by Mark Bordner
From the rooftop of the museum, the officers watched this aerial assault with disillusionment. From what they could see, there were two jets harassing the city limit, and at least another three gunships remaining after the one that had been shot down. It was amazing how much damage a few aircraft could inflict in so short a time.
Far to the north-west, there was a glow from that direction as well--- the fires burning from the air strike on the Attayan brigade. A comm-link had been restored with Captain Sunwa, who informed them that while the APC’s had been destroyed, most of his brigade was intact and proceeding south on foot to carry out their portion of the planned attack.
To the south-west, the artillery unit at Enon had yet to re-establish communications--- along with Alpha Company. There were still fresh explosions blooming from that quadrant, telling of an on-going aerial strike. All of this had scarcely been going on for a half-hour, and the Storians were already making a name for themselves.
“Where the hell is our air support?” Strasburg demanded into the command net.
The orbital ship replied a moment later, “There was some delay in getting our alert fighters launched, but they’re on their way!”
Sergeant Major Ford cut in, “We need a squadron over Enon! We have friendlies getting hit over there as well!”
Attayan Colonel Lafferty was intently studying the attack patterns of the Storian birds while consulting his visor tactical, “We need to do more than engage these fighters,” he stated on the comm-net. “The Dayton Airport needs to be leveled!”
There was a significant pause on the net, then Lt. General Towers himself cut in and spoke up, “An artillery strike on one of our own compromised military installations is one thing, but bombing a civilian airport is beyond our jurisdiction. Only the President can authorize that.”
Lafferty tried to sound respectful, “Then let’s get her permission, Sir. It’s an opportunity to get their aircraft while they still have some on the ground!”
Another pause, then, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“He’ll see what he can do.” Ford grumbled after breaking the connection.
Jets launching rockets straight into the high-rise buildings less than a block away sent glass and fire flying through the air with a sharp clap of thunder. He hoped that the brass didn’t take too damned long in wading through the red-tape, because the city was facing a real beating.
Spaced out along the park that bordered the waterfront, Minerva’s company fought tooth-and-nail to hold the bridge that connected the eastern end of the city with the west. Storian air cavalry had made chopper-shuttle landings on the western side, and their infantry was pushing an attempt to cross.
She had one platoon fanned out on either side of the ramps, pouring arms fire across the way, while the other platoon divided the lanes of the bridge itself. It was difficult enough to hold their ground under the withering fire of more machine guns than any of the marines had yet to see in one place to date, but to add to the punishment, the enemy helos were making one pass after another, strafing C-Company’s position.
Minerva was among the platoon members that were lying prone on the bridge itself, using abandoned vehicles for cover. Plasma bolts thwacked and slapped into the thick metal of an armored van from the 1st National Bank where she cowered, wishing that her squads were graced with more MG crews. The din from the fire fight was deafening enough without the added noise of the aircraft and their heavy weapons.
She peeked around the cab of the van for a look, only to be forced back under a wash of bolts that sent sparks flying in front of her visor. Minerva noticed one of her troopers kneeling near the rear bumper with one of the bazooka-like ATR tubes balanced on one shoulder. They never fired. Wondering what the hold-up was, she skirted over.
“What the heck are you waiting for?” She demanded.
No response. She reached out, and thumped them on the shoulder plate with a fist. The marine keeled over, dropping the weapon. It was only then that she saw the neat hole punched through the helmet, just above the visor.
Without time to think, she reached over, and pulled the ATR towards her. There was no chance to attempt to use it, as yet another Storian gunship thumped overhead, spewing gatling rounds across the lanes.
“Holy shit!” Ecu screamed over the company frequency, sounding breathless and panicked.
Minerva glanced back and forth, trying to spot her, but at the moment, every armored marine looked alike. Smoke swirled like a thickening fog, lit by the flashes of plasma and grenade explosions. It was impossible to see beyond her own company area. The Storians could be advancing on them unseen, and she’d never know it. Without a target to home in on, she leaned around the edge of the van, and let loose a rocket just for good measure. It lanced into the cloud with a hot trail of accelerant, disappearing beyond. A moment later, a throaty explosion that was brighter than the others flashed and boomed. She knew that she’d hit something out there, but would never know what it was.
Being surrounded by the murky smoke made her feel isolated from the rest of the division, and that was not a good sensation, especially so under the circumstances. The only reassurance to come was the searing roar of anti-aircraft fire pounding out from the banks of the park, chasing after the Storian helos and jets.
“Second Platoon, move up!” Minerva ordered.
Within the span of a few minutes, another fifty of her troopers began to rush in, bulking the force up. She felt better prepared to fend off an attack if one came. Hopefully, the barrage that was streaming down the span of the four lanes would hold the Storians at bay. This was one time that Minerva had to deal with a serious situation entirely on her own. Ford was far behind, in the city center, and her husband in another town altogether. The other companies were bogged down with skirmishes of their own to contend with. There was no one to call for help.
A terrific explosion rocked the bridge from beneath as a Storian jet came shrieking in, spinning and trailing flames. It had crashed into the concrete struts right under the on-ramp that Minerva’s company was holding.
Christ! She thought desperately. Please get us through this one!
Enon, Ohio
Nearly forty minutes after the air attack had begun, Space Navy fighters finally made their appearance and began engaging the Storian attackers. The dog fight was low and furious, with errant rounds constantly showering across the battered town. The troops and civilians alike had no choice but to simply stay in their shelters and hide.
There were two anti-aircraft batteries still operational and the gun crews tried gallantly to participate in shooting at the enemy craft, but great care was needed in avoiding hitting the Navy shuttles. It made their attempts a limited effort. The noise, while not as overwhelming as the artillery pieces or the rocket attack, was still horribly loud. The dark of night was a constant nightmare of bright flashes and streams of plasma both out-bound and in-coming.
Master Sergeant Corbin risked poking his head out of the hole that he had hunkered in to take a look around. Most of the western edge of the neighborhood was on fire, and there was a brighter glow yet further to the west, where the Air Force base was burning--- spewing clouds of smoke into the air. So, the artillery had done its job. He asked himself where these Storian fighters were flying in from.
The Navy made a kill--- one of the jet-shuttles blowing a Storian out of the air in the direction of the freeway, its burning hulk falling to the ground. The gunship helo-shuttles began taking hits, as they were not as fast or agile as the jet craft. The battle for the air began to swing in favor of the Allies, at least for the moment.
Mark keyed the company freq, “Alright, people! We don’t know if any Storian infantry might be coming as a follow-up attack, so keep your eyes open! Watch your fields of fire!”
He peered east and saw that there were huge flames off in that direction as well. It seemed that the Storians had managed to launch a coordinated series of air strikes. Mark tried the battalion channel.
After a few seconds pause that seemed much longer, she answered, her voice strained under the back-ground noise of battle.
“I’m okay, Babe,” she said, breathing hard, “Really busy right now, talk to you later!”
Mark swallowed. Every time they were in a fight, he worried about her. They had been married only a short time, and the thought of her being hurt, or worse, weighed heavily on his mind. “Love you, Minerva, be careful.”
There was no reply. She was evidently in the thick of it. A Navy jet took a hit overhead with a splitting crack, and flame trailed behind it as it screamed down not far from their eastern flank, exploding in a great fireball on a hillside. He mentally corrected himself, they were all in the thick of it right then.
“I see movement on the east flank!” Someone called out.
Mark broke connection to the net, turning to belly-crawl over the grass to the next nearest foxhole. He scanned the ridge, flipping between normal visor-vision and infrared. He spotted better than a dozen figures scurrying low across the field, coming in the direction of his outpost. The 60-watt gunners already had their weapons trained on them, and were waiting for his word to let loose.
The master sergeant was just about to give the order to fire when blue dots appeared, his visor projecting them onto the figures. “Hold your fire!” Mark called out. “They’re friendlies!”
The machine gunners tilted their thick barrels upward in response. Mark keyed the company frequency.
“Those of you approaching Enon’s perimeter, identify yourselves, or you could get fired upon!”
The figures paused in their advance, crouching lower. One furthest in the lead, perhaps a few hundred yards out yet, made a hand signal to those behind. A voice came back, crackled with static.
“It’s Sergeant Jamal, Army Hundred and First Airborne. We thought you could use a hand, over.”
Mark relaxed, letting out a breath of relief, “Jamal, good to see you, my friend. Come on in.”
The Marines watched as the fourteen-man squad rose, and hurried toward them, never so happy to see an Army grunt in their lives. When the heat was on, every extra
gun was a welcome one.
Springfield
The aerial battles raged for the better part of two hours before tapering off, with the Space Navy fighters finally fending off the Storians. Fires were wide-spread. Marines labored alongside the fire departments in their effort to quell the flames and rescue people from blown-out buildings, and the resulting piles of rubble. Sirens blared from emergency vehicles as they tried to navigate the littered streets, and Marine medevac helos ferried patients to the hospitals. GNN filmed the pandemonium for the evening feed.
At a quarter-past eleven, authorization at last came from the President--- neutralize the Dayton Airport by whatever means prudent. Colonel Strasburg ordered the immediate response from the 22nd Attayan Elite Aviation Wing.
A high-altitude bomber dropped from orbit and crossed the eastern seaboard, its instruments fixing on the assigned target. As it passed over New York State at 60,000 feet, moving at an incredible rate, the pilot issued a 1-minute warning.
All of the ground forces scrambled for shelter, hurrying the civilians around them to do the same. Activity quickly dribbled to a halt and an uneasy quiet fell over the city. Silently and without visual warning, the 20-ton Thermite weapon was released from the
bomber. It sailed unseen toward the earth, adjusting its trajectory with minute puffs of accelerant, and glided right down on the airport. At 1000 feet, it detonated. The explosion was one-level beneath current nuclear capacity. The sky lit brighter than day as the initial flash wave bloomed outward, then the air split with the concussion---rocking buildings and shattering still more windows throughout the city. The ground heaved and buildings rocked as the shock waves swept past.
When the trembling eased, people emerged from hiding to take in the sight of the gigantic, roiling mushroom cloud rising toward the heavens. The airport and all of the Storian elements stationed there were vaporized--- unfortunately taking a good radius of surrounding city with it.
The aggressive force of the strike stunned the Storians into a period of silence as they paused to consider what their own next moves might be while the Allies ratcheted-up the intensity of their responses.
The fight for the Springfield Bridge had begun to swing into Allied favor when a pair of armored half-tracks arrived, much to Minerva’s relief. They motored up the on-ramp, Bushmasters blazing, and positioned themselves nose-to-nose at the head of C-Company’s line. The crews had brought an abundance of ATR’s with them, and piled out to distribute them. Soon, heavy fire and rockets were filling the haze-filled night with a storm of plasma. Blasts thundered non-stop from the western side of the bridge, and the marines realized that Storian fire had dwindled to a stop after twenty sustained minutes. Their own out-going rounds were all that were flying.
“Cease fire!” Minerva ordered.
The shooting eased to a few tentative shots, then died out. Space Navy fighters were taking down the last remaining Storian gunships, sending them splashing into the water.
For the first time in over an hour, Minerva was able to ease down onto her knees, and take measured breaths, forcing calm. She was trembling, both from fear, and a bath of adrenaline. The sounds of battle winding down from the rest of the city seemed distant, and muffled. The quiet that was falling felt both welcome, and overwhelming at the same time. That new peace was short-lived, though, as cries from the wounded began to become audible.
“Corpsman!” People were yelling over the net.
Standing, she could make out a sea of fallen marines lying across the lanes of the bridge as medical personnel rushed to render aid. They had managed to hold the line, but the cost had been high. All around her, fires were burning unchecked from the high rises, belching towers of smoke into the air.
The night was split by the bomb that detonated over the north-east horizon, issuing a false daylight that lasted for several minutes before subsiding to an angry, orange glow. Minerva had not heard the warning sound, and had no idea that it had been her own side that had dropped what was equivalent to a nuclear weapon on the international airport. Thinking that the Storians had resorted to launching nukes again, she felt numbing despair fill her insides. How much more would they have to endure?
I-75 South at the 55-718 Interchange
South Troy, approximately 10 miles north of the Dayton airport
When the 1-minute warning sounded over the general frequency, the Attayan 2nd Brigade happened to be near the interchange and ran for cover beneath the freeway stack,
huddling under the support columns. The auto traffic continued to flow, the drivers giving the troopers curious looks. A police cruiser traveling west on 55, which was the ground-level road, turned on its flashers and pulled over to the shoulder. The highway patrolman stepped out, hand resting on the butt of his pistol, and gawked at the armored group of nearly 200.
“What the heck is going on?” He demanded.
Captain Sunwa opened his visor and shouted to him, “You might want to get over here quick!”
The cop was having none of it, “Hell, you say! Who are you guys?”
The bomb went off right then, and at that proximity, the blast effect was far more powerful than what Springfield had felt. The flash alone was blinding, and the cop yelped, covering his eyes. An instant later, the shockwave barreled through: a literal wall of kinetic energy that pushed dirt and debris ahead of it like a tidal wave. It hit, knocking the policeman head-over-heels and rocking his car up on two wheels along with the passing traffic. Vehicles veered out of control, all pushed in the same direction toward the shoulder. The roar of the explosion shattered glass and damaged eardrums.
When the wave had passed and dust began to settle, Sunwa called for Army medevac support to help the scores of wounded civilians. He himself had no time to deal with them, instead
ordering his troops back on the move.
The lower streets were clogged with wrecks and scattered strata, slowing them down. He opted to venture back up onto 75, where they only had to skirt around stalled cars. It was not long before their luck improved, as they happened upon a stopped
church bus, its driver standing beside it trying to pop his ringing ears. Sunwa was getting winded after miles of double-timing it, and he was sure that his troops were feeling it as well. It would not be to their advantage to reach the Storian limit already exhausted.
The captain approached the driver, who was giving him a look of surprise. These ‘Earthers’ were not very accustomed to seeing the cat-like faces of the Attayans, much less so decked out in their battle armor and equipment.
“I’m afraid I need to commandeer this bus,” Sunwa stated apologetically.
The driver shook his head, one finger in his ear, “Can’t hear ya!”
Sunwa pointed at the bus, “We need a ride!” He shouted.
The driver nodded and motioned for him to go on in, “Take it, it’s yours!” The man yelled over his temporary deafness. The captain sized it up; it wouldn’t hold all 200 of them very easily, they would be crammed in there like sardines. That would make them more vulnerable to be being taken out in a single hit, so he surmised that it would be necessary to park a few miles out from the line and huff the rest of the way on foot. This at least was a temporary reprieve.
“Pack ‘em in!” Sunwa ordered his troops.
They crammed in until there simply no more room, which still left nearly twenty of them outside. The captain measured the situation for a moment, then told them to climb up top and hang on: one fool was even clinging to the engine hood in front of the windshield. Sunwa thanked the driver and got in, taking the wheel. He eased it around so as not to lose any troopers on the outside and gingerly weaved around the other cars in his way.