“Is it human?’ Reynolds asked.
“We haven’t got anything that big, have we?”
“Not anymore, Lieutenant,” said Kelly.
“So what the hell are we looking at?”
Kelly shook his head; he had no idea.
“You two with me, the rest of you, take up positions here, and do not move unless you come under fire.”
They carried on through the undergrowth, and with every step kept a keen eye on what was before them. Eventually, they reached a position a few trees back from where the vast chasm had been created from the impact. Ten metre-high floodlights were embedded in the treeline all around, but there was no sign of anything living.
“This looks like a recovery operation, Sir,” said Engel.
“Why do you say that?”
“I worked a desk like you, remember. I have seen enough operations on paper. When we lost a 'copter or there was some accident, we would send out recovery and investigation teams.”
“And you think they work the same way?”
“Why not, Captain?” Kelly replied.
He peered through his scope now and could see in great detail, with the amount of light being projected. It was still difficult to identify what he was looking at, due to the damage, but he could tell immediately that it wasn’t human.
“Krys, just as I thought.”
“It’s huge, though,” said Reynolds.
“Indeed, and I am not sure this is all of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think whatever caused this to come down was done long before it began to burn up on the way through. Something tore this ship apart, or whatever it is.”
“Who though? Not like we have any fleets left.”
“I wouldn’t like to speculate, Engel, but I don’t think we’re alone. I don’t think this was an accident. Somebody just gave the Krys a punch in the mouth, and it landed hard.”
He couldn't believe it, but he found a surge of hope fill his heart.
“Whoever did this, if they can bring something this size down, they must be powerful, far beyond our means.”
“Yes, Reynolds, and they’re making a hell of a statement.”
It was the kind of revelation none of them could ever have believed in, and yet all hoped for when they lay awake at night. Kelly noticed a glimmer of movement and stayed exactly put and watched.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
They watched three Krys stroll into view in the distance. None of them wore armour, and several carried objects more closely resembling scientific implements than weapons.
“What the hell is this?” Reynolds exclaimed.
“You were right,” Kelly said to Engel, “They’re here to investigate. You know what that tells me?”
The two of them looked dumbfounded.
“They aren’t sure what did this, and more significantly, they’re scared. The Krys don’t recover any equipment, no matter how large. Something ruined their day, and they’re trying to figure out how and why, I should imagine.”
“So what do we do?”
“Add to the list of their problems,” Kelly replied, smiling.
"You what? You want to fight them?"
"Why not, Captain? They hunted us down, so let's see how they like it. I want them to know nowhere in these forests is safe. I want them to fear an attack in every moment they are here. We've been scared of them and what they'd do to us for so long, it's time we returned the favour."
He took a look through his scope again. Only a single small craft landed at the site, and no more than the three aliens he had first spotted.
"Go and bring the others up here," he ordered Engel.
As she left, Reynolds moved up to take a better look for himself.
"Can't be all of them, surely? They'd have support, Mechs, something."
"I would have thought so, too."
He sat down against a broad tree base and waited for Engel to return. He knew they weren't even at platoon strength, but he couldn't resist getting his teeth into the enemy. Looking at the group, he could see all their attention was on the site behind him.
"Take a good look," he added, "That's one of theirs. Something knocked it out of the sky, and it sure wasn't us. But what I do know is, whoever is responsible, we need to give them some help. Now I reckon that's an investigative team looking into what happened. We finish them here, and we'll make that bastard Erdogan think there is a combined ground effort that is kicking him in the ass."
"How do we know that, whatever it was... was shot down?" asked one of the women.
"It came out of orbit. That didn't happen by accident or with some kind of engine failure. Their tech is too good for that. And with all that much damage; no this thing was sabotaged in a big way. That's either a very large vessel, some kind of carrier maybe, or a space station, but it certainly isn't of human origin."
"So we don't really know what it is, why it's here, or why they are here, but we're gonna hit them anyway?" the woman asked again.
"The Commander is talking sense. If there is someone else out there fighting back, we should be doing all we can, too," said Engel.
"Yeah, but killing three, and risking us all to do it?"
Kelly looked at Reynolds and then took a deep breath. They all waited for his reply.
"I wasn't asking any of you what you wanted to do. I'm running this operation, and we're hitting the enemy now. Anyone don't like it, they better pack their bags and go it alone."
Reynolds didn't reply.
"All happy?" Kelly asked.
They nodded in agreement.
"Okay, we hit them from two directions. Reynolds, you go forward with your section and dig in. Rest of us will advance round that right flank. With any luck, we'll get into position and be ready to fire before they spot us, but you never know. Be ready to fire any moment if we get spotted. Priority is that they don't reach that craft. We cannot have them escape."
"And if there are more on board? They could just fly on out of here when we start shooting."
"Then assign two of your people to hit their engines the minute they see that happening," replied Kelly in a growly tone, and sounding offended that he had to explain the fact, "Enough talk, nobody says a word now. The next noise I want to hear from any of you is bullets coming out of those barrels, you got it?"
He got to his feet and led half the group off to the flank, moving as quietly as he possibly could. He watched the silhouettes of the enemy in the distance very carefully, expecting them to react in any moment. He knew the floodlighting would blind their night vision abilities. Or at least that would be the case for humans, and hoped they were alike. He felt a branch break under his feet and was met with the wince inducing sound of it cracking under his foot. He stopped dead.
Kelly wanted to close his eyes but forced himself to look at the creatures and study them for any sign of movement. There was nothing, and he a breathed out a sigh of relief and carried on. He reached the position he wanted and pointed for the others to fan out and take up position.
The creatures ahead still hadn't moved more than a metre or two in any direction. Mostly, they just looked at the small display screens they carried, and appeared to be collecting and analysing data. He carefully brought his rifle up to his shoulder and took aim at the first one.
"Ready," he whispered, and then finally, "Fire!"
Kelly squeezed the trigger and let off two shots with perfect accuracy. The Reitech rounds met little resistance, passing right through the creature's body. It stumbled and tried to get back to its feet. He followed with another burst and put it down for good.
He looked around for another target, but the other two were down on the ground, so he leapt to his feet and rushed towards the aircraft. As he did so, the engines fired up just as he feared they would.
"Take them down!"
He fired from the hip and kept moving. Tracer fire zipped past him as the others joined in. The vehicle had lifted a metre o
ff the ground when Kelly reached it. The access ramp began to rise as it gained lift. He drew a grenade from his armour, twisted the primer, and launched it at the door as the ramp went up to close. The grenade went high and bounced off the fuselage. It hit the inside of the ramp, bounced into the craft, and the door sealed shut.
Kelly rushed back a few paces. Gunfire ricocheted off the armoured hull, and as it surged forward a few metres, a huge explosion rang out. Most of the craft stayed intact, with only small prices of shrapnel coursing off in different directions. The engines immediately lost power, and the vehicle dropped out of the sky as if tossed off a cliff side. It landed hard just thirty metres away from Kelly, and he immediately rushed towards the crash site.
The door of the craft was slightly ajar where it had partly burst open, and the hull had buckled from the impact of hitting the ground.
"They can't have survived that," said Engel who had rushed to Kelly's side.
"Let's not take any chances, hey," he replied.
He took a second grenade out, primed it, and threw it through the opening of the door towards the cockpit. The explosion blew out the glass at the front of the craft, and Engel rushed to the breach to see for herself.
"They're dead!" she shouted.
Kelly grabbed the edge of the doorway and tugged on it until it pulled ajar enough for him to step inside. He flicked the torch on that was built into his rifle and studied every centimetre of the interior. There were just two aliens at the front of the cockpit. Caseloads of equipment lay either side of the storage area. He lifted the lid off one where the grenade blast had knocked it open. Inside, he found some sort of electronics box, but it meant nothing to him.
"What is all this stuff?"
Kelly turned; Reynolds had followed him in.
"If I had to guess, I think we were right the first time. I think this team came here for answers. Looks like this wasn't part of Erdogan's plan, and I bet he wants to know why it happened."
"But why send only five? They've got no armour and nothing more than sidearms."
"They weren't expecting a fight. Why would they? A remote location like this."
"But they know we're in these forests playing hell with them."
"And maybe they don't see it that way. Maybe we're nothing more than a mild irritation, a rash that will eventually fade away."
"I think we just proved otherwise," said Engel through the smashed cockpit.
Kelly smiled. "This war isn't over. Not by a long shot. I don't know what happened here, and I don't know why, but we're in this fight. Not just to piss them off, but we're in it with a fighting chance."
"Jumping to some major conclusions there, aren't you?"
"Yes, Captain Reynolds, and so should you. I said we came out here to keep on fighting. I said we had no chance of survival or winning, and that we only existed to make them suffer. I was wrong. It isn't enough for our people. They need hope. Maybe this is it, maybe it isn't, but they need it. I say human resistance shot down this ship, and that's what you'll say, too. That is the evidence we found here. We're not alone. We aren't beaten."
Kelly could feel that even as he said the words, he began to believe them himself.
"So we lie?"
Kelly shook his head.
"We gather information and intelligence, and we work on it, Engel. This is what I believe happened here. Maybe I'm right, maybe not. But who cares? What if we told Captain Becker there was hope? That the rest of our people knew there was some glimmer of hope for victory, and that we didn't just come out here to prolong our own eventual deaths? This is the most important event since we were forced from our homes in Ramstein. It's about what we believe in, Lieutenant. So what will it be? Will you believe in hope?"
He could see she wanted to believe it, and so did the others.
"When we found the Drachenburg, we found hope and a camaraderie we hadn't seen since the first war. I want that back, and you're gonna help me get it. We're not fighting to lose. We're fighting to win this war. Are you with me?"
A few grunts of approval came before some of them began to understand there was no reason not to think it. Even the faintest of hopes was better than none at all. The volume increased as they accepted what it was doing for their morale.
"Let's go on home with the good news. Let us return triumphantly and with a story of hope. Let's move out!"
He could see and feel the excitement amongst them now as they made their way back to the vehicles and headed on back to their people.
"We're heading home," Kelly said to Engel.
"Home?"
"We have lost enough buildings and towns we called home that they just don't matter anymore. Home is where our people are, whether that's in a bunker, on a ship, or in the middle of the wilderness.
"You really believe that?"
"Why not? Why can't one place on this world be our home anymore than any other place?"
He climbed aboard his jeep and began the long trek back. He felt like a new man on the return journey. The weariness he had felt on the way there was gone now. They had achieved just a small victory tactically, but there was far more to it than that. He had just found a cause worth rising for. When they finally rolled into the encampment, it was almost daylight. Becker watched them roll up with an intrigued expression. More than anything, it was their excitement and joy that dumbfounded him.
"You look like you just won the lottery?" Becker asked the Commander.
"I figure we have."
"So what was so amazing you found out there?"
"Hope," he replied with a smug grin.
"Don't bullshit me, Kelly."
"No bullshit, we got into a fight all right, with no casualties. But the ones we killed were there to investigate a battle we had no part in. Something big."
He had Becker's attention now and milked it.
"Someone shot down one of their vessels, something big, bigger than one of our own carriers, back when we had any."
"Someone?"
"I'd say ours."
"How?"
"I don't know how. I only care that it happened. We aren't the only ones in this fight, and whoever else is out there, they are hitting some hammer blows."
"So what are you telling me?"
"That all is not lost. We're still in this fight. We're still in this war."
Chapter 8
Taylor stepped out onto the surface of the Aranui planet once again, but not as a stranger. This time he returned a hero to both sides. Huang and Irala stood side-by-side to greet him, and it was a reminder of the great days of the Inter-Allied victories that were celebrated so far and wide. Cheers rang out from the Navy crews who had gathered all around and many more marines who were amongst them.
"Fantastic work, Colonel, you surely deserve a medal in recognition of your extraordinary bravery and achievement," said the Admiral.
"Save it for when I'm standing on Earth, with Erdogan's head beneath my feet, Sir!" he shouted for all nearby to hear.
He wasn't joking either. He wanted nothing more in life than to see the alien Lord dead at his feet, and he didn't much care how he achieved it.
"You still believe you can kill Erdogan, after having failed previously?"
"You saw that, too, Irala?"
"I was told."
"Yeah, he's a tough son of a bitch, but I'll find a way, even if it kills me."
"Which it may well do."
"Well, you're a bundle of joy," he replied and went to smack Irala's shoulder, but remembered too late that as usual it was nothing more than a hologram. His hand passed through, and he almost fell over as he lost balance. He tried to save himself from embarrassment by laughing it off.
"We just kicked Erdogan's ass, aren't you a little happy about that?"
"It is an important step, but only the beginning. Rest yourself, and tomorrow we will continue our work."
Taylor opened his mouth to speak, but Irala had already vanished. He shook his head in disbelief.
"First real victory either of us have had in ages, and he can't celebrate even a little."
"Perhaps they understand the road ahead rather better than we do," replied Huang.
"Yep, and maybe they need to pull the sticks out of their asses and learn to enjoy the little things in life, and the big things for that matter."
Huang looked shocked at the way Taylor spoke to him and that brought a smile to his face. That only served to make Huang uncomfortable and offended further, but Taylor knew the Admiral had no choice but to accept him as he was.
"Sir, if you'll excuse me. My work for the day is done, and me and my boys have more than deserved a little time to celebrate."
"Preparations have already been made for you," he replied.
But Taylor was already on the move and heading for the bar that had been set up a week before. Only the drinks counters themselves were sheltered inside a temporary structure, and lines of bench seats and tables lay out in the open air. They were beside the lines of ships that were undergoing repairs and refits. But with the dry and warm atmosphere, nobody cared at all. Parker rushed to his side, and he wrapped his arm around her as he carried on.
"Never thought I'd see the day," she said.
"Which one?"
"The one where we celebrated a victory again."
"I know; I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be on the winning side."
"How'd you think Erdogan is feeling right about now?" Morris asked, striding up to them.
"I bet he's pissed!" Silva laughed, "We just rolled up on his new home and took a dump on his porch."
"Nice," Morris grinned, "That's pure poetry."
"Poetry wasn't a requirement of recruitment into the Corps, Captain."
"Evidently."
Taylor laughed in response. "Fighters and drinkers, that's all we're good for."
"I can think of a few other uses for you," joked Parker.
They reached the bar to find the cups of beer handed out freely. The staff there had been recruited right off the civilian barges; they were a mix of nationalities. Many of them cheered Taylor's name, and he raised his cup to them.
“I didn’t think we’d ever see this,” Parker said, throwing back her drink.
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