Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion

by DK Williamson

  The Pythan charge slowed as many of the soldiers near the leader looked at their wounded commander. Corporal Smith took advantage of this.

  Smith fired a long burst, traversing from left to right, tearing the Pythan line to shreds. Those not hit dropped to the ground, some firing their weapons, but many simply frozen with fear.

  The force from the northwest had suffered heavily. The group closing on 4-Alpha had paid a stiff price to cover half the distance to their target. They went prone, and brought suppressive fire as the rest of the force stood and charged forward.

  Cook had two rounds left for his recoilless weapon. The Pythan troops were nearly stationary when they stood, and the team sergeant had been waiting for that moment. He fired at the center of the force, blowing a visible gap in the line with his shot.

  Estes turned his attention once again to the machine guns to the north. He scanned down the roofline and found the last gun he had engaged. It and the remaining crew lay in a tangled heap, taken down by Baylor and his recoilless.

  Estes scanned farther to the right and found the last machine gun, its muzzle looked like it was pointed right at him. He brought the reticle onto the gunner when suddenly the machine gun’s barrel spouted flame. In the wink of an eye, Estes’ world went black.

  A noise and movement to Corporal Smith’s right drew a look. “Shit, Estes is down!” he yelled.

  Estes had fallen from his perch above and landed on the dirt berm at the edge of the furrow where 4-Alpha had dug in.

  Cook saw what had happened and made his way to Smith’s position, crouching to stay below the edge of the berm.

  “Smith, cover me,” he said.

  As Smith’s machine gun pounded rounds downrange, Cook ran to Estes and pulled him down into the furrow, out of the line of fire. The sergeant could see a wound to the shoulder and a pair of hits to the corporal’s helmet, but he had a pulse.

  “Estes is alive, LT. we can patch him up if we catch a lull, or when Third Division gets here.”

  “Optimistic of you,” Sparks said, his voice strained. Bullets kicked up dirt on both sides and in front of him as he fired at Pythans.

  “Last machine gun down, out of recoilless ammo,” Baylor said over the team net. “Going to rifle.”

  Smith shifted fire to the charging men from the northwest while Cook fired his last 50mm shell. Between the two of them and the withering fire of Dugan and Sparks, the Pythan advance stopped and they went prone.

  “I’m loading the last box of ammo,” Smith said.

  A whistle sounded to the north, and the entire Pythan force arose and charged, bayonets visible on their weapons.

  “Stand by with your grenades,” Sparks said. “Fire at will.”

  Most of the Coalition soldiers had placed their few grenades on the berm near their positions.

  Cook tapped Dugan on the shoulder, holding a pair of hand grenades in his hand. “You know how to use one of these, lieutenant?” he said. Smith’s machine gun barked in bursts nearby.

  “Roger that, sergeant,” Dugan replied.

  SSG Cook nodded and placed the grenades on the dirt beside the lieutenant and moved back to his position.

  The nearest Pythan soldiers, the survivors of the first attack from the north, were still shaken from their previous action. Their enthusiasm for this current attack faded quickly and they went prone as soon as they took fire.

  The other northern Pythan force closed quickly, despite taking casualties. When they reached a point about fifty meters from 4-Alpha’s position, another whistle blast prompted a savage cry from the Pythans. Bayonets lowered, the soldiers snarled and sprinted at the Coalition troops.

  Sparks watched the charge, noting the fire from the northwest had stopped. He let the Pythans close, timing their approach.

  Now, he thought. “Frags out,” he said over the team net.

  Every functioning soldier except for Smith threw a grenade, the explosions staggered out over a second and a half. Sparks’ timing had been good, very good. The small grenade barrage stunned the attackers and inflicted considerable casualties.

  A voice barked orders over the noise, a Pythan leader rallying his troops. His men stood, and with a wave of his arm, they came on once again.

  “Frags out,” Sparks yelled, recognizing how fluid the situation was at that point.

  Grenades flew from 4-Alpha’s position, landing among the Pythans once again. Grenade fragments tore through the enemy force and the attack died. Wounded Pythans ran, limped, and crawled away.

  An angry cry went up from the Pythans to the northwest and 5mm weapons began spitting lead at 4-Alpha.

  “Shift fire, watch the northwest,” Sparks yelled.

  Baylor turned and brought his rifle to his shoulder, then fell to the ground.

  Sparks saw him fall, then saw the bullet hole in Baylor’s forehead behind a cracked visor, just below the edge of his helmet.

  The Pythans stood and closed.

  “We don’t have enough grenades to stop this attack,” Sparks said turning back to face the Pythan charge.

  “Demo charges, sir,” Cook said. “We have the damned things, let’s use them.”

  Cook ran for the rucksack where the demolition charges were packed and carried it to 1LT Sparks’ position. He yanked loose the straps and spilled the charges onto the ground.

  “We set the timers for a few seconds, LT,” Cook said. “We hurl them when they get close and get our heads down. Remember, these have a lot more explosive than hand grenades and they weigh more.”

  “Got it,” he said as he fired at the Pythans.

  The Pythans picked up speed as they closed.

  “We throw grenades first, then we use demo charges as needed,” Sparks said as he picked up one of the three remaining grenades.

  “Use’em, sir,” Cook replied. “We’ll cover.”

  To their right, Smith fired short bursts from his weapon.

  Sparks flipped up the safety lever, activated the grenade, and hurled it as Dugan and Cook fired at the advancing Pythans.

  “Frag out,” he yelled. He immediately grabbed another and repeated the process, then he did it again.

  The grenade fragments ripped into the Pythans, but they still came.

  “How long on the demo charge, Cookie?” Sparks asked, tension in his voice as he looked at the number of enemy soldiers coming for them.

  “Short, sir. Two, three seconds, then we all better be down before it goes off.”

  “Roger,” he said as he set the first demolition charge. “I’ll count it down.”

  The Pythans were close now, their bayonets lowered and pointing at the Coalition soldiers.

  “Demo out,” Sparks yelled as he shoved the charge over the dirt berm.

  “Two, one, down!” he said as he ducked.

  Cook, Dugan, and Smith all followed suit.

  The explosion reverberated under the hull of the attack craft, hurling dirt and debris everywhere. Pythan leaders yelled over the screams of the wounded. Even though the Coalition soldiers couldn’t understand the words, they knew they were pushing their troops to regroup and attack.

  “Readying another charge,” Sparks said.

  As the dust settled, he could see the carnage in front of their position, and just beyond that, the Pythan soldiers coming at them again.

  “Demo out,” he yelled.

  His comrades ducked once again, and again the charge clouded the air with noise and debris. More cries of wounded men echoed, and the Pythan leaders yelled more commands.

  It became clear the Pythans were going to attack until they won, or died, whichever came first.

  Sparks hurled demolition charge after demolition charge until they were gone. The final demolition blast seemingly ending the attack. Body parts, clothing, weapon fragments, and dirt covered everything. As the dust cleared one last time, the soldiers looked for more Pythans, but there were no more.

  For a brief moment, they thought they might have won, but Smith’s
shriek of pain over the team net ended the illusion.

  Sparks, Dugan, and Cook looked to the right and saw Pythans from the northern attack closing on them.

  “I’m going for the machine gun,” Cook yelled as he hurled himself down the furrow. Dugan and Sparks fired at the advancing enemy.

  “I’m out of ammo,” Dugan shouted.

  “Check Baylor, he should have some,” Sparks growled as he fired his rifle.

  Dugan crawled to Baylor’s corpse and began searching him when a grenade exploded near Cook. Fragments peppered the area, a small piece tearing into Sparks’ right calf muscle. Dust completely obscured Cook and the advancing Pythans.

  Suddenly three Pythan soldiers charged from the dust at Sparks. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he opened fire. Two rounds dropped the first Pythan, another pair stopped the second. The third Pythan glared at Sparks and moved at the lieutenant with his bayonet. Sparks pulled the trigger and his weapon failed to fire. He knew immediately by the feel that his weapon was empty.

  The Pythan thrust forward with the blade. Sparks rolled to the side and went for the sidearm in the holster on his right hip. He knew he wouldn’t make it in time.

  From Sparks’ right came Lieutenant Dugan, hobbling on his bad knee. He crashed into the Pythan and took him to the ground.

  From the settling dust came more Pythans. The survivors of the northwestern force had regrouped and were coming once again as well.

  Dugan raised up to strike the Pythan when he took a burst of 5mm rounds to the back. He fell on top of the Pythan he’d been struggling with.

  Sparks had his pistol drawn by now and shot Dugan’s killer in the face. The Pythan under Dugan struggled to rise, but Sparks ended that with a shot to the head.

  Sparks turned to face the oncoming enemy. There’s too many! A burst of machine gun fire sounded from the right, tearing into the Pythans. It was a bloody and filthy SSG Cook walking steadily into the attack with a grim sneer on his face.

  The Pythans turned to face this new threat, but it was too late. A hail of bullets drove them all to the ground, dead or dying. As the last Pythan fell, the bolt of the machine gun slammed closed onto an empty chamber. Cook released the trigger and looked at his lieutenant.

  “LT, the next time and attack pilot offers us a last chance to skip something like this, let’s take him up on it,” he said.

  Sparks smiled and started to speak when machine guns to the north and northwest sprayed fire their way.

  Cook dove for cover behind the berm and crawled next to Sparks. He set the empty machine gun aside.

  “You out of rifle ammo, LT?”

  Sparks checked his ammunition pouch and found he had no more spare magazines.

  Cook saw this and crawled to Baylor’s body.

  “Two mags, sir. One full, one partial.”

  Pythan bullets tore the ground, the berm, and slapped into the sides of the attack craft.

  “They’ll come again, won’t they?” Sparks asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Cook said. “And soon.”

  The two men loaded their rifles knowing they wouldn’t survive another attack.

  The machine gun fire slackened. The two soldiers heard footfalls.

  “Get ready, sergeant,” Sparks said grimly.

  From both sides of the attack craft came infantry, Land Forces infantry from the 3rd Division. A platoon dropped into the furrow, followed shortly by a heavy machine gun crew and their 13mm weapon.

  “You the Special Services team?” A 3rd Division sergeant asked as he approached them in a crouch.

  “That’s right,” Lieutenant Sparks said. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”

  “Looks like you had quite a dance with the Pythans, sir. Never fear, Third Herd is here,” the sergeant said with a smile.

  “Medics available?” Cook asked.

  “Roger that, sarge. On the way.”

  The 13mm machine gun went to work. It’s pounding report echoed under the attack craft’s hull.

  Within minutes medics arrived and the infantry platoon moved on. Shortly after that, the heavy machine gun crew packed up and left as well as troops streamed by on either side of 4-Alpha’s position.

  A medical troop landing craft flew in and landed not far from the Keep Swingin’. The survivors, Lieutenant Sparks, Squad Sergeant Cook, Corporal Estes, and the pilot of the Keep Swingin’ were soon on their way to a hospital vehicle orbiting Creech.

  “Do you think this whole operation was worth it, sergeant?” Sparks asked as the TLC took them from the planet.

  “No, not really, sir. If we’d been able to take down some air defense, maybe I’d say different, but we didn’t. We gave better than we got, but we lost some awfully good folks today, LT. When that happens… well, maybe it’s never worth it.”

  “Never worth it,” Sparks said. “Maybe you’re right.”

  -(o)-

  Interlude

  Excerpt from: Straight Talk with Armando Rancon, an interview with General David Fancher.

  “The Pythans do not want our destruction, they want our planets and very likely, our populations,” General Fancher said. “This is not a war of annihilation, it’s a war of conquest.”

  “How do we know this?” Rancon asked, leaning forward in his chair. “How can we know what they want, general?”

  “We know this because of the manner in which they are conducting the war. No large scale planetary attacks, no use of weapons of mass destruction.”

  “But what of some of the stories we have heard. Accounts of indoctrination, forcible mass conversion to their religion?”

  “As crazy as they seem, they are not destructionists. They have taken some of the Coalition’s worlds. Some of them with sizable populations. They are not exterminating those people, they are trying to convert them. As I said, conquest, not destruction. They will not fight to the end of themselves, only to the end of us.”

  Rancon sat back in his seat and placed his chin atop a fist, one finger strategically placed on his cheek. “How can we be sure of this?”

  “We know this from the war three hundred years ago. There must be those in their leadership that will seek peace just as there were then, but we must first force a situation that would put them into a position to feel the need to do so.”

  “How does the Coalition accomplish this?”

  “Through victory, in space and planetside. We have to push them back. The Pythans have to realize we can beat them.”

  -(o)-

  The Coalition’s first step in forcing the Pythans to seek peace was also the first large scale ground invasion, the retaking of the planet Creech.

  Coalition forces had to expand quickly. This required the rapid training of large numbers of troops and their integration into existing units. How would these new soldiers fare?

  . . .

  A Bunch of Damned Grunts

  The atmosphere in the cramped troop bay was almost deafening to any of the transport’s crew who entered, but to us soldiers of the infantry company who occupied the space, we had become inured to the hum and racket.

  “Fucking grunts, the Pythans can probably hear you all the way in their home systems,” one of the Space Forces guys said with a big grin on his mug as he passed by a small group of us.

  “I thought there wasn’t no sound in space,” Private Sharkey said with a confused look.

  The Space Forces guy sighed and laughed while he shook his head. “Fucking grunts,” he said good-naturedly as he shoved open the hatch and left the bay.

  Sharkey wasn’t the smartest guy you’d ever meet. Not by a long shot. Guys like him got labeled as rock, or lunkhead, and things like that. Hell, most of us did in our line of work. We were infantry.

  Sharkey wasn’t smart enough to target missile strikes or fly a landing craft, but he knew his business. I doubt any targeteer or LC pilot would trade places with him given the chance, and that was fine, we all had jobs to do.

  We were infantry, standard issu
e line infantry, but we were the best infantry in the Coalition of Free Systems Land Forces.

  We were the arrogant and strutting members of the 1st Division(Infantry), the Big One as we were called. The best division, period, and we were prepared to demonstrate that fact to anyone who disagreed with that assessment. That included any Coalition unit as well as the Pythans.

  I didn’t mean we’d kill our own, but if members of some lesser unit wanted to start trouble over the pecking order we’d walk down knuckle street with them, and leave them crying and bleeding and wiser for their effort.

  Over half of our division was made up of recent enlistees, the rest were experienced troops or long-serving, hard-as-steel, show-us-where-the-motherfuckin’-fight-is, combat veterans.

  Those old soldiers eventually accepted us, but we had to prove ourselves, had to show that our training was up to snuff, and satisfy them that we were real soldiers in their eyes before that happened. It did though, and it wasn’t that difficult, at least for some of us.

  It wasn’t that difficult because we were trained the right way, the hard way. The hard way is the soldier’s way, that’s what we were taught. Taught by the meanest bastard that ever shaped civilians into soldiers.

  -(o)-

  That Giant Prick. That’s what we most often called him, among a million other epithets.

  Everything that came out of Drill Sergeant Fortuna’s mouth exited as a bellow and made we trainees jump as if a sudden thunderclap sounded from above.

  Fortuna seemed as if he hated everyone and everything and maybe he actually did for all we knew.

  He yelled at officers in the same tone as he did us trainees, with slightly fewer profanities perhaps, but he bellowed at them just the same. The officers never said a word about it. We were sure they feared him as much as we did.

  Drill Sergeant Fortuna. That was the man who would teach us to be soldiers. He put us through more hell and handed out more abuse than any ten normal human drill sergeants combined.