Home World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 6)

by B. V. Larson

  “Do you see them, McGill?” Carlos asked anxiously.

  “Not optically yet,” I said, “but my helmet is lighting up. Someone in the command chain is marking red arrows. We’ve got an enemy contact out there, about two kilometers northeast.”

  “Two kilometers? That’s close. Where are our rabbits?”

  The light cohort that was associated with our defensive position on the line had been dubbed “rabbits”—and that wasn’t a good thing to be. Their job was to pepper the heavy troopers with their snap-rifles. If they could peck away as a group and kill one, that squad would go ape and attack.

  The plan was simple. It resembled the one I’d used against this enemy in the past, only on a grander scale. The light troops were trying to piss off thousands of the enemy at once and lead them into our kill zone.

  “I see a green arrow now,” I said, “about a kilometer out. That’s the light troops. They should be springing this trap any minute.”

  “How hard can it be?” Carlos demanded. “All they have to do is a kill a few of these morons, and—”

  “Something’s coming in now on command-chat. Shut up.”

  “Cohort,” Primus Winslade buzzed in my ear, “you’re about to get the opportunity to earn your pay. The enemy is taking the bait. Ready up, you should have targets at extreme range in the next fifteen minutes.”

  When Primus Winslade got things wrong, he always did it in a big way. One would think that an advancing force could cross a kilometer in fifteen minutes. That sounded about right. But he hadn’t taken into account the speed of this enemy.

  Few on planet Earth had faced the litter-mates before. They kind of reminded me of swamp-gators back home. They usually moved slowly, but they could charge like demons when they wanted to.

  “The light troops are running!” I shouted. “Sargon, anything yet?”

  “No sir!”

  “Harris, how about your group?”

  I’d taken Harris and placed him at the highest point we had on our patch of dirt. It wasn’t much, just about a three meter rise, but it was enough to see farther than the rest of us. I’d put half my force up there with sniper rifles to help out the rabbits when the time came.

  “I’m seeing something,” Harris said. “I’m seeing muzzle flashes. That windbreak of trees and outbuildings is in the way.”

  We were positioned such that a farmhouse and its barns and sheds stood between us and the action. I hadn’t wanted that kind of setup, but when a trench line was being dug across hundreds of kilometers of open ground, not every adjunct got to be choosy.

  The red arrows and the green arrows were pretty much lined up on the other side of the farm now.

  “Watch those buildings,” I said. “It looks like the rabbits are in retreat. They’re heading into the farm.”

  “What the frig…?” Harris complained. “That’s not the plan. They’re supposed to hustle back to our line, not seek cover.”

  I didn’t argue with him, but I didn’t feel I could second guess their commander. The unit of light troops who had their asses in the breeze out there had my sympathies. It was their call to make.

  “Unit, listen up,” Graves said suddenly, talking to all of us on tactical chat. “The enemy is reportedly advancing too fast. They’re overtaking the rabbits. McGill, can you put some fire down on that farm if you have to?”

  “Yeah, we’re in range,” I said, “but it won’t be accurate fire.”

  “That’s all right. If you see the enemy, open up.”

  “But sir, the rabbits will be in-between—”

  “McGill,” Graves said patiently, “I know the tactical situation better than you do. You have the highest ground in the unit, and you’re closest to the farm buildings. If I order you to level that farm, I want you to do it without a moment’s hesitation or backtalk. Clear?”

  “Clear, Centurion.”

  Heaving a sigh, I watched things unfold with a sense of growing unease. There were millions of these invaders coming, and things weren’t even going right in the first few minutes.

  The situation became clearer very quickly. Tiny figures, magnified in my helmet’s optics, came into view. They were running for their lives from the barn and the house—running all over the place. It looked like a panic.

  “Kivi,” I said quickly, “have you got a buzzer feed from that far out?”

  “I could send in a few. I’ve been using them to patrol closer to our line.”

  “Send them in.”

  We waited, watching more troops flee. Suddenly, the barn erupted into flames. Something big had hit it.

  About a second later a boom reverberated from the farm. The barn had gone up. We saw fire and black smoke roll into the sky.

  “McGill?” Graves asked. “You didn’t go crazy and blast that building, did you?”

  “I wish I did, sir,” I said, “but that was almost certainly enemy fire.”

  “Roger that. Hang on.”

  We watched helplessly as the rabbits raced toward us. I didn’t bother to do a count, but there was nowhere near a full unit of them on their feet.

  “There they are!” Harris boomed. “Enemy sighted! Permission to fire?”

  I hadn’t seen anything of the enemy yet, but Harris was higher up than I was.

  “Lay down fire, Vet,” I ordered. “Get those heavies off the rabbits if you can.”

  Above me, snap-rifles began to crack. I watched tensely.

  “Kivi,” I called, “where are your buzzers?”

  “That farm is at their extreme range, but I’m getting some feed now.”

  “Pipe it to me.”

  An aerial view filled my helmet. It made me dizzy for a second. The buzzers were flying around overtop the battle, aiming their cameras down into the action.

  Heavy troopers were flooding the farm. They’d already run down and gutted a dozen of the rabbits. The men fought back, but they were no match for the crazed, armored giants.

  “Are you getting their attention up there, Harris?” I demanded.

  “Negatory, sir. We killed a few, but they still seem to be blaming the rabbits for their troubles.”

  My teeth bared themselves in frustration.

  “Centurion Graves?” I called. “I’ve got buzzer feed.”

  “Pass it to me.”

  I did as he asked, giving him the uplink. He cursed and fumed.

  “Dammit! Light Centurion Carrington must have screwed up. He was supposed to shoot and run, not engage them all.”

  “Well, it looks like they caught him.”

  “Yeah… McGill, take out the farm.”

  “Excuse me, sir? There are at least fifty of them still alive out there—”

  “I think we talked about this already, Adjunct.”

  “Roger, sir. Sargon, burn down that farm!”

  “It’s about friggin’ time!” he shouted, and a gout of heat rushed by my head.

  The weaponeer was like a surgeon with the 88. He cut the buildings down like a man running a hot knife through butter. Within seconds, every structure had toppled and flames were everywhere.

  That, at long last, got the attention of the heavy troopers.

  -41-

  They started from nearly a kilometer off, but they didn’t seem to care. They charged us.

  I’d experienced the thrill of having raving giants charge me more than once in the past, and I didn’t relish the feeling.

  “Choose your targets!” I roared. “Mark them—but no firing until they come into optimal range. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  My troopers shouldered their weapons and sighted carefully. I’m sure every heartbeat on the line was pounding, I knew mine was.

  Above us, Harris’ squad was snapping away, taking out one of the enemy now and then. But they weren’t stopping. Only complete annihilation would accomplish that.

  When they were about five hundred meters out, we started putting plasma bolts downrange. The rifle fire snapped and sang all along the trench line. A
strange, ozone-like odor rose up and tickled my nose.

  Getting into the fight, I sighted and fired. Three bursts sent an enemy trooper spinning, but he didn’t go down. A few other beams slammed into him from my supporting troops, and he finally pitched onto his face.

  When they got to about three hundred meters out, I gave Sargon the nod. I wanted them to get into the perfect kill-spot before they felt the power of the 88. The big gun hummed—and the enemy was burned to ash.

  Hundreds died. Some of our own rabbits went down too, if the truth be told. They’d run for so long and so hard to escape their pursuers, but they’d gotten into the stream of fire. I heard Sargon curse at them, screaming for them to get out of the way.

  They couldn’t hear him, naturally. He knew his job. He couldn’t let the enemy get to our lines just to save a few recruits who were fleeing in panic. So, they were all burned down together along with the fields, the fences, the trees and the heavy troopers from another world.

  The trouble with the 88s was control. They were alien-made and quite effective, but they were far from a precision instrument. They were more like flame-throwers that could reach out hundreds of meters to melt steel.

  Once you started to release a sweeping gush of energy with an 88, there was no turning back. You could either stop firing and go into the cool-down cycle, or you could keep mowing until you cut a full swathe.

  Sargon was a pro. He never gave any of them a break. They went down, and they didn’t get back up.

  Less than a hundred made it past the kill-zone. They were close to our trenches now, and many were smoking and seared—but they kept coming.

  I recalled seeing one of the heavies, eyes burned to white bulbs, staggering in our direction with his mouth wide open. I shot him until he fell.

  A few automated turrets activated, taking out the rest of them. Sweating and a little sick, we slumped down into our trench and drank water.

  A few people cheered, but not many. We’d won the day, but it hadn’t been fun. In fact, it had been the opposite of fun times.

  “How many do you think we killed?” Carlos asked me.

  I waved at Kivi. “You got an automated count?” I asked.

  “Yes, but only for the ones that got past the farm. It was about nine hundred.”

  Carlos whistled. “Any of the light troops out there alive?”

  “I haven’t seen one yet,” she admitted.

  Carlos heaved himself to his feet.

  “Now it’s my turn to have all the fun,” he said, and he joined the other bio people who were heading out into the field. They were to identify the dead and help the wounded—if they found any.

  “The math wasn’t good.” I said to Kivi, who was still flying her buzzers around, “We lost hundreds of light troops from what I can see. For what? To kill twice as many heavy troopers? Sure, we can revive them all over the next couple of days, but—”

  “McGill,” Kivi said urgently. “There are more coming.”

  I scrambled up and studied the field. I couldn’t see much through the smoke. I was about to have Kivi kick up her report to Graves, but he beat us to it.

  “Unit,” he said, “this isn’t over. That first bunch was just the knock on the door. A major force is marching on our position right now.”

  “Listen up!” I shouted, overriding the chatter that erupted. “Everyone back to your station. Bio team, drag in whatever you find and withdraw from the field.”

  If there was one thing you didn’t have to tell Carlos twice, it was to retreat. He hustled back to our lines with a snap-rifle in one hand, and a smoking boot with a few centimeters of charred leg sticking out in the other.

  “It was all I could find,” he said, panting. “I’ve DNA-identified just one casualty. He’ll get his revive pronto—lucky bastard.”

  “Stay low, team,” I said, eyeing the ground between us and the demolished farm. “Harris, can you see anything through all that smoke?”

  “Flashes of metal. There are a few red arrows the recon boys must have marked with buzzers.”

  “Got that. Fire when you get a clear target. Get them charging as soon as you can.”

  “Roger that.”

  When I sank back into the trench, Della came close and eyed me.

  “You’re provoking them,” she said.

  “Of course I am. That’s the plan.”

  Her lips compressed, but she kept quiet.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “Maybe you should hold back a little. I know the litter-mates. They’ll tend to rush the point of the line that upsets them first. If you aren’t first…”

  Thinking that over, I felt conflicted. Someone had to be first. Della was telling me it didn’t have to be me. I could understand that, but I—

  “I got one!” shouted Harris. “I sure-as-shit got one!”

  I realized then I’d heard the snap and whine of their rifles—set for maximum range. Apparently, he’d gotten lucky.

  But the rest of us hadn’t.

  The land soon boiled with armored shapes. This time, they came by the thousands.

  “Hold your fire!” I shouted. “Let them get into the kill-zone!”

  To their credit, none of my troops with assault rifles fired so much as a single bolt.

  Out on the long, long line of troops that represented Legion Varus in all her strength, similar battles were playing out. I took the time to survey the battle at a higher level while I waited for the enemy to reach us.

  Legion Varus was doing rather well, I could see that. We were in the center again—lucky us—but the mid-flanks to either side of us were full of hog troops.

  Now, I’ll be the first to say that hogs are people too. They live, die, and have mamas at home crying while they do it. But that doesn’t mean they really know how to fight.

  They were combat-trained—sort of. Back on Earth, the non-space-going legions had gotten softer over the years. With only a smattering of officers and veteran troops who retired into their ranks from outfits like Varus, most of them had never seen real combat outside of some live-fire exercises and net vids.

  In comparison, the mercenary legions were made up of troops that had more hard combat experience than any humans in Earth’s long and storied history. When we died for our planet, we weren’t left to rot in peace. Instead, we were churned out again to fight and die again and again.

  That process, extended over decades, tended to harden a man more than anything else could. We weren’t nice people—we were killers.

  Because of all this, I worried about our flanks. It was quite possible that Legion Varus would hold her spot on the line while the hogs at our shoulders broke.

  Sargon waited until he could see the charging enemy before he opened up with the 88. That was good because this time there were about ten times more of the bastards. They went down as before, but one or two cuts with the big gun weren’t enough.

  Any normal army of humans would have reeled from the initial shock. Imagine seeing the thousand guys ahead of you burned to ash. Normal folks would turn and run, and I wouldn’t blame them.

  But not these crazies. They just kept on coming. They waded into the ash heaps and kicked up a cloud of gray dust that obscured everything.

  I could hear them as they got closer to our lines. They were howling. Not roaring or screaming—howling. It was a long, undulating sound. It didn’t seem like that sound could come from a human throat.

  “Kivi,” I said, “trip your automated drone turrets.”

  “But they aren’t in position yet.”

  “Do it.”

  She tapped in the override command, and a chattering began. It sounded kind of like big sprinklers, but louder than that.

  The press of bodies rushing forward and their ferocity was such that they paid little notice to the turrets at their feet. The only hint, other than that characteristic chattering sound, was the flashing in their midst.

  “Line, open up!” I shouted.

  As b
efore, everyone in the platoon shouldered a plasma rifle and began to unload into the mass of the enemy. We could hardly miss. They grunted, and some thumped down into the filth, flopping and being trampled.

  “Harris,” I shouted, “we need your guns. Drop your sniper weapons and provide supporting fire.”

  Harris’ team complied almost immediately. Sargon’s gun was doing another buzzing sweep at the same time.

  I began to think—to hope, really—that we were going to stop them all. That for a second time, not a single heavy trooper would get to our lines.

  An enemy musket boomed. Then another. They were right on top of us. Sargon howled. Carlos didn’t need to be told what to do. He rushed up the ladder to the weaponeer, his medkit flapping on his back.

  Then we were in close, face-to-face. The nature of the combat changed. It was hard to see the big picture. We just kind of went into automatic, turning this way and that, fighting, killing, surviving and patching up our wounded if possible.

  Bodies crashed into our trenches. They walked right over our heads and kind of pitched down into our holes. Maybe they didn’t know we were there. Maybe they were blinded or so injured they were barely able to walk.

  It didn’t matter. We struggled with those that fell among us, hand-to-hand. Harris saved the day then, advancing without orders. He came to loom over my trench with his squad. They hosed down the enemy in the trench, killing them with point-blank, concentrated bursts.

  Soon, only the surviving humans crawled out. I coughed and hacked with the rest of them. Carlos came to me, lifting me up and dragging me to the second-line trench.

  “Get me up,” I said.

  “You’re hurt, McGill.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’ll send another wave soon.”

  “That’s not our problem. Sargon’s dead. Kivi’s dead. Half your platoon is gone.”

  Heaving ragged breaths, I shoved him away and got up. I had a hole in my side, I could feel it.

  “Put some skin on this,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  Shaking his head, he did as I ordered and backed off. I stumbled to where Harris was giving orders.