by Rod Carstens
Chapter 35
City-State of New York
Central Park
1st Conscript Battalion
Alpha Company
First Platoon
Fenes timed his last bound so he would land in the middle of the hand-to-hand combat at the mini’s position. In preparation he let his rifle snap back to its rack on his chest and pulled his pistol and fighting ax. He broke through the last of the branches above the mini’s position and landed in a fight to the death. Conscripts and hybrids were in a melee of vicious hand-to-hand combat all over the position. More hybrids were appearing out of the trees, racing toward the position with their wildly decorated helmets, animal skins, and decorated armor. They looked like ancient warriors from a different age, but with the speed built into them by the Xotoli, there was no mistaking them for anything but the creations of an alien race. It looked like some of the fire team covering the mini’s flank had made it to the mini’s position, because there were five conscripts still standing. But with the new hybrids joining the fight the outcome was in doubt. Fenes saw all of this as he broke through the trees, his armor giving him the power and weight to smash even the thickest branches.
He fired at a hybrid just joining the fight. The round entered its brightly painted red helmet and drove the hybrid to the ground. Fenes made sure he landed on top of the body and kicked down with the heel of his armored boot. His felt his boot crushed through the hybrid’s armor and into its chest. That one wouldn’t get up again. Fenes turned to his left, looking for the main mini position. Conscripts and hybrids were locked in combat out of the days when warriors fought with swords and shields. It was so brutal that it left even those still standing covered in blood—either their own or an opponent’s.
The mini had been placed to cover the Heckscher Playground—an open area filled with children’s playground equipment—and another open area called the Sheep Meadow. The playground had been turned into a killing field, with hybrid bodies and body parts covering the playground equipment and the ground. The meadow was filled with spikes and dead hybrids that slowed the attack. Still the hybrids raced forward, jumping over bodies in an almost joyous rush to combat, with no fear of death. He could see more hybrids moving through the trees toward the mini’s position. They were making a real attempt to turn his flank.
A hybrid appeared in front of him and swung a fighting ax it had taken from a downed trooper. Fenes took the blow on his forearm. The ax glanced off the armor and his arm went numb. It felt exactly like he had hit his funny bone. The hybrid had swung with such force that it had taken its arm across its body, leaving its chest open for an attack. It gave Fenes the split second he needed to shove his pistol into the chest of the hybrid and pull the trigger. He fired again and again until he had literally blown a fist-sized hole in its chest. It fell and was still.
Fenes saw a hybrid on top of a conscript. Its arm raised a glowing laser knife in its hand, ready for the killing blow. Fenes fired once. The round bounced off the hybrid's armor, but caused it to turn its head toward him, just in time to catch Fenes’s fighting ax in the side of its helmet. The force of the blow knocked it off the conscript, its black-and-gold helmet flying off. The hybrid was a beautiful young blonde woman whose face was covered with blood. She looked up at Fenes and growled, reaching for her laser knife. Fenes put a round in her forehead and she fell back dead.
Fenes was almost at the mini position. The ground around it was covered with hybrid and conscript bodies from the desperate fight for the position. He bounded over them and landed in the prepared position. Holman a big tough female in his platoon landed next to him. He had lost track of her in the fighting and had had no idea until then if she had survived. They grabbed the body of a dead hybrid and tossed it out of the position, then stood back to back. Fenes had time to glance up at his tactical display. The hybrids’ rush was slowing. Another conscript jumped into the hole.
“Get the gun up. We’ll cover,” Fenes said.
Fenes shoved his pistol into his holster, slammed his fighting ax into its holder on his leg, and grabbed his rail. He brought it up just in time to spot a group of hybrids clearing the trees in a new rush across the Sheep Meadow. He fired, catching three of them before the mini next to him went back into action and opened up on the hybrids, tearing into them and cutting down trees and bushes behind them. If there were any more in those trees, they would not be giving them any trouble.
From the mini’s position, Fenes got his best view of the battlefield yet. Explosions, rail tracer rounds, and lasers flashed all over the park at ground level, while the snipers and heavy-weapons platoon were firing down from the buildings surrounding the park, rounds knocking hybrids down or missing and throwing up geysers of dirt. The Sheep Meadow was a cauldron of death if you were not in armor, and even if you were, one misstep and you joined the already dead.
Now that the mini had opened up, Fenes took a split second to glance at his tactical display. To his north he saw the icon for Striker bounding south with additional reinforcements. The reinforcements had to be from Ardan’s platoon, because no one from Minga’s position could have crossed the park and lived. A couple more conscript stragglers jumped into the position, and Fenes put them on the gun while he and Holman covered each flank. The line was holding, but only by a thread. If Striker and the reinforcements didn’t get there soon, another rush might turn the flank.
More spikes were landing in the Sheep Meadow. It was a perfect LZ. Each spike would explode and drop five more hybrids, then bury itself in the ground and cover them with its laser. The hybrids speed was incredible as they raced toward the conscripts’ positions. Fenes doubted he could move that fast even in powered armor. More and more were getting through the concentrated fire. He could see spikes landing in or near Ardan’s and Minga’s positions. Fenes knew they were taking a toll on the hybrids, but it was a close thing. Central Park from one end to the other was a series of sharp and deadly fights defined by explosions, rail fire, and flashes from lasers. The heavy weapons continued to add to this hell from their perch in the surrounding canyon of buildings, chewing up the trees and bushes as well as hybrids.
Striker came crashing through the trees with the reinforcements. “What’s your situation?”
“Holding on by the skin of my teeth. They almost took this mini’s position and rolled up my flank.”
Striker didn’t say anything. Fenes could tell he was looking at his tactical display, gauging their situation. “It’s getting close to scooting to our next positions. We bloodied their nose pretty good. We are losing too many people.”
Just as he finished his sentence, their suits’ tactical-warning systems began to squawk. “Incoming armored personnel carriers. Incoming APCs. Many tangos. Many tangos incoming!”
Fenes looked up and saw APCs similar to the Mike boats screaming through the sky toward Central Park. According to their briefing, they would be carrying the Xotoli heavy armored infantry, just as they had on Rift. The armored troops’ job was to take and hold the position. The spike troops had done their job in prepping the ground and engaging the defenses. This was the real attack meant to push them out of the park.
“That’s our signal to make our hat. Time to fall back to Phase Line Green,” Striker said. “Fenes, hold this line until I can get Ardan’s and Minga’s through.”
“Roger that,” Fenes said.
Striker bounded off toward Ardan’s position, ordering on the all-hands frequency, “We are out of here. Scoot. I repeat, scoot to your fallback positions. We are moving. I repeat, we are moving.”
Fenes turned and organized the reinforcements around the mini. He glanced up at his tactical and saw the rest of the platoon was holding the line so the other two platoons could move through it. The push on the left flank had been the hybrids’ main line of attack and they had stopped it. now hybrid APCs were landing in the North Meadow, the Great Lawn, and the Sheep Meadow. The ships looked strangely familiar—like Mike boats only with d
ifferences that made them alien. The heavy-weapons company was concentrating their fire on the APCs as they landed. Missiles raced from the Megas surrounding the park, and one then another exploded before they could land. But the losses did not slow the landing. One APC after another disgorged their cargo of heavy armored troops. They fanned out and began moving in disciplined, bounding overwatch leaps to obviously planned positions.
“Mini, focus on the armored troops. We’ll take care of the spike troops,” Fenes ordered.
Fenes threw himself down on top of a boulder and dropped the bipod on his rail. He carefully began to pick off spike troop after spike troop as they moved through the park toward their positions. Losses did not seem to slow them down; they simply jumped over a downed comrade and raced toward Fenes’s platoon’s position. He kept an eye on how Ardan’s and Minga’s platoons were doing. A fighting retreat through ever-increasing numbers of troops was not how this had been planned. The aliens were proving they cared little about casualties—that the only thing that mattered was the objective.
Through his rifle’s scope, Fenes saw a hybrid stop over a downed conscript and stab the trooper again and again with a laser knife. Then it leaned down and started to cut through the armor, trying to get to the body. Fenes carefully blew its head off.
Fenes glanced at his tactical display and saw that Lieutenant Striker was moving with Ardan’s platoon down the west side of the park. They had almost reached the Great Lawn when another wave of APCs set down and the armored infantry moved directly toward Striker and Ardan. They were going to try and block their movement to Fenes’s position, and if he had to guess, the next wave would go after Minga. If the hybrids were able to consolidate that position, it would cut the company in half, and the plan to draw the aliens into kill sacks would be out the window. Unless Fenes attacked, the whole company was in jeopardy.
“Striker, they’re trying to cut Minga and Ardan off and block them from hooking up with our lines. Minga needs to attack the Great Lawn from the east, and I’ll come from the south.”
“You can’t leave your position! We need you to hold your line!” Minga said.
“He’s right. The next wave will go after you. We need to move now or they will cut us up into easily overrun pieces. Now move!” Striker ordered. “I’ll move Ardan’s platoon from the west. Heavy weapons, concentrate on the APCs and armored troops. Now!”
Fenes stood and pulled three fire teams out of his line to form a Quick Reaction Force.
“On me. Move out.”
Fenes led the troops as they bounded toward Ardan’s position and the Great Lawn. Unless they were able to blunt the hybrids’ maneuver, the park would be lost and the whole company gone. If you pulled a whole company out of the defensive plan, he doubted the battalion could delay the aliens. They would be at the secretary general’s building before they were ready. Fenes pushed himself harder as he bounded through the trees and brush. He didn’t have time to waste. The whole northern part of the defensive plan now depended on the actions of a couple of platoons.
Chapter 36
City-State of New York
John F. Kennedy Airport
Field Command Post
Combined Earth Task Force
“General, we’ve got to reinforce the conscripts in the park. They will never make it back to Phase Line Green. The Xotoli have armored troops on the ground and they are pushing south. If they crack that last platoon’s line, we will lose the whole company. We can’t afford that. Let me release Bravo Company. A company of Raiders will make the difference,” Major Gad Regen pleaded.
Sand stared at the 3-D holo. Regen was right. It was going to be a very close thing.
“It’s Striker’s company, and he has the Chika conscripts as his NCOs. Your Raiders trained them up on the trip back. They will hold,” Sand said.
He frowned with the pain that was wracking his head. It had reached a point where it was beginning to affect his decision-making. It was hard to think of anything else. He looked over at Zhao’s CCP and locked eyes with Borges. That was all it took. She walked over to the command group and said, “General, could I speak to you for a moment? Dr. Zhao has a quick question.”
“Goddamnit, Borges, we’re in the middle—”
Sand took a few steps away so Borges could get to his suit’s medical system. With quick, sure movements she attached her suit to his and injected the drug cocktail that Zhao had developed for him. His suit’s medical system circulated the bolus of drugs throughout his body. The pain eased immediately, and Sand actually sighed with relief as the drugs took effect. He looked up at Borges and nodded. She disconnected her suit from his and said, “Thank you, General. I’ll tell Dr. Zhao.”
Sand turned back to his command group. They were all staring at him. They suspected something but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to have the injections if he was going to keep a clear head. He had waited as long as he could.
He knew he was right about the strategy, but he couldn’t wait much longer before changing the plan, or the whole thing would fall apart. He was going to have to take a chance, and it was a big one. He would need to convince Raurk, but it was the only way he could buy himself enough time to make sure his plan could work.
“Look, the Xotoli are trying to draw us into putting our troops on Manhattan, leaving Long Island open so they can develop it into a forward operating base to support the push into the city,” Sand said.
“Okay, General, that may be true, but if we wait much longer and the defense collapses in the city, we’ll be flanked and stuck between the hybrids on Manhattan and the ones you say will land here. We are between a rock and a hard place. We’ve got no more troops, so it’s either let me send in a company or we’re screwed,” Regen said.
“You’re wrong. We do have two battalions.”
Regen and Farran exchanged glances. Then Regen said, “General, you’ve got to be shitting me. Not them. We can’t trust them.”
“Yes, I’m going to ask Raurk for the Von Fleet units that were disarmed and under arrest. That’s our last play.”
“General, you can’t. It’s too risky. My troops won’t be able to trust the man or woman standing beside them,” Farran said.
“Yes, they will.”
It was a big risk, but he knew he had to take it. Sand switched to Admiral Raurk’s command frequency. “Sand to CIC Actual.”
“Sir, don’t do this!” Regen said.
Raurk’s image suddenly appeared in front of his heads-up. “Go, General.”
“Admiral, in the brief we had from your staff, we were told that there were two battalions of Von Fleet infantry who had been disarmed and held on Staten Island. Is that still true?”
“Yes, it is. They were security for the secretary general until we nationalized Von Fleet.”
“Ma’am...” Sand hesitated before he continued, “I’m going to need those troops to reinforce the conscripts.”
“How do we know we can trust them, General? They could have been infiltrated by hybrids whose actions would be catastrophic if we use them.”
“Is Netis there?”
“Yes, she is.”
Netis appeared in front of Sand.
“Netis, on Chika none of the Von Fleet military units had hybrids embedded in them. The VF units fought right alongside my marines without ever showing any reluctance or evidence of hybrids in those units. From your training, do you think the Xotoli would embed hybrids in the rank and file in a Von Fleet unit?”
Netis hesitated as she thought through what Sand was suggesting. Sand continued before she could speak. “Judging the briefing you gave us and the actions of those embeds at naval headquarters, the Xotoli wanted to use the embeds for attacks on command and control, not in units that might or might not be used in combat. Is that not true?”
Again, Netis didn’t speak right away. Eventually she said. “General, your analysis makes a lot of sense. I don’t know of any rank-and-file embeds. We were all close to tho
se in charge. Putting someone in a Von Fleet infantry unit would not seem to fit the Xotoli thinking about the use of hybrids. But that is just a guess.”
“Netis, you are our best intelligence source on the Xotoli. Your guess is good enough for me. Admiral Raurk, you heard Netis’s and my reasoning. I need those troops.”
Admiral Raurk was silent. Sand knew this was not a decision she could make lightly. The silence seemed to stretch out to minutes, even though it was only seconds.
“Admiral, they are human.”
Someone outside of Sand’s video from the CIC said, “Admiral, they are begging us to give them their weapons and send them into the city. Security is reporting they are threatening to storm the armory if we don’t arm them.”
Raurk looked at Sand and said, “How are you going to make sure that you’re right about them?”
“Because I’m going to be standing next to them when the hybrids attack. I intend to lead them to show all the troops and you that I trust them.”
Raurk’s command face actually showed a glimpse of emotion. “You’ve got them, General. I hope to God this works.”
“Me too, Admiral. The time lag between arming them and moving them as a unit will coincide with when my plan has the conscripts moving to Phase Line Yellow. Have them establish the line. I will meet them there.”
“Raurk out.”
Her image snapped off. When Sand turned to face his command staff, he saw reactions from disbelief to downright anger. He had just put their lives and the fate of Earth on the shoulders of troops whom many thought were untrustworthy, if not downright hostile. The next few hours would determine the fate of the human race.
Chapter 37
City-State of New York
Central Park