“We’ll take care of it. You have my word.”
“Thank you, captain.”
Mace could see Hollsworth had still something weighing on his mind. “What is it, Lieutenant?
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking – what the bleedin’ hell are you doing out here with a greenie? Did you pick him up along the way or something?”
Mace snorted as he checked his watch. “Long story. One I’m afraid I don’t have time for.”
“I hope he’s pulling his weight.”
“Oh, he certainly is. Much to my surprise.”
“Captain Mace, I’ll be honest – I’m also glad to see you, regardless of the supply restock.”
“Why, because your chain of command got wiped out and you were next in line?”
Hollsworth frowned, unsure whether Mace was purposely antagonizing him or just being brutally frank. Either way, he was right. He made a conscious effort to lower his voice before replying. “Sir, I’ve never commanded more than thirty soldiers in battle. I’m also dealing with quite a few minds that have already made peace with death… I’m not going to lie; I could use some direction.”
“What are you down to now?’
“Sixty-four. Mostly cadet officers.”
“That’s sixty-four not including the injured?”
“No, that’s including those injured and unable to fight.”
Mace peeled off his sweaty helmet and blew out a tired sigh, itching the grey stubble underneath his chin. This base really was in a tight bind. It was not looking good.
“I could really use you around here, sir.”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. My orders were to drop off the supplies, grab that intel, then head straight back to Rhino. I’ll be lucky if that rig even makes it halfway there.”
Hollsworth was unable to hide his disappointment. “I understand… but even with these new supplies, I’m not sure how much longer we can last. I called Vanguard Command again this morning, requesting reinforcements and an evac unit, and got the same bloody answer they give me every other day.”
“Which is?”
“They’re already stretched way too thin and can’t send any help until every Dupe in the area has been cleared.”
“Yeah, well, I got some more bad news for you. There’s a whole army of Dupes headed this way.”
“How many?”
“Last count, several hundred.”
“What? How’s that possible? That’s a full battalion…” Hollsworth replied with visible shock.
“And it’s growing too. They seem to be rounding up any strays they find along the way.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know. But some Dupe among them has figured out how to get organized.”
“I thought they were all scavengers with amnesia. Scattered insurgents at best.”
“Evidentially not.”
“How long?”
“A day. Maybe two, depending on how quickly they can move. There’s a lot of rough terrain between them and us, so that’s something, I guess. Might buy you some time to prepare.”
Hollsworth’s vacant gaze drifted to the ground, his eyes sinking with the crushing realization of defeat. “They nearly breached these walls last time, and there were only a few hundred of them. We’d never be able to fend off another wave like that… I can’t maintain this position any longer. We’re going to need to stand down and evacuate… TAVs can scout ahead and secure waypoints while the rest of us follow on foot. If we head northeast and avoid—”
“Lieutenant, you won’t last a day out there on foot. Those Dupes will run you down. That’s assuming no Wraith patrols spot you first. Heading northeast is suicide.”
“Then we’ll head northwest, back towards Rhino.”
“With several hundred Dupes biting at your heels like wolves? Again, you won’t last a day.”
“I have to take that risk, captain. What choice do I have?”
Mace worked his jaw, studying the young Brit before responding. He deeply hated the idea that soldiers like Hollsworth had to be left their own devices without any support because of circumstances out of their control. It infuriated him beyond measure. “You said you were ordered to hold this base until we arrived, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then let me help you hold it a little while longer.” Mace saw Hollsworth’s wariness at that response. “We don’t run from a fight, Lieutenant. And there’s enough firepower in those supply crates to start our own war. So let’s do that. Let’s dig in and show those grey-eyed motherfuckers just how scary Homo sapiens can be.”
“What about your orders, sir?”
Mace hacked out a bleak laugh. He was starting to like this kid. “That’s nice of you to assume I’m going to survive this, Lieutenant. What do you say - ready to cut some scalps with me?”
Renewed by a fresh surge of hope, despite their grim odds, Hollsworth could not help but smile at the thought of fighting alongside a Praetorian. “Yes, sir!”
Mace gave a nod of approval, then plunked his ass down on a small mound of dirt, gently pressing his palm against his wounded shoulder. For the past two days, his face had become a permanent grimace of pain. “But first, I need a shit-ton of morphine, a working comms link, and a rations pack.”
Twenty-Nine
“Move! Move aside!” Matt yelled as he and Roberts burrowed their way through the rowdy line of officers gathered behind the rig’s trailer. Things were starting to get tense as many of these men and women had not eaten for days.
“Oi! Steady on, mate!” one officer barked as Matt shouldered him out of the way.
“You wanna eat, officer Hutton?” Roberts snapped in reply, pushing through the growing crush of officers. “Then move out of the way!”
When Matt finally reached the rear end of the trailer, he braced himself from the pushing and shoving while bringing up Mace’s encrypted access code. He quickly punched it into the small console panel next to the locked clamp mechanism. There was a whirring sound until the console clicked green and the clamp automatically unlocked. Matt then swung the towering doors wide open.
“Move back! Clear the way!” Roberts yelled, helping him swing the doors open.
The second Matt jumped up into the trailer, several officers barged Roberts out of the way and jumped up behind him, swarming the supply crates.
“Hey—hey, just wait a sec—” Matt shoved a young officer away from some shrink-wrapped medical supplies, but to his surprise, the officer began wrestling with him.
“Fuck off, greenie! Let me go!” the young officer retorted defiantly, ripping his arm free of Matt’s grip.
Matt knew the Brits only really used the American term of ‘greenie’ in a derogatory context, so upon hearing it, he felt a burst of anger lance through him. However, he chose not to act on it for one reason alone; these men and women were on the verge of starving. Besides, he was grossly outnumbered, and violence would have only inflamed the situation more. He was now thinking about how he was going to get out of the trailer without being crushed alive. The crowd of famished officers was growing more erratic by the second.
“Stand down, officers! I said stand down!” Roberts grabbed a few of them attempting to climb up into the trailer and wrenched them back. But one of the female officers lost her balance and swung around, elbowing Robert’s right in the mouth. Her head snapped back from the blow.
Matt saw her putting a hand up to her bloodied lip but had no chance to react as more officers surged into the trailer with him, raiding supply crates of freeze-dried food and medicine. Sounding as if the entire base had descended on the rig, the roar of the feverish crowd was nearly deafening. All Matt could do is stand there and watch on helplessly. Some officers even began tearing open ration packs and eating protein bars while they stood there.
Thwap-Thwap-Thwap!
Suddenly, everyone jolted from the loud thunder of a rifle being discharged among them. They all cowered, spinning to the source of
gunfire. That stopped everyone in their tracks.
Matt peered outside to see the crowd parting like the red sea, revealing Mace standing there with his rifle pointed skyward. Hollsworth stood next to him. “I want every officer to back the fuck away from this rig!” Mace yelled, his eyes scanning the crowd of officers for any sign of disobedience. The crowd began moving away, but when he noticed some pockets lingering, he fired two more shots into the air. “Move! That wasn’t a request. Move your asses back to your stations. We’re gonna offload these crates in a calm and orderly manner. Otherwise, I’m gonna start cracking heads. Now move!” There were some hushed snickers and murmurs as the crowd began moving again.
When Hollsworth caught a few nearby officers standing there, trading confused looks, he clapped his hands like a coach rousing his team. “You heard the captain! Move your asses! That means you too, officer Dawson. You need me to put my boot up your ass? Let’s go, let’s go!” He then moved over to Roberts and gently pulled her aside. “You OK?”
“Yeah, just a split lip,” she nodded, gently touching her swollen lip. “I’m sure I’ll live. For now at least.”
Hollsworth could not help but grin at the gallows humor. “I need you to organize two teams. Have them unload those ration crates so people can start eating.”
She took a deep breath and nodded again, her eyes drifting over to Mace’s foreboding presence while he stood there watching the crowd disperse, rifle buttstock resting on his hip like some Sherriff from the Wild West overseeing his town. Fucking Yanks, she thought. Always gotta put on a show. “Roger that, sir,” she finally replied, turning back to face him. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, we need all medics to start moving the injured underground.”
Roberts threw him a quizzical look. “To our power bunker?”
Hollsworth nodded.
“But... sir, we have no power.”
“I understand that.”
“There’s no refrigeration units either. What about our dead?”
“They can stay where they are.” He saw the confused look she was leveling at him and decided to answer what he knew was coming. “Captain Mace has a plan. It’s a grubby one, and you’re not going to like it. But it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
“Against what, sir?”
“Against the several-hundred Dupes currently headed our way.”
Roberts’ jaw slackened upon hearing that, her eyes widening. “Sir…?”
“Don’t tell anyone yet. Just take Miller, Rose, and Dayne with you. Have them assist you in forming each team. Get moving, Second Lieutenant. Double-time. We’re on the clock here.”
“Yes, sir!” Now feeling the seriousness and urgency of Hollsworth’s tone, Roberts turned and headed off with her orders, whisking through the retreating crowd.
As the trailer’s interior cleared, Mace saw Matt appear from the back of it, looking like someone who had just survived a stampede. “You’re with me, greenie. Get your ass down here.”
Feeling a little embarrassed at his inability to maintain order, Matt hopped down and joined Mace, watching the crowd thin. “What a clusterfuck that was.”
“Eh, just human nature. As an ex-cop, I’m sure you know how easily order can break down once people get desperate.” Mace whistled for Hollsworth to join them, then turned to Matt with a stern look. “You ready?”
Matt nodded. “What are my orders, sir?”
“I need you to bust open a weapons crate and mount up. We’re not leaving yet. We’re staying here and fighting it out. We’re gonna hold this damn base until help arrives.”
“And what if it doesn’t, sir?”
“Then it doesn’t. Simple as that. Regardless, Hollsworth will have two of his officers making QRF requests at the top of each hour. Maybe they’ll get sick of us pestering them and send someone.”
“From Rhino?”
“Not likely. I’ve just been on the blower to them. Last night, they deployed a Retrieval Unit to go pick up our fallen, but they were forced to head back after taking heavy fire. Rhino informed me the entire stretch of terrain between them and us is now a designated INOP.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Inoperable. No-man’s land. All ongoing joint operations to be ceased immediately. So if a QRF does come for us, it’ll be from the east.”
“The 75th Rangers?”
“Correct.” Mace cracked the tiniest of smiles, giving Matt the impression that somehow, despite all this horror and impending death, he was now enjoying himself. “This is it, greenie. Now you’re gonna see real action. Let’s just hope Colonel Tapscott was right about you.”
As Mace turned and moved off, Matt shared a sobering look with Hollsworth. Neither man said a word, but they didn’t need to. They had no illusions about the captain’s orders. The choice to stay here and fight would most likely mean death.
Thirty
By mid-morning, the base was humming like a well-oiled machine. Food and medical supplies were flowing out from the rig in an orderly fashion, with officers forming a chain-link that stretched from one end of the base to the other. Every abled body officer was ordered to begin prepping for the inevitable attack.
Second Lieutenant Roberts had begun moving the injured down into the power bunker with the help of medical officers and various personnel, overseeing every facet of the operation with growing concern.
The bunker was no larger than a small basketball court in width, with low concrete ceilings that housed heavy machinery and the enormous cabling that came with them. The airflow was also quite restrictive. This was not a facility designed to house large groups of people comfortably, let alone those on the verge of death. And while the thick walls would offer some level of protection, she hoped their time down here would be minimal.
Matt was assisting a group of officers line up boxes of ammunition when Mace called him over to the makeshift command tent Hollsworth had erected. “Greenie!”
Matt headed over, stooping low as he entered the tent. Mace, Hollsworth, and several other officers huddled around a large holo-map of the surrounding area, the digital projection casting an orange glow throughout the cramped space while they discussed the battle plan. Various weapons and explosives had also been laid out on the ground, meticulously arrayed for Mace’s inspection. Matt felt as if he had just been granted access to the inner circle of a war party.
Mace turned away from the map to briefly inspect the munitions on the ground. “So, we’ve got four-hundred-thousand rounds of jacketed Z-16’s. Five belts of HP-Z tracers. Two crates of electro-magnetic plasma javelins - the nasty suckers with the blue tips. There’s about twenty in each crate. Four crates of Willy Petes. Three crates of N-45 incendiary smart grenades. Seven crates of Spartan Supercharges – the ones tipped with lewisite. That’ll blister up their lungs real good...” Mace paused to hold up a teardrop-shaped crystal bottle filled with a dark liquid. “And, most importantly, one bottle of French cognac.”
Hollsworth and the other officers chuckled.
“How the hell did you manage to smuggle this out here?” Mace queried.
Hollsworth shrugged. “Some of our officers are very resourceful.”
Mace stared at the bottle as if it were some magical elixir of good fortune. He felt the urge to drink the entire bottle right there on the spot. “I’m half inclined to drink this now. My other inclination is to use it to make some Molotov’s… however, I do believe that would be considered a war crime, Lieutenant. So, I think I’ll just go ahead and relieve you of this. Hold onto it for safekeeping.”
“Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to share a toast once this is all over, captain.”
“Maybe.” Mace gently placed the bottle down on a small table next to them and went back to the map projection. Back to business. “What’s left in your inventory?”
“Not much,” Hollsworth replied with raised eyebrows. “Our two emplacements have about three HP-Z belts left. We drained most of those in the first attack. There’s s
till a crate of signal flares, and we have maybe a few dozen Z-16’s, if that.”
“I’ve located a small supply of anti-personnel mines, sir,” said one of the nearby officers.
“How small?” Mace asked, turning to the freckle-faced cadet who appeared older than he sounded.
“Ten mines, sir.”
“That’ll slow ‘em down for about twenty seconds.” Mace turned back to face Hollsworth with a wan smile. “Just as well we showed up when we did.”
“I can assure you, captain, that point is not lost on me.” Hollsworth noticed Mace was now staring past him, fixed on the sandbag formations that surrounded the base’s main entrance. “What are you thinking, sir?”
Mace blinked before responding. “I’m thinking if they come at us directly through the middle, we won’t be able to create an effective bottleneck. What can you tell me about their previous incursions?”
“Based on how they’ve been attacking us, Dupes tend to be cagey about full-frontal assaults. They know we’re depleted, so chances are they’ll send in some grunts first to probe our perimeter – see if we’ve still got any active defenses. Once it kicks off, though, they’ll start sending in waves until we’re overwhelmed.”
Mace nodded, reflexing his wounded shoulder. The amount of morphine he had consumed earlier was enough to tranquilize a fully grown horse, so it still felt completely numb. “Whatever way they choose to come at us, we’ll use one of those TAVs as bait. Park it in the courtyard and leave the gate open. Private Reeves and I will take cover inside, making sure they see us first. We’ll draw them in, and when they get close enough, we’ll chop ‘em up with that turret - use what’s left of those HP-Z’s. We’ll also sprinkle those mines around the base’s inner perimeter – mix them with Supercharges, just to add some extra zing. Might even burn hot enough to get a Hellsting roast going after this is all over. Heard you can eat the base of the stinger. Meat’s real tender and sweet. Supposed to taste like Louisiana blue crab.”
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