Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  The Plasma Armor Piercing round hit the alien’s personal force field and went off, spewing a jet of superheated matter that tore through the energy barrier and the high-density alloy of the helmet beneath it. The alien’s head disappeared.

  A backscatter of plasma, sublimated metal and vaporized Viper brains and bone hit Russell hard, just as he’d expected. His own force field handed the diffuse impact well enough. It still wasn’t pleasant; about as much fun as being lightly steamed, not to mention getting hit by a hefty pillow wielded by someone with muscle enhancements. He was nearly bowled over, but he held on and was up and firing a moment later.

  “Shit, I felt that,” Gonzo said as the headless corpse fell off the ridge. He was shooting as he spoke, along with the rest of Charlie Company.

  The world narrowed down to Russell’s field of fire. As soon as he recovered from the explosion, he found a target and fired. One of the rocketeers took a burst of 4mm and one AP grenade at fifteen yards, fucking knife-fighting range. The tango went down, but his ammo load didn’t blow up like Russell had hoped. Fuck it. Next target. A burst and two rapid-fire 15mm grenades. Miss. He tried to lead a scurrying alien but wasted another grenade without scoring a hit, the last one in the tube magazine. Shit. Something big blew up somewhere, the flash of light intense enough to get his attention. He glanced around while he reloaded the 20mm launcher and saw the Viper force field gennie going up in smoke. Its power plant had gone off, doing more damage than a ground-bursting 200mm artillery shell. A bunch of Vipers nearby were down and several of those weren’t going to get up again.

  The enemy froze for a second or two, plenty of time for the Marines to put a good hurting on them, but they reacted soon enough, going to ground, returning fire, and maneuvering around the unexpected obstacles. Their little floating fireflies spat out laser beams, detonating grenades in mid-flight and targeting the grunts firing them. The puny lasers didn’t do any damage to their human targets; they were all behind their own portable shields, the kind of gizmo you could set up in place but couldn’t walk around with. Just one of the many bennies of playing defense.

  Russell spotted another fucker with a rocket launcher, leaning out behind a falling tree and taking aim. He hit him with a 20mm round, and this time he got a nice sympathetic detonation as at least some of the ET’s forty-missile load blew up.

  One of the platoon’s LAVs fired down the path to the left of Russell’s position, its 30mm graviton cannon turning a squad of Vipers into a twisted mass of metal, plastic and meat. Artillery and mortars hit other enemy concentrations; the tangos had been left high and dry by the destruction of their field generator. Other gennies were floating forward to fill the gap in their defenses, but one of them was taken under fire by a beautifully-coordinated LAV and mortar volley that knocked a hole through its shields and destroyed it.

  The Vipers were slower on the uptake than Marines, but they had numbers and enough training to fight back. Rockets and lasers began to hammer Charlie Company’s position, and their mobile guns were moving up. The fallback order went out.

  First Squad backed up from the ridge, crawling and dragging their portable field gennie along while 100mm mortars blasted the unprotected aliens on the other side, forcing them back and allowing the Marines to break contact. A minute or so later, they were inside their squad LAV and headed back to their secondary position, one comfortably behind their own area energy bubble.

  “Like the man said, I love it when a plan comes together,” Russell said.

  “What man?” Nacle asked.

  “Some pre-Contact grunt.” He’d Woogled the phrase a ways back, but he didn’t feel like checking it again. “John or Joseph Smith, I think. Or maybe it was the elephant guy, Hannibal.”

  “Joseph Smith?” Nacle said, awe in his voice.

  “Fucker sure got around,” Gonzo said.

  * * *

  Only two icons in the company roster were yellow, indicating Wounded in Action, which meant people hurt too badly to continue fighting; any lesser injury would be handled by the Marines’ nano-med packs. No KIAs, not yet. Enemy casualties were just over a hundred dead from the ambush and artillery fire combined, and maybe as many wounded, although those casualties were harder to identify. It was as good as it got, and the only problem was, it probably wasn’t going to be good enough.

  Fromm watched the orderly retreat to the next line of prepared positions. The Vipers pushed through the mortar bombardment, taking another dozen casualties, and tried to mount a pursuit only to get hit on their right flank by a surprise attack from Fourth Platoon’s Hellcats. That had knocked the wind out of the advance, allowing the ambush forces to break contact cleanly and make it to safety without taking hardly any fire.

  His main concern at the moment was keeping contact with the enemy forces to make sure they didn’t pull out any surprises of their own, and to lure the aliens towards the forest to the north, where Bravo was waiting for them. The fixed sensors the Marines had left behind had been systematically destroyed as soon as the Vipers consolidated their position. The battalion’s other recon assets were being destroyed at unsustainable rates; the ETs anti-drone tech was better than they’d estimated. And all the overhead satellites were gone, destroyed during the ongoing space battle still raging overhead. Fromm supposed the Colonel could ask some of the starships or orbital fortresses to take some time off from fighting for their lives and conduct a sensor sweep of the ground below, but he didn’t think he’d get much of a response. The fog of war was alive and well on P-3. For now, he would use the Hellcats much like old-fashioned cavalry, screening the enemy advance and keeping them under observation. It was going to be hard on the mechanized kitties, though.

  After a brief lull, punctuated only by a continuous artillery barrage over the aliens’ rally point, the Vipers began moving forward again. A few hundred infantrymen, along with a handful of field projectors and mobile energy cannon, dutifully pursued Charlie right into the next ambush. Fromm’s implants manipulated what he saw, making lasers visible and reducing the glare of plasma explosions to tolerable levels, but they did little to obscure the horrors of battle. Vipers collapsed under multiple hits or were torn apart by Bravo’s heavy weapons. The occasional artillery shell or missile broke through and delivered a brief moment of carnage. The enemy’s relatively few vehicles were targeted by multiple heavy weapons. Their defensive shields didn’t last long, and they had little or no armor underneath. One by one, they fell; area force fields were knocked down, leaving two Viper companies to the mercy of artillery and direct fire. A final charge from both companies’ Hellcats wiped out the last few survivors before enemy reinforcements could arrive.

  The exchange wasn’t one-sided. More roster icons turned yellow. Three of them turned red, and two of those went black when a multiple rocket volley tore through a portable force field and obliterated Private First Class Greg O’Malley and Sergeant Fernando Uzcategui from Bravo Company. The casualty ratios were terribly lopsided in the Americans’ favor, though. At those rates, the ETs would run out of warm bodies long before they could even decimate the battalion facing them. Sooner or later, that reality would sink in.

  It didn’t take long. Even the low-intelligence assault troopers weren’t suicidal. When a follow-up attack was hit from both flanks, the aliens retreated in good order and took positions near the mouth of the valley while they waited for additional forces to arrive. Fromm wondered if Colonel Brighton would try to retake that position. Even after their losses – running close to three hundred now – the enemy still heavily outnumbered the Americans. The battalion’s single armored platoon hadn’t joined the fight yet, however, and the MBT-5 ‘Schwarzkopf’ grav-tanks were absolutely deadly. Those four behemoths would blast the hell out of the enemy’s light infantry. It looked like the enemy had underestimated the levels of resistance they would face. Maybe…

  An alert signal chimed in. Fromm accepted the linked video feed and watched another artificial meteor shower coming dow
n. A new wave of assault pods had been launched, including dozens of larger drop ships. Once again, half of them or more were destroyed in transit. But their landing zone was now heavily protected by force fields, so artillery did little damage to the enemy once it’d arrived. The initial incursion had prepared a relatively safe beachhead for the main push.

  They’d been facing a brigade. The second wave was estimated to comprise an entire corps.

  Twelve

  Parthenon-Three, 165 AFC

  Morris Jensen suppressed a yawn as he stood watch.

  The Forward Operations Base consisted of a thinly-manned defense perimeter, a vehicle laager, some hastily-erected tents, and a mass of weekend warriors and civilian volunteers unloading and organizing supplies. Everything from power packs to toilet paper was being stored there to support the Marines trying to keep the aliens from pushing deeper into Forge Valley.

  Trying, and failing. Morris had been listening in on their comm chatter, courtesy of his prior service; when they’d activated the Volunteer Regiment, somebody had screwed up and granted him the same network access he’d had as an E-8, First Sergeant, rather than his current rank, two grades lower, not to mention in an auxiliary branch of the military. Under normal circumstances, he would have been booted out of the network, but nothing was normal. Which had given him a front-row seat to the battle being fought a hundred miles east of his position.

  A Marine Expeditionary Unit packed a lot of firepower, but it was still nothing more than a reinforced battalion, and that just wasn’t enough to hold off two division equivalents, even if they were mostly light infantry. They’d had to pull back to their third prepped position over the last twenty-four hours, which hadn’t been supposed to happen for two or three days. They’d had no choice: the Vipers were tough, and they were getting through natural obstacles that would have slowed down or even halted human infantry. The 101st kept being threatened with encirclement and forced to fall back. Not retreat, mind you. Marines never retreated. They were just relocating backwards at a rapid pace.

  The Volunteers might end up having to load the supplies back into the trucks and drive back to the east end of the valley. Militia didn’t have any problems with retreating. As long as their families were safe, they’d be happy to run away. Came with having a brain and something to lose.

  “Second Squad, we just got a report of enemy activity somewhere near Lover’s Leap,” Lieutenant Cassidy sent out through the platoon’s net. “Go check it out.”

  “Roger that,” Morris said.

  “Sending you the report.”

  Morris reviewed the imp footage while he led the ten men in the squad towards the cliff commonly known as Lover’s Leap, named after an urban legend involving a couple of teenagers who’d allegedly committed suicide by gravity shortly after the town’s founding, the kind of place the current crop of teenagers liked to frequent to fool around. Morris was grateful Mariah hadn’t yet reached the age where that kind of thing would be an issue.

  The imp recording came from, unsurprisingly enough, two teenaged civvies, a boy and girl, who’d taken a break from helping out at the FOB to spend some quality time together. The footage showed something big moving through some brushes: the kids had panicked and run back screaming, and luckily the girl had retained enough presence of mind to send out an alert. The shaky video wasn’t clear enough for an ID, though: there were a few large critters out in the wild, and whatever had been crashing through the foliage could be any of them. Better safe than sorry, though.

  “Any chance of drone coverage?” he asked the El-Tee.

  “That’s a negatory, Jensen,” the company commander replied. “Drone losses have been heavy and the gyrenes don’t have any to spare.”

  The goddamn officer hadn’t even bothered to ask the Marines about the drones. Lieutenant Cassidy was pushing fifty, but had zero combat experience and was an officer only because his pappy was a wealthy donor who’d paid for a lot of the Volunteers’ equipment. Morris thought about pressing the issue, then sighed and carried on. They’d find out if there was anything to worry about soon enough.

  They ran into the young couple about halfway there. The two fifteen-year olds were out of breath and clearly scared shitless.

  “Oh, thank God!” the girl cried out and she and her boyfriend all but collapsed at their feet.

  Her Facettergram profile popped up in Morris’ field of vision, providing him with her name.

  “Hey, Becky. Becky Cunningham – I know your dad, he runs the general store, doesn’t he?”

  She nodded, panting from fear and exhaustion.

  “Just tell me what you saw.”

  “We heard something, I, uh, tried to take a look, but Tommy pushed me down and we crawled away. I’m sure it was an ET! He woulda shot us if we hadn’t run!”

  Tommy confirmed the story, with a lot of extra profanity thrown in.

  “All right, head back to the FOB, and next time don’t wander out into the woods, all right? We’re having us a war here, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Becky and Tommy nodded emphatically and took off.

  “Think there’s anything to it?” Lemon asked.

  Morris shrugged. He couldn’t believe the Vipers could have made it this deep into the valley, but you never knew.

  “Only one way to find out. All right, people! Spread out, skirmish line. Let’s act like it’s for real.”

  All the men in the squad had been in combat and knew the drill. They moved forward in a staggered double line, half the squad hanging back and providing cover while the other half advanced. Everyone knew the area; they headed for a slight rise that overlooked Lovers’ Leap, staying low and quiet.

  Lemon was the first to spot the ETs.

  Vipers, he sent out via imp.

  And there they were, half a dozen aliens in a half circle next to the cliff. As they watched, a couple more scrambled up. Becky and Tommy must have spotted the first one up.

  The six-hundred-foot cliff was nearly sheer, but it could be climbed. A couple of mountaineering enthusiasts did so every once in a while. And Vipers were like spiders when it came to climbing stuff.

  Another alien made it to the top. Now there were nine. Less than a klick away from the FOB. No time to wait for orders.

  “Light them up!” Morris said, drawing a bead on a Viper with a rocket launcher and double-tapping him with two armor-piercing grenades. The bastard went down.

  Their first fusillade took out four Eets. The others managed to duck for cover and return fire. An eighth Viper poked his head over the edge of the cliff and Morris put a couple of bursts of 4mm explosive into him. The alien’s force field failed and he went back the way he came. It was a long drop to the bottom. Problem was, Morris didn’t need drones to tell him there were plenty more where he came from; the cliff face could well be crawling with hundreds of Echo Tangos.

  It took a bit of yelling to get through to the El-Tee, but word went out. A flight of drones got sent out, along with a promise that help was on the way. Morris and the squad kept the aliens pinned down, but more were coming up, and they couldn’t take them out fast enough. At least the enemy didn’t seem to have any fireflies with them.

  Drones arrived, and Morris got their take as they flew over Lovers’ Leap. It wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined. It was a lot worse.

  A reinforced company’s worth of Vipers were on the cliff’s face, scrambling up like so many spider-monkeys. Two hundred, maybe more. And that wasn’t the real bad news.

  An entire infantry regiment was at the foot of the mountain range, headed for a narrow pass some ten klicks to the southeast. How the aliens had managed to make their way through the largely impassable mountains, Morris had no idea. Maybe they’d had some grav vehicles along to help them through the rough spots. None of that mattered, though. If someone didn’t stop them, they would flank the entire blocking force.

  Morris ducked when a laser shattered a piece of rock and peppered him with stone shards. His shield
s caught them, but the whole thing reminded him why he’d left the Corps.

  * * *

  Fromm and Charlie Company raced to beat the devil.

  Colonel’s Brighton’s orders had been terse and to the point. Head back towards FOB Sentinel and use his command to stop the flanking force that had managed to bypass most of Forge Valley. Success was going to depend on who reached their objective first. Fromm’s troop carriers had more ground to cover but their LAVs could move at two hundred miles an hour if they rose above any obstacles and they left the slower Hellcats behind. They did both. There was a chance the extra elevation would allow some of the ETs on the west end of the valley to take a few shots at the vehicles, but he had to risk it.

  The twenty Light Assault Vehicles ferrying Charlie and elements of the battalion’s weapons company rose some twenty feet off the ground and got moving. Someone sent a full flight of forty mini-missiles after them, but they were intercepted mid-flight by the battalion’s air-defense battery. Charlie Company kept going, only slowing down when it approached the area force fields protecting the FOB; going over sixty mph would lead to a crash against the energy shields.

  The base was in chaos. Some militiamen and civvies were still doing their jobs, but some fobbit was trying to organize a perimeter defense by handing out rifles to a bunch of militiamen who hadn’t fired a gun in anger since Basic. Fromm could only hope they wouldn’t end up with a bunch of friendly fire incidents. Not his problem. If the Vipers got to the militia’s defensive perimeter, they would tear the American volunteers to pieces. Of course, his command would be long gone by then.

  For once, things went as planned, and Charlie Company got to the pass before the Vipers, thank God for small favors. To call the narrow footpath between a series of rough natural ladders on a mountainside a pass was something of an exaggeration, but apparently the aliens had thought they could move a regiment through it. Fromm intended to disabuse them of such notions.