“Don’t ease off the gas, cowboy. See if you can level her out,” Mace barked into comms.
Everyone in Doom Rider 1-9 now watched with bated breath as the rig downshifted and regained control while maintaining its speed. The driving skills on display were something that bordered on the supernatural. Matt was still having difficulty understanding how anyone could control such a machine.
Marcus’s voice suddenly crackled over comms. “I got her, I got her. She’s a little grumpy, but we’re OK. For a moment there, I thought someone was taking a pot-shot at us.”
“Yeah, the sediment deposits here don’t seem to be as hard-packed as they were a few klicks back,” Mace responded. “They’re looser, like slate. When tire’s spin over the crusty bits – turns ‘em into high-velocity projectiles.”
“Sorry about that, boss.”
“No worries. Although, I’m afraid your rig’s not gonna enjoy the next four hundred miles or so.”
“Oh, she’ll be fine. She’s a big old girl, but as long as I whisper the right things to her, she’ll keep steady.”
“Copy that. Casper, how’re you doing upfront?”
“Captain, I drove supply rovers on the Moon before coming out here. You know how much of a bitch it is to steer four-hundred-and-fifty tons of lunar rock in near-zero-grav?”
“Point taken,” Mace replied with a relieved grin, not taking his eyes off the giant rear-end of Marcus’s rig.
Twenty-One
For another hour, the convoy continued to hum along their path like a singular monolith. Engines roared and black soot swirled, mixing with the orange glow of a fading, but still angry sun. The giant tire treads of each vehicle seemed even more swollen now from the heat.
Matt kept his eyes on the outside world zipping past them, cocking his head slightly at the faint sound of something. It resembled the familiar crackle of gunfire. Or did it? He strained to listen over the engine’s muffled roar, pushing it aside when he could no longer hear it. An audible phantom perhaps? Whatever he thought he heard; he was not convinced it was prominent enough to alert Mace about. As he went to look away, something suddenly caught his eye.
It was a metallic glint that lasted no more than a second, reflected off the setting sun.
He unbuckled himself and stood, peering out the viewport behind WarBarbie.
“What is it, greenie? You see something?”
“Not sure. Thought I saw a flash of something.” Matt kept his eyes glued to the viewport. It was getting dark out there, therefore it was also getting harder to make out any details of the desolate rock formations that seemed to engulf them now on either side.
“Shit!” Tractor hissed. “Feed just died.”
WarBarbie and Matt turned to him, concern now bristling across their faces.
Hearing Tractor behind him, Mace decided to radio Sanchez for an update. “Sanchez, you seeing anything out there? Shit’s getting a little spooky back here. We just lost our surveillance feed.”
There was a short burst of static until Sanchez responded. “Negative, cap, I see noth— wait… ah… I got smoke at our eleven. I sight two visible columns in the distance.”
Tractor stood, and hustled past Matt with WarBarbie, crouching down behind Mace to get a visual confirmation out the front windshield.
Maybe a mile or two east of them, two thick columns of dark smoke billowed above the uneven horizon. They were barely visible against the blackening sky.
“Shit, looks like our birds are down,” Sanchez relayed. “What do we do now, cap?”
“What we’ve been doing for the past ten hours; maintain this path to our primary objective. We do not deviate. Understood?”
“Not a good idea to be leaving flight-logs and data boxes out there for the enemy to snag.”
“That’s not our op, Sanchez. Command can send a retrieval unit to fetch them if they feel the need. That’s assuming they’re willing to even take such a risk. We’ve mostly just been clocking air since we left Rhino.”
“Copy that.”
“Gunny, how’s our six looking?”
Lord Gunny was checking the enormous housing chamber next to him that fed the ammo belt into the stem of his turret. Still seated, he reached over and grabbed an oily rag from an overhead supply crate, gently cleaning the ammo belt as if afraid of waking a dangerous animal. “Nothing, cap. My turret scanners are sweeping air and not much else. We’re clear.”
Lord Gunny’s response did little to quell Mace’s rising fear. “Gunny, I still need your head on head on a swivel. Someone just shot down those assets, which also means the enemy could be close to us.” Mace turned his head slightly to signal Tractor. “Have you got any output at all?”
Tractor tapped his forearm console again. Nothing happened. He picked up his handheld console and tried that. “Nope, I got nothing. Everything’s down.”
“What about our external backups? Any handshakes or synchs?”
“Negative. ADS data-streams, emergency sidebands… it’s all dead. Nothing but our local network and comms carrier. We’re still connected to Command from this vehicle, but that doesn’t mean much as they probably can’t hear us. Way too much interference with these magnetized rocks.”
“Or someone is actively jamming us,” WarBarbie added, turning to Matt. “Eyes open, greenie. I need you to manually scan from that viewport. You see anything out there, you call it.”
Matt gave her a nod and turned to the viewport behind his seat, searching the terrain by eye for any sign of enemy activity.
“Not that we’re gonna get any help out here anyway, but... fuck it. I’ll call it in. Who knows, maybe we’ll get through and actually reach someone.” Mace switched to the encrypted comms channel via the retinal interface that was being projected onto his faceplate and made the call to Command. “Brightstar, this is Doom Rider 1-9, how copy?”
Static hissed into his ear until a faint, garbled reply came. It was too hard to decipher.
“Brightstar, say again, your last?”
Another blast of static gibberish greeted his ears.
It was evident the operator on the other end of his comms feed could hear Mace but could not make out his request due to severe interference. Despite that, Mace responded again. “Brightstar, this is Doom Rider 1-9. We are moving towards our primary objective but have fallen angels in the wild. Sending you coordinates now. Our orbital recon and thermal feeds are also down, requesting Archangel or Omni-Eye assistance, over.”
When Mace received nothing in reply except another blast of static, he shook his head and kept on driving, a scowl forming across his sun-weathered lips. “What a piece of shit… six trillion a year spent on getting us out here to the middle of who-the-fuck-knows-where, along with another trillion each year in communications hardware, and I wouldn’t even be able to order a fucking pizza delivery right now.”
“Past the point of no return now, cap,” WarBarbie said. “We knew we’d be well and truly on our own by this stage.”
Despite knowing that all too well, Mace said nothing as he remained focused on the convoy ahead, flushed with a sense of dread that refused to dissipate. He could see they were losing sunlight by the minute and would soon have to drive under the guidance of their night vision attachments. Turning on their powerful headlights this far into enemy territory was also out of the question. And although the engines and exhausts of their vehicles were fitted with special decimal mufflers, they still emitted enough noise to alert any nearby enemies. There was no doubt they were entering the most dangerous phase of their mission: driving through Epsilon’s badlands at night.
Along with the darkening terrain, the ride was also getting increasingly bumpy. Matt kept his legs a little more than a hip-width apart for balance as he continued scanning the landscape.
It was then he spotted something streaking across the horizon towards them, moving at an unnatural speed. His face paled. “Contact! Incoming on our right—"
Matt only barely managed to get th
e words out when, like a lethal arrow fired from the heavens, a projectile cracked into the ground next to the first rig, causing it to swerve erratically.
Before anyone in Doom Rider 1-9 could react, there was an eerie zipping sound as if the sky were now tearing open above them. It was preceded by an intense white flash, which lasted no more than a millisecond as three more exploding projectiles rained down on them.
Up ahead, Mace saw Casper get his rig under control, never dropping his speed as he held formation. “Gunny, find those fuckers and light ‘em up!”
“With pleasure, cap!” Lord Gunny yelled, swinging his huge turret around to unleash hell.
PAK-PAK-PAK-PAK! Fat gouts of plasma lashed the rocky ridgeline above their right side, causing a brilliant silver and blue strobing effect.
Through the exploding rock and dust, Matt spied several dark, humanoid figures evaporate into puffs of mist as Lord Gunny continued to strafe them. Then, he instinctively ducked under the viewport as small arms fire began to ping off the TAV’s armored hull.
WarBarbie, Tractor, and Mace endured the onslaught with their trademark stoicism. They’d been through this before. Many times. However, it was always a nerve-rattling experience for them.
“Now taking fire from my left,” Marcus said on comms, struggling to hear himself talk above the loud turret fire that was pinballing against the ridgelines on either side of him.
“Getting lit up like a Christmas tree here,” also chimed Casper. “A little more than I’m used to.”
Mace watched as the two rigs in front of him absorbed the incoming salvo of enemy rounds, ricocheting off the huge shells that housed the supply trailers. “I need both of you to maintain convoy integrity. We slow down here we’re as good as dead.”
“Roger that,” Casper responded, his usually calm and confident voice now pinched with fear.
Matt spun to Tractor and WarBarbie. They were both standing against their viewports, watching the chaos unfold as Lord Gunny and the turret gunner from Spear Tip 1-7, continued to pound the ridgeline on their left side. “Those Dupe’s have RPGs?” Matt yelled over the bone-shaking thunder.
Tractor moved over to Matt’s viewport to get a better look. “Rotary plasma cannons. But most of their weapons are beat-to-shit and don’t work - scavenged from the rubble of previous battles. Problem is, some of them figured out how to get ‘em working again.”
“We also don’t know what else they’re capable of finding out here,” WarBarbie added. “It’s hard to keep tabs on any new weapon acquisitions when they keep shooting down our surveillance drones. Luckily, most of the caches they do find are only good for taking pot-shots at passing convoys like they’re doing now. But there’s still a lot of nasty shit buried underneath this sand – both ours and theirs. Only a matter of time until they dig up a WMD, or something far worse.”
Outside, between the brilliant staccato flashes of Lord Gunny’s turret, Matt could see multiple sets of grey eyes zip by him through the rocky crevices, glowing in the darkness like packs of nocturnal predators. “There! Up in those cliffs - there must be dozens of them.”
“Hundreds,” WarBarbie replied as if this attack was all par for the course. “Maybe thousands. We’re passing through a well-known Dupe settlement.”
Tractor nodded solemnly, the strobing from Lord Gunny’s turret flickering in his heavy-set eyes. “Forgotten soldiers is what they are now. Abandoned to the wasteland. Wounded Infiltrators are discarded like trash. Once they dump ‘em out here, the Wraith won’t go anywhere near them. I bet half of them don’t even know which side they’re meant to be on.”
“If they don’t fight for the Wraith anymore, why are they attacking us?” Matt narrowed his eyes on what appeared to be a sprawl of crude tenements far off in the distance. It was a favela of mud shacks and metallic scrap, nestled inside an enormous cleft of rock. There was no power or lights, just murky darkness.
WarBarbie turned and gave Matt a diabolical smirk. “Simple. We’re the invaders.”
Suddenly, everyone in Doom-Rider 1-9 jolted from a loud explosion outside.
KA-BOOOOOOM!
Spear-Tip 1-7, and the rig traveling behind it, flew up into the sky in a massive fireball of fuel, metal, and human body parts.
“IED!” Mace screamed, his eyes wide with shock as he and Marcus plowed through the wall of oily flame, a hailstorm of hot metallic debris raining down on their vehicles.
In an instant, it seemed as if the entire desert was now attacking them. They could only watch as Casper’s massive rig flipped vertically into the air before recklessly corkscrewing into a rocky wall, exploding again like a detonated bomb.
The combined blast from the two lead vehicles walloped Marcus’s rig with a cyclone of fire, the peppering of heavy debris spiderwebbing his reinforced windshield like death from a thousand bullets. This forced him to rip the steering wheel clockwise to avoid hitting the wreckage.
But the trailer attached to his cab swung left, edging the gigantic vehicle dangerously closer to Jackknifing. The rig began to skid sideways along the hardened sulfur they had been traversing, huge rubber treads screaming in protest, struggling to hold traction.
Horrified, Mace paled as he spotted holes starting to appear in the rear fuel tank of Marcus’s rig. “They’re using armor busters… how in the fuck?” Marcus do not stop! Keep driving!”
“I can’t— get her— still taking fire— arrgh!” Marcus screamed into his comms. He was frantically working the wheel but unable to take evasive action as he clipped the wreckage of Spear-Tip 1-7, spinning it like a fiery pinball.
The impact then caused his rig to start sliding towards a steep embankment. Locking axels rang out as the enormous trailer fishtailed before miraculously straightening and correcting itself.
Marcus then swung the wheel around again and shifted gears, continuing to drive the huge vehicle forward, never dropping his speed below seventy as ordered. A true pro. There was no time to grieve the brother he had just lost. That reality had not quite hit him yet. Assuming he survived long enough, there would be plenty of time to remember him. But right now, his own life was at stake, along with the lives of the soldiers holed up at Camp Suffield. He had to maintain focus on the mission at hand.
Mouths still agape from shock, Matt, Tractor, and WarBarbie watched helplessly, trailing behind Mace, unable to comprehend that the lead TAV was now a battered hunk of upturned steel. The intense swirl of emotions displayed on their faces almost verged on insanity. No one was expecting to encounter firepower like this, especially from a small rabble of Dupes.
The three of them hustled their way to the rear viewport as they passed the Spear-Tip 1-7 wreckage. It was blazing like an out-of-control inferno, and it was almost impossible to see anything from the thick, greasy black smoke that was roiling into the night sky.
As Matt watched the flames get smaller, he thought he spotted the shrunken shape of a charred arm jutting out of the wreckage.
“We gotta stop, cap!” WarBarbie screamed to Mace. “They could still be alive in there!”
“We can’t stop!” Mace screamed back over the relentless clap of Lord Gunny’s turret. “We can’t stop for any reason. You know that.”
“Fuck!” She punched an overhead support girder with a burst of rage. “We can’t leave our own guys out here to die!”
“They’re already dead!” Tractor yelled back at her; his eyes glassing with tears. “You think anyone could have survived that?”
“Bullshit!” she roared, punching the girder even harder before turning and storming off to grab her assault rifle.
Mace continued to watch as gas started leaking out of Marcus’s rear tank like a sprinkler truck. That’s when he felt the TAV shift underneath him.
The others behind him lost their balance and nearly toppled over.
Now Doom Rider 1-9 was sliding over leaked fuel from Marcus’s rig. He ripped the steering levers down, trying to maintain control. “Come on, you sonuva…” The p
ath they had forged had become a skating rink in the middle of the alien desert. “Marcus, you’re pissing fuel. I’m sliding all over the place. Switch to your backup tank.”
“I already have. But we’ve got a much bigger problem.”
“Oh, shit… Cap, look!” Lord Gunny suddenly yelled, pausing his onslaught to allow his turret muzzle to cool off. The fluted tip of the barrel was now glowing molten orange like it had just been dipped in lava. “Obstruction head! I repeat, obstruction ahead!”
Mace leaned forward and strained his eyes past Marcus’s rig to just make out a large hulking shape lumbering towards them. It looked like some ancient mechanical golem. Using his faceplate’s digital binoculars app, he zoomed in on the object. At this distance, the object looked old and weathered in the fading light, but he immediately knew what it was. “Stalker! We got a Stalker!”
Spotting the Stalker ahead, Tractor turned to WarBarbie with a grim look. “How the hell did they manage to get hold of a Stalker?”
“Probably stole it from a refueling station. There’s one located near the Rihmeth Sulfur Pits. The Wraith use ‘em to guard their pipelines,” she replied, readying herself for the world of pain that was about to rain down on them. “Cap, permission to stop and get out - set a defensive perimeter around Marcus.”
“And get that pretty ass of yours blown to ash? That’s a negative, Praetorian. We don’t stop for anything. Gunny, I’m gonna swing in front of Marcus. When I do, you light that blockade up.”
“Roger that.”
“You also might wanna break out the good China for this special occasion?”
“Thought you’d never ask, cap.” Lord Gunny waved at his console overlay, and it vanished. He tapped another app-like icon that was floating next to his helmet visor. It instantly expanded around him, encasing his gunner seat in a holographic sphere that was filled with new targeting data.
He then pulled a large metal lever attached to the left arm of his seat, swapping his HP-Z rounds over to a more powerful, armor-busting munition. There was a metallic clunk as the ammo belt dropped away underneath him and a newer belt appeared in its place. These red-tipped thermal projectiles were sleeker and more elegant, resembling miniature missiles, each one longer than a fully-grown arm.
The Soldier Page 16