Extinction Fleet 1: Space Marine Ajax
Page 13
Below the sniper, a hatch in the APC opened and two marines leapt out, adding their fire against whatever horrors followed Ajax. The marine never slowed his pace and leapt through the open hatch to crash onto the deck of the armored vehicle and the hatch was slammed shut behind him. The other marine was presumably still out there selling his life to buy time for the driver to get the APC in gear and push the engine hard enough to dislodge the vehicle from the hive ship’s membranes.
Ajax finally let go of Grendel’s head, letting the massive thing slide wetly across the deck as the vehicle lurched back and forth. The marine fumbled his way to one of the gun pods and grasped the handle.
The gun pods were small, only firing pistol grade ammunition, but in high volumes. They were designed for use in just this sort of situation, where the APC was being swarmed with beasts at close range and in need of clearing itself some room to maneuver. The sights of the gun pod were filled with beasts and Ajax fired manically, swinging the pod back and forth to its maximum one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc of fire. The other marine in the APC did the same with his gun pod, and the vehicle bucked wildly as it plowed through, who knew what, massed nightmares.
The hatch popped open and Hart fell through, a bright red wound cut through his chest plate, the sniper rifle falling in two pieces to the deck alongside him. Ajax stumbled away from the gun pod, but his knees buckled and he crashed to the floor. Hart slid a pistol from its holster and fired upwards, driving away what appeared to be a shrieker that was attempting to climb down through the hatch. Ajax managed to pick himself up and with the help of the other marine, whose chest stencil read Wayland, got the top hatch closed before any other creatures fought their way inside.
Wayland immediately knelt beside Hart and dosed the sniper with combat stimulants and Ajax limped his way to the driver’s cockpit. The pilot displays showed that the swarms from the other hive ships had pushed through Armor One’s screen and were launching a counter-attack. However, as Ajax looked closer, it didn’t seem that the attack was so much focused on the marines as it was on Grendel’s hive ship.
Something twisted in the marine’s spirit, a tightening in his guts as much as his mind as realization of what was happening set in.
Ajax had to get topside.
He couldn’t trust the instruments, had to see it with his own eyes, that much he knew to be true. Wayland was too busy trying to keep Hart alive, and the driver so intent on reaching the mobile fortress, that neither noticed Ajax climb up to the top hatch and open it.
The air tore past him as the APC hit its max speed. Despite it, Ajax removed his helmet, determined to look upon these events with his naked eyes, no augmentations from his helmet, nothing to filter what he witnessed.
The marine watched with a combination of horror and awe as tides of Garm crashed into each other. Defenders poured out of the ruined hive ship and were torn apart by legions of Garm from the fresh swarms. Garm against Garm, thought Ajax as he recalled the nightmare of intercene carnage he and the others had found in the forgotten ditch miles away in the trackless darkness.
There were deeper forces at work upon Heorot than Grendel alone, and Ajax could not suppress the involuntary shudder he felt at that notion. Nor could he stop himself from groaning with pain and a swell of chaotic emotion when he felt the hive ship die. He knew not how, but presumed some lingering connection between he and Grendel, which most certainly extended to the living starship itself.
He felt it at the core of his being, the chill of it spreading through his chest and threatening to make him vomit. How much of it was dementia from the continuous stimulants that kept him awake or the presence of the Garm cells he wasn’t sure, but at any rate, he knew beyond a doubt when the hive ship had perished.
In spite of everything he had experienced, there was something almost majestic in the gigantic lifeform, and he found its death somewhat tragic in its own way, like a part of him had just died. Reason told him it was just the Garm cells whispering their corrosive madness at him, and yet, however fleeting it was, in the moment of its death, he felt he had an understanding of it.
Grendel’s presence in his mind seemed to fade once the hive ship died, but so dramatic was the loss of it that he felt suddenly empty inside. Grendel’s own kind had turned against it, and Ajax could not help but feel that it was the individuality of Grendel that the Garm hated so much. He felt it more than he thought it, reacting to the exceeding brutality of what he saw as the Garm destroyed each other.
For a moment, it seemed as if the Garm were so intent upon slaughtering Grendel’s brood that they would leave the marines to their escape, though soon Ajax saw that it was a fleeting hope.
Armor One had swept in behind the line of fleeing APCs, a moving defense of the personnel carriers, and as Ajax placed his helmet back upon his head he saw the swarms muster. His helmet’s augmentation allowed him to watch as the two swarms from the other hive ships merged into one, rallied by several WarGarm that towered above the horde. Clouds of shriekers sailed through the air in the direction of the marines even as the land swarms surged across the ground.
Ajax felt as if the eyes of the WarGarm were upon him, singling out his APC as containing the remains of something the Garm wanted to destroy more than they wanted to consume the humans that carried it. Apparently, the Garm cells were still active in his brain, thought Ajax, even if the potency of them and the direct link to Grendel were somewhat diminished. He could feel the psychic pressure of the WarGarm, the alien will that drive the hordes straight at him.
They were coming for Grendel’s head, and if the marines got in the way that was just more meat for the breeding chambers.
WOLVES AT THE GATE
Ajax wasn’t sure when he passed out, but when he came too he and Hart were being lifted on stretchers and carried away from the APC. He looked up and saw that the APCs had rallied in the motor pool at the center of the mobile fortress. Mechanics worked frantically on the more damaged ones, fixing treads, patching armor, and bringing chain-fires back online. There was a peculiar clanking noise on the other side of him and as Ajax turned his head painfully, he saw Jarl Mahora walking next to him. The clanking sound was coming from at least two dozen torcs festooning the jarl’s belt, a testament to the casualties of the day.
“They’re coming for Grendel’s head, sir,” said Ajax with a voice strained by exhaustion and pain, “All of them, right now.”
“Aye, it seems they’ve learned how to kill each other. Maybe drank a bit too deeply from humanity’s cup, eh?” growled Mahora, his grim expression all the darker for the gallows humor he seemed to find in the situation. “Well, don’t you worry, marine, we’re gonna hang it high so they know right where to come get it.”
“FOB Thane was just supposed to be a rally point, this fortress isn’t going to be able to repel that kind of attack,” Ajax reminded his jarl as the medics continued to carry the stretchers towards the makeshift infirmary container, confused at Mahora’s apparent eagerness to lock horns with the enemy again so soon after such a costly battle. “Seize Grendel and get it offworld, that was the plan.”
“Certainly was, but that was before one of those new hive ships launched itself back into orbit,” nodded Mahora as he gestured to the sky above them, and in the distant darkness of low orbit Ajax could see the impossibly bright flashes that were the telltale signs of a mighty void battle being waged in the heavens. “Seems like the Garm guessed our plan, cannibalized the hive ship that was damaged on entry to make the other stronger. If that hive ship manages to destroy Bright Lance we are stranded on Heorot and without a body forge.”
“I’m ready, sir, just hit me with more stims and give me a rifle,” rasped Ajax as he fought to lift himself off the stretcher, only to be silently pressed back down by the medic.
“You’re a dead man walking, Ajax, you’d be a liability and you know it. Let the medics do their job, and if we can’t hold the line I’m sure the enemy will come to you,” scoffed Mahora warm
ly. “The Garm are throwing everything they have at us, and their hive ships are gone, so for them there is no reinforcement and without Bright Lance we have no resurrection. For once, we are on even footing with those bastards. If we win here, we win the planet, so we stay and we fight.”
Ajax attempted again to rise, but he had not the strength, and begrudgingly allowed himself to be taken the rest of the way to the infirmary. Once inside he saw that the medics building was one of the prefab containers that formed the bulk of the buildings inside the mobile fortress perimeter. While the fortress itself was simply a massive square comprised of scaffolding, deck planks, and armored barricades dotted with gun mounts and firing steps, the interior was somewhat open. In addition to the infirmary he knew that there would be an armored munitions depot, a motor pool hub, and at least some manner of command bunker. He’d been part of the advance team so did not actually see the fortress being built, though from his training he could guess as to the details.
The marine did his best to stay conscious, but now that he was finally prone and out of immediate danger, he found it harder and harder to stay awake. A sudden darkness enveloped him, and somewhere in the distance of his perceptions he felt the prick of a needle. No doubt the medics had sedated him, which was just as well, as the stimulants were wearing off and being gradually replaced by pain.
There were no dreams, and for that, Ajax was thankful. When his eyes fluttered open his senses were assaulted with noise. What had awakened him from his drug and pain induced stupor was Hart sliding a knife through the restraints that had been holding Ajax in place.
“Apparently, your connection to Grendel has become common knowledge during our slumber,” said Hart in a stony voice as he helped Ajax to sit upright. “The medics tied you down once you were out.”
“I can’t blame them,” said Ajax as he willingly allowed Hart to dose him with stimulants, then rubbed his sore arm as the sniper dosed himself. Both marines were suffering from shaky hands, a palsy that was common when the combat drugs in their systems were near the overdose threshold. “We will both need to resurrect soon if we keep pounding the stims like this, the nerve damage we are doing is already starting to show.”
“I don’t believe that dying will be much of a problem, it doesn’t sound like we’re winning out there, and if Bright Lance is destroyed we will have lived our last. The medics have already abandoned us to join the defense,” observed Hart as he pulled himself into a basic body glove and handed one to Ajax, who did the same. “We’ll need to scavenge weapons from the dead, so be prepared to scramble, who knows what’s waiting for us out there.”
“Nothing we haven’t faced before,” said Ajax as he flexed his shaky fingers and limbered himself up as best he could despite his wounds and battered body before accepting a long scalpel blade from the sniper. “I’m ready.”
The two men flung open the door of the infirmary and plunged through it. They were immediately met with a hurricane of violence, the sight of which shook even these hardened veterans to the core of their being. The motor pool was mostly empty of vehicles, the APCs that could function having presumably been sent out into the field to join Armor One in its rolling battle outside.
Across the square that was the fortress, marine and Garm corpses choked the decking and littered the open ground of the fortress proper. Marines fought each other as several of them screamed for meat.
Riflemen defiantly stood the ramparts and fired their weapons in all directions, alternating between defending the walls and taking out enemies that had breached the perimeter. One entire section of wall had been torn down by what appeared to have been a valiantly suicidal attack by UltraGarm, and judging from the many broken bodies in the breach it was a cluster of Blackouts that had sold their lives to plug the hole.
The sky was ablaze with falling debris and Ajax could see the rain of wreckage coming down from orbit, burning as it fell to the surface. Much of what fell was organic, and the smell of cooking alien flesh choked his nostrils as much as the sight of burning metal cascading chilled his heart. If Bright Lance wasn’t dead, she was at least badly wounded, and would be no help here.
“Ajax!” shouted Hart as he pitched the marine a pulse rifle before racking the slide of his own to vent the heat that had shut it down. “Eyes center!”
Ajax checked his weapon, seeing that it had two thirds of a carbon mag left, following Hart’s pointing finger with his gaze.
At the center of the fortress a long piece of sturdy rebar had been buried upright in the ground, and on the top of it, as if impaled by the spear of Odin himself, was the head of Grendel. Around the base of the pole stood three Einherjar, one of them Jarl Mahora. At their feet were piles of bodies, both human and Garm, along with many destroyed or discarded flak boards, and yet more of the enemy surged towards them.
Hart and Ajax leapt into the fray and began targeting ripper drones that had scaled the nearby walls on their left. The two men took a knee and fired with rapid precision, each venting after the tenth shot despite the adrenaline of what they assumed was the last fight of their lives. With the rippers down, Ajax turned his attention to a gorehound that had just blasted a marine off the firestep. Once the gorehound was dead, Ajax sought another target. An easy thing in this swirl of enemies.
Suddenly, the entrance to the fortress buckled from multiple impacts, and Ajax could hear the shearing of metal from the other side. The gate was reinforced and the strongest part of the fortress, yet, as the marine looked, he could see the last handful of defenders being slain by whatever was attacking from below. When a long spine sprouted through the back of a marine’s neck, Ajax recognized the projectile as belonging to the fearsome weapons of the WarGarm.
“Einherjar, to me!” bellowed Jarl Mahora, and along with several others capable of doing so, Ajax and Hart sprinted across the open ground towards their leader. “Shieldwall!”
The marines did as ordered. The ten marines left to answer the call picked up the least damaged of the discarded flak board as the WarGarm continued to tear through the main gate. In seconds, the marines locked their boards together and held firm, each man certain that they were living their final moments. The enemies had all but thinned out as the concentrated fire of the marines mowed them down. Soon no more Garm came pouring over the walls. All that remained was the steady violence against the entrance.
“The swarm is spent,” observed Hart from behind Ajax as the sniper set his flak board over the marine to protect him from above. “All that remain are the WarGarm and we seem too few.”
“Wolves are at the gate, brothers!” roared Jarl Mahora as he beat the stock of his rifle against his flak board. “Show them how we die!”
Adrenaline surged through Ajax in equal measure to the combat stims as the WarGarm breached the entrance. The metal imploded from the force of a final impact. The marine could see that the Garm had used their corrosive projectiles to weaken it to the point that they could bash it down with their scything blades and mighty limbs.
As one the Einherjar opened fire, a tempest of rounds tore through the first of the WarGarm. They kept coming, and the marines kept firing, though after the second massive beast was turned to pulp, the others managed to spread out of the tight entrance and return fire.
A wave of spines slammed into the shield wall, several of them punching through the flak boards and impaling the marines behind them. The shieldwall held despite the many losses, and kept pouring on the fire. Without the advantage of concentrating fire on one beast at a time, though, the fusillade was much less effective. A wounded WarGarm was still quite deadly, and one that had lost one of its legs still managed to fire its caustic weapon.
The spray of globular projectiles melted away the flak board that Ajax was holding and burned through the body of the man standing next to him. It was only after the man fell in a smoldering heap that Ajax recognized the corpse as Skald Omar, having apparently survived the wound he took in the hive ship only to be cut down here.
Ajax did not recall when he swapped Omar’s empty rifle for yet another scavenged weapon, and it mattered little. All that concerned him was that he found a piece of the enemy in his sights and kept shooting. It wasn’t until his rifle clicked empty that he snapped out of his trance and cast his eyes about in search of another weapon.
Soon his hands curled around the grip of a pulse rifle still clutched in the arms of a dead marine. He wrenched the rifle away from the corpse and his ears were met with a unique clinking sound. Before he could look down to see what it was, a wounded WarGarm hurled itself at him, and sank one of its remaining scything blades through the meat of his thigh. Ajax knew instantly that his femoral artery had been severed, for without any combat armor to deflect or absorb the blow he’d taken the full force of it. The marine jammed his rifle into the dripping maw of the creature and squeezed the trigger. The superheated bolt burst apart the WarGarm’s skull and showered Ajax with gore.
The marine fell to the ground, with his back against the pole topped with Grendel’s head. Ichor seeped down the pole from the ragged mess and stung the marine’s bare skin. He ignored the pain and trained his rifle on another WarGarm that, despite having lost what appeared to be its right arm and much of its shoulder, pressed the attack. Ajax selected full-auto fire and cut loose, spraying the enemy with rounds until the weapon overloaded and shut down. Thankfully, the already wounded beast collapsed before it reached him.