by Chris Hechtl
According to radio reports, there were no sightings of any landings. But the native resistance was starting to pick up. The former slaves marked for death had escaped many of their pens and had gone on a rampage. He regretted the loss of some of his troops … and their militia supports. He'd also heard reports of militia groups that had changed sides or had turned tail when they'd been confronted. He'd sent out crisp orders to have anyone who deserted or helped the enemy to be executed. That order should stiffen them up he thought as he took a sip. He grimaced at the taste but didn't put the glass down.
No invasion he thought. He'd give it a week before he officially called it a hit and hype. They might be waiting out of sight for his forces to regather to hit them again. At the moment, he couldn't afford to put anything past the unseen enemy.
He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand. As usual the movement bothered the fingers that had heat burns; they felt like they were wrapped in tape every time he tried to move them.
The native forces were picking up some of his equipment and picking off his people in the process, but they were taking casualties as well. They were unorganized; according to Danvers, there was no sign of radio chatter other than the HAM network. General Drier grimaced. He no longer had Lockhart and his computers to record and process every frequency channel at all hours of the day and night.
He grimaced. Winter was coming, and the natives were finding their backbone. They might be making little gains, but they were gains. And each time they survived combat, they learned. They learned … and undoubtedly passed on some of what they learned to those they knew. They'd also managed to capture some of his men's equipment before his people had gotten back onto their feet.
General Drier was still uncertain of his chain of command. Major Noveletto was his only XO, but the man had never commanded a combat unit nor had he served in one. His people had also taken heavy casualties since they'd been scattered across the globe.
He rubbed his temple with the back of his bandaged hand and then took another gulp of moonshine. “One step at a time,” he muttered to himself.
Sergeant Xu made a soft sound by the door. He glanced at her and then away. They wouldn't remain in place for long, no more than a day or so, weather permitting. He would need to get someone out to scout and find fallback positions for him to take up he thought tiredly.
There was a tentative knock. He grunted. “Enter,” he said after he cleared his throat.
“Sir, the reports are in. Captain Goddard is still doing a better job monitoring radio traffic, though she reported one of her units, the one from Fallbrook, has fallen out of contact,” Private Danvers reported as he handed over a sheaf of papers. “The natives are relying on HAM radio. A Jean Claude Debois has started to emerge as their leader,” he stated.
The general grunted again as he set his glass down and scanned the papers. He committed the material to his implant memory before he tossed them into the fire. “Track this Debois. See who he contacts and have them tagged as well. See if we've got units in the area that can take him out,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Danvers said with a nod. He was clearly tired though, the general noted. He picked up his drink and swirled it. “Do that in the morning. You have someone to relieve you, son?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. One of the militia,” the private stated.
“Good as it gets these days I guess,” the general mused. “Pass on an order to use hard force to force the natives to back off but conserve ammo whenever possible,” he stated.
“Yes, sir,” the private said. He jotted the orders out onto a piece of paper he held against his thigh. “Will there be anything else?” he asked.
“Get me an ETA on the squad nearest to us. The same for Major Noveletto. We need to keep our people at or below squad level until we're certain the ships have left. But they need to remain in contact with each other. Tell Captain Goddard to figure out something that doesn't use the radio for regular check-ins. Signal flags, mirrors, hell, even smoke signals if we have to,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Find some thermal blankets and a means to hide our heat signature,” the general ordered. The private looked uncertain. “I mean pass that on to Goddard and Noveletto,” he amended.
“Yes, sir,” the private said with a distinct note of relief in his voice.
“Go on. Get those orders off in the morning,” he said, “just before we leave. Anything on the weather?”
“No, sir,” the private said with a shake of his head. He glanced out the window as a head moved past it, but it was the sentry making the rounds. He'd had some minor relief when they'd met up with the militia unit, but he was still uneasy after hearing reports of some militia groups turning on their Horathian handlers. “I'd feel better with some countrymen around us, sir,” he said.
The general glanced at his line of gaze out the window. He grunted when he saw the sentry. “You and me both,” he said. “Get the orders written up and then bed down for the night,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” the private said.
“Dismissed,” the general said as he knocked back the rest of his drink. He was going to need a place to bed down for the winter soon he thought. He was tempted to hit up Zhukov but didn't want to draw too much attention to them.
<)>^<)>/
Captain Zhukov nodded as he listened to Lieutenant Sng's report. He had sent a few people to the nearest outposts to get supplies and round up surviving personnel. They had found the nearest outposts empty or overrun. There hadn't been anything to bring back.
Lieutenant Sng had sent a drone to check other areas on his own initiative. He'd found a couple farms that had been blasted into ruins from the nearby KEW strike. He'd taken his squad there and gathered up everything they could use, placed remote sensors, and then returned.
The captain hadn't been happy about the lieutenant's missed deadline but had praised him on using his initiative. When he'd finished with him, he'd left to check in with the radio room. Lieutenant Kinoshita had seen and overheard part of the report. He went over to Lieutenant Sng shaking his head.
“Cool as a cucumber. It's like he doesn't even notice we got hammered,” Lieutenant Kinoshita said in admiration. He'd been lucky to have been on site in the caves going over an expansion project when the bombs had hit. He was alive while many people like his brother Cho Kinoshita were dead and dust in the wind.
Cho's commander, Lieutenant Robinson, had also been in the caves when the bombs had dropped. She had been badly hurt though and was still in a coma. Doctor Singh was guarded about his prognosis given she had a major head injury.
“He's an icy bastard, yes. But he's on our side. And he knows,” Lieutenant Sng said. “Officers are taught to project calm leadership. Remember?”
“Is he? On our side I mean. Sometimes I'm not sure,” Lieutenant Kinoshita said. “It's like we're pawns in some great game of his.”
“We're soldiers; we're supposed to be pawns,” Lieutenant Sng said with a snort. “Better hope he is on our side. We need him now that we've got the enemy up there and the natives are restless. Now more than ever.”
The engineering officer grimaced. “Right. Know where I can get one of those pretty suits of yours?” he asked.
The lieutenant snorted. “Yeah, a couple thousand light years that away,” he said, pointing up. “Unless you can make one?”
The engineer snorted. “I'm an engineer. Give me a blueprint, tools, and parts and I can work a miracle. But I think we're a bit short on two of those items.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Lieutenant Sng agreed. “And keeping the suits we've got functional with a limited amount of parts and power is going to be a stone cold bitch,” he growled gruffly.
<)>^<)>/
Harambe had been enlivened by the radio chatter Bordou had shown him. He'd talked with Jean Claude Debois and had agreed to hit back before the enemy got back on its feet. It had been a week, and there was still no sig
n of the new invaders.
When he got the report of a group of militia sitting under the edge of the tree line at the foothills of their mountain from his forward scouts, he moved a part of his half-trained main force down as quickly as he could. But before he could stop them, a few of his people broke protocol and started to pick off the men and women as they gathered wood or other supplies.
That alerted other survivors. They ran back to camp and got the group to bunch together in fear around their fires and form a perimeter. The gorilla arrived after he had picked off a trio of retreating raiders and had taken their weapons. The bastards never looked up he thought massaging his bandaged shoulder where a round had torn into it. The weapons were too small for him, so he'd passed them on to smaller people who could easily handle them.
“They are down to eight to ten of the bastards,” Velma, one of the Neochimps with him reported.
“Is it eight or ten?” Harambe demanded. “Weapons?” he asked. Velma shrugged.
“Right,” the gorilla drawled. “I guess we learn as we go in,” he said, waving his troops forward. He planned to use the captured weapons to snipe and keep the enemy pinned on one front while Neocats stalked in from the other side to pounce.
As usual, things didn't work out as planned.
<)>^<)>/
Vincent saw the enemy coming in. He focused on the one front with the weapons and then followed protocol to check the surrounding area. He was glad he did; there were heat signatures coming in from off to their left, almost 180 degrees opposite the enemy assault force. Clearly the assault was a distraction while the real attack came in from behind he thought with a feral smile as he came up with a plan.
“Okay, I've got the goggles, so I'll snipe the bastards coming in behind us. Adkins, you and Fornell hit the ones coming in,” he said softly, pointing to the incoming assault. “Don't fire until you can clearly see them. Pick and choose your targets and for the love of Murphy don't get stupid! Or I'll paste your ass. We clear?” he demanded.
“Clear, Corporal,” Adkins said with a pointed look to the nervous native. The two set up their machine guns under the truck and trees that formed the perimeter wall.
“I'll fire when you start. Wait until they are fifty meters out,” the corporal ordered.
“Try one hundred. They are fast. But they don't know the concept of cover,” Private Adkins said as he focused on his scope. He squeezed the trigger, ripping off a three-round burst that cut down a chimp. “Now they do,” he said as he moved to another target.
“Right,” Fornell said as he went to work as well.
“Right,” the corporal drawled as he shouldered his own rifle and did his best to look down the scope with the night vision goggles on his head. It wasn't easy, but he got enough information to line up his first target. “Come to papa,” he growled as he flicked off the safety and then squeezed the trigger. The round went high, but the second round hit the scraggly-looking lioness square in the chest, dropping her.
<)>^<)>/
Harambe had forced himself to not go into the main assault since the others were younger and faster. So, he was in enough of an observation post to see his people get cut down by the fire from both directions. After the seventh person went down, he waved off the assault. “Give it up; they've got good weapons,” he said just as Velma tried to throw a lit Molotov cocktail. He winced when a round tore into her gut. She staggered but managed to weakly throw the flaming bomb towards the enemy before she teetered and fell.
“Pull back,” Harambe growled, making frantic hand signs to the others to relay his orders. The motion caught some of their attention, enough for them to pause, and in one case get shot for their inattention to the front.
But the others got the message and soon the retreat started.
“Cover … cover fire,” Harambe growled. A few shots spat out to cover their retreat.
The gorilla was forced to back off when he realized half his force had been cut down and that they'd lost or used up almost half of their ammunition—this despite the weapons they'd recently captured. He realized they would have to rethink their position as he escorted his dispirited people back up the mountain. He'd left Kiki to watch the enemy force with strict orders to follow but not engage. A pair of volunteers had also remained to pick the wounded, though he was depressingly certain there wouldn't be any.
<)>^<)>/
Corporal Lishman realized he'd been lucky. He also realized the little fort he'd contrived wasn't going to cut it. That meant he had to find a more defensible position. It also meant he would have to have his people gather supplies in tight groups; no more of the singles out-of-sight chickenshit that had cost him over half his people.
Fortunately, his troops had found an abandoned stone farmhouse nearby. He decided to occupy it for the time being.
But, as his men packed up, he decided to leave a present for the bastards who had hit him. He used an improvised spear to go out and stab the Neos and aliens to make certain they were dead. Then he had his people strip the bodies of usable ammunition, weapons, and gear. No sense giving it back to the enemy after all. He recognized one of the rifles as belonging to Private Lexington. He grimly checked the young man off his TOE. He scattered empty casings around the body that had held the weapon, then primed a grenade and placed it gingerly under the body so the spoon was depressed by the weight of the carcass. He then pulled the second pin and walked away to do the same to one of the other bodies.
<)>^<)>/
Two days after the disastrous ambush, a weary Harambe got into HAM contact with Jean Claude. Both parties were aware that the enemy could and most likely were listening in, so they did their best to keep it short.
“We got suckered. I got cocky or I should say my people did,” Harambe said. “We took twelve dead. And the bastards forted up in a nearby farmhouse. It'll be even tougher to dig them out now.”
“Pick them off,” Jean Claude said. “You said it worked initially?”
“Yes. I don't know what supplies they got in there,” the gorilla said, flexing his injured shoulder. “Tell your people to watch out for booby-traps. The bastard’s booby-trapped our dead. I lost Boxer to an explosion,” he growled grimly.
Bordou looked distinctively unhappy.
“Will do,” Jean Claude replied.
<)>^<)>/
General Drier went deeper to ground, dispersing his forces into squad-size units. He kept a squad of mixed militia and his own people around him but no more. He was aware that the locals were going to keep track of him; they wanted his head badly. A few of his people had reported that they had been chasing off local groups or Neo refugees. There were several reports of Neos overwhelming a militia unit and even one of a fire team of proper Horathian troops being overwhelmed in a snow storm.
He had to keep his people mixed with the militia. He needed their numbers and they needed the guidance but it was a risk he knew. He also knew he would have to rely on Captain Eronez and his native militia to not only quell the uprisings but also be his eyes and ears as he reorganized his forces for an eventual invasion.
Figuring out what to do about it was tough. He hadn't started with much anti-air given their INTEL assessment of the planet. What he had brought along had been destroyed in the bombardment. Well, most of it. Zhukov had some in his cave, but getting it out might be tough he mused.
He had eight air units left; everything else had gone up when the spaceport and his other bases had been vaporized. All of the survivors had been out of the bases on missions at the time of the bombardment. There were four transports, two skycranes assigned to the engineers, and two precious gunships. He also had two dozen appropriated air cars and over forty ground vehicles in his inventory. But he had a small amount of fuel; some just had the fuel in their tanks—no parts, and no ammunition for the gunships.
As far as he knew, there weren't many if any places to get more parts, fuel, and ammunition, especially the ammunition he thought bleakly.
P
ablo had reported that some of his natives were no longer sure they wanted to be on the Horathian's side. They had a natural inclination to want to be on the side of the winners since that was the clearest path to victory and survival. He had started to take a harsh line with them, but he was nervous since he was stuck in his own compound.
The general debated if he wanted to expend the forces and equipment to save the slimy bastard. He'd heard through Lockhart that the little shit had been stirring up the human natives with his antics … he should let him hang. But it would send a bad precedent.
The biggest threat was the mob of Neos and aliens who had escaped from the death camps or had come out of whatever hole they had been hiding in. They were wreaking carnage wherever they went he knew. Some were angry at those who had sold them out or had done nothing in their plight.
Pablo had reported more and more sightings of the mob around his fortress, undoubtedly because the little idiot couldn't stop popping the occasional shot off.
During the previous evening, Pablo had called in reporting a hard assault under the cover of night and the light dusting of snow. His machine gunners had cut them down, but they'd used up a disturbing amount of ammunition in the process. Ammunition didn't grow on trees … the general sighed.
According to the spy, the rest of the mob had retreated just out of range. Perhaps to lick their wounds and go after easier prey, but the general doubted it.
He couldn't spare the firepower to clean them out either he knew. They would need the firepower and troops when the Federation finally did come around … if they did.
He still for the life of him couldn't understand how they'd broken past Admiral Rico like they had. Had they come in from the North? Had Rico been called off? Had he been beaten? He shook his head. He was working in an information vacuum, and that was never good. He needed INTEL.