Battle Earth: 11 (2 page)

As he opened his eyes again, he could see the gunner’s screen tilt up and Christian trying to take aim at the aircraft as it was closing in and coming right for them. It was an impossible shot, but as pulses punched holes in their vehicle, he knew they had just seconds left.

“Do it, Christian!”

Another pulse ripped through the hull and cut Christian’s left leg off at the knee. He let out a scream in agony.

“Christian! Hit them! Fire!”

He squeezed the trigger. There was a flash, and the shot left the barrel, hitting the incoming aircraft just off centre of the nose. Becker could barely make out the shape of the wreck hurtling towards them and engulfed in flames. He had no time left to move and could do nothing but hope for the best.

“Fuck you!” he screamed at the screen. The aircraft crashed into his vehicle with an almighty smash that rocked the vehicle violently, and part of the craft embedded itself in the vehicle like a spear into a boar.

* * *

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Captain Reynolds.

Kelly nodded in agreement.

“The guns are still firing, is that a good thing?”

“Well it means we’re still in the fight, and that we haven’t won it. Take your pick of the good and bad news.”

The anti-aircraft weapons above continued to roar as they had done for several minutes.

“We’ve got incoming Mechs!” a voice shouted.

“All right, here they come,” said Kelly.

He stepped up to a bunker slit just two metres beside one of the gun emplacements. It only took a few seconds for him to spot the first few Mechs descend into the open ground where Becker had arrived with his convoy, and what now seemed like hours before.

“Led them right to us,” said Reynolds.

“Doesn’t matter anymore. We can’t change it. All we can do is…fire!”

The heavy weapon rattled into action and sent heavy Reitech rounds hurtling towards the Mechs at eight hundred rounds per minute. None of their infantry weapons could manage anything like it, for either the limited box magazine capacities or heat build up on the barrels. The heavy weapon was shielded and had a broad coolant chamber surrounding the barrel. It resembled a weapon more akin to the early twentieth century, but that was where the similarities stopped.

Kelly took aim and fired two careful shots at one creature that had just landed and before it could get into motion. A pulse smashed into the wall next to him, and on impact sent drops of burning pulse matter over the slit. He saw some of it splash onto the handrail of his rifle and smoke gush from it. He took another shot, and then the fourth jammed.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself.

He threw the rifle into the far side of the bunker and picked up another lying strategically against the wall beside him with three others, as if he never intended to change a magazine at all, but rather go from one rifle to another. He began firing once again and could now see the hundreds of shots were knocking down the few dozen Mechs that had landed ahead of them. He stopped firing and watched the work of his people; the Mechs were cut down in a turkey shoot.

The shooting finally died down, and ecstatic cheers soon followed the silence from the defensive lines, running fifty metres in either direction. He looked out at the smouldering bodies of the creatures. Not one was left living after they were riddled with enough shots to kill them three times over or more.

“We did it,” said Reynolds.

Kelly shook his head.

“That was just the beginning. They surely don’t know our number. That’s a scouting party sent in to test our strength.”

“A scouting party? But they’re all dead. How is that scouting?” Engel asked.

Kelly turned to see the Lieutenant was standing just three metres away, and he hadn’t even noticed. She was in full battle attire and had clearly got in on the fight. He knew she shouldn’t have, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her that.

“They don’t care about the individual. To their leaders, the Mechs are just machines. Much like we see them. Mindless and soulless, a commodity to be used.”

“And they keep doing as they’re told? Why would they keep doing it? Why do they carry on going to their deaths?”

Kelly took a deep breath and sighed. Clearly, she had no understanding of the enemy they faced.

“Another day like this, and you’ll stop asking why and simply stop caring,” he replied.

“But they can’t like this? They can’t like going mindlessly about, dying at the wish of whoever leads them? Maybe they can be reasoned with, shown a different way.”

Kelly laughed.

“One day, in a hundred years, and if the human race still exists, sure.”

“But Taylor did it, didn’t he? Everyone knows he did.”

“Yeah, how did the Colonel manage it?” Reynolds joined in.

Kelly sighed once again. “Maybe it was a one in a million. Maybe there was some exceptional circumstance. Maybe Taylor is just one unique son of a bitch.”

“Is? You think he’s alive?”

“More and more everyday.”

Kelly changed the magazine on his rifle and laid it in line with the others. He sat down with them. It felt remarkably comfortable, despite being a concrete floor. Nobody said a word now. They simply waited for the next assault. After a few minutes, they heard a call ring out.

“Hold your fire!” someone along the line ordered.

Kelly leapt up to look out through the slit. At first, he could see nothing and desperately looked in every direction to identify the source of the ruckus. Finally, he noticed a figure stagger into view from the north. It was human and walked as if either injured or having almost loss the will to keep going forward. His clothing was cut up and his head bare. The character’s face was black from dirt and debris stuck to the skin. Finally, he stopped and looked up, and Kelly recognised Becker’s face instantly.

“My god, he’s alive!”

Kelly rushed out of the room and towards the main entrance. He hit the switch to open the blast doors, without even thinking of the dangers of doing so. He sprinted out to Becker and stopped just before him. He had expected the Captain to drop dead where he stood. He was covered in blood, but not much seemed to be his own. His face was burnt on one side and his uniform barely recognisable through the dirt and grime. Metal shards were embedded in his body armour.

 
“Are you okay?”

Becker looked at him with a blank expression.

“Are you hurt?”

Still nothing.

“Where is your platoon?”

He was silent for a few moments, then slowly opened his mouth and spoke in a croaky, dry voice.

“I have no platoon.”

Kelly wrapped his arm around the Captain and led him inside the bunker where they were met by a medic. Kelly passed him over to the man who was joined by a woman helping out. As he was led away, Becker stopped and stared at Kelly.

“It’s not enough, you know.”

“What isn’t?”

“To have to be killing them, as it's all we have to live for…there has to be more.”

He turned and carried on, leaving Kelly with his chilling words. The Commander went back to the room where he had left Engel and Reynolds.

“Is he okay?” Reynolds asked.

“Looks like he has been through hell.”

“We all have, Engel,” said Reynolds.

Kelly didn't say a word, thinking more of what Becker had told him.

“How much longer do we have?” Engel asked, “Until they come again?”

Kelly finally snapped back to reality, his instincts cutting in. They needed a leader, and he knew he had to be the one.

“Not long now. That first wave was probably just a hunting party, enough to set a trap for Becker and discover our location. Now they’ll send more.”

“How many more?”

Kelly rubbed his chin, desperately wondering how to break the facts to them lightly, but decided it best to give it to them straight.

“More, and if we beat them, more again. And they’ll keep coming until we run out of ammunition, till we are fighting in hand-to-hand. Until they have crushed us. That’s how you deal with a resistance. Find it and crush it utterly.”

It was a morbid overview of what they faced, but they knew it to be true. Thirty minutes passed without a sign of the Krys, but they were all aware they were out there. Finally, the signal came over the comms.

“Incoming aircraft.”

The anti-aircraft weapons on the roof sprang into action. Return fire hit the rooftops of the bunker. They could hear the impacts, but the bastion all around them would not be broken. It was more like listening to heavy hail hit the roof of a house than a bombing raid.

“How long will that hold for?”

“I don’t have all the answers, Lieutenant. It’ll hold as long as it holds.”

Becker suddenly appeared at the doorway. His uniform was still filthy, but at least his face had been washed. He had dozens of cuts over his face and neck but no serious injury. His eyes were quite different now. He still had the look of a man who’d suffered a great loss, but now that feeling was joined with a fiery hatred.

“If I’m going to die, it won’t be in a field hospital while everything collapses around me,” he stated.

He strode across the room and picked up one of the rifles Kelly had laid out. Kelly didn’t want to press him; he was just glad to have him there. The gun emplacement beside him opened fire, and he turned sharply to see the first few Mechs land. He looked at Becker, who nodded back at him, took up position at one of the loopholes, and began systematically gunning down everything he could.

“Give them all you got!” Kelly hollered.

He followed in Becker’s example and took aim, firing on as many as he could. He could barely believe the number of enemy who were falling to their guns. They seemed to drop like flies, and yet for everyone they killed, another dropped in to take his place.

“You keep coming!” Kelly bellowed, “You think we’ve been through hell! I’m gonna drag you right down there with me!”

He squeezed the trigger and fired like a mad man. There were so many targets he could barely miss. By the time his magazine was empty, less than twenty remained. He let go of the rifle and picked up the next, but as he took aim, he noticed something far larger descend into view. It landed hard and could barely support its weight.

It was a Juggernaut. He knew because Taylor had told him of them, and those stories alone were enough for him to realise how fearsome they were.

“Bring it down!”

He took aim more carefully now and fired for every potential weak point he could find. He hit the head but it did nothing. Next he aimed for the joints at the shoulder and then the groin. The heavy guns along the line joined him, as well as dozens of others, and finally the creature collapsed dead to the ground. He sighed in relief. But just as he thought they had gotten past this new danger, another two dropped in from above.

“Fire!”

They concentrated their fire on one as the two beasts stormed towards the blast doors. One was badly wounded before it got there, but the other hit the doors full force. To their surprise they survived the impact. They were relieved, but a moment later a large explosion rang out that buckled the doors inward. Kelly rushed to the corridor to look upon them and could see a metre-wide hole in the centre of the doors, where the creature had ignited like a living bomb. Through the hole he could see lines of Mechs advancing on them.

Taylor rolled uneasily in his bed. He'd barely slept in the time period he still called night. The clocks were set to GMT, and he was sticking to it, as was the fleet. As he tossed and turned, his elbow struck Parker who was squeezed in beside him. She groaned a little, but more from being awoken than hit.

"Oh, come on," she complained.

She looked her watch.

"Two hours? You kidding me?"

"You could always sleep in your own bed," he replied.

She wasn't sure if he was joking or not, but jabbed him in the side as she felt he deserved it either way. The clenched fist struck a rib, and he winced as it struck far harder than she'd intended.

"Sorry," she quickly added.

"No, it's okay. That's about the most excitement I've had all week."

She laughed, but only briefly as she felt the same weariness.

“Think they’ll ever get back to us?” she asked.

“We’re sitting on their doorstep. Sure they will. What worries me is their response.”

“But they fought with us once already?”

“Not through choice. It’s pretty clear they are intimately familiar with the Krys. They have set up a life out here in peace. It’s what we came out here to do, isn’t it?”

She shrugged as if to agree in part.

“Well then wouldn’t you be pretty pissed if some random race turned up with your old enemy in tow?”

She couldn’t think of an answer, but they were soon interrupted anyway.

“Colonel Taylor to the bridge,” a voice called over the comms, with no regard for the many still sleeping around them.

“News?” Parker asked.

“I doubt it. Probably just more bullshit.”

He pulled on his BDUs and sidearm and carried on promptly. As he weaved his way through the corridors of the vessel, he could see the same dreary boredom mixed with anxiety that he felt inside, too.

This is getting old,
he thought.

He reached the bridge to find himself being directed into the Admiral’s quarters. He entered to find another six officers already sitting around the desk. Clearly, they had been there for some time. Before he could even stop with two feet together, Huber was hounding him with a question.

“Colonel Taylor, you think those things down there are spoiling for a fight, don’t you?”

He could tell Huber had made up his mind, but he couldn’t mindlessly go along with it.

“I wouldn’t like to say, Admiral.”

“Damn it, don’t skate around with that nonsense. Give us your honest opinion, and don’t hold anything back.”

They all looked to Taylor and awaited his answer.

“Well…okay. I saw what tech this race has, just a little of it. I think if they wanted a fight, it would already be over, and we wouldn’t be here to have this discussion.”

“And what makes you think they just haven’t made up their minds yet?” asked one of the other Captains.

He shrugged.

“They don’t seem anything like the Krys. I don’t think they’ll harm us unless we present a danger to them.”

“A danger? We’ve got a whole fleet parked in their backyard,” replied Huber, “We have no chance to escape this place now. We are either going down there peacefully or with force, and if they make the first move, I want to know we are ready for it.”

“Yes, Sir,” Taylor replied.

"You seem unconvinced, Colonel?" Huber asked.

"Ball's not in our court, Sir. I'll fight to the very end if they come at us, but there is nothing more we can do than we are already doing."

"Not good enough, Colonel. I want your marines ready for assault around the clock. I want boarding teams prepared to assault any enemy vessels, and heavy weapons teams deployed at strategic locations around the ship. I want you to do your job, Colonel. You will liaise with the XO and ensure we are at full combat readiness for whatever might be thrown at us."

"Aye, aye, Sir," he responded.

"That will be all, Colonel."

Taylor turned and left quickly. He sighed as the door shut behind him.

"Waste of fucking time," he muttered to himself.

"What was that, Colonel?"

He looked up to see Vega had heard, but he wasn't going to repeat it.

Two hours later, he sat before a group of marines that had assembled for his briefing. A screen replayed video footage captured from the battle on the surface of the planet below. They had all seen it many times over, and that the new race of aliens possessed weapons and technology far more terrifying than they had encountered before. The video ended, and Taylor looked at them all as if waiting for some response.

"Well...questions?"

"Do we have any idea of their number?" Morris asked.

Taylor shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"So what are we training for?"

"The Admiral believes that if they decide against us, then they'll come for the fleet. If that happens, Parker, we do what we're here for. Internal defence and strategic boarding actions of enemy vessels."

Nobody said a word as they waited to hear how that would be achieved.

"Defence of the Washington has to be a priority, and to that end the Admiral will have me stay aboard to manage the defences. Captain King, I want you to assemble two boarding teams that are ready to deploy within five minutes, around the clock."

"For how long, Colonel?" he asked.

Taylor shook his head. "Until such time as something changes. Now, we already have double guard duties running, but the rest of you need to be ready to deploy just as quickly as Captain King, if not quicker. The simple reality is we don't know what technology this race has. Maybe they'll hit us up here, or maybe they'll force us into a ground battle."

The entire audience could hear the lack of confidence in Taylor's voice. He knew it would hit the already low morale, but he couldn't muster the strength to lie to them.

"You all know what you need to do. Let's get to it."

They groaned as they got to their feet and went about their work. King came right at him and walked with purpose.

"I can organise these boarding parties, but we don't even know what we're facing. What kind of ships, their number, strength. We don't even know if we can breach their hulls. We're working on a lot of ifs and maybes here, aren't we?"

Taylor agreed with him. "And if I could have it any other way, I would. But this is the hand we have been dealt."

“All that we have given to get this far? You’ve kept up the fight when it seemed all hope was lost, but not now?”

Taylor had nothing left to say, and King could tell.

* * *

“More ammo! Get more ammo up here!” Kelly screamed.

He ran out of the room to check on the repairs to the main doors. Slabs of concrete lay scattered about the entrance, and sparks flew as three soldiers with welding guns installed reinforcements to the new patched up doors. They were welding everything shut. Nobody was under any illusions about what was going on the other side. Whatever happened, they would never be going out that way again.

Explosions rang out every few seconds from the Krys trying to pierce the bunker with heavy weapons. Kelly could feel the floor rumble beneath him on every impact. He turned and watched Engel struggling with a large ammo box under each arm. He rushed over and took one off her, but in doing so threw her off balance. She staggered against one wall and dropped the box. As it hit the round, the lid flew open where the clasp had not been fully sealed. Full magazines poured out over the floor.

Before Engel even had time to start recovering the magazines, there were six of their own people swarming her and grabbing as many as they could carry. Kelly went to the bunker door and dropped down his box, kicking it so that it slid into the centre of the room.

“Keep it up!”

He went to one of the loopholes to observe the fighting for himself. Mech bodies were strewn out across the yard, the whole width from the bunker to the rocks on the far side. They were knocking them down at an alarming rate from within the strong defences of the bunker, but they just kept coming.

“Will they never stop?”

He turned to find Engel standing by him. The look on her face was one of desperation. He shook his head.

“I can’t imagine why. Never before have they ever shown mercy or willingness for peace. No, they’ll keep coming until one side is destroyed.”

“Then we lose?”

“We lost a long time ago, Lieutenant. I thought you knew that. I believe I made that absolutely clear. All that we can do is what we are doing, right now. Killing as many of them as possible before the end.”

A pulse ripped through the gun emplacement loophole and struck the heavy weapons team there. One of them was catapulted across the room from the power and struck the wall on the far side. Kelly rushed to the emplacement to take up the weapon without checking on the crew. He took aim and squeezed the trigger, but the shot ignited in the damage barrel and blew the weapon apart.

For a few seconds he was stunned and shocked. He was frozen in place, but then his eyes focused on the Mechs advancing on their position. He picked up his own rifle and started firing. At first, they were carefully aimed single shots, but that soon moved to bursts. As he slammed in a second magazine, there seemed little point in aiming any more as there was a wall of the enemy. He squeezed the trigger and held it down. The creatures were struck down one after another as dozens of rifles laid down continuous fire.

Then a gap opened in the line of creatures, and three Juggernauts rushed out, storming towards the doors. Kelly targeted his fire, and the others followed suit, but he knew they couldn't be stopped this time. A few moments later, two explosions rang out at the doorway. The floor rocked so violently, Kelly expected the roof to come down on top of them. A dust cloud passed over him as he got to his feet and rushed out to the entrance hall.

There was a metre-wide hole in the centre of the doors they had so recently repaired. Several of the soldiers nearby went forward to begin repairs.

"No! Get back!"

As Kelly said it, a pulse flew through the gaping hole and struck one of the soldiers square in the chest, knocking her flat onto the floor. The woman's armour was smouldering, and fragments had burned into her neck and shoulder, but she was alive. The huge hands of one of the Juggernauts reached into the weakened door and began prising it open like a tin can.

Kelly pulled two grenades from his webbing, primed them, and tossed them through the hole. He fired a few shots to follow them and then ducked away for cover. The grenades ignited with a fraction of the force and resonation of the weapons the enemy had used against the doors.

Just a few seconds later, Kelly was on his feet again.

"Fall back! Fall back!"

A few of the soldiers near him looked in surprise and for him to repeat the order. But as a pulse zoomed through the breach and flew past Kelly, they soon moved. He reached down for the wounded woman and hauled her to her feet.

"No time to lick your wounds, move!" he screamed at her.

Troops poured out from the bunker entrances either side of the hallway while he and Reynolds laid down fire through the breach. The flow of soldiers finally stopped long before he would have expected it to. The Commander leaned into the bunker that had been opposite theirs and could see the bodies of at least ten of their people. They had gotten it far worse than his position. He looked to each of the bodies to be certain there was no sign of life, but there was nothing.

"Kelly, we gotta move!" Reynolds pleaded.

He was suddenly tugged backwards, and the Captain hauled him out into the corridor. As he spun around, they both continued on into a quick paced charge to escape the incoming enemy.

"This isn't working!"

"You saw how many we killed, Captain! I'd say it worked rather well!" he answered.

It was the only justification he could think of for the losses they had endured.