March of War

by Bennett R. Coles

  He took the steps two at a time, reaching the landing and swinging his rifle across the next climb. No visible resistance. He dashed up again. The clatter of boots behind him indicated the team following, loud enough for the dead to hear. Speed was more important than stealth, though, and without pause he scanned the corridor in both directions before charging up the next flight of stairs.

  At the fourth floor he paused, signaling Subtrooper O’Hara to cover the left corridor while he covered the right. Unrau had kept pace, emerging up the latest set of stairs, but the civilians were lagging under their burden of carrying the wounded. Thomas glanced back, grimacing as the clutter of gasping figures extended back more than a flight of stairs.

  “Hold here,” he ordered O’Hara. He motioned for Unrau to move back down, and then followed, keeping against the outer wall to make room for the wounded. To their credit, none of the civvies were complaining, their faces fixed in grim determination as they helped their charges to climb.

  The metal panel of a ventilation duct exploded from its frame and smashed into the group on the landing. A silvery machine lashed out from the exposed duct like a giant metallic snake. Thomas snapped his weapon up and fired. Explosive bullets thudded into the dust-covered armor, knocking the milly in mid-air as the impacts dispersed over its armored form. The robot’s forward claws clamped onto the head of a civilian and wrenched.

  The human was dead even before he hit the floor.

  Unrau leapt back and fired at the milly slithering at his feet, but the robot’s long body rippled to the side as its hundreds of tiny legs reacted with inhuman swiftness. In a heartbeat the robot was up to strike, grasping Unrau’s helmet and launching multiple tungsten darts from its underbelly. The point-blank shots punched through Unrau’s lowered weapon, and his armor. He dropped the rifle as smoke and coolant leaked from the multiple holes, grabbing the milly with his armored hands and throwing them both down the stairs.

  “Go, go, go!” Thomas shouted, gesturing up the stairs.

  He aimed at the milly, but Unrau’s massive frame blocked the shot as he kept the robot beneath him for the fall. Man and machine crashed into the lower floor. Thomas heard the muffled bangs of further darts punching into Unrau’s torso. He motioned for the rest of his charges to keep ascending as he leapt down to aid his trooper.

  The milly shuddered free of Unrau, the trooper rolling off as blood began to flow freely. Thomas fired. The bullets exploded against the robot’s armor—enough to knock it back but still doing no real damage—and the thing was so damn fast. Already it was scuttling back on itself and moving to strike against him. Before Thomas could jump aside he saw the puff of darts and felt the sting of impacts against his chest.

  He fell backward from the sheer force.

  Even before he hit the landing floor he squeezed the trigger for his grenade launcher. From beneath the rifle’s main barrel the shot rocketed outward. The explosion hurled the milly backward. Thomas crashed down into the floor and wall, vision blurring.

  In the corridor below, the milly skittered up, an entire section of its feet either missing or hanging limply amid the charred wreckage. Its forward claws still operated, though, as did the lower half of its body.

  Thomas tried to focus.

  Another explosion tore into the milly’s lower half, flipping it backward. Sergeant Bunyasiriphant stepped into Thomas’s view and fired a final grenade into the milly’s head. It collapsed in a smoldering heap. Thomas righted his vision as Buns crouched over Unrau, tearing a wound-sealant pack from his belt and reaching repeatedly into the shattered armor. Trooper McDonald appeared next to her, followed by Trooper Furmek swinging the section weapon in a slow, covering arc.

  Thomas leaned against the wall and pushed himself to his feet. The civilians and wounded were clustered at the top of the stairwell above him, watching anxiously.

  “Is he alive?” he called down to Buns.

  “Yes,” Buns replied, not looking up as she continued to apply first aid. Thomas checked his forearm display. One more floor up to the rooftop guard post.

  “McDonald,” he said over his helmet radio, “take point with O’Hara, and get everyone up the next set of stairs. Find guard post seven and get everyone inside. Hawks are inbound to land on the roof.”

  Trooper McDonald hustled up the stairs past him to comply.

  Thomas descended and helped Buns lift Unrau’s heavy form. Furmek maintained rearguard as they struggled to ascend.

  2

  Jack checked his descent vector. His Hawk would bottom out at thirty meters before leveling on final approach, but the billowing clouds of black smoke rising from what had once been the base’s main hangar were problematic. He couldn’t climb—not unless he wanted to re-enter the shooting gallery of the scattered rebel forces which continued to evade the orbital bombardment blasts—but flying through zero visibility toward a structure that wasn’t really maintaining its official shape was just begging for a crash.

  The rest of his flight had loosely formed up in the forgiving echo pattern which allowed each Hawk the flexibility to dodge individual ground attacks. To the right of his approach was the rest of the base, a tortured pile of rebel-occupied wreckage he wasn’t going anywhere near. To the left was open ground, but it was covered by mobile anti-aircraft batteries that continued to evade the slower-reacting orbital bombardment. A fist of tanks would have made short work of those bastards, but the whole point of this operation was to get Terran troops off the surface.

  His flight had to avoid the smoke, and that meant taking on the AA batteries. So he calmly ordered the flight to shift vector left, instinctively dropping his own Hawk even lower. Ground resistance was a steady force rattling his craft, but he fought it almost absently as he scanned ahead for the two enemy defenders. At this altitude they’d have big trouble tracking him, but likewise his own sensors couldn’t pinpoint them.

  “Relay orbital ground picture to my projection,” he said.

  His holographic battlespace lit up with hundreds of contacts—an overwhelming array of tactical info as every single contact being tracked by the ships in orbit flooded his display. He ignored everything except for the two hostile symbols on the ground in front of him. He reached up and tapped the camera on his helmet, locking onto one symbol, then the other.

  “Clear orbital ground picture.”

  The galaxy of symbols disappeared, except for the two he’d personally targeted. The orbital feed continued to update his holographic image as the rebel batteries moved. His flight wouldn’t be able to get past those weapons without taking casualties, unless the weapons were taken out first. Bombardment clearly couldn’t do it, and there were no Terran ground assets that could help.

  His Hawk, however, had two self-defense missiles tucked up under its stubby wings, and there was nothing that said he couldn’t employ them for aggressive self-defense. He leaned forward in his seat and smiled. In training, he’d always wanted to be a strike fighter pilot.

  “Troopers say they’re at the roof,” Singh reported. Jack checked the relative position of the landing zone and the smoke from the hangar. His flight had a clear run now.

  “Send to flight,” he said. “Commence landing run, Axe-Two leading. I’m taking out the AA batteries.”

  There was the briefest of pauses from behind him, but Singh dutifully relayed the order. Above him, the other Hawks broke right and headed for the extraction. Jack armed both his missiles and linked their targeting to the orbital feed. They growled ready in his ear. He designated one each to the rebel batteries, which were even now repositioning.

  “Tell Fleet to hold fire on surface hostiles alpha-two-eight and alpha-two-niner,” he said. “Axe-One is taking them.”

  Orbital bombardment was a blunt instrument, and was as likely to hit his Hawk as the enemy at these ranges. Assuming the ships above him would comply, Jack closed on the first battery. The rolling landscape flashed beneath him as a pale blur. He fought to keep the Hawk steady, then pressed
the trigger.

  The first missile burst forth, ringing in his ear with its positive lock.

  Jack nudged his stick to the right and pressed the trigger again. The second weapon blazed ahead, just as an explosion on the ground to his left erupted upward, instantly flashing astern. A second later another explosion lit up a shallow depression ahead.

  He pulled back to gain altitude and hard right to head for the extraction.

  * * *

  The heavy thud of the section weapon was a beautiful sound to a trooper. It meant somebody was covering your ass.

  Thomas knew Furmek was still holding off the rebels in the corridor, and he stayed focused on his task of getting his troop out onto the roof. He heaved Unrau’s massive form up through the gun port of the guard post, where two of his troopers took the limp body and struggled forward onto the open surface. Buns was already topside, arranging the few combat-ready assets they still had in a thin perimeter around the weak and wounded.

  The thudding of the weapon abruptly died.

  Thomas swung around, raising his rifle at the door. Beside him, Subtrooper O’Hara followed suit. She’d held up well throughout this entire incident, but he could see the strain on her too-young face. She was barely old enough to drink—she wasn’t old enough to die.

  Trooper Furmek dove through the door, snapping it shut behind her. The section weapon was nowhere in sight.

  “Ammo spent,” she gasped.

  “How many approaching?” Thomas asked.

  “Probably a dozen. Humans, small arms only.”

  He glanced up through the gun port. His troop was hunkered down, waiting, and completely exposed if the rebels could gain access to the roof.

  “We hold them here,” he said. He snapped out his pistol and handed it to Furmek. She took it in one hand and hefted her own pistol in the other.

  O’Hara, beyond Furmek, crouched lower and pointed her rifle at the door.

  He spoke into his comms. “McDonald, what’s the ETA on the Hawks?”

  “Two-zero seconds.” And another twenty seconds to load the wounded, he knew. Something pounded against the door, and he heard shouting on the other side.

  “Once the packages are aboard, get the troopers back here to cover our withdrawal. Heavy fire imminent.”

  “Roger.”

  There wasn’t much to offer cover in the small, round room, but Thomas crouched behind a status board. Another, larger thump impacted the door, buckling it against its reinforced frame.

  “Don’t fire until you see a target,” he called out. “Our own rounds will blow a hole open in the wall.”

  A mechanical roar echoed through the door, and something massive struck it so that it cracked inward. A rifle poked through the gap. Thomas fired. A wet explosion mixed with shouts, and the rifle fell back. Amid the cacophony he made out a single word being repeated beyond the door.

  “Grenade.”

  If a single grenade got dropped through that opening, it was over for him and his troopers. They had no choice but to attack.

  “Open fire!” he shouted.

  His own assault rifle burst to life on automatic, the reinforced wall of the guard post crumbling backward under the hail of explosive rounds. O’Hara’s own fire joined his, thundering into the crowd of stunned rebels located beyond the shattered wall. Limbs and blood flew in all directions as dust choked the corridor.

  His rifle clicked silent. Quick check—empty mag. He jettisoned the magazine and slapped in another.

  O’Hara and Furmek both advanced, firing into the chaos.

  “Get back!” Thomas roared.

  A flash of silver rose up from the rubble, bowling into Furmek. She tumbled backward even as the milly rolled in mid-air and stabbed out at O’Hara with its main claws. The young trooper screamed as blood splashed out from her shoulder. She dropped her weapon and clutched at the gash in her armor, dropping instantly.

  Furmek pulled herself to her knees and fired with both pistols, the rounds bouncing harmlessly off the milly’s back. It spun again, firing darts even as Furmek threw herself down.

  Thomas reached for his grenade trigger, but the milly was scuttling right over Furmek’s slumping form. He switched back to bullets and charged forward, looking to bury his rifle into the fucker’s underside. He fired on automatic, relishing the power as the explosive rounds thundered into the milly’s legs and knocked it backward.

  The robot staggered back against the wall, flailing against the onslaught. Thomas felt darts slamming into his front torso armor, felt white-hot burning mixed with liquid next to his skin. But he stepped forward again, emptying the last of his magazine into the milly’s head. The robot slumped down and was still.

  Something hard hit him from behind, and he vaguely heard the sound of a gunshot. He turned to face the wreckage of the wall and corridor, and saw rebel troops advancing. Another impact-only bullet pinged off his helmet, shaking his vision. He brought his rifle to bear and squeezed the trigger, but heard only the awful click of another empty mag.

  More rounds struck him, knocking him back against the wall and burning his torso. The rebels closed in. O’Hara and Furmek lay motionless at his feet. His hand dropped to the grenade launcher and he started firing. As his vision faded, he wondered if the rest of his troops had made it to the Hawks.

  * * *

  As he slowed for landing on the roof, Jack spotted three of his Hawks already lifting off. Wounded and non-combatants were loaded, and the first wave of the flight were bugging out.

  “Tell Axe-Two to use the primary exit corridor,” he ordered as he thrusted to a hover and swung around to point his stern loading ramp toward the guard post. “We’ll use the secondary.”

  His bird thumped down and he started to lower the ramp. A rush of heat swept through the cabin and the distant sounds of battle penetrated through his helmet. He looked back over his shoulder, and dimly saw two troopers hustling with a limp companion carried between them. He leaned to scan out of his port canopy and saw two others carrying another casualty.

  “Get back there,” he barked at Singh, “and help them get on board!”

  She unbuckled and hurried aft, taking the load of the casualty as the troopers staggered up the ramp and swung their rifles back toward the base. One of them fired off a few rounds toward the guard post, the other watched their companions climb aboard the other Hawk. Jack caught the motion as that Hawk’s ramp started to rise, and he turned his attention back to the troopers. They were climbing up into his main cabin.

  “That’s everyone,” one of them shouted. “Go, go, go!”

  He started closing his own ramp and pulled up into a hover, drifting forward and turning so that the other Hawk could take station on his port quarter. The ramp sealed. He pushed the throttle forward and started to climb. His wingman followed.

  The abandoned base disappeared astern as he increased to hypersonic speed, and he surveyed the tortured landscape looming ahead of him again. Orbital bombardment pounded down on all sides, but the rebel forces continued their determined defense.

  “Tell Fleet to open the secondary exit corridor,” he said. He heard a brief exchange by Singh, then a report back.

  “Fleet ready to clear secondary corridor, but be advised orbital battle is intensifying.”

  Jack frowned. Apparently a surface battle wasn’t enough of a challenge for one day, and he’d already expended his two self-defense missiles.

  “Tell Frankfurt we’re going to need cover on our approach.”

  His own mothership, the destroyer Frankfurt, needed to clear a path that would enable him to sneak through the orbital battle. Hawks were flexible, nifty little craft, but starfighters they were not.

  As before, the ominous silence fell over the battlefield, and Jack nudged his course to starboard to line up with the secondary exit corridor. Then Fleet once again came together to lay waste to the narrow path through the main rebel line, and he followed the firestorm through. He and his wingman emerged and separate
d into the rising mountains, cutting individual paths out to a range where enemy fire was minimal. Jack pulled back on his stick and pushed the throttle to maximum power, activating his external boosters to assist in the climb.

  The gray atmosphere of the planet Thor began to fade into the blackness of orbital space. After barely thirty seconds the boosters expended their fuel and fell silent. He jettisoned them and continued to climb with his own engines.

  “Bring up orbital battlespace,” he gasped. A moment later the darkness beyond his canopy lit up with a new galaxy of contacts. He found Frankfurt’s unique beacon and pulled hard over to point for home.

  Right away, he could see trouble.

  The blue symbol of his destroyer was in the middle of a cluster of red hostiles, and even at this distance he could make out the flashes of combat, if not the combatants themselves. Other Terran ships were scattered across the near sky, and he could see them starting to pull back from low orbit. Their bombardment batteries were going silent, but their defense weapons blazed.

  Jack made sure his own beacon was shining, knowing that at this speed Frankfurt’s sensors could easily interpret his direct approach as a missile threat. Off the starboard bow he could see the big cruiser Admiral Bowen closing Frankfurt, weapons already firing at the hostiles.

  “Do we have an approach vector?” he asked.

  “Negative,” Singh replied. “She’s all over the place.”

  Jack maintained his speed, reckoning it was the only thing that might keep his Hawk out of the enemy crosshairs. Frankfurt wasn’t yet visible, but the rapidly changing vector of her blue symbol indicated heavy, erratic maneuvering. Jack took a deep breath. He’d landed his bird during combat before, and at least this time he had functioning thrusters. No problem.

  In the darkness ahead, he saw a bright series of flashes. The blue symbol of Frankfurt blinked, then disappeared.