* * * * *
Chapter 25
Maintenance Bay, Underneath Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth
The cavernous maintenance bay was a beehive of activity when Walker arrived. All four companies on-planet were manning up their CASPers as quickly as they could, and even the fifth wall, CASPer Maintenance, was a flurry of activity as techs ran back and forth to the company walls with spare parts and accessories. Although the operators’ movements were frenetic, they weren’t frantic; instead, they were the precise, measured movements of professionals gearing up for war.
As the troopers finished their pre-mission checklists and brought their suits online, they marched forward to the center of the bay to pick up their weapons, which were being brought in from the armory as fast as they could be prepared. It looked like every kind of weapon that had ever been mounted to a CASPer was sitting in the central area, although rocket launchers predominated the ordnance available for pickup.
Walker checked in with his squad. They were all still bringing their suits online, so he walked to the growing pile of weapons and made several trips back to his squad’s position along Alpha Company’s wall. His suit captain was already waiting for him on a small gantry with a set of tools. Walker snapped the first missile launcher onto his left shoulder and leaned over so the tech could mate up the leads and electronic connections. When everything was green, he lifted the second missile launcher to his right shoulder and snapped it into place.
Walker snapped a spring-loaded blade onto both arms. If one was good, two was awesome. And he was balanced. He cleared the area around his suit and flipped the blades open and shut several times. He smiled; they had both recently been cleaned and greased, and they both worked beautifully. Of course, if there were the same number of aliens as in the computer program, and it was down to him cutting his way through the spiders with his knives…they were screwed.
A jack lift hoisted two MAC ammo drums onto his back, one on each side, and they snapped into place. He attached one of the weapons to his left arm and the tech connected the ammo tube and other peripherals, then he did the same on the right side. The MAC may shoot slower than some of the autocannons, but it had much bigger ammo drums, and he was pretty sure he’d need all the ammo he could carry. As the thought crossed his mind, he walked back to the weapons cache and picked up a handheld laser rifle and mounted it to his right leg, then added a couple of L bombs for good measure.
Almost as an afterthought, he reached back and grabbed a laser pistol for his left leg. He would run out of power more quickly carrying all the weapons, and he wouldn’t be able to jump as high, but if the simulations were any indication, he’d run out of rounds long before he ran out of targets or power. He hoped he’d live long enough to fire them all off.
A yellow strobe began to flash the “Prepare to Deploy” signal.
Walker went down the length of the squad, checking everyone’s weapons and conditions. Private Enkh was slower than the rest, but that was to be expected. Several of the suit captains had converged on her and were all making last-minute adjustments. Her primary suit captain gave him the thumbs-up; she’d be ready in time.
Surprisingly, the squad seemed in good spirits, too busy strapping on massive amounts of weapons and running system checks to contemplate the enormity of what they were about to do.
Sergeant Morgan also had mounted two blades to his suit and was going through some sort of martial arts routine where he spun back and forth, gutting imaginary foes. Walker really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
25 Miles East of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
Walker looked up the valley to where the black stain undulated; it moved like an amoeba, only one that was likely to claim his life. He had thought seeing the mass of Tortantulas in the real-life simulation was worse than anything he could have imagined. He was wrong; he had never been this scared in his life. Even when he’d been stranded on a planet with nothing more than a platoon and had several companies of MinSha chasing him…at least there he’d had a chance, even if it was so small as to be insignificant.
It didn’t help that they’d gamed this defense a number of times; if anything, it only made it worse. They’d never found a way to win, and he couldn’t think of a reason why today was going to be different. He hoped it was sweat running down his leg, but he couldn’t be sure.
Private DeWayne jumped, going up about 10 feet before returning to his position.
“Easy,” he said. He found talking preferable to standing around with nothing to do but obsess about the futile defense of which he was about to be part.
“Sorry, Staff Sergeant,” DeWayne replied. “I was just trying to get a better look, and I must have accidentally triggered the jumpjets.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Walker said, trying to keep his voice light. “No fair trying to pick out your targets ahead of time. That’s cheating!”
Several people laughed, although it was an awkward, nervous kind of laughter. That was fine; at least it got them out of their heads. “This is going to be thirsty work,” he noted. “Who’s going to join me at the bar after we stop this assault? I’ve got the first round.”
“I am!”
“Me!”
“I’ll take some of that!”
Walker saw movement out of his side camera; the door into the mountain had opened and the civilians were streaming out, although there didn’t seem to be as many civilians as there had been in the simulations. Regardless, if they were coming, it must almost be game time. “All right, boys and girls,” he said. “It’s just about time to begin, so I thought I’d remind you of a few rules. First, you don’t have to kill them all yourself. That’s just rude. Besides, that’s what the rest of us are here for. Just kill the ones in your lane.” He pushed the targeting assignments to the squad, and their engagement zones were superimposed over their vision.
“Also, I just checked, and it turns out there are a lot of spiders out there.” Several people chuckled at the understatement. “Intel, however, says there aren’t as many as in the scenarios we’ve run, so our odds are getting better all the time.”
The Tortantulas started forward. Unlike in the simulation, they didn’t all pour forth at once; the middle lagged slightly while the two ends led the assault. As Fourth Squad was on the far right end of the line, they would be engaging first. Hurray. Damn it.
“Arm it up!” Walker ordered. “Everything you’ve got!” His side camera showed the civilians had all left; the massive blast door to the mountain yawned open but no one else came through.
The Golden Horde engineers had been busy while the rest of the company was on Trigar, and the Tortantula assault force had only covered about a quarter of the distance when they ran into the mine field. Explosions blew giant chunks out of the lead waves, but the Tortantulas reformed and continued on, barely slowing down.
The automatic defenses were next, various lasers and accelerator cannons that popped up and fired, only to drop down again; they whittled down the attacking force a little more before being put out of commission. Walker wondered if management had seriously intended to stop the advance with either the mines or automatic weapons; if so, the engineers had failed miserably. It was like trying to stop the tide. You can knock back part of a wave, but the rest of the wave flows around you on the edges, comes back together, and continues on. The gaps blown in the lines had minimal effect beyond disrupting the even flow across the front.
If that was the case, though, the weapons worked well, as the leading edge of the advance lost coherence and a number of fingers projected from the horde. Walker dialed up the magnification on his targeting scope. The simulation had gotten one thing right; nearly all of them had Flatar riders. This was going to suck.
The reticle turned green.
“As they range, fire!” he ordered, launching a missile from his right shoulder at the leader. The missile streaked across the intervening space and detonated on the Tortantula’s eye ring, and he could see the
Flatar blasted off. The giant spider tumbled to a stop, tripping up several of the ones behind it. The rest of the advance flowed on around them.
He targeted the rest of his missiles down the rest of the group coming down his lane as the rest of his troops began firing. The missiles rippled off, one after the other, blasting a hole two hundred yards deep into the Tortantula advance. The wave continued to flow, filling in from both sides, although there was a little more space between each.
He ejected the empty missile pod as extra weight, and grabbed the mounted MAC. The engineers had also built defensive positions, with mounted heavy weapons, and the MAC he was manning was about double the size of the ones on his suit and linked to his suit’s optics by a small, detachable cord. He fired, and a Tortantula exploded like a watermelon under a sledgehammer with the force of the impact. It also removed the lower half of the spider’s rider. He switched targets to the next, and then the next, and the next, with the spiders getting closer and closer with each shot.
His suit registered the death of the trooper on his left, some corporal from Third Squad he’d only met once, and the system automatically adjusted the lane spacing; half of the trooper’s lane was now his. The spiders had obviously seen the trooper blown backward by the hypervelocity round; they surged forward. He triggered the missile pod on his left shoulder, firing all six missiles down the lane. The surge ended, but more took their place. He ejected the empty missile rack, wishing he had more missiles, and went back to work with the MAC.
As the death of the trooper next to him indicated, the enemy was close enough for their handheld weapons to be effective, and it wasn’t long before he got the signal from Mun. “Abandon the mounted weapons,” he ordered his squad. “Go live!”
He let go of the mounted MAC, detached the cord connecting him to the weapon with a thought, and triggered his jumpjets. He continued to fire into the mass as he jumped over and over, moving left and right, always varying his position to make himself a more elusive target.
While half his mind continued to service targets, another portion ran an analysis of his troopers. VVR was only going straight up and down; he thought a command to remind him to go side to side, and the trooper began shifting sideways as well.
Despite the wall of fire the CASPers radiated, the advance continued, drawing ever closer, and the Horde began to lose soldiers. The Tortantulas could sense the tide turning in their favor—every Golden Horde trooper that went down decreased the volume of fire they had to face, and the attack gained additional momentum the closer the Tortantulas came.
Walker’s right MAC went dry, followed immediately by the left. He ejected the drums and weapons as he drew the laser rifle and began firing with it.
The spiders were so close Walker had to dial back the zoom; he could see them just fine without it. Private Berkelun Enkh was hit. Her life signs went from green to red in a heartbeat—probably a hypervelocity round to the head or heart. The squad shifted right slightly to cover her sector.
The center of the force leapt forward in a final push, and additional Second and Third Squad troopers fell. They couldn’t take much more of this.
Command must have seen the same thing; new orders came in. “Retreat!” he ordered.
The wall of troopers split in the middle, with Bravo Company collapsing toward Walker’s position and Charlie Company retracting to the ridge on the other side of the valley.
This was the most dangerous part of the new plan. As the gap appeared, the Tortantulas in the center of the advance sprang forward, hoping to take the hated Humans by enfilade. Worse, when the spiders got into position where they could fire down the lines, there would be Horde soldiers on both sides of them, making the Human’s targeting more difficult; some of the more powerful MACs would go through a Tortantula with enough force to damage a CASPer on the other side.
Closest to the tunnel, Walker’s troops made it in without any further loss of life, and he stood at the entrance to the tunnel firing back out into the mass of spiders, trying to keep them back. Sergeants Loftis and Morgan joined him, and their volume of fire kept the entrance clear as Bravo Company poured through it.
One of the last ones on the line, Lieutenant Martin went down 50 feet from the entrance, the bottom of his right boot shot off, and Walker could see the nearby Tortantulas skitter forward even faster. The officer wasn’t dead, though, and he rolled over to fire at the approaching mass.
Without conscious thought, Walker jumped and landed next to the lieutenant, having stowed his rifle and drawn his laser pistol while inflight. Although not incredibly powerful, the pistol added to the outgoing volume of fire and might help keep the Tortantulas off them. A little. With his free hand, he helped the officer to his feet.
“Go!” the officer ordered. He staggered as a chunk was blown out of the top of his suit’s shoulder by a hypervelocity round. “My leg’s broken. Leave me!”
“Fuck that, sir,” Walker said, pulling the officer toward the tunnel. More of the soldiers at the tunnel had turned and were firing at the Tortantulas, but the aliens continued to race forward, hoping to pounce on the downed troopers.
In a flash of flame, Morgan and Loftis landed next to them and began pouring fire into the spiders as fast as their weapons would cycle.
“Loftis, grab an arm!” Walker yelled, pulling the lieutenant’s right arm over his shoulder. The trooper threw the lieutenant’s left arm over her shoulder. “Jump on three. One, two, three!”
Walker and Loftis jumped back to the tunnel, staggering slightly as they landed off balance with the load between them. Several of the troopers at the entrance caught them and stood them upright, as Morgan landed behind them, missing his suit’s left hand. He did a second mini-jump to make it into the tunnel, and the massive door started to roll shut behind him. The troopers continued to fire, keeping the Tortantulas at bay as the door closed. The door reached the end of its travel with a boom and sealed shut with a note of finality.
Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth
“They’re clear on both sides, ma’am,” a technician reported.
“And the Tortantulas?” Sansar asked.
“They took the bait ma’am. They’re strung out through the valley, from the tunnels up to the fake launch pad with the aircraft hulks on in. They’re going to notice there’s something wrong pretty soon.”
Sansar’s face was grim as she ordered something that hadn’t been done in almost 200 years. “Blow it.”
Under Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth
“Something happened to the bomb’s trigger,” Lieutenant Lewis said. “It didn’t blow up.”
“So that was the big empty ‘nothing’ that took the place of what should have been an Earth-shattering kaboom?” Loftis asked.
Sergeant Mark Morgan’s stomach dropped; he knew what was coming next.
“Someone’s going to have to take a new trigger out there and detonate it manually.”
That was why Morgan had left the Engineers; he’d known that if he’d stayed, at some point it was his destiny—a bomb was going to kill him, whether he intentionally set it off, or it accidentally went off while he was in the vicinity. Damn it. It sucked to be the poor, unlucky engineering-type dude or dudette who was going to have to go fix it, but happily, it wasn’t going to be him.
“There’s only one problem,” Lieutenant Lewis continued; “the engineers are all on the other side of the valley, and the triggers are over here.”
Double damn. Destiny had found him after all. Morgan sighed. “I can do it, Lieutenant,” he said. “I used to be in the Engineers; I know how to arm it.”
“Looks like there are several spiders near the bomb, but most of them have passed by and are heading toward the shuttles,” the lieutenant said. “You’ll have to kill them first.”
A wry smile crossed Morgan’s face inside the suit as he put his remaining metal hand on the door. “Well, at least I’ll get to do something fun before I die,” he said. “I always did like squishi
ng spiders.”
“No man should have to die alone,” Lieutenant Sommerkorn said as he stepped forward to his side. “I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t bother,” Morgan said. “What’s one suit going to do, anyway?”
“This suit never had the programming changed,” Sommerkorn replied. “I had the code altered so it won’t turn off after two shots, but the speed upgrade is still operational. I’ve got a suit that can fire faster than any of the others; I’ll buy you some time.”
“One person won’t make that much of a difference,” Morgan noted. “Save yourself and stay here.”
“You’re right; one person won’t make a difference,” Sergeant Loftis agreed. “That’s why I’m coming too.”
“Me, three,” said Corporal Michael Burke.
“And me,” said Private Mark DeWayne. “We’ll cover you from all sides. You get the bomb fixed, and we’ll keep you safe while you do it.”
The smile on Morgan’s face turned into a more genuine version. While he didn’t want his friends to sacrifice themselves, he had been worried about dying prior to setting off the bomb. With their help, he may actually have a chance of completing the mission. And killing himself in the process.
* * * * *
Chapter 26
The River Valley, Uzbekistan, Earth
The door slid open, and Sommerkorn stepped through, turned toward the bomb, and began firing. Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! Before anyone else could get a shot off, the three Tortantulas near the bomb were dead. He leaned forward and sprinted to the bomb, not wanting to highlight himself by going three dimensional. One of the Tortantulas twitched; he shot it again.
The other three troopers arrived, along with Morgan, who jumped out of his suit and began working on the bomb. “This will just take a second,” Morgan said. “Just have to remove a panel and set up some wiring…” his voice trailed off as he concentrated on his work.
The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 31