Rebellion

by Edward M. Grant

  A rifle round ricocheted from the shield on the cannon, and bounced off Logan’s helmet. He ducked as more rounds punched into the shield, adding more dents on the inside where multiple hits were degrading the plasteel. It wouldn’t last much longer under that kind of hammering, before they were able to punch through.

  He raised his head and fired again, toward a man racing between a rock and a tree trunk. The cannon fired one round, then stopped. The ammo counter showed empty.

  “Ammo,” he yelled.

  Kader fired another burst of grenades, then pulled the empty magazine from the launcher and tossed it aside. He glanced at the pile of empty crates and magazines behind them. “We’re out. Anyone else got ammo?”

  “We’re running out of everything,” Volkov said. “Make do with what you’ve got.”

  Kader dropped the grenade launcher, and grabbed his rifle. He fired around the left of the trunk barricade, and Logan went prone on the right. The insurgents were less than a hundred metres away, now.

  “Fire everything you’ve got,” Kader said. “If we don’t stop them now, we never will.”

  Logan fired at anything he could see. But the insurgents were moving fast now the heavy weapons were out of ammo, and carefully. They only moved out of cover for the second or so they needed to run to the next rock, fallen tree, or ridge in the hillside. Then they went down and fired at the village. And they were getting close.

  His gaussrifle flashed empty.

  He pulled out the magazine, tossed it aside, and replaced it with a spare from the suit’s ammo storage. Then rolled back, ready to lean past the tree and keep shooting.

  Just in time to see a trail of smoke heading for the barricade. Chunks of wood flew from the tree trunk as the RPG hit it, and exploded. The autocannon toppled over, and crashed down on its side with a mangled barrel. Logan fired back with his rifle at the Montagnard with the RPG, but the man ducked into cover too fast, and the rounds only hit empty air.

  Then the Panzergrenadiers rose from the ground, and began to run toward the barricades. Another RPG fired from the left, blowing apart one side of the tree trunk barricade on that side. The rifleman who had been taking cover behind it fell back, and rolled to the far side, dragging his left arm behind him.

  Grenades flew from the launchers on the Panzergrenadiers’ suits. Logan ducked back behind the barricades as the grenades exploded on them, shaking the tree trunks, and filling the air with chunks of bark and showers of splinters.

  More exploded behind him, shattering the empty ammo boxes, and throwing empty magazines into the air. One magazine smacked against the back of his helmet before he rolled back into firing position.

  The Panzergrenadiers were moving too fast to aim at. He swung the rifle their way and held the trigger back, spraying he area around them.

  One suit went down, slamming hard into the dirt as sparks burst from its legs. It slid a few metres before coming to a stop. The others continued on, and Logan fired until the magazine was empty.

  He grabbed another magazine from the suit’s stores, and slammed it into the rifle. He swung back around the tree trunk ready to fire. The Panzergrenadiers were almost on the first barricade, just over ten metres from the one Logan lay behind. And now that first barricade was providing cover for them, blocking Logan’s view of the hillside behind it.

  The Montagnards rose from cover and sprinted after the Panzergrenadiers, crouching low and firing as they moved. The rifle rounds weren’t aimed, but hammered into the dirt all around the barricades.

  “Prepare for close combat,” Kader said.

  Logan extended the blades from the arms of the suit, and psyched himself up to swing them. He’d fought with knives in the ZUS, but never blades half a metre long.

  Then the dirt erupted around the approaching insurgents.

  One of the Montagnards went down, slamming into the dirt before his body disintegrated into a mass of flying blood and flesh. A Panzergrenadier dodged behind the outer barricade, but the suit’s leg exploded before it got there. Brown splinters erupted from the barricade as more rounds hammered into it.

  “What is that?” a voice said over the net.

  “2nd platoon’s drone made it at last,” Volkov said.

  The drone’s Gatling gun continued to spray the area as the insurgents took cover. More of the Montagnards fell across the hillside, in a gruesome spray of blood and guts. The remainder began to pull back, sprinting from cover to cover as the drone fired hundreds of rounds at them in a few seconds.

  A cloud of smoke appeared behind the Montagnards as the surviving Panzergrenadiers sprayed the area with a long burst of smoke grenades.

  The drone continued firing. Logan and the two remaining riflemen fired through the smoke. Kader raised his rifle and fired over the top of the barricade.

  If they weren’t actually hitting anything, at least they could encourage the bastards to keep running.

  Then a small dot rose from the plain to their right, trailing a bright flame and a stream of grey smoke. The point-defence guns fired from the town square, and the missile exploded in mid-air. Two more SAMs rose from further to the right. Bright, glowing decoys burst in a shower from the drone as they approached.

  One SAM exploded as the guns caught it, but the other dodged the decoys and reached the drone.

  It vanished in a cloud of smoke and debris that moved slowly to the south as it fell.

  “Ah, crap,” Kader said.

  He raised his head above the barricade, and peered down the hillside. Logan looked around the side. The smoke was slowly clearing beyond the barricades, and the last of the insurgents were running down the hillside.

  “West flank’s clear for now, sir,” Kader said.

  “Good,” Merle said. “We need help to the south.”

  “They may be back, sir.”

  “I’d rather have men firing on the side where they are than the side where they might be. Get over here.”

  Logan followed Kader along the street toward the village square. They raced past the village hall, toward the barricades in the south of the square.

  The smoke trail of another RPG round raced through the air above the barricade and past the flagpole, before it slammed into the roof of the village hall and exploded. Dirt showered Volkov and Poulin as they crouched in a trench beside the hall, firing toward the hillside.

  “Morning, Mademoiselle,” Logan said as he passed her. She didn’t reply.

  Probably out of ideas on how to make the Panzergrenadiers like them.

  Three Legionnaires were already taking cover behind the barricade. Another was dragging the point-defence gun across the square, toward the south.

  An autocannon fired over the barricade, blowing chunks of dirt into the air where the explosive shells hit the hillside around the insurgents. The ruins of one of the platoon rocket launchers lay on its side near the barricade, still smouldering.

  Kader jumped into a slit trench near the barricade.

  A rifleman was already there. He glanced at Kader for a split second, then turned his attention back to the insurgents, and continued firing.

  Logan found a trench on the far side of the barricade. Long tracks in the dirt showed where an earlier occupant had been dragged away toward the village hall. The dark stains in the soil showed where he’d been hit.

  The point-defence gun began to fire with a rapid-fire moan as the Legionnaire behind it pointed it manually toward the hillside. The long, rapid-fire bursts tore up the dirt around the advancing suits, and ripped through two Panzergrenadiers who were moving at the time. Their suits exploded, and fell to the ground in shattered chunks of metal and flesh.

  Using the gun as an anti-personnel weapon made sense in a desperate situation, but the rate of fire to shoot down missiles was too fast for the ammunition supply to last long.

  But at least it was suppressing their fire. Logan aimed at a Montagnard who rolled on his back to avoid the explosive shells. Logan’s rifle rounds sprayed across t
he ground in front of the man, then Logan raised his aim a little. The next rounds blew the man’s head and shoulders apart, and he collapsed with arms outstretched beside what remained of his body.

  A crouching Montagnard leaned around a rock as the point-defence gun fired. He swung an RPG around the side of the rock, and the smoke trail of the RPG round followed a split second later. The Legionnaire firing the point-defence gun rolled aside as the RPG round flew toward it.

  The gun exploded, and the smouldering remains scattered across the square.

  Logan swung his rifle, and fired a long burst toward the Montagnard with the RPG. The man’s chest exploded with at least half a dozen good hits, and the remains went down.

  But, no matter how many insurgents they hit, there always seemed to be more.

  The HUD showed dozens still crawling over the hillside to the south, and others approaching to the east. Those they’d fought away from the west seemed to be regrouping further down the hillside. They’d be back. He fired at the crawling men until the magazine was empty, and ducked back behind the barricade to reload.

  Then a call came over the platoon net.

  “They broke the east flank, sir. They’re in the village.”

  CHAPTER 34

  The main street of the village had become a storm of rifle fire and shrapnel as the insurgents tried to force their way past the few Legionnaires the platoon could spare to stop them. The dirt-covered buildings that had given solid protection to the Legionnaires were now protecting the insurgents as they fought their way along the street from the barricades at the east, toward the centre of the village.

  Logan crouched beside Kader at the corner of a house about half-way along the street, leaned around it, and added his fire to the thousands of rounds per minute that were heading toward the insurgents as the far end of the street.

  Grenades arced over the roofs from the Panzergrenadiers at the far end of the village, and slammed down onto the street and roofs around the Legionnaires, bursting into showers of shrapnel. A grenade buried itself into the dirt roof of the house Logan sheltered behind, and showered his suit with dirt and hot metal as it exploded. He leaned round the corner again, just in time to see a burst of rifle fire from a Panzergrenadier tear apart the helmet of a Legionnaire beside the rear of the aid station.

  At least a dozen red squares remained on his HUD in the village, and dozens more were moving up the hillside to the south. And those were just the insurgents the Legionnaires had targeted. There were probably more they’d missed.

  “Alice, where’s the Marine LePen?”

  “Forty-six minutes from firing solution.”

  No chance of that. The platoon would be lucky to last ten. Whatever happened, the battle would be over by the time the assault ship could help out.

  “Any ideas, sir?”

  Kader leaned out around the corner of the house, and fired a long burst along the street. He was answered by a burst of rifle fire from the far end, and ducked back.

  “Shoot the bastards. And keep shooting them until we’re dead, or they are.”

  Logan crouched beside him, waited a second, then leaned around the corner of the building, and fired. A suit ducked back behind a building further down the street as Logan’s rounds hammered into the wall of the building in front of them.

  A grenade exploded behind him, and he leaned back into cover and glanced behind him. A Panzergrenadier and a couple of Montagnards were firing over the barricades at the west end of the village.

  The insurgents held both ends of the main street now.

  “We’ve lost the west flank,” a voice said over the net.

  “We can’t hold the entire village,” Merle said. “Fall back to the village square.”

  “Let’s go,” Kader said.

  He backed away along the alley, following it back toward the square.

  Logan followed him, backing away slowly, and taking the far side of the alley so they wouldn’t get in each others’ lines of fire. A face appeared at the end of the alley as a man raced around the corner of the building. No suit, and an RPG on their shoulder, already loaded and ready to go.

  The RPG fired, and Logan jumped back as the rocket flew his way. It hit the side of the building beside him, and exploded. The worst of the blast passed by the side of his suit, but red lights flashed on the HUD. He glanced at the suit’s arm. It sparked where the explosion had blown a chunk of shrapnel into the actuators.

  He pulled it free, and tried to twist the arm. It turned, but stopped and whirred before moving again as the actuator briefly hung up.

  The insurgent had reloaded, and swung the RPG to fire a second time. Logan dove to the ground and fired a long burst from his rifle. The hypervelocity rounds punched right through the Montagnard’s body armour, and blood exploded from the man’s back.

  The Montagnard’s legs went limp, and he fell forward, slumping down onto the dirt near the corner of the house, just inside the alley.

  Logan jogged back along the alley toward the body.

  He grabbed the RPG from the ground, and glanced along the street. A Panzergrenadier jumped out of cover between the houses on the far side. Logan swung the RPG and fired. The rocket flew into the visor of the Panzergrenadier’s helmet and exploded, scattering blood, brains and metal across the street. The suit fell to its knees with only the bloody stump of a neck where the helmet used to be. It slumped back, and collapsed between the houses.

  Logan pulled the Montagnard’s body into the alley, grabbed the last RPG round from its back, and reloaded. He leaned out again, but rifle rounds were hitting hard around him now, as every insurgent began firing his way.

  Grenades exploded on the roof of the building behind him. He slung the RPG, and backed along the alley as fast as he could, holding his rifle at his hip.

  “McCoy, get back here,” Kader said.

  A face peered around the corner of the building, from the main street into the alley. Logan fired the rifle from his hip, and the insurgent ducked back. He fired another long burst, then turned and ran as fast as the suit could move.

  Gunfire tore into the building on his left, just behind him. Something thumped into his left leg, and he nearly stumbled as the leg stopped moving, but he pushed harder with his foot, and the leg moved again.

  Then he was at the barricade.

  He ducked for a split second, bending his legs to add their strength to his momentum, then threw himself into the air. The suit flew over the tree trunks of the barricade, then landed on the far side. The claws on the suit’s feet scrabbled for grip in dirt of the square, then his right left slid out from beneath him. The RPG went flying. He slammed down on his right arm and rolled, before the suit slid to a stop.

  Grenades exploded around him. Rifle fire ripped into the roofs of the nearby buildings. Logan grabbed the RPG, and crawled back toward the barricade, where Kader and others were firing into the alley beside the aid station. He clambered up into a crouch as he approached the barricade.

  He popped up behind the barricade, raising the RPG above it, ready to fire. A smoke trail raced down the alley toward him. He ducked back, and crouched as an RPG round flew past, barely clearing the barricade, and passing less than a metre over his head. It smacked into the front of the building behind him. The windows exploded outward, and the door blew off its hinges, rattling down the steps to the street below. A woman screamed inside.

  Splinters flew from the barricade as rifle rounds hammered into it from the alley. Logan raised his rifle above the barricade with one hand, and fired a long burst, spraying rounds across the alley. He pulled his arm back as the insurgents fired at him.

  Kader fired his rifle into the alley from Logan’s left, then ducked behind the barricade as the insurgents fired his way. Another Legionnaire on Logan’s right raised his head to fire. A rifle round smacked into his helmet, and he toppled back, his suit sparking as he rolled on the dirt.

  Logan pulled a grenade from his belt, and tossed it over the barricade
, into the alley. He grabbed the RPG, and waited for the grenade to explode. Then raised the RPG over the barricade and looked out.

  A Panzergrenadier was racing along the alley toward them, through a cloud of smoke that slowly blew toward the east in the wind, while half a dozen Montagnards fired rifles toward the barricades.

  With no cover in the alley to protect them from the Legion defenders, they’d had to resort to speed, firepower and smoke grenades. Logan swung the RPG toward the Panzergrenadier, and fired. He didn’t wait to see whether he hit, as more rifle rounds hammered into the logs, and he ducked back fast.

  The RPG round exploded, and the Panzergrenadier didn’t jump over the barricade. Something must have gone right. With all the ammo gone, he tossed the useless RPG aside, and raised his rifle again. He held it above the barricade, looked through the sights on his HUD, and fired at anything that moved in the smoke. Until it showed empty.

  He pulled the rifle back down, ejected the magazine, and searched through his suit stores for another. But the HUD was already telling him he’d fired his last round.

  “I’m out,” he said.

  “Join the club,” Kader said. “This is my last mag.”

  Logan dropped the rifle, and grabbed the last grenade from his belt. If he was going to die, he’d do his best to take at least one more of the bastards with him, whether with the grenade or the blades on his suit's hands. He didn’t need Beauchene on his case, as well as Volkov.

  Grenades flew over the barricade, slamming down into the square behind them. Explosions tossed shrapnel and dirt into the air. Something creaked, and Logan glanced behind him. The flagpole wobbled, twisting to the right. Then an RPG round slammed into the ground beside it, and a Legionnaire dodged aside as the pole toppled and slammed to the ground.

  Logan pulled the pin on his grenade, waited a couple of seconds, then popped up and tossed the grenade into the smoke. He began to crouch behind the barricade. But his left leg stopped moving half-way.

  Red lights flashed on his HUD.

  “Left leg primary actuator failure,” the AI said.

  Shit. He twisted the leg, and it bent beneath him, slowly lowering the suit. Far too slowly, with his head still above the barricade. Now he knew why Beauchene had always told them to lean around cover, not fire over it.