The Best of Joe Haldeman by Jonathan Strahan, Joe W. Haldeman Read Free Book Online Page A

okay. Get us out of here now.”
     
    “Will do.” Ho’s voice. The LSU hum was replaced by a chatter, then a throb. Evacuating the box to prevent an explosion.
     
    One corner of the seam grew red, then white, and a bright crimson beam lanced through, not a foot away from my head. I scrunched back as far as I could. The beam slid up the seam and around three corners, back to where it started. The end of the box fell away slowly, trailing filaments of melted ‘plast.
     
    “Wait for the stuff to harden, Mandella.”
     
    “Sanchez, I’m not that stupid.”
     
    “Here you go.” Somebody tossed a line to me. That would be smarter than dragging him out by myself. I threaded a long bight under his arms and tied it behind his neck. Then I scrambled out to help them pull, which was silly—they had a dozen people already lined up to haul.
     
    Singer got out all right and was actually sitting up while Doc Jones checked his readout. People were asking me about it and congratulating me, when suddenly Ho said, “Look!” and pointed toward the horizon.
     
    It was a black ship, coming in fast. I just had time to think it wasn’t fair, they weren’t supposed to attack until the last few days, and then the ship was right on top of us.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    IX
     
    We all flopped to the ground instinctively, but the ship didn’t attack. It blasted braking rockets and dropped to land on skids. Then it skied around to come to a rest beside the building site.
     
    Everybody had it figured out and was standing around sheepishly when the two suited figures stepped out of the ship.
     
    A familiar voice crackled over the general freak. “Every one of you saw us coming in and not one of you responded with laser fire. It wouldn’t have done any good but it would have indicated a certain amount of fighting spirit. You have a week or less before the real thing and since the sergeant and I will be here I will insist that you show a little more will to live. Acting Sergeant Potter.”
     
    “Here, sir.”
     
    “Get me a detail of twelve people to unload cargo. We brought a hundred small robot drones for target practice so that you might have at least a fighting chance when a live target comes over.
     
    “Move now. We only have thirty minutes before the ship returns to Miami.”
     
    I checked, and it was actually more like forty minutes.
     
    Having the captain and sergeant there didn’t really make much difference. We were still on our own; they were just observing.
     
    Once we got the floor down, it only took one day to complete the bunker. It was a gray oblong, featureless except for the airlock blister and four windows. On top was a swivel-mounted bevawatt laser. The operator—you couldn’t call him a “gunner”—sat in a chair holding dead-man switches in both hands. The laser wouldn’t fire as long as he was holding one of those switches. If he let go, it would automatically aim for any moving aerial object and fire at will. Primary detection and aiming was by means of a kilometer-high antenna mounted beside the bunker.
     
    It was the only arrangement that could really be expected to work, with the horizon so close and human reflexes so slow. You couldn’t have the thing fully automatic, because in theory, friendly ships might also approach.
     
    The aiming computer could choose among up to twelve targets appearing simultaneously (firing at the largest ones first). And it would get all twelve in the space of half a second.
     
    The installation was partly protected from enemy fire by an efficient ablative layer that covered everything except the human operator. But then, they were dead-man switches. One man above guarding eighty inside. The army’s good at that kind of arithmetic.
     
    Once the bunker was finished, half of us stayed inside at all times— feeling very much like targets—taking turns operating the laser, while the other half went on maneuvers.
     
    About four klicks from the base was a large “lake”