by C H Gideon
He watched as the northern line encroached further and further across the engagement line, and just as he was ready to order Xi’s people to open fire, he heard her voice on the command channel, “5th Platoon, engage.”
Elvira’s dual fifteen-kilo guns roared in rapid succession, with Wolverine and Forktail adding to the deadly barrage. Every six seconds, Elvira sent a pair of HE shells toward the enemy, while Wolverine and Forktail cycled at nine and ten seconds, respectively.
Shell after shell rained down on the charging rock-biters as Xi’s platoon tore into the thinner northern line. Eighteen rockets flew from Wolverine’s shoulder-mounted launchers, tearing a nearly perfect, circular hole into the heart of the charging wave. A thousand rock-biters died under 5th Platoon’s guns in the first thirty seconds, with two railgun mounts being expertly sniped with rocket-fire for good measure.
And still the Arh’Kel advanced at breathtaking speed, with thousands more pouring out of the breaches at their backs.
Roy’s artillery thermal alarms began to chime, signaling that their thermal sinks were red-lined. If nothing changed, they could continue firing uninterrupted for another eight minutes before needing to be taken off-line for a three-minute cooldown.
Soon the western and southern quadrants had been encroached by the horde. Unlike Lieutenant Xi to the north, Captain Murdoch’s people opened fire the instant a single rock-biter crossed the engagement line. Rodenbaugh had better sense to the west, waiting until his zone was heavy with enemy targets before unleashing Generally’s artillery along with the rest of the down-checked vehicles’ arsenals.
The first of the rock-biters crossed the two-kilometer line, and the Pounders greeted them with a barrage of mortar rounds. Staccato mortar strikes tore into the approaching rock-biters, with each mortar round clearing a handful of Arh’Kel, and soon the mortars were joined by crew-served RPG launchers as the Pounders worked their nests with ruthless efficiency.
Standing atop the eastern fortifications was Major Pete Piper, who directed his people with combined radio commands and flag communication. He was old school, just like Sergeant Major Trapper, whose people were moving to reinforce the southern line where the rock-biters were more heavily-concentrated than on the northern or western fronts.
At the one-kilometer line, the Pounder nests opened fire with machine guns and coilguns, spraying hot death into the stone-skinned Arh’Kel. The closer they came to the battalion’s headquarters, the more intense the Terrans’ counter-fire became, and soon every face of the fortified plateau was awash with outbound fire tearing into the enemy with anti-personnel and light-anti-material rounds.
A line of nine Arh’Kel railguns had formed along the southeastern edge of the engagement zone, and they soon made their presence known. Coordinating fire into the southern rock-wall with a concerted volley, they blew a ten-meter-wide hole into the fortifications. Forty Pounders were killed as half a dozen nests were sniped by enemy railguns, and Jenkins was pleased to see 2nd Platoon immediately move to reinforce the sudden gap in their defenses.
Sergeant Major Trapper, possessing uncanny foresight, had already brought half of his reserve company to the southern ridge-line. Standing tall and barking orders, even as railgun strikes tore into the wall at his back, he directed his people to set up new gun nests to replace the ones taken out by the rock-biter artillery.
“Preacher,” Jenkins snapped, “engage Delta Package: HWPs 18 through 25.”
“Delta, 18 through 25,” Falwell acknowledged, his missiles tearing from their mounts as both launchers cleared in rapid succession. “Engaged.”
One by one, seven of the southeastern railguns were neutralized by Preacher’s LRMs.
“Stand by, Commander,” Falwell reported. “We’ve got a launch failure on tube three.”
“Lieutenant Koch—” Jenkins switched to the dedicated repair channel. “—send a team to Preacher. They’ve got a jammed tube.”
“On it, Commander,” Koch acknowledged as fire continued to pour from the ridge-line in all directions. Artillery thundered, coilguns sprayed, and mortar rounds erupted among the enemy line as the seemingly endless tide of rock-biters converged on the plateau.
“Preacher, are you hot on your second launcher?” Jenkins asked. He knew that without the LRMs, they would be at the mercy of the enemy railguns.
“Affirmative, Commander,” came the prompt reply. “Mount Two is green.”
“Echo Package,” Jenkins called out after identifying a second quickly-forming line of railguns, “targets 28, 29, 31, and 2.”
“Echo Package, 28, 29, 31, and 2,” acknowledged Falwell, “engaging.”
The launcher sent its missiles toward the enemy formation, which only managed a single shot from one HWP before all four were scrapped by the inbound missiles.
“Neutralized,” Falwell reported.
Along the eastern front, the enemy had reached the base of the plateau’s slope. Gun nests built atop the ramparts lining the kill-zone erupted, catching the Arh’Kel in a vicious crossfire as every gun capable of spitting projectiles was turned on the approaching horde.
The rock-biters fell in droves, with dozens dying each second as their fellows charged past their corpses. The kill-zone was soon a field of carnage, with hardly a square meter barren of Arh’Kel gore.
And still, the rock-biters charged on.
A warning icon appeared on 4th Platoon’s dedicated display, and what Jenkins saw there made him set his jaw.
“Fifteens are off-line,” Murdoch reported. “Initiating emergency cooldown in accordance with protocol.”
Flaming Rose’s guns were no hotter than Roy’s or Elvira’s, but Captain Murdoch had just proven Jenkins’ worst fears about the man:
His nerves simply weren’t up to this kind of engagement.
When given a choice between the risk of cooking off your own ammo while pouring fire into the enemy or hoping someone else comes along to save your ass while you cower behind safety protocols, Jenkins had always believed that the only defense was an overwhelming offense. Better to die from friendly fire than to let someone else die because you were too afraid to peek above your foxhole.
Thankfully, Sergeant Major Trapper had already reestablished several gun nests in optimal secondary locations. Along with 2nd Platoon, which had arrived and was pouring anti-personnel fire down the near-vertical slope as Arh’Kel began to clamber up it, the men and women on the southern ridge were holding the enemy at bay.
For now.
Koch’s people quickly completed field repairs on Preacher’s missile launcher, and soon Jenkins was once again feeding targets to the invaluable mech’s Jock.
With ammo running low and Arh’Kel continuing to belch from the ground, Jenkins knew that if he was going to hold this rock, something would have to give.
Soon.
With the first notes of Ronnie James Dio’s Long Live Rock & Roll blaring inside Elvira’s cabin, Xi and Podsy worked with ruthless efficiency to clear the northern front of approaching Arh’Kel.
A pair of enemy railguns had set up fourteen kilometers from the ridge-line and spat roaring bolts of tungsten into the rubble wall directly in front of Elvira II. Xi’s fingertips were raw from working the manual inputs, with trickles of blood running down her hands as she repositioned her mech for optimal firing position on the enemy railguns.
While she moved, a railgun bolt killed five Pounders inside one of the gun nests atop the wall. Snarling in anger, she decided it was time for a little insubordination.
“Let’s kill those fuckers, Podsy,” she growled. “Load up extended-range AP rounds.”
“ERAPs up,” he replied, his tone making clear that he agreed with her decision to fire beyond the engagement zone.
“Make ‘em count,” she snarled.
“On the way!” he declared, and Elvira’s whole chassis bucked upward twice in rapid-succession as he sent two shells at the offending enemy weapons.
The first strike was a bulls-
eye, scrapping the enemy railgun and sending up a tiny plume of glassy dust.
The second was a near-miss, but it collapsed the ground near the enemy HWP such that the vehicle was forced to move to more stable ground before resuming fire.
“Finish it off,” she growled.
“ERAPs up,” Podsy acknowledged. “On the way!”
Elvira’s guns thundered as Podsednik sent two more shells the enemy’s way. This time, both were direct hits and the enemy mount was neutralized, clearing the northern quadrant of HWPs.
“Resume HE fire on the field,” she ordered, repositioning Elvira with increasingly painful fingers as the southern edge of the plateau erupted into chaos. “What the fuck is Murdoch doing down there?!” she snapped in disbelief after seeing that Flaming Rose hadn’t fired its long guns in nearly two minutes.
“Looks like he’s leaning on the reserves,” Podsy said in open disgust.
Xi hesitated for a split-second before deciding to act, again in defiance of orders.
“Clear those HEs,” she commanded, “then load standard APs.”
“LT…” Podsy trailed off warningly.
“Just do it, Podsy,” she snapped. “People are dying down there because of that desk-jockey’s incompetence. If the commander puts one between my eyes because I cleared my board and decided to help Murdoch clear his, I’m fine with that.” Podsy sent the two loaded HE shells down-range, killing dozens of Arh’Kel at the two-kilometer mark before she pivoted Elvira away from the northern zone and aimed her fifteens to the south. “APs up,” she commanded.
“Lieutenant,” Ensign Ford’s predictable objection came over the line, “what are you doing?”
“Engaging the enemy,” Xi replied. “You know, that thing we came down here to do? Continue clearing the northern quadrant, 5th Platoon, that’s a direct order.”
“You can’t do this, Lieutenant Xi,” Ford’s whiny, nasally voice cried. “You have orders to engage the northern quadrant. Return to the line...”
“Back on target, Forktail,” she snapped, “or I’ll relieve you of command, as I, the platoon leader, am authorized to do at my discretion, Ensign.”
Silence was her only reply, but Forktail’s eight-kilo gun continued dropping shells on the enemy in the northern quadrant.
The opening riff of Man on the Silver Mountain replaced the last notes of Long Live Rock & Roll just as Xi finished positioning Elvira. She was stunned to see that Arh’Kel had already reached the top of the southern ridge-line and were cartwheeling through the now-fifteen-meter gap in the rock-wall.
She knew that what she was about to do could kill the Pounders stationed nearby. But as four Arh’Kel infantry broke through the line, tearing into the lightly-armored reserve mechs and totally scrapping one, Silent Fox, in a matter of seconds, she knew there was no real choice in the matter.
“Fire on the breach, Podsy,” she commanded. “Tight groupings. We just want to keep them from coming through.”
“Targeting the breach,” he acknowledged. “Firing.”
Elvira’s guns took aim and fired, one after the other, three seconds apart. Rubble in the breach flew, spraying deadly shrapnel toward the incoming enemy.
She winced as she saw a pair of exposed Pounders brought down by her fire, but she breathed a sigh of relief when one scrambled to his feet and dragged the other away from the blast zone.
Rhythmically pumping shell after shell into the breach, she cut the enemy completely off from the obvious weak point in their defenses.
She caught sight of a lone figure standing on the open plain of the plateau, directing Pounders here and there as they quickly set up machine guns and RPG launchers. That figure was Sergeant Major Tim Trapper, who was nothing short of a heroic figure as he stood tall, seemingly ignorant of the hellfire raining down around him as he pointed with one hand and occasionally fired his sidearm at a rock-biter with the other.
Xi had never been so impressed by a human being in her entire life. Not even fictional figures from myth and popular holo-vids had made such an impression.
“Good work, Elvira,” Commander Jenkins’ voice came across the line just as Trapper’s Pounders established a defensible inner line and began working their new nests. “Concentrate your fire on the eastern field,” he continued as Flaming Rose finally, after four minutes of silence, a full minute longer than the emergency cooldown required, resumed firing on the encroaching rock-biters in his quadrant. “North and south are under control.”
“Copy that,” she said, feeling a wave of relief wash over her at receiving her commanding officer’s approval. She knew he might still punish her later, but for now, she was able to re-focus and cast aside doubts about her decision. Soon she and Podsy were helping to clear the eastern fields, but the number of rock-biters there was well over ten thousand, with more pouring steadily up from the tunnel mouths surrounding the plateau.
Xi doubted they had enough ammo to cut all of them down.
“Commander,” Styles called out anxiously from the far side of Roy’s command center, “I need all of our drones in the air and transferred to my command, now.”
“Do it,” Jenkins agreed, and soon all three of the battalion’s remaining drones, two Vultures and one Owl, were in the air. He made his way to Styles’ side, where the technician worked with furious intensity as he called up files and programs that were completely unfamiliar to Jenkins. He waited a few seconds before prompting, “Talk to me.”
“I think I can sleep them,” Styles said tersely without tearing his eyes from the screen. “I need to position these drones…just like that…” he said, his fingers flying across his console as his words came sporadically, “and send a command…telling them…there!”
Suddenly, something bizarre happened.
Rippling outward from points centered directly beneath the airborne drones, rock-biters began to stop, fall, or slump over mid-stride.
“How did you...” Jenkins began, only to be interrupted.
“I have no idea how long it will last, sir,” Styles said shortly.
Jenkins nodded before issuing orders. “All mechs: target railgun mounts in your assigned quadrants and fire at will. Ground forces: dust this rock off.”
“Sar,” acknowledged Sergeant Trapper with gusto, while Jenkins’ mechs began scrapping every railgun mount in sight with rockets and artillery. One shot, one kill.
The Arh’Kel began to scatter, no longer united in their mindless assault on the plateau. Streaming back into their tunnels, they fled as fast as they could while Jenkins’ people cleared out everything within three kilometers of their plateau fortress and scrubbed every HWP farther out than that.
Two minutes after they had been thrown into confusion, the last rock-biter had left the three-kilometer perimeter and Jenkins gave the engagement’s final order. “Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire. Let ‘em go, people. All crews, see to your wounded. Ground forces, triage casualties to medical. Platoon commanders, deliver personnel and ammo reports to Chief Styles.”
He breathed a short sigh of relief before finishing, “This round’s to us.”
13
The Plan
“Okay, Styles,” Jenkins said, sitting down with the technician two hours after the last Arh’Kel had disappeared back underground, where they belonged, as far as Jenkins was concerned. “Bring me up to speed.”
“I was playing around with some virtual models,” Styles explained, “and found that the Arh’Kel cybernetic implants have got some problems, like, major design flaws. They’re so huge, and so glaring, if you know what you’re looking for,” he allowed, “that frankly I’m stunned they were used in a combat zone.”
Jenkins’ brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Styles hesitated, trying to summon the right words. “Imagine… Okay, it’s like this.” He took out a data slate and began tapping dozens of little dots into a rudimentary image-generation program. “Most control systems have a centralized control system, right? Even the
Solarians’ One Mind network has sub-nodes and central checkpoints that monitor all peer-to-peer data that gets disseminated to the rest of the network.” As he spoke, he tapped out a handful of triangles in the midst of the scattered dots. “The dots are the individual Arh’Kel and, if I was designing the system, the triangles would represent sub-nodes and checkpoints installed onto either individual Arh’Kel or, even better, onto their HWPs. These nodes would provide protection against the mass-introduction of commands like the one I sent to the horde, and would be relatively easy to design and install, certainly they’d be easier to come up with than the individual links.”
Jenkins nodded along as he slowly took Styles’ meaning, “So you assumed that’s what the Arh’Kel had done.”
“Right!” Styles nodded enthusiastically. “It seemed so natural, so absurdly obvious, that such a decentralized system would require checks and balances, that I just assumed they’d done that. But I thought it was worth a test when the southern ridge-line was breached, especially when Xi started firing on the breach, so I used Roy’s high-wattage transceiver to send a few test commands. At first, nothing worked, but eventually I hit on a command line that worked, written in their base six virtual coding language, of course,” he added, as though it was nothing, but while Jenkins knew little about coding, he did know that coding in base six was beyond even most lifelong coders. That kind of job was always relegated to virtual bots because the human mind had too much difficulty working in base six.
“What was the command intended to do?” Jenkins asked.
“Create a feedback loop,” Styles replied. “My hope was that it would short the implants out, or trigger some sort of built-in safeguards, and it looks like that’s exactly what happened. They were in a stupor for about twenty seconds before they regained voluntary muscle control...”
