
On the attackers' left flank a Fighter with a genetic defect that afforded him more
intelligence than Fighters were bred for realized that he and his mates would all be
killed if something wasn't done about the lights. He understood that the Earthmen
needed instruments to detect them when they couldn't see. It was time for him to
take a risk. He raised his head and shoulders high enough to allow him to aim
carefully, then fired a deliberate spray into the aperture of the bunker almost directly
in front of him. Screams immediately came from the bunker, and fire ceased. He
sprayed another, longer stream. The screaming stopped.
Pleased, the Fighter slithered to where he'd last known his Leader to be and came
upon his body. He rooted through the Leader's belt pouches, found what he was
looking for, stuck it into the waistband of his loincloth, and returned to his position.
"Fighters, to me!" he called out, his voice a raspy gargle.
Fighters to his left and his right looked at him uncertainly. He was a Fighter like
them, not a Leader. But their Leader was dead, along with half of their mates. And
this Fighter did call to them in the voice of a Leader. So, uncertain or not, they
edged closer to him to hear and obey his next order.
"With me!" the Fighter shouted when he saw seven Fighters ready to follow him.
"Between the two dead bunkers. Now!"
He leaped to his feet and sprinted forward. Seven Fighters ran with him. Fléchette
fire took down one. He skidded to a stop with his back against the nearer bunker,
next to the aperture, and signaled one of the other Fighters to do the same at the
other dead bunker. When that Fighter was in place, the Fighter who had taken charge
signaled again and waited until he saw him spraying acid into the bunker. Then he
stuck the nozzle of his own weapon through the aperture of his bunker and sprayed
from side to side.
Satisfied that they'd truly killed anybody who might have been left alive, he
signaled his remaining Fighters to lower themselves to the ground and spread out in
the space between the dead bunkers. The low humps that were the second line of
bunkers were just out of range. More important, he could see that the lamps were
mounted on spindly towers between the two bunker lines.
He shouted, and the Fighters slithered forward until they were within range. He
shouted more orders, and his six remaining Fighters began spraying two by two at
three of the bunkers in the second line. He didn't fire with them; instead, he slithered
toward the nearest lamp tower.
Withering fire converged on the Fighters he left behind, but one second-line
bunker stopped firing, then another. No fire came near him, and soon he was in the
dark, below the outward-pointing cone of the lamp's light. He found a thick cable
lying on the ground, parallel to the line of lamp towers. Directly beneath the tower a
cable ran upward from the cable on the ground. Emanations from it tingled his
receptors. Slithering as low as he could, he followed the cable to the left until he
reached a junction that led toward the second bunker line. He briefly pondered the
situation, and decided it might be where to kill the lights. He backed off out of