by Richard Fox
Gor’al reached for it, then paused. “You first, friend,” the Dotari said.
Duke dug out a bit and slipped it between his cheek and gums, then gave the rest to Gor’al, who put the can up to his beak and nibbled at the contents as the two slouched against the wall.
“Shame about Opal,” Duke said, stretching his legs out.
“He was mighty. What did the lieutenant say? ‘We are less without him’?”
“Sounds right.”
“I understand this concept,” Gor’al said, his tongue darting out and dabbing against the tobacco. “We Dotari say, ‘None can take his place on the lists,’ because when—”
“I got it.” Duke spat into an empty water bottle. “Rough on us…worse on the LT. He’s been with Opal for years and years.”
Gor’al remained silent for a bit and then said, “I believe…we may never leave this place. But I am untroubled. Dotari should be beside the Union. We would be extinct without you…the Breitenfeld. I wish more of my people were here.”
“It make a difference?”
“Likely not, but our people have shed blood beside each other for so long…it is wrong to be apart when you humans need us. No matter the cost.”
“Who needs the rest of the Dotari? We got you,” Duke said, tapping his foot against Gor’al’s.
“I would like them here…I could trade my coffee berries for many rolls of dip.”
“Really…maybe I do have another roll somewhere.”
“You don’t. I checked your bag when you weren’t looking.”
“You little sh—” Duke reached for Gor’al’s can but the Dotari snapped his beak at his hand and Duke pulled it back fast.
“I’m going to remember that,” Duke said, spitting again.
“So will I.”
****
Hoffman leaned against a generator, his eyes to the night sky. The fighting in orbit seemed to have intensified in the last few minutes, but he had no idea who was winning. His mind tugged him back to Opal, to the last moments he had with him, but he kept his focus on the void fight.
“Hoffman,” came from above.
He turned around and looked up at Gideon.
“How’d you sneak up on me?” he asked.
“I didn’t. Your mind was elsewhere.” Gideon went down to one knee, bringing his helm almost level with Hoffman’s. “Aignar will pull through. I have not thanked you properly.”
“It’s…don’t. I’m sorry for saying he might not be worth it. You got me at a bad moment.” Hoffman looked down at Opal’s dog tags, still wrapped around his hand.
“Who was he? Those tags are…antique.”
“Doughboy. Opal. They came off the line so fast before the second Xaros invasion that no one bothered to make biometric chits for them.” Hoffman tapped his chest where his own ID was stored. “They were cannon fodder. Meant to be nice, fat targets for the Xaros drones, take the heat so that proper humans could do more damage. Not like anyone cared enough to keep track if they lived or died. I started off as just another face. Altered in the proccie tubes to look like some guy named Jared Hale so the doughboys would glom onto me. Come across a half dozen without their wrangler? Lift my visor, say the right words and they’d imprint on me. Lose them? Get a dozen more. Keep up the fight.”
“I never liked the idea of expendable soldiers,” Gideon said. “Callous.”
“But they held the line,” Hoffman said. “They held…now they’re all gone. I should consider myself lucky. All the other faces lost their boys years ago. I’d see them sometimes. After the war we got our original looks back so you couldn’t tell at a glance who was a face…but I knew. They’d see Opal and they’d just freeze, staring at him like a long-lost friend. I’d see the pain on their face…never really understood what they felt until now. All of my doughboys are gone. All gone.”
“He died well?” Gideon asked.
Hoffman nodded slowly.
“May we all be so fortunate. There is an old adage among the armor, one that fell away when the Templar came into the ranks.” Gideon paused for a moment and his helm lifted to the horizon. “‘Til Valhalla.’ You know this?”
“No.”
“I am not one for religion, Hoffman, but I understand others’ need for it. The warriors that pass before us…they expect us to join them in honor when it is our time. Opal died well. The best honor I can show him is to die the same way,” Gideon said.
“You’re armor. Doubt that’ll be a problem.”
Gideon’s head cocked to one side as gauss fire rose in the distance.
“Heavy contact. East. Sector 37,” Gideon said and stood up. “Get your Marines over there.” He took off at a run, his heavy feet stomping against the ground.
Sirens wailed across Gold Beach.
“Hammers!” Hoffman called out and his team burst from the recovery tent. “Follow me!”
Chapter 10
Bullets snapped overhead as Hoffman and his team ran for the perimeter wall. He jumped over the edge of a still-smoking shell crater and ignored the flames of a wrecked air defense cannon. The roar of Union and Kesaht fighters grew louder as the dogfight descended lower and lower toward the ground.
The strong point of sector 37 was a blown-out building, the walls crumbling as shells struck from beyond the perimeter. Rangers and sailors manning the wall fired nonstop from the ramparts down at targets Hoffman could see.
“We’re heading to the right place,” Garrison said as they passed the remnants of a wide chimney next to a collapsed building.
“It’s like this all over,” Booker said. “Look.” She motioned to one side and Hoffman saw that the entire perimeter was engaged.
On the ramparts, sailors in light armor scrambled over the back and slid down the small rise of debris.
“Faster,” Steuben said, lengthening his stride and putting distance between him and Hoffman.
Rakka boiled over the defenses, firing wildly and hooting their war cry.
“Hammers!” Hoffman charged up his gauss rifle. “Forward!” He hit the base of the rise and started firing as he charged up.
Rangers fought the Rakka tooth and nail, beating at the aliens with clubs made from whatever they’d scrounged from the battlefield. Hoffman shot a Rakka through the chest and the bullet knocked another foe off its feet.
Hoffman didn’t stop. Firing from the hip as he reached the ramparts, he slammed the butt of his rifle into a Rakka that was punching a soldier pinned beneath its bulk. The alien’s head cracked to one side, lolling at an ugly angle before Hoffman shoved it away.
Rifle fire from his team picked off more aliens as they tried to come over the top.
Steuben slashed his scimitar across a Rakka’s neck, sending a line of blood across the trench wall.
A bone club smacked into the wall next to Hoffman’s head. He looked up at a Rakka shaman decked out in still-bloody human bones as it raised its weapon again. Bending at the waist, he twisted his rifle up, shooting the shaman in the stomach, his rounds blowing out the alien’s shoulders. It fell backwards.
“Get up here and—”
A bayonet stabbed through the wall and grazed Hoffman’s side as a Sanheel kicked down the wall and reared up, then struck at the lieutenant with steel and spike-clad hooves. Hoffman got his arms up to block most of the blow, but one hoof bounced off his forearm and struck him in the visor. Hoffman bounced off the back of the trench, stunned.
The Sanheel readied a thrust with its bayonet, then its head vanished in a puff of bloody mist. The alien wavered for a moment, then collapsed into a heap. Hoffman tossed a grenade through the gap the Sanheel had made and glanced back.
Duke was in the top of the chimney they’d passed. Ice Claw fired again and the crack of a hypervelocity round snapped over Hoffman’s head.
A pair of hairy, clawed hands grabbed Hoffman by the shoulders and bashed him against the wall. A bloody Rakka snarled at him, then pulled a jagged knife from a cloth belt.
Steuben�
��s scimitar hacked through the base of its neck, lodging in its sternum. Wrenching the blade out, Steuben grabbed the dead Rakka before it could fall and threw it over the trench wall like a sack of garbage.
“You understand the point of this, yes?” Steuben asked as he slapped the flat of his blade against his leg and knocked off a fan of blood.
“Yeah, think I get it.” Hoffman got to his feet and shook his head to clear his vision. Through the gap, he saw the Rakka retreating. Hoffman put rounds into them until the last had vanished into the dead city.
“Just in time. Got to love it,” Garrison said, picking up a hunk of rotten wood and stuffing it into the gap in the wall.
“Goddamn REMFs,” said the Ranger—a woman—that Hoffman had saved. Using the trench wall to help her stand back up, she waved Booker away. “Put squids on the walls and what do they think’ll happen?”
She looked over the back of the trench and waved at a gaggle of sailors at the base of the rise, signaling them back up with curt movements of her hand. The sailors hesitated.
“Gunney,” Hoffman said.
“On it.” King vaulted over the back and made for the sailors.
“Fighting’s stopped all around the perimeters,” Max said as he craned his neck up and over the trench.
“Kesaht realized it was us on the walls,” Garrison said.
“Thanks, Ranger Morris, who exactly are you all?” she asked.
“Valdar’s Hammers,” Gor’al said. “We have our own appreciation short films on Dotari networks.”
“Wait you’re a—” she looked at Gor’al, then gaped at Steuben “—and you must be…Wait. Is the Breitenfeld here? I thought it was captured by the Ibarrans.”
“It was,” Hoffman said, pointing King—who was leading the sullen-looking group of sailors—to an unmanned part of the line.
“Then how’re you all here?” Morris asked.
“We were in escape pods when the Ibarrans attacked,” Garrison said.
“You what?” Morris deadpanned.
“Kesaht escape pods,” Garrison said. “I should’ve led with that, huh? Because we’d just blown up their dreadnought. That was attacking a colony. Saved a bunch of lives. Killed Kesaht armor. Did you know they have their own armor? Big metal beasts with claws like—”
Booker slapped the back of his helmet.
“Then you tell her why we weren’t on the ship when the tube babies hit it,” Garrison said, picking up a rock the size of his torso and hefting it into the gap. “Oh look, more work for me to do.”
“You’re Valdar’s Hammers,” Morris said. “From that ship…gott mit uns.”
“Gott mit uns,” Hoffman said.
“Gott mit uns!” came from a sailor down the line. The call spread from defender to defender. They brandished their weapons and punched them into the sky with each word as the Breitenfeld’s motto became a chant.
Hoffman, his ears ringing and body aching from the punishment it had taken, looked around, almost in shock. He touched the ship’s crest on his armor and wiped alien blood off it. Their situation was desperate, the enemy without number, but the Union troops were rallying behind the words.
Hoffman grabbed the top of the trench and hauled himself up, in full view of the defenders and any enemy beyond the walls.
“Gott mit uns!” he shouted, joining the chant.
Gor’al jumped up beside him and removed his helmet in the excitement, his long quills spilling out. “Cod! Mittens!” the Dotari yelled as he beat his chest and hugged Hoffman’s arm.
“Sir, you see those enemy vehicles coming, right?” Duke asked through the IR.
Hoffman looked to Kesaht territory and caught a glimpse of massive tanks churning through the dead city, rolling right through old buildings. He shoved the Dotari off the trench wall and jumped back down.
“Armor,” Hoffman said and pointed at Max. “Call them up. Now, now, now!”
“Sending,” Max said.
“Shape charges,” King said as he tossed cylindrical grenades with plastic handles to the Marines. “Remember your angle. Hit them as straight on as possible or it’ll foul the charge.”
“Let’s hope the Kesaht drive their tanks just right.” Garrison caught a grenade and frowned at it. “I don’t think these will cut it.”
“Network’s going crazy,” Max said, one hand to the side of his helmet. “Some other signal’s stepping on it. I can’t get anything through.”
A heavy-caliber machine gun rattled from the Kesaht tanks and bullets tore through the top of the trench wall.
Hoffman threw himself flat, one hand gripping his shape-charge grenade with everything he had.
“I can get one good shot,” Duke sent. “Might as well burn a whole charge.”
Ice Claw fired, the full power of the rail rifle put into a single bullet. The gauss round shattered the sound barrier and the crack slapped Hoffman’s helmet. A line of fire traced the bullet’s path overhead and an explosion rumbled from beyond the defenses.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Duke shouted and jumped out of the chimney, Ice Claw in hand. A tank shell struck the chimney and it blossomed into a spray of dust and rock. The sniper hit the ground feet first, knees and ankles together. He rolled with the momentum and into the burning wreck of the anti-air gun emplacement, then bolted through the other side, slapping flame from his weapon.
“Here they come,” Garrison said as he twisted his grenade, an audible pop telling him it was activated. He peeked over the parapet, then sidestepped as bullets from a Kesaht machine gun ripped through where he’d been.
“Covering fire?” Garrison asked as he tapped the weapon against the wall.
“Wait for it,” Hoffman said, standing up on the firing step and sending a burst into a Kesaht tank. The machine was wide and squat, with slab treads and two turret barrels. He shot off a bundle of antennae and ducked back down.
Garrison reached back with his grenade, propped himself up and hurled it in an arc, turning away before it could explode.
A tank shell slammed into the trench and blew out a storm of dirt and debris. The concussion knocked Hoffman into Steuben, and the two went down in a pile. Hoffman pulled himself free first, his world a gray fog of smoke and dust. He found Garrison half-buried, his armor beat up, blood seeping out of the joints in his arm and right side.
“Booker,” Hoffman called out, but there was no answer. “Anybody?”
The corpsman appeared through the gloom, her medi-gauntlet raised and sensor palm activated. She put one hand to the top of Garrison’s head and held him steady as he tried to get up. “Nope. Stay right there,” she said.
Hoffman knocked debris off the breacher. Garrison’s right leg looked worse than his arm.
“Did I get it?” Garrison asked.
Hoffman looked over his shoulder to the new gap in the defenses and saw a burning tank, the turret blown off and lying upside down next to the rest of it.
“You did good, Garrison,” Hoffman said.
“I see…” Garrison raised his left hand up weakly. “I see angels.”
“You’re not hurt that bad,” Booker said. “Flesh wounds. I’m giving you a coagulant and—”
“They’re up there…ow,” Garrison exclaimed as he tried to reach higher.
“You’re not getting the good painkillers, you pussy.” Booker shook her head.
“But I see them…”
Hoffman followed Garrison’s hand and slapped Booker on the shoulder.
“Sir, I’m trying to stabilize him. Don’t—what in the ass?”
Wings of fire descended toward Kesaht’ka, each bearing a massive, dark armored warrior. The wings flared as the angels neared the ground, then snapped off. One of the warriors landed next to Hoffman with an earth-rattling thud.
Booker threw herself over Garrison while Hoffman stared up in wonder.
Armor. It was armor—painted black with red Templar crosses emblazoned across the chest and shoulders.
The armor took a g
auss rifle nearly the size of Hoffman off its back and put two rounds through the gap in the defenses. Its helm looked down at Hoffman.
“Nicodemus,” came from the speakers. “Ibarra Nation. We’re here to get you out.”
“Sir?” King shouted from the trench, his barrel switching back and forth between the Ibarran Armor and the Kesaht still advancing toward him. “Do we…what do we do?”
More armor landed beyond the trench line and joined the battle.
“Ibarrans?” Hoffman put himself between Nicodemus and the wounded Garrison. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“This thing on?” Nicodemus tapped the speakers under the chin of his helm.
Behind him, a Kesaht tank crashed through the top of the trench line. The turret slewed toward the armor.
Nicodemus swung his massive rifle like a club and bent a tube to the side. He stepped closer and grabbed the tank just above the treads, lifting it up and onto its side, exposing its underbelly. The tank’s treads kept spinning, churning through the dirt.
Then he pulled one arm back—the arm with a double-barreled gauss cannon fixed to the forearm—and Nicodemus’s hand vanished into the housing, a diamond-tipped spike snapping into its place. He punched through the tank’s armor, ripped out a hole and fired his gauss cannons into the tank. There was a ping ping ping as the bullets ricocheted around the inside.
A bullet spat out and kicked up dirt a few feet from Garrison’s head.
“Hey!” Booker shouted.
“Sorry,” Nicodemus said as he pulled his arm out of the tank. “The Aeon. Have you seen her? Tall. Green. Hard to miss.”
“That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it?” Hoffman asked, moving the hand holding his anti-armor grenade behind him.
“And you all. Lots to explain. No time,” Nicodemus said. “As bad as it is down here for you…”
The optics in Nicodemus’s helm twisted, focusing on Hoffman, who grit his teeth, unsure if the Ibarran knew what he had in his hand.
“Breitenfeld,” Nicodemus said. “I know that patch. We have her—the ship—in orbit. She’s here to get you all out.”
