The Vanguard Emerges (Maraukian War Book 2)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Sprinklers.”

  Whirling sprinklers and circular saws started spinning at a high speed. The Maraukians continued forward, right into the third stage of defenses, what had been termed “the grinder.”

  The mono-wire that was attached to the spinning items was nearly impossible to see.

  The Maraukians were shredded by the wire.

  Target locations were changed and people were placed on alert as they readied to move back to their secondary positions.

  A merger was struck with rounds, but their armor stopped the rounds from killing them. So far, the mergers hadn’t sustained any casualties.

  “Here we hold them! Here we teach the Maraukians fear!” Mark felt the power in his body, the strength that came from leading these mergers. They were not people anymore—they were war incarnate now.

  “Come on, you fuckin’ bastards!”

  “This is what I signed up for!”

  “Ah, well seems like a good place to die, but I’ll leave you as my grave markers!”

  “We were dead when we became mergers. Let’s see if Valhalla is real!”

  Mark’s blood boiled. Here, at the edge of everything, one side of his mouth pulled up into a deadly arc. “Give them everything with both barrels!”

  Lightning missiles fired one after another, drowning out the sound of battle as they descended.

  “Activating secondary weapons systems!” Dodger said.

  They had taken weapons systems left by the legionnaires, hooked them into the sensor net and put them on swivel mounts.

  The M19s had been hooked up to boxes of ammunition and fed by a belt. Each had tens of thousands of rounds.

  Edani seemed to explode with tracers. As the fighting got closer, the speed that fire was traded between the Maraukians and mergers only increased.

  The spinning mono-wires were effective but the Maraukians passed through the gaps around the wires. Bodies were piling up around the spinners while the wires were breaking, making larger gaps and letting more of the apes through to the walls.

  “Artillery!” Ava yelled out.

  “Prepare to move to secondary positions!” Mark ordered.

  Flight time for artillery was still nearly three minutes.

  Mark didn’t need the targeting pop-ups anymore as he fired with both barrels, tracking his M20s across the front of the Maraukian herd, killing four or five deep every time he shot. But they kept coming.

  “Mother fuckers! Just die!” Mark jumped to the side as rounds came down on his position. He reloaded his rifles and rushed to the side.

  “We’ve got breaches. Maraukians are making it into the city!”

  “Pull back to the second line! Activate all of the remote weapon systems!”

  Weapons and even impromptu explosives and other items that could bring destruction down on the Maraukians all went green along the side of Mark’s screen.

  Artillery started landing outside of the city, making Mark stumble as the rain of rounds continued to keep coming down. The once green area was being pounded into oblivion. Even through the destruction and the dust, Maraukians could be seen running—over the broken ground, across the roads—and slamming through the outlying houses and buildings into the suburbs.

  Homes collapsed under the fire and the Maraukians smashing into the support beams.

  Mark grabbed at the trench wall, keeping himself up, and started running for all he was worth. Destruction rained down behind him.

  A blast took out a part of a building that crashed down.

  Mark jumped. Using his anti-grav, he shot forward; missing the debris, he deactivated it, pushing off a trench wall and turning in to a long corridor.

  Mark used his anti-grav to fly, staying between the mono-wires that were strung down the length of the corridor.

  A missile slammed into a building, blowing it out. The Maraukians’ rounds peppered the buildings and towers that were still standing, breaking them.

  The mergers were all now moving for their secondary positions. Edani was a large city and to cover it, the mergers were spread out. As they moved toward the city center, they got closer and closer, being able to support one another.

  Mark checked on the two people nearest him and then on the whole group.

  There was a shocked emotion then pain filled the net.

  “Fuck, got hit. No worries. It’s my leg—just caught a mono-wire. I’ve got it. Heading to secondary position,” Rachel said.

  Sarah uploaded info to Mark. Rachel had been forced down by the pressure wave of exploding ordnance; when she dipped, her leg went into a mono-wire.

  She cut the leg off and started to repair herself; grabbing the leg, she continued onward.

  All of them had lost a limb at one point, whether in simulation or in real life. Now it was no different than losing a shoe: you could always get another one.

  “Centurion Victor, we are shifting fire away. We have a priority call coming in. You’re on your own until we can get some guns free from this fire mission,” the artillery signifier said over a private net to Mark.

  “Got it.” Mark gritted his teeth. “Sarah, get me the Moby.”

  He was connected before he could finish talking.

  “Centurion Victor, ready to support,” Liang said after getting the call.

  “Tell Travestki I have a fire order for him,” Mark said.

  “Understood. You’re linked directly to fire control.”

  With that, a new ream of information joined the net. The mergers’ minds went to work, with their NIAIs understanding the weapons they were dealing with in moments and organizing fire support missions to rain down on the Maraukians’ heads.

  Mark exited the trench and moved through a complicated series of turns. As he passed, thick metal plates dropped into place, sealing the way behind him.

  Mark stepped into a bunker. A robot filled with ammunition was there waiting for him.

  Mark started replacing the spent ammunition blocks, watching feeds of the Maraukians struggling to gain entry into the city. The sheer or angled walls made it impossible to go any other way than through the trenches that the mergers had created.

  Chapter 36

  Between Ducharev and Edani

  Indalia, Otarvi System

  8/3555

  Shuttle pilot Captain Julio Ergo glanced from his readings to what he actually could physically see with his own two eyes.

  His fingers darted back and forth, making sure all his flight controls were spot-on. Their destination: a now partly destroyed playing field for the local senators’ spaceball teams.

  Ergo had flown for the legion before, but that was well in the past. Now he was a shuttle pilot who had been drafted to transport people to Ducharev.

  “What the f…”

  Ergo turned to his co-pilot, Dansk.

  “What is it?” But he didn’t really need to ask. He could see it with his own two eyes. To their left, as they headed into the main town area, they could see the Maraukian horde and where it was trying to breach the city’s felled towers.

  “They’re going to get through!” he said. No doubt about it; there was no way that the building would withstand that amount of creatures behind it. There were fifteen thousand of the Maraukians attacking their position.

  Ergo watched as Dansk’s hands shook. He sensed he was about to lose her. “They will get through,” he admitted to his friend. “But they’re not going to get our people on the ground.”

  Dansk’s eyes met his and though he saw the terrified and frightened young woman that she was, he went above his rank. Reaching out, he took her shaking hand in his. “Deep breath. We’ve got this.”

  She swallowed and sucked in a breath. “Yes, Captain.”

  “Good. See that mark ahead of us? Those are our people. We’ve four shuttles on the ground right now. We’re the final one. The legionnaire’s command is scheduled the last out. They’ve saved as many people from Edani and the towns all the way to Ducharev as they can. We’re not
letting them down now. We’ll pull them out.”

  Dansk’s hand pulled away. With renewed determination, she started in with their descent. Several artillery rounds landed among the Maraukians, opening up gaps in the herd.

  Captain Ergo located the one thing he treasured most in this world. A picture of his late wife. I was always the reckless one. Watch out for us.

  Chapter 37

  SLS Moby

  Indalia, Otarvi System

  8/3555

  Carla watched on as the Maraukian forces started to break through the city defenses. There was nothing else she, or the crew on her ship, could do. Captain Chen supposedly was recovering, but she’d heard his shouting from the bridge before she saw him.

  Captain Chen stormed through the doorway, his large frame notably different. But to her, at least, there was nothing missing from the side of his face. Carla fought back her emotions as the grizzled older man wobbled in.

  “Status report!” he ordered as she jumped up, giving him the room to fall into his chair.

  With just two words, the room seemed to come alive under his command. A command presence wasn’t something that one could just create; it was something that was tempered through fighting and standing beside one’s people.

  Travestki’s eyes darted to Carla, but she nodded. “Captain has the bridge.”

  “All drops away, sir. We’re waiting orders for fire mission if needed,” Travestki reported.

  Chen seemed out of focus, and a moment later, two medicos and Charles rushed onto the bridge. The scientist puffed and panted, very out of breath, as they were all obviously slower to follow him than they thought.

  “Captain Chen, you’re in no fit state to be taking control of this ship.” The medico looked for support from Carla.

  “If Captain Chen believes he’s capable of command, we’ve got his back.” Carla moved to stand beside him.

  Chen stretched up and glanced to the screen before him. “Charles, what happened, happened. I know more now than I ever did and those men on the ground need us.”

  Charles watched as the view on screen changed. From the mountains around Edani to the city itself, there were Maraukians.

  Lightning missiles were falling on the larger groupings of Maraukians while mines, mono-wire, and pits were also taking their own victims.

  Closer to the city, weapons were firing right into the teeth of the Maraukians, who were shooting back, raining destruction on the city and trying to gain entry to the city through the different corridors that had been created.

  The Maraukians were uncontrollable berserkers at this point. Anywhere there was an opening, they were pushing their way forward.

  Artillery was firing on the hills the Maraukians were coming down from and the last four hundred meters to the walls that had been erected around Edani.

  Liang, who was focused completely on his station, lurched forward as he talked through his NIAI. He turned to the expectant faces on the bridge while Travestki whipped around to his station.

  “The Tenth is requesting fire support. As per Chief Carla’s orders, I have directly linked them to the Moby’s targeting systems. As targeting solutions are readied, okay them and fire as soon as possible! Do not wait on orders from me!” Travestki yelled to his gunners.

  Across his board, orange lights went green as rail guns went active.

  One after the other, from rear to front, the rail guns fired, arching through the darkness of space before piercing through Indalia’s atmosphere, looking like streaking meteors.

  “Time to target, fifteen minutes,” Travestki reported.

  The rail gun rounds carved through the planet’s atmosphere.

  The rate of fire decreased to just two or three every minute or so as the mergers waited to check the effect of the long-range kinetic strike.

  “Heat-resistant coating is looking good. Time to target, four minutes,” Travestki said as the rounds completed entry into the planet’s atmosphere. Their glowing hot bodies cooled off as they came near to the end of their trajectory.

  Carla threw up views coming from Edani that showed the mountain range that they were targeting.

  “Release!” Travestki said.

  The rounds were traveling too fast to be seen properly, only a streak of gray, then a sudden cloud as the rounds dispersed ball bearings over a kilometer-wide area.

  The howling rounds impacted the mountain region seconds after one another. The ground was obscured by dust and debris being thrown into the sky. As the ball bearings hit, they caused shoots of dust to fly into the sky. The sheer force of the ball bearings hit at all different times to bring about destruction.

  The destruction made everyone stop and look at the screens. The dust was blown away with a strong wind, showing the wreckage that the ground had turned into. Maraukian bodies lay everywhere. Thousands must have died in the strike, but there was still movement. Maraukians that hadn’t been killed in the blast moved forward. They were wounded, some even dying as they ran, but they continued on.

  The area that had been cleared at the rear slowly started to show signs of movement.

  From the clouds, Maraukians burst out into the sunlight, trailing dust behind them.

  They’d killed many, but now with no obstacles in front, the Maraukians were down and employing their full speed.

  It would only take them a matter of minutes to reach the walls of Edani.

  “Keep firing as needed,” Captain Chen said, his words relieving some of the defeated feelings on the bridge.

  They might not have defeated the enemy yet, but through hard work and dedication, they would.

  “Captain! I’m starting to pick up movement on the hills around Edani. The routes that are between Edani and Ducharev,” Francis said with a solemn voice.

  “Get me Mark, and link in the information.” Chen closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, his eyes were no longer dark and cold, but had an electric light to them, the clear sign of a merger that was connected to their NIAI.

  Chapter 38

  Edani

  Indalia, Otarvi System

  8/3555

  The kinetic rounds had killed off the Maraukians that were racing down the hills, but it hadn’t done anything for the Maraukians that were hammering on the walls of the city.

  “Mark, it’s Chen. You’ve got Maraukians coming in from all areas now. Looks like there’s another herd at least that was moving through the mountains. Most of them are coming right at you. I’m going to bombard the mountains and see if we can’t keep them off you.” Chen directly connected to Mark as his information became Mark’s.

  Mark was silent for some time. The little hope that he had to save some of his people was brutally cut off.

  “Got it. Do what you can. We’ll bleed them here.”

  “Will do. Out.” Chen cut the channel as Mark linked back to the artillery signifier.

  “Support the retreating forces. They’ve got Maraukians charging up behind them.” Mark didn’t wait for them to respond as he sent new orders to the lightning missile pods. And shared his information and orders with the rest of the mergers.

  “We make our stand here. We’ll hold off the large majority of the Maraukians and use our long-range weaponry to support the legionnaires and civilians who are retreating toward Ducharev.” Mark’s orders were absolute, and no one raised issues. They’d known that this was a possibility when they had come to hold this city.

  They also knew that they were giving up a large amount of their support assets.

  “To the end.” Ava sounded tired, but her words captured the feelings of the other mergers perfectly. They’d follow their plan till the end, till the civilians and legionnaires were safe.

  Chapter 39

  Glider E4571

  Indalia, Otarvi System

  8/3555

  Word had reached the evacuees: the Maraukians were moving past Edani and heading for Ducharev. Order was starting to fall apart as it was replaced with panic. N
o amount of military backing would be able to fully control them as the panic started to grow. It was their fight for survival and most of them out of the city centers wouldn’t live another day.

  Yu watched on as Bobbie and Young helped where they could. Pulling people from the road sides, giving aid with the medicos who surrounded them. His smaller gliders could do nothing to evac them. Nothing. That stung. So here they were, supplying morale while they waited for resupply. Their weapons out, nothing else to draw from.

  Yu glanced to Bobbie, who was helping a medico with some of their most grievously wounded. Getting them into a ground transport and out of here also was a priority.

  Reports that were going off through his HUD were impossible to keep track of. So many needed backup, so many needed support.

  Soon as he heard the comm come through—“Supply drop en route.”—he knew they wouldn’t stay here for much longer.

  Glancing up from his own task of helping the medico with a soldier, their eyes locked. “Thank you,” she said. “Now scram.”

  Eyes flicking around for Young and Bobbie, he heard Bobbie’s call behind him. “Gotta roll,” she said, panting at him.

  He nodded, waiting for Young, and the three of them pelted toward their ships. Several wounded men around them waited for the drop. When it hit the dirt, all of them ran to resupply the gliders before even Yu could complain.

  Settling back into his pilot seat, Yu brought up comms to the others. “Ready?”

  That’s when the emergency notice flickered across his screen. Edani was almost surrounded. That meant their mergers were in dire straits, and the last remaining evacs weren’t going to make it.

  “Punch it, guys. Here’s the coordinates for the last evac station. They’re under heavy fire, with one civilian shuttle left to pick up our people.”

  Bobbie’s gruffness echoed as Yu took to the air. “Civilian ship? Bastards run out of personnel?”