“Keep up the fire!” called Sgt Perry, one of Haverly’s men.
“Too many! Fall back!” Haverly cried.
“Hold your position, Gambler 2-1!” Manahan thundered. “4-4, hold position! Do you copy?”
“Fontaine’s dead! We’re all dead!” Haverly said.
“Staff Sergeant Fontaine’s tank was destroyed, sir,” Gina verified. Manahan had missed the notification when the fighters attacked.
Shit! That left Perry, Gambler 2-2, as the ranking sane man in second platoon. Haverly was unfit for command at this point. Several second platoon tanks were disabled or destroyed; the grunts in Corpse 4-2 were nearly wiped out.
Manahan ordered Perry to hold ground.
“Aye, sir! We’re gonna be overrun!”
“Fall back! Retreat! Retreat!” Haverly yelled over the company net.
“Shut your mouth and lead, Haverly!” Manahan said. “Hold that flank!” If Haverly ran and lived, Manahan would kill him. And damn the consequences!
“Pulling out!” Haverly was hyperventilating as he shouted to his tanker bot: “Just do it! Get us out of here!”
Manahan texted Haverly’s bot: DISREGARD GAMBLER 2-1 ORDERS; then his gunner, Sergeant Neff: SUBDUE LT HAVERLY.
ACKNOWLEDGED, came Neff’s response.
All for nothing. An explosion followed by screams erupted on the channel a moment later. “Hit! Hit! I don’t wanna—”
Die, Manahan finished for Haverly.
GAMBLER 2-1 DESTROYED. GAMBLER 2-3 DESTROYED. Easy to see why: on scope mechs and infantry advanced over the remains of second platoon. The grunts were all dead or falling back. Two tanks commanded by sergeants fought on. They wouldn’t last without help.
Manahan called for fire on mechs at second platoon’s position.
“Stand by,” came fire control’s response. “ETA five to ten minutes, over.”
“This’ll be over in under a minute,” Manahan said. “I need that artillery now!”
Fire control did not respond.
This is a goddamn goatfuck! The last two tanks in second platoon were on their own.
Manahan turned his attention to the next two tank companies and engaged the first as their lead tank turned off onto Rutland. The 150mm plasma cannon’s recoil rattled scopes and components in the cabin. The bolt of sun-hot plasma blew the turret off the leading Union TA-96, setting the tank afire.
“Good fuckin’ shot!” he told Sgt Pound.
One flaming man squeezed from the wreckage to die screaming next to his tank. The other tanks drove around the wreckage, opening fire on first platoon and Corpse 4-1 as they went. Simultaneously, Cormac and his two Maulers engaged the second company from the other side of the hill.
“Gunner, particle cannons, base of that water tower on my command,” Manahan ordered Pound.
“Identified!”
Manahan waited for the first two tanks to pass the water tower. Just before the third passed it, he ordered, “Fire.”
“On the way!”
Pound’s dual shots hit one of the tower’s spindly steel legs, vaporizing it in a brilliant flash. The structure toppled. The thousands of gallons of water in the cistern crushed the third tank, which exploded in a ball of fire and steam. The hulk of the TA-96 and the sundered tower blocked the street to the following tanks and trapped the two tanks ahead of it between buildings. Recognizing the danger, their drivers accelerated, frantic to reach the end of the street so they could turn off.
Manahan and his two tanks fired on the lead machine. The six particle-beam shots punched through its armor hitting its fusion reactor, turning the tank into a miniature star, the expanding sphere of plasma sending pieces of the tank flying over a hundred meters. Union tank two returned fire with its smaller 130mm plasma cannon, damaging Gambler 7-7 before destroying it with four quick follow-up laser shots. Manahan and SSgt Fetzer, Gambler 2-3, concentrated plasma cannon fire on the second tank, annihilating it in a grand display of fireworks.
Cormac and his tanks fired their last rounds seconds before falling to cannon fire from an entire company. They had taken six TA-96s with them, either killed or disabled. Manahan didn’t consider their 6-3 score a victory. It’s nothing. None of this is. Golf Company was only a speedbump to the Union advance. Gambler 1-3 and Gambler 1-4 appeared as DESTROYED, but not Gambler 7-7. Manahan called Gunny Cormac but received no answer.
“Gambler 3-1, Gambler 6-6 actual, what is your status?”
“Gambler 6-6, Gambler 3-1, we are being engaged by a shitload of TA-96’s! We are down to two tanks, request permission to withdraw,” Lieutenant Turk radioed.
“Withdrawal recommended, sir,” Gina said. “Infantry and mechs approaching from north-northwest.”
“Comin’ over the hill, sir!” Gunny Cormac announced.
Manahan, Cormac, and Fetzer were the sole survivors of first platoon.
GAMBLER 3-1 DESTROYED. GAMBLER 3-2 DESTROYED.
Shit! Manahan could see on the tactical display that the rest of the third platoon had been destroyed by the two companies of enemy tanks that now advanced on his left flank.
“Pull-back Gambler elements. Pull-back,” Manahan said. “Fall back to phase line bravo.”
“Buggin’ out for the jungle, sir,” reported the lieutenant commanding Corpse 4-1. He had fourteen men remaining to him and no way to keep pace with fleeing tanks. Hopefully he could call for an extract once clear of the AO.
“Roger, Corpse 4-1. Good luck.”
“Still here, sir,” reported Sergeant Baden, Gambler 2-4, from second platoon. “Rest of second is gone! Mechs on my ass!”
“I have your location, Gambler 2-4. Moving to support your retreat.” Manahan consulted the map for a terrain feature he might use to his advantage. He found a promising craig and relayed a course to Gambler 2-4. “We’ll meet you there.”
Cormac flew his Mauler over the hill, landed a few meters from Manahan. “Let’s go, Mitch.”
“More than happy to, sir.” Mitchell eased Rooster into motion, then quickly accelerated to lead the retreat at top speed, ten meters separating each tank.
“Looks like Baden has a couple hundred meters on those mechs,” Manahan said over the platoon net. “Form a line atop this ridge, keep forty meters apart.” He transmitted course and location to his remaining tanks.
The mechs and infantry chasing Baden were their only remaining aggressors for the time being. The armor companies had given up chasing Golf, now a small-fry unit of four tanks, to continue on to Camp Shaw. More armor would follow, of course. Count on that; they’ll throw their whole arsenal against us. Manahan knew well the Union’s style of fighting: bring the numbers to overwhelm and crush. Novel idea, we should try it sometime.
They halted atop the ridge amongst pulp trees and shrubs. Before them spread a short, gentle slope leading to a steep drop off. Manahan monitored Gambler 2-4’s progress on scope, waited for him to crash through the hedgerow across the gully. He soon appeared, hovered the last few feet before engaging flight mode to cross the chasm.
Gambler 2-4 moved slowly due to minor damage. Better off than the rest of them.
GAMBLER 2-4 PROCEED TO PHASE LINE BRAVO.
Baden didn’t need to be ordered twice.
Manahan called for an artillery strike at the hedgerow. Provided 112 can spare the time.
He, Cormac, and Fetzer opened up with both their main guns and the particle cannons when the mechs started appearing at the hedgerow. Two enemies fell to the first volley and one to the second. The remaining mech drivers sprinted their machines to the edge and engaged jump thrusters to cross.
“Take them! Fire at will!”
Pound and Gina controlled the guns. The ozone smell in the cabin intensified as they blasted away at the mechs, easy targets while in flight mode.
“Gunners, particle cannons!”
The Maulers’ particle-beam cannons acquired targets, tracked them, and fired automatically. The brilliant whit
e beams blasted five mechs from the air to crash in flames at the bottom of the gully. The remaining mech drivers, still on the ground, halted their advance and returned fire from the hedgerow.
Engrossed in the action, Manahan missed B112’s shot notification. Rockets slammed down in a neat line on the hedge, their thunderous explosions ripping apart two mechs and disabling three more. Tremendous shockwaves from the explosions rocked Manahan’s tank. He texted REPEAT to the artillery, then ordered Mitchell to pull back from the ridge line.
“All Gambler units, fall back to phase line bravo,” Manahan ordered for Mitchell to turn Rooster eastward. “Full speed, move out.”
The phase lines they would consecutively fall back to had been chosen by the command for their advantageous cover and terrain features. How do we trip them up at bravo? he wondered as they traveled east, a heavy question to ponder when trying to stop the main thrust of an invasion with four tanks.
Hell, half of it’s through already. Maybe now we’ll be relieved. Or reinforced. He considered the possibility. With what? He had no idea.
Only one thing was certain: if command sent an entire battalion, it would not be enough.
CHAPTER 30
The Condor’s cargo space was quiet as a cathedral at midnight, the transport’s engines the only sound. A war raged, however, in the Marines’ ears over the command frequencies. Rizer tried to make sense of panicked, conflicting reports of enemy locations, strengths, and movements. At least five Union infantry battalions, along with artillery and armored support, had landed to the west and northeast of Camp Shaw and nearby Air Station Phoenix. Fire support requests for anything and everything—mortars, arty, armor, air support—flashed on Rizer’s HUD with alarming frequency, the grid coordinates just outside Shaw’s perimeter.
Ranking brass all the way up to General Hella, callsign Zeus, had joined the conversation, which emphasized the direness of the situation.
Second platoon’s orders were simple for the moment: return to Shaw to receive further orders. Many infantry units had gone on patrols and missions to counter insurgent feints over the past few days, leaving Shaw largely defenseless against the oncoming Union juggernaut. They fooled us good. Years of Marine counter-insurgency operations and all of their painstaking gains were falling apart in Rizer’s ears.
“Two minutes to LZ,” said the pilot. “Brace yourselves. We’ll be taking fire on approach.”
Camp Shaw is now a hot LZ. Rizer had trouble believing it, even as the pilot made evasive maneuvers.
Dodging anti-aircraft fire, the Condor shuddered from missiles exploding near her hull, drawn away by flares. Shrapnel shards plinked against the ship’s hull. Leone prayed aloud. PFC Duran, a boot, raised his visor and vomited from fear, or perhaps air sickness since the evasive actions left Rizer’s gut a bit roiled as well.
“They’ve broken through the western perimeter defense,” Stiglitz announced. “Little tan men are roaming our streets.”
As the ranking NCO, he’d taken the only window seat. Rizer thought him nuts, gazing through the window while AA energy bolts and rounds exploded outside. A moment later, when a close explosion peppered the Condor with shrapnel, Stiglitz ducked from the window.
A sharp sliver several centimeters long, a flying steel dagger, blew out the window before embedding in the cargo bay wall above Leone’s helmet.
“Shit!” Leone cried.
Rizer advised Stiglitz. “I’d stop looking outside.”
“Maybe you’re right for once,” Stiglitz said. “It’s not a pretty view, that’s for sure.”
“ETA forty-five seconds,” the pilot announced. “Assume crash positions, just in case.”
“This again?” Bach remained sitting upright, as did most of them. Faced with the daunting reality of fending off an overwhelming enemy assault, few were fazed by the prospect of dying in an air crash.
After a couple more near misses, the Condor slowed, halted, and slowly descended to a hover.
HOT LZ ENEMY TO WEST AND NORTHWEST, the copilot texted. GOOD LUCK.
Lt Dupaul texted a moment later: ASSIST WITH SECURING LZ.
Nothing like an in-person welcome. Can you be a little more vague with your orders.
The cargo door dropped to the tune of projectiles cracking through the air. Outgunned Marines at the LZ’s perimeter showed on Rizer’s HUD, along with enemy squads advancing up the streets. Across a PT field next to the LZ, a platoon of Union infantry fired from a garage bay at 41st Battalion’s motor pool.
“Help with the motor pool, Doom,” Stiglitz told Rizer. “We’ll assist at the other position.”
“Gotcha,” said Rizer, barely registering the words as his apprehension and adrenaline built. The paths of Ghost and Doom appeared on his HUD.
“Let’s go, Ghost!” Stiglitz shouted when the door hit the deck.
“Move out, Doom!” Rizer ordered.
The squads filed out into a maelstrom of flying energy and steel. The pilot dusted off immediately after they disembarked to make room for the next Condor, which carried the remnants of Evil and Fury. Rizer led Doom in a rush to a downed Scorpion nearby, where four outgunned Marines took cover and occasionally fired at the garage.
“Man, am I glad to see you guys!” said the ranking lance corporal behind the armored fighting vehicle. They had a heavy machinegun but could not set it up under the overwhelming fire.
Fuck, how do we do this? The downed Scorpion was the only cover in the area.
An enemy artillery barrage interrupted Rizer’s pondering. Mortar shells crashed down around the Marines, each shell exploding with flash and an ear-splitting boom. Shrapnel ripped through the air with an angry buzz. Catalano unleashed a blood-curdling yell of agony over the radio, drowned out an instant later when the descending Condor carrying the remaining members of Evil and Fury lost a wing to a lucky mortar round meant for the ground forces.
The ship plummeted twenty meters and blew up in a mushroom of fire and black smoke.
Rizer didn’t see it happen—his visor was pressed into a metal grating over the red dirt—but familiar names flashed on his HUD as KIAs. The heat of the crash seared him even through his armor. A hailstorm of debris pounded down around him, on top of him, but his armor held.
“Get up!” Rizer shouted. “Calder, MG right there!” He pointed to the front of the vehicle, then to the rear. “You two, back side! Covering fire!”
The heavy machinegun man and his A-gunner moved into action.
Rizer and the rest stood behind the Scorpion, only helmets and rifles visible as they returned fire on the garage. Drifting black smoke from the burning Condor obscured their vision, as well as the enemy’s.
“Did you call for fire?” Rizer asked the lance corporal named Merill.
“Three fuckin’ times, corporal!”
Rizer noted the automatic grenade launcher strapped to Merill’s back. “What about the grenade launcher?”
“Out of ammo!”
Fuck! Rizer wondered again just what the fuck they should do.
Zeus boomed over the net: “I want that garage destroyed, Bravo 112. Time on target one minute, battery fire for effect. Get on it already!”
The artillery battery did not respond.
PFC CATALANO KIA. Of Doom Squad’s five boots, only Duran remained alive.
The Marine standing next to Rizer lost the top of his head, vaporized in sizzling cyan flash by a machinegun bolt. Pieces of the man’s head decorated Rizer’s armor as he pulled back instinctively, his legs feeling like jelly. LCPL HOLLAND KIA. Not a member of Murder Company yet one fewer gun in their arsenal.
“Aaargh! Mutha—” Merill bit back his pained curses as he ducked behind the APC from his now empty machinegun. He’d been winged in the shoulder, his armor still glowing orange from the impact of the plasma bolt. “Gimme another box of ammo, Haycock!” he called to his A-gunner. They loaded the belt as rounds snapped over their heads and ricocheted off the I
FV.
“Fuckin’ worthless artillery!”
Enemy mortar rounds creeped closer to them as the enemy adjusted their fire.
They must have an observer.
“Keep up that fire, Calder!” Rizer magnified on the garage. In the fourth bay, behind a half-closed overhead door, several Union troops were setting up a large crew-served laser cannon and next to them was man looking through electronic binoculars. Bingo! “Bay four, hit ’em hard! You too, Merill!”
“Fuck yeah!” Merill slammed the bolt home and opened fire.
A steady stream of crimson bolts sliced across the field into garage bay four, while Calder concentrated suppressing fire on infantry in the first two bays. Their machinegun fire would buy them a few seconds, but if Bravo 112—assuming they still lived—missed their time on target, Rizer and Doom would be wiped out. The Scorpion’s hull could absorb machinegun bolts for days, but any attempt to move from its cover was suicide, and enemy laser blasts would eventually tear it apart.
Doom kept firing, Rizer down to his last magazine. A glimmer of hope shined when flames broke out in bay four, set ablaze by the hail of plasma, but no walls separated the bays. The enemy would move to another and set up the laser cannon.
When had Zeus’ order for fire had been broadcast? It was damn sure more than a minute ago!
Two bolts blasted Haycock; power armor pieces and bits of the lost Marine’s flesh flew in a cyan flash.
A third hit Merill’s heavy machinegun and destroyed it, the heat singeing his hands through protective synthetic gloves. “God dammit!” He pulled back behind the IFV.
Free from heavy return fire while Calder was reloading his weapon, the Union platoon hit the Scorpion with heavy lasers, machineguns, and rifle bolts. A laser blast tore off the turret, making the metal beast rock back and forth. Bach shouted, rolled, and barely evaded the turret as it fell amongst Doom Squad.
“Popping smoke!” Rizer pulled the pin on one of his chemical smoke grenades and heaved it over the vehicle.
The grenade went off with a pop, releasing a thick red cloud of chemical-laced smoke, but the wind carried it away before it could obscure them from the enemy’s visibility.
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