by Jack Colrain
Plasma rifles crackled, and shotguns and pistols boomed as Daniel felt a moment of supreme calm; his blink was a frame holding a cluttered picture in eternal grace. With a bang, the moment was gone as completely as if it had never been, and the air was ripped apart in a roar of automatic gunfire and flying metal.
Daniel leapt for cover, firing in the general direction of the Gresians as rapidly as his index finger would flex. He couldn’t hear a thing after the first few shots.
Daniel ran a gauntlet of flying lead, trying to get a good shot at the nearest Gresian soldier. A few thousand volts of plasma energy left him narrowly avoiding being put on the floor, but didn’t save the Gresian from the deer slugs that passed through its helmet.
Dropping in beside Daniel, Hope and Palmer returned fire, taking out three more Gresians and allowing Daniel to make a dash for the next floor. A spray of plasma bolts half melted the floor at Daniel’s feet as he ran, and several fifty-caliber rounds from Mary Jefferson’s pistol ripped through the offending Gresian’s armor. Daniel saw her switch out clips and put down a second Gresian that had Bailey pinned down. Then everybody was following Daniel up to the upper floor.
Kenji tossed grenades first before rushing through what may have been a canteen or mess hall at full steam, blasting anything that moved. Cookware and dishes exploded into dust. Devices that may have been microwave ovens, or something similar, burst with big enough pops to make them breakdance on their counters. Gresians ducked and leapt, slid and ran, but nothing saved them from the Hardcases’ desperate charge.
Daniel gave the Gresians hell right back down the barrels of their plasma rifles, but three times worse. For every bolt that came his way, three deer slugs replied.
Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw one of the Gresians pull the pin on a grenade and start to swing it towards him. Daniel rolled, scrambling backwards and firing instinctively. The Gresian’s shoulder burst in red, the grenade falling from a spasming hand. He fell to his knees, the frag hitting the floor right in front of him at the same moment. The explosion shredded his whole torso and head.
Daniel hugged the deck to work his way around behind the Gresians. One of them was sheltering behind a pillar, giving covering fire as the other tried to outflank Pipsqueak and Svoboda. Daniel let it continue; he needed to change mags on his shotgun. When the Gresian dropped its own empty mag, Daniel neatly eliminated his two targets with single shots that went clear through the skull of the closer alien, and through the jaw and throat of his farther friend.
A burst from the last plasma rifle tore through a wall partition at Daniel’s back, close enough to snatch at a fold in his sleeve. Daniel hit the deck and switched vision modes to look for the source of the shots. The creature must have had the sense to conceal itself behind what was left of the cooking range because it wasn’t showing itself anywhere. No matter: the whole reason Daniel hadn’t used the railgun inside the buildings was its overpenetration; he unslung his railgun and scythed through the wall with a long sweep of fire. He was rewarded with a screech from his left, and a wet thud.
He toggled his suit comms in the sudden silence. “Looks like we’re clear. We need a new route, Superman.”
“On it, L-T,” Kevin Bailey’s voice crackled in his ear.
A hovering vehicle, the Gresian equivalent of a helo, was swinging around over a section where another strange tower like the one they had cleared was supported on buildings like squat legs. Overall, it resembled a kind of Dali-eque Eiffel Tower that was twisted and contorted as if in mid-movement. Daniel zoomed in on the Gresian helo, wondering whether it was delivering troops or serving as a gunbird. Either way, there could be little doubt that it was hunting his people. This particular bird was wreathed in some kind of low-visibility paint, and quite unlike most of the purely atmospheric Gresian aircraft they’d encountered so far. Whether this was a model that was normally more stealthy or whether it had been repainted earlier in the day, he wasn’t sure.
It was silent, too, and clearly had much more efficient noise baffles than the other aircraft. As it swooped around, it whispered inaudibly over the buildings.
Daniel crouched behind a fountain of some kind, his railgun slung across his back for ease of stealthier movement, his auto shotgun in hands. For the moment, he was mainly using its scope to get an overview of the situation he’d been sent into. A curving pathway meandered ahead, bordered by bubble-like buildings woven through trees or atop stilts of some strange metal. Their walls alternated between creamy white and dusty pinks. Most of them had wide viewports, though not all, and Daniel couldn’t quite tell whether any Gresians were inside on look-out, as something in the walls interfered with his suit’s vision modes.
The tower was what Daniel was interested in. It looked like something that would block off a lot of the approaches to the Shaldine facility if it was brought down. It was time to show the Gresians that they weren’t the only ones who could use buildings as roadblocks. There was something else at the back of Daniel’s mind, too, that he wondered about folding in along with that practical matter.
“I’m not an exobiologist,” Daniel said to Doug Wilson, “but the one thing I do remember, from you, is that they’re hardwired to protect each other.”
“Yes. I’m not sure how that helps us right now. Or do you have an idea?” Wilson asked.
“We give them something more important to do than looking for us.”
Daniel scanned the roof of the skewed tower building, looking for sentries or look-outs that the enemy might have posted. There were none. He wasn’t too surprised; there were enough helos and drones in the air to keep look-out without exposing soldiers to the Hardcase’s railguns. The flat roof would have been an inviting landing area if he’d had a shuttle or helo to call upon, but he didn’t. “If wishes were horses,” he muttered to himself.
“Yeah, my old man used to say that, too,” Beswick said.
“Anyone see any sign of life on that tower roof?”
A chorus of whispered negatives came back.
“Let’s go then. That’s our waypoint.”
The Hardcases descended the exterior of the building they were in, as it was wide enough for its sloping sides to be easily manageable, so they could slide down like they were on the world’s biggest children’s playground slide. Then they ran—at the best speed Doug Wilson and Bella Torres could manage, rather than at full speed—to the other building.
As they reached the building, dodging sporadic fire from some of the windows, Daniel realized this one was more heavily occupied than the one they had already been through. There were constant snarls and roars to be heard, as well as strange clicks and wails coming in the Gresians’ unknown language. Shots began to blaze around them, but they died off as they tucked themselves under the block, between its legs. “Any movement from that helo?” Daniel asked.
“It’s descending,” Palmer replied. “No sign of weapons, though.”
“Thank heavens for small mercies,” Daniel muttered.
Kinsella said, “I thought that god made the heavens and the Earth; this doesn’t look like either to me, so I wouldn’t count on finding any mercy around here.
“That’s cheerful,” Mary Jefferson said, her voice shaky.
Daniel peered up from under the apartment block’s widest floor, looking up at the hovering vehicle. It was indeed getting lower, but so far not shooting. Daniel wondered why, but suspected that perhaps it wanted to see for sure whether or not there was something to shoot at, or maybe the craft was in fact unarmed. He could also see other lights in the now darkened sky, heading this way at speed. “That helo’s not alone,” Daniel said. “He’s got friends coming. Keep an eye out.”
Sergeant Stewart came forward, hefting a slightly enlarged railgun, and Daniel wondered what the hell he had done to it. “Sir, I modified this railgun while I was in the APC. I thinkit’ll work for some low and slow air defense. No good against fast movers, though.”
“They’re not going to use
fast movers against their own buildings,” Daniel said confidently. “They wouldn’t be able to evacuate one on that sort of short notice.” There was a doorway in each leg—at each corner of the area in which the team was sheltering from the helo—and all four suddenly opened to disgorge unarmored Gresians.
The first couple of them took cover behind the corners of the building’s legs, but that didn’t serve them particularly well, as the Hardcases, startled but professional, had done the same thing, which meant they could sidle around the same pillar. Both forces tried to silently step around the bases and shoot each other in the back of the head while also trying to pick off someone else on the opposite corner.
The Gresian helo had touched down on the stone garden by now, and was disgorging more Gresian troops who ran into the full force of the Hardcases’ firepower. Daniel wouldn’t have been surprised if more Gresians were on their way down from the interior of the building, as well, and the next wave wouldn’t make the same mistake as the first.
“Two more helos descending,” Palmer warned.
Suddenly a burst of railgun fire that was actually loud rather than the usual whispering stitched across the side of one of the helos, and the craft burst into flames, bleeding pieces of its hull before it crashed on the edge of the park. The third helo swung around to keep out of the way of Cole’s modified flak railgun. He was positioned on a roof opposite, but the fact that the helo didn’t return fire told Daniel that either the building below Cole was occupied by civilians or the helo was unarmed. Either way, the engineer was safe.
“We don’t want to stay here long,” Hope warned. “Aren’t we going in?”
“No,” Daniel said curtly.
`“We’re not going to be safe out here for long.”
“I’m not planning to stay out here for long.” He waved to Cole. “Sergeant Cole, Sergeant Stewart, you’re up!”
Stewart was already nearby, having engaged with the Gresians, and Cole dropped to the ground from his position, running over to Daniel.
“You’re demolitions specialists, right?” Daniel asked.
“That’s what it says on my contract,” Stewart replied.
“I need to place demolitions charges on each foot of this building. Bring it down, ideally blocking that approach over there.” He pointed to the widest pathway by which the Gresians could head north from where they were.
“You got it.”
The pair set to work immediately, but with Cole’s flak railgun out of use, the other Gresian helo returned at speed, flaring down to the ground and dropping armored troops. These Gresians came in groups of three, covering each other and surrounding three sides of the building, one of which was on the axis that Daniel wanted it to fall to.
“Concentrate on the north and east sides,” Daniel instructed. “Keep the eastern group’s heads down and take targets of opportunity.”
The Hardcases knew their jobs, and were already firing. Kinsella and Svoboda were sniping while most of the guys tossed grenades or used crowd control tactics to herd the creatures to where they were open to being taken down by a shot from one of the snipers.
The air in the open lobby area under the main floor began to have a strange metallic tang to it, Daniel noticed, from the amount of plasma tearing through and all but melting the ground under their feet. It was a scent of ozone, like he remembered from the bumper cars at fairgrounds. He was also beginning to get concerned about the levels of ammo the team had. They’d burned through a lot of projectiles that evening, and couldn’t even grab fallen Gresian weapons, which he remembered from Lyonesse were booby-trapped—and he’d reminded his team of the same, too.
“Charges are set,” Stewart confirmed, just before falling with a scream as a plasma bolt fried the back of his head.
“Fall back!” Daniel ordered. “Head north, fall back under fire!”
Immediately, several Hardcases intensified their fire upon the advancing Gresians to cover the others who helped each other backwards in the direction of the objective. Almost everyone had some kind of minor wound or injury now. While the Hardcases were in a constant loop of being slowed by injuries and then picking up the pace as their suits healed them, Wilson was holding one arm awkwardly and looking bone-tired, his face streaked red from scratches from shattered glass, and Torres was limping, her features matted with dust and dirt.
Daniel risked lunging forward to grab Stewart’s tags from his corpse, hoping to be able to return them to his brother at Camp Peary someday. Then he also retreated, firing railgun bolts as he went. They scuttled towards a neighboring building where two Gresians almost had Daniel flanked. He took a couple of pot-shots and they returned fire, scorching the doorway he was trying to get through. When the door slammed open, Daniel dropped to the ground instinctively, letting Kinsella kill the Gresian that had opened it.
Daniel stuffed the dog tags into the pocket of his digies, along with the others he’d gathered from the people he’d lost on this mission, and shot another Gresian in the head as they ran north through the building. The slug didn’t quite get through its thick, flat skull plate, and only stunned the creature just enough to make the thing stagger. Daniel ignored it and kept going; either it would die or one of the other Hardcases would finish it, he figured, as it had dropped its weapon and was thus less of a threat. He didn’t need to kill it right now. Daniel tucked his head as he passed internal doors, pushing on forward and downwards, keeping his head and shoulders low as projectiles and plasma bolts snapped and crackled overhead.
Daniel and Hope burst through into some kind of social area like Butch and Sundance at the end of their movie. The two Gresians who’d been waiting for a clear shot at the invaders raised their guns, but too late, and they fell sprawling.
Another Gresian took advantage of the fact that the Hardcases were broken up into small groups by the nature of the building to let the first half of the humans go past before trying to shoot Doug Wilson in the back. Fortunately, the creature missed, and Pipsqueak was close enough behind the professor to shoot it before it took another shot.
They reached the far side of the building and Daniel slammed into the door, busting it open. More Gresians, having run across the rooftops, dropped in front of him, guns blazing. Daniel used his forward momentum to hurl himself to the ground, then rolling up and shooting the first Gresian. More shooting from behind him took care of the others.
They had a moment of quiet then, apart from the sounds of running Gresians, fires, and hovering Gresian helos. Daniel caught his breath and looked to Sergeant Cole. “Are we safe?” He realized the irony of what he’d just said immediately, and said, “From the demolition, I mean.”
“Yeah, safe and ready.”
“Blow it.”
Cole wiped his brow, then turned the key in the firing box, flipped the safety cover open, and pressed the switch.
Immediately, there came a series of rumbling explosions, and they heard the foreshortened Eiffel tower of the apartment block shatter, crumble, and slam into the streets like a landslide.
As the echoes rumbled over them, Daniel knew he had probably killed some civilians. Armed civilians, true, but…. And then he realized that, a few hours ago, that wouldn’t have bothered him. The Gresians were firing on him and his soldiers, after all. Now, he wondered whether it was bothering him. No, correction, he told himself: He wondered why he was feeling uncomfortable with it.
‘That’s a worry for another day,’ Hope thought to him.
‘Yeah.’ Daniel sighed, and zoomed in on the rubble below. They had already climbed partway up the hill during their flight through the building, so he had a good view of the swarms of Gresians, both soldiers and civilians, scrambling over the rubble, digging into it in the way he’d seen rescue teams do on the news after 9/11. None of them were pursuing the humans right now.
“Let’s go,” Daniel ordered.
Twenty-Five
Daniel led the team further uphill, climbing over their first ruins of the mission
. There were holographic signs at regular intervals, in alien script, and Palmer had to physically drag Wilson away from trying to take pictures of them.
Another of the cut-off Eiffel Tower type buildings stood a little way around the circumference of the hill, but the Hardcases ignored it. “There should be a bunker opening in a depression at the top of the hill,” Doug Wilson said. “It’s probably concealed; otherwise, the Gresians would have found it by now.”
“Hopefully, they’ll keep up their record of not finding stuff,” Daniel said. “Just for a little bit longer.”
“Sorry, L-T,” Erik Palmer said, pointing skywards. “You don’t win that one.” Multiple Gresian drones buzzed overhead, shining lights down over the ruins. One of them caught Hope in its beam, and Daniel leapt for her to knock her out of the way of a shot he expected. None came, however, and the drones went dark and switched off their lights.
Daniel knew what that meant: They’d been made.
“The other apartment block, at the double.” Everyone started running for the building, knowing, as Daniel did, that their only chance of safety was to get in close vicinity of Gresian civilians. “Those drones weren’t random—they’re hunting us now.”
The building grew closer quickly, but not as quickly as the growing sound of a stuttering whine. “Incoming fighters!” Kinsella warned. She was too late—plasma cannon fire was already ripping up ruins and earth in a rough line running towards the fleeing soldiers. Cole opened up on the plane with his flak railgun, which now launched miniature HESH rounds rather than just regular KEM bolts. Explosions flashed in the sky, but the engine sound wasn’t interrupted and the plane came around for another run.
