by Jay Allan
“So who is that down there, Captain?” Illuri angled his head, looking up at Charles. “Cause that’s southern Manhattan, and there’s one hell of a fight going on down there.” He paused a few seconds then: “What should I do, Cap?”
Charles just kept staring at the screen. He had no idea what was going on. He knew he should forget what was happening, that he should order Illuri to follow the flight plan, to veer away from New York City and land thirty klicks out as they’d planned. The Dragonfire was probably the stealthiest vehicle in the skies of Earth right now, but that didn’t make the thing invisible. Flying over Manhattan would be dangerous. Foolish even. He opened his mouth to order the pilot to follow the original plan. But then the scanners went crazy.
“We’ve got massive explosions, sir…at multiple location in Manhattan.” The pilot’s eyes had been locked on his display, but when he looked up he could see everyone on the ship standing, looking through the cockpit. The New York skyline had been barely visible at this range, mandated energy-saving rules having long ago relegated the famous nighttime image to history’s scrapbook. But now the city was ablaze with light…explosions, and fires burning fiercely and engulfing at least a dozen buildings.
“Take us closer, Vic,” Charles said, his voice soft, half in shock. “We’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
* * *
Jones took a deep breath, and tried to steady himself. He was scared, scared shitless. But he was also elated. The sounds of the explosions, the glow of light illuminating the night sky…they had done it. The Resistance had targeted every UNGov installation in the city…offices, security facilities, even troop barracks. He knew they might not win…indeed, the enormity of what they had done almost guaranteed a response so overwhelming, he didn’t know if any of them would be alive in a week. But they had taken what chance they had.
He felt a round whip by his head so close he had to put a hand to his cheek to be sure it was still there. A week? I doubt any of us are going to get off this waterfront.
He forced himself to focus, staring down the barrel of the assault rifle. There. A UNGov security trooper, behind a crate…but just a little careless. He closed one eye and stared down the site, bringing the crosshairs onto his target, the back of the man’s head. It was only a few centimeters exposed, but Wickes had taught him to shoot…and Stan Wickes learned his marksmanship in the old Marine Corps.
He took another breath and exhaled, remembering everything the old leatherneck had told him. Then slowly, steadily he pulled back on the trigger. Then he felt the kick, heard the crack as the weapon fired. He saw his target fall as the bullet tore of the back of his skull in a shower of gray and red mist. Wickes had told him—he had told them all—that real combat was nothing like they expected, and certainly not the way it was portrayed in any fiction they’d read or watched.
He’d just killed a man, ended a life with the pull of a trigger. It wasn’t the first…that had come a few days earlier. And he suspected it wouldn’t be the last either, not if his people were going to have any chance of getting away. Jones hated UNGov with a passion, but in the last few days he’d realized Wickes had been right. Killing wasn’t easy…no matter the cause.
He snapped his head up toward the night sky. He heard something. For an instant he thought he’d imagined it…and then it came out from behind a row of buildings and flew over the river. A chopper, a gunship…and it was heading right for his position.
* * *
“Cap, whoever that is on those docks, they’re about to get wiped. I’ve got a chopper on my screen, sir…the kind they use for crowd suppression. That thing’s got dual autocannons…they’ll clear those piers in seconds, sir.”
Charles stared through the cockpit, looking down on the scene of the fighting. They were close now, close enough to see the muzzle blasts…and the image of the UNGov gunship coming around from the east. It would be in position to fire any second.
“What do we do, sir?” Illuri asked again. “We can’t let them waste all those people.”
“We don’t have any idea who those people are, Lieutenant. And we’ve got orders…”
“That’s a UNGov chopper, sir.” The pilot’s voice dripped with venom. “I’ve watched them clear riots, sir. Too many times. I’ve seen what those rounds do to bodies.”
“I’ve seen it too, Lieutenant.” Charles’ voice was grim, uncertainty rapidly giving way to anger. He knew what he should do. He even understood it. No group of rioters was more important than getting the twelve men onboard onto the ground, to begin spreading the word of the fight that had just begun. But he couldn’t bring himself to issue the order. Those people down there…they were fighting the same struggle, somehow he was sure of it.
“Alright, Lieutenant…bring us around in an attack pattern.”
“Yes, sir!”
Charles turned and looked toward the back of the ship. “Sergeant Neelin…you think you can manage that gunner’s station?”
“Yes, Captain! I think I can manage it.”
“Good…then let’s go splash that fucking UNGov gunship.”
* * *
The chopper moved across the open area along the waterfront, its twin guns spreading death and destruction as it passed. Wickes was right along the water’s edge, taking cover next to a concrete pier. He’d ordered all his people to take whatever cover they could, but he’d seen at least two of them go down in the hail of gunfire from the chopper. He hadn’t had much hope of escape, but now he had none. They were pinned down, with no way to get to the tunnel.
Assuming anyone is still there.
He knew the security forces might have found their contacts…and the rebels stationed at the tunnel had orders to run for it if something showed up that they couldn’t handle.
And that gunship damned sure qualifies…
He looked up as the chopper climbed, beginning its turn for another run. The Marine in him refused to give up, but he couldn’t think of anything to do…nothing but stay here and fight to the death. He reached down and slammed his last clip into place, still staring at the chopper as it came around, heading almost directly for him. He knew the chance of hitting the thing with his rifle was tiny, and even more astronomical to cause enough damage to disable it. But a miserable chance was better than none, and that’s exactly what he intended to do.
He climbed up higher on the dock. The concrete pier gave him cover from the UNGov forces on the ground, but we was totally in the open to the chopper. He stared intently, locking his eyes on the fearsome aircraft. He waited, watching, bringing his rifle to bear.
He heard the sounds of the autocannon fire, ripping into the street, tearing away great chunks of pavement. He watched as his death approached, ready to trade his doomed life for one chance in ten thousand of damaging the airship.
Just another few seconds…
He was about to pull the trigger when the gunship fell silent. And then, an instant later he saw it…another aircraft, much larger, looming up behind the UNGov chopper. There was a delay—later he realized it had probably been half a second or less—and then he heard the sound. It was horrible, like death itself, and he saw the UNGov chopper almost disintegrate under the fire of the new ship’s four quad autocannons.
He ducked under the concrete piers as flaming wreckage fell from the sky all around. Something caught him in the leg, and he winced from the pain. He ducked his head under his arms and listened as the chunks of metal and plastic slammed into the dock all around him as the big airship, the one that had saved his life zipped by overhead.
For an instant he thought he was finished, but then the rain of flaming debris stopped. He held where he was for a few seconds, pushing himself as far under the pier as he could, but then he took a deep breath and pulled himself back out.
He looked down at his leg. It hurt like hell, and he’d expected to find a terrible wound, but when his eyes settled on it, he exhaled with relief. There was a gash, perhaps ten centimeters long, ugly a
nd bleeding, but not deep. There were a few burns too, but nothing serious. He suspected he could even walk, though he didn’t doubt it would be painful. He gritted his teeth and slowly rose to his feet. He stayed low, ducking behind the pier and looking out toward the enemy positions. His leg hurt, but it was bearable, and when he saw what was happening, he almost forgot about it entirely.
The mysterious airship had come about, and now it was making strafing runs against the UNGov security forces. He stared at the craft, his eyes wide with amazement. He knew what it was, he remembered seeing squadrons of monstrous birds like that, firing rockets and providing close support to ground troops. The Corps had fielded hundreds of airships like that, or similar ones at least. The craft he was watching seemed a bit sleeker, more modern than the ones he remembered from fifty years before.
Still, he knew the airship was military. There was no reason for internal security forces to possess something so powerful. Gunning down rioting civilians did not require a massive war machine. And the craft was attacking the UNGov positions, not the rebel ones. Indeed, it had saved his life, and that of the rest of his people hiding along the waterfront.
He stepped up onto the wharf, almost mesmerized by the spectacle he was watching. It was a breach of discipline, the Marine voice inside him cried, carelessness to abandon his cover and stand in the open. But he couldn’t stop himself. The security forces weren’t firing at his people anymore anyway. They were dead, most of them, and the rest were fleeing in panic, trying to escape the deadly fire of the great airship.
It was all over a moment later, the great open area along the waterfront cleared of UNGov troops. Most of them lay dead, in their original positions or out in the open where they’d run for the cover of the buildings to the north. And the airship swung around one more time, coming back to where he stood. He felt the urge to run, to dive for cover. Perhaps the gunship was simply targeting everyone it found. But something held him in place, a curiosity he could not deny.
He watched as the ship stopped, hovering above a spot perhaps twenty yards from where he stood. His body was frozen, his eyes locked on the flyer as it dropped slowly, setting down right in front of him. He could see its guns were active, tracking any movement on the wharf. But they were silent…and he told himself if whoever was on that ship want his people dead, they’d be dead already.
He stared as the ship stood where it had landed. For a minute, perhaps two, nothing happened. Then a great hatch at the back opened…and Captain Stan Wickes looked on in stunned amazement as he watched half a dozen shadowy figures emerge.
Chapter 17
Communiqué from General Jake Taylor:
I have received your request for reinforcements to support the units defending the lines of communications. I understand the relentless pressure the enemy has placed on you and the great numerical disadvantage you face, but I must regretfully inform you that there are no reserves available to send you. The army will soon be engaged in what may very well be the climactic struggle of the war. I can only offer you my best wishes and beseech you to hold, by whatever means, while the war is decided on the plains before Moscow.
Aaron Jamison ran across the field, turning every few steps to fire a burst behind him. The enemy had thrown two more divisions against the positions defending the AOL’s supply lines, and his people had been forced into an extended order, covering more and more ground as the main army advanced farther from the Portal. His people had been reinforced, but only with an extra platoon, and his frontage had been increased tenfold. He could no longer man a continuous line, and he’d been forced to organize his people into a skirmish line of scouts, backed by several response teams, ready to move wherever the enemy threatened to advance. It was a difficult way to defend a large section of territory, especially against an enemy that seemed to have almost unlimited resources, at least compared to the razor-thin line defending the AOL’s lines of communications.
“Let’s go,” he shouted into his comlink, swinging around to the rear as he did and emptying his clip into the pursuing formations. “Faster…back to the fallback line. No stopping to return fire. Just run.” He realized the hypocrisy of the order as he held his own rifle, still hot from fire. He slung it over his shoulder, obeying himself, though he didn’t actually run as he’d commanded his people to do. His enhanced legs would have greatly outpaced any speed his men could achieve, and he wasn’t about to dash forward ahead of them. They would all get back together, or none of them would.
He’d sent out a flight of drones the day before, and their reports confirmed what he had already feared. Fresh enemy forces were heading his way, far more than he could hope to repel from his battered position. He’d detached a third of his soldiers the day before, sending them back half a klick to dig a new defensive line. He’d also sent all his reserve autocannon teams—and half of those deployed on the forward line—to man the new position. He hated retreating, but he knew he had no choice. His old line was a wreck, and the ground in front was torn apart, shattered debris and shell holes providing the advancing enemy with plenty of cover. He’d cleared his plan with the major, who had approved at once. Both men knew there was no other option.
If the enemy had given Jamison another hour, he’d have had his whole force comfortably dug in along the new line, staring out at the untouched and open killing ground in front of them. But the UNGov units hit too soon, and he’d been forced to defend the battered old position with a handpicked rearguard, while the rest of the company pulled back, taking all but one of the autocannons with them.
The tiny group that remained had held, somehow…at least long enough for the others to pull back and bring the new position up to strength. He’d been worried the last attack would overrun the dozen and a half troops he had kept behind with him, that theirs would prove to be a suicide mission. But his people had risen to the task at hand. The two man team on the last autocannon tore a bloody gash in the attacking formation, and the others stood firm, pouring unrelenting fire into the advancing UNGov troops. Dozens fell, perhaps a hundred, and the rest of the green battalion broke, no more than fifty meters from the thinly-held line.
Jamison knew there were more UNGov forces stacked up along his front, and he realized his people had no chance to defeat another assault. So he ordered his battered rearguard to fall back. They spiked the autocannon and grabbed the wounded, abandoning the trench just as the enemy launched yet another attack. His people made it halfway back to the new line by the time the UNGov forces took their abandoned position and pursued. His troops had given into the same impulses he had to turn and fire at the enemy soldiers pursuing them. But all that did was slow them down…and give their enemies—who outnumbered them 30-1—more time to catch them. Worse, the troops waiting in the new line couldn’t open up, not while their own comrades were right in their field of fire.
Jamison heard the bullets whizzing by, and more than once he’d have sworn he felt one almost graze him. But his soldier’s luck held. He could see the new line ahead of him, the troopers there, shouting, gesturing for their retreating comrades to hurry. He felt the urge to slow down, to stop at the edge of the trench and climb down carefully, but he knew every second counted. He saw the dropoff coming, watched as the startled men in front of him jumped aside as he took one last leap, and slammed into the back wall of the trench.
He fell back, in pain, the wind knocked out of him. But he forced himself up, gritted his teeth against the throbbing of what he suspected were broken ribs. He hobbled back to the front of the trench, trying to keep his grunts of pain as quiet as possible. He climbed up, shoving his head into the open, braving the increasingly heavy enemy fire to confirm that all his people were back. Then, satisfied he’d left no living soldiers behind in no man’s land, he shouted two words.
“Open fire!”
* * *
“General Carp reports that the enemy flanks are buckling, sir. He requests three more divisions for the final assault.”
Akawa
stared back at the aide, suppressing a momentary flash of anger. He wasn’t the type to shoot the messenger, but damned if it wasn’t tempting sometimes. Lieutenant Holcomb was a satisfactory aide who, despite a lack of experienced had proven to be good at his job. That was a description Akawa would not have extended to General Samson Carp.
“General Carp’s definition of buckling does not appear to be the same as mine. He has squandered seven divisions attacking an ever-thinning line of rebel soldiers. He has been reinforced three times, and yet the result is always the same. He pushes the enemy back a few thousand meters, at a cost of thousands of casualties…and he demands yet more reinforcements to feed into the slaughter.”
Akawa couldn’t understand what the hell Carp was doing out there. He had ten to one superiority in numbers, maybe twenty to one. Admittedly, his raw troops didn’t have the staying power of Taylor’s veterans, but there was a mathematics in war that asserted itself at some point.
At least when there isn’t an imbecile like Carp in the equation…
He’d have sacked the general long ago. Indeed, when he’d accepted the command of all UNGov forces, he’d come in all full of piss and vinegar, ready to purge the officer ranks of politically-connected fools. But then he realized that was virtually all he had. He could have relieved Carp—though there would almost certainly have been some political blowback if he had—but the fool general’s replacement would have been no improvement, or even worse.
For all his frustration and anger, Akawa would have sent Carp his three divisions…he knew that cutting Taylor’s army off from the Portal was the first step to victory. But he couldn’t spare the troops, not now, not with perhaps the decisive battle of the war about to take place.
He’d intended to fall back before Taylor’s advance, avoiding battle, pulling the brilliant rebel leader forward, ever farther from is supply depot at the Portal. He had time, Taylor didn’t. The UNGov training depots were pumping out five divisions a week, while Taylor had no source of reinforcement. The new UN troops were raw, their training minimal, and Akawa knew they would die by the thousands in battle with Taylor’s veterans. But he wasn’t a fool like Carp, and he understood, given enough manpower, he could force the mathematics of war in the battle against the rebels.
