Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1)

by Parker, Gavin E

  “Yes, it could be,” said Kostovich. “Keep trained on that region.”

  As he watched, Kostovich saw Bobby’s troop carrier streak off towards the left side of his screen.

  “Karjalainen, keep an eye on that outcrop. We believe the enemy may be positioned there.”

  “Roger that,” said Bobby. “Any chance of a pre-emptive strike?”

  “Negative, we don’t know what we’re dealing with yet. If you can get eyes-on, or even in a good position for ground radar, we’ll know what we can do. Please proceed as planned.”

  “Foveaux here, we can call in fire from you if we have coordinates, right?”

  “Correct, Commissioner. If you can tell me where to fire, I can fire.”

  Bobby turned to the trooper next to him in the cabin. “Have you used one of these before?” he said, indicating the controls for the plasma cannon.

  “Sure,” came the reply, “in IVRs. Hell, Mech Azimuth 4 is my favourite game.”

  “Could you scooch along and let me take over?”

  The man looked at him. “I don’t think I can. I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

  Bobby nodded, tight lipped.

  A voice came over the com. “This is Commissioner Foveaux. Give Commander Karjalainen the goddamned cannon, that’s an order.”

  The man begrudgingly shifted seats and Bobby took the controls. As soon as he held them a video feed from the cannon appeared in his HUD. He selected ‘Aim Assist’ and swung the cannon around to face the outcrop.

  “Listen, Kostovich,” he said, “can you pick up my cannon’s video feed and follow it? The moment I see anything at all I want fire support. Rockets, missiles, lasers, anything. Can you do that?”

  “Baldwin,” said Kostovich, “follow Karjalainen’s video. If he starts shooting at something we start too, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Baldwin. “I’m picking up the video now. Looks good.”

  “You’ve got it, Bobby,” said Kostovich.

  “I’m turning back in toward the outcrop,” said Foveaux, “I’ll be there in about four minutes. Do you have anything, Kostovich?”

  Kostovich glanced at his battlefield model. He had data and video feeds from Parry 4 and both troop carriers and all the helmet cameras from the troops. All the data fed into his three dimensional model so he had an overview of what was going on with as much information as the sum of all friendly players. Right now he had a lot of information about terrain and the position of friendly troops. The one thing he didn’t have was an enemy.

  “Negative at this time,” he said. “Proceed as planned, I’ll feed information back to your battlecoms as soon as I have anything.”

  “Shit, that’s it!” said Baldwin. He saw the two mechs moving and instantly released missiles.

  Bobby saw the mechs. “Mechs! Two o’clock!” He fired the plasma cannon.

  The mechs implacably fired lasers at Parry 4 as the plasma bolts hit. One collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris, momentarily obscuring the second one as Bobby turned his fire to where it had been. He wasn’t convinced he had managed to hit it.

  “Get back into cover!” Bobby shouted at the driver. She swerved the troop carrier and tried to take them across the front of the outcrop, but before she could put it between them and the remaining mech it had fired its missiles.

  “Brace!” said the driver. Bobby swung the cannon around and flipped it to full auto. The mech remained out of sight but the sound of screaming missiles and cannon fire filled the cabin. There was a series of loud bangs.

  “Are you okay?” said Bobby.

  “Still here,” said the driver. “Where are the mechs?”

  As she spoke Parry 4’s missiles streaked past them. They heard two loud explosions.

  “One’s still there, I think,” said Bobby. “Care to take a peek?”

  “Commander Karjalainen, are you hit?” said Foveaux over the com.

  “Negative,” said Bobby. “We have contact with the enemy and are pursuing.”

  “I’m coming round the back,” said Foveaux.

  “Good,” said Bobby. “We can take them from both sides at once.”

  The driver reversed the troop carrier and lined up for another attempt at the edge of the outcrop.

  “Kostovich, lay some more missile fire on the southern edge of the outcrop.”

  “Negative, Commander. We’re blind.”

  “We’ve lost all contact with Parry 4. I think they hit us,” said Kostovich.

  “What about the other batteries?” said Bobby

  “We can try that. Gonna take a little longer to get the missiles to you.”

  “Stay here,” said Bobby to the driver. “What’s the ETA on those missiles?”

  “Just launched from Parry 3. Twenty seconds, I’m using the last good coordinates I have. They may have moved, can you keep them pinned down?”

  “We’ll try. Keep those missiles away from us.”

  Bobby looked at his plasma cannon display. “Edge us forward,” he said.

  The driver began moving the troop carrier forward.

  Foveaux first saw one mech as her troop carrier rounded the outcrop. Her plasma cannon fired immediately and struck the mech before it had time to get its missiles away. The cloud of smoke the plasma strike generated partly obscured the second mech, but the cannon’s sensors picked it up and fired. The third mech, reacting to data from the second one, fired a full volley of missiles before Foveaux had even seen it. With the carrier moving at full speed the sensors did pick out the mech once it was clear of the rock and the plasma cannon fired two bolts to the centre of its body mass. Its missiles were already away.

  The troop carrier continued its curve around the rock with the cannon remaining trained on the three smoking mechs. The missiles the third mech had fired had gone directly upwards and were now coming down at a variety of angles.

  “Switch defences to auto,” Foveaux said to the gunner. She hesitated for a moment on the new equipment before she switched the cannon to auto. Once engaged, the cannon took out four of the five missiles raining down on the troop carrier.

  “What was that?” said Kostovich.

  “Foveaux’s carrier just went dark,” said Baldwin.

  “What about individual coms?” said Kostovich, somewhat desperately.

  “Nothing,” said Baldwin. “They could be rerouting if the carrier’s relay is out of action. Could be switching to direct transmission.”

  “Where are those missiles?”

  “Seconds to impact,” said Walton.

  “How about the coms?”

  Baldwin stared at his terminal. “I have one. Two, three. All twelve individual coms are back on line.”

  “How’s their vitality data?”

  Baldwin looked down at the feeds. “I don’t know. A couple look pretty bad. Could just be instrumentation.”

  “Foveaux, do you copy?” said Kostovich.

  -

  “Foveaux, do you copy?”

  There was a flurry of explosions in the air and on the ground around the corner. Bobby gestured for the driver to wait. “I like this,” he said to Kostovich, “send more missiles.”

  “Are we hitting anything?” came the reply.

  “Probably,” said Bobby.

  “Let me know what we’re hitting.”

  “We were counting on waiting here until you’d hit it,” said Bobby. “What’s happened to Foveaux?”

  “Her team is good. Carrier is out of action, though.”

  As he heard the words Bobby saw a commander mech run from cover in front of him. He pressed fire on the cannon controls but even as he did so he saw a red line shoot from the shoulder of the mech to a point above his cabin where his cannon was mounted. He heard a muted creak above him and as he pressed down on the fire button nothing happened. The mech moved from right to left in front of him. As it passed it didn’t even look back.

  “Kostovich, missiles! Can you see this? Put some missiles on that mech!”


  “Launch missiles from Parrys 3 and 2,” Kostovich said to Baldwin. “Commander, we’re launching now but you need to keep that mech in contact or we won’t know where we’re firing.”

  “Decompress the cab and hit that mech,” Bobby said to the driver.

  Foveaux coughed. “Everyone okay?” she said. She could see from her HUD that the cabin was decompressing and the troop section was fully decompressed. She quickly bought her visor down and sealed her suit. She was dizzy from the blast and it took a few seconds to register that the troop carrier was on its side. She assumed that the main section was breached. That would explain the decompression. In the cabin the cannon operator and driver were slumped but stirring. The cab was filled with a thin grey smoke.

  “Are you okay?” she said to the driver, shaking her.

  “I . . . I think so,” said the driver.

  The cannon operator stirred. “I’m good here,” she said, unconvincingly.

  “Good,” said Foveaux. “We have to get out.”

  The driver looked at her, unsure.

  “We’re sitting ducks in here, we have missile launchers in the back, let’s go.”

  The driver heaved the door over her head and pulled herself out. Foveaux followed. She glanced over and could see the three mechs smoking in the Martian dusk. They did not move but stood upright like futuristic wicker men being offered up to some great metallic god. She could see the scorch marks around the carrier where the remnants of missiles had struck the ground, and behind her she could see smoke rising from her own carrier.

  “Foveaux,” came Kostovich’s voice over the com, “do you copy?”

  “I copy you,” said Foveaux.

  “Please advise of your situation, over.”

  “Carrier is down. Possible casualties. We’re continuing the pursuit on foot. We’ve destroyed three enemy mechs.”

  “Foveaux!” Bobby’s voice cut in. “We need your support. We have a mech proceeding towards the space port, we have no cannon.”

  “Roger that,” said Foveaux. “We’re on our way.”

  Bobby’s driver gunned the engine and took off in pursuit of Steiner’s mech. Steiner was striding as fast as he could across the open scrub between the rocky outcrop and the spaceport. He had exhausted his supply of missiles, but knew that his laser was a formidable weapon and enough to take control of the port.

  That he had managed to get away from Ephialtes and land on the planet seemed remarkable enough. That he had fought off two armoured vehicles and further missile attacks was remarkable, too. All that remained was for him to make it across the scrub and secure the port and he would have done it, against all the odds. He would be the last man standing, the last survivor of his mission, and he would have achieved what he, and all the rest of them, had set out to do. This was to be his final push to glory.

  “Kostovich, put your missiles down in front of the mech. Stop him from proceeding forward and we can take him down,” said Bobby.

  “You’re too close, hold back and leave him to me!” came the reply.

  “He’s out in the open, he’ll take out any missile headed toward him. Send them short, make a trench. Slow him down.”

  “Jesus, did you hear that!” Kostovich said to Walton.

  “I did, what do you want me to do?”

  Kostovich shook his head. “Send them short. No, send five at him and five short. Give him something to think about. Just make sure none go long; that’s Karjalainen right behind him.”

  Foveaux had retrieved the personal missile launchers from the troop carrier. Two of her troops had been injured in the explosion and remained behind but with the rest she set off at a light run towards the mech she could see about five hundred metres distant, which was running toward the spaceport with Bobby’s troop carrier in pursuit.

  “I have a visual on your mech, Bobby,” said Foveaux, “should I fire?”

  “Yes,” said Bobby.

  Foveaux turned to a trooper next to her with one of the hand-held missile launchers. “Take out the mech,” she said. “You two too,” she said to two others.

  As they stopped to allow the grenadiers to drop to one knee and fire they heard, quietly through the thin Marian atmosphere, the roar of approaching missiles.

  “Any time you like,” said Bobby.

  Foveaux saw brief red streaks as the mech tried to take out Kostovich’s incoming missiles. “Fire!” she said, and at first one then two and three missiles streaked away, hugging the ground as they sped toward the mech.

  While the mech was firing its laser into the air, still running, the second wave of Kostovich’s missiles struck the ground in front of it. A huge plume of light brown dust was thrown into the air. Steiner lost visuals in the dust cloud but his radar showed that he was about to enter a newly appeared missile crater. Keeping his momentum he went to jump it.

  At the moment his trailing foot left the ground the first of Foveaux’s missiles struck, quickly followed by the other two. The mech was strong enough to resist their explosive force but was pushed, just slightly, off balance. As the mech landed on the far side of the crater instead of carrying on with its stride it fell, hitting its right shoulder on the crater wall before spinning and landing on its back.

  Bobby continued with his chase. The troop carrier jumped the ridge of the crater and landed on top of the fallen mech.

  Steiner struggled to move. He twisted and turned, but it felt like there was a huge weight on his chest. There was; it was Bobby’s troop carrier.

  Bobby and the driver were shaking about in the cabin as the mech writhed beneath them.

  Steiner tried to bring his laser to bear but he couldn’t get the angle he needed on the troop carrier.

  “Do we get out?” said Bobby’s driver.

  Bobby was about to answer when, with an almighty twist, the mech span around so it was now laying on its side. The troop carrier slid partly off its back and sat at a forty-five degree angle, half on the mech and half in the crater.

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “Bring all the ordnance you have.”

  As his crew scrambled out of the troop carrier Foveaux appeared at the rim of the crater. “Take out the laser!” she said to one of her grenadiers. The trooper squatted and sent a missile directly to Steiner’s laser. Steiner felt the blast as keenly as if it had hit his own shoulder. Now he was utterly defenceless. He pressurised his suit and pulled on the emergency evac switch.

  Bobby circled around the troop carrier as the dust thinned and cleared. He saw Steiner stagger from the belly of the mech and he saw the pistol in his hand.

  “Don’t shoot!” said Bobby across all frequencies.

  Steiner heard him clearly but ostentatiously banged the side of his helmet like he was having trouble picking up the transmission.

  Bobby’s crew fanned out beside him. They had plasma rifles, RPGs and personal missile launchers. Steiner pointed his weapon at them suspiciously. He held it two-handed. From his cautious movement it looked like he was controlling the situation. Bobby held a plasma rifle aimed directly at Steiner’s head.

  “It’s over,” said Bobby.

  The dust cleared further and Steiner could see Foveaux and her fireteam ranged across the far edge of the crater. He had considered taking his chances with Bobby. Now he could see that, as well as being outnumbered, he was at the apex of a perfect field of crossfire from two well-placed fireteams. He dropped his gun and put his hands in the air.

  “You’ve got me,” he said.

  “Please report on your situation,” said Kostovich.

  “The area is secure. We have one prisoner. We’re bringing him in,” said Foveaux.

  Bobby approached Steiner. He held out a hand. “Welcome to Mars,” he said, “how do you like it so far?”

  Steiner looked at the outstretched hand. “I thought my hometown was grim,” he said. “I need a shower.”

  “We can sort that out. Come with us.” Bobby guided Steiner to the top of the crater. His troops followed behind. Foveau
x walked around the edge to greet them.

  “Nice work,” she said to Bobby.

  “Thank you, Commissioner,” he replied. “I hope to be compensated accordingly.”

  “Pay is basic. No bonuses,” said Foveaux.

  “Is it too late to reconsider?”

  “It is now. You’re signed up. Welcome to the MSS.”

  They trudged toward the space port.

  As they passed Parry 4 Bobby noticed the crisscross burns on the radio domes. Steiner had done a job on them. He thought he caught Steiner glancing in that direction too, and smirking.

  They walked across the runway and into the hangar.

  “Are we all here?” said Foveaux. “Raise the doors and repressurise.”

  They saw the yellow lights spinning and felt the rumble as the powerful motors started to push the doors up from the ground.

  As the doors reached a height of two metres Steiner span around and planted a fist into the chest of one of Bobby’s troops. He grabbed another and threw him at a further three. Before anyone had time to react he was streaking across the hangar bay towards the doors. A handful of troopers stepped forward and raised their weapons.

  “Don’t shoot!” said Foveaux. “We can’t damage the doors!”

  Bobby and some others chased Steiner but he pulled away easily. Bobby had played high school football and his rushing game was excellent, but Steiner’s speed seemed unreal. He pulled away from Bobby as if he was standing still.

  As he reached the rising hangar door, which was now nearer three metres high, Steiner jumped. He sailed gracefully over the door and was away. Bobby and the troops were left standing, looking as foolish and confused as if Steiner had literally vanished into the thin Martian air. Bobby turned back to Foveaux and made an elaborate shrugging gesture. He started a slow walk back as the doors finally clanked into position and warnings signalled that the hangar was repressurising.