Battle Earth: 11

by Nick S. Thomas

"That well, huh?"

  Taylor couldn't help but smile.

  "How do you stay so goddamn chirpy, no matter what?"

  "How are you always such a badass?" he responded.

  Taylor couldn't think of a response, but he got the idea.

  "So what, this is the way we're born? I was born to slug it out fighting every asshole across the galaxy, and you were born to be a wise cracking cheery son of a bitch?"

  "Sounds about right."

  "Well, okay then, nice to know some things never change."

  "Consistent and steadfast, that's me."

  "Just get me out of here," replied Taylor.

  "You got it."

  The engines began to power up.

  "You know we really..."

  Eddie's voice was interrupted by a loud crack that echoed through the speakers of the craft, and then the feed went silent.

  "Eddie? Rains? You there?" Taylor asked.

  No response. He was getting anxious now as the engines powered down, and he knew the remote access had been lost.

  "Rains?"

  There was still no response. Now Taylor was really starting to worry. He reached forward and punched the big red button that would send him home. He waited for just a few seconds, and nothing happened.

  “Oh, come on!” he yelled.

  He smashed his fist down on the button once more and just as it connected, the engines fired up. He realised he was being impatient, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Come on, you piece of junk, let’s move!”

  He felt the power surge as they lifted off the ground, but at a snail's pace compared to how Rains would have done it.

  “Move, move, move!” he shouted.

  He knew it would get him nowhere, but he could not contain himself. He gripped his rifle and held it close; knowing all he could do was sit and wait. He opened another channel to the Washington.

  “This is Colonel Taylor to the Washington, please come in.”

  No reply came, so he repeated the same message. Still nothing. He sat back now and just waited. It seemed to take an age to get to the edge of the atmosphere, and he watched nervously for the first glimpse of space. Never before had he been so eager to get into space.

  “Please be nothing, please be nothing,” he muttered to himself over and over. But he knew deep down that something was up. The atmosphere began to thin, and he got a first blurred glimpse of what he was heading for. He could just make out flashes of light, orange and yellow patches of light in the distance. He couldn’t focus yet or workout what he was seeing.

  Then finally he broke orbit, and the view cleared up. He gasped at the fearful sight before him. The fleet was being bombarded by constant fire from more Krys vessels than he could count, and at the centre of them Erdogan’s own ship. The very same ship they had fought so hard to disable when they escaped from Earth. He was instantly hit with flashbacks of the way the alien Lord had thrown him about like a ragdoll.

  “My god,” he whispered.

  He got up to the edge of his seat and tried to think of something to do, but he knew there was nothing. His shuttle was making its way back at a leisurely and casual pace. He looked out and could see the Washington was being hit by shot after shot. Pulses were ripping holes in its hull and assault craft were heading her way.

  Taylor shook his head. “This must be the end. This is what it must look like,” he said to himself.

  Above all else, he was furious he wasn’t there aboard the flagship to go down with her. A number of other vessels stood alongside her and were giving as much back to their attackers as they could. The rest of the fleet were on course for the planet. Taylor knew Irala's people could well fire on them, but it was a better chance of survival than facing the Krys.

  Huge pulses of light burst from Erdogan's ship, the Fatihi, and tore the hull from the Washington as if she were a tin can, and yet she kept firing. He was drawing closer to the remainder of the fleet now and passed alongside the vast barges that housed the only known survivors of the human race.

  Taylor watched the battle rage for fifteen minutes. It was like seeing a frigate duel as the vast ships battled it out. He could see they had no chance, and Huber must have known it. It was clear he was merely trying to buy the rest of the fleet enough time to reach the planet. Every single person he cared for in life was in the battle, and he was helpless as he watched them being torn apart. His shuttle was still making its way to the fight, but he was still a few minutes out, and he wondered if he'd even get past the gunfire. He slid the visor shut on his helmet to seal his suit, knowing there was a good chance he'd need his own air.

  "This is your end," a growly voice said behind him.

  He almost leapt out of his skin and jumped from his seat with his rifle at the shoulder. Erdogan stood there, and it sent a shiver down his spine. He knew there was no chance it could be his real physical presence, but he wanted to be sure. He drew his combat knife and launched it at the alien. The blade passed right through and bounced clumsily off the wall behind him.

  Taylor was relieved to find it was a hologram, as he had suspected. Erdogan didn't move, and he carried no weapons. He stood upright, looming over Taylor. His head almost reached the roof of the crew compartment, and he carried himself with arrogance.

  "What do you want from me?" Taylor asked.

  "Your life...but not until you have watched your people die. I want it to be the last thing you ever see."

  Taylor could think of no witty response, and neither did he want to. He turned away and slumped back in the pilot's seat as if he were a broken man.

  "You could never win," added Erdogan, "You struggled to overcome the lesser of my kind. You barely made it through. And when met with a real enemy, you died in your masses and ran like the weak cowards you are."

  Taylor tried to ignore him, but he could still feel his heart pounding. Initially, it was from the surprise of Erdogan's voice, but now it was from bitter hatred. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimmer of movement at the side of the cockpit window and turned to look. A rippling effect seemed to pass him by, and then another. He could not tell the size or distance of these anomalies.

  "What the hell?"

  Several more passed all around him, and they were heading right for the battle. They seemed almost translucent and appeared to flicker and blur the sight of space ahead. He counted more than a dozen of the objects heading right for the fight. He squinted to try and make out what they were, when finally one of the objects opacity faded and revealed itself. A vessel like nothing he had ever seen before. It was almost matt black and blended well against the space beyond. Only the flashes of the pulse weapons and explosions on the ships were lighting up its silhouette for him to see. A single engine on the back of the vessel emitted almost no light, and they moved at a rapid pace. The vessel was long and pointed at the bow, almost fish-shaped.

  Taylor turned and looked back to see if Erdogan had reacted to what he was seeing, but the alien was nowhere to be seen.

  "Go on, do it!"

  He was well aware nobody could hear him, but he didn't care.

  "Do it! Kill them!" he cried.

  A beam suddenly burst from the mysterious vessel and extended out to one of the medium-sized vessels fighting beside the Fatihi. The beam cut through the enemy craft as if with no resistance at all, and then exited on the far side until it cut the ship in two. The crew and contents of the vessel were sucked out into space as the ship parted cleanly into two almost perfectly proportioned halves.

  "Fuck me," Taylor murmured in awe.

  As he spoke, several of the rest of the camouflaged vessels revealed themselves and opened fire as the first had done, with an array of different weaponry from beam weapons to pulses, and rapid fire cannons that emitted vast surges of pulse-like volleys. Three of the Krys vessels were obliterated in the opening volley, but they soon turned to oppose this new threat.

  Taylor watched in amazement as this third force ploughed into the battle,
and an apocalyptic battle ignited before his eyes. A dozen other human vessels had turned back from the barges to join the fight, having seen they now had a chance. Empty hulks floated about space, and fighters from all sides zoomed all around. He was close to the Washington when he saw massive explosions burst out from her hull. The pulses kept striking her, and he watched in horror as the upper hull buckled, and a large hole opened up. He could just about see the shape of crewmembers being sucked out through the breach.

  “No!” he screamed.

  He looked around for something to do, for someway to help, but there was none. He watched several craft fly out from the landing bays, and many more escape pods followed them. He prayed his friends had made it out alive. Pulses continue to hit the Washington relentlessly. What guns and missile systems she still had operational continued to fire, but it was the end for her.

  Then Taylor found he had a new problem of his own. His shuttle was still en route to a ship that was likely to explode at any minute. He looked at the controls and tried to make some sense of them.

  “Come on, can’t be that difficult,” he told himself.

  He had watched Rains do it by muscle memory alone so many times; he imagined it was little more than like riding a bike. But the three consoles around him had a blinding array of switches and gauges. There were two joysticks in front of him. He grabbed one and tried to alter course with it, and then the other, but to no avail. He couldn't even see any way of taking over from the autopilot that he had activated. He looked back to the burning wreck of the Washington, and still it was taking fire as dozens of small ships and shuttles fled for their lives.

  "Ah, hell!" he yelled.

  He rushed to the side door of the shuttle and pulled the emergency release catch so that the door blasted off into space. He took one look outside and jumped. He was used to jumps within Earth's gravity, but this had a very different effect. He continued on towards the Washington. Mitch quickly fired the thrusters on his suit and put them to full power, pointing at the hulk. His ascent towards the vessel finally slowed, and just as his power ran out, he began to move slowly away from her.

  There was nothing he could do now but turn around and watch the battle continue as he floated very slowly back the way he had come. An escape shuttle that was about to zoom past him exploded, hit by a pulse, and two small parts of debris from it smashed into him. He covered his face to protect his mask. He just had to hope his armour would protect his mechanical compression suit beneath it.

  The debris bounced off him and did little to affect his course. He looked down to check his equipment. A deep gash had cut into the torso plate of his armour. It was the thickest armour on his body, and probably the only place that would have saved him. But he wasn't thinking of himself any longer. A huge flash lit up inside the Washington, and explosions erupted out of new holes that were blown out of the outer hull. The last of the lights and engine power faded, and she was finally gone for good. Taylor raised his hand in a casual salute to her.

  "You did us proud, and far more than we could have asked for," he said, as if speaking at a close personal friend's funeral. It seemed the beginning of the end. But then he turned his attention to their allies. The battle was still far from over, and what remained of the humans were still fighting and battling on.

  Chapter 4

  Almost fifteen minutes had gone by as Taylor watched the battle unfold. His boosters had largely recharged from the solar energy that was in abundance. He checked his air supply and was content it was at an acceptable level, but he looked around for any way of getting either in or out of the battle rather than watching from the sidelines, which was both dangerous and useless.

  He looked back towards the planet that the barges were reaching and knew that if he used some boost, he could likely make it, but watching the apocalyptic battle he realised he couldn't leave. There were more than thirty ships on either side battling it out now, with almost as many floating as empty hulks. He knew that even if the Inter-Allied forces still remained, he had no chance of finding them, so he looked for something recognisable and some place he could be of use.

  Looking around for some point of entry into the battle, he saw one of the enemy fighters crash into the lower hull of the French Heavy Cruiser, the Diderot, where Major Moye was based. A few seconds later, one of the enemy heavy assault craft hit the breach and burst through, in what seemed a calculated assault. Taylor knew this was his chance. He hit his boosters and fired towards the breach in the cruiser's hull. Fighters weaved in and out around him, and it was sheer luck alone that he wasn't hit. As he closed the distance, he found he was slightly off course and tried to redirect, but it was too late.

  Taylor slammed into the hull a metre off the breach, but he held on with one hand to a ribbing in one of the plates of the hull. He hit his boosters just a little, and it provided the forward motion to get him to the breach to manoeuvre in. As he did so, his grav boots locked onto the deck he was entering and allowed him to walk almost as if in normal gravity.

  "Time for some payback," he whispered.

  He looked around for any sign of the enemy to strike down, but there was nothing. He carried on to the edge of the room where the blast doors had sealed and found a decompression chamber. The security had been overridden, and it was open for anyone to pass through. He stepped inside and waited for it to pressurise. He stood wondering what he would find on the door the other side, and he had only one thought.

  I wish I'd brought my damn shield.

  The door opened, and his rifle was at his shoulder ready to fire, but he did not find the enemy. He was met with the bodies of five French Navy crew scattered about the corridor. Not a single Mech lay dead amongst them. There was no sign of weaponry, and it was obvious they had been taken by surprise. Two stretchers lay there with them; it looked as if they had been carrying wounded. He shook his head. He had fully expected to find casualties, but to see they had not even been armed and able to put up a fight made him feel sick.

  He carried on and took a bend, finding five Mechs dead and three marines with them. As he stepped cautiously past the bodies, he heard a groan from one of the marines and knelt down to check for a pulse. As he did, he felt movement and so helped the man roll over. It was Moye himself. He was cut and bleeding on his left arm and looked like a train had hit him. He mumbled in French, and for all of Taylor's time in the country, he couldn't understand anything he said.

  "Major?" Taylor asked.

  He kept his voice low and shook Moye, trying to wake him up fully. Finally, he stopped mumbling and looked at Taylor's face, clearly recognising him.

  "What happened? How did you even get here?"

  "How doesn't matter. You've been boarded. Looks like they ran right through you."

  The Major looked at the bodies around him.

  "Yes, one of the big things. I think you call them Juggernauts."

  Taylor shook his head.

  "That's the last thing you want aboard."

  "It's not like we haven't seen them before."

  Taylor took his hand and hauled him to his feet. He winced in pain but was at least able to support his weight. The rifle slung at his side was snapped in two where he must have landed on it after being struck by the Juggernaut. He unclipped it and reached down to take one from his dead comrades, with no second thought. Taylor often forgot how much experience and combat everyone else had seen beside him. He knew that if Moye had made it this far in life, he must have at least some good qualities.

  Taylor reached down and took one of the shields from the bodies. Moye picked his own up.

  "They'll be heading for the bridge. They always do," said Taylor.

  "I know, and we don't have long to stop them. If we can stop them at all."

  "Lead the way."

  They carried on alone. Two officers without any support at all. They both knew how desperate the situation was, but neither was willing to say it or let it affect them in doing their jobs.

  "You
saw the Washington go down?" Moye asked quietly.

  "Saw it with my own eyes."

  "Then I am sorry."

  "Sorry for us all. She was as important to me as she was to us all."

  "But your unit?"

  "They either died doing their jobs, or they managed to get off before she went down. Nothing more I can do by worrying about them."

  It was the kind of logic he always spouted to keep spirits up, but he still didn't believe it himself, and Moye gave him a bemused look that suggested he knew it.

  Then they heard gunfire up ahead, but it was not coming from friendly weapons. The two officers continued on with their shields held out before them and trigger fingers ready to fire in an instant. They came into sight of the enemy. Their backs were in plain view, and neither gave them a chance to fight fair, opening up on fully automatic and cutting down two of the Mechs in the opening burst. Three more turned to return fire, but it was too late for them. They kept their fingers on the triggers until they were relentlessly cut down.

  Neither of them stopped going forward as they changed out their magazines, and Moye led the way to the bridge. They passed the bodies of a dozen Mechs and more than three times their number in crew. At last they heard the familiar sound of Reitech rifles firing. Moye peered around a corner from where they could hear the sound and saw a group of marines dug in at an intersection and defending a single flank. He shouted something in French and followed it with his name before stepping out towards them. He spoke a few words and got several sentences back. Moye looked back to Taylor as if expecting input.

  "In English?" Mitch asked.

  "We've got multiple hull breaches and at least three boarding actions reported."

  "They'll still be going for the bridge," he replied.

  Moye ordered the marines to stay put, and led Taylor onwards. They would have appreciated some support, but they had to cover more ground than they would together.

  "What will they do if they reach the bridge?" Moye asked.

  "Kill the crew, turn any weapon systems still active on our own fleet, and likely attempt to ram the nearest one of ours."