by Isaac Stone
“Fall back!” I yelled, “On me, we need to get around them and back to the plateau!” I ran to the Invaders right flank because it seemed the weakest one.
I could hear the other guys’ boots thud on the ground as we raced to get around the Invader division. It wouldn’t take long for them to figure out what we were up to and send another wave after us. My one hope is that we could out distance them. Whoever was in command would figure it out soon enough.
Then a completely new vision presented itself.
Right in front, although it didn’t seem to hear us, was a green suit. It held some kind of box in its hands and furiously worked the controls to it. About three hundred feet beyond it were three more green suits. It was obvious to me this was a desertion and the one with the green box was trying to stop it. He made a gesture on the box and one of the green suits that was tried to escape fell over and lay still. From where we could see it, the green suit with the box reached down to pull another switch.
It never had the chance as Flash blew the helmet off it with his plasma rifle.
The helmet flew up in the air and came to a bloody rest on the ground. Two of the renegade green suits continued to run away.
Before I could say anything, Flash ran to the decapitated green suit and grabbed the box it held. He held it up in the air.
“Look at it Sarge,” he yelled to me. “This is how they do it! No one can run off or disobey if they know their C-O will blow them up inside those suits.” He began to fiddle with the controls to it.
A second later, we heard the sound of more boots in our direction. The stalkers had regrouped and were coming after us.
“Bring it along,” I told him. “Command can use it later. We need to get out of here and let the people up there know the Invaders are headed in their direction.”
“Sure,” Flash responded, “but I watched him work this thing. Maybe I can get it to work for us.”
I started to tell him to save the experiments for later when I heard the first stalker plunge through the trees in our direction. I whipped up my rifle and hit him directly with a full plasma bolt. He went down in a pile of twisted metal. The green suit was closer than I liked, but close enough to take the direct blast of the plasma.
Then the entire wave was upon us. I backed up and continued to fire away, yelling at the others to do the same. Metal suits flew through the air. They were packed in so tight I couldn’t miss. But everyone I hit was replaced by three more. They had us on the numbers and soon or guns would need to be recharged, not to mention the fact that my force of thirteen men had been whittled down to six in just a few minutes of blistering combat. This was not the recon mission I’d imagined.
The green wave crested two seconds later. Impact bolts crashed around me, it wouldn’t take much longer for them to finish us off. With their superior numbers and range, it didn’t take an expert marksman to take us down.
And then a green suit in front of me fell over. I found this a little strange as I hadn’t shot it and the suit was still intact. I figured it had to be from one of the other guys and continued to fire away at the suits.
Two more green suits fell on the ground and lay still. I stopped and looked as the entire wave collapsed in front of us. At last, I knew Flash had the secret of the box figured out.
I turned and he stood next to me. Flash frantically worked the control box. He saw me stare at him and made a gesture to the rear of the green suited horde.
“Get that one, Sarge, he’s the commander, there must be multiple units and I can only drop the guys connected to this box!”
I looked up and saw a green suit with an identical box to the one carried by Flash. I nailed him with my plasma rifle.
We held our ground, and by the end of it myself and Flash were all that remained of my ill-fated recon team. Frank would have made it had it not been for his bayonet getting stuck in the armor of one green suit, giving another the chance to blow his head off at point blank range. Flash and I ran as fast as we could back to the base of the plateau, the recon aborted but at least the box in hand. Hell of a price to pay for a little metal box.
FIFTEEN
The next day we received the first signal in weeks from the Force.
As usual we were exchanging blows with the Invaders when Hamid came and got me from the mess tent. I’d spent most of the evening working on the defenses with everyone else. We worked in shifts and even the Sisters took turns helping to haul out dirt from the place we were trying to dig. My thought was that the bunkers didn’t have to be too deep, just low enough to keep everyone out of the way if the Invaders should try to unleash some missiles on the top of the plateau. If they did hit us from orbit it would be over very quick. It wouldn’t matter if we were inside a bunker or not. Likewise nuclear weapons. I relied on them following standard procedure. This meant they would attempt another wave attack up the side of the plateau. When that failed, they would see if the dinosaurs could crawl up the same location. As I have said, the Invaders were predictable.
“Sarge!” Hamid called out to me. “We got the Force on the line! You need to come and talk to them!”
When I made it over to the day tent, Captain Daphne was already talking to someone at Command. She saw me run into the tent and handed the microphone to me. I gently took it from her and sat down at the chair in front of the radio when she stood up.
“This is Sergeant Claymore, “I told them. “When are you coming to bail us out of this place?”
“Claymore?” the voice on the other end said to me. “We thought you were dead. There has been no word from the capitol or any other location since the Invaders came through that port.” It was hard to hear the speaker over the static, but he sounded to be in his forties.
“Pick up time?” I repeated.
“Two days,” he said to me. “Where are you located? The captain said it was on a plateau south of the capitol.”
I gave him the coordinates.
“Be ready at that time. What is the situation with the Invaders?”
“They’ve moved several divisions below us, but I think we have a way to beat them. Can you take our dinosaur too?”
“Of course, we’re not going to leave a valuable fighting dinosaur down there. Have everyone ready for immediate evacuation at the time I gave you. We’ll try to pin down the Invaders, but this will be quick. Over and out.” I placed the microphone down on top of the radio.
I turned to the captain. “Can you get Terry armored up and ready?” I asked her. “We’re going to need him.”
“Consider it already done,” she told me. “I can have the armor unfolded on him and ready to go in five minutes.”
“What about the weapons array?”
“Takes another ten. After that last assault wave I had to recalibrate the arc cannons and give the armor a good scrub. I’m headed over there right now.” She took off in the direction of Terry’s pen.
We finished the bunkers ten minutes before the first mortar round fell. I was standing in front of the trench to it when I heard a loud whump in the air. The shock wave almost knocked me over. I caught my breath and heard a voice yell, “That mega-kaiju is coming at us!”
I ran to the edge of the observation post and saw the monstrosity standing at the base of the ruined steps. A few green suits were trying to find their way up the rubble, but the mega-kaiju was the one weapon they wanted to use. I watched as a tube recoiled on its back and another round soured up in the sky. The mortar came down and left one of our supply tents a smoking crater, who knows how many people were inside when it hit.
That mega-kaiju was a mobile gun platform.
Okay, motherfuckers, I thought, we can do that too, but guess what? We have the high ground!
There was a familiar crashing sound behind me and I saw Terry lumber over to my side of the plateau. Now he was ready for action with the armor suit around him and the weapons array on his back. Captain Daphne was inside her pod as she directed Terry to move into position.
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br /> Terry roared and walked to the edge of the plateau. He leaned over and I watched as the wings of his weapon launcher spread out. Captain Daphne saw what needed to be done. All we had to do was hang back and make sure none of the stalkers down the hill tried to take advantage of Terry’s exposure.
We needn’t have worried.
The weapon rack spun up and I saw the lights on it change from green to yellow to red. Terry unleashed his full missile pod down the ramp at the target below. There was a concussion when the missiles hit their targets at the bottom of the blasted stairs. Rocks were hurled high into the air after the flash of the explosion and I watched parts of stalkers flung high into the sky too.
Somehow, the mega-kaiju survived. The blast knocked it over, but the monster stood up and growled a challenge to Terry.
By now, legions of the stalkers were running in what I could only call a suicide attack against our position. Terry roared and let loose with his second salvo of missiles, emptying the pod. Each one exploded in a ball of fire that sent dirt, rocks, and green suits high in the air. I watched in awe as the bottom of what had been the steps was reduced to a burnt-out hulk of fire and smoke.
The Invader's mega-kaiju returned fire, its massive mortar rounds chasing Terry as the reptilian defender leapt and darted out of the way, their deadly dance leaving a swathe of destruction in its wake. I was glad the settlers were inside the bunker, because the artillery duel being waged between the two giants was pulverizing our pitiful camp. At least the mega-kaiju was pre-occupied with Terry now that our boy had its attention, as more focused mortar fire would have wiped us out.
With our defensive structured getting turned into smoldering craters and the stalkers legions in full frontal assault, the only thing for we marines to do was meet their charge with our own. If we stayed behind our meager trenches and barricades we’d have been pulped by the tremendous artillery barrage coming from the mega-kaiju, even if it was focusing its fire on Terry for the moment. With our heads down the stalkers would be able to overrun our positions and get at the settlers, which was something I wasn’t about to allow, not after all of this. We had come too far to just lay down now. I bellowed for a bayonet charge and to their credit the ragtag felons that comprised what remained of Raptor Nine answered my call with battle cries of their own.
As one we surged over the plateau and charged straight at the enemy with guns blazing. Just as I leapt over the edge of the trench I heard a roar and looked to see that Terry and the captain were joining us. The dino mech’s missile pods were empty and his arc cannons couldn’t penetrate the mega-kaiju’s armor, so it looked like Captain Daphne, or maybe even Terry, had decided it was time to stop running and take the fight straight to the enemy. As we attacked I noticed Hagia running and shooting to my right. Hamid and Flash were on my left. Terry hurling himself over us in a gravity defying kamikaze leap. If I was gonna die in a few seconds I found myself happy to do it next to these beautiful bastards.
SIXTEEN
Terry’s shadow loomed over us and I risked turning my head to see him. The dino mech temporarily eclipsed the sun as he sailed past us, firing his arc cannons at the handlers of the great beast and I followed his trajectory as he came down right on top of the mega-kaiju with a meaty thud. Instantly it became clear just how deadly a tyrannosaurus rex with augmented combat jaws and nothing to lose could be. Though the mega-kaiju was three times the size of Terry, and heavily armored, it was designed as a living gun platform. Once the dino mech had its jaws and claws into the fray all the mega-kaiju could do was thrash and bleed.
My awareness shrunk down to the Invader in front of me, and I blasted two neat holes through its green metal suit. As it fell another raised its weapon, and I let my momentum carry me forward so that I could slam my titanium bayonet through the alien’s mid-section. I’m told that bayonets were eliminated from military training over two hundred years ago, but that Battle Force Jurassic, at the request of the old man back on our training asteroid, had brought them back.
The Invaders were unprepared for the ferocity and reckless bravado of our charge, and as we closed distance our forces mowed them down until we were close enough to use our bayonets. I was starting to understand how those sisters, badass as they were for sure, were able to kill so many stalkers in hand-to-hand combat. These guys sucked at it, hard. It was like they couldn’t wrap their alien brains around the idea that sentient beings would kill each other with anything but firearms.
It was a slaughter.
To their credit, the stalkers never surrendered and never ran away, even though they died in the hundreds. I was too busy murdering the alien scum to see how the fight between Terry and the mega-kaiju went, but I heard it was epic. When I did finally look around the battlefield, after the last stalker fell at my feet, I saw Terry. He was covered in blood, and though some of it was his most of it was from the mega-kaiju. It wasn’t until I stared at the dinosaur for a few moments that I realized Terry was standing inside the torn remains of the mega-kaiju. As I watched the tyrannosaurus ripped huge chunks out of the splattered beast and swallowed them. It was gruesome. It was horrifying. It was awesome.
SEVENTEEN
I had the settlers and Sisterhood leave the bunker after we were sure there weren’t more Invaders about to return. Just the same, we had provisions stashed down there in case there was a problem during the pick-up. I’d learned to plan for the worst-case scenario this time and I didn’t expect the situation to improve any time soon.
The signal came in from Orbital that afternoon. Flash ran and let me know they’d were contacted and told to expect a drop shuttle in the next few minutes. I took the microphone as soon as I was in the communications tent and talked to the Duty Chief on board the station.
“What’s the situation on the planet?” I told him. “How about the capitol?”
“We’re picking up a few scattered survivors here and there,” he told me, but none from the capitol. “We haven’t been able to raise them since we took back control of the jump point. We destroyed their jump point, so this group they sent in to take back the planet won’t be headed any place.”
By the time the drop shuttle appeared, it was hot outside. All of the blood and bodies had really started to stink. We stood in the center of the plateau and guided down the shuttle as it slowly descended from the sky. I made sure there were sentries placed on all points around the plane. The last thing I wanted to happen was for an Invader sniper to take it down.
Right behind it was a second drop shuttle for Terry and the captain.
We waited a few minutes for the ramp to open on the shuttle. When it did, a huge cheer rose up from the assembled settlers. The men who emerged from the ramp were a collection of copilots and cargo handlers with a few Air Guards with them. They fanned out and made sure the landing zone was secure before we were allowed to bring anything inside the shuttle.
The captain and I greeted the Lieutenant who brought down the shuttle after he was sure it was safe to kill the engines. He walked out and looked the grounds over before coming up to us.
“Lieutenant,” I asked him. “Did you have any communication with the defenders of the capitol?”
“A few scattered here and there,” he told me.
“There was a sergeant named Zhuang,” I told him. “Have you any word on him?”
“I’m sorry,” he told me. “I don’t have a list of everyone. I will say your group is the only one that seems to have sustained only seventy percent casualties, most every other unit has been destroyed or catastrophically reduced.” He turned and looked at the assembled Sisters of Babylon who stood next to the settlers.
“Who the hell are they?” he asked.
“Holy women,” I told him and he seemed satisfied with my answer, even if a bit curious.
“We have to get out of here quick, “he explained on the way back to the shuttle. “The Force is pulling everything it has out of here. We’re all needed elsewhere else.”
“More
trouble?” I asked.
“A lot. There’s a huge Invader armada that jumped space last week. We’ve counted two thousand ships in it. The Force needs everything it has.
“If we leave without wiping out the surviving Invaders we will have yet another planetary insurgency,” I pointed out, reluctant to leave yet another battle only half won.
“Then your Zhuang and whomever else survived will have to cleanse the planet on their own,” nodded the Lieutenant gravely, “Let us hope at least a few of their dino mechs are still operational.”
As I boarded the shuttle, being the last man off the ground, I turned and looked back at the ravaged plateau upon which we had fought so hard.
“It would have made a good temple world,” said Hagia over my shoulder, “A shame to leave it in the hands of the enemy.”
“If Zhuang is out there it won’t be an Invader held world for long,” I growled with a fierce certainty that I hoped wasn’t just for show as I turned to close the hatch, “This universe is too small for humans and Invaders both.”
EPISODE 3: LAST GOOD FIGHT
ONE
We were in deep space a long time before the jump point was reached.
Although the Invader’s jump point was closer to us, the Force decided to use the one further away. It was built by the Alliance and they trusted it. There were too many uncertainties about the one built by the Invaders. Although the Force had it isolated and under their control, there was still some concern that it could be used by the Invaders to bring in another landing force. For that reason, it wasn’t an option for us.