CASPer Alamo

by Eric S. Brown

  Hayes could hear officers barking frantic orders over his helmet’s comm. The monsters were more than halfway across the clearing and still coming. He took aim at one and squeezed the trigger of his rifle. It kicked against his shoulder as he fired a burst that ripped into the chest of the creature he had been aiming at. Holes blossomed as the high velocity rounds tore through the monsters. The creature reeled from the impact and collapsed to the ground.

  Gwin was firing, too. The fight no longer belonged solely to the CASPers. Hayes glanced over at Gwin to see that his buddy had emptied his rifle’s mag and was in the process of slamming a fresh one into it.

  Hayes realized The Sanctuary’s alarm klaxons were howling. He imagined they had been for some time, he just hadn’t heard them over the cacophony of gunfire raging around him. It was Colonel Travis’ voice, not Major Evans, that was giving the orders over the comm now. If the colonel had taken over, things were going south.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the attack on The Sanctuary ended. The creatures that were still alive in the clearing turned tail, heading back for the trees. Hayes got off another shot that splattered a creature’s head into a shower of gore before the order to cease fire came down the line.

  Hayes lowered his still-smoking weapon, his heart pounding in his chest, as he looked out over the clearing. Corpses filled it. The bodies of the creatures lay scattered as far as he could see in any given direction. It was impossible to even guess at how many bodies there were, but it had to be in the hundreds at the very least.

  “That was too fragging close,” Gwin said, looking as shaken and exhausted as Hayes felt.

  “Tell me about it,” Brooks agreed.

  “Any idea what made them give up, Lieutenant?” Gwin asked.

  “Frag if I know,” Brooks grunted. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

  Gwin shrugged as if he had no idea what Brooks had just said. Truth be told, Hayes didn’t fully understand it either, but he got the point. Like the lieutenant, he was just glad the fight was over.

  * * *

  Commander Neill heard the klaxons blaring, and knew that meant his worst fears were coming true. The devils from the mountain were launching an attack on The Sanctuary. He felt a little useless stuck inside the walls of the place while the mercs were out there getting ready to go to war. Colonel Travis had basically handcuffed him and his men, refusing to let them join the fight. But there was one thing he could do. Father Valero had hired him to protect them against any threats they might run into on Durin II. Now that the monsters had decided to bring the fight here, that meant everyone inside was in danger…including Father Valero and the other members of the order. He needed to protect all those inside, and that was what he was determined to do.

  He called Roja and Robbins on his comm link and told them to report to the armory on the double. Father Valero had initially balked at having an armory inside The Sanctuary, insisting there was no room in this place of worship for violence. Neill was glad he had been firm with the padre, insisting on stocking semi-automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns, and other assorted firearms in the heart of The Sanctuary. The precautions he had taken months ago might finally pay off. Neill was sorry he’d been right about how bad things could get.

  Roja and Robbins must have been close by, as they were there within minutes. No doubt, they already knew the score and had immediately started taking up arms, shrugging into their body armor, and readying themselves to fight.

  “Find as many men as you can, arm them, and station them in the hallways. Put extra forces in front of the quarters where Valero’s men sleep and pray. I will guard Valero myself. Roja, you’re in charge of the east wing. Robbins, you take the west wing. Lord willing, the mercs will do all the heavy lifting, and those monsters won’t breach the walls. If they fail, we’ll need to be ready.”

  Overhead, the roar of the sirens was deafening. Those familiar with air-raid drills from WWII would have been all too familiar with the sound, and the overwhelming dread it caused.

  Roja and Robbins looked at each other with a mixture of fear, confusion, and resolution. In a matter of moments, the lives of others had been placed into their hands, and neither man seemed certain he was ready for that responsibility. They were scared of dying, scared of not making it home, and they regretted taking this gig. Yet, they also knew it was too late to do anything other than grab their rifles, buck up their courage, and prepare to fight.

  Roja and Robbins shook hands and touched the barrels of their guns, a gesture that in times other than these might have been the equivalent of a toast. “Take care of yourself, soldier,” Roja said.

  “Keep a sharp eye out,” Robbins replied. “I’ll see you on the other side of this mess.”

  Before leaving, both men saluted Commander Neill and then rushed off to marshal their troops. Neill was just about to head off to find Father Valero when the sound of a Southern drawl behind him caught him off guard.

  “Seems we’re in a bit of a bind, don’t it?” Crockett said, his voice cutting through the whine of the klaxons.

  “It does indeed,” Neill responded. “You want off this rock?”

  “This ain’t a place I would choose to vacation,” Crockett replied with lopsided smile. “Get me the part I need for my ship, and I’m out of here.”

  “Grab a gun, fight with us, and you can have whatever part you need if we make it out of this alive.”

  “Father Valero said he didn’t have the part,” Crockett pointed out.

  “He might not, but I bet Travis does, no matter what he told you,” Neill said. “We’ll get it from him together, one way or another, if that’s what it comes down to.”

  Crockett considered the offer and grabbed a double-barreled shotgun from the rack. “If you get me the part, I’ll gladly jump into this with both feet. I never turn down a chance to mix it up a little.”

  “My word on it,” Commander Neill replied. “Now, grab whatever you need and come with me. We’re going to find Father Valero.”

  * * *

  Several of Neill’s men stopped to salute him as he and Crockett headed down the brightly-lit hallway toward Valero’s quarters. With no time for such pleasantries, Neill waved his men on and increased his pace as he heard the roar of gunfire outside. The mercs were unleashing all the fury of their weapons on those beasts. The cacophony of explosions meant that the monsters were getting torn to bits, and Neill couldn’t help smiling as he thought about the payback being doled out for all the men who had fallen. From the sounds of things, war was being waged on a massive scale, and Neill breathed a sigh of relief, thinking to himself that there was no way they could lose with firepower like that on their side.

  When they reached Valero’s sleeping quarters, Crockett didn’t bother knocking or announcing himself. He simply pushed past Neill with his shotgun held out in front of him, sweeping the room just in case any of the monsters had made it inside.

  Father Valero knelt on the floor. He was praying.

  He immediately realized he wasn’t alone and got to his feet. He seemed surprised to see Crockett, but unfazed by Neill. It only made sense the head of his security detail would rush to his side in case of catastrophe.

  “Things are about to get bad, Father,” Neill warned him. “We came to protect you.”

  Valero nodded solemnly and pushed the hood back away from his face. His eyes were red and weary, and his face was gaunt. His appearance surprised both men. Yet, it was the tracks of tears down both cheeks that confused them.

  “This wasn’t supposed to end like this,” he said. “I thought we could make a difference here.”

  “If you hadn’t chosen to mine on Durin II, someone else would have,” Neill said, trying to make the padre feel better.

  “It isn’t that,” Valero said, struggling with the words, yet needing to get them out.

  “You think the deaths of all the men here are on you. Is that it?” Crockett said. “I tried to
warn you, but lots of folks don’t take me seriously. You wouldn’t be the first, and you wouldn’t be wrong to ignore me if you believe half of the things you hear about me.”

  “No, it isn’t that either,” Valero protested. “We came here to this planet to make a difference. To save souls. Not to destroy lives. I have failed. My order has failed, and now we will be judged for our failure.”

  “I don’t follow,” Neill said, struggling to make his voice heard over the volley of explosions from outside the walls.

  “I heard about this place long ago,” Valero began. “The stories I was told were of a race of creatures who lived in that mountain and hated humankind. You see, this isn’t the first time someone has tried to settle on Durin II. The first group that came here was a mining company, not unlike ours, except for the fact they believed in little besides money.”

  “They are monsters. They don’t have the ability to hate,” Crockett said. “They think in terms of predator and prey.”

  “Ordinarily, I would agree with you. The mining company believed differently, however, after someone started sabotaging their operations. Tools were stolen. Power lines were cut. Men of authority were slaughtered in the dead of night. These weren’t simple acts of predator and prey. These were deliberate acts meant to terrorize and ultimately drive away the miners. You might argue one of the miners or someone from the company could have been responsible. The mining company set up surveillance and saw the monsters repeatedly doing everything they could to wreck the operation, which ruled out human intervention.”

  “The monsters we have seen don’t engage in sabotage,” Neill argued. “They kill.”

  Father Valero nodded. “Sabotage didn’t work with the first group of humans, either; bloodshed was eventually required. I had hoped things would be different this time. The creatures must have thought it best to start out killing and hope we would go away.”

  “So, the first mining company left?” Commander Neill asked.

  Valero shook his head slowly. “Except for a handful of men who managed to escape Durin II, they were all killed.”

  “You never mentioned any of this to me,” Neill said.

  “I had faith that this time would be different,” Father Valero said. “I am truly sorry.”

  “There’s something else you’re not telling us,” Crockett said. “I can feel it.”

  “What is the real reason you and your order came to Durin II?” Neill asked. “From the beginning I thought it strange that a group like yours would have a mining operation.”

  “It’s true, we didn’t come to mine. That was a means to an end. Our order came to Durin II for the reason most men of faith head to foreign lands. When I heard about the savagery of these creatures and the deliberation with which they acted, it suggested to me that they were more than monsters. They were creatures of thought and reason. Which meant they had agendas and beliefs and their own standards by which they lived. They knew to protect their own, and they saw outsiders as a threat. Yet, the fact that they didn’t immediately kill the first colony of miners suggested that there might be a way to reason with them.”

  “You think these…things…have souls, don’t you?” Crockett asked.

  Valero shrugged his shoulders and eventually nodded. “I am at least open to the possibility they do. If that is the case, then they need the same redemption every man needs. We came here to spread the word of our order and speak to them, to show them the true way. The mining operations were simply a way to sustain our missionary efforts and gain entrance to the mountain, whereby we might minister to these creatures and gain some understanding. My hope that they contained the capacity to believe in our mission is the reason I disregarded your warning, Mr. Crockett. Despite the danger, I felt like coming here was doing God’s work.”

  “Do you still feel that way?” Neill asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. To ignore all the bloodshed is to continue to put my men in harm’s way. I have faith that God will protect us, but He also gives us the ability to reason and remove ourselves from bad situations when we can. The flip side of this is to turn my back on creatures that may, in fact, be much more than that, and to allow their souls to perish. That is why I was so reluctant to hire this group of mercenaries.”

  Commander Neill ducked instinctively as an explosion shook the walls of The Sanctuary. “I hate to tell you this, Father, but the decision is no longer in your hands. We are being attacked on a large scale, and those mercs you reluctantly hired to come here and restore order are going to kill as many of those devils as they can. They aren’t driven by religious zeal. They are driven by profit and bloodlust. Before this is all said and done, thousands of lives will be lost. Monsters, men, or, more probably, both. All I know is that this is going to get a lot messier.”

  “Then I don’t deserve your protection,” Father Valero said as he slipped between Crockett and Neill. “I made this mess, and I need to try and do something to stop this war. God help us all. Maybe the creatures have a king or a general…a leader of some sort that I can reason with. Maybe we can talk peace and set up a truce.”

  “Sir, I don’t advise that,” Neill said.

  But Father Valero didn’t stop. Instead, he headed toward one of the exit bays.

  “Is he going out there?” Crockett asked.

  His question was answered as Valero knelt in front of the retina scan, allowed the system to recognize him, and gave the door a voice command to open. In the split second the door opened, Neill and Crockett saw a world outside that was filled with fire, carnage, and death.

  Father Valero walked right out into it, and the door closed behind him with a sense of finality. Just like that, he was gone.

  Neill and Crockett both ran to a surveillance window and watched as Valero walked with a grim sense of determination toward the mountain.

  “He is going to get himself killed!” Crockett said.

  “With the guilt of so many deaths on his hands, that may be exactly what he is hoping for,” Neill said.

  For the first time in recent memory, Crockett had nothing to say. He suspected Neill was right.

  * * *

  Colonel Travis had been rousted from bed when the creatures arrived, and he had made it to the command center just as the battle was joined.

  “We held them back,” Bowie reported to him, once the battle was over. “It was close though, and there’s no question they’ll be back. How soon, I guess, depends on how quickly those things can regroup.”

  “Scramble all the CASPers we have,” Colonel Travis ordered. “I want them stationed along the walls. We need line of sight at all points on that wall. Nothing approaches that we don’t see, and if something does approach we turn it to charcoal. The time for mercy has passed.”

  “Already on it,” Bowie nodded. “Do you have a plan for if those monsters get in here?”

  Colonel Travis shook his head. “Don’t let that happen, Bowie; we can’t afford for that to happen. Lives are at stake. Our contract is at stake. We have technology and firepower. They have teeth and claws. This should be no contest, yet it seems we’re barely holding our own. That is unacceptable! Fix it, Bowie!”

  “Yes, sir!” Bowie answered and rushed on toward his CASPer.

  Colonel Travis wanted nothing more than to suit up himself, to go out there with guns blazing, and show the rest of these mercs how it was done. Yet he knew that wasn’t where he was needed most. Bowie could handle things on the front lines. Right now, what his company needed most was a firm hand at the wheel. Clamping his unlit cigar in his mouth, Travis made a silent promise to himself to smoke a whole box of Cubans if he ever got off this infernal planet.

  * * *

  “At ease, gentlemen,” Colonel Travis told the two men who were presenting the after-action report to him later. “No time for all that right now. We have bigger fish. Debrief me. Spare no details, even the ugly ones.”

  “The monsters pressed us pretty hard, sir,” Wagner reported. “No losses
on our side though. They never reached the walls. The CASPers did what they were made to do. We killed most of the ones they sent; however, we have no idea how many are left, since we didn’t have an estimate of their group’s size initially.”

  “They didn’t reach us, but they got close,” Austin, the junior tech, said. “We’re not entirely sure what made them retreat. All we know is they headed back into the woods, possibly even as deep as the mountain. The only thing we’re fairly certain of is that they will be back.”

  “I want a live stream from the camera on Bowie’s CASPer. Tap me into several of the cameras of our squad leaders too,” Colonel Travis ordered, taking a seat where he could see the multiple screens of the sensor station. Once he was settled he said, “Patch me into the general comm net.”

  “You’re on, sir,” Wagner nodded at him.

  “This is Colonel Travis,” he said. “We’ve had a little excitement around here tonight, but that’s ok. We expected as much. Good work on repulsing the first attack. You can count on it not being the last we’ll see of those devils tonight. I need each and every one of you to do your jobs, without hesitation. We’re professional soldiers. Those things out there…they’re just animals. If we keep it together, there’s no way in hell they’re getting in here.”

  Colonel Travis motioned for Wagner to end his transmission. He had said all that needed to be said, and now he needed to see what was going on outside.

  The camera feeds he’d asked for were beginning to fill the monitors of the command center’s sensor station. Colonel Travis watched as Bowie’s CASPer came online and started for the top of The Sanctuary’s northern wall.

  “You can do this, Bowie,” Colonel Travis whispered to himself. “You have to.”