DinoMechs: Battle Force Jurassic

by Isaac Stone

  “All four of our dinosaurs are down on the surface and ready to move into action. The stalkers have made their way outside the city of Albany and have two separate battle groups moving in to take it in a pincher formation. We call them Battle Group A and Battle Group B because the corps can’t be bothered to get creative. Our objective is to stop Battle Group A dead in its tracks and hold it there until reinforcements arrive and annihilate it. Remember kids, death before dishonor, chicks dig scars, and don’t let me down.”

  Six drop shuttles, each containing fifty armored marines, screeched out of the belly of Tyrannis and started their descent to Earth. Hell of a way to come home.

  NINE

  I tried to remember if I ever believed in any god or God on the way down. There were all kinds of preachers in my old neighborhood who promised salvation. I once heard someone say that one preacher’s congregation had been baptized in the local river so many times every catfish knew their names. The only group that ever appealed to me was run by a bunch of women who lived in a building outside our complex and worshipped some half-naked idiot in red they called Bakolek. I asked my mother about them once and she slapped me. I never asked her again. As the acceleration pushed me back in the couch, I thought of them again.

  The Invaders were already at the outskirts of Albany before we were dropped into the hot zone. We knew it had to be hot down there by the way we could feel the acceleration inside the drop shuttle. We were close to nausea by the way the ship tossed us one way and then another. It was only later that I learned this was to avoid ground fire from the Invaders. The Invaders knew we were on the way even before we made planetfall. I suspect they detected the larger landing ships that carried the dinosaurs down to the surface and knew we were on the way. After that, all they needed to do was watch for more ships to come down to the same location in a similar pattern. Of the six drop shuttles, five made it to the surface. One was blown to pieces by the heavy firepower of the enemy, or at least that’s what they told us, though from the conditions of the shuttles I wouldn’t be surprised if the old bucket of bolts just finally burned out and took all hands down with the ship.

  The Invaders had three of their armored kaiju at work tearing the hell out of the city when we arrived. Albany, once the capitol of New York State, was still an important part of the financial structure of the Solar government. The government capitol might have officially been moved in New York City, and while Wall Street was certainly the center of our civilization, the money was handled in Albany. The city was evacuated prior to the Invader’s approach, but there were plenty of important things that had to be left behind. The Battle Group we were supposed to stop worked its way down one of the major streets as our drop shuttle came down from the sky. I wasn’t privileged to watch what took place on the ground, but the pilots I talked with later described the desolation caused by the dinosaurs as they made their way into the city. They told me it resembled a volcano that opened up in the middle of Albany from all the fires that took place. They were escorted down by three fighter jets that kept the gunfire under control from the Invaders. The Invaders didn’t invest in air support and counted on the kaiju to make sure that nobody had air superiority. It was an odd choice, but considering that all three of our jets managed to get smoke while escorting us to the landing zone, I’d say it was working.

  Invader tactics consisted of the kaiju pushing ahead of an advance column. As the kaiju were armored from top to bottom, it was hard to kill it with a direct hit unless you could slip one in while they were on the move. Constant fire from plasma rifles and artillery could break down the armor, but the only sure kill if the creature was static was in mouth or eyes. The Invaders armored those spots too.

  Eyewitness reports from the survivors would later talk about the horror as a sixty-foot kaiju in battle armor ripped through City Hall. The weapons array that it carried was deadly against infrastructure or large targets, though unless you got caught in the path of it individuals on foot could steer clear as long as they kept on the move and weren’t crushed by debris. The kaiju wrecked the city and wiped out enemy armor units, and it was vast destruction to be sure, but it was the stalkers that did most of the close quarters killing.

  We knew we were down when the shuttle quit its movement. There was a loud thump outside and no longer did it lunge from one way to the next. Sergeant Zhuang tapped an earpiece on his head and unbuckled himself. We looked at each other with expectation, but didn’t know which way to go or what we should do next.

  Our answer came when the hatch door opened up in the rear to show us the door to hell.

  We could hear the sounds of men yelling orders to each other and commands being called out. We could see the burning city in the distance and hear the sounds of dinosaurs bellowing in our own camp. Zhuang stood up and began to bark orders to our squad.

  “We need to get out there and quick!” he yelled to the lot of us. “Two kaiju are heading right at the landing zone, seems they have figured out our plans. Remember kids, strengths against weaknesses and don’t charge into the middle of the line. Let’s go!” He slapped his helmet on and grabbed the plasma rifle next to him.

  The rest of us didn’t want to look like wimps so we grabbed our gear, strapped up our back, and ran down the ramps after him.

  “Kaiju hunting!” Hans yelled next to me and I tried to keep my self-control. Things were about to get bad out there and I didn’t need his annoying voice to make it worse.

  I ran down the ramp with Hamid and Willy next to me. The body armor felt like a second layer of skin after training in it over the past few weeks. It was custom made to fit the wearer, but I still had some armor bites where I was pinched.

  I stopped when I saw the sergeant ahead of me. He stood in place and raised his hand, a signal to be still and wait. Hamid saw it too and nodded at me. Even the talkative Hans shut his mouth for one brief minute. We all heard the feed from the battle command, but it was too generic to do us any good.

  Then we saw Terry.

  The big lizard moved with stealth on two legs. It was easy to recognize, even though it was covered in plate armor. Terry moved slowly but with determination up a main road directly to our front. There wasn’t time to get the visual feed up or listen to the description of the battle underway. Zhuang signaled to us and we followed him down the street. He hadn’t had the time to designate a corporal, unless there was some protocol about no ranks in penal legions we didn’t know about, so we all had to listen to his commands.

  We followed Terry in the rear as the big dinosaur moved into position. It was impossible to see the rider, because she was carefully mounted inside a capsule on the lizard’s back. I checked my plasma rifle and made sure I had a full charge.

  Terry lumbered down the street; the earth trembled as he went along. We needed to keep up the pace as we followed him. This was the reason we called ourselves the Grunt Stompers, and we had gotten used to running in the rumbling wake of the tyrannosaurus rex. Nothing in Terry’s path would last long under those three-toed feet. There was full helm over his face and his fore arms were so covered as to be invisible, but he still bellowed as he went along. If a reptile could display anything resembling swagger, Terry was the biggest rooster of them all. I watched as the weapon’s array on either side of him came up and spread out. He was equipped with four surface-to-surface missiles in each of the hanging wings. I looked and saw an arc gun on either side of his forehead. The weapons lab out did themselves with this one. It was about to get rowdy.

  TEN

  There were a cool hundred of us in the unit, which followed Zhuang as we stayed behind Terry and his rider. Zhuang kept comms with the Captain Daphne as we made our way down the street toward our opposition. I could smell the smoke of burning electrical bits above the horizon. The plasma rifle in my hands hummed to let me know it was ready to rock and roll. The rifle was calibrated to me and, in theory, only my gunnery sergeant or I should be able to use it. There was an override, but I was told the
purpose of imprinting the rifle to the owner was to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

  There was a sound overhead and I looked up to see a jet fly over and bank away. We were told the air support was there, but the Force wanted to see what happened when we engaged the Invaders directly on the ground. Once before the Invaders were held back by bombs, but the result was horrific. Everything on the ground was destroyed and most of the jets themselves never came back. This was supposed to be a chance to see if they enemy could be repelled with minimal destruction and loss of life. For the same reason, nuclear weapons hadn’t been deployed on the surface.

  “My grandfather was a Mahout,” Hamid said to me as we followed Terry. He seemed to find the big green lizard in armor a source of wonder.

  “You say that like I know what it means,” I reminded him.

  Hamid turned and starred at me.

  “Elephant driver,” he explained. “He never learned to read and write in his own language, but he could control a full grown elephant. I wish he was alive to see this thing.” His gaze returned to Terry.

  “Maybe not so close,” I reminded him and he nodded.

  Tony made another grumble and continued to walk forward. I marveled at the training that must have made it possible for the driver to control this monstrosity. They driver and dino mech were connected with a few cables, some kind of mind-meld tech that nobody bothered explaining to a bunch of prison grunts. Somehow, Terry obeyed her commands, most of the time. The rest of us had enough sense to follow in the rear.

  The first missile nearly took us all out.

  One minute we were pumped up and behind Terry, the next we were down on the ground. It happened suddenly, although we knew it might take place at any minute. I saw Sergeant Zhuang walking behind the armored lizard with his rifle up. Then he stopped and listened to something over the earpiece. He froze and spun back to face the rest of us.

  “Get down!” he yelled. “Everyone on the ground.” We dropped to the dirt instantly.

  Half a second later, there was a loud bang in front of us. A column of smoke was located next to Terry, who had trouble standing up. Next to him was a crater about ten feet wide. Metal shrapnel covered the ground where the missile struck. Terry bellowed, but I could hear the voice of his rider give him directions. He was hurt, not physically, but the explosion had shaken him up a lot.

  “Stay down!” Zhuang screamed back at the rest of us. “Terry is going to return fire!” We all had our plasma rifles out and ready to fire on command.

  I watched one of the wings that were attached to the harness over Tony’s armor plating swing up. The wing, which had four missiles attached to it, tilted forward and Terry let fly at the enemy. In that moment I found myself wondering whether it was Terry or Captain Daphne that controlled the weapon pods. Maybe I was better off not knowing. There was a whoosh as the first missile fired. Two seconds later a corresponding explosion shook the ground beneath us. Tony swayed back and forth until the rider was satisfied. This time a second missile fired from the same wing. Tony howled each time one fired. Two more explosions sounded from down the street.

  I locked my eyes on Zhuang and watched him stare forward. He was taking information from his audio feed. Ours shut down the moment the explosion took place. It was limited by the code of engagement to our own unit to prevent confusion.

  I the distance I could see three columns of smoke rise up from the impact of Tony’s SAS missiles. Something howled on the other end of the street.

  “Direct hit!” Zhou yelled. “Let’s go kids; we have some stalkers to kill!” He jumped up and followed Tony who lumbered down the road.

  We jumped back up and went with Zhuang the best we could. It was an embarrassment to see him get further and further ahead of us, given he was ten years older than anyone else in the regiment. To see Terry run, on the other hand, was the stuff of legend. Up until now, I knew the big lizards could move fast, but hadn’t seen it happen, not even on the training asteroid.

  Small arms fire lashed out at us from multiple directions. Most of it was at Terry, though as I watched the enemy projectiles bounced off him and dissipated from the way the armor absorbed the energy. Looked like the stalkers were also using some form of plasma rifle, good to know. Terry’s arc guns ignited and strafed the streets on either side of our position, pushing back or killing the handful of stalkers that were trying to slow our advance. I don’t know how many he got with that salvo, but Terry sure did shoot up some urban landscape, so much for low impact fighting. We tried to stay behind him and let the rampaging dinosaur serve as a shield for the rest of the unit.

  We had no idea what we were in for when we reached the end of the road. Terry ran down the street with us in pursuit. Once those big boys activate on something, it is almost impossible to stop them. Terry’s rider did her best to keep him in control, but he saw one of the kaiju and was out of control. Terry roared loud enough to make it hard to receive commands and plowed directly into the wounded beast. We couldn’t catch up in time and nearly lost him when he collided with the titanic monster.

  The Tyrannosaurus Rex slammed into its kaiju opponent and the buildings around them vibrated. If two mountains made of flesh and bone ever struck each other, the sound would be similar. The Invader went down hard and fell across two vehicles on the ground. It ripped the power lines out of several buildings that it fell over, caving in the roofs of them. Terry’s rider did her best to stop him, but he had a target and she couldn’t keep him from sinking his huge jaws around the neck of his victim. The fight between the two beasts was in progress and it would continue to the death.

  The rest of us stopped directly in the path of the street and watched the kaiju fall. Terry was on him in seconds and we just stood there and tried to figure out what to do. Dino battles weren’t something we’d trained to contain. The experts hadn’t really thought that far ahead, apparently.

  Thank the gods our sergeant was on the ball because we were shocked when the nightmare battle took place right next to our position. Zhuang looked across from where we stood with our mouths open. He saw the shining metal of the stalkers moving towards us. We faced twice our number. The only thing that saved us was they were also engrossed in the battle that took place right next door to them. Apparently they hadn’t expected us to bring dinosaurs. Welcome to Earth, suckers.

  ELEVEN

  I saw it happen. From where I stood dumbly with my mouth open watching two hulking beasts try to kill each other, the commander of the stalkers slowly turned and looked right at Zhuang. You couldn’t see the Invaders face through his helmet, but both commanders turned and faced each other across the road at the same time. They held each other’s opaque gaze for a moment, and things got interesting.

  “Down!” Zhuang screamed again into his microphone. “Hostiles at six o’clock!” We all fell to the ground with our plasma rifles ready to fire.

  “Now!” he yelled and we let loose with everything we had. At the exact same moment, so did the stalkers.

  Plasma bolts scorched the air as the superheated matter streaked back and forth between our hasty battle lines. I saw one of the Invaders take a full round in the chest plate, and it struck me in that moment how much like the armored knights of ancient history these alien bastards looked. It melted right into his suit and he went down. We had the advantage of the angles, so dropped plenty of them in the blistering exchange, but they still had the numbers and the protective shield of vehicles and junk piled up on the street. Those behind cover continued fire with their own plasma rifles while those exposed on open ground sprinted towards safety while firing the strange impact weapons they carried as sidearms. A hit from the plasma rifles burned our guys out easy enough, but man, those impact projectiles just made a mess of the human body.

  One of the Invaders in my sights leaped behind a barricade of aluminum and assumed he had nothing to worry about from us. This proved to be a bad idea as Hamid’s rifle drilled through the cheap metal and exploded
into its objective. Half of the Invader’s body fell one way, half another. At least he didn’t need to worry about dying a slow death from exposure to Earth’s atmosphere.

  The Invaders fell back, withdrew behind some buildings, and the shooting stopped. As all of us panted, as we assessed our casualties to discover that we’d lost a cool twenty men in that furious exchange. How we didn’t lose more was something of a miracle, considering that the Invaders had better cover and more shooters. The best we could figure out was that they were as surprised as we were by the firefight and didn’t leap into full badass mode as fast as we did. Sometimes maybe it does pay to be a hardened criminal who knows to move fast when somebody drops the soap.

  I climbed off the ground when Zhuang gave the order to fall back and take cover, except for myself, Hamid, and Willy, who had the dubious honor of checking the enemy’s fighting position. We ran to a small collection of metal boxes that had been stacked on a sidewalk and tried to see what our enemy was trying to accomplish. I couldn’t tell what the alien tech they were setting up was supposed to do, but it did look like we managed to drop forty or so of their troops. Considering how badly humanity’s soldiers had been getting their butts kicked in the videos we saw I figured we probably just had the most successful engagement yet against the alien invaders. They might be good at wiping us out at a distance, but so far it looked like humanity had the upper hand in a close quarters firefight.

  “Tap your locator everybody, command needs a casualty report and troop spread!” the sergeant cried out and we began to acknowledge ourselves over the radio. He nodded in approval when the last marine hit his locator button, which pinged on the satellites above and allowed command to get a full spectrum picture of the situation on the ground.