The pair headed out the north tunnel and up behind a fallen log that had been hauled into a defensive position. Some thirty yards away, on the edge of the tree line, Talbot could the outer palisades. The next line of defense were the pit traps, which sat less than ten yards away. Finally, there was a mud brick perimeter immediately behind the pair. Talbot hoped the engineers would be able to defend the small gaps in the hastily constructed wall. There was also movement high up in the trees, where the scout division had spread themselves. They were using zip lines to cross from tree to tree, and looked fairly adept at it too. Talbot hadn’t realized they were part of a scout’s loadout.
He tried to make himself comfortable, too experienced to lock himself into a firing position before the enemy had even been sighted. Wilkes moved to the other end of the log, where he peered over with a grim expression. A strange, unnatural silence descended over the forest. It was a silence Talbot knew very well, having experienced it often in the early years of his career.
All it took was a quick glance at Wilkes - both men knew they were on. Talbot looked down his sights for the first time, scanning the gently bobbing foliage for irregular movement. Then he saw them - a steady line of dragoons scurrying from tree to tree, harpoons poised. Talbot and Wilkes would be within range in seconds. The prospect of a harpoon bolt through the face didn’t bear thinking about. A cold sweat trickled down Talbot’s back.
Several shots rang out over the valley, and Talbot saw at least three enemy soldiers fall. Fielding’s scouts were in play. Talbot made sure of his first shot as the Irian dragoons approached, his first drill instructor’s stern words echoing through his mind - always make sure of the first shot. It was advice to live by. Survive by. During an event as traumatic as a battle, it paid to set one’s mind on the right path.
Talbot’s first shot pierced a dragoon’s thick forehead, splattering ichor against a fir tree. Talbot smiled - he was underway. The dragoons broke into a run, abandoning hope of using the available cover. Fielding had positioned her scouts well.
Talbot got a glimpse of a much larger figure behind the dragoons before he was forced to defend himself. He unleashed a fearsome spray from his assault rifle, utilizing his upgraded magazine. He stopped a pair of dragoons in their tracks, peppering them with deadly fire. Emboldened, he stood and snarled, strafing the trees with abandon.
It was one thing to know when to go, another entirely to know when to run. A soldier either had the instinct or he didn’t. Talbot threw himself through the nearest gap in the mud brick wall. He peered around the edge, hoping the Irians would be drawn into following him. It turned out that Irians were just as prone to ‘blood-rush’ as humans were. Two dragoons rushed forward only to fall into the pit traps.
Their anguished cries pierced a fresh lull in the battle. A barked command from the trees to the north suggested Ashby was looking to advance in a more controlled manner. By Talbot’s count the enemy had lost seven dragoons so far.
“Fielding - pull your scouts,” Talbot said urgently into his com. “Use your zip lines to withdraw.”
It was almost too late. The Irians had penetrated the outer perimeter and were looking to storm the camp. Talbot watched the scouts withdrew across the canopy like monkeys, retreating to a safer position from which they could renew their attacks. Their support fire would be crucial - if the Irians breached the inner wall, everything was lost. The engineers were not yet leveled enough to defend themselves against dragoons, let alone a sentinel.
Talbot took one last look through the wall breach, taking grim satisfaction in the anguished screams of the Irians as they fell into the well-disguised pit traps. Judging from the sound, a sentinel may have fallen in too.
“Board this wall up!” Talbot roared to no one in particular. “Now!”
A pair of engineers immediately sheeted home a steel slab. Talbot was immensely glad he still had a few of those.
“Back,” Talbot growled, ushering the central core of engineers behind the smoldering central fire pit. An eerie silence descended, broken only by the soft foot fall of scuttling dragoons.
“They can’t get in!” Talbot said, looking to allay the fears of his troops.
Wilkes appeared alongside him, brow furrowed with concern.
“They weren’t expecting us to craft walls so early,” he said. “It’s thrown them.”
Talbot couldn’t help but grin. “About time we began turning the tables.”
Wilkes nodded. “A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. It’s all gonna be for nuttin’ if we can’t keep our troops alive.”
The commando was right. This battle was all about survival, not victory. The only question was - how many troops was Ashby willing to sacrifice in order to weaken the Terran force? The Terrans were about to find out.
A low growl reverberated across the walls. That foot fall on the other side was too heavy for a dragoon.
“Sentinel,” Talbot said.
11
Like everything else in the game, this virtual version of the Irian sentinel closely approximated the real life unit. Due to a genetic anomaly, some Irians were much larger than their brethren. These individuals were invariably recruited as sentinels for use on the front line of war. Because they were so tall, they could wear heavy, powered armor and excel at all manner of unarmed and melee attack.
Ashby had recruited a clutch of sentinels for his virtual army - they would be indispensable in certain situations. Like this one. Talbot feared the appearance of the unit, knowing that his troops had no obvious means of bringing a sentinel down.
An engineer was still working at the makeshift steel plate when it came crashing down over him. Talbot reached down to drag the poor man free but he was already dead.
A sentinel stood in the gap wearing a malignant smile. Her heavy, hydraulic armor was more stylized than the real thing, but that only made her more fearsome. Seven feet tall, only her sweaty, pallid face was visible. Her green eyes glowed with inhuman coldness as she assessed the huddled humans. A plasma bolt ricocheted off her neck, causing her to draw her visor down in irritation.
Her hydraulic joints hissing and clicking, she stepped on the metal sheet. The body underneath squelched as she moved straight for Talbot. More plasma bolts were deflected by the thing’s heavy armor. Not even sniper fire had any discernible impact.
The alien swung a heavy arm and Talbot ducked awkwardly, narrowly avoiding instant death. A nearby engineer wasn’t so lucky, copping the full force of the blow. Every bone in his torso shattered on impact. The Terran crashed against the wall and lay still. Harpoon bolts whistled through the gap, striking the crouching Terran soldiers. Dragoons had positioned themselves across the pits outside and were firing into the gap with unerring accuracy.
“Cover me!” Talbot shouted, sensing his host was about to be slaughtered.
He rushed past the sentinel as she sized up her next hit. The unexpected move caused her to lash out with a fist, a move Talbot half-anticipated and was able to slide under. Wilkes followed close on his heels, assault rifle already blazing at the dragoons across the pits. The pair dived behind the log they’d used earlier, spraying the shrubbery with the last ammunition they had.
At least two dragoons fell, but more reinforced the position. The problem with harpoons was they couldn’t be reloaded very quickly, not even the groove-assisted Irian models. Still, more bolts whistled into the inner compound and further decimated the Terran host.
By this stage the sentinel had decided to follow Talbot outside the compound, marking hims for death.
“Use the sentinel as cover,” Wilkes wisely suggested. The pair edged around so the hulking unit was between them and the deadly dragoons.
“How we gonna do this, Talbot?” Wilkes asked with a crazed, adrenalin-fueled smile.
“What do I fucking pay you for?” Talbot shot back, drawing a gleeful laugh.
“Talbot!”
It was Fielding, up high in the trees. She’d released a zip cable a
nd let if fall to the ground. The rudimentary seeds of an idea began to germinate in Talbot’s mind. Not wasting a moment, Talbot grabbed an end and tied it to the base of a thick cypress tree at the eastern perimeter of the camp.
“Follow me,” he barked to Wilkes. “Kill anything that moves.”
“I’ll try, Major.”
Engineers were now pouring out of the compound, readily exchanging fire with the dragoons. It was the kind of fire fight that incurred heavy losses on both sides.
Talbot wondered how long Ashby would commit to this frenetic violence. The humans couldn’t afford to lose more engineers. A circuit breaker was needed. One sentinel had been killed already - perhaps the demise of the second one would spook Ashby into withdrawing.
Holding the cable’s loose end, Talbot looked to flank the approaching sentinel somehow. In the end, Wilkes was the one who made the critical play. He somersaulted past the lumbering melee unit, receiving a kick to his midriff for good measure. Talbot heard the crunch of breaking bones but didn’t have time to help his comrade.
Instead, he took the opportunity to sprint behind the sentinel, looping the cable around her right leg. Knowing he was about to draw dragoon fire from the foliage to the west, he rounded a pit trap and found a suitable tree trunk to act as a pulley of sorts. He gathered the cable and pulled with all his might. The entire length whipped taut, throwing the sentinel off balance. Before her hydraulic joints could correct its stance, the sentinel toppled backwards into the pit trap.
A meaty slap suggested at least some of the spikes had pierced its armor. The sentinel’s scream pierced the air and Talbot felt a sharp pain in his bicep. A harpoon bolt glinted in the morning sun as if it had always been there. Stifling waves of pain, he stood behind the tree as more harpoons thudded into the trunk.
“Get back!” he yelled at the exposed engineers. “Get inside!”
Now that the second sentinel had been destroyed, there was no reason to leave the compound. Wilkes, clutching his side, herded the Terran troops back inside. Another metal sheet was hammered in the gap and the Irians were back to square one.
Which didn’t help Talbot at all, since the only run to the compound was well-covered by the enemy. And yet the harpoon fire had ceased. Talbot looked hopefully into the eastern woods - Ashby had called for a general withdrawal. No doubt his troops would disperse to reinforce the beacons they already held. At the close of the day the Irians would be -
A gloved fist appeared out of nowhere and broke Talbot’s nose. Stunned, he fell back into the mud. It felt like his face had been shattered in multiple places. It was just a wet mass.
“You think you won the day, don’t you?”
The voice was reedy and interspersed with clicks. It was an Irian making a passable attempt at Terran. Ashby stood over Talbot like a lord.
“Almost every beacon is now manned by Irians,” he continued. “I’d say we’ve won the day. The first of many.”
The swarthy alien’s naked, clawed foot slammed into Talbot’s cheek, nearly breaking it. The claws raked his flesh, drawing several rivulets of blood. Talbot’s arm still throbbed with the pain of the harpoon bolt … which Ashby maliciously pulled free, making sure the barbed tip came out at an odd angle, ripping the flesh further. Talbot howled with pain, reduced to a pathetic, bleeding animal at the base of the alien’s feet.
Ashby crouched low so his face was barely an inch away from Talbot’s. Close enough for the Terran to smell the curious mixture of spices on the alien’s breath. A distant, dispassionate corner of his mind marveled at the game’s level of detail.
“Let me tell you something,” the Irian leader snarled. “When I saw you in the hangar, parading yourself like a man who knew it all, I knew that my job would be easy. You are less than me. You are so far less than me I am offended you Terrans would waste my time dealing with you. Today marks a great Irian victory. When you return for the second battle, you will need to perform miracles if you harbor any desire to survive, because I will be waiting at every turn. The Terran Republic is dead. Humans are dead.”
“Why don’t you just kill me now?” Talbot asked wretchedly. As soon as the words scuttled from his mouth he regretted them.
“Because,” Ashby said, leaning so close Talbot could see the intricate fletching of his green eyes. “With you as my enemy, I cannot lose.”
Ashby stepped on Talbot’s groin as he left, eliciting one final weak groan. All Talbot could do was gaze up at the gently swaying canopy and contemplate his hellish pain. A flashing red bar in the corner of his view suggested he was close to death. At length he sensed he was being dragged across the mud into the compound, but he was drifting in and out of consciousness. At one point Fielding was hunched over him with a deep frown, but that may have been a figment of his delirium.
By the time he regained a little lucidity of thought and was able to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds, he was lying in the dark, cool compound.
“Two minutes to go,” someone warned. “Ensure the perimeter is secure.”
It sounded like Wilkes. Talbot was glad to have the veteran take charge.
“Stay still,” came Fielding’s voice. Her hands gripped Talbot’s shoulders as she administered a stimulant. The flashing health bar had disappeared and Talbot’s face no longer felt like it had been rearranged.
“One minute,” said the earlier voice.
“One minute till what?” Talbot asked.
“Till shutdown,” Fielding said. “We survived, John. I have no fucking idea what we’re gonna do on the next planet, but we survived.”
“Mmm,” Talbot grunted, finding it impossible to look her in the eye. It was only natural that his tired, broken troops blame him for everything that had happened. The disaster that was the Regal battle zone.
Talbot had to get away. He couldn’t endure the silent hostility directed his way. He accessed his character screen and perused his level up options. Bringing that sentinel down had yielded a large chunk of XP. As leader of the Terrans, he had access to a wide variety of skills, but deep in his heart he was only interested in one - a leadership perk that gave the soldiers near him a 5% accuracy bonus. It was time he started thinking less about himself and more about his crew. If Ashby was stupid enough to spare his life, the least he could do was compound the alien’s error. As leader it was his duty to improve the skills of those around him.
As soon as he pressed ‘Level Up’ his view faded. There were several gasps around him as the game world came to an abrupt end. Talbot gradually became aware of a pleasant floating sensation and allowed himself to drift to the top of his Immersion tank.
12
There was much work to do. He was vaguely aware of a raucous hooting sound as he stood on the platform by the edge of the tank. He stumbled a little, unused to normal movement after so long in the tank, and was offered assistance by an Irian technician. Talbot refused the helping hand, stubbornly pulling on a fresh jump suit.
The strange hooting sound turned out to be a bunch of Irian troops who had formed a ring around the victorious Ashby. There was no physical contact, just a respectful expression of appreciation. One glance at the Irian leader confirmed he was lapping up the exultation, his malignant gaze lingering on Talbot.
In stark contrast, the Terran troops looked tired and forlorn. Many were being consoled by their peers. Talbot looked up at the obs deck where Terran High Command had been sitting. The elder statesmen were already gone.
“Major Talbot?” inquired a marine from the floor.
“Let me guess - Admiral Gann requires my presence.”
“… yes, sir.”
“Very well.”
Talbot followed the marine across the hangar and through a short tunnel. Gann was seated in what looked like an interrogation room. The chairs were strangely contoured and hideously uncomfortable. Still a little wobbly from his Immersion, Talbot nursed a savage hunger. He feared he wouldn’t have much tolerance for whatever Gann had to say.
<
br /> The Admiral sat quietly, head bowed. He was obviously filled with the kind of supernova anger that made it difficult to speak.
“I want to replace you, but I can’t,” he managed to say at length. “It’s the damn rules, you see.”
“Admiral, I -”
“Stow it, asshole,” Gann snarled. “I can’t think of a single silver lining to your mission on Regal. Disastrous doesn’t even cover it. It was a monumental clusterfuck. And now the Irians will have the upper hand on Avari.”
On cue, the throb of the Terangdor’s prob bulb reverberated throughout the ship. The sound seemed to incense the Admiral further.
“They don’t waste any time, these fucking Irians,” he said. “But then, why would you want to wait, when glory is just one battle away?”
The Admiral’s jowls quivered as he checked his wrist pad.
“In just under twenty-three hours you will be expected to front up with the remains of your host. And I need to explain to High Command and the President why I shouldn’t simply fall on my sword right now.”
“Because there’s still a chance,” Talbot said. “I know how Ashby operates now. We were able to defend ourselves on the last day. I protected most of the engineers. Their skills will be critical in the next two battles.”
“Two battles?” Gann retorted. “What makes you think you have a hope in hell on Avari?”
“Guerrilla tactics,” Talbot said with more confidence than he felt. “Ecological expertise. We’ll use the terrain to our advantage and stay mobile. Sun Tzu once observed that a general shouldn’t enter into battle unless victory is assured. I plan to live by those very words.”
The Admiral looked at Talbot like he needed psychological assistance.
“You’re a deluded fool, Talbot. If you could tear yourself away from your absurd tactical ruminations you’d understand exactly what we’ve lost today. Regal had vast potential as an agricultural world. Irian scout ships are already circling the planet like vultures. They’ve authorized the transfer of several colonization pods. All they need to do is win on Avari and the entire system is theirs. The thought sticks in my craw, Talbot. With the Alpha Centauri system in hand, the Irians can turn their civilization around. Meanwhile, the Terran Republic will be severely weakened. The Irians will invade. What kind of resistance will they find? Our people are already broken. Most men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five are dead. Can you see the big picture, you cowardly turd?”
Virtual War: Alpha Centauri (A LitRPG Novel) Page 7
