Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [85]
Grim-faced soldiers grabbed the bodies of their fallen comrades, both the injured and the dead. The Klikiss moved with the speed of gigantic cockroaches under a bright light, racing forward to attack. Colonists and soldiers escaped one group at a time back to Rheindic Co. Lanyan spotted four Klikiss warriors circling around to the side, trying to cut off access to the transportal. He bellowed orders, and a flurry of weapons fire took down the bugs. But more and more of the creatures were closing in.
By the time the surviving Pym settlers had been evacuated, the General had run out of ammunition. He dropped both of his weapons and looked around for any available sidearm. Slaughtered insects lay piled all over the ground, yet more of them surged out of the still-intact alien towers.
When Lanyan saw that most of his soldiers were successfully, evacuated, he raced to the transportal wall. 'Hurry up, dammit!'
His last few men plunged with him through the shimmering trapezoidal window.
Suddenly, Lanyan found himself back in the crowded caves on Rheindic Co on the other side of the transportal. He was dripping with alkaline water, perspiration, blood, and Klikiss ichor.
A cold shiver ran up his back as he realized they were not safe, after all. Not by a long shot. Now that they had riled up the bugs, the Klikiss could simply flood through after them.
Fifty
Sirix
The return of the Klikiss changed all of Sirix's plans. After fleeing Wollamor, it was time for him to gather his remaining robots and the war vessels they had constructed at the new complex on Maratha. They would become the destructive force that he had imagined for millennia.
Sirix and his robots must eradicate the hated creators. Again. The subhive swarming through the Wollamor transportal could not be an isolated event. If the Klikiss were returning to their old worlds, they would reappear everywhere - intent on revenge. There would be many breedexes.
He needed to expand his military force greatly.
Sirix guided his battle group to Maratha in Ildiran space, where the largest enclave of robots had built their ambitious base. Ages ago, Sirix had used the half-hot, half-cold world to stage a great battle against the Klikiss. Recently, he had been appalled to learn that the Ildirans had made the place into a resort for themselves.
Had they distorted their own history so much that they had forgotten? The black robots had taken back the planet without much trouble. The Ildirans would not dare return there. By now, Sirix's fellows should have turned Maratha into an impregnable stronghold.
But he found only wreckage.
Both of the Ildiran-built cities, Prime and Secda, had been sliced and deconstructed, cratered by explosions. The machine battleships had been destroyed on the ground, along with hundreds of his vital comrades.
Sirix reeled, unable to calculate the extent of the loss. Nearly a third of his robots had gathered here! He recalibrated the Juggernaut's sensors, searching for an error, or at least an explanation. There should be robots digging tunnels, reconstructing and reinforcing the ancient base. And they were all gone!
QT moved closer to the bridge's viewscreen. 'It appears that a full-blown battle took place here.'
Sirix's ships scanned the blasted landscape, trying to determine what could have caused so much destruction. 'Our robots should have been able to defend themselves. They had enough time to prepare, to erect bastions against any attackers.'
'Did they know what they were preparing against?' PD asked. He stepped up next to his fellow compy, and both peered with great interest at the images of devastation.
Ilkot swivelled from his station and announced, 'I detect characteristic signatures from Solar Navy armaments. Ildiran weaponry caused this.' ,.
Sirix had already decided to add the Ildirans to his list of intended victims, but now an intense reaction burned through his circuits, distorting logical thought. The Ildirans were