Battle Station by B. V. Larson Page B

to it, but it had a cow-catcher sweep in front of the main maw. What it was doing, as closely as we could figure out, was digesting trees from the forest. It scooped them up into its maw like an electric shaver chewing on a man’s stubble. Chopping the trees off low at the base of the trunk, the organic material then ran up chutes and was chemically leeched and burned. Behind the machine, a massive black trail of charcoal as wide as a fresh-laid highway stretched out for miles.
    We’d seen operations of this kind from space. Our reconnaissance didn’t show any of the harvested regions in this area, only virgin forests we’d planned to use for cover. My best guess was that the machine had been redirected here after learning of our invasion.
    It really didn’t matter why the machine was there, what mattered was it was plowing right into my unit and it was incredibly big. I didn’t know what kind of armament it had, and I had no clue as to how we were going to kill it. But I didn’t let these details bother me.
    “Spread out! Circle around behind the machine and shoot it in the rear. Aim for sensory equipment, joints and any weapons systems it might have.”
    The Centaurs followed my orders—sort of. Rather than scattering as individuals or even squads, they broke into two groups which each swept around the machine on either side. I could tell by now they really didn’t like any orders that caused them to separate and act as individuals.
    For my own part, I shot up directly into the air. None of my troops could perform this kind of trick, as they didn’t have full battle suits. I hoped it didn’t have an anti-air pod on its back—fortunately, it didn’t. The machine I’d met up with back in the Bellatrix system had ignored my scouting ship entirely. While this one was acting aggressively, it didn’t really have the capacity to do anything at range.
    As my Centaurs flowed around its flanks, however, it did surprise us. Two side chutes flipped out. These were probably built to cut into groves of trees in hard-to-reach pockets near boulders and the like. Whatever they were for, they ate into my troops like lawn-clippers. A dozen or so Centaurs on each flank were separated from their hooves, in many cases from all four at once. Still alive, the flopping troops fell bleating into the threshing blades as they made a second pass. Blood fountained up and puffs of dark fur floated in the forest between the trunks.
    The troops that survived flashed out with their weapons, burning the machine in a wild crisscross of beams. Vaporized metal puffed up from countless hits, but the machine seemed undaunted. Thirty seconds later, I was on top of the monster and most of my troops were behind it.
    The harvester began a slow, laborious right turn. I could tell it was wheeling, trying to get its blades back into play. Apparently, it didn’t have anything in the rear area other than the exhaust system which laid out the charcoal byproduct. Another machine would probably come along eventually to pick up the material the harvester left behind—but by then I hoped to be miles away.
    “Keep behind it, men,” I said. I realized even as I said it they weren’t men, but old habits die hard. “Keep shooting it in the ass. I’ll try to figure out what to do up here.”
    The Centaurs did as I asked. Beams lashed the harvester’s hindquarters, to little apparent effect. At least no more of my troops were dying. Perhaps they felt it was dishonorable, not facing an enemy head on like two rams butting heads. But for once, they didn’t complain about that.
    It occurred to me that although the harvester was no longer killing my company, it was successfully delaying us. Could this be the prelude to a more effective attack by military units? I had to disable this thing and get back on track. I thought about the single nuclear grenade I had on my pack. It seemed like a waste to use it now. I only had the one, and I’d hoped to use it on a more