Enemy Front

by T. E. Butcher

  They walked up to the elevator door. Sections of the mountain receded as a massive hole for the elevator revealed itself. Deep below, a wide platform slowly crawled towards them.

  “It’s taking its sweet time,” Gallant told him over the open net. “Dino and I are working on it. Looks like its affected by the facility’s lockdown protocol.”

  “Ours or theirs?” He asked. No sooner had he said it than he decided it didn’t really matter. At the end of the day, the elevator burned precious seconds while their people were in danger.

  “Unknown,” Gallant replied.

  “We should have plenty of room to maneuver,” Reiter said. “They future proofed this place as much as they could, including making the bay areas big enough for what they imagined future panzerters to be.” Kennedy nodded. He’d heard Reiter’s words, but hey didn’t mean much to him. All he could focus on was the elevator crawling up towards them. Somewhere down there, Guard-Major Ivy Irving was in danger. His grip on the controls tightened. I’m coming Ivy.

  As soon as the new car pulled up, Starnes and Jon leaped into the back. In the front, a driver manually drove the vehicle while the chief of the Capitol Police rode shotgun. Before he could say anything else, Starnes and Jon spoke immediately.

  “To the Capitol!” They cried. They raced past the bodies of the two slain Unionists in the road, past the police barricades being put up, and past the legal speed limit. I hope we make it in time.

  As they neared the Capitol Square, crowds of people began to fill the streets. The police chief pulled a hand mic off the dash and called out to the units on parade duty.

  “Begin evacuating the square,” he said. “And be on the lookout for a van filled with armed men, gunmen wearing red and black armbands. Leader is a man with an eyepatch.” The eyepatch bit was a distinct detail, as people missing eyes were unheard of in Tharsis. Most workplaces and town’s health insurance plans covered the regeneration treatments necessary to have a damaged or torn eye repaired. Unless there was something anomalous, it was a pretty successful treatment.

  “Where’s the President?” Starnes asked. The Chef turned to look at him while watching his computer.

  “She’s isolated at the pavilion where she’s supposed to give her speech,” he said. “She’s indoors with her entourage, but we can’t move her with all the people in the crowd nearby.” Starnes pictured the pavilion in his mind and frowned.

  “That structure isn’t bullet resistant, isn’t it,” he said. “We need to plus up the surrounding detail.” The crowd parted as police made a hole for the chief’s vehicle. As they headed towards the pavilion, Starnes kept his eyes peeled for the gunmen. How could we lose them? They saw the vehicle, they have their plates. How did they bugger this up?

  As if to answer his question, a call came over the radio. “We believe found the suspect’s van,” an officer said. “It looks like they had a plate blocker.” The Chief swore as Starnes sighed. A plate blocker would have gotten them pulled over a long time ago, but for the situation of avails traffic camera tracking, it did the job.

  “Approach with caution,” the chief said. “It’s possible that they rig-” the crowd screamed as an explosion bloomed from a parking garage nearby. “-it to explode, son of a bitch.” Their car rolled to a stop near the pavilion as the president hunkered down in. Her security detail formed a line in front of the street the pavilion faced, with a perpendicular street to the right being used to evacuate the square. The pavilion sat on the bottom of a low, but steep cut into a green that made a natural Amphitrite. A few other members of the detail kept an eye on the crowd as a few people pushed against the police line.

  “Hold it right there,” one of the security team members said. “I’m going to need to see some ID.” The police chief lept out of the car swearing.

  “I’m the damn police, chief you twit!” he cried.

  “Let them through!” Emma called as she emerged from the pavilion. She’d forgone her normal casual outfit for khaki tactical pants and an FSB windbreaker with her badge hanging on her neck. The security detail parted and let them up, and Emma met them halfway up the hill.

  “Well, tactically this sucks,” Starnes said. Jon nodded in agreement.

  “It practically cedes the high ground to a potential threat,” he said. “Who all is here?”

  “The president, her husband and sister, some members of the Provincial Watch Bureau, as well as some senators and local politicians,” Emma rattled off. “Too many to discreetly move and the space is too angular for an airlift.”

  “So there’s no way to get a pegasus in here?” Starnes asked. Before he could get an answer, he heard gun shots. Lots of gunshots.

  “Get down!” The chief cried as several members of the detail fell. Starnes couldn’t tell whether they’d been hit, but didn’t have the chance. Emma and the chief drew sidearms and urged them to get to the pavilion. While Jon and Starnes ran down the hill, the gunman opened up on them from above.

  The detail team watching the opposite street opened fire as well, and screams rose from the crowd nearby. Starnes turned just in time to see the chief’s head explode. Picking up the pace, he got to the door just in time to turn and see Emma fall and take several hits from the gunman.

  When she fell, she raised her pistol in defiance at the nearest gunman. The shooter kicked her pistol away before shooting her in the head. He looked up and made eye contact with Starnes. As the one eyed man smiled, Starnes and Jon slammed the doors shut.

  25

  Mo trained his rifle on the man in the door. He grit his teeth as the man smiled at them with his pistol raised, the light behind him making him look extra skeletal. Irving cradled Rosetti’s head while Wesser applied a field dressing to the gunshot wound. The other kids stood behind Mo, Dusek and Ozol as the drop troopers added their weapons to the mix.

  “You won’t shoot me,” he crowed. “I’m far more valuable alive.” Mo clicked his safety off.

  “I think we’re willing to make an exception,” he said. “Why would you shoot her?”

  “She was an enemy combatant,” he replied.

  “She was unarmed,” Dusek snarled. “You violated the Geneva convention!”

  “It’s your fault we’re even in this mess,” Irving barked. “You were supposed to expand the gene pool and develop super crops, you know, so we can eat!”

  “Yes, but I solved our pilot problem,” he said. “With every battle we lose veteran pilots, now we’ll never lose another ace ever again.” Irving growled at the doctor.

  “That doesn’t change a damn thing if the rest of us starve!” She bellowed. Winona sobbed softly behind them, cradling Hans, who patted her back. Mo took his eyes of Doctor Weathers briefly to glance at them. And he released Webb was missing.

  He looked back just in time to see him swing up over a balcony, tackling the doctor to the floor. The gun discharged harmlessly into the ceiling, and after a few muffled grunts, Webb stood back up.

  “Get everyone in here,” he said. Gingerly, Wesser and Irving carried Rosetti onto the observation deck with Mo and the others dragging the kids in there. The blackout windows served as a backdrop to monitors that displayed multiple rooms in the facility, specifically the bay areas. Mo stopped and looked at one displaying the previous room over. Holtslander hid among the rafters, rocket at the ready. The panzerters stalked about below him, occasionally hunching closer to the room to examine it. The human-like behavior made him uncomfortable.

  “It’s a panic room,” Wesser said. She kneeled next to Rosetti and looked up at Webb and the others. “He’s been here this whole time.” Weathers stirred on the ground, his face swelling already near his left eye.

  “I can’t allow my research to fall into your hands,” he said. “You superstitious lot, with your arbitrary moral codes, your oppressive limits. Who are you to decide right and wrong?” Mo grit his teeth.

  “You really want to go down that hole?” Mo asked. “We’re not the ones forcing people to
fight after death. We don’t grow people in tubes to use like cattle, we-“

  “Are preventing perfect Union,” Weathers muttered. “That’s the real evil. You limit people with your false morality and chain down human potential.”

  “Shut up!” Webb shouted. But Weathers reached inside his shirt and clicked something. Suddenly, the panzerters all oriented on the far wall of the previous chamber. On them.

  “What did you do?” Irving asked. Weathers smiled, an eerie expression if Mo had ever seen one.

  “I sent out the rescue signal,” he said. “They’ll move heaven and Mars to come get to me.” Hammering echoed through the hidden chamber. Mo couldn’t see how the walls held up, but he didn’t trust it.

  “We got two panzerters, coming down the main elevator,” Dusek said. “Type unknown.”

  “Great, more are coming from up top,” Wesser said and looked over at Webb. The drop trooper was laser focused on one of the monitors. When Mo stepped behind him, he saw why.

  Holtslander lowered himself to about head level with the panzerters with his frame’s grappling hook. Twisting in place, he took careful aim with his rocket on the panzerters, trying to pound their way into the hidden section.

  “Come on man,” Webb muttered. “Don’t do it.” Another panzerter entered through the door they’d previously destroyed. As it did, Holtslander fired his rocket, striking one of the tinhats in the back of the head. As the recoil spun him around, he saw the newcomer as two of the panzerters at the false wall faced him. The drop trooper slung the tube and saluted the panzerters, still spinning in place.

  The newcomer stepped up and swatted him with a massive fist. His grappling line still dangled, although Holtslander was gone. Webb set a hand on the monitor and rested his hand on the wall.

  “Holt,” he said. The Doctor wheezed.

  “A foolish endeavour, a single man can’t stand against a panzerter, let alone one of mine,” he said. Webb didn’t reply at first. Instead, he silently walked over to the wounded older man. Taking his chin in one hand, and the back of his head in another, he twisted Weathers’s head with a sickening crack. Winona screamed and Wesser looked away.

  Mo had to as well, when he realized something. The hammering had stopped.

  “Why are they stopping,” Rosi asked, but when Mo looked at the monitor, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He cried.

  Reiter shouted with effort. His long Tesla Blade cleaved a tinhat from shoulder to hip. The Union machine fell into two pieces. Kennedy circled around from behind him, his sword-axe splitting another’s head in two. As two more entered from an adjunct hanger area, Reiter brought his railgun to bear. The 120-mm superheavy slugs easily punched holes in them while knocking the encroaching tinhats back.

  “Honestly, this is all very surreal,” Kennedy said as he fell in behind him and they advanced to the next area. They’d hardly spoken since they’d entered the facility. Partially, because they didn’t have much to say, and a mission to complete. It didn’t hurt that most of their tactics came intuitively.

  “Probably more so for you than me,” Reiter replied. “I normally shoot the shit out of tinhats, or Martians, or whatever the hell you call them.” They paused when they picked up movement on the other end of the long hall. Reiter raised his forearm cannon and dumped rapid fire tungsten-nickel rounds into the emerging tinhats.

  A few yellow streaks answered him, but they impacted against his torso armor. The combination of spaced super Chobham and thermal dampener held, and after Kennedy added his under barrel laser to the fray, they pressed on. As their heavy footfalls echoed through the empty facility, they looked for more targets.

  “Where do you think they are?” Kennedy asked. “According to my last message, they’d been cut off from escaping to areas the panzerters couldn’t access.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Wesser said,” Reiter replied. “If I had to bet money, they’re in a safe room somewhere near these hangers.” They continued in relative silence. There should only be four left at most.

  “Any Union or Tharcian forces, this is a rescue,” Kennedy said over his loud speaker. Reiter echoed him with his own. Before they knew it, they entered a massive open hanger space. Multiple ruined catwalks scattered among the floor and a ruined bay door lay smashed on the floor, exposing a further room back. Three more tinhats rushed out of the hole, with a fourth wielding a sword-axe pole arm following them. Is that some kind of leader type?

  Reiter absorbed hits from their strange rifles while dumping magnetic cannons and railgun fire into the nearest tinhat. The unit crumpled before reaching him, but provided an opening for the next one to swing on him with a glowing yellow sword. The leader met Kennedy as he circled around him, his sword-axe just barely catching the pole arm.

  The two tin hats moving on Reiter die him and Kennedy. Just as he parried one blow, another came. Each movement flowed into the next, as if he fought a single opponent. Kennedy fared little better as the leader backed him into a corner. So this is the advantage of direct, instant communication between people. Kennedy’s sword axe fell to the floor as the leader knocked it from his hands.

  “Kennedy,” He said as he bashed one tinhat and hurled his long blade at the leader. The Leader left clear of the blade, but it wasn’t Reiter’s intent to hit him. Kennedy pulled the blade from the wall, its blue glow flickering as it suddenly drew power from a much weaker engine. He parried the next blow from the leader as Reiter dropped his shield and drew his short blades.

  Just in time, he caught the blades of his opponents with his own. He spun, firing his head, mounted fifty cals into the sensor ring of one while lashing out at the other. The twin blades severed its arms before impaling the hapless tinhat.

  The opening gave Reiter just enough time to while around and fire his railgun into the blind one. The tinhat crumbled as its chest caved in. And then there was one. The final tinhat fought like a crazed berserker, spinning, slashing, and parrying both of them. Reiter began putting his weight behind every strike, and Kennedy did the same.

  Their heavier machines forced the tinhat back, driving it away from the corner and towards the center of the room. Sweat beaded on his head, and his mouth felt cottony. It occurred to him that a key advantage their opponent had been it didn’t tire, and it didn’t feel pain. His and Kennedy’s movements grew slower and sloppier.

  Just when it looked like the tinhat would seize the advantage, Kennedy’s blade lodged itself about half way into the pole arm.

  “Reiter, do it!” Kennedy shouted. He whirled on the tinhats exposed back. The tinhat tried to turn and face him, but failed to disengage from Kennedy. Reiter’s short blades entered both sides of the tinhats head and he pulled at them.

  Metal screeched and tore, exposing a small green cylinder within. After a few pulses, the light inside went out. Permanently.

  “Get down!” Starnes cried. He tackled Rebekah and the President, forcing both to the floor. Gunfire perforated the walls of the pavilion’s small backstage area. When it finally stopped, a few politicians lay on the ground. One, an elderly man, looked up at Starnes with pleading eyes. Blood poured out of his mouth and started to foam.

  Before Starnes could say anything else, Jon called out to him. “Hey, there’s a basement, this way!” He pushed the survivors towards the door. They all stayed low, doing their best to crawl over the shattered glass and debris. He looked back as they began standing up and rushing down the basement stairs. The president, her husband, Rebekah, a few of the generals. Starnes counted them off as they escaped, but he heard voices and footsteps approaching from outside.

  Damn, they’re close! He looked up at Jon. The First Nation man held a finger to his lips and motioned for Starnes to go. Before the Major could protest, someone kicked in the door shouting about Revolution. Starnes nodded and slipped down the basement stairs as Jon closed the door behind him. He scrambled down the stairs as he heard a series of pops and bangs behind him. Godspeed Jon.

  “Where are the others?�
�� Rebekah asked. Starnes shook his head and turned a flashlight on his phone.

  “We need to move,” he said. “Now.” He led them down a long, dark tunnel.

  “Do you even know where this goes, Major?” Asked General Weig, head of the provincial watch bureau. “Now that we’re out of that situation, I believe I need to take command of the situation.”

  “It goes to the Western plaza,” Konrad Stockhausen, the president’s husband, said. “A small outbuilding, they use it for acting troupes all the time, for the cast and crew.”

  “How can you be sure of that?” General Weig said. “Have you walked these tunnels yourself?”

  “I have actually,” Konrad said. “I was King Lear in the play of the same name.” General Weig sneered.

  “I bet you consider yourself a real renaissance man,” he said, earning him a harsh glare from the President.

  “Insult my husband again, Weig,” she said. “You’ll get reassigned to Titan that fast.” She then steeled herself. “Thank you for your dedication Major, your efforts have been noticed.” Starnes shrugged.

  “I’m just doing what I have to do,” he said. “The traitor damn near put Haussner on his deathbed, I owe it to him to see all of this through.” Something rumbled overhead, causing dust to fall from the ceiling.

  “What’s that?” Rebekah asked.

  “Panzerters most likely,” Starnes said. “I saw a few on patrol duty on my way over, they’re probably trying to see what’s happening near capitol square.” They kept walking down the long, dark hallway. As they continued, Starnes noticed Rebekah standing closer and closer to him. Eventually, she grabbed his free arm for security.

  Finally, they reached a door over a short set of stairs. The door took them to a spiral metal staircase that ascended to a modest building. A short look around told him it was one of many souvenir stores yet cropped up around the area.