Mecha

by J. F. Holmes

  “We’ve got him,” one of the squad leaders called out. The targeting information came into Smythe’s computer, the targeting reticle appearing over a spot on the line. Faster triggers were already engaging, and the indication was, they were hitting an armored barrier in front of the tank.

  “Get some missiles off,” he ordered.

  They didn’t have many of the guided munitions. Only one mech per squad carried them instead of the anti-personnel weapons on the forearms. Four of the missiles streamed in at high velocity and hit the barrier, which he could now see was made up to look like earth and rocks, blasting away as the weapons struck. They blew holes through the alloy, penetrations that might have killed a tank. Unfortunately, the armor wasn’t on the tank, and any particle that blasted through merely bounced away from the body of the vehicle.

  Another mech died, and another after that, and Smythe was just about to order a retreat. The problem with that was the mechs, while able to run very fast in an upright position, weren’t able to crouch or crawl. He’d have to cross many kilometers of open ground while the tank kept them engaged the entire way. With no way to fire back. No, there was only forward, facing their enemy with the chance they might kill him.

  “Sitrep, Captain,” the voice of the battalion commander came over the com.

  I’ll give your ass a sitrep, thought Smythe, shaking in anger. There was too much to do in a battle, with one man controlling the propulsion, sighting, and firing, to also burden him with having to give reports to superiors. Smythe took in a deep breath, deciding he’d better just get on with it and hope the distraction didn’t get him killed.

  “They have a tank, sir. A monstrous fighting vehicle. And whoever’s in that thing knows what they’re doing. I’ve already lost almost twenty machines.”

  “Keep it together, Captain Smythe. We’re sending in more artillery along their front line. Push on to the target and accomplish your mission.”

  Smythe looked through his range finder. They had a little more than a couple of kilometers before they hit that line. The enemy was killing one of his mechs every two hundred meters, so only ten more lives to give before they overran the enemy line. And then what? They might be able to take out that monster. Then again, they might not.

  Half a league, half a league, half a league onward. Into the valley of death. The words kept running through his head. What had seemed like a flight of fancy at the beginning of the charge was now looking like prophecy.

  “Third squad, second platoon. I want you to swarm all over that thing as soon as we get to the line. Kill it before it gets away.”

  “It’s moved again, sir.”

  Sure enough, the fire from that position had stopped, and it looked like the tank had backed out. It was heading for another position, which meant they wouldn’t know where it was by the time the company hit the line. It also meant the tank wouldn’t be firing on them for the rest of the charge.

  “Kill everything when we hit that line,” roared Smythe. “Understand? No prisoners. We need to teach these bastards a lesson.”

  The bastards in question might not be around to carry the lesson forward, but word would get out, and if it resulted in the rebels not standing and fighting in the future, it would be worth it.

  “What about the tank?”

  “As soon as we push into the center of the village, all of third platoon is to fan out and search for it. I want it killed.”

  What would Molly think if she could see her husband now? he thought, frowning at the thought of his wife seeing her beloved husband ordering the wholesale deaths of what might be civilians caught up in the battle. She was waiting for him on Earth, having been unwilling to pick up their children and raise them on Mars. From what he’d seen of the planet, it was a better place, a better society than Earth had become. She’d been firm. She would wait for him to return at the end of his ten-year deployment, or she’d divorce him if he insisted she come along.

  They were being hit with fierce fire now, infantry weapons sending thousands of rounds a second into his company. Most were bouncing away, the few that did any damage merely knocking away sensors and external fittings. The last-ditch effort of the rebels to repel his force. His own people were killing everything that showed its head, forearm weapons sweeping the earthen ramparts, heavier shoulder mounts speaking when needed.

  With a jump Smythe was over the rampart, clearing twenty meters of Martian soil and rock that had been erected to stop his people. As his machine came to ground, legs bending to soak up the force, he immediately turned to sweep his weapons over the defenders’ side of the rampart. He spotted some hatches on the ground that had to lead to the bunkers underneath. With thirty-five-millimeter cannons barking, he burned through those hatches and dropped grenades from his launcher inside. Most of his men were doing the same, while third platoon forged on toward the flattened center of the village, blasting every structure still standing into rubble.

  Rebels popped up here and there to send fire into nearby mechs. Most did little more than provide targets for the weapons of his men. In a couple of cases they were lucky, knocking a mech out of action, but in only one did they actually kill the driver.

  “We’ve done it, lads. Now find that damned tank.” He wasn’t about to let that weapon get away. The rebels couldn’t have very many of the things, and it wasn’t something he was about to let get away to fight another day.

  A second later, the tank announced it had found them when another mech exploded as a high-velocity penetrator ripped its cockpit apart.

  ***

  “Bastards,” growled Willie Suarez, watching through the sights as the UN troopers slaughtered everything in the rebel trenches. Many of the rebels, his friends and neighbors, were standing, fighting and dying in place, their substandard body armor shredded by the auto-cannon of the mechs. Not that body armor made much difference against a direct hit from the penetrators. They might do some good against the bursting charges of near misses, but with auto-fire, most near misses were accompanied by hits, and the air misted red near bodies that suddenly went slack and fell, or were propelled against the nearest objects.

  A good number of the rebels, not soldiers in any respect, tried to escape, climbing over the ramparts or running along the trenches. All died as the mechs picked them off, leaving shredded bodies with spreading red stains surrounding them.

  You might kill all my mates, but you haven’t finished the dying yet, he thought. There were fighting positions they hadn’t been able to take advantage of. They thought they’d figured out how fast the mechs would traverse the open to get to the trenches. They’d been wrong. The crew had moved the tank to the top of a small rise while the battle raged behind them. Now they were in place, their camouflage doing a good job of blending them into the Martian soil and the red rocks around them.

  “If you see any of the enemy looking to aim a rocket at us, take them out,” Willie ordered Terry. “And you get ready to move us when I order, Josh.”

  Willie looked down on the village sitting almost a kilometer away. The rise was on the flank, giving him a good shot at the enemy. Captain Kurtz had been concerned that the UN might take the rise to fire down on the village, but they’d instead tried to recreate ancient history with a charge. It had worked, and it had cost them. Now it was going to cost them even more.

  The commander set his sights on one of the mecha that seemed to be a leader, looked over at the panel that indicated gun load, and grunted. He pulled the trigger, a part of the gun he still thought of as an anachronism, when a button would have worked as well. But a trigger took thought, making an unintended shot less likely. He didn’t have to squeeze, since his little bit of pressure would do nothing to the almost hundred and fifty tons of mass.

  The gun arced with electricity as it moved the penetrator down its length. The shot exploded from the barrel in a blast of atmosphere turned into plasma. Almost instantaneously the mech he’d been targeting went flying back in a head-over-heels tumble
, the center of the cockpit blown open like a can shot by a rifle.

  Got you, thought the tank commander, turning the turret to the next target. He used the manual levers to move it onto the target, then pressed a foot switch that set the auto-aim system into action, locking the shot on the target. The enemy, in the meantime, were looking for the tank they knew had to be responsible for the death of another comrade. They were looking in the wrong place, thinking it must be somewhere in the village. Eventually they would note his location, and he would either have to move or stand and accept their fire. The Beast was a tough old boy, but in this kind of warfare, anything that could be seen could be killed, eventually.

  He got off another shot, and another mech went over. He didn’t think he got a clean kill with the shot, but any machine knocked out of the battle was a victory. Taking a quick moment, he glanced at where the captain had made his last stand, to see the bodies and splashed blood that were all that remained of the command group of the company. He couldn’t tell which body was the captain’s, or if he was even in that clump of bodies.

  The sight of the dead sent him into a rage. No, knocking out a mere machine wasn’t enough. He had to kill the drivers, make sure they wouldn’t fight again.

  His third shot was a sure kill, the cockpit shattered, body parts in armored suit pieces flying out into the air. That was the one that got their attention, and several of the mechs pointed arms his way. Electric sparks flew over the barrels of their weapons as torrents of shells hit his tank, clanging off the outside in a hammering like iron rain failing on a steel roof.

  “We’re taking drive damage, Willie,” shouted Josh.

  The tank commander merely nodded and set up the next target. He was determined to kill as many as he could before his machine was knocked out of action. Willie pulled the trigger and sent another round into the enemy, killing yet another United Nations trooper. Another man whose family on Earth would miss him, if he had one. Willie didn’t care about any family the enemy might have. He didn’t care about Earth. If he’d had a gun that could shatter the homeworld, he’d take the shot without hesitation.

  Terry was arcing shells from the thirty-five-millimeter secondary down into the enemy, doing some damage to mechs that caught his fire, mostly spoiling their concentration as they tried to get their machines under cover. Rounds were continuing to hit the hull and the front of the turret, the staccato rhythm setting the commander’s nerves on edge. There was a heavy grunt to his left in the turret, accompanied by the sound off something hitting the hull.

  Shit, thought Willie as he looked over to see Terry’s body sliding down in his seat, a good portion of his chest opened. A round had finally made it through the armor, hitting a weak point where many other penetrators had wreaked their damage. A mist of blood hung in the air of the compartment, moving out through the hole in the lesser pressure of the outside atmosphere.

  “Sarge. I’m hit,” Josh called out just as the commander was firing at another mech. He missed, cursing under his breath, realizing he was starting to rush his shots.

  “How bad?”

  “Just some fragments from the hull in my left arm,” groaned the driver. “I don’t know how bad, but I can’t do much with it, and it hurts like hell.”

  “Back us up behind that big rock to our right.” He hated to stop the engagement of the enemy, but they were getting chewed up, and would do the rebellion no good if they were destroyed up here on this rise.

  The driver got them behind the rock and out of the enemy’s line of fire. The man was breathing heavily into his tank comm, and Willie wondered just how bad he was hurt.

  “I’m about to pass out, Sarge. Sorry.” Silence, except for the ragged breathing that told him the man was still alive.

  So it’s up to me, thought Willie, a feeling of intense loneliness coming over him. He had one dead in the crew, one who might be dying, and he really didn’t want to join them. He also didn’t want to let up on the UN mechs. And now that they knew where he was, they’d be coming for him.

  ***

  “He’s up there, sir. On that rise.”

  Smythe swiveled his sensor head to see where the trooper was indicating. The man was not only pointing to the location, he was firing on it, just as he’d been trained. More drivers turned their weapons that way and fired. The captain could barely make out the vehicle now among the dust and rock fragments rising up around it. The tank was hull down behind some low rocks, only the turret visible, and even that had been hard to see until it opened fire. It had to have some active camo built into its armor.

  “Switch to mini-shape charges,” the captain ordered over the comm. The firing ceased for a moment while his men cycled the new rounds into their cannon, an act that only took a couple of seconds. Time enough for the tank to take out another of his mechs.

  The mini-shapes had been made to take on tough bunkers, not a kinetic sponge as the tank’s iridium armor seemed to be. They only had fifty rounds each, which might not be enough. Still, it was something they could hit it with, and maybe get better results.

  “Hit it with rockets,” he yelled over the comm, leaving it to the troopers so equipped to pick their targets.

  One rocket streaked from the arm unit of a mech, hitting a stream of outgoing rounds and exploding before it was halfway to the target. Another curved around to avoid the fire, unfortunately increasing its flight time. A burst of auto fire from the tank took out the missile, then swung on the mech that had fired it and blasted away. The mech tottered, then fell over. Smythe sucked in a breath, then let it out when he saw that his trooper had survived, though his machine was out of action.

  Sparks were flying off the forward turret of the tank, while several of the rocks shielding the hull exploded into dust, exposing part of the hull. Sparks were flying all over the areas hit, while puffs of vapor rose into the air. Most of the troopers were concentrating their fire on a part of the turret, while others concentrated on the hull, where the driver had to be stationed.

  The tank took out another mech, the main gun hitting it dead center, while the coaxial hit another of his rocket troopers. Suddenly there was a large flash on the left side of the turret, and the coaxial went dead. Moments later, another flash appeared on the hull. With luck, they’d just gotten the gunner. With better luck, they might have killed the driver as well.

  The main gun fired again, this time missing its intended target. The tank scooted back, down whatever slope was behind it, and out of sight.

  “We’ve hurt him, lads. Now let’s finish him. Second platoon, on me. The rest of you men, make sure there are no survivors in this village.”

  “Even the noncombatants, sir?” asked the first sergeant with a disapproving tone.

  “There are no noncombatants among this scum,” growled the angry company commander. He’d lost more than a third of his company charging into this death trap, and he was determined to exact payment for every one of them. But first, to take care of the thing that had been responsible for all but a couple of his casualties.

  The eighteen surviving mech of second platoon, now his strongest, arrayed themselves in formation with him, their platoon leader on the right flank. He ran his machine to the right side of the rise, planning to come up behind the tank and hit it in the traditional weak spot. Now he just had to hope the vehicle crew cooperated.

  ***

  “Josh. Can you hear me, son?”

  There was no answer over the intercom. He couldn’t even hear breathing over it. He would have to leave the turret and go down to the driving compartment if he wanted to check on the man. He didn’t think he’d have that time, since the tank’s audio pickups were telling him that machines were approaching.

  The air on Mars was still thin, even after over a century of terraforming efforts, about a tenth of one Earth atmosphere at this altitude. The tank, like all Martian military equipment, had audio pickups that fed into a computer, giving the soldiers about as good audio as they’d have had on Earth w
ith no augmentation.

  The tank lay in a gulley that was barely wider than it was. There was no way he could turn it and go up the sides. The only ways out were forward and back, and he knew that back there was a canyon he wouldn’t be able to cross. Should have gone down the other side, he thought, though at the time that had seemed like the worst of the decision tree. That was a wide plain where they’d have been picked out and brought under fire immediately. In coming up here, they’d swung wider and gone around the narrow canyon, then up a rock bridge. He’d made a driving error and had found himself falling into the gulley, stuck. And it sounded like they were coming right up the gulley at him.

  Could be worse, he thought, checking his ammo load and grunting as the figure eleven came up on the counter. He thought that was more than enough, and doubted he’d get more than a couple off before the fight was over. Well, come on, you bastards. I don’t have all day. No, what he had was the rest of his life.

  The first of the mechs came into view, jogging around the bend sixty meters ahead, all weapons pointed his way, and more machines to either side. He waited the two seconds it would take for more of them to come into view. Shots hit the hull and the front of the turret, sparking off. A rocket hit the hull right where the driver’s compartment was located. If Josh hadn’t died already, he was surely dead now. If their intent had been to cripple the tank, they hadn’t, since he had full driving control from his position.

  The gun spoke, sending a high-velocity round through his target, heavily damaging the two mechs following. He tried to cycle the next round in, but the mechanism refused to work. Fire was penetrating the tank, and the internal damage was mounting.

  Nothing else for it, he thought with sorrow as he pushed the accelerator forward, and the tank took off down the gully, straight for the enemy. He never even found out if his last gambit had been successful, as a pair of rockets burst through the weakened turret armor and snuffed his life out in an instant.