"As you can see, a large and heavily armed contingent of the enemy has breached the dome of number seven surface-farm."
The scout obligingly swiveled his television optic to show the fused gap in the huge plastic dome through which the natives were hauling incendiary materials to destroy the crop. The motionless bulk of a warrior lay close beside the opening. He had been downed by artillery, while above the force-field the ever present aircraft of the natives circled watchfully. Somewhere, the ancient generators had shorted long enough for the raiders to slip through.
"A detachment has already been sent out," the voice continued. "The natives are to be forced back beyond the northern defense perimeter. Intelligence estimates eight hundred of the enemy and thirty field-pieces. The fortress depends on you. You will not fail the fortress."
On that note, the loudspeaker was silent.
"It seems to me," the warrior on Jord's right murmured as they moved towards the opening bulkhead at the far side of the room, "that we almost always fail." He wasn't contradicting, only remarking.
Jord nodded. One warrior lost today, two last week, one the week before, and more before that. He saw the leviathans, 140 tons of machinery with great gaping holes in their bodies, saw the wires and conduits, armor and all the intricacies that went into a Galbth II. He saw them steaming, stumbling, falling—respirators clogged—smothering. Their motions weakened, their limbs failed, the warriors died.
Two hundred years ago the planet had been a peaceful colony. Then with the collapse of the empire had come two hundred years of reversals, and they who had once been the overseers of harmless workers now found themselves struggling for the barest survival. Only the workers, the natives, had adapted.
He went through the bulkhead into the immenseness of the cavern where the machines stood waiting in the shadowless light.
Down the iron catwalks the silver warriors ran. Down to the mechanics, down to the surgeons with their surgeon fingers dead white beneath the operating lamps. All waiting. Waiting to fit the mechanism for a thousand eyes to the optic nerves, the amplifiers to the audio.