"Yes, 2 Troop is delayed on our right. They're abandoning one of their vehicles, something about electrical damage. Gonna take a moment to pick up the crew. We need to guard for them until then."
"Got it." She used her GPNVGs to scan the sky—not that she would have seen an invisible mage or wyvern, but this way, she felt that she was doing something tangible. "Can we move closer to them?"
She heard Huck speaking into the microphone attached to her headset. A moment later, their armored vehicle pushed forward past the shattered remains of the barricade the trolls had tried to use to get at the infantry, and revulsion coursed through Elizabeth as they rolled over bodies to reach the far side of the highway.
Anything? she asked Cassie.
No, I'm not sensing anything, the other woman replied. Maybe we scared 'em off. I don't imagine they're used to losing three mages in a few minutes.
I must admit, said Leela, we do make a good team.
We are women, hear us roar, thought Cassie. Maybe they—wait! Spoke too soon. There's two more coming in—together this time. Sneaky elf bitches.
Where? Elizabeth asked.
Eleven o'clock, about three hundred meters up, moving southeast. Here. The other woman sent a mental projection of the cloaked wyverns.
Got it, Elizabeth answered, aiming the Brace at them.
They're channeling! Cassie noted with alarm.
On it, thought Leela.
Leela placed a shield over the LAV—just before fire erupted all around them. Huck and Elizabeth both screamed, certain they were dead, but the heat and flames swept around Leela's barrier to scorch the highway instead. The dark elves had tried to create fire inside the vehicle this time, no doubt seeing the opened crew commander hatch that Elizabeth and Huck shared.
Elizabeth? Cassie asked through the link. Are you hurt?
No. She shivered, her heart threatening to burst from her chest. I'm fine. She glared at where the two dark-elf mages flew, believing themselves invisible. Then she filled herself with mana and released it through the Brace as a multi-forked lightning bolt that flashed up through the sky. Both wyverns suddenly appeared, as if glowing, with flames curling around their bat-like wings as they plummeted to the ground. Smaller figures tumbled alongside them to hammer into the ground a moment later. Elizabeth thought one of them had been screaming.
Then the armored vehicle rocked suddenly as a troll climbed up onto its front, less than ten feet from Elizabeth and Huck. The troll, nine feet tall at least, must have been lying motionless among the dead. It roared in rage, exposing two massive tusks, as it rushed forward, raising a massive war ax above its head with arms bigger than Elizabeth's waist. On Rubicon, she had seen one of these monsters cut a Task Force Devil soldier in half. She froze in panic, her eyes locked on the massive gleaming ax-head.
Huck leaned past her, firing her pistol point-blank into the troll, emptying its clip in an earsplitting crescendo. Deafened but also jarred out of inaction, Elizabeth channeled, sending a hammer of telekinesis at the wounded troll. It flew back as if struck by a battering ram, landed in the ditch of the highway, and rolled along the ground. The wounded troll climbed unsteadily back to its feet, but Huck, pushing Elizabeth out of the way again, grabbed the pintle-mounted C6 machine gun and opened up with a long burst, shredding its torso. One of the bullets had been a tracer, and it still burned in the troll's now-gaping chest cavity, filling the air with the stench of burned flesh.
"You okay?" Huck asked.
Elizabeth, what's wrong? asked Cassie.
"I'm … I'm good." I'm good.
"We have to go—2 Troop is moving now. You did it," said Huck.
Elizabeth gulped, nodding as she looked about. The infantry LAV-III that the dark-elf mages had lit on fire still burned nearby, casting flickering orange flames that lit up the surrounding carnage. She saw the two Coyotes from 2 Troop pull onto the highway and move south quickly, their tires screeching as they hit the asphalt. On either side of the highway, unopposed now, the enemy advanced.
"Go! Get us out of here!" Elizabeth yelled, her ears still ringing.
I'm sensing more dark-elf mages, maybe a half dozen or so, Cassie warned, but they're moving away. Maybe they're pulling back.
Maybe they've decided not to mess with us, thought Leela.
Elizabeth doubted that was the case. We've scared them, but they'll come again.
Their armored vehicle rumbled back over the corpses again before executing a clumsy three-point turn. Huck turned the turret so that the cannon now faced behind them. She reached around Elizabeth and activated the smoke-grenade launchers. The grenades detonated behind them, filling the highway with dense clouds of smoke as they sped south.
40
The FOO vehicle raced down the highway, catching up to the rest of the squadron. Major Ryker had reestablished his unit's defensive line about three kilometers back, once again centering his defense upon the highway. This time, though, Elizabeth noted, the infantry stayed within their vehicles, ready to pull back at a moment's notice.
Still crammed in the crew commander's hatch just behind her, Huck spoke into her radio set. She then yelled into Elizabeth's ear so she could hear her over the wind and the roar of the diesel engine. "1 and 2 Troop are both down to only two cars each, so Major Ryker wants us with the infantry in the center, so we can move left or right depending on the need."
"He still needs to keep everyone within their vehicles, hatches locked," Elizabeth yelled back. "The dark elves can easily burn out vehicles in the time it'll take us to get to where they're attacking. They're always going to be faster than us."
"He knows."
Up ahead were the three infantry LAV-IIIs. The armored vehicles were facing away, ready to move south again, but their turrets were reversed and facing north.
Huck positioned her vehicle behind the slope of a small hill just off the highway, with trees on either side. From here, they had an unobstructed view of the terrain behind them.
Elizabeth saw nothing through her GPNVGS but a slight glow on the horizon from the fires they had left in their wake. "Are they still coming, do you think?"
"They're coming," answered Huck. She handed Elizabeth a set of heavy night-vision binoculars.
Elizabeth lifted her GPNVGs up onto her forehead and looked through the binoculars. It took some time to find the enemy, but when she did, she could easily make out the massed ranks of enemy warriors as they marched forward. From this range, their ranks looked like ripples in a stream. She swept the binoculars from west to east, stunned at the numbers of the enemy. "There must be thousands of them."
"I'd guess ten, maybe fifteen thousand," answered Huck. "Probably as many in depth that we can't see yet."
"Why? Why keep coming? We must have killed hundreds of them, maybe a thousand."
"You tell me. You and the other … mag-sens, Cassie and Leela, are the closest things we have to alien experts."
"I wish I knew." She watched the enemy in silence for a time. "How long until they get within range?"
"At night, over rough terrain, I'd guess the main force will be here in an hour, maybe half that for those fire-breathing wolves."
"Hellhounds," Elizabeth said. "We call them hellhounds."
Huck snorted. "Hellhounds. Why not?"
"Can we … can we stop them?"
Huck was silent as she considered her answer. "No," she finally said. "The logistics are against us. Each car came in with a combat load, six hundred rounds for the Bushmaster, another six hundred for the machine guns. That seems like a lot, but I think we've already expended at least half that. The boss has called for resupply from the A-Ech, but…"
"A-Ech?"
"The Admin-Echelon, our resupply and maintenance vehicles in the rear. It'll take an hour or so before they can resupply all the cars. But even then, the A-Ech only carries so much ammunition, and there's no shortage of bad guys. Even if they stood in place and let us shoot at them all day, we'd run out of bullets before we ran o
ut of targets. Maybe if we had air and artillery support—a lot of air and artillery support—we could push them back, but word is the prime minister won't allow anyone else forward of the Kiskatinaw River. We're on our own."
"So what's the plan? What can we do?"
"Slow them down until the last of the refugees are evacuated. Should be any time now. Until then, we shoot and scoot, without becoming decisively engaged; leapfrog back with 3 Troop. We call it a Mobile Defense."
Elizabeth glanced at her watch. It was already 2:30 a.m. "Got it."
"As long as we're waiting," Huck said, "let me show you how the turret controls work. It's getting a bit crowded up here, and I'm not sure I'm actually doing anything."
Elizabeth noted the controls carefully, suspecting that by the time this night was over, she'd have completed a crash course in armored tactics.
HUCK WAS WRONG: the hellhounds reached them within twenty minutes, with the lead elements of the dark elf army only about another fifteen minutes behind them. They marched fast—even in the dark.
This time, the Coyotes and LAVs opened fire with the C6 machine guns from just under a kilometer away, their peak effective range. Red tracer rounds winged across the terrain like angry fireflies. At first, the hellhounds charged forward, but as the 7.62mm rounds cut into them, the animals broke, turning and fleeing. To charge straight into machine-gun fire must have been a hellish experience, Elizabeth realized. No wonder the First World War had stalemated into trench warfare. Once the hellhounds scattered, the defenders turned their attention to the advancing ranks of warriors and trolls. The gunners switched to their Bushmaster cannons, sending 25mm fragmentation rounds exploding among the enemy ranks. Once the gunners had expended their fragmentation rounds, they began firing armor-piercing ammunition. Although the armor-piercing rounds didn't have the same devastating effect, each bullet cut through several ranks of enemy warriors. Even from a half kilometer away, Elizabeth heard the chilling screams of the wounded.
Huck, satisfied that Elizabeth understood the turret controls, had ducked back inside, giving Elizabeth more room to move. As before, Cassie was the first to sense the approach of the invisible mages and their wyvern mounts. The mages cast lightning and fireballs against the armored vehicles, but the spells failed. The fireballs burned out over the armor, and the lightning had no effect on grounded vehicles. Cassie projected a mental image of where the mages flew, and in less than twenty seconds, Elizabeth burned two more of them from the sky.
The remaining mages turned their attention to Elizabeth, but each time they attacked, Leela shielded the vehicle. After Elizabeth killed two more mages, the others fled. The dark elf army, however, continued marching forward into the devastating fire, closing to within two hundred meters. Huck was right—there simply weren't enough bullets to stop them all.
Huck poked her face through the hatch. "Hang on. We're moving again."
Elizabeth was glad she was too far away to see all the corpses.
THE NEXT FEW hours were exactly as Huck had predicted, with one exception. While the three troops could leapfrog each other, taking turns engaging the enemy at range then pulling back before the warriors could close with them, Elizabeth and the other mag-sens within the FOO vehicle were always forward, always engaged. There was simply no one else that could fight magic with magic. The near-constant channeling was exhausting Elizabeth, even with the Brace. The only grace was that the dark elves had grown noticeably gun-shy and only came against the mag-sens intermittently, trying to vary their tactics and lines of attack but failing each time.
Elizabeth had been right: the three of them made the ultimate team.
To her shame, Elizabeth lost track of how many lives she had taken this night, nor could she even guess how many enemy warriors the Recce Squadron had slaughtered.
Yet the enemy kept coming.
Now, as each troop pulled back, the A-Ech vehicles met them, resupplying their ammo. But because the FOO vehicle was always engaged, Huck had ordered the gunner to cease firing and conserve their remaining ammo while Elizabeth dealt with the mages. They were now less than ten kilometers north of the Kiskatinaw River and safety. The lead elements of the 1st Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, 1 CMBG, were already defending the far bank and its sole bridge. Once the major gave the order—soon, word was—the squadron would cross the bridge and conduct a maneuver called "a passage of lines." Once that was completed, the 1 CMBG troops would become the Forward Line of Troops, the FLOT. If she weren't so tired, she'd have marveled at her growing expertise with military tactics and terminology.
Once, she had been certain her future was in business management, maybe as a bank manager or accountant. Yet God apparently had other ideas, and her true calling was to be a soldier—a combat mage and, apparently, a damned good one.
If only Clara could see me now.
Clara…
Her head snapped up with a jolt as she was awakened by the sonic boom of a fighter aircraft flying past—the third such flyby this night. She shook her head, angry with herself for falling asleep while standing in the turret.
Cassie pushed her way up through the hatch, squeezing through the opening beside her. "What up, bitch?" she asked with a smile. Cassie sounded as tired as Elizabeth felt.
"Any chance there's coffee down there?" Elizabeth asked.
Cassie shook her head. "They only make coffee when they're not fighting aliens." She peered around Elizabeth's shoulder, trying to see the ground to their front.
Elizabeth lifted her GPNVGs and found she was just able to make out Cassie's features in the early-morning darkness. "There's nothing to see yet. They're still at least a kilometer north of us."
Cassie nodded. "Oh."
Elizabeth handed her the night-vision binoculars that Huck had left. "That way," she said, pointing north.
Cassie held them to her face, her body stiffening when she saw the long line of enemy warriors. "What the hell is driving them on like that? They've got balls. I'll give 'em that. Do fish-men have balls?"
Elizabeth giggled. God, I'm tired. "I think they're called boggarts. Least that's what Kargin called them."
Cassie handed Elizabeth a cigarette then lit her own, using magic and cupping the burning end with her hand.
"I don't smoke," said Elizabeth, staring stupidly at the cigarette in her hand.
Cassie took it from her, lit it with her own, then stuffed it in Elizabeth's mouth. "Tonight, you smoke. Stop being so perfect. It's annoying. Besides, Leela and I can both feel how exhausted you are through the link. Maybe the jolt of nicotine will wake you up."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes but inhaled a small amount of smoke, just enough to make her cough.
Cassie slapped her on the back several times before turning her attention to their front. "What are they after, I wonder? Why keep coming after so many losses?"
"Tlathia said they need the Shatkur Orb. She said without it, the invasion would fail." She took a longer drag from her cigarette.
"No shit. That's all she said?"
"I think … I think maybe she was embarrassed to say more, or ashamed. Unfortunately, we just didn't have much time together before… Well, maybe Kargin can tell us more."
"Hope so." Cassie reached an arm around her and hugged her. "It wasn't your fault, girlfriend."
Leela's head popped up between their legs, where there was barely any room. "Hey, give me a drag."
Elizabeth handed her the cigarette. "Aren't we sad? The only three human beings on the planet that can channel, and we're sharing cigarettes in a tank turret."
"We're not the only ones anymore," said Cassie softly.
"Huh?" Elizabeth stared at her.
"Alex says that hundreds of people are passing out near all the other dark elf incursion sites around the world then waking up with strange powers. It's just like what happened to us. I don't think we're going to be so special anymore."
"Jesus," whispered Elizabeth.
"Don't take the Lord's name in vai
n," said Cassie with a wink.
They remained like that for a bit, smoking in silence. When the cigarettes were done, Leela dropped back inside the vehicle. Elizabeth noticed Cassie was staring silently at her now. "What? What is it?"
"You're swaying, Elizabeth," Cassie said, resting her palm against Elizabeth's cheek. "You're using too much mana, even with the Brace."
"Do we have a choice?"
"Maybe not, but I'd like to try something—if it's okay with you. Something I've been thinking about for a while now."
"Try what?"
"Heal you of your fatigue."
"You can do that?"
"I think … I don't know, maybe. Like the magical equivalent of a jolt of caffeine. Of course, if I'm wrong, I might make it worse or put you to sleep. Do you trust me?"
Elizabeth smiled. "I never thought I'd say this, Cassie Rogan, but I do trust you. Go ahead."
Cassie placed her palms on either side of Elizabeth's head. "Here goes nothing." She closed her eyes.
Elizabeth felt her channel. Then she felt a wave of energy course through her, warm at first then growing hotter. She gasped, her muscles tightening, the hair on the back of her arms and neck standing straight up. Then, in a single moment, she no longer felt as though cotton filled her head. Now, she was alert and energetic, as if she had just run a five-kilometer race. "Well?" asked Cassie, watching Elizabeth's face with concern.
"Like magic," Elizabeth answered with a smile.
"Hey," Huck called out from below. "Coming up."
Cassie hugged Elizabeth. "Stay strong, hon."
Cassie dropped back inside the armored vehicle, and moments later, Huck climbed up, squeezing through the hatch. Popular place tonight, Elizabeth mused.
Huck wore headphones over one ear but handed Elizabeth her crew commander's helmet with its headset, the kind with thin rubber coverings for the ears and a microphone on a wire that extended in front of the wearer's mouth. "Major Ryker wants you on the command net, Elizabeth, which makes sense seeing as how you're more of the crew commander than I am right now."
Gunz Page 31
