Invasion: The complete three book set

by J. F. Holmes

  With a HISS CRACK and a charge of static, the plasma bolt scored the top of the turret, melting a groove and overloading the active camouflage. Lehmkuhl fired a second later, the sabot arching out and crashing through the engine of the Invy tank, a small spark followed by an explosion that was so bright it shone through the metal.

  Ibson turned to load another sabot round, but Dash shouted, “HEAT, APC, FROM MY POSITION!” Two seconds later Ibson yelled, “UP!” and the commander fired, knocking out an Invy armored personnel carrier that had been crossing the runway.

  “All Rifles, general advance,” came over the radio, and Banks, listening in, didn’t wait for the order. She applied full torque to the drive wheels, and Bad Bitch charged forward, main gun swinging to and fro, searching for targets. On her left Orca and Selchie followed, barely visible, but Balrog was silent and still, a smoking wreck, and Suzie Q still burned like a blowtorch.

  From the sky, orbital rods began to pound all around the Seattle area, but the radio distractions seemed to be working. For some reason, no one at the base was adjusting fire onto their attack, and Dash was grateful for it. Lehmkuhl let off a snap shot at an Invy tank trying to maneuver west towards the mechanized infantry, who they must have sighted. The Invy’s turret bounced upward a foot then settled back, and it crashed, immobile, into the side if a building. The gunner swept the Invy with the coax as they drove past, and Orca took out another a kilometer away, blowtorch. Artillery rained down on the base, cratering the runway and shattering the control tower, starting fires.

  On her heads up display, targets marked by the infantry as they attacked started to appear as red icons, but Dash ignored them. The display then lit up with a live video feed from a UAV launched in the air from the artillery positions. It only lasted for fifteen seconds before a plasma bolt swept it from the sky, but it was enough to see the hot spots of the three remaining Invy tanks, clustered around the corner of the control tower, shielded from direct artillery fire by the building. Someone was going to have to dig them out. To the left were a ragged line of infantry, Wolverines who, despite the surprise and ferocity of the attack, were dug in and hammering effective shots at the human dismounts.

  “Orca,” she called over the radio, “go help the dismounts.” Her captain was a smear of jelly inside the belly of Balrog, so Dash was now in command of the three element unit. “Selchie, I’m going to make a thunder run past their position to get their attention. You come in right behind me, make it quick and make it count.”

  “You got it,” came back immediately, and Dash switched over to the intercom.

  “Terry, how fast can you make the bitch go?” she asked the driver.

  “No idea, but we’re gonna find out!” responded PFC Banks. Locked in her driver’s coffin, she had no way of knowing that eight of her friends were dead.

  “Punch it, then!”

  The seventy ton Abrams, driven by antimatter hellfire, leapt forward, and the turret struggled to keep up with Lehmkuhl’s fixed gaze at the corner of the building, rotating as they accelerated forward. When they hit the opening, crossing in front of the three waiting Invy tanks, Bad Bitch was going almost ninety miles an hour, the tracks threatening to fly apart at the slightest deviation from a straight line. The first two Invy tanks didn’t have the reaction time to fire at her as she sped past, but the third let go just as Bad Bitch’s cannon fired point blank into it.

  Chapter 78

  The Invy tank exploded in a thunderous roar, shoving the other two off to one side, but not before the plasma bolt hit Bad Bitch in her forward skirt. Her left track exploded in a shower of glowing steel fragments, and the plasma continued though the hull, cutting Terry Banks’ legs off at the knees before exiting out the other side.

  The tank skidded sideways, losing momentum and power at the same time, and all three of the crew were thrown forward. Dash smashed her face into the commander’s sight, cracking the HUD display and knocking her senseless. She crumpled and slid off her seat, on top of Dizzy.

  The gunner has seen the shit coming, and leaned into the wall of the tank at the last second, crushing her against it but not injuring her. She was hurt more by Dash falling on her than anything else. In the adrenaline rush, she at first didn’t notice the large piece of heavy duty commo wire sticking out of her abdomen, but when she did, the gunner went pale with shock. Then she bit down hard on her lip, drawing blood, and willed the injury out of her mind.

  “Gimme, gimme a SITREP…” muttered Dash, but then she followed it with a mumbled, “Johnson, I need a charge five and level that damn gun…” Lehmkuhl knew that she was someplace else, some other when else, and useless. She gently moved her boss aside, trying to ignore the screams coming from the trapped driver.

  “Jamie, reload Sabot and poke your head out, tell me what’s going on!” she hissed urgently, and the Canadian shook his head to clear it. He manually slid the ammo doors back and loaded a sabot round, muttered UP!, then carefully lifted his hatch a few inches. All the sensors were dead, and it was back to the human eye.

  “Jesus! All three Invy are done, Selchie’s’ blown all to hell, and holy shit, there’s one more maneuvering around the wrecks! And I think that’s Orca burning on the other side! Fuckers’ going after the infantry, he’s going to eat them for lunch!” The stress and smoke made his voice harsh.

  “Get down here and crank the turret!” she yelled, flipping her sight over to manual and pressing her face to it.

  The big Canadian slid back down and grabbed at the manual traverse, grunting as he furiously spun the wheel. The compartment was filling up with smoke, but Bank’s screams stopped abruptly. They were followed a moment later by the muffled bark of a pistol shot, and Ibson squeezed his eyes shut as he worked. Goodbye, Terry, he thought.

  “Faster, dammit!” The loader didn’t answer Lehmkuhl; his arm was growing tired and he was close to passing out from the fumes. The red emergency lighting and smoke was turning the place into a vision of hell. Suddenly an automated female voice began to blare, “REACTOR CRITICAL, REACTOR CRITICAL” in a flat, dispassionate tone.

  Unaware of the puddle of blood growing on the floor beneath her, or not caring, Dizzy Lehmkuhl watched the side skirts of the enemy tank creep into her vision. Closer… closer, and the world began to fade to black around the edges of her vision. Good enough, she thought, and squeezed the trigger.

  The 120mm gun jumped backwards, the Invy tank seemed to spin sideways, then a shower of sparks from the main hull, and it settled down, lifeless and smoking. The gunner slumped forward over her sight, then rolled against the breech and lay still.

  Corporal Ibson reached down, grabbed Sergeant Dash by the deadman’s strap on the back of her coveralls, and heaved. Her slight frame rose up, and he shoved her out of the loader’s hatch. Then he grabbed Lehmkuhl around the waist, and manhandled her up, appalled by the amount of blood soaking the front of her uniform.

  “Come on, Dizzy, stay with me!” he muttered, trying to get her dead weight out, when a pair of hands reached in and grabbed at her body and pulled her through. Brass from his own 240B machine gun showered down through the open hatch, but he couldn’t hear the shots over the screeching of the warning system. ‘

  He pulled himself out, to see two crew men from Selchie, one manning the gun, hammering shots at distant enemy infantry. The other was helping Sergeant Dash stumble away towards the other side of the runway. Ibson hit the other man in the shoulder to let him know he was out, but, caught up in the madness of battle, he was ignored. The loader grabbed at him, but a plasma bolt hit the Selchie and blew his head off, showering Ibson with superheated blood. The former cop picked up Lehmkuhl’s body gently in his arms, slid down the side of Bad Bitch, and ran.

  What a hell of a way to go! thought Bad Bitch, and managed to wait fifteen more seconds, until the Invy infantry had swarmed around her. Then she erupted in a flash of light as the antimatter containment module ruptured, and if a tank had a soul, she joined her friends on Fiddlers
’ Green.

  Chapter 77

  It’s one thing to face a battle with seventy tons of metal around you. It’s a whole different experience to have nothing between you and a hissing bolt of plasma but a few layers of Kevlar and nylon.

  Ibson barely made it the edge of the runway with Lehmkuhl when their world was filled with unholy light, and a crushing wave knocked her out of his arms, throwing them both down into the ditch. Then there was deafening silence, punctuated only with the sounds of ammunition cooking off.

  “Gotta get back in the fight! Goddamned chinks are ever what go!” yelled Dash, making no sense, and she started to stand up, then stumbled. The crewman from Selchie pulled her back down, and laid on top of her to stop her from struggling.

  Ibson ignored her for the moment, ripping at the Velcro of Lehmkuhl’s vest, then unzipping her coveralls all the way down to her waist. The piece of braided wire, quarter of an inch thick, had slipped under the vest, punched through the tough nylon, and under her ribs. Her whole front was soaked with blood, her belly swollen with internal bleeding, and she looked deathly pale in the glow of the burning control tower.

  “Come on, Dizzy, don’t do this to me!’ he muttered, and felt for a pulse. It was there, but really weak and erratic. He lifted her eyelid and saw that her pupils had rolled upwards, barely showing. Not fucking good. He wrapped a compression bandage around her waist, covering the wound, and elevated her legs. Then he turned to the other man who was dealing with Sergeant Dash, and said, “Can you keep her down?”

  “I dunno, dude, she’s really out of it. Keeps babbling about killing Chinese.”

  “OK, I’ll be right back,” said Ibson, and he stood, glanced around, and ran across the runway. Plasma fire started from another building a hundred meters away, tracking towards him, and then a heavier, automatic weapon chased after the Canadian, making him run faster than he thought he ever could in his life. One almost clipped his boot as he dove behind the smoking wreck of the Selchie, and he paused a moment to catch his breath as plasma arced and spit off the hull.

  The tank had died with her gun pointing directly at an Invy tank, the turret turned sideways. He knew the soldier helping Dash was Selchie’s loader, and he had recognized the one killed at the machine gun as her commander. The loader and gunner had probably died inside the turret, but as he looked up, he saw the commander’s hatch was open.

  Counting out loud, when he reached three, he ran around the side of the tank, grabbed a rail, and vaulted up onto the hull. Before the Invy could zero in on him, Ibson slipped in face first through the hatch, landing on the commander’s seat upside down.

  The smoke immediately made him start coughing; the emergency red lighting, smell of charred flesh and fried blood made the place seem like some level of Dante’s inferno. The loader sat in her seat, missing her bottom half, eyes wide open and staring. The gunner, who had been a good friend of his, slowly cooked as hydraulic fluid dripped onto his mangled body, feeding a small fire. Ibson tried to breathe, but the smell of roasted human flesh overcame him, and he threw up violently. Struggling to turn himself upright, his hands found the medkit he was looking for, unsnapped it from the wall, and he weakly pulled himself out of the hatch, rolled over, and fell the ten feet to the pavement.

  He landed on his arm, and there was a sickening SNAP at his wrist, but the tanker gritted his teeth and stood up, slinging the medkit across his body, and tried to peek out around the right side of the tank. Return fire hammered at him so fast he almost lost this head; the Wolverines had zeroed on him, waiting for him to come back. He was stuck, and Dizzy needed him, ASAP.

  Screw it. Ibson launched himself out onto the runway, running even faster than he had before. Halfway across, he fell flat, and a burst of fire sheeted over him, the heavy machinegun having waited for him. In a flash, he stood back up and ran again, diving into the ditch and screaming with pain as he slid down the slope.

  “Help me!” he yelled, trying to open the medkit one handed. The other soldier made a quick decision, got up of Dash, and helped Ibson open the medkit. Before Dash could get up again, the soldier grabbed a shot of morphine and went back to the disoriented Jamaican.

  Ibson quickly found the package of nanos, jabbed the button marked “INTERNAL BLEEDING”, waited two seconds, opened it, then jabbed the needle directly into Lehmkuhl’s abdomen. She quickly started to convulse, then went rigid, breath heaving in and out. There was one more thing he could do; and he quickly slipped an IV into her veins, which were in danger of collapsing, getting the needle in after three tries, and squeezed the plasma into her until the bag was empty.

  Next was an orange pen flare that shot a hundred feet up into the air, calling for a Medevac. Ibson had no idea how the rest of the battle was going; heavy automatic weapons fire and plasma cracks sounded in the distance, but the ones that had been shooting at him on the runway had grown quiet. Too quiet.

  A suggestion of movement at the far end of the ditch in the dim moonlight drew his attention, and he hissed a warning to the other soldier, whose name he couldn’t remember. They both drew their pistols, and Ibson laid down in front of Lehmkuhl, shielding her body with his. The movement resolved into a squad of Wolverines, who approached them quietly, a six of them led by a Dragon. Half the lesser Invy had their ripper claws extended, and the Dragon leaked blood all over its gold armor, but smiled with razor sharp teeth.

  Ibson and the soldier nodded to each other, and raised their pistols. They were dead men, but they knew they had beaten the Invy if the Dragon was fleeing the Command Center. Fuck it. They had won. It was kind of bitter sweet, to have come so far, but …

  Thirty tons of Bradley Fighting Vehicle crashed over the side of the ditch and into the Invy squad, knocking them down like bowling pins. The driver ground the tracks back and forth, spinning the vehicle first one way then the next, grinding the stunned Invy into a red paste of patches of skin, snapped bones, and raw meat.

  One of the Wolverines had escaped the collision, and the two men emptied their pistols into it from ten meters away, firing until their slides locked back. The Bradley stopped, and the turret rotated, hammering out thunderous three round bursts even as the back ramp slammed down. Before it did, Ibson saw a crude green and black painting of a long necked animal spitting plasma, and knew it was one of Alpha Companies’ Brads, nicknamed “Attack Llama”. The infantry squad leader directed two of his men to help the wounded to the track; they quickly strapped Lehmkuhl onto a stretcher and carried her inside.

  The rest joined the main gun in firing towards the buildings, then at some unseen signal, the firing stopped, and they all dashed back into the track. As the ramp whirred up, they were thrown violently to one side, and then the Brad started back down the runway towards the impromptu Aide Station a mile away. One man struggled to strap Dash into a seatbelt, and she fought wildly, despite the morphine, then slumped and lay still, a spray of blood leaking out of her nose. The man put his fingers to her neck, searching for a pulse, looked at his NCO, and shook his head.

  In the battle lighting, Ibson could see that every man there, even the ones who had dismounted and continued fighting, was badly wounded or burned. The squad leader leaned over and yelled in Ibsons’ ear, “You guys really saved our asses! Where’s the rest of the tank crews?”

  The Canadian said nothing in answer, just reached over and held Lehmkuhl’s bloody, slightly warm hand in his. Then he put his other hand over his face, and great, wracking sobs convulsed his body. The infantryman next to him put his arm around Ibson’s neck, and the tanker laid his head on his shoulder, still bleeding silent tears.

  No one said anything for the rest of the short ride.

  Part VI

  “Scouts Out”

  Invy Airfield, outside the ruins of Washington, D.C.

  I just can’t get it clear in my head, Jess. He was so full of living, you know? He ran a franchise on it. Now there’s nothing. And here I am trying to put sense to it, when I know there isn’t any.


  ~ Max Rockatansky

  Chapter 78

  The exhausted soldiers of Scout Team One huddled behind the shattered remnants of what looked to be the remains of an F-35, eleven years of rust and weather having reduced the wreck to a skeleton. It had been fifteen minutes since the shuttle had taken off, fifteen minutes of hell that seemed to last a thousand years. They had accomplished their mission, getting a pilot onto an Invy shuttle so she could steal it, but now, well there seemed no way out.

  “Give me an up!” shouted Master Sergeant Agostine, over the hiss and crack of plasma bolts seeking their position. The Invy were pissed, no doubt, and making it known. It almost drowned out the deeper rumblings of the attack happening on the far side of the base.

  Each of the team gave him a thumbs up, except for Zivcovic and Yassir, who had both crawled up on the tilted wing with their sniper rifles. “We’re good!” shouted Redshirt, who was spotting for them, but he didn’t take his eyes off his binos. He called out targets, and each of the snipers fired in an alternating rhythm, rolling back down as return fire erupted around them.

  “Another two APC’s” said Redshirt, his words punctuated by the deep WHAM WHAM WHAM as a vehicle mounted cannon probed the wreck. On either side lay a hundred meters of open ground between them and the next cover.

  “Shit shit shit,” muttered Agostine. “Jones, get on the radio, and get us some fucking HELP!” said the team leader, stress obvious in his voice. “Mortars, Javelins, whatever they can do.” Their own launcher unit lay shattered on the weedy tarmac, in the hands of Staff Sergeant Boyd, whose headless body still twitched.

  They had completed their mission, gotten the pilot to the Invy shuttle and covered the launch, but everything had gone to shit after that. The garrison’s reaction time had been faster than planned, and the team had found their exit route blocked by a squad of Wolverines manning crew served weapons. Now, in full daylight, the enemy seemed to have enough forces to deal with both the diversionary attack AND go after the scouts.