AMP The Core

by Stephen Arseneault

  As I settled back into my killing position, the forces around me changed from a steady march to an all-out run.

  I yelled to the Colonel over my comm, “The rush is on, Colonel! Anytime you can get those tanks running will be all right by me!”

  The Colonel replied, “Bay doors are opening now, Grange! Give them five minutes to reach your location.”

  I shook my head as I backed towards Tackor, firing the weapons on each hand. “I don’t think we have five, Colonel!”

  I turned towards the thirty-five-meter-high wall in time to see the first of a half dozen early breaches. The forces had again arranged themselves into live bridges upon which the troops following after would run up and over the wall top. With several thought commands, I had our latest casualty count displayed. The low numbers began to climb quickly.

  Once again, I called the Swift and the Wrens into action to collapse the wedges of enemy soldiers that had piled up against the walls. As quickly as a wedge was taken out, a new one would form to either side. I continued to blast away as the onrush of soldiers passed my location.

  As the enemy soldiers spread out inside the outer wall, the hastily installed Tantric plates were removed. I turned back away from Tackor in time to see the mechanized cannons taking their toll on the soldiers who remained in the field. The larger cannons caught a platoon of Helgron fighters as they raced forward. With three ion bolts, the Helgron attackers were fractured into a thousand pieces.

  I powered my way up onto the wall in an effort to assist with the battle on the other side. Thousands of Colossun and Dakar troops fired their weapons as they moved forward along the wall interior. Our forces were outnumbered and being overrun. The tank battle that had begun only minutes before was quickly brought to an end as the Durian fighters began to work over the farmlands.

  The first sections of the outer wall were blown, and the remaining enemy soldiers flooded in. The secondary wall fell soon after, followed by the ion inhibitors that protected the city from attack from above.

  I continued to fire my endless stream of tungsten rounds and ion bolts in an effort to give Admiral Chaulk’s remaining men time to flee, but there was nowhere to run.

  The Marines fought to the last man as the Colonel came over the comm. “Grange, time to move out. Had we gotten those tanks out sooner, we would have only delayed the inevitable. Move to the fields in front of Ganitee. They are already massing for an assault in that direction.”

  The battle for Ganitee lasted for fifteen hours with the same result. The walls were overrun and the ion inhibitors shut down. Ninety thousand Human Marines had perished, but not before taking out another half million Durian fleet assault troops. Again, our troops had fought until the last man could no longer pull the trigger on his blaster. As was done with our own side, prisoners were not taken.

  As the Durian screen began to close around the planet, three new Wrens came through. I ordered the Swift back to Molov with instructions for Frig to keep her safe. As the Colonel had predicted, we were now well into our war of attrition.

  Over the next two days, five more of our cities fell to the Durians. Three additional Wrens made their way into my control before the Durians had closed their net. The eight Wrens were set to circle the air corridor over Nevil, as our ion cannon fire from the surrounding cities no longer existed.

  The transport ships of the Durian fleet dropped through the atmosphere and unloaded in an almost continuous stream. Twenty million soldiers of the various species allied with the Durians spread slowly across the globe. The Colonel’s newest strategy involved protecting the city walls until a full breach was imminent. At that point, our BGS units were called in with the direction of opening an escape corridor to the next fortified city. Only 40 percent would make it through to safety, but it was 40 percent that we would otherwise have lost.

  The Durians pushed forward in an ever-widening spiral. The battles had lasted almost to the hour that the Colonel’s analysts had predicted. On the third day, the fighting had reached the largest city, Belfor. The sixty-meter walls and more than a million Gonta soldiers posed the largest obstacle to date for the Durians.

  I took position in the fields in front of the western city walls along with our force of seventy BGS Marines. As we waited for the onslaught of enemy soldiers, I was startled by a slap on my back.

  A grinning Colonel spoke. “Grange! Look alive!”

  I shook my head. “Remind me next time to fully blink out while I’m waiting for the fight to start.”

  The Colonel laughed. “Eh, it’s less fun anyway, now that you don’t have to worry about soiling your pants.”

  I replied, “What brings you to the front lines, Colonel?”

  The Colonel spit and then pulled his visor shut. “The Gonta insisted on running their own show. This is their planet, and that will likely be their last city. We are here in support. I don’t have troops to direct in this fight, so I thought I would get a feel for the front lines.”

  I shook my head as the first of the assault troops showed on the horizon. “They will be here in about three minutes, Colonel. Then it is nonstop action until that city falls.”

  The Colonel grinned. “If I never said it before, Grange, I like action!”

  As the force drew nearer, a voice came over the comm. “This is Major Garner at command. Just thought you should know, the bulk of that force coming your way is Targs. It looks like the Durians just finished unloading about fifty million of them. Some of you have experience against the Targ. You might want to pass that info around.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Great!”

  The Colonel spoke. “Anything special I should know about the Targ, Grange?”

  I replied, “Yeah, they won’t quit, and there will be a gazillion of them. They are armed with hand weapons that won’t have an effect on your suit, but for those who they can physically assault, they will swarm you until you are overwhelmed.”

  The Colonel grinned. “Well, if they don’t mind dying, I don’t mind killing!”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that they don’t die easy, Colonel. There is just a seemingly endless number of them, that’s all.”

  The Targ were soon upon our position. I blinked out fully and began the task of the endless killing of the small, furry savages. The air surrounding our position lit up brightly with Gonta ion cannon and blaster fire from the city walls behind us. The Targ raced forward, unaware, and uncaring, of the killing machines that were now centered amongst them. Again my fingers ached as I squeezed the triggers endlessly.

  A tungsten round from my coil gun was taking out forty to fifty at a time, the ion blaster an even dozen. I glanced in the Colonel’s direction to see a grin on a man who was enjoying what he was doing. The days sitting in a chair watching all the action from a console screen had evidently taken their toll. I could just make out York cutting a swath through the onrushing Targs, several hundred meters away.

  The Targs would rush the walls, take heavy losses, and then fall back to regroup. The ghastly scene of suicidal assaults was repeated over and over again as the hours rolled on. When the third hour had passed, I looked over at the Colonel. His earlier grin had turned to an expression of irritation. The fun part of being in the fight had worn off.

  I spoke. “How you holding up over there, Colonel?”

  The Colonel replied, “I’m starting to see what you meant about shooting these things, Grange. Blow one away, and two jump out of his ass.”

  I chuckled as I continued to squeeze off rounds. “It looks like they are down about 10 percent now. Another twenty-seven hours and we should have them whipped!”

  The Colonel grunted. “Baahh! There has to be a better way to kill these things. They aren’t making progress on those walls, but they just keep coming anyway. And you know that if you quit, they will make progress.”

  I replied, “We fought with them for three days, Colonel. Short of killing them, they will not stop.”

  The Targ surges continued well i
nto the night. Again the fields around me were littered with hundreds of thousands of corpses. The injured lay bleeding and moaning while their comrades trampled over them with each new wave. It was a type of fighting that would crush a man’s soul. Just seemingly senseless killing where killing or being killed were the only options.

  Just before the dawn, an alert came up on my HUD. Belfor had been breached. Seven large holes had opened on the ground just inside the city’s outer walls. Tens of thousands of Targ fighters were emerging in a continuous stream. The Gonta blasted away, but the attackers continued to come, swarming over all they encountered.

  The Colonel ordered the BGS Marines back inside the city walls. It would be our job to close off the tunnels the Targ had dug below us. It was the only logical move we had, but in the end it was meaningless. The Targ soon topped the unguarded sections of the wall, and the city fell hard over the next two hours. The Gonta had fought as well as could be expected of any species. The sheer numbers put forth by the Targ were overwhelming.

  The Colonel came over the comm. “Grange, I am tired of getting badgered by this guy. I am patching the Duke through.”

  Before I could say no, the Duke was speaking on my comm. “Mr. Grange! I am delighted to see that you are still in the fight! I was worried that you had somehow fallen in battle. I suppose that was too presumptuous of me!”

  I replied, “I hope this extravaganza is living up to your expectations. I know I am just talking to the wind here, but wouldn’t it be better if we all worked together to build a better league of worlds that would benefit everyone? Think of the spectacular palaces that could be built in your honor. Monuments to the Duke could spread the word of peace and prosperity to all.”

  The Duke was quiet for a moment and then laughed. “Haha! Mr. Grange, there was a time when I followed that path. I built a great empire that spanned an entire galaxy, with many monuments and towering structures. I ruled as a benevolent leader for thousands of years. There was one thing, one characteristic of almost every species in my domain: they did not like to be ruled over.”

  The Duke continued, “I soon had rebel factions popping up on nearly every world. My great achievements for peace and my willingness to forgive were taken as signs of weakness. As battles raged between my loyal troops and the rebellious species of my empire, I found the spectacle to be entertaining. The thrill that came with a crushing defeat of the enemy, and even with a crushing defeat of my own troops, was a thrill that I found myself longing for.”

  I spoke. “So, now you just pit one species against another in a giant game to the death? Certainly that must be something that you have grown tired of. I thought you considered yourself sentient.”

  The Duke laughed. “Ah, Mr. Grange. It seems I can always count on you to throw out a word or two to tug at the strings of my humanity. Your attempts at making me feel self-conscious about what I am doing are easily seen through, and yet they are somehow entertaining as well. Perhaps one day I will grow tired of all this that surrounds you, but I can assure you that day is not today! All this? The spectacle, the horror? It is the very thing that drives my being to exist another day. The constant push and pull, the struggle to survive, the surprising defenses and overpowering offenses, these are the things that I live for!”

  I shook my head and replied, “I’ve said it before, Duke. As soon as I get the chance, I am going to delete that sick program you call your conscious mind. When you stand in front of a Borak bull and poke at it endlessly, you run the risk of getting trampled. And we Humans are so going to trample you when we catch up to your sick ass.”

  As the Duke began to respond, I shut off his comm channel. Ten minutes later, the assault against the next city began. The Colonel flew back to his command console while the BGS Marines moved to defend the next target. Our fighters at the city of North Wallia held out for eleven hours before the attacking forces overran the defenses.

  As each new day dawned, several more cities had fallen. More than twenty-two million hostiles had fallen to our loss of nearly four million, more than half of which were Bulgar and Gonta. The Colonel had us trying every new tactic his staff could envision. Nothing worked to stop the overwhelming numbers that attacked. All we could do was delay the inevitable.

  With the Durians’ fleet’s new ability to detect the active skin of our ships when they were close, our Wrens had been reduced to conducting strafing runs on the fields of attackers. The number of soldiers they were able to kill was shocking, and yet the enemy forces continued to come, and continued to overpower our fortifications. After the Durian net had been established around the planet, the troop transports had come down in an endless column. With each step of their advance, we were losing the war.

  As the city of Nrefan fell, the Colonel called me to his office. “Grange, we need a new strategy. I have York and Frost coming in also; I want the three of you to put your heads together and come up with something we can use.”

  I replied, “I don’t know what I can offer, Colonel. My brain is pretty dry right now.”

  The Colonel pointed to his console screen. “We have eighty-eight cities left to defend, Grange. You three have been on the front lines from the beginning; think of this as a quasi break jammed together with a brainstorming session.”

  After York and Frost arrived, we settled into a nearby room. “The Colonel has given us two tasks. The first is to rest up a bit. The second is to come up with any strategy that might further delay or hinder our enemies. We have eighty-eight cities still under our control. By the time we leave here, that number will likely be eighty-seven or eighty-six. So, if anything comes to mind, just spit it out.”

  Both York and Frost were silent for several minutes as they looked over the battlefield maps on the view-screen. My mind was blank. I had nothing to offer. The constant action had numbed my brain activity nearly to the point of no longer caring.

  York spoke. “Sir, we have been on the defensive since all this started. Is there any way we can take the battle to them? Maybe a raid on Nevil, where all their ships are landing?”

  I called the Colonel into the room. “What are the potentials for performing an all-out offensive against Nevil? We have been hiding behind these walls. What’s the possibility of taking the fight to them?”

  The Colonel looked at the screen intently for several seconds. “Major Wright! I want a plan on my desk within the hour for an offensive strike on Nevil! Can we do it, is it worth our time, and what will it cost us!”

  I turned and winked at York as I smiled.

  The Colonel spoke. “That was what I was looking for, Grange. I want the three of you to set your suits for three hours of sleep. When you are done, I will rotate another set of your BGS group out to do the same.”

  I powered myself out of the chair and set down on the floor on my stumps. As I rolled over on my side, I set a wake timer for three hours. With a thought command, my BGS suit administered a sleep aid. I was soon dead to the conflict that increasingly surrounded us. The rest was very much needed.

  Chapter 21

  When I awoke, the Colonel’s office was buzzing with staffers. Over the next eight hours, we would be using the Wrens to silently transport Marines to the ruins of Tackor. As each city was overrun, all of the Durian forces were then moved on to the next target. There were no captured citizens or assets to oversee, leaving what was left of the conquered cities empty.

  The Colonel spoke. “Grange, we can transport about a thousand men an hour using the Wrens. That’s a force of ten thousand men we will have in place when we are done. We started the process two hours ago. The Durians seem to be oblivious to the move. We should be ready to strike at midnight.”

  The Colonel continued, “You and the BGS Marines will lead the way, with remaining troops advancing using the gravity assist in their hybrid suits. We are also sending a team of about a hundred of my best fighters who have had the prosthetic updates.”

  I replied, “You got all that planned while I was asleep? Your
staff is a little too proficient sometimes, Colonel.”

  The Colonel laughed. “Can never have enough of that, Grange. Here, look over the plan they came up with.”

  The Colonel’s console showed a diagram of Nevil with an arrow coming in from Tackor. We would come in after dark and hit any transports that were still fully loaded with soldiers or androids, before moving on to a handful of command ships that were also on the ground.

  The Colonel spoke. “We also have a little surprise for them that we have been holding in reserve. These two ships are all that is remaining of the tank forces. We left those five thousand tanks alone for possible future use. We have done the occasional ping of one or two of them, and they are still responsive.”

  I replied, “So, we sweep in and do as much damage as we can. What about when we are done?”

  The Colonel shook his head. “This is a one-way ticket for all but you BGSers. We can’t transport them back out with the Wrens, as we won’t have ten hours to do so. We can do a lot of damage to that landing zone out there. This might buy us an extra day or two of delay.”

  As I looked over the diagram, I could not get over the fact that for ten thousand of our men, it was essentially a suicide mission.

  I spoke. “Colonel, how about this. We hit these ships as you suggest, followed by these command ships. However, instead of continuing on to any other targets, we steal this last command ship to fly our troops back here. Set it down just outside the walls and bring everyone back.”

  The Colonel looked over the screen and then slapped me on the back, nearly knocking me from my chair. “Grange! Ingenious! Major Wright! We have an alteration to the plan!”

  The Colonel moved off to see to the change as York came up behind me. “Not bad, Sir. Only, who do we have that can fly a Durian command ship?”

  I turned myself around in the chair as Frost approached. “We have Frost, York. She will be our pilot.”