"Since when do you need warning?"
"Good point. I need my second, Kevin, to become a Lieutenant."
"Done."
"I've got a couple that I need boosted to Sergeant, too."
"Done."
* * *
The virus worked on the Lithor. All but ten thousand specimens that they'd kept alive via inoculation died. Fleet ordered Wilson and Jack to train for defense of the planet eighty percent of the time, and only train for offense twenty percent. Their ratio had been the other way around. Defensive units only trained one day a month for offensive operations.
Their defensive posture would be fairly simple, with a perimeter to maintain around the base and the city center and strong-points to guard. The strong-points would be anti-ship energy weapons and anti-missile defenses. Fleet called them batteries.
A solid month passed, Jack started to get used to being back on Orion, of having kids, and having over a thousand men to command in battle. Hawk still presented a problem. He refused to go anywhere near his suit, but he'd run the simulators. Jack didn't want to push him. Jack wanted to push him, but he'd been trying that before, and it didn't seem to help.
One day Jack asked Junior at dinner, "So those knives, are you any good with them?"
The kid's response, "Yup."
"Will you show me?"
"Mom won't let me throw them in the house."
Lexi said, "That's a very important rule."
"We'll go outside," Jack said.
They walked out back, and there stood a tree about five meters away, Jack asked, "Can you hit that tree from here?"
Junior looked and pointed at a tree on the left that was closer to ten meters away. He asked, "How high?"
"Go for the throat."
Junior moved like lightning for a kid who just turned five years old, grabbing the knife on his left hip with his right hand and flinging it at the tree. Then, just as fast, he grabbed the right knife with his left and threw. Both went thunk into the tree about two meters off the ground. Jack laughed.
"I said I was good," Junior said. "I hate Human school. You should let me go to the Kilken school…"
"Your Mother would never allow it."
"Finger painting? Snack time? Nap time!"
Jack looked at the ground. "I know."
Junior ran to the tree and jumped up to reclaim his knives. Jack turned and walked back into the house.
Another month passed with still no word from high command for when the next invasion would be. Wilson said they simply didn't have plans for another invasion. The next month Fleet launched over half its warships against the remaining Lithorian worlds.
Jack enjoyed his time on Orion. Meghan and Johnathon planned to marry after they finished university. Everything seemed to be going well for a few months when one morning before dawn the shriek of the early warning system woke everyone. It broadcast, "Lithor have engaged our fleet, report to battle stations. Repeat. Lithor have engaged our fleet, report to battle stations."
Jack hopped in his uniform and went to where the blast rifle was, giving it to Lexi. "You know what to do."
"Aye, if they come in the house shoot them."
Junior came out of his room with some kind of primitive ranged weapon. Jack thought the Kilken called them crossbows. Jack looked him in the eye. "Stay in the house with Mom."
"But, Dad!"
"Stay in the house!"
He sighed but said, "Ok."
Jack went to the garage and climbed in his hover, firing it up and clicking the garage door opener. He had time. The battle in orbit would take some time. The Fleet ships would die fighting. All the defenders would die fighting, if need be. They had clear orders. There would be no surrender, no retreat, no fallback orders given.
Jack left the garage and hit the button to close the garage door. He silently prayed his family would be ok and then brought up his tactical display. A few units showed green already, and some moved towards their assigned placements. His infantry would be on the south side of the civilian area. His troops in battle armor would be stationed one team per battery location. Half his hovers would be on patrol at the batteries, the other half on the south side with the infantry.
Jack's place in the battle meant he would be watching and distributing the air support. He moved to the center between his infantry on the south and his armored suits on the north inside the Fleet base. He didn't look forward to following orders. Wait for the first section to be overrun and proceed to that breach and engage the enemy, calling for air support and hovers as need be. Jack watched and waited while units turned green on his tactical map.
He heard on his radio, "All ships are destroyed or retreating. Prepare for invasion, e.t.a. twenty minutes."
Jack grimaced. The one edge they had was the virus, and that wouldn't do anything to protect the front line troops.
The planetary anti-ship weapons and anti-missile weapons started lighting up the sky with streaks of energy. Jack waited. Somebody said, "Orders, Captain?" On Jack's personal channel.
Everybody should have known their orders, thought Jack. He said, "ID?"
Silence for a moment, followed by, "Corporal Hawk."
Hawk had refused to even go near a battle suit since returning to Orion. "Team Hawk is protecting battery 11. Go there and defend. The orders are clear, Corporal. Defend those weapons with your life."
There was a pause, then, "Affirmative, Captain."
Jack smiled. They could use Hawk at that battery, if he could fight at all. Hopefully, he'd show his true skill and not what he had been showing in the simulators.
* * *
Hawk showed up at Battery 11. Sarah looked him over and licked her lips.
"If my suit freezes," he said. "You'll grease me."
Rob said, "No!"
Sarah paused.
"I'm not asking you. I want your word," Hawk said.
Sarah looked away, towards the enemy. "Your suit freezes, and we'll kill you."
"Good."
* * *
Jack waited. The southern line started to report enemy units attacking. The perimeter around the base flashed red in places on Jack's screen, meaning they reported enemy fire. Jack sent one wing of fighters to the south and one to perimeter locations around the base. He waited and watched while others fought and died. He'd have his chance soon, just had to wait and see where the biggest concentration of Lithor made it through their lines.
One of his squads on the south side reported that they were being overrun, and then the radio went to static. Jack punched the accelerator to the floor and steered towards that place in the line. He called down a wing of fighter planes and summoned the two closest tanks to assist him. He got near the line and saw easily a half dozen columns of infantry and another half dozen big tanks supporting them.
Jack took out the center tanks and picked a column of infantry and cut them down with his fifties. He punched the accelerator down again, flying over another column, dropping a gel-pack on them. The Lithor infantry fired back with laser rifles and the occasional blast rifle. Jack didn't see any smoke streaks that would mean missile launches. They didn't have many tanks, but the Lithor seemed like an endless horde. Some of the Lithor were armed with what looked like wooden clubs, and some had knives.
Jack spoke, "Computer, estimate Lithor strength at this location."
He waited, then heard, "Ten thousand plus."
Jack's shield indicator dropped to less than forty percent, and he aimed his tank skyward to get away. He called out on the radio to his other wing of fighters and checked on his other hover tanks. Across the board, all of them engaged Lithor infantry that broke through the perimeter lines. Jack wouldn't have any more support besides the two wings of planes and the two other hovers he called already. All the tanks on the battlefield would be fighting impossible battles with orders to hide in the heavens whenever their shields fell less then forty percent. Many cut it closer than that in the simulators, and Jack hoped they'd stand by thei
r orders.
His shields reached 90%, and he started his descent towards the vanguard of the Lithor invasion. This time they saw him coming, and his shields fell like a stone. Still, he took out two tanks, two columns of infantry and dropped four gel-packs on four more columns. His shield indicator showed 30%, and he jerked the left control stick back to send his machine skyward. He heard Wilson on the radio, "Can you spare any tanks, Jack?"
"They're all engaged, Wilson."
"Then I need some of your planes. You decide."
"There's ten thousand Lithor here, Wilson!" Jack shouted.
"We just lost a battery. They're going after two more. I need support at waypoint Delta, now!"
Those planes and three hovers stood in the way of ten thousand Lithors, but they only intended to slow them, but it would save civilian lives, if they got slowed enough. Those batteries, losing them meant losing their air defense. Jack made a hard decision. "All air units converge on waypoint Delta!"
Chewy radioed, "We can't hold them without those planes!"
"Keep your shields charged and engage as many enemy units as you can!"
Wilson spoke over the radio, "All ground personnel fallback to assigned Batteries, I repeat, fallback!"
That order would open up the entire base perimeter to Lithor ground troops. Jack and Lexi's house stood only two blocks from that perimeter. Jack's rage started to get the better of him as he descended on the Lithor horde below. Cutting them down with his machine guns and dropping gel-packs on them where they clumped together.
Jack checked his timed countdown, the battle had raged for forty-five minutes, the virus would start to work soon.
He heard, "Shit! Shit! I'm hit!"
Then the green light on his left blinked out, leaving him with just one tank helping him. He did strafing run after strafing run. Jack could see the Lithor haul civilians out of their houses and gun them down. His rage erupted anew as he stopped paying attention to his shield indicator and his tactical screen.
It wasn't until his computer chirped, "Hull breach." That he jerked the left control stick back to send his craft skyward. The computer beeped, "Hull breach." Three more times before Jack reached a "safe" altitude.
Jack stopped and breathed while his shields recharged. He punched up his home on the tactical screen--it had been completely overrun by red blips. Jack's heart started to race, maybe they had left his house alone, yeah, right, he thought. He radioed to Wilson. "Permission to fallback, sir?"
"Fallback to where, soldier?"
"Home, sir," Jack said.
"That's a negative. They've been overrun. They're either dead or alive. Your being there won't change a thing. Stand and fight."
Jack's shields read at 90%, and he did another strafing run on the Lithor infantry. Then another and another. He started to notice their advance slowing. Then he started noticing Lithor just lying down in the field. Then they started to break and run for their transport ships. Cheers echoed all across the radio. Wilson muted everyone, "All units prepare for cleanup duty. Well fought, everyone. Patrol at will."
Jack took that to mean he could check on Lexi and turned his tank towards base and punched the accelerator all the way down. Kevin spoke on his radio, "Permission to check on the wife, Jack?"
"Granted, Lieutenant."
Jack radioed, "All hovers return to base. All other units report in."
All but team Hawk and about half of his infantry reported in. Jack slowed his approach to his house. It was on fire just a bit, and smoke billowed out the front window. Jack said, "Short range sensor scan, maximum density."
The scan showed four green signals inside the house: four green Human hearts beating. Jack figured the phone lines would be swamped, but he dialed the number anyway. It paused, but it rang. Lexi answered from in the dark, "Hello?"
"Lexi, I'm right outside. The Lithor are retreating."
Junior chirped, "I killed three!"
"Yes, he did, before I could shoot them," Lexi said. "The Lithor thought there were Kilken in the house, tossed a few grenades into the living room, and ran away…"
Junior asked, "Now can I go to the Kilken school?"
Lexi said, "We'll discuss it…"
"I'm going to patrol the area for a bit then I need to check on some troops, ok?" Jack said.
"We're fine."
Jack spent a good twenty minutes patrolling in a circle around their house, and no Lithor presented themselves. He pulled up a map of where Team Hawk should have been. The Battery there showed green, but no green Fleet blips showed near it. Jack sped off towards it.
A great field of dead Lithor, thousands, sometimes in great piles filled the landscape. He saw the dead Fleet soldiers in a line surrounding the Battery placement. Then he saw the dead mobile suits, three of them stood open. Jack got closer to the Fleet defender's line, and Hawk was sitting on a concrete wall nursing a bad arm. Sarah had two suit emergency pistols, and Rob held a Lithorian laser rifle. Jack saw laser burns on all three of them in places. Jack hit the loudspeaker, "Report!"
Sarah wiped the sweat off her brow with her arm only to spread some dirt around into a bigger mess. "We lost Charlie and Rasputin. They killed all the infantry Wilson sent to help. We need a medivac to get Hawk to Medical…"
Hawk stood up. "No, I can get there…"
Jack smiled. Hawk's old self had definitely returned. Jack tried to sound stern. "You know it's against Fleet regulation to pick up enemy ordnance?"
Rob's eyes bugged out. "You taught me to shoot on one of these!"
Jacked laughed across the loud speakers. "I just wanted to give you a hard time. When you run out of ammo, that regulation is for the birds."
* * *
Jack and the other hovers spent the rest of the day on cleanup and rescue operations. Their sensors could penetrate rubble looking for trapped survivors.
The Humans spent the next few weeks waiting to hear from Steve Creech's fleet. For some reason Fleet high command didn't want Creech's fleet to know of the invasion. When word came through that they nuked another Lithorian world, people partied in the streets. Then they waited again, and finally, they got news from Creech that what they thought was the last Lithorian planet was no more.
Jack, Wilson, and their men didn't fight another battle…
Author Bio
Geoff Porter was born in Oklahoma. Then his family moved to Montana, and from there to Iowa, then to Minnesota, then to Florida, and finally he arrived at the ripe age of 11 in Dayton, Ohio.
Mr. Porter received his first computer at Christmas when he was 11, and he plotted and schemed to develop computer based games. The first piece of software he developed professionally was a chemical weapons attack simulator for the United States Air Force. Currently, he runs six internet based wargames of his own design.
He was first hospitalized when he was 19 and put on a vicious medicine called Haldol. He was then put on a cruel medicine called Prolixin. Finally, after years of using Geoff as a lab rat, they found that a combination of Lithium, Depakote, and Geodon works best to keep him out of the asylum.
He spent one year in Twin Valley, Dayton’s state run mental hospital. That’s when he decided to start writing. To be a writer was always his dream since he was a little kid, but he never tried his hand at it until a doctor looked him in the eye and said, “You’ll be in the hospital from six to eighteen months.”
Geoff penned his first two novels in that time period using only pen and paper, Juxta, Magi and The Vampire Menace. After leaving the hospital, he penned a third novel. Getting stuff published was going nowhere though, and it dawned on him, Sinclair Community College. He met two highly skilled instructors there, Tim Waggoner and Ed Davis, and Geoff’s work has never been better. He has since written four more novels.
Fifteen of his short stories have been selected for publication, and he now runs his own fiction zine, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.
Also created by Geoffrey C Porter
Untied Shoelaces Of T
he Mind
Read dozens of stories divided up by category with a fully searchable archive. Search for "Zombie" to see all our Zombie stories. Submit your fiction.
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R.A.E.C.E. Genesis Page 28