by Mark Wandrey
The spiders continued to mill just outside the effective range of the Human mercenaries’ weapons, almost daring them to waste some of the ammunition she knew they would need once the attack commenced. With that many Tortantulas, she wasn’t sure there was enough ammo on the entire planet to stop their assault, much less here with her battalion. It looked like someone had taken an entire Tortantula world, emptied it, and sent them here.
She scanned behind her; the last of the noncombatants had emerged from the escape tunnel and were running as fast as they could to where the shuttles waited two miles down the ravine. As noncombatants, they were more used to sitting on their butts in the rear echelons and less accustomed to physical exertion; ‘running as fast as they could’ was barely more than a quick walk for many of them. Her job was to hold off the spiders until the shuttles were safely away, but she could already see that was going to be like holding back the tide. This was the worst possible time for an attack.
The enemy commander must have realized it, too, for at some unseen signal, the Tortantulas moved forward as one, the blanket flowing forward smoothly. Mun shook her head inside her Combat Assault System, Personnel, or CASPer. Tortantulas never flowed forward smoothly. There was definitely a Veetanho nearby.
“Here they come!” Lieutenant Colonel James Laverno transmitted. Not really necessary, Mun thought; the spiders had been the sole focus of the battalion’s combined attention ever since they had formed up.
“Mark your targets!” Mun added. “Even though they look like a solid mass, they aren’t. Stay in your sectors and pick a target for every shot.”
She activated the battalion’s targeting program, and symbology appeared on each of the trooper’s displays showing the area each was assigned to defend. When the spiders got closer, it would change to a defensive arc; right now, their targets were far enough away that the lines extended nearly straight out.
With a thought, she armed all of her suit’s weapons. The eight-foot-tall powered armor currently mounted a heavy magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC, on her left arm, a 15mm autocannon on the right arm, and a missile pack on the right shoulder. The Tortantulas wore armor on most of their exposed surfaces; lasers were usually a waste of time against them.
Although it looked like a wall of spiders, there were places in the line where some of the spiders were slightly slower. Missiles arced out from across the battle line as the Humans tried to break the cohesion of the Tortantulas’ advance. She targeted three, and missiles leapt from her shoulder to detonate on the targeted aliens, killing them and wounding a number of other spiders in the area. The missiles also left a gap in the lines…until spiders from the following ranks sprinted forward to fill them.
Unlike many races who wouldn’t attack without their comrades on both sides of them to provide support, the Tortantulas didn’t care. The spiders in the lead, who suddenly found themselves without their supporting squad mates, only raced faster to get among the hated enemy who had killed them.
A lone Tortantula is killable, though, and the battalion’s MACs, autocannons, chain guns, and heavy machineguns opened up across the front to pick them off. Unfortunately, killing huge numbers of the five-foot-wide Tortantulas rarely stopped their advances; no matter how many you killed, they just kept coming. At least the dead aliens were big enough their corpses provided obstacles that slowed the following ranks as they had to go around.
The firepower of the 170 CASPers was enormous, but they were spread out over a mile-wide front, with huge cliffs on both side of the ravine; each trooper had to cover over 30 feet of battlespace. Mun knew the ravine widened behind them; they would get even more spread out if they retreated.
Despite horrific casualties, the Tortantulas continued to flow forward. The Humans couldn’t kill them fast enough, and it was quickly apparent the Humans would need to give ground or they would be overrun. Mun had once read a historical report that said the worst thing in all of warfare was to be on the receiving end of a cavalry charge. Whoever had written that had never seen Tortantulas. The ground shook like a minor earthquake, and they seemed all but unstoppable. Worse, they hadn’t even fired a round at the Humans yet. It was overwhelming to see them ignore the devastation they were receiving and keep coming, and Mun had experienced it before. For the newbies, it was suit-wetting time.
“Battalion, stand by to conduct a fighting withdrawal up the canyon,” Lieutenant Colonel Laverno ordered. Good, Mun thought; the officer had seen it, too. She checked her rear screens; the noncombatants were at least a half mile away. “Execute the fighting withdrawal.”
Along with the rest of the battalion, she activated her jumpjets, and the suit flew into the air to land 50 feet back from her original position. At the height of her jump, she marked two new targets and launched missiles at them upon landing.
The icon for Private Esendai Enkh went red in her display. He was dead.
“I’ve got hypervelocity rounds incoming!” one of the sensor operators called. “The spiders have riders!”
Gichii. Of course the lead Tortantulas would have Flatar riders. The Humans might have stopped the advance otherwise. Aliens that looked like foot-long chipmunks, the Flatar used hypervelocity pistols that fired a really small projectile at an incredible velocity. The bullet didn’t have much mass, but the kinetic energy it carried from the velocity was enormous. The dead private’s body, and the nearly half-ton suit he wore, were knocked backward by the impact.
“Continue moving,” Mun ordered. “Even when you aren’t withdrawing, keep moving to make yourselves harder targets.”
The battalion continued to withdraw, and more troopers were hit. When one of the CASPers went down, the ones on either side shifted to fill in the gap, with the rest of the battalion shifting slightly to cover the resulting gaps.
“Damn it, Berke,” Sergeant Stan Jones, one of the squad leaders, radioed, “get back in formation!”
Mun shifted her heads-up display to show the whole battlefront while she continued to pick off Tortantulas, and she immediately saw the problem. Private Berkelun Enkh was out of place. Way out of place. She had jumped to the right, probably to avoid terrain, but had gone almost all the way over to the next CASPer in line, leaving a huge gap in the line. Since she was still alive, the trooper to her left, her squad leader, Sergeant Jones, hadn’t moved over to fill in the gap.
The spiders had seen the gap and were rushing toward it.
Mun activated her jets and jumped toward the opening as Sergeant Jones and Private Enkh both jumped toward each other to fill in the gap. Unfortunately, both soldiers chose the same landing spot and Private Enkh landed on top of Sergeant Jones half a second after he had touched down. Both soldiers went down in a tangle of metal.
Mun jumped again, trying to position herself to cover them, but the two soldiers were overrun by the Tortantulas, and both suits showed red within half a heartbeat. She touched down in the center of the gap and bounced back into the air, firing the last of her missiles to break up the mass of spiders skittering into the gap. If she didn’t slow their advance, the spiders would be in a position to flank the rest of the battalion.
Her missiles were effective, blowing huge holes in the ranks of the spiders, but the rest kept coming and were nearly upon her. Mun bounced back from the throng, but could see she was now the focus of all the nearby Flatar. She hit her right jet to throw off their aim, but a round hit her left boot, destroying its jumpjet. Unable to control her descent, she hit nearly horizontally, crashing onto her left side to roll to a stop. A variety of yellow and red lights appeared in front of her blurred vision.
Mun shook her head, and her sight cleared. One of the Tortantulas was already on top of her, its Flatar rider aiming his pistol down at her. The last thing she saw was her tactical display. The spiders had broken through the gap in the line. While some of them fired down the Human line in enfilade, others raced off to chase down the fleeing noncombatants. She had a second to realize they had failed, again.
Then the Flatar fired, killing Mun instantly.
* * * * *
Find out more about Chris Kennedy and get the free prequel to “Asbaran Solutions,”
“Shattered Crucible” at: http://chriskennedypublishing.com/
The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of the Kin Wars Saga:
Wraithkin
___________________
Jason Cordova
Now Available from Theogony Books
eBook, Paperback, and Audio
Excerpt from “Wraithkin:”
Prologue
The lifeless body of his fellow agent on the bed confirmed the undercover operation was thoroughly busted.
“Crap,” Agent Andrew Espinoza, Dominion Intelligence Bureau, said as he stepped fully into the dimly lit room and carefully made his way to the filthy bed in which his fellow agent lay. He turned away from the ruined body of his friend and scanned the room for any sign of danger. Seeing none, he quickly walked back out of the room to where the slaves he had rescued earlier were waiting.
“Okay, let’s keep quiet now,” he reminded them. “I’ll go first, and you follow me. I don’t think there are any more slavers in the warehouse. Understand?”
They all nodded. He offered them a smile of confidence, though he had lied. He knew there was one more slaver in the warehouse, hiding near the side exit they were about to use. He had a plan to deal with that person, however. First he had to get the slaves to safety.
He led the way, his pistol up and ready as he guided the women through the dank and musty halls of the old, rundown building. It had been abandoned years before, and the slaver ring had managed to get it for a song. In fact, they had even qualified for a tax-exempt purchase due to the condition of the neighborhood around it. The local constable had wanted the property sold, and the slaver ring had stepped in and offered him a cut if he gave it to them. The constable had readily agreed, and the slavers had turned the warehouse into the processing plant for the sex slaves they sold throughout the Dominion. Andrew knew all this because he had been the one to help set up the purchase in the first place.
Now, though, he wished he had chosen another locale.
He stopped the following slaves as he came to the opening which led into one of the warehouse’s spacious storage areas. Beyond that lay their final destination, and he was dreading the confrontation with the last slaver. He checked his gun and grunted in surprise as he saw he had two fewer rounds left than he had thought. He shook his head and charged the pistol.
“Stay here and wait for my signal,” he told the rescued slaves. They nodded in unison.
He took a deep, calming breath. No matter what happened, he had to get the slaves to safety. He owed them that much. His sworn duty was to protect the Dominion from people like the slavers, and someone along the way had failed these poor women. He exhaled slowly, crossed himself and prayed to God, the Emperor and any other person who might have been paying attention.
He charged into the room, his footsteps loud on the concrete flooring. He had his gun up as he ducked behind a small, empty crate. He peeked over the top and snarled; he had been hoping against hope the slaver was facing the other direction.
Apparently Murphy is still a stronger presence in my life than God, he thought as he locked eyes with the last slaver. The woman’s eyes widened in recognition and shock, and he knew he would only have one chance before she killed them all.
He dove to the right of the crate and rolled, letting his momentum drag him out of the slaver’s immediate line of fire. He struggled to his feet as her gun swung up and began to track him, but he was already moving, sprinting back to the left while closing in on her. She fired twice, both shots ricocheting off the floor and embedding themselves in the wall behind him.
Andrew skid to a stop and took careful aim. It was a race, the slaver bringing her gun around as his own came to bear upon her. The muzzles of both guns flashed simultaneously, and Andrew grunted as pain flared in his shoulder.
A second shot punched him in the gut and he fell, shocked the woman had managed to get him. He lifted his head and saw that while he had hit her, her wound wasn’t nearly as bad as his. He had merely clipped her collarbone and, while it would smart, it was in no way fatal. She took aim on him and smiled coldly.
Andrew swiftly brought his gun up with his working arm and fired one final time. The round struck true, burrowing itself right between the slaver’s eyes. She fell backwards and lay still, dead. He groaned and dropped the gun, pain blossoming in his stomach. He rolled onto his back and stared at the old warehouse’s ceiling.
That sucked, he groused. He closed his eyes and let out a long, painful breath.
* * * * *
Get “Wraithkin” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0RGYZS.
Find out more about Jason Cordova and “Wraithkin” at: http://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/jason-cordova/