by Chris Hechtl
Sighing, Walters nodded acknowledgment as Hiro continued. “So far the AWACS have detected over one hundred enemies in the area as well as a dozen mecha and one very large organic signal.”
Walter looked to the sheepish intelligence aide as she cleared her throat. “The AWACS is picking up communication signals from the enemy on the ground. Encrypted.”
Walter gave her a look and then turned to Hiro. “So much for the enemy not having the same communications ability.” He watched out of the corner of his eye as the chastened intelligence officer blushed and sat down abruptly.
Turning to the plot, the admiral watched as the priorities shifted and finalized. The surviving bombers would strike at the base, taking out as much of the defenses as they could. Missiles began to erupt on the plot, blotting it out into a mess of spaghetti lines. Targets began to blossom and fade. Soon the bombers reported they were bingo fuel and ammo and were returning to rearm.
The troop transports were about to recover the surviving drop shuttles, and he turned to the overall plot with a sigh. Now the troops on the ground were really on their own for the time being.
>---{}---<
He heard them before they were spotted visually. Low pitched growls and the fast paced crunches of something running across the ground. Panting sounds he thought, matching them up and plotting them out on his HUD.
Turning to the battlefield, Jenkins and the Sergeant scanned the mist, trying to get a visual. Walker scanned on his left, Perkins his right, each sticking to their own zone as training dictated. Switching to thermal he played with the controls until he got a ghost-like motion near the ground a kilometer away. Now having a target he fed the data to the tactical net.
The lieutenant called for any AWACS data, and they stared at the lopping beasts running in their direction. They bound with a curious gait, and the computers estimated each was the size of a bear. The AWACS picked up electrical implant signatures and fed it to the data stream, highlighting them. The creatures turned seemingly as one and charged the line. Swearing the lieutenant ordered them to open fire.
Checking his weapon instinctively, Jenkins flicked though the status bar and was annoyed when Perkins started slamming out rounds first. The first few did nothing, and as the mist whirled from the hyper-velocity rounds he felt awe. The beasts should have dropped from one or even two of the shots.
Flicking his feed to three short bursts, he pulled the trigger just as one passed the one hundred meter mark. It leapt over a rock and he caught it low, ripping its guts out to splatter over its followers. It dropped to the ground in a keening wail.
He swerved to feed his next targets, dropping it with a double burst through its spine. The third was cannier, dodging in and out of his field of fire, making it difficult to hit. Walker hit it with a single strike in the front leg, and it grunted but kept coming.
Perkins began to swear as the thing got within a few meters of the line. The creature leapt, and Jenkins swore and tried to duck. Sudden fire from behind him knocked it off course, and it kicked in the air before it dropped to the ground inside their trench. Thrashing around it latched onto Jenkins leg, and he felt the wail of his AI and the crunching as it began crushing his thigh. Firing wildly into the beast, he felt its jaws finally slacken and stop.
Momentarily distracted, he felt a brief sense of relief as his AI reported no organic damage. His mobility was hampered though. Suddenly a great beast leapt over the side to slam into a man down the row, and weapons fire walked over both it and it's fallen victim, making its body dance and writhe in death.
Shaken at the death, Jenkins felt gorge rising until the Sarge slapped him on the shoulder and pointed to his field of fire. Nodding silently he turned to the battlefield.
Most of the great beasts, the lieutenant was calling them “hellhounds” had fallen. Those that were not dead seemed determined to continue the attack, however, dragging their mangled bodies to the lines.
Picking up emissions to the south, Colonel Chester Grant ordered the hover tanks to new positions to cover that section of the perimeter. Banshee roars of turbines spooled up as the hover tanks rose and moved to their new positions. It would be a race to see who could get there first—the enemy to savage the perimeter or the tanks to cover it and drive them off.
Jenkins could feel the seismic vibrations and thundering subsonic growl before he could see it. He tried to scan the battlefield, trying to get a fix on where it was coming from. His implants and sensors were overloaded. The artificial graviton emissions were so massive they were overloading everything, and all the computer could get him was a general vector to the south perimeter.
Overhead the hover tanks flashed, moving up to positions to cover that area. His computer reported movement to the south and he focused in. Out of the mist and fog of war the great lumbering beast came. It was massive, at least one hundred meters long and flew with a crashing thunder of flapping wings and assisting gravitronics. The great dragon entered the battle with wave of warriors behind it. Squads concentrated fire as the great beast roared and energy weapons ripped into the trenches, but their return fire was absorbed by shields and microsingularity.
Making a pass over the line, the great beast forced many of the Marines to duck instinctively. Suddenly it landed, thundering down to the ground amidst the Terran mecha and began to savage them with force beams and claws alike.
Jenkins watched in awe and terror as this giant beast renders the Katana like paper. Limbs were ripped by beams of alternating gravity, while others were smashed by the beast’s armored tail and limbs. One Katana was smashed flat by a hind limb, while another got its left arm torn out by a quick savage bite and jerk of the head. As one of the Katana was cut down, it twisted in its fall, and in a last act of revenge, the pilot flicked the monomolecular sword out to cut into the front right leg, cutting it off at the elbow. The great beast roared in pain and smashed the Katana to splinters.
Jenkins watched in terror as the computer noted the blood flow from the stump of ruined leg slow and then stopped. The beast continued its attack, belching energy beams to rip off the head of a battle mecha as it lumbered over a rise, throwing it onto its back to erupt in a fireball...
The remaining Katanas rallied long enough to launch a coordinated missile strike. Jenkins smiled savagely as the computer also put up the plot of other missiles. It seemed the bombers had rearmed and were back, they had timed their attack with the Katana’s almost perfectly.
The beast flicked its great wings out and rose, and air flickered as it brought up its shields. The missiles struck, and the shield shimmered and the air boomed with concussions. The bomber missiles struck just as the last Katana missile was stopped, and the beast bellowed as the field failed and the missiles struck. The great beast seemed to stagger in the air as hit after hit slammed into it, and Jenkins watched as fountains of gore and what looked like cybernetics erupted out of the beast’s flanks. One wing sheared off and the beast fell, crashing to the ground in an ear splitting shriek. Flesh and cybernetics hung in tatters from great beast. Alien warriors rushed in to cover retreat just as the Marines began firing once more, cutting them down one by one in coordinated fire.
Charging across the battlefield through the smoke and carnage, the three-ton, three-meter high dragon warriors were a stunning sight. Slamming out rounds, the Marines felt terror as the penetrator rounds bounced off the heavy chest plate armor. Head down the Zerinoth warriors took hits on their helmets and frontal body armor. “They’re demons! They’re unstoppable!” Perkins began to gibber and panic until the Sarge shut him down with a curt, “Stay frosty, Marine!”
Hearing this, Jenkins took a deep breath. Their flesh was their weakness he thought; he just had to get through to it. He took a closer look through his optics and entered sniper mode. He spotted a target and gently stroked the trigger as Perkins began to urge him to open fire. Suddenly the target crumpled to the ground in a thrashing heap, taking two nearby enemy with them. Exposing their backs in
the tangle of bodies, the Sarge snarled and took each of them out.
Perkins cheered and slammed a clip into them for good measure. Getting the hint, the lieutenant called for a mortar strike with air bursts. “Coordinates one nine mike by four one three two alpha.”
The heavy weapons squads had been hit hard in the beachhead, but two mortars survived and began dropping rounds. Bursts of fire and smoke began walking a curtain of death across the battlefield, and the old man called in further orders. Airbursts spewed raining death over the Zerinoth, making Perkins jump to his feet and cheer, just as a searing laser from a falling warrior ripped through his helmet and dropped his steaming corps into the hole. Jenkins pushed the body away in horror.
Getting a peek at the carnage, the lieutenant called the artillery net and told them “Fire on target, fire for effect!”
Jenkins hunkered down, sending his fiber optics out to peek over the ridge line, keeping a wary eye on the carnage. Motion to the left of the ridge got his attention, and he tried to focus in. A slight shimmering was there, odd, almost like heat.
Feeling a prickling sensation of fear, he painted the target on the local HUD, which warned the sergeant. She tapped his implants and focused in on the indicated area but couldn’t get a good feed. The motion was closer however, and suddenly Marines began to be ripped apart again.
Jenkins and the sergeant slammed out rounds into the area, making the dust whirl. Getting an idea, the sergeant dropped her hand to her side and pulled out a smoke grenade. Tossing it, she yelled into the TAC net for the others to follow suit. Soon the area was saturated in smoke, and the whirling smoke outlined their cloaked predator.
Smiling grimly Jenkins zeroed in and slammed round after round into it. The Sergeant and Walker hit two more of the enemy wraiths, they could hear the almost subsonic roar through their audio feeds as they fell in agony.
“Serves em right,” Walker snarled.
Jenkins took in the battlefield; noting that none of the enemy was in range, he turned to the fallen corpse of Corporal Perkins. Moving quickly before the self-destruct nano was released, he rolled the body onto its side and detached the ammo packs and grenade satchels.
Walker turned as he slumped down into the ridge. He spotted Jenkins with the body and began to protest “What the hell are you doing? Leave him alone, man!” he snarled just as Jenkins yanked out corporal's food and pongie bait stash.
Sergeant Hillery turned and nodded unseen. “Leave him alone, Walker,” she said, noting the private strip out the power modules and other gear. Grimly he tore into the helmet, and she heard Walker gag over the local net as he pulled out the memory module and wiped brain matter from his hands. He tossed it to the Sarge then yanked at the legs, pulling components off. The Sarge nodded. Jenkins was smart; his leg armor was damaged so he obviously planned on scavenging for parts from the dead. Not pretty but very practical.
“Pitch him over the side before the destruct activates; we don’t want loose nano to step in,” the Sarge ordered and pointed to the ridge behind them. Shuddering in his armor, Jenkins silently agreed and bent to his task. “Then get started on the others. Walker, stop gagging and get your fanny up over that ridge and get samples of the enemy…I want deep tissue scans and multiple tissue samples of as many as you can get them.” He looked to the gory battlefield and was about to protest when she barked, “NOW MISTER!”; jumping to his feet, Walker rolled up onto the battlefield and out of sight.
“Sarge, the enemy has self-destruct nano as well!” A surprised and dismayed Walker reported over the team net a few minutes later.
“Expedite then!” she ordered, cursing softly. She turned to the distant battle as the great dragon finished off another Blade Master and continued its retreat limping. Even as badly torn up as it was, it was still a force to be reckoned with.
The Hover tanks arrived on a nearby hill and deployed into artillery mode, then began saturating the area beyond the front lines with artillery rounds. Some of the alien warriors managed to fly out, abandoning the great dragon and their fellows. But many walked into the curtain barrage and were cut down by the rain of death and destruction. The great dragon took hits on its back and with agonized shrieks fell, heartening Marines who cheered lustily.
Jenkins felt elation with his squad mates as he scanned the war-torn battlefield. Gore and debris littered the field, but the Terran Marines had held their ground against the best the aliens could send them. They would take this planet back and make them pay for the innocent lives that had been taken here.
Walter reported success and the surviving intel officer ordered them to send their data and samples to her. “The butcher’s bill will be a heavy one, Sarge,” the captain said heavily over the tactical net.
“Yes, sir, it will. But we're Marines; we'll get the job done,” the Sarge replied.
Jenkins heard it distantly as he finished collecting a sample. Sighing Jenkins turned to comply and felt the pat on the back by the sergeant. “Good job, wasp,” she said simply, then moved on to check on the others in the platoon.
Jenkins thought of all death and destruction he had just lived through to get that nickname. Thoughts of what was to come followed and then he set them aside. Here he belonged, on the battlefield, defending his people.
The End
To Roar and Soar
From the first the juvenile Zerinoth knew only pain and trouble from his kind. One of his first memories as a young Zerinoth in the crèche was of being bullied; indeed, a few days after he had hatched he had been knocked out of nest as a hatchling. He had fallen, clawing at the rock cliff face and ripping some of his own dew claws out but then tumbled in a tangle of limp wings and limbs to the floor far below.
When he awoken it had been to find his body was a mass of searing pain; his right wing had been splintered. Bone was sticking through the skin. He roared a mew in pain. A nearby Zerinoth heard it and scolded him for roaring.
“One may only roar when one has achieved something great,” the older Zerinoth said, smacking the hatchling on the muzzle. “Do not do that again,” he snarled. “Not until you've earned it,” he rumbled, then left him to go about his duties.
The hatchling was left there, snuffling piteously as he cradled his broken wing and body until others noticed his disappearance and went looking for him. A day after his fall he was recovered by a pair of annoyed medics. His wing was repaired, but the Zerinoth juvenile was left with a disabling fear of flying and scars on his young body, scars that marked him as an unlucky one early in life. As he grew he would walk, or he hovered, low to the ground. He didn't soar in open air like the other hatchlings in his crèche. Since his subclan of the Servis Clan was poor, they lacked cybernetics for most of their people. As one deemed scarred and unworthy, he was passed over for what cybernetics were available.
((|))~^~((|))/
For two-eighths of years as he and his hatch mates grew and trained, he was constantly teased tormented by the other Zerinoth, so much so that he learned early on to avoid group gatherings. The adults ignored the bullying, for they knew there was always a runt, always one who would be at the bottom of the pecking order.
Zerinoth could walk on their hind legs or on all fours. They had six limbs, two of them were mighty wings on their backs, with skin that stretched from the root to their hind legs. They could wrap their wings around their bodies to hide parts in liat’va, the cloak.
They had three taloned fingers and a thumb on each of their hands and feet. The talon claws were retractable. They had a long neck and long head with a muzzle filled with a mix of sharp and grinding teeth.
Despite their looks and the favoritism of meat in the young, they weren't completely carnivores. Quite the contrary, they were omnivores, though they could go for long stretches without food. The young had to be induced or even forced to eat plant matter. They didn't like it, though the juvenile made a show of cleaning his food bowl if only to be one better on the others. Not that it made him any friends.
The juvenile shivered. He looked about, concerned about the others. He had learned to use liat’va early on, before the others, he thought. He'd learned it unconsciously, to hide from their unwanted attentions.
His species had a boron honeycomb bone structure with three lungs. The third lung was filled with compressed hydrogen gas that allowed them neutral buoyancy in the air. They had two stomachs, which were constantly demanding for food in the early stages of their life. Sometimes it felt like something was gnawing at him from the inside, trying to get out.
Most of the hatchlings hated the electric things; it stung their muzzle and skin when they got close to something powerful. To be in the presence of something with a lot of energy was to give one a headache. They could sense the electric fields, and in time through their classes, they learned to control that sense, even turn it off or ignore it when needed.
None of the juveniles were given names; they relied on smell or sound to identify themselves to each other. Adults who distinguished themselves in battle or in activities worthy of recognition of the race earned a name. All the juveniles burned to be named like Xile, Broken Tooth, Hounds bane, or others.
Since he was the omega of the group, the young juvenile was regulated to the back of the class and menial jobs that frequently took him away from the classroom. He missed many studies.