by Richard Fox
The spread of the Xaros slowed. A few hundred drones managed to skirt through the assault, fewer than combat models in the past few years predicted. Garret refused to let his hopes rise.
The top of the Xaros-made dome moved toward the line of human ships like the tip of a knife pushing against a cloth. The edge of the alien force retreated toward the base of the spike emerging from the mass.
“The drones are combining.” Dorral zoomed in on the spike. Red lines danced over the spike’s surface as a single massive construct emerged, a dagger pointed at Garret’s fleet and into the heart of Mars. Makarov had described battling a leviathan-class vessel, but this was larger by an order of magnitude.
“Krupp,” Garret said, reaching into the holo and double-tapping the new Xaros creation, “we’re not going to have another chance like this. Fire target Durandal.” A timer appeared next to the leviathan, counting down the seconds until Phobos cleared the far side of Mars.
Red spots of light grew up and down the Xaros’ spike.
“All fleets execute honeycomb maneuver—” Garret called up firing solutions from the macro cannons on Mars, hating himself for every second he wasted, “—Echo. Ninth Fleet, drag your heels a bit until we have launch and stay out of the line of fire.”
The defending fleets moved away from each other slowly, spreading into a lattice to deny the Xaros a concentrated target.
“Give me three point targets on the leviathan,” Garret said to the gunnery officers next to Dorral. “Do we have eyes on any seams in the hull?”
A gunner cocked her head to the side.
“The whole structure is covered in ravines hundreds of meters deep.” A close-up of the spike flashed into the holo. Deep fissures glowed red, like the spike was covered in cracked obsidian and filled with lava.
“Plenty of potential weak points. Sending three now,” she said.
Garret touched the three white target reticules that appeared on the spike.
“All fleets, fire at will. Hold back bomber wings until further notice.” Garret looked to the timer and tapped his fingers against the table railing.
Something’s not right, he thought.
Beams of ruby-colored energy stabbed away from the spike, ripping through the thin line of ships. Garret lost ten ships in the blink of an eye, all smaller frigates and destroyers that lacked enough aegis armor plating to withstand much more than a blow from a Xaros construct made up of a few dozen drones.
The fleet struck back, launching concentrated rail cannon fire against Garret’s assigned targets. Point defense fire erupted around the point targets like sparks off a live wire.
The timer flashed as Phobos rose from behind Mars. Ready icons popped up next to Deimos, the outer moon looming over the battle.
“Here we go.” Garret’s hands gripped the railing.
Phobos held nine macro cannons quarried through its rocky body and hidden beneath dusty firing ports. All nine revealed themselves at once and brought their capacitors online. The six cannons hidden in Deimos did the same. The moon batteries were designed to fire one at a time in support of the Mars-based weapons, but Garret needed an assassin’s mace for this battle.
Garret said a silent prayer for the crews that volunteered to remain with their guns. They had a chance to survive—a very slim chance.
“Rounds away!” a gunnery officer shouted.
Flight paths stabbed through the holo tracing the incoming macro cannon rounds fired from the two moons and several cannons on Mars. All the projected paths led to the great spike.
The fire mission Garret and Krupp devised brought devastation down on the Xaros construct from multiple directions and with enough firepower to crack Earth’s moon wide open.
Garret didn’t breathe as the giant shells raced toward the spike…and hit home.
A cheer broke through the bridge as the spike burst into jagged fragments the size of the Charlemagne. The remains sizzled with internal fire along their broken edges.
Garret stared intently at a fragment tumbling end over end. He felt a brush of fear against his heart as the fragment slowed down…and the smoldering embers within the broken pieces died down.
Dozens of fragments came to a halt, a few hundred kilometers away and almost parallel to his fleet.
“No…” Garret’s throat tightened as he struggled to comprehend the new fight he and his sailors were about to face. “All ships! Engage the fragments immediately. The enemy is still in this fight.”
Several of the larger jagged remnants shattered…releasing tens of thousands of drones that swarmed toward the human fleet. The rest of the pieces shifted into constructs the size of battleships, forming cavernous assault cannons through their middle.
“They weren’t really joined together when we hit them with the macro cannons,” Garret said and punched the railing. “They suckered me in and caught us all flat-footed.”
“Sir! Phobos…it’s broken apart!” Dorral said. Garret’s hands squeezed into fists as the expanding mass of rock and shattered metal that had been the inner moon began their final descent toward Mars. All the crew were dead. Garret knew the risks. It was his decision and they’d died accomplishing little against the Xaros.
But there was nothing he could do for the dead.
The Charlemagne rocked beneath him as a Xaros beam cut across the prow.
The holo table was a riot of clashing ships, thousands and thousands of fighters and drones in a dogfight larger than any other in human history.
This is my battle. Time to fight it.
CHAPTER 11
Elias kept his back to the wall of the small, enclosed bunker. The other Iron Hearts were braced against the sides. A screen on the wall counted down to zero and the ground shook like someone had dropped a battleship on Mars a few miles away.
“I’m liking these macro cannons,” Kallen said. “Would be nice to see the end result.”
“I’m sure Garret will put together a highlight reel once it’s all said and done,” Bodel said. “The man loves his propaganda.”
“He sounds jealous. ‘Bodel’ didn’t have any lines in the movie,” Kallen said.
“You sound snippy. They didn’t make a limited-edition action figure of you,” Bodel said to her.
“Just because I’m a girl and they don’t make a little plastic me for the kids?” Kallen’s voice rose an octave. “I played with action figures when I was a little girl. I had to hack my family’s 3-D printer to make an Athena after I saw that Olympus movie. I find the Ibarra Corp douche that made that decision and I’ll crush his damn head.”
“At least you’re taking it well,” Elias said.
The screen on the wall beeped several times.
“Fire mission,” Elias said, reading from a message displayed inside his womb, “battle cruiser coming in from the southeast. Green platoon will fire with us. Displace to bunker Golf-19 after rounds complete. Follow me.”
Elias grabbed a thick metal handle bolted to the rock and heaved a sliding door aside. Red sand swept past the exit.
Elias ran through the door, his heavy footfalls crushing the jagged edges of black rocks as he went to a small mesa. He vaulted over the edge and found a patch of solid rock. He raised his right foot and dropped the anchor running up his lower leg into the rock.
His rail gun lifted up from his shoulder and locked down next to his helm. He turned to the southeast and easily found the incoming target. The Xaros construct burned through the Martian atmosphere like a comet, trailing fire miles behind it.
“Locked,” Bodel said from several yards away. Kallen flashed him a thumbs-up.
“Green, status report,” Elias said into the IR.
“Two locked,” Caas said, “third broke his anchor point and is—”
“We have thirty seconds until we fire and no time for excuses,” Elias said.
“Three locked,” Caas sent back a moment later.
The vibration of his charging rail gun coursed through his womb. A target
reticule appeared just in front of the Xaros ship and Elias lined up his shot. Firing a bullet that could reach orbit meant little in the way of adjusting for gravity and atmospheric effects to the trajectory, especially not when the target was coming right for them.
“Drones! Drones coming in low and fast,” said Zuli, the third member of the Dotok green platoon.
“Hold your anchor,” Elias said. Threat icons appeared over distant drones cresting over the top of a canyon. They’d be on the armor in seconds. “Fire in three…two…mark.”
Rail cannons fired in a ripple from the Iron Hearts and the Dotok armor. Elias didn’t bother to see if the shots connected as he swung his rail gun off his shoulder and brought his rotary cannon to bear. The multi-barreled weapon spun to life and spat white-hot tungsten bullets toward the dozens of drones bearing down on them, with more coming over the canyon walls every second.
Elias withdrew his anchor back into the leg housing and sidestepped toward a rocky outcrop that could provide some cover.
The combined fire of six rotary cannons ripped through the approaching drones, blunting their advance like a levy against a flash flood. He picked off any drones that made it through with his forearm cannons.
Elias’ shoulder cannon ceased firing, but kept spinning. Error icons flashed, alerting him to a broken belt in the ammo housing. He cursed, increased the rate of fire on his forearm cannon and ran toward Kallen.
The stream of drones over the ridge ceased, leaving more than fifty still heading for the armor. The drones veered up as one, flying straight into the sky.
“I’m stuck!” Zuli shouted. “My anchor won’t release!”
The drones’ path curved into a dive then split into two paths, one heading toward each group of armor.
Elias took aimed shots at the drones flying straight for them as Kallen opened a panel on the back of Elias’ armor, tore away a kink in the ammo belt, and reloaded the weapon. She slapped him on the back once she closed the access panel.
Stalks lit up across the swarm of drones. The Iron Hearts deployed their shields and bunched together, their weapons firing through gaps in their wall. A beam struck Elias’ shield and slashed across Kallen’s. Black smoke rose from the impact, but the shield held.
Elias fired off two rounds and shattered a drone. Five drones were seconds away from hitting the wall.
“Ready…break!” Elias jumped aside from Kallen. He reached out and snagged a charging drone by its stalks and slammed it into the side of the bunker. The drone cracked the bunker wall and tugged at Elias’ grip. He swung the drone overhead and bashed it into the ground. He raised his right heel, released the tip of his anchor out of his heel and impaled the drone.
Red and orange pyrite exploded out of the impact.
Elias looked to Bodel and saw the soldier’s cannons leveled right at him. Elias instantly ducked. Bodel’s cannons destroyed a drone that had been mere feet behind Elias.
“Clear,” Kallen said.
A roar filled the air. Elias looked up and saw the cruiser, dying, broken into burning fragments coming down on Mars. He quickly guessed as to the wreckage’s path, as it may or may not have fully disintegrated before it hit, and was sure it wouldn’t hit the Nerio macro cannon.
Gauss shells shot over the ridge between Green platoon and the Iron Hearts.
“Let’s go.” Elias took off running to the battle still raging between the Dotok armor and the drones. Fire subsided to nothing as he rounded the corner. A dozen broken drones lay in the Martian soil…and one suit of armor. Its chest had been ripped open, arms bent at the elbow to the sky, as if reaching for something. One knee was bent, and Elias could see the anchor spike extending from the heel into the ground.
Caas and Ar’ri stood over the fallen armor.
Caas looked at Elias and waved her hand at Zuli. “He didn’t…didn’t blow his emergency release. Just was stuck there. We stayed…stayed with him.”
Elias went to the armor. Zuli’s womb was ripped open. He stared into the sky with still eyes, steam rising from the fluid that had been part of his womb. Elias popped up a shoulder panel on Zuli’s armor and removed an identity chip.
“Take his ammo, battery packs,” Elias said. He stepped back from the body and tried to connect to the local defense network. The lines were full of garbled transmissions and panicked updates.
“What? We can’t do that,” Ar’ri said. “The articles on his body at the moment of death—”
Bodel grabbed him by the chest.
“He’s dead. He can do nothing for you now but offer his gear. Take it and you might not end up like him.”
Caas lifted Zuli’s body and unsnapped an ammo canister. She tossed it to her brother. “They’re right, Ar’ri. We will atone at a shrine when this is over. Zuli will forgive us.” She stood up. One hand held Zuli’s rail gun clip, the other his spare battery stack.
“Red platoon is off-line,” Elias said. “Outrider companies in their sector are in contact.”
A distant macro cannon shell ripped through the atmosphere, leaving distended clouds and a line of fire in its wake. The flash of Xaros beams and exploding ships carried through the thin atmosphere high over their heads.
“Iron Hearts will go to Red sector,” Elias said. “You two get to bunker Golf-19. We go off-line, fall back to the Nerio cannon. Let’s move.”
Kallen waited for Elias and Bodel to run ahead of her. She fell back a few dozen yards and kept pace as they ran. A red icon pulsed against her vision, warning her of damage to her lower back. She hadn’t felt the drone stalk that pierced her armor and the womb beneath it. Her armor had resealed itself around the puncture and saved her from the Martian atmosphere, but the suit warned her of damage to her body.
Kallen opened her eyes. The fluids in her tank swam with red eddies. She was bleeding. Elias and Bodel wouldn’t know—she’d cut off her vital reading from her suit’s telemetry reports as soon as her heart rate spiked at the beginning of the battle. Kallen dosed herself with an adrenaline spike and kept running.
Beside them, she thought. It must be beside them.
****
Paar raised his forearm cannons and knocked two drones off an antiair turret before they could kill the crew inside. He looked up and brought his rotary cannon to bear on a half-dozen drones screaming down on him and the other two Dotok armor soldiers of Green platoon. Ale’ti joined her rotary cannon to his, destroying the drones in a vicious crossfire.
“Nik’to, you want to help?” Paar asked.
Nik’to backed toward his platoon mates, scanning the skies.
“I’m getting some weird interference on the IR,” Nik’to said.
“Atmo on this dust ball isn’t helping,” Paar said. “Every time the dust kicks up we have to link to a tower to get anything.”
“Dust storms aren’t as bad as what we had on Takeni, and at least we can see the whole sky,” Nik’to said. He cocked his head to the sky and saw a sliver of light burning through the pink haze of blowing dust.
“What’s that?”
The light impacted against the Martian soil like a lightning bolt. Paar backed away, trying to sort through his helm’s optics to see what was within the haze of dust and searing heat.
A blast of light shot out of the haze and hit Ale’ti in the chest. The beam pushed Ale’ti off-balance then ripped right through her.
Paar and Nik’to opened fire. When Nik’to’s cannons fell silent, Paar looked over and saw his friend’s mangled armor lying before the General.
Paar saw a horror described in Dotok religions, an ancient demon that came to collect the souls of the living. He shot the General twice, but both rounds bounced off an energy shield and whistled through the air as they tumbled away.
The General raised a hand over his head and flashed toward Paar, chopping his arm down on his cannons and slicing them to pieces. The General snatched Paar by the actuators and machinery just beneath his helm and raised him into the air.
Paar bro
ught his rotary cannon down and fired as fast as the cannons would spin. Rounds bounced off the General’s shield and ricocheted off Paar’s armor. Bullets ripped through the shield and sparked off the red plates covering the General’s photonic body.
The General slammed Paar to the ground, rattling the Dotok against his womb. Damage icons went berserk across his vision as his helm, rotary cannon and limbs were ripped away before he could move.
Paar found himself trapped within his armor, darkness pressing all around him.
Five burning points of light came through his breastplate. The General ripped the front of Paar’s armor away, exposing the womb within. Paar couldn’t move. He could only stare in horror as the General cut through the womb with a clawed fingertip and flicked the severed portion aside.
The fluid around Paar bubbled as it boiled away in the thin Martian atmosphere. Paar struggled to move, but his link to his armor shunted all his commands to missing limbs.
The General reached for Paar, but hesitated. This wasn’t a human, not like the pilots he’d killed inside other armored suits elsewhere on the red planet. Still, the species was known to him, a space-faring race his drones had encountered between the stars and chased to a barely habitable world where he’d encountered the human armor soldiers.
The General ripped the Dotok out of the womb, its limbs twitching and mouth gasping in the thin atmosphere. He passed a scan field through Paar’s brain and shifted through recent memories…there. The human that had managed to hurt him was nearby and it had a name: Elias.
The General tossed Paar aside to die and shot into the sky.
****
Elias ran past a jeep crashed against a boulder, the driver and gunner dead in their seats.
Antiair turrets blazed around Nerio’s cannon’s opening. Packs of drones attempted to assault the towers, only to be knocked down by concentrated fire.
“Not like them,” Kallen said, her words clipped as if she was almost out of breath. “They usually mass together.”
The sound of metal on metal broke through the air. Elias looked to the sound. Several drones circled just over a draw in the mountains surrounding Nerio.
