“Roger that.” The sniper allowed his crosshairs to bounce slightly off the target as he began tracking the larger phalanx of Dupes edging through the darkness. With his finger curled snuggly around his trigger; all he could do now was wait to unleash hell.
The carbon black barrel of Hollsworth’s rifle protruded from a mound of rubble where he lay hidden with several other officers. Breath caught firmly in his throat; he also had the motley line of Dupes in his sights as they cautiously entered the seemingly deserted base.
Every concealed officer positioned near him took tense, shallow breaths as they watched the enemy draw closer to them.
From this distance, the Dupes looked surprisingly human, as their armor and weaponry were essentially a hodge-podge of scavenged gear. The Lead Dupe slinked up to the abandoned TAV, its rifle panning across the scene of devastation on the ground, taking in the scattering of human and alien bodies. It had taken the bait.
Eyes unmoving, Hollsworth whispered into his comms to Mace. “They’re nearly on you. Eight yards and closing.”
“Copy that,” Mace whispered back over comms. “You are clear to engage.”
“Solid copy.” Hollsworth then switched channels to his sniper cells. “Overwatch One and Two, you may fire when ready.”
Huddled in the turret basket with their rifles, Mace and Matt sat in dark silence, listening for any movement outside the vehicle. Once Hollsworth had issued the warning of their approach, they had made sure to turn off all digital outputs on their gear and weaponry.
When they suddenly heard the dull scraping and thuds of combat boots against the TAV, Mace made a gesture for Matt to get ready as one of the Dupes was attempting to climb up to reach the overhead hatch. “Get ready to light those fuckers up,” Mace whispered.
The Lead Dupe watched with growing suspicion as one of its comrades began scaling the TAV, looking around to take in the eerily deserted scene. It did not like the exposure here. They were standing in the middle of an open courtyard. Something also felt off, almost as if the entire scene had been staged. Had the human base been abruptly abandoned, or was this some form of tactical deception? Feeling the sudden sensation of being watched, the Lead Dupe turned and signaled for the others behind it to halt their advance.
But before they could, a hypersonic round struck the Dupe that was climbing onto the vehicle. It vanished in a cloud of ash as ionized plasma began to smash into the gravel.
Startled, the Lead Dupe spun around, ordering every Dupe to drop to the ground.
There was no time to reach the cover of the vehicle, so they tried merging with the ground as more high-powered sniper rounds blew geysers of dirt and splintered gravel around them.
From his stomach, the Lead Dupe raised its scope and began searching for the distant source of fire but was struck in the upper cheek before it could locate a target. Its body evaporated instantly from the immense heat, the ash cloud wafting back over the other terrified Dupes.
Now panicked and leaderless, some of them lunged to their feet and tried fleeing back the way they came, but they had no chance of escape.
Matt was already unloading on them from the turret basket, whipping long bursts into the darkness, making the turret sound like an evil chainsaw.
The ones that remained, barked orders to each other, trying to create some semblance of order from the madness.
Mace watched with glee through the gunner’s lower viewport, barely able to rein in his excitement as Matt’s HP-Z rounds strobed the night like tracer fire, shredding bodies in a deafening maelstrom of energy, Dupes vanishing into rags and ash.
Through his targeting HUD, Matt caught two strays on his left side that had broken away from the main cluster of Dupes. He whipped his turret around and spat another long burst into the fleeing enemy. The gunner seat he was sitting in vibrated wildly from the recoil. When the dust and smoke cleared, Matt could see there was nothing left of them except a smoldering trench that he had gouged out of the earth. “Clear!”
Mace turned and slapped his shoulder. “Nice shootin’, greenie.” He then popped open the turret hatch and took a peep at the devastation outside. “Vanguard, this is TAV Bravo. We are clear at this position. How’re you lookin’?” Static crackled across Mace’s faceplate, causing him to swivel to Hollsworth’s position among the rubble.
Dark. No movement.
Then, he started to see shapes moving. The Brits were preparing for something, cocking weapons, sighting down muzzles, crouching in debris, quickly repositioning.
“Hollsworth, do you read me? I need a sit-rep, over.”
There was another hiss of static until Hollsworth’s voice suddenly blasted into Mace’s ears. It was dripping with fear. “Incoming. New targets, bearing… ugh... your ten… no, eleven o’clock. They have a Stalker!”
“What?” Mace spun to his elven and raised his rifle, sighting the position beyond the base’s perimeter. “How in the fresh hell… where’d they get another one from?”
Without sighting it through his turret’s rangefinder, Matt could already hear the deep rumble of the Stalker’s engines coming their way. The ground underneath was starting to vibrate. He exhaled a breathless hush and stabbed the foot pedals, swiveling the turret around to face this new incoming threat. The dynamic had changed greatly. One TAV against a Stalker was not good odds. But then again, none of this was to begin with. He switched back to his primary targeting HUD and waited for his orders, spotting the ionized fumes of the Stalker exhaust, rippling above the base’s sandbagged perimeter.
The pain train was coming.
Mace’s crosshairs landed on the torrent of Dupes that were now flowing out from the darkness, surrounding the base entirely. Hundreds of grey eyes glowed nocturnal in his scope’s night-vision. It was an army. And trudging amongst them was the terrifying and unmistakable arachnoid form of a Stalker, its powerful cannon already glowing molten orange.
Mace paled when he realized its cannon was aimed directly at him. “All stations, weapons free!” He only had enough time to bark the order into his comms when the Stalker fired a volley of plasma rockets on their position.
The rockets unzipped the air with an excruciating scream, cratering the ground in front of the stationary TAV, the exploded rockets vomiting special, armor-busting shrapnel. The force of the impact lifted the 40-ton vehicle into the air.
Mace jolted as the vehicle bucked like a stallion, nearly tossing him out of the hatch. But as he went to duck back down, his was peppered with some shrapnel. He collapsed into the turret basket, landing on his ass with a heavy thud as another spray of red-hot fragments ricocheted through the vehicle, a small piece grazing Matt’s right arm, forcing him to leap out of the gunner’s chair and drop to the floor, ducking for cover.
When he heard a sharp crack, he looked up to see a jagged piece of metal embedded into a support strut above him, inches from his head. At that moment, he began to feel something warm sliding down his left arm. He looked down to see his arm was bleeding. “Fuck! That Stalker is firing shrapnel spitters!”
“Yeah… armor busting, evil sons-a-bitches!” Mace responded.
Now slightly paled from shock, Matt looked up to see Mace slumped upright against the pocked hull, blood splattered across his spiderwebbed faceplate. His HUD was also glitching, creating weird digital prisms of color that looked like a malfunctioning TV.
“Sir, you’ve been hit.”
Matt moved to assist him but was shooed away as Mace gingerly peeled the pocked helmet off his head, thick ropes of blood drooling into his lap from a deep slice on his chin. “Don’t worry about me,” he growled through chipped teeth. “Get back on that turret and start shooting. Those Dupes will be all over us like roaches any moment.” Mace spat a wad of blood onto the floor and lifted his rifle, readying himself to pick off any Dupes that might attempt to storm the overhead hatch, or the hatch located further along in the troop cabin.
As Matt went to climb back into the gunner’s chair, he noticed
some heavy tubing underneath one of the turret’s recoil-dampening cradles had started leaking fluid. It had been hit with shrapnel. When he went to reach for a nearby extinguisher attached to a wall bracket, a small fire broke out. He immediately clipped off the extinguisher and wasted no time blasting the fire, smothering it with a cloud of bicarbonate.
Visibility inside the turret basket was now low, and the vehicle was filling with the acrid stench of smoke and hydraulic fluid.
Mace grimaced as he picked himself up and started moving towards the basket’s exit, making sure to stay low. “We gotta— start— moving…” he croaked in-between coughs. “One more direct hit from that Stalker and we’re done.” Suddenly, a volley of small arms fire hit the TAV, sounding like hail on a tin roof. With his chin and upper chest armor now slick with blood, Mace stopped and peered out the scuffed viewport next to him, trying to see through the smoke.
Outside, he could just make out vague muzzle flashes erupting all around them. Human and Dupe shadows danced and twisted in the dark as both sides traded fire, tracers of light streaking back-and-forth across the base’s courtyard in a crackling symphony of destruction. The army of Dupes continued coursing through the base’s walls like some black miasma, using the Stalker to suppress Hollsworth’s forward position in the rubble. Some distant explosions around the perimeter blossomed, the result of various mines and booby-traps being detonated, but it was not enough to stem the flow of Dupes surging into the base. He tilted his head left towards the forward emplacements located above the base’s main entrance. There was no visible activity. Chances are the crew that had been manning those weapons were already dead.
Mace shook his head and spat blood again before speaking. “How much ammo we got left on that turret?”
Matt jumped back into the gunner’s seat and wrenched a lever next to it, opening the ammunition feed tray. “Recoil assembly’s been shot, and there’s no Z-16’s… but we’ve still got plenty of HP-Z’s.”
“How much is plenty?”
“Four tins, each with three full belts.”
“Stay on that turret until you start shooting blanks. We gotta get into the fight and thin out those ranks. Smoke as many as you can.”
“Roger that, sir.” Matt could see the captain starting to pale, the result of significant blood loss. The gash on his chin was deep enough to reveal a tiny fleck of jawbone. As he went to cue up his targeting HUD, he paused and looked back at Mace. “You gonna be alright, sir?”
Mace looked at him through the smoky haze and gave a weary nod. “Better than ever, greenie.” He then climbed into the driver’s cab.
Licking his bone-dry lips, Matt turned and refocused on his task, grabbing hold of the turret. He fired several long bursts into a line of advancing Dupes, cutting them down as if they were made of rice paper. Then, he felt a sudden jolt as the huge engine kicked over and the TAV started moving, headed straight for the churning swell of enemy troops.
Within moments of being spotted, the Dupes had dialed in on Hollsworth and his fireteam. He had relayed Mace’s order for all combat stations around the base to start firing on the advancing line, but it was a calamity the second the Stalker came into view. Men and women all around him started blowing apart as the enormous war machine drilled into their position.
Above the relentless chaos, Hollsworth heard a series of huge explosions behind him. He spun to see the distant cliff face behind the base shatter into pieces like chalk, the plateau collapsing into a cloud of dust like a melting iceberg crashing into the sea. Firing two thermal rockets, the Stalker had just taken out both his sniper cells in a matter of seconds.
As he went to turn back to face the enemy, he met eyes with one of his officers. He was crouched about ten yards behind him, almost cowering among the debris as plasma beams rattled past him on both sides. The hopelessness and fear that was etched into the young man’s face, was enough to give Hollsworth pause. He vaguely recalled the boy’s name, but oddly, clearly remembered the small town he was from, a few miles outside of Salisbury. He then looked around as if shellshocked, as if suddenly realizing he was not the only person here.
There were scores of men and women around the base doing the same thing; some used corpses for cover, some huddled behind burning debris and wreckage, edging their way past shredded bodies as fire scorched the air above them. Some were wounded, moaning, and thrashing as they clung to their last gasp of life. Despite already knowing the obvious, the stark realization they were gravely outmatched for this final stand lanced through Hollsworth like a hot spear. That guilt and horror felt unmoving like it would be frozen inside him forever.
At that second, when he turned back to the young officer, he was gone, cut in half by a salvo of plasma fire.
Hollsworth winced and closed his eyes, his faceplate’s HUD flickering slightly as it was sprayed with blood and dust. Somewhere close by, a panicked female voice now echoed into his ringing ears; harsh and shrill.
When he opened his eyes, as if breaking free from a trance, he saw a young officer crouched next to him, her slender body pressed against a lopsided slab of concrete, looking at him as if she were waiting for a reply.
“Sir, we need to fall back!” she screamed. “We can’t maintain this position!”
Hollsworth just looked at her and gave a vacant nod of his head.
Then, beyond her, he spotted Mace steering the TAV towards the advancing enemy line, its turret glowing white-hot as it belched fire, knocking Dupes down like they were bowling pins. To his relief, Mace and his greenie were still very much in the fight.
He looked back at the female officer again, his eyes hardening with resolve. “No… we fight. We fight for Queen and Country. For Earth!” And with that, he turned and started charging the line directly, firing his rifle in controlled bursts, leaping over dead bodies and those still pinned behind cover.
Some officers watched with bewilderment as Hollsworth blew past them, headed straight towards the carnage. It looked like he’d lost his mind to suicide. But his heartfelt battle cry was enough for some officers to be roused from their fear-stricken stupor, perhaps even humiliated into action. Those that chose to charge behind their Lieutenant, stood and followed him into the fight, screaming while the others laid down suppressive fire.
With the female officer now caught up with Hollsworth, they sprinted another hundred yards, charging through the barrage before the Dupes could shorten their range. Hollsworth suddenly pulled up, got to one knee, and started pulverizing the advancing line, waiting for the remaining officers to cross the gutted trenches and reach him.
When he spotted a nearby crew of Dupe’s attempting to set up a mobile thermite cannon, he stormed their position, killing the remaining would-be gunner with a single burst to the cranium. The other officers joined him in seizing the formidable weapon.
Hollsworth wasted no time. He jumped into the gunnery bracket and yanked the insidious-looking barrel around to face the enemy, firing back into them. There were blue flashes of splintered bone and armor as Hollsworth strafed them in long, sweeping arcs, the other officers behind him now shouting orders to each other over the high-pitched din.
All around them, the Dupes at this position of the base started fleeing back towards the mouth of the gorge, trying to outrun the merciless barrage of thermite cannon fire.
Hollsworth and his soldiers were amazed by how quickly the tide had suddenly turned. This was now a battle of will, and nothing more. Still firing, Hollsworth turned back to his officers with an appreciative nod, silently acknowledging their bravery in joining him.
But their victory was short-lived.
Their act had caught the Stalker’s attention, its driver now pivoting to fire on their position, its massive cannon roiling the ground as if it were being hammered by torrential rain.
Suddenly, a massive explosion went up behind Hollsworth and his squad, causing a nearby munitions case for the thermite cannon to ignite, setting off a devastating chain reaction that en
gulfed them in an inferno. Thick gouts of flame mushroomed skyward on a column of greasy black smoke. It all happened so quickly, no one had any time to react.
All twelve officers pitched over and fell to the ground, writhing in agony as they burned alive, fully immolated until they were mercifully cut down by a flurry of enemy gunfire.
Thirty-Four
In the underground power bunker, there was a low din of murmurs and coughs as Roberts idly moved between rows of injured officers, her mind consumed with worry. Despite no heat generating from the core, the bunker still felt stiflingly humid, and aside from the few portable field lighting units, it was near pitch-black. Roberts found that moving through the room offered little relief, and every few minutes she had to push aside the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia that stubbornly refused to leave her.
She passed a group of medics picking through some crates that had been carried underground with them. They used whatever was available to keep the injured officers as comfortable as possible. Most of the injured were clustered around the large generator that rose out of a metallic rotunda in the center of the room, resting on gurneys and thermal cooling blankets. The generator itself was the size of a three-story house, shaped like an A4W naval reactor one might find in the bowels of a present-day warship.
Everyone suddenly jolted when a heavy explosion outside thudded against the bunker with a muffled boom, indicating the Dupes had arrived at the base. Roberts instinctively ducked, looking up at the ceiling to notice a tiny sprinkling of concrete debris between a hair-thin fissure.
The ceiling and walls of this bunker were at least ten feet thick, constructed out of reinforced steel with an outer casing of concrete blocks and moldings. Although technically not a bomb shelter, the construction was designed to protect critical power outlets from the threat of aerial shelling. The Wraith were also fond of sabotaging USC power supplies via remote hacks and EMP strikes, so the bunkers were also cladded in a special signal-blocking material.
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