by J. F. Holmes
“Bloody Main Force buggers better start their damned attack!” grunted Atkins as he snaked his way forward, careful not to hit the scope of the rifle on anything. At this range, even the slightest jarring would throw his shot off by feet instead of inches.
“Ours is not to…” started Vlonski, with a grin, his Polish accent thick with excitement.
“Oh shut yer bloody pie hole, you foreign bastard,” said Atkins, placing his cheek to the stock. The sergeant put the spotter scope to his eye, and started to scan for targets. Below them the base looked like an anthill that had been kicked open.
“Take out that mortar, thirteen hundred yards, left of the HQ.” Three Wolverines were just visible inside the sandbagged emplacement, moving the heavy mortar around in a circle, angling it towards the south. From that direction they all could hear the gunfire erupting as the Main Force battalion assaulted the base. He lined the scope up on the top of the mortar tube, checked the wind, and fired. This time, he waited for the scope to settle again and checked the results, which were only a huge cloud of dust as the heavy round hit a sandbag. On target, but slightly low. The Wolverines had immediately ducked behind the wall, and his next shot shattered the mortar and sent the tube spinning up in the air. Atkins would have liked to put a few rounds in the short, upright, nasty wolf like creatures, the Uplifted the Dragons used as their infantry, but that wasn’t his mission today.
He jumped when gunfire, a long burst from McClellan’s’ SAW, erupted behind him. Plasma bolts cracked in return, and the shots stopped, replaced with her screaming as if her soul was on fire, mixed with excited barks of Invy troops tearing into her flesh. Vlonski grabbed the sniper and bodily threw him forward, down the slope. Atkins wrapped himself around the rifle as he fell, finally slamming into a tree. He started to get back up, dropping the big gun and clawing at his pistol, even as the Pole slid down next to him, followed by several shots from plasma rifles. As his Sergeant half ran, half slid past, Atkins fired back up the hill, then turned and ran after him, grabbing the rifle, towards the gully below.
They ducked down behind the first rock outcropping that showed, and paused to catch their breath. Vlonski’s blonde hair was matted to his head, and he groaned softly, holding his leg. Through his jeans showed an ugly burn where a bolt had scored the muscle.
“Fiona?” asked Atkins.
Vlonski shook his head, gritted his teeth, and said, “Random Wolverine patrol, bad luck for us, worse luck for her.”
An Invy shuttle rocketed overhead, just barely clearing the trees, headed west. Both flinched, not knowing if it was the one supposed to be stolen. It didn’t matter, though, because they had more pressing things to worry about. From uphill came the excited yips and barks of the patrol, searching for them.
“We gotta move, mate, can you walk? If the Main Force can take the base, we can get these bloody dogs off our backs and get you some help.”
At that moment, their headsets crackled to life. “All units, DUNKIRK DUNKIRK, DUNKIRK!” and then fell silent. They both knew what that meant. The attack, never meant to be more than a diversion, was being called off.
“I knew that stupid thick headed Brigadier didn’t have the balls to carry it off,” said the Sergeant. “If it were a Polish general in charge…”
“If it were a Pole, we’d be surrendering. Now we’re up shit’s creek, and this place is going to be swarming with Invy troops.” He drew his pistol, and for a second, looked at Vlonski’s wounded leg.
The NCO knew what the sniper was thinking. “You don’t have to shoot me. I’ll stay and hold them off. Go and get yourself out of here, and kill some more of the bastards.”
Instead, Atkins grabbed him, slung the bigger mans’ arm over his shoulder, and started to jog at an angle, trying to keep the rock outcropping between them and the searching patrol. He knew they didn’t have a chance in hell; the doggies were out for blood, probably with their noses pressed to the ground, tracking them. Grunting with the effort, he took a second to holster the pistol and reach into his pocket. Tearing at the packet with his teeth, Atkins dumped a whole cup of cayenne pepper on the ground.
“Sniff that trail, you cunts,” he said, and they tried to pick up the pace. Vlonski was becoming more a dead weight as the pain hobbled him, blood seeping from his leg muscles and nicked artery.
Chapter 50
They could hear the barks behind them, and Atkins had a pretty good feeling they were done for. Vlonski was trying to help himself along, but he was going into shock from his wound.
“You know,” said the sniper, “I don’t really like you, you stupid Pollack. You’re too much of a hard ass, mate.”
“Then put me down, shit for brains, and get yourself away,” he answered, trying to shrug off the younger man’s grip. Their situation was made moot, however, as the Wolverines sighted them, started barking furiously, and laid down a barrage of plasma fire. Atkins knew that several would be maneuvering through the brush to get into hand to hand range, and frigging eat them alive.
“Not bloody likely!” he muttered, rolled over, and lining the scope of the big gun up through the brush, fired. The round plowed into the dirt at the feet of the furthest Invy, and Atkins cursed. The sight had been knocked out of alignment by the fall; he corrected and fired again, even as the plasma crept closer and closer. One of the creatures seemed to disappear in an explosion of blood and gore, and the others went to cover.
From the side, Vlonski emptied his pistol at four of the enemy who had appeared out of the tree line, twenty meters away, and running all out. He hit one, the small bullet scoring the creature’s flank, and then the slide locked back. Atkins turned to fire, rolling on his back and looking down the barrel, and the Barrett barked once, then was torn from his hands as a grey furred Invy howled and jumped on him, driving its ripping claw down deep into his shoulder.
The soldier screamed with pain and rage, and was answered by a deep grunting sound, as a huge silver and black creature charged past him, massive hand swatting the Wolverine off. The uplifted gorilla hammered into the patrol, scattering their much smaller bodies, killing two with the double bladed axe he carried in one massive fist The third he ripped apart with his bare hands, and then the silverback turned to the last one. No coward, the Wolverine charged, and they came together in a clash of jaws and fangs, but the massive bulk of the human’s ally easily hammered the Invy into the ground. He jumped up and down on it several times, flattening the corpse, then howled and beat his chest, yelling out a challenge to the remaining Invy, a hundred meters away. There was no answer; the ones firing the plasma had run at the sight of the bull ape.
“Mother Mary of God, am I happy to see you, Corporal Thog!” said Atkins, over the pain of his wound.
The ape grunted, muttered “COME!” and made the signs for them to follow. Then he said, “Where Fi?”
“She bought it, mate. Saved our lives though; crap this hurts.”
The ape was silent for a moment, then grunted “Heal,” and dragged out a medical kit from the harness he wore. Vlonski grabbed at it, pulled out a bandage and pressed it to Atkins’ shoulder. The embedded nanos started clotting right way, and Atkins felt instantly better. In return, he did the same for the Pole’s leg. Not waiting for them, Thog gathered up each under a great hairy arm, and started off on a loping run through the forest.
They caught up with the retreating main body in an hour, though they didn’t rejoin them. As they crested a hill, Invy attack aircraft screamed overhead, and delivered a flurry of plasma shots at the column of bedraggled troops. Return fire downed one of the craft, but the others pounced on the antiaircraft position, hammering it and drawing secondary explosions. They could hear the screams of wounded echoing through the valley, faint between gunfire and explosions.
“Holy shite!” said Atkins, and Vlonski grunted in agreement. Even as they watched, the troops below them broke and ran. At the head of the valley, blocking their line of retreat, five Invy transports grounded, ramps
thundered down, and Wolverines spilled out of them.
The Invy started hunting individuals, and the best troops of the CEF in Europe were slaughtered, or chased off. “Time to bug out, Thog. Go back to your people, this is not your fight,” said Vlonski.
“Thog stay, hunt Invy,” grunted the ape, and he picked them up again, moving swiftly and silently away from the scene of the battle. Neither man understood why the Uplifted of Earth helped the CEF, though Thog had tried to explain once in his abbreviated, limited way.
“Ape equal man now. Invy no make free, make Thog’s people slaves,” the silverback had grunted, and then said no more on the matter.
Their trip back to the base took almost the entire day, resting briefly, avoiding Invy air patrols, and it was full dark when they finally got in sight of the HQ, hidden no longer. It still held out, but not for long; Invy armor was hammering the entrance to the cave complex. Even as they watched, a heavy plasma cannon was fired at the main doors, bursting them open, and hundreds of Wolverines surged in through the entrance.
“Well, now what?” asked Atkins. Vlonski was his Sergeant, but did that even matter now?
Thog grunted, and pointed up. “No moving stars falling,” he signed. Though the uplifted had augmented intelligence, it was often difficult to form human speech, and the apes signed as much as spoke.
“You are right, my friend,” said the Pole and he started to laugh. The ape grunted in amusement with him.
“What the bloody hell are you laughing at?” asked Atkins, thoroughly confused.
Vlonski said, “No orbital strikes! We hurt them, hurt them bad.” The sky was cloudy, so they couldn’t see anything above, tell how many orbitals were left, but the ape was right.
“So now what?” asked the sniper.
“Now, we are going to make their lives hell. Don’t you Scots have a history of being a pain in the ass to occupiers?”
“I’m not a damn Scot, and you know that, but yes, they are a bloody pain in the ass,” said the man from Liverpool.
Their conversation was interrupted by a group of people coming down the road, slowly, silently. They were civilians, refugees from one of the towns. A man, a woman, and child, shuffling slowly through the night.
“Hey!” said Atkins. “Where are you lot going? There’s fighting up ahead!”
The man looked at him, stared at his CEF uniform, and swung his fist at the sniper, catching the surprised soldier in the face. Vlonski waved Thog off and grabbed the man in a bear hug, ignoring his own wounds, even as the woman stood dully by and said nothing.
With a curse, the civilian shook Vlonski off, and said harshly, “We nae asked for this, soldier boy, and now look what yea done! My baby is dead, and our home gone.”
“Blame it on the Invy, you bastard,” said Atkins, spitting put blood.
“No,” answered the woman, scorn in her voice. “If ye’ad won, that would be one thing, but yea lost, ya stupid soldiers. Look at ya, in your fancy uniforms. Yea can go to hell.” Then she spit on him, and the family turned and walked into the darkness.
“Never changes,” said Private Tommy Atkins, in a bitter voice.
Chapter 51
They made it to a backup rally point outside the Invy town of Inverness before dawn, giving sign and countersign at the entrance to the old castle. What reassured the nervous sentry, more than their answers, was the hulking bulk of Thog.
“Right,” said the ranking officer there, Captain MacIvers, staring at a map. “You two make eleven, and yon beastie will be a huge help. Have you got any weapons?”
“My Barrett, but I only have three rounds left, and my sight is off. What the hell happened, Sir?”
The Scot scowled, and cursed a blue streak. “What happened, is that stupid Sassenach General Walters lost his nerve, and ordered a pullback just as we became decisively engaged. We HAD them, and the stupid git got a lot of good men slaughtered.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Vlonski.
“Sergeant, we are going to make ourselves a huge pain in the Invy’s ass. We have no communications with any higher headquarters, but we have to assume that, with the lack of orbital strikes, things are moving forward.”
“Until what? The Americans show up here with a huge bloody fleet and save our asses?” asked Atkins.
“Private,” said MacIvers, “we fight until they do, or until we’re all dead. Do you understand what they’re doing in the Invy towns right now?” Neither man had any idea, and said so.
“They’re shooting one in ten right now as punishment, and killing everyone in the villages close to the base,” said the Captain. “So we are going to kill as many Invy as we can, as fast as we can. Now, go rest up, I’ve got work to do and you’re both wounded. Sergeant Vlonski, until someone else shows up with more experience, you are the acting platoon sergeant. I expect others will return in the night. Dismissed.”
Atkins grumbled as they found a room and sat to eat some food. Thog was not in evidence; the ape didn’t care much for human company if he could avoid it.
“Bloody uptight wanker, that Captain,” said Atkins as he chewed a cold sausage. “Makes my sainted dead bitchy mum look like a breath of bloody fresh air.”
Vlonski nodded, and said, “I would not want his job; he needs to motivate everyone to keep fighting.”
“Well, it’s not like we have any choice,” said Atkins. At that moment, they were interrupted by a man who barged in through the blanket over the door.
“Tommy!” barked the wild eyed soldier at Atkins, “Where the hell is Fiona!” He was burly, dark haired, and wore a tattered camouflaged kilt. His face was burned and dirty, and scorch marks extended across his armor and under a bloody bandage.
Despite his own wound, Vlonski stood up and grabbed David McClellan in a bear hug as the man looked about wildly. “Go home, Davey. Go home to your kid,” he said calmly. The man’s face tightened, and he closed his eyes in a grimace of grief.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” said the man, over sobs.
“Aye, mate, saved our lives. Do like Ski said, go home to your kid,” said Atkins.
“I’ve got no home anymore,” was the wretched answer. “They killed everyone in the village.”
None of the three men said anything more, Vlonski just held onto the Scot as he slowly crumpled. After a time, McClellan looked up and said dully, “I’m going to kill them all.”
“Yes,” said the Pole, who didn’t even know if his family was alive. “We’re going to.”
The watch on Sergeant Vlonski’s wrist flipped over to zero hundred hours; a new day had begun.
“Death is light as a feather”
CEF HQ, Japan
The soldier and sailor should consider loyalty their essential duty. Who that is born in this land can be wanting in the spirit of grateful service to it? No soldier or sailor, especially, can be considered efficient unless this spirit be strong within him. A soldier or a sailor in whom this spirit is not strong, however skilled in art or proficient in science, is a mere puppet; and a body of soldiers or sailors wanting in loyalty, however well-ordered and disciplined it may be, is in an emergency no better than a rabble. Remember that, as the protection of the state and the maintenance of its power depend upon the strength of its arms, the growth or decline of this strength must affect the nation’s destiny for good or for evil; therefore neither be led astray by current opinions nor meddle in politics, but with single heart fulfill your essential duty of loyalty, and bear in mind that duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather. Never, by failing in moral principle, fall into disgrace and bring dishonor upon your name.
~Gunjin Chokuyu, 1892 (Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors)
Chapter 52
Before the Invasion, she had been a fighter pilot, flying for the Japanese Defense Forces, becoming their first “Ace” in almost a hundred years over the South China Sea. Then, soon afterwards, due to her very distant connection to the Imperial Throne, and
the death of the entire royal family, Captain Kiyomi Ichijou had become Empress Kiyomi. Through nine long years of occupation, she had shepherded her people, keeping the peace with the Invy while fostering the strength of the hidden Confederated Earth Forces units on her islands. Now, though, now she wanted to become unbound from the earth, to climb skyward and bring death to the enemies of her people, and of all mankind.
“Colonel, we need those planes up ASAP!” said the Raptor pilot.
“Am I talking to Captain Ichijou, or the Empress?”
“Both!” she answered, “And it is MY ass, and my pilots, and my subjects, that are depending on you, my Chief of Maintenance. Now I need ten planes, fully armed and fueled in ten minutes!”
The man went away grumbling, and she smiled. Ten was far too many, considering the lack of spare parts and the age of the planes, some almost fifty years old. Six would be enough, based on the scouts’ report of Cam Ranh Bay’s airfield. She expected four Invy fighters; more could come, but their mission would be over by then. Still, she had to push him.
She climbed up the ladder to her plane, and ran her hand over the five Chinese and two Russian flags painted under her name. The Spratly War had been fought even after the Invy Scout had crashed and the push had been on to form the CEF. She had been just twenty-three, fresh out of the academy, and Japan’s hero, if only for a moment.
As she lowered the canopy and started the engines, her crew chief gave her a thumbs up; Captain Ichijou returned it. Then he bowed, and fled down the ladder, even as others pulled it away from the rumbling F-22. She looked over and saw the maintenance officer, who held up seven fingers. That would have to do.
The next step on her checklist gave her pause. In place of the 20mm rotary cannon, an Invy anti-tank caliber plasma gun had been retrofitted into her weapons suite. Of course they had never been able to test it on a moving, flying aircraft, but she would have to remember that the muzzle velocity on the weapons rendered the leading of the target negligible.
