HARM

by Peter Lok

  Nothing breaks these guys, he thought. We need more firepower. He was strangely calm – beyond fear now that combat was underway. This was a battle the tanks wouldn’t be able to disengage from too easily due to the speed of the alien mechs. The battlesuited infantry might be able to escape as they could use the woods for concealment, but the tanks would win or die on this battlefield.

  “Gunner. Target mech right,” he yelled, feeding coordinates at the same time. A spider-mech was targeting them.

  His tank rocked from the recoil of its main cannon. “Sabot. Away,” the gunner called out.

  At the same time, his tank was rocked by a direct hit on the turret from the alien’s main beam. Ablative armour erupted in a incandescent blast cloud, absorbing the high-energy pulse. It suddenly got warm inside the tank. Looking through his viewfinder, he could see smoke billowing out of the alien mech from their hit. It fired at them again, but missed. “Driver, back us up. Secondary fire position,” he ordered.

  Suddenly, a half-dozen, laser-guided artillery rounds directly struck the spider-mechs. The forward observer had called in the fire mission and infantry with laser designators guided them in. Huge explosions from the 155 mm artillery shells knocked the spider-mechs off balance while blowing off legs and sensors. One more spider-mech went down, but it was trying to get back up. The artillery had bought them some time, breaking the enemies momentum, but it would be temporary. After firing one salvo, the artillery would need to scoot to a new firing location as the aliens also had counter-battery fire. Even now, specialized support spiders further in the rear would be firing off homing missiles to try and kill off the artillery units.

  The two sides were now just over half a kilometre apart – 600 metres – too close. The lasers stabbed out again. Tank guns fired. More vehicles exploded. Two more tanks and three of the damaged spiders were destroyed. That left only three tanks and five attacking spiders. Only two of the spiders were still undamaged. All the main weapons were very lethal at this range. The tanks had launched smoke grenades and were firing as they backed up into new positions. Ericson’s tank and a couple of re-armed combat walkers were back up on the overpass shoulder trying to provide fire support. Fire from the woods had slackened considerably after being heavily suppressed by enemy fire. Both the combat walkers and the infantry had expended their missiles and had taken considerable losses in the fight.

  Even as Ericson watched, a beam burned through the turret armour of another tank which exploded in a brilliant fireball. His tank fired again. This time one of the damaged spider-mechs blew apart, collapsing down on its now limp legs.

  His tank was suddenly hit by a hammer blow that knocked the breath out of him. A laser blast had blown a hole in the front left of the tank’s body. The interior filled with thick acrid smoke while the power went dead. A fire suppression system went off filling the lower interior with foam. “Sam, Evan, you guys okay?”

  Sam, the gunner, called back, “I’m okay. Think Evan’s dead though. The blast caught him, and there’s blood everywhere. Smoke’s getting thick.”

  “We gotta get out,” Ericson replied, “tank’s history.” He turned around and opened the turret hatch. He climbed out and helped to pull his foam soaked gunner out of the burning tank. They would have to run for cover. The battle would be over soon as it was one tank against four mechs.

  ***

  Only a kilometre separated Joshua from the spider-mechs attacking Bravo Company. His HARM crashed through the woods, knocking down branches and crushing vegetation under foot. His tactical display showed rapidly disappearing friendly units in real-time. They had done far better against the spider-mechs than he had anticipated. The ambush worked amazingly well against the far superior foe. Those guys deserve a medal, especially the armour commander, Joshua thought.

  "Damn," Joshua whispered to himself. One tank left, some walkers, and scattered infantry everywhere. The Blue Newts were pretty much about to overrun the blocking force despite their heavy losses. There was definitely some truth to the stories about Newts not breaking easily. It would be up to him to stop them.

  Surprise was on his side again. If the humans had any one advantage on the battlefield, they seemed to have better tactical information from a wider array of sensors and drones. There were four Black Widows left, two of which were damaged. He was coming in on their southern flank and should be able to bag one or two of them quickly. Even odds, Joshua figured, if he didn't get pinned.

  All of the alien mechs had heat sinks deployed in their rear quarters to bleed off the massive amounts of excess heat being generated by the continual firing of their beam weapons. There were huge blooms of heat on thermal displays. Joshua selected one of the damaged mechs to finish off. "Coil gun to single mode," verified the AI.

  His legs mimicked a slight jumping motion, leaping his mech up into the air. "Low jump, 10 metres," the AI verified. In the air, he quickly targeted the dead center of the heat bloom on the damaged mech. Adjusting his aim, he fired at apogee. Less than a second later, the spider-mech blew apart, the power plant hit through it's weak spot.

  “Target destroyed,” the AI announced. The AI then fired landing rockets and he twisted to the side to change his approach path.

  One down, he thought to himself. Joshua continued closing in, under the cover of the woods. The alien mechs turned to face this new threat. They fired semi-blindly into the woods, not knowing his exact location. The spider-mechs were tall though. With their height they could see the occasional movement from Joshua as his mech crashed through the trees.

  A few beams passed near Joshua, leaving great burning swaths of trees behind them. They were not close enough to seriously worry him, but he put more caution into his approach. He was 700 metres out now and had worked his way clear of the enemy fire by moving more slowly away to avoid giving his location away. He didn't want to expose himself too much, but he needed to keep the pressure on the enemy. He picked the remaining damaged mech as his target. Performing another low jump, he fired again. The enemy mech took the penetrator hit off to the side, but it took out two leg joints, crashing it to the ground. On the way down his HARM took a hit to his left side from a beam cannon.

  Wham! A portion of active molecular armour vapourized in an exploding cloud that rocked his machine. An alarm buzzed and indicators began blinking. "Left side damage," the AI called out. "Minor damage to torso servos. Rerouting servo circuits 8 through 10. Armour is 85% intact.” Joshua landed safely then rolled right, noting that the controls felt a tad sluggish. Crouching down he then moved off on a tangent.

  With the third mech immobilized, the remaining spider-mechs spread out and advanced into the woods toward him. They fired as they went and locations near where Joshua’s HARM had landed were engulfed in flame. After a minute the fire slackened off when the aliens realized they were not going to hit him or flush him out.

  They’re trying to catch me in a cross-fire, Joshua thought, good move on their part. He quickly studied the tactical display. He was slightly off center in between the advancing mechs. His bunny jumping to fire would probably not be a very good idea now that both Black Widows were focused on him. He would probably take damage from another attempt. Instead, he would try and work his way towards the nearer mech and take it head on.

  Staying low he crouch walked through the woods, coil-gun ready. He noted the contour map indicated a bit of a rise ahead and used it to keep a little extra cover between them. He was getting close. He finally found a bit of a clearing, something that gave him a slightly longer sighting distance. Kneeling down, he waited for the enemy mech to appear.

  It wasn’t a long wait, his audio pickups at maximum, he could hear the enemy mech coming through the woods before he could see it. Trees began to shake and then the mech appeared. He aimed for the junction of the primary weapons blister and the body, knowing a shot against the heavily sloped armour of the spiders front-end would be tough kill. Joshua fired slightly faster than the Newt and his full power pene
trator nearly blew the blister right off the enemy mech. A laser blast scorched the air right by his shoulder, peeling back the yellow paint from the near miss.

  One hundred meters. He began running through the trees towards the now damaged spider-mech, putting his gun into burst mode. The enemy mech’s secondary laser battery began firing. He took a hit to his other shoulder, but the lighter laser didn’t penetrate. Getting a good angle he fired two more penetrators into the mech’s thinner side armour, killing it. Thick black smoke billowed out of the now dead, but still standing enemy mech.

  A laser blast passed close to his mecha’s head and Joshua ducked down again. That was too close. His adrenaline had been pumping for awhile. One left, he thought. One on one now.

  A good stretch of woods lay in between him and the last spider-mech. He didn’t have good shot at it unless he exposed himself again and that wasn’t going to happen. On the other hand, the enemy didn’t have a good shot at him either. This fight was going to end close-up. A dog fight.

  He was all for that. Get in close and get a kill, just like in a fighter.

  Running his mech, he closed in with the enemy unit in a zigzag pattern. He jumped his mech over gullies, crashed through more trees, while utilizing all the cover he could. Every so often a laser blast would come close, but his dodging was working. Using the AI’s assistant he snapped off several shots just to keep the alien mech off balance. Still, the laser blasts came on stronger as he closed the distance, his cover reducing as he went.

  “Target is within 200 metres. Kill can be achieved with a single shot through the front armour,” the AI announced.

  Several trees blew apart next to him. Joshua used his mecha’s agility to leap clear to the side and rolled. For such a heavy machine, the advanced construction, and artificial muscles made his machine amazingly nimble. Coming out of his roll, he fired a full power shot at the front quarter of the enemy mech. The angle was slightly off. The penetrator created a huge flash as it cut a huge gouge in the frontal armour, not quite penetrating. The enemy rocked with the hit and seemed almost stunned for a moment.

  Joshua was already dodging to the side when the Black Widow fired back. The laser blast struck the high and right on the HARM’s chest. The active molecular armour plating tried to redistribute the intense heat and vapourized in a great flash to ablate the blast energy. A deafening loud bang was muffled by Joshua’s helmet. This time, red indicators lit up right across the board. His visual display blinked on an off rapidly then stabilized.

  The AI blared, “Major damage. Stabilizing power systems. Right arm function impaired.” Joshua barely heard the message though. He was watching the last few seconds of the charging timer count down for the coil gun.

  2… 1… He raised the right arm to fire, but the artificial muscles in the arm were damaged and unable to move straight out in front of him. “Damn!” he yelled. On instinct, he tipped backwards to get the right angle and fired again. This time the penetrator struck true, passing into the power plant. The spider-mech exploded in a great ball of flame, the weapons blister on top blasted into the air. His visual display dulled momentarily to block the flash then returned to normal. That probably singed the paint on his mecha Joshua figured.

  Being out of immediate danger, Joshua took a deep breath and let it out. “Whoeeh! That was close.”

  “Command not understood,” the AI responded.

  “Disregard. Human expression of relief,” he replied. This AI response normally bothered him, but not this time. Besides, it did learn his expressions and filtered them out from commands. “HARM Status,” he asked.

  “Power systems restored. Right arm muscles are partially functional. This unit is requires repair but isfunctional.”

  “Good,” Joshua replied.

  There was a message ping from Dr. Chan. It was just a simple text. “ON WAY TO RENDEZVOUS. EXCELLENT WORK! NO MORE SCRATCHES ON X-14 OR I TAKE AWAY THE KEYS. MEET YOU THERE.” He took another look at the message. No more scratches? He’d hit her up for extra insurance coverage next time. If he knew the doctor, she would probably be studying the damage right away to see how they could improve things. Joshua then turned his attention to the tactical display and saw the survivors of Bravo Company pulling themselves together. He started walking in their direction to see if he could help.

  As he emerged from the woods, he could see the medics treating a few wounded tankers, and a half dozen wounded infantry. Not many tankers had survived their tanks exploding. All the soldiers, even the medics, stopped what they were doing for at least a few seconds to stare that the big robot.

  “Anyone ever tell you your camouflage sucks,” a male voice cut in on his com-net. He looked to find the source, and the head of the HARM mimicked his motion. “I’m on the tank to your left,” the voice spoke again. Looking down, he saw Captain Ericson looking up at him from on top of the surviving tank where he was using the radio. He had been conferring with Lieutenant Nguyen about their next moves.

  “Good save back there,” Ericson spoke again. “Could have used you earlier. Lost a lot of good men and women today.”

  “Sorry about that,” Joshua replied, some tension showing in his voice.

  “I know. Not your fault.” Ericson replied sympathetically, “didn’t mean for it to come out that way. General’s orders. I probably would have done the same thing to save those people. I’m sick of them butchering civilians too.”

  “Thanks,” Joshua replied.

  “Looks like you took some damage too.” Ericson then joked, “that nice yellow paint job of yours is a little scratched up.” He then turned to a couple of his men nearby. “You guys think this guy thinks he’s a bulldozer or dump truck?”

  The men laughed, despite the situation they had just come out of.

  “Yeah, the paint job could’ve been better,” Joshua replied.

  “Anyhow, thanks for drawing those spiders off. We owe you one.”

  “Wish I could’ve done more.” Joshua sincerely wished he could have arrived even a few minutes earlier.

  “That’s war,” Ericson replied. “We kicked their ass and that’s what counts right now.” Pausing for a moment he then continued. “I’m Captain Will Ericson, by the way.”

  “Lieutenant Joshua Scott,” Joshua replied. “You guys did great. Anything I can do right now for you?”

  “No. Medivacs are on the way and we’re pulling out back to the second defensive line. I just got off the horn from General Garcia and I think you’ll be getting a call pretty quick. They’re impressed with what you did. That big robot of yours packs quite a wallop. It’ll be a different war once we get more of them.”

  “Yeah, these HARMs will even the playing field,” Joshua concurred. “Okay then. X-14 is heading out.”

  “Take care.” Ericson saluted him and turned back to Lieutenant Nguyen.

  Joshua selected the waypoint for the rendezvous and began heading to it. He had heard rumours that the move to Site B was going to be big. They would be flying clear across the country and then north to Canada. The Newt presence was supposed to be under control there.

  END

  Author’s Note:

  This short story was written to introduce the world of Exocrisis Blue. In HARM, mankind is fighting a desperate action to keep the invading aliens at bay, to keep from being exterminated, and to keep our homes. Giant, humanoid robot, fighting machines called HARMs turn the tide against the invaders. The HARMs are piloted by humans who can neurally synchronize with the robot control systems to gain the maximum potential of the machines.

  The full story for Exocrisis Blue begins tens years after the setting in HARM, when the world has reached a new balance. There are new political factions on the planet, as the old order collapsed during the brutal Alien War. We are now uneasily sharing our world with the Blue Newts.

  In this new world, new characters, and old ones, will figure centrally in the struggle to save the planet or plunge it into a terrible new war. An entire series is plan
ned for this storyline.

  To keep posted on exciting developments in the world of Exocrisis Blue, visit my author’s blog at peterlok.blogspot.com or visit exocrisisblue.blogspot.com for more information about this new world. Links to my sites can be found on my Amazon author’s page.