Metal Monsters

by G. D. Stark

  Morrel nodded. “No, we don’t. But they do have guts and they’re better than they were before we showed up.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Squid said.

  “We need to keep the knights away from the front lines,” Yost said, absent-mindedly waving away a cloud of aromatic smoke. “They’ll stay behind the militia positions and act as artillery, firing over their heads, launching rockets, hitting the enemy from range with everything they can throw. We’ll fight until the enemy presses in heavily, then stage a fighting withdrawal through the city. The civilians are being evacuated back towards the plateau. It’s possible we can hurt the enemy hard enough that they’ll withdraw, or at least buy enough time until the Navy destroyer arrives. If we’re lucky, they’ll nuke the bastards from orbit.”

  “Plans that depend upon luck usually don’t work out so well,” I said. “What about us?”

  “There are twenty-four of you and six battalions of militia. That’s four per battalion, so divide up as you see fit, but keep one with the battalion CO to advise him and one with whoever is commanding the reserve. The knights will place themselves behind as they see fit. If any of them charge forward and decide to be heroes, let them go and don’t try to defend them. You guys stay with your battalion and try to hold them together. We can’t babysit the knights. Keep your men from breaking as best as you can, and shore up the weak spots; they’ll be encouraged by your armor. Hold out as long as you can; the longer you hold, the more civilians will be out of harm’s way.”

  Jones laughed. “If there are any women’s swim teams that need some help evacuating, I’d be-”

  “Shut up, Jonesy,” Squid said. “What do we do if our battalion runs? Do we stick with them then?”

  “Let them go,” the captain said. “At that point, our job is done and you should make your way to the rally point. Once the battle is over, one way or another, we’ll exfil the planet together. You’ve already got the coordinates to the transport.”

  “Got it, captain. Any idea yet how many Axiosi we’re facing?”

  “Twenty thousand troops is the current estimate,” Yost said. “Complete with armor, artillery, and presumably those damned knight-killers.”

  An arcing rain of shells and plasma announced the enemy assault. Above the field spatters of energy and explosions crackled and thudded against the defensive energy shields. It was 1600 local time. To my irritation, I saw the locals starting to show signs of trying to retreat from the enemy bombardment.

  “Captain Gardoros,” I yelled. “Hold your men steady, let the shields do the work. Keep your men in front of the knights!” Gardoros was now designated a captain, having been promoted at some point during the last week as per the reorganization WDI had instigated.

  “Yes, Lord Corporal,” he replied. “We’ll hold.”

  I could see him yelling and gesticulating as he exhorted his men on another channel. Lord Corporal? I laughed. Works for me.

  To my left I watched as the militia stacked sandbags around a machine gun nest they were frantically building before the arrival of the enemy.

  Another voice on my com. “Hireling Falkland, this is Sir Mephiston. We are ready for your command.” It was the knight with the silver hair. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to call me Lord Corporal.

  “Copy that, Sir Mephiston. I will give the signal.”

  The shield generator was holding despite the enemy fire pouring in. We were a half-kilometer outside the city and it was easier to generate a field here due to the lack of structures. I did my best to remain calm even as the splashes of fire disintegrated just meters over our heads. Then the shelling slowed.

  “Enemy moving forward,” Squid announced over the com. “Let them have it!”

  I looked at the Sfodrian tech running the shield generator. He caught my eye and held up three fingers.

  “Shields down in three, two, one!” I said to the knights. “Fire!”

  The shimmer of light over our heads vanished and then rockets and arcs of plasma streaked over our heads from behind as the knights opened up on the Axiosi. The front lines of the militia opened fire as well, suppressing the enemy’s advance. It was Captain Yost’s idea to use the knights as mobile artillery, and it was a good one. They could launch awesome arcing fire over our heads and the militia could fire away at ground level, keeping the knights in the back protected from most of the enemy fire.

  “Tommy,” Jones said over the com. He was somewhere in the battalion but I couldn’t see him at the moment as we were spread behind walls and rocks. “Park says he’s spotted multiple Axiosi armed with nanite rifles. The hunch was correct.”

  “Roger,” I replied. “Sir Mephiston, please let the other knights know that the enemy is armed with nanite rifles. Repeat: confirm enemy regulars carrying Unity-style anti-knight weapons. Do not engage with them and stay at least 100 meters clear. One shot and you’re down.”

  “Understood,” came the response.

  I hunched behind a rock next to the guy running the shield generator. The emitter was on an antigrav sled. A big box with coils on top. A fat cable ran out the back to a fusion generator on a second sled where two more techs nervously watched a status screen.

  “The enemy advance has stopped and they are holding position,” Squid announced. “Watch for artillery fire.”

  Even as he said it, a shell exploded to my right in a burst of hot pink plasma, tearing three crouching Sfodrian militia men into shreds. I could feel the heat through my suit.

  “Generator up!” I yelled as more shells fell. “Shield up! Knights, cease fire!”

  The techs moved to re-activate the shield, but not before another shell slammed into the ground near the fusion generator, knocking the sled sideways for a moment and taking down one of the techs. Above us there was a shimmer of light and the shield went back up. Explosions lit the air above us like boiling rainbows.

  “Men, there are still civilians evacuating from behind us,” Yost announced over the com. “We’re going to need to buy them more time.”

  “Knights,” I announced, “we need to hit them hard this time. When the shield is down again, target the enemy’s front lines. Scouts, call in your coordinates directly to the knights’ channel. Over.”

  The spray of fire above lessened. “Drop shields,” I ordered. “Three—two—one—open fire!”

  The angle of the knights’ attack changed as they hit closer to the front line. The enemy advance continued, however, and was bolstered by the arrival of several armored squadrons. The tanks moved relentlessly forward towards our front line amidst the Axiosi infantry. The militia opened up with machine guns and anti-tank missiles but they were outgunned. I watched as a plasma fireball blew one crew and their gun out of a circle of sandbags to my left, sending red-hot sand flying everywhere and igniting the scrub brush for meters around the hit.

  “We need to pull back!” Squid said over the com.

  “We are still evacuating civilians,” came a voice I didn’t recognize. “We’re going to need another hour or so.”

  “You’re not going to get it. Tell them to move their asses,” Yost ordered. “We are pulling back, civilians or no civilians, in one kilosec. Knights, keep the pressure on. Target the armor.”

  When the captain gave the signal, Gardoros gave the order to pull back, and the knights covered our withdrawal from our fortified positions. The rocky terrain, uneven ground and random farm buildings hindered their shooting, as did the disorganization of the militia. Hitting the enemy was hard under good circumstances, but from their vantage point at the back of multiple straggling and retreating columns it should have been near impossible. The whole field of battle was electronically jammed to hell, too. My tactical display was dead and I’m sure the knights must have been at least half-blind themselves, yet their firepower was still managing to slow the enemy considerably. If they hadn’t been hampered by the knowledge that advancing into the midst of the enemy was certain death, this offensive would have been over by mor
ning.

  “Get the shield up and pull back into the city,” I ordered, and Gardoros repeated the order to his men. The shield went back up and the knights stopped firing as we retreated into the industrial buildings that would serve as our second line of defense. I was trying to cover the guys with the shield generator and had a group of men keeping the way open for them to roll the unwieldy thing back under cover. We got it into the parking lot of a big building with huge blocks of multi-colored stone outside and the techs turned the shields on again. The coverage was sketchy in places because all the buildings and walls distorted the field, and the occasional shell got through, but it mostly held as we took our new positions.

  “Enemy advancing,” Squid said after a few minutes. “They’re passing through the open ground we were just occupying, let’s hit them!”

  The techs nodded as I gave the signal. “Three… two… one… open fire!”

  Arcs of plasma and flaming rockets flew over our heads again towards the enemy as the knights blasted the enemy position. I got a good spot by a rock wall along the edge of the highway, setting up between multiple slabs of marble leaning against the stone. I realized the building was some sort of monument manufacturing facility.

  “Shields up again,” Squid ordered and I passed on the word.

  Ward joined me by the wall. “Hey, Tommy, I got a view of the right flank off the roof. It looks like they’re starting to fall back. Jock is trying to hold them together but their shield generator is down.

  “Hey, sir!” one of the shield techs interrupted. “Hey! Lord Wardog!”

  I looked to see our own generator was smoking as another tech blasted it with some sort of fire extinguisher.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “Something is messed up inside,” one of the guys said. I looked closer and saw a chunk of of shrapnel had carved a ragged tear into the side of the fusion reactor.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Ward said unnecessarily. “That thing going to blow?”

  “Not if we shut it down now,” the tech said. “If we keep running it, it will explode.”

  “How big will the explosion be?”

  “It will take out most of the block.”

  Well, that made my decision easy.

  “Kill it,” I said, then opened a channel to the battalion. “Our shield is going down but we are going to hold our position. Fire at will and do not fall back until you are ordered to do so.”

  “These guys are going to be toast long before the Navy ship shows up,” Ward said.

  “Not if we can help it,” I replied.

  A shell exploded overhead and a cloud of thick grey smoke descended upon our position.

  “They’re popping smoke,” Ward said. A second explosion unleashed a cloud of vision-obscuring smoke. We all understood immediately what that meant.

  “The enemy is advancing,” I said. No sooner had I spoken than I found myself surrounded by militia that were falling back much faster than any officer would have permitted. “Gardoros, what the hell is going on!?”

  He didn’t respond, so I addressed the battalion channel again. “3rd Militia, the enemy is advancing and you must hold your positions. We will retreat backwards in an orderly fashion. Your families, friends and countrymen are still evacuating. You are their last line of defense! Do not retreat until you are ordered to do so!”

  I heard several acknowledgments, and the flow of men falling back was reduced, but it didn’t entirely stop.

  “We’ll hold the enemy if we need to, hireling,” Sir Mephiston reassured me. “Don’t blame the commoners. They are not cut out for battle.”

  “Just keep firing on the enemy. I’ll try to keep them from breaking up here.”

  “Falkland?” came Gardoros’s voice over the battalion channel. “Coms were down. We are holding on here!”

  “Bravo Zulu, Captain!” I told him, then switched channels. “Captain, the shield is down and we’re under serious pressure here. We need to fall back soon if you want it to be orderly!”

  “The area behind you is now clear for a good twelve blocks, teams,” came the reply from Yost. “Stay cool and bring them back, nice and easy.”

  We fell back, unit by unit, with the knights continuing to hurl fire over our heads, slowing down the enemy advance. For a time, the battalion held together. Until suddenly, it didn’t.

  Chapter 13

  A massive artillery shell exploded into a nearby building, hurling Ward and me to the ground with the force of the concussion and scattering glass and chunks of concrete across the street. The two militia men closest to us were killed instantly; only our battlesuits saved us. We were eight blocks back from our previous position and heavy fire was coming down the highway as Axiosi tanks rolled into the city. I picked myself up and straightened my helmet, then looked to see Ward doing the same.

  “Hold the right flank, dammit!” I heard Captain Yost cursing Squid over the com. “Keep them together, Sergeant!”

  “We’re all screwed up over here, captain,” came the reply, almost incomprehensible in the hail of gunfire echoing behind Squid’s gravelly voice. “Lost two officers and the men are breaking. I can’t hold them. Two squadrons of tanks are breaking through, over.”

  “Let’s get over there and shore them up,” I said to Gardoros. Ward nodded and we cut through an alley away from the main road, waving down members of our battalion to follow. I could see dozens of militia from the 6th Battalion running away from the advancing enemy as we ran down the alley.

  “Dammit,” Ward said. “They done broke!”

  “We’ll hold,” Gardoros declared. “We’re two blocks in from you. I’ve got two companies with me and a pair of RPG teams.”

  Another massive explosion blew apart multiple joined buildings a block ahead, almost blocking the alley with rubble. We moved towards it, then started climbing over. Apples and canned goods were scattered thorough the wreckage we were climbing over. I saw half the body of a man in an apron lying beneath a pile of bricks. He must have stayed behind to protect his grocery store. From artillery. Idiot.

  I reached the top of a pile of rubble and started down the other side just as a tank appeared at the end of the alley, maybe two blocks ahead. We hit the ground, hoping they’d pass—but no such luck. The turret swiveled towards us.

  “Get down!” I yelled. Men from our battalion were just climbing up the ruins behind us and they scattered. A plasma shell tore through the wreckage as I dove for cover.

  Everything went white and I saw nothing for a moment, then I felt a hand on my neck and blinked a few times and realized I could see again. Above, a pair of tattered flags flew on a pole against the purple sky. Ward leaned over me and I realized it was his hand that had been on my neck. He was gesticulating and shouting but I heard nothing. My ears were shot and there was a sharp pain in my chest which quickly vanished as analgesic medi-foam sealed the area. I tapped my helmet and managed to switch over to speech recognition.

  WARD: TOMMY DAMMIT TOMMY GET UP!

  I got to my feet and staggered as Ward dragged me into a doorway. I said something to him but couldn’t hear myself say it. My screen flashed.

  YOST: PROTECT THOSE KNIGHTS.

  THRASHER: THE MILITIA ARE ON THE RUN, CAPTAIN. OUR POSITION IS NO LONGER TENABLE.

  “The knights are going in?” I said to Ward. “I can’t hear a damn thing right now!”

  WARD: SIT TIGHT, TOMMY. YOU’VE GOT SOME CRACKED RIBS.

  I looked at my med readout and he was right. Dammit.

  “I can still move,” I yelled at him.

  WARD: STOP SHOUTING. I CAN HEAR FINE.

  I triggered a boost to the pain meds my suit was releasing and keyed the battalion channel. “Gardoros, if you’re there, keep your men moving to shore up the flank! Go down three blocks, keep the retreat orderly!”

  3B GARDOROS: ACKNOWLEDGED, LORD CORPORAL!

  There was a vibration that shook the ground, and a massive figure suddenly flew over our heads towa
rds the broken flank, followed immediately by two others.

  “They’ve got no cover!” I yelled at Ward. “They’re going to get fried!”

  WARD: WE CAN’T DO NOTHING ABOUT THAT NOW.

  I struggled upwards onto the rubble and saw a half-broken ladder leading up the side of a wall. “Let’s get up top and see if we can make sense of what’s going on.”

  I started up the ladder.

  WARD: BE CAREFUL TOMMY. YOU’RE HIT.

  I glanced at my med readout and satisfied myself that my internal organs were intact and nothing was bleeding too badly. “I’m fine.”

  We reached the roof and watched helplessly as the three knights flew over the retreating militia and opened up on the incoming enemy, taking out a tank and a platoon of men with their plasma cannons and then, one after another, the knights were hit by rifle fire, locking up and plunging to the ground like fallen archangels.

  WARD: CONFIRM ENEMY REGULARS HAVE NANITE CAPABILITIES. TELL THE DAMN KNIGHTS TO STAY BACK AND OUT OF RANGE!

  “Yeah,” I agreed, switching my com to the knights’ channel. “Sir Mephiston, you cannot let the knights within 200 meters of the front line! Stay well behind the militia and engage at range. We just saw three of your knights go down hard. The infantry have the knight-killers. Repeat, we have confirmation that the Axiosi infantry possess knight-killing weapons! Do not engage at close-range!”

  K MEPHISTON: WE WILL DO WHAT WE MUST.

  I contacted Captain Yost. “Captain, the Axiosi have the nano-rifles. We just saw three knights shot down in less than 30 seconds. Please apprise the Lord General and tell him the...”

  YOST: WE CAN’T HOLD THE CITY. FIVE OF SIX BATTALIONS HAVE BROKEN. LORD GENERAL IS IN THE HALL OF MEETING. HE IS NOT ANSWERING ME. FALL BACK TO RALLY POINT ALPHA.

  WARD: WHAT THE HELL?

  Multiple flaming projectiles flew overhead in the setting sun, deep into the city. The enemy was unleashing its big guns now. I couldn’t hear the explosions, but they shook the ground beneath our feet.