by J. F. Holmes
“Tracking, Tracking, FIRING!” he said and squeezed the trigger. Without a sound, the Invy sensor platform that provided surveillance over the Treasure Island area and the Bay Bridge fell into the dark waters. In response, a flare cut a short arc through the sky, low, and then sputtered out.
With a shouted “OOH-RAH!” that carried across the water, the two thousand men and women of the 2nd Regimental Combat Team, United States Marine Corps, started from their hiding places on the ruins of Treasure Island. They were met by a hundred dolphins on the beach, and two by two, the Marines grasped harnesses and started across the water.
CEF Scout Regiment Team Five waited, eyes on sights and fingers on triggers, for the inevitable Invy response. They would hold to give the Marines time to land, and die trying.
Chapter 101
“Ahab, this is Warthog, your rounds are arching over. Drop five zero, over,” echoed from the radio on the bridge of the Missouri.
“Roger, Warthog, authenticate.” The RTO on the Big Mo wasn’t taking any chances that a collaborator hadn’t gotten ahold of the team radio.
“Understood. Tell my brother he doesn’t know the difference between a destroyer escort and a frigate, over.”
The enlisted man running the radio looked over at Admiral Larken, who nodded. The radioman keyed the mic and said, “Chief, your brother went down with New Jersey, over.”
There was a long pause, then, “Understood. Will provide corrections, no need to call shot, I can see you.”
“Brave bastard,” muttered the admiral. “Where the hell do we get these men?” he wondered aloud, but then, they’d always appeared when the times called for them.
The two ships were driving at almost forty miles per hour at the shoreline, shortening the range with every wave that passed under their hulls. They weren’t close enough for actual direct fire yet, in essence shooting down the barrels of the guns, but the forward turrets were pumping out one round per gun every thirty seconds. Each minute, twelve rounds of armor-piercing shot cracked into the fortifications of the Invy city.
In front of each ship rose a spray of seawater, pumped high in the air by hoses mounted on booms attached to each bow. CEF scientists had researched this as a defense for the fleet in space, but the speed of the spacecraft had made it impractical. At sea, though, with an unlimited supply, it worked better than the steel armor of the turrets against plasma beams, diffusing them.
“Captain Beck, I want you to find that sumbitch who thought of that and give him the goddammed Medal of Honor. I don’t care if he’s some supergeek,” said Larken, as another bolt struck the spray and dissipated in a cloud of superheated steam, turning into something that merely blistered the paint off the armored hulls when they struck.
At that moment, a railgun round scored an impossible hit, hitting the forward turret of the Wisconsin directly at the joint where number two gun protruded from its casing. The battleship’s armor had been designed to defeat arching shells dropping on them, and although the opening was small, it was enough for the Invy penetrator to burrow straight in.
The crew had just finished placing the huge bags of powder that propelled the shells, but the breech was still open. The railgun round, a solid three-inch depleted-uranium and steel bullet, hit the back wall of the turret after blowing through several interior walls. It shattered into a thousand fragments, and they filled the space, still moving at incredible velocity, white-hot. One fragment hit the powder bags, and a three-thousand-degree fireball erupted from the gun, back into the turret.
With an explosion that rocked the entire ship, number one turret seemed to shiver, and gouts of flame leapt out of the gun casings. Every man and woman in the upper turret section was killed instantly, but the crew underneath was saved by blast-proof doors that slid closed after delivering each load of ammunition. Even more disastrous, though, the hoses that supplied water for the plasma shield, which ran across the deck alongside the turret, ruptured in two places due to the concussion. The water spray fell off, and the plasma started to score boiling divots in her armor. The Invy gunners, finally having a target they could see, poured it on.
The Wisconsin fell out of line with the Missouri as her crew attempted to fight the fire raging in the turret, and immediately plasma bolts started hammering her. The second shot scored a direct hit on the bridge, hammering through the armored shutters and incinerating the command staff. Smoke started to pour from her aft deck as a series of targeted railgun rounds pounded her armor, the Invy gunners coordinating their fire to strike the same spot each time until she was holed. The Wisconsin started to fall behind, even as her third turret, masked before by the superstructure, was finally given a chance to fire. In answer to the turret’s salvo, an enormous explosion lit up the Presidio, as an armor-piercing round plowed through ten feet of concrete to shatter a reactor containment unit. In response, a third of the base went dark, weapons shutting off without power.
“Conn, bring her around to cover the Wisconsin, and—” Captain Beck started to order, but she was cut short by an angry shout from Larken.
“BELAY THAT! Keep your course! They’ll focus their attention on finishing her off, and we can get closer.” The admiral looked icily at Beck, and she glared back.
“Those are your people you’re condemning, you son of a bitch!” she shot back at him.
“Sons of bitches win wars, Captain. Fight your ship, or you’re relieved,” said Larken, quietly and calmly. In his hand, though, he held a .45, hammer cocked back.
She said nothing in return, just gave orders to the crew to close in. The Missouri was taking more hits from railgun rounds, even though they weren’t precisely targeted, and one gun in turret two sat immobile, shattered mid barrel by a lucky hit. In the gun-laying compartment, fire direction officers listened intently to the corrections being called by Warthog.
Number two turret, center gun, lined up on a heavy plasma gun position and let fly. Chief Szimanski watched the impact through binoculars, trying to figure the gun to target line in relation to his position. It took almost half a minute for the dust to clear and show the casement still standing, with a chunk of building blown away.
“Drop, no shit, right one zero zero and fire for effect!” he called on the radio, then ducked down behind some rocks as a sniper round shattered inches from his face. Whatever Invy across the bay was shooting at him, based on his radio traffic, was one cool ass customer.
“Drop, no shit, one zero zero meters, fire for effect, out,” came the response from the Missouri.
He almost laughed at the absurdity of telling a battleship a hundred-meter correction, but this was ‘no shit’ point-blank work. The sailor crawled left behind the rocks as the next volley thundered in, five rounds hitting, each in turn on almost the same spot. Holding up a mirror to see the impacts, he shouted with happiness as an internal explosion lifted the heavy pulse cannon up into the air, accompanied by several of the railguns.
At that moment, his hand disappeared, taken clean off by the sniper. With a curse and howl of pain, he quickly pulled the integral sleeve tourniquet, staunching the blood flow. While doing so, he watched the two ships out in the ocean, the Wisconsin now burning furiously, but still firing and taking fire. The Missouri, protected by its wall of spray and superheated steam, charged forward, so close now that the bang of each gun seemed almost simultaneous with the crash of the projectiles impacting.
As if she were riding a wave, the Wisconsin turned sideways less than two kilometers from the Presidio and, shooting over her sister’s shoulder, opened up a tremendous broadside from the two remaining turrets, pumping rounds out furiously to cover the Missouri’s attack. She was still firing when the bow started to slip downward, and one last barrage erupted from the rear turret as she headed for the bottom. The crew never saw the resulting explosion that knocked out another power plant and darkened more of the Invy’s guns.
Chapter 102
It was a smell he knew too well. Colonel Morgan McCargar sa
t patiently in the rubber zodiac boat, watching the plasma bolts go over his head, making his hair stand on end. Ozone, cordite, burnt flesh, and blood.
Silence fell, and a Marine peered over the edge of the pier, calling down, “All clear, Sir!” The Scotsman stood, and, with his sergeant major steadying him, climbed the ladder. He wanted to go first, but the Raiders wouldn’t have let him, so he didn’t bother even trying.
His accent had almost disappeared in his thirty years of service, and he’d seen far too many wars, but the scene in front of him drew a curse from his childhood. The remains of two Invy APCs sat burning, their iridium hulls glowing cherry red. More than two dozen Wolverines and three Dragons lay dead, mixed in with a half dozen human bodies. Figures in USMC digital camouflage ran past him and toward the far intersection.
McCargar knelt by one of the human casualties, a pretty blonde woman with a hole burned through her leg and blood on the front of her uniform. Her eyes fluttered open, and he yelled for a medic. She tried to say something, and he leaned close, holding her hand and telling her it would be OK.
“Scout Team Five, Sir, LZ secured,” she whispered, “so can we go the fuck home now?” She drew in a deep breath and said faintly, “I’ve got a date…” There was a faint smile on her face, and then her eyes lost focus, staring into eternity. He closed them, but the ghost of the smile remained on her still beautiful face.
“God, I hate this shite,” he muttered, then stood. His command staff was assembling radio antennas, and the XO was managing the offloading of heavier weapons from the pier.
“Sir, first wave is in, battalion commanders are establishing their CPs, and we’ve pushed out three blocks with no resistance,” said his S-3.
“That’s not going to last. Hold there until we get more manpower onto the beach, and the dolphins bring across some heavier weapons. Push a recon team out forward to establish an OP as high up as they can go, some building with overwatch, but no radio, signal lights only. Get Charlie company into the sewers ASAP, and have them push forward if they can without detection. And try to get the battleships on the horn.” They both could feel the vibrations under their feet as the huge shells impacted on the Invy positions less than two miles to the west.
*****
That last volley from the Wisconsin had given them a chance, and Admiral Larken took it. He ordered Captain Beck to have the ship swing broadside, activate the starboard sprayers, and bring turret three into action.
The men in the rear turret had been waiting to get into the action, shells sitting in the gun tubes. No one had any idea what was going on, encased as they were in hardened steel. The old manual gunnery computers had been replaced with sophisticated holographic gunsights, tied into the ship’s sensor mast. The loading systems, though, still worked as they had a hundred years ago, and the men stood ready, sweating in their motley uniforms, military and volunteers alike. Each, in his own mind, wondered if this were the end, and vowed to die in place. The hatred of the Invy overrode fear of death. When the order came for them to swing into action, and they felt the ship heel over in a turn, they cheered until their voices were raw.
“Gunnery, target power systems. Direct fire,” came over the intercom. They were less than a kilometer from the shore now, point-blank range, and individual plasma weapons began to play against the hull, but to little avail, except to blister the paint.
There were two heavy railguns left, but the big anti-air/space plasma weapons were still unable to depress their barrels low enough to engage the ship. They’d been designed as atmospheric weapons, meant to sweep the sky of aircraft, or even space ships that came down low enough. They’d been firing at the armored space station in human hands for the last two days, finally knocking it from the sky, but now they were useless with the Missouri so close. Both railguns, though, were aimed to sweep the sea and the shore across the bridge in case of an attack. They started hammering the Missouri’s superstructure, blowing great holes in the armored deck, starting fires amidships.
“Guns, lay all three turrets on that structure there, and hold your fire until I give the command,” said the admiral, pointing to a massive concrete building. On the sensor overlay, it pulsed with energy on the frequency of a large antimatter reactor, probably the base’s main power.
At that moment, a tremendous crash resounded on the bridge, and the armor spalled, its backside breaking into a thousand razor-sharp pieces. They ricocheted around the enclosed space, shattering equipment and cutting the crew down in a welter of sparks and blood. A second impact crashed into the armor, blowing out a huge piece, opening up the bridge to the outside.
The spray system was down, leaving the view to the Presidio clear. The admiral placed his hand down to his stomach, though he still stood. A piece of steel, forged long before he was born, stood out of his gut. Behind him on the deck, Captain Beck’s headless body still twitched, and fire burned, raising toxic fumes.
Larken grabbed the microphone in his shaking hand, feeling lightheaded. He slowly made his way to the gaping hole, holding his stomach in. Leaning out, the old man watched the three turrets slowly swing into battery, guns levelled. With a grim smile, he looked up and down the length of his ship. She was hurt, but she still lived.
Lifting the microphone to bloody lips, he squeezed, and with all his remaining strength, said quietly, “RIPPLE FIRE!” Then he set the microphone down and, as the blackness grew about the edges of his vision, felt the heart-stopping concussions wash over him.
Each gun fired, separated by a second. Nine tons of armor-piercing shells impacted within an instant of leaving their barrels, hammering into the armored antimatter containment unit. Ten feet of steel and ceramic shattered under the successive hammer blows, and the ninth shell made its way into the magnetic field itself.
Before the blackness fell, Admiral Jonas Larken watched as a pillar of fire erupted like a blowtorch, from the top and from the hole created by the shells. A glare brighter than the sun lit his face, and he smiled once last time, then slid down to the floor, greyness like a rain squall at sea covering his vision. Got you, you bastards, he thought.
“SIR!” The word echoed in his ears, calling him back. He opened his eyes and saw Midshipman Blake, felt the teen’s hands gently holding his head. Tears were running down the kid’s face, mixing with blood from a cut on his forehead.
“Did you mark the time, Blake?” he asked weakly.
“Yes, I did,” he answered, holding up a bloodstained notebook.
“Good. Keep it, and remember this moment. They only come once in a lifetime. Tell my daughter I went down fighting. She’ll understand.”
Blake was shoved aside as a medical team pushed their way onto the bridge, quickly doing an assessment of the old man, putting him on a stretcher, and rushing him to sickbay.
*****
“Jesus CHRIST!” exclaimed Colonel McCargar as the reactor blew, and he knew the tactical situation had changed. The Invy would be stunned, but only for a moment. It was now or never.
“ALL UNITS,” he called into the radio, “FIX BAYONETS AND CHARGE!” He turned to the bagpiper standing next to him and said, “Play Scotland the Brave, lad!” With a roar to accompany the screech of pipes the Wolverines so hated, the four hundred Marines who had made it onto the piers charged down the city streets in the direction of the Presidio, firing as they advanced. Each Invy position they came to was attacked with a hail of gunfire and a screaming charge. It was grenades, rifle bullets, and bayonets against claws and plasma, and the Marines moved forward, not heeding the fire from the Wolverines’ advanced weaponry. They were motivated by a hatred that had been a decade in the making. As they fell, more took their place, swarming over the piers and climbing from the sea.
The Invy finally broke and ran, only to meet the hammer blows of Missouri as she methodically demolished their fortress, and the landing party of a SEAL platoon from the battleship, laying down heavy and accurate fire. Seeing that all was lost, the Dragons piled onto a cargo
lifter, turned, and headed south. The fight was bitter, but with no one directing them, the Wolverines were gunned down or made their way into the ruins of the city. The main strength of the Invy position on the West Coast, though, was broken.
An hour later, Colonel McCargar stood at the first buttress of the Golden Gate Bridge, feeling the ocean breeze, and looking at the fires burning in the city. The sky in the east was flush with dawn, and the first rays of the sun were touching the towers, where only a few hours before Bri McKnight and Will Szimanski had waited. As he watched, the golden dawn light reached the top of the tallest ruin, and from it flew the biggest American flag his S-4 had been able to find, tattered at the edges. Under that, the scarlet and gold of the USMC, and below that, the black and gold of the CEF.
“Thank you, Admiral. Thank you,” he said quietly to himself, looking at the smoking holes in the great ship as she dropped anchor.
*****
In the sickbay of the Missouri, Alex Blake sat next to the old man, watching the displays that showed him slowly dying from internal bleeding. The surgeon has shaken his head and said, “He won’t make it. He’s too old, and we don’t have the facilities.”
Blake held a feed from the sensors on the bridge in his hand, and he scrolled through them, flipping through the screens. As the ship came to rest and the anchor dropped, Admiral Larken opened his eyes. The midshipman took his hand and held it, and Larken asked, quietly, “The ship? It’s safe?”
The teen felt tears well in his eyes and nodded. “Yessir, we just dropped anchor. And look, Admiral!” He turned the screen toward the old man, holding it close to him. On it was a view of the ruined city and, flying from the top of the tallest building, an American flag stretched out in the ocean breeze.