by Ben Winston
Alan took one of the heavy six-wheeled utility ATVs and headed for the front gate. Just inside the gate, there was a series of trailers, all hooked together, stacked high with cartons of pulse rifles. The rifles were already programmed with the destruction commands, they only needed to be activated, and that would be the last thing Alan would do before he left them to the Colonel and his troops.
He hooked up to the first trailer, and felt the ATV bog down under the weight, but it began to move. The guard had already opened the gate for him, and the guard called out as Alan went by, “Pick me up on your way back!”
Alan gave the guard a nod, and headed for the Colonel’s command center, almost a kilometer away. The guards, used to deliveries from the compound waved him through without challenge, and he drove straight to where he knew the Colonel would be.
When he arrived at the command tent, Alan got out of the ATV and back pressing his thumb to the containers of rifles, activating each case. The Colonel had heard him pull up and came out of the tent, smiling. “What did you bring us today, Agent Smith?”
“Sir, do you remember that story I told you? The one that made you think I was crazy?” Alan replied.
“Yeah, you mean that bullshit about alien technology? Yeah, I remember it,” the Colonel said shaking his head. “What about it?”
“They’ll be here in just under ten minutes. I brought your people some toys that will at least give you a fighting chance,” Alan said, knowing the Colonel still didn’t believe him. “Man-portable rail guns. I’m not sure if we’ll be facing human slaves, or actual Caldarians, but either way, your weapon won’t even dent the armor they’ll be wearing.”
“Son, I don’t know what kind of chemicals that you’ve been sniffing in there, but there ain’t no such thing as aliens. If there were, why would they come here?” the man said, no longer smiling.
Alan turned and hollered at a few nearby marines. “You men, come over here and give me a hand!”
He got the Marines started unloading the trailers and staking the boxes along the side of one of the big tents. Just as he was about finished activating the weapons, several sonic booms could be heard. Alan glanced up and to the east. He pointed at the distant specks.
“Colonel, those are Caldarian assault carriers, and they are coming here with a battalion sized force. I doubt the whole thing is infantry, and there is nothing I can do about that, but these weapons will give you the ability to at least penetrate their armor. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” Alan finished.
The Colonel did look, and he saw the distant specks, but they were so far away, they couldn’t be identified. “Son, that’s just a flight of our fighters out on maneuvers. Not aliens. Why don’t you come inside, get out of the sun for a bit. You’ll see I’m right.”
Alan opened a case, and pulled out two of the weapons. He handed one to the closest Marine. “Corporal, this is a high-power, rail gun. It’s accurate out to two kilometers. When you look through the sites, you’ll see a small red dot. That’s where the round will go when you pull the trigger. It has less recoil than your current rifle, and an automatically refilling magazine of ammo. Don’t ask how it works, I couldn’t tell you even if I knew.” He looked around and saw a rock up on a bluff about a kilometer away. “You see that rock, up on the bluff about a klick out?”
“Yes Sir,” the Marine replied.
“Could you hit it with your current weapon?” Alan asked.
“Probably, but not with any accuracy,” the Corporal replied.
Alan nodded. “Use this, go ahead and shoot it.”
The Marine looked at his commander who nodded permission, then raised the weapon, took aim, and fired.
Instead of the normal shot sound of a rifle, there was a strange, whooshing/clapping sound as the hyper-sonic round hit large round rock, and shattered it into dust.
“Holy fuck!” the Marine said, then blushed. “Pardon me, Sir.”
“Well said, Marine,” Alan replied. “You can keep that. Trust me here, you’re going to need it.” He spoke so the Colonel could hear him. “This technology is still very top secret, so we can’t have you all keeping these forever, and wandering off with them. In twenty-four hours, they will stop working, and dissolve. This fight should be over by then, either way, you’ll at least have time to get the hell out of here if you need to.” He turned to the Colonel. “I have duties I need to get back to, Colonel. I appreciate your concern for me, I really do, but I’m not insane or sun-struck.”
About that time, the assault craft were close enough to start firing missiles, which they did. Everyone dove for cover as the whole area began to explode around them.
“Good luck, Colonel!” Alan yelled as he ducked and ran for the ATV and the empty trailers. He drove around the large tent that was the command center, and opened the throttle on the ATV headed for the front gate. He pulled inside the gate, but stopped to wait for the guard who sealed the gate, and came running for the ATV. Inside the shield, it was much calmer as the missiles hit the shield and not the ground.
“Cutting it close, Sir! I was beginning to think you were going to stay out there with the Jar-Heads!” the Guard said grinning as Alan headed for the Security building.
“Nope, I couldn’t let you walk home alone. It’s getting dangerous out here.” Alan replied as they bailed out of the ATV and ran for the doors. They took the lift down in silence, and headed for the locker room. At the door, they turned different directions.
“Be safe out there Sir.”
“You too Private, keep your head down,” Alan replied, and opened his locker to begin putting on his armor. ‘This is going to be a long, long day,’ he thought to himself.
Since Alan didn’t have an assigned place in the Marines, he headed for the command center, to see what he could do to help Ty.
When he entered the Command Center, the first thing he noticed was the complete chaos displayed on one of the monitors for the surface. Another, larger monitor showed a topographical map of the area outside the compound. The area occupied by the Marines was marked in Yellow, the compound itself was in Green, and there were two other areas that were marked off in a faint reddish color. One of those areas overlapped part of the Marine area.
“Hey Ty, What’s going on?” Alan asked.
“ETs coming back, and he’s pissed.” Ty pointed to the map. “There are two places we think they could deploy in. Of course, they could deploy just about anywhere, but these would be the most beneficial to them...”
Suddenly, the area in front of the compound, the one overlapping the Marines pulsed red and remained solid, and the other area faded out completely.
“...I guess that answers that. They’re coming down on top of your Marine friends out front. The weakest part of our shield is the front gate area, so that’s where they’ll concentrate the heavy fire power,” Ty said.
“Those Marines are going to be annihilated,” Alan said sadly.
“Maybe, I hadn’t planned it this way, but this landing area is also in the middle of the best covered area we have for heavy weapons emplacements. We’ll be able to help, but not a lot. The hardest part will be keeping our Marines from running out and helping them,” Ty said.
“Yeah, I can understand that, I’m one of them. I gave Colonel Petrie the rifles, and showed them how they work. We can hope that’ll be enough help to keep at least some of them alive. Can I call the Colonel and warn him about the Enemy LZ?” Alan asked, indicating the Landing Zone overlaying the Marine area.
Ty nodded. “Go ahead, I’m sure he believes you about the aliens by now.”
Alan snorted, “I don’t know about that, but he does believe we are getting attacked.” Alan put his hand on the shoulder of one of the two controllers in the room. “Can you patch me into the Marine’s Command frequency?”
The man nodded and typed in a command on his terminal, then pointed to Alan. Alan already knew he was on, because he could hear the communications on the channel. When it was over, H
e spoke, “Colonel Petrie, this is Smith. Those assholes are coming down right on top of you. I suggest you pull back toward the compound so we can give you more cover.”
“Smith! How the hell did you get this frequency? Never mind, yeah I can see where they’re landing. I was already ordering my troops into position to protect you. You all might want to think about getting the hell outta here, you know!” Petrie replied.
“Far too late for that, Colonel. There is also an airstrike in bound, but we are trying to stop them before they get into range. The Enemy you are facing could be human slaves, like I said, or they could be seven foot tall, blue, walking coat-rack looking things. Just as a warning, a head shot will only piss them off.”
“You still stuck on the Alien angle?” Petrie asked. “I thought you said this was a secret?”
“In a few seconds, Colonel, every one of you will know they aren’t human. Good luck.” Alan replied.
“Thanks Smith. Same to you,” he said. Alan had the controller cut him out of the channel.
“All units, this is Ty, No ground troops are to leave the shield! However, all fast attack craft are authorized to go out and harass the enemy in order to cover the Marines if they retreat to the shield. Do not let them in the shield, but cover them so they can get close.” Ty turned to his friend. “Alan, take Charlie-One and head out to the gate. When our folks need to come back in, it’ll be up to you to make sure only they get through.”
Charlie-one was a reference to Charlie Company, First platoon. The shield, at the gate, was one-way. Out-bound traffic could leave, but nothing could enter. Ty was asking Alan to go monitor the gate.
“On my way,” Alan said, and called the platoon to meet him at the front gate.
Six fast moving hover craft followed by six land rails sped out the front gate and circled around the Marines to engage the landing Caldarian strike force. The land rails, without orders, cut in front of the Marine lines, and dropped their small drones.
Those drones, immediately started making a maze of fox holes and trenches for the Marines. With six of them working the first set was completed quickly, and the marines ran forward to them. The drones moved back a hundred meters and began another set. On the floor and the sides of the fighting positions, the drones had placed explosives to destroy the small makeshift bunkers when the Marines had to fall back.
The fast moving vehicles caused so much damage to the landing forces that the assault ships themselves began trying to target the vehicles. One of the land rails was flipped over by a near miss, but its shield kept it from taking any serious damage. The crew flipped the buggy back on its wheels, got back in, and returned to the fight.
One of the Talos hover craft took several direct hits by the ships and exploded in a fireball. The remaining five hover craft shot in close to one of the ships and fired all their missiles into the open assault bay the troops were deploying out of. Three of them took hard hits on the way out, but otherwise made good their escape. The assault ship, didn’t fare as well. The missiles hit something important inside the ship, and it slammed into the ground hard. It slowly rolled a few degrees to the left as the troops it had been carrying picked themselves up and once again ran for the battle.
The troops being deployed were Caldarian, and they were vicious fuckers. The armor they wore protected the vital areas of their bodies, and a weak shield protected the rest. The Marines, opened fire on the invaders with their normal weapons, and quickly discovered how poorly those weapons worked. By the time the front line of Marines got the weapons Alan had brought out to them, the Caldarians were almost on top of them.
The Marines were good, there was no doubt about that. Faced with obviously non-human enemies, they still fought back with tenacity. Once the new rifles got to the front, it was almost like the Caldarians ran into a wall. While the Marines fought this strange enemy, the drones that had been dropped removed the wounded and dead back through the maze to the aide stations that had been set up.
The Marines actually stopped the Caldarians almost a hundred meters from the first row of trenches until the first of the Caldarian heavy weapons was unlimbered from the ships. Small, anti-personnel missiles started raining down on the trenches along with the grenades thrown by the Caldarian troops.
The small missiles, were actually like smart bullets, only targeting one person at a time, but once one locked on, it was very difficult to avoid getting hit. It distracted the Marines enough that the Caldarian troops could once again advance. Ten minutes into the fighting, and the US Marines had to pull back to the second position.
The drone guarding that section, waited until the Caldarian troops dropped into the vacated trench before detonating the explosives. The anti-personnel mines in the floor and walls shredded anything that had been unlucky enough to be anywhere near it. Not even the shields or the armor the Caldarians wore saved them. As the drone retreated after the Marines, it filled in the connecting trench.
Once it got back to the second position, it was joined by another drone and they quickly tried to create a roof over the fighting positions to protect the Marines. Drones, by themselves did not have the computing power for these tasks, One of the controllers in the Command Center had seen what the Land Rails had done, and took control of them. Ty didn’t say anything, just shook his head. “You might need a few more out there. Six drones are going to be hard pressed to keep up.” It was when those drones arrived that they began to handle the removal and recovery of the Marines casualties.
During all this fighting, a larger construction drone had slipped out of the front gate and quickly dug a place large enough for a command post for the Marines, a little further out, it dug a place for the aide station. Both of these places were hardened, and covered from all but heavy bombardment. It even hooked it into the community utilities and sanitary facilities.
Once they were finished, Alan told the Colonel and they quickly relocated to the new bunkers. “One of these days you’re going to have to tell me how you did all this shit! But for the time being, I’m damn glad you can!”
“Did what, Colonel? I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Alan said sarcastically.
“Heh, Okay, Smith. We’ll keep your secrets,” Petrie replied before signing off.
Since the troops had encountered more resistance than they had anticipated, the Caldarian assault commander ordered the landing ships to use their guns on the ground troops. The ship’s medium lasers blasted through ten feet of sand and rock in about second, the Marines that were hiding behind it didn’t last as long.
“Now that’s not nice at all! Carl, target those ships with the compound defense guns! I want them turned into salvage, now!” Ty ordered. “Be careful not to hit reactors, if one of those fuckers detonates out there, those Marines are history. Weapons and bridge only!”
“Get on the ground, Carl, and I’ll get a shield around them in case they self-destruct!” the other controller said. He was the one controlling the drones. He was typing furiously as he spoke.
Outside, all hell was breaking loose. From the top of the bluff directly behind the main compound, two mass drivers and a rocket launcher that had been built for air defense turned and opened up on the grounded assault ships. The ‘water tower’ for the community opened up revealing another of the mass drivers that also started firing. All told, two rocket launchers and four mass drivers opened up on the assault ships. Because of the range involved, the rocket launchers had to fire their missiles up into the sky so they would have time to arm themselves before turning to the targets. The attack most definitely took the Marines off the minds of those ship captains.
“Holy shit! Why didn’t he do that ten minutes ago!” Petrie asked, rhetorically. “Keep your heads down boys, and give ‘em hell!”
It didn’t take long for one of the ships to slam to the ground as its power failed. The Marines cheered, but were surprised when the drones that had been helping them all shot forward, dodging Marines and Caldarians, towards the cra
shed ship.
“Where the hell are they goin’?” one of the sergeants asked.
“Hell if I know, Sarge, but I hope they come back soon, we’re gonna need to move again,” was his answer.
The Marines expected the enemy to lose heart as their ships were destroyed, if anything, they fought harder, and became much more aggressive. When the third assault ship hit the ground, the last one tried to lift off again. It didn’t make it. Under the combined attack of all the base’s weapons, it took only a minute for them to eat through the shield. Once that was done, the mass drivers pealed the armor off the ship, and ate into the vital areas.
The Caldarians true to their history, did indeed destroy their ships. The shields that the drones built were opaque, and blocked the light from the explosions from escaping. However, it was clear to the Marines that had time to think about it, what had happened inside those strange looking bubbles.
The Caldarian hover tanks had moved up to provide cover for their troops. The Marines had been pulling back before those tanks made it to their lines, because there was little that they could do to the heavy machines. Ty’s remaining people on the hover sleds and land rails had been slowly working on those tanks, but it was slow going, since they had been designed to take a beating.
As proof of the fine line between bravery and stupidity, two Marines stayed in one of the trenches and waited for one of the enemy tanks to float over their position. The two men set their new rifles to full auto, and fired them into the belly of the craft, from underneath.
Although both men took horrendous wounds from the attack, the rifles blasted through the lightly armored belly and broke through into the operator’s compartment, killing the operator, and in effect, the machine. The tank dropped to the ground, right on top of the two men that had killed it. Luckily it was straddling the trench, and didn’t crush them. Two drones recovered them before the Caldarians that were rushing forward could get there and kill them. As they passed through the other Marines, they were cheered as heroes. The detonation of the trench flipped the tank back over onto its own troops, crushing six of them.