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.”This seemed to brighten their moods.I was injured, but not badly.I and the PFC who still clutched his knife, but had lost his other hand to his Worm, both grabbed and lifted the worst injury, the man with a missing leg.The five of us charged then, firing as we went, running downslope toward the bricks.The men on top of the bricks and the remaining hovertanks saw us and provided covering fire.A hundred Worms tried to get to us, to stop us, to pull us down.Only one of my men didn’t make it.The PFC with the knife.A Worm sprang out from behind one of those big, squatty toadstool growths and rode him down, guns chattering, pinchers flashing in the black night.A hundred beams took the Worm apart, but when we dragged the PFC’s body into the protective square, he was already dead.Handing over my wounded to a corpsman, I brushed off his attempts to patch up my injuries and trotted to the command brick.I slumped into the airlock.It seemed to take forever to ding and allow me through.Part way through the process, sheeting antibiotic mists and beams of lavender radiation sprayed me.We couldn’t allow any form of contagion to enter the command module—I knew this intellectually and had approved the scripts myself, but it was still maddening to experience the delay.At length, I dragged myself into the command post.Everyone threw me a quick salute and turned back to what they were doing, except for Robinson.Robinson turned to Captain Sarin.“Get a corpsman in here, we have an officer in need of care.”I waved a hand at him and leaned the other heavily on the computer table.“I’ll be okay,” I said.“I’ve just had the wind knocked out of me.”They ignored my words and brought in the corpsman.I was surprised to see it was Sandra.She had taken the training, I’d known that.And it made sense that she was the closest certified noncombatant.“Hi hon,” I said.Sandra made an exasperated sound and went to work on me.It wasn’t the first time she’d performed emergency first aid on my sorry ass.I suspected it wouldn’t be the last.I tried to ignore her as she pulled my torso out of my suit and dabbed, probed and ripped lengths of tape.She whispered things to me, while she worked.Threats about what she would do if I ever got myself torn up like this again.These sorts of threats only made sense to Sandra.“Give me the big picture, Robinson,” I said.“We’re winning, sir.”“Losses?”“Five hovertanks were destroyed, but less than one hundred KIAs.The Worms surprised us, but they ran into our surprises as well.I think they meant to hit us from underneath simultaneously, timing it with the perimeter attacks.But our nanite-woven shielding under the base slowed them down and channeled their attacks into three breach points.We were able to burn them before they could get the interior assault underway.”I nodded.“What about the big waves from outside?”“Your position was hard hit.They did manage to take the rocky outcroppings, and the northern flank in general was overrun, but I pulled troops from the other walls where we’d repelled them and sent reinforcements to the breach points.We pretty much slaughtered them.”“Enemy casualties?” I asked, wincing as Sandra jabbed me with something sharp.I heard a clicking sound, and realized it was as stapler.We didn’t bother with sutures these days, the nanites took care of the fine work.Rapidly stapling up a wound and wrapping it tightly to prevent blood loss worked best.The nanites would automatically push the staples out after awhile when they were no longer needed.“The computer has done a recognition sweep with all the sensors.Over nine thousand Worms died, sir.”I looked up at him, impressed.“We did slaughter them, then.You did well.”“Yes sir,” Robinson said proudly.“Clearly, they miscalculated.”“Maybe.Or maybe they were desperate.I believe they are smarter than they look.I don’t think they expected to win, but thought it was worth a try.”“Sir?”“I want you to recalibrate and redirect our sensors downward.I don’t care about the sky or the surface of this rock.I want to know what they are doing under our feet.”Robinson paused and frowned.“You don’t think this is over, sir?”I snorted.“If the Worms had landed in Central Park and smashed back our first assault, do you think we would quit?”-45-The Worms hadn’t given up.They were hard at work underneath us, tunneling deeply.“There’s something big, sir.Metallic,” Captain Sarin told me, flipping images on the screen.“It’s about a thousand feet down in a soil substrate.I think the ground there is softer, maybe easier to dig through.”The big screen showed crawling, finger-like traces heading in our direction.They had converged and were aiming directly toward our position.I stared at them in growing concern.It was obvious where the tunnels had come from.Tracing backward from its current location led directly to the huge mountain.“We’ll keep an eye on things, sir,” said Major Robinson.“At this rate, the Worms won’t be under us for hours.”I continued to stare at the screen, not saying anything.I didn’t like this new, gathering assault.Behind me, a small, strong hand plucked at the staples holding together my injuries.I knew it was Sandra, letting me know she wanted me to come to our quarters with her and take a break.She wanted me out of the command post and under her not-so-gentle care.But she wouldn’t speak, I knew that too.She had no official capacity here, and knew enough not to interrupt a command discussion.I turned to her and tried to smile.I think I failed.She frowned back.She could tell immediately I wasn’t going to do what she wanted.“Sandra, thanks for the field-dressing.Excellent work as always.Could you return to your post in my office now?”Sandra nodded, but gave me a small, pursed-mouth glare.She didn’t bother to help me pull up my suit and help me reseal it.She turned around without a word and left.The spring-loaded door prevented her from slamming it behind her.I watched her shapely form exit—somehow, when she was angry, she managed to look even hotter.The command staff tried not to appear embarrassed as she left and I stared after her.The whole thing was unprofessional, but I hardly cared.Dying in a firefight with alien Worms on a newly discovered planet—all in the name of service to machine overlords—didn’t fit the norm, either.We made our own rules in my outfit.I pressed my own suit into place, activating the nanites via proximity so they linked up and sealed the fabric.Once she was gone, I turned to my officers and tapped on the screen where the contact blinked.The tapping caused it to zoom in closer.There was no more detail to be seen, however.Only a wireframe cube drawn in warning yellow.“What if this is one of their thermonuclear mines?” I asked, voicing the thought that had been on my mind the entire time.“They haven’t hit us with anything big like that yet,” Robinson argued.“I figured maybe they don’t want to set off a big radiation mess right here so close to their stronghold.”“Yeah, but maybe we just changed their plans for them
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