by Isaac Hooke
Which was why he had Fire Team B.
“Gavin, whenever you’re ready...” Jain said.
Fire Team B had moved into position behind the wreckage of a nearby tank, and they began opening fire. That drew the attention of the Rhinos immediately.
“Now!” Jain, Sheila, and the two Direct Reports fled across the open space toward the next fallen tree.
“This tree is useless against their plasmas!” Gavin transmitted. “It’s like paper, just as I said before!”
Jain reached the fallen tree and ducked behind it.
“We’re in place!” Jain said. “Issuing suppressive fire. Move, FT B!”
He leaned over the top and aimed between the thick branches, opening fire at the Rhinos with his Hammers.
The bioweapons immediately ducked behind their own cover, but a moment later incoming fire came in return at Jain and Fire Team A. The thick plasma bolts ate right through the branches and the bole of the tree itself. Gavin hadn’t been kidding: Jain and the others had to keep shifting to avoid the holes that were being punched through the trunk by the plasma weapons. They returned fire intermittently, until Gavin reported that Fire Team B was in place.
Then they crouched and made their way forward rapidly, letting the Rhinos continue to fire at their last known location. Jain continued to utilize the fallen trees and whatever other cover that was available, ducking behind boulders, and crawling through depressions to make sure he remained out of sight at all times.
They continued that Fire and maneuver tactic of offering suppressive fire while the other team moved past an exposed position, until both fire teams were only twenty meters away from the defending site. They both hid behind the same fallen tree, which also had a boulder on the other side offering extra protection.
So far they hadn’t been detected, but when Jain peered past the left side of his cover, the stilted toes of the Rhino on the far left expanded, making straight for him. Before those branch-like toes could snatch him, Jain opened fire with his Hammers. His accelerated time sense and reflexes saved him, because he struck the tips just before they contacted him.
The stricken Rhino screamed and withdrew its toes, and Jain ducked as plasma fire from his brethren roared in. He and the others had to flatten themselves as the tree trunk above them had several holes poked into it.
Stinging tentacles shot out in-between plasma blasts, stabbing through the holes, searching for these robots who dared attack them on the other side. Jain rolled away as a tentacle nearly grabbed him, and when he landed on his back he opened fire with his Hammers and severed the tentacles. The other Void Warriors did the same.
“Ricks, now would be a good time to bring in some artillery fire,” Jain said. “One pass only, please. Unless you want them to destroy us, too.”
“Artillery fire coming in,” Ricks announced.
Shells keened through the air, arcing over the treetops at the edge of the clearing and toward the dug-in alien units.
The Rhinos swung their attention toward the incoming attacks and opened fire, exploding the bombs in midair.
“Take-down!” Jain ordered. He upped his time sense yet again, and squeezed the last bit of ampage he could out of his servos as he and the Void Warriors left their cover. They rushed past the edges of the tree to assault the Rhino position.
Jain unleashed his Hammers as he ran, as did the others. The weapons drilled into the sides of the Rhinos. Gory tissue exploded from the impact sites, leaving behind huge, bloody craters.
The bioweapons screamed, many falling, but some of them managed to turn their plasma weapons on the Void Warriors.
Jain and the others quickly targeted those Rhinos, and fired again, hitting them in the head. Chunks exploded from their pincer-shaped skulls.
As the bioweapons fell, they launched the spikes on their backs, spraying the Void Warriors with a final assault. Those spikes hit their brother Rhinos indiscriminately, and units behind them shrieked as they were hit.
Jain was able to dodge most of the spikes thanks to his accelerated time sense, but two hit: one stabbed deep into his chest, the other his thigh. He dimmed his pain sense and continued running.
The stricken Rhinos dropped, revealing the bioweapons behind them. But then several of the shells hit, thanks to the distraction the Void Warriors had caused, and the multiple explosions sent Jain and the others flying backward.
When the dust cleared, Jain ordered: “Fire at the dead. Let’s make sure none of them are hiding.”
He and the Void Warriors opened fire and ripped into those dead bodies. His weapons were beginning to overheat, so he stopped for the moment.
“Rifleman B, move forward,” Jain ordered.
The autonomous robot advanced, stepping over the dead bodies, and toward the Digger hole, from which dirt was still streaming.
A Rhino, playing dead, abruptly rolled to one side and unleashed hell on Rifleman B, tearing the robot apart with its tentacles.
Jain and the others opened fire, eliminating that Rhino.
“Damn it,” Jain said. “Stay back.”
“Wait, as CO, is that a good idea...” Sheila said.
Jain ignored her and moved forward, pausing every now and then to open fire at any Rhino that seemed suspicious. Finally he reached the hole. It was still spewing a stream of dirt.
He crouched and peered inside.
A corrugated tube with the breadth of a human leg was the source of the soil eruption, and it led away into the tunnel, which curved underneath the force field. On the far end he spotted the aft section of the Digger, where the tube connected. The Digger was just beginning to breach the surface on the other side.
Jain didn’t trust his Hammers to do justice to that machine body in time, so instead he removed his harness, which carried a slew of demolition charges, and swung it into the tunnel and at the robot. As it impacted, he ducked to the side and hit the detonate button.
The explosive blast erupted from the tunnel behind him and spewed a last round of dust and dirt into the air. Then all soil ceased discharging from the hole.
He peered inside. The Digger on the far side was reduced to so much rubble.
“Let’s go!” Jain said. “They’re almost through!”
He and the Void Warriors rushed forward, weaving between cover toward the next group of defending Rhinos, labeled E2 on the overhead map.
When E2 was in view, Jain called a halt. He zoomed in. He saw blast craters and alien body parts.
“Looks like a few of the artillery shells got through here, too,” Jain said.
“No thanks to our earlier attack,” Gavin said. “Distracting them.”
“The Digger should have been protected from the shells, though,” Jain said. “But there’s no dirt coming from the tunnel, at least as far as I can tell. Ricks, sit-rep?” He glanced at his overhead map. Ricks seemed to be storming the alien position on the far right.
“We just took down E4,” Ricks said. “Heading for E3.”
Jain and the others approached the site, and they released their Hammers judiciously at the corpses up ahead. Had to make sure they were dead, after all.
“The bioweapons are inside!” Ricks transmitted.
Jain glanced through the force field and saw Rhinos flooding inside where the Digger had penetrated at position E3. The waiting tanks and mechs within opened fire; many Rhinos went down, but most simply dispersed among the trees, spreading out and vanishing.
“They’ll be heading toward the generators,” Jain said.
He hurried forward, intending to rendezvous at E3 with the Dark Horses, but then bioweapons playing dead ahead opened fire. Jain and the others dropped.
Dirt began to stream from the hole again, and all of a sudden a sinkhole opened in the ground inside the force field. The digger emerged, and the waiting tanks and mechs opened fire. The Digger pulled through, its drill melting under the impacts, and quickly drove behind a nearby boulder. Meanwhile, Rhinos that must have been waiting insid
e the tunnel began to emerge.
Those bioweapons that were firing at Jain and the others retreated, and jumped into the tunnel to emerge on the other side. Like those that had penetrated at E3, they dispersed before the waiting defenders could take them all down.
“Guess we’re entering here,” Jain commented, and he dove into the tunnel.
34
Jain emerged from the tunnel and inside the large region bounded by the force field. He rushed forward, weaving between the trees.
“Where are the generators?” Jain asked as he joined Ricks and the surviving members of Dark Horses.
“Just follow the plasma fire,” Ricks said.
Indeed, Jain could see flashes coming from up ahead, through the trees, where the defending mechs and tanks had retreated to protect the shield source.
The Void Warriors were right behind him as he emerged from the tree line into another clearing. Ahead, the Rhinos were assaulting the tanks and mechs, which were arranged in a ring-like pattern. At their center were the hundred shield generators—cube-shaped contraptions with rotating silver spheres on the top that emitted blue light in half-dome patterns. The generators squatted upon metal crates that had been hastily folded open to serve as a makeshift carpet.
Beyond the far side of the formation was the hotspot, which looked like a series of sinkholes and sulfur pools that stretched across the landscape. The Rhinos avoided assaulting from that particular direction: a few of the bioweapons had already made the mistake of doing so, and they struggled to pull themselves out of the different sinkholes with their expanding toes. They were quickly mowed down by the tanks.
There was no sign of the Diggers.
“Gavin, Mark, send your Direct Reports back,” Jain said. “Search the perimeter for those Diggers. Ensure they’re not trying to tunnel underneath the defenders to the generators.”
“Done,” Mark said.
“Fire at will,” Jain ordered.
The Void Warriors and members of Dark Horses unleashed their Hammers, assailing the Rhinos from behind, essentially catching them in a pincer maneuver between the tanks and mechs.
The alien bioweapons didn’t like that.
Those at the rear of the group continued to fire forward at the tanks and mechs, however their toes elongated, moving fast. Trafalgar units in front of Jain were scooped up and crushed before any of the Dark Horses could free them.
Jain amped up his time sense even further, and dodged two of those toes that were headed toward him. They missed, and withdrew. He grabbed onto one of them, letting it draw him toward the source creature, and he let loose with his Hammers.
The creature screamed.
Jain released the tentacle-like appendage and landed on the Rhino’s upper back. It launched its body-wide spikes, and Jain was hit with three; one slammed into his groin.
That would have hurt if I were human.
He fired at point blank range, bringing the creature down, and from his vantage point on its back, he let loose at the other distracted creatures around him. He carved huge chunks into their backs; as they began to notice him, tentacles and toes came flying toward his metal body.
Jain ducked, rolling off the corpse to the ground, but those appendages never reached him: the Void Warriors let loose with their Hammers, severing the exposed limbs. Cries of pain filled the air as the Rhinos withdrew their toes.
The alien bioweapons spun around and opened fire with their plasma weapons.
Jain rolled behind the body of the dead Rhino for cover. The Void Warriors and Dark Horses similarly dropped. Some of the Trafalgar models were exposed, unfortunately, and they were reduced to rubble. The Void Warriors managed to hide behind depressions and fallen trees. Not that the latter protected them all that well from the plasma attacks.
Bombers zoomed past overhead, but the air support could no longer help them, not while the defenders were underneath that force field.
“Found the Diggers,” Mark reported. “They had made different tunnels, and were trying to tunnel underneath the defenders, like you said. The Direct Reports used their charges to eliminate them.”
“Good,” Jain said, pulling back as a portion of the dead Rhino broke away beside him, thanks to a plasma hit.
“Repairs to the main reactor have completed to a sufficient degree that our drives are online once again,” Xander announced over the comm.
Jain ignored the news. He fired at an elongating toe that was wrapping around the corpse and trying to grab him. The severed limb promptly retreated, and he thought he heard the source Rhino scream nearby.
The attack suddenly let up; Jain peered past the edge of his cover and saw that the Rhinos had all hunkered down against the assault from the tanks and mechs. The bioweapons were basically doing the same thing as Jain: using the bodies of their fallen comrades for cover. Plasma bolts and shells tore past above them. They occasionally lifted their bodies to return fire, and struck at an exposed tank or mech. As different defenders fell, those near them also began to use the wreckages of their fellows as cover.
The tanks and mechs were doing a good job of shielding the generators with their physical forms, but the Rhinos had managed to take down a few of the more exposed pieces along the edges.
Jain spotted movement along the ground in front of the Rhinos. The whole area was seething. At first he didn’t understand what was going on, but then he realized the Rhinos were growing their toes: they intended to slip them past the ranks of the defenders to the generators beyond.
“The ground!” Jain transmitted over the general comm.
The defending mechs finally noticed the growing limbs, and opened fire on the earth around them. Those limbs began accelerating, sliding underneath the tanks toward the generators.
Sheila tossed him her harness. “Do what you can!”
Jain scrambled to the top of the dead Rhino and hurled the harness and all its charges over the heads of the bioweapons, and it landed on the densest cluster of growing limbs he could see. He dropped behind the body as plasma fire came in, and remotely detonated the demolition charges.
Ka-boom!
He’d severed a good portion of those limbs near the forefront, but it wasn’t enough. Stretching toes were reaching underneath the tanks and overturning them. They grabbed mechs and hoisted them into the line of fire before the units could shoot back.
The bioweapons weren’t trying to reach the generators after all, like Jain had thought. At least not yet. No, they were elongating their toes to eliminate the defenders.
Jain searched the ground around him, worried that those limbs would be coming after him and the combat robots next, but so far there was nothing.
He glanced at the corpse beside him, and his eyes lingered on the big plasma cannons secured to its back. He gazed at that weapon longingly. Glowing blue channels lined the left and right sides, indicating that the cannons were still powered and ready to go.
If only I could use it.
Wait a second.
He increased his time sense to max; the very max that his alien neural network hardware was capable of. Reality froze to a complete halt around him.
He noticed then that a Rhino had snuck around another dead body to the side, and had launched its stinging tentacles toward him. Tentacles that were now frozen in mid-flight. It also was bringing one of its cannon to bear on him.
Shit.
He returned his attention to the weapon attached to the dead Rhino beside him. He wasn’t able to access its remote interface, not with his current human-designed robot. But the skirmisher in orbit could transmit the appropriate gamma ray comm protocol.
First he sent out a discovery ping from that skirmisher, directed toward the battlefield, which hopefully would cause each of the cannons below to identify themselves. The gamma rays would penetrate the energy field.
Because reality was slowed down so much, it would take a little while before he received a response. So he decreased his time sense; the stinging tentacle inched
toward him bit by bit, and the cannon further came to bear.
The skirmisher received a response, which was returned to the Devastator, and routed back to Jain’s HUD.
He received a series of identifiers, which identified every cannon on the battlefield.
That’s a good sign. But which of them is the one beside me? Actually, hell with it.
He tried sending his access codes to all of them.
Meanwhile, he ducked underneath the tentacle, his own body moving in slow motion as it came in.
In response, all he got was a bunch of access denied messages.
Well, of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. The alien fleet would have changed all of its access codes after 46 severed ties with him.
Jain noticed something, however. Along with the denial messages, the glowing channels that ran along the length of the two cannons beside him momentarily dimmed. It was a subtle effect, one that he probably wouldn’t have noticed had time not been moving so slowly.
I wonder…
He tried sending the request again, but this time focused on the other cannon that was coming to bear on him. It, too, dimmed for a split second.
Hmm.
“Xander,” Jain said. “I want you to repeat the transmission I just beamed down here from the skirmisher. Over and over. As fast as you can.”
“Repeating transmission,” Xander said over the comm.
The glowing channels on the cannons of the dead Rhino permanently dimmed, as did those of other cannons around him. Jain increased his time sense slightly so that movement seemed closer to normal, and he still ducked, just to be on the safe side, as the plasma cannon of the Rhino beside him came to bear.
But the weapon didn’t fire.
It was working.
He had kicked off a classic denial of service attack.
“They can’t fire anymore!” Jain said over the general comm. “Kick ass!”
The tanks and mechs fired with impunity, as did the combat robots. Well, mostly impunity… the Rhinos were still able to attack with their toes and stinging tentacles, as well as the spikes that they could launch from their backs, but now that the defenders didn’t have to worry about plasma attacks, they could assume vantage points that would have previously seen them exposed.