard reconnaissance. This could be important.”
    Arviq hesitated only a moment. Neither outranked the other, and they had no time for argument, but the other soldier quickly came to his own decision. “Yes. Reconnaissance is part of our mission.”
    Most of the time, sly intelligent cats would creep