by John Bowers
The exploding ammunition dump seemed to act as the opening shot for a major attack. Two miles east of town, the Fed Infantry was face-down in the dirt, taking the pounding of their lives. While all the artillery was concentrated in their area, what must have been a full battalion of Coalition troops swept around them and assaulted Monroe Falls from three directions. They came in trucks, ag skimmers, and on foot. They carried rifles, pistols, shotguns, lasers, mortars, machine guns, and grenades. The Star Marines were alerted, thanks to the infiltrators and the attack on the ammo dump, but no one expected an attack of the magnitude that actually materialized.
Once the Fed Infantry was cut off from reinforcement, the rebel artillery shifted toward Monroe Falls itself, blasting the town with a rain of steel unlike anything it had ever seen. While the Star Marines took cover against the shelling, the rebels hit the now-isolated Fed Infantry from both sides and swept over them like a human tsunami, killing them with bullets, bayonets, and grenades.
Meanwhile, other rebel units set up their mortars a few hundred yards short of the town and began dropping shells on 2nd Battalion’s bivouacs. Rebel machine guns suddenly appeared at key intersections, covering the major streets so they could fire at anything that moved. With all Federation forces pinned down or under attack, the artillery halted and a wave of rebel infantry raced out of the darkness to attack the individual bivouacs.
Foxtrot was the first to get hit. Camped near the ammo dump, their positions were revealed by its raging fires. A number of Foxtrot men were already dead or wounded from the explosion and the rest were occupied in a futile effort to fight the flames; when the rebel wave swept over them, it quickly became a melee, hand to hand combat like Romans and barbarians.
Golf and Hotel Companies, camped on the south and west end of town, came under similar attack, but had a precious couple of extra minutes to realize what was happening and get their heavy weapons into action. Their machine guns swept the rebel line but couldn’t stop it, and after a hailstorm of grenades exploded among them, they stumbled to their feet to meet the attack. They had managed to fix bayonets, so the fighting was a little more even, but after a few minutes they were forced to fall back, Golf to the maglev station, Hotel to the middle of Main Street.
Echo Company, at the high school on the northwest edge of town, fared a little better, but it was still brutal. Their SAWs and heavy machine guns stopped the first wave of rebel infantry, but then they became the first unit in 2nd Battalion to encounter rebel armor. Sixteen heavy armored cars surged out of the darkness straight at them, firing 70mm rifles and .52 cal machine guns. They were huge, ugly, open-turret vehicles that rode on six-foot hard-rubber tires that smashed everything in their path.
After a few minutes of panicked fighting, Echo scattered, falling back by squads and platoons to the dark streets and alleys of Monroe Falls.
***
Nick and Rudy were actually lucky. After the ammo dump explosion, they had resumed their trek toward Echo, still watching for infiltrators, but three blocks farther down the street were forced to take cover when the rebel 80s began dropping like spring hail. They flattened out in the same ditch from which they had ambushed the rebels. The barrage only lasted three or four minutes, but Nick was astonished at the sheer volume of shells plunging out of the night sky. The barrage seemed to have no specific target, but was hitting all over town; some shells landed up to a mile away, but others were close enough that shrapnel fell around them. The night became a flicker of exploding shells and burning buildings.
Suddenly it stopped, but that was little comfort. As they sat up, Rudy caught his breath.
“Nick! Look!”
Rudy didn’t even have to point. Nick could already see what looked like a ghost army, their white shirts highlighted by the burning ammo dump. They were moving fast across the field toward Foxtrot’s position, far too many to count or even estimate. They must have numbered in the hundreds.
Rudy raised his rifle to fire, but Nick stopped him.
“Don’t! We can’t kill enough to make a difference, and if we tip off our position, we’re dead meat.”
Rudy lowered his weapon, staring in horror at the running horde of Freaks.
“What’re we gonna do?”
“I dunno yet.”
Nick’s mouth was dry, his heart pounding. Before he could gather his thoughts, from the far corner of town he heard machine gun fire. Heavy machine gun fire, and also mortar fire—lots of it. He instantly realized that was where Golf and Hotel Companies were camped, and just as quickly understood that this was no guerrilla hit-and-run raid—this was a major, full-scale attack. Mortar shells were also falling on Echo’s position.
His breathing became labored and he hunkered down a little lower in the ditch. Just as he did, he heard a rising howl from Foxtrot’s camp just a few hundred yards away. Every kind of weapon he could imagine was suddenly firing, and that was matched by the roar of men’s voices. Men yelling, men screaming, grenades blasting—the raw energy of it curled his hair and set his teeth on edge.
It was every fighting man’s worst nightmare—hand-to-hand combat.
He had no way of telling who was winning or losing, but he was pretty sure Foxtrot had been taken by surprise, which gave the rebels the advantage. He swallowed on a dry throat; Rudy ran a hand over his face, his eyes gleaming in the flickering light.
“Those poor bastards! Nick, we gotta do something!”
Nick felt the same way, but what could two men do, except add to the Federation body count?
Then he saw a second wave of rebels running toward the ammo dump. It was impossible to tell, but they looked like at least a full company. It occurred to him that Foxtrot might manage to hold against the Freaks they were already fighting, but they would never withstand a second wave.
He shivered as an idea popped into his mind.
“Are you carrying a plasma grenade?”
Rudy’s head jerked around. “Are you insane?”
“Do you have one?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Give it to me.”
“Nick, you can’t be serious! We won’t stand a chance!”
Nick held out his hand and Rudy gave him the grenade.
“You get across the street and flatten out behind a fence or something. I’ll take cover in the ditch.”
“Nick, it’s not deep enough—”
“Goddammit, Rudy! There isn’t time! Those fuckers will be all over Foxtrot in about thirty seconds. Get going!”
“¡Tu eres fucking loco!” Rudy muttered. He slapped a hand down over his helmet and crawled out of the ditch, rolled under the wire fence, and keeping as low as possible, dashed across the street.
“Yeah. I know.”
Nick swallowed again, calculating the range. Sweat poured into his eyes as he dropped his rifle, crawled out of the ditch and, hunched over, began to lope toward the enemy force. His one and only advantage was that they didn’t know he was there, as they were focused on reaching the ammo dump. The darkness helped, but if a single one of them had glanced in his direction, they would have seen him silhouetted against the random fires in the town.
Apparently, none of them looked.
Nick ran about thirty yards, which put him within throwing range for a standard fragmentation grenade. He could see more of them now, and hear their boots hitting the ground. Fortunately, the field had been plowed within the past few weeks and the ground was soft, slowing their progress.
Nick dropped to one knee, his heart pounding in his throat, and glanced behind him. That ditch looked half a light year away, but if he was lucky…
He gripped the grenade in his right hand and jerked hard on the pin, then stood up and drew back his arm.
He threw it as hard and as high as he could. He had played some solarball in high school and knew that his throwing range was about four hundred feet, give or take a few yards. The minute he released it, he wheeled and raced as fast as his heavy boots would allow.
He had ten seconds…
He almost made it. Counting in his head, he got to nine and was still ten yards short of the ditch. He launched himself like a marathon swimmer and hit the ground just as the night turned to noon. As heat washed over him, he scrambled a couple more yards and rolled into the ditch, gasping from the effort. As he hit the bottom of the ditch, the dry grass along its edge began to smoke, then burst into flame. For three or four seconds, the entire landscape was illuminated by the blast, then slowly died as a heat mushroom rose skyward.
Nick heard screams, hideous howls of raw agony. After catching a breath, he dared to raise his head and peer across the field. Darkness had returned, but dozens of men on the edge of the blast were in flames, some running in panic, others rolling on the ground. He saw several of them fall, then dropped back down again, rolled onto his side, and vomited. It was the most horrible thing he had ever seen, the most horrible thing he had ever done.
“Nick! Nick! Are you still there?”
Rudy’s voice was frantic in his helmet speakers. Nick sat up again, grabbed his rifle, and crawled to the fence. He slipped under it, got to his feet, and stumbled across the road. Rudy emerged out of the darkness to meet him, grabbing his arm to steady him before leading him behind the wooden fence where he had been hiding.
The fence was still hot to the touch.
“Jesus, Nick! I thought you were dead!”
Nick coughed.
“It was close. You okay?”
“Yeah. I felt the heat, but it was pretty weak by the time it reached me. How many did you get?”
“No idea. I threw it as high as I could, to spread the radius.”
“That was risky!”
They had been taught in boot camp that plasma grenades were to be used only under the most extreme circumstances. The kill radius, in which absolutely no one could survive, was forty yards; the burn radius, in which victims might receive the most hideous injuries and still survive, extended another fifty to seventy yards beyond that. A man standing in a foxhole, unable to use his entire body to propel the grenade, would be lucky to throw one forty yards, but could survive by ducking deep, at least four feet beneath the surface.
Results might vary based on weather conditions, but those were the standard parameters. Nick had thrown out in the open, fully exposed, and by using his entire body as a spring, had launched his grenade nearly ninety yards. Only by running the other way and diving to the ground at the last possible second had he avoided, at the very least, serious burns.
But the results had been worth it. He couldn’t tell how many rebels had died, but clearly the second wave, if it reached Foxtrot’s position at all, would have little effect on the fight.
After another minute, Nick caught his breath. He and Rudy faded into the residential neighborhood, putting distance between themselves and the rebel wave behind them. They had done all they could for Foxtrot Company.
*
By now it was obvious that Echo was in deep trouble. Mortars had been falling near the high school, but they had stopped and now Nick and Rudy could hear a vicious firefight in progress
“We need to get over there,” Nick panted, still shaking from his near-suicidal experience.
“How far is it?”
“I dunno exactly. Twenty blocks?”
They began moving in that direction. Their helmet comms rang with shouts, orders, questions, curses—the sounds of men close to panic. When there was a break, Nick called DuBose.
“Walker! Where are you?”
“We’re still on Monroe Street. Where do you want us?”
“Don’t come here! We’re about to be overrun. Lieutenant is giving the order to withdraw. You guys find cover somewhere and take on targets of opportunity. Just be careful who you shoot, because the entire battalion is getting scattered. And watch for rebel armor. We’ve seen a dozen or more armored cars, and they’re hard to kill.”
“Got it, Sergeant.”
“Good luck, men. See you on the other side.”
Nick didn’t like the sound of that. He could imagine a sergeant at the Battle of the Alamo giving a similar order.
Nick and Rudy looked at each other.
“Looks like it’s you and me,” Nick said.
Rudy nodded.
“It’s okay, Nick. I’ve got your back.”
Nick laid a hand on his shoulder. Then a thought occurred to him.
“By the way…I never told anybody you killed that mirror back in Goshen.”
Rudy grinned. “Thanks.”
“And I’m not gonna say a word about you running into the fence.”
“Okay…”
“So you don’t tell anybody I threw that plasma grenade, okay? That’s between you and me.”
“Are you kidding? That grenade may have saved Foxtrot from getting wiped out. You could get a medal for that!”
“And that’s exactly why you’re going to keep your mouth shut. Someone from Foxtrot probably did that, okay? It wasn’t us, and we don’t know anything about it.”
“We don’t?”
“No, we don’t. We saw it, but that’s all. Promise me?”
Rudy heaved a sigh, then nodded.
“Okay, Nick. Whatever you say.”
Chapter 31
Nick had no idea what was happening elsewhere, but things must be bad, because the 205s started dropping around the perimeter of the town. Each massive shell created a bright flash and the ground trembled from the concussion. Nick was surprised—firing the 205s so close to Federation troops was unusual. Battalion Command must be desperate to prevent further enemy incursion.
His watch told him it was a little after 0200, still four hours until the first sunrise. As he and Rudy slipped into a residential alleyway, their hearts were pounding. The entire town had become a battlefield. Buildings burned in the downtown area, the sound of firefights rose and fell. The ammo dump still burned, but the fighting in Foxtrot’s area had quieted down—Nick didn’t know if that was good or bad. In between 205 explosions, he still heard every kind of weapon firing, including what sounded like some sort of rebel artillery—he guessed it might be the 70mm rifles from the armored cars. Here and there, tracers streaked into the night sky, and spent ricochets fell all over town.
Somewhere off to his left he heard a woman scream, then male voices shouting. The civilians must be in a panic, he thought—and hoped they didn’t flood the streets trying to escape; they would be much safer in their homes, especially if they had basements.
Dogs howled in every direction.
He and Rudy tried to keep ten or twelve feet between them, to avoid both of them being killed by a single shell or a burst from an automatic weapon. They moved with their heads down, trying to sweep the area and see everything at once, but of course that was impossible. Their only hope of survival lay in spotting the enemy before the enemy spotted them, but without knowing where the enemy was, it was a challenging task.
They kept to the alleys, which were darker and less exposed than the streets. At the end of each alley, they halted and spent long seconds checking for threats before crossing. Nick debated using an IR contact, but the steady flashes from explosions made it impractical; contacts were best used for finding the enemy, but were of little use once the shooting actually started. He wished he had a night scope for his rifle, but those were not standard issue and he didn’t have one. Neither did Rudy.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Rudy asked after they had made three blocks. They had reached the end of an alley and now scanned the street in both directions.
“Not really. DuBose said find cover and hole up, but he also said something about targets of opportunity. I don’t want to hide out while the town is under attack. How’s your ammo?”
“Just what I have in my belt. Eight magazines.”
“Yeah, me too.” Nick had left his bandoleers in camp, and wished now that he hadn’t. “Grenades?”
“Three frags and two concussion.”
>
“Me, too. I still have a canister, but I don’t think—”
“Sh!! Listen.”
Rudy pointed into the alley across from them. Nick followed his finger but didn’t see anything. Both men dropped to one knee and peered into the flickering darkness. Nick strained to hear what Rudy had heard.
Clang!
His pulse spiked. Someone had stumbled over a garbage bin, and he heard a muttered curse. He backed up and crouched next to a fence. Rudy did the same on the other side of the alley.
“Be careful,” Nick warned in his helmet comm, “it could be civilians.”
“Or Star Marines,” Rudy added.
They waited, breathless, momentarily hidden in spite of the occasional shell flash. After a moment, movement materialized in the mouth of the alley. Nick watched as two, then three figures emerged, moving cautiously, their necks craning as they checked the street in both directions. They carried rifles and were clearly rebels, as evidenced by their white shirts, which were now grimy but still white.
Somebody should tell these guys about camouflage.
Nick waited. They were thirty feet away, still across the street. They seemed uncertain which way to turn, or whether they should continue across.
He chinned his mike and whispered.
“Wait, Rudy. There may be more.”
Rudy remained silent.
He could hear the rebels talking, also in low voices. One of them seemed to be in charge. He was the only one with a beard. Although Nick couldn’t clearly make out their features, most of them looked pretty young. Teenagers, probably. The Coalition must be feeling its losses.
Nick’s trigger finger itched as the rebels decided to cross. One after the other, they trotted across the street and crouched in the mouth of the alley, only ten feet from Nick and Rudy, whose camo fatigues blended into in the darkness. Nick tried to control his breathing, but his adrenaline was flowing and it wasn’t easy. He licked his lips and waited, watching the opposite alley. If anyone else was coming, they should appear soon.
