Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall

by Thomas P Hopp

CHAPTER 19

  As Suarez’s tank crossed the halfway point to the tunnel openings he looked to the left and right. About half of his force was hurrying to take positions on his right flank and the remainder was still coming onto the prairie to form his left flank. And ready or not, Fox Troop was engaging the enemy. The whole force was advancing on the openings at the base of Sandstone Mountain with muzzles flashing and the thump of heavy rounds roaring all along the line. But other flashes—flashes of laser light—cut the night air from sources scattered on the mountainside and inside the portals.

  “They’re returning fire,” Suarez called through his headset microphone. “Keep cool and pick your targets carefully.”

  A nearby Bradley took a laser hit and erupted in flames.

  “Jesus!” Suarez cried as it peeled off the line of advance and rolled to a halt. There wasn’t time to notice which of his comrades had bought it. As the wreckage fell behind, Suarez had plenty to deal with ahead and to the sides. The flares drifting overhead lit the battlefield but the enemy was hard to pick out until he fired. Fighting machines would appear from behind scrub-brush or boulders, fire their lasers, and then disappear again. Suarez spotted the one that had taken out the Bradley dead ahead on the flat as it ducked behind a thicket of brush.

  “Quinn,” he called through the intercom. “There’s one behind the bushes, maybe two points right. See him?”

  “Roger, Captain. Targeting now.” The tank’s turret swiveled in a fine-aiming adjustment as the alien machine stepped out from its cover again and raised its right arm. The bore of its light cannon seemed to point straight at Suarez’s face. It fired a white-hot streak of light that went by wide to the right. An instant later flame shot from the muzzle of the tank’s gun, momentarily washing Suarez’s night-vision with glare. But his sight cleared just as the shell reached its target and the walking machine’s body exploded into a thousand fragments. The lower chassis and legs stood for a moment and then toppled and fell to the ground.

  “Bingo!” shouted Quinn.

  “Nice shot,” said Suarez. “I thought he had us.”

  He looked around at the rest of his troop and took heart from what he saw. The full force was on the field. Muzzle-flashes erupted all along a battle line stretching a good quarter mile across the flats. There was a hell of a lot of shooting going on and most of Fox’s vehicles were intact and fighting hard.

  His tank’s cannon roared again and a moment later Suarez saw an explosion at the right-hand tunnel entrance. He peered carefully at the dark opening, hoping to see some effect of the explosion—but no luck. Shells from other tanks hit both entrances but there were no secondary detonations or other signs the bombardment was having an impact. The enemy was dug in deep.

  To his right and slightly ahead of his own position, Suarez watched the tank of his first sergeant, Pete Henessy, put two shells in succession into the right-hand tunnel entrance, again without effect.

  “Henessy,” he called into his comm link. “Target their fighting machines. We’ve gotta reduce their firepower.” But as he spoke, the first sergeant’s tank took a laser hit under its turret and exploded in flame. The turret blew clean off, lifting up and flipping over like a massive pancake and crashing down in front of the tank. The chassis became a cauldron of blazing fuel and ammo and as the men inside burned, Suarez gritted his teeth. He vividly recalled the face of each one of them. Shaking his head hard, he muttered, “Gotta stay focused.” He looked down the battle line again and saw too many knocked-out Army vehicles burning on the prairie, maybe a third of his force. And he saw something even more alarming. Although the enemy had taken quite a few casualties, they had abandoned their hidden positions to come out and engage Fox Troop in close combat. Tanks and walking machines were mixing it up all along the line. Both sides were firing in all directions, taking hits and dealing death as well.

  He turned and searched the mountainside, desperately looking for any sign their bombardment had had an effect. But there was none. The dark tunnels were intact and the real battle was much closer at hand.

  “Fox Troop,” he shouted into the radio, “forget the tunnels. Take evasive action and defend yourselves.” Then he turned his attention to his own situation. Ahead of him, he could see by the light of the flames from Henessy’s tank that a fighting machine had paused to inspect the wreckage.

  “Hey, Ed,” he called to his driver, “enemy at two o’clock.” The tank was moving at a good clip and Ed veered toward the alien machine, catching it not looking. It turned to face them at the last second, but Fox One hit the walking machine full on the nose and knocked it over backwards. The tank’s right tread rode up and over the enemy to the sounds of shattering glass and crunching metal. Suarez glanced back at the crumpled wreck as they sped on. “Nice driving, Veccs.”

  Then he quickly appraised the troop’s situation. They were giving a good accounting of themselves. The battlefield was strewn with as many shattered walking machines as tanks. From every side there were bolts of blue-white laser fire but fewer and fewer cannon flashes. He came to the grim realization that he was overseeing the annihilation of his force. He agonized for a moment about what failure would mean for humanity but had even less stomach for watching his men go to their deaths pointlessly.

  “Break off the attack!” he shouted bitterly into his helmet microphone. “Break off! The objective is not achievable. Fall back and defend yourselves any way you can.”

  The ragged line of advance dissolved into a chaos of individual vehicles fighting to save themselves. Suarez looked for a way out for his own tank, but the enemy was on all sides and more were coming from the tunnel openings. He and his tank were too far onto the battlefield to ever hope to withdraw. But the wreckage of Henessy’s tank gave him an idea. “Hey Ed,” he called into the intercom, “pull in next to the Sarge’s tank.” Vecchio circled the tank around, ran across the body of the walking machine again and came to a halt close beside the blazing wreck.

  Suarez ducked inside and sealed his command hatch. “Shut down the engine,” he said. “The Fox is going to ground.”

  The tank’s rumbling ceased and Suarez looked through his periscope to see if any of the Kra machines had spotted them. As he had planned, the smoke from the killed Abrams billowed across the deck of his own tank, making it look dead too. With no sign of an enemy nearby Suarez allowed himself a sigh of relief. Then he lifted his night vision goggles and looked around at the anxious faces his crew lit by the red-orange turret safelight. “We’re gonna sit tight for a while,” he said. “We look like we’re burning. Let’s hope we got ’em fooled.”