by Peter Smith
He swung around and looked down toward the floor, switching his fire selector back to burst mode. He found the first outline of one of the two soldiers on the floor below. He lined up his shot on the man who was clearing an office room and sent the trio of 6.8mm bullets through the floor and into the top of the enemy soldier.
He couldn’t see exactly where he had hit him, but when the man’s outline fell to the ground, sprawled across the surface. Kellen assumed his attack had been successful, possibly penetrating through where the neck and the armor vest met. He fired another burst into the man’s back.
He spun and found the other silhouette. Only this time the shape was facing toward him, its arm and he assumed their rifle pointing toward the ceiling. Kellen didn’t wait to find out if the man had the ability to see through walls like he did. He aimed and fired down through the floor.
Penetrating through the cheap and lightweight materials that separated them. The man jumped behind a large metal object, possibly a vending machine by how it disrupted Kellen’s view.
Without a clear line of sight from this angle, Kellen moved through the open plan of this floor. He ran to where the tree had burst through the floor, its truck peeling the floor wide open and leaving gaping holes where material had collapsed into the level below. Using his sensor data he could just make out the outline of the man’s helmet from this vantage point, but he couldn’t be sure if it was their face or the back of their head.
He crawled to the edge of the ruptured floor, his rifle at the ready. He peered through and into the level below and could see the side of the man’s face every second or so as they frantically looked at the ceiling above themselves. EM emissions were flowing from him as he radioed to the rest of his squad what was happening, Kellen didn’t have long.
He raised his weapon, watched for the little shifts that showed when the man would swing his face back around for Kellen to see. When the man shifted his face toward Kellen, he pulled the trigger and sent a single bullet through the man’s ear and out the other side.
He wasted no time. He checked to see if the other enemy in the building were rushing to give help to their friends. They weren’t; they were too busy on the second floor on the North side overlooking the Abrams MBT. He could see them in the processes of assembling a weapon system. They were going to kill his tank.
He spun around and took stock of their overall situation. Everyone along the outer wall was engaged, firing into the mass of enemy soldiers that were attempting to stream across the open space and enter their building. It was the pinpoint accuracy and survivability of his Marines that was the only reason the enemy hadn’t gotten more of their number into this building and overrun their position.
He couldn’t pull any of his men off the line or else they would lose this location and the Abrams would be flanked. But he wasn’t sure he alone could displace the squad below. They were likely nearing the end of setting up their anti-tank weapon, and the defensive system of the tank was constantly engaged with enemy artillery and direct fire. If it shifted its focus, for even a single burst, to the hostile team getting ready to hit it from the side, a round would slip through and strike the thinner top armor and destroy it.
He made the only choice he could, “Dyer, YT, on me!” He said over the squad com.
Both men peeled from their cover and ran crouched over to him. Their visors displayed his location, relying on the positional signal his suit was directing at them. They were the only option he had, since their armor didn’t offer as much coverage as that used by his Marines, they were forced to stay behind protection more. While they were contributing to the barrage of return fire, they weren’t as effective as his Marines were along the wall. However down stairs, they would be more than a match for the team that had infiltrated the building.
He moved from his position near the tree and bolted for the blown out stairwell door. The three of them descended the concrete staircase, Kellen being sure to keep track of the enemy team as they moved down the levels. Within a few breaths they reached the second floor and bullets immediately blasted through the opening and flattened against a wall.
“Those cheeky sons of bitches!” YT said, grinning. Kellen wasn’t entirely sure the young man was sane given how excited he appeared to be, but he was as professional as any soldier Kellen had ever served with so he let it pass.
Kellen shared his tactical data with the other two men and they could see the outlines of the enemy with their own visors. A stack of desks created an impromptu fortification similar to how Kellen had protected himself above. A single man knelt behind it, his squad weapon propped upon the flat surface with the barrel pointing toward the breach. That weapon was more than enough to take out either Dyer or YT, but he might have a chance against it. The other four men were nearly complete in setting up, what his RAI was classifying as, a recoilless launcher. He looked toward the north and the silhouette of the Abrams could be clearly seen battling for its life.
The weapon they were setting up didn’t fire a munition that could penetrate even the top or belly armor of his tank, at least not that his intelligence files showed. But it could take out one or both of the defensive lasers blazing away on the top of the turret. If either of those were removed from operation, then the layer of defensive fire that was keeping the tank in the fight would disappear and it would be destroyed. They had maybe thirty seconds until the team was ready to fire the weapon.
“The doorman is mine, you two take out the crew.”
Dyer laughed, “Ready to go ask those blokes some of your trade mark questions YT?”
The younger man cracked his fingers, “Can’t wait to ask ‘em all five.”
Kellen nodded, removed the flash bang from his webbing and left cover for a microsecond. His augmented strength and speed allowing him to expose himself within such a small frame of time that the gunner couldn’t mentally process what he was seeing. The grenade left his gloved hand and rocketed through the threshold and into the room, exploding the moment its inertial guidance sensor indicated it had impacted the floor.
A bright flash of light and a loud concussive boom filed the room and bled into the stairwell. He was already jumping over the railing and landing on the landing for the second floor. He barreled through the threshold and into a cloud of smoke. A bullet slammed into his shoulder, flinging his left arm backward, but his forward momentum was saved by the rapid adaptation of his armor.
He cleared the smoke and could see the gunner, his goggles nearly opaque as they tried to protect their wearer from the sudden increase in light. Kellen’s rifle was already bucking against his other shoulder, the synthetic muscles throughout his armor shifting to allow him to fire accurately with only the one arm securing the weapon.
The man’s grip on the squad weapon didn’t release as he fell backward, a stream of bullets penetrating through the ceiling. Kellen followed his fall, shooting the man in the face.
He turned quickly to bring his weapon to bear upon the launcher crew, ready to put them down. Only he found all four of them, laying on the ground, either dead or about to be as Dyer and YT dealt with them. The weapon lay on the ground in two parts, bullet holes from where it had gotten in between the two British Spire soldiers and their targets.
James frowned at the loss of the heavy weapon. He would have preferred to have turned it against their enemy, but it was better that it was damaged than used. An urgent notification appeared in his vision. His brain barely processed what he was being told in time to shout out his warning, “Both of you down!”
The building bucked as its superstructure was pressed downward, the ceiling above them collapsing under a series of explosions. A steel girder ripped free from above and swung down, catching Dyer in the forearms he brought up to shield his torso at the last instant. The man was propelled backward and through one of the shattered windows, tumbling over and out onto the sidewalk.
“Commander!” YT shouted, dragging himself out from under a pile of debris that had fa
llen atop him.
Flames rippled across what was left of the ceiling and the sound of the steel that supported the building resonated deep within Kellen’s bowels and he realized that if they didn’t both move, Dyer would be the fortunate one of them.
He lunged toward YT, flinging to the side the section of wall that had collapsed upon him. Scooping his other hand beneath the young soldier's arm, he pulled him to his feet and toward a window. A scream of pain left YT’s mouth as a jagged piece of metal broke free from the ceiling and tore down the back of his calf.
Kellen couldn’t stop, couldn’t administer first aid. He could already see the shape of the outer wall warping. He threw YT through the window his boss had been propelled through. His own hands gripped the edge, smashing flat the jagged glass teeth that remained and pulled himself through just as the top floors came crashing down, pancaking on top of one another until they ended on the bottom level.
When the metal finished twisting, he could hear both Dyer and YT coughing. He sighed, thanking God for small miracles, Dyer might not be in the best of shape, but if he was hacking, he was breathing. The smoke and dust cleared some and less than three centimeters from his visor was a piece of rebar, punched clean through the concrete of the sidewalk and into the soil below. He thanked God again, this time for a completely different reason.
He pushed himself onto his knees, “Viper One Actual report” He shouted into his com. The Marine that had been in command of the fire team on the top floor didn’t respond.
Kellen checked their status indicators, two of the Marines weren’t transmitting any more and were given grey indicator lights, either they were dead or their suit communication systems were damaged. One was an amber yellow and the remaining two were an ominous red. Viper One Actual was one of those.
“Viper three, what’s your status.”
A grunt and then a moan of pain came to Kellen, “Sir…”
“What’s your status Marine?”
“Got a piece of steel through my side…”
Kellen tried to pull up the Marine’s health data but couldn’t get a strong enough signal to do so, “Can you see daylight.”
A second of hesitation, “No sir, think I’m buried.”
A hum filled the air and Kellen stumbled over to YT who was helping up Dyer, the older man cradling his likely shattered right forearm, “Alright son, you take a bit of a break and let your suit’s medical webbing do it’s job. Don’t move and turn off your transmitters until you get the all clear from me or someone else in your chain of command, receivers only.”
“Even my medical transponder sir?”
The hum was growing louder and coming from multiple directions now. A bullet struck the back of his shoulder blade, the calibre used by infantry. The enemy was closing. He slipped an arm underneath Dyer’s other shoulder and helped get the man behind the tank. Dyer was already communicating with the commander of the armored vehicle, letting them know they would be back there.
“If I’m getting it’s signal, so will the enemy, don’t give them a target.”
“Understood sir, signing off.”
The Marine’s status icon switched from yellow to the grey of unknown.
“What the hell took out the building?” Dyer asked as they laid him against the ground. His words nearly lost in the growing hum.
Kellen nearly responded to him when his brow furrowed, realizing they weren’t being showered in the shrapnel of destroyed Russian ordinance.
They were coming back for another pass.
“Close Air Support Drones” He growled. The Russian’s didn’t deploy drone weapon systems often, choosing to stick to human based combatants when ever possible. But they had showed a knack for constructing special force infiltrator units, like the one that had killed his former chief of security and the heavy weapon CAS drones that just wiped out his fire team. The size of a couch, they were very mobile and equipped with anti-tank rockets. He had seen a flight of them on his data feed, heading straight for the building before they had destroyed the top floor. Now they were coming back.
Kellen looked out from behind the tank and spotted over twelve of them flying in a V formation directly for the tank and his stomach tightened. He shifted his gaze to the top of the tank and could see that debris from the collapse of the building had dislodged one of the laser defense projectors from it’s mount.
“Evacuate” He hollered, sending the message to his two fellow survivors and the soldiers in the tank. The remaining laser system fired, burning the drones from the sky. Kellen didn’t wait to watch what would happen next, he already knew.
He turned and grasped Dyer by the elbow. The man howled in pain as he threw him, and his entire exoskeleton, onto his shoulders. YT was barely keeping up as the three of them sprinted West, away from the tank.
He heard the escape hatch on the bottom of the tank open and then an instant later he heard nothing at all as he, Dyer and YT were thrown like dolls across the broken surface of the asphalt road. Their roll caused by kinetic energy placed into their bodies from the death of the Abrams Main Battle Tank.
When he finally came to a stop, he lay, staring up at the blue of the wide open sky. Only clouds of grey and black blowing through his field of view. A large abrasion was scuffed across the outer layer of his visor from when he had slid over the asphalt rather than rolling for a fraction of a second. His HUD was signaling a variety or medical alerts and damage to the outer layer of his armor.
He could feel something pressing into his lower back and another point of pressure in his left buttocks. He rolled slowly onto his side, groaning as he did. The armor might have prevented any penetrations of his body from the fast moving debris, but it wasn’t able to absorb and redistribute all the kinetic energy. Nearly a dozen anti-tank rockets and the detonation of the tank’s power cell was too much for it to completely protect him from.
As he rolled, Dyer came into his view. The man’s eyes were closed, his face pressed against the jagged road. Flecks of metal covered his flesh and patches of it were rubbed off from their trip down the asphalt. Blood welled up around each of the pieces of shrapnel. Kellen’s eyes swept the man’s body as much as he could from his prone position, his back flashing pain through his consciousness as he tried to arch it to see further down Dyer’s form. He didn’t spy any significant breaches of the man’s armor.
Kellen turned his head and looked for YT. The young man was a good ten meters further down the road, nearer to the bridge. He looked to be in about the same state as Dyer. Kellen reached behind himself and found a piece of metal lodged in the outer layer of his armor. He gripped it as best he could at this awkward angle and pulled at it, but it refused to be freed.
He pushed himself to a knee and probed his rear, finding a small piece there. He gripped it, and this one shifted when he pulled at it. A second later he was tossing a piece of what was possibly a piece of the anti-tank rocket’s casing.
He reached for Dyer, ready to revive the man and hoping that he was still alive when the humming sound returned, more subdued this time but still present. The Russian CAS Drones were returning. His HUD presented him with the observational data from the orbiting reconnaissance drone. It highlighted seven of the twelve drones from before.
He turned to look toward the burning remains of the tank. The charred corpse of one of its operators lay meters from it, smoldering. Dark black smoke belched from what was left of the war machine’s frame. Kellen couldn’t see the drones through the smoke but because of his visor displaying their location he knew they were sweeping in over the road on the same flight path, likely coming to finish the job and kill him and the other two. Beneath the cloud of rising smoke he could still see the line of Russian Spire armor and infantry that were steadily advancing on their location.
Kellen pulled the rifle from his back and positioned himself between the approaching drone craft and Dyer. If he was going to die, he’d have a weapon in his hands and go out with a purpose. He brought the
rifle to his shoulder and aimed at the lead drone’s outline as it raced toward the black smoke.
It blasted through the cloud; the particulates whipping into curls as it disrupted the air with its micro jet engines. Kellen pulled the trigger.
He blinked in surprise as the drone at the point of the newly formed V formation exploded into a shower of flame and debris, it’s dead husk crashing to the ground and skidding toward him. Then another and another in rapid succession. The remaining drones peeled off and banked away from his location, one being sliced in half, flame erupting from the edges of where the cut occurred as both parts crashed into the roof of a nearby office building. Confusion filled his thoughts.
In the distance, explosions ripped into the rear of the advancing line of Russian soldiers. Their panicked movements showing that they were as confused as he was. In the sky above splashes of light flashed at what appeared to be random intervals and then his brain finally caught up to the reality of the situation. The Russian air defense lasers, they were firing on the Marine artillery but to no avail. Williams had mapped out where all of their air defenses were located and had just sent laser resistant munitions at them. The lights in the sky were the refracted light of the lasers breaking apart against the surface of the shells.
If Williams had ordered the change in munition, that could mean only one thing. Kellen twisted, brining his view to the rear. Behind him an entire company of his Marines was advancing up the road, Abrams main battle tanks and the German War Walkers were coming around the corner. Several smaller anti air craft vehicles were mixed in within the ranks of the Marines flowing down the road.