Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [153]
Six domates left.
The warriors escorting the company of domates raised their bell-mouthed energy weapons in their sharp claws. In the pandemonium, many of them rushed forward to attack - just as Davlin had hoped. They charged onto the mined road, and three more explosions blew upward, vaporizing many warriors.
‘Open fire!' Maria Chan shouted.
Davlin hefted his shoulder-mounted jazer, took careful aim, and incinerated a huge hole through another domate. Its striped body slumped to the ground amidst the debris. Five left.
Everyone on the walls began blasting away, mowing down warriors, builders, any other Klikiss breeds they could hit. ‘Aim for the domates!'
Now that three of the subhive's eight domates had been wiped out, the warriors formed a protective wall around the towering creatures and drove them backward to relative safety. Davlin shot another burst from his jazer rifle, and killed ten warriors with the sweeping arc. He blasted two limbs off of one domate, but the imposing creature backed away, ducked, and scuttled to safety.
From its squat hive structure, the breedex directed its warriors to surge forward by the hundreds. The swarm was impossible to drive back, despite the flurry of desperate gunfire from the colonists. After another hidden landmine exploded, many insect warriors in the rearguard cracked open their wing casings and simply took flight, rising up over the booby-trapped zone. Others continued to march toward the stockade walls, heedless. Dead insect bodies piled up, and live Klikiss scrambled over them.
Davlin knew the stockade walls would provide no protection against the flying creatures. Overhead, Klikiss buzzed ominously, then swooped down to begin the direct attack. He shot into the air, killing many of the bugs in flight, but more and more warriors swept toward the stockade.
Ninety-six
Roberto Clarin
Firing his weapon again and again, Clarin splattered the flat, segmented head of a flying Klikiss warrior. The hideous creature careened into the side of a prefab building and slid down, leaving a trail of slime and gore. A poorly aimed explosion blew down another part of the prefabricated wall.
Many colonists without weapons ducked through the broken stockade wall, frantic to escape, though they had no place to go and little chance of getting far from the hive. Others ran to their secret bolt-holes inside the town, sealing themselves in hidden rooms, under trapdoors, inside crawlspaces.
Clarin saw five escaped colonists blunder into a group of Klikiss outside in the town. As the bugs fell upon them, the people tried to run back to the dubious safety of the stockade, but they were butchered before they could take more than a few steps.
Maria Chan Tylar remained atop the wall, yelling and shooting. She didn't seem interested in getting away, just in firing on Klikiss until her projectiles ran out. Clarin wished she had gotten away with her husband.
He and Davlin ran through the narrow streets of the inner town, desperately trying to manage the faltering defence. He was reminded of the time when the damned Eddies had come in to smash his beloved Hurricane Depot. This situation didn't look any better. During the black robot attack, the stockade walls had been breached in many places, and marauding insects now scrambled through every crumbling gap. Smoke billowed into the sky, and the smell of burning and death had already grown so thick he found it hard to breathe.
Clarin turned toward the nearest breach in the thick wall. ‘I know a hopeless last stand when I see one, Davlin. But I've got one more trick up my sleeve.'
‘What don't I know about?'
‘The other Remora. It's flight-worthy, it's loaded - and I'm taking it.'
Davlin showed a glimmer of hope. ‘Good. You can probably get six people aboard. Only six… but it's half a dozen we can save.'
Clarin didn't respond. By now more than a hundred Klikiss had flown or pushed their way into