War's Edge- Dead Heroes

by Ryan W. Aslesen

With a derisive snort, Leone said, “Guess I’ll be our gun.”

  “Then you move out front with me,” said Dick. “Barber, Shepard, you guard the rear. According to my HUD we have enemy moving in, big numbers this time. We’ll go out the back door, looks clear there all the way back to the plaza, at least for now.”

  “What about Hogue?” Bach asked.

  Leone said, “We’re not leaving him behind.”

  “No time for that, corporal,” Dick said. “We need to move now.”

  “Bullshit. We can swing by—”

  LCPL HOGUE KIA.

  “Guess his luck ran out,” Bach said.

  Leone shook her head, sighed. “Fuck. Let’s go.”

  ***

  They returned to the plaza without incident, yet the situation remained far from rosy. “Keep your head down, sniper working in the area,” Merill said as Rizer loaded Kasra into the back seat of his Hog. “Tagged Duran in the shoulder; he’s all fucked up.”

  “Noticed that,” Rizer replied. “Take him out with the civilians.” A flatbed cargo truck hovered nearby, two Marines in the cab. “Where’d the truck come from?”

  “Those are my boys, Fourteenth CSSD. Flagged ’em down a little while ago.”

  “Good work.” Rizer had never asked Merill his unit. “Go with them after we’re loaded up. Thanks for the help.” Rizer couldn’t keep a Marine from rejoining his assigned unit, no matter how badly he needed Merill.

  “Hey, man, you saved our asses. Or mine at least. Good luck, corporal.”

  As Merill departed Dick appeared. He crouched next to Rizer behind the Hog. “I have Sergeant Barber setting up a defense perimeter around the vehicles.”

  “We need to get out of here, Dick. We got everybody—”

  “ ’Fraid not, corporal. I need you to help me grab one more wounded contractor down there.” He pointed to the near end of the plaza. “He’s down that street about half a block, upper floor.”

  Dick transmitted the location to Rizer’s HUD. Uniform forces occupied the building across the street from their man.

  “You with me or what?” the merc asked. “I need a fast gun for this one. Bilson fights in slow motion.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Leone: WHAT’S THE HOLDUP?

  Rizer made up his mind. GET IN PERIMETER DEFENSE. RETRIEVING ONE MORE CONTRACTOR.

  “You’re outta your fuckin’ mind,” Leone radioed, though already looking for the best cover.

  “Get in the circle, Bach,” Rizer said, “Be back shortly.”

  Bach shook his head. “Why can’t it ever be easy?” He rose from the driver’s seat and took cover behind the Hog’s hood.

  “Let’s double-time it, Marine,” Dick said.

  They had almost reached the plaza’s end when the sniper tagged Rizer in the upper left arm. Not a square hit but searing plasma had penetrated. He cried out, felt the rest of his arm go numb beneath the pain shooting through his brain.

  “Shit!” Dick grabbed Rizer by the right wrist, pulled him into the street, and then tugged him down behind a small rubble pile. “How bad?”

  Rizer growled, gritted his teeth, tried to swallow the agony. He could still move his arm, but every millimeter was a challenge. “Still works.” He thumbed a tab and pressed a button on the inside of his arm, daring a few seconds of painers to clear his mind.

  Dick nodded. “Good. Let’s go, third alley on the right.”

  Beams snapped through the air between the friendly’s position and the Union team across the street. A Union soldier opened fire on Dick and Rizer, missing them as they ran into the alley.

  “They’re trying to flank us!” Dick said. “I’m gonna stay here and hold ’em off. Enter through the back door and bring the friendly down.”

  Dick already fired from behind the corner of the building. He grunted when a stray fragment struck his bald head just above the ear, a superficial yet painful wound. How does he fight without a helmet?

  Rizer took off for the building, keeping his head down as he ran toward the door. He found a flight of stairs shortly after entering, bounded up them three at a time, and then sprinted down a hallway decorated with plaques and unit commendations, along with portraits of ranking officers all the way up to General Storek. Other than taking fire from across the street, the building remained undamaged.

  Rizer didn’t need his HUD to find the room. He opened the only door riddled with bolt holes, which accessed a conference room. To the right, near a window, the civilian sat in makeshift cover behind the thick wooden conference table, flipped up and likewise pocked with splintered holes.

  Sunlight winked off the man’s metal skullcap, lit the submachinegun as he fired, and danced on the hilt of the vibro-sword on his back. Sawyer! Rizer watched him for a couple of moments before noticing the blood leaking steadily at the merc’s left knee, the joint in his exoskeleton shot to hell. Sawyer exhausted his rounds, started reloading.

  Rizer stepped forward. His boot steps crunching on glass.

  “Well damn, the fucking cavalry finally showed up,” Sawyer growled. “Well? You gonna help me up or just stand there fucking staring?”

  Rizer stood there, just fucking staring.

  “Come on! They could take this place any second!” Sawyer’s phony black eye looked as frantic as his real one.

  Rizer raised his face shield.

  Sawyer’s metal teeth parted as his jaw went slack, recognition dawning on his face as the eyes of one killer met another’s. With the deft quickness of a veteran warrior, he swung the barrel of his freshly loaded submachinegun toward Rizer.

  Rizer fired three quick shots from his M-17.

  Sawyer did not return fire—never got the chance. His head and torso turned into steaming chunks of ground beef.

  That’s for you, big guy, Rizer thought as he exited. But the revenge killing did not satisfy him. Stubs would remain dead, while the galaxy still teemed with maniacs like Sawyer.

  ***

  “Back so soon?” Dick asked. The merc still shot it out with two remaining infantrymen.

  “Yeah. We need to bug out, head down the alley, and make a couple of rights. Looks like a clear path for now.”

  “Roger that.” Dick pulled back from the corner. His bald head bled in several spots; the left lens on his comm visor was cracked. “Where’s Sawyer?”

  “Didn’t make it.”

  Dick nodded, raised a corner of his mouth. “Imagine that. Lead on, corporal; I wanna live to tell this story.”

  “So do I.”

  They took off running.

  CHAPTER 33

  Golf Company’s four remaining tanks retreated down the broad mountain pass through decimated farms, burning armor, and mangled men, gradually falling back through the phase lines. The Marines of 35th Tank Battalion had put up a valiant fight, yet numbers would decide this day, not tactics. While the tip of the Union spearhead engaged the defenders, the following waves of armor simply bypassed them and drove on to Camp Shaw.

  Another battalion would have made all the difference.

  Captain Manahan watched his scopes for the optimum moment to strike again. Union support vehicles drove past on the nearby highway, following the armored regiment. Easy meat. Yet not a dish Manahan cared to dine upon. Intel reported two more armor battalions heading up the opposite side of the pass and an infantry battalion in APCs as well. Manahan reserved his remaining ammo for them.

  Echo, Fox, and Hotel Companies, positioned initially at the three other phase lines, had likewise taken heavy losses in a vain effort to blunt the Union advance. Their company commanders were all dead. Their CO Lieutenant Colonel Keel was MIA. Manahan commanded the remnants of the 35th: eight Maulers, four his own and four stragglers from other companies who joined during the retreat.

  Eight tanks. Against an army.

  Manahan requested relief and reinforcements several times, anything command could spare. But their response ne
ver changed: stand by. “Send another request, Gina. Bug them until they send us something.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” the bot responded, lacking her usual enthusiasm.

  “Hate to say it, sir,” Mitchell said, “but I’m thinking stand by means never.”

  Normally Manahan might have chewed his ass for such a negative analysis of their situation. “I hate to say you might be right, Mitch. I wonder when they changed the meaning on us?”

  Mitchell, along with Pound, laughed halfheartedly at his gallows humor. “Couple hours ago, sir. I don’t think command informed the MerWeb dictionary yet.”

  Manahan checked the ammo counts on all his tanks. Most were dangerously low on their main gun rounds; Rooster had only twelve rounds remaining after his run-and-gun retreat.

  “Sir!” Gina said, perking up a bit. “Friendly jamming drone approaching. ETA one minute.”

  Manahan grinned at it on scope. “That’s a start.”

  He followed its trajectory from the east over the terrain map. A nearby residential neighborhood caught his eye. Right there. Slightly to the west of phase line delta, the permitted limit of their retreat, the neighborhood’s meticulously laid streets and evenly spaced houses offered decent cover, better than their present position in a broad ditch between farms. With the drone cloaking their movements, they could position close to the main highway, ambush the enemy tank battalions, which had nearly reached the summit of the pass.

  The spherical jamming drone flew over and moved on toward the summit. The scopes in the enemy tanks were likely blank already.

  Manahan got on the radio: “Battalion, proceed due south and then east on the next road to new position. Over.” He relayed the course. “Get us outta here, Mitch.”

  Manahan and Fang 2-1, Lt Paige, led the two columns of four Maulers onto the road. As Mitch drove, Manahan downloaded updated satellite images of the neighborhood. Several strings of attached homes burned; others were bombed out. Zoomed views showed destroyed Maulers, Union tanks, and mechs. Echo Company had fought over the neighborhood, bled for the ground, and been completely annihilated for their efforts. Manahan chose eight positions that provided the best combination of cover and line of fire, then transmitted them to his tanks.

  Minutes later the columns moved into the rows of houses. The tanks dispersed, bypassed destroyed armor and civilian vehicles, glided over dead infantry and a few civilians. Most residents had prudently fled; to where, Manahan had no idea. Anywhere but Camp Shaw.

  Tanks nearing their assigned positions, Mitch drove Rooster into a central park, crossed a small lake, and moved into a copse of tall jungle hardwoods spared by the park’s planners. The trees spacing provided just enough room for a Mauler. The foliage concealed Rooster from overhead. That and the jamming drone left Manahan’s mauler invisible to the enemy.

  Perfect.

  “First enemy battalion is over the summit, sir,” Gina reported. “Range eighty-three hundred meters. ETA to nearest highway junction twelve minutes.”

  Manahan checked his scope. Union armor moved in four orderly columns. All of his tanks lurked in position. No time like the present. He texted the order: ALL TANKS FIRE AT WILL ON LEAD BN. “Every round counts, Sergeant Pound. We have none to spare.”

  “Aye, sir!” Pound responded.

  “Uncork the hate!” Mitch said.

  The main gun fired, and Rooster shuddered from its recoil. The hiss-crack reports from the other guns sounded faintly within the heavily armored hull. Manahan watched the scope with the intensity of a pervert gawking from the front row at the Snake Show. Four seconds later, the red squares scattered in evasive action. Four tanks disappeared altogether, destroyed, while two others blinked, disabled.

  Jubilant cries rang out on the airwaves as another volley blasted from the neighborhood moments later, followed quickly by another. Despite its heavier main gun, the Mauler auto-reloaded and fired faster than Union tanks. Not that it mattered right now. The enemy had no idea of their whereabouts.

  The first five volleys tallied seventeen tanks destroyed or disabled, their burning hulks acting as a screen for Manahan’s tanks. The Union columns had increased speed after the initial attack, swerving around the wreckage, but as the Maulers adjusted fire and destroyed more of their leaders, the tanks bottlenecked.

  “Jamming drone destroyed, sir,” Gina announced.

  Alas, their turkey shoot couldn’t last forever. The other tankers voiced their displeasure over the radio. We have to take out all we can until—

  He cut off the thought. The enemy who had escaped their barrages—nineteen tanks, a company and then some—now barreled down the highway at top speed, too fast to target with indirect fire given the circumstances. They didn’t bother engaging Manahan and his tanks as they pushed toward their objective.

  “Direct all fire at the columns behind the wreckage!”

  On his map display a company of halted enemy armor turned north off the highway. Mechs. Manahan could tell by their slower speed. They’ll cut east, move through the same farms we did, then double back when they get down here. That would take a while. The tanks advancing on the highway concerned him more.

  Manahan called for air support personally, requesting four Dragons to engage the advancing armor. He also requested command send any armor they could spare, but he didn’t expect any more of a response than Gina had received.

  “Zeus calling Gambler 6-6, over.” Manahan had been wrong before but never so happy about it. The response came over the secure command net, for Manahan’s ears only.

  Holy shit! That General Hella had responded floored Manahan, then raised foreboding. If Hella was calling the shots personally, the situation at Shaw must be grave. “Copy, Zeus, air support needed immediately, over.”

  “Negative, Gambler 6-6 , there are no elements to be spared. You and your Marines must hold phase line delta at all costs to cover evacuation of Camp Shaw. You are our last line of defense. Out.”

  Manahan sat motionless for several moments in a state of shock. While enemy rounds pounded down, shaking the earth and demolishing more houses, he slammed his fist down on the console and uttered a clipped roar of rage.

  No! Fuck, not like this! He’d crossed the twenty-year mark, had a pension and the remainder of his sons’ childhoods to look forward to. Their photo watched from above the console. Brax and Stev, his smiling boys, frozen forever. They had grown since, would soon take on the features of young men. And I won’t fucking be there!

  Bugshit panic reigned on the radio and text nets. A round detonated at the base of a massive tree next to his tank. If not for his safety belt, the concussion would have knocked Manahan right out of his commander’s chair.

  “Shit shit!” Mitchell yelled.

  The tree wobbled in the right-side display, slowly deciding which way to topple. Mitchell gunned the repulsor engines and accelerated out of cover, the sudden thrust pinning Manahan back in his seat. Another second and they would have been crushed beneath the massive trunk.

  Manahan snapped out of his stupor. Trying to make sense of the chaos, he scanned his display screens. Do your duty. You knew this day might come.

  Mitchell drove on without orders as more rounds rocked the neighborhood. A message blinked on Manahan’s HUD: EDGE 1-3 DISABLED. Already a tank down. Manahan glanced again at the picture of his boys, their faces steeling his resolve.

  He regained control of himself and addressed his tiny battalion. “All tanks proceed to the south end of town. There’ll be no support—that’s from Zeus himself. Camp Shaw is being evacuated. We are the support. This is our Alamo, men. Let’s take these sons of bitches down to hell with us.”

  ***

  On his scope, Manahan watched the enemy tank creep toward the intersection. Wait for it… Wait… “Fire!”

  The Mauler bucked from the recoil. A nanosecond later, the front of the corner house blew apart in a shower of flames, sparks, and debris, partially exposing the Union
tank advancing behind it to the intersection.

  “Fire!”

  The next round shot through the blasted house, traveling a mere fifty meters before detonating squarely on the enemy. Even through the Mauler’s thick skin, Manahan swore he’d heard the smack of the bolt striking metal an instant before the explosion.

  “Forward! Standby, Sergeant Pound.”

  “Ready, sir!”

  Mitch gunned the Mauler down the street, while Pound traversed the turret to cover their left flank. Overwhelming numbers of armor and then infantry had invaded the village in a tan wave that quickly surrounded them. Just keep moving! Counting his own tank, he had four Maulers remaining.

  Per his prediction, the mechs had advanced along the same path he’d taken. As the first ones reached the neighborhood, Mitch slowed before entering the next intersection, a four-way. Pound fired, striking the first mech dead on, blowing it apart in a thunderous flash. Another bolt from the main gun blew the second target to bits. The third mech’s laser blasts flared against their left-side armor, disabling part of the tank’s automatic defense system and vaporizing several centimeters beyond. Their hull still held, but it could only stop so many bolts.

  Manahan fired the turret machinegun, a stream of red pulses slicing into the mech formation, as Pound let another main gun bolt fly. Another mech toppled, and the infantrymen running alongside it incinerated, transformed into frozen black statues.

  “Move out!” Manahan ordered. “Back to the park.”

  Mitch took off at a gallop. “Deja fuckin’ vu,” Mitch said as they rolled through a three-way intersection and crashed through a high hedge, returning to their starting point. Echo-6, the first of his tanks to be disabled, sat on the ground between an outbuilding and a tall tree, firing its last machinegun rounds at the advancing infantry.

  FANG 2-1 DESTROYED. Lieutenant Paige. Manahan barely knew him, hadn’t fought beside him before today. The young officer had proven himself an able commander, dealing death to five tanks before meeting his own fate.

  Manahan added his turret machinegun to Edge 1-3’s fire. Union infantry felt the heat Manahan had dealt with all morning. The living scrambled for whatever cover they could find, the dead smoldering meat in the field.